documentary on infrastructure spending. they also made a stop at woodrow wilson high school in washington, d.c. for honorable mentions. the students one $750 for their money inideos on politics and parthian homelessness in the united states. a special thanks to our cable partners for helping coordinate these visits in the community. you can do all the winning documentaries and student cam.org. next, andrew of shaughnessy stores the election of 1800 and thomas jefferson's peaceful revolution. he argues that the election was one of the most toxic in our history and that it relied heavily on smear campaigns against candidates john adams, thomas jefferson, and aaron for. -- ehrenberg.

aaron burr. this is an hour-long event. >> and now, let me turn to why you are here this evening, which is not to discuss the 1968 election or gas crisis of the 1970's, but rather the 1800 election with thomas jefferson, and to hear from a man who has been arguably one of the leading scholars of that most fascinating president of american figures. i speak of andrew o'shaughnessy, from the university of virginia, where he is also director of the international jefferson studies center at the thomas jefferson foundation. we are truly honored to have them here this evening. he is the winner of innumerable prices. the george washington book prize, and an award from the society of military history, among other book honors. he is the author of "old world,

new world" and also "the man who lost america: american revolution, british revolution, and the empire." i am often asked, because of my job title, who i think was the best president. i am also asked who is the most ambitious, talented, influential, and even most interesting president. now, i never know how to answer that except to say, probably jefferson hit all bars, the answer to all of those, which is why i am particularly pleased to have a man here tonight who can tell us exactly what why jefferson was just that influential, interesting. so if you will join me in welcoming andrew o'shaughnessy? [applause] andrew o'shaughnessy: well, i

would like to thank jeff engel, the george w. bush library, and the center for presidential studies at smu for this invitation. it was particularly welcome because this for me as a sort of homecoming. i realized from my accident i might sound somewhat odd. by actually had my very first academic post in the united states here as a visiting professor at smu in 1989 and 1990. and is the source of a lot of fond memories. i particularly look back on my undergraduate professors from oxford wanted to visit smu while i was here, and he said he wanted me to be his tour

manager. he did not want to see the city or anything. he wanted to see somewhere that was remote and rural. [laughter] andrew o'shaughnessy: i had not explored, but it occurred to me that we would choose granbury. the reason for that is that i found the guidebook, which said it had dinosaur footprints. [laughter] andrew o'shaughnessy: and i certainly knew nowhere in england that has got dinosaur footprints, so that sounded very neat. and we went to granbury. we went into the middle of the town. i have to say, and i know it has changed a lot. local shops are selling postcards, but i would swear we were in sepia tint. and we then went to what in the 1940's and 1950's was called the soda fountain. we walked in and sat on the bar, and the guy behind the bar walked out, and he was wearing what, i discovered last night from my former colleague jeremy

adams, the encyclopedia of all things, is called a soda fountain jerker hat. and he leaned forward and listened to us and said, you're not from around here, are you? and we said, no. and he said, you are from out of east. [laughter] andrew o'shaughnessy: and we said, we were. and he smiled with the particular grin and said, you are from east texas. [laughter] andrew o'shaughnessy: and my barber who used to work for me here, i used to go to the barber at the student union, and he would welcome me to the united states of texas. so this was my initiation into texas history. i always after that did visited the so-called texan embassy in london, which was actually a restaurant just off trafalgar square. it was not very good.

[laughter] it is best to be a part of a federal union. so the election of 1800 is regarded as really the first in the modern history of the west, where power changed hands peacefully from one party to another. i thought, having grown up outside united states, this was undoubtedly wrong, because the british had elections and had had since the middle ages. it is actually true, certainly in the case of britain, that no government ever changed hands because of an election. a fifth of the members of the house of commons are chosen by the king. they owed patronage to the king, the king had to be in agreement with whoever was prime minister.

an election could weaken the government. it could strengthen the government, but it did not change the government. and the major thing about this was that it was peaceful. i was very close run. the fact is that the candidate was not decided until the week before the inauguration. james munro, as governor of virginia and thomas kean, governor of pennsylvania, ordered their militias to be armed while the outcome was in doubt. there was talk, and there were instances of violence. john adams actually worried about the possibility of civil war. now i know when jeffrey planned this, it was partly to coincide

with the exhibit, special exhibits at the presidential library, which i hope to see tomorrow. but i am sure he was not unaware we would be in the middle of a buildup to a presidential election. he could not have known quite how exciting, if that is the word you want to use, it would be. he would certainly have known during this time of real polarization that i doubt whether he realized the posits themselves would be polarized in almost a symmetric movement of two outside candidates who have not been traditionally part of those parties, posing real challenges. so i suspect that he really wanted me partly to regale you with the smear campaign of 1800 as an antidote to whatever may happen in 2016.

it is worth remembering it is politics as usual. but i want to though give you somewhat of a perspective on this election. the fact is, currently that the candidates in this election probably have never been in a period when so many violence has appeared, the election, the appearance of the 1790's has been so popular. one professor at columbia calls it founders chic. the number of biographies that have emerged, the fact that we now have incredibly popular musical on broadway, "hamilton." i think it is a couple of thousand dollars a ticket if you want to try and go without having an advance booking.

the popularity of the ron chernow biography of hamilton, it has to be said because john adams and ron chernow or roger hamilton as seen by ron chernow. i think this is healthy. that the fact is that we have gained by the visions and legacies of the people from both sides of the political aisle. so the problem with a lot of modern work is that the writers parachute down into this period, and what would biographers do, look at the perspective of their particular candidate. in other words, instead of having a perspective 216 years later, we get a perspective of

1800. one looks through the eyes of alexander hamilton and sees jefferson as a very insidious, machiavellian figure. if you have read books in the 1940's and 1950's, you would have guessed an equally negative view of hamilton and adams, who were, not without reason, seen as highly elitist. when someone said to hamilton and talked about the majesty of the people, hamilton replied, the people are a beef. what is really the take away this evening is to give you, before i give you the smears of what you really want to hear, is

to give you some ways to think about this election, that i think at least helps you understand a lot about the actors on both sides. and the most important, and i think most neglected aspect of this time is that today, we regard a one-party system as antithetical. we joke about the democratic republic's in eastern europe are in the soviet period. but we should remember that the founders of all political parties in fact believed that america would be a one-party country. when washington created his first cabinet, and it was intended to embrace individuals of all political stripes and to capture the mood of the nation.

they were revolutionary. this was taken 68. they believed individuals are put aside self interest and put the common good, and that they would be a real consensus. i think that is very important, because it means the whole idea of the position was natural. it was true in both britain and america, the idea of an opposition party was simply synonymous with faction, with trouble making. so the problem for jefferson and james madison was to find a way to legitimately oppose the governing party, to find a new language of politics. in britain, that was quite easy. in britain, the way that opposition expresses itself was to ally themselves with the heir

to the throne, so they could still seem to be loyal to the king, but they had was known as a house faction. that was where the king's heir, in leicester square. in america, there is no instrument for opposition, which is why it looked so insidious and machiavellian. jefferson should probably be remembered as the originator of the party system. but he would detest that this was his legacy, because he himself said, if i could go to heaven only with a party, i would not go at all. this was also the period in which richard hofstetter called the age of gentlemen politics.

he basically dated that up to andrew jackson by namesake. the fact is that candidates were not to appear to be running at all. they were not to appear to want office. they were not to want to to appear to be ambitious. so the have this pretense that no one is running. it seems ridiculous. the earlier election, the only previous real election, which is 1796, in which jefferson wrote to friends that he had not even been consulted about standing as a presidential candidate, and then in his letter, he crossed out the word consulted and put,

not with his consort, whatever that might mean. in other words, it was a pretense that candidates were not running, and jefferson especially, none of the smears came from the candidates, for the most part. and jefferson was the most extreme. he never responded to criticism. he never engaged in the polemics and confrontation. it was all done by third parties. another feature of this period we need to think about is the rise in power that the media, namely, newspapers. newspapers were being, 100 newspapers in 1790. by 1800, there were 260. the way you sold newspapers was the way you attract audiences to television now. that is to attract as much controversy, negativity, to engage your reasons. engage your readers. so the candidates themselves

were not engaging in thus your campaigns, the newspapers often with anonymous contributors were encouraging it. that is why this is a particularly negative campaign. another important feature related to the newspapers was this, this is the period that sees the rise of public opinion and direct appeals from the public. historically, more fashionably speaking, the rise of the public spear. voter turnout is increasing during this period. the election of 1800 represents at all times high in terms of the number of people who actually voted. finally, the reason that this is such a bitter election is that the american revolution is not over. it was still very much recent.

there was a feeling on both sides the opposing party was going to destroy the legacy of the american revolution. this was why they sound so urgent on this matter. the federalists thought that jefferson and the republicans would create positions of anarchy. and the jeffersonian party, the republicans, they thought the federalists would create a tyranny. this was in neither way absurd. most revolutions failed.

they had every reason to be worried. given what i described, conditions were toxic by the elections of 1800. it was made so by a number of issues that had arisen since the first party of george washington. the divide over state issues, and especially alexander hamilton's economic program. hamilton admired the british. he had grown up in the british caribbean. he has seen probably the greatest expression of british power, which is the british fleet, which appeared off the coast of the island, would have been larger in terms of the number of men on board those

ships in the largest city in america. henry knox, when he sat the number one broadway in the summer of 1776 with his wife and looked out to brooklyn, and the appearance of the british fleet looked like a great forest had appeared off of new york. it was very impressive. what hamilton was really impressed by was that the british were a small country who had a punch well above their size, and he attribute that to the financial system in britain. and most historians today would agree with him. what really made britain work was that they largely borrowed and copied from the dutch. national bank, still today the bank of england, a credit system, paper money. the government was able to

borrow money in wartime rather than increase taxes, and this is why the british were able to defeat a country like france. during the american revolution, the british, despite the fact that they had a huge national debt, much larger in proportion to gnp than that modern national debt of the united states, three or four times as large, nevertheless, they stayed stable. there is the french government and bankrupt as a result of the american revolution, leading to the french revolution. so hamilton wanted to copy the idea of a national bank. he wanted the bank to assume the state debt. and he had a vision for creating a national economic system. jefferson and the republicans were very dubious, but jefferson certainly early on, when both of them were both members of george washington's cabinet, looked to

compromise, they have the famous dinner in which they agreed that the capital would be in washington dc, and that the government would assume the state debt. but from that moment onward, the differences between the two of them began to emerge. what really drove the party apart would be foreign affairs and the outbreak of french revolution that coincided washington's inauguration the same year, the first government. initially, americans generally were excited by the french revolution. it seems to be a replica of their own revolution.

but gradually, those who would be known as the federalists of john adams, at least under hamilton become wary. it was to radical, especially the execution of the king, which even thomas payne condemned, but more especially the execution of many of the elite. it started to make some really fearful that the french revolution would spread, would be a revolution from below. that this would lead to worse conditions in america. this became more extreme with the outbreak of war between britain and france in 1793. the british started to seize goods they had the largest navy, they started to seize american shipping. they started to divide over foreign policy, generally the federalists were very

pro-british and regarded britain as their natural economic partner, and jefferson and his followers were very distrustful of britain, thinking britain would draw america into a neocolonial situation, and initially, they remain more tolerant of development in france, even though jefferson ultimately became disenchanted by the french revolution. he supported it much longer than adams and others. it did not help that the french, and 1793, sent over a repetitive who started to appeal over the president and even appeal congress directly to the people to encourage the creation of a radical republican class. that only fed into federalists' fears of anarchy.

jefferson resigned as secretary of state, and this is the first indication this is going to be a party system. as early as two years before that, hamilton was already describing him as the head of a party. later in life could not help observing jefferson that by resigning, going back to monte carlo, sometimes called his first retirement, jefferson was freeing himself from any criticism while anyone else in the fray, everyone else was suffering from smear campaigns. jefferson was able to stay above politics. for the most part, madison led the opposition in congress, but jefferson was the one from monticello corresponding with all of his friends who is

essentially providing the leadership. essentially, tensions mounted. when the washington administration made a treaty with britain in 1794, the jay treaty, republicans regarded it as much too much to britain. they did not see it, thank you very much out, whereas britain got a most favored nature, most favored trading status with america, while it still would not admit american ships and american trade to many of its ports, including most importantly, the british west indies. john jay negotiated that treaty and when he got back to america, said i could see myself eating burnt in at the g -- being everywhere iigy

have went. that essentially led the french, who were still technically in a treaty of alliance with america since the middle of the american revolutionary war in 1778, and led the french to now start to also capture american shipping. they took over 300 ships in the next couple of years. and this, of course, build up the federalists' opposition to the french. john adams, who succeeded washington as president, attempted really to be moderate, to negotiate and he sends people over to france to negotiate. they were basically rebuffed. in fact, the agents were asked to give bribes to their french counterparts, who are only identified into the medic corresponds, names not

identified, they are called x, y, and z. this outraged american opinion, even among republicans, that the united states would be so rebuffed. and there was talk of actual war with france. it becomes known that the quality of war, the government and the federalists are nervous, even more now at the possibility of desertion by supporters of the french revolution. and they pass the alien and tradition acts, which galvanized republicans. they were some of the most extreme measures limiting freedom of speech, allowing the government to imprison journalists who invariably were republican journalists, extending the time it took to be actualized as american citizens

from five years to 14 years. there were largely hit groups leaving the rebellion in 1798, trying to be radical. and those were likely to support the republican party, it was taken very personally by the republicans. so by 1798, jefferson was writing to his daughter martha, and he said politics and party destroy the happiness of every being here. it seems like salamanders who consider fire as their element. the candidates in 1800, as you know, before the fourth amendment, they did not distinguish between the president and the vice

president. again because no one was ever considering a party system. it was a deficiency of the constitution. and so, the expectation was that the best man would win. they could never conceive that people would be running on the same ticket, that you might have a tie between the president and the vice president. the four candidates or john adams, who was the oldest at 65, highly experienced from being ambassador in london. he was the vice president. thomas jefferson, who had held state and national office. it had not been known until the 1790's that jefferson, the author of the acquisition of independence, precisely because of these rivalries, jefferson

now started to advertise that fact. their running mates were not people either the two leading candidates would have necessarily chosen. they were chosen for strategic reasons not because of any friendship or because of admiration. jefferson chose aaron burr who was the only candidate of all of these that read about the idea of election hearing. printing tickets and getting into the dirt of policy. we of course think of him today very much a maverick. that was not entirely apparent at the time. the fact is, as we will see, he was a crucial figure securing the all-important state of new

york for the republicans. charles hinckley it was presidential candidate three times and probably the least known of all of the names. the key aspect to him is entirely british educated. he has an elite british education and was a marvelous example of how pro-british the federalists were. when he went to school, he was easily the equal, none better than him. george the third get from the patronage. he went on to delete of the bureaucratic leader and he went to the middle temple, the only

kind of law school at his time. he had entirely trained in england and he expressed a lot of what the republicans most contested. the election went on for over a year. as i said earlier, it was only fully decided a week before the actual inauguration, which i think is an all-time record. they campaigning was done by proxy not by the candidates themselves other than aaron burr who was, and either party there was not a central campaign headquarters. more importantly, the president was not directly elected by the people originally under the constitution. it was through the electoral college, which of course still exists.

there were 16 states and 11 of the states chose their delegates through the legislature and only five of the states had popular elections but delegates. normally, if you are teaching a class it is become more interesting with the whole debate about delegates and conventions within the party. clearly, electoral college is different from the party conventions, but it is still exactly the same issue popularly elected delegates and delegates doing what constituents asked them to do and delegates making decisions in their own right which is what they did in this case. three of the states essentially different districts elected their own delegates, including

maryland and vermont, but most of these days were winner take all. virginia, up until 1800, has districts.y in one of the first small moves of monroe on jefferson's behalf was the way virginia elected its delegates, because the federalists were making ground in virginia. if it had not been a winner take all, they would have taken some delegates from virginia. adams had only won the election by a small margin. small margins were going to be critical. in the early 1800s, virginia switched to winner take all, which guarantees that jefferson

would be the candidate. the critical on was in march of 1800 in new york which of been critical to john adams'victory. it was aaron burr who pulled it off. adams knew that he had lost new york. for him, he had to win south carolina. all of these he did to bridge these sectional lines of the country. they needed a candidate in the north and in the south. the other major issue was that the federalist party was becoming increasingly split. adams had never been popular with his own party.

even if you read the biography you will realize he is a rather complicated figure, not a public rigor, not at ease in public and was regarded to moderate by the high federalists, the extremist in his party, especially alexander hamilton. people in new england wanted to see it much more hostile stance

towards france. during this election, adams' really starts to split. hamilton behind the scenes, who was not a candidate that has been a major figure, hamilton was really working to get charles pinkley elected rather than adams. the republican party did not want to get burr elected, sort of an accident that he ended up tied. they really wanted the high federalists wanted to see pinckney rather than adams. as adams said, the party committed suicide and then they blamed me for being the executioner. the agenda, jefferson more clearly than the federalists articulate what it was about test articulated what it was about. he was not giving speeches but did it through correspondence. it had become clear what the republicans were about. first and foremost, he wanted

more cuts in the government. he wanted a balanced budget. he emphasized the importance of free speech against the sedition act. he wanted to shrink the size of the army and navy which is pretty incredible because the army and navy, in terms of the cost to america represented 1/24 of what british taxpayers are paying for their army. jefferson said it is great expenses in which it will implicate us and will grind us with burden and sink us under them. he argued, if you have a big military, you're much more

likely to go to war. what is also interesting about this election is that they have targeted campaigns and that is partly because it was organized on a local level, so different parties used different appeals in different areas, something that we have caught up again within the last couple of decades, especially. in the south, the federalists in new england were anti-slavery that in the south the response to the haitian revolution, they slave rebellion was to argue that this was the result of the french revolution. when a slave rebellion broke out in virginia in 1800 of gabrielle's rebellion, they said this is the result of the french revolution, whereas in england, they said this is bad. in south carolina, they condemned jefferson for even talking to benjamin danica, the black mathematician. i promised you before i ended the smear campaign and give you

some examples of the smears i must indulge you, as i intended. jefferson always describes his opponents as monographs, aristocrats and he said he was representing the spirit of 1776. this is how one of his newspapers describes john adams. "a hideous character that is neither the boldness of man or the sensibility of woman." they regarded him as pompous. it has to be said, adams was set on what titles should be used in america and utterly disapproved we should talk about "mr.

president" rather than "his excellency." adams had gotten along with george iii and later later in life, reprimanded him for calling george iii a tyrant. they called jefferson a mean-spirited, the son of a halfbreed indian squaw. mulatto.a virginia several strategies used against jefferson, linking him to the

radicalism of the french revolution. you have writing in the connecticut papers saying murder robbery, rape and incest will be openly practiced. the soil will be soaked with blood and the nation black with crimes. another newspaper warned people to prepare to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated. those in virginia writing in jefferson's local papers, fellow citizens, vote for mr. jefferson. he will cure all of our disorders, relieve us of taxes, make us as rich and prefers the see of liberty, the storm of revolution. he will turn your army and navy

adrift. all of the federal officers, he will play the devil with the damn banks. he will put a stop to commerce and will introduce a new order of things such as one that will make every demo happy, no doubt. another attack was jefferson's religious belief, that he was an atheist and an infidel and that america would cease to be godly. jefferson praying to the god of reason and jefferson sacrificing dogs. there was a newspaper editorial that had the headline, the grand question stated. the only question to be asked to every american, laying his hand on his heart is, shell i continue allegiance to god or

declare with jefferson, no god. jefferson had written a letter to an italian in 1796, which was meant to be a private letter in which he criticized the government and by implication, george washington. the letter had some strong language and he said that people had been sampson's in the field and solomons and counsel and it had their head shorn. this was somehow, this was leaked. it first appeared in a vulgar french issue. it was then translated into

english. the letter was used to suggest that jefferson was against washington and was really turning his back on the revolutionary legacy. they also brought up his behavior as governor of virginia, that he had run away from the british. it is always a bizarre charge because the legislature, who were most critical of him ran far ahead of him in escaping richmond and then escaping charlottesville. what always impressed me about jefferson is he stayed long enough to monticello to actually watch this british lesions and loyalists start to come up the slope, which is not a very high mountain and then finally, he left having sent his family off

and to advance. this story was the one about which she was most sensitive for his entire political career. he was subsisting about it in the last week of his life, so another words, it hit a point. there were stories about jefferson having a black mistress. this is much more bleak than it would happen later than they certainly speculated. the most bizarre was the story of jefferson's death. it was one of his enslaved workers who dot, but it's a jefferson had died, not by a federalist paper but by a

republican paper. the point was, that when the federalist heard about it, they rejoiced. in other words, that is a bad party tensions have become. the republicans won the newspaper war because the majority of newspapers were republican and the republicans did much more to work with newspapers than their opponents. the election as you know was a tie. 73 votes for aaron burr and 73 votes for thomas jefferson. john adams would have won if the population in the south had not included a count of enslaved people as 3/5 of a person under the constitution. he would have won by two votes and that was compellingly put forward in a book by gary wills, the "negro president." far more important at the time was that adams' party split down the middle which cost adams's election. the election was in deadlock. six days, the delegates went

through 36 different votes. we are talking in some of these primers, maybe a second or third round, 36 rounds of no one giving way. if you look to the secondary book, they both give different explanations as to how the tie was broken. a lot of textbooks say alexander hamilton himself broke the tie, that hamilton finally concluded that jefferson's bark was worse than his bite. he's a jefferson is too ambitious not to retain he said jefferson was too ambitious not to retain some of his deeds. hamilton had a particular

quarrel with burr who ultimately killed him in a dual. hamilton pulled him down in a very underhanded way, and rightfully so because as you know burr was a maverick. that is certainly true. hamilton made it known that he supported jefferson. that actually did not help because very much at the time because hamilton himself was discredited. he wanted to split the party that caused the federalist to lose and he published an attack, and open attack on john adams on the character of mr. adams in which also criticized himself. this did not help because of the party.

the person who really broke the tie was a minor figure who held the entire electoral vote for delaware and it was he who changed his vote and essentially did not vote, did not switch to jefferson. he claimed for the rest of his life that an intermediary gained in agreement with jefferson that jefferson would retain certain officials in the government and that he would not overdo the assumption of debt. certainly, jefferson denied it. on the other hand, not a foot supposedly this deal consisted of was ever changed. essentially, it was carried, so

with a change of the vote, the election was decided a week before the actual inauguration. jefferson would call it the revolution of 1800, felt that changed the nature of politics. he typically claims that it was the unanimous choice of the people when in fact it had been a very close run thing. there is no doubt that the movement of popular opinion was moving toward the republicans and largely in the south. they won in the house votes and senate votes. the fact is, this election made the republican party the party of government for decades afterwards. the federalist party disappeared as a party.

we have run out of time, but is there a moral to all of this? jefferson and adams became friends later in life through correspondence. they left their party differences aside and it is one of the great correspondences in history. it ranges not just politics but sciences, gardening, agriculture and shows the incredible intellectual range that these two individuals had. but i think it's also a lesson is that america is the product to totally opposed party visions. we all agreed to to the federalist and a jefferson in terms of democratizing government introducing. it really highlighted the sectional differences in the

country. jefferson was entirely successful in the south and in the west. the federalist hold within the north and especially in new england. it would be the federalists during the war of 1812 would talk about confession whereas during the alien and sedition acts, it was jefferson and madison that helped draft the kentucky and virginia result in really helped introduce the word "nullification." you can see in anticipation of the civil war but by no means did this make the civil war inevitable. thank you. [applause] mr. o'shaughnessy: i am happy.

>> if you have a question, wait for the microphone to come. >> thank you. thank you very much. other than your own books, whose books would you recommend on this theory? mr. o'shaughnessy: there is a good book by larson on the election of 1800. i am afraid to tell you that identifying the secondary literature is very satisfying. the best book, if you really want to go into debt with this and be serious is a volume of essays called "the election of

1800" which was produced during the election of 2000. it was actually held under a conference organized by monticello and the proceedings are edited by jan lewis and jim holmes. there is a brilliant new book on the election of 1826 and there is brilliant essays written by him on the election of 1800. there is a history of the party system that is only one chapter on 1800 and has less detail than what i gave you this evening. if you want to know something about the delegates and how it all works, it is a good sort of

textbook summary of the buildup of party differences, but it is not really a story of the election of 1800. >> there are books being written on it in genealogy and blood types and a lot of people do not realize this did come up at the election. people didn't know about it. can you speak on that? mr. o'shaughnessy: it suddenly was referred to in this election. it came up later.

jefferson, before the election of 1800 has started to work with a real moderator who is often described in the textbooks as a scottish alcoholic, which i think probably, obviously, he had a way with words and was a good political communicator but marvelous in terms of negative advertising. he and jefferson fell out after this election and calendar was the first to talk or he openly about hemmings. it was the subject of a cartoon and was used by jefferson's opponent. >> how complete is the archival record of that election and how much of it has been pieced together by academic supposition with filling in the blanks? mr. o'shaughnessy: i think the archival records are good. suddenly, most of the negative

advertising is conducted to the newspapers and most of the newspapers have been saved. the library of congress is one of the great repositories of american newspapers, it is actually not the library of congress. it's the american antiquarian society in worcester, massachusetts. it was started by an editor that had been active during the american revolution and began a paper called the massachusetts spy. he kept collections of what was going on in continued the collection. the institution in massachusetts still continues and has most of the newspapers. you know, jefferson was very careful with what he wrote about. he was always aware his correspondence would be used for his biography and it would affect his legacy.

he never wrote to madison. he was aware his letters would be open and read. the postmaster, whoever, people would read these things and re-seal them. some feel madison has never got his full due.