Building and we will start putting of steel in another month. We are right on schedule to open a museum in early 2017. Narrator that was the first of a twopart look at the collections of the museum of the american revolution. In part two, we will see part of George Washingtons camp tent from the revolutionary war. Narrator all weekend, American History tv is featuring the city of lexington, kentucky, home to kentucky senator john pope. The pope villa is one of only three remaining domestic designs by architect benjamin latrobe whos more notable designs include the white house and u. S. Capitol. Hosted by our Time Warner Cable partners, cspan city tours staff recently visited many sites so katie showcasing the citys history. Learn about lexington all weekend here on American History tv. We are at ashland, the henry clay estate in lexington kentucky. Clays original home had to be rebuilt. It fell into disrepair, and his son found it could not be saved. He built upon the foundation, so what we have is a home that is essentially a fivepart federalstyle home, as henry clay had with architectural elements, etc. , and an added layer of aesthetic details added high henry clays granddaughter and greatgranddaughter. Its very much a layer cake or an onion, and you can peel the layers back. Henry clay was of the Second Generation of Great American political figures. Henry clay guided the nation from its nascent nascence to its ultimate test in the civil war. Henry clay originally came from virginia. He was born in Hanover County near richmond. He was born during a revolution, saw the nation form essentially. He came along when our station was still sort of a toddler taking its first steps and he was seeing that happen and wanted to do everything he could to ensure its longterm survival and its development, etc. His parents his mother and stepfather, his father having died when he was four, relocated when he was 14. His stepfathers brother was one of the founders and had good success. When henry clay had changed his license and had been trained he followed on and settled in lexington, which was at the time the biggest city in the area, certainly one of the great it is up western united states. Henry clay first lived in downtown lexington became too ashland well, but the property in 1804. We think he was actually residing on it by 1807. We know in 1809, he places an ad for a lost horse and specifies he wants it returned to him at ashland. We do not know if he ever got the horseback, but that is the first mention of ashland is the name of his property in the first time he identifies himself as being here. We are currently in a room we call the study. We know from historical sources that henry clay had a study and was possibly in the room we interpret as a study today. The study is where we tell the story of henry clays careers other than politics. He was an attorney practiced law for better than 50 years. On the wall over there is his law license, dated november 6, 1797. He brought it with him from virginia and enabled his advocacy. On the second shelf, case reviews which he used in preparing for cases. He also is mentioned in these books because he practiced at that level. The amicus curiae brief is a brief filed by someone who is not a part of the case neither the defendant nor plaintiff but who has a vested interest in it. Also known as a friend of the court brief and is now a standard part of Supreme Court jurisprudence. The career of henry clay enjoyed the most was farming. He actually threatened to give up both politics and law for it several times although he never did that. He had a form of which he was very, very proud. I acquired the farm not by hereditary descent but by my own hard work. That was always very important to him. He thought a great deal of people who made their own way. He coined the term selfmade man clays farm was a hint plantation hemp plantation. That was his cash crop. He grew tons of it here. We actually have a little textbook in which he wrote a chapter on that. He is advice was so widely sought that people often asked him to write it down. In this case, it was published in a textbook for farming. This was another example. This letter is a letter henry clay wrote june 20 3 18 37, to a gentleman who has written him for advice on jackson jennys. He raised them and had a lot of them. In it, he explained where to buy them and how to raise them and how to go about breeding and all that sort of thing. Its a really nice example of that sort of advice and features one of my favorite lines. Henry clay says at the beginning of paragraph 3 i believe theres more good now in kentucky than anywhere in the world. But its a really nice letter that shows just how sought his advice was and how good it could be. The volume here on the desk next to it is henry clays thought journal. He kept this book to record stock transactions, record breeding records pedigrees, so its also some interesting information here about the farm here at ashland and its very important to us in understanding that farm, understanding what he did here and how he did it. The other area in which henry clay made great contributions agriculturally, particularly at the license in terms of making lexington what it was, henry clay had a number of great horses here at ashland. These were thoroughbreds. Magnolia and margaret would have lines of dissent including consecutive three winners. In fact, this years triple crown races, we cannot claim american pharaoh, but we can claim to minto pimento, who ran against american pharaoh. We are now on the second floor. Here we have one of our most important portraits of henry clay. We have many but few would rise to the level of importance of this one. The reason for that is that this portrait is a visual encapsulation of clays political ideology. This is a copy of an original painting here at ashland in 1942 by an artist as a commission from a group of whigs, his political party, and they want to have a visual image to help them get nominated with the presidency and ultimately elected. His ideology was economic in nature. He felt that the best way to ensure that the nation remained united and intact was through a Strong National economy that blended the agricultural economy of the south and industrial economy of the north together into one Strong National economy. You see at the bottom corner the anvil and shuttle representing the industrial north and the plowing cattle representing the agricultural south. Clay called his plan the american system. It was something he called internal improvement. Those improvements include roads, bridges, waterways, and other sorts of infrastructure funded by the federal government. Today, lexington sits in confluence of i75 and i64. Clay would have loved he could go any direction from his hometown. That is what he wanted to accomplish. Henry clay had a sense of a protective tariff to protect our economy around foreign influence, particularly british influence. Im only, he wanted to create a bank of the united states, which would lend money to state banks which could relent out to stimulate industry and agriculture, furthering the american economy. One of the things that is kind of interesting about the second floor is personal space, predominantly family space. The room we are in now is henry clays bedroom. We have it set up with his bed which he used for about 20 years. He liked this bed so much he wrote a newspaper testimonial praising its maker and helped the man who designed it to patent the design. A bed of which he was very, very fond. He said it felt very comfortable, etc. He was not home a great deal. He traveled a great deal for a variety of reasons. For politics, for law, business pleasure. Often, he traveled for his health. He was a man who for reasons that are not entirely clear seemed to be challenged healthwise. He would often go places like olympian springs in kentucky where the greenbrier is today in West Virginia to take the water before engaging in other treatments for his health. When henry clay traveled, he used some of the items that we have here. We have a hat box with his name and address on it that he carried his top hat in. This is a lap desk which is kind of the laptop of henry kanes day. He gave the cane to a fellow tillman, which was a common gift during this era. One of the things that is interesting about the cane is that there is a little blade inside it. We do not know that henry clay ever used the blade, but henry clay was an immensely popular figure. When he showed up, he also visited someone who was very well known. When he arrived, people wanted to meet him, to get to know him, to interact with this very famous and important person, and that could create somewhat of a frenzy. A group of ladies had assembled with scissors because they wanted lots of his hair as a souvenir. As soon as he got off the stage they basically charged him and chased him down the street clipping their little scissors trying to get a lock of hair. Clay eventually locked himself in a hotel for about 30 minutes until the crowd dispersed. But having a little personal protection probably was a bit of comfort to him. This is the most impressive of all of the artifacts here. This is henry clays trunk. It was made for him by ian w stokes of louisville. You can see on the inside it is pretty spectacular. We recently discovered i recently discovered in photographing it that its also heavily decorated on the outside. The right there is an image of henry clay. Above it some stars and trey paris around the edges. Its an incredible piece of work in addition to being very functional. Clay was a very interesting human being. As interesting as he was politically or as a lawyer or farmer etc. , he was perhaps more interesting as a person. People loved henry clay. Even if they disagreed with him politically, they loved him as a person. He loved to gamble, which is not uncommon for people of his social class. Lucretia, which you see behind me, was asked once if it concerned her that he so often gamble. She said heavens, no, he almost always wins, which is true, although he did lose occasionally. Usually, he could find his way out of that by either winning Something Back or get whoever he was gambling with to assuage debt. Whatever. Here, you have a kit to be used in a carriage. It contains several decanters in a number of classes, all in a little metal frame. Clay carried it in his coach, and it would be filled with any number of beverages. We know from receipts that he enjoyed a number of good beverages. Clay was criticized for these activities, these habits. Anyone who thinks dirty campaigns are a new thing something that only happened recently need only look back to henry clay to know that that is simply not the case. We have a great cartoon on the wall that illustrates that. It shows a group of citizens throwing sticks and rocks, and they are labeled tooling drinking gambling dueling drinking, gambling. This man was chosen not necessarily because he was most famous political figure or even the most qualified, but because he was someone who did not duel, drink, gamble, or curse. The thinking was if that concerns you about henry clay no problem. This was an issue he had to deal with. One of the things that challenge him in his campaign and one of the reasons, perhaps, he lost some votes in the campaign he ran for president. Henry clays enemies said many things about him over the course of years. Being a card player, they often accused him of being a cheat, a black leg, basically impugned his reputation or his character owing to the fact that he did play cards. They chastised him for his views over slavery. People did not like that he was a slave holder and thought it a bit hypocritical that he owned slaves and yet argued for their emancipation and colonization. There were a lot of things, in addition to the personal characteristics that he had to deal with. The room we are in now is a bit of an interpretive speculation. We dont actually know that henry clay has this space, but as a wealthy man he likely would have had a room authors bedroom where he would have been able to dress, theyve, get ready for the day, called a dressing room, where we are now. One of the most important issues of clays time was slavery, an issue that occupied the entire nation. Clay had to deal with that. He dealt with it most personally as a slave owner. He owned anywhere between 30 and 50 people at a time and probably 75 over the course of his like. Over the course of his life. The most Famous Family of slaves were here at ashland. They are so well known predominantly because she actually sued henry clay for her freedom. In 1829, she filed a lawsuit. She had been there for a while with her Family Living at the Decatur House with him and became convinced that she and her daughter would do their freedom. The suit was actually hers. Unfortunately, she was unsuccessful. Clay would ultimately emancipate them, but he was a slave owner essentially from birth inherited slaves in his fathers will, grew up in a slaveowning aristocracy, and that colored his views on the subject. Clay believed a solution needed to be found to deal with the issue of slavery something the country could accept as a whole and could move forward with and would ultimately resolved once and for all what should be done about slavery. Clay came up with a solution he believed would avoid social chaos as a result of sudden and abrupt abolition of slavery which results in a sudden large mass of free africanamericans that would not be accepted into society by white americans. The solution he came up with was something called the american colonization society. He presided over the founding over that organization on to some but 21, 1816, and it had as its goal convincing slaveowners to emancipate their slaves and then colonize them to liberia on the west coast of africa. Very few americans bought into it. Slaveowners saw it as something they just did not to do. They had no interest in fleeing their slaves, and abolitionists sought as blatant hypocrisy. Very few americans were left in what he thought of as the middle ground. Clay was sure it was the way forward. So sure was he that he did a speech he was going to give a public shortterm later, and after, his friend said to him that it would never work. That he would never get elected with it. He said he did not care. He would rather be price and be president. What he meant was it did not matter if he got elected. He would always do what is right for the country, and what is right for the country is to support this ideology area this will get us through. This will deal with the issue. Unfortunately, it did not, but that is what henry clay believed was the way forward. Clay ended his life and washington, d. C. He returned in 1849 to resume his place in the senate. The compromise of 1850 his greatest economist, but was always very sick. He had tuberculosis. Something he did not really believe for a long time, but it took a further and further toll on him. He barely got through the compromise of 1850 and was not even in the legislature at the time it was passed. Clay was your role model for many statesmen. Particularly in the 19th century when they cited him as an influence as someone who was a Great American, they would like to emulate and their political careers, most notably, abraham lincoln, who caught him you called him his idea of a statesman. He campaigned for clay and voted for him. He courted him 41 times in the Lincoln Douglas debates alone. Always saw clay as a political role model to which one should aspire and carried his political ideology forward as his own until he became a representative of International Government and timidly president. Lincoln said in eulogy of clay would we be who we have been what we are, what we have been without henry clay . I think the answer to that is probably not. Clay kept the nation together at a critical time in its development, so he is instrumental in moving the country from its birth to the ultimate force which will allow it to emerge into full maturity. Throughout the weekend American History tv is featuring lexington, kentucky. Our city store staff recently traveled there to learn about its rich history. Learn more about lexington and other stops on the tour at www. Cspan. Org citiestour. You are watching American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. This sunday on q a, Molly Crabapple on her use of drawings to tell investigative stories from around the world. Might be reading a book by a black panther or trying aztec patterns or even having a tattoo. The pelican bay is not alone in this. Around the century i go around with a sketchbook and i draw, and a lot of times its not the start finish strong. Its also to build rapport with people. Often, when you have a big camera, it puts a distance between you and the person. You are taking these images. They cannot see what youre taking. Its a most vampiric and its way, even of your producing beautiful things later. Where as when you draw, its a vulnerable thing. You can see exactly what youre doing. If you suck, they can tell you so. Most people have not been drawn before and are pretty delighted to be drawn. A lot of times i dropped the book because i like to and i like talking to them when i do it. A lot of times, i draw people because i like to. 70 years ago on july 16, 1945 the first atomic bomb was tested new law salamis, new mexico lost almost los al amos, new mexico. His documents the moment of the explosion. The scene inside the shelter was dramatic e. On words. Beyond words. It can be safe to say most everyone was praying. Oppenheimer grew nervous. He scarcely breathed. At 45 seconds, the automatic timer was started. The test was now out of mans control. The physicist, normally the coolheaded one, changed his mind. 30 seconds. 15 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [explosion] in the dead silence of the morning at 5 29 45 mountain wartime, the mountain was bathed in an intense flash that man had only seen from the stars. Most experiences in life can become for handed by previous experience, but the atom bomb did not fit into any preconception possessed by anybody. The light from the blast was the one place where theoretical calculations had been way off. In the instrument bunker at 10,000 north they were caught off guard. Then i realized that the ball of fire was moving up. I grabbed the controls of the camera and turned the camera up so you see it abruptly. It just suddenly jerks up. There appeared a very small point of light. And my First Impression was i very distinctly remember is that god . I admit i started to see the point rising and spreading, i did not take off my glasses. By that point, i knew it was big. I twisted the glasses and looked down at the sand behind me. The whole thing was dark. 6 00 a. M. Fairly light. As i looked down at the sand, it was like you were lifting the curtain. Before i got my hand up to start adjusting, i felt something that i had not been smart enough to interpret, to figure out what was going to happen, and nobody had thought of it, i think. It was a cool, desert morning. The sun had not quite come up. The air was still. It had that curious chill, which is the coolest hour of the day. Suddenly, on that cold background, the heat of the sun came to me before the sun rose. It was the heat of the bomb. Not the light, but the heat was the first thing that i could feel. Historian at James Mcphersons pulitzer prizewinning book was published in 1988. The night hundred page hardback was on the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks. Coming up next on American History tv, James Mcpherson in conversation with Gettysburg Civil War Institute director peter carmichael. They discuss how the conflict is still relevant 150 years later. This hourlong program was part of the civil war institutes annual summer conference. I would like to welcome dr. James mcpherson. He is hoping out a number of occasions. As most of you know, he is the henry davis Professor Emeritus where he h