about the dispute in the senate over titles came from the detailed diary of that infamous senator william mcclay of pennsylvania and his diary is part of the project's documents in volume nine. and mcclay was against the title for the president and his diary reflected his highly antagonistic view towards pre n pretentuous titles and documents his view of vice president john adams who championed a grand title. mcclay's disdain is loud and clear and salacious in his diary. this contentious relationship and mcclay's views as expressed in the diary had dominated our understanding of the presidential title controversy at the time that i was thinking about writing my book and doing my doctorate. but the diary alone presents only one voice have a very limited one. in addition his diary wasn't even published or available until about 100 years after the first congress in the late 19th century when it was first published. so other contemporary accounts of the title controversy were extremely valuable. all those letters to and from people, there was a lot of other material out there but the profession real

supporters and the senator from west virginia by the name of bird, he was very interested in william mcclay. he took me over to meet senator byrd and didn't pay any attention at all. i'm thinking why am i here. the historian of the united states senate actually kicked me. come down. all the sudden senator berg looked me right in the face and recited verbatim the last paragraph of mcclay's diary. i grabbed my colleagues and said come over, listen to this. senator byrd repeated the whole thing. we managed over the course of 25 years to locate approximately 105 of those 120 letters that were written from the first federal congress and sold in the biddle sale. we start out by only wanting the letters of great white men and then the letters that were written to the great white men and then in 1990 and 1989 i met the bicentennial, the project got a new colleague who was educated in a different world than the older editors and social history and women, of all things were important. how can you understand what it was like to understand what it was like to be a member of first congress if you didn't

and two letters from william mcclay. i contacted the manuscript division and said the two letters you don't have are available. they said, we're not interested. then the first federal congress has had many wonderful supporters like lindy boggs and a senator from west virginia by the name of senator bird. he was very very interested in lindsey clay. i remember the historian of the united states senate took me over to need senator bird at the reception and senator bird was chatting up a very young lady and didn't pay any attention to me at all. he's going on and on. i'm going, why am i here? the historian of the united states senate actually kicked me. calm down. all of a sudden senator bird, spun on his feet and looked me and cited verbatim the last paragraph of clay's diary. i went and grabbed my colleagues and said, listen to this. senator bird turned around and chatted up the young lady again and repeated the whole thing. we managed over 25 years to locate 25 of the 125 letters written to the first federal congress and

william mcclay, the senator from western pennsylvania had few kind words to say about anybody in his journals. but he was especially contemptuous of adams. who was the vice president of the new federal government in 1789 and thus president of the senate. adams wrote mcclay was a childish man. a very silly kind of laugh. who was usually wrapped up in the contemplation of his own importance. wherever he looked at adams, residing in his chair with his wig and a small sword, clay said it did not help making of a monkey, just put in to pritchett. >> there's no doubt that adams could appear ridiculous in the eyes of many people. that was never too wrong of jefferson. jefferson was often hated and ridiculed by his political enemies, but no one retired him in quite the way they did atoms. jefferson had a dignity that adams lacked and for many jeffersonwas the model of an 18th century gentleman. learned , genteel and possessed of self-control and serenity of spirit. adams temperaments could not have been more different. he was high strong, irascible, had no serenity of spirit whatsoever and t