Transcripts For CSPAN Douglas Bradburn 20240713

In of George Washington. Guest good morning, welcome to mount vernon. Behind me you see George Washington, the first president , being sworn in at federal hall in new york city in 1789 in were thet how well duties and powers of the office that he was about to step into, how well were they defined at that moment when he was sworn in . Guest they were not defined at all. The presidency was a brandnew institution. There had not been anything like it certainly in america and really in the world. It was a new experiment of an elected magistrate who at one point would be the head of state, like a king, but at the same time be the chief executioner of the laws, the chief executive, the chief policymaker. It was not clear where the powers of the legislature and where the powers of the president would be defined. Washington really created that office, and many of the precedents, many of the things we come to think of as president ial, come down from his example in the office host 59 when he89, aged took the office. What were his route his views about expanding or restricting the power of the office he was stepping into . Guest George Washington had already established the idea that civilians should be in control, that we needed to exercise restraint. On the other hand, he knew this new government needed to succeed and certain powers needed to exist to make sure there would not be, as he called it, anarchy and confusion. He knew we needed the ability to have one Foreign Policy that would be in his office. He knew we needed one military voice in the country that would be in his office. And he knew the government would be would have to collect taxes. He also knew he needed to represent the nation. The presidency is really the peoples office in an interesting way. It is the only office that represents everybody. In the legislative branch, people represent their districts in the house. In the senate, they represent their state. The president is the only elected officer that represents all the people, so he wanted to embody and help create a National Identity at a time when there was not much holding the states together. Host George Washington and the presidency is our topic. We welcome our viewers on American History tv on cspan3 on this president s day. We are talking with Douglas Bradburn, president and ceo of mount vernon. Taking your phone calls as well as we talk about George Washington and the presidency. If you are in the eastern and central time zones, it is [crosstalk]. It is 2027488000 2027488001. 2027488002. We take Text Messages as well. If George Washington could not know at the time how the office of the presidency would evolve over time, did he know it would evolve and was he ok with that . Question,ts a great and washington gives us a hint of what is in his mind. He writes a letter to an english historian, and a woman, which is remarkable for the time. She is a friend of the washingtons and a big fan of the American Revolution and George Washington in general. He writes an extraordinary letter to her january 9, 1790, after the first session of congress. The new session is coming back and he writes a letter in which he says, i walk on untrodden ground. Everything i do is subject to interpretation, everything creating a precedent. He understands his role in the office is going to set in train the next generation of how the presidency will function. He is worried about the news cycle, like all politicians must , but he also has his eyes on the longterm vision. 30 years, what will this office of the presidency be like . He is very aware of how important it is that he sets fee is president s he sets these precedents and works through them. A lot of the things we come to take for granted about the presidency he had to create. I will give you one quick example, the cabinet itself. The constitution says that from time to time, the chief executive can ask the opinion of these heads of the executive departments. The secretary of state, secretary of treasury, at the time. It does not say anything about meeting them regularly and talking. Washington stays strict with the rules, so to speak. In the early period of his presidency, he gets advice from his executive officers in writing. He asks a series of questions to them, he has them respond in writing. It only really is about 1793, four years into his presidency during the crisis of the french revolution gets really bloody and dangerous, or 1792, that he starts meeting weekly with the cabinet. We have come to think it is obvious that you would meet regularly with the cabinet. We think of the cabinet as this consulting body, but the constitution is not really clear about that at all. Management style and innovations in that regard helped create this whole function of the cabinet. Host there are 16 members of the cabinet today, the president s cabinet. How many members were there for George Washington . Guest much smaller. Much smaller cabinet in his day. He had the secretary of war, henry knox. He had the secretary of Thomas Jefferson, and then he had Alexander Hamilton as the secretary of the treasury. And Edmund Randolph, who was the attorney general at the time, also. Interestingly, john adams, who was the Vice President , was not a member of the cabinet. He was kept out, essentially. Washington saw him since he was president pro tem of the senate he saw him as the legislator and did not want to have the executive and legislative branch mixed together. It is interesting because the implies the sort of senate was going to be the consulting body of the president. The treaty making power. The president is supposed to get advice and consent to get a treaty ratified in the senate, so they share the power to make treaties. But point of fact, the senate was something that was too political for it to be a very good consulting body for washington. First of all, he couldnt get rid of senators. He had no control over their appointment. They were not secretive enough. It would be too easy for arguments to spread and get out into the world. And so the senate clearly was a deliberative body and not a consulting one. It is interesting to see how washington made the cabinet into this consulting body that the senate was sort of thought to be when the framers wrote the constitution itself. Host Doug Bradburn joining us from the Mount Vernon Museum and Education Center on the grounds of George Washingtons historic mount vernon. Asking you to join us in this segment of washington journal on American History tv. Eastern or central time zones, 202 7488000. If you have a question in the mountain or pacific time zones, 202 7488001. In this hour, we will explore some of the collections of the museum and Education Center there. I want to start with the copy of the acts of congress that George Washington owned and cared for. We visited the museum and Education Center back in 2012, just after that copy of the acts of congress had been purchased for some 10 million. I want to show viewers a bit of what it looks like and what George Washington did to learn about the powers of the presidency. George washington is very exacting with his books. We see that he takes great care of them. He has them in beautiful glass fronted shelves in his personal library at mount vernon. Often putting a wonderful flourish of his grand signature in the upper righthand corner of the title page, which he does with this volume. He also often, especially on very important books, puts a terrific bookplate. This is a bookplate that washington ordered from england. It is engraved in london. I think it was pretty special to him because it has both his engraved bookplate, his signature on the title page, but what is even more distinctive and unusual is that washington makes notes in the margin. We almost never see washington writing any marginalia. In several places, he very carefully brackets his powers and his role as president. We see him, for instance, in article one of the constitution here bracketing and writing the words president , next to those duties he is to follow and how he is to follow the enacting of legislation. How you have bills that are ratified by congress in the house of representatives and the senate and then sent on to George Washington as president for either approval or veto. In article two, you see him bracketing, not only putting president , powers, which is an interesting word that he uses. It shows the powers he has to appoint justices to the supreme treaties, toify appoint ambassadors. He is really understanding those powers that are his and those he must delegate to the other important branches of congress. Host Doug Bradburn. Interesting seeing the first president s handwriting there in that clip. Talk a little bit about how else he learned about this office he was stepping into . George washington of course have been in the positions of command and leadership since he was a young man. He had been a colonel of the virginia regiment at age 21. In the military position, he had been in these roles. He also served as the commanderinchief of the American Army for eight years , which was as much a political as a military role. In that role, he basically represented the cause of the the American Revolutionary cause, as the face of it. He had to deal with all the different state governments as well as the Continental Congress. A lot of local committees of safety. He is really probably one of the greatest politician generals we have ever had. He and eisenhower really come to mind as the great ones who were political generals, so to speak. Of course, he was also the president of the constitutional convention. So he was there when the office of the presidency was being created. One of the things that is interesting to remember about the constitution is that article one, which lays out the legislative branch, it strictly enumerates the Powers Congress has. Congress is not in session all the time. It only does its work during certain periods of time. Article three, which is all about the judiciary, of course there is only very narrow lawsdictions of federal that the federal judiciary will even have the power to decide, and it is very restricted in when it meets as well. Whereas article two, which describes the presidency, is quite wideopen. The president is on 365 days a year, all the time, has the power to execute the laws of the nation. George washington understood that he was entering a potentially very powerful role. There is a lot of latent power in that office that washington was very careful to try to constrain, not only by a strict attention to the way those powers are laid out in the constitution, so the constitutionality of the office decorumbut also in his in office, in his method of appointments, how he would choose to appoint people to positions. He made very careful study not only of the connections of the people that were being put up for office, but also, as he would say, their character. If people violated his trust, he would get rid of them, immediately remove them. He wanted to make sure that the early government did not have a reputation for corruption and wanted to use his office to set that standard early on. So washington understood power. But itrstood leadership, was a new office. I do think the acts of congress, the extraordinary copy of the constitution that he writes in, really shows the way washington, at the height of his powers, worked. Every great leader understands where they fit within an organization, where they fit within the trajectory of the organization, and where they want to take it going forward. We can see that at the moment washington is writing in that book. It is a great moment because it is on the eve of the first state of the union address. It is after he had been president already for 10 months or so, and yet here he is sitting down and rereading the constitution, rereading all the laws they passed in the last session and marking up the margins around those areas of his responsibilities. I particularly like the part in article two under the take care clause, where it says you shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, George Washington writes require next to that. It is a remarkable moment. He is writing on the constitution like he is using a highlighter. You see a man in focus there. It is not a commentary, but its like what we do when we want to focus on something, we highlight the passage. I think him writing require in the context of trying to understand what laws were passed and what his duties were really gives an insight into why he was such an effective leader at the creation of something. Host as the crowds gather at George Washingtons historic the this morning, and the reenactors are there as well on the grounds on this president s day, the crowds have gathered on our phone lines as well to chat with you. Tom out of hampton, connecticut. Good morning. Caller good morning. How you doing this morning . I am a history buff and also a former member of the governor Samuel Huntington trust. Samuel huntington was president of the Confederation Congress when washington was still general. I am trying to do research on Samuel Huntington without papers, and i am wondering how you used George Washingtons papers online to fint members of the Continental Congress . Guest great, tom, thats an excellent question. Theres tremendous resources online to do that research. Online,o to founders which is a free webpage, you can find all the papers of the founders that have been currently digitized and put up there. In washingtons case, i think you are a little hampered because the revolutionary war papers are not quite done yet. There is i think they are done up through about 1780, so you dont get the whole entirety of the war. The story of the Continental Congress during that war is fascinating and incredibly important, obviously for the future growth of Political Institutions at the National Level as well. Another great resource is the library of congress has letters to the delegates of the First Congress available. Plus, all the formal records of the congress are there as well. All searchable, digital and online. Back in the day when i did my dissertation, none of that stuff existed and i had to go to library and did all this stuff out. Thats why it took me a long time. You have the benefit now to use the great things that have been digitized and are available online. I am happy to say that mount vernon is part of that work. We have one of the documentary editors works here at our president ial library. We work in Great Partnership with the papers of George Washington at the university of virginia, who are systematically not only transcribing, but also annotating and then publishing all the papers of George Washington. It is a remarkable thing when you think that project started in 1968. It was thought it was going to take 20 years. We just had our 50th anniversary of that project the year before last. I think it is still going to take another 10 years before they finally finished all the massive correspondence of George Washington. Host might be a good time to talk about the museum and Education Center. How long have you been around and what do you do there . Guest i came to mount vernon in 2013 when the Ladies Association opened the president ial library for George Washington. I had been a professor of history up at Suny Binghamton university in upstate new york. When the Ladies Association was opening this library, they wanted an academic to come down. A couple years ago, i was made the president over the whole shooting match. Mount vernon is a remarkable institution because it is fully private. We are not one of the smithsonian museums, not a part of the National Park service. We came about because a group of annn in the 1850s led by Pamela Cunningham saved the house of George Washington from destruction and made it a museum, made it open for the public. We are celebrating our 160th year of being a public history site Whose Mission is to preserve mount vernon and educate people about his legacy. We educate folks on the ground. On the grounds. Today i am happy to say we are going to welcome somewhere about 15,000 visitors to mount vernon, because it is washingtons birthday observed. President s day, as you call it out there. We are really excited for that. Not only can people see the mansion and see his tomb, where he and Martha Washington are entombed, but they can come into this structure, which is our Education Center. The museum itself is extraordinary. We have the story of the enslaved at mount vernon. Not only George Washingtons changing attitudes about slavery, but also biographies of some of the people enslaved here. The Education Center, where we are right now, is basically a biography of George Washington. We feel that folks dont learn enough about George Washington in their traditional history classes. When they come to mount vernon, we want to make sure they have the opportunity to learn as much as they can. Host we are going to show our viewers a picture of mount vernon in near ruins just before the civil war in 1858. When did the effort to really save, preserve mount vernon begin . Guest the effort really began in the 1850s. Around 1852, 1853, there was a , n, a South Carolina and a south carolinian, who was on the potomac on a steamboat headed home who saw mount vernon in moonlight, and saw that it was physically dilapidated and in danger of falling down. She asked her daughter to begin a movement to try to save mount vernon. The family the last washingtons who owned mount ofnt vernon was the family John Augustine washington iii, George Washingtons great grand nephew. He could no longer maintain the place. It was an expensive old wooden structure built in the 18th century, never intended to last for 70 years, let alone hundreds of years, so it was in dire need of work. What was remarkable is that these women he tried John Augustine washington tried to sell mount vernon to the government, to the state of virginia, but none of them would have anything to do with it. There was no National Parks system at the time, there was no Smithsonian Institution at the time. These women came together under the leadership of ann Pamela Cunningham, a national movement, and said, if the men of america wont save the father of our countrys house, the ladies shall. They did. The Ladies Association still in one dollarit and five dollar, little bits and pieces. They raised it by selling flowers. They raised it in all the different ways people raise money today. Able toly, they were purchase the house. They came to a final agreement with the family in 1858 and open for business for tourists essentially in 1860, right on the eve of the civil war. Host back to your phone calls on the washington journal and on cspan3s American History tv, on the grounds of George Washingtons mount vernon. This is reginald from houston, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to know if George Washington and these other president s had any remorse and regrets about slavery. They were strong advocates of slavery. Ad to this day, we dont have museum thats talking about reparations, talking about repentance or remorse. I would like to know, in all these president ial museums, where do they stand on that . Because today, we still have another form of slavery that is still going on in the Prison Industrial Complex and militaryindustrial complex, which eisenhower talked about that was going to be the wound and the heart of america following that, so is there any the 400 years of slavery about some type of repair work. Host weve got your point, reginald. Very good question. George washington was born in a world in which slavery was legal, and it was common all throughout the atlantic world, inherited his first slaves when he was 10 years old, but washington came to see the institution as a problem. Not only an economic problem, which is something he very early on was frustrated with as an institution, but also a moral problem. It was a revolution that had the highest aspirations, the great ideals we all strive to maintain, of equality and liberty, and there were a lot of younger officers in his command, like the marquita lafayette, henry lawrence, Alexander Hamilton, who were very much antislavery and pushed washington to do more, to speak out against slavery. George washington in the 1780s did write about slavery being an institution of great regret. An institution he thought should be ended by legislation. But of course, the movement to create a new constitution was going to create a new union and a union of some states which now states, the first emancipation movements in the country happened in the war for independence, in those early constitutions, in the case in 1782 in massachusetts which freed all the slaves in massachusetts. That never happened without the American Revolution so you had a situation where the union was created and it was a union built on compromise. Some states still had slavery and some were getting rid of it gradually, some which had no slaves, and washington understood that the union would not have existed in that form in that moment if slavery did not still exist, so there were compromises made at the very beginning of the country that washington and his political life and public life felt like he could not attack the institution because of those compromises for the constitutional convention. When George Washington came back to mount vernon, he only lived for another 2. 5 years after the presidency. He did write a new will in that time in what became his last year of his life, in which he freed all the slaves that he owned. He is the only president who owned slaves and i think we had seven slaveowning president s in this country that freed the slaves that he owned in his will , and clearly, washington was concerned about his own legacy, for sure, but also about the freedom of those individuals. He not only freed them, he provided for the education of young slaves, the maintenance and care of older slaves, you know, his estate was paying out pensions until the 1840s, so washington certainly did not do i think enough from the perspective of the 21st century person. But at the time, washington did what he thought he was able to do. Its an important legacy that we have to talk about, both good and the bad, as part of who we are as a nation. This debate about what are the lasting legacies of slavery is an important one that americans need to have in a forthright manner, need to do it with education, and thats one of the reasons at mount vernon we tell the story of slavery. Every day, we give slave tours at mount vernon, have a Memorial Service every day at our memorial, which was the first one built in the country to celebrate enslaved peoples. So i think that these institutions, mount vernon, theseello, montpelier, institutions of our president , but also our sites of slavery, need to be forthright and to help educate folks that we can have useful conversations about this important issue. Host brian is next. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for letting me ask a question. Georgeerhaps washington was a gentleman. I understand he throughout his life had a pet greyhound. He might have been involved in greyhound racing. What about some of the other blood sports . Did he attend cockfights . And i dont know, i would like to hear your opinion on what that was all about. Host did you get that . Guest i think it was a question about blood sports. Did George Washington go to cockfights and greyhound racing . This is a question, in all my time here, i have never gotten. It is quite interesting for me to think it through. I think he did go to cockfights. I dont know about greyhound racing. I dont think there was much dog racing in virginia. Horseracing was a really big thing and he actually of course was a great horseman himself. He was called the greatest horsemen of the age by Thomas Jefferson, and you know, being a gentleman farmer in virginia and being able to not only buy and sell horses but have great knowledge of horse flesh was an important part of being of filling that role. Washington was very milling about horses themselves. He stopped to gambling at horse races around the time that he and martha got married. I think he did a few more efforts after that. I dont think he won very often. I think she rain him in a little bit. The virginiaon for planter class in the colonial period. Gambling at horse races were part of their big country days. Meetings inny wide williamsburg when the house of burgesses came together. Thats kind of where we see washington. The other great sports he was part of in this age was foxhunting. Foxhunting was imported from great return. Into it byly led lord fairfax, thomas r, who lived in the valley. Also the ones that lived next door to him. They kept towns. George washington cap towns for foxhunting until the 1790s. Essentially, those are the sports we know washington was a part of. Host with under half an hour left, we are joined by Douglas Bradburn on this president s day, known as washingtons birthday officially in u. S. Code. Washingtons birthday is actually february 22. What should we be celebrating today . Federal think that the code is it is a National Holiday and it is called washingtons birthday observed. I think we should be celebrating George Washingtons birthday and it does not hurt to celebrate it again on the 22nd, but i do think, you know, i think president s day itself is creating a National Holiday around George Washingtons and lincolns birthdays, which are close together. I dont know if i care for a holiday that celebrates all president s. You may know a lot about Chester Arthur and think he deserves a lot of our time. William Henry Harrison was only president for 40 days. I dont really know that his impact on the nation has been great enough to merit time off for everybody. George washington certainly was. We can give him two days. I dont think it is the end of the world. I love the fact that mount vernon is able to be free on this day. We have to charge admission at mount vernon. We dont receive any Government Funds or tax dollars to do our work here but it is nice to be able to, on a National Holiday, allow families and all these folks to come to mount vernon to learn about George Washington and have a great time together. It was one of my favorite days of the year. Host allowing the cspan cameras there as well. Guest there are some folks floating around behind me. This is exciting. Host already in the museum, on the grounds, checking out the exhibits. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you very much. A lot of my questions have been answered. Are you saying he was the greatest sportsman . I read that. He was the greatest horseman, then his valet was the second greatest horseman because he had to keep up with him. Do we have any idea what happened to mr. Lee when washington letting go . Let him go . Guest sir william lee, George Washingtons enslaved valet for much of his life, and certainly through the American Revolution, he is one of the great heroes of the American Revolution. He was there through it all with washington. He probably knew him as well as any man. He knew him intimately. He helped dress him every morning. He took care of his horses for him. Vernoninjured at mount that i think broke his kneecaps, broke one. It became more and more difficult for him to have his traditional role, so by the 1790s, he was helping to make shoes. He was freed the moment George Washingtons will became law. He was the only person freed automatically at George Washingtons death or execution of the will, and he was given the opportunity to leave mount vernon or to remain and receive a pension for the rest of his life. He chose to remain in mount vernon. He received a pension for the rest of his life. Antilive here at mount vernon and would often tell stories when peopleneral came. Mount vernon had already been a pilgrimage site for americans since the 1780s, since the moment after american independence when George Washington was the most famous man in north america. People would, and that continued after George Washingtons death, serve asm lee would essentially one of the early tour guides of mount vernon, telling stories about the general, about the war, and he was often visited by his old comrades in arms, as he pointed out himself. He is a remarkable figure in our history, and an important one. Host this is dan out of homer, new york. Caller good morning. Thanks for doing this. This is a great show. Host go ahead with your question. Caller so i read a lot about George Washington. I like to read that stuff. A story one time that after retiring from the presidency, he would sit on the porch at mount vernon and men that he had served with during the revolution, in their travels, would pass by, and they would just come up the long driveway and sit down and talk to him, and they would chat and go along. I always felt this was such a remarkable image to think of somebody who had been the president and founder of the country just chatting with these guys that were enlisted men and officers that served with him. I wonder if mr. Bradburn that story. Is a really good question. George washington was visited regularly as he complained in a letter to his mother, he said mount vernon was like a well resorted tavern because there was no great hotels around this area, and people in the old tradition of virgina hospitality, if you could get a letter of introduction to George Washington, you could day at nonpermanent, and they would give you the run of the place. A lot of the folks who served in the American Revolutionary war and lets George Washington at one time or another, that was enough to have acquaintance with him to be able to come and visit. What they talked about when they visited, i think many people were frustrated because George Washington really saw himself first and foremost as a farmer. He loves to talk about his wheat crop and the hession fly which was destroying his wheat crop. We have a number of stories of people who visited mount vernon, had dinner with George Washington, complained that all he wanted to talk about was wheat. He did not want to talk about the war, did not reminisce about battle, which a lot of veterans do not. He did not talk politics very often unless he knew somebody very well, because he knew that what he said would be repeated and would end up in newspapers, and up all over the place, so he was very careful revealing the innermost man, particularly to strangers, essentially. We do have some nice stories. When he was with people who knew him, close acquaintances, and they would stay up, have a few glasses of champagne or madeira after dinner, and tell old stories, and he would enjoy himself, but he was never going to be the most talkative person at a party. That was not his way. He had no teeth left by the end of his life, very selfconscious, intended to stay mute. Host we were showing viewers some images of that porch overlooking the potomac river. Is that one of the most popular parts of the Visitor Experience . P. R. Site,all it the which is what washington called it. Thextends the length of building, and that view is of maryland, right across the potomac river, but it is important to recognize that view has been preserved by the mount vernon Ladies Association. In the 1950s, when there was a lot of suburban growth around d. C. Going on after world war ii, there was some banter that there might be Treatment Plants or oil Holding Areas right across the river there. And the Ladies Association successfully helped create a National Park across the river to preserve that view. Theres many hundreds of people who live across there, but it looks like a forest because there are conservation easements on the pieces of property over there so people cannot cut down their trees, cannot build a giant building. It restricts the development that can happen across the river so that people can experience that view in a way that George Washington and the millions of people who visited mount vernon since this time have experienced it, and i do think it is a remarkable example of conservation and preservation and the power of place to really help people connect with each other through time in a way where we are really proud of our leadership in that defense. Host plenty of folks doing that this morning. Live pictures from George Washingtons mount vernon. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call this morning. I have two quick questions. In the picture behind this are bradburn, who is that giving George Washington the oath of office and do we have the bible that he used to take the oath . Second quick question, while George Washington was serving as the president , who managed mount vernon for him . Host thanks for the question. Guest thank you. I think that is three questions, actually. The first was who is giving the oath . Chancellor william livingston. Iible is owned by cannot remember the exact name. It is owned by a Masonic Lodge in new york city. It was taken from that large because it was a big grand bible. They loaned it for the use of the inauguration there. And the other question was about who managed mount vernon when George Washington was away. It was a series of different people. During the war, it was a man named lund washington, and Martha Washington who was here during the war. Lund was one of his nephews or cousins. I dont know much about him. It is a strange first name. Had one of his nephews, george a. Washington managed mount vernon in the late 1780s and early 1790s. He unfortunately died. Washington would regularly correspond with these different estate managers and overseers weekly. On sundays, when he was president , he would write correspondence. That had to do with the daytoday weekly operations of mount vernon. He always felt like it was not being run as well as if he was on hand, and i think that is pretty true. He was very meticulous with his operation of the whole estate, always looking for ways to try something new. When he came back to mount vernon after his presidency, he started a distillery. By his death, it was the largest distiller in the country. His story is really a remarkable one of innovation as well as leadership. Host to pocono lake, pennsylvania. You are on with Doug Bradburn. Caller good morning, professor bradburn, and thank you for taking my call. As a child growing up, in the 1960s and early 1970s, i had washingtons birthday off, which was great, because i was born on february 22. Not that that gives me any special identification or anything, but recently, a friend said maybe he was born on february 11, and he says google it, so i googled it. I was so deflated. And a little confused. It . Hat best estimate is orruary 22 of february 11 february 11 . Guest february 22 under the calendar that we are under today. When George Washington was born, Great Britain used the julian calendar or maybe the gregorian calendar. You might have to google it. I think it was the julian calendar, which was, during his own lifetime, they switched to the gregorian calendar, which meant that all the dates had to go forward by 11 days to match up, and so, thats why february 22 is the date under our current calendar. When hewas born, first rate down when he was born, when he was 10 years old, he would have written february 11. It is an interesting phenomenon for a man to have two birthdays. Of course, we have two days to celebrate his birthday now. Host mary, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to let you know that my husband and i took our children to mount vernon for a visit back in 2000, 20 years ago, and it was in the middle of the did gore election where we not know who our president was going to be, and my question is, how long did it take for the news to travel through the colonies to announce that there was any president . I wanted to thank you for mentioning the view across the river. I thought that was very interesting and forward thinking. Thank you. Much. Thank you very i think that is one of the remarkable things. You mentioned bringing their family here 20 years ago. Families have been coming to mount vernon since 1860 and even before, but i think it is something that each generation has shared and childrens childrens children going back, and that really is a powerful continuity of the work we are very proud of here at mount vernon. The question about how long it would have taken news to travel, it depends on where you were, but basically it has taken a month to reach everybody in the whole union. If you were out in far west kentucky at the time when a new president was elected, say in 1796, when john adams was the next president , that would have taken about a month to get out west. It certainly was not happening instantly. That would take some time. We did not get the first telegraphs until the 1840s. It was remarkable, the difference in travel, in the speed of giving occasions, in technology. In many ways, George Washingtons world had more in common technologically with ancient rome than it has with the president today. They still use wind power, muscle power, animal power. That was the thing that propelled people as fast as they could go around the world. It was no better than the ancients had, and in some ways, much better in ancient road because rome because they had better roads. It was a different world that George Washington inhabited. Host plenty of reenactors as there often is. Playany people get to George Washington at mount vernon and is there any special training you require for those folks to come and reenact the general and the president . Have one person thats contracted to play George Washington here. We like that kind of consistency. We do not really use George Washington daily. Our guy is a wonderful actor who lives in philadelphia. He comes down to do special events for us for birthday dinners, fourth of july events. Today, we will have George Washington on the estate. It is not a daily thing. We have character actors every day at mount vernon. We have six or seven of them, both full and parttime, who play people from washingtons life, including tobias lear, who was one of his great personal secretaries. James anderson, one of his estate managers, a scotsman who created the distillery, and all of these are professional actors, and they are trained to inhabit these roles, to help people who visit mount vernons. History in a different engaging fashion, and we are really proud of our character actors work. We also get to have the old activeere, which is an duty Army Regiment who perform ceremonial duties dressed in traditional 18thcentury uniforms and they show the manual drill that was common in George Washingtons time and they shoot off some muskets. Today, its even more rich with the spirit of 1776, when you come to mount vernon. Host we have seen a stage in the background. What else is going to happen on the grounds today . Guest on the grounds today, there is a lot of local political figures, county officials, masonic groups, heritage societies, like the daughters of the American Revolution, the sons of the American Revolution, and the president sends a wreath as well which will be laid at the tomb. Probably already has happened or is about to happen right now by Major General who is in command of the old guard, and there will be a ceremony there at the tomb. And then we will do an event on the Bowling Green immediately after i get off there with you all. I will be out in the Bowling Green, talking about George Washingtons legacy, and we will have this performance of the old guard. They will attack the stage. Hopefully, they will not take the stage. I will be on the stage, and it will be a lot of fun, but we will have birthday cake for everyone as well. We will have George Washington, the actor of George Washington gave a toast on the peons are, and wonder around. Theres a lot going on today, but i think it is a wonderful chance to get families here from all over the country to see this special place on a really exciting day. Host that was just about half an hour ago that President Trump sent out his tweet this morning. Happy president s day, from the president at 9 15 am you are next. Good morning. Caller good morning, and thank you so much for this wonderful show on president s day. I have had the opportunity to live in several states and countries, developing countries around the world, and noticed that democracy had two things. Corruption that is self enrichment at public expense, and bureaucracy. On, who people, hangers are not necessarily carrying out the wishes of the chief executive. I am just wondering what was the experience of George Washington with those two things, corruption in his own administration, if any, much like Thomas Jefferson had, or bureaucracy, people who stop listening to his dictates. Guest thats a really good question. George washington found the whole bureaucracy had to begin. There was no Civil Servants, no Civil Servants exam. He had to appoint the First Federal officials and that was a lot of the hard work he did. He was very concerned about the potential for corruption and the potential for there to be even rumor of corruption. As i talked about earlier, he had rigorous standards he would put people through, try to figure out who they were, not only that they knew the job, but the character of a gentleman, which meant, for him, they would be honorable in their position. They would not take money from the public without proper, you know, proper reason. In fact, he was so concerned about even the appearance of corruption, sort of like caesars wife. He would not allow anybody to be tired with rumors before he would let them go. For instance, his attorney, Edmund Randolph, he went on to become secretary of state after Thomas Jefferson. Randolph got involved in a scandal having to do with the british and whether or not he was taking money from the british or he was giving information to the british. And randolph argued to George Washington that none of this was true. In fact, washington immediately fired him without letting him go through the process of proving himself innocent and this would have a huge impact on randolph but George Washington had been a friend of Edmund Randolph going back to their youth. He had been his personal attorney, so washington was so concerned about the reputation of this new experiment in government and the idea that it would be just seen as no better than monarchy, that it would be seen as a failure, that he was pretty rigorous in trying to keep it as clean as possible. Even in some cases, being unjust to his own friends in this case, so washington was very much concerned about reputation, and that i think helped to create an efficient government, but lets be honest. The presidency that George Washington had in the 1790s was no moment of perfection. ,e had his own cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, at each others throats. They created the First Party System all around him while he was trying to keep them working together, keep them compromising. He he had a terrible military defeat. He sent an army to the ohio, destroyed by native americans. In part because of the muskets provided for the army. So, washington dealt with a lot of the challenges that any democracy deals with. You think we have to have a long perspective on our own challenges today. To understand they are not new. History gives us perspective that should allow us to be confident that people have dealt with difficult things in the past. They have found ways to Work Together even in times of great partisanship to make sure we rise to the challenge and keep this great experiment of democracy going. Host a little over five minutes left on cspan. We are live from mount vernon on this president s day. Is with us. Burn an image of the george you canon tomb outside, see it there on your screen. When of our viewers tweets and to ask is George Washingtons slave buried at mount vernon . Guest we believe that william lee is buried at mount vernon. We have no idea where. There is no gravestone that is marked. There is no record of a position. Its a shame. We have an africanamerican burial ground. We have a memorial to the enslaved people that worked at mount vernon. The first was created in 1929. These kinds of stories were not readily told. It was the leadership of one member of the board, one of the ladies that make that happen. That memorial stone was placed in an area that had been known as a place where people were buried. A lot of formally enslaved peoples were buried there. We dont actually dig into the tob did we were able document the number of shafts. All of our visitors are welcome to go there and learn about it. We have this wonderful memorial that was built in the 1980s. It was designed by architects at howard university. We are proud of that. There, that isd where william is probably read. Host robert is in virginia. Thanks for waiting. Caller my question isnt about his presidency. Its about your thoughts on his remarkable mother and his remarkable sister. Probably his longest female relationships. Thank you. Guest thank you very much. I didnt catch the third part of the question. He asked about his mother and sister. I did not hear the third part. Mary washington is an extraordinary figure in her own right. There is not a lot of resource on her. George washington was raised by a single mother. Mary washington did not remarry after George Washingtons father died. She really gave him a tremendous strength of character. Thingsght him very many about how to manage an estate. She was known to be very religious. Its very clear that she read the bible and books on religion to him. She had to be a very strong woman. I think George Washington was quite like his mother. She seemed to be a nononsense figure herself. Interesting reputation. Mary washington was held up as the great model of womanhood in america. She was the one who raised the greatest citizen. We want to have great citizens. We need to have great mothers like Mary Washington. The First National monument to a woman was created for Mary Washington in the 1830s. By the 20th century, Mary Washington started to get a bad reputation. This had a lot to do with historians who were heavily influenced by the new science of psychology. Sigmund freud argued people who grew up with strong mothers grew up to be weak men in some cases. Georged not have washingtons most important figure b a woman. I dont have much to add about betty. That was George Washingtons sister. She was a very important figure in her own right. Host weve got just under one minute to go. The actor playing George Washington will make a toast later today. What will be the toast you would race to George Washington . Guest i would raise a glass to George Washingtons memory. I would ask everybody to say hise cheers in honor of great legacy. Douglas bradburn is the president and ceo of mount vernon. We do appreciate you. Guest in terms of style barack obama spoke in the periodic style. This is the march of parapets across the page, lincoln had it, of the people, by the people, for the people. Barack obama was very compatible with that because of the black pulpits he had experienced. Bill clinton was talking to all the time. You are in bill clintons living room. Very conversational. Reagan had that. So, finding that style for your candidate, your client, is very different. Different for each of them. With ford it was very plainspoken. Y ou can watch the rest of the conversation with craig smith, author of confessions of a speechwriter tonight at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Former candidate for georgia governor stacy abrams talks about political activism and Voting Rights in front of a student audience at Morehouse College in atlanta. This is about one hour. Good evening. I am a senior english major here at Morehouse College. I have the esteemed honor of introducing our 2020 king lecture speaker, leader stacy abrams. [applause] Stacey Abrams is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur all, nonprofit ceo and political reader. And political leader. After serving for it 11 years in the Georgia House of representatives, serving as