american artifacts programs by visiting our website. >> next, michael holt discusses his book, by one vote: the disputed presidential election of 1876. wins by a b. hayes single its world moved in 1876, in a contest that produced a higher voter turnout in u.s. history. this is about one hour. good morning. this is the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln's first inaugural. it is very appropriate we should be talking about a civil war and post civil war topic today. it is a pleasure to welcome to the for him and introduce -- forum and introduce a friend and

michael holt will. at the professor university. he was educated at princeton and phd at johns hopkins university. for time off at cambridge university yale, stanford, and other institutions, cold has other institutions, cold has, been at the university since 1970 or. he's written deeply about political history. for many years, his writing focus was on the years before the civil war. the political crisis of the 19 1950's,ese -- of the which he wrote about, has been used for political courses. , was the runner up

for the lincoln prize and is -- notten described as just because of the 1296 pages. more recently, he has written about the construction -- the reconstruction following the war. is by one vote: the disputed presidential election of 1876 tells the story of america's closest presidential election, which perhaps coincidentally, had the highest percentage of eligible voters participating during any election, 81.5%. please welcome michael holt. [applause] michael: thank you. it was tthe 1850's that ran up to the civil war. the other day i was down going

into the cvs at the barracks road shopping center, and somebody handed me this versauds million dollar bill. i looked at the back and it said , the million dollar question asks are you going to go to heaven when you die. [laughter] michael: i looked at the front, and who was on this $100,000 , the rutherford b. hayes republican winner of the disputed election of 1876. people today who think about the election of 1876, admittedly small but intensely curious crowd, probably think of it primarily as a precursor to the

notorious bush/gore contest of 2000. and it's no coincidence, in fact, that 3 years after the 2000 election, two new books about the election of 1876 appeared with the 2000 contest clearly in mind. one was by a bitter democrat. its title says it all. fraud of the century and the stolen election of 18 evidence x -- of 1876. was by a former sort ofstice, which was

a total defense of the rules -- roles of the supreme court justices and other roles, by talking about how they settled the election in 1876 there were some parallel -- 1876. there were some parallels between the two of the elections. 1876, the losing democratic candidate clearly had a majority of the popular vote. 2000 electoral votes were , in dispute, including the of florida, but also the electoral votes of south carolina and louisiana that were being disputed. in fact, all 3 of those states sent contesting sets of electoral votes to washington to be counted. now, there's democratic electors and republican electors.

and as in 2000, there were republicans in washington, that counting rutherford b. hays as an in. i was originally approached by editors of a new series for the university of kansas on presidential elections. they said, would you write one on 1848? or 1860? and as george said, i would spend a lot of time riding about -- writing about the antebellum. period, and i did not want to do that again. so we got on the topic of 1876

and why would i want to do that? well, i had written some chapters in a new version of a textbook called the civil war and reconstruction. and i had written the chapters of reconstruction a bit earlier. and i was puzzled by two things. the university of colorado as a centennial state in the summer of 1876. why, i wanted to know, did this happen? because the admission of colorado with its 3 electoral votes changed the game. arguably, it was the single most important thing preventing the democrat tilden from winning the election, because had colorado not been admitted as a state, the winning electoral vote majority would have been 184 electoral votes, which is exactly what tilden got.

he was beaten 185 to 184 in the electoral vote count. absent colorado, tilden would have won no matter what happened to the dispute from the south. and since the democrats had a 19-seat majority in the house of representatives in 1876, i wondered how they could be so stupid to let colorado becoming state at thate a time. they could have stopped it and said if an election is held and a constitution is ratified before july 4, 1876, the president shall admit it as a state without any further action by congress whatsoever. so the republicans neutered a

few of them before they even controlled both sided of. -- both houses of congress. and two other questions just enemy. -- interested me. the election of 1876 is an anomaly in the sense of what happens to political parties during depressions. this election occurred in the midst of a really severe depression, the depression was in the 1870's and was the most severe. -- depression happened in politics. it was true in the 1830's. the end party takes a she -- shalacking in the off year

congressional elections that precede the presidential election and then they get these following the presidential elections. this happens with the wings in -- wigs in 1840, it happens with the republicans in the 1890's, i want to say it happened with the democrats in the they won the 1890's. presidential campaign. that didn't happen. in the 1870's, the democrats won big. will proportionally, they had the biggest turnaround of congressional seats in american history. over a third of the seats switched hands from republicans to democrats in 1874 and 1875, but then the republicans won the election, the presidential election, although democrats at the time would say, no, they didn't win it, they stole it. the third thing that interests me about this election was

mentioned by george. and when i asked to write about it, i didn't even know this. it had the highest turnout of voters proportionately of any election in american history. 81.8% of males over 21 apparently vote. -- voyrf. voted. now, some of this turnout was clearly fraudulent. south carolina reported a turnout of 101% of the eligible electorate. the edgefield county, which was an upstate county along the savannah river, reported 2,000 more votes than there were adult males in the county.

there was a reason for this, by the way. edgefield is right across the savannah river in augusta, georgia. where the masters is. a lot of georgians came across the river and voted in georgia. then they went home and voted in georgia. that pushed up the total. this total turnout also includes southern states where the turnout was artificially depressed or repressed by white democratic violence against blacks so that they wouldn't vote republican. and i want to read you, i think i have this marked in the right spot, give you some examples of

this. in louisiana, three parishes of wichita, east baton rouge and west baton rouge had 2100 whites on the voter registration list and 5300 blacks. they reported together a democratic majority of 3,000. the registration list in west feliciana parish reported 436 whites and 2200 blacks, yet the reported vote was 485 for tilden and only 20 for hayes. registered blacks outnumbered

registered whites, 2100 to 1,000, yet there was no recurrent vote for hayes, and 1700 for tilden. louisiana parishes at the time, and this i find fascinating. this is probably one thing from this talk you might remember going away from it. the louisiana parishes at the time were described as being bulldozed. you think back for a minute. wait a minute. this is 1876. there aren't gasoline engines yet. there are not the bulldozers, so why were these parishes spoken of as being bulldozed and the answer is as a reporter from the new york times wrote back who had gone down to louisiana after the election, the term bulldoze comes from the practice of

whipping blacks with a bull whip if they said they were going to vote republican. and that is the source of the term we still use, bulldozer and bulldoze. it was giving blacks the dose of the bull whip if they dared to think about voting republican. so one thing that is very clear is that had this been a fair election, had southern blacks been allowed to vote freely and fairly, the republicans would have run away with the election. but they were suppressed, kept from voting in most southern states except for 3, and some of those that the republicans still controlled, in louisiana, florida and south carolina where

they controlled the returning votes. and i was thinking about this this morning, i used to play tennis with a guy who came up with a great line. said,e up with a line, he he said a good call beats a good shot every time. out. you know, out. and so a good count, the republicans could count the votes, a good count could be the actual returns any time. so, i want to get to the dispute in a minute, but let me, first of all, what might explain this high turnout. this is really unprecedented in the sense of an equal turnout of voters.

well, it wasn't the candidates, although the contrast between the candidates itself is very, it is very interesting. not the candidates, they did not campaign in the 19th century. that was forbidden. you didn't go out on the stump. others campaigned for you. the two candidates were interesting. actually, there were 3 candidates, actually, four, but there was a greenback candidate, too, that i can mention in there. but rutherford b. hayes was in his third term as governor of ohio when this election returned . he was a veteran of the civil war who had enlisted as a major in an ohio regiment at the given

age of 39. he was a hail, hearty guy, who was the father of eight living children at the time of this election. hayes was an interesting guy. he was a real bibliophile. he loved books. he loved reading. collection of books became the basis for the presidential library that came out on the family estate in ohio, where i spent a lot of time. we would eat dinner every night. he was actually introduced in the nominating speech at the

republican intervention. the guy actually said, he is a scholar and a gentleman, introducing him to the republican convention. the democratic candidate could not have been more different. prissy,as a small, lifelong bachelor. he had made a fortune as a lawyer before, during and after the civil war. he was serving his ninth term as governor of new york at the time of the election. but he was a very wealthy guy. had a big house on grammerson that is nowpark

, something called the national artist club. estate that was used to build new york public library, that building on 47th street. that was his money that built that. third candidate lived across the park at the end of lexington avenue from tilden. this was peter cooper, the immensely wealthy guy in new york city. he was the candidate in the third-party, the greenback party. of -- keepingp by

the supply of greenbacks going. interestingly -- cooper's son-in-law lived in this house with him on the corner of the park on lexington avenue. hewitt was running the campaign. he is the guy who won a three-way mayoral race in new york against young theodore but, -- roosevelt and henry george, er. single tax so hewitt lives around the corner. anyway, i do not think it is the candidates that explain the turnout. so what were the issues.

occurred campaign that in a serious depression, there is extensive unemployment and extensive suffering. yet neither party offered any , for people relief going back to work, for doing anything about the depression, with one exception. but there was a reason for this. and that is that the target of both parties in this campaign were people known as liberal republicans. thee people had bolted republican ticket in 1872, they .ad nominated horace greenlee and both parties were trying to repugnanceeral bull

.- republicans and tilden, the democratic candidate, who announces in his letter of acceptance of the nomination, over 6000 words long. he gave his explanation for what the cause of depression was. the problem he said is that the government taxes too much. the government has taken too much money out of the economy by taxes, robbing its base of funds for investment in the economy in a way to bring about economic recovery is to cut taxes. and cut them. this is the democratic solution. , aside from the green

backers. the major parties did not offer anything of hope for immediate economic relief. what were the issues. well, one that i don't want to get into happened to be money. and it had to do with this supply of united states notes. or the so-called green backs that were in circulation and what it would take to get back to a gold standard of payments. i won't get into that other than to say that both parties were split on east west lines over what to do about this. there are still some green backs in circulation, or at least in wherever they keep money as souvenirs.

when i was growing up, we had silver notes with the stamp. and then these united states notes with a red stamp. the supply of them now is almost totally confined to $2 bills. with jefferson on it. and if you do get one with a stamp on it, they are a legal tender. ,ut what to do about those whether they have to contract the supply of them. that was one issue. another issue that was very dear republicans was an open attack on catholics. and the threat of catholics to the public school system. was was all fictitious, but

certainly -- hayes thought this was the winner. it would be the issue that would win for the republicans. democrats, for the of course, the republicans had , reform.ng with it we're going reform government. the democrats are saying we're going clean up government. the corruption associated with grants administration and they are saying, we're going to clean up government. we need a new party to do it. the republicans are saying we're going to clean up government. we have got hayes. he is as clean as you can get. but the reform issue, administrative reform, those people in office, not again

economic reform of any kind. but matching that, this is largely responsible for the , republicans engaged in wearing the bloody shirt. it refers to accusing the democrats as being the party of the confederacy. who --f confederates, the warning here was we're not promising any more programs to protect black voters in the south but if the democrats win, the confederates are going to get back in power. and if they are back in power you know what they will do. they are going to pay all of

the former slaveholders with federal money, for all the value, the dollar value of what they lost because of emancipation. and i have to say, the democrats helped the republicans make this charge. because one of the things they did, so the democrats take over the house in 1875 and the first thing they do is fire all of the clerks. many of them are veterans. they have one arm, one leg, they are all fired. and they replace them all with confederate army veterans. so the republicans say, it will if they windiers the election. wasi think the bloody shirt

doubly the reason for the large turnout. is 99% in iowa. 98% in indiana. these are huge turnouts. of the eligible voters. increaseso caused an in the white vote for the south club because they saw it as -- south, because they saw it as a less chance. and it helps explain the turnout. i was going to give you examples of rhetoric from the election, but i do not know if we will have what is the dispute about. time. claim they had and southuisiana carolina.

sent competing electoral votes to washington, as i said. and who won those states was going to be determined by returning boards that were controlled by republicans in all 3 states. these were the last states that republicans controlled during reconstruction. and it was clear the morning after the election that tilden had this 184 electoral votes and that hayes had 166 and that these 19 electoral votes from the south were being disputed. democrats by the way, also tried to steal a vote that they didn't, that they didn't deserve from oregon by challenging an elector, but the real dispute was these 19 votes from the south. and just like 2000, i think was the most, clearly the most

exciting presidential election in my life because it lasted so long, you know, went on for weeks and weeks after the election, both sides lawyered up. at least they lawyered up in , florida and south carolina, with louisiana they just carried board washe returning clearly up for sale in louisiana. they offered to both democrats and republicans, if you give me $100,000, i'll make sure you get the votes. this is the first election, interestingly enough, where both parties in south carolina and, actually in all 3 states, the parties go to the courts. this is the first presidential election in the 19th century that i know of where people go to courts seeking rulings that is going to give them an advantage.

and the use of courts in florida was particularly interesting. a democratic judge gave writs of quo warranto to the democratic electors to serve on the republican electors. a writs of quo warranto is by what right do you hold this office and you have to appear in court and prove that you deserve to be, to cast the electoral vote for that state. later the supreme court of florida, the state supreme court rules that in fact the democrats had won the election. interestingly enough, the people who settled the election in washington reject that claim. exactly the same logic that they used in bush v. gore. the constitution specifies that state legislatures will

determine how electors are chosen -- state courts have no say in the matter whatsoever. it is beyond their jurisdiction. only state legislatures can decide this. ok. in any event, contested electoral votes are sent up to washington. and the question is how do we count them? how do we count them? the 12th amendment to the constitution specifies that electors are to meet on a certain day. it was december 6, 1876 in this case. cast their votes, have them signed by the governor of the state, put them in sealed envelopes and send them to the president of the senate and at a meeting of a, a joint meeting of the house and the senate, whether it was a joint session

was actually something that was will disputed at the time, but a joint meeting in the house chamber of the house and senate this, the 12th amendment says that the president of the senate, this was a republican named thomas ferry, the vice president, shall open the votes and then the language is this, and the votes shall then be counted. never in american history has the imprecision of the passive voice meant so much. counted by whom? well, avoid the passive voice. counted by whom? well, there was a dispute. the republicans said it means the president of the senate can count them because the republicans had a majority in the senate. the democrats who have this huge

majority in the house of representatives say, no way, if you insist on that, we're simply not going to hold a joint session, you have to come over to the house chamber for this. we won't count the vote. nobody will have an electoral majority because we won't count any votes and the constitution says nobody has an electoral majority, the house of representatives will pick the president and we'll pick among ourselves. or we'll use the 22nd joint resolution which the senate had repealed, but there is a big question whether one chamber can repeal a joint resolution. this allowed, several judges said this is flatly unconstitutional. it allowed any member of the house or senate to challenge one or all electoral votes from the state, the house and the senate go to their separate chambers. if any house upheld this challenge, the electoral votes

are thrown out. the electoral votes are thrown out by a challenge. the democrats threaten to use that. so there is sort of a stalemate and then they come up with this idea of forming what became known as the federal electoral commission. [laughter] michael: and this called for 5 members of the senate, three republicans and two democrats, five members of the house, three democrats and two republicans and 5 members of the, five justices of the supreme court to hear disputed returns when they came up. the way the members of the court were to be picked is that the bill forming this commission cited certain circuits and in those days the supreme court justices still rode circuit.

we want such and such a judge in that circuit and that. it came with two democrats and two republicans and those four will guys were to pick the fifth member and they had to be from associate justices, nobody wanted the chief justice. and everybody believed this was going to be david davis, a fat judge from illinois who had been run in lincoln's campaign in 1860. but the day before congress is going to vote on this bill, the democrats in the illinois legislature with some greenbackers, third party, elect david davis as the next u.s. senator from illinois to replace a republican blackjack logan. davis refuses to serve on this. he said, i'm not a judge. he refuses to serve on this electoral commission. so they, the 4 guys pick another guy named joseph bradley from new jersey.

what happens? well, i can give you the bottom line because i want to leave time for questions. the votes are counted in the joint session and that's where this is a picture of the actual painting, the actual joint session which the votes were counted on the book. when they got to florida, the disputed returns are sent to this commission. and there and on all of the disputes there is a dispute or this one vote from oregon, on all of the disputes the commission votes 8-7 to give the votes to hayes. 8-7. there is another one vote. 8-7.

so hayes is counted in. what is seen it would have been. of the democrats still did not get it. when it was clear this commission would rule for the republicans, because there are eight republicans and seven democrats, people start writing tilden and assay, we want you to go to court. get someone to serve on hayes. one said, i want you to be at the inauguration on inauguration day. after he takes the oath of office but before he gives his inaugural address i want you to serve it on him, right there on the steps of the capitol. so he spends all four years in court trying to defend his right.

thank you. [applause] >> i invite those who like to ask questions a professor holt to join me in the back of the room in just a minute. we will have time before a few questions. i would like to start off by asking, what difference did this election make? i know that you argue in your book that the policy differences between the two parties were slight. and probably if this election had gone to the democrats, it might very well not have made a over deal of difference the next several years. you argue that the restoration of political equilibrium is the

important legacy of the election of 1876. could you expand on that a bit? wow, george, you did read the book. holy cow. all, let me expand on why i do not think it made any difference. hayes is often accused of the last vestige of reconstruction, people say he removed troops from the remaining states. he did not remove them, he ordered them back to their barracks, away from state capitals. grant had given that order even before hayes was inaugurated. but can we believe that a democratic government would not have removed those troops from the south?

attempt, but it was a stalemate to get one prohibiting public support for catholic schools. at that time, the bill of rights had not been incorporated by courts. which means, people said it only applies, this prohibition of under federal. states can establish religion how they want to. chanceere was never a that that constitutional amendment would pass, even though it had been an issue in the campaign. payments were resumed to january 1, 1879, just as the republican law called for. i do not think it would've been faster or slower had tilden won the election.

is area one have to guess, that we know there was a massive, violent strike by rail -- railroad is that we workers, and hayes ordered federal troops in to break up the strike in a number of cities. it is difficult for me to was a sosince tilden close to railroads and made all his money from railroads and merging railroad companies, that he would have done the same thing to protect. that is iffy. , republicans had row,our elections in a they controlled both houses of congress since 1860.

it was a dominant majority. what happened in this election, because of the increase in the democratic vote, especially in the south, the parties grew towards equilibrium. until the 1890's, except for a two-year stretch, you have the same situation where the democrats controlled the house and republicans controlled the senate. states, thethern parties became much more competitive than they had been until the voter realignment of the 1890's. whereas, it was this election, although you could see it in the real evidence of a one-party democratic south.

it shows up in congressional returns. that is from the former confederate states, despite the viewed -- despite the dispute. >> if the u.s. system is it so great, i would not think there would be so many disputed elections. do you think it is inevitable in a country like ours where discussion is valued, or is there a better way? the second question, are the issues today not as mobilizing as the issues of 1876 election, or is there another reason why voter turnout is so low? michael: good question. if i can take your second question first, i do not think the issues are as mobilizing because the civil war was a

still fresh in people's minds in 1876. when republicans said the damn rebels will get control the national government, everything we fought for will be wasted, issue, an appealsue, an with gut appeal. white's -- whites in the south were fighting for white supremacy, they made no bones about it. the southern democrats, their rhetoric was very ugly. the parties had to work very hard for that kind of turnout. there were big machines, many of you do not know it. my colleagues from the history department do, but in the 19th century, state and local governments did not print ballots.

it was up to the political parties themselves to print and distribute alex -- ballots. so it took a lot of manpower to get those ballots to the polls. they had to find out who would vote for whom and work very hard to get those people to the polls. with regard to your other it seems to me, what is remarkable about american from 1788 to the present is how few disputes there have been. about the results of presidential elections. we had two go to the house of representatives. know, thatople here

in the original constitution isore the 12th amendment, that the top five the candidates will go to the house to be decided on, rather than the top three, which was in the 12th. had in 1800 and 1824, elections went to the house of representatives. you clearly had a violent reaction to the results in the for secession in the deep south. but you did not have people disputing the results. they could be angry about the results. again, what is interesting to me is how few the disputes have been, not how many there have been. >> i thought the statistics you kept theow the whites

blacks in the south from voting was astounding. weren't there federal-controlled troops in the south that they help blackssed, to vote and make sure they were protected and could vote? michael: there were very future. but that is a good question. grant had ordered troops to because of the so-called red shirts or rifle clubs. all of those troops were stationed at the polls. and, there were federal supervisors in the south as well as in northern cities at the polls. often they were out of sight of the troops to keep them from voting.

example thatou one is hair-raising. in louisianaony from a black woman. she comes under guard of soldiers and relates the following story. to ourof whites came house two days before the election. they asked my husband who he was going to vote for. i was standing there with a baby in my arms. he said, he was going to vote republican and they shot and killed him on the spot. they shot and killed the baby in my arms. and they stabbed me and gang-raped me. were doingt whites in these states to intimidate blacks. what is extraordinary if you case, athe louisiana

great senior thesis written by one of my former undergraduate later served on the supreme court. he was a good guy, but he did this study that showed black turnout for republicans despite all this harassment increased in 1876 from previous levels. show is thato about 60% of whites that voted in 1872, some voted in 1876 for the democrats. a huge increase in white turnout in the election. holt, thank you very much, a really interesting topic and presentation. mind some of your comments with regards to affected thewhich

1932 election as well as was very prominently discussed in the 1960 election. also, the vote of the dead -- that there are were more votes cast than people present, at least rumor had it, happened in chicago in 1960. any comments on those, please? michael: there certainly were rumors about that in chicago in 1960. and it probably had a some basis to it. was morelic issue prominent in 1928 then in 1932 because smith, the democratic comments on this --

do not think that people voted in south carolina. i want to write this down while i remember it. real people voted, they just were not residents of the county in which they voted. they were in georgia -- south carolina did not have the registration list of voters. this was the biggest challenge that democrats made to the south carolina results. the state constitution required of that voters be registered and they had never been registered, the entire thing was unconstitutional, had to throw out the votes of south carolina. real people voted, they just voted illegally.

what i wrote down, and i did not fearedo this, what was by democrats when they found out the republicans were going to florida in particular, and what was feared by republicans at the same time was, florida was a big state. most of the people who lived in it were in the northern counties. they were people down in key west, it took a long time for the votes to get in. , and oneblicans feared legal maneuver by democrats was, they want to find out and hurry up account of the vote to find out how many hayes has so they the returns of the counties that had not turned

them in yet to win the election. this is lyndon johnson's first election in texas, all those south texas votes, he waits to find out what he needs, and they are jammed up. >> a quick question. what do you see is the essential difference between 1876 and 2000? was it just a voter intimidation in 1876? michael: that is a good question. voter intimidation is certainly one of the big differences. minor,er difference is but it is intriguing to me. -- it is that, it is far

more tribunal shopping in florida in 2000. let's find a judge that will rule our way, then there was in either florida or south carolina in 1876. all the things that the south carolina supreme court jailed the entire republican returning board for contempt of they brought in returns before the supreme court said they could. many.here were not as >> professor holt, thank you for coming. it seems to me, nowadays, every disputed election, they say the electoral college should be

abolished. a, is that present at this time? the second question, how salient or discussions of fraudulent to the general public, and did that public opinion matter in 1876? there were a lot of discussions among democrats who were bitter about the results after he was elected and there were a lot of people who considered hayes a fraudulent president for most of his term. , i finded to like hayes a lot about him that is admirable. he was a scholar, he collected books. i am sorry, remind me of the second question. >> a lack of expanded media coverage on a disputed election like this, how much should public opinion matter?

and was there discussion about abolishing the electoral college? that is good. actually, two years before the event in january and february of 1875, the republican senator from indiana named oliver p morton said we will have a crisis counting the electoral votes because the democrats will throw them out. they were heading for big trouble if that happened. he said, what we have to do is change the way we count electoral votes. proposed a constitutional amendment. the electoral vote totals are wildly disproportionate to the popular vote totals. do isd, what we need to have two statewide electoral

votes in each state, and some in , let's get rid of winner take all. i think that is a terrific idea. be the way before you adopted winner take all systems. public opinion mattered. thesergue in the book, committees of so-called visiting statesmen, democrats and republicans that go down to prizeana, it is not the that a lot more people wanted to rather thanleans, tallahassee. and they were staying in the st. charles hotel in new orleans. ther biggest concern, returning board to their -- d of corruption.

everyone knew their votes were for sale. campaign.ig pr north and sure the accept the decision that louisiana will make. they were concerned about public opinion. public opinion was very upset. i didn't -- i do not irticularly like tilden, admire his quite for the new york public library. scoresreceived literally of telegrams and letters saying, i can raise 5000 troops tomorrow. and we will march on washington and stall you on the point of the bayonet. scores of letters like this. there was talk of civil war veterans, renfield scott

hancock, to lead an army march on washington. and tilden said no way are we going to do that. we were not going to resolve or resort to force. >> following the 2000 election i was at a small breakfast for one of the chief counsel of the parties and he was speaking on the election. he commented that it is not who votes the counts, it is to counts the votes that counts. [laughter] >> true in 2000, true in 1876. thanks, michael holt. [applause] >> on history bookshelf, here from the country's best-known american history writers of the

past decade every saturday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. and you can watch any of our programs at any time when you visit our website, www.c-span.org/history. watching american history tv come off all week and every weekend on c-span3. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] knott, he, stephen talks about founding fathers alexander hamilton and george washington. he argues that the two had different personalities but collaborated on a federalist agenda too great a stronger central government, often in opposition to the views of thomas jefferson and james madison. this is just over an hour. >> tonight we are delighted to have stephen knott presenting washington and hamilton, the alliance that forged america. he is a professor of national security affairs at the u.s. naval college in rhode isl