-- way before i was there book editor, i wanted to be first in line for stuff. .e had all these panels these are people who don't get to see each other or have conversations frequently. there is this moment and conversation with his people are canng something that they -- they are coming up with in that instant. it is that electric exchange of ideas that can only happen in the moment. >> all weekend, april 22 or 23rd on book tv, on c-span two. >> american history tv, the editor of jane's monro's papers discusses the early part of this

political career and what motivated voters to support him. he explains how the early electoral college function and political parties were formed. the heritage area hosted this 50 minute event in leesburg virginia. it was part of a symposium. it was a bicentennial commemoration and reflection. collects next we will hear from dan preston, he became the editor of the papers in 1989. the project is a two page long descriptive catalogue of these letters and documents. volume six will be published in march of 2017 and volume seven after that.

thank you for being with us, let's give them a good welcome. [applause] dan: the first time i ever gave a lecture many years ago, i was still a graduate student. they have positioned the podium so that the speaker was standing on top. nobody got dumped that day and i haven't been dumped sense but i still always check. i don't think there is a basement for us to fall into. spent 35 or 40 minutes standing on top of a trap door while you are speaking. it --n't forget about what i want to talk about is not

just james monroe's election but also the political system he had to navigate. the place to start with this is .he u.s. constitution the concept of this was that the president would of course be chief executive and therefore the idea was to select somebody who could fill that, they had the experience, the skill to be the chief executive of the nation. it was also intended to be a person who had a

rendered lifetime service to the nation. it was a combination of the two -- a practical aspect but it was also attended -- intended to be a great honor. the process was to be nonpartisan. when the constitution was written, there were no parties. nominations, no sort of preselection process, the electors would gather. whoever seemedey to fill this idea of having the leadership skills as well as deserving the honor of being president and they would make that choice. as we all know, george washington was the first president. this concept was really made up to suit him. the idea was that washington was

going to be president. being george washington, he was worthy of this honor. -- then he retired. then we get to the third and aential election couple of things happen. choosing someone preeminent for the service was still there. hadamin franklin, if he still been alive, he would have been very elderly. obvious great leaders of the revolution were john adams and thomas jefferson. adams was selected as the second president. there was a twist.

1796, a party system had started to develop in the united states. there was division and these divisions for the start of the party and the parties. when the electoral college met, it was no longer bipartisan. years into the system, already there is deviation away from the original concept. elected 1800s. the system started to change even more because there wasn't any presidential campaign yet. there was a concerted effort to get thomas jefferson elected as. the states case of appointing their electors as

they meet and choose a president, there was an effort within the state to choose electors that would vote a certain way. this is getting very much away from the original concept. in most states, the electors were chosen by the assemblies. the assemblies selected the electors. 1792, washington was the obvious choice. there was no issue. in the next election, there was a majority that favored jefferson but there was a strong federalist presence. they divided the vote of --

proportionately. 1800 comes along and there is this concerted effort to make sure that jefferson was elected. rather than doing it it wanted aly, system where the candidate would get all of the vote. time, -- e more states were doing it. that it woulded it would go to choosing electors by popular vote and whoever got the

-- rity of the popular vote they assume the jefferson would get the majority of votes if there was a popular vote. then he would get all of the votes. this is indeed what happened. it is a clear and to nonpartisanship, it is a clear electorsis notion that would be independent. it is also the first indication of the day inon obvious pull of great men if you will -- adams, jefferson, fine.

who else do you have? the best example of this is the federalist candidate of 1800 against jefferson -- it was adams of course but then you get to a deal for an jefferson is running for reelection. he is been a member of the senate. the pool of obvious great men was never there.

this notion of what the electoral college would do was very quickly going to the wayside. that itto keep in mind is what there was. there needed to be paid institutional system for selecting the president. that was the electoral college. there isn't an obvious great man to choose if the selection partisan.s becoming how do you choose who will be the president? jefferson. how do you choose who that candidate will be if you are

going into a party system? the resolution of this was the caucus system. system, members of congress from the two parties would get together and they would basically act as a convention and nominate a candidate for the party. and a country where long-distance travel was typical, this made a lot of sense. members of congress were already there, they were already assembled and representative from all the different states. you have all these people altogether and they would make the choice. the election came along and james madison was the presumed republican candidate.

he has been instrumental in writing the constitution. given the political division at the time, it was assumed whoever became the republican nominate would be the president. tore was some opposition one problem is that he was virginia. there have been five residential elections after this time, four of them have been by someone in virginia. the people said they do not want another virginia -- virginia

and. take a lead in new york. making a concerted effort to become the prime state in the union. to replace virginia as the most important state in the union. there is a decided place to make new york city the great port city. as they are city rose, the rest of the state would rise. as part of this, they wanted a president from new york, this would enhance the prestige as well. dated like idea of supporting a virginian. there are factions developing within that party.

there was an opposition against madison and jefferson, they were becoming too nationalistic. ofy were promoting the power the national government. a lot of this film was targeted toward madison. the assumption was that medicine -- madison was not happy with the choice. this is where munro comes into the picture. he is the one we're talking about. i can't say when munro first started thinking about wanting

to be president. his first successive term and 18rnor between 1800 02, virginians were looking at him as a potential candidate. there was a rising britain -- attorney in virginia and he wrote a series of things about virginia. one of them was about munro has governor. as governor. this is early 1803. he said one of these days our governor will be president.

they said we need somebody to succeed jefferson as president, a lot of people are not looking at you as a possible successor. we want you to be president. around 1805 or 1806, james munro started taking this to heart. the 1804 election came along and anderson was renominated then madison was elected in 1808. was put forthe in 1808.idate monroe wanted madison to be

elected. he had serious differences with the jefferson administration over foreign policy. he didn't always disagree with what the jeffersonian administration wanted to do. saw being a candidate as presenting his views to the public. minute, inhere a , both medicine and -- eadison and monroe wer members. he wanted it to be ratified. monroe descented.

it merely outlined the functions of the powers. it didn't say anything about the citizens. the constitutional convention forced a promise from madison that one of the first orders of business would be to draft and present a slate of amendments that would incorporate these rights and to the constitution. the first elections, james madison was running for house of representatives, james monroe ran against him. he did it as a way to keep pressure on james madison to remind him of his promises that there should be a bill of rights. bring a way for him to his ideas to the person who needed to know about it.

that was james madison. monroe was doing the same thing. he was trying to persuade james madison to come to his way of thinking on policies in relation to great britain and france. there was no campaign. the supporters wanted to write up some sort of manifesto that favor ofmonroe is in that. monroe told them not to. he wrote four or five long letters to supporters outlining his position on foreign affairs. these letters got passed around for other people to see. that was pretty much it. you can imagine how far a campaign like that will go. indication that he

was in that seriously interested in becoming president at that point. madison easily one. pinckney did about as poorly against him as james munro did. monroe hadn't been monroe , we would never know . noone would talk about this becauseon to madison it was so feeble. monroenified that jonathan becomingested in president. the secretary of state in madis that time.t in

position tom a succeed madision. jefferson had been secretary of state. looked like a position of succession. known.was already well across the country, people had known who he was. he was fairly well-known. fighting secretary of state, this kept him in the public view. then the war of 1812 came along. the war of 18. monroe.n a disaster for

the u.s. was unprepared to fight this war. there was a lot of opposition to the war. generally it went very badly. up until the end. the u.s. didn't exactly win the war, they didn't lose either. the peace treaty was generally a cease-fire agreement. army won the last three major battles of the war. it is sort of a basketball tournament. you can win all season but if you win at the end you come out front. americans felt like they did when the web. there was a lot of optimism afterwards. this smellingt of

like a rose. he had been secretary of state throughout the war, yet been a major component in favor of the war, he and james madison were proponents of the war. the war and said people look out and say well, we kept losing. they came out of it looking really good. as a really solid leader, someone who could get the job done and who can really provide that leadership.

it was pretty much assumed that he would be the republican nominee in 1816. this would make him president since there would be no real federalist opposition. again, there were obstacles. he was a virginian. been six of the seven elections won by virginians. there was a lot of concern about this. again, coming out of new york primarily. new york did not have a candidate. do it clinton -- dewitt clinton was considered a candidate but

he had been a candidate against madision in 1808. ps opposed the war, he would not be a good candidate. people were talking about daniel thompkins. to be the home of a president but it didn't have a candidate. then there was a problem with the caucus. as the republicans became more and more entrenched and it was obvious that whoever the caucus nominated would become president , the states didn't like this because it was taking them out of the presidential selection process.

it was congress that was choosing the president, not the states. about 100e, it was congressmen, you have 100 members of congress deciding who gets to be president of the united states. really set well with anybody. but it was the system that was there. everyone was looking at it, paying attention to it and the caucus actually didn't want it was this notion of electing another virginia candidate that didn't sit with him very well. backingof congress were william c crawford, he had been a senator from georgia and in 1816, he was very popular with congress and congress was

pushing crawford's nomination. it wasn't clear what exactly the caucus was going to do, where they going to go with munro? over the going to do? what happened was the states caucus, why at the does the caucus get to choose? the constitution says the states elected president, not the congress. before the congress met, a themr of states -- five of , south carolina, tennessee, louisiana, new hampshire, electors were still chosen by the assemblies, they all passed resolutions saying that they instruct the electors to vote for munro.

in two states where there was popular election for president in massachusetts and rhode island, they were state conventions and these conventions endorsed munro as well. massachusetts didn't matter because it was going to go federalist. rhode island was the republican state. say what you want about congressman, politicians in general, they know how to count votes. munro started off with the six he had. obviously,ginia north carolina would go as well. we had all of them, munro was extremely popular in the west from his years in the continental congress when he blocked a treaty with spain that

would have given up navigation with the mississippi, yet been instrumental in the louisiana purchase. he was looked at as someone who had a strong interest in the interest of the western states. he had a strong interest in the western united states. this gives him ohio and indiana. voted for madison so it was assumed it would go for monroe. in his column.s new jersey always split. proportional -- and it -- every election, two votes federalist, two votes republican. so assume monroe will get two of new jersey's votes. theyork was going to be wildcard. they weren't crazy about voting for a virginian but monroe had strong ties in new york through his family and had a lot of support there. was he would -- and they were going to vote republican -- he would get new

ok?, the federalists didn't really nominate anybody but senator rufus king from new york was the most prominent republican and he was designated -- if anybody's for a federalist, vote for king. he was from new york but new york was going to go republican they wouldugh if have backed king, they would have been backing monroe but didn't. king would get federalist states. massachusetts, connecticut, delaware and those couple of votes from new jersey, ok? you have crawford, if he caucus, heted by the georgia. he without even having a caucus you count sort of 13 states, king's got four, crawford's got

georgia. aagine in 1816, nominating candidate who comes in a poor federalists.the if you want to look bad, nominate crawford so the caucus met and they voted -- there was or a lot of votes for crawford but they endorsed monroe so monroe got the caucus nomination, as well. much was sort of the end of the road, even though it was only march of 1816, by getting the caucus nomination, these states lined up. it was clear that monroe was elected.be much -- again, in way of campaigning, simply no campaigningas for president at this time.

if somebody had a doubt about monroe, they would voice it to of his supporters and pass the word on to monroe and monroe in support a letter explaining his position on whatever. this was pretty much the way it was done. there was increasing number of states that allowed popular election but the majority of were chosen by the assemblies so the people you needed to condense were the state leaders. directed.where it was dedicated known as a had hadervant but he his eye on the presidency for a while and he knew the way to get was through rendering good office and helic was criticized for this quite a bit. you know, the only thing interested in is

getting elected president so he's maneuvering himself and positioning himself to get this. well, he certainly knew that was the road to the white house and doing that but you can't take away from his -- his the cause, just madisonas loyal to throughout the war as he did was a good indication as anything, ok? so voting took place in october/november 1816, in the assemblies, in the polls and the states that allowed it. pastt back -- so this november, i went back and looked through old newspapers and i find someplace where it says monroe is elected president and there's nothing there. are little bits showing up here and there. of the this state has voted for monroe. it's obvious he's going to get it and the electoral college

was confirm this but it clear that monroe had won by the end of november, as expected, endede electoral college up in december. monroe had 103 electoral votes and rufus king had 34. asmonroe easily elected, expected, and in march of 1817 president,ated despite being a virginian, once took it. 1816,shot of all this, by the mechanics of choosing the had changedally significantly, sort of clearly had navigated away from this be an that there would assembly of representatives of the states would view possible candidate for president would make the selection. party politics had emerged

changed to am had selecting a leader who represented the views of the was -- was the route taken. years,n over the next 15 with the emergence of the system, the party system became even more 1824, 1828,nd by electors majority of were being chosen by popular vote so there was a steady away from this idea of non-partisan assembly choosing the president. so it didn't play the role immediately in vision but during monroe's election in 1816 and 1820, there wasn't

anything else yet evolved. firm way of any choosing a president other than the electoral college, sort of the party system hadn't matured where there would be two parties with nominating then regularnd voting and these sorts of things. the electoral college was what so it remained essential to the election of the president fulfilled itsmuch job. theainly if you look at selection of monroe, he seems to fill the bill of what they were originally talking about. he had experience as an officer, legislator, lip -- diplomat. had military experience. he was an attorney, he was familiar with the law. an oversized personality like washington or jefferson or andrew jackson

prove to be after him but solid, reliable leader. bad met fors, he's the firm hand on the tiller, if will. theit certainly fulfilled goal of presenting, as monroe greatest honor in the gift of the nation to him as rendered public service to the country. thanks. [applause] questions, yes, sir? bankruptcy? service.it was public

farms.blems he had with there were two problems he had with farming. inst of all, farming virginia during monroe's lifetime was a terrible endeavor. bad.nly was the soil there was drought, there was insect infestations -- just the where they're talking about what's going on in farming where he's writing, jefferson or madison, it's a whole list of with.they're dealing owners, the farmers who lived on their land and lives to doing it were fairly successful, if did and put all of their energy into managing their farms, they did ok. public office,n was absent a lot. his farms didn't get the attention they needed and so they suffered but he still had income from them. andas still growing wheat

whatever else and selling it so he had income coming in from there. problem was public positions underpaid.ly and not only were they noerpaid, but there was operational funds provided to so when monroe was minister to frarges minister to he received a salary. and any expenses he had came out salary. he went to london and had to pay london prices for rent and if he entertained and did functions as minister, that out ofy for his salary. there was a system where he could get reimbursed for some and large, they had to pay -- and the same when he became president. no office of the

president so there wasn't an operating budget for the white house, for the office of the president. salary as president and any expenses he incurred as president came out of that salary. no staff. he had secretaries, he hired them himself. the expense way, way, way outran the salary and everybody knew about this, everybody complained about it. there's letters of other ministers writing in to the saying, we'rent not getting paid enough. you have to raise our salaries, money. not enough albert gallisson was appointed france and he, having been secretary to treasury, knew about all this took thee he appointment, got a written guarantee from monroe as saying all mytate expenses are going to be paid, going to do this

business of coming back and quicklying. quibbling. a commonly i understand problem and that it.ly outran monroe overcame his financial problems in the end by being his farmts. one of he was able to sell highland, finally. in virginia was -- from sellon, monroe tried to either oak hill or highland, one or the other. their right mind would buy the farm because farming was so bad in virginia so he kept repeatedly trying to sell them and couldn't do it and finally the bank of the united states has a friendly gesture to monroe, cobbled together the bought up histhey other mortgages and they basically took highland as collateral.

they didn't foreclose on it. basically, they bought highland from monroe and in exchange for andng off these debts giving him some other money so that resulted and then he did awards from of forress as compensation these earlier expenses he had so between the two of them, when he of debt and was to his leave oak hill and settlement to his other daughter but the financial problems were largely his public offices. yes, ma'am. 1808 to --r -- and his uncle jones oak hill property

together. jones died and his son innerherritted his share. executor,onroe was settling the estate. twooe, his two brothers and cousins were the heirs. inherited jones' estate. monroe's two brothers, andrew owed him tons of money. he took their share in exchange for what they owed him. he bought out his two cousins and he became the sole owner of the property but he didn't need two large farms. it was just -- it was way too much. infinally sold highland 1826. constantly, one or the other was for sale and frequently both of them at the same time. somebody will buy one, that's fine. other.d go to the

question] writing hisstarted auto biography after he left the presidency. be ait was going to political testament. as he's written it, it's a autobiography. it drives us nuts. it drives scott nuts and sarah, the same. you go to his autobiography to learn about his personal life, right? wereother and father wonderful people. and that's all he says about them. monroe had a brother named gets mentioned in there'sther's will and

a spence monroe that shows up in junior officer in a virginia regiment and that's it. he never mentions his brother. nowhere does he say i had this dieder spence who whenever. it's like, who the heck is this guy? theget a look at autobiography, no mention of him. there is very little in the personal.phy that is it's all this political testament that he was writing. he never finished it. 1805, 1806, it think. also, monroe thought a lot philosophy of government, particularly republican form of government, which he wasnt,

greatly dedicated and he wanted right about this so writing his political testament was part of this but he also started another book at the same time that became known as "the people, the sovereigns" in go into was going to all this sort of thing and it's not unreadable but he really slogs through it and it's not going to be on anybody's list of books that you to sit down and read unless you're really interested in monroe's political thought. allthe reason he was doing saw is, it was something he as a lack in his life. you had jefferson, the great all.ar, the adams and and he kind of wanted to be like something in this intellectual line and it wasn't that he didn't have the knowledge or -- he didn't have the writing ability. verylso, he was doing it

late in life. his health was declining. with settling his debts, selling his farms. he had a lot of other stuff going on. didn't have the leisure to do it. so that was what he was really sort of aiming to do with his autobiography. one way that the autobiography impinges on what we're doing today with monroe's papers is survives for monroe's papers is largely public papers, with hisving to do public career. because elizabeth monroe died at oak hill and then monroe went to new york to live with and he wasr there working on his autobiography and he took his public papers with that's what he was heking on and then after died, that's what his guvenor, had, as

surviving monroe papers. consequently, we don't have very papers at all. according to monroe's daughter, monroe burned most of his personal papers. he burned his correspondence with elizabeth and burned other papers, as well. but because he was working on his autobiography, that was the that was there and that's largely what has survived. those in hand but the other stuff presumably was left here in oak hill and whatever knows -- itit, who went into the fireplace, it get who knows what happened to it. we don't have it. that's round-about but does that you want to know about the autobiography? gail?

[indiscernible question] dan: no, i can't say off the top of my head. not a lot. think 11 of the 17 states still chose by the were only likere six states. was medium, not anything nottacularly high, spectacularly low. becauseery low in 1820 monroe was running out of post so there was really no reason to didn't.people very high then in 1824, though. electionthe first where the majority of the states allowed popular election so

there was a lot of people turning out because it was something new and also it was a contested election so there was a lot of interest in it. can't -- i don't really have those numbers and there is that started maybe a calledears ago that's america votes and what it's doing is it's going back and trying to compile the sorts of numbers that you're asking about. problem with this is there's no central place where these numbers are compiled. find out how many receivedroe would have 16 is if county in 18 it's reported in the newspaper. that would be the only place it would be recorded and it's not inhow many votes he received that county in 1816, we don't know. how many people voted, we don't because the numbers don't

survive. this project is looking at newspapers and going through county records and trying to reconstruct this so they can answer these sorts of questions. miss.'s really hit and [indiscernible] dan: a couple of months. the court for the would write to -- i'm trying to think who the officer been in 1816. would write to someone in the state. frequently they wrote to the governor but sometimes the auditor. would say, we have held the in lowden county and james monroe has won. and that's it.

they don't say how many votes or anything. they just simply say, the was held here, he's won. so whenever the clerk gets thend to writing to governor, it gets reported and then when they all report in, can then say whoever election in virginia. very -- i don't want to say plans haphazard, it was a system, it worked but it wasn't carefully documented and it's sort of a hole fill justally can't because they weren't keeping the numbers. you look like you're ready for stop. >> thank you. [applause] dan: thank you.

watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. forow us on twitter information on your schedule and to keep up with the latest news.y check out c-span.org/classroom, full of members.resources for accessout gives teachers to tools for the courtroom, including current event videos that highlight important events in washington, d.c., constitution clips that bring life, socialion to studies lesson plans. our search function allows teachers to search and filter by date, person, key word, topic level.de clipsll ringer's video

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can request our free classroom side american presidents time line process biographies of all of the presidents. tonight on lectures in about the 1916s bombing of a san francisco parade. >> one oregon newspaper called the san francisco preparedness parade the greatest demonstration in support of a national movement the west had this hugeso here was outpouring for this moment. once in the city, the waymores grabbed a shot along market street, all four of them. by this point, jammed shoulder to shoulder with the 50,000-plus onlookers. next, just after 2:00 p.m., about half an hour into the parade, the local press

deem one of the most pathetic results of the parade.n and of the as she held billy up in her arms, mrs. waymore held him up to see the parade, a bomb instantly took off both of her legs. mother.ng 26-year-old surgeons quickly scrambled to you her but the wounds, as would imagine, proved fatal. shock, herthe husband, lloyd, stumbled away, understandably by all of this and the two children survived the attack. so it was an overwhelmingly day that hadunny dark. inexplicably the blast ultimately will kill 10 parade goers that day course,g, of

mrs. wymore and shrapnel would wound about another 40 people been witnessing the parade. watch the entire program at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern history.n lectures in american history tv, only on c-span3. [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >> here are some of the programs this holiday weekend on c-span. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a discovery ofhe seven earth-like planets a nearby star. >> we're using the hubble planets' to study the atmospheres. >> the pros and cons of genetically modified organism foods. >> we think all plants are because -- g.m.o.'s because there's nothing that you thatn your grocery store

hasn't been genetically modified. egg roll event from the last four presidents and then a visit to the african inrican history museum washington. >> you know, i knew that the nation was thirsting for this have to confess, i didn't know that the reaction this positive and strong. >> at 1:35 p.m., a panel of judges discussing the history of the bill of rights. rights ise bill of part of the whole constitution, designation oft fences, division of power. a conversation with the smithsonian theitution's david skorton, library of congress carla hayden archivist of the united farrow.david at 6:30 p.m. eastern, historians edna

green medford, douglas brinkley norton smith discuss presidential leadership. >> it is interesting that the president,erican abraham lincoln, is bracketed by the least successful american presidents. >> this holiday weekend on c-span. civil war, ervin jordan talks about civil war and memorials. constructedn thoses to honor robert e. lee. he spoke at a symposium on the over civil war monuments hosted by the american richmond,museum in virginia. this is about 45 minutes. >> specialist in civil war and african american