they don't know that alexander hamilton is going to be secretary of the treasury. nobody is even thinking about that. they are thinking about can i survive the next hour, and they're very often in a situation where they don't know what's happening. confusion reigns all around and that's important to remember. if you're trying to get inside that time and understand the humans' situation and to feel it. i don't think you can really know anything until you feel it, brian. i think that you've got to -- you've got to care. otherwise you can get all the facts and figures and statistics in the encyclopedia. and facts and figures aren't necessarily the truth. and i'm -- i'm drawn into the time and the experience as it happened to the people who were there. and if i have -- if i have someone watching over my shoulder judging me in my mind, in my subconscious mind even, it isn't the reviewers or the other scholars, it's those people. are they going to read what i wrote or what i'm writing and say, yeah, you or are they going to be saying, look, you're way off mark here. that

the vote in new york was going to be so close that alexander hamilton kept writing madison saying all is lost if you don't pass this constitution in virginia. no pressure. but everything is lost. [laughter] and, in fact, new york only ratifies the constitution after more than a month's debate after virginia ratifies ask only then by three -- and only then by three votes. and only then because the federalists agree to this unanimous declaration they're going to call for a new constitutional convention unless and until there's a bill of rights that comes out of the first congress. so what the anti-federalists do is say, let's set this aside. that measure fails by 88-80 votes. just eight votes. james madison didn't even know the if he was going to participate in the virginia ratification convention. indeed, if it'd been scheduled earlier, madison wouldn't have been able to make it. he was up in new york. and, in fact, he gives his first speech in a long career in public service, gives his first speech in support of his candidacy to be part of this ratification convention, and aren't we g

and the one from alexander hamilton is also a legal paper from 1795. this autograph, by john quincy adams, where he signed as the secretary of state and it's routine, departmental business from january 16th of 1818. john quincy adams, who's one of america ew's great secretaries of state, arranging with england for the joint occupation of the oregon territory and obtaining from spain, the cessation of the floridas which included eastern louisiana. he also formulated the doctrine with president monroe on the monroe doctrine. and he was sixth president of the united states in 1825. the oldest document we have in the collection is this full letter that was written by vol vol tair. he was a french philosopher and flown as "the father of ten lightenment." this letter was written in 1732 and the letter is thanking the author for his criticism or review of his book of history. the history of charles xii. as father of enlightenment, this is the basis of the american revolution. and i think that's probably why the collector included these documents as well as th

emerged as the focal point of the opposition in the first congress to secretary of the treasury, alexander hamilton's plan for the states -- for the federal government to assume the debts of the states. see, hamilton realized this would get every start off to a good footing. it would restore the public credit of the states. it would cement the union and tie the union together. well, the southern states had more or less paid off their bills. the northern states more or less had not. the southern states wanted to know why they should pay twice for their war debts when they had been frugal and in their opinion had worked hard to pay down their debt. the northern states said if you won't come to our aid, what's the point in bees in this union with you at all if we can't rely on you for this? people were talking about secession, a bout of influenza hit washington, dc, nearly killed george washington. a very precarious time for the country. thomas jefferson runs into alexander hamilton who was usually very polished, very well dressed, clean shaven, looking none of those things in front of his house. and je

alexander hamilton arrived in america just before the revolution, timing is everything. went to college, became a lawyer, the war broke out, joined the army, became a captain. distinguished himself. a fine soldier. came to the attention of general washington who invited this quloung myoung man to be his secretary which he accepted and served washington until one day, at headquarters, washington was going up the stairs, colonel hamilton was coming down the stairs, the commander in chief said to the colonel, colonel, i wish to see you immediately, the colonel responded, i'll be with you if a few minutes, sir. not the right answer to the commander in chief. washington turned on hamilton, berated him in front of his fellow officers, hamilton then resigned as secretary, returned to the army and later distinguished himself at the battle of yorktown which brought him back to some degree in washington's good graces. hamilton then left the army and was a congressman from new york. so hamilton is given the assignment of addressing washington. i doubt that anyone really expected th

but perhaps the final exclamation point came from alexander hamilton himself. of course, alexander hamilton is one of the most ardent nationalists this the united states. in the united states. and hamilton wrote very famously in federalist number 69 about the powers of the president, and i'm going to read this to you because he essentially said this is what the president is, and you don't have to worry about the president, because it can't do all the things you're afraid of. so he aid -- said this. hamilton wrote that the king was a hereditary monarch. the president could be impeached, while the king of great britain was sacred. the president has a qualified veto, while the king has an absolute negative. the president has a concurrent power with the senate over appointments and treaties while the king was the fountain of honor, and the sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions. the president can command the army and navy, but the king can raise and regulate fleets and armies by his own authority. the president can prescribe no r

world nation all because we forgot what it means to protect domestic manufacturing we forgot alexander hamilton eleven point plan for protecting domestic manufacturing tariffs and subsidies it was put into place and seventeen i need a read and lasted nearly two hundred years. as the united states went from being a rural and agrarian nation to the world's economic powerhouse but other nations like brazil are developing or developed thanks in large part to adopting parts of alexander hamilton the plan the united states has spent the thirty years since reagan undeveloped in a way that has never before been seen in our nation's history ross perot that crazy old who the big years the charts and graphs he was right if we don't wake up to this economic disaster soon and begin protecting our manufacturing base like we did from seven hundred ninety three until reagan people in our nation will continue to slide down the bumpy road toward third world status. that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered this in our website the tom harkin dot com free speech dot org and

this view was corroborated by alexander hamilton in his federalist paper number 67, when he deemed the recess appointment clause a supplement or an auxiliary in nature. the debate records clearly show that the delegates voiced great distrust of the executive and expressed the need for checks and balances to counteract the power of the president. over the course of the considerations, the delegates rejected attempts to vest the appointment power solely in the president or in the legislature, and in the end, a compromise was reached that required the joint x-rayin cooperation of both branchs to achieve the goals of responsibility and accountability. the finally tuned scheme established by the framers provides three separate and distinct stages of appointments. the first is the nomination by the president alone. the second is the senate's ascent or not to the nominee's appointment. and the third is the final appointment and commissioning by the president. each stage -- at each stage, the respective actor's prerogatives are carefully and clearly demarked and long been understood to be excl

financier as he was called, the equivalent of our secretary of the treasury, governor morris, alexander hamilton, james madison, and perhaps a few others met for dinner. it was at these dinners that these men discussed what had happened in the congress that day, usually very little, they discussed the fact that the nation was bankrupt, that congress was paralyzed, and the army had not been paid. what to do. what to do. these men formed the core of a kind of shifting political alliance in the congress of men who were nationalists. these were men who saw america as a great nation but only if it had a more powerful central government. that, of course, was not the general sentiment in the congress itself. the congress was very much mindful of states' rights, parochial in particular. and as the months wore on through the winter, washington and martha enjoyed themselves, but virtually nothing got accomplished, nothing politically. in the meantime the army was there in the hudson valley, unpaid, waiting. everyone knew sort of that the war was coming to an end, wasn't certain, but there were rumors, eve

indeed, i would tend to want to use some of the very same words that alexander hamilton used in federalist 67, which is the most comprehensive treatment of the recess appointments clause. because, you know, one of the things you discover when partisanship really gets bad, when, in fact, we're not seeking to integrate the powers to have a workable government. but, instead, we're simply looking for ways to throw in the brakes. to stop all progress. to make sure that that bill that was passed with the majority of the people's representatives, the dod frank bill, which i suspect most people in this room find enoath ma, but never the less was passed by a majority of the people of the united states. when the appointment power is used to defeat the will of the majority, it seems to me that we've got a problem. and we've got the same kind of problem that hamilton addressed when he was addressing those who were making up arguments about the recess appointments clause. overstating the problem. what was their argument at the time? their argument in federalist 67 was that the recess appointments claus

his distinguished service at the department of the treasury earned his receipt of the alexander hamilton award, the highest honor the department gives. capitol hill beckoned next in our last financial crisis when senator paul sarbanes, the head of the senate banking committee, recruited mr. gensler to help craft the financial reform legislation of that period in 2002 called the sarbanes-oxley act. in between this busy time, mr. gensler managed to co-author a fine book targeted to ordinary americans about investing and finance called "the mutual fund trap." it guides ordinary americans in the sometimes complex world of investment. it's a critique of the mutual fund industry and some of its practices. and an endorsement for an approach to investing called indexing. i won't elaborate on the book here, but you can buy the book for yourselves at your favorite book seller. but we are delighted and honored to have chairman gensler with us today to talk about financial reform and what it means. so thanks very much, chairman gensler. [ applause ] >> thank you very much -- let's just make sure we

one is a letter of routine legal matters and the one from alexander hamilton is also a legal paper from 1795. this autograph by john quincy adams where he signed as the secretary of state and it's routine departmental business from january 16th of 1818. john quincy adams is one of america's great secretaries of state, arranging with england for the joint occupation of the oregon territory and obtaining from spain the cessation of the floridas which included eastern louisiana. he also formulated the doctrine with president monroe on the monroe doctrine. and then he was sectionth president of the united states in 1825. the oldest document in the collection is this full letter written by voltier. he's known as the father of the enlightenment. this letter was written in 1732 and the let ser thankiter is th author for his criticism or review of the book, the high schooler to of charles the 12th. the enlightenment movement is really sort of the basis of the american revolution.12th. the enlightenment movement is really sort of the basis of the american revolution.to of charl. the enlightenmen

one of them suggested by alexander hamilton and the second somewhat later in the 19th century. in both cases, congress let the central bank die. and ba a lot of disagreement between what today street. the folks on main street could include farmers, for example. feared that the central bank would be mainly an instrument of the moneyed interest in new york and philadelphia and would nore. would not be a national central bank. and both the first and the second attempts at the -- at creating a central bank failed for that reason. so woodrow wilson had, i think, a better idea and he tried a different approach. and what he did was he created not just a single central bank, say, in washington, but he created 12 federal reserve banks located in major cities across the country. and so the picture shows the 12 federal reserve districts that we still have today and each one has a federal reserve bank in it. and then a board of governors which oversees the whole system is in washington, d.c. notice by the way how many of the little black dots are to the right. in 1914, most of the economic

published in order to sell the constitution to the american people and seven hundred eighty eight alexander hamilton reassured us that we should ratify the constitution because it would prevent the unelected supreme court justices from having too much power in federalist seventy eight he wrote the judiciary from the nature of its functions will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution because it will be released in a capacity to annoy or injure them it proves on contrast in confess to glee that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three branches of power departments of power and you can never attack with success either of the other two . but attack them with success it has done and may do again today or this week or this month as the constitution says the supreme court is only the final court of appeals if two people or companies have a lawsuit goes all the way through the courts over and over to mention it has to stop somewhere that somewhere is the supreme court just the final score and even in that capacity they can be regulated by congress they'r

among all the founders, the ones that have the broadest conception of federal power was alexander hamilton. yet in federalist 33, hamilton said that federal laws interfering in state property taxes or state inheritance laws would be unconstitutional because they would be improper under the clause. it's pretty obvious the taxes or inheritance laws, federal law regulating that, would have effects on interstate commerce. it might be useful or convenient for regulate interstate commerce, but said hampton, it still improper and that's a strong sign that even among the founders those have a very broad conception of federal power stay believe that propriety imposed important limits year. so the last point i would make is this, lawyers and especially law professors are notorious for making slippery slope arguments that may be clever but have no real place in the real world because these things would actually happen. hear the slippery slope from this mandate to weather future mandates is not have that kind. rather, it is a very real danger because congress has a long history of imposing special int

lines and i think you can see a split in washington's cabinet between thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton. i think you'll find that james madison was firmly on jefferson's side of that split. all right. it looks like no more questions. thank you everybody. [applause] .. ian american history tv explore the literary culture of shreveport bleeders the louisiana starting at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2 author gary joyner and the union army's fell year in louisiana from one dam blunder from beginning to end. then a look at the 200,000 books of the collection housed at the lsu shreveport archived. they walking tour of shreveport with neil johnson and on american history tv, at 5:00 eastern clippers the look at the base's role on 9/11 plus the history of a b-52 bomber and the founding fathers autographed collection at louisiana state executive museum and from the pioneer heritage center medical treatments and madison during the civil war. shreveport, louisiana next weekend on c-span 2, and 3. next on booktv diane brady recalled the efforts of reverend john brooks who traveled the east coast

to president madison, the federalist party, the late alexander hamilton, george washington with the disloyalopposition to first, it lost 39 to nothing in june 1812. does that sound familiar by the way? i thin think the republicans inr own congress employ strategy of unanimous opposition rather often get into the mitch mcconnell had nothing on quincy however in 1812. anyway, the federalist later of postwar funding in congress in their own region, the opposition to war extend to such gestures ask continued to trade with the enemy. and the refusal by the governor of massachusetts to commit his militiamen to the work outside the boundaries of massachusetts. as madison's confidant, treasure, told richard russia observed, massachusetts i fear is rotted. and any file and ultimately suicidal act, the new england federalists assembled behind closed doors in what came to be called the hartford convention. it's stated purpose was to move toward a radical reform of the national compact, but, in fact, he as an open secret that they were advocating withdrawal from the union. or even an alliance with brita

>> guest: aaron burr and alexander hamilton. i want to know about that duel c-span: here is the book. "the man in the mirror" is the name of it, and clare brandt is the author. it's the life of benedict arnold. thank you very much. >> nt

you've probably heard of alexander hamilton. you probably heard of james madison and john jay. they're the authors of the federalist papers, the 85 essays in dissent to the constitution. so most people that read the constitution and think that they understand the constitution will look at the document itself and then maybe look at the federalist papers and say, well, that's it. well, it's deeper than that. in fact, it goes much deeper than that. i would argue in the book, and i say this, that the federalist papers are not as important as you think. they were written in new york, and they didn't have much of an impact in new york itself. because the state of new york only ratified the constitution by three votes. three votes. so these 85 essays that people say are the definitive source on the constitution didn't have much impact at the time. but there are others, and there are other member bees of that -- members of that founding generation who perhaps are even more important than james madison. he's often called the father of the constitution, but i say that's a misnomer, and t

you probably heard of alexander hamilton. you probably heard of james madison and john j. the authors of the federalist papers. the 85 essays that the from the constitution. and so most people read the constitution think that they understand the constitution. look at the documents and a look at the papers and said this that said. it's deeper than that. because much steeper than that. i would argue in the book and i say that, the federalist papers were not as important as it think. written in new york and they didn't have much of an impact because the state of new york only ratify the constitution by three votes. three votes. so these 85 essays that people say of the definitive source on the constitution didn't have much impact at the time. there are others, and there were other members of that funding generation who perhaps are even more important, people like james madison. of course is often called the father of the constitution. i say that's a misnomer. the scholarship on the subject. come around to that. he did present the virginia plan or at least wrote it. of course

because when you go back in history that i do in the book, it is the republicans starting with alexander hamilton who was all for using federal money and building infrastructure to make us this great, competitive nation, and it wasn't really until post world war ii that all of a sudden republicans became this -- we're not going use the federal government to grow everything to lift all boats. >> can you give a reason for that? was it the timing? >> this is very disturbing that in '09, a very prominent economist said for the first time there is no correlation between our gdp in the stock market and the help of the domestic economy meaning we're reporting all of these great numbers, but they're coming from the multinationals who don't need to rely on the american consumer anymore. so 50 years ago they said to congress, put money into this country, build infrastructure, we'll support the taxes and the policies to do this. now we don't really care because we want more development in china over india. so when you've lost that correlati correlation, the american people, and that's not just the workers o

you know, i have read a lot lately that politics in the 1790's when you had alexander hamilton and john adams on the other side and james madison and thomas jefferson and you had a ferocious press. papers would represent one or the other. what we have now -- the 1850's and many other periods. this is not new. it will continue because we have free speech in america. host: last call comes from maryland. mary, you are on our republican line. caller: aye. you for taking my call. it appears that romney is winning because he is using his money to tear down opponents with negative advertisements. his it is have a problem with his past tense. his runningcare was a problem. -- romneycare was a problem. this will make it hard for him against obama. if obama -- romney is the nomination, obama will tear him down with the negative advertisements here he will tell it -- tear him a part with the money. guest: that would have been against any candidate. that is what goes on in politics. there is a reason why we see so many negative advertisements. it worked. ronnie's campaign has a lot more money. it i

is distinguished service at the department of the treasury earned his receipt of the alexander hamilton award, the highest honor the department gives. capitol hill back and next in our less financial crisis when senator paul sarbanes, the head of the senate banking committee, recruited mr. gensler to help craft the financial reform legislation of that period in 2002, called the sarbanes-oxley act. in between this busy time, mr. gensler managed to co-opt or a fine book, targeted to ordinary americans about investing and finance, called the mutual fund trap. it guides ordinary americans in the sometimes complex world of investment, a critique of the mutual fund industry and some of its practices and an endorsement for an approach to investing called indexing. i won't elaborate on the book here, but you can buy the book for yourselves at your favorite bookseller. but we are delighted and honored to have chairman gensler with us today to talk about financial reform and what it means. so thanks very much, chairman gensler. [applause] >> thank you very much -- make sure we had that. thank you

to the states or to the people and the federalist papers written by madison and john j and alexander hamilton and specifically in number 45, it goes very deeply into the fact the federal government is supposed to be very small, out of the way, less involved than the states. i mean, thomas jefferson himself has gone on-- went on the record many times saying the worst thing that could happen to our country is the government taking away, i'm paraphrasing, from people who work hard under the pretense of taking care of everyone. >> clayton: right, and income tax until the civil war. and she went on and further elaborated on it, i'll read it, she says the legislation will lead to healthier lives more liberty to pursue hopes and dreams and happiness for the american people this is the american proposal that honors the tradition of our country this idea of healthier lives she pins on the founding fathers. >> i think that's a corruption of the kind of things they stood for. if you look at what the founding fathers were willing to do for freedom. they all risked their lives, they would have been killed

i would note one more thing, on all of the founders, was alexander hamilton. he said the federal law is interfering with state property taxes. it would be in proper under the clause. it is pretty obvious that this would have an effect on interstate commerce. it is still an improper. this is a strong sign of how there would be a broader conception of federal power and that this imposes important limits here turned out. lawyers are the taurus for making arguments that may be clever but have no place in the real world because the things would not actually happened. hear, the slippery slope is not of that kind, rather it is a very real danger because congress has a long history of imposing special interest legislation and there are lots of power industry lobbies that would be more than happy to lobby congress to have demanded that forces people to buy their progresproducts. in the 2008 campaign when the individual mandate was proposed by hillary clinton, in candidate barack obama was very strongly opposed to it. he said at the time that trying to solve the health

one of them suggested by alexander hamilton and the second later in the nineteenth century. in both cases congress that the central bank died. basically the problem was there was a lot of disagreement between what today we would call main street and wall street. the folks on main street could include farmers for example, feared that the central bank would be mainly an instrument of the money interest and new york and philadelphia and would not represent the entire country. would not be a national central bank. both the first and the second attempts at creating a central bank failed for that reason. woodrow wilson had a better idea. he tried a different approach. what he did was he created not just a single central bank in washington but created 12 federal reserve banks located in major cities across the country. and so the picture shows 12 federal reserve districts that we still have today and each one has a federal reserve bank in it and then a board of governors which oversees the whole system is in washington d.c.. notice by how many black dots are to vote right. in 1914

that is why alexander hamilton in the federalist papers writes that the traditional branch is the weakeste branches. it could never take on the legislative and executive branch, because it would be inherently defeated by them. this is totally alien to modern law schools. modern law schools exist to the glorification of the legal profession and have a very lawyer-centric view of reality. but the founding fathers would have thought they were absurd. jefferson when asked if the supreme court was, in fact, supreme, wrote that it would be an absurdity for nine people to decide the constitution. it would be for us to lose our liberty and we would be in an oligarchy. abraham lincoln, who in part was drawn back into politics by the dread scott decision, by which the supreme court extended power over slavery in all country. in his inaugural address, he takes the court had on. he says, the court may issue the law of the case, but they cannot issue the law of the land. because if they could, the american people's freedom would be gone. and in fact, lincoln refused to enforce the dread scott decision

you know, i have read a lot lately that politics in the 1790's when you had alexander hamilton and john adams on the other side and james madison and thomas jefferson and you had a ferocious press. papers would represent one or the other. what we have now -- the 1850's and many other periods. this is not new. it will continue because we have free speech in america. host: last call comes from maryland. mary, you are on our republican line. caller: aye. you for taking my call. it appears that romney is winning because he is using his money to tear down opponents with negative advertisements. his it is have a problem with his past tense. his romneycare was a problem. this will make it hard for him against obama. if romney is the nomination, obama will tear him down with the negative advertisements here he will tear him a part with the money. guest: that would have been against any candidate. that is what goes on in politics. there is a reason why we see so many negative advertisements. it worked. romney 's campaign has a lot more money. it is better organized. that is his strength. once yo

it is why alexander hamilton, in the federalist papers writes that the judicial branch is the weakestthree. that it could ever take on the legislative and the executive branch because it would be defeated. this is alien to modern law schools. they exist for the glorification of the legal profession and have very lawyer-centered views of reality. in fact, the founding fathers out there were absurd. jefferson that would be an absurdity. for nine people to decide the constitution would be for us to lose our liberty and we would be in an oligarchy. abraham lincoln, who was drawn back into politics by the dread scott decision which extended power over slavery to the whole country. he says, the court may issue the law of the case, but they cannot issue the law of the land. because if they could, the american people's freedom would be gone. and in fact, lincoln refused to enforce the dread scott decision as president. there is a 54 page paper at newt.org that sally and i worked on for a number of years. vince did an extraordinary job. the fight we are in on the values level is much deeper th

among the founders, the one with the broadest conception of national power was alexander hamilton.onstitutional because they would be improper under the clause. obvious but a federal law regulating that would have an effect on interstate commerce and might be convenient for regulating interstate commerce, but it is still improper, and that is a strong sign that even among the founders, those with a broad consumption of federal power they still believes propriety imposes important element. the last point i would make is this. lawyers and law professors are notorious for making arguments that may be clever but have no real place in the real world because these things would not actually happen. here the slippery slope to future mandates is a real danger because congress has a long history of imposing special interest legislation, and there are lots of lobbyists who would be more than happy to lobby for the opportunity to have a mandate that forces people to buy their products. lobbying by the health insurance industry is one of the forces but led to the enactment of legislation we see