>> i am glad to be with you, although we are not technically in fraunces tavern. so many incredible things happened, if you know the story of the american revolution. you realize this is where general washington said good by to some of his principal senior officers. this is the place exactly a week before colonel burr and general hamilton face one another in a dual -- duel that the society of cincinnati met, and the set next to each other with all this impending. burr was somewhat sullen. hamilton was quite animated and was induced to sing his favorite song, and old martial song called "the drum." i love the way it ends. it is with hamilton really

singing pans -- paens to this country, saying it would live forever. fraunces tavern, an incredible place. it is fun to be among people who love american history. that does not happen very often. you all know this, the same problem. when people find out you are interested in history, they sort of look at you like, what is wrong with you? why can't you get a life and do something useful? i, like you, have enjoyed american history. quite by accident, i became a scholar and performer of john adams, and later alexander hamilton. yes, i wear a wig and tights. an unusual thing to do, but it is a great, great medium. and you can get people who hate history really involved. whatever you might sacrifice in terms of accuracy, you more than make up for in terms of audience participation and involvement.

i have been to prisons. i have been to schools that feel like prisons. [laughter] and it is incredible. it is amazing how excited people get when they actually have a chance to talk to a founding member of this country. but that's not why i'm here tonight. you heard in jennifer's introduction that my wife and i are coming out with a book called "founders' advice." i know this has been done before. secretary bennett did it a number of years ago. though what he did is considerably different from what we are trying to do. i have a background as a historian, but i am married to a woman who was in business, in washington, d.c., working for a defense contractor. she 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 heady experience, the experience of being in a company like that at that point of time was so remarkable, that she began to 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 do not have an equal measures? and so with her background and mine, we reasoned that may be 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 these founders are giving -- it is most poignant, i think, when it is to a child or a grandchild. you realize that these are -- these are the kind of insights they probably didn't go around sharing with the rest of the world. that is why we use the word secret. one of the definitions of secret is, something shared by the initiated. in a sense, these are initiated, things the prime generation found useful in their lives because they did them or failed to do them, and that they wanted to give to their offspring and their children's offspring, in the hopes it would give them an opportunity in life to be incredibly successful. they gave advice on every topic you can imagine. how many of you believe in giving advice? 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 of the same opinion still? they thought advice was important, and they saw it in no uncertain terms. we are like the founders in a lot of ways. we share a lot of things in common. one thing about them that was incredibly different about us as a people, not you as a group -- they thought you could learn a lot more about life from the ancients then 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 are better off if you can learn hebrew along the way. and you read ancient texts.

you read them just as the original authors wrote them. and the more you master 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 cicero's orations in my hand, which was a neat thing. it was a life long favorite of john adams. every time he read it, he wrote his name in it. his name was written six times in cicero's orations. all he did in his life, all he read in his massive library -- he went back again and again to that original text that meant so much to him. the founders learned not just about war and politics.

have you ever dabbled in plutarch's "lives"? how many of you know about plutarch's "lives"? a lot of you do. that was the poor man's classical education. if you did not have the opportunity to read all these works in the original languages, you could sit down with a translation of plutarch and read these biographies of these incredibly successful people throughout ancient times, and a few reprobates as well. plutarch is very good at giving you things that worked, made their lives particularly successful, and occasionally showing how you could ruin your life by doing something that would not be useful or constructive at all. what is amazing is that these lessons stuck. they were incredibly important. general george washington said

goodbye to his senior officers here. was called during the revolutionary war the american fabius. do you know who fabius was? go to plutarch's "lives," and read about fabius 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 writing major battles against alexander the great, because he knew if you did, like the other roman proconsul's who tried it, he would be defeated. he would avoid a major encounter until he got the opportunity to strike. perhaps not decisively, but to strike meaningfully. that was the motto george washington used during our revolution. we did not have an army that was sufficiently strong to be able to fight the british.

we only did -- actually, washington broke his rule a time or two, and it was nearly disastrous when he did. primarily, that was the rule of thumb, to behave as babies, -- as fabius, to avoid major encounters, and when the opportunity presented itself, to strike. 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 in norfolk. absolutely amazing. a military strategy in the 1700s, being guided by a roman who lived well in the ancient past. the founders were incredibly -- i mean to the founders, the ancients were incredibly important. that is one way we are different. i think you can read ancient writers 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? i think to the degree that we are open and that we believe perhaps certain sorts of things are natural laws, 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 incredibly personal. one of my absolutely favorite letters is a short one written by john j to his son, in which he sends him a few seeds and tells him to plant these seeds at his uncle's estate. and then he says, you know, whenever i walk around my place, i am sensible of the fact that i am 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. extraordinary lives. you have some of these handouts, i think. if you don't, raise your hand. we can get one to you. it is hard to talk about a book that is not finished yet. one of the wonderful things -- i think we made our basic selections, the 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 extra ordinary 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 works in our judiciary system was really brought into being at this point in time, and without him, we would be in a terrible state. he is really the one that

initiated the whole idea of judicial review. i do not want to get into a political discussion, but additional review has kept us more cognizant of first amendment rights, i think, and 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 yet? while you were sitting here -- interesting. first, he makes the plea for reading the ancients that you might expect him to make, given what i have just said to you. but perhaps even 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 it great advice? how'd do you become a good writer? you have to have 30 students in a class and a teacher in front? no, he is saying you can do this yourself. you sit down with a page of a

book written by an author you find to be a good writer. he actually name someone that he thinks might be to his grandson's benefit. sit down with it. and then read it, digest it, read it until you have digested it, and go try it in your own words. after you have written it in your own words, compare it with the original. if it does not measure up, do it again. a great, great platform for self learning. it is an amazing thing. it strikes me as timeless. i'm not a teacher, but it 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. he was -- as joseph story said in the introduction here, he had such a commonness about him. he never intimidated people. i should say except for one. there was one that called him

the gloomy malignanty. that was his second cousin, thomas jefferson. if any of you have been to monticello, you know it is a little mountain. marshall got back at his cousin by calling him "the llama of the mountain." in any case, marshall was extraordinary in not giving offense. he was so common -- a wonderful story about him. he is at some kind of farmers market in richmond. a woman has just bought a chicken that has just been killed, and she offers him a quarter to take it home. and he does it. he takes the quarter, takes the chicken, follows her to her house, presents it, and goes back. chief justice of the united states supreme court. he was a very common man, but an extraordinarily gifted human being. this letter to his grandson,

when you know about marshall, i think to me is an extraordinary -- it's an extraordinary look at how a successful man builds his own successful life. even though he had some formal education, he nonetheless developed himself. and 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 is that they love to use guilt. they love guilt. how many of you were raised with guilt and hate guilt? how many of you use guilt? [laughter] you are in good company. the founders absolutely love guilt. i am going to read a couple of things. i have to put on my glasses, here. a couple of wonderful things they said about guilt. a couple of wonderful examples of guilt that they used. dr. benjamin rush, the

philadelphia physician and 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 in 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 arrive, they arrived with this note. my dear son. here with, you will receive your boots. they will serve, i hope, to purposes. -- two purposes. first, to keep your legs warm during the winter, and secondly to remind you you have a father and mother who have never forgotten you for a whole week since you came into the world.

oh fee, oh fee, james. i never knew an instance of a man becoming respected or wealthy in medicine who was deficient in punctuality and letter writing. [laughter] you have parents who have never forgotten about you for a whole week during your whole life. but 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 that "you need to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precept and instructions of your father." both parents, she said, and this is quoting, will have a do

influence upon your conflict. for dear as you are to me, i had much rather that you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or any untimely death brought to you in your infant years, rather than see you and immoral profligate or a graceless child. [laughter] whoa. abigail had high expectations. of course i'm a both parents did. we have a couple 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. and of course, john quincy is an incredible overachiever. at 14, goes to russia as the secretary of our delegation. he serves in congress for some time.

serves as a cabinet member. then, of course, becomes president of the united states. 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 is quite as profitable -- would have been quite as profitable them as perhaps it is now. but he did not 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, had the temerity to 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 extraordinary human being, and dies pretty much in the saddle as a member of

congress. he learned his parents' lessons well. one of the appendices we have in this book we are doing is advice he gave to his children. it's kind of collected. it's pretty long, pretty detailed about what sort of education they need and what sort of people they need to become. we have used the word secret. i would just like to ask any of you if you can think of one secret the founding fathers might have believed was absolutely essential. what would be a secret, a secret piece of advice you might give someone that you loved? any ideas? industriousness. that is big. that is big for them. i think what i will do right now is, i think i will share been franklin's list of virtues with you.

george washington, of course, carried a list of 110 virtues with him when he was a young man, and worked at practicing them. he was not nearly so systematic as benjamin franklin. it was 13 virtues, initially 12. he decided he would practice one each day and keep a record if 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. eat not to dullness. drink not to elevation. silence. speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. avoid trifling conversation. order. when all your things have their places, let each part of your business have its time. resolution.

resolve to perform what you ought. for form 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 unnecessary 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, nor bear resenting injuries so 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 used and very-- use venery but to health and offspring, never to dullness or injury of 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 told him how extraordinarily ably he was able to practice these 12 virtues. his friend says, benjamin, you need another 1 -- 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 principal. they knew that we need to make progress in life. they knew that if we wanted to be successful, it was not enough to have a dream. we also needed to have a plan and needed to work at that lamb in order for it to come about. do some work all of the time. frankly, i think all of them did it. 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? i am probably not giving you enough hints. apply yourself to your studies, absolutely. that's incredibly important to them. but what do you think would they claim is the chief reason for being here?

serving others. if you read the little piece on the back page there by elias boudenaux --how many of you know about him? he is from elizabethtown, right across the river elizabeth. he was an extraordinarily capable human being. he was one of the founders. he became one of the founders of princeton theological seminary. he was always a devout member of the president. 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.

to what he says we are supposed to do. be a citizen of the world, he is telling us. the more you do that, you are going to realize that even as you do your regular business, the great publication we have that obligation we have is to those in distress, and the happiness of mankind at large. there goes that word, happiness. it is a recurring word in that time. thomas jefferson uses it in the declaration of independence. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. which is really a twist on john locke, who uses life, liberty, and property when he is 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 aware

of what it ought to look like. here again, a wonderful letter that i am going to share part of with you, is by someone called philip schuyler. is that a familiar name to some of you? one of his descendents is sitting in the back. doug hamilton, who was a fit great-grandson of alexander hamilton, which would make him a sixth great-grandson of philip schuyler. he writes this incredible letter to his son, to whom he has just given part of his estate, and is explaining how things are going to be shared, then 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. the whole idea of happiness was an incredibly philosophical strain that runs through this generation. they had so many different ways to address it, so many ways to work at it, but they all believed that was the chief aim of human beings, that we need to be happy people. we think about happiness in completely different terms. by working on yourself, by working on relationships to other people and doing everything you can to benefit those who are in need of

assistance. many of them do it in a very consciously religious way. others do it in ways that aren't .articularly religious at all but happiness is our chief and in the minds of the founders, and all we do is to achieve it. let's suppose you are 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 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. he was an incredible letter writer. i'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but this was 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 councils. 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. i, too, as a namesake feeling interest in that course. few words will be necessary with good dispositions on your part. adore god, referent and cherish her parents, love your neighbors as yourself and your country more than yourself. be just, be true, murmur not at the ways of providence, so, sell the light into which you have entered be the portal to one of internal and ineffable bliss, as if to the dead it is permitted 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 decalogue of cannons for observation in practical life, decalogue meaning there are 10 of them. number one, never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. 2 -- never trouble another for what you can do yourself. number 3 -- never spend your money before you have it. [laughter] number four, never by what you do not want because it is cheap. number five -- try process more than hunger, thirst, and cold. number 6 -- we never repent over having eaten too little. number 7 -- nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. number eight -- how much pain

has cost us the evils which have never happened? number nine -- take things always by their smooth handle. great image. number 10 -- when angry, count 10 before you speak. if a very angry, 100. [laughter] 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 do not 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 believed that advice was a benefit. they all gave advice, certainly, and a number of them really

thought advice was worth taking. one of the reasons alexander hamilton did not like john adams was that he would not take advice. in the mind of hamilton, as hamilton 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 think about what needed to be done and then resolve slowly, as hamilton put it, but result surely -- but resolve surely. they believed advice was essential. we live in a society that is conflicted on the subject of advice. have you ever heard the saying advice is a form of a abuse? that 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. who among us cannot benefit from advice? part of hamilton's genius when he was studying at kings college was he would listen to other people. there was a little group they had for self-improvement. their own private little group, not a college group, and this little group would present papers to one another. there would be bits of advice offered on how to make them more acceptable, better, and hamilton wrote some of the most incredible political pamphlets of the time using that.

and what do we know in our time -- how many of you were in business? how many of you participate in mastermind groups? we think of mastermind groups as absolutely successful, and successful people gather together to share advice with one another. i think highly functional people -- and the founders were among the most highly functional people in the world -- realize that the best advice you can get will only make whatever decisions you need to make better than they would have been otherwise. i encourage all of you to rethink the 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 if you learn to read livy in the original language."

"you mean you will not love me if i do not?" it was the world in which they lived, but advice was critical to their worldview. how many of you would not think a letter like john marshall's has a place in front of young people? an awful lot of what he is saying is absolutely wonderful and useful. if you have never looked through plutarch's lives, i tell you what -- get a hold of it and use some of the synonyms hannum -- hamilton used when he was writing politically and look them up and see who these people were hamilton was referencing. see who they were and what they did. and you will understand our political climate in this country perhaps even better than he 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. i think, as i look back on my own life, i rue having to learn so many of these wonderful thing so late. if i could have learned them early on, wouldn't that have made a difference? absolutely essential. i'm going to quit talking right now. i would be happy to answer questions that you have. i have got more letters, a lot more letters i can share with you. i think you get the flavor of the advice the founders gave. you understand the whole thing is about happiness. ask me anything you want. thank you. [applause] any questions? >> can you talk about cincinnatus and how that was f ormed and what it meant back to the romans and washington forming that?

>> washington was also considered -- it was about the society of cincinnati which of course is the organization formed after the revolutionary war of offiers who -- of officers who had served in the continental army. it is a hereditary society. doug hamilton back their representatives ancestor alexander hamilton in the society. there is only one hamilton, right? >> [inaudible] there was a backup plan on the older ones. >> i think the episcopal church has an arrangement like that with bishops, too. but it's a hereditary society. it has been going on for all of 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 cincinnati. he was fearful of any organization -- she did not like the military -- but he was fearful of any organization that seem to be elitist and that he thought might become an

instrument which would undermine the liberties of the american people. cincinnatus, of course, was this great roman general. we remember him because he was at that point in history the only one who having put together this big army and oneness major campaign left it and went home and became a farmer again. of course, washington is often considered to be like cincinnatus. lot of parallels made to cincinnatus, more than to fabius. but he very consciously did what cincinnatus had done. he probably could have taken over this country, if that had been something he wanted to do. the army loved him. he was off-limits politically. one of the reasons hamil ton was hammered when he was the secretary of treasury was because you could not attack george washington.

he was off-limits. even if you did not like them, you cannot say anything negative, because he was the symbol of america, the noble, virtuous person who does what is best for all of the people. so society of cincinnatus is one of those examples. there is a nice, long biography of him in plutarch. >> the society of cincinnati. there are like three missions in it. one is to keep relationships together. but the second one is to never let the people forget what they fought. it is kind of like the lessons learned from the war to promote those things. and the third thing was to take care of the widows and the children that were, had no m oney. >> yeah, there is a great guestbook entry as some of you walked in past the guest book. there was a wonderful entry that someone had written about having come here and by remembering what was and what happened, we will be better in future and

preserve our liberties. that is a great way to look at it. i think ignorance about our own history has cost us many things throughout the course of this country. cincinnatus. another of the noble ancients. any other questions? >> when i was in college, ii read a great deal of the latin authors. though your talk was the first time i really understood why. i don't think our teachers well. that was not the problem. but i do not think they understood the significance of these writings. 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 our founders had read and read to such benefit. here again, i do not think john adams set down six times with cicero's orations just because

you like the sound of it in latin or liked the way the text flowed. he was refreshing himself with the themes of liberty, of independence. transcendence. all of these things that for them were so incredibly important. they are in the ancients. we can read them in translation, but i think now we are in a time when our educational system i think believes that it is not looking ahead, it is not forward-looking, it is wasting time and energy. and of course, we do that at some peril because not only are we inclined to forget lessons that probably should not 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 am dressed up as hamilton talking about, here were such great men. where are great people like that? why do we live in a time when

people are not so smart and so motivated? well, we are educated differently. admittedly, we need to be. we need all of the technical sorts of things that can help us compete in a more complex world and the founders left in. -- lived in. they were walking around and horses. their world was different. they wrote with quills, read by candlelight. it was a different world. but i think we may have lost something by breaking so completely with that past. i would like to think that is part of what you are saying, i hope. you're right. we should've explained to them why we were asking them to read latin. >> we often talk about the need for technological education. this is true, but what you can wind up is a slave to society, where the slaves know their own jobs very well. they do not know much else. they are ruled by a tiny elite who does know something else but

is not necessarily benevolent. >> thank you. give you a hand. i couldn't agree more. . you are absolutely right yes, ma'am? >> i have two questions. the first one, did john and abigail adams ever sending conflicting advice to their children? >> not that i know of. i think they were of one mind in terms of how their children should be raised. she did a lot of it on her own. and they actually had the terrible burden of having a son that did not turn out well. if you saw the paul giamatti miniseries you get the sense w here john turns his back on his son. i do not think abigail actually did that. she kept seeing him.

are you contributed to this? >> i have a different question. >> just a second. so you have question number two. >> i don't mean to be funny but ben franklin, his chastity. he had no legitimate sons. >> and we are asking to believe that these founders actually practiced what they preached. thomas jefferson never asked someone else to do something you can do for yourself. i was the host of a national public radio program. brilliant man. clay jenkins does jefferson. we were going through this one on the program. and suddenly he came to that one as jefferson -- never ask another and he erupted in laughter.

jefferson owned slaves. the only reason he was able to do what he did is because he had other people doing the other stuff. it's ludicrous sometimes, but it is great advice. a story that's closer to home in new york. there was an eminent theologian at union theological seminary. wrote the serenity prayer. neybor had suffered a stroke. his latter years were difficult and onerous. he confessed to his doctor that he was getting tired of getting all these happy letters from people telling him about how the serenity prayer had changed their lives. he said, i just, i'm glad they are feeling that way, but i cannot feel it. his doctor said, do not worry. everybody knows that doctors and preachers do not practice what they preach. i think founding fathers in some cases that is true, too.

yes, sir? >> i just got a comment. you read the letter from abigail to john quincy. she comes across in that letter is somewhat traditionalist at as opposed to the image that is presented of her today as sort of the first woman's liberation advocate. was there any element of advice that she gave to her children that could be viewed as more modern than traditional? >> not really. keep your nose to the rhinestone, work hard, give it everything you have got. and remember god. be respectful and he will turn out just fine. she's pretty traditional. she 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 of that. i think what she intended probably was that they gain some rights. they had none.

they were property. i do not think she was saying we want the vote. she was saying, we would like not to be property. we would like to have laws that would treat us with dignity and respect. by and large, the constitution went a long way to improving the lot of women. yes, sir. somebody in the back? yes? >> i did not read the letter to the grandson, but on the last page you mentioned that it and he -- the army, his feelings about patriotism. that is what i call is different from the virginians. that they consider their state as country. even in the beginning of the formation of a nation, looking at though -- in your book, with a letter, if anything -- you h ave marshall's devotion to his country. however, his devotion to his

country, his patriotism is in any wording that cater to say, this is a country. see what i'm saying? did i make myself clear? >> you read a lot of his judicial decisions and you will 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 lyrical factions at loggerheads with one another. of course, you had the federalists who were trying to put together a new government under the constitution that would knit these 13 states together and provide for the common -- the preamble of the constitution. they had the power to tax, which is a power that hereto for had only been reserved for states. it was doing something completely different. and we have thomas jefferson who's read the ancients.

he knows in almost any republic, there is somebody hungering for power, somebody who wants to take that republican be the dictator of it. with that view, he is suspicious of almost everything. of course, james madison, who initially is something of a federalist, and by federalist, interested in the entire union over perhaps the interests of their own particular state. madison joins him and they become absolutely masterful political opponents. i think the federalists never recover from their efforts -- they do not recover -- they become incredibly obstructionist if. we think of the political system today. but read about the democratic republican party and the federalists and how they fought with one another. all of the terrible things they said about each other. it is incredible. so i think we've been there before.

i think we were there in a way that was profound. the thing that made marshall extraordinary in virginia was that there were not that many federalists there. by and large, they were democratic republicans. they were jefferson people. 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 and lonelier in a lot of ways as the years passed with views that were federal as opposed to the jeffersonian point of view. he speaks magnificently of it. i have only quoted a little bit. he never wrote an autobiography, but justice story, a contemporary, wrote this -- delivered this wonderful essay about him. after marshall died.

he incorporated a lot of what he had been given earlier by marshall. i think the part i have quoted really gets why marshall was different and why a lot of the federalists were different from democratic republicans. it was what they had done during the war, what they had experienced. marshall was a virginian. he was a bit of a backwoods virginia. he joined a unit that march north. he fought in new jersey. but he became part of something that was a lot bigger than virginia. he got to know people from many different states, many different backgrounds. and it changed him, and he began to think of the united states as his country, not virginia. he began to think of the government as the government of the united states, not the government of virginia. this gets revisited in the

american civil war. this is exactly what is happening. when the secession begins, the states are asserting the rights that they retained when they voluntarily became a part of the union. the view of lincoln is that you cannot leave. you are in it and you stay in it. the war is fought. primarily over the belief of the southern states that they were the primary unit. they had given certain things for the federal government, but they had not absolutely given up their right to be virginians or south carolinians or whatever. i do not know if i'm answering your question. marshall talks about in a lot of different supreme court decisions you will find vestiges of it. i'd get a biography of marshall and read it. i would think you would like it. >> i learned a lot. >> you are asking me. not in any of his letters of advice did he give the sort of answers you are looking for.

>> with this american flag. a woman said patriotic. i have two flags. so i thought about it, because i look up the word last year, the word fascism. and fascism is belligerent patriotic. this is me, i am not born in america. first i talk about born american. it is just a lack of love for this nation. i do not feel that the love -- it is like, i have this flag. people look at me like, what do i have a flag for? as a teacher, we --i would call it abolished. there is no more pledge of

allegiance. this is sad. but that's me. >> thank you. thank you for being who you are. yes, sir? >> does he touch on slavery. >> not really. i should not say that. i think george mason in one of his letters discusses slavery a bit. i think for most of the southerners that slavery was the fact. they did not see it ending. it would have been really neat if i could've gotten some letters like robert king carter who freed his slaves or edward coles. he comes along later. but jefferson writes, coles is a neighbor. mr. jefferson, i want to free my slaves. and jefferson writes back, it would not be a good idea. coles gets an idea he needs to leave. he moves to the west. he becomes an early governor of illinois.

but frees his slaves as they are crossing the ohio river. there were people that did it. here again, i think that letter of edward cole's is beautiful. he really understands that slaves are human beings and entitled to every right a human being has, every natural right, which in the declaration of independence is pretty well specified. it is funny. i think it was samuel johnson that said the people, in england during the revolution, the people most about liberty are the ones that have a width in the other hand and beat the slaves. something to that. >> last question. >> ok. >> what was your thought process collecting these advice letters? also getting the letters. >> you know, there are a lot of letters that should be in this. in fact, i think this could be several volumes. i think if the first one is

perceived to have value, then maybe we will do another one. we have got 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. dare i say it? dare i state the commercial motive? we include a lot of people who have homes that are still standing because they have bookstores. it's an outlet for books not being published through traditional channels. that is just recognizing what it. i would love to have some letters from robert gallatin who followed oliver woolcott who followed hamilton and the secretary of treasury office. other people.

there are a lot of really interesting founders that would be -- we would like to include some of their letters. that's it. hey, thank you very much. been a real pleasure to be with you. >> you're watching american history tv. 40 eight hours of programming on american history, every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. >> up next, a conversation about the 2000 presidential election and the resulting supreme court kate, bush versus gore. in a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against his challenger, vice president al gore. the tabulation of florida's votes.

supervisor oversaw the recall in that portion. the commission on ethics and public trust hosted this hour-long event. >> we are going to make this as realistic as possible for you. by that i mean were going to track this election from literally the ballot box through the state of florida, through the florida supreme court, all way up to the u.s. supreme court. one thing we have here today, including myself, or persons who played veryy pivotal roles in this particular event, which as you all know hardly ever happens. , let me start off by telling you what my association with the