10 small corporations that will sign up for this trial. they are the heroes of this effort. in regards to your question about patient groups and patients advocating for this therapy, we absolutely agree with that. this morning we had an alliance for a rejection of madison board meeting where we spoke exactly to that point. . .

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> next, q &a and live at 7:00, your calls and comments on "washington journal." this week on the communicators, the former fcc chairman. they will talk about regulating broadband, broadcasting indecency and their personal experiences at the helm of the fcc to night on c-span 2. >> hey middle and high school student, get working on your student pam documentary's. there is $50,000 in prizes. this year's theme is washington, d.c. through my lens. for complete rules and information, go to

studentcam.org. >> this week, part 2 on a book on george washington by ron chernow. >> ron chernow, as we begin our second part discussion of your new book on george washington, i want to ask you about some of the relationships you had with people. first up, tom paine. >> tom paine at first was a great admirer of washington, actually traveled with the continental army, later became a very scathing critic of washington. he ended up saying washington is treacherous in private friendship and hypocrite in his public life, ended up publishing this very vitriolic open letter to washington. what happened was that tom paine, during the french revolution, was imprisoned and he felt that washington did not make sufficient efforts to free

him. paine was an honorary american citizen, and so he thought that washington should have done more. washington was really in a political bind in terms of trying to apply pressure on the french government to release him. so paine goes from one extreme to the other. >> how important was he to the founding? >> i think that he was extraordinarily important. i think that at the time that he published "common sense" there were a lot of people who had not yet been converted to the idea of independence from great britain. and i think that at key moments -- for instance, after the very long and demoralizing retreat across new jersey in late 1776, paine publishes his stirring essays, the crisis, these are the times that try men's souls, the -- it was the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this time of crisis, not serve -- but i'm forgetting -- it one served their country.

these were very, very inspirational words at a time when the cause needed it. and washington certainly thought that "common sense" had had a profound impact on people in terms of convincing them of the need for total independence from england. >> you know when you read about the founders, you see so many of them that ended up broke at the end. and a guy like tom paine comes back to the united states and they have a little monument to him up here in new rochelle, new york. and then they you know they dug up the bones and they're supposedly all over the world. what happened to all these founders? >> well, washington actually at the end of the revolution he meets tom paine, and paine already was full of grievances and felt that he had not been properly rewarded for his role. and washington does help to lobby on his behalf and says that congress should help paine out. yes, there were a lot of people who were forgotten. >> benedict arnold. >> benedict arnold.

this is one of the fascinating relationships because washington is completely blindsided by the treachery. and you ask how could that be? well, benedict arnold had shown extraordinary bravery and daring-do first at quebec and then at saratoga. benedict arnold had been wounded twice in the leg. he was limping around. he had become a cripple from his war wounds. and so he's not somebody that you would have expected to turn traitor. and washington is probably more shocked by the exposure of benedict arnold's treachery than anything that happened during the revolutionary war. >> what's the story? >> what's the story? well, arnold had a lot of different grievances. he felt that other people had been promoted in preference to him. when he was military commandant in philadelphia at one point during the war, he had been accused of corruption, and he was found guilty on a couple of minor accounts. so he's feeling more and more bitter. he marries a woman named peggy

shippen who was sympathetic to the tories and really the two of them begin to collaborate. and arnold maneuvers to become the head of west point. and then he actually sells the secrets of west point to the british in exchange for i think it was 6,000 pounds sterling and a high commission in the british army. as far as i know, the british made good on their end of the deal. >> so what happened at the end? where did he end up? >> he goes down to virginia. he ends up fighting against lafayette and other american generals in the south. >> the revolutionary war started when and ended when? >> well, the war really starts on april 1775 at lexington and concord, shots fired around the world. and then on november 25, 1783,

evacuation day in new york -- actually it used to be celebrated throughout the 19th century by george washington and governor george clinton -- at the head of 800 men ride into manhattan. and as they're riding south into the city, the british are leaving onboard ships and washington is greeted by these delirious crowds. i guess that in terms of what was happening on the ground, that was the official end of the revolution. of course, washington submits his resignation to the congress in annapolis in december 1783, a moment immortalized by john trumbull in a great painting. and actually at the time, that was in many ways considered the most important act that washington ever took. saying the story, benjamin wesley's patriot artist told george iii that general washington was planning on resigning his commission and

going back to mount vernon. and george iii says, "if he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." this was considered unheard of for somebody not to try to parlay that kind of military success into post-war political power. >> leading up to the revolutionary war, what did people in this country think of george iii? how visible was he? >> well, you know the interesting thing is in the early stages of the revolution, people keep blaming the ministry of lord north. they still feel that the king is their father and protector. and this was a certain sentiment that even washington shared, you know that the king was a benevolent figure but that he was being betrayed by his ministries. but of course he was now nobody whom they had ever set eyes on. >> so at the beginning, where was george washington when -- at lexington and concord? >> at lexington and concord, well, he's already at the second continental congress. he'd attended both the first and second continental congress.

and washington, i think one of the reasons that he was such a successful general and president, he'd had long political experience. he'd been serving the house of burgesses since 1758. he'd been very involved in the protest of the stamp act in 1765, the townshend duties in 1767, opposing the intolerable acts later on. and so this was a man who was very well versed in parliamentary government by the time that he is in a position of responsibility. >> why did people want to follow him? >> why did people want to follow him? i think that washington inspired a lot of confidence. in part, you want to give power to people who don't seem to be grasping at power. and this was a lesson that washington had learned very well. also, when he was chosen as commander-in-chief, people were very impressed by someone of his wealth is going to risk all of it for the sake of the cause. washington was a very good listener.

he wasn't an egomaniac. there was a tremendous fear that whoever became commander- in-chief would then become the so-called man on horseback would become very you know puffed up with his own power and that there was a modesty and humility about washington's demeanor but combined with a large degree of self-confidence as well. >> so how many americans at the height of the revolutionary war were fighting? >> i don't know the exact figure, brian, because it varies so much. washington said that the bane of his life was that never in history had there been an army that was disbanded at the end of every year and then had to be reconstituted you know so that at various times he had 2 or 3,000 men under his command. i guess at the time of yorktown it maybe went up to 15 or 16,000. there are altogether 25,000 americans died in the revolutionary war, which sounds small compared to, let's say,

the civil war is 5 or 600,000. but the population was only 3 million, so that's a very significant number of fatalities given the population at the time. >> back in those days, how did they record the different events? in other words, how were you able to go back and check what happened during the revolutionary war? >> well, it's partly -- you know washington took tremendous care of his own correspondents. we were talking in the first interview about his personal guard and how strange it was that he did that in the middle of the revolution. no less strange is as he's complaining about a shortage of manpower and money, he gets the congress to give him a special appropriation to create a secretarial staff that did nothing for two years but to create fair copies, in other words, clean copies of his correspondence in these 28 large ledgers. and so washington's papers, which are voluminous, are a fantastic source of information about the different battles.

and then of course as with any war, you get letters and diaries to a certain extent, newspaper accounts. there were a lot of people. >> did he know in those early days the british, the generals on the other side? >> yes, interestingly enough if you go back to the french and indian war, we find george washington not only fighting alongside horatio gates, who of course had become his great rival in the continental army. but you also find, for instance, thomas gage who then becomes the first you know british commander in north america at the very beginning, at the time of lexington and concord. so yes, washington had known for many years some of the personalities. he not had met, for instance, the howe brothers or sir henry clinton before. so there were quite a number of personalities who were new to him --or cornwallis who he had not met before. >> who decided that he should be the commander-in-chief? >> washington was -- the second

continental congress appointed him by a unanimous vote. it was the first of four significant unanimous votes. ok, washington is unanimously appointed commander-in-chief. he was unanimously appointed president of the constitutional convention. and then both times that he ran for president, he was unanimously elected by the electoral college. so that's a record that i think we can safely say no one will ever duplicate. >> how obvious was it when you were doing your research that he was the choice for all of this? >> you know i don't think in a certain way that he had a lot of competition. as i was saying during the first part, they needed a southerner because the continental army at that point was all the new england militiamen gathered in cambridge, massachusetts. washington had been very involved in the house of burgesses in protesting the stamp act and all of these other things.

washington had been a very active member of the first and second continental congress. he was one of the few people who had military experience at the time. you know we all know the story that he wore his uniform to the second continental congress from the fairfax militia. and so even though it had been many years -- because washington had been in his 20s that he had fought in the french and indian war -- that counted quite heavily at the time when there was a severe shortage of people with experience. the only other two people who had comparable experience would have been horatio gates or charles lee. charles lee was a very vain, eccentric and difficult personality. ditto for horatio gates in certain ways. and so in a certain sense, washington wins the contest by default. and so i kept stressing washington. there was a clarity of vision about this man.

there was a tenacity of purpose. his whole life, if you gave him a job to do, if you fixed a goal, he was relentless in pursuing it. and he certainly did that during 8-1/2 years as commander-in- chief. >> what were the relationships among the colonies then? and is there any residual after all these years the way virginians feel about massachusetts people and vice versa? >> well, i remember john adams, who you were talking about, how envious he was of washington. john adams said that in virginia all geese are swans. and also john adams, you know wrote a hilarious letter years later in terms of why washington was appointed. and some of the things that he pointed out, washington was tall. he looked the part of a commander. washington had the gift of silence. he didn't make mistakes by alienated people and saying the right thing. you know and he went on and on in that semi-satirical vein, but some of the stuff was true. but washington looked the part.

the colonies were very fractious and very fractured throughout the contest. i mean, washington's greatness as a general, most generals their greatness is what they do on the battlefield. i tried to show in the book arguably washington's greatness was as much what he did between battles, simply holding the continental army together. we tend to think of you know valley forge as the nadir of the continental army when they're shivering and they're suffering and they're starving. valley forge in many ways was more the rule than the exception. this was an army that was constantly short of men, money, blanket, shoes, clothing, gunpowder, et cetera. and george washington not only had to hold this often disgruntled and disinfected army together. but you have to be a brilliant politician in dealing not only with the congress but in dealing with 13 separate states.

and you know washington's story is a road heroic story, and ditto for the continental army. but he got precious little cooperation from a lot of the states. i mean, his correspondence is one long jeremiah of complaint and grievance that nobody is helping him out. >> what about pay for the soldiers during that time? >> you know the congress was constantly in arrears on paying people, i mean to the point where at the end of the revolution, there was actually a mutiny among the officers that they're owed so much back pay. they're not convinced that they're going to get promised pensions in the future. and there was such a shortage of money, major problems that washington had was that in order to get people to serve, they would pay them bounties. they would give them money. they would promise them land. and then the states began to compete with each other. and so what people do is they

would get a bounty from one state and they would disappear then they would come back and take in a bounty from another state. i mean, money permeates the whole thing. there's a constant shortage of money. >> why though? >> well, this is important in terms of the development of washington's political philosophy. the continental congress had no independent source of revenue. there was no executive branch at the time. there were -- later on there were certain executive departments. there was really just the legislature, the congress. congress could requisition -- that is, congress could request that the states give them money. congress could not demand that the states give them money, so the states competed to see who could give the least money. but congress did not have its own independent revenue source. so washington, hamilton, the other officers. this was really the beginning of their nationalistic philosophy. they realized that you need a powerful federal government with a strong executive, that it

have taxing powers and independent sources of revenues. and washington's policies as president are a direct outgrowth of his frustrations during the revolutionary war. >> you know we hear a lot of these names today, and you know almost nothing about them. the john hancock building in boston. >> right. >> clearly he meant more than being named a building after him. what did he do? >> well, john hancock was the president of congress at the time of the declaration of independence and he signed first, as we all know, the large signature at the top so that george iii could see it. john hancock was actually very competitive with washington. in fact, john adams told the story that when john adams rose at the second continental congress in order to nominate washington as commander-in- chief. that hancock thought that adams

was going to nominate him. and adams said he looked over at hancock, who had this big smile on his face at the day and then adams said, you know "i nominate george washington." and he said that the smile suddenly disappeared from john hancock's face. so you know it's interesting, very often people who ask me, brian, what would the founders have thought of this? and i always say the founders were not monolithic. the founders fought like cats and dogs with each other. the founders were very competitive with each other. the founders had very different political philosophies. but to sort of lump them all together in this one mass called the founders as if they all thought the same completely misrepresents what happened during that period. >> so when george washington was leading the troops during the revolutionary war, what was his philosophy? what did he want to accomplish when it was all said and done? and did most people agree with him? >> well, you know what he wanted was independence from england.

exactly what form the government would take was a subject that was postponed. as i said, that he was gradually developing his nationalistic philosophy really threw his critique of the congress. in terms of his military strategy, washington realizes early on that he lacks what the british have in spades, which is sea power. you know he's up against arguably the greatest navy in the world because the british have this very powerful navy. they can rapidly move troops up and down the eastern seaboard. and washington doesn't see a way, nor do his generals, that he can actually defeat the british. and so it becomes a war of attrition, an opportunistic war, where washington tries to evade the british and where opportunity presents attack. so that when you're writing about the revolutionary war, it's actually one of the difficulties of writing a biography of george washington is that there are long

stretches in the revolutionary war where, in terms of battles, nothing is happening. sometimes many months go by and there's no major battle. and then what happens later in the war is that the war shifts to the south. but washington stays in the north. and so it's really nathaniel greene and marquis de la fayette and others who are the main generals in the south. and george washington, the hero of the revolution, is pretty much distant spectator in the north. so it's only when the french alliance started in 1778, culminating in the yorktown victory three years later, that you know american land power, combined with french sea power and also french army, finally the bottle up cornwallis at yorktown and that becomes the climactic battle. >> why did the french come in? >> the french came in to harass the british, pure and simple. the enemy of your enemy is a friend.

john adams had a wonderful image that the french were kind of keeping the americans' head above water. they would put their finger under their chin. you know they'd keep the head out of the water enough so that the person wouldn't drown but not so much that he could really survive. and that was really the french attitude. it was not in the interest of an absolutist monarchy like france or something like the french revolution. and in fact, i guess you could say that they lived to regret it because some many of the french officers who came to fight in the revolutionary war you know who were imbued with the ideals of the american revolution -- most notably la fayette -- then went back to france and became leading figures in the french revolution. >> if you live in washington -- we're in new york recording this -- but if you live in washington, you cross from virginia to d.c. the rochambeau bridge. you also have a braddock road and a fairfax county and a fort

belvoir and all these names. >> right. >> and la fayette's portrait is in the house of representatives. the french, i mean, rochambeau is also throughout your book. >> yes. he was. he was the french general. he was rather crusty and difficult character. to a certain extent he humored washington and gave him a good time while kind of pursuing his own strategy. the french, for political reasons, made it seem as if washington was really the commander of both the american and the french army. but in fact, that was something of applied fiction, and you can see at the time you know of yorktown that rochambeau was the head of the french army, de grasse was the head of the french navy. but they're pretty much carrying out their own strategy that washington then kind of belated comes along with and marches his men to virginia. but the french were absolutely indispensable not only in terms of having that navy that traps

and surrounds cornwallis but battle of yorktown was the old- fashioned european siege where you're building trenches and these parallels keep getting closer and closer to the enemy. and that was really the work of french engineers. so we needed not only french navy, to an extent french army, but also french military know- how. >> nine hundred pages. >> right. >> we talked in our first interview about how you broke down the different sections. how long did it take you before you began writing the book? >> i do all my research before i start writing it. and so i spent six years and so i didn't write a word until i had spent at least four years researching the book. i like to know what i have to say before i sit down and start writing. >> and about the different sections. do you follow it chronologically?

>> i follow it chronologically, one thing, because i knew that this was going to be a long book. one thing that i did to try to make the narrative move quickly and make it more manageable is that i break it down into 67 chapters. it's really a lot of small chapters which i think is the reader sensitive forward motion that you're making progress in the book. and then each of the 67 chapters is broken down into three or four different scenes. so it proceeds more or less chronologically, and i hope has a kind of kaleidoscopic quality that it keeps kind of you know flitting from one scene to the other. and i tried to give it a fast pacing because even though it's a long book because i felt that washington was a man of action. this story is really, among other things, it's not only the creation of the country, it's wall-to-wall adventure. it's high adventure. and i felt that the book should have some of the excitement and the headlong pace of washington's own life, which was kind of running from you know one battle or one crisis to

another. there's not, i hope, a dull moment in the story. >> years ago when we talked about another one of your books, "titan," on john d. rockefeller, you said that you had a normal day. you began writing at nine o'clock in the morning and you might write until four o'clock in the afternoon. has anything about that changed? >> no. you know i usually don't write more than five or six hours. i find that if i work fewer hours, i work with more concentration. i live in brooklyn heights. i don't have lunch in manhattan. i don't spend a lot of time schmoozing on the telephone. and so this was very intensive and very rigorous. but no, i think particularly if you're doing such a long project and then you're writing such a long book, i think that you have to pace yourself in order to do it. and one of the secrets of pacing yourself is not to write yourself out at the end of the day. >> what's your relationship during this project with your editor? how's that work? >> my editor, well, ann godoff,

who has just been such a wonder in my career, ann and i, we'd meet periodically for lunch. she was always full of kind of enthusiastic good ideas and the right questions. and what i love about ann is she's not only a wonderful editor, she's a wonderful publisher. so that for instance, ann had said to me, "we have to have a cover that shows washington on a white horse." i said, "why?" she said, "well, you make much of how majestic he looked on a white horse and this sense of stage craft, political theater that he had." and so i found this painting that rembrandt peale did of washington on a white horse that rembrandt peale did in 1824. it's called washington before yorktown. and ann was absolutely right about it because i think that what we wanted -- you know when people think of george washington, they think of gilbert stuart's george washington. they think of an old, craggy, stiff character. that wasn't the washington that excited his contemporaries.

the washington that excited his contemporaries was a youthful dynamic you know charismatic man. and i think that that was really captured in that rembrandt peale painting where you could see how athletic he was and just how magnificent. >> now there's a scene in your book where you have five peales at one time. explain that. >> yes. well, what happened was that washington was good friends with charles willson peale, who was a great portrait painter and also operated a natural history museum in philadelphia. charles willson peale had a teenage son, rembrandt peale, who asked to paint washington during washington's second term. >> when he was 17? >> when he was 17. rembrandt peale said that he woke up that morning and his hands were trembling. he was so nervous he couldn't even mix his paints. and he felt that he was going to waste the time of the president of the united states.

so he contacted his father and said, "would you mind doing a portrait of president washington at the same time? that way if i bungle it" -- which he thought he would -- "at least we'll have your picture of him." then what happened was that charles willson peale agreed. he got his brother, james peale, to join. and then there were all these peale children who were painters who were named after old masters. one was titian peale. there was rembrandt peale, and then there was rubens peale. anyway, the other brothers came as well so that there were five peales who were simultaneously painting washington. and gilbert stuart happened to walk by the studio, and he was shocked to see five people painting george washington. so he ran into martha washington and said, "madam, the general is under assault from five peales. one is attacking his ear and the other is attacking his nose and the third is attacking his

chin." and it was quite funny because washington had always expressed a lot of discomfort about sitting for portraits, but clearly he had learned to not only tolerate it but love it that he had five peales doing it at the same time. >> go back to ann godoff who was random house before she went to penguin. >> that's right. i did "the warburgs" with random house with ann and -- >> at the moment, though, when you decided it was going to be george washington, did you know it was going to be a 900 page book at that point? >> no. on the other hand, i did -- alexander hamilton had died at 49 and that was an 800-page book. washington dies at the age of 67, and it's a much longer life than hamilton's. so this is only maybe, at most, 80 to 100 pages more. so i was actually relieved that it was only another 100 pages. so we all knew that it was going to be a long book.

and again, we all felt that the problem was that in years past there had been these great multi-volume biographies that were kind of out of print and largely unread. and the most difficult thing with washington is to do the one-volume, authoritative, cradle-to-grave biography. and so what i wanted to do -- and there were various places in the book where i told myself you know i could cut this scene. this would shorten the book. but i thought if this was going to be an authoritative book on washington, not just the very definitive you know because there's always another book that will come along and add things to it. but if it was going to be an authoritative book, i wanted every significant event in his life that you could go to the index and look it up and not only enjoy it as a good read but just use it as a standard reference work. so there are various episodes in there that i might have cut for the sake of space. but i said no, this was an important moment. and i think that it should be there. >> a couple more questions on the process. when you write a book like this,

do you submit chapters before you're finished with the whole book to penguin and they look at them? >> no. my deal with ann is that she sees the entire manuscript. you know i don't think that you can paraphrase dr. johnson, show someone a few bricks and expect them to get a picture of the house. and also, i felt here i not only wanted ann to see the pacing. i wanted ann to see the proportions which we were talking about earlier because this is one of the tricks of doing a book on george washington. there's so much ground to cover, how are you going to allocate the space? >> the penguin people put out promotion on this. and i'm going to go down some of what they say and just see how you feel about it. "what we're going to learn in the book is he had a troubled boyhood." >> i think it was a difficult boyhood. remember, his father dies when

george is 11. we just have maybe one or two sentences where he talks about his father. and but he seems to have gotten along better with his father than his mother, and then he's left at the tender mercies of his mother who's something of a holy terror. and there was a lot of financial stringency at the time, which i think stayed with -- washington was always very tense about the subject of money. and i think that that came from his boyhood. so it was troubled, but also he starts surveying. it's also a period of great accomplishment. >> promotion says, "it's going to focus on the precocious feats in the french and indian war." >> well, washington was a prodigy. by the time he is 23 years old, he's the head of the virginia regiment. at the age of 23, he's the head of all the armed forces in virginia. it's really quite astounding. >> virginia was the biggest colony at the time. >> yes, it was the biggest, most populous, richest colony at the time.

you know we still associate washington with the revolutionary war. he had a whole other life as a young man in the french and indian war. >> "his heroic exploits with the continental army." >> he had 8-1/2 years of very heroic excellence with the continental. you can't exactly shortchange that. >> so we're doing ok so far. his presiding over the constitutional convention, which we have not talked about. >> yes. now, that's very, very important. he's somewhat reluctantly drawn to the constitutional convention, but his position there is absolutely vital for a couple of reasons. number one, the constitutional convention is conducted behind closed doors. and so in order to convince the public outside of those doors that some nefarious plot is not being concocted inside those doors, the public is reassured by the presence of george washington because they know that no evil cabal is going to form if washington is the president of the constitutional convention. the other thing that's very

important in terms of the writing of the constitution is that given the fact that we had just [thwart] a revolution against the uses of executive power, article ii, which details the powers of the presidency, is far and away the most difficult part for these delegates to write because they kept fearing abuses of executive power. everyone knew that if he wanted it, george washington would be the first president. and so i think that the delegates were emboldened to create what turned out to be a very strong presidency because they imagined george washington, or someone like george washington, holding the office. and actually they were you know well advised in that because i think that washington was quite a brilliant president. >> one of the last points in the pr pitch is that it talks about his magnificent performance as america's first president. >> yes. washington really forges the office of the presidency. let me give you give you some

examples, brian. there's no mention in the constitution of cabinet. there is a reference to reports from departmental heads. washington creates the first cabinet. he chooses alexander hamilton as secretary of treasury, thomas jefferson, secretary of state, henry knox is the secretary of war. so he establishes a very, very high benchmark for a talent and intelligence and integrity. also, you know the founders -- the framers of the constitution -- devoted article i to the congress because that was the people's house, and they expected that to be the most important branch of government. washington, early on, discovers that congress is really too large and unwieldy a body to shape policy. so washington decides that it is the president who is going to initiate policies that the congress then reacts to.

very important we take this for granted, but in fact, it was not really the intention of the people who met in philadelphia in 1787 to have that powerful and executive. and so washington really creates the office of the presidency that we have today. and he goes a long way to defining the relationship of the executive branch both to the legislative branch and the judiciary, which we haven't talked about, where again, brilliant choice, john jay, becomes the first chief justice. george washington appoints 11 supreme court justices, more than any other president. >> eleven total in his eight years. >> eleven total. yes, he starts out in the constitution, mentions the supreme court, of course, but doesn't specify the number of justices, so that the first court has six justices. washington sends all six names to congress at the same time. they all breeze through in 48

hours, which seems comical now where you can get one through as a process of many weeks and many months. but he really -- washington said that he devoted more painstaking effort to the choice of judges than to anything else he did. he said that he felt that the independent judiciary was the cornerstone of the whole constitutional structure. >> this is maybe odd for a question. did he appoint john marshall? >> no. no. john marshall was appointed by john adams. but marshall was a friend of washington's. it was washington in his final years who urged john marshall to run for congress. and then when marshall becomes chief justice -- that's right, it was obviously adams because jefferson hated marshall and jefferson felt there was this entrenched you know federalist court.

when john marshall was chief justice, marshall is very good with bushrod washington, who's an associate justice. bushrod was george washington's nephew. bushrod had control of washington's papers. and john marshall not only writes the first authorized biography of george washington -- five volumes -- he writes it, brian, while he's chief justice. it's an immense piece of work. >> slavery. complex behavior as a slave master is part of the promotion on this. and you know at mount vernon they've changed the language and where the slaves are buried, all that. how many slaves did he and his wife have at the height? >> at the height about 300 slaves. and of those 300 slaves about 125 were legally under the direct control of george washington, that being important not on a day-to-day

basis but important because in his will, washington does something that no other founder does. he frees those 125 slaves. the other 175 slaves, who were known as the dower slaves -- were brought to the marriage by martha and pledged to the custis heirs so that washington legally could not emancipate those slaves. >> in the book, though, you see quotes where he calls negroes "riff-raff", or the slave "riff- raff". >> you know what, he was always frustrated as a slaveholder. as illogical as it sounds, he always talked about them as if they were salaried employees and he's paying them room and he's paying them board and why can't he get a full day's work in return? he can't understand that the slaves have no rational reason for performing well. and so he's constantly frustrated because he's a very efficient man, and he's always trying to introduce new scientific production methods

at mount vernon. and he feels that the slaves won't cooperate because the slaves had no reason to cooperate. i mean, if you're a slave, the best response is to be passive- aggressive. you do kind of enough to get by but there's nothing in it for you by you know performing with maximum intensity. >> did all the founders have money, land? >> certainly all the virginia planters had a lot of -- often had more land than money. they were all land-rich and cash poor. they were all in debt. in fact, i think even before the revolution they were all in debt to their british factors in london. and this was no small source of resentment against the british that they felt that they were in hock to their london agents. >> how much of the laws that they made in those early days were in their favor as landowners and white males?

>> well, everything. i mean, you know the suffrage is restricted to a very, very small you know group of you know white property owners. this was not an egalitarian world at all. >> why did we then keep talking about our founders as such great people? >> well, i think that they established you know the principles of a more equitable society. and over time we have been nourished by those principles. you know all men were not created equal in the 18th century, but that has always been an ideal that we have strived. and so that a lot of the principles they enunciated, even if not carried into effect, they've had a very inspirational effect later in american history. but jefferson was a large slaveholder and did not always practice what he preached. but you know what he preached, he preached so well that those doctrines have had an ongoing life. >> now if you put a copy of this book of yours in the hands

of all 535 members of congress and senate and they sat down and read it all, what would they -- what do you want them to take from this that might change the way we're doing things today? because i mean a lot of what i read in here seems like it's happening today. >> yes. well, we thought that there were certain things that they would learn about leadership. one of the things that i loved about george washington is washington always challenged people to match up to his high standards. he didn't stoop. he didn't bend. i think it's very interesting, brian, if you read washington's farewell address, he's not flattering the american people. he's challenging the american people. and i hope that people will see that george washington was somebody who always, as a general and as a president, he always stuck to his principles. he never confused leadership with a popularity contest. he always felt the important thing was not to be loved but to be respected. of course, as i tried to show in

the book, if people respect you in the long run-- and they would not only respect you but love you as well. but he was really an exemplary leader who had a vision of american greatness, but not simply a vision of america being strong and rich and powerful. he had that. and that has come to fruition. but he also saw the country as an honorable country, a respectable member of the community of nations. and so washington, from the time that he's commander-in-chief, he's trying to mold the character of the country as well as the strength of the character. and i spend a lot of time, when i'm talking about the revolutionary war, that washington as general orders is always telling them, "don't swear, don't drink, don't pillage crops from the farmers, respect human rights, respect property." you know he had such a respect for property rights, for instance, that even at valley

forge, if you were caught stealing, you would be tied to a tree and you would be whipped for doing it. he was very concerned during the war with humane treatment of prisoners. on and on you see his ethical concerns just permeate. and i think that washington felt that if things are grounded in sound rally in ethics, you know the politics will take care of itself. but you don't see him cutting corners. you don't see him you know pandering to different people. you see him following the dictates of his own conscious. >> what do you think you would not like about him if you knew him? >> well, he was -- in two sides of his life, in terms of the less attractive side of george washington, any time he was dealing with money in business situations, washington could be quite testy, quite acerbic. he was a very difficult and, at times, nasty person to deal with in a business situation.

i also tried to get a very long and searching look here at what it meant to be as washington as i was described, a benevolent slave master. and there were good sides to washington as a slave master -- if one could say that -- that he honored slave marriages, he honored slave families, that he made sure they got adequate medical treatment, et cetera, et cetera. but i also try to show that he was intent on extracting a profit from these slaves. and i had one passage in the book where he discovered after the revolutionary war, he goes back to mount vernon, and it's the coldest winter on record in virginia. it's so cold that he writes in his diary it was too cold for him to go out riding. and he was a very hearty specimen. yet he also was checking with his overseers to make sure that all of the slaves are out in the fields, draining swamps, pulling up tree stumps. this is really quite brutal work. and you want to say to him,

"george, if you can't go outside, is it really fair to expect the slaves who are doing this very heavy manual labor?" so i love washington, but it's not to say that i love him on every page of the book or every you know phase of his life. >> these are always difficult questions or difficult answers. if he were here today and looked at what's happened in this country based on what he wanted to happen, what would he like, what would he not like? >> well, i think he would not be surprised that things were as partisan as they have become because he was subjected to that himself. and things could be very nasty partisan back in the founding era, so that would not surprise him. i think that back in the founding era, even though the polemics were often quite vitriolic, there was a brilliance to the level of discussion. and that even though people express themselves very

vehemently, this was coming out of their own passions and their own political views. i think that he would see a lot of mediocrity today -- not everywhere. i mean, we have a lot of fine public servants, but i think the general caliber is lower than it was. i think it would disturb him to see people pandering to party. it would disturb him to see people pandering to lobbyists because he expected you know that politics derived from your personal principals and passions. and i think one important thing to stress, brian, is that back in the 18th century, public service was honorable. and as a result we had our best minds going into public service. i feel that there are so many disincentives to public service now, lack of privacy, new tabloid press, non-stop fundraising. and also, people keep denigrating government and that

becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. if you keep telling you know people that government is terrible and that congress is a bunch of morons you know the course of time, you're not going to get the best people going into politics. and i think that deserves that we get the best minds going to work on wall street or silicon valley or biotech, whatever. and so it would be wonderful, if maybe a forlorn hope, to try to revive that sense of public service that we had in the early days of the country. >> how much of that back in the revolutionary war period was these men wanting to keep their property? and if you read just your chapter on valley forge, you have those poor people, those poor soldiers out there with no blankets, no shoes, in the middle of winter, no food, no money, no anything, while the generals are back in the shack somewhere with a fire going. i mean, what's -- how do you explain that? >> you know washington believes strongly in leadership by example.

you know he made a point in every battle that he fought, and he was right smack in the thick of the battle. he was often the most conspicuous target. also, when they got to valley forge, precisely to avoid that situation where you know the generals seemed to be back in the warm house, washington lived in the tent. he lived in temporary quarters, and then there was this great -- they started building all of these huts. but he kind of wanted to show the men that he was sharing their suffering. and so washington lived in a series of houses during the revolutionary war. he certainly was living more comfortably than his men, but if you go to see them, he's really living very, very you know modestly for a general. >> the book publisher says that george washington -- this is in the pr statement -- remains a lifeless wax work for many americans. what have you done here that might take a little bit of that away? >> well you know what i've

tried to do is to recreate that very charismatic and dynamic you know figure from washington's early days. i've tried to use every device that i know as a writer to bring him to life. and so i want him to be vivid and immediate. so throughout the book, every time washington is painted by somebody, i describe the painting so that you can actually see him you know feel it, kind of taste the period. and also have hundreds and hundreds of anecdotes and quotes in the book of people who met george washington, who left the impressions of washington because i feel that he really comes to life -- comes to life in a lot of these you know letters and diaries and newspaper accounts. so that description is very, very important. i wanted people not only to hear washington's voice. i actually wanted them to see washington throughout. >> you've already won the

$50,000 washington award for your book on alexander hamilton, the first one that was awarded. what are you going to do now? >> i don't know. it was funny, when i got that award, brian, i had already published hamilton, and it was known that i was doing washington next. and i kind of chuckled when i got the award. i know that there were a few people out there who probably felt the fix was in that i got the george washington award. i don't know. you know the difficulty of completing a long biography of george washington like this is that writing about washington is to scale mt. everest, and then you look around and you say, are there any peaks as high as this? it's such an extraordinary life. i guess i'll find out if there's life after washington. >> last couple quick questions about your own life. where were you born? >> i was born in brooklyn, new york, bay ridge, coincidentally, next to fort hamilton. and then when i was three, my family moved to forest hills,

queens. and so i'm a child of the outer boroughs of new york. >> and we talked in the first discussion about your book on j.p. morgan, the warburgs, and rockefeller and hamilton. are you thinking about the next one? i know this is just the beginning of this tour. >> yes. i am. i'm feeling like having you know twirled in the vineyard of the 18th century for more than a decade now that i think i might like to return to the -- not the early 21st -- the 20th century. >> like what? >> i don't have any idea. as i said, washington is such a tough act to follow because i feel that i should look for some figure of you know washington's stature. and they're few and far between. >> on a personal note, what do you think of the country -- our country -- today? >> i have a feeling that we're very much adrift.

i feel like we're stalled at the moment. what i loved about writing on washington was that here was somebody who had a real vision of the country. and as i was saying before, not just a version of american power and riches but a real version of american morality you know kind of what we stood for, what the character of the country was. you know washington also, like all great presidents, he was one of those real leaders. he had this mystic faith in from the public. he had this mystic connection with the country. he felt, interestingly enough, although he was always optimistic about the country in the long run, he was frequently very pessimistic about the country in the short run. and i keep reminding myself of that because washington felt that the american public you

know would often be you know misled for brief periods of time but kind of in the long run that things would come out right. and so i hope that his faith is borne out. >> how much of a tour are you going to do with this book? >> oh, about 10 to 15 cities. >> do you like that part of this? >> i like going out and meeting people because i know that as i'm out on the road, people will be asking me questions and not only will i learn all sorts of things from their reaction in terms of the way that washington is perceived -- or even the things that people know about washington that maybe that i don't know. but then it also kind of calls a lot of different things out of me that i wish i had thought of when i was writing the book. and very often people's you know questions or the back and forth with audiences will elicit different things from me that i hadn't realized before. so it's very, very exhausting. that part i don't like. but it also can be very, very educational.

after i've sat in a room for six years writing this book -- and we were just talking about the state of the country -- i think that if you want to eavesdrop on the american mind and psyche at the moment, there's no better way of doing it than to go out and speak to people about george washington. >> so in the end, what's the hardest part of doing a book like this? >> i think just mastering the sheer amount of material. you have material written by washington, written about washington, just mastering the basic facts. and then of course once you master the basic facts, you have to synthesize it into a portrait that's compelling. you have to craft it into a narrative that is engrossing. it's a very, very hard subject to do. >> and did you have somebody check all your facts? >> i actually had four different scholars who reviewed portions of the manuscript. and i'm very grateful for that. i just felt with washington this book had to be impeccable.

and i did an extraordinary amount of fact checking on my own multiple times. >> ron chernow, author of "washington: a life," we thank you very much. >> it's been a pleasure, brian. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> for a dvd copy of this program, call1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at our website. "q&a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> next, your calls and comments

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