sarah is the series editor for "the papers of john adams," part of the adams papers editorial project in the building not too far away at the massachusetts historical society. she is the author of "household gods: the religious lives of the adams family." she is a cofounder and contributor to the -- how is it pronounced? junto? sara: sure. [laughter] fred: over at the end we have matt sheidley who is the ceo of revolutionary spaces, which was formed after the merger of the old bostonian society. he spent eight years at the bostonian society where he was the director of public history and later executive director. he was an associate professor at wellesley college before he entered the field of public history. i would like to start -- here we are in the replica of the united states senate. in the actual senate, the senators are as divided as washington, as the parties are. it seems like we are in a complete gridlock. were the founders ever this divided? feel free to answer -- maybe i will start with you, sara. sara: i think we have always faced moments in history where we felt great po

john adams understood the contradictions. she is writing this letter in the spring of 1776, we are headed towards the declaration of independence. or two, ona month the eve of declaring independence. he started worrying about the core of the issues that she had raised, and he did so in a letter not to her, but to james sullivan. letter, they seesaw back and forth as he tried to work out his thinking. he has paragraphs like, in theory, the only moral foundation of government is the consent of the people. shall we say every individual of the community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor must consent to legislation? no. this is not possible. letter is long and complicated, mostly because john adams was struggling to form a coherent argument. at some point he seems to be arguing with himself and losing. he says, why exclude women? you will say because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and rents -- experience. besides, their attention is somewhat engaged with the nurture of children that nature h

he is the son of john adams, the adams.cy he is the son of john adams, the -- james madison appoints him secretary of state. james monroe -- madison sends him to russia. james monroe appoints him secretary of state. he goes on to win the presidency. and then there is the incredibly contested election of 1824, where john quincy adams loses both the popular vote and the electoral college vote. but because there is no majority in the electoral college, it is decided by the house of representatives, which votes for adams rather than andrew jackson. i was struck in the biography this weekend that jackson graciously accept his defeat to adams and even greets him at adams' reception, noting his victory but then goes on to call it a corrupt bargain and defeats adams water years later. -- four years later. and adams does not attend jackson's inauguration. he is one of two presidents not to attend his successors inauguration. the other is his father, john adams. important really point about how it is not designed to be majoritarian. most notably, the house rather than the senate. all we can sa

i would go to really good research libraries and get in those card catalogs and look up john quincy adamsy his last name. how many books are there by john quincy adams? making that list, it was astonishing how many books there were. herbert hoover wrote a mining textbook. who knew? also, there were these really intimate and important books. i started to realize that abraham lincoln, calvin coolidge, ulysses s. grant, jefferson, adams, there were so many examples of these books really mattering. that is when i started to realize that there was a story to tell here. host: your book is also, and you alluded to this, the history of nonfiction book publishing in america. why do you tell that part of the story? craig: that is what helps us realize how important these books have been. even if you read a good biography about a lot of the presidents i talk about, their books don't come up. there books are not central. biographers and historians have a lot of work to do. they are worrying about the white house, policies, and legislative debate. my books are about the human side and the publishing s

but when john adams becomes president in 1797, madison doesn't like john adams and doesn't want to be part of the administration. i should add, tay come home to montpellier. in their townhouse in philadelphia, they have a lot of french furnishings that have been sent to them by james monroe, who at this time in the mid 1790s, is the american ambassador to paris. so they have things like this very fashionable french form of a bed. they have french carpet and decorative art in their home. so they move home to montpellier with madison's parents. so when we last saw nellie and james, sr., they're living in the sort of brick, rectangular house. one of only two brick houses in the entire county. a very important or ambitious building. but he realizes that they need more space because they have the two of them, dolley's son, and dolley's little sister, who she calls her sister-daughter. so madison adds sort of a wing on to the house and the grand por portico. he adds on a hallway with a dining room below, a room behind it, and a very large and beautifully appointed bedroom above it. so they

most outspoken, at least on paper, if you can be outspoken on paper, as was already mentioned, in john adams. and my goodness, the correspondence between adams and his wife, abigail, they drop allusions if not outright quotations from shakespeare left and right as if it was nothing. so, in particular with adams, you see someone who is concerned about constitution-making having balance. and this is what precisely you lack in the history plays in shakespeare. we see the problems of not having say a written -- of not having, say, a written constitution, lacking consent, you know, prerogatives of whether lords or the royal family that are unwritten, that these are things that lead to a contest for political legitimacy. the only play, i believe, where england is at peace with itself and with its neighbors is king lear. right? and so in lear, you've got this play that sets itself up, not in terms of what would make for good rule, but what would make for a legitimate succession. who will follow lear? it's at least implicitly one of the themes of that great play. and what adams and i believe the fou

and perhaps the highest praise, that madison received, came from john adams. who not always admired virginia. madison's administration adams wrote, acquired more glory and established more union than all three of his predecessors. washington, adams and jefferson put together. what a wonderful compliment. i was, thinking that you might like to know a little bit about some of the people that i felt, obliged to leave out of the speech since it would've gone on and on forever. one of the people, and these are women for the most part, and they do tend to get pushed aside and in the history of the early republic. but one of the women was madison's grandmother. her name was francis madison. i became interested in her, because of a note she wrote when madison was a child and they were living together. her note look like a shopping list. at the top of it it said for a, -- . for epilepsy. the 18th century medical books that i so much enjoy, taught me that some of the items on her list, conduit camp saffron, were thought to be good for breaking a fever it's. the guests t

fascinates her is for the first 36 years of our republic with the exception of four short years of john adams, the virginia dynasty was in power. of the 15 books she's written, five of them are history books for children. and we have bought them for all of our grandchildren and i've read them over and over with the grandchildren who love them. and i'll just mention a few. you might want to purchase them. america, a patriotic primer, celebrates the ideas that are our country. and one of my favorites "a is for abigail" tells about the accomplishments of women in america. and, of course, the one that i love the most is "when washington crossed the delaware" and it tells about the general washington leading his ragtag army across the frozen river christmas night and his surprise attack on the enemy in trenton. it teaches children about encourage, heroism, and dedication to your dreams. she was also a baton twirler as a child. she required hours of discipline and practice and she was known across the state of wyoming as flamboyant because her batons were sometimes set aflame at both ends. in 1954,

that was in 1798 one an act of congress signed into law by president john adams, provided for the governmentn, as had traditionally been done in england. one for its first 80 years or so, what was then known as the marine hospital, fun -- as the united states grew, so the number of ports, marine hospitals and clinics brought it on the east coast, as well as on the west coast and up the mississippi. anywhere there was a waterway in the growing nation. by 1870, the system needed to be revamped. the reorganization led to the appointment of the first surgeon general, he had been an army medical officer during the civil war. he put his officers in uniform, create a flag, and instituted the military system of appointment by merit. doctor woodworth reforms were formalized by law in 1889, when the commission corps of the u.s. marine hospital service was created. as the commission corps was expanding during the closing years of the 19th century, so was biological discovery. the scientific men brought changes to the marina hospital service. it's hygienics laboratory, started in 1887 was a pioneer in b

the whole point going back to john adams. was to ensure that particularly in times of crisis and gestation and new birthing. we would be able to have a place in the way to set back a little bit and listening for listen for those deeper patterns. and look for those deeper frequencies. that is the spirit with which we have that. we have 35 commissioners from all walks and parts of the country. those less listening sessions that we do around the united states that was not window dressing. that forms the content of this report. but the mindset that we came into. i think it actually made a higher sense of responsibility we need to figure how to come to consensus on some of the stuff. what we heard from folks. number one. people across the board think so much of the politics is broken. and they want to fix it. they don't always have the language or the tools or the power to affect that change immediately. but the yearning and strong. the misimpression of the choice that the election can give us. i think what we had found is people

perhaps the highest praise that he received came from john adams who had not always admired virginia. his administration, adams wrote, acquired more glory and established more union that all three of his predecessor. washington, adams, and jefferson put together. what a wonderful compliment. i was thinking that you might want to know a little bit about some of the people that i felt obliged to leave out of the speech since it might have gone on and on forever. one of the people. these are women for the most part, though not always. the tend to be pushed a little bit to the side in the history of the republic. one of the women was madison's grandmother. her name was francis madison. i first became interested in her because of a motorola -- note that she wrote, her note look like a shopping list. at the top it looked like for a epilepsy. the 18th century medical books that i so much enjoy taught me that some of the items on her list, johnson route, saffron, camper, were thought to be good to break a fever, which suggests that madison may have had fever related seizure as a child. they a

in 1800, president john adams was defeated for reelection by thomas jefferson. john marshall would be replaced by john madison. the democratic republicans were on the rise. but the federalists were not giving up, marshall as one of adams final acts, was made chief justice. in the closing hours of the outgoing administration he was very busy assigning appointments filling new judgeships with faithful federalists. the commissions were sealed with the united states. but something went wrong. on the following morning, he found the commissions still on the desk. he presently discussed the matter with jefferson and a decision was made. some of the commissions would not be delivered. later one of the appointees became impatient. where was his commission as justice of the peace in the district of columbia? he brought suit against madison. his tours asked for a supreme court to compel madison to deliver. would it be enforced if madison refused to obey it would it not undermine the prestige of the court? in this dilemma, marshall made his decision backed by a unanimous cou

. >> the election of 1800, it was a real parallel here, which is that john adams was our first one-term president. he was a crank, he was quite bitter about being turned out of office. he saw it as a demotion and a rejection by the american people. the first person ever to not get re-elected to the presidency and even more he had to turn the power over to the opposition. to thomas jefferson, an old colleague he had come to distrust to make things even worse, the transition goes on forever because effectively jefferson and aaron burr because the constitution had been badly written about how to handle the re-elections, jefferson and burr are tied. congress votes 35 times on who the next president will be. finally, on the 36th vote, thomas jefferson wins. he becomes president. he's inaugurated in march and here's what's key. thomas jefferson comes in and he makes a couple of points very clear. first he says, look, in his inaugural address, not every difference of opinion is a difference of principle. in other words, look, everybody, calm down here. you can oppose somebody without consideri

now, in john adams's case, he left but there's been 120 or 140-year tradition right now, could be longer than that, but it's a long tradition where the presidents hand over the power peacefully, irrespective of party, and i don't know if he necessarily wants to break that tradition. it will certainly hurt his political fortunes going forward, and the potentiality of his family members' political fortunes, and so i don't see the upside of not showing up. it makes him look like a sore loser and so hopefully someone will convince him of that and on that day, perhaps he'll be in the right sort of mind and his impechsty will get him there. if he doesn't show up, it's an embarrassment to him. what soon to be president bind is saying, it's not the end of the country, we'll move on but it's more evidence of why he never should have been president in the first place, why he was so ill suited for that job in terms of his temperament. >> anthony scaramucci, i appreciate your perspective. thanks for joining me. >> good to be here, ana. thank you. >> it is a sobering statistic. on average, one americ

that was in 1798, when an act of congress signed into law by president john adams, provided for the governmentmaintain hospitals for sick or disabled semen, as had traditionally been done in england. for its first 80 years or so, what was then known as the marine hospital fund was administered by custom inspectors in the sea ports of the nation. as the united states grew, so did the number of ports. , hospitals and clinics sprouted on the east coast as well as the west coast and up the mississippi. by 1870, the system needed to be revamped. the reorganization led to the appointment of the first surgeon general, john maynard woodworth. he had been a army medical officer in the civil war. woodworth put his officers in uniform, created a flag and instituted the military system appointment by merit. doctor woodworth's reforms were formalized by law in 1889, when the commission corps of the u.s. marine hospital service was created. as the commission corps was expanding during the closing years of the 19th century, so was biological discovery. the scientific ferment brought changes to the marine hos

in 1800 president john adams was defeated for re-election by thomas jefferson. arshall as secretary of state would be replaced by james madison. the federalists were in eclipse. the democratic republicans were on the rise. but the federalists were not giving up. marshall, as one of adams's final acts, was made chief justice. and in the closing hours of the outgoing administration he was very busy signing appointments, filling newly created judgeships with faithful federalists. the commissions were sealed with the seal of the united states. but something went wrong. on the following morning when james madison came to take over the office as secretary of state, he found the commissions still on the desk. through some error they had not been delivered. he presently discussed the matter with jefferson and a decision was made. some of the commissions would not be delivered. later one of the appointees, william marbury, became impatient. where was his commission as justice of the peace in the district of columbia? marbury brought suit against madison. his attorneys ask

he will meet john quincy adams and henry clay. john quincy adams will come to paris with him and they will both go to science lectures in paris and hang around together. literally, there is a sense that going to europe means paying a call to humboldt. asrlecharles willson peale, he gets to the end of his life, i love this late health portrait of him because to me it is -- late self portrait him because to me it introduces one of his closest friends. it is like they are drinking buddies. what i like about this is it is a nod to the thing that put peale's museum on the map. it is the thing that drew humboldt into their orbit. it is the thing that encapsulates the thing that peale is most proud of. that humboldtian experience seemed important to bring into focus. of course, with the mastodon itself right here, where you can literally see across it and through it and get yourself from peale's museum to the smithsonian. that is why the bust of humboldt is here. this is a bust that came to the smithsonian in 1860, the year after humboldt

again, i know nothing about colonial times except what i learned from "john adams," which holds up highlyaditionalist or originalist or whatever the hell republicans call themselves, then you have to own that, but when the rubber his the road they all abandon their supposed originalism and scream about how every vote needs to be counted instantaneously. trump did this for weeks, including just this weekend. >> i think it's a terrible thing when people or states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over, and i think it's terrible when we can't know the results of an election the night of the election in a modern day age of computer >> seth: a big tell that someone is in their '70s is when they say something like "a modern day age of computer. you don't have to say that we all use computers they're everywhere they have been for decades that's like saying, "we should know the outcome on election night. after all, it is the age of the automobile." and what do computers have to do anything they're mail-in ballots. we're not voting online. this is a pr

also interestingly, john adams was the vice president, he was not a member of the cabinet. he was kept out essentially, washington saw him since he was president in the senate he saw him is this legislator. he didn't have the executive and legislative branch mix together like. that this is interesting as well. the constitution implies that the senate is going to be the consulting body of the president, like entreaty making power, the president supposed to make advice and consent to get a treaty ratified. they share the power to make treaties, but the senate was something that was to political for it to be a very good consulting body for george washington. first of, all he couldn't get rid of senators. he had no control over the appointment. they weren't secretive enough. it would be too easy for arguments to spread, and get out into the world. so the senate clearly, was a deliberative body and not a consulting one. so it's interesting to see how washington made the cabinet into this consulting body, and the senate was sort of thought to be with farmers with the constitution

, it is the delivery of the first draft of the declaration of independence by thomas jefferson, john adams and others on june 28th, 1776. why? well, it was the process that was still ongoing. we see here that jefferson, the key draft or, is handing the document to john hancock. and now begins the debate and the discussion and the controversy and the fighting over what exactly to say to the british and whether to sign this document. then we have to military scenes. but notice there is no battle. there's no fighting. there's no heroic military action. instead, the focus is on the surrender of the british. this is the triumphal scene here. we have the surrender of burgoyne in 1777 and another surrender of lord cornwallis. and then finally, i civilian image of general george washington resigning his commission. why so important? because rather than make himself a king, he relinquished military authority for civilian rule. so in particular, why a controversy about this? as i've just said, this scene is not the signing of the declaration of independence, which we often think it is, and what john

madison doesn't like john adams and did you want want to be part of the administration. i should add they come home to montpielier. they have a lot of french furnishings send to them by james monroe who is the american ambassador to paris. they have a very fashionable french form of a bed. car p carpets and art in their home. so they move home with madison's parents. when we last saw them they're living in the sort of brick, the rectangular brick house. very, very important and ambitious building, but he realizes that they need more space because they have the two of them, dolley's son, and dolley's little sister, who she calls her sister-daughter. so madison adds sort of a wing on to the house and the grand cortico. he adds on a hallway with a dining room below, a room behind it, and a very large and beautifully appointed bedroom above it. so they have enough space to live with his parents but just for a few years because in 1801 jefferson is inaugurated and he appointed madison secretary of state and james and dolly with john payne todd and anna payne go to washington

when abigail adams first met him and john had told her about washington, she scolded john, for, she said, not preparing her for the phenomenon that the general was. i thought the one half was not told me, she wrote. doctor benjamin rush described washington this way. there is not a king in europe that would not look like a valet by his side. what madison, though, lacked in stature, he more than made up for in brains. his presence, as jefferson described it, came from a habit of self possession, which, placed at ready command, rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind. in my book, as gay mentioned, i call madison a genius. this caused some heartburn among some critics. i am happy, however, to stand my ground on that. madison not only saw the world he was born into, he saw how it could be different. and, at age 36, he arrived at the philadelphia convention, later known as the constitutional convention, full of this idea. intent on creating a nation from the 13 states, such as never had been seen before. just four years before, they had thrown off the rule of great britain and

the other is his father, john adams.ou give lots of good examples where it is not designed to be majoritarian. most notably, the house rather than the senate. all we can say, and i am being descriptive. there are arguments on both sides. the electoral college, after the 12th amendment, was not primarily designed to be a majoritarian body. they abandoned the idea of exercising independent judgment. it was supposed to be an agency of the party well. -- will. you might question whether the electoral college is a good system because it does not allow either for independent judgment and in some cases -- host: fort wayne, indiana. this is wes, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on with jeffrey rosen. caller: i like you the best. i think it should be abolished because it is too confusing. most people do not understand the electoral college at all. i feel like it is just too confusing. the popular vote should win, period. the electoralon vote. ,ven though he's president there has been tampering in our

john quincy adams said the only book deserving of attention is the bible. those are great quotes from our founding fathers. i would like to recognize for three minutes, representative gohmert. mr. gohmert: i thank my friend and brother and colleague in christ. to follow up on what congressman lamborn said, the very first book that the united states congress authorized to be published at taxpayer expense was the book called the bible. not only that, i would also point to a quote, as there is a lot of talk of socialism and how it would work in this country. there were others that talked about it at the end of the was s and one lived what said. problem of socialism is not agentism.ut i would ask for the congressional research service to give me information about the role of the church and bible in our founding and this is derived from that. the first christian services in this unions capitol were held when the government moved to washington. they were conducted in the hall of the house during church services, the speaker's podium was used as a preacher's pulpi

say he is unlookly to do is —— unlikely to do is slip out quietly line the second us prosecute john adams. —— heard of again. i don't think we can see that from donald trump. thank you. at least 200 british tourists have reportedly fled the swiss ski resort of verbier rather than face a 10—day quarantine. the holiday—makers are thought to have left the town, popular with travellers from the uk, during the night. that was after the swiss government ordered anyone arriving from britain after december 14th to self—isolate, following the discovery of a new variant of covid—19. reports say tourists were even offered free champagne on christmas day to make their stay more comfortable. we can talk to a director of switzerland tourism and joins us. thank you for being with us. what is your reaction to the news that these people have just slipped away or escaped after being told they had to quarantine? well, i think it is important to realise that this isn't just a small amount of people. for example, we have usually in verbier for the village that everyone talks about, we have in the winter about

about kennan today because you're going to be listening to the person who wrote the biography of john quincy adams tomorrow and he was a strong admirer of john quincy adams. he was on jay william fulbright's televised hearing on the vietnam war and he was one of the most articulate member of the establishment to speak out against the war. he finished his testimony which got a standing ovation from the congressional committee, kennan finished his testimony by quoting john quincy adams. in terms of time here, 2014, to be talking about george kennan, one thing that strikes me about his writings, the diary and his other writings is the continuing relevance of what kennan had to say about american foreign policy. the continuing relevance even today, nine years after his death. i think you will see some of that, some of the entries that i'll be reading. okay. most of my talk this evening will consist of the actual words of kennan. he's far more eloquent than i can ever hope to be. but i want to start off with some introductory material to place him and his diary in context. kennan as i said grew up in m

it's appropriate for me to be talking about kennon today because you'll be listening to the john quincy adams tomorrow and kennon was a very strong admirer of john quincy adams and kennon's quite famous television, he was on j. william fullbright's hearings and kennon was one of the most articulate members of the establishment and this was february 1966 and kennon finished his testimony which got a standing ovation from the congressional committee and kennon finished his testimony by quoting from john quincy adams, so it is certainly very appropriate. in terms of time here, 2014 to be talking about george kennon, one thing that strikes me about kennon's writings and the de diaries and the writings are the continuing elements that he had to say about american foreign policy that continue nine years after his death. you will see some of that with some of the entries that i'll be reading. >> okay. most of my talk this evening will consist of the actual words from kennon that i could ever hope to be, but i want to start off with introductory material to place kennon had his diary and context. in

that's going back to the thomas jefferson john adams elected and 1801. the civil war with abraham lincoln, the vietnam war with lbj. we are not our enemies. issuest to be arguing based on the outcomes and not about the value or worth of a fellow american. calling people names, diminishing their patriotism, all of these things are not helpful. we are supposed to be the united states of america, out of many one. we are becoming the divided states of america. a poll i saw a couple of weeks ago found 70% of republican said 20% of democrats believe that the november 3 election had fraud in it. courts,like to see some it doesn't have to be the supreme court, a lower court except all of these claims by the trump campaign for review. let's hear it under oath all of these people, more than 200 they affidavitshave filed under penalty of perjury, sworn an oath that what they saw was true, let's air them out. but the people under oath, put it on television, let's see what they have. if there was fraud, let the court decide. theot, it's move on to haydn administratio

. - who is john adams? - right. - presidents for $400.

you see the man in the upper right with the white hair and beard and glasses is john adams.is the composer of dr. atomic, which was just performed a year and a half ago at santa fe. it's the story of the manhattan project. many of you probably remember ed growth this. he's there with his arm around richard rhodes. on the left we have ellen reed, who was a great coconspirator from the start. she grew up as a child at los alamos. there are some wonderful stories. in the last frame, that is jack abby, who took the famous color photo of the trinity site that everybody has on their book covers. so anyway, we had a great program on that. next(=np.÷ slide. i did spend a lot of time elsewhere. i worked very closely with the museum reactor association. we were very fortunate and getting a lot of support from the murdoch charitable trust, which is in vancouver, washington. they found just the pacific northwest. we got funding for hanford and four idaho. they were very generous. we were able to put a lot of interpretive existence -- exhibitions together that i use now for the visitors

i think it was john adams who left the white house with just one tooth. first of all, the trial that was, but secondly, the paintings. you see washington as this aging person with his map sunken in, and he complained one of the portraits made him look swollen. we know washington two well as an old man. the portraits don't often show him enough in his prime. >> he was oftentimes in pain because those dentures were so ill fitting and he complained about them chronically. there's paintings of washington where he is bigger than horses and cannons and battlefields. washington was a big fellow, but if you were to extrapolate, he would be about 14 feet tall from some of the paintings. >> my favorite painting is the apotheosis of george washington. someone in your series said, it was important that we worship the great men in the early days of the republic. it helped knit us together. there is no better example of this in washington. i can't remember where the apotheosis of washington is, but it shows him being taken to have been. it's a religious kind of symbol.

you see the man in the upper right with the white hair and beard and the glasses is john adams. he is the composer of dr. atomic, which was just performed halfr and half -- and a ago, the story of the manhattan project. many of you remember -- his arm around richard rhodes, in the upper left. len bradberry reed who is a great co-conspirator from the start. she grew up as a child at los alamos. had some wonderful stories. and, in the last frame, that is o took thewhi famous color photo of the trinity site that everyone has on their book covers. we had a great program on that. next slide. so, it wasn't, you know, there were three sites. we spent a lot of time elsewhere working very closely with the b reactor museum association. we were very fortunate in getting a lot of support from the murdock charitable trust, which is in vancouver, washington, and funds just pacific northwest. we just got funding for hanford in idaho.e ebr-1 they were very generous. by working with them we were able to put a lot of interpretive exhibits together the are used now for visitors to the reactor. mod

can you tell us about it and did john adams welcome thomas jefferson to the white house? james: first of all, particularly the time we are living through right now with all of its challenges, i think it is useful and in some ways reassuring to look back at the election of 1800, which was, as you say, very contentious, very partisan indeed. and nearly came to violence toward the end. without getting into detail, most of us will remember from high school or college that there were two basic parties at the time, one was the federalist party, which was the conservative sort of pro-business, favorable to wealth and commerce, very favorable to britain, hostile to france, and generally more conservative, traditional party. the republicans, later known as the democratic republicans, at the time founded by jefferson and madison, were very similar in their differences from the federalists, as you might say the democrats are today from the republicans. kind of the mirror image of the federalists. oriented toward the common man, or at least middle-class, favorable to france, hostile

hosted by the colonial williamsburg foundation, hosting a reenactment between founding fathers john adams and george mason. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >>> with joe biden as president-elect, stay with c-span with live coverage of the election process and transition of power. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >>> author and smith college english professor michael gorra discusses his book "the saddest words." the civil war and the south's defeat are represented in

his name was john adams. he said, if you bring these people out west, they are going to die. the reason they will die is they rely onseafood for their diet, and they believed him. that is why we were left alone. the last two they say, it indians in nantucket, who knows? that was the perspective of some people's lenses. they died within several weeks. what else do we got here? this is kind of cool, right here. we might be doing this next year. seriously. we just got a 40-footwhite pine log. we are going to make a 20-man boat. this picture is from 2002 in martha's vineyard. back in the 90s, right, i have been at the museum for a while. >>> we all wanted to stay on this big 30 foot boat. we looked at each other and said let's raise for each other. we took the to 12 foot boats. he took one and i took another and went across the river. we had to see who made it back first. it looked like speedboats. he beat me by have a boat length. this trip took a lot of planning, right? it's to three years of planning. we finally made the trip. it involved --, waupun all of course. we left augu

of these guys stayed silent, but louisiana representative mike johnson tweeted this quote by john quincy adamsurs, results are god's." okay, but i another famous john quincy adams quote: "you lost, mike johnson! suck my sideburns!" so, what's to be done with these antidemocratic cult members? well, there's an interesting idea put forth by new jersey congressman bill pascrell, seen here staying perfectly still until he remembers why he came into the kitchen. pascrell sent a letter to speaker nancy pelosi in which he points out that the 126 congressman have violated a clause in the 14th amendment barring rebellion against the constitution, adding, "stated simply, men and women who would act to tear the united states government apart cannot serve as members of the congress." that seems like the bare minimum for government service. to be elected, you have to believe in our elections. same way in order to work at arbys, you have to believe it's meat. but banning 126 members of congress may be too much. so i have my own more limited suggestion for the speaker. you don't have to bar 126 republicans,

quotation, gosh, i can't member who wrote it, maybe you could help me day in which person a set of john adams he's wonderful and entertaining and smart but half mad. washington was appalled when he became commander of the continental army and went to boston at money grubby in virginia you did not money grab harley because you had slaves who, you know, didn't, in the end, slavery just did not work. in the end it did not allow for a profitable enterprise but they were much more polite than adams was but he was just out there kicking up dust and stirring up trouble. [laughter] >> well put. >> that's just one example but i think the northerners and the southerners from the beginning were very different and part of the reason that the civil war happened is just that they never really reconciled those differences and certainly the north did not, by the middle of the 19th century, reconcile itself to slavery. >> yes. could you speak about monroe? ... in choosing marshall overman well . what you think he averaged. and what are we maybe as 200 years later. what is been a sort of this society. we know