Transcripts For CSPAN3 First Federal Congress 20180122

It is such an incredibly important subject and one these folks have mined for many many years. The history project on the First Federal congress is one of the most remarkable institutions and outputs i have ever seen. Among other things, its complete, doesnt happen that often. The Founding Fathers papers pirbed when were all dead. The fact this group of people so marvelously put together 22 volumes and tell the story of the founding of the country in a way that is incredibly important, and one i recommend to all. Because the guys got together and wrote the constitution really quickly given the fact as bill clinton says, it should be called lets make a deal. We werent there, the press, and made its easier and they have this piece of paper and they sell it and sold it quite virrously with different people contradicting each other. I reread quickly the executive sessions, sections of the federalist papers and the difference between the way madison and hamilton saw that is quite stark. Here they are, written this thing, sold to it the public or at least the ratifiers and now they have a country to figure out. That is left to the 95 men meeting in new york. They finally met, in april of 1789. And then did remarkable things in that First Congress were all living with today. The project did really bring it all together and to life, the documentary history of the First Federal congress and ken bowling, immediately to my left, was one of the directors there. He has been an expert on the history of the revolutionary war in the early public since he was a mere boy and has written a great deal about it. You can read more of his bio. I think youre more interesting hearing from him than about him. You have to get close to the mike. I will sit. Unless you want to stand. No. I may have to. About how they found all these documents and made it all happen. So, im going to tell you a history story that covers 80 years. The documentary history of the First Federal congress and its sister project, the documentary history of the fist constitution was envisioned by the Centennial Commission on the us r constitution, 1937 to 1939. That was the original idea but during the 1930s, a group of American Jewish leaders in response to the rise of nazi germany, began a process of ike canizing the federal bill of rights most people knew as the first 10 amendments if they knew it at all certainly didnt merit in the archives of the rotunda of the American People. These gentleman, spearheaded by representative saul bloom who was the chairman of the committee, made the bill of rights an essential part of the centennial. And the centennial of the ratification of the bill of rights was 1941, franklin d. Roosevelts address about the bill of rights is almost entirely about Adolph Hitler and nazi germany. Since 1941, those who have matured since 1941 have known this great document but those who came a generation ahead of us wouldnt. One of the things the centennial recommended before it went out of business was the bifurcation of the First Congress, 1987 to 1981, by the time of the bicentennial, the American People should have access to all the documents relating to ratification and the First Federal congress. That was the origin of the projects. Nothing happened until 1950, when julian boyd, at princeton university, piresented the firs papers to president truman. President truman simply wrote a line item into the federal budget appointing someone to work at the National Historical Publications Commission at the National Archives to work on these projects. Beginning in 1950, the search for the documents about which i intend to focus my remarks begun. Its very easy to gather the official records. The senate and house records are all on deposit at the National Archives. The National Archives doesnt really have custodianship of them. They are part of the legislative branch, not the executive branch but everybody agrees theyre in much better condition at the archives than they were at the Capitol Building and closets and small rooms in the attic and basement and the judiciary acts of 1794 was being stained by water drifing from the roof. It dripping from the roof. It was how to get it to the members. At the beginning, the searcher went out to the places everybody knew the First Federal ratification documents would be the new york historical, new york public, library of congress and the Historical Society of pennsylvania. And they gathered the cream of the crop, so to speak, from papers, the collections that were known, members collections primarily. Rough fuss king of new york, Thomas Theodore sedgewick of massachusetts. But they didnt look beyond that. By the 1960s, the search was in the hand of an incredible person some of you may have known, leonard rapaport. For me, leonard taught me about manuscripts. My graduate education didnt teach me about manuscripts, only what was in them. You used them to write history. But the physical man cryuscript itself and what it might tell you and also what other sources there were for manuscripts, other than the repositories. For example, the by then almost 100yearold autograph market, after the civil war, wealthy americans began to collect manuscripts of the founding generation, putting together collections of signers of this articles of confederation declaration, constitution, et cetera, president s of the continental and Confederation Congress, the most obsessive of all, simon from philadelphia had a collection of doctors and lawyers and indian chiefs and if you were a lawyer or indian chief he had to have two letters, a vast collection of thousands and thousands of often very very valuable records. Leonard filmed his own documents on a little camera he taught me you cant rely on the catalog. Its predigital so the only information we had was the descriptions of what the societies had of their collection. He said, you need to look at every collection that has anything dated 1777 to 1791. I followed him in the 1970s, spent two months at the Historical Society in pennsylvania alone. He took up the fight when the National Historical commission, National Historical Publications Commission said, okay, the search is done, were satisfied with the 1950s search and satisfied what leonard has done. Leonard wrote to merle jensen, ratifyinged thefication project and linda depaul, said just not true. They had 2,000 documents. When we finished the search we had 10,000 documents. Mostly northerners because northerners tended to have more interest in history and didnt suffer from mold or the civil war. Leonard said, you cant understand this was julian boyds great contribution, saying you cant understand these letters writing back to somebody if you dont know what that person wrote to them. We have to include all letters from constituents and friends to members. As i say, i did the Historical Society of pennsylvania and many other places throughout the United States Gaspar Saladino of the ratification project spent six months in the Manuscript Division. I will tell a quick story, i hope it will be quick what i learned about manuscript sales. Most of you are probably familiar with benjamin rush, the great revolutionary era gadfly and the most hyperbolic of any in his generation. Also, a really bad doctor. [ laughter ] a bleeder, founder of american psychiatry, interested in female education and abolition and prohibition, he willed his papers to the library of philadelphia. Before his son, the executor, gave the papers, they included 120 letters written from the First Federal congress alone, before he gave them to the library of congress he went to them and took out every letter written by someone important that he knew was important, jefferson adams, members of the First Congress and gave them to his daughter as a wedding present. She married alexander bitle, the son of nicolas bitle, the editor of lewis and clark journal and second president of the bank of the United States. When they died in 1898, she still had the collection, she put them all together and numbered them. But there was a problem called probate. In 1940, the estate was finally out of probate and the family sold all 2,000 or so letters that had been given at least 1,000 had been given to julia bitle on her wedding. They went for 5 apiece. Actually, William Mcclay, the senator to pennsylvania elected to the First Federal congress, his letters went for 2 for 5. [ laughter ] there were 24 of them. The library of congress bought 22 of them because of course, park bernay, the auction house, didnt want to sell them all because therefore interested in having things available on the market. In 1980, something or maybe early 90s, sent me a postcard that said, big sale at blue ball pennsylvania barn auction. It listed all the things for sale. Complete set of pennsylvania magazine of history and biography, complete set of hustler magazines. And two letters from William Mcclay. I contacted the Manuscript Division and said the two letters you dont have are available. They said, were not interested. Then the First Federal congress has had many wonderful supporters like lindy boggs and a senator from West Virginia by the name of senator bird. He was very very interested in lindsey clay. I remember the historian of the United States senate took me over to need senator bird at the reception and senator bird was chatting up a very young lady and didnt pay any attention to me at all. Hes going on and on. Im going, why am i here . The historian of the United States senate actually kicked me. Calm down. All of a sudden senator bird, spun on his feet and looked me and cited verbatim the last paragraph of clays diary. I went and grabbed my colleagues and said, listen to this. Senator bird turned around and chatted up the young lady again and repeated the whole thing. We managed over 25 years to locate 25 of the 125 letters written to the First Federal congress and sold in the bittle sale. We started out by only wanting the letters of great white men and then only letters written to the great white men. Then, in 1990, in 1989, actually, the time of the bicentennial project, got a new colleague, chuck the jockamentonio, educated in a different world than the other editors and social history and women of all things were important. How can you understand what it was like to be a member of the First Congress if you didnt know how they lived and what their relationships were with their family, whether they were in new york or philadelphia when congress sat there or whether they were at home. A short story somewhat salacious in the end about one of those congressman. Congressman thatcher from maine, he came to Confederation Congress in 1788 and served continuously every winter until 1800, leaving his wife and his family at home on their farm in maine during the winter. Now, they had help. But nonetheless, Sarah Thatcher became, as she said, mel lan colic. We dont have the letters from Sarah Thatcher. Threw them away. The kids threw them away. He writes to her and says, let me tell you what a woman ought to do when shes depressed. I thought, oh, boy, the Little Feminist hairs on my neck started tingling. Ho said, go to the barn, saddle the horse and ride. I thought, wow, what great advice for anyone. So it was my favorite story. I always told it. I told it to a assume a rather wealthy couple big donors of George Washington university, at a benefit. The buy said, when she heard the story, well, of course, what woman wouldnt want something that big between her legs. [ laughter ] i havent told the story quite as often since. It was a wonderful wonderful professional life. I loved the letters, of course, obviously, more than the official records, but i had colleagues who really knew the official records really well and could even recognize which clerk drafted or copied the bill of rights. There were 13 copies of the bill of rights. One for the federal government and 12, one for each of the states including the two that had not ratified. Obviously sal bloom was very interested whether or not they still existed in state archives and did a survey and found out everybody had them except for New Hampshire, new york, pennsylvania, maryland, North Carolina and georgia. Since that time, the editor of the documentary issue of the ratification project found the New Hampshire copy on top of a bookcase in the archives. South carolina didnt have its copy but it did find it. The North Carolina copy came up for sale in the early part of this century. The Constitution Center in philadelphia was offered it. They asked me to verify that it was authentic, one, you could tell it was authentic, and, two, you could not tell what state it had been stolen from. It took us one minute to recognize it as, of course, to the North Carolina copy because George Washington who had nothing to do with it, sent a letter saying here are the amendments to the constitution that have been proposed by congress, please submit them to your legislature, and the clerk of the governor of North Carolina, who was Samuel Johnston at the time, later senator in the First Congress, wrote on the back, he docketed the document, both the amendments and the letter and said, this is a letter from president George Washington transmitting amendments to october, 1789, that absolutely patched. So the Constitution Center, i should say the lawyers, for the Constitution Center, the lawyers for the owners of the North Carolina copy of the bill of rights, and the lawyers for the people who were going to put up the 5 million to buy it, meeting in new york city, the lawyers for the Constitution Center said, well, we dont want to pay you 5 million for it because its obviously North Carolinas and it can be replevined, well give you 2. 5 million. Apparently, after the meeting, somebody said something to the effect, well, if youre not willing to pay 5 million for it, somebody in saudi arabia will. And a month later the Constitution Center called the owner of the document, called the attorneys for the owner of the North Carolina copy of the bill of rights said, look, we have a very patriotic supporter, benefactor from san francisco, whos willing to put up the 5 million. His position essentially is hes doing Public Service. If North Carolina replevins it, it will still be in public hands. So the owner sent the document down to philadelphia for a meeting to finalize everything. The owners employee bicycled the North Carolina copy of the bill of rights in a big art box across the Benjamin Franklin bridge from camden into central philadelphia for this meeting. My conclusion about how we find manuscripts, meeting consisted of the historian of the Constitution Center, the dotcomer and the attorney for the owner. The dotcomer said, before i give you the check for the 5 million, i would like to see the document. They passed the art box over and the dotcomer looks at it and says to the historian, is this the copy of the bill of rights that ken boling said is North Carolinas . The historian said, yes. The dotcomer said, fbi. Were confiscating this document on behalf of the state of North Carolina. Wow [ applause ] charlene can tell you a little bit more, if she like, about going down to being interviewed by the fbi in North Carolina. But i can assure you that when i go to raleigh, to the archives, they roll the red carpet out. Thank you very much. Thats great. [ applause ] so taking all these documents, i must say, theres a letter about the depressed wife, john marshall, when he was in france, wrote to his wife, who had 10 children at home in virginia, and said she couldnt she had to stop being depressed because it made him sad. [ laughter ] yeah. Anyway, you know, these documents are fabulous and they are so able to tell a story. Not everybody will sit and read 22 volumes, so we are lucky fergus took the information and wrote it into a very readable narrative the First Congress how James Madison and George Washington and a group of extraordinary men invented the government. He is a very distinguished historian and author, but again, lets hear from him rather than about him and about the book. Thanks. So, this book, the First Congress, this book couldnt have been written without the First Federal congress project. This monumental impressive material detailed confiscation ken has incredibly described, frankly its one of the best art collections i have ever worked in. My gratitude for its existence, the four members of the project, charlene you will hear from shortly, ken, helen, in the audience and chuck isnt here at the moment, my gratitude is unbounded. Asides from decades of heroic work which ken described in some detail, they were all personably invaluable resources and guides throughout my research allowed me to essentially set up shop in the offices of the project, where i did most of the writing, and had the extraordinary good fortune of having privilege, i should say, having all these materials within a few steps where i was writing. I cant say i have ever had such research and luxury with any other project i worked on. I first encountered the First Federal project 10 years ago. I wrote another book, washington the making of the Federal Capital about the federal city through the decades of the 1990s and primarily on the significance of slavery and politics behind the federal city and capitol here in d. C. Why arent we on the susquehanna river in pennsylvania as perhaps we should have been. Also, i wrote great deal on the role of slaves in the building on the citys first draft, so to speak, in that decade. Thus, i wrote a great deal about the great compromise of 1790, which resulted in a capitol located here, in a place safe from slavery and southern opponents of hamiltons financial plan, their opposition to it in order to allow the capitol to come down here. In the process of doing that research i met ken and charlene and other members and became aware how immensely rich the project material was and how significant the First Federal congress was. How wide ranging its achievements were. I think its fair to say that the First Federal congress was certainly one of the quartet of the most effective and creative congresses in American History, if not the most, the others being paren threatically, lincoln paren threatically, the Great Society congresses. But unlike those other three, the First Congress was creating the government as we know it today. It was, as cokie said, it was essentially a piece of paper. It was a piece of paper. It was sketch. For a system. It didnt make the system done by political men and politics. We all lawyers and politics, as we all do all the time how rotten professional politics and lawyers are, they were the men who created the government and amateurs couldnt have done it. At any rate, discovering this wealth of material and the vast extent of the project, prompted me to plan a larger book on the First Congress itself. Happily, my editors were very very interested in that. The book basically take the congress from its from the beginning to its conclusion, in a narrative fashion. Essentially, i think it demonstrates, one, how much it did, two, how it functioned, who made it function, and i hope, convincingly, make the case i just suggested, that it was very likely the most Productive Congress in American History. Apart from the official records of the First Congress, my goal was to bring members alive, to make this a book about people, human beings, moreorless like ourselves, and frankly, most of them were a lot like ourselves. They were extraordinary in what they achieved but they were also ordinary human beings. Who rose up to the challenge that they faced. I wanted to show them struggling with this utterly new and untried system, creating it as they went along. For this, the project immense collection of personal correspondence which ken so colorfully and vividly described was invaluable. The hundreds i dont even know what the total is. 10,000. 10,000. I was going to say thousands and i didnt want to exaggerate. Thousands. Thousands of letters personal, political, antidote, uncensored comments on fellow members, observations an life in new york city, the primitiveness of travel in the america of 1789 and 1979 to, carriages being overturned in the rocky hills of connecticut and members being shipwrecked on the coast of new jersey. One poor guy was land wrecked and shipwrecked in the same journey. He eventually made it and died later. The editing in the largest sense of this massive project is absolutely superb. For me in particular, the annotation, the translateration and annotation of these thousands of letters. Other kinds of documents. Anyone who tried to work and decipher 18th century handwriting will appreciate the untold hours and heroism that went into the transcription of these documents. The handwriting as many of you know in the 18th century, in fact in the pretypewriter era. Some day i will write a book that take esplace in the typewriter era. Im looking forward to that some day. Im currently writing about congress during the civil war and a lot of the prose is pretty brutal, the penmanship anyway. The letters give me access to the inner lives or private thinking of dozens and dozens of members of First Congress. Open to me individuals who otherwise were mostly just names or in some cases even prior to that unknown to me. Fi fisher ames of massachusetts, a brilliant man, dynamic, kind of the webster of his age in terms of his expression and soaring prose, the this georgian, james jackson, who was so loud that the windows of the center upstairs had to be closed, jacksons talking again, you know, and who may or may not have brandished a pistol on the floor at one point. George thatcher, whom ken already talked about and these marvelous letters to his wife. Robert morris of pennsylvania, one of the titans of the era, who wrote also marvelously entertaining letters to his wife in philadelphia very chatty and gushing with love. In that he was a tough customer so to speak, the warmth of his letters to his wife are quite revealing. Theodore sedgewick, whom kennals mentioned, and madison, of course. Madison, of course, hardly unknown. There were innumerable pieces of prose by madison, that enabled me to develop maybe a more fine grained rendering of the man i might otherwise have. One of them that pops to mind was a letter although, to be absolutely truth in packaging, it actually dates him just before the First Congress, in which he is corresponding with jefferson, i believe, trying to acquire a slave boy at the request of a french friends in order to dispatch him to an aristocrat in france, who has a slave black girl, so the two of them can breed. This is madison who writes with not the faintest uns about this, a man who often is credited with stronger anti slavery feelings than he actually had. Theres an immense amount of ambassadors who caught the most yey and insightful commentators on the First Congress, otto, in july of 1790, is absorbing the full force of debates, i believe at that particular point over the capitol and writes the underhanded insidious dealings of facetious and turbulent spirit are much more frequent in this republic than the most absolute monarchy. Hes talking about government in action, republican government in action. At any rate, taken together the resources were invaluable in many ways. They were especially revealing how members thought about what they were doing. Often, what they thought of each other, if i can pull this out, this is fisher aims on madison. He was quite young, harvard educated, reads like the webster of his day. Very idealistic on his arrival. He had beaten samuel adams for his congressional seat by a hair at any rate most of his colleagues felt short of the demi going and roman senators he had anticipated. I felt chagrinned at the yang listlessness of many here in regard to the great objects of the government and their state prejudices and overrefining spirit in relation to trifles. I was sorry to see the picture i had drawn was so much bigger and fairer than the life. Then, he gets on to madison. In whom he was acutely disappointed. I see in madison with his great knowledge, so many eras attending to so much mischief. On the whole, a useful respectable worthy man. Let me add without meaning to detract he is too much attached to his theorys for a politician. He adopts his maxims as he finds in books and too little regard to the actual state of things. Theyre gold mine in material like this. I can sit here all day quoting similar comments. What else . Just a couple of the things that i found, very revealing. Had the quality of discovery for me, digging into these collections. Anyway, the tremendous fears everyone felt in 1789 that the system simply wouldnt work. This was after all plan b, the articles of confederation were plan a. Plan a failed. If plan b failed there was no plan c. The anxiety was absolutely tremendous, especially at the beginning when nobody showed up. A handful, just a couple of people showed up. Madison is practically having a cow. Later he writes, and many members express Something Like this, we are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. Despite fisher ames comments, these sort of ordinary people rose to the occasion. Thats wonderful to watch. Another item, the critical fi fissures over slavery and language used by certainly southern members is virtually identical to what you will hear in 1860. The commonality of the rhetoric is relativelilatory. Perhaps it shouldnt be revelatory but it was to me at the time. The debate over the amendments, another way of putting it, the nondebate of the amendment was remarkably interesting. The debate was less over content for the most part than the point of amendments at all, whether there would be any. There was a great deal of opposition to the idea of it. I was really struck by how little debate there was over those parts of the amendments we call the bill of rights, particularly the First Amendment freedoms and Second Amendment gun rights which loom so large on todays political landscape, barely a shrug. I addressed it as best i could in here. Many of the amendments didnt interest many of the members. Many didnt want them at all. I was also really struck and this has vast ramifications how unfamiliar nearly all members were with the most basic elements of financial theory and policy. This comes up in the debate over hamiltons quite brilliant financial plan. Again and again, you find in letters a member saying Something Like this. I dont really understand what mr. Hamilton is talking about but it sounds quite intelligent. Another, im paraphrasing, pretty closely, what is this thing called finance mr. Hamilton discusses. This is america in 1789. What hamilton accomplished, as we all know because weve seen the musical, is to lay the groundwork for this nations financial structure. And yet it was revelatory, radical and brand new at the time. At any rate. I cant reiterate often enough how much how many gold mines, not just one, wasnt just this one book that many books will be written from this. Many many many. There are 23 volumes of the projects work. There will be in years to come, dozens of hundreds of books that will use this material and its organization is absolutely wonderful. So userfriendly, i cant express enough thanks to ken, charlene and the others for that. Thanks. Thank you. [ applause ] i do think whats so interesting is how you do make them come alive. You always think of the founders as these bronze and marble deities. One of the great joys of writing womens historyy the women did not see them that way. Im sort of sorry you have the word extraordinary in the title because your quotation says it takes way from them to see them as demigods. Its much harder for people to do what they did. For ordinary men and women to do what they did with the founding of the country is much harder than for a bronze statute to do. I love the fact you made them so lively. Ted has done something that is the great deal. You could write about almost any debate in this First Congress and have a book, whether its the bank, where to put the city or creating the superiority, a currency, think of all the things they did. Of course they didnt want a bill of rights, they had just gone through a horrible campaign process. And he tried to defeat him with james monroe. Here they are going through this. And among other things they dont know what to call the chief executive. There is a wonderful book written about that debate, for the controversial title controversy in 1789, it gets into the first big fight between the house and the senate, which we see constantly going on forever more. I remember when tom foley was speaker of the house and some bushy tailed freshman talked to him about the enemy and he said, who are you talking about . He said, some republican. He said, theyre not the enemy. The senate is the enemy. You really capture this on that. Talk to us about this debate. Thank you. Welcome. Im pleased to see so many people here listening so attentively and here to celebrate the great valuable work of the First Federal congress project. I wandered into the congress project over 16 years ago in 2001, shortly after i began my doctorate at George Washington university. As a student interested in political history and the first presidency, and at a time when an interest in political history was at, shall we say nicely, a wane within the profession. I was looking for likeminded souls. We can talk about how exciting and wonderful it is, but it was also a time where i really was seeking people who also were looking at the politics of the early republic. In a deep and thoughtful way. Not just a geographic way, not just of the people but issues and events of the time. When i walked into the congress which was located an easy walk from campus, but in a nondescript building on the second floor. I knock on the door, go in for the first time and here are ken and helen and chuck and charlene working away in this seconds story office building. I realized right away that they were working on extraordinary stuff, just extraordinary. It seemed as if, really, it may be important but it was undiscovered as far as i was concerned. It was basically the perfect storm for a graduate student. There was an archive that was understood utilized that had to do with the ideas and the time period that i was most interested in. The people there were friendly. Welcoming, and knew what they were talking about. I started hanging around because i was no fool. I was trying very hard, as all of you know, as a graduate student, to try to settle on a top pick. One day, over lunch, i mentioned i had just read joseph ellis founding brothers and i thought his discussion of the peoples attitude towards washington as president had just scratched the surface. I was such a pompous graduate student. I wanted so much more. Ken mentioned the project was sitting on a vast amount of information, no surprise, on a vast information of the title controversy sitting on 1789. It was the dispute between the house and the senate and later among the public over whether or not to give the prevent a regal title. He mentioned this treasure trove had barely been examined by anyone other than themselves. I went home, thought about it for 24 hours, walked in the next day, wary but nervy, and said i wanted to do it. This is what i wanted to do my doctorate on. All four of them, in their own way let me know i would have challenges ahead. There were questions about the meaning of the title controversy and motivation of those involved. It was the best decision of my professional life. I dont have all the answers and i still dont. None of us do on our topic. I hoped if i listened to the voices of the voices and primary material i could unconservator answers and a story that needed to be heard. Thats all we want, right . My experience in this project was the making of me. Like ken said no one in school taught you how to read a manuscript. The people at the congress project taught me. Charlene, helen and chuck, answered my questions, give lessons in manuscript reading and shared my excitement big and small. The high standards of the congress project rubs off in your presence. My historians efforts and understanding of Research Efforts blossomed at the time there and the insights i gained saved me from making shallow decisions and shallow analyses and to dig deeper. I also arrived at the congress project at a very useful time for me in its evolution. 22 volumes dont happen overnight. They take 50 years. All of the volumes dealing with the records of the house and senate were complete and fully in deksced. Indexed. And the first few volumes of the infamous and wonderful correspondence you volumes. The periods between march and november were in progress and there was a draft index. That period of time, from the spring to the fall of 1789, of the time of the First Congress, is also the period whereabout 95 of the title controversy occurs. The legislative phase is april and may and public phase throughout the summer into the fall. So it was still in the drafting stages, i had access to an indexed somewhat organized personal correspondence of the senators and representatives. Although still in draft, this means pages in piles all over the office. I still cant believe these wonderful people trusted me and granted me access to these great rough piles of unpublishered documents. The dispute in the senate over titles came from the detailed diary of that infamous senator William Mcclay of pennsylvania and as ken said, his diary is part of the projects documents in volume nine. And mcclay was against the title for the president and his diary reflected his highly antagonistic view towards pretentious titles. It also documents his very antagonistic view of Vice President john adams, who championed a grand title. Mcclays disdain is loud and clear and salacious in his diary. This contentious relationship between adams and mcclay and mcclays views as expressed in his diary had dominated our understanding of the president ial title controversy at the time that i was thinking about writing my book and doing my doctorate. But the diary alone presents only one voice, and a very limited one. In addition his diary wasnt even published or available until about 100 years after the First Congress in the late 19th century when it was First Published. So other contemporary accounts of the title controversy were extremely valuable. All those letters to and from people, there was a lot of other material out there but the profession really only knew about this very enjoyable fight between adams and mcclay. What i discovered at the congress project archives helped give me voice to a broad array of americans who felt deeply about their new president , the new presidency, federal power and other issues all wrapped up in whether or not to give a high title to the president. It seemed just about everyone had an opinion as it turned out, not just mcclay and adams. In fact, the public phase of the controversy which unfolded over the late spring and summer of 1789 was an inferno of different points of view from fears that anarchy would reign without a high title to absolute certain conviction that the rule they thought they had under king george would return if the president had a kingly title. It was the 18th century version of a twitter feed gone viral. And it was great stuff. Full of everything from gossip and innuendo to thoughtful discourses over president ial power and popular sovereignty. Although the legislative part of the controversy lasted only three weeks and was over in mid may 1789 the public furor didnt really begin to die down until the end of september, as congress closed its doors for the first session. In the end it became clear that a majority of americans want to no high title and they approve the final decision in the legislature, in the senate, that had nixed a grand title. A decision that was emphatically led by the house pulling the senate along. During the title controversy john adams was pilloried, both publicly and privately, not only by mcclay, but also in the press, in letters, and in private conversations. He was the butt of jokes, called his rotundity. Among his colleagues and political elites. Yes, his retundty, it always gets a bit of a smile. But it was an insult that we know about because of mcclays diary, and so it wasnt widely known at the time. It was bandied about a lot between the senators and the congressmen among the political elite. But much more broadly, he became known in the summer of 1789 as the dangerous vice. And this was based on a poem by edward church, First Published in the boston papers and later in new york and throughout the states. Huge, huge, very publicly damaging. And it way it was written, the dangerous vice, dot, dot, dot, dot, enough dashes to spell out the word president. So in this poem it linked the evils of the vice of monarchy with the Vice President , a heartbeat away from the presidency and a titles champion. Correspondence volumes of the congress project illusions to this poem abound, and its obvious it made an immense splash at the time. It made such a big splash that later when adams was president he wrote to abigail and in a letter he refers to Thomas Jefferson as his dangerous vice. So it was a title that stung for years for adams personally. The more we know about adams the more we know he is the type of guy who would take it personally and hold on to it for a long time. It was so inflammatory that there was backlash against the author, and Church Actually fled boston, where it was First Published, to georgia, just to escape the heat. And that backlash became a cautionary tale between South Carolina representative Thomas Tucker and his brother st. George tucker. Saint george was a lawyer who became professor of law at the college of william and mary. His brother was a representative in new york at the time. Saint george had written a play, a scathing farce of a play entitled up and ride. He wanted to share it widely. It attacked john adams pretentious titles, pompous congressmen who sought favor, and rode around in fancy carriages. And a dangerous fight. The dangerous vice also attacked Abigail Adams for riding around in a kaerj at one point in the poem. Apparently riding around in a carriage was really seen as part of an elite activity that didnt the image just didnt sync with where americans wanted their country to be. In any case, sir george sent a letter to his brother telling him about his farce. Although thomas wanted to read the play and said this is great, he advised his brother to be politically circumspect. He knew what was happening with the dangerous vice. He knew that church had been there had been backlash against the poem. As he wrote to his brother, were we to make every man our enemy who is not wholly in sentiment with us, we should have very little support left. If only that advice were followed more today. So gems of discovery like these waited for me in the archives of the congress project. Voices from across the emerging american nation came alive for me. As a result my book for fear of an elected king, here it is right here i think its fairly entertaining and has a meaningful examination of an important moment in our founding history. Concepts of president ial power and the extent of federal power never goes out of style. Depending on who the president is at the time up until today, those kinds of questions and where we started with our congress and with our first president become more and more relevant. Voices from across the emerging american nation came alive and as a result so did my book. Speaking of giving voice to the title controversy, i want to mention that i got this great Christmas Gift this year, my book just got made into an audio book. Its available on audible. Com. And i am sure, absolutely certain, that all of that gossip and innuendo that i had so much fun with, is one of the reasons, as well as those political discourses on popular sovereignty and the presidency, one of the reasons that Cornell University press thought that it would be, my book would be a candidate for a narration. My journey as a historian, writer and researcher benefitted from my time with the people and resources with the congress project. I can only hope that my work reflects well on their stewardship. I want to take this moment to say thanks very much. Thank you all for attending today, as well. [ applause ] cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. And is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Next, a discussion on the importance of museums, after that, historians on the First Federal congress and how the founders created a new government here in the u. S. With landmark cases returning next month for season two, cspans senior history producer mark farcus shared some background on the upcoming series. By popular demand, its returning. A coproduction between us and the national Constitution Center. As i listened to the callers this morning, theyre talking uto about race, the powers of congress, the constitution, and immigration. What weve got in season two are 12 Landmark Supreme Court cases that really take you through the history of the country and deal with all of these cases that really, really have something to do with today. Along with the national Constitution Center, we had a very, very long set of cases, and what we wanted to do was really take cases that had a Human Interest story to them, because in the end, these cases affect human beings across the country. So the cases came down to did they have an impact in their time, did they change the court, did they change the country in their time, and how relevant are they today . All of them are relevant today. The first case, mccullough versus maryland is the power of congress to write laws to overrule the state. Yik wo is a great case Anthony Kennedy has mentioned many times and thats all about immigration. Well have two very good guests on set here in washington, and we have a video journalist producer who will go out around the country to the places that help tell the story for each one of those stories. For yick wo, well go to san francisco. For the civil right cases, that was a case that overturned in 1875 law, made it unconstitutional, after the Supreme Court ruled against that, jim crow laws went into effect in this country. Frederick douglass makes an amazing speech just a week afterwards. Well take you to the speech where Frederick Douglass makes the speech. Thats a little on the set. Well have your phone calls, tweets, interact with the audience to talk about how these shows are relevant today. Be sure to watch season two of landmark cases beginning february 26th at 9 00 p. M. Eastern live on cspan, cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. And to help you better understand each case, we have a companion guide written by veteran Supreme Court journalist tony mauro. Landmark cases volume two. The book costs 8. 95 plus shipping and handling. To get your copy, go to cspan. Com landmarkcases. Next on American History tv, representatives from a variety of museums and history and Public Policy centers on the importance of these