coming up next on c-span connect una. after that prime minister's questions. ♪ >> this weekend q&a, harvard law feltman.ofessor he describes james madison. what are the three lives of j madison that you wrote about? >> the first life is the one that is most famous red that is where he created the constitution. not only in our country but also the greatest constitutional genius and the world.

in his second life he discovered the constitution was not perfect. thoughtht he had against political parties, he actually founded the republican party to fight the federalist party. he became a partisan very much against his own wishes. his third life he got to be secretary of state for eight years and president for eight more created he got to take on all of the decisions when you are running the show, and faithfully taking us into the first war. very much against the principles of his lifetime. person,about him as a size and health problems, and all that. noah: he was very different than the other founders. he was very much in his head. he was deeply committed to reason and logic. speaking.ublic he hated are you doing had a disagreement.

he was much smaller than the others. he was maybe five foot six inches tall. he may have been shorter according to some accounts. he was very cautious about his health. he did not want to get sick did as a custom, he never took a sea voyage anywhere. let's will not least, he was susceptible to serious attacks probably called migrants. -- migraines. crucial stressful moments, each time he powered through. he would be in bed for a few days, he would force himself back into the saddle and do whatever he was doing. >> for a guy who was sickly, he lived until he was 85. >> he was just a clear enough to be worried about his health. strategy and the world where they did not understand anything about infection. they just knew it was out there.

several very important decisions were based on avoiding places he thought there would be yellow fever. he was usually correct, he avoided places where there were mosquitoes. opening at the time knew it was mosquitoes that gives you yellow fever. >> if he was sitting right here, what would you ask him? >n if he was sitting i would wat to asko what we should do about our own partisanship, his view was you should only be a partisan to put an end to partisanship. the republican party was going to let an end to all republican parties. the federalists more or less from to nothing in response to his onslaught. he did not clearly understand how to sustain a long run in the republic. i would like to hear his thoughts about that. quick summary languages do you speak? hebrew, arabic, french, there are some dead languages

that i can get through. i tried to make it with my native tongue. orwhen he was at princeton new jersey, he also studied hebrew, why? ifh: if the 18th-century, you had toprinceton study the bible. latethough greek was the would have the adjustment. hebrew was the language of the old testament. experienced a lot of it. >> when did you learn he was a smart person? was one of the few things i could see up front. he was certainly book smart in the traditional sense. he was the most prepared founder. that was the reason for his success. his response to any deep policy ioblem was too deep down

learn as much as he could. when he was first elected. thebig problem was shrinking money supply. instead of just mouthing off, he borrowed books and buried to write asd tried much as he could about the topic. you could see a mind in action and at work. the big challenge for him throughout his life was translating the book smart learning into real-world political judgment. he wouldrest of us, advocate a policy that was created that made sense in light of what he knew. if it did not work he would try to do it differently. sometimes he made mistakes that were never a popular. >> how much influence the james madison have on the constitution? met, almoste first 15 years ago, i was briefly a constitutional advisor to the

first provisional government in raq. that became the basis for their final constitution. haveruth is, madison did an influence on all constitutions really. crucial was the idea of federalism. today, with think of that as a normal aspect, that was pretty innovative in the u.s. constitution. that is the idea whether is it central government that does have direct legal authority over citizens. governmentse state that enjoy power over individuals. that is a complex cap or mice that came out of our philadelphia convention. it cap are mice out of the iraqi convention which also involve federalism. in their case, asymmetric federalism. the rest of the country is allowed to organize into regions. there is one direct influence.

the other is freedom of speech and religious liberty. that is enshrined in the iraqi constitution. i am not saying it is perfectly obeyed there by any stretch of the imagination, but it is on the books. that is an example of a provision that goes right back to the u.s. constitution. >> how long did you work with the iraqis and what is your biggest worry from that experience? noah: i was there for several months. then i continued to work from siteswith their regional rather than meet up with the iraqis. i would say my strongest memory of being there are in fact of the strangeness of a scenario where the u.s. government, this incredibly powerful entity, had knocked out e-government, we or the americans were clear on what was going to happen next. i have a very vivid memory of being pulled over on the side of the road in a neighborhood, with just a couple of other americans who were soldiers.

,e were in a couple of humvees iraqis came over and asking us in arabic of the what was going on. , i am sorry, i don't know. they asked when the schools are i said i hope they open soon. finally, they said who is in charge, who is the government? i would momentarily blocked. i was not sure what the question men. -- meant. then they asked the question again. is president bush's special envoy. they said they had never heard of him but it with somebody is in charge. had notlly hit home, we managed to communicate to the country that we were in charge. her arabicrtant was in that situation of trying to help them write a constitution? noah: it was centrally important

you have to understand the people who are doing the drafting, their culture, their belief, and their values. in the end it is always their culture that matters the most. language is a great tool to break through, madison's contemporaries has spoken the same language, it would have been very difficult to get together and negotiate an argument. in a rack that was a problem. kurds rarely even speak arabic. >> whether you doing full-time now? noah: i am a professor of law at harvard law school. it is a good day job. i love teaching constitutional law to my students, it enables me to keep on writing and doing research. i read a column for bloomberg view which discusses contemporary events alongside the serious work of try to do research. >> you dedicated your medicine book to adison

professor at harvard. for that it mean professorship? noah: they are both about relationships. the first is a living person, the second is a person i never knew. work for andho i dedicate the book was an extraordinary boss. just a deeply inspiring figure in the justice system. he was a bipartisan oriented republican. that is something that used to exist from new hampshire. member of the republican party for most of his career until he went on the bench and put aside his partisan affiliation. he was deeply embedded in the constitution. he was just a profoundly humane, deeply well read, and inspiring person. a person of probity and

, everybody was struck by his honesty and his straightforwardness. you always knew exactly where he stands. that has been a great relationship for me. until for him from 1998 1999. >> when you are there, how much madison affect your clerkship? noah: he did very much. every summer, the justice would give the incoming clerks an assignment to research some problem. there were some cases -- as it turned out those cases were not argue that term. he gave us a research project on early american thoughts about religious liberty and a bunch of specific context. madison was a core essential source of that. i don't very very deep way into -- deeply into that. understood this

is a person who understands her knee. even though that was 20 years ago, every much informed that going into the world. i think he takes madison very seriously. --re are other founder for founding fathers he enjoys me that is a great skill for the justice. >> i was looking at some past material when you are looking to get an a punch of as a professor. -- dean at the law school what about them? respecthave enormous for the justice. when she had me she was the dean at the law school there. i was incredibly lucky to have a chance to work under her. andbserve her technique rosalie soon thereafter, she went off to washington, to work

for the obama administration on the supreme court. we did not get to work with each other for too many years. i looked up to her very much and would like to consider her a friend of fed is not too presumptuous. >> what is her technique? noah: her technique is a justice is some way reminiscent of justice souter. she goes beyond that. she does not restrict yourself to that analysis. where she differs is that she is much more colloquial on the court, she is very punchy. she once the reader to set up and take notice. a nonlegalrites for audience. that is a remarkable development in the history of the court. she is one of the clearest and most non-technical writers that the court has seen and many, many decades. i think that maybe one of her him or to facets on the bench. connection i wrote about

in a book about fdr. i found him deeply, personally wholenging and somebody began his career as a liberal. he was a nationally known liberal law professor. the key to this was judicial restraint. that is because the supreme court at the time was a conservative libertarian majority supreme court. he objected to the way that supreme court was blocking progressive legislation. he had the idea of restraint to try the block them. he went on the court, within a few years, roosevelt managed to appoint a other court. why in the world should we exercise judicial restraint? him as a to see judicial conservative, having come to the bench as a liberal.

ultimately, he ended his career has been seen as very conservative and dissenting from some of the great liberal judgments. there were exceptions, he was an active majority of the minority --the brown versification from the education case. he is left with academics. people like me who value the fact that he was committed to what i would like to think of as objective as he could be in terms of the values he took. no one is always objective, he tried to be objective, he tried to stick with the philosophy that he believed was true and he was perceived as a liberal. he never gave that up. holdis a great model, to the professorship of his name to or, to tryhat occupy and explain the constitution and its values to the world. try and hold onto the principal and try not to be

swayed too much by the whims of that political benefit. >> i went to read a quote from your book, this is from joseph story when he was 32. -- these are his writings. i wish i was somebody perfectly fit for the task would write a full and accurate biography of medicine. i fear that it can hardly be who best for the men appreciated his excellences have nearly all passed away. what shadows we are. for theperfectly fit task of this enormous biography on james madison? noah: no. that is one reason when i came aross that quote, i have portrait of him on my wall, i wanted to include that. story couldph bemoan the fact that he and his colleagues were shadows compared

to the great. just imagine how much more shadow like we are 300 years later. that was myself sane do your best, it does not have to be perfect, just produce the best biography you can do. constitution,he that is my stock in trade. atimately, for constitutionalist james madison is our einstein. there is nobody more significant to the field. it was a big job, and it would take a while to create. i wanted to sink my teeth into it and i did. another famous supreme court justice, john marshall, what was the relationship between them back in the days? been the longest serving. who learned from which one? had a very complicated ongoing relationship. for one thing, medicine

succeeded him in the division of secretary of state. it was the succession that led to the case of marbury v madison. when he was still secretary of state he was supposed to deliver a commission to marbury, he never managed to do that. marbury then sued madison. demanded he and secretary of state deliver the commission. he refused and that led to the case. remarkably john marshall held the opinion to not recuse himself even though the case was his failure to deliver. was annce, marshall unusual person, he was a virginia federalist. he was from virginia, just like madison was. most of the virginia gentleman strongly supported the cause of the republican party. they were a little bit skeptical of too much central, federal power. they believed in a moderate degree in states rights.

that was not the petition that marshall enacted on federal powers. sense, he and madison were political opponents. from the bench, where he was chief justice, he kept up a steady stream of indirect critiques of the republican administration, as best as he could. i would say, looking back, it couple of hundred years. marshall and madison probably agreed on more than they disagreed. they both took a central middle ground on the question of federal and congressional power. in the was probably the most important case, the chief thatce stood for the idea what powers congress needed to exercise, what was needed to fulfill and the basic task of laying down in article the constitution. necessary and proper causes have the effect of allowing congress an opinion.

that isthat is basically what mn believe, marshall said there are still some limits to what he can do. medicine also believe there were some limits. >> when did you decide to do this book? when did you decided to sell it to the publisher? when did you start your research. ? noah: i decided about eight years ago. then i started doing the research seven years ago. it was tricky to convince the publishers that we needed a james madison biography. madisondn't been a full biography since 1971. that was a long time ago. madison fored a new a new generation. i thought there would be some similarities between madison and obama. old so restrained that their critics complained they did not show enough passion. each pulled into a war that they did not want to be involved in.

research, it became clear the differences between them were much greater than the similarities. in particular, obama had his amazing public capacity to speak and hold audience which was so lacking in madison. his excessive control the constitution was not with obama. his research to me are away from where i had begun. there is an important lesson there, you never know where you're going when you read a book. if you do you have not wrote properly. had the book came out, we donald trump as president, fundamentally the world looks different than when i started writing. lessons can be drawn from the book also looked different from what they were when i started. took eight years to get to this book, where did you go to research, but that together for

us? noah: i am very lucky. from,ller, where he is archivists,staff of they were very generous in sharing their material with me. i drew on that. >> that is in virginia. noah: it is a great place to visit and they have done a great job. that was certainly helpful and researching slavery at the madison household which was an important theme of the book. that is the reality of madison. he was born in the arms of slaves, they were a constant in that aspect of his life. >> how many did he have? noah: his family had more than 100 slaves when he was born. there were fewer than that when he died. ultimately, it holly madison sold those slaves to support herself later in life.

that is not because she was free them, she needed the money. i was very lucky in terms of montpiller, scholars have been working for decades and decades, compiling every scrap of paper he wrote him. he himself tried to collect and edit his own papers. he wrote to the families and said can i have a copy of the letter that i sent you? he did that impart to raise lly to he wanted do have that money. thosethose are now gathered and published as the james madison papers. it is a long series by the university of chicago and virginia. increasingly, they have also been digitized, not 100% white quite if you have been digitized. i had my resources available to meet that had made my life easier. to work with manuscript

that were written in foreign languages. transmitters had done a great job. the problem was the sheer amount of material. the fact that there are so many volumes full of his writing, i read them all, there is no way around it, you have to be patient. you have to read every word, you have to weigh and tell a story. >> do you take notes, how do you collect the information after you have read all this? noah: i usually sat with the books here on the computer over here. when i came across a passage that seemed especially important , i would turn and type it into once in aer create while i was able to copy and paste. i think that exactly helpful great you are putting yourself in the mind of madison, you are if to talk like he talked

you receive in the u. have to write it down, you reminders of what it must of been like for him. intoyou try to craft that a narrative grade you try to tell that story. over time, from the nose that you have taken a coherent story starts to emerge. you have to make sure you are said,ing what henry ford one thing after another. you have to tell a story. you are not writing a novel, you are writing a biography. you want to have a structure that is true to the facts of how things develop. that you really have to be a little lucky, you have to hope the story is coherent. i think his was, partly because he was so analytic he was always trying to make sense of everything around him and put it in a logical format. by following his inner experience, i think it was able to tell the story in a way that holds together. >> the personal relationships,

you read the book between madison and jefferson, hamilton, and washington, you say there is a point where madison washington fell out, what was that? >noah: personal relationships ae everything to me. who likeds not a guy to be out there on the front lines waving a flag. he liked to make things happen from the back room. throughhe did that was these very intense close personal relationships. occasionally these friendships with enemies. in the case of washington, he went to being a very close ally, helping convince them to bring -- bring himional to the constitutional convention. watching was very hesitant and it would disrupt his reputation. eventually madison wrought him around and got him to come. when washington became president, madison was his man in congress.

in the very first exchange between washington and the congress, edison goes to washington that he goes through a congress reply, he sends his reply to congress. edison was literally talking to himself in producing these documents. and shows you how close he washington really were. they eventually fell out over washington's policy of favoring england over france. that was a time of deep tension between the two countries. edison believed in a fundamental way that the u.s. had signed a toaty with france and owed them to stay with them. washington was more pro-british. had a treaty with france and not with england was perceived as madison and others as a pro-british position,

rather than neutrality, this was concern of the british. , he wentriticized him further than criticizing his policy, he made the argument that washington was overstepping his constitutional bounds by declaring neutrality. edison wanted to argue that only congress can declare war, only congress can declare neutrality. washington carried a lot of of his reputation, was deeply committed to the constitution. he deeply resented the idea that madison was suggesting he may have overstepped constitutional bounds. hamilton was in the background egging him on. washington could forgive a stay on his reputation. they just stopped speaking. after washington died, madison introduced special legislation in honor of washington. he helped put money aside for a monument. he and jefferson believed that

washington had become part of the federalist. in washington's farewell address, the thing we all love so low was a partisan performance, not so been that should be valued for the ages. there is not a big monument for >> madison. of him find a statue over the leopard congress, why is that? noah: the constitution is madison's monument. --that way the constitution the monument is all around you in washington dc. the three structure of government. the way people speak to each other, the exercise of free speech, all of that is his monument. the case in st. paul's where he said look around you. if you are looking for madison's monument in washington dc it is all around you. madison did not have a single

author document in the way the declaration of independence was written by jefferson. he did not have jefferson's love of the crowd. he did not have his incredible gift for expression. jefferson was a true genius of expression. utterly brilliant. the declaration. a lot of the time a lot of times medicine was jefferson's enthusiasm. he would have been very happy there was a monument to jefferson. he would not have wanted a monument to himself. i think jefferson would have loved the idea that there was a monument to himself. host: a couple of things, why

did he send his stepson to the negotiation for the treaty. you never heard anything good about his son. >> medicine had a tough relationship with his stepson. dolly, she hadt in less than a year before, lost her husband and infant to the yellow fever epidemic. she had one surviving son whom they called payne. madison and dolly never had children of their own. he became a stepfather to payne. he always tried to get him into the best schools. payne did not have the instincts of a public servant. madison was truck -- was trying to get him worldly experience. exposed to european

aristocratic styles, but didn't have aristocratic styled money. he borrowed money, spent it, gambled away and came back with huge debt. madsion did not want dolley to know about this, so he paid the debts. that was a mistake because payne repeated this again and again. he would repeatedly come back with debt and medicine -- madison would buy him out of debtor's prison. he spent so much cash trying to solve payne's economic troubles, he did not have the cash left to give to dolley. year listeninga to people talking about jared kushner being involved in international relations. what would happen if madison

were here and payne, his stepson, was involved in something as important as the treaty of yent. -- i wasfar as i will able to ascertain, he had almost no role in the treaty. nevertheless we might raise our eyebrows at the host -- at his stepson being involved in something like a treaty. an it is not like he played important role in those negotiations. they were responsible politicians who were approved by congress. they did the heavy lifting. 's's the only thing in madison career where you would raise your eyebrows. obsessively

determined not to take a penny from the public. there were no corruption scandals in his presidency. host: it starts off as the african-american kiersey family preserves the tradition that they were descended from james madison and an enslaved woman named coreen. who is she and what is this about? noah: these days, when you write a biography of the founding fathers, you have to think seriously about the question of descendents, including african-american descendents. the reason for this, as my wonderful colleague showed in her two books about the hemmings family, that jefferson, almost certainly, was the father of

dolley hemming's children. the children preserved this tradition for centuries and nobody believed them. it took a combination of reed's work and dna testing for them to be acknowledged. i thought, i had better do the same thing for madison. it is entirely possible he wasn't biologically able to have children. they were married for many years. we know that she was able to have children, yet they never had children. one possibility is that madison was unable to have children. i went looking to see if there were african-americans who reported a family tradition. i found one family through their website. the woman who maintains it is a physician. she and her family have this tradition. ifid what i could to see

i could find further evidence in support of the tradition. i wasn't able to find any. you never know. it would be hard to do the dna testing, because we don't have direct dna from madison. in the library of congress, there is a portrait of madison that he presented to a young woman he called kitty. not engaged, but they were engaged to be engaged. behind the portrait there is a lock of his hair. dnariends who were scientists, it would not be easy it is not outside the bound of possibility that you might be able to extract dna from that hair. futureht be able to do dna testing. >> have you asked anybody if they were going to do it? >> i don't think anybody is planning to do it at the moment.

this isesting twist to that one of hemmings's children was named james madison hemmings. they called him madison throughout his life. according to them that was because dolly hemmings had requested of dolley hemmings -- dolley madison had requested of dolley hemmings that this happened. it is kind of remarkable and poetic that jefferson had a son and grandson named james madison. as far as we know, madison did not have any offspring of his own. he was one of 12 children, six of them lived to be adults. did any of the rest of them become anything? >> they didn't really.

we have one angry letter from madison to his brother in a response by patrick henry to make an approach to his brother willie. madison was not close to his actual brothers and sisters. but he was very close with a succession of men his own age. edmund randolph. james monroe. those were crucial relationships in his life. they were like sibling relationships. they apparently substituted in some way. host: how mean would it have been back then when james monroe challenged james madison for the seat in the house of representatives? noah: i think it is incredibly shocking. right after the constitution had been ratified at the convention,

where madison had gone head-to-head with patrick henry, madison won and henry lost. although madison controlled the constitutional convention, henry control the virginia state legislature. henry gerrymandered the distr icts in madison's home area to produce a district full of antifederalists. then he convinced james monroe, one of madison's best friends in monroe,d, henry seduced probably by telling him you will defeat madison, this was right after madison had drafted the constitution. munroe made a run for it. i find it extraordinary he would have done this against his close friend. it was the heart of winter. to town andwn participated in public and outdoor meetings where they would debate questions of the

ratification of the constitution. madison got frostbite on his nose, he liked to tell the story. juston pulled it off but barely. and there was an incredible letter that madison wrote to jefferson. he said, you will be sorry to hear that i had the misfortune of running against a close friend of ours, munroe. it is over and our friendship is unaffected on my side. i think jefferson believed him. i think madison actually meant it. he was able to forgive monroe. if munroe won, madison's whole career would have been over. 30 years later, the whole process was repeated again. by otheren convinced virginians that he should come

back and run for president against madison, when madison was supposed to inherit the presidency from jefferson. a second time, he did it. he ran against his close friend, lost, and again madison for dave him.- for davgave asked presidency, madison monroe to be his secretary of state. i think he genuinely missed munroe. i think he genuinely forgave him for trying to upstage him. that is a tremendous sign of madison's character. 005, we took our cameras to the constitution center. the first time i read about james madison, he was 5'2". then he was 5'4".

then he was 5'6". here is video, where walking historian, a famous looking at george washington and james madison. i want you to tell us how tall you think he was. washington,george the father of our country and james madison the father of the constitution, the shortest delicate and the tallest delegate. host: i am 5'7". how tall was he? >> 6'3". >> how tall was madison? >> 5'4". noah: i wanted an accurate statement. we know that dolley was 5'7". was looking for somebody to have written a description of them standing next to each other. someone saying, they were the same height or dolley was taller . the concern with height was

less pervasive. today it is unimaginable that we would not know exactly how tall the president is. we'll know exactly how tall he was. pretty sure he was shorter than dollar -- dolley. host: they were 14 years apart? noah: correct. host: who introduced james madison to dolley madison and under what environment? noah: they were introduced by ehrenberg, the same -- aaron for who went down in infamy killing alexander hamilton in a duel. burr was a sociable guy. he was famous among the young women of the city -- it was a quaker city. women of quaker background when not supposed up draw, learn to

read music. burr liked to help them overcome these strictures. dolley wrote about it that many young women had burr to thank for this. sawstant cousin of dolley's her on the street and wanted to meet her. he went to ehrenberg -- aaron burr because he knew everybody. he went to dolley and said the great madison would like to meet you. they chatted, and within a matter of weeks, madison wrote her letters. host: what impact did she have on him? noah: she had an enormous impact on him. mosty madison was the

important first lady we have ever had. she got 16 years to be first lady. 800-1808, jefferson was president and not married. we know he had a relationship with sally hemmings, but she was not in the white house. most of the time, dolley functioned as the de facto first lady. she hosted events, often at madison's house, which functioned as white house events. this was the time when washington, d.c. became the capital. the capital was moving from philadelphia and new york, and annapolis. this is where the protocol was being set. when the manners and style of a republican president

was being set. madison did not like to socialize and dolley ran the show. she did it for 16 years. she also really influenced madison because she was able to express concern, opinion, and emotion that he was not. when i was researching the book is trying to find what he thought about something and he would be writing letters in calm ways. and i would find a letter from thaty where she would say madison, or mr. madison, was very concerned about such and such. he was very concerned about the possibility that the british would not make peace in the war of 1812. you can see her expressing what he thought. it was the cement of a wonderful

relationship. what i will say is, john and abigail adams get good press for the hundreds of letters they wrote back and forth. you can see their closeness, but they wrote those letters because they chose almost never to live together. wherever adams was, abigail was not. madison and dolly madison preferred always to be together. in a half-century of marriage, there were a part for only a couple months, only because dolly was sick and needed a doctor in a different town. you can see they wrote three times today -- per day. they were a deeply close and loving couple. it is a shame we don't have the written record to bear that out. host: there are a lot of times in his life, but you just mentioned to the war of 1812, you have this sentence, madison emerged from the war a hero. why and what was that more all

about -- war all about? noah: the war of 1812 was almost an incredible disaster. it began because the u.s. was excluded from trading. in the royal courts. host: why was that? time,in this period of the british and french empire for -- functioned like the european union or nafta. when the united states seated secededat britain -- from great britain, the united states lost access to british ports. that was a huge challenge for our trade. the u.s. needed to use leverage to pressure part in and france to allow our trade. not only did they resist, but they used their navy to seize american ships. saying, if we were trading there, we were supporting their

enemies. if we were, they could seize all of our shipments. the war of 1812 was fought to coerce the british and the french to change their policies and stop seizing u.s. shipping. the strategy to do this was to invade canada. the idea was that by invading canada, the u.s. would put pressure on britain because they could not support their own colonies in the west indies, especially jamaica. that might have worked had we successfully invaded canada. unfortunately, madison relying done -- relied on militia. the militia are very bad at invading. moment, 3000 new york troops stood on the river ready to cross into canada and said, what are not going. maybe it was cowardice, maybe it was a constitutional principle that the president could not order them to invade, but for

one reason or another, they would not go. we failed to invade canada. britain which had been occupied fighting napoleon got a lucky break. napoleon marched into russia, the winter came, they froze, and he marched out with less than 20,000 troops. now they had time and effort to turn to the u.s.. they turned with a vengeance. it was in that period that the city of washington, d.c. was burned to the ground by an invading british force. the saved madison and united states from total destruction and the possibility that we would lose the war outright, was the british were stopped in baltimore. the tried a sea landing and militia blocked the troops from entering fort mchenry. they bombarded from the air.

that is the same bombardment at francis scott key captured in a poem that became our national anthem. that battle was a turning point in u.s. history. we know that francis scott key watched the bombardment, but we forget that if the flag had been brought down, that could have meant the end of the republic altogether. theithstanding that, americans convinced the british it was not worth continuing their efforts to conquer the united states. the british pulled back, agreed , where each side had what they had when they started. that was conceived of as a win because things have been so bad. madison was perceived as a hero because he had survived. we thought the second war of independence and had not lost. not losing was winning in that period. by the time he left office, madison was wildly popular. his era inaugurated the era of

good feelings, which was essentially a one-party government. host: you pointed out in your book when the british came to washington, d.c. and burnt the capital and the white house that the general decided after the first day to do it again the next day. what was that significant hate about? noah: the burning of washington was by a different kind of troops than the americans had seen from british. the troops who burned washington and the general who did it had been fighting in the war in the iberian peninsula against napoleon and one of the most brutal wars in modern history. the famous horrors of war paintings are depictions from that peninsula campaign. these were battle-hardened british troops who were used to a different kind of war. civilians were not spared and the burning of buildings was a tactical approach to strike fear in the enemy.

they came up the potomac in washington,hed to won the battle in two hours, and marched into washington and self-consciously burned the city to the ground. then they went back to their boats. it was almost a surgical strike. they did not stay because washington had no inherent strategic value. it was a tactical point. the idea was, let's show the americans who was boss. that had a powerful effect. it was not enough to defeat the american public, but i think it was terrifying. host: we started talking about the supreme court, joe torre, elena kagan, marshall. if you were ever appointed to the supreme court, where would you fit on the political spectrum? noah: i don't think there are any lawyers who do not fantasize about being on the supreme court, but it is a wise lawyer

who knows it is just a fantasy. i would like to think that i would be like frankfurter and try to follow constitutional principle wherever it led, regardless of the teams on the other side. that would be my aspiration. we all know that our best aspirations are not always carried through. i don't want to be too confident. that would be my goal. host: what would you call your own politics? noah: i would call myself a moderate centrist liberal. i'm from massachusetts. i am a registered democrat and have been my whole life. but i work for what was the bush administration when i went to iraq. it wasn't a political appointment, but it was the government of bush, and i was proud to do that and represent my country. i worked for justice souter who was a republican appointee, but was seen by republicans of having betrayed them.

i think that gets it wrong. when a justices appointed, that justice is not working for a party. the justice has to follow his or her beliefs wherever they go. that is the goal of what a constitutional servant does. one of the theories about elena kagan and justice scalia's relationship was that when she was the dean, she would invite conservatives to come to harvard and teach. how tolerant are the professors in the harvard law school and the can -- and the students to the conservative point of view? noah: we are extremely lucky at harvard that we have genuine diversity on our faculty. our new dean is from a conservative background and is committed to the idea that we have ideological diversity. the students believe in that and i believe my faculty colleagues to too. we have a genuine right and left on our faculty. we have a lot of moderate

many of in the middle, whom have made important contributions to u.s. constitutional history. i like to think we are tolerant and we try to teach our students that. >> how many classes do you teach per semester? >> i always teach a big constitutional law class. i teach a big first amendment class around the same number. and i teach a seminar or smaller class on whatever i am working on at that particular time. sometimes they teach that jointly with professors in the arts and sciences, sometimes i teach it on my own. had to make a decision today to write another book about anybody in our history, who would it be? noah: i think i need to take a break, but i am very interested in all of her wendell holmes junior

he was one of the greatest justices to serve on the supreme court, who fought in the civil war and was family influenced by that experience. the other major figure -- i don't think i would write a full biography, but i'm interested in abraham lincoln. he had more influence on the constitution than almost any other president. he had suspended habeas corpus during the civil war. in order to save the constitution, he felt he had to violate it. his belief that he did not have the constitutional power to free the slaves, followed by his feeling that he could use a under wartime conditions. i'm interested in understanding how lincoln thought about the constitution. host: the title of the book is "the three lives of james partisan, ands, president."

thank you for joining us. noah: thank you for having me. ♪ >> if you enjoyed this week's q&a interview with noah feldman, there are other programs you might like. professor sarah married builder about james madison's role in the constitutional convention of

1787. david stewart talks about his role in "madison's gift. and david and jean hiler talk about henry clay. libraryr entire video that c-span.org. >> henry r + :00 in the east in washington -- here we are at 9:00 in the east in washington, but they could approve a measure to fund government operations. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has indicated a vote could take place by 1:00 a.m. we're told to expect him on the floor of the senate to say something shortly. the federal government shut down friday night after a measure. democrats opposed the bill because they want action taken on the daca program. coverage