please welcome paul finkelman. [ applause ] . >> thank you very much. for those of you who are working scholars have done genealogy or family history, you realize that we are in the temple of our world. this is the most important building in the united states, with the possible exception of the library of congress. between the two, they pulled information that makes us whole as people and makes us whole as americans. if we are to understand our world, we have to understand how we got to where we are, and the way that we understand that is by coming here and getting our hands dirty looking at really old stuff and have our eyes go blurry trying to read 18th and 19th century handwriting. i want to ask everybody to give a round of applause to the archive staff, because [ applause ] they are the people who make the kind of books that i write possible. i've spent far more hours in the archives than i can count and every one of them has been enjoyable. i think the archives for allowing me to come here and talk about my latest book and of course, this book coul

i have great respect for professor finkelman as a historian of slavery, but he reaches the conclusionhat there are all of these slaves based on the fact that at some point he found conveyances showing that marshall gave to his children up to, i think, 130 slaves or something like that. he projects from that that there were these other slaves, and marshall must have owned a secret plantation that no biographer of marshall has ever heard of, there is no record of in of his writings, no evidence of income or expenses for this plantation. it is a bit of a mystery to me. i think the more substantial issue he raises in his book is that marshall decided a number of cases brought by slaves against slaveholders in favor of the slaveholders. finkelman argues, and it is inconsistent with my view and other marshall biographers that marshall was anti-slavery. the cases he was referring to were cases where, for example, a slaveholder had failed to register the names of slaves with proper authorities. the slaves argued, therefore i must not be a slave. the question was, what is the appropriate remed

next, paul finkelman talks about the supreme court's influence on slavery in the pre- civil war era. this event was hosted by the national archives. it is one hour. >> for most people