early 20th century. at 6:30 pm, a look at presidential leadership during the cold war, with historian william hitchcock, also the author of the age of eisenhower, america and the world in the 19 fifties. at 9 pm, a u.s. constitutional debate hosted by the colonial williamsburg foundation featuring a reenactment from founding fathers james madison and george mason. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. >> every saturday at 8 pm eastern on american history tv on c-span 3, go inside a different college classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights, and u.s. presidents to 9/11. >> thank you for your patience and for logging into class -- >> with most college campuses closed due to the impacts of coronavirus, transferred to a

virtual setting to engage with students. >> gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union. reagan met him halfway. reagan encouraged him, supported him

next on american history tv, a u.s. capital historical society program enthusiast and u.s. senate finance committee democratic chief counsel michael evans discusses how shakespeare has been evoked in historic congressional debates and the political lessons that might be learned from his plays, especially the tragedies. this last about an hour. >> today is very special. mike evans comes to us a graduate of salem state university, where he was just granted an honourary doctorate for his significant contributions to public service, so we can now call him doctor evans. and then he went to a small law school called harvard. and from there, he took all that education and became a public servant. he served as the democratic's staff chief counsel and deputy

staff director. he has been involved as a senate staffer for more than 25 years. but he is not here to talk about that, or to talk about the senate finance committee, usually known as the powerful senate finance committee. but instead, he is here to talk about his passion. he has been writing and thinking and researching shakespeare and congress. he wrote something that no one else would dream of writing. shakespeare's guide to tax policy. no you of this taxation published in 2009, and if you are especially, nice he will tell you how to find it. before he became chief counsel and deputy staff director for the finance committee, he worked for eight years as democratic chief counsel at the senate environment and public works committee.

so his experience in committee leadership is vast and broad. he is now working on a book called, tentatively titled, shakespeare's guide to american politics. so we are fortunate here to have mike talk to us about how the united states politics has been historically influenced by shakespeare and how we might look at it from shakespeare's eyes. mike? [applause] [applause] >> thank you so much, and thanks to chalk and all at the capitol hill historical society for holding this event, and i think all of you for coming. to disclaimers. there will be no sword playing, and for those of you who are hoping to get me to recommend

some she experienced insults for you to fling it your political opponents, i'm going to stay away from that and stick to the history. my interest in shakespeare came relatively late. in high school in college, i read some of the plays, but i never really got it. the language was hard to understand, and i couldn't tell my king richards from my king henry's. so the plots were hard to follow. almost 20 years ago, i decided to give shakespeare another try. people i respected kept talking about how much they enjoyed shakespeare. maybe i was missing something. i decided to give it some serious study. i quickly became entranced. i was struck with how profound, yet thoroughly enjoyable, the plays were. and i was struck by how much

shakespeare focuses on political leadership. granted, it's not his biggest or only theme, but it is there. many of the plays are about how the leader achieves, maintains, or loses power. there is english histories that trace the struggle for the crown. it begins when henry depose is richard the second. you have classical histories that tell how julia cesar loses power, and how brutus and mark anthony contend for it. there are the great tragedies which tell stories of hamlet, mcbath, and a year. each a king or prints who loses power. taking this all in, i wondered whether shakespeare can teach something to those of us who work in and around congress.

after all, shakespeare was one of our greatest thinkers. when he talked about politics, we may want to pay close attention. i submit that there is indeed much that shakespeare can teach us. first, i want to whet your appetite for mystery. why is the greatest shakespeare library in the world, the folder, located not in london, or stratford, but in washington, d.c.? it is essentially on the capitol hill campus. if you came over from the house side, you may have walked right past it. so two questions. first, why is the full juror library here? second why does it matter? why is it important that the world's greatest shakespeare library is in washington, d.c.? and i should note, the

wonderful shakespeare theater is downtown? why does it matter that shakespeare is in our midst? let me start by giving you some background about shakespeare and american politics. america is european founders came from shakespeare's world. but the english settlement of america began in jamestown and 1607. shakespeare was at the height of his london career. after shakespeare's death, as his works became increasingly popular in great britain, his popularity carried over to colonial america. the first performance of a shakespeare play, the first american performance of a shakespeare play, was in 1750. there were many soon after that in new york, philadelphia, and williamsburg. as the american nation developed, shakespeare's influence karoo. two of the first distinctively

american novels, nathanael hawthorne and james finna more cooper, it were heavily influenced by shakespeare. and shakespeare's greatest 19th century author, mark twain, was an avid reader, america's greatest author mark twain, was an avid reader of shakespeare. in huckleberry thin, the barnstorming rascals that showed the duke and the king perform a slapstick of mangled passages from the knee -- and the humor depends on the readers familiarity with shakespeare is original material. shakespeare is plays dominated the american theater. in new york city, you can attend any one of three performances of mcbath on a single evening in 1849.

it wasn't just the eastern elites. a settlement moved west, shakespeare went along. it was written, there's hardly a pioneers hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of shakespeare. his influence extended to politics. the leaders of the american revolution, including john adams, george washington and thomas jefferson, were steeped in shakespeare's work, which they relied on to inform their political vision and sharp in their rhetoric. a particularly arresting image is from 1786, when adams and jefferson, both serving in european diplomatic posts, visited shakespeare's birthplace. soon, they would be bitter political enemies, but in that moment they were together for their love of shakespeare. members of congress frequently

turned to shakespeare's plays to express themselves during debate. in 1837, the senate was considering whether to expunge its resolution censoring president andrew jackson. senator enrique acknowledged that those who wished to expunge the resolution appeared to have the votes. thus, he said, quote, the deed is to be done, that foul deed which, like the blood staining the hands of the guilty mcbath, all oceans waters will never wash away. another example occurred in 1846. rival factions were seeking control of the new kansas government under the terms of the recently enacted kansas nebraska act. how pro slavery politician had reportedly been elected as kansas is first territorial

delegate. but opponents argue that his election was based on fraud. they called for a special -- election to investigate. as the debate unfolded, the congressman from ohio, samuel galloway, spiced up his argument with a quotation from macbeth. referring to the date of the enactment of the kansas nebraska act, he said, let that pernicious our stand occur sit on the calendar. later that day, congressman john nelson of virginia took the floor. milton also knew his shakespeare. he responded, the gentleman from ohio favored us with a quotation from mcbath. i will give him an answer in quotation from hamlet. he then quoted from the scene in which affiliates brother expresses his exaggerated grief at her death by leaping into affiliates grave.

quoting from how much reaction, nielsen said, do the outcome here to wine, two out race me leaping into her grave? i will rant as well as thou. the most notable example of the use of shakespeare in congress occurred in 1830 during the famous debate between senators robert haim of south carolina and daniel webster of massachusetts. although ostensibly about public lands policy, it was the first major debate about the relationship between the northern and southern states. after webster gave a speech about public lands policy, haines argued that webster's stated subject was a smokescreen. webster's real problem was the disintegration of a coalition that webster hope to establish

between the north and west against the south. evoking a scene from macbeth in which the ghost of the murdered appears to macbeth and lady macbeth, but is invisible to the others who are sitting with them at a banquet table. senator haim asked, has the gentleman's dismembered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of new alliances at which he hinted? has the ghost of the murdered coalition come back like the ghost to sear the eyeballs of the gentlemen? and will it not down at his bidding? our dark visions of broken hopes and honors lost forever still floating before his heated imagination? that was haim.

the next day, webster responded, after making introductory remarks, he said the honorable gentleman was not entirely happy in his allusion to the story of's murder and banquo's ghost. turning the tables on aim, he said banquo's ghost was a honest ghost. it disturbed no innocent man, but appeared only two banquo's assassins, macbeth and lady macbeth. by identifying with those who saw the ghost, webster argued, haim had slipped up. he had unintentionally revealed his own sinister motives. after reciting several lines from the plate, webster asked, those who murdered banquo, what did they win by it? substantial good, permanent power or disappointment rather

in sort modification? dust and ashes, the common fate of vaulting ambition over leaping it's self. and he said, derisively, i need pursue the allusion no further. there are many other examples. congressman william jennings bryant began a speech by directing the house clerk to read a passage from merchant to venice. a manager of president andrew johnson's impeachment trial compared cabinet members to polonium and hamlet. references to shakespeare were part of the ebb and flow of congressional debate. by my count, between 1833 and 1873, there were 159 references during congressional debate to shakespeare him self or to the place hamlet, mcbath, king lear

and othelo. let me add a fun fact about shakespeare in congress. one of the foremost shakespeare scholars was julian replying of new york, chairman of the house ways and means committee during the first tariff battles of the late 18 thirties. after leaving congress, plank became the editor of the first major american edition of shakespeare's plays. today, shakespeare continues to be invoked occasionally in congress. during the time that i've worked in the senate, there's been one person who might give ways and means committee chairman verplanck a run for his money. senator robert bird red shakespeare's place throughout his life. he frequently used shakespeare to make a point during senate floor debate.

another fun fact. at one point or another during senate floor debate in 1994, senator bird quoted from each of shakespeare's 36 place. even the bad ones. but senator bird aside, there's a difference. one daniel webster to limit his reply to senator haines, he knew his audience would understand the light macbeth casts on current events. shakespeare was a central part of what a historian called a rich shared public culture. today that is less the case. when contemporary politicians invoke shakespeare, if they are likely to do so superficially, grabbing a line from quotations over the internet in order to add a sheen of sophistication to their argument. i suggest that if we lose shakespeare, we lose something important to our political life.

the folder library is here to remind us of this. that brings me back to our mystery. why the library here? read in the early 20th century, henry folder, one of the leaders of standard oil in new jersey, and his wife emily, amassed the world's finest collection of shakespeare's works, shakespeare scholarship and related artifacts. they owned, for example, more than a quarter of the first folios in existence. all of this piled up in the folders brooklyn town house. eventually, the folders decided to establish a library to make the collection available. after considering several locations including london and stratford, henry folders said, quote, i finally concluded i would give it to washington for

i am an american. excuse me. over eight years, henry foliage are quietly purchased a block of clown -- town houses near the capital building. but there was a problem, it turned out that the federal government was about to acquire the same property by eminent domain. fall jurors sprang to work. he persuaded congress that locating a great shakespeare library on the site would benefit the nation. in 1928, while considering a bill for congress, congress modified the bill to allow fold europe to retain the property at second and easy street, with the understanding that he would construct his library there. it was, to use current terminology, special interest legislation. although of a very positive kind. that is why the shakespeare

library is on capitol hill. but why does it matter? why is it important, particularly to those of us who work in and around congress, that shakespeare -- shakespeare is in our midst. i suggest to lessons, one practical and one perhaps deeper. first, the practical. and a hand out that i think we have made available,, or we will make available, >> the green paper. >> the green paper, okay. i list practical lessons i believe shakespeare teaches about politics. some lessons stress the importance of good strategic thinking and good management skills. decisiveness, pragmatism, listening carefully to advisers and the deft use of subordinates. another lesson stresses the importance of empathizing with the common person. another lesson stresses that,

as with prince howls transformation into king henry the fifth, a leader must forswear personal indulgence. through it all runs the constant theme of balance. a leader should be decisive like henry v, but not reckless. pragmatic, again, like henry v, but not cynical like richard the third. above the crowd, but empathetic. a lesson correa nameless never learned. let's dig into two of these innocence. one is that a leader must listen carefully, including advice he or she would not rather hear. a good example is henry polling work, when it shapes the events that unfold throughout the english history plays. bubbling brook is, in many respects, a capable leader. he has been wronged by richer

the second, who unlawfully confiscated his land. further, richard himself is, for all of his faults, the illegitimate king under the english laws of succession. the posing him would undermine those laws and perhaps the very legitimacy of the english monarchy. at the beginning of act for of richard the second, bollinbrook is meeting with his advisers trying to decide how to deal with king richard, who has been defeated but retains the throne. bollinbrook exclaims, in god's name, i will ascend the regal throne. one of the advisers, the bishop of carlile, objects. saying, if you crown him, the

blood of english shout manure the ground if you raise this house against this house, it will be woeful list division prove that ever fell upon the corset earth. -- the cursed earth. bolingbroke ignores richards warning. he's deposed and bolingbroke becomes king henry to fourth. for all his skill, bolingbroke eventually files. although he will remain king until his death and past the crown down to his son and grandson, their rains eventually will devolve into brutal civil war. this happens for reasons that were brought to bolingbroke's early attention by the bishop of carlile. but bolingbroke when not listen. there are other examples. king lear divides his land according to have profusely his

daughters flatter him. when the honest court delia refuses to flatter, lear erupted in anger. he denies core delia any inheritance and banishes her.