joseph ellis said by selecting the potomac location, they had decided to separate the political and financial capitals of the united states, washington and new york. the exciting synergy of institutional life in our all-purpose metropolis, new york, was deem less important than the corruptions likely to inflict the financiers. if you don't feel the irony about that one in the year 2011, you haven't been reading the newspapers or believing them. these are -- that agreement, of course, jefferson thought would be a way whereby as ellis puts it that they would not abandon the new government of the united states, but they would capture it, like a new capital, it would become an extension of virginia. which was virginia, both virginia and massachusetts ambitions for the future of this tr well, irony may not be the most popular mood for political rhetoric, but seems to me we will find that lot of it in history if we believe it. next to last, it seems to me, we need a lot more respect in this country for compromise and especially the difference between the compromisable and the uncompromisable. i thi

which is the subject of what joseph ellis calls the most important dinner party in the history of the united states the party i atwhich james madson, ellington and madison met around jefferson's dinner table to see if they could key side in 1790 whether or not the federal government should be charged or permitted to assume the war debts can have the revolution. and that was feared, especially by virginia politicians because they didn't want the federal government to be that centrally involved in the economics of the new nation. jefferson and madison urged the new national capital be located where it is now on the banks of the potomac. if you look at that right now, that's full of irony. joseph ellis said by selecting the location, the congress decided to separate the political and financial capitals of the united states, washington and new york the exciting synergy of institutional life and orall-purpose national metropolis, new york, was deemed less important than the dangerous corruptions likely to afflict the nexus of politicians and financiers. if you don't find the irene of that

as noted by joseph ellis, the royal restrictions coincided with washington's greatest land speculation, a 2.5 million acre feudal kingdom in the ohio river valley that was rejected by the british govemeof existing treat with the iroquiois and cherokee tribes. one can washington's reaction a few years later when the same london overseers granted permission for english investors to stake their claims in the same region. as resentment hardened into resistance, washington assumed a role of political leadership far in advance of his fellow planters. in 1765, he welcomed the unprecedented action of the 13 united colonies in protesting the stamp act, which he denounced as, quote, legal thievery. he didn't stop there. quote, at a time when our lordly masters in great britainhing len the deappreciation of american freedom, he told his neighbor george mason, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avoid the stroke and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our ancestors. resolve to break the crown's commercial as well as political stranglehold, he lent his name to the

and is criticized these days by some of the more conservative historians like joseph ellis for being so fond of the whig histories. i thought through and was actually brilliant and was fascinated by jefferson's observations of them but he hated hume and wrote at length about how much he hated hume and everything from his jurisprudent prudence to his to his history. you write about how hume in the the in.

and is criticized these days by some of the more conservative historians like joseph ellis for being so fond of the whig histories. i thought was actually brilliant and was fascinated by jefferson's observations of them but he hated hume and wrote at length about how much he hated hume and everything from his jurisprudent prudence to is to his history. you write about how hume. in the in this in the seventeen hundreds was i don't recall the year and i'm guessing you may. basically laid down a legal principle that established for several hundred years it literally up until nine hundred eighty in the united states that it was legal for a man to rape his wife. can you tell us about that and what does that have to do with the modern conservative or the historic really the you know three centuries of .