his 2001 book "jefferson davis: american" has been called one of the most enigmatic figures in our nation'sistory. professor cooper's balanced yet corrective interpretation recognizes davis' intimate engagement in the military and diplomatic decisions of the confederacy as well as capturing the irony of a chief executive who interpreted the constitution as strictly limiting federal authority but was forced by the war to create a powerful centralized confederate government. professor cooper's 2008 masterpiece "jefferson davis in the civil war era" solidified further his reputation as the foremost scholar of the confederate president. please warmly welcome to the virginia military institute and to our sesquicentennial conference in turn professor mark neely and professor bill cooper. [ applause ] >>> good morning. i get you while you're fresh. i brought with me a copy of -- it's my copy -- of why i think the most controversial and important book in the united states during the civil war. it doesn't have a very catchy title. it's the report on the organization of the army of the potomac and of

for jefferson davis, his country had but a single major goal, independence or liberty. he viewed the confederacy as engaged in a struggle that matched the american revolution. liberty versus despotism. and defining this contest he proclaimed in his inaugural as provisional president of the confederacy that the confederacy itself, and i quote again, illustrated the american idea that governments rest upon the consent of the government and it is the right of the people to alter or abolish government whatever they become destructive or the ends for which they were established. he emphasized to a confederate -- to his fellow con federal rats that they were defining the rights they had inherited from the revolutionary generation. throughout the war he accentuated the intimate relationship between the patriots of the founding generation and the patriots endeavoring to create the confederacy. as a seasoned professional politician before 1861, davis was aware that public support was necessary for the success of public policy as well as for the success of public officials. his e

this week, two experts discuss abraham lincoln and jefferson davis. this will be organized by the commission. the theme was leadership and generalship in the civil war. the event took place at the military institute in virginia. this portion is a little over an hour. ♪ >> good morning, welcome to the first session of our conference on leadership and generalship in the civil war entitled supreme demand, lincoln and davis. our vantage point is a stra teeg kal one involving the highest level of outlook in the examination of the roles and jefferson davis. it is about wartime and tension between civil leadership. the constant tension is exacerbated by the crucible of war in perceptive and uneveningly successful ways. we have with us today to address these these,s. recognized as the finest lincoln scholar in the country, he wrote about liberalism and civil liberties in the civil war. mark neely understands, as did abraham lincoln, that the struggle for victory was a battle for survival of the u.s. constitution. professor neely will speak first, and he'll ad

and you will find that jefferson davis did the same exact things that lincoln did in the confederacy. now, last time we talked about succession. when lincoln was elected the deep south succeeded and when he defended a boat to photo sumpter to send supplies and the confederates fired on fort sumpter in april 1861 the confederates started the war in a sense. they said lincoln started the war because he sent a boat to go to this place in charleston harbor and in the wake of them firing lincoln called for 75,000 troops to come to washington, d.c. to defend the national capital. this action on lincoln's part prompted the upper south to succeed so places like virginia where we are today succeeded and at that stage in the game in april 1861 it was of paramount interest to lincoln to keep the border slave states in the union and these are places like missouri, kentucky, maryland and delaware. now, why is it important to lincoln to keep these states in the union? what do you think? chris? >> maryland becomes a southern state and d.c. is surrounded and that could really undermine the war effor

in a week or two we're going to look at jefferson davis. you're going to find jefferson davis did the same exact kinds of things lincoln did in the confederacy. last time we talked about secession. when lincoln was elected, the deep south seceded. and when he defended or sent a boat to ft. sumpter to send supplies and the confederates fired on ft. sumpter in of a 1861, the confederates started the war, in a sense. now, they said lincoln started the war because he sent a boat to go to this place in charleston harbor. but in the wake of confederates firing on ft. sumpter, lincoln called for 75,000 troops to come to washington, d.c. to defend the national capital. now, this action on lincoln's part prompted the upper south to secede, so places like virginia where we are today seceded in the wake of lincoln's call for volunteers. and at that stage in the game, in april 1861, it was of paramount interest to lincoln to keep the border slave states in the union. and these are places like missouri, kentucky, maryland, and delaware. now, why is it i

i have jefferson davis here. we're going to talk more about jefferson davis in a couple of weeks and his treason trial. when davis was arrested union troops were catching up with him, they caught up with him in georgia in 1865. his wife allegedly threw her shawl over his head and then when the soldiers were closing in said, my mother here is very afraid, can i take her away from all this commotion and all the guns? and davis was a tall man and he had big feet with spurs on his shoes and one of the union soldiers apparently looked down and saw his feet and said, them boots don't belong to a woman, and they picked up the shawl, and there was the confederate president. now, the north had a field day with this. they printed dozens of images of the confederate president dressed in drag. he was not dressed like a woman but the north pretended like he was. you can see a few of them here. you can see his bodice. here you can see him wearing a little cap over his head and he's got a dress on. but if you're interested in s

we'll talk more about jefferson davis in a few weeks and when davis was arrested the union troops were catching up with him and caught up with him in may of 1865. his wife allegedly threw her shawl over his head and then when the soldiers were closing in said my mother is very afraid. can i take her away from the commotion and the guns and davis was a tall man and had big feet with spurs on the shoes and one of the union soldiers looked down and saw his feet and said them boots don't belong to a woman and they picked up the shawl and there was the confederate president and the north had a field day with this and printed dozens of images of the confederate president dressed in drag. he was not dressed like a woman but the north pretended like he was, and you can see a few of them here. you can see the bodice and wear a cap over the head and a dress on and if you're interested in seeing more pictures of jefferson davis as a woman, you can see them there. okay. let's talk about some of the readings that you guys did for today. if you have those, please pull them out. let's start with tane

jefferson davis and his advisors talk about this two days later, on the 8th of april, 1816. 1861. they're debating it. they say, look, let the relief expedition in because we do not want to fire the first shot. the confederacy's whole argument is we're not starting this thing. we don't want a war, we just want to break away. we're not trying to overthrow the government, we just want to break away. if they start the thing by firing on a federal installation, that weakens their whole position, okay? problem is, you've got a u.s. fort inside of confederate territory as far as they're concerned and you can't let that situation continue. you have to come up with some sort of a solution, and they don't want to let the fort get resupplied. they do not want to let that relief expedition through, okay? so on the 10th of april, two days later, on the 10th of april the confederate government tells beauregard, no, we have to demand a surrendered. beauregard, who he is? we don't name our kids that well anymore, p.g.t. beauregard. making life simpler for history students everywhere. all you hav

almost nobody does. >> i do. >> and i don't think jefferson davis is the key. i think that the lost cause school of interpretation took a brilliant turn very quickly, and that was disassociate this struggle from the institution of slavery. they weren't idiots. they knew that they were out of step with the west -- the rest of the western world. so let's play down slavery. let's talk about high constitutional issues about whether the central government is powerful or the states. but that's not the key thing. the key thing is they picked the best person to focus on, and that's r.e. lee. you can talk about him without talking about slavery. you can talk about chancellorsville. a victory against the odds. you don't cast it i think so much as the states against the federal power as against the underdog waging a gallant fight over constitutional issues, and it doesn't have anything to do with slavery, especially if you pretend robert e. lee didn't like slavery anyway. they're brilliant about that. absolutely brilliant. they don't fool the generation that wore blue uni

today at the hyatt regency crystal city on jefferson davis highway in arlington. job seekers will be able to meet with companies that are hiring. there will also be free workshops. we want to turn to sports. the capitals came through when they needed to the most >> . they had to win game 6 last night or the season was over. they responded by dominating against the rangers at the verizon center. they beat the rangers 2-1 and scoring with one minute left. the series is tied at three games apiece. the deciding game 7 will be saturday night at madison square garden. >> they will get ready to go again. mothers take to the internet. and who are they? >> and more americans are testing out passports for the summer travel season. now linda bell in new york. x. good morning. expect the airports to be even more crowded this summer. an industry trade group has its annual summer forecast saying flights will be fuller this summer as our economy recovers. what is also increasing is more travelers than last year taking international trips. flying abroad will get more comfortable

a sewage flood that closed the harris teeter at gleek road and jefferson davis highway. we are live there with the details. >> reporter: people have within in the building involved in the clean-up say there's 2 to 3 inches deep water throughout the store coming from the backed up restrooms. they say it could be weeks or months before the store is open and the floor has to be replaced. unfortunately harris teeter is not responding to talk about this. residents in the area say they've seen these big trucks here pumping out the sewage from the store is really not unusual. they say they have seen some kind of difficulties with the plumbing in the general area for some time. jason lindstrom is a civil engineer who lives directly over the store. tell me about what you've seen before and what happens in your batesment when you go to park in your garage. >> sure. every so often a pumper truck shows up and they clean out the system. so obviously there's been some issues with plumbing for a while. when we go home and our garage sometimes, we're on the third floor and there's water

experienced military men on the north american continent starting with confederate president jefferson davisa west point graduate, decorated combat veteran, and former u.s. secretary of war. the confederacy also wielded a powerful economic weapon near total control of the world's cotton supply at a time when textiles were driving the industrial revolution and cotton was perhaps the moss important commodity on earth. the idea that so vast and strong a country could be tamed and forced back into the union by an army of raw volunteers, led by an unschooled frontier lawyer as commander in chief, struck most neutral observers as highly far-fetched if not preposterous. it is in the highest degree likely that the north will not be able to subdue the south british prime minister lord palmerston counselled his own foreign ministry. what's more, the government in washington at the beginning of 1862 appeared completely overwhelmed. the president was increasingly seen as feckless and insufficient. congress was in the hands of a political party that had never above earned before. the treasury department

it is the harris teeter at jefferson davis highway. there are 2 to 3 inches of water throughout the store coming from restrooms that backed up and they say those floors will have to be replayed. harris teeter says the store will stay closed until further notice. a man who says he lives in that same building tell us the backups involve the plumbing and are not uncommon in that complex. >>> police now on the lookout for two suspects connected to a brutal attack on a woman in fairfax, virginia. the victim says it was just after 1 a.m. when she was beaten, robbed and sexually assaulted in the area of merrifield. here's armando trull. >> reporter: this was the site that greeted some students, parents and staffers of the holly brook montessori school in the merrifield neighborhood of fairfax. detectives spent hours dusting for fingerprints and looking for evidence ling two male suspects to this morning -- linking two male systems to this morning's attack. >> she was beaten by some type of blunt object to the point where she needed to be dawn

jefferson davis is leading the charge in congress. but in the final twist it's at brown's hanging, one of the guards is john wilkes booth, who later writes about being quite inspired by brown or talks to his sister about it. she writes about it. she calls him the great man of the century. here's a man that took an act that changed the course of american history, and that's ultimately what john wilkes booth then does in assassinating lincoln. >> chill bumps. i got 'em. i hope you all do, too. when you read this book, you're going to get more, because i'm going to tell you something that you do so remarkably well, and that is these names, they're names on history book pages for most people. you actually open up their hearts, their lives, their thoughts and fears to us. there are stories in here that are just astonishingly powerful, one of which is the story of african-american newby who was a freed black man who had his wife and six children -- five or six. >> five or six children who were still enslaved, and he had raised $750 to buy t

county taxpayers could be on the hook for damage that is closed indefinitely popular store out on jefferson davis highway. >> clogged sewer lines caused a backup. gary nurenberg is there now to bring us up to speed on the cleanup. gary. >> reporter: well, anita, the harris peter will be closed in indefinitely while the company sanitizes and resets the store. no layoffs. employees will be assigned to other stores while the repairs take place. cleanup crews work into the night to deal with the reported 2-3 inches of sewage that coated the floor of the store. the grocery sits below a building filled with condos and other retail stores that did not suffer the backup, although residents lost water for about six hours and have been told to reduce water use until tomorrow morning. >> you can smell the sewage in the garage and solve the hallways. obviously sewage. >> reporter: the building is close to the arlington county department of environmental services water pollution control plant where sewage lines are cleaned on a regular basis. but today suction lines became clogged with debris prior to schedul

struggle against tyranny, especially the tyranny of the federal government that can be that was jefferson davis' reprieve of the real struggle. it's been available since the 1870s, it fits many different types of causes, and i think you get thinner and thinner and thinner versions of it all the time. they're still troubling, but they seem to me very watered down versions of what was being quarrelled over in 1860. and i want to try to remind myself to remember both things, that you can't take it for granted, you have to fight back against it when you see it deployed again. because the confederate story feels a little bit like some vampire story. scholars keep driving a stake through its heart and saying, no, this is really about slavery, and it doesn't matter. it just keeps coming up as not about slavery. >> listen to what you said: scholars keep driving a stake through the heart. scholars. who cares about scholars? i think the school of interpretation took a brilliant turn very quickly, and that was disassociate this struggle from the institution of slavery. they weren't idiots, they knew they

i know it was not jefferson davis, but robert e. you, but we are back and speaking of the pictures i know that the family vacation photos and the favorite videos of the cats and the personal likes are the likes of stockbrokers now. facebook's favorite offering was raised some $15 billion dollars and that is after the market was reeling from the losses of jpmorgan chase. >> last week jamie dimon said the losses were under $5 billion, but the "wall street journal" said they would exceed $5 billion, and the "wall street journal" will launch an investigation next week. and hey, what about facebook, because it is going to be a place that lets you see if your high school ex got fat. and the jpmorgan is under that asset, so no reason to overly regulate the markets as dimon and others claim or is it time for more regulation. and if so, how should it be done? with me to answer these questions is the expert panel. ezra, and katrina, and nick and elon james white, founder of this week in blackness.com. ookay. it seems like a lot of money to ma

. >> that was jefferson davis' reprees of the real struggle. >> and wilson fell in love with. >> available since the 1870s. fit many types of causes. and i think you get thinner and thinner versions of it

like i don't know what does that make mitt romney i mean like is he a mormon asset stripping jefferson davis. was good i was trying to think of what the opposite of that i think it's bad news i think the fact that it was leaked to the new york times shows that someone's trying to kill this a republican got a hold of this is that this is a bad idea let's try to kill this plan because as you said it's just a proposal before it gets implemented. i think it's it's really dicey territory and it could give conservatives a new view on citizens united i mean i don't know you have limited airwaves you know romney's people distance themselves from it so just because a bunch of people have a bunch of money and they want to you know they've got germ i right again. no wishful thinking. let's move on when was the last time you guys have been in an airport for me it was just a few weeks ago oh all right. well as you know there's a little security that you have to go through is really really harsh and i want to put a little example i mean the t.s.a. is certainly you know everyone is included and the elderly

on the civil war, two historians discuss the wartime leadership styles of abraham lincoln and jefferson davis. this is the first in a series of sessions we'll air over the next few weeks from a conference organized

they're going to pick for their president that guy, the top right-hand corner, jefferson davis. okay? y'all hopefully know him being from mississippi, okay? he's familiar to most of y'all. davis is an interesting character. i mean, yes, he's a west point graduate. yes, he commanded the mississippi rifles in the war. he's been secretary of the war in the 1850s. he has a lot of that background that's going to make him a very good choice in many ways, at least on paper, okay? there's a famous quote that i put up there that talks about how davis himself was never entirely sold on being president, that in many ways he had hoped to command troops in the field, but it's going to be that classic virtuous citizen argument, that he is called upon to serve as president of the confederacy and as he was called he will do, okay? now in some ways he was hesitant to do it. okay? he wasn't entirely sure this is what he wanted to do. when davis -- davis is sitting as a senator representing the state of mississippi in the u.s. senate in washington city when all of this is happening, when the seces

that's at 2799 jefferson davis highway in arlington. job seekers will be able to meet directly with local companies looking to hire. the university of phoenix obtained data from a recent study by apollo research institute about conditions in the d.c. job market. 28% of d.c. employers identified finding qualified workers as one of their most important challenges right now. as for workers, they cited these problems for not getting promoted. 43% said lack of interpersonal skills and not enough subject matter and expertise. 42% says lack of training prevented promotions at work. >> thanks, jess. >>> this mother's day how about making mom breakfast or lunch? just don't wake her up too early. in nine minutes, some meals the whole family can make together. >>> howard says it's going to be a sunny day. winds could be near 20 miles an hour. highs near 70. we'll look at the weekend coming up. stay with us right here on 9news now. k9 advantix ii. not only kills fleas and ticks it repels most ticks before they can attach and snack on us. frontline

police say he stabbed a woman at the econo lodge on jefferson davis highway after she caught him cheating on her. smith had blood on his hands and a knife upon arrest. that woman was taken to the hospital. smith is being held without bond. >>> the atf is offering a $5,000 reward to catch an arsonist in importantly. the fire was set at a house on 57th avenue and riverdale on the night of february 24th. seven firefighters were seriously hurt. investigators are looking for anyone with information about the case and if you call, you can remain anonymous. >>> this next story has been captivating the nation. tonight doctors are fighting to save the life of the georgia grad student whose body has been invaded by a flesh eating bacteria after a zip line accident. despite what she's enduring now, her parents are trying to stay optimistic. 24-year-old elm copeland is in a battle -- amy copeland is in a battle for her life after a flesh eating bacteria entered her body into an open gash suffered in a zip line accident. every time she's awake she has to be reminded why she's unable to breathe on her

best of them, in addition to donaldson's mountain volunteer, were the mississippi rifles led by jefferson davis, future president of the con confederate states of of america, and the texas rangers were superb horsemen and ruthless guerrilla fighters. the american and mexican people vastly underrated the u.s. regulars who were arguably the best troops in the world at that time. it was true the enlisted ranks contained a large number of recent immigrants and men who had failed in civilian life, and they did serve long enlistments at low pay. but the regulars were also well drilled and disciplined, hardened to living outdoors and well equipped. their confidence in victory never flagged no matter how outnumbered they were. late in life ewe lis access grant, a lieutenant during the mexican war, raided zachary taylor's -- rated zachary taylor's little army the best in which he's ever served. more than 30 battles and skirmishes. from start to finish, it was polk's war though. from the white house, president james polk oversaw every detail. commanding generals in the field, scott and taylor often were

jefferson, davis, and everybody else were democrats, but because of douglas, the democratic party survived the war, and there's all the evidence that democrats enlistedded in the union cause in the north at the same level of republican, and so the union carried the day, and in large part whoas of what douglas did because i can't get elected, and i have to help lincoln. he's not appreciated for that, and that's why he's great. we still have a democratic party because of that. why do we have a liberal and conservative party? then we'll get to the question and answer. democratic party under jefferson was the party that did not like the government. they've been that way the entire 19th century. one election overnight they changed because of william jennings brian. this is how politics are unpredictable. he only served two terms in congress from nebraska. out of office in 1896, he was only 36 # years old, but he was a brilliant orator, traveling the united states all the time giving speeches. this is the populist movement where people were suffering under the country, and thane wanted the gover

davis has two older brothers, both of which play in the national football league. >>> officials in louisa, county, virginia will hold a goodbye ceremony at thomas jefferson elementary. the school was heavily damaged in last year's earthquake and will be demolished. a new school will be built, the total cost expected to be $13.5 million. some of the money will come from the federal government. students have been attending classes at another county elementary school since the quake. >>> time for your money report. a lot to talk about. >> jessica starts us off with big news from a tiny drug maker. >> 18 thumbs up for the first new diet drug in over a decade. fda advisors have approved 18-4 to recommend the agency approved sales of the drug. this could be the first approved product ever. the fda will finish its review by late june of this drug. the diet drug was rejected in 2010, very serious possible risks here, heart risks, other risks include tumors and raising blood pressure. research has shown that people taking the drug had modest weight loss. >>> a government watchdog group wants to overhaul some mortgage- related fees. the consumer transportation bureau says it