a look at thomas jefferson's ideas on how the young country should be governed. then the role of women in the revolutionary war. later, a discussion on george washington's leadership as head of the continental army and as the first u.s. president. american history tv continues on c-span3 each night the rest of the week. wednesday at 8:00 p.m., historians consider who "time" magazine might have picked to be person of the year in 1862 when the country was in the midst of the civil war. among the names discussed, abolitionist leader frederick douglas, robert e. lee, and george b. mcclellan, the union general who commanded a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. >>> c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas, with book tv at the university of arkansas. >> he was particularly interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew

his talk this morning is thomas jefferson manifest destiny and the texas revolution. please help me welcome dr. smith. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. it's a pleasure to be here today. i need something a little taller. my mom always told me i should be the first one to speak in the room. that way, if i said something that was out of place, there would be a chance for others to follow up and correct me. so hopefully i can get started today and i'll say a few things that you might think, well, that seems out of place. but fortunately the land commissioner's already told you many of the fireworks of my presentation because it's really about texas before it became anglo. and how certain people wanted it to become anglo. one of the things i can tell you is that i'm an early american historian and i work on the era of thomas jefferson. and you may say that thomas jefferson really has no association whatsoever with texas. well, that's not exactly correct. i mean, he does have an association with texas. in fact, what we see is he has a vision. and this vision he had was wh

, and you may say that thomas jefferson really has no association whatsoever with texas. well, that's not exactly correct. i mean, he does have an association with texas. in fact, what we see is he has a vision. and this vision he had was what he called an empire of liberty. and certainly texas embodies that empire of liberty. it was a vision that will provide the framework for manifest destiny. it will provide the framework for the texas revolution, and it's really going to lay the foundation for what becomes a continental empire. it stretches from the atlantic to the pacific. now, because of that, jefferson believed that tejas, that that was a cornerstone in what he saw as american expansion. now, for someone who studies thomas jefferson, one thing i can tell you is that -- this is in a day and age before twitter and before facebook, and he wrote more than 20,000 letters. and the thing that kills me is how politicians from the right and from the left are quick to cherry-pick his quotes and try to say that jefferson supported this or jefferson supported that. well, yeah,

she died in march of 1776 so he wasn't even the thomas jefferson we think of as thomas jefferson whenshe died. he hadn't become that guy had yet. but when you talk about his daughter, patsy course of his granddaughters, it's a different story to it i think they wrote letters and expected to be preserved or to preserve them in their own edited fashion. the road every literary letters and with some expectation this would be a legacy for them and a couple of his granddaughters were just absolutely, you know, they really would have liked to at one point when the family was broken his granddaughter said i wished i was a man because i could do all kind of things to save the family fortunes that i can't do being a woman. what we should start a school. at least we could do that. and in fact they did in that kind of saving some of what they had died the women starting a school as they were doing at that time. so it's going to vary from person-to-person in the same way that over the generations i think things change from a point of view of their attitudes towards relationships between masters a

this book, the women at jefferson loved is about the women that thomas jefferson felt he had made secret promises to. so it's about his mother and his wife and his daughters and his granddaughter's and the women of his great her family. when i say the women jefferson loved, what name comes to mind? i know why you are all here. [laughter] sally hangs, of course, the person that is family tried hardest to erase. this is his granddaughter, ellen rim of coolidge and she took it upon herself to try to erase the entire story about thomas jefferson and sally hemingses and she said this relationship, the relationship between my grandfather, my grandfather and this slave girl could not have existed, but in tough, couldn't have come he wouldn't have done it. she called it a moral in possibility. i'm going to guess the people in this room know there are lots of things that are not moral in human relationships but there are hardly anything that is impossible. so, what the kind of story that ellen could little about thomas jefferson's family looked a lot like a sentimental image of what thomas jeffer

we've heard about thomas jefferson. we've heard from the jefferson chair at the university of virginia which is jefferson's university in the person of peter onuf, the so-called father of the constitution, james madison, jefferson's good friend. we saw a picture of james monroe in that boat right there right beside george washington. again, john quincy adams was mentioned. that's the spine of american history. and i want to suggest, just because i wanted to -- my talk today is going to be about the constitution. that's what i do, that's where i live and move and have my being as intellectually as in the constitution, and i wanted to basically give you one kind of memorable way to to pull together the basic theme of my talk. i want to suggest that our constitution is in its basic structure far more jackson, andrew jackson-like, than we've been taught. i'll tell you at the end of today, three ways to sort of remember that it's all about jackson and for all of you, but in a nutshell our constitution is more small "d" democr

thomas jefferson coming back, though. thomas jefferson knew five languages. the colonials win.lly, i'm glad you got your pencils here. back to the wonder lick test. we have some questions. >> wonder lick has nothing to do with lollipops, right? >> we have easy questions. here's number one. what is the 9th month of the year. >> september. >> what is that? >> that's the bell. that means your good. that's the easy one. here's a hard one. you ready? a boy is 17 years old. his sister is twice as old. when the boy is 23 years old, what will be the age of the sister? >> she'll be 40. >> anita? >> i'm still adding. >> is that right? >> yes. >> last one before we go to break. what does four pads cost? >> 84 cents? >> yes. >> you could be a quarterback. >> we're out of here. >> those are pretty easy. >> there's a reason

this morning there will be a wreath laying at the thomas jefferson memorial to mark the 269th anniversary of the third president's birth. coming up next hour we're speaking with historians and other staff at the jefferson hotel to talk more about the founding father's birthday celebration. >>> dionne warwick, barry gordy, smoky robinson, some of the stars on hand for the celebration of the reopening of the howard theater in d.c. ♪ >> reporter: there was a long list of performers, singers, comedians, kind of like in the old days. they appeared on a stage that's boost from or three decades. city taxpayers, the curtain is back up. duke ellington's son and daughter were here tonight. dick gregory, martha reeves. the district's politicians got in on the action. a good time was had by all. ♪ jimmy, oh, jimmy mack, when are you coming back ♪ >> to the howard. >> yeah. >> it was phenomenal to walk in here today and go, oh my god, i remember 10 years old, i played this theater and it's back again and very exciting. >> reporter: do you really know the way to san jose? >> yes, i finally found it. >>

you all say thomas jefferson, of course. take away the three-fifths, there are two elections of southerner against northerner, jefferson against adams and adams wins the first and then ohio flips. flips pennsylvania. the swing state at the time is new york which is a slave state at the time. but it flips but without a pro-slavery bias of the extra three-fifths, john adams wins even in 1800. he knows that and all the federalists know that. the constitution is amended but not that one. the 12th amendment makes it safe for a populous presidency. jefferson and madison, in principle they are opposed to slavery but once they understand their bread is buttered on the southern side party, their founding has its base in slavery, you don't hear so much about anti-slavery from those guys. and even great northerners like john quincy adams, he doesn't say that much against slavery. afterwards he does. there's no openly anti-slavery presence before 1860. your simple test, someone gets up, slavery is wrong, you should eventually get rid of

earlier freeman had been a slave belonging to thomas jefferson who sold him to james madison. he worked in the madison white house with jennings as did his wife, melinda colbert freeman. she a free person, formerly enslaved by thomas jefferson, melinda was a member of the well known hemings family of monticello. the freemans were founders of the neighborhood where jennings purchased the house in 1854, just a 15 to 20-minute walk northwest of lafayette square. the freemans and jennings were eventually joined by other families of ex-slaves of presidents in this neighborhood including three syphax brothers, charles ii, william and colbert, sons of maria carter custis and charles s. syphax senior and nephews of nancy syphax who worked with jennings earlier on lafayette square. now in the 1850s, jennings and charles syphax, ii worked together in the pension office under the department of the interior. charles's brother, william syphax was also employed in the interior department rising from messenger to clerk and he was a leader in public education for african-americans in washingt

thomas jefferson was a mulatto. >> i'm so glad you asked me that question. i'm actually a scholar of the war of 1812. and i just finished a manuscript on african-americans in the war. i can tell you there's quite a few of them. >> i know it is. i know it is. >> quite a few of them participated in the war. >> i know it is. they fought in the alamo and everything. we don't get credit for it. >> you're right. >> only thing you think ever is slaves. >> well, and to me the wonderful story about the war of 1812 is how african-americans used that as a way to secure their freedom. now one of the great stories -- >> lot of them didn't come here slaves. some of them came and helped america. >> you're right, some of them did, exactly. and yet what we see is we tend to create in the narrative american history, we tend to put people in certain groups or categories and we generalize those categories. we can say that within any group of people there are exceptions to those rules. >> yeah. >> and in the process of trying to make it a narrative flow that goes from point "a"

farwell and litigated some historyache cases in virginia that extend back to thomas jefferson in which church were not allowed to hold land like other corporations, and we ultimately got that overturned after a couple hundred year law under the united states constitution. and from those conversations with dr. farwell, we gap talking about the idea of a law school, and that was in the 1990s, and the law school opened in 2004, and dr. far well asked me to be the dean. i declined. he asked me a second time, i decleaned ex-and when he asked me the third time i ultimately became the dean of the law school in 2006. >> host: do you have another book? >> guest: i have one book in the process of developing. one is about the freedoms we have in america and also about activism and motivation i've been very moved by reading biographies of wilber force and others like him, and so my desire is to ultimately

she died in march of 1776 so he wasn't even the thomas jefferson we think of as thomas jefferson whenhe died. he hadn't become that guy had yet. but when you talk about his daughter, patsy course of his granddaughters, it's a different story to it i think they wrote letters and expected to be preserved or to preserve them in their own edited fashion. the road every literary letters and with some expectation this would be a legacy for them and a couple of his granddaughters were just absolutely, you know, they really would have liked to at one point when the family was broken his granddaughter said i wished i was a man because i could do all kind of things to save the family fortunes that i can't do being a woman. what we should start a school. at least we could do that. and in fact they did in that kind of saving some of what they had died the women starting a school as they were doing at that time. so it's going to vary from person-to-person in the same way that over the generations i think things change from a point of view of their attitudes towards relationships between masters an

the editor at the national gazette look for thomas jefferson in the state department as a clerk translator. this is just to give him an extra salary and access to government documents that jefferson is paying this guy who is editor of the newspaper and the newspapers attacking george washington and henry knox brings a copy of the latest issue to a cabinet meeting. a poll about washington being to the guillotine. washington sees this and says i saw it. i get a copy of this newspaper every morning. he sends me three copies of this newspaper. he expects me to be a distributor of his newspaper. i would rather gone back to mount vernon. i would rather be at home than the emperor of the world and jefferson writes this all down. it seems just like how you lose your temper. just how adams. something starts you off and i am going to go with this and he goes and he goes and sort of sitting there like listen to that. then he stops and they go back to what they are talking about and move on. the little demon came out for a moment and then uncorked it back up and unlike nixon he didn't think how could

thomas jefferson said, don't. and that's the point i want to make today. there is nobody in the founding period who is more conscious of both the danger of the union, the risks, but also he's more intensely conscious of the rights of an individual. there is a strong libertarian tendency in jefferson's thought and his obsession with rights. on the other hand, there's a strong tendency toward realism, to be aware of the great dangers confronting the nation. and the need to mobilize the force of the nation to sustain its enterprise. so what was the problem with the constitution? why did he say to his good friend, madison, "i don't think we should revere this document. it has many imperfections, and nothing personal, jemmy, but i don't see you as a father or as a founder." now, i'm paraphrasing. it's only because i know him so well, i can say this. as i frequently point out. jefferson never would have gotten tenure at the university of virginia. his publication list is extremely limited. and he was a lousy public speaker. so why wouldn't he say, "good work, mr

and did thomas jefferson the original author of that phrase? >> i'm not exactly sure where that particular phrase comes from. now, he does write a letter to the baptists in 1801 in which he talks about a separation of church and state. i don't remember the exact in e talks about a separation of church and state. i don't remember the exact quote. so i'm not sure if he used that exact phrase, separation of church and state. >> i think he wrote a letter to the banbury baptists in connecticut. >> yes. >> saying they were concerned about the church of england oppressing them. and the church of england was of course the established church in virginia. and that's why jefferson wrote his statute on religious freedom -- >> in 1774. yes. >> right. and he wrote a letter to the danbury baptists stating that -- and these were his words. the first amendment erected a wall of separation between church and state. that's where the phrase comes from. >> thank you. other questions. how about about expansion? yes, ma'am. >> i'm wondering about the authorities who

john adams, the second, thomas jefferson, the third. but where his picture should be hung as the fourth president, madison hangs the picture of the fifth president, james monroe. and visitors note that. why doesn't he put his own portrait here? and then as they look around the room, they discover that madison has hung his own portrait as one visitor said, in the corner behind the door showing his modesty, but he has also hung his portrait next to his beloved dolley. so, again, he is telling you an awful lot about himself, the importance of dolley in his life. over this thomas jefferson, his best friend, and next to it a picture of mary magdalen. i thought he long hung it next to jefferson to poke a little fun at his friend. you also see other features that impress visitors. the bust, these are notable people of american history from george washington to the marquis d 'lafayette. they served tea here. they welcomed their guests. they had many visitors. while every visitor had access to this room and would be welcomed by madison or dolley

now, the editor of the national gazette works for thomas jefferson in the state department. he has a job as a clerk translator. this is just to give hem -- him an extra salary and access to government documents. so jefferson is paying this guy and this newspaper is attacking george washington. and henry knox, secretary of war, brings a copy to a cabinet meeting, a poem about washington being led the guillotine. so, washington sees this thing and says, well, yes, i saw it. i get a copy of this newspaper every morning. and in fact he sends me three copies of this newspaper as if he expects me to be a distributor of his newspaper. i would rather that i had gone back to mt. vernon, i'd rather be at home than be emperor of the world, and jefferson writes this all down, and it just seems -- it seems just like how you lose your temper. it's just how it happens. something starts you off, and then it's like, by god, i'm going to go with this, and he goes and goes and goes, and then everybody sort of is sitting there like, you know, oh, gees, listen to that. then the stops and then the

thomas jefferson thought pretty highly of the french revolution. had some significant little dust-ups with folks here about it, and burke had serious, serious combat over his position on the french revolution. so he wasn't a man who didn't understand change. he supported the american revolution. he was appalled by the french revolution. and he was appalled because when the french got done, there was nothing left of history, of tradition, and there was no experience to go on with where they found themselves. so with the help of reason and the human mind and knowing that man is good, they tried to create something new. the something new was the reign of terror decried by burke who watched it, and then when that was over, they fell into a kind of, well, napoleon. and that's a whole other avenue. what's -- is napoleon like cromwell? napoleon certainly would not have been a burke favorite. you look at the french revolution and you look at the american revolution, you see the difference. the french tore it all down. in today's parlance, they threw the ba

(applause) (cheers and applause) >> well, i'm really glad you brought up thomas jefferson.f all, he is-- we as religious conservatives would have no reason to downplay thomas jefferson a fellow religious conserve tiferment. >> stephen: i don't care for the guy but if you felt like he had to be in your book, that is fichblt he took a razer to the bible, and that up set me you know that. >> absolutesly. >> stephen: why with would he tear out the miracles. >> his personal opinion. >> stephen: what is wrong with having a personal opinion about the bibe ohl, the bible is inner rant there are noer are rohrs in it. >> we don't share the same theology. >> stephen: okay. >> now. >> stephen: how do things get into text books because i imagine that experts wrote textbooks but in fact, they get voted on at a school board, as to what is true. >> what happens is-- (laughter) >> stephen: i'm just curious, i want to know, does the school board decide what goes in or out. >> the school board decides what is in the standards. and the people that write the textbooks write the standards. and i

and i mean republican in the sense of the republic, of thomas jefferson, those kinds of people. the last lawyer who really believes that to enunciate the important principles of america is going to work. this is in a town where their first reaction -- i mean, tom ewell is an incredibly evil, disgusting person. everybody in town knows that. but they believe him. you know, they're willing to take his word even though they know he's lying completely, they're willing to take his word. they're willing to go out and try to lynch tom robinson, right? they have taken one of their upstanding citizens, bo radley, and locked him in the attic. he's been there for god knows how many years. has anybody in town done anything about it? no. lock your kids in the attic. that's the kind of town you're dealing with. as we're seeing this through the idse of scout, a child, we have -- through the eyes of scout, a child, we have to dig into it ourselves to see what's going on and once you do you realize that atticus doesn't have a chance. there's nobody to appeal to. he's going to lose. and the moral

today marked the 269th anniversary of the birthday of thomas jefferson. the national park service and other organizations paid tribute to mr. jefferson with a wreath laying ceremony at the jefferson memorial and here's a little fact for you. it was president franklin roosevelt that dedicated the memorial back on this date in 1943, the 200th anniversary of thomas jefferson's birth. >>> titanic split open by a burg, her side ripped over as -- berg, her side ripped open like a can opener, just one of the headlines of the sinking of the titanic. it happened 100 years ago this weekend, april, 1912, and as the newspaper saying goes you can read all about it, the museum marking the anniversary with a special exhibit and showcasing the front pages of the titanic in cases that line the museum on pennsylvania in northwest. >> one of the big points of interest is initially the newspapers got it terribly wrong, indicated that all of the passengers had survived. everybody was going to be all right and we know obviously in hindsight that that's not true, the vast major

 >>> a big celebration at the national mall today commemorating the 269th anniversary of thomas jefferson's birthday. a wreath laying ceremony was held for the third american president. the national park service, and d.c.'s society of the suns of the american revolution all in attendance, honoring one of america's founding fathers. and biggest wine lovers. next week marks the 70th anniversary of a story chapter in american military history. a near certain suicide mission in the early days of the second world war. carried out by a volunteer group of airmen. bob has their story. >>> i'll never forget those days. >> only five of the doolittle raiders are with us. they were a group of 80 men that carried out the first american air raid against japan four months after the attack on pearl harbor. >> almost from that very day, franklin roosevelt was did determined to do something. it was less a strategical, as a psychic response for the american people. >> named after the fearless leader, jimmy doolittle, the raid on april 18, 1942, was planned as a one way strike against the japanese. >> secret m

emery went from thomas jefferson to the university of virginia, where he was a two-sports star. one as the center on the football team, and two is the captain of the party team at the deke house. emery has written widely and perceptively on many aspects of confederate history and biography including the volume about the confederacy in the new american nation series, an acclaimed biographies of jeb stewart and robert e. lee. he's an old friend of the museum of the confederacy and has written and lectured about the museum itself and its role in civil war memory. his latest work "the dogs of war 1861" is a collection of essays that are apropos of the civil war sesquicentennial, he'll be in virginia in april lecturing about jeb stewart at the university of mary washington. great live series on april 3rd. today he'll be nominating -- i can't say it, i'll let him tell you. but, emery, if you get up here and talk about jon bankhead mcgruder, i'll cut you short and we'll get on with robert e. lee. >> thank you very much. you didn't mention some embarrassing things. fortunately. i did so

it came when ronald regan replaced thomas jefferson's portrait in the room with calvin coolidge's. people were outragerd at this. they couldn't believe that reagan would do such an obviously silly thing. mark shields wrote in the post, don't try to tell me that calvin coolidge could ever substitute for thomas jefferson. that's almost a national sacrilege. the irony was coolidge was the most 125u7b much supporter. when you compare him to wilson and wilson's successors, it turns out it would have been liberal presidents who would have wanted to remove jefferson's photo. that's an interesting trend lost in everyone today. one might have thought he was going to eliminate silent cal. modern presidents simply talk too much. they would benefit from a certain rhetorical min mimp. it's nearly forgotten one of the bills of impeachment against andrew johnson, when you strip it down it was that he was talking too much and in too partisan of a way. here's the language itself. that said, andrew johnson, president of the united states, unmindful of the high duties of his office and the dignity an

shields wrote in the post, don't try tell me that calvin coolidge could ever substitute for thomas jefferson. that's almost a national sacri lidge. it would be liberal presidents that want to have removed jefferson's picture from the cabinet room if they paid faith to their ideas. that's -- interesting trend that's seemingly lost in just about everyone today. one might wish more presidents saw fit to emulate coolidge's accurate nickname of silent cowell for one malady of modern presidents they simply talk too much. and would benefit from embracing a certain minimalism. it is nearly forgotten today that one of the bills of impeachment against andrew johnson when you script it down essentially he was talking too much, and too partisan away, here's the -- here's the article's language itself. that said andrew johnson, president of the united states, unmindful of the high duties of his office and their dignity and propriety thereof, did make and deliver with a loud voice certain inflammatory and scandalous harangs and did their utter loud threats and menaces as well against congress as the laws

it's not officially part of the senate's rules, but the senate has lived up to thomas jefferson's rules and manuals from the very beginning. and, in fact, the language that senators use today that henry clay would have used, and that senator mcconnell uses today, is very much dictated by what jefferson suggested, which was, issues can be so emotional and so divisive and so heated, you have to cool things off so you can have a rational discussion. so when you're debating, you're not actually debating somebody else. you are speaking to the presiding officer. mr. president, my distinguished senior senator from the great state of such-and-such has incorrectly interpreted the constitution on this point. and i feel i must point out, you know -- very nice, polite, 19th century language that you still hear quite often in the senate chamber. senators forget from time to time. they turn around and look at another senator and say you, which is not permitted. sometimes reporters change that for them in the record when it's published the next day. but jefferson wanted to diffuse those tensions. you

this goes all the way back to thomas jefferson. >> yes. john adams.e have great wars over the judiciary, the role of the supreme court is at a time when we're settling huge issues in the national -- in national life. john adams wanted to create a federalist enclave because he felt that thomas jefferson was bringing this french revolutionary wave into office. that was a midnight appointment. that's how we got judicial review. was by john marshall, a very politically astute, much like a lot of these justices, a politically astute justice. jackson had it, lincoln had it, fdr tried to pack the court. and overreached and was pulled back. >> what's the historical impact for barack obama, though, if the signature piece of legislation that he spent his first two years -- after a huge election, a change election, is overturned 5-4, what's the historical impact not just for the president but for the court? >> i think it's -- i think it will be a permanent black eye. this is the great achievement. >> for the president or the court. >> for the president. >> for t

after all it was his famous deal with congressional supporters of thomas jefferson that led to federal assumption of state debt, for an entirely new city to be built on the banks of the potomac. the pedestal on which he stands makes no reference to hamilton's real estate transactions. it pays tribute instead to his financial genius. he smote the rock of the

. >> 82 sent thomas jefferson at stamp. -- a 2 cent thomas jefferson stamp. never expected to find. >> as a retired historian he sees the long forgotten cards as a long lost treasure. >> to appreciate these ancient documents. >> the post office has not offered an explanation -- asks explanation of why it took so long. >> he was a retired historian how ironic is that. >> the clock hands of georgetown's famous towers had been stolen. they are likely the work of some students. it is a longstanding tradition to steal the clock cans. they were last stolen in 2005. >> he does not just save lives on television. patrick dempsey rescued a teenager who became trapped in his car. the tv doctor pulled the california teenager from the mangled mess last week. he flipped his mustang three times. the actor raced out of this sum fire extinguisher and crowbar in hand. the teenagers that you recognize the good samaritan. -- the teenager said he recognized the good samaritan. >> he used that crowbar to pry the teenager from the car and stay by his side until paramedics arrived.