of the future. >> thank you very much. rep. moore: thank you. >> from thel be live smithsonian museum on february 19 at 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span three american history tv. >> next on history bookshelf, jefferson and hamilton, the rivalry that forged a nation. jefferson argued for greater individual liberty, and alexander hamilton for a stronger central government. this was recorded in 2013. it is a little one hour.

prof. ferling: hello, everybody. i want to thank the atlanta

history center for inviting me in and provide a much nicer weather for me than six years ago when i came in when my wife carol and i were driving and that is, we looked at the thermometer on the dashboard of the car and it was 103 degrees as we came in. so it is much nicer to me. i want to thank you for coming out, especially on night when my priors are struggling to stay alive. i guess we'll find out how we think that when this is over. i want to talk with you tonight about "jefferson and hamilton." their political battle was over the shape and care for the new american nation and not battle has been a sense never really ended. puts one in mind of the line from folksinger when he says the past isn't dead. in fact, the past is an event past because jefferson and hamilton's battle was over the same issues that have been perennial values in american clinical history. struggles over the power and intrusiveness of the federal government, over which americans were to be empowered, over the distribution of wealth and over the size of the american military. the reputations of hamilton and jefferson have ebbed and flowed flowed over the years. jefferson was the predominant figure out the way down to the civil war. in fact, hamilton was almost forgot during much of that time.

but it was a rural society. jefferson's party was triumphant during the early part of the 19th century and jefferson's predominated. but then jefferson's reputation suffered somewhat as a result of the civil war, who's after all, a southerner as slave owner. following the civil war, the country began to industrialize, following the lines that hamilton had emphasized. hamilton's reputation soared. but then, jefferson's came back again in the early 20th century. it is somewhat incongruous. progressive votes new deal embraced jefferson and it was during roosevelt's presidency in 1943 on the 200th anniversary of jefferson's birth that the jefferson memorial was opened in washington. but then after world war ii, with the cold war, with the

triumphant militarily and an industrialized, urbanized nation, hamilton's reputation soared again and jefferson's has plummeted somewhat in the aftermath of the civil rights revolution and revelations about his relationship with sally hemming. and in fact, during the lifetimes of jefferson and hamilton, both men were praised and condemned, just as they have been by subsequent generations. for example, governor morris said of hamilton, it seemed as if god had called him suddenly into existence that he might assist to save a world. and there were those who condemned hamilton, like abigail adams, who said not only that she thought hamilton wished to

be americans' napoleon, but she said i have read his heart and his wicked eyes. the very devil is in them. her husband, john adams, said of hamilton, his talents are greatly exaggerated. he wishes to destroy everyone in his way. adams was just warming up with those comments. he went on to call hamilton the bastardd bastard brat of a

scottish -- his ambition, his rest was nice and i was grandiose schemes, i'm convinced from a stupor about secretion, which she couldn't find enough to absorb. [laughter] and jefferson was praised by some. abigail had ensued had not to say of jefferson county is one of the choice on thursday aired. john adams thought it is extraordinary mind and praised him as a gifted writer. lafayette called jefferson up right and enlightened. thomas lee shipman of philadelphia was on a european tour following his schooling. while in france he met jefferson and decided jefferson county is the wisest and most amiable man that i have met in europe. but there were those who didn't care for jefferson. charles carroll of carrollton said jefferson was too theoretical and fanciful to be a good statesman and one of jefferson's enemies in in nicolas, said he thought jefferson was the most intriguing and double faced man in american politics. so these have had the pros and two cons thrown at them since their lifetime and by

generations that have followed. the two were similar in some ways and different in many ways. they were different in the sense that they had a very different early the use. hamilton didn't grow up in an impoverished background, but what sociologists would probably call a lower middle-class background. jefferson, on the other hand, was the son of a planter, aristocrat. his mother was from the prestigious randolph family in virginia. he grew up on the plantation, shadwell, near present day charlottesville. they were different in appearance. hamilton was about average height, which was about five feet seven inches tall in those days, but very small in stature

, and many people described hamilton as having a somewhat feminine manner about him. jefferson on the other hand was quite tall. he was about six feet two, which period would be the equivalent of someone who is about six feet five or six feet six, towering over most other men. jefferson was described by many people as having a mild and pleasing personality, but rather shy, rather serious somewhat , great demeanor, a man with poor posture, where hamilton tended to stand ramrod straight according to many people. and jefferson was described by a senator from pennsylvania while he was secretary of state as

entering a room, speaking without ceasing, rambling in his tall, but offering spicy comments and scattering information as he went. some of it brilliant, said that observer. hamilton intended to be rather outgoing in his personality, somewhat domineering, whereas jefferson was quite reserved. jefferson hated confrontation throughout his life. hamilton relished it. jefferson intended to be a somewhat manipulative individual. hamilton seemed to attract his followers by the force of his personality. around women, when they were young, jefferson was quite shy. hamilton on the other hand fancied himself as a ladykiller. and in fact, when the army would

go into winter quarters in a and a number of young women would come to camp with their did so, hamilton court many of them that washington's wife, martha washington named him tomcat hamilton. [laughter] both becameg: lawyers, but jefferson hated her practicing law. the moment he got married and with independent economically, he quit his practice for good. hamilton loved practicing law. he loved the give-and-take of the courtroom and the fighting that went on there. jefferson had a passion for architecture and gardening and hamilton was largely indifferent to that. during washington's presidency, early in the presidency when they were still in relatively

good terms, jefferson invited hamilton to his residence in new york, and when hamilton came in, he saw the pictures of three men on the wall and hamilton asked, who are those three men? and jefferson responded they are the three greatest men in history. john locke, sir isaac newton, and sir francis bacon, and hamilton corrected him by saying, no, the greatest man was julius caesar. jefferson never got over that and never forgot that. but for all of their differences, there were similarities between these two. both had rather unhappy youths. jefferson tellingly referred to use as a time of what he called colonial subservience. think about that a little bit , because that comes from a man who was the author of the declaration of independence to breakaway from the colonial

subservience. hamilton in toward a youth that a novelist lake charles dickens would have been hard pressed to write about i think. branded bymother was the courts as a whore. his father abandoned the family. his mother and father never married so hamilton was an illegitimate child, and the bigots of that day, not finding enough to occupy their prejudices, visited much of it on illegitimate children. not so much on the parents, but thathild himself so hamilton must have experienced a thousand cruel blows in his youth. we know that he was discriminated against in the sense that he could not attend the public schools where he was

growing up. and i think out of that youth, hamilton is really shaped. i believe in the old adage that the child is the father to the man. and in this instance, i think, hamilton comes out of his youth thated and is driven from point on to seek fame, to seek renown, to seek respect, and that drives him throughout his life. another similarity is that both surprisingly grew up with slave -owning parents. jefferson's father owned about 200 slaves. hamilton's mother owned five slaves. both were extremely ambitious. jefferson spoke of that little tincture of ambition as the

moret it, but there was than a little in jefferson, and a great deal in hamilton. both valued education. mainlandcame to the colonies, to new york, to study, to go to college, and jefferson wrote to his guardian when he was in his teens, asking permission to go to the college of william and mary, saying it would provide a more universal acquaintance for him as he put it and it would be serviceable to me. both of these men, like they i think every one of the founders during the revolutionary era, caught the eye of older men who became their patrons and helped further

their career. and hamilton's case, a presbyterian minister in christian instead raised money to send hamilton to the mainland colonies to study. the hope was that hamilton would attend what is now princeton university, but his preparatory education was deficient and after prolonged study on his own, wound up what is now columbia university. jefferson was shepherded along by william small, his favorite professor at the college of william and mary, and later by andrew wyatt, the leading lawyer at the time, and a signer of the declaration of independence. they were similar in the sense that both were rather affable. i mentioned earlier that jefferson was shy and reserved. but once he got to know someone, he was quite open and quite friendly and had many friends

throughout his life. and so too did hamilton. when he was washington's aid e during the revolutionary war, other aides not only liked him, but called him him ham or hammy and pals around with him. more significantly, jefferson and hamilton were alike in one other way. and that is they were both revolutionaries. both were caught up in the american revolution. hamilton is i think the more intriguing of the two when one tries to determine why he became a revolutionary. if you are a cynic, and i am somewhat cynical, one could argue that hamilton was merely an opportunist. and i think that was part of what went into him becoming a supporter of the american

revolution. i don't think he was alone in that respect. i think you can say that about virtually everyone who was a major figure in the american revolution. but if you think about it for a moment, he comes to new york, knows very little about the background of the protest against england, which had started almost a decade before he arrived in new york. , ashe, i think, and makes hamilton was always want to do, make a rather calculated decision. which would be the best way for me to go? if i choose england, then can i rise very far? if i choose america and a new nation emerges, doors will open and the way will be clear perhaps for me to rise. but i would not say that

opportunism alone explains revolutionary bent. he was a recent immigrant to new yorker, and like recent immigrants at all times i think, many of those immigrants embraced their new country. they see their new country as a place that has given them opportunities that did not exist for them where they came from , and they fall in love with their new country and they want to serve their new country. and hamilton was, to be sure, an intense american nationalist from the 1770s until his death in 1804. and he serves and risks his life for his country during the revolutionary war. so i think there was more to

hamilton than merely opportunism. in jefferson's case, i think he becomes a revolutionary through his studies of the enlightenment. he's introduced to the enlightenment in preparatory school. he delves further into it at the college of william and harry and the undergirding idea in the enlightenment was to question everything, and jefferson does question everything, including his society in virginia. he wonders why there are so many people in virginia who have so little property and so little power, and so many others who have so much power. and then he looks at england and asks the same questions about an england as well. and for jefferson, i think, the american revolution from the very beginning was about

reforms, reforming virginia, breaking away from england, and creating an america that would offer to use thomas paine's term in common sense, the birth day day of a new world, and that was what jefferson was after i think. during the american revolution, the two played very different roles. hamilton was a soldier. he went into the militia on the eve of the outbreak of the war, then into the continental army. and for the first year of fighting, he is an officer and in an artillery company. an observer at the time saw hamilton during washington's retreat across new jersey in the fall of 1776.

and he said his hamilton, a stripling,th, a mere small, slender almost delicate , and framed, marching with a top hat pulled down over his eyes, apparently lost with his handhought with his resting on a canon and every now were an patting it if it favorite horse or a plaything. hamilton a year into service in the continental army was offered camp toon as an aid to washington. he didn't really want that position. he had already been offered a position as an aid to lord stirling and turned that down. he wanted a field command. after all, he was unlikely to win glory at a desk job, but he could possibly win glory in a field command. when washington offers him the

position as an aide, hamilton debated it several days before he finally accepted it. and he excepted it i think because he thought it would be a short-term appointment, leading to his appointment as the commander of a brigade, which had happened with some of washington's other aides. he never grew very close to washington. washington was called, olympian, and apparently he was the same way in private. hamilton had lost his father who'd been in the family at only when hamilton was only 10-year sold or a 11 years old, and he may have wanted washington to be a father to him, and washington was not going to be his father or anyone else's father, so it was a rather cold, distant relationship.

and at one point, there was a blowup between the two. in february, 1781, washington passed hamilton in the hallway and said, i need to see you about something. and hamilton had a load of papers in his hands and he said, these down and i will be right in. but along the way, he was distracted by someone, fell into a conversation and forgot all about washington. [laughter] prof. ferling: when he remembered, he went into washington's office quite late and washington upbraided him. no one keeps me waiting, washington said to hamilton. hamilton's response was, i quit. and he did quit as washington's aide, but he told some other people, including his father-in-law, general schuyler, what he had done. skyler told him, get back to

washington and apologize, and hamilton did that and he continued to serve washington in a sort of untitled position. but he said at the time to a friend, i really don't like washington. i have seen him up close and on the inside, and he is a course individual, and he is an overrated individual, hamilton said. but also, as he put it to martha washington following washington's death in 1799, washington is my aegis to success, and so he stuck with washington, and washington stuck with him during the remaining years. jefferson's revolution was extremely different from hamilton's. while hamilton was with washington and in battle,

fighting in seven major engagements during the war, risking his life. at one point, being surprised by a british patrol and having, when they shot at him, having to dive off his boat into the river and swim for safety. jefferson served first in the house of burgesses, then in congress, and while and congress, those 15 months in congress, was the principal author of the declaration of independence. almost immediately after independence was declared, however, jefferson left congress and returned to virginia because he was interested in reform. the continental congress was simply going to be a managerial body that manage the conduct of the war and the conduct of the army.

and hamilton wanted to return -- and jefferson rather wanted to return to virginia and carry out as many reforms as he could. he didn't always succeed, but he pushed for reforms in the land laws of virginia so that land would become more available. at one point, he even proposed that all landless men, free men land,ginia be given something that didn't fly with the virginia assembly. but he did push for religious reform of the criminal statutes in virginia, and many of his reforms were eventually realized. in 1779, with the war effort really suffering, washington

came to the conclusion that the best men who had once served in congress, men like benjamin franklin and john adams and theerson had left, and congress was suffering in their absence, and washington road to mason in virginia and said very pointedly, where is jefferson when his country needs him? and that got back to jefferson, and stung by washington's apparent criticism, jefferson agreed to serve as the governor of virginia. and he served two extremely difficult and not terribly successful terms as the governor of virginia. i think almost anyone at the governor's would've had the difficulties that jefferson had, but he certainly did have a

tempestuous time as governor. eriod on thee time p cusp of the 1780's and during the 1780s were pivotal moment. for hamilton, i think the pivotal moment is the collapse of the american economy. it begins to collapse in 1777 , and has utterly collapsed by 1779. i don't think hamilton understood the reasons for that collapse, and washington didn't either. both initially thought it was due to lack of good leadership by congress, but the problems were really much deeper than that. and hamilton, beginning around 1779, began getting up at headquarters early in the

morning, lighting a candle, and reading books, studying. studying economics, reading him, humme, reading hobbes, reading the guy who has my favorite name of the characters from the revolutionary era, malik -- at any rate, hamilton read those and in the course of reading those, he came to the realization that the english had the right idea. the english economic system was the perfect system. it was a system that featured a strong government, strong enough to tax, strong enough to regulate commerce. it had a national government. it had a funded debt.

it was in fact what many historians now call a fiscal military state. it was a state in which kidman given the economic measures that had begun to come into play around the 1690s in england, the nation had plenty of money to for it to expand, and as it expanded, it acquired more wealth, which flowed back into england and enabled it to expand even more so that england, which in the mid-17th century had been a rather backwater country in the affairs of europe, had a by hamilton's and jefferson's time become the largest empire in the western world since the roman empire. the most powerful country. the country that had won the seven years war, or what we call

the french and indian war. and hamilton begins to articulate this vision of the english economic system for america in a series of essays that he published in newspapers in 1780 when he was only 25 years old, writing as what he ist.ed the continental for jefferson, the pivotal 1780's in france.'s i'm not sure which is then really envision after his disastrous gubernatorial experience. but he has certainly failed and said that he was finished with politics for all time. and i think what jefferson may have envision was a life somewhat like benjamin franklin,

who had retired when he was in his early 40s and wrote voluminously writing pamphlets and newspaper essays, and jefferson i think saw himself perhaps becoming that sage would sit up on that hill where monticello existed, doing as franklin had done, but jefferson's life took a wrong turn. complicationsfrom in childbirth. and jefferson, after a time in which he appears to have been almost suicidal, he says in one of his letters, he hints that he might have committed suicide had it not been for the fact that he had three daughters at that point. but once he began to come out of that somewhat, he wanted to away from monticello, and a

diplomatic assignment abroad seemed the perfect being. he went to philadelphia where congress was meeting in december of 1782, and he stayed there for about 75 days. hamilton, incidentally, was a member of congress at that point. hamilton was very close to james madison, and jefferson was very close to james madison. two mustpect that the have met during jefferson's stay in philadelphia. although there is no record in any of their correspondence in which either says anything about the other. jefferson eventually received on appointment as a diplomat in europe that turned into a position as the united state minister to france, and he lived in paris for five years, from 1784 until 1789. and it was a pivotal moment for

jefferson. his ideas had already formed. long since turned against monarchy and against aristocracy, and i said earlier, wanted major reforms that would usher in this new world of what which he dreamed. but in europe, in france, and in england, on a short stay in england when he visited john and abigail adams, jefferson sees an aristocratic monarchical world up close for the first time. thise says once he sees that peasants in europe lived a more wretched life than the most conspicuously wretched american lived. it was an epic scale of wretchedness, jefferson said.

he quoted voltaire, who said in europe, one is either the hammer or the ample, and in a monarch ichal society, most people were the -- in fact, jefferson came away with the conclusion that monarchy and aristocracy and the army that supported them in the church that supported them or the causes of the enormous inequality of wealth that he be held in europe. people lived in hovels, but the wealthy were attended by scores of servants. the wealthy kept much of their land idle for their past time of hunting, while most people were landless. when people like madison from america wrote to jefferson and

told him in the 1780's that americans in the economic plight that america was experiencing after the revolution told jefferson some of those gentry in america were now wistfully thinking of the good old days of monarchy before 1776. jefferson said in a reply to madison, if anybody thinks that kings, nobles, priests are good conservators of public happiness, send them here to see with their own eyes that those who rule are a confederacy against the happiness of the mass of the people. jefferson came home in 1789. to be inay, he planned virginia for only about six months. he wanted to get his own own economic affairs in order and he

wanted to get his oldest daughter, martha, married while he was in virginia. then he hope to go back to france, where he could be an observer of the french revolution that had already begun. when jefferson came home, he knew that a new constitution had been written. he had read the constitution. he wasn't terribly happy with it, but he knew that washington was to be the first president, was the first president in fact by then, and he thought all would be well as long as washington was in office. but the longer jefferson was in america, serving as washington secretary of state, while in the same as washington secretary of the scales began to

fall from jefferson's eyes. he began as hamilton's economic program, the same economic program that hamilton had outlined in the continentalist more than a decade before. as that economic program began to unfold, jefferson began to see that there was what he regarded as a hidden agenda to hamilton's program. it wasn't just about funding. it wasn't just about a bank. those things were bad enough from jefferson's point of view, but he believed that hamilton had another agenda. he came to the conclusion that hamilton and many around him are were really counterrevolutionaries who wanted to roll back this birthday of a new world that jefferson had hoped for, to

restore much of what had existed before 1776. why would he think that? well, for one thing, during the constitutional convention, hamilton had made a five-hour speech. those sessions were secret, but madison took notes on the talks along with three or four other delegates to the constitutional madison surely broke the news to jefferson of what hamilton had said. hamilton said in that speech that he favored a monarch for the united states, that he favored that one house of the congress would be an aristocratic body in essence in which the members held their seats for life, and that he recommended that the states be done away with entirely. as jefferson looked at things, as he studied hamilton's economic program, as he heard

what hamilton had said, as he became more familiar with the constitution, jefferson, i think, saul hamilton and his forces setting about to bring about what he thought of as the europeanization of americans. . they had a constitution which gave the government in enormous power. after all, there was the supreme law of the land in the constitution and the necessary and proper clause. he saw an hamilton's economic that wouldrogram concentrate wealth in few hands. a saw in that program situation in which in time northern businesses and financiers would control the american government.

already jefferson said there was a corrupt squadron as he put it in congress willing to advance the interests of merchants and financiers over and above those of the average person. he saw an incredibly powerful chief executive in the constitution. things were safe while washington was there, but who knew what would happen after washington? he saw a fiscal military state that would lead to a gargantuan military. and before the in the of the 1790s, the size of the army had been increased almost tenfold by hamilton's party, and hamilton had emerged as the leading figure, the inspector general of that provisional army.

short sawin hamilton's program at leading to the doom of the birth day of the a new world that he treasured. in the end, i think it is jefferson who triumphs politically. jefferson wins the election of 1800. and he calls his victory in the election of 1800, the revolution of 1800. shortly to tom paine after taking office and told him that his election finds us return generally to sentiments of former times, meaning to the sentiments that had been shared by most americans in 1776. he says in his inaugural address, the wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have

been devoted to attaining these ends. they must be the creed of our political faith and touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust. and what were those ends? there were a jealous care of the right of election by the people and absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority. and those are quotes from jefferson's inaugural address. but if jefferson won that election, that revolution of 1800, the rivalry between these two ended with both winning and both losing. won, i think, in the sense that the country is transforming economically. his economic program was successful as washington repeatedly told jefferson during

the 1790s. and it led to a changing face of america. in 1776, almost all americans had lived on farms. and they still lived on farms in 1790 when hamilton proposed the first of his economic mashers. measures. but by 1840 in new england, one in three of new england's labor force was working in a factory. and that was a harbinger of widespread change throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. but if hamilton won in that respect, he lost another ways. in the very last letter that hamilton wrote a couple of days before the duel in 1804, he writes, our real disease is

democracy, and he calls democracy in that letter a poison. that was what jefferson was trying to boost as he made clear in his inaugural address. and poignantly, near the end, hamilton, who realized that his day perhaps had come and gone day proves to me more and more that this american world was not made for me. jefferson's world was changing, too. he had wanted, he had favored an arcadian america in which most people live on farms. envisioned that lasting for generations as the country expanded all the way through the pacific coast, which

would take centuries perhaps to accomplish. but jefferson, who lived until 1826 solved those smokestacks, those factories in new england, and knew that his world was vanishing. but unlike hamilton, jefferson's seemed to shrug off his losses. we might as well require a man to wear still a coat that fitted him as the boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regime of their ancestors he said. but he also rejoiced that the flames of the american revolution have spread around the world, and led him to proclaim that right and liberty are on a steady advance. and of course, jefferson was certain that he had played the

pivotal role in establishing what he called the world's best hope, a new world in which there was no place for the tyrannies of monarchy and aristocracy. thank you. [applause] >> would you please come down to the microphone. >> thank you very much for your talk. i am a john adams person myself,

so these two guys are interesting to me. i had a professor in graduate school who told us once that the more he studied jefferson and hamilton, the more he liked hamilton over jefferson. so i am just curious after spending so much time with these two men, where you fall in terms of who had the better vision for the country, and just in terms of your particular affection for these two? i think ierling: started as a jeffersonian, but as i went along, i came to admire much about him. i certainly admired his military service during the revolution. he was extraordinarily brave individual, came under fire many times, obviously bright, obviously had without a doubt the right economic program i think in most respects, at least for dealing with the crisis that

existed at that time. so i didn't abandon jefferson in the course of that, but i came to admire both of them. i think as i look at things now, my sense is that much of what jefferson saw hamilton's economic program leading to has come to fruition. i think we live in a society that is increasingly a plutocracy, wealth is justiceributed jefferson said it would be, power is increasingly i think not so much on main street, but in wall street. so i think jefferson, i think, saw the dangers that were inherent in hamilton's program.

i do want to mention one thing that i mentioned in my preface to the book and that is that in soldespect jefferson hamilton short, but in one respect, jefferson didn't really understand that within hamilton's economic program, there was a spreading of the wealth through the industrialization of american, which might have come even if hamilton had never lived. but he did live, and he did advocate that, so give him some credit for that. i think that distribution of wealth that grew out of that raised a good many ships. in my preface, i came from a working-class background. came over from germany

in the 1970s. i was the fourth generation to come along in america, but the first to have an opportunity to go to college. my dad, i think, was sort of an example of what came out of hamilton's program. he worked in an industry in , was able then to send me to college, so i wound up with both aspects at any rate. >> thank you for your talk. we studied these people and try to transpose them into modern times. i think everyone listening to was thinking, or at least i was, where our day today on the current government dispute over clean resolutions, unclean resolutions, closing the national monuments?

who is who today, and where would they be standing? please don't tell me harry reid. [laughter] prof. ferling: well, i don't want to dodge your question, but it really tough to take somebody from the 18th world, which was so different from our world. one of my favorite lines comes from a novel by l.p. hartley that you might have read called the go-between, and in that novel, his opening sentence is the past is a foreign country. they do things differently there. they really did things differently back in jefferson's and hamilton's time, so it makes it very difficult to see how they would react. but jefferson obviously favored a small government and more

power for the states and so forth, even flirted with nullification, which seems to be kind of a variant of what's going on now with the shutdown of the national government. and hamilton favored obviously a much stronger government, so the power of government is essential for liberty hamilton says in the first federalist. so that's about as close as i can come to putting them in a contemporary context. >> is there a contemporary point where jefferson and hamilton realized they're putting us on the path towards political parties and factions which hamilton warned us of in number 10? prof. ferling: well, jefferson in the wake of the passage of

the bank bill, of washington's signing of the bank bill, jefferson and madison go in the tour up to new york. jefferson's intention was not to found a political party, but just to take people who had reservations about the constitution, and even more so, people in congress who had some reservations about hamilton's economic program that had unfolded to that point, and to bring about a concerted opposition, not to undo what hamilton had done necessarily, but to prevent him from going any further with that. and that really, jefferson had not planned a political party. , the group that he found it, becomes a political party, and within a year, madison calls it a party and

calls it the republican party, and that name would stick through the 1790's. and hamilton does the same in response. rallies people that supported his vision and puts together the federalist party. so i think pretty early on they realized by the early 1790s that something like political parties were around, and there is no question in the presidential election of 1796, which is the third election, but the first contested political election, both saw political parties as being in place. >> first of all, i enjoyed your lecture very much. thank you. i have to take issue just quickly. this is at the heart of what i want to say. you know, washington became a father figure to lafayette and there was quite a relationship

father to son and that relationship, so i have to give worthiness to washington as a our father of our country. prof. ferling: well, i said i cynic, and remember that lafayette was french and opposed to our allies. lafayette was diplomatic and how much was father-son. probably some of both. >> yes, exactly. no dichotomy there. i had to, in response to the person you wondered about how they would stand today, these two giants of our past in today's world. you have quoted and i found it remarkable, you were talking about the work that still -- a civilized society to remain under the regimen of their impoverished ancestors.

but the that i think people will find pertinent to jefferson's mind and his wonderful visionary mind for today is quite the opposite of what many people, how they stereotype jefferson's views of today. jefferson said after your quote, each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government that it believes both anmotes its own happiness, opportunity of doing this every 19 or 20 years to be provided by the constitution. prof. ferling: and he says very much the same thing when he hears of shays rebellion when he hears about it in france, and while many people were outraged by shays rebellion, jefferson passed it off and said the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of patriots. and he measured a generation as

lasting about 20 years or so. so he was as i said a revolutionary who favored change, and favor change in the sense that each generation -- >> could provide for itself its own happiness. just quickly, you know that it was hamilton that is responsible for jefferson being our third president. prof. ferling: that's right. >> exactly. hamilton was never president. but he as a federalist went before a federalist majority house and lobbied for jefferson, knowing the difference, over aaron burr. because he said, jefferson though we differ in political philosophy, i know is a man of principal and he cares about this country as much as i do, burr is a small minded and who only thing of himself.

so i want to sway the house to vote for and for president. so i think that is very fitting for jefferson's vision to be above hamilton and hamilton's capitalistic vision to uplift jefferson's egalitarianism. [laughter] [applause] prof. ferling: well, i think he's sort of grudgingly thought that as bad as jefferson was, he was better than aaron burr. [laughter] could he possibly have against ehrenberg? eaaron burr. prof. ferling: thank you for your remarks. i enjoyed them very much. jezebel as you know presents jefferson as a very rigid and even pretty self-righteous partisan. that seems to contrast so much for jefferson enlightenment anchor in the revolutionary and the great mind of such cosmopolitan thoughts. i'm curious whether you see that

contrast in jefferson and what >> i agree very much with it that per trail. -- portrayal. certainly, jefferson's views form in the 1760's i think. and he expands those views, but he never really expands those of use, he remains an adherent of the views he came to at that point. but i think that was true of most of the people, probably true of most people at most times, in fact. >> thank you kindly for your presentation. writing theadison constitution and being almost a

neighbor right up the road from montpelier, could you feel have the greater input into madison in that production of the constitution? be it jefferson or him? neighborprof. ferling: i am note either really influenced hamilton, madison that much. i think madison was a savvy politician. he looked at the situation in the 1780's. he's fearful that the union isn't going to survive. he reads deeply into possible constitutional or political solutions to it. i don't think he talks with jefferson much at all. jefferson's gone, in fact during that time and he doesn't really have much of a dialogue with jefferson. i

mean, they talk about constitutional issues but he doesn't let jefferson know what's going on behind the scenes. i think he works it out pretty much on his own. he knows hamilton. they served in congress, they were friendly, they were at the annapolis convention together, but i wouldn't say that hamilton influenced him. i think madison was his own man. >> my question was also going to be about madison. in some of your previous writings you have not held quite a high opinion of him. i wondered, in the course of writing this book and seeing what hamilton adds through the federalist papers and jefferson serving as a mentor. did your opinion of madison change at all over the course of the years? really.rling: not my problem with madison i think i guess it was probably

just some of his thoughts leading to the constitution. i think there were other solutions that were available without going as far as he went. that was my problem with madison, primarily. but no, my views didn't really change that much. [laughter] >> do you think that jefferson was particularly disloyal to washington when he was secretary of state, and doing things to oppose washington? and the other thing is what do , you think about the book, the hemmings of monticello? i think edng:

gordon-reed wrote a fine book, i don't have any particular problems. i am wary of accepting madison hemmings of story completely. i mean, basically i accept it. but i think she accepted in total. i think it is a good book. that and the first one a net gordon rewrote, was an excellent book as well. i have forgotten what your first question was. >> whether jefferson was disloyal to washington when he was secretary. prof. ferling: i am not sure i would say disloyal. he went to washington repeatedly and told washington

what he thought about hamilton told , washington his fears of where hamilton's program was leading. they discussed it. they argued about it. the last time they talked, washington cut him off and said, i do not want to hear more of it, essentially. but his republican party was working against, obviously, hamilton's programs and he saw many things that hamilton was doing, crushing the whiskey rebellion or whatever with washington's assistance, that he opposed. but i'm not sure i would say disloyal. there was one incident, jefferson, in 1793, decides he's going to resign from the

cabinet. he had been in the cabinet since 1790. he wanted to go home. he was having financial problems and wanted to attend to those economic problems at monticello. and washington rides from his residence in philadelphia, the president's house in philadelphia, out into the outskirts of philadelphia where jefferson was living. and meets with jefferson and tries to persuade jefferson to stay on in office. and is the only instance that i've ever been able to uncover where washington went to someone's house during his presidency and pleaded with them to do something. so he, i think, remained at the -- that very much attached to point jefferson. he

persuaded jefferson's -- jefferson to stay on six more months but then jefferson left after that. >> thank you. time,one point in hamilton and madison had a very close relationship. and he was also close to jefferson. and that fell apart somewhere down the line. i don't understand how that fell apart. but he got to the point, where those guys made harry reid and john boehner seem like best buddies. [laughter] prof. ferling: that is right. it really begins to fall apart in 1791. and no one was more surprised than was hamilton about madison. that, once the bank bill becomes law, hamilton and jefferson began to oppose it and try to around toy a group stop hamilton from further

activities. that is when the break occurs. think, noiguing, i one ever stood completely why this was the case, but i think jefferson just became the predominant figure for madison. madison listens to jefferson, he follows jefferson he is swayed ,by jefferson. and jefferson manages, i think, apparently to convince him, this is what i saw in europe. this is where hamilton is taking us. there's great danger. and madison tends to follow jefferson more than hamilton. when hamilton learned that madison had deserted him, hamilton's remark was interesting.

he says, madison is not a very worldly person. and you could take that to mean he's not a very sophisticated person and he's being manipulated by jefferson. and there may have been some truth to that. [applause] >> please join us in a for a cool drink and a book signing outside. thank you very much for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> on history bookshelf, here from the countries 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. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> next on american history tv, historian richard brookhiser discusses how the ideas of founding fathers like george washington, thomas paine, and influencederson abraham lincoln's thoughts and policies during the civil war. the lecture highlights lincolns upbringing and passion for education. the event was part of annual lincoln forum symposium in gettysburg, pennsylvania. it is about 50 minutes. [applause] the annual lincoln