>> thanks for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] like us on facebook at c-span history. date, more from the international consumer electronics show as we look at new technology products. >> if there something you want to capture, you just take it off your wrist. it will be very simple to take off your wrist and it will expand. it will be as easy as gesturing. it is completely autonomous. there is no remote required. it is smart enough to note the direction you toss it. if it's a gentle toss, it will

stay close, if you throw it, it will go farther away. it is completely autonomous. next the communicators, monday at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. up next on american history tv, university of virginia history professors gary gail ger and peter onuf discuss thomas jefferson's views on federalism and the union of the states. they debate jefferson's provocative belief in the separation of races. president lincoln's preservation of the union during the civil war and how jefferson would view today's federal government. this session from the miller center at the university of virginia is about two hours. >> anyone who hopes to understand the 19th century in the united states has to come to terms with the importance of union. as a deeply important concept and highly charged word in the political vocabulary. it is a word that's gone from our political vocabulary now.

it literally means flog to most americans now. the word union. if it isn't associated with labor. union in a sense was so important during the 19th century is gone. there were contending understandings of the meaning of union. almost always tied to ideas about liberty and opportunity and frequently enmeshed with beliefs about the place of the institution of slavery in the american republic. all of the individuals who have been the subjects of lectures in this series talked about union from maed sondison and other framers of the constitution who drafted what they thought would lead to a more perfect union, to andrew jackson who very famously referred to union in making a toast while he looked right at john c. calhoun during the nullification

crisis on jefferson's birthday in 1832. he said our federal union must be preserved, to which, as many of you know, calhoun replied the union next to our liberty most dear. during the election of 1860 when four candidates ran for the presidency under four party standards, all of them talked about union. all of them wanted to be right with union. for lincoln and most republicans the union was a sort of mystical, perpetual, indivisible eternal thing. stephen dug zblas whoouglas the regular democratic candidate that year stated over and over that no matter what else happens the union had to be preserved. john c. breckenridge says the constitution and equality of the states are symbols of everlasting union. and the fourth candidate, old john bell, lo ran as candidate of the constitutional union party didn't talk about anything else. they didn't even have a platform. their platform was in their title. it was union. and the constitution. union comes up so often during this century which is not peter's perfect century but it

is his second favorite century after the late 18th century. lincoln's vision of union rested on free labor and a voice in self-government for common citizens and the potential to rise economically. not the guarantee but the potential. jefferson davis also believed in the union as safeguarding self-government and economic opportunity but of course he also saw it as guaranteeing slavery in its expansion. both men celebrated the declaration rfdeck clarollar declaration of independence. both invoked jefferson repeatedly and throughout their years. jefferson's ideas regarding union were complex and immensely important. they resonated throughout the 19th century on both sides of the potomac river or the ohio, if you prefer.

the united states put thomasjefferson on its 5-cent stamp in 1856. only two people preceded jefferson on stamps in the united states. jorge, of course, always would have to be one of this em. the other one was benjamin franklin. the confederacy put him on their 10-cent stamp in 1861. the only person who landed on a confederate stamp before jefferson was jefferson davis, interestingly enough. this afternoon peter and i are going to have our conversation about jefferson's thinking about union and how his ideas were available for use or misuse by many different people in the decades between 1800 and 1880, peter. so why don't you talk for a few minutes about jefferson and union? >> just a few minutes. >> take as long as you want. it is rainy outside. no one's going to play tennis. >> well, i'm a radio star so i want you all to close your eyes and suspend disbelief. >> peter has not only a jefferson tie -- >> no. you got to see it.

>> but two jefferson pins. >> well, gary, i'd like to start with a quotation from jefferson and it's an interesting one. it's when he's talking about the declaration of independence as he's designing a reading list at the university of javirginia. gary and i used to teach a course, the famous 701. that reading list included the declaration, of course. oh, i didn't write it. the american people wrote it. i'm just channeled it. he said, what is the declaration? we want jefferson's simple definition of what the declaration is all about. he says it is the fundamental act of union of these states. he says the declaration gave us union. now, as gary said just before, we don't -- that word means

nothing to us now. what could he possibly have meant, why did he say it. why didn't he talk instead about all those wonderful things in the second paragraph. oh, all men are created equal. you've heard that one. government by consent. the american creed, as it's frequently been described. yet for jefferson, there is something creedal about union. what i want to try to do is put union and his vision of republican government together because i think we -- and many critics in the 19th century -- dissociated the two. now you say it is only referring maybe to what used to be called the labor movement in the 18th century, in jefferson's time and into the 19th century as people criticized the union, they looked at its flaws. people like william lloyd garrison said this is a covenant with death, with hell, this constitution.

the union is associated with the constitution, not with the declaration and the constitution is the beginning of american politics. when we still had political life in this country, americans celebrated the constitution as this great reform caucus in action, as one author called it, where sensible, realistic states men got together and they crafted the only possible -- miraculously, the only possible constitution that could embrace so many different states different labor systems, so much diversity. it was a compromise, in other words. as garrison suggested, to have union, you had to compromise. every good historian will tell

you that's exactly the point of the union right now. that's not what jefferson meant by union though. for him, it was the coming together of self-governing republics which in and of itself, the fact that the state's had their own constitutions, were governing themselves, what a tremendous breakthrough for mankind, in idea of self-government. and then showing their genius for union in the creation of new state governments, the first peoples in the modern world who govern themselves. then they've built on that to create yet a more all-embracing union. union was part of the unfolding of the republican vision. there would be future unions. the union would expand. the union was dynamic. the union was processed. the union was a movement toward a better world because what it

demonstrated -- we've talked about equality. we know how important that is. we're all equal. but what is the point of equality. it enables you to consent. you can't consent if you're not equal. and what do you consent to? you consent to that which enhances the welfare of mankind. because suddenly the people are governing themselves. they're not under the heel of despots and pirates. now self-government. and i want to tell you this, ply fellow americans -- i'm getting worked up now. you can tell. >> have a sip of water. >> i better. americans, you're just going to have to wait a minute. democratic government. hold on to your seats. is an engine for moral progress. i'm channeled jefferson. i'm channeled the democratic enlightenment. once the people rule themselves, government will improve.

we will no longer have coercive despotic governments. we will be governing ourselves. >> you can't have a real union if there's in any oars atcoercion at all. >> we'll come back to that. >> maybe sooner than you think. >> really? we may not be linear here this afternoon. it may be sort of stream of consciousness but go ahead for now. it's a process. don't think of union as a fixed thing. it's not perfect. you heard what madison said. what they said about the constitution. more perfect. suggesting it's not most perfect. it's not perfect. it's getting better. because we don't understand yet what nature's god enjoins but

we're figuring it out. i don't know if anybody out there is into natural religion and acknowledges nature's god unless you are a unitarian. they don't talk about nature's god in unitarian churches. i know i'm lapsed unitarian. >> can you be a lapsed unitarian? >> check it out. this is what you get. >> from what you're saying, let me push you on something else right here. if this is a process and it's things are going toward, with any luck, something that's even better with be did jefferson think this could only be -- i mean the union became very much an exceptionalist concept by the mid 19th century. is it that way in jefferson's mind? could this happen somewhere else? >> there is an exceptional dimension. you know the city on the hill idea that we've heard from ronald reagan as he was channeled john winthrop, that

idea that united states is an exemplary nation, the example suggests that others can follow. but "follow" is the key word. they will become more enlightened in the fullness of time. what's remarkable about the american people is -- these are the people who made the revolution -- is that they -- they're all literal, mostly except in places like virginia -- just joking. i come from new england. i can't help it. they're largely literal. >> new england used to be important. didn't it? >> coll boy! coll didn't exist. ok? all right. moving on. >> it actually did exist. new england just hadn't named it yet so they didn't think it existed. [laughter] >> you know now why the union failed. all right. so where was i going with this? >> i had asked you whether

jefferson's notion was an exceptionalist notion of what was happening in the colonies at that point, because it became very much that. >> right. and jefferson does think that the americans have a unique opportunity to govern themselves because they are literate in the broadest sense of the word. they're civically competent. there's been a high degree of local autonomy and self-government in the colonies and the revolution itself is testimony to the fact that americans are conscious of their rights and willing to fight for them. because this was a people's war. i don't believe all this but i'm just channeled jefferson. >> lincoln called the civil war a people's contest. >> and that's the important thing. because that is the principle of republican government. we now have abandoned notions that we have little gods on

earth, kings, who give rule to us, who are our political fathers without whom we could not exist. we have abandoned the great chain of being that suggests that some are born to rule and others are born to be ruled. what a magnificent idea. but what a scary idea in the 18th century when the people are basically considered and i'm now quoting abigail adams -- rubbish. i just happened to be reading her recently. but it is a common way of referring to ordinary people the scum -- >> lincoln and many other unionists in the mid 19th century would have said nothing had really changed, that the rest of the world still didn't think that ordinary people were capable of self-governing. >> i think that's a key point

when we compare lynn son and jefferson on union. lincoln sees that this is the last best hope of mankind. you might say that jefferson sees it as the first best hope for mankind. that he has this enlightenment idea that it will spread. light will spread. it's almost a metaphor that's natural, that suggests as the day dawns and as the light spreads across the land, people can see clearly. that notion of seeing clearly is very important. and the people are capable of seeing what they need to see. what they into ed to see to govern themselves. you don't have to be, as we say now, a nuclear physicist. you just have to be a democrat -- no, just joking. >> what about the notion of the union being perpetual, that was so important by mid century to people who -- that saw all of these qualities in union that made the united states exceptional? >> that's a great point. that. point about perpetuity. the only thing that jefferson thought should somebody

perpetual were the fundamental principles or ideas on which the union was based. and let me put it this way. we're going to get into this complicated development that's really important over time. i want to introduce the key to jefferson's thinking about union. and that's federalism. jeffersonian federalism is not what we have today. you have to understand that his conception of political authority, legitimate political authority, we talk about family values today, but for jefferson, the family was the foundational republic on which larger republics would be built. i think it's important to get this down, because it's going to explain i think a lot of things that happen over the 19th century. for jefferson, federalism culminating in the union and perhaps in an expanding union, perhaps even a union of unions that will cover the world begins literally at home. and that foundational union of man and wife, the creation of a family which is the incubator of

republican citizens in the next generation. families combine together for jefferson had new england envy. gary obviously doesn't. he wished virginia had towns. what do we have in virginia. what did we have in virginia? counties. in which local clerks self-appointed themselves, and gave rule through parish vestrys, through county courts. the only representative institution was the house of burgesss. and those elections, 90% of them weren't contested. and the ones that were contested were drunken brawls, because that's the way you treated voters it's a pretty sorry story. jefferson was familiar with this. he said we need towns so the families, the fathers can get

together. and on top of the towns, counties. and then we go to a higher level, to the states and then to the union, the federal union. here's the key idea. we'll throw this back at you. equality is crucial. we talked before about you can't have consent without equality. and every -- >> you cannot have coercion. >> no. every level of union, whether it be on the town level, the union of families or the county level, the union of towns, those unions exist to preserve and perpetuate the equality of their constituent units. do you follow me? that's pretty straightforward. the legitimacy, the value of the union of the town is that all

families will be treated equally and have an equal voice in their own government. >> and you move up the ladder, that imperative remains. and that is, union depends on preserving equality of constituent units, because otherwise, some are benefiting at the expense of other -- that's another way of saying that some are ruling others. you know, the great problem with unions throughout our periods is the fear that it's going to be captured by the bad guys. and one thing americans produce in great abundance is bad guys. >> this problem, though of equality within the union, did you have another -- did i step on your bunch line there? >> no, i was waiting for a big response. >> oh, ok.

>> are you going to respond? i don't think they're going to. one thing that -- for example john c. calhoun wrestled with, how do you maintain what he would have called equality, equal treatment in all the ways that matter, within a union where demographics were tilting power toward the nonslave holding states. >> that's, of course, the great nightmare of the slave holders. and their need to control, in fact to capture -- which is precisely what they did, because the federal government was dominated by slave holders throughout its existence up to the civil war. so much so that by the time lincoln comes along, and says, maybe we should agree not to let the area of the slave states expand, then that's too much. that's violating the basic idea of union. here's the problem, i think it's what we would try to reconcile as we talk about the problem of union, how can you have equality or liberty, you might put it autonomy independence and union? is there attention between them? that's what i mean by -- >> and where do -- what's the line between compromise and coercion, they would have argued about that too. you say i'm compromising.

>> what i'm going to suggest to you, i'm going to try to channel jefferson here, the way we resolve such quarrels is that public opinion becomes progressively more enlightened. and that's what's so hard for us to believe in an era in which public opinion doesn't become more enlightened. >> that's the idea of an organic developing union too. that's going to -- >> right, it will expand. and the idea that expansion means balancing free and slave states, that's insane. because jefferson honestly believes that slavery will eventually disappear. and why is it going to disappear, not because of economic forces and market forces. it's going to disappear because people are going to see that it's wrong. remember the revolution was against authority and jefferson doesn't have a great record

right now. he does -- equality, coercion, slavery, contradiction between a republic of slave holders is going to become too striking too conspicuous, and americans will see it's in their best interest. >> will he have argued for equality among the white citizenry or would he have included everybody? >> no, he wouldn't. >> the short answer on this as you know, is that for jefferson the idea of the way he thinks about slaves is as a captive nation, held unjustly, this is

important. slaves don't deserve to be slaves, they're not naturally slaves, they are slaves because of -- what jefferson would like to blame george the third and his predecessors because we have them. but it is an evil institution, it's unjust. the solution is to end the state of war that is slavery. it is a state of war, it's a cold war of a violent coercive institution. his big concern about slavery is that young men in virginia will grow up in a world of slave holders and that will be their school. they don't have public schools in virginia in the antebellum period. instead they're going to learn to school slave holders. people as old as we are because

of race privilege, because they're white, that's horrible. he needs to break this down. >> he would see a union down the road where black people would have been removed? >> they would have been removed. this is in the best of all possible worlds. and jeffer soon's a patient guy. it could take generations. it's not going to happen in his lifetime. he keeps pushing the date off. eventually people will see the light and emancipate slaves and send them -- he doesn't know where, maybe the west indies maybe west africa. in the best of all possible future worlds. the former slaves, the freed people will govern themselves, and then as an independent self-governing people, they can form unions. the union among the enlightened republican nations of the world,

we can divide black and white so that one day we can unite. >> lincoln embraced colonization as well? >> yes. >> until deep into the civil war. didn't go over until 1812. >> the depth of race prejudice i want to suggest the way race and nation are synonymous terms, and he's -- jefferson's really thinking geo politically about warring nations, and all the things he says about slavery grow out of his wartime experience. slaves are dangerous to the fut turt of the republic, because they're a fifth column, because when they have the opportunity and this is how slavery is ended throughout the world, in wartime, they will seize it. >> nothing is more -- nothing destabilizes swlavry the way a war destabilizes slavery. >> whether it's the revolution or the war of 1812 along the chesapeake or the civil war where the armies are great engines of emancipation. it's the worst thing that can happen to a slave holder's world.

>> jefferson does believe in the separation of races for native americans, they can become civilized they can become white in other words, and they can adopt farming ways, and become effectively whites. after all, all good virginians we probably have a few in the room, you're all decendents of pocahontas if i'm not mistaken. >> i'm a 19th century guy, i have no idea what was going on with pocahontas. that's so early. many people as we move through the 19th century would use thomas jefferson in the sectional debates to but res arguments for state rights, in a system, within a union that has become unbalanced as the government is threatening rights of the constituent parts. what would jefferson say about that?

>> well, he wasn't in his grave yet during the missouri controversy, but he did some turning over nonetheless because when it looked like the union would fall apart, i don't know if you all know about the missouri controversy, it was weather or not missouri would be admitted as a slave state to the union it ultimately was in tandem with the free state of maine, one of the great states of our union. but this argument about the future of slavery was one that looked like it was creating a line of separation between those states with slaves and the so-called free states. and that fear of the capture of the federal government was

intense for jefferson. jefferson's position was in effect oh, give us time and we'll deal with our domestic institution. it's none of your business. and eventually we'll deal with it, but when you threaten to destroy the union, which is what he thinks the restrictionists in the missouri controversy there's northern republicans people in jefferson's own party who are pushing for a limit on slavery, that's the trigger issue throughout the anti-bell um decades. those people mean to seize power, and subject the southern states to a colonial provincial status, they will be creatures of a strong federal government whenever that happens, people start talking about, that's the return of the british empire this is evil you can see from jeffer southern's logic why he would be so acute when i sensitive to threats to the equal status of the southern

states, because what he says to the restrictionists in the missouri controversy is, you're telling us that we don't have republican governments, that we're not perfect republics because we have slaves, most of the states, even the north still have slaves but that your commitment to the institution of slavery makes you less than a republic. and the guaranteed clause of the constitution according to the restrictionist's article guarantees republican government to all the states. and so now you're saying, all states are not created equal. there are the real republics the northern states that are getting rid of slavery. and then there are these slave

holding hybrids. hybrids weren't a good thing in those days. in the south. so that that notion of equality is really crucial. what i want to suggest here, and i talk about that federalist and business, look forward and outward with jefferson from the founding of the republic and federalism looks like the secret, it's going to unfold, the whole world will one day be embraced by this republican vision. it's the means by which we have it both ways. >> it only works if you really find a balance between the center and the localities. >> right, and you all have to share the same set of beliefs, this may be the ultimate naive tay of the enlightment project. i'll tell you what the key beliefs are, equality, consent

that those ideas we still cherish, we all agree on that republican, it's the declaration we're celebrating, not the constitution. >> it's the declaration that jefferson davis referred to when he said all the southern states are doing is asserting their right to self-determination in 1860, '61. >> yes. what i would say to you, is that the collapse of the union, i talked about jefferson turning over prematurely in his not yet grave. if the union splits then the revolution was pointless. then the united states is pointless. and i'll tell you why. because as soon as you break up the union, well, what's to stop the fragmentation from continuing. >> well, it will continue. that's what lincoln would have

said. what do you get when you get a disunited states. you take union for granted now. we don't define awlorng sectional lines any more. well, we do actually, but on a micro level, i've been taught there are a lots of lewd people in the red states. >> i don't believe many people believe in secession any more. >> here's the dilemma, it's the collective security problem. and in an an arcy, which is the technical word, an anarchy, we achive some kind of temporary quill ib reum, those states are in nature with each other, which means a state of war. they may not be fighting but one day they will. during the period of the founding in the 1780s this was the great argument. you need to strengthen the union, and make it more perfect, lest the united states become disunited and become an image of europe. why did we even bother to try to form a new nation if the best we can do is create a knockoff

version of europe. pretty pathetic, we'll be at war with each other. guess what happens when there's war, my fellow republicans? when there's war, have you to exercise power. it exaggerates the executive power, military power. you get military industrial complexes, nations at war are nations that have a lot of problems with liberty, because all you liberty lovers out there are a bunch of sub versive terrorists. do you follow me? you need to preserve -- >> i'm trying to keep up. yes, i am. >> i was trying to explain the simple point -- >> you and i talk together for years and i'm having little flashbacks as we go along here. >> he is not going to send me out of the room, as he did during one of our seminars.

this is my time. >> only for ten minutes. and then he came back. if a union cannot involve coercion, how would jefferson have looks at the resolution of the american civil war, is that a worthwhile union put back together after this -- not that he's against bloodling. this is a lot much blood in the american civil war, a reconstituted union that lincoln would have said is the youth yn, what would his response to that be? >> lincoln could have persuaded

him it was a good thing the union lincoln celebrates, the union that your men, your people, the winners, the good -- folks, the good guys. >> colorado counties are named after union generals, unlike counties in new england. >> because our counties were already named by that point. >> think about it for a minute the union that lincoln wants to preserve, that's a perfect thing that needs to be preserved, he's not looking forward to expansion, in fact the republican platform is to end expansion if it means more slave states. >> well, it means to end

expansion of slavery. it doesn't mean to end expansion of the nation? >> it probably does, because of the political impasse, doesn't it? >> i don't know, the union is perfect. it needs to be preserved, and i think something has happened to the idea, rather than looking forward expansively we're now protecting a great nation. dominant in its continent, even

prospectively in its hemisphere, this is -- this great nation has a manifest destiny. we squander that great advantage, we forfeit it, we risk relapsing into a state of war. we need to preserve this thing it's sacred, and there is an element to this an element of a static quality to it. something to be. >> i think if you read lincoln early in the civil war, you may get more of a sense of its being static. he would have talked about getting rid of slavery is improving the union. it's the kind of union that jefferson would have agreed with. >> i think that's right. he is not eager to integrate. he wants to preserve. >> his experience in illinois, indiana and kentucky convinceds him it was possible. >> i think that's right. >> he is beyond that by the end of the civil war. >> i do think what motivates lincoln is a sense of that great destiny for the nation. the fact that it is a republican is important. i think lincoln's great service to jefferson is to redeem him. there's a dimension of lincoln's thinking that's captured in the gettysburg address and elsewhere, this republic needs to be preserved as we said before, for lincoln, the last best hope of mankind for

jefferson, more hopeful, perhaps, the first best hope. >> i gather from some of the things you've said about jefferson, that he really did believe that if things didn't work out that perhaps some unions would fail and others would rise, lincoln didn't believe that, he believed if this one failed the ideas of self-government and of economic opportunity would simply be gone and the forces would have reasserted themselves. >> i think lincoln and jefferson agreed on this, jefferson's response to the missouri controversy, if we can't find an equitable compromise, some way that respects the rights of all member states, if we can't be reassured about that, then all hell will break loose.

there's no point to this experiment in republican government, it failed, that's a key word, experiment. we call them scientists. it's the founders the way we like to think about them. this is a great seminar, constitutional convention, they're coming up with this brilliant plan and they're going to see how it works. maybe it doesn't work, maybe the experiment fails 37 what does that say about the future of mankind. what lincoln does is what jefferson believed would happen naturally but it didn't. namely, the end of slavery. and coercion force was needed to do that. and that is a tragic failure from jefferson's perspective. the represent tour of a union let them go. how long would that last. that's a tragic failure as well. perhaps a greater failure, because at least if he preserved

the shell of the union, perhaps it can rehabilitate itself. perhaps free government can emerge in the wreckage. >> how upset do you think he would have been, he being jefferson, at some of the constitutional questionable actions that lincoln took, that seemed at odds with the spirit and the letter of the constitution. >> there are two ways to think about it. the way jefferson uses executive power himself, and that is jefferson does not fetishize the constitution. he doesn't say that my hands are bound because of the constitution, because there's something greater than the constitution at stake, and that

is the very existence of the united states of america. the first law of nature. and remember, i invoke nature's god, natural religion, the first law of nature is self-preservation. the nation fails, the nation dies, then the constitution is a museum piece. you can put it on a 14e68 in the library and read it at your leisure, but it's dead. >> constitution means nothing. >> he would have -- you think jefferson would have thought ok, you have your priorities in order there? >> i think union looks different looking forward, looking back. so does the idea of the nation i think it's implicit in jefferson's thinking about the american people as being dedicated to liberty. >> does jefferson link union and nation in his mind. by the time of the civil war they're deployed interchangeably interchangeably. they'll drop all of them in the same far graph. >> it's a wonderful question the

idea of a nation is implicit in the notion of popular sovereignty and self-determination that is an idea of the people as an organic hole. a great family of families, i talked about the importance of family before but by the time we get to lincoln at medicine tourry and beyond this is the great period of romantic nationalism, there's something about the nation as its organic hole that supersedes, subsumes individuals, it subsumes everything. your identity is a national identity. it trumps everything else. >> well, for some people. >> for some people -- >> for many people. >> we don't want to exaggerate

it, because lincoln is not about to abolish states, though he would love to abolish those southern states, he believes in the federal distribution of authority. he believes in the compromises that were worked out in the constitution, all that's important to him. but the most important thing is the dedication to that shared principle, commitment to republican government, that makes us one people. jefferson would be reluctant to make that final move toward that great super human thing as a nation, and we are libertarian americans hold on to notions that are at odds with that. >> where would he have come down on the argument about the origins of the union, does the union arise from the people does it arise from the colony/states? >> i'm going to throw you another possibility. >> fire away. >> all right, well, enwhitened philosophers are famous for looking forward to a better future. but you can't look forward without looking backward, and when jefferson tried to define what liberty was, he looked back to the original social contract.

he also looked back to the british empire, and this is my answerotioyoof states rights being foundational. because the states are in the context of british empire a joke. they are not independent. they are free riders on imperial protection americans love their kings. they are monarchists until they're not. until they become republicans, because their king is making war

against them. what americans want, and i think this is the deep model for jefferson's commitment to union, what the americans want is their version of the british empire. one in which you can have it always. you can have local liberty, you can have courts responsive to local juries. you can determine land policy within your colony, you can determine labor systems within your colony. you have trading opportunities with the emporium of the planet. you are enriched by the imperial connection and you are free riders on the collective security afforded by the military and naval mite of the british empire. that's what you want. only now you're going to call it something different. you're going to call it republican, you're going to say, it doesn't come from any king it comes from us, the people. we can do this without the king. but the predicate of doing it without the king is to form a union among those former provinces.

george washington -- >> i'm fascinated by all this now, are you going to answer my question? which -- >> are you accusing me of being unresponsive? >> no, i'm accusing you of being yourself, which is one of the things i really like about you. you often spin off in directions, and people wonder, but i -- >> that was good about the empire, right? >> i was transfixing. let me bring you back. if we put it to mr. jefferson, whether the union derived from the people or from the states. put it within those terms, we're not in the empire any more we've already settled that. >> that i think is the template, and you'll grant that. >> i've already granted it. and i'll give you another answer. >> you're on the clock. >> i've been talking about nature. nature's guide -- >> i've been right here.

>> all right then, thank you for being there for me. it is nature's decree that this continent be the domain of this great free people. yes, the states are the instruments of rule of land policy, labor policy, they do the important things that we need a strong union so that we can dominate the hemisphere, if not the world. we have to be strong and we have to be united to be strong, the answer is both, it is a people that is a product of -- and relates to that great land and territory, this is -- let me coin this phrase, nature's nation. those are synonymous terms nature's people. the first people in modern

history, who conform -- this is hard for us environmentalists to take seriously, the first people in modern history who have ruled themselves in accordance with nature's laws, and, therefore have exploited the great riches, through the improvement of nature. now, we think nature should be saved from improvers and developers. we have rather different ideas today about how gaya is at risk >> i thought we were all part of the -- >> you're so 1840s. >> to say people -- the american people, yeah, i'd say at the end of the day, jefferson would. i mean, he doesn't -- would say yes, the american people.

that's -- that was a short answer. >> once again, he agrees with lincoln, or lincoln agrees with him? >> i think so. >> i want -- let's come back, you brought up something else i want to pursue, another thread i want to pull here. that is in terms of -- the union is going to expand it's natural future would be expansionist. what would jefferson -- did jefferson believe that peoples who did not look like western europeans could be brought in as functioning parts of the union? what would he have thought of incorporating all the people that lived in the half of mexico that the united states an ex-ed in 1948? >> i think it was a -- would have been a real problem for him, given the state of political and civic development and what we now call latin

america, and he -- >> he wouldn't have said they were real republicans? >> no, no. >> even though they called themselves republics? >> national self-determination a kind of faux liberation -- there's no capacity in those peoples, that's why he predicts there will be military dictator ships, they're only used to -- >> long term spanish rule, catholic rule would make it impossible in his view. >> and for north america, of course, the wonderful thing about north america is that it was virgin land. as he says in his inaugural address. he said there's land enough for the thousands, to the thousands of americans out there. it's a blank space. of course, he knows that you're going to have to displace a few

indians, asimulate a few others. there are plenty of people out there. but in his vision, there is this progress of civilization against barberism and savagery submitting, subjecting the land to higher use. yielding more from it, what's more with native american societies is that they don't reproduce enough, they don't reproduce enough because native men spend all their time hunting and abusing their women. so they'll never move past that static stable point of barberism. the future is in the progress of civilization, this is what he embraces, and moving across the territory he's not seized with the kind of collective guilt that comes with the red legend in america, the condemnation of indian lands and again side and instruction of native cultures that doesn't bother him. >> he would have accepted territorial expansion into these

kinds of places but then would have pushed for some kind of relocation of the populations? >> that's what happened. andrew jackson implements. >> i don't just mean in -- i'm speaking in terms of the acquisitions from mexico and other -- >> i think he would say, and this is to give jefferson his due, he doesn't think that the other people's of the world less educated, less developed, maybe not with our exceptional qualities, thinking of americans as being really with the british. and after all, this is british america. he does think that the rest of the world one day could catch up. how it would do so, my guess is that he would suggest the emergence over time of confederations in all the populous areas of the world, the progress of republican government would be fitting, i mean, he survived long enough, lived long enough. >> take a very long time. >> even for the french common people, he thought they were 200 years behind?

>> that was his estimate, he said, we're six years behind france. but as soon as they publish their books and send them across the ocean, we'll catch up. but our common people, this is a vote for democracy, our common people are 200 years ahead of their french counterparts. >> forward republican -- >> yeah, well, they can be republicans, jefferson was not optimistic the french could create a republic, and it seems they had trouble -- they created how many republics, five? so jefferson is both a universalist and exceptionalist, that's another thing we have to put into our paradox or contradiction we have to resolve. this is a people uniquely capable of governing themselves, in doing so, they demonstrate eternal truths about human nature and human potential that will be fulfilled in the fullness of time across the

world. >> liz baron talked about andrew johnson and the crisis of impeachment. andrew johnson called himself a jeffersonian. he said he loved jeffersonian theory about government, and the bedrock of that was a small government, nonintrusive. he's used by lots of people who take that view. that's his union. his union is a union -- >> well, the idea to take consent to its logical mean what does it mean? in some ways, enlightened people spontaneously form unions. maybe to better understand it, we have to think about the scottish enlightenment philosophy. we have to think about the new account of human nature, which is remarkably democratic in its

implications, that is all of us have that kind of moral sense. that's crucial for politics, for understanding society itself because what it means is that we do not have to be ordered, governed and constrained to do the right thing. maybe the epitome of this enlightenment is the very idea of a market of transactions among equals to which all consent that are beneficial. when you think about the purity and the economists can't get over the purity of their account of the market, it's a beautiful thing to behold, when has it ever existed in all its beauty no, it doesn't. only it's -- it's a fugitive thing, it's an aspiration, a hope, that idea that we could be

drawn together. not out of sordid self-interest, this is where mandeville and those economists can vulgarize the best of adam smith's moral philosophy, we come together to achieve higher things, better things, not only for ourselves because the first coming together is to form the family for others, for those people who we raise, our children. and that i think is crucial, for jefferson is obsessed with generations, with progress of generations. i want to bring in each of the other subjects of this lecture series. this is what grant wrote on the grid a competent the civil war. he said would save the union with the coming forward of the young men of the nation, from homes and fields, giving everything to the country.

they are owed this omission of the unit. so long as our younger and in my despair, there will be no fear for the union. we did jefferson but the citizen soldiers of the revolution in his calculus?