Freeman talks about her life in writing, she appeared in her monthly call in program in depth in september 2019. Joanne freeman, youre gonna hate this opening question. [laughter] trace the arc of our nations history from 1783 to 1861, the political history of our nation. Wow. I wont use the word hate. [laughter] thats a little daunting. Trace the arc. Im gonna do historian thing and speak generally. I guess i would say if youre looking at american politics from the beginning straight to we could even go past the civil war you are talking about paradoxes and conflict and improv. The periods i tend to focus on really more the early part of the earth and its the improvisational nature of that that really fascinates me more than anything else because the nation was founded in a world of monarchy and the United States was a republic beyond that there was a lot of open grounds theres a lot of improv in those early decades about what the onation is, how it functions, the tone of the government. How this nation is going to stand up amongst the nations of the world that are other kinds of nations, what does it mean to be republican in a world of monarchies . How is this new nation going to get any degree of arrespect and equally if not more significant as far as the inside of that nation is concerned what kind of nation is it going to be . That question is true on every level you can imagine it being true. There is a broad ideological level of which thats true but theres a groundlevel how democratic a nation this will be. Who is going to own the land and how is that way im going to be llliterally wrested from other people. What kind of rights will some people have and what kinds of rights will other people not have it all . A lot of the questions that we are grappling with now, questions about equity and equality and race, those go back to the beginning of the old republic and beyond. As a historian living in the moment we are living in now and thinking in that broad arcing way we deal with these Big Questions and these big legacies of undecided things. We are still dealing with them. They go all the way back. Where we inherently democratic to begin . No. [laughter] the word to monarchy and americans had very strong sense of, certainly elite white male americans had a very strong sense of their rights. They felt that they were occreating a more democratic regime than what had been around before. They were thinking very much about right. Theres a reason why theres a bill of rights attached to the constitution. In that sense they were very right minded but by lno means was a country founded with people thinking everyone will have rights they will be equality, there were different, i dont like to call them parties but two different points of view the federalist hamilton and republicans jefferson which is over symbol five but those are the two camps and they had a different view each by how democratic the nation should be federalists wanted to be somewhat less democratic the even so, a pretty limited view of democratic. When i teach about this period and i tell my students theres all kind of words you have to think about the meaning of democracy is a big one because we see that word in the founding period it does not mean the same thing it means now. You have to rethink and recalculate what you are talking about when you are looking at the founding and seeing these words that now are kind of political pundits. How many points of view where there back then . In a sense today we are divided democrats, republicans, independents, was that the case back then . I would say was more complex than that. They were thinking in the way we think about party. Party its an institution, a party is an institution, a structure, and Organization Bring yourself back to the mindset of the founding first of all, they were assuming that a National Party like the idea that the nation they could get something that overarching that that many people would buy into amongst all these diverse states that would not have occurred to them but even beyond that they didnt think a idNational Party was a good thing. They assume that a republic meant lots of viewpoints banging up against each other and that in the National Center those viewpoints would bang up against each other and ultimately some kind of decision or compromise or something would be worked out a bit and that was the point of the National Center was to have all the banging up of opinions but initially they worked assuming that there should be two or three viewpoints. They were federalists and republicans but even under i like to call the umbrella of political thought, even under those umbrellas were vast differences, if you are federalist in massachusetts or federalist in South Carolina that could mean something really different. It was more of a spectrum then categories. In the founding period. What were some of the improvisations that did not succeed and some that did. Id the improvisations are really fun to teach about our political culture improv. One of the wonderful things about studying and writing about the founding s they put all kinds of things in writing that you dont expect them to tput in writing. John adams writing to a friend and saying how should an american politician dress . I will look like those british or french european aristocrats, the clothing i have is from my years in europe had a lot of lace on it. Is that too much lace to be american . Should i strip some of the waste eaway or washington . How many horses with the carriage would seem appropriately american versus comedy are remarkable. Which sounds really trivial and goofy and part of what so much fun to teach but on the other hand they are seriously thinking about the fact that those kinds of little seemingly stylistic decisions are really going to shape the tone and the character of the government and the nation and when everything sets a precedent, that kind of improv can have a big impact. On the one hand its almost comical because it alseems trivial. On the other hand. It really is a ttrivial that i and of itself is interesting. We have several hundred white male elites forming this country was thereby in from the 3 million to 40 Million People who lived at the time. Is a small group of elite people that have power, on the other hand, the revolution was a popular revolution it was not conducted by dirty guys in the room. It is important to remember whatevers going on although the elite has power and worried about maintaining power theres a lot happening around them and part of the challenge or the widow i want to call it, i want to say difficulty some of the challenges or the tension of that period is the American People figuring out how to voice what they want, how to demand what they want, how does the system work for them . If it does work for them what can they do to make it work for them better . It isnt just cancel the elect guys running everything they have the power but the American People understood in a broad sense that they had rights in some way and different kinds of opeople had a different understanding of what rights but there was a broader sense that whatever the experiment was that was going on in this new nation that rights were something that were still being worked out and determined and that they potentially extended more widely than someone who had come before. Joanne freeman, what was a wig and what did he believe . Wig, talking, and can answer the question by moving ahead in time to wig. This gets back to earlier question about parties and categories, people particularly now people like to go back in time and draw w Straight Lines between the parties of the president and the parties will pass. They like to say, if youre republican, republican, go all the way back to jefferson. There is no Straight Lines and certainly no Straight Lines when it comes to political parties. Parties bounce back and forth and names change all the time. Wig parties, for a while had the Democratic Party, which was its own thing on the one hand and he had what was known more than anything else is the antijacksonians. It wasnt really a party it was more like people who arent really athat. We dont want jackson, we dont like what they represent. That comes the whig party and you end up in the mid19th century essentially for a while two main parties and one is jackson, democratic, supposedly popular supposedly common man, common white man on one side the other side you have the whigs which are more centralized which are more big National Governments. In represent two thirds we can still see but really represented a very different point of view. If you were governor of massachusetts or president of the United States at that time, who held more political power . At that time meeting the founding or whenever i want it to be . Whatever you want it to be. [laughter] if you go all the way back to the real founding moment, thats a good question. There were people like hamilton and the federalists who assumes that the bulk of the powers was with the state and not with National Government which was new and who knew what it encompassed billy above and beyond the skeletal constitution, our constitution really brief for what it does hamilton and his ilk thought that the answer to that question would be the governor of massachusetts probably. Although on paper you might say the president had a lot of power. The fact of the matter is, for people they are loyalties and sense of belongingness and their understanding of power is pretty much going to be grounded in their state. Over time that shifts but in tthe 19th century certainly th first half of the 19th century if you were to pick up a newspaper from that Period Congress would be getting a lot more attention then the president at that point. We assume now that the president is allpowerful and the president is at the center of the news and thats not an early american way of really thinking about politics. In reading your books, i dont know if this is purposeful or if i missed it but the president doesnt play the large role that the president plays today in our world. Right. I would say thats partly deliberate and partly reflects my interest. It is true that throughout this period, although clearly americans understood that the president was significant, in the early founding period trying to figure out what that means. Congress as the peoples branch, people understand that congress is really where the nation is being worked out in a groundlevel kind of way and people dont they had a direct connection with their member of congress when members of congress stood up and particularly when you get into the 1840s and 1850s members of congress stood up and seem like they were speaking to their constituents. Would we recognize Congress Today as it was back then in the early republic in the early republic, no, i dont think we could recognize in the early republic or 19th century. The early republic exposed in some ways might be what we assume congress should look like. Compared with what i just written about in my book somewhat tamer. Its a group of men, white men in the room, above and beyond that. Decisions and legislation and those are the things we assume congress should do. Over time the United States becomes a lot more violent and congress is a representative body and Congress Becomes a lot more violent. In that case i think it begins to look in some ways we would not necessarily accept. From your book the e field blood the tobacco juice drugs at the house and senate are apt metaphor for congress in the decades before the civil war. Yes there were soaring oratory on occasion, yes they were union shaking decisions being made but underneath the speechifying pontificating and politicking was a spit spattered rug, the Antebellum Congress had its admirable moments but it wasnt an assembly of demagogues, it was a Human Institution with very human failings. That was an important point for me to make it a really early point in this book because my assumption about what most people think about particularly congress in this time period, the period of play dome at clay and webster and, great men, congress was a bunch of people in black suits being lofty. I have another lofty thought. This very important for me offthecuff to say no, this is a really Human Institution and its an unruly institution. Its a different world then you assume in the book really is about this Human Institution and how it functioned and how that shaped not just the nations politics but americans understanding of the nation. What is an affair of honor . Good question. Thats another fundamental thing that really pointed my first book i talked about that. That becomes an allencompassing term. I think people assume thats all there was with two men on the field and shooting each other. Part of the point i make an affair of honor was given that. The point of an affair of honor or even a dual was even counterintuitive. If you have two men on the field with guns facing into their shooting someone tried to kill the other one. One of my early points was no. The point of affair monitor is to prove you are willing to die for your honor and affair of honor means its a long ritualized series of letter oexchanges and negotiations ve often that can take place two men can redeem their names reputation and honor and you dont even have to make it out to dueling ground. An affair of honor includes all the ritualized negotiations. Once you get past that point on the dueling ground that becomes a dual and even at that point that the point to prove you are the kind of man and uleader whos going to die for your name and read davidabreputation. Joanne freeman, where we taught at the beginning of. [singing] history at the burr hamilton duel of 1804. Where we taught about it. Partly because sometimes history is first the ways and switch some people teach history is about good stories that seem to sum things up. You get the caning of charles sumner. Dramatic stories it does a lot of character work more than anything else. Or at least not until recently has that been taught as a way of getting deeper. What happened on that day in 1804 and why did it happen. Agnew opponents for a long time. Hamilton was largely the fuel behind much of that opposition. Ephe thought of them as somethi is a demagogue. Because he came from the equivalent of royalty. His family he was someone who hamilton saw as an opportunist, hamilton sounds really early on in their relationship back in 1792 pretty much a direct quote i consider it my religious duty to oppose his career. That serious opposition you have going there. Y hes pretty bound and determined to quash in his career and that goes on for quite some time. In the election of 1800 two candidates from the same party they step forward and do everything they can do to quash his chances, this is not make them happy, they came near fighting dual at that point and got smoothed over, four years later berger is running for governor of new york, hamilton steps forward to do everything he can do to stop that from happening and he says as luck would have it someone steps forward after that and have you seen this newspaper report of what hamilton said about you at a dinner party. Burn needs to prove hes a man, a leader whose work being followed since hes losing contest after contest. He tends to redeem his name. He asked on the edit happens to be hamiltons word. You end up with berger being handed something that is his mind is dual worthy. He commences an affair of honor with hamilton. They exchange these ritualized letters, neither one, it doesnt go swimmingly. Bird sends a very ritualized letter they usually say those kind of letters when you initiate a bare bone they say the same sthing. If you get one of those letters you knew you were in trouble. He had to think about how you responded. He writes, he is hamilton so hes 18 words for one word. He writes this very lengthy response in which he talks about supposedly he calls he said something still more despicable about bird, these are the words that berger picks up on. What you mean despicable . Hamilton breakfast grammar lesson letter in which he is talking about what is despicable mean. Between gentlemen is despicable that better word . Thats insulting all by itself error an angry person whos been called despicable. At the end of that letter to show hes not afraid of conflict with him, hamilton says, by the way, i always stand behind all my words and thats not an exception to that now so i will stand and willing to fight for any words that i uttered. Thats not a strategically smart thing for hamlet to send that kind of letter. Its offensive in two ways. Bird gets it and is offended and said you not behaving like a gentleman, its not a gentlemanly thing to do. So mother both offended. You can kinda see how things spiraled to the point that a trip to the dueling ground is to be the outcome. Was dueling legal . No. That was a statebystate thing. Every state had its own antidueling regulations. A challenge might be against the law, the dual itself might be against the law. The punishment was different. In massachusetts you could be publicly humiliated in some way and rhode island i think it was a fine. If you think you are in passages that you prefer to go to rhode island. It was a lot less daunting. It was illegal but it was largely the lawmakers doing the dueling. People making the law the people breaking the law, which tells you a lot about the elite in this period and the kind of power they had. Do we spend too much time talking about the actual duels . The set up to this rather than, or is it a microcosm of whats going on in the country at the time . . People tend to focus on that for in that particular region another land of hamilton musical. That duel is front and center. There was a lot of dueling. The practice of doing is worth looking at because it does tell you a lot about elite politics being a politician, political culture of the time. That can tell you a lot about the kind of emotional guts of some of the politics of the period but the burr hamilton duel should it end and for all doing its just dramatic and the Vice President of the United States killed the former secretary of the treasury and its a pretty dramatic story. If you focus on one duel and ask sense and this one but for too long it stood in for a lot of things that are worth studying. We should know that ehrenberg did not aaron burr did not get elected in new york. Hamilton is very effective to help smash parts of burrs career. He had a reason to be irked. He is a controversial thing i will throw in physical think burr wanted to kill hamilton. I dont think that was his purpose. First of all, most dual lists, unless maybe you are abmost dual burr something along the lines of, we dont need doctors lets just get it over with. I think he assumed it would be an atypical duel. You shoot at each other can be both prove your mentor bother you shake hands you leave. Tragically he has become this villain of American History for American History. I dont think that was his purpose in going to the dueling ground. What was his life like after that. He flees because at that point although dueling is common enough all of bergers enemies, he had a lot of them, he essentially ganged up after his killing of hamilton. He is vulnerable. You then become although widespread practice, you become vulnerable for having murdered someone which is what happens to him. All of his enemies are various politics is going together try to squash them, he, his friends, his newspaper editor, the boat man who wrote them across to the dueling ground flee he ends up in South Carolina where he hides out for a little while, that was a good place to be. He is Vice President , he goes back to washington he finishes his vice presidency. He was kind of a good Vice President. He finishes his vice presidency, he clearly is not to be sticking around for jefferson second term. He kind of ends up going out west. Its unclear what hes doing out west. He appears to be marching around with young men with guns. I think he thought something was gonna happen in the he vicinity of mexico and if he was there with men somehow or another he could see the west as a literal new frontier he might be humble to have another power. Were still not entirely sure what he was thinking out there but he get tries for treason because of what looked like scary treason is activity out west. He is acquitted but now he is premuch what frontier is left burr, he ends up basically exiling himself for a while in europe where he hangs out with William Godwin and mary welcome craft at a very interesting exile is our life in europe hanging out with intellectuals. In his old age he comes back to new york to tourist attraction. People like to go to his law office and peer in the window so they could say they saw aaron burr. In the streets as kind of a bed hamiltonian and isotopic its kind of a sad ending he does not have an easy time of it. Actually theres lots of accounts of members of congress who see him when he comes back to the vice presidency. You can see the fatigue and the anxiety of doing what hes dealing with. You can see that about him. I dont think he has an easy end of elife. He is not the only ones who founded it but he acknowledges it you get the sense from him. Hes enjoying the game hes just more honest about the fact that hes enjoying it but i think in some ways and many years those were not so fun. Who is the other one . Charles stickley from South Carolina, the other person who said he thought politics was fun. Professor freeman, you said you are a hamiltonian, what does that mean . It does not mean i necessarily agree with hamilton. I guess it means i am someone who finds him and always found many times fascinating hamiltonian in the sense that they really have spent a lot of time and energy really trying to understand him and why he did what he did and what he did and in that sense i would say hamiltonian scholar many scholars find a person or problem that grabs them and there are many that grab me but he someone who grabbed me at an early spoint. Emma hamilton curious scholar. Besides a 10 bill and a relatively wellknown musical, which is legacy . At the time he was known for in his head i suppose in some ways in the long term a mixed legacy but a tiny discipline he was really early point very fervently believe that the National Government needed to be strengthened and that was at a point where it really wasnt strong. He is one of the loudest and most fervent supporters of the need to create a stronger National Government help push through to the Constitutional Convention in that first tour of washington presidency pushing to centralize and empower things. We can look back from the long term and say, well, some strengthening is good. Certainly matters a lot that you have someone there who was pushing you in that direction so as far as part of his legacy, hoping to create the national superstructure we take for granted he played a major role in doing that. I want to play a little bit of audio and let you listen to this and tell us what we are listening to. [music] Joanne Freeman, would be listening to. Its very hard not to do this. [laughter] restraining myself with all my power. Sets the 10 dual commitments from the hamilton musical which is a song that talks about the dual of doing. Its largely taken from the chapter in my first book which talks about the bird hamilton dual and the wounds of doing . Did you have a part in the hamilton musical . Lin Manuel Miranda use my work when he was writing it and certainly as i discovered after i saw the play he found that book, made use of that was comical and bizarre to me i mostly discovered that the first time i went to see the play off broadway i was in the audience i was sitting with a friend my friend Richard Bernstein we were seeing the play together and that song came on and first i said to him, i leaned over and said, this dueling song its excellent. I was like this is abi said that sounds remarkably freeman. Then theres a lyric in that song that refers to the document i found at the New York Historical society about the doctor turning his back so he could have deniability. When that line appeared i heard that line coming from sage i turned my friend and said, thats my document. I know that document. Thats my document. When i got to talk to lin Manuel Miranda later on i said is that based on the chapter. I said of course it is. I get to have my document song and what ultimately it did a lot of work to make people aware of people and a period a lot of people werent aware of. It does some things as a historian i think are wonderful things to do. They remind people about the contingency of that moment i think people look at the founding and they see it as a series of courses. Of course we won the revolution and the constitution and constitution blah blah blah. There is no of course is when youre in the moment. Thats part of what defines that period. I think the play kind of reminds people about that contingency. It also taught people who maybe hadnt thought about it before that these were real people and thats an important thing too. Youre looking at real people feeling their way through a process, not a bunch of blocks of amaking great decisions. That said, there are many things historically inaccurate about what is presented in the play. Many things that are not discussed in the play in any major way like the institution of slavery. To me going to see a piece of musical theater my response was more, wow, for a piece of musical theater theres a lot of history in there. More than i wouldve expected to see. Its got a lot thats wrong in it, to me that has made this a profoundly wonderful teaching moment. I think so many people and particularly lay young people have been interested in time period and hamilton as a teacher you can grab hold of that and basically say, i know youre interested in that let me teach you about what really happened in that time period. Me teach you about the reality of everything that happened around this or ways that happened that are shown in the play. In a sense by being wrong in t some ways its created a great teaching opportunity. In fact, in a tweet you sent out i asked how many had seen hamilton or know the music to judge hamilton mania, it feels like its epic and then i read applications for the course and a majority mentioned musical, maybe ebbing that it had an impact. It did. Thats exactly what happened. First of all, all my cotweeters out there its to add my first meeting of my seminar and i tend to ask what brought people to the class and in this case i actually said i am judging hamilton mania and said i think its abwere not crazy about it anymore but the class is limited in size so mistudents have to ask for a place. Even the ones already preregistered and im curious what brings you to the course. A lot of people said, well, almost sheepishly, i like the musical and it led me to have a lot of questions. Led me to want to know more. Thats a wonderful thing. The course is , great, first of all, i guess its not really advertising since you cant do this and last year abut course i love to teach the age of jefferson and hamilton, except for the first two weeks we read biography. After the two first weeks its all about papers and writing. No other history books thats brought in. We look at what the two men thought about what america ways, look at them and revolution, look at them in party politics. Its all primary sources. Its very explicitly doesnt take sides and doesnt say that one is right and one is wrong. Really hands the raw evidence to the students and we grapple with it. Whats fun for me and teaching it its different every time i teach it because it depends entirely on what the students find and focus on in those letters. Ive been teaching it for 22nd or 23rd year ive been teaching this course. Its different every time. Its really fun and i learned things, i clearly have read those letters many many times. You can always learn things depending on the questions you bring when you look at nsthem. Its a really fun course to teach. In that same day in response to a former student you tweeted out that tweeted about David Mccullough john adams book, yes biography was the same thing that set more people into my seminars than anything else. For years, and i give students full permission to say whatever they want. And very explicitly said at this time, why are you in the tlcourse . The answer isnt, because republicanism is been profoundly meaningful to me. I dont want to yell answer. There is an old house down the street i was always curious about. My dad loves this stuff now im curious about it or i saw a movie or read a book. Or am i just never studied early america but i give full permission to my students to say whatever they want. For a while it was, theres this john adams biography i read it or read part of it, and im curious now. That kind of was the thing. Then the hbo miniseries, sometimes students would say, now i want to learn more about the time period. Of course it became musical for a time. This time i asked because it wasnt necessarily something ththat initially you in conversation students were bringing up. Someone said on twitter, maybe at this point because younger people are really interested in the musical of the older students dont want to be saying like, its a musical, they are backing a little bit in public because the younger her more focused on it. The fact of the matter is i think about 30 people trying to get into the course and a lot of those statements about interest one way or another mentioned it. One person said explicitly, i really didnt like the musical and im here because i want to learn more about the time t period, which is great. Its an excellent reason. Love it, hate it, ask questions about it. Once a month on t booktv we invite an author to talk about his or her body of work, the smoke is yale professor historian and author Joanne Freeman. She is the author of affairs of honor which came out in 2001. Alexander hamilton writings she has edited that, the essential hamilton is what she has edited. In the field of blood is her most recent book came out last year, violence in congress and the road to civil war. She will be with us for another hour and and a half, your chance to take time to take a question and give her a question, here are the numbers. We will put them on the screen if youd like to dial in for dissipate in our conversation this afternoon. 2027488200 for those of you in the east and central time zones 2027488201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. We can also take your comments via social media, we will scroll through our Different Social Media addresses to facebook, twitter, etc. Just remember booktv if you want to get us a question. Probably the bicentennial. Was partly the bicentennial. It was everywhere. If you old enough to remember the bicentennial of this time period, the time period was everywhere. Bicentennial minutes, bicentennial tv commercial, a bicentennial, every day in the local reporter dispatch from Yorktown Heights had a bicentennial moment. It was cutting out all the newspaper articles, i was just absorbed. Also the musical 1776 in that time period grabbed me as well. All of that came together to make that time period to me i think in some ways with the hamilton musical has done it was human to me it was real, these are real people, it didnt seem like a boring bunch of statues bait and great ideas, seems like people on the ground trying to figure things out, which grabbed me. I think i started it a and just went. I remember reading really early biography of john adams. I think a red irving stone, those who love even which is not a biography per se but historical. I started reading and i started with i stopped because he was strange in comparison with the others ive been reading about. Not a lot of people have written about them. He had this weird beginning, born relatively poor and obscurity and legitimate. He dies dramatically in the dual the 14yearold both of those things were intriguing to me. I know as a young person he wanted to accomplish great things and i think on some level it probably identified with seeing young person who wanted to go on to have an exciting life so i read a anbiography of hamilton, beckoning which one it was because i didnt like it and i didnt believe it and i wish you could reconstruct what in my 14yearold brain read the biography it was like, that eadoesnt sound convincing but somehow i did. I went to the library and asked the librarian what this writer had read that gave him the right to say what he said in the book and she pointed me to the 27 volumes of hamilton papers and i pulled down a volume and looked at ththem and granted, 18thcentury coastespo is not the easiest thing to read. Someone telling me about history, how is the history that was someone putting on paper what what they were thinking. To me that was the most exciting thing ever. I want someone else to tell me what they think i just want to read this stuff. I just started reading the hamilton papers. I started with volume 1 and read my way through and went back and started again. I did that for years and years and i didnt know abit never occurred to me to be a professor. Added another was a professor called historian. I had no problem in mind abi had no outcome in mind it was the thing i wanted to do. It was decades later i realize i have an interesting database in my head. When you put together writing, how did you compile that . What did you compile them at. When i was a grad student at uva he was doing the course basically jefferson hamilton course and normally the age of jefferson he made it jefferson hamilton in honor of my being there but there is a library of america wonderful volume of jeffersons writing and there was no hamilton this is only going to be believable because what i just said. In a weekend i pulled together a reader, we went to kinkos or whatever the place. We photocopied all the letters and i think it was like a little glossary of names to go r along with what the libraries of americas volume had but it took two or three days because abwe used it in the course. Huge massive thing that fell apart because it was so big. It was made to go along with the jefferson volume. Years later it occurred to me that i had already edited what couldve been a library of america addition of hamiltons writing. At that point i went for the library of americas, i think i created a volume which i would like to do with you guys and the library of america full disclosure, im on their board, wonderful Nonprofit Organization that is just about putting american writings of letters in print and keeping it in print forever. Its near and dear to my heart because what i love is the us actual stuff of history. They created that volume based on this thing i pulled together as a grad student. Its a collection, not necessarily greatest hits, although it includes what you call greatest hits of hamilton. Report on manufacturers, report on public credit but includes a lot of personal letters that i selected sometimes because they showed something about hamilton in the person, sometimes because they expose something about his politics. Sometimes because they show something very negative about him either a person or politician. Its really meant to be kind of a spectrum of writing to show you about his thinking on who he is as a person. I include memos, things he never intended anybody to see because sometimes thats the most revealing kind of stuff like everyone i relike to teach with he wrote up a few days he sits down and basically says, what i think this can happen next . Think about this. He says, well, constitutions can be ratified. Probably washington will be chosen president that would be good, people trust washington because they trust washington there to trust the people appointed office. Maybe people will trust the ce government and all that bodes well. However, maybe he wont be made president somehow. Maybe other countries will sweep in and try to take over states, maybe the states will turn against each other. They be separate considerations and he draws the image of chaos downfall, government collapsing, foreign nation sweeping it. Fascinating to read but the kicker is this is the guy whos pushing for this Constitutional Convention and stronger government forever the end of the memo he says having created this apocalyptic account of everything falling together he says, thats most likely what can happen. Thats fascinating. He had great hopes. He is perfectly willing to assume and at that point kind of assuming the experiments probably not can work. Probably not can function the way it supposed to function. Americans will be willing, in his mind commit to invest enough power in this new government for it to work well and probably all going to collapse. Thats fascinating to me and great to teach with because it gets the past all the of courses. Heres a guy at the federal convention and he leaves and basically what, i dont know if this can work. I dont think it will. Thats not what you expect. Joanne freeman, before we get into nncalls, youre at the library at 14 studying hamilton, were your parents history buffs . No [laughter] they were not. My grandfather was. But i dont think i knew that. He was a civil war buff. I know he had these civil war books used to read but i didnt really know anybody who was really interested in history so i was kind of off on my own planet doing my own thing. I kinda thought it was a weird thing to do, i never talked to anybody about it. I hit the books in my bed because i was kind of embarrassed. Sometimes my dad would make fun of me for reading these books. Other people had like comic books hidden under their bed and i had volumes of hamilton papers. [laughter] i was just off in a weird freeman land doing what i was doing. It was decades later that kind of discovered what ive been doing. What did you folks do . Was mostly raised i was born in queens new york but mostly raised in Westchester County new york mostly Yorktown Heights. My mom initially was a kid regarding teacher went on to do some work in interior design. My dad was a Market Researcher. I first worked for bristolmyers and general foods and went on to do Market Research in the movie industry with a really early person applying Market Research i grew up like sitting watching focus groups talk about movie or sorting inquestionnaires he would give us me and my two brothers a dollar and we would sort questionnaires. Its interesting. I grew ewup watching research sorting through a Creative Process to come up with something to find a way to appeal to the public in some way. I see you on cspan many times and what i love about is so you get the excitement i wish all coteachers, high school, colleg had the same enthusiasm and a thats nice of you to say. What caught you about affairs of sshonor . abthe idea of it. I have friends on the conservative side. I belong to a History Group and i said there is this book about talks about the Early Congress and all these Congress Politicians trying to kill each other. They all thought this was the most wonderful idea. [laughter]. Hamilton goes in the Constitutional Convention and he knows that the rule is because he is foreignborn he cant be president. Do you think he wouldve liked to be president and what did power really need to him . T thank you for the very nic things you said. The two part answer. First of all, actually kind of an exemption clause in the constitution that if you are an american citizen at the time of the constitution was ratified you actually wouldve been able to be present. Hamilton steps forward and says dont do that. Im not popular. That will create problems for you. I dont think he assumed he would be president ever, i think he understood that i will go beyond that and say he kind of liked the idea he was edunpopular because i think in his mind it meant he was being very virtuous and promoting ideas not because they would get popular appeal but because he thought they were the right things to promote. Odd as it seems for someone who understood power interested in empowering these new National Government i dont think he wanted that were assumed he would have the kind of power. Rochelle is going in for the bronx, however shall. Thank you for taking my call. Quick comment, i was at a retired librarian, pleased to hear your kudos to the library. I have two quick questions can be referred to the fact that the earlier Republican Party and so tyforth were not the sam as they are today, todays republicans constantly refer to them as the party themselves as the party of lincoln. I went to a presentation at the New York Historical society about a year ago. A professor in oklahoma writing the book pursuing the thesis that hamilton was jewish any credibility to this . Thank you very much. There are 20thcentury clinical historians what they represent and stand for and policies are they changed dramatically over time. You can track the use of the word like republican but he cant consistently say what the party stood for obviously politicians of all times of all sides have all kinds of reasons to want to draw the kind of Straight Lines to the past the first things you think of as always thats not true. My dad has usefulness rhetorically speaking but historically that usually doesnt reflect as far as the book coming out im not sure when i think its Oxford University prep on him up demo download abi heard about it, ive spoken with some about it, i cant judge the credibility or not. I know saul is been working on it has done a lot of research. Emily intrigued to see it. I dont think you can rule anything out until youve seen the evidence and really gotten a sense of what leads to the conclusion. Im m certainly not to say its not possible. The interesting thing, hamilton is an interesting founder for this reason he comes, there arent a lot of records from his youth. You have to know do some research. To really find things out about his youth because of that there are a lot of blank spaces regarding hamiltons and people often like to project different things, for a while people talk allow other illegitimate son of George Washington. Some of them might be true but the fact of the matter is, you really need to get to the staff, to the thevidence. And really looking forward to seeing that book because i want to see the stuff that builds the argument. It will be fascinating if its true. What we know about his life early on nevis, the island of nevis, why was he born there . His mother was named rachel aher parents were french you cannot who abive done research on nevis at some point, this is like the ultimate freeman vacation. I will go put myself there for a month and find what i can on the document. In the Morning Hours i would research in the archives in the afternoon hours i would lie on the beach. That was kind of nirvana for me. His mother was there, his father, fourth son of a scotsman of somewhat noble birth but the first son inherits everything, the fourth son doesnt inherit much. He went out into the world and thought he would make it get rich quick and the caribbean, one thing people tried to do there. Supposedly his parents didnt marry but he was born illegitimately to rachel and james hamiltons father. His father leaves the family at some point, his mother runs a general store, not particularly well off. She dies when he is relatively young age. His pretty much not well off, doesnt have much money, doesnt have connections and orphan on this island and gets off the island and ultimately ends up in north america and beams into what becomes the American Revolution because he so clearly gifted, hes a great writer and people put together a charitable fund. How in a short way would you itdescribe his relationship wit George Washington . The very short way would be conflicted. Thats a crucial relationship. A very important way no one knows during the revolution that George Washington is going to end up being the president and how important he is but by linking with him at the early point during the revolution he puts himself in this close relationship with the nations first man of many people call him at the sttime, thats crucial. He was an icon at the time in a sense is a wonderful diary by a pennsylvania senator. In his diary he refers to washington as the first man. Hes awestruck. Thats what hamilton means in the memo if washington becomes president we might be okay. To love washington is a different kind of the figure he was one of very few americans at that point they had a worldwide reputation because of the war fighting and winning the revolution. Thats crucial that hamilton ends up being in contact with him and ultimately being tested by him and being given power by him. That in a sense that makes hamiltons career it added to the fact that hamilton is someone who is a strong thinker, aggressive, never doubts what he thinks or has to say, always shoving himself into situations, putting his thoughts in front of people, the washington relationship is key, without it its interesting to imagine. I dont know where he wouldve gone without it, with it he really puts tthimself in a sphe that allows him to have the kind of influence certainly that he wanted to have. Its conflicted because hes really not good with Authority Figures sand he kind of chased little bit during the revolution washington makes it clear that hamilton is kind of a favorite, hamilton doesnt want to be anybodys favorite he wants to be promoted or appreciated for his merit. Favorite. Doesnt want to be everyones favorite. He wants to be promoted or appreciated for his merits and he kinda doesnt like the fact that people see him as a favorite. During the wars, he and washington had kind of a spat. At a point where they are both clearly fatigued. Have been up working with washington. He spent a lot of time at a desk writing things. Either listening to washington tell him what to write or writing and correcting them. So there were clearly at this late point in the war. Tired. And hamilton leaves his side and runs down a staircase to deliver a letter. Gets stopped at the foot of the stairway and apparently had a sort of grabbing a hold of your lapel and in a very engaged manner kind of looks up at the top of the stairway at washington glaring down and said something along the lines of hamilton, youve kept me waiting these ten minutes, you treat me with disrespect. Hamilton ismi tired of being an aidinaid and would rather be one battlefield and says i am not aware of that but if you believe that, then we part, and he basically surrenders. Washington send something out to apologize to his aid and hamilton refuses to take the apology, waits until he can be replaced and believes then writes a wonderful two letters, one to his fatherinlaw in which he says Something Like i need to tell you what happened. Then he writes another letter and said something again, pretty close to a direct quote. The great man and i have come to a rupture and basically this isnt the first time hes behaved this way but its the last time hes going to take it. He storms off and that tells about that relationship and hamilton kind of almost resentment that he needed him in that way and he doesnt necessarily contain himself in ways that have been useful so washington is very patient and comes back again and again and allowsin him back into his circ. Host next call comes from mark in fayetteville arkansas. Caller hello and thank you. I have a comment and question. My understanding is that james working for his master in england sued for his freedom in 1772 and won his case freeing himself and about 15,000 others in england. The case was widely reported and followed in the american colonies and there was widespread concern that they might soon lose their socalled property on which their wealth was based. A very good book on the subject is from 2005 by alfred and ruth, two professors at rutgers. So i believe the case in england in 1772 was one of the causes of the American Revolution. Its not acknowledged as such is my question then is what are this and thankn you so very much. Guest what youre touching on is a play that is true beyond and that is while several points. Number one, that in england there is activity going on in some of the time in the United States that had an impact certainly on whats going on in the colonies of the United States but also the institution of slavery was a longstanding kindd of third rail. It affected your political decisions and understanding of what kind of power you had and if you needed or wanted to maintain it so you could say that the institution in and of itself even before the constitution but for health colonial and early america plays a major role in shaping everything. It was he put it to people who owned property of that kind that front foremost in what they considered they needed to be protecting and institutions of government are among property certainly that is part of the mix of things that is constantly front and center throughout its existence. Its always been that way and some of what we are seeing in recent years and decades in particular is people being really aggressive about restoring that part of the story to how we understand who we are as a nation. Host next call w for you comes from tom in chicago. Go ahead. Caller hello, professor freeman. Thank you very much. Several years ago when the movie lincoln came out, like a lot of people, i became very fascinated with Thaddeus Stevens. Tommy lee jones played him so st the movie and he has stressed such an interesting character and absorbable house while. I was wondering is the violence on the floor of congress that you wrote about in your latest book, given how easily provoked so many of these other congressmen were especially the ones of thee other party, and given how provocative stevens was in the brutally rhetorical way was he challenged to a duel, was he on the receiving end of any of these facts guest that is an interesting question. Thaddeus stevens, antislavery politician and real character, was a really dry wit fund the studtostudy. What was particularly fun about him and this isnt going to be surprising given everything you just said mitch was effective at speaking up and smacking at any southerner who made any gesture in that the direction. So, for example, after lets see in the later years of the civil war when southerners are trying to find their way back into louisiana, Thaddeus Stevens stands up and says Something Like i you know the, not only we you here, i was, its like a lot of violence back then. Do we really want to let them back in, i dont know. Its interesting people didnt necessarily. I think that there was one moment. Someone is kind of threatening and he wasnt at the receiving end of that hes someone that was never afraid to speak his mind in the midst of it. Theres a moment in the discussion a lot of congressmen go and hide in the library so they dont have to vote on the issues and when the voting is done, he says out loud in the congressional record you can send someone to the library and tell everyone to come back. Its safe so he is that guy but as far as i know isnt attacked. Host lets go to 1856. A name that is relatively lost to history and it wasnt untilii read field of blood Preston Brooks. Guest it took me 17 years but one thing i will say about sathat chunk of time is when i said to people writing a book about physical violence in the u. S. Congress, most people even if they didnt know names would Say Something along the lines of there was that guy. There was at least one incident in congress. Massachusetts abolitionist senator who came to the ground sitting at his desk. The congressman comes across the senate. Sumner stood up and b made a vey aggressive antislavery speech and in it he had according to brooks, South Carolina and a kinsman of book brooks, said hes into the senate and says she had sent out my part of the union, my state, and basically threatens to punish them for it and violently tames him. They were bolting to the ground so in a sense they trapped him at the desk and ultimately in his anxiety to get away from the paintings range is the desk from the ground, but he continues caning him until it breaks there theres a number of interesting things one of them is although there is a lot of violence in congress which i write about in the book, deliberate attacks like that are supposed to take place in the street. It erupts all the time, particularly in the house but if you are going to stage an attak in that way it is supposed to have been in the street. He tried to catch him outside on the Capitol Grounds because that is the proper way to beat a congressman. You can see because of what happens in the senate chamber. A southerner confronting a northern abolitionists in the Senate Chambers and beating him to the ground, that becomes the south, beating the market for submissions and any deeply symbolic kind of way that has National Repercussions in a way that there would have been repercussions if it happened outside. Host and people who didnt come to sumner, correct . Guest another softer landing and was there and keeping anyone who tried to interfere away. The fact of the matter is people were yelling dont kill him, bu here is the interesting thing we learn. Its kind of counterintuitive. There was a lot of violence throughout this period 1840s, 1850s. It was kind of a given if it seemed fair and by that i mean there were rules so you are only supposed to insult someone if he were present to defend himself if you are going to attack someone,ou only if you are an unarmed man and you yourself were supposed to be unarmed. Fairness was considered the importance of an examplele of te from the late 1850s there is a letter from a congressman writing and to his wife and he looks up and sees a menacing looking stranger in front of one of his colleagues and hes writing this letter like that adoesnt look good i think theres going to be a fight but he looks at the stranger and the colleague and he is a big fan. There will probably be fine. But when he thinks that he spots a weapon he thinks the stranger is holding a weapon and immediately positions himself behind the stranger in case he pulled asi weapon so he let the fight has been, but if that stranger reached for a weapon he would have stopped it. Some of what is happening in the case of books and summer that seems like an unfair fight in many ways. In the investigation of that afterwards, not surprisingly congressional report about it, brooks is asked did you at least warn sumner that you were going to do this . That would have made it fair. When he clearly did not, hes reprimanded for not wanting him by congress. Congress says you should have warned him, which tell me something about the culture of congress at tha the moment but somehow that would have made it better. That would have redeemed somehow. Th host was Preston Brooks reelected . Guest Preston Brooks was celebrated in the south and to send celebratory canes. He is reelected and providentially he gets some kind of a Throat Infection and suffocate and die is very suddenly. Whats interesting about the fighters that i write about in my book and most of the aggressive fighters at least for much of the period that i write about our southerners, people in this period when you look at an Incoming Congress they tend to try to break their ranks down to fighting and noncombatants. Who were the fighting men and who are the noncombatants. The fighting men were doing one at one point hes reprimand reprimanded. Shame on you for what you do. Youve cost of flights already this session. You should be sent home. And he says to do it. You know what, they will reelect me and put me right back here because i am here to do this. They elected me to do this and hes right. To some degree, for period of time, people who fight in that way, southerners who were willing to fight in that way, and i would say maybe 10 of the given house would have been considered fighting men. They are put there because the assumption is they would use that edge to fight to protect their interests including the institutions of slavery. Host next offer Joanne Freeman is robert in atlanta. Caller professor freeman, you are delightful. Thank you. My question is about the conflicting relationship between hamilton and washington. Youve pretty much answered everything. So, if i may, i will ask something else. What do you think were the prospects of hamilton had though not occurred and had he been just cast adrift and in new york as an attorney would he have lived out his life the way or would he have tried to get back onto the National Stage . Guest that is a really good question. I only have a little bit of evidence about what he was thinking. First off, by 1804, his political career isnt doing very well. Even without the dual, he wrote a number of pamphlets he thought were logical but didnt do him any favors, the first he defends himself against the charges of the funds and what we now call the reynolds pamphlet that didnt do his reputation a lot of papers. Then he writes about attacking his own president ial candidate john adams. That really didnt do him favors because people were at that point backing away from him and its what they call in indiscreet politician. He doesnt have discretion. He couldnt have control over himself and he is a danger, a liability. Y. So his career is already suffering. As a federalist, his party is now fading away. The nation is moving in a democratic election and the federalists would have preferred. So on that level, he has muchct less power. So in one way or another, i dont think that he was going to gain political power. So the question is if it hadnt happened, what would he have done. He left behind one or two little clues about that. I think that hed become a bit of a political commentator. He was pondering another collection of essays along the line as a federalist which he was an initiator that he wrote with James Madison and in the later years he was thinking about doing that again independently he had approached one friend and colleague who had a sort of senate would you be willing to write for Something Like that ande i think that he would have been commenting on american government. He saw himself as someone who would stand back and weigh in and be critical but he might become a commentator that. Now, that said, in the final statement he wrote before the dual and that explains why he feels compelled, the last paragraph of that is fascinati fascinating. Some of you might be wondering why i thought this and i dont support doing. I should have just not agreed to fight this he said that here is ourthing at some point in future come in the case of the crisis and Public Affairs which seem likely to happen, he wants step forward and be useful and i think that he felt he needed to protect and redeem his reputation so he could be a public figure if needed again. I think this is alongpu the lins of essay mentioned a while back, things ultimately maybe not working and everything collapsing. I think that he consistently sought to buy at every conflict in some ways i think he meant it literally cannot fight as a soldier. And part of why he thought that gould is to protect and baby in his reputation for the period when that might come. I read the federalist papers with the Supreme Court. As the right way to do it . Guest people tended to use the federalist essays as an objective commentary. The idea behind it is hamilton and madison thinking about all the ways what might they like aboutgo it and they said they we kind of scared of this and not only that, but its really isnt intended to be objective. Its certainly intended to look that way as the a is what the constitution is, but it is a document with a purpose. Its so people will press it and ideally the states will ratify it into existence. Next call n comes from jane in california. Please go ahead. Thank you, professor, for being there. Im in the midst of a dilemma. Im almost finished with the biography and in the book he goes into great detail almost close to treason and having great difficulty trying to come to peace with it because he did with the beautiful declaration of independence and other papers, but his behavior and his lack of integrity and all the things he did his trust overwhelming. How do you deal with this . Guest there is a tendency particularly when you look at hamilton and jefferson now hes getting all of this promotion. Its interesting when you look over the long haul. And to read another book that comes from a different point of view. One of the things i do with my students in my class because it is very hard. Its to read some of the things these people of britain any luck that comes about onesided without reading another book with a different point of view so that you yourself as a reader can evaluate and decide what you think. I dont think that its ever thatat clear. The important thing about their existence and others in this period is that no one was absolutely right and most people were not absolutely wrong and the fact of the matter is these different ideas against each other and their suspect im not particularly fond of either. Thats interesting is the blend of ideas and what happens and what doesnt happen. And the ways in which over time other politicians and public figures on the populist find ways to build on and improve on whats come before. Host we are going to go back too your twitter feed. Why do you use 1755 . Guest my twitter handle. Theres a piece of paper that suggests that he was born in 1755. He appears to have been 1757. I went with 1755 because of the document and i. , youou know, im not strongly interested but that is where it comes from. People feel very strongly about these things and i dont have that amount of personal investment. Host this is from 2018 and we know that for a fact. Im going to throw an idea out and see what happens. But if there was a giant history rally, teaching of sorts with teachers, historians of all kinds, getting together to discuss what we can learn from American History to help us in the present, what was the reactionreaction you got . Guest that was interestin interesting. I was very honest to say im throwing this out into twitter. Its an idea that i thought would be useful and potential have some power to make people think about American History and all of itse complexities and people wrestle with things in the past. I threw that out there not knowing what would happen. I got a really big response, sometimes from teachers come historians, emails, a lot of organizationsns and they contacd me about it. All the things, yes, lets do this. So this is actually something i am eager to pursue and do ideally in the late spring and early summer of next year i think that it would be wonderful if to talk about American History and of its complexities, not to celebrate things, not tell a glossy sort of mythologized view of things that talk about the ways that we struggled in the past and how we push through those. At this point, it becomes conversations with people. But i was encouraged by the response. I threw that into the twitter expecting nothing and now i think wha what didnt it be a wonderful thing to have a day not just in washington in the center of it some way or another toea create the day when peoplen the local level just get together to talk about history and some kind of a targeted way. Come back to me in and a couplf months and i will have a better idea. You know, i am a historian, i engage with scholars, i write scholarly history, but as a historian, i also fervently want to communicate with the public. I think that historian scholars should be among the people that are aggressively dealing with offering to the public. Some of us do, some of us dont. I think there should be more of us doing it, and in that you know, what a great thing to take part in and help create a public conversation about the complexity. Host so we can get you on record as a cspan cameras could be at this event. Guest i would love for cspan cameras to be at that event. Host marilynne and loving towards kansas, high. Caller hi, how are you . I wanted toe ask about i didnt come in at the very beginning of the talk, so perhaps i missed this but it seemed to me his contribution was his economic ideas that he was for the assumption of the state debt when so many of the other Founding Fathers distrusted things, jefferson thought we should all be farmers and it seemed from the very beginning it made such a huge difference in this country. Would you talk about that . Host what do you do when november theu kansas . Caller im retired. Host from . Guest i worked for business insurance. Host thank you, maam. What is your level of interest in history . Caller well, ive always liked history. Ive always been interested in history. I think that the way things are now, when you go back and read history, its comforting, for one thing. Host thank you, maam. Guest that is a good question. Let me grab a drink of water here. I think youre absolutely right that hamiltons financial plans i spoke earlier about hamilton being a powerful nationalist and an important part of his legacy and youre absolutely right that a vital part of his legacy and a fundamental thing that he did is to step in as the first secretary of the treasury when there really wasnt a National Structure for finance in any way and to create the kind of structure he was in some ways the perfect person for the job. He was a guye that thought in terms of plans. When i write about him as a person i talk about the fact he was planned in his personal life and as a politician. He was a perfect person to step in an essay i will come from the problem, the revolutionary war debt, individual states with their own sort of systems of dealing with organized dealing with debt and now im going to take on this National Position to things in power and you are right he has a threepart plan on where he wants to create a National Bank and where he wants the National Government to promote manufacturing. And those are crucial particularly for the reasons you say. And he says it is the price of liberty. We need to step forward to prove and he means it in the broadest way possible that is to prove that we are a nation of credit and we have reputation i of your trustworthy and how financial credit. We needed to tend to our death. He says in the report on public credit, credit is an entire thing. Thats a direct quote. By that he means its not just financial. Its who we are as a nation. So youre absolutely right that as far as a concrete thing that he did, stepping forward and creating a plan and then pushing it through and standing behind it at the point when there were many people, i would say jefferson was more than just people wanting to be farmers but you are right there is kind of an agrarian idea on the one side and then more urban and i suppose you couldwa say more finance oriented idea on the other side of hamilton is stepping forward and getting that kind of work on a ground level it is tempting to look at people like hamilton and jefferson and think of them as sort of archaeologists, thinking on a broad level. One of the things about hamilton is how he how good he is that for example he takes office and he doesnt know, you know, much at all on the National Level about the nations finances. He doesna things like create a sort of questionnaire that he sends out to the customs masters around the country asking them to check off boxes. Tell me about a trade, customs, so he can collect that information and kind of get a National View of the finance. So hes wonderful in a variety of ways in his plan is a crucial part of what he does. Host nina is responding on twitter to your history idea from your history teach in or get together. History begins before the colonists arrived. If the symposium is held it must include native american histories and crafters. Guest absolutely. Now this is a challenge as soon as i say yes lets talk about y. Story then it becomes how broadly and, logically you are absolutely right and i think particularly, given that the long arc of history is about fighting for rights in having rights taken away in one way or another you have to deal with all sides of the equation, people whose rights are being violated and how they are fighting for their rights. That has to be among the center of the story and again ive literally had two conversations so far so i havent progressed beyond if its something i want to do and now i have to figure out how to do it. I am with you. Host before we run out of time, weve got to talk about benjaminwe brown french, a name lost to history. Guest yes, Benjamin Brown french, wherever you are, i think you. When i was writing my most recent book, the field of blood, about violence in congress, i ended up finding roughly 70 physically violent incidences in the house and senate. Each one could be a chapter. So, part of my challenge in writing the book was how vital the story and hopefully investigate the violence and figured out what it means. Early on in the process, i found this minor congressional many people had used before when writing about lincoln because he ends up being important in the Lincoln White house that he left behind an 11 volume diary. He had a newspaper column and extensive correspondence. He is a poet and hehe is amazin. Whats wonderful about what he left behind as hes in the circle of congress from 1833 an1 1870 when he dies and what he allows me to do he acts as a guide in my book. He is writing all of this down but when he comes to congress hes trying to appease the southerners and he starts out as that guy, to silence the issue and appease the southerners to promote his party and protect the union. By the time of the civil war in 1860, and he talks about this in his diary. It ends up being 1860 and in the book i call it the emotional logic how emotionally did that make sense to him and many others that is an arresting ride to add to the wayg we understad so Benjamin Brown french allowed me to do that. It took me forever to write the book. But that was probably a good decade if not more than that and what ist fascinating is hes kd of the forrest gump of the period and theres lots of notes that basically say over and over again he was a bear if something significant happens, somehow hes right there watching it happen so someone tries to assassinate andrew jackson, he is right there as it happens. He has a a stroke when he goes back to serve in his presidency and not long after, there is French Holding his hand. The gettysburgge address, abrahm lincoln, and who is on the platform standing beside him, Benjamin Brown french, the assassination who is at the bedside, first i went inside and standing beside his corpse at the white house after he dies, Benjamin Brown french is there for everything so hes this seincredible eyewitness who is generous in the way he puts his thoughts and feelings down on paper. So he ends upds i think showing what it felt like to be in that kind of extreme polarized climate and how americans learned to turn on each other to the degree that they did. Host where did you find his papers . Guest there is a published abridged edition of the papers that came out from the library years ago and as i say, people are right about lincoln tend to knowow because he adored playing gameadoredinvincibly have all tt anecdotes for example one of my favorite ones being someone gave him a pairm of socks to give to lincoln that had a a Confederate Flag under each foot and i sort of love that anecdote. Or an even better anecdote hes in a room with lincoln in the white house and he says out loud to a roomful of people does anybody here know how to spell the word missile come and french writes in his diary what kind of man is that, what kind of president is willing to admit he doesnt know how to spell that and ask a roomful of people with no shame. I just love lincoln. People havent done as much worc with the 11 volumes of his diary and bodies of the writing all t, newspaper columns, correspondence and poetry. So, when i was finishing the book, and i got all the way to the epilogue and im trying to figure out 17 years in i know like the last ten pages and i cant figure out how to end it, what do i do. Come on, give me something. I am shuffling through papers sitting there agonizing and what did i discover, the year before he died, he wrote a poem about what congress meant to him. It was like he smiled down from heaven and said here, have a problem. He says im sitting in my office and i can see the pamphlets, the capital, my home for all these years. He was a remarkable, he was remarkably generous in the way that he gave the evidence and the book wouldnt have been possible without him. Host next call for Joanne Freeman is joseph and then roddick new york merrimac new york. Sorry, im a westerner. [laughter] caller thank you, professor freeman for correcting him on the spelling and pronunciation of the merrimac. And i want to commend you on your earlier comments also being ain amherst open minded historian, and my question is this. What words of wisdom would you give todays congress, whats not to do and things to do to strengthen this nation of ours right now which is divided, and im interested in your comments and i love the idea that you want to create a whole new cultural thinking. I really appreciate that and i will wait for your comments. Guest i wonder what im going to say to that, too. People often look to historians to come up with a solution for the present. That isnt something i can do. But i can say is the time in which our government has functioned the best have been moments where people listen to each other in some way or another. The idea the government is grounded on debate and compromise and sometimes it is nasty. Weve had a polarization many times before, sometimes extreme polarization. But there needs to be a willingness to debate. Thats something where right now we are in such a place moment. It isnt helping us at all. Its easy for me to say that sitting here in a studio talking to you. I dont have a solution for how to change that because obviously congress is reflective of a largergr popular well. So part of what we are talking about is congress being represented as a cycle and congress influences the public and we are smack in the middle of the so i have no brilliant solution but i wish i did on how to promote that kind of atmosphere. But that isnt a useful way for us to find our way out of the moment we are in. How we get beyond that i will not be the person to be able to offer you that. Host email from steven. I was wondering whether she has found readers of also her students both in of her students believe the Political Violence she described ended up a civil war. The reason he asks is because in his research he found a 19 update dual or fight between a tennessee senator in a constituent, a political opponent a block from the state capital. Guest no, it doesnt end with the civil war. So thats a good point. It doesnt happen on the board of congress in the way that it did before. And you can see that when from louisiana members try to get back into congress and into the union and they show up and violent incidences happen within the capital not long after louisiana tries to get back into the union and as fascinating as that is unlike before the war you had northerners i think Thaddeus Stevens is one of them who steps forward and says we want to let them back in, remember what this was like what the power dynamic shifted so what was once power before in congress no longer does. You are suggesting with your question it doesnt mean the violence stops. You could say its no longer effective. They are very effective at deploying it in the south and the reconstruction era and certainly it continues among politicians in a variety of different ways, so it is an important point to make a. It doesnt stop it just shifts the. American politics has been violent in a variety of ways for a very long time. The broad question is what do we do or have we done to contain the violence and that is another question i wish i could offer as aco brilliant solution but i do not have, but its an important point to make. Its not s the violence suddenly ended at any given point. Host glenn in new jersey. Caller thank you for such another Wonderful Program as you have for many years. And thank you to professor freeman for all of your wonderful research and work. I did see you back in 2004 you gave a presentation at the 200th anniversary of the dual, so i enjoyed that. My question for you is this what youre the field of blood text, have you considered David Broderick david cary dual out in california particularly given broderick was a senator from california and terry was the Supreme Court justice from california and they fought just outside of San Francisco and broderick was killed and given the context of it being california slavery split within the Democratic Party in california in particular, was that something that you thought about and i realize as you mentioned earlier that there were literally dozens of other examples. Host before we get an answer, are you an amateur historian or if its a part of your profession . Guest i am a professor and broderick was a volunteer officer who moved and gained a lot of his political power and also im very involved here at the state counties with history and your viewers should know at the opening in a couple of years im very interested as an amateur. Just for the incident that you are describing is a famous one and in a dramatic one. What i ended up having to do for the buck, once you start going beyond washington, the field for violence even between people and congress become enormous there were those in congress, on the streets of washington when it was in session because i was interested in how it was shaping. What congress was doing and what americanit withamericans thoughs and the state of the nation i had to sorter of stop myself frm going be on to that. Thertheres any number of incids and that is a major one that i could have gone pursuing. I would probably be 57 on the buck if i let myself keep going in that way. But in the end what i was interested in is the mix of people w in congress and washington from different parts of the union who dealt with violence and had different understandings of justice and how that worked and different viewpoints and designers and what happens when you put all those people together in the house and in the senate and force them to deal with contentious issues, that was one of the initial questions that put me in this project and what happens when you have those populations in this very public menu of a National Audience of nation making or breaking possibilities andki distortions, what happens in that kind of climate . Caller i am a big fan of colin and a kind of unflattering episode in the story of Alexander Hamilton i will be really quick about it. During the revolutionary war, soldiers who were from croatia to make a appalachia, there was no money to pay them into the Continental Congress gave them a script. For years they were able to use that and pay their taxes and then this guy comes along and he describes him as a protege of Alexander Hamilton. People can no longer pay their state taxes with congressional script if because of that, these people are forced to sell a script for ten, 15 theres the script and then shortly after that, Alexander Hamilton and Robert Morris come up with this idea that u. S. Government is going to pay this in full in hard currency and tax the very people, these veterans that were forced to pay a. Host we are going to leave it there and hear fromm professr freedom there should be some way of speculators who did just what useful assuming, hoping down the road they would be paid in full and for the veterans are owed the moneyey t that the governmet and hamilton does step forward and say no. It isnt practical because theres no way to track how. That is inherently unfair to people who were given to us to begin with so it is a totally valid thing to say. Its certainly not the only thing people step forward and said what are you doing that is exceedingly unfair and biased industry to benefit the speculators, these money men you seem to beor so eager to buy ino the new government. This is unseemly in many kinds of ways. There is a logic to that. He had his logic. Certainly that would have been his counterargument. Host tom in denver they were on the air. Caller thank you for taking myr call. I hope i didnt have too much coffee. [laughter] guest heres the funny thing, clay jenkins and i think hes gone off to deliver things, but for the time i dont know what to call him a jefferson reenactor, he did a lot of programs he was the Senior Adviser in college and was becoming interested in jefferson my senior year in college and i was already in trust and hamilton. I remember going into his office may seem you here and he was building a model of monticello and they made a remark about jefferson and he looked at me and had no idea i was interested and i had no idea he was interested in jefferson and he ws kidding with him. We crossed paths at that moment and i was already well into my career and i lost touch for a long time. We crossed paths later and i think he was at the National Endowment for the humanities that decided we would have this debate. I cant remember now what state of zimbabwe have a debate which i represented hamilton, clay represented jefferson and i remember he made a comment about hamilton he said Something Like its taken me a lifetime that i could get to know hamilton in a weekend. I remember he was pretty upset at the audience. But they kind of stood up for him at that one little moment. I have no idea what you are remembering of that event was wonderful fun and what an honor to be able to do that with a former teacher of mine, and the weirdness of ending up where he did. And he was teaching english at the time. We had nothing to do with history at all. It was a wonderfulrf debate. Somewhere or another i have that on video tape which means i can cant play it at all but it was a wonderful event. Host maybe you can reenacted on your podcast. Guest my podcast is an American History podcast and what we do is basically a deep dive back into history we look at the deeper path of that so there recently was a show we recently did a show at the history of labor in america but we have done all kinds of shows. Cultural shows up collecting. Whats wonderful about it is its very conversational. The four of us are all people with a strong sense of humor. But its fun to listen to. Host who are the four . Guest ed, brian, nathan and myself. This iss selfpromotional but it is a fun listen and historical as well. And its cold back story. Host i want to close with affairs of honor which you write in the note on nothing. This book approaches politics in an unusual way. It doesnt examine political events or personalities and isolation or reduce them to the level of historical anecdotes, nor does it tackle such a broad teatheme to lose sight of the participants prospective aiming at the midpoint between broad cultural history and Detailed Analysis of the political narrative it uses the Vantage Point of them as no n. S. No an ethno historian. And a broader question is how do you control the cia and fbi to prevent them from carrying on abuses and prevent president s for doing that i am bill bar the us attorney general is part of that and to members of the staff which is dick cheney and Donald Rumsfeld worked for the white house opposed it conservative legal scholar who became a Supreme CourtJustice Antonin Scalia the creation of the Oversight Committee also the creation of inspectors general in terms of spending of the emergency funds were coronavirus those were independent and apolitical positions created by congress when were supposed to investigate spending and abuse and corruption in the executive branch and there was a school of thought that essentially the presidency would be weekend to match too much subpoena from the congressional committees what they were doing and then attorney general barr said there was too much activism from judges like with abortionrights he saw that is the courts going too far. But in terms of president s power he complained just recently under President Trump the immigration order stopped by federal judges on the west coast that stopped what trump was trying to carry out and he said that is overreach. We need a strong presidency and moments of disaster and moments of war and barr argues more than the legislative branch has performed the best when the country is under threat and favors a strong presidency and slow down by these branches. Is there any evidence in your reporting in the world it was a little bit of evidence that has done a better job than the legislature . During times of crisis. And post 9 11 and to ce suspected terrorist and then as he liked the Bush Administration running a warrantless wiretapping program most supported that after 9 11 because bar and other conservatives and with a strong executive and then we could get into the Coronavirus Response but there was back and forth on the ultimate authority as president its up to the states to decide how should the democracy function. And to be equally powerful if we need a strong presidency. We are living through that amazing moment in history