nomination of judge sotomayor. a final vote could happen later in the week. live coverage begins at 2:00 eastern on c-span to. -- cspan2. monday night, david collins take on the future of fraud. in the u.s.. -- the future of broadband in the u.s. to go this week on today, our guest is bruce chadwick. -- >> this week on q&a, our

guest is bruce chadwick. why have we not heard that much of that george with in our lifetime? -- george whip. >> this idea hit me in the head. i was in the library researching another book about the revolution, and i fell against the schultze. as i did, obama have yourself was a hard down copy of a small journal. it fell down and hit me in the head and landed on the floor. it said the murder of george wit. he was one of the unknown founding fathers pitted i did not know he had been murdered --

but i did not know she had been murdered -- i did not know he had been murdered. he propped himself up by his fellows, stared at his doctor and in a whisper said, i am murdered. that is where i got the title from. >> you mean if you had not lost or balance, we would never had this book? >> that is exactly right. >> i thought it was wthel. why did we not hear more about him over the years? he is a fascinating character. >> the reason people do not know a lot about him is that, unlike most people who were among the

founding fathers, the only book he wrote was a legal decision. he never kept a diary for a journal. -- or a journal. there is very little information about him. he could have been on the supreme court but turned down an appointment to it. almost all of his life spent -- almost all of his life was spent in virginia. virginians know about him. schools are named after him across the stateline he is an unknown founding father. and i believe -- i became impressed what a great american he was. >> who did he mentor? >> thomas jefferson. that is not bad. john marshall, chief justice of

the supreme court, and james monroe, dozens of senators and congress's -- congressmen. also, henry clay. he used to tell people all his life, t appreciated being mentored by him karaja. he would reaching the try to get clay to learn how to read latin and greek but he had no interest in it. he memorized a lot of lines. later in politics in the u.s. are when clay was abroad, he would drop into conversations these long passages in latin and greek that he had memorized from george and blue people away. >> he lived where and what year did he die? >> he died in 18 06 pin did he was 80 years old -- he died in

18 006. he was 80 years old. and he grew up in virginia. his parents owned a plantation with about 80 slaves. he became a lawyer. and married, his wife died and he remarried the daughter of a wealthy merchant in williamsburg who gave him a very large house there. it still stands and people can take two hours of it. -- can take tours of it. jefferson was 16, his dad had died two-years earlier pendan. he was looking for instructional

guidance. he was also looking for adult men to serve as a father. ahe also had all of these proteges. he had never met anybody is equal until he met thomas jefferson. they had all of the same interest. after college, jefferson became his law clerk. then the french ship became extremely close. >> how did he get to know james monroe and henry clay and john marshall was the longest serving chief justice? >> they were enrolled as students. they sought him out pensio. he had very strict lessons that

he taught at his house every day. they sought him out for that reason. monroe was a student for a year after the revolution broke out. he came back -- he came back after the war and was a student for a semester and became very close to thomas jefferson. he was an elected governor of virginia pensio. jefferson mentored monroe. john marshall, at that time his students would keep notebooks and most of the notebooks were about 30 or 35 pages. john marshall's notebook was 240 pages of notes on things that he listen to. in the margins of many of these pages he would write the name of his girlfriend.

it is funny to look at pensio. >> so this is number 28 that you have written. >> i started out writing baseball. i was a baseball fan all of my life. my son was a fan when he was about eight or nine. he got very interested in baseball. he started collecting baseball's as sports memorabilia. i began writing a column on that for the new york daily news. someone read my columns and said what we write a book on baseball cards. we did. that started a series of books on baseball history that i did. there are about 15 or 16 of

them. in 1994 the baseball strike came. that is in the baseball and the end of me. i did a young adult book on john madden pension. i did not get to talk to them and i was always disappointed. >> how did you get into the history? >> i got into history because there is a big labor turnover. hundreds of us were fired. i was out of work for almost a year and a half. i got a job as a journalism professor. i had a master's. a wife and i had it attained master's years earlier. they said you have to have a doctorate. they were kind enough to cover the cost of it but you have to have a doctorate. i have always been fascinated about history since i was a kid. i went full time to get the

doctor at the same time i was teaching full time. people said you must have been so tired. i said it was great. i had fun. >> i have another book that just came out did it come out at the same time? >> i am murder came out last winter -- "i am murdered" came out last winter. i never write simultaneously because you lose track of what you are saying. >> george was murdered by? to go his nephew. >> have you know that? >> we know that. and his servant -- the people

who lives in the house with his grand nephew, his protegee michael brown and his freedwoman servant were having breakfast on a sunday morning. the grandnephew had a cup of coffee and deliberately sat there finishing it as ever and watched him do that. then he stood suspiciously next to the coffee pot and pulled out a thin piece of white paper with powdered crystals in it. when he thought lydia was not looking he threw it into the coffee pot. she saw him do it, but had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. thought nothing of it and then everyone in the house drink the coffee. the nephews that i have to go and ran out the door and disappeared. no one was suspicious.

after 15 minutes after drinking the coffee they became violently ill. >> the 3? >> the three, not the nephew. >> explain more about the freed slave. >> she had been a slave until about 1980 -- 1897. she stayed to work with him as a paid employee. >> how old was she at the time? >> she was around her mid-60 prosperity a's. she was very loyal to him and very trustworthy. and >> and michael brown? >> she was a 16 year-old kid who was his latest product day. he would look for teenagers who he thought had a lot of promise academically and then take them

in as proteges. michael brown was the latest. he was living with him michael brown had eight -- jefferson had a promise from george that michael brown will live at the white house and jefferson would tutor him. george was upstairs reading the morning newspapers when the grandnephew poisoned the coffee. she became violently ill and came downstairs to get help. >> that was his nephew. >> irresponsible, a black sheep of the family. >> how was he related? >> it was his sister's grandson. >> why did he want to kill him? >> money.

the kid had fallen prey to an academic at gambling in richmond. richmond has become a colonial solomon and chloropicrin -- gomorrah. the kid had gone down there every night and run up huge gambling debts. he began to steal from george. he stole valuable books. he used the money to pay off gambling debts. he forged checks under george's name at the local banks to cut hundreds more of dollars to pay off the debts. then he came up with a scheme to murder george to get his estate from his will appear again under the terms of the will, she was entitled to have. -- he was entitled to half.

george's that was the manager of the plantation. -- the newphews father was teh managthe manager of the plantat. he was a very loving that pensioguy. then he offered to take him in four months of the time to straighten him out and put them into his will. wyeth's estate is worth in today's money eight or $9 million. the other half went to michael brown. sweeney knew this and he figured

if george that he would get all this money and with the high life. >> why would he want to give michael brown half of his will? >> she had enorm as confidence and michael brown's future. and-- hnd -- he had enormous confidence in michael brown's future. he thought it was a good split for his money, never thinking at all that this would happen to him. >> go back to george wyeth earlier. and what did he have to do with the declaration of independence? >> he was a delegate to continental congress. it is an interesting story because the different people on the committee, jefferson would ask them right parts of the

declaration and i will read into the final writing. all of these well educated men would write these paragraphs. if you read them today and they are very ordinary. jefferson would take their ideas and then come up west the inhalable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. -- inalienable rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness picketed she was 50 and far more radical than the guys in the 20's. -- he was 50 and far more radical than the guys in the 20's. they did not all sign on the fourth of july pensio. >> what about the constitutional convention?

>> it was a delegate from virginia to the constitutional convention. did he left philadelphia to go home and take care of her and she died shortly after. >> he started 5 beta kappa -- phi beta kappa. >> i think john marshall was one of his first didn't end there. -- was one of his first students there. there was a setup where she was the judge and a jury would come in. his students would argue a case. the jury and he would resolve a case as part of a classroom exercise appeared it was very effective.

it got a lot of students region just like today there are lots of smart people in universities who are shy. the move court in new legislation brings their personalities out of them. -- the new court and moved legislation brings their personalities out of them. -- moot court and moot legislation. i think in every law school today there is some form of this. >> this book was published by widely but the new book is not. >> it is published by source books. >> have you do that? >> i have done a number of books for source works. it is a large commercial publishing house in new york and chicago. to go back to the beginning of

this, the stumbling onto this. -- >> back to the beginning of this, the stumbling onto this. >> i think it was in the summertime pensio. what hit me in the head were a couple of journals. i read them and at the time i teach a course called t murder n america. when i saw that part of the case and the intrigue of it is that his three doctors are called the dream team. they are the best physicians in the united states. they really messed up the investigation and the autopsy. knowing how hot forensics is today, i thought it would be really interesting to apply for

an six investigation into an old mortar case -- to an old murder case. >> did you decide right there on the spot to do that? >> i when toent home and told my wife this book fellow at the sky. so i did it right then. >> how long did it take for them to buy your book? >> i think a couple of months. about another year to write it all together. >> how did you go about writing it? to go very carefully. i went to the state library of the virginia in richmond. and richmond historical association. then the record library, firestone library at princeton and a couple of other places to

get material. i did a lot of medical research in this one. i was really surprised -- i think everyone realize that madison was quite primitive, yet in autopsies it was pretty advanced. that surprised me. >> did you find other books that had been written about this? >> there were maybe two or three biographies that had been written in the beginning of the 1970's. there were five biographies, but each of them had a page about the murder. they did not investigate it at all. they said he was killed. people said by his nephew and that was the end of it. i thought that was unusual until i started the investigation and realize how complicated the whole case was. >> was -- what was your best buy

in research that will do a lot about what you learned from this book? >> the first thing was that when geoerge sweeney was arrested, the free slaves told everyone that she saw him put the poison in the coffee. everyone knew this guy was guilty and he would hang. lawyers would not touch him to defend him. they all wondered who would be the pro bono lawyer that the court would appoint. all of a sudden, at of nowhere, he gets not one lawyer but to. -- but two. one was the former attorney at the united states. they took on the kids defense.

that is where the whole case turns around. >> how did they come together? you say in your book they did not like each other. >> they hated each other. they were like the conservative republicans and liberal democrats today. that is how well they got along. >> how did they get together to defend george? >> randall had had problems. he had been forced to resign as secretary of state in an ethics scandal. then a year after that he was involved in another scandal and misappropriation of funds when he was in government. there yet he was looking for a high-profile case to make a lot of money, to repay this huge debt he had incurred. >> how old was he? >> he must have been in his late 60's. a man with a lot of experience and a good lawyer.

worirt had suffered from a barry bad stutter. hewitts kept in the house by your parents. they were embarrassed by you. there was no method to cure your stutter. he cured himself. he came up with a way to continually talk and chatter to overcome his stutter. >> i got the impression that when you would go into something like a stutter, you would go often study that part. how often did you want to divert and did you find other books to study at this but? >> no killio, but every time i a

corner i would go into something else that i wanted to find out something about pennon for me, as a writer, it is the journey that is so fun. this journey was a lot of fun. >> go back to the original situation where you had michael brown, lydia, and george wyeth. curb what happened after that our sncc was consumed? >>-- what happened after the arsenic was consumed? >> they all got violently ill par andl. lydia survives. she lost most of her sight.

and most people die within three or four days. so was he really poisoned by arsenic or had he had medical problems that cascaded and kills him? or did he just died of old age? how did michael brown died, she was 16? >> george died in 18 06. -- 1806. who is still alive that he mentored? >> a lot of the people that he mentored are still alive. john marshall was the chief justice of the supreme court. jefferson had been reelected easily as president. he had just concluded the lewis and clark expedition, very

popular president. lonrho will go on to beat the fifth president of the united states later on. -- monde wrote will go on to be the fifth president of united states. clay, at that time, was in his early 20's and thinking about running for congress. >> what kind of reaction was there from all the people get mentored? >> schock. absolute shock. all have had letters from friends indicating directly that he had been poisoned abou. people were very upset about that. george had lived there for the last 16 years and on and off for the past few years before that c.

thousands of people lined main street in richmond for his being a role. >> in today's age with the law you can have a three-year wait before you have a trial. how long was that back then? >> to end a half months. -- two and ana half months. it was the end of september. >> sweeney is where? to go he was in jail pending he forged the checks against the bank. he was charged with murder. >> edward randolph had done what and history? >> randolph had served as the

mayor of lillian's prepared and -- williamsburg. he was one of the young discoverers in the country when he was 33. and he then had become the attorney general of the united states and when jefferson resigned, the attorney of the united states. >> did he sign the constitutional convention documents? >> he did not. there were many that did not sign it. there were 19 of the 55 delegates that did not sign it. >> but there were three that were there and did not sign it. and a bunch of them were not there. who was the lawyer on the other side? who was prosecuting? >> he was one of the most aggressive prosecutors in the

country. in addition to that, nicklaus was close friends with thomas jefferson he married into the carter family, which is even wealthier he was on the committees to let jefferson to the presidency. he was very friendly with george. anyone wanted to have the kid executed, it was nicholas. that was one of the things that people counted on there were so astonished when that did not happen. >> what role did these three prominent positions -- physicians play? >> they were on and off his doctor. senator mccall and dr. william fousheer, and james mcclurg.

they had fought off epidemics and virginia pensioin virgina. two of the three had gotten into politics. fousheer was the first official meir appended they were really connected politicians at that time. they were assigned to do the autopsy. >> you pointed out at the time we only had six medical schools in the united states. >> that was it. >> how was the medicine and the american schools compared to what they were learning and other places? >> they were carbon copied. they were exactly the save.

-- exactly the same. if you wanted to be a doctor, you could go to a second tier of school restudy for 14 weeks and you became a doctor. or you could become an apprentice to a doctor and then you could become a doctor. in at 1806, less than 10% of america's doctors had been trained at all. there were people who took upon themselves to be doctors. the governor of rhode island said he was a doctor. there was a shoemaker in new york city that declared himself a doctor. madison was primitive. in the revolutionary war, the country's chief surgeon would tell soldiers set if you get really really sick, do not go to the hospital. and >> as you are writing this book, how are you checking to make sure you do not make a

historical mistake? >> i checked it lot of historical references. and the medical side, i read through a lot of reference textbooks to double check on the sources of medical books that were printed and articles that were written. i did a lot of research on autopsies -- autopsies and how they were conducted. and i read about how prominent poison was the other part of this was, at that time, all of the american cities were infested with rats. there was a rat poison that everyone thought. he went to store and you needed a little slip of paper saying you need is to kill rats and then you got the poison. they would use the rat poison to kill human beings. his defense was you down a rat

poison in my room, so what? >> you talked for 15 years. where did you get this idea? why would someone want to take a course like that? to go the course is always packed. -- >> the course is always packed. >> what do you teach them? >> when i started the course, i was amazed that the murder rate in the united states from the 1970's to the midinetd-1990's hd dropped dramatically. new york city, which is notorious, is the safest city in america despite the drop in the murder rate in drop in crime,

you see on tv and read in the newspapers more and more stories than ever about murder. and there is far more attention to it. helistop possible? it does not make sense. why are americans so intrigued by homicide? i set out to prove why through an inordinate amount of news this murder has become card of the landscape in the united states. it is but anywhere else in the world, just in the u.s.. that is the course. >> why are we so fascinated by it? >> the media hits us over the head by all the time. steve mcnair, the quarterback for the tennessee titan's was just murdered. the mysterious death of michael

jackson, possibly from prescription drugs. people are fascinated by homicide. the media has instructed people to be fascinated by it. whenever people turn on the television or go to the movies, there is a story about murder. we cannot get away from it. any night in the united states on prime time there is over 90 hours of television in some way related to homicide. >> how many show up in your class every summer? >> we get 50 and over for most of the classes. it is a good turnout. there are very did students. they do a good job. >> at what time in the class and course work to find them to be the most interesting? >> right away. >> the other book, triumph for

it. -- triumpherete. when did you decide to read this book? >> >the only connection is that george played an important role in the constitution. all my life, since it was a little boy, i had always read that the constitution at the united states had barely passed i would read a few lines about it. i would always say to myself, how could this have barely pass? i went to study that to see if there was some sort of story and that. there was. there is an idea that james madison, john gay, and alexander hamilton lobby through all 13 states to get the constitution

past and also wrote the federalist papers. it turned out to be quite a dramatic story. >> one of the things that i noticed in this book was this discussion of the bill of rights. we all think that james madison was the champion of the bill of rights. use a sirte midway in your book that madison worried about everything. he worried about richard henry lee. lee had written many letters to virginians about press, assembly, religion, legal fairness. you go on to say that madison did not want the bill of rights. >> he did not. he assumed all of these rights for the people are in the constitution now, you do not have to spell them out in the bill of rights. everyone said you do. the people need to know what their rights are.

then the three would say, there is nothing to worry about. george washington will probably be the first president. we all know that and we all tress and admire him. -- trust and admirehim. him. they said it needs to be spelled out. the more they insisted that it needed to be spelled out, the more they would get that back up. it was not until the very end, the last two states were madison and hamilton said when the new government takes place, our first order of business will be to read the bill of rights. it was and it was passed a year later. madison wrote it. >> when you did that work, which wanted to like the best? of madison? >> i really admired madison

pensio. he was a scholar and intellectual all of his life. when he started to ratify the bill of rights, he called him on a separate trip and said all of these nice speeches you gave are wonderful, but that is not what you have to do. you have to get down in the dirt and be a politician and cut deals to get this passed where you want not do it. he turned into a really good politician. and that gave madison the background he really needed later to be the secretary of state. >> one more note on the madison and then i will go back to george. you also talk about him wanting to run to the senate -- runs for the senate.

ani had never heard that he ran against james monroe. why didn't you become a senator right out of the box? >> he made a lot of enemies in the ratification. >> how was that that man wrote ran against him for the house of representatives? -- how was it that monroe ran against him for the house of representatives? >> the thing that i think amazes most people is that at the time of the american revolution and the form of the rigid the forming of the government we had really talented people doing this. >> did george ever mentored james madison? >> no, he never did. he was never madisons mentor.

>> where is george barry? >> st. john's church in richmond. >> of the trial starts. him and ran off on one side defending george. she is in jail. what happens? >> everyone assumes he will be convicted, despite the great attorneys. the first order of business is the result of the autopsy. everyone was certain that they would have found our sncc. -- would have found arsenic. they did not do any of the things they were supposed to do an autopsy. they did not cut out the organs and examine them. they ended the examination because in the stomach they found a big build up a bottle. -- big buid up of bile.

dr. james mcloug had written a book about bile. so he stood there and either said there is bil in thle in the stomach and that is what killed him for the three of them completely botched the autopsy. it could've been done better by college students taking anatomy 101. they told the jury it might have been arsenic, but it was probably bile. the jurors knew these guys were top doctors' opinio. part of the background is that the defense attorney is asking all of these calculated

questions of the doctors too slowly, step-by-step, come up of this verdict that it is bile. mcclourg was always trying to associate himself with important people pendent virginia's governor. he told him and that is how he was able to get all the testimony in. that did not matter. they have the eye witness. she saw the guy put the poison into the coffee. she cannot testify, she is black. there is a slave girl that saw a package of arsenic. they were going to call her.

she cannot testify, she is an african-american. african american carpenters who were slaves had seen him grinding up what appeared to be arsenic and a woodshed. they could not testify because they were african americans. none of the evidence ever got into the trial. all we had -- there were no evidence and no eyewitness testimony against him. everyone in richmond uses rat poison. you do not have a case against it. in an hour, they acquitted him then they figured, like all juries do, we cannot get on the big charge, we will get him on a forgery charge and put them in jail for a couple of years. the forgery charge trial starts the next day. the lawyer said you cannot

charge him because there is no longer you cannot afford to a check against the bank. it is against another person. banks and not come until after the revolution. in the middle of the revolution, a trio we wrote the laws of virginia impendent -- rewrote the laws of virginia. george wyeth led his own killer go free. >> you also talk about the attitude of the law and selitse. it was lenient toward struck crimes. >> in england at that time, there were 200 offenses for which it could be executed. in virginia that was never down

to about 12. some states in the united states if he stole $5, you could be hanged for that pensio. in making the loss lenient, admonish george be lenient. they considered whether they should hang the dipa guy, they were lenient. in england, at that time, -- a criminal class has erupted in london. and in america's cities, too. the government and judicial knew we had to have harsh punishments.

>> geoerge wythe and attitude against slaves. he had given lydia her freedom 20 years before he died. he freed a handful of other slaves from his home in williamsburg. he sold his plantation and all of the slaves and it to get rid of slavery from his life. by his early 60's had eliminated slavery. >> why didn't he freed the slaves before he freed the plantation? >> it is a tricky answer. something to do with the legacy. >> what proof is there that thomas jefferson was against lipari >>st slavery?

>> he had written about a lot pennit a lot. all of his life he had the slaves. i think jefferson once in his 80's and never freed his slaves. he was hypocritical about that. >> sweeney was found not guilty. what happened to him? >> they said all of the united states is a cast you got out of this. someone will kill you. they gave him a horse and money and he disappeared. and he went to tennessee and people lost track of him pegg and a few years later she did several years in prison for

horse thievery in tennessee. people had a sense that he had at least been punished for something somewhere. to>> is it true that lewis pal would ask if they knew george? if they said he did not, he will not let them be his clerks. >> how did you find where he ended up? >> different documents that i read. i really tried to track him through law enforcement archives in tennessee, 1826. >> you have a whole section on the highest profile person to be autopsied.

who was a? >> julius caesar. the man that killed him in the roman senate, they are the ones that pushed for the autopsy so they could prove to the roman public that they had murdered caesar, that it was them, thinking the public would think this is a great idea. the public did not. the public was appalled by this. all of the people that murdered caesar, everyone of them, was himself killed in prison or had to flee the country. the whole assassination backfired. >> has there been for a lot written about autopsy? >> i was very surprised that there had been released six volumes written about autopsies around the world and translated to english and sold in american bookstores there was one tax that cover and -- there was one

text that covered over 3000 autopsies in europe. and >> i want you to tell the story of mesheba sooner. i was trying to drive home the point, on upon physical examination to do not know what someone's condition was. she was a woman who had an arranged marriage within much older man. she was in her mid-20's. her husband was a late-60's. at the time this was considered older. she tried to hire a teenager to kill her husband said she could benefit from his money. he would not do it. then she spotted british soldiers who had fled from a prison and talk them into doing it. they killed him, dunton down a well -- dumped in a well,

and then wore his clothes around town. they were picked up immediately penn y. at that time in the united states there was a wall that if a woman was pregnant, she cannot be executed. she said she was pregnant. he said, she will see and he appointed a midwife to give her a physical examination. the midwife said she was not pregnant she said i am pregnant pensio. the midwest said she is pregnant. then we have two different midwives and she is pregnant and one is saying she is not appare.

after she is hanged, they did an autopsy. she was four months pregnant. >> it is doing well opinil. >> where were you born? >> i was born in the bronx. my wife is from the same county in new jersey. >> where did you get your education? >> i had my be a in journalism. and i got a master's at montclair state. >> how many years were you with the new york daily news? >> 23.

and to go out was it interesting being a reporter or writing folks? >> dissatisfaction and fun and enjoyment is the same with both for different reasons. i had a lot of fun in the newspaper business, but the fun i had in the newspaper business, writing stories is just the same as the enjoyment that i get out of writing books. the more books that i write, the more enjoyment i get of it because they learn more about the american story. it makes me a better professor because everything i learned, i can tell my students. that is a lot of fun for me. >> huge church -- you teach at both universities? >> yes. >> what do you tell students about journalism today that you would have told them a couple of years ago? >> journalism is having a lot of

problems today. a lot of newspapers going at of business and shrinking the staff because of the internet. they have to be a lot more diverse and writing skills. >> what is your next book? >> i do not know. i am not sure what i will tackle next. >> how long did it take you to read the brianne new one out there? >> it took me about a year. >> but you doub not have an inkling about the next book? >> no, i am still looking pensi. i really do not know why people buy what they do. i did a book about george washington about five years ago that sold well.

i cannot analyze and say why people bought it. >> bruce chadwick, thank you. >> thank you. it has been fun. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> for a dvd copy, call the number on your screen. 43 transcripts or to give us your comments, and visit us at qanda.org. >> up next, your calls and comments on today's washington journal. live at 3:00 eastern, the

governmental affairs committee holds the hearing on contractor bonuses. and >> starting tuesday, the full senate debate at the senate confirmation for supreme court justice. watch on c-span. tour the supreme court. and we will talk with anna edney at 7:00. stuart taylor at 8:00. mike johanns talk about cap and trade and the upcoming debate on judge sotomayor. in a couple of hours, steve verd