americans who changed the course of history, from the founding to the civil rights movement." she is also the creator of the here is where it gets interesting podcast and the sharon says so social media account. thank you for being our guest on "q&a." sharon: thanks for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> "q&a" programs are available on our website or as a podcast on our c-span now app. ♪ >> did you know that all of c-span's book tv programs are available to watch online? go to book tv.org and put your favorite author or topic of interest in the search box. thousands of programs from the past 20 years all available online at book tv.org.

>> all right, all right. well, good morning. let's try that again. good morning. that's much better. thank you so much for coming to this session, the southern festival of books, and the tennessee state library and archives building, and we are on c-span. so everybody be careful. [laughter] ok, we have with us two distinguished authors. the first one is mark c heatham and to the far end is jeff sellars. i will tell you briefly about them. mark cheatham is a professor of history at cumberland university. he got his bachelor's history at cumberland and that is masters of history at minnesota state

university, and he got his phd in history at mississippi state history. jeff sellars, by the way, mark, he is a professor of history at cumberland. jeff sellers' role is he is out the state museum. i assume everybody in this room has been to state museum. nod your head. [laughter] he has a bachelor of history from auburn university, and he has a master of education from montebello. and then he has his masters of history from middle tennessee state university. all right, so i'm going to ask them both to very briefly describe what the book is about, really quickly, and then come

back and we will kind of start the session. all right, so, mark, tell us, what is your book? mark: ok, sure. welcome. thank you all for being here. thank you all for being here and thanks to randy and the sunday festival books for having me. my book is, "who is james k. polk?" the presidential election of 1844. it's pretty self-explanatory. it's about the presidential election of 1844, which took place 180 years ago this year. i can go into more detail later, but essentially you have james k. polk versus henry clay, who are the two main candidates. spoiler alert, james k. polk wins, and his victory leads to a pretty distinct direction for the country compared to what it would have been under henry clay. ken: wonderful. jeff. what's your book about? hold it up. jeff: so we have a book here on the tennessee state capitol

building, published by arcadia publishing company. many of you all know arcadia very well. i'm sure. it's a wonderful publishing company that does a lot of historic images of america, locales, just different local histories. this has been a career-long sort of passion of mine as part of my duties at the state museum. i manage the tours of our capitol building, and so i've given countless thousands, i guess, thousands of people, tours of our state capitol building. i dearly love this building and all the stories that have come out of it and the people that have that have served the state of tennessee in it. and and so it's just been a passion project for me. and then recently last year i

sat down with our executive director ashley howell, and we had the opportunity to put this thing together. she gave me the green light, and we set to work on collecting 209 images of our building and y'all, there are way more than 209 images. there's probably enough for three of these books, but we selected the best ones that we could that told the widest range of stories. and they're all here in the book, and i'm excited to share a few moments to talk about it. ken: i think you know that among architects in the state, i think historians, people feel like the tennessee state capitol is arguably the finest and most important single building in the state of tennessee. mark, tell us a little bit about why you wrote your book. mark: good question. i originally pitched this book to the publisher as a book about the 1840 election. i just -- i was working on a book that dealt with presidential campaigns between 1824 and 1840, and i thought i would cap it off with a book dedicated just to the 1840 election. but they'd already signed it to

someone else, and so i'm like, ok, well, since i've done all the research between 1824 and 1840, and i can't do the 1840 election, i pitched the 1844 election and so part of it was pragmatic on my part, but part of it was also, as jeff and i were talking beforehand. that this is a pretty pivotal election. polk's vision for the future of the united states, which is the one that's implemented, was different from that of henry clay's in many ways. so with polk, you have a vision of manifest destiny spreading westward for the united states, which, at the same time, would take slavery with it. it was a vision that led to, as if you know anything about u.s. history, led to a lot of congressional debates about slavery, as the united states fought mexico during the mexican-american war, and those debates then turned into not just debates in the halls of congress, but debates across the nation about the future of slavery. in the west and then also the future of slavery in the eastern states.

and all of that eventually culminated, of course, in a civil war that lasted for four years. and so the way i kind of look at the election of 1844, it's not the most significant event that led to the civil war. i mean, i guess if i'm a good author, i should make that claim, right? but it is one of the most significant first steps toward accelerating the united states into a civil war. so there are lots of things that have to happen before and certainly lots of events that happen after, and all of those are contingent, you know, if something had happened differently, then maybe our future would have been different as well. but this is a pretty critical event in leading the united states into a civil war. ken: so mark, as a historian, that's, that's your kind of -- that's your area of interest and your area of expertise, and i'm familiar with the book and it's absolutely astonishing. looks into such a fascinating president. now jeff, why did you write your book?

jeff: well, you know, the state capital is, you know, if there's a takeaway for us for the book that, you know, we say it on every tour of the tennessee, but people need to realize that the tennessee state capitol, most of us probably here are tennesseans. the tennessee state capitol is one of the most historic, as kim said, probably the most historic, and i can make an argument for that. , buildings in the state of tennessee and one of the most historic buildings in the nation. it is a national historic landmark mark, meaning that the federal government recognizes its national significance for us all. but it is also a working capitol, and that's the story. one of the things you'll see in it is that it is a working capitol.

from 1853 to today, it is the place, the seat of government for us as tennesseans. many of -- i'm looking across the room, many of us have worked in that building and have been there, and so it was a -- it's a book that -- it's an arcadia historic images. one of the things we try to do at the state museum is make the building accessible because it is, it is all of our buildings. it's our, it's the people's building. and so we and these books are accessible, you know, you don't have to be a scholar to to to, you can pick it up, look at some pictures, read some captions, and put it back down, pick it up again. that's kind of the way i like to do things anyway, but it is. it's one of the most historic capitol buildings. it's all of our buildings, and so it was an honor to get the opportunity to sort of put some of those stories in these pictures. plus i just love all of the stories that these historic images tell. ken: well, with the state museum, which you do a fabulous

job at, your recognition of the capitol and interest in it and knowledge about it is something that you know we all benefit from. mark, let's go, let's get down into kind of the -- by the way, we will sort of wrap this up at a certain time, and we'll have some a period of q&a. if you have a question when we get to that point, you have to come to the mic, you know, you can't just shout out a question, because we are on c-span. ok, so mark, get down to the weeds. what was james k. polk really like? i mean, you're talking about the election. but you got to know this guy and his administration, everything so far away. mark: sure, so james k. polk is usually thought of as the first dark horse presidential

candidate in u.s. history. so that means that he came out of nowhere. no one expected him to be the nominee to run for president, and that's not quite true. there was a lot of intrigue that went into polk winning the democratic party's nomination in may of 1844 in baltimore. so let me just trace that briefly. going into the democratic national convention, most democrats thought that martin van buren would be the democratic nominee. martin van buren had served as president for four years during a pretty severe economic depression, had lost his reelection bid in 1840. and many democrats, some democrats were still upset with him about losing, but most thought that the whig victory in 1840 was a fluke. the whigs had run on a really the first modern type of presidential campaign, where they were rolling balls down the street and singing songs and holding rows. -- rallies. stuff that today we would think is just normal, maybe not rolling the balls down the street, but everything else the singing, the drinking, the

rallies. but this was brand, a brand-new type of presidential campaigning that had flourished in 1840's, and the democrats looked at that and said, oh, that, you know, that was just a fluke. that was just, you know, the bad economy, whigs doing something different, and the american people not being smart. but in 1844, we can come back with van buren again, who had built the democratic party with andrew jackson, had made the two-party system, for good or for bad, sort of the beginnings of that as part of his vision for the country. and so many democrats come to the convention thinking maybe van buren is going to be the nominee. however, right before the convention, one congressman from mississippi, a guy named william henry hammett, wrote van buren a letter, and van buren replied. and so if you don't know, when you wrote a politician a letter in this era, particularly someone who's running for president, you were probably looking to publish that in a

newspaper, and that candidate or that politician knew that. and so when they replied, they knew this was going to be public knowledge. and so the main question that hammett asked van buren was, what do you think about the immediate annexation of texas, which had become a big issue. and van buren's reply, which was very lengthy. i'm project director of the papers of martin van buren, and so let me tell you, martin van buren does not come up with short quotes that are good social media posts. [laughter] we really have to kind of figure out how do we get this into something that's digestible. so he wrote this long meandering letter that essentially said that he did not support the immediate annexation of texas. well, the problem is that most democrats did, and certainly southern democrats did. and so there begins to be a movement before the convention by primarily southern democrats to figure out, how do we maneuver van buren out of the nomination and put someone else in? so when the delegates actually get to baltimore and begin to cast ballots, van buren has a

majority of votes, but the democrats have this strange rule. that you have to have a 2/3 majority, and van buren isn't close to that. and as each ballot continues, it's very clear not only is he never going to get there, but he's losing support. ok, so, mark, you've talked a lot about this. what about polk? well, this is where polk comes in. behind the scenes, you have a group of delegates, some from tennessee, some from massachusetts, who begin to go to the other leading contenders, including van buren supporters, and say, hey, you know, your guy's running pretty strongly against van buren, or van buren doesn't look like he's doing that well. think about polk. think about, think about this guy maybe as your choice, if your guy can't get the nomination. so polk's name begins to be thrown out there, and what's interesting is that if you looked at polk's career, his career was on a downward trajectory.

he had served in the u.s. house as one of jackson's proteges, had become speaker of the house, which is a very powerful position, had resigned that position to come back to tennessee to become governor, won that election, had been talked about as a vp nominee in 1840 with van buren, and then he lost the next gubernatorial election in 1841. and then he loses again in 1843. so someone whose trajectory looks to be going like this all of a sudden over the course of about two years look like it is going down. so even though that is happening there are still people who are looking at him as a viable vp nominee and then some people certainly see him as a presidential nominee. really what clinches it for pork besides this maneuvering behind the scenes by these delegates is the fact that jackson has endorsed him. jackson saw paul as someone who had his vision for the country, manifest destiny, west or

expansion, fighting off the british, making sure they don't get a stronghold in the west. so all of this culminates at the convention and when it becomes clear van buren is not going to win the nomination and it is clear there are other people who aren't going to be able to secure it either, cast their vote for pork for the first time on the ballot and then on the ninth ballot he actually becomes the nominee. so he is a dark horse in the sense that going into the convention if you asked most democratic voters who would be the nominee they would have said than aaron. but he's not unknown, he is someone who had held powerful, political positions. some of his name people would have recognized. he is not an unknown coming into the nomination, just someone who was unexpected going into it. >> that's fascinating. jeff, your book is about a structure, a building. tell us about the person or the

people involved at the state capital. many of us know, but elaborate on this, tell us more. >> i'm sitting here listening to you and let's keep ourselves in 1844 for a second. otherwise i can just give you the tour of the capitol building. [laughter] we will be here until 2:00 this afternoon. i was staking about this, it's pretty interesting because in 1834, tennessee has a constitutional convention. in the state capital had floated all over tennessee, knoxville, murfreesboro. nashville, of course. and finally part of that says we have to build ourselves a permanent capital, the state

general assembly gives itself 10 years. it says by 1843, we've got to name a capital. so 1843, here we are in this election process, coming up for james capel -- james polk. the general assembly selects nashville and it selects it because it was very stiff competition between two cities, murphreesboro and nashville. nashville gets the state capital for largely two reasons, the cumberland river runs through nashville which is very convenient for travel. the second is the hilltop from matar building now sits. and as you leave here today, walk across our beautiful bicentennial mall and up at the capitol hill sitting there, such a great thing that the nashville city planners chose to do this, but they selected that site

because it was offered to them by the city of nashville for $30,000. the land owner sold it to the city so that the city of nashville could offer it to the state of tennessee. and that is the reason nashville becomes our state capitol building and then of course in 1844, things are beginning to come along. 1844 and 45 is the selection of the architect. you may think if you go around a lot of state capitals, many from this era are no longer the state capitals. i was just that one which i will not talk about in front of a group here. >> or on c-span. >> or on c-span for our beloved other 49 states, but other capitals did not have the staying power, the craftsmanship that was for our state capital. the architecture was a very

important decision. they land on one of the most noted architects alive at the time, the famous greek revivalist william strickland. in william strickland is a legend in the eastern states, he's out of philadelphia. he designed many beautiful buildings there. the tower of independence hall is probably the most recognizable one that you are familiar with. it's on the back of your $20 bill. he designed that tower. so he comes here to nashville, he is selected in 1845. 1845, tennessee where the nation has just elected a tennessean as president. 1835, that is jackson's second term. so think of the context of where we are at when this begins.

tennessee is very politically powerful in the nation's politics and it a national architect, it need that prominence as a state capital. and strickland hits the ground running. and the other thing we will say, from the get-go, the tennessee general assembly, they want to this beautiful building with this beautiful architecture design. william strickland is coming to nashville, tennessee which, we are not music city, usa at that time. we are west of the appalachians that are sort of an afterthought at least geographically if not politically. and the other thing about the state general assembly at the time was that it needed to be a very fiscally responsible

approach to building the capital. you can probably talk to us better about design coming against the finances of the project, it can be tough for that architect. strickland will be encouraged to find the most cost-effective ways to do that and it is important to note in the early years of our construction one thing we try to do at the capitol building is to preserve the beauty and design of it in the structure that was built, but also those laborers that we do not know their names. we know william strickland, we know the commissioner that helped to finish the project. what we don't know is those that were enslaved who worked on the project. we know a few of their names, we do not know also those that were incarcerated waivers. -- laborers.

and when the act is passed in january of 1940 -- 1844, it is one of those long titles. but part of it is the use of convict labor to build it. so a lot of those big stones that you see in that building were carved out of the earth about a mile away from here by men who were incarcerated, convict labor. men who were enslaved and actually dug the foundation of the capitol building, and then there's all these tradesmen, all these craftsmen. bricklayers that will work on the capitol building. and it takes 14 years to finish that building. it is an astounding marvel of antebellum craftsmanship, industrial power without the use of mechanized machines and

laborers, so a lot of it is just manpower, animal power, levers and pulleys. to get all of that, to get the building that we have today. and then the second thing and then i will toss it back is that this is a story of those folks that built that building up there. but then it is also a story of the generations of tennesseans who have cared for it. because it has taken that. there is a reason why is 107 years old and our general assembly still meets there, our governor's office is still there and all of our commissioners offices are still in there. that's because of the preservation efforts of generations that have come before us and i will completely acknowledge our current generation is doing a fabulous job taking care of our state

capitol building. >> while we are on the building, tell us about samuel morgan and also tell us about the tower. our capital doesn't have a gomez many do, it has a tower. talk to us a little bit about that and samuel moore, who was an important guide. >> absolutely. he deserves his place in the capital story. strickland comes eight this beautiful building and you can probably speak to us better, but it is a pure greek revival. many people come to the capital and say where is the dome, i'm expecting a dome. the state capital predates the u.s. capitol dome, and so ours is a pure greek revival. now the tower, and it is in the book, is a literal monuments to a greek god and in ancient

greek, i am not an ancient historian so i'm going to get in dangerous territory here, but in ancient greece they would have competitions, choral competitions, meaning singing, and there were awards that were awarded. and the one that ours is patterned after is the monument to lay 60's -- and that is what sits up on top of our building. and i think it is so appropriate that the tower has a musical award. think of it being like a cma or a grammy award on top of our tower there, but it is purely greek. you can go to athens today and you can see what our capital tower is based off of. and i think this makes it more unique. it is pure greek revival and also one of the last big greek

revival structures in american history. but soon after that, the greek revival movement kind of moves out of favor and moves on to other things. unfortunately, strickland does not see his building completed as we see it today. it is unfinished when he passes away in 1854. he is still living here, still working very hard on the project trying to squeeze every ounce of money out of his general assembly to get this project completed. samuel moore is the only one who will work from the very outset to the very end. he will not see the cost-saving measures. one legislator said it was going over budget and over budget and this legislator says let's just

whitewash the thing, throw a fence around it to keep the cows out of the yard and he was ok with it being a barn with white paint on it. . morgan would not hear of it. let's put wood instead of marble, make a wooden staircase. he wouldn't hear of it. and he paid for it out of his pockets in a lot of ways, but he will steer the rest of the project along with strickland's son francis. he does not at the credit he deserves because the tower is actually built on francis' superintendency at that point as well as samuel morgan making sure of that project. there's goes towards and things. i'm going to dispel something here. suncoast taurus say morgan and strickland argued amongst other people and they are still doing that today in the halls. morgan and strickland, morgan

was strickland's biggest advocate for the beauty of our design and making sure that strickland designed was carried through and that he had what they need to get the project done. this is also photographed in the book, that both were given the honor of burial in the capitol building. don't worry, it is just the nameplates. but both were given the honor of being buried in their building. strickland, in the building that was unfinished in 1854. morgan in 1880 when he passed away that had to actually excavate a part of the south portico and place morgan there, so those two are buried in the capitol building. which is a point of note that everyone gets on the tour.

i'm not sure why i am bragging about that, but for whatever reason, tennessee is the only state capital has two people buried in its halls. >> i've dealt with a lot of contractors who wanted to bury me. so on halloween you're going to be given a tour that you will hear them arguing back and forth. >> i will give you the boring history side that said it didn't happen that much. >> so we're are talking about personalities, a big event that is coming up in the nation at large, and so tell us about the way pulled his influential in the arrival of the civil war. >> as i mentioned, when he comes into office he completes the annexation process so that they should have arisen the kind of

push van buren out of the democratic nomination, he continues to be important and in fact, john tyler who was president at the time, he actually signs the joint treaty with texas. at the very end of his term, that kind of steals the thunder from polk. the process continues to be completed, but tyler claimed the credit. tyler is kind of interesting. he was a president without a party. he runs as an independent candidate and the reason is because when william henry harrison died, the candidate who defeated van buren in 1940, tyler, his vp became president. within six months he had been kicked out of the party. in fact not only was he sort of a maximo to the whigs, americans

were marching in washington to tell him to get out. there was a group -- and they were drunk, i know, shocking. there was a group that ashley marched to the white house and was singing it demanding that tyler come out and when he didn't, which was a smart choice on his part probably, they spread human excrement on the doors. and then other americans were blowing him up, like blowing up manikins of him, they were hanging him in effigy. he was extremely unpopular. and he didn't take the hint. maybe we don't want you to stay in the white house another term. but the point is that tyler sort of stole that thunder from polk at the very end. so he completes the annexation process but has a larger vision then just texas. he wants more.

so he actually situates u.s. troops in a disputed border area between the u.s. and mexico and encourages mexican troops to engage with u.s. troops and then uses that the call on congress for a declaration of war which then turns into a two-year war where the united states takes most of what we now consider the american southwest. >> texas, right? >> so texas is already in through the treaty. it is an enormous expansion of american territory you have members of congress who are debating what are we going to do about slavery in this new territory? any a lot of the territory slavery didn't make a lot of sense they somehow wood was used previously to grow cash crops,

but there are still these debates and these debates are about should slavery continue to move westward? should we let the people there decide? should we prohibit it? and these continued to generate emotion, even violence among congress with congressional members. so there was a great book recently about the violence that took place among congressional members. you think congress today is terrible, there were members of congress, maybe you think they are great and that is good, but i think we could pick some names of congress nowadays. they don't get along. at this point they are not getting along to the point where they are drawing knives on each other, they are challenging each other to duels. and member of congress is beaten on the floor of congress by another congressman.

what i'm saying is that his vision, his embrace of manifest destiny and his prosecution of that vision, his pursuit of that vision sets into motion a chain of events that certainly doesn't make things better. and if you think about the vision that henry clay, the nominee who opposed polk had, he was also a slaver, someone who supported slavery. he had a chance early in the campaign before polk is nominated, he has a chance to repudiate slavery and he doesn't. he says freeing enslaved people at this point we just cause worse problems. kind of takes that jeffersonian approach. but in any case, clay's vision probably would have been very different. he was focused on economic development, not focused on spreading slavery in the same way that pulled was.

he sort of waffles during the campaign about annexation. he initially took the same view as van buren that this is a terrible idea, and then when pulled got the nomination, clay thought maybe it's ok because he was trying to attract those voters. but regardless, i think we could have had a very different united states if clay won. i'm a historian, not a prognosticator, but they would have been different. >> when you talk about the kind of violence or whatever, tell us how they were communicating. the telegraph was around, but mainly it was by newspapers and letters, right? no emails. no tv. >> no tiktok. >> so how did that happen? >> you mentioned the telegraph. news of his nomination, the telegraph, the first message for the telegraph had just been sent, and so you have news of

polk's nomination being sent by telegraph which was brand-new and fast. so other than that, you're communicating through letters with one another, and you're communicating through newspapers. in one of the things i talk about in the book is i talk about the cultural politics of the era. like i mentioned before, rallies and songs and that kind of thing, political cartoons which can send a message about issues or campaigns or candidates, but newspapers are critical. and the thing about newspapers that we probably don't realize is that they were openly partisan. they didn't hedge things as we are balanced, we are objective. they were just openly we are pro-van buren, we are pro-clay. >>. the washington post. >> well, c-span ruined it. [laughter] but it is really interesting.

there are issues that the partisanship of the newspapers, but there's almost something refreshing about them at least in open about it. yes, politicians are paying for us to publish this newspaper, so we are going to give you what our campaign believes is right. we are going to tell you lies. they don't say that, but you know if you're reading a democratic newspaper in your media story about henry clay, it's probably true but maybe not. and the same thing is true for newspapers about polk. there's one newspaper in new york for example, that in august printed a story about polk about him ordering his enslaved people to be tattooed with his initials. and this story spreads among the whig media bubble kind of like today when you have something circulated in a news bubble. in august passed around and people can --say can you believe it, it's terrible? it's not true.

he did own enslaved people, don't get me wrong, and they were treated violently. maybe not necessarily by him, but by his overseers. but that story about branding them with his initials was completely made up. but it in august and september, which is peak campaign season, and probably influenced some people that they weren't going to vote for him. even though again, clay was ending slaver just like him, he just wasn't as terrible from their perspective. >> as this session wraps up, i want to ask you both, and i will start with you jeff, a summation. a statement of the legacy of the capital and we laughed mark about the legacy. this group of interested people, you've already talked to them a lot about important things, but like a summation of the legacy. >> while you are thinking of questions to the audience here,

i can't help but see that it needs to be recognized, your place in the capitol story. yes, it does. when you walk out of here and you go to the author tends, if you come over there, look back and enjoy this beautiful mall that we have here. i visit state capitals all over the nation. the tennessee state capital, and maybe this is a good way to wrap up for me, is that the bicentennial mall was a wonderful gift to the state of tennessee in 1996. our moderator here, his architectural firm is the designer of this building. so every tree you see in all the wonderful things, the symbol on the timeline, everything came from our moderator's design plan and we are so grateful for that. i walk across that mall every day and i love it. the state capital is a part of that, it is our legacy, and i

would say the generations past are gone, they are gone. we are the present generation. the future is the future generation. but what are generations due to preserve our history and do right by the people of the past to have come before us and the future, and keep our history preserved, particularly our beautiful state capitol building, and i hope this is a small part of that preservation story. >> it certainly is. by the way, we are kind of asking state officials to expand the history wall because it stops in 1996 and a lot has happened. [laughter] a lot has happened. telus, the room leaves and what they think about president polk? >> as a historian, obviously one

of the things i tried to do is i tried to draw lessons from the past. it's one of the main thing that historians do. it's imperfect. there's no science to it. you can't say it was like this in 1844, it's going to be like this in 2024. so for me the main take away is elections matter. presidential elections matter. even more so now than then because the executive branch as accrued more and more power over the decades, over nearly two centuries now. so presidential elections matter. the vision of the president matters. it mattered for polk. he had a democratic congress helping him support do that, but that vision was the vision that helped contribute to the civil war. and so i think whatever lessons we can draw from 44 that are helpful for today, that is one of the main lessons, is that the

elected president elects a vision for the country. >> this has been excellent, let's give him a round of applause. [applause] >> i am always so honored to be around people who know about this stuff. we do have some time for some questions. do we have any questions from the audience? >> what i want you to do is to step up to the microphone. single topic question. by the way, jackson gibson, other state park rangers are in the back. they are tennessee finest ambassadors. question. >> i have a question about the

state capital. is that where the war of the roses ended, the state capital? >> the war of the roses, yes. speaking of air future generation, it's wonderful to have our future generation of tennessee here to ask the first question. probably the most noted story at the state capitol building, and i do not have time, i wish i could tell you the story, but the state capital was the site of the final fight for women's suffrage in 19 20. another story we brag about here in tennessee, that we were the last state to ratify the 19th amendment in 1920. and i had someone come to me and say is that release something to be proud of that you the last one? and it's completely changed my perspective. i thought well, ok. but nonetheless, we were.

but the war of the roses, that anti-suffragist war, and the proserv or just have the yellow roses, and we all know the story of young harry byrne from tennessee who took his mother's advice, which every young man should do, and voted and changed his mind and changed his vote no to yes and gave us universal suffrage in presidential elections across our great country. so a very appropriate question for right now. >> i can follow up that war of the roses question. i'm from texas, not tennessee. i think your capital is prettier than ours, i will give you that. but i saw your history wall is great. i was at the capitol today and i saw a plaque that said united daughters of the confederacy, their 75th anniversary right there on the statue, put up in

1969. small little statue and it is an honor of what happened during the war, a year after king was assassinated. i took a picture of it so i'm not making this up. how do you deal with that? you have tours of the capital. >> which plaque with that? >> it's called the national daughters of the confederacy. it was put up by caroline meriwether goodman. >> it's the plaque that is near the statue. it is about the daughters of the confederacy. the wall tells all sides of history, just fascinating. >> i will just answer that in a more broad question about the grounds and the monumentation around it. the monumentation of the grounds is the full chapter in the book.

i found it fascinating and i know that tennesseans here understand the contemporary stories behind that, of the one thing about the grounds is it has evolved over the years and monumentation has. different groups have placed their marks on it. and some have stayed, some have gone. it is really sort of funny. we've got even some of the old monumentation at the state museum. how things have sort of come up and come down. by the mothers of world war i, soldiers who died, a tree that was planted and it is still there, but the tree is long gone. so there's a lot of those monuments that are still around that have kind of come and gone over the years. the thing i will say about monumentation, one thing i say

to folks is that each generation again chooses how it wants to memorialize and honor the past. in those generations have placed their marks on those landscapes. and acrid generation, we are the recipients of the past generations. we have to consider and grapple with what are those values that we want to memorialize and honor . we have to find a way to speak to each other and do that and understand what our shared values are, and there are plenty of those. thank you. >> another question, jackson. >> jeff and his staff to a very good job of highlighting sarah polk.

and really intrigued about your book but i'm curious if you touch him sarah pulled the book at all. >> if you are not from here or if you know anything about sarah polk, read any greenberg biography, it is a fantastic biography. but in short, she essentially acted as james polk's campaign manager both for his gubernatorial campaigns and his presidential campaign. and there are times frankly when i was doing my research right thought she is more interested in him becoming resident than he is. she managed correspondence, she managed some of the event planning. it's really kind of remarkable how much of a role she played, a central role that she played in her husband's campaign. >> and by the way, they are somewhere on the capitol grounds, is that right? >> that needs to be said.

it is the only state capital, we don't have time for it but they are buried in the northeast on a corner of the capitol grounds. >> who designed the tomb? >> in 1849 when mr. polk presto -- passed away was william strickland, the architect of the capitol building. >> my comment and question is for jeff. the strangest thing about the stem -- tennessee state capital is that it would be 50 years after it is done until it was filled. if i killed in a stadium with 400,000 seats because how long was it until that house floor was filled they didn't have 99 house members then, right? >> that is a great question. >> were people arguing against it because it was so much bigger than something anyone would ever use? >> that's a great question. the house chamber is huge.

it's probably the most impressive room the building along with the library. the legislature wasn't as big as it is now. the very first image ever of the interior space of the capital with the house chamber, and it was a civic or episcopal gathering, methodist and episcopal gathering for the area that is the last chapter, it is the people's house. >> that's right. >> and a president from our state. thank you both for doing this. let's get another round of applause.

as we hand this session they are going to be outside in the tent to do a book signing so i expect everybody to purchase a book, and with that we are adjourned. thank you for coming. >> president donald trump nominated dr. marty mccarrick to head of the u.s. food and drug administration. he appeared recently to discuss his book blind spots. here is a portion. >> why is it that we have one private company determining medical school curriculum of education and every medical school in the united states? they have a monopoly because they write exams and they accredit the schools. so imagine if every college had a curriculum of standardized exams written by one private company. what would that look like? you wouldn't see innovative advancements in education and guess what, medical education is

a joke. it's a joke. we are in dinosaur level practices of writing on stone tablets and memorize and regurgitate the molecules of the krebs cycle, five different points in your medical education, why? we are teaching technical skills but not the non-technical skills. like listening and being empathetic and communicating clearly and humility. knowing your limits. that's what makes somebody a good doctor. interpreting the literature critically. instead we beat these young people with these memorize and regurgitate cultures. memorize all these drugs, you cannot with a reflex. you put your head down, you see things that are bizarre, they make no sense. they violate every piece of intellectual curiosity in your brain, and you're told to put her head down, just keep memorizing and regurgitate. taking in a fascinating margin for the melanoma in the leg but

half a centimeter if it is on the face and nobody asks wait a minute, do they have different or the same results? the average age of puberty goes down 1.5 weeks every year for the last early years. kids are having puberty now years earlier than what they've had just half a century ago. is anyone asking why? when pancreatic cancer rates double in the last few years, is anyone asking why? first day of anatomy class, and i'm curious what your experiences were, i remember the first time i saw the actual lungs and it was black and it appalled all of us. and the instructor so i reacted and said that's because this cadaver that we are dissecting was someone who lived in a city and people who live in a city, their lungs are black but don't worry, it doesn't hurt you. and i just thought it's amazing how dismissive we are on these big topics.

drink three glasses of cows milk a day for every adult. that is a recommendation that still goes on to this day. >> the full program is available to watch online. >> weekends on c-span 2, every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including mediacom. >> nearly 30 years ago, media, sounded i powerful idea to bring cutting edge underserved communities. from coast-to-coast we connected eight hundred 50,000 miles of fiber. our team brooks be barriers, delivered one gig speeds to every customer, has led the way in developing a 10g platform and now with mediacom mobile is offering the fastest most reliable network on the go.