this is jefferson davis. this is the only wartime portrait of jefferson davis. it was done in this house from life in august of 1863 when he was 55 years old. we believe that this portrait hung in the house somewhere. we are not sure where, after it was finished. we do know davis took it with him when he left richmond in april of 1862 and eventually gave it to someone in south carolina when he was passing through that state, and the museum got it back later and we have displayed it ever since. jefferson davis was born in kentucky, the same state that abraham lincoln was born in actually. both men were born in kentucky. neither of them stayed there that long. davis' family moved south soon after davis' birth. they moved to louisiana and then over to mississippi. davis grew up mostly in mississippi. although, he returned to kentucky a couple times both for educational reasons. he went to boarding school in kentucky and then later to transylvania university in kentucky before going off to the u.s. military academy at west point. lincoln, by contrast, spent about th

but his friend jefferson, and jefferson did become a good friend of his is one of the governors while madison was on the council, his friend jefferson was sent to france in 1784 to be the american minister to france. while he was gone, madison came back to virginia and was elected to the house of delegates. he was there just in time to oppose a new proposal for what was called a general assessment. the idea here was, and this was an idea that was shared by several prominent figures in virginia politics, notably edmund pendleton, who is a cousin of medicines and who was the top judge in virginia, and patrick henry, easily the most popular politician in revolutionary virginia, they have the idea that during the revolution, popular reality had declined. so for example, they thought that there had been more betting than before. it's hard to imagine. it's like saying there's more drinking than before. apparently, more betting and tippling houses, which we would call bars, people were not paying their taxes, for various reasons, they thought, that there needed to be a general assessment. wh

my question deals with the strategic judgment of jefferson davis. when lincoln speaks of the mystic cords and memory stretching back to every patriot's grave, part of that memory was the fact that we were a confederation from 1781 to 1789 and it was a dismal failure. the states were printing their own money. terrify tariffs, they couldn't put down shea's rebellion. and did not davis or any of the confederate leaders take this into account? i even mooshmean, at boaten col suggested in the 1850s that maine break away and link up with canada and stowe and chamberlain were pretty upset with that. >> form it in a question. >> okay. did not the confederate leaders including jefferson davis feel that there could not be two countries, united states and the confederate states, that sooner or later the confederate states under the banner of state sovereignty would split apart and we'd have, you know, many, many stations here? >> thank you. >> there -- i don't recall any of them being specifically on record about that, though there were concerns. there were ru

so, the ideal of equality jefferson proclaimed, he also betrayed. he got it right when he wrote about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." as the core of our human aspirations. but he lived it wrong, denying to others the rights he claimed for himself. and that's how jefferson came to embody the oldest and longest war of all -- the war between the self and the truth, between what we know and how we live. so enjoy the fireworks and flags, the barbecues and bargain sales. but hold this thought as well -- that behind this fourth of july holiday are human beings who were as flawed and conflicted as they were inspired. if they were to look upon us today they most likely would think as they did then, how much remains to be done. with those contradictions of american history in mind, this seemed a good time to talk with khalil gibran muhammad. he's made them his life's work. muhammad grew up on chicago's south side, a member of the first generation of african americans born after the victories of the civil rights movement. he's the author of this

previously jefferson used a large room on the west end as his office. what we know as the state dining room. when they came into the white house, they too made it into the dining room and remained ever since, past the reconstruction. the northwest corner room that jefferson used became two partitioned rooms, acting as offices for his secretary. what we now call the family dining room. the east room which formerly acted as the office. we refer to that as a green room. that was a small dining room and they kept that function the same. as well as the salon that was the most formal entertaining position for the white house because it holes the most people. above the e liptic room on the second floor, the family's quarters was the lady's room. these were the only rooms that we have a lot of information surviving on. so much was lost with the burning of the capital. over 200 years and fortunately enough, documents do survive. his provisions for decoration for mrs. madison followed a few unavoidable trends. most often he looks only to the major cities for mate

and the democratic republican party for trying to expand voter rights jefferson it had enough chase argued that the policy has been advanced by jefferson in the democratic republicans to give universal suffrage another reason everybody the right to vote would quote rapidly destroy all protection to property and all security to personal liberty and our republican gods intuition would sink into mob ocracy the worst of all possible governments the modern doctrines by our late reformers that all men in a state of society are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and equal rights have brought this mighty mischief upon us and i fear that it will rapidly destroy progress until peace and order freedom and property shall be destroyed this was a blatant political attack against president jefferson by a sitting supreme court justice who was supposed to be politically impartial. it was just the latest in a long series of politically motivated decisions by samuel chase in seventy nine hundred sixty made several partisan campaign speeches for a federal fellow federalist john adams that would be like a

sins feelers to jefferson's saying are you going to kick me out of office and when he learns jefferson in and going to do that he then agrees to take the job as governor of indiana. so the first year and a half would be up to 1802 there is not that much going on. but in a keynote to rumors start swirling about that the french are going to retake the louisiana territory west of the mississippi river and this is napoleonic france whereas before it was held by the spanish who are particularly aggressive war militarily competent by this point and the idea that napoleon might be taking over the louisiana territory sins jefferson into a panic and from lake 1802 into 1803 he writes a secret private letter to harrison basically telling him to do almost anything he can to buy up indian land on the mississippi and ohio river as quickly and cheaply as he can. jefferson's idea, hardened by 1803 is we want to buy up that land and get as many white settlers as we can because they will serve as a motion to stop napoleon which is an optimistic goal but anyway this is when he basically gives harrison t

in writing that declaration jefferson struck the first major blow against monarchy against despotism only to see it creep back into america during his presidency in the form of the supreme court and still with us today yes the core probably did the right thing in upholding obamacare but as long as they have this power of judicial review the power to strike down laws passed by the representatives that we the people put into place and who are answerable to we the people keep in mind the supreme court is not as long as they have that power and it's just a matter of time before they abuse that power just like the abuse that in two thousand and ten when the roberts court wiped out a century of campaign finance law in the united states or in two thousand when they decided in election another power for them that is not in the constitution health care for all is vital for our nation but restoring power into the hands of we the people and not keeping it concentrated in the hands of nine unelected kings and queens that's our biggest challenge. that's the big picture for tonight for more inform

jefferson davis jr., who was 4, and joe who was 2, and mrs. davis was pregnant when they moved in. she gave birth in december of 1861 upstairs. unfortunately, their first child samuel had died in 1854 right before his second birthday, so he obviously never saw this house. these were young wild kids, by all accounts. the wildest was certainly jefferson davis jr., and we have a couple of his things in this room. this is one of them. it's a fully functioning cannon, so it was a real cannon. he also had several confederate army uniforms, and that's one of them over there. so what he would do would be to put one of those uniforms on. he'd take the cannon out in the back. he'd set up targets that he would call yankees, and he would shoot them with the cannon. now, jefferson davis jr. and his brother joseph were in a street gang called the shocko hill cats. we are standing on shocko hill. this house is on top of shocko hill, and this is a wealthy urban residential neighborhood at that time, so these were the ri

jefferson davis. >>> any measure by bearing and background and any remotely reliable crystal ball, any american, northern or southern, asked let's say in the spring of 1861 who was more likely to be a superior commander in chief in a full scale war, would have given the same answer. jefferson davis. he graduated from west point, lincoln had emerged from let's say the school of hard knocks. led forces in the american mexican war and lincoln's only military experience came in a rag tag militia company raised to battle an indian invasion in illinois where the only blood shed lincoln later admitted was lost to mosquitos. davis served as a secretary of war. and the united states senator, lincoln is a one term congressman who opposed the war with mexico and opponents whispered at the time and even voted against supplying the soldiers with food and blan kets. by the time watt armies met for the first time, that summer at bull run, early reports -- personally led one flange and helped turn a confederate defea

only jefferson forgot to free his family. so the day he got free he saw his wife and children auctioned off to a number of different buyers. that's the end point of settling the estate. but the middle point from the death of the master until the settling of the estate, the executor has to do something with slaves. and often the easiest thing to do is rent them out to other people. so that a man dies, leaving 15 slaves. his widow will eventually get a use of some of these slaves. his children will eventually get the slaves while they're sorting this out. the executor comes in and says i'm just going to take these slaves and rent them out and have a steady cash flow. so, what we find is almost every american slave or a vast majority of them, at some point in their life, are rented out to someone else. now, here is where it gets interesting. we're in the middle of the civil war.ions often asked, why do so many nonslave holding southern white men fight and die to preserve slavery? slavery is the cause of the war. and if people do

give me a quick summary of what jpmorgan did in jefferson county, alabama. >> well, jefferson county had to build a new sewer system. and they had to borrow a bunch of money to do that. and it was originally a $300 million project. but they got into a series of swap deals with jpmorgan chase to basically push their financing into the future. but the deals were heavily mispriced in chase's favor. and chase actually bribed another bank to stay away from chase because they wanted that business. they wanted to give the -- >> bribed them? >> they bribed them. >> that's against the law, isn't it? >> yes, yes. >> yeah. >> and they were caught for it. a couple of their executives were caught for it, and they were heavily fined by the sec for doing it. and this resulted in this disaster where jefferson county's going to be bankrupt for a generation. it ended up costing them $3 billion out of what was originally, what, $300 million? >> $1 million, yeah, yeah, yeah. what got to be $2.9 billion deal in the end. and on top of that, my mother happens to live in jefferson county. >> oh, i didn't kn

it was contested by accident because burr and jefferson tied to. under the or original constitution each elector got two votes and was at this point that some of the innuendoes began to swirl around burr and it was almost certainly due to the mischief of the federalists who realized they had lost the presidency but they thought some how they could weaken their political foes and i would remind you this w age when political parties were considered a legitimate. the founders felt that in a republic, loyal patriotic citizens would always put the interests of the country ahead of the interests of party and they thought parties would be the downfall of the republic. but parties emerged despite the best efforts -- despite the dissatisfaction of george washington who never admitted he had any party affiliation but alexander pernod -- alexandra health and, stenson form their own party quickly. -- alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson form their own parties. jefferson, a wonderful individual who could say the most philosophically high-minded things and th

four or five of jefferson's slaves get free. one of them, his blacksmith is freed and jefferson says in his will that the blacksmith can be not only free, but live on monticello and have his blacksmith tools and live in the cabin with his family. only thing is, jefferson forgot to free his family. so on the day he got free, he saw his family get auctioned off to different buyers. that's the end point of settling the estate. but the middle point from the death of the master until the settling of the estate, the executor has to do something with slaves. and often, the easiest thing to do is rent them out to other people so that a man dies leaving 15 slaves, his widow will eventually get a use of some of these slaves, his children will get the slaves. while they are sorting this out, the executor will come in, i'll rent the slaves out and have a steady cash flow. so what we find is almost every american slave or a vast majority of them, at some point in their life, are rented out to someone else. now here's where it gets interestin

jefferson's idea is, and this really becomes heartened by 1803, jefferson's ideas we want to buy that land and get as many white settlers on it as we can because they will service a militia who are going to stop moda polian which is kind of an optimistic goal i would argue at this point but anyway, this is when he basically gives harrison the green light to sort of do what -- any means necessary to negotiate this treaty quickly and cheaply. what is fascinating as with any year the united states has purchased all louisiana territory and so in theory that desperate need for quick land acquisition is gone and at the same time jefferson really likes buying up land cheaply in the sort of fits his broader goals and harrison turns out to be really good at this, not necessarily doing in a way that is going to make the indians happy but he is very effective at buying up this plan quickly and cheaply and that is the name of the game and he basically continues in that mode. the way usually describe it in classes i will take three random students and get their names and then i will play the part

well if you had ever read the jefferson adams letter you would know it's not the jefferson adams battles or revisit it because jefferson adams everything they said to each other was informed by a vast knowledge of the political disagreements they had were not there you know other words jefferson adams didn't have their own facts they had their own opinions and in fact reading their letters which i have for free thinkers just make sure you really want to cry because it shows you i i cannot imagine two politicians writing letters like this to each other and they well nobody writes letters to it today anyway but again i want to stress that to think of this as a political culture or a news culture that separate from the culture as a whole is a great mistake these are the all of this is as much a reflection you talked about fox news viewers one of the great differences for example of one of the people i write about in free thinkers is robert ingersoll who is known as the great agnostic in the late nineteenth century when people went to hear his lectures some of the people who went to hear the

jefferson's idea is, and this really becomes hardened by early 1803, jefferson's idea is we want to buyp that land and get as many white settlers on them as we can because they'll serve as a mill cha who are going to stop -- militia who is going to stop napoleon. anyway, this is when he basically gives harrison the green light to sort of do, you know, any means necessary to negotiate these treaties quickly and cheaply. what's really fascinating is, you know, within a year the united states has actually purchased all the louisiana territory, and so in theory that desperate need for quick land acquisition is gone, and at the same time jefferson really likes buying up indian lands cheaply, and this sort of fits some of his broader goals. and harrison, it turns out, is really, really good at this. not necessarily at doing it in a way that's going to make indians happy, but he's very effective at buying up this land quickly and cheaply, and that's the name of the game. and he basically continues in that mode. the way i usually describe it in class is i'll pick three random students, and i'll

a modest rug and furniture from the jefferson era were used. formerly it was hung in the elliptical salon. but for this -- for a very special occasion on january 1st, 1810, when guests were finally welcomed into the white house it was moved and put into the state dining room. latrobe had his wife, mary elizabeth hazlehurst latrobe, inform mrs. madison as well in 1809 they had found india stone china in blue and white and a similar set of nankin or nanking china ordered for the dessert service for philadelphia. she also sternly mentions there was an impossibility of finding french china which may or may not have been a employ of latrobe's. latrobe was working furiously, as i said, at the end of 1809 trying to get the white house prepared. he was finishing marble chimney pieces, installing doors, constructing stairwells, assembling a coach house, installing a pump into the well on the other side of the house in addition to the furnishings. mrs. madison's parlor and the dining room had been finish since the spring of 1809 and really it was the ell

about jefferson is that he didn't like speaking in public. so we have what my colleague calls the rhetorical presidency that arises with wood row wilson who takes the president into much more of a cultish figure. and the president's head of state as well as head of government. and i also think that one of the difference between 1787 and today is that we expect presidents to be highly partisan leaders of their political parties. and that is taken into account with regard to vetoes and appointments. i would trust more a president who fit the madisonian person interested in the public good than a president who's always looking at the next election and where confidence is based in part on the vote in ohio. i think we really do need to talk about how one integrates the reality of a modern party system into an 18th century constitution that was drafted under what we in retrospect to the almost lunatic system that ---let me just end by quoting james madison and trying to be credit for being madisonian myself. he emphasizes that we should learn the l

so to use the thomas jefferson analogy, i don't think that president jefferson, if he knew that we were spending at the level we were spending, if he saw the size and scope of the federal government, he would be appalled. why not empower people that don't have choices to be able to be able to go to another option? it's worked. public schools in the state of florida are better off based on the only measurement that matters, congressman caston, which are outcomes. based on the n.a.p.e. schools, public schools are better. we've gone to 29th out of 31 in the fourth grade reading to something like now i think we're 11th out of 50 states. >> those same accountability standards have not been applied to many of the -- >> the time has expired, the gentleman -- we're allowing him -- if we give you ten minutes and everybody else. the time has expired, he gets time to respond since you used up all your time to ask him a question. >> on digital learning, the great majority of the courses on digital learning will be done in the classroom, high-quality content brought in. using the internet and the ab

he also wants to argue against a common southern perspective as reflected by jefferson davis. he makes a logical point that one of you pointed out. if we as a nation had the right to leave britain why isn't it the right of a sovereign state the government. it's very logical assumption. it's no coincidence thatis gives his inaugural address on washington's birthday referring to t birthday of the man most enidthe blishment of indepennce and esblishmatests out an act of disunion. so secession like the slavery debates we discussed last week, it self-reflects this constitutional crisis. dred scott creates the constitutional crisis. secession itself reflects the constitutional crisis. lincoln said at the end of the cooper union address in which remember last week it's the best way to understand that it's a legal brief against the supreme court's decision in dred scott. he said that chief justice taney's opinion is wrong. he said right makes light. in essence, secession became unconstitutional because might made right. after the civil war it became clear that secession or disunion wa

also on the zero to 100 block of jefferson. it is a full fledged construction zone as can you see out here right now. >> the water crews are working to repair the water main, it is 6 feet in the ground. we will take a closer look. it took awhile to find the leak. it is deeper than anticipated. it is water and sediment all over the roadway. the busted main had any hope of brushing teeth or showers for residents. for awhile. beach street lived up to its name. >> we don't know what happened. we saw all the men and sand and gross stuff and had to walk over it. >> it looks like a beach. >> reporter: after the water main is fixed, another crew has to fix the holes and they will flush the main. the water main is from the early 1900s. age is a main contributing factor in the rupture. >> usually it is in situations like this. and the pipe is over a hundred years old. if there is heavy construction on the streets. obviously it was not an earthquake and if the street takes a pounding with bus traffic and accelerate the degradation of the

we have a jefferson were to talk about. eight years ago and east bay scientists discovered some amazing about dogs. this week's jefferson award winner founded a nonprofit putting a special k-9 skill to work. >> when carter's golden retriever gets excited and jumped on him, he is doing exactly what he is trying to do. carter has diabetes and can be dangerous if his blood sugar drops too low. even though he actively monitors his glucose levels, his dog is trained to warn him. >> they can pick up chemicals that are emitted from the body when the blood sugar begins to drop rapidly. >> he's a forensic scientist by profession but knows a lot about service dogs. for 20 years he trained guide dogs for the blind and was training one of the puppies when he had his own died that episode. >> and the thought came to me, what can i do with these wonderful dogs that can also assist diabetics? >> that was the beginning of dogs for diabetics, a nonprofit he started eight years ago. using his scientific background he researched human chemist

when thomas jefferson was president his old friend the marquis de lafayette asked him to translate a book on economics by a french economist named. jefferson translated it into english and something manuscript to lafayette although he begged lafayette to keep it a secret that he done so because as a sitting president he didn't want to be seen as interfering in economic and political debates of europe but jefferson translated the book because it confirmed a lot of his own previous thinking first of all he thought that poor people shouldn't pay any taxes and that the rich should pay a lot of taxes in eighteen seventeen to be eighty four a letter to james madison he wrote taxes should be proportioned to what made annually be spared by the individual a year later and seven hundred eighty five yet it is thoughts on taxes on property which included real estate in another letter to madison he wrote another means of silently lessening the any quality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they