john quincy adams, henry clay, andrew jackson.t is important to know about that election and how did it impact the process going forward? dr. brown: there's a couple things that are really important to know. up until james monroe's presidency, this idea of how does the nominee get decided, really was not a controversy. everyone understood john adams would be the successor to washington. and everyone understood james madison would be the successor to thomas jefferson. the problem was now you had james monroe, who had been governor in virginia. he had been secretary of state under james madison. and he then becomes president. well lot of other people are , a starting to say, wait a minute. how come the virginians are consistently in this office getting nominated for this office and essentially winning this office? by the time munroe's presidency is winding down, it is 1824 and competition has been brewing for years. people cannot wait to jump in. so now they have a lot of candidates and one of those was actually william crawford, wh

he loves henry clay as a statesman and as lincoln said clay loved america one because it was free ando because it was his country. both of those are important. there's another mention in my opening is one historian observed never once is there any suggestion on the part of lincoln that god would actually divide the united states of america. >> lincoln said in his eulogy of henry clay that clay loved the country mostly because it was a free country. did lincoln love america mostly because it was free? >> he loved mostly, they provided the opportunity for people to rise. the freedom wasn't going to be preserved obviously if the nation-state was torn apart. i would revert again to the argument the two are innately connected. creating the opportunity for furthering the opportunity of people to rise and continuous connected to a nationalistic economic and political program uniting the country with pharrell roads and canals and creating a national market when there have only been local markets. >> in 2009 or 2010 president obama got in a lot of trouble on the right for saying that sure, ame

he loved henry clay and the whole ideal, and is lincoln said, clay loves america.one because it was three and two because that was his country. and both of those are important and there is a note that i mentioned in my opening the modesty to lincoln statements about america but one, a historian who archly observed never once is there any suggestion on the part of lincoln that we've god would actually continent a divided united states of america. host: lincoln said in the eulogy of henry clay the claim .-ellipsis country because it was his country but mostly because it was a free country. did lincoln let america because it mostly was a free country. rich: he loved mostly, there is a huge element. that has provided the opportunity to rise. but the freedom wasn't to be defended or preserved obviously if the country are the nationstate, was torn apart. who i refer again to the argument that the two are in ably connected. and the opportunity, or furthering the opportunity for your people to rise, in his view was also connected to a nationalistic and economic political p

and henry clay, speaker of the house. all of them jump in. of them start contesting the king caucus endorsement by trying to get basically resolutions from their states and their state legislatures, saying isn't this great? we love our person. this should be the president. the electoral college again essentially runs into a problem because the ballots are split. what we have is a situation where no one earns a majority of the votes and because it is now the top three, that means it is between john quincy adams, andrew jackson, and william crawford. and henry clay, who is speaker of the house, gets to essentially decide. the former candidate who gets ousted, because of the 12 amendment, gets to help make the decision. he makes it in favor of john quincy adams. that becomes the basis of andrew jackson and his supporters cry of a corrupt bargain. the whole system again turns into controversy by 1828. >> jackson is successful in 1828 and is the president that our current incumbent points to as his favorite in history. how did the election of andr

the gravesite of henry clay junior killed at the battle of compete in could not either narrative detailor visual appeal with something like this hand colored lithograph of his desk. here had toolst that historians have. the print artist could look back with hindsight to compress time and drama. moment ton a decisive depict a noble and patriotic death. words atuse printed the bottom to describe with precision the contents of the image. those long, unseen types lead us to larger stories about the early recession of photography in the ways in which american struggled to understand this new medium. helped usgraphs uncover slow embrace of the medium and they could also help us draft when the attitude changes. in 1867, alexander gardner titled this photograph westward the course of empire. decision that points not just to the ubiquity of the phrase but the way in which americans could now read the meaning of a locomotive pointed west at the far end of a newly laid track. in the 20 years since the mexican-american war, the increasing number of photographs in the united states spurred by the in

that was anything but action, some of you -- i saw you last time i was here -- i wrote a book on henry claydaniel webster and john calhoun and these guys are politicians and they don't do stuff, they talk and they talk. i did my best, they really talk well, but they stand and give speeches and they don't do much. in contrast to that, after that i want action. i want motion, conflict and all this stuff and that is what i'm going to focus on and he said fine, let's do it. and here i will share the problem, the challenge of any author of history, there can be great stuff happening but if we don't have sources we can't do anything with it. or more precisely we can't make it come alive. i can talk in general about things that happen but i don't have much in the way of sources. if i don't have any eyewitnesses then the story bogs down and this was the problem with the spanish southwest because the stories, the voices are secondhand and not particularly compelling. so dan said let's start with lewis and clarke because that resolve the problem. what about the timeframe we are looking at here? what

first of all, daniel webster, john calhoun and henry clay are and this is the early 80s and talks about, it's actually relevant to what we're going through today because they were all competitors so to speak and all members of the house of representatives and they talk about tariffs and that's something we're doing right now as well so i found it very interesting and have enjoyed both ofthese books . >> one that i'm going to be reading in the future is bright future and that has to do with nuclear energy. currently i'm serving my special committee on climate change and this is going to be something i'm interested in and i'm trying to educate myself as much as i can on all types of clean energy and certainly nuclear energy is one of those so i'll be reading this in the future as soon as i finish these other two. >> how do you select thebooks that you read ? >> that's an interesting one, i triedto be as diverse as i can . i've gotten into the movie early 1800s and mid 1800s, i just finished a couple of months ago andrew jackson which i enjoy. then i read a book about thomas jefferson and