house. to say, debate begins on the confirmation of sonia sotomayor are. final vote on the nomination could happen later in the week. live coverage of the senate begins tomorrow at 2:00 eastern on c-span2. . >> this week, our guest is bruce chadwick, author of a new book about founding father george wythe. it is called "i am murdered: george wythe, thomas jefferson and the killing that shocked a new nation." >> bruce chadwick, author of the "i am murdered, "where did you get the title and why have we not heard that much about george wythe? >> the idea of this book fell out of the sky, tumble for the air, and hit me in the head. i was in a library researching another book. >> i lost my balance and fell against a shelf and as i did, from a higher shelf, there was a hardbound copies but it hit me in the head and landed on the floor and cover opened up and the page said the murder of george wythe. knew who was but i did not know he had been murdered. one of the chapter titles was a quote where he told doctors who arrived to see him when he fell ill that he had been murdered. he had been poisoned and he was feeling very badly and he propped himself up by his fellows and stared at his doctor and said, "i am murdered." that is where i got the title from. >> are you saying if you have not lost your balance, we would not have this book? >> yes. or if something else had hit me on the head. >> there is a street in alexandria virginia with his name. i will get you to tell us about him. he is a fascinating character. >> the reason that people do not know a lot about him is because unlike most people, the only book he wrote was a legal book on his decisions when he was a judge. he never kept a diary. he never saved his letters. there was very little impression -- information about him. he served in the continental congress during the war. he could have been on the supreme court but turned down an appointment to it. almost all of his life was spent in his native virginia. virginians know a lot about him. there is a county named after him. there are some statues of him and schools are named after him, but when you cross the virginia line, he is an unknown founding father. when i get into this as a homicide investigation, i became unbelievably impressed with how great an american he was. >> to the mentor? -- who did he mentor? >> thomas jefferson. that's not bad. >> who else? >> john marshall, chief justice of the supreme court. james monroe, dozens of senators, congressmen and governors of virginia. when he later moved to richmond, henry clay. henry clay used to tell people all his life, she a priest created being mentored by -- how much he appreciated being mentored by george wythe. he tried to get played to read -- he spoke latin and greek, and he tried to get playeclay to red latin and greek. he memorized a lot of the lines. later, in politics, when play wh-- clay was abroad, he would drop in conversations, these long passages in latin and greek that he'd memorized from george wythe. it blew people away. >> george wythe was born where, live where and what year did he die? >> he was 80 years old. three-quarters of the people in this country back then died before they were 50. if you were in your 60s, you were very old. if you were 80, you were ancient. his parents owned a plantation with about 30 slaves. he flew through school and graduated from college. he was about 18. he became a lawyer. he married, and his wife died. he remarried in williamsburg. his father-in-law gave him a large house. his house still stands and people take tours of it. in williamsburg, he got involved in politics. he was a professor at william and mary and that is where he met thomas jefferson. jefferson was 16. his dad had died two years earlier. he comes to williamsburg and he is looking for instructional guidance academically. he was looking for adult men to serve as a second father. george wythe had all these proteges and some lived in his house or nearby. he said that even though these people were very smart, he had never met anybody his equal until he met thomas jefferson. the two of them were like that. all the same interests. after college, jefferson became his law clerk for five years. there were with each other all day. in jefferson got elected to the state legislature in virginia where george wythe was a member. they became extremely close. >> how did he get to know james monroe and henry clay and john marshall who was the longest serving chief justice? >> they were enrolled at william and mary as students and they saw him out -- they sought him out. he had stripped tutorials that -- strict academic tutorials that he held at his house to teach a different language, arithmetic, geography, politics, everything you could think of. they sought him out for that reason. monroe was a student for a year when the revolution broke out. he came back after the war and was a student for about a semester. he became very close to thomas jefferson. jefferson was the governor of virginia and ask monroe to come with him to the state house. monroe was reluctant to leave george wythe. wythe encouraged him to go. jefferson than mentor monroe. john marshall, at that time, his students with keep notebooks and most of the notebooks were about 30 or 35 pages. john marshall's and notebook was 240 pages of notes on things that he listened to from george wythe. in the margins of many of these pages, he would write the name of his girlfriend. he would have all these notes about philosophy in world politics and then he would write i love polly ambler. >> this is like your to seventh book? -- 27th book? >> i started out writing about baseball. >> why did you start out that way? >> my son was a fan when he was eight or nine. he was very interested in baseball. he started collecting baseball cards and sports memorabilia. i began writing a column for the new york daily news. somebody read my column and ask if we wrote a book on baseball cards. we did. that started a series of books on baseball history that i did. there are about 50 or 16 of -- 15 or 16 of them. in 1994, the baseball strike came in that was the end of baseball and that was the end of may. >> did you do a book on john madden? >> i did a young adult book on john madden. i did not get to talk to him. i talk to his friends. i was disappointed that i did by -- that i did not get to talk to him. i always liked him. >> how to get into history? -- how did you get into history? >> i got into history because there was a big labor turnover. hundreds of us were fire. i was out of work for almost a year-and-a-half. i don't suggest that to anybody. i got a job as a journalism professor at new jersey city university. my wife and i had achieved our masters and they said we had to have a doctorate in any field that i wanted and they were kind enough to cover the cost for it. i had always been fascinated by history since i was a kid. i got my doctorate in history at rutgers university. i went full time for my doctorate at the same time that i was teaching full time. people said that i must have been tired. i told them that it was great. it was the time of my life. i have fun. >>i have "i am murdered: george wythe, thomas jefferson, and the killing that shocked a new nation." here. did these come out at the same time? >> no. >> did you brought them simultaneously? >> no. "i am murdered" was brought out last winter. >> george wythe was murdered by? >> his grandnephew. >> have you know that? -- how do you know that? >> or we know that. >> his servant -- the people but lived in the house with his grandnephew and his servant were having breakfast highs in the -- on a sunday morning. the grandnephew had a cup of coffee and deliberately sat there finishing it has ever won watched him do not. -- as everyone watched him do that. then he got up and he stood in, suspiciously next to a coffee pot and pulled out a thin piece of white paper with howard crystals in it and when he thought lydia was not looking, pour it into the coffee pot and through the paper into the fire underneath and walked away. she saw him do it. she had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. there was no reason to do that. the thought nothing of it. and then everybody in the house direct the coffee. -- drank coffee. the nephew said that he had to go and then ran out the door and disappeared. no one was suspicious. about 50 minutes after drinking the coffee, they became violently ill for what was in the power that she saw. >> not the nephew, the three? let's go with the people that were at the table, lydia boardnax, explain more about her. >> she had been a slave to george wythe until about 1787 when he gave her her freedom. then she stayed to work for him as a paid employee for the rest of his life. >> how old was she at the time? >> at that time, she was in her mid-60s. she was very loyal to him and she was a very gregarious, outgoing woman. if she told you something, it was true. bucs and michael brown? >> michael brown was a 16-year- old kid. he would look for teenagers who he thought showed a lot of promise and take them in as proteges. we talked about jefferson. michael brown was the latest. michael brown was a mulato. jefferson would have michael brown live at the white house and jefferson would tutor him. george wythe lived upstairs and he was sitting in his bedroom reading the morning at use when -- the morning newspapers when the grandnephew boys in the coffee. he became violently ill. >> george sweeney? -- george wythe sweeney? >> that was the nephew. 17-years old, he was always in trouble. >> related to george wythe how? >> he was his sister's grandson. >> what did he want to kill him? >> money. the kid had fallen prey to an epidemic of gambling in richmond. richmond had become a colonial sodom and gomorrah. gambling, drinking and prostitution. wythe's house was three blocks up the street where all the casinos were. the kid had gone down every night and run up huge gambling debts and began to steal from wythe. he stole a precious global of the world and valuable books and sold in downtown to pay off his gambling debts. he forged checks under george wythe's to get hundreds of more dollars to pay off debts. he came up with a scheme to murder george wythe to give his estate from his will. under the terms of the will, he was entitled to half. >> why was that? >> when he was a little boy, his dad was the manager of george wythe's plantation. he was very friendly with his dad and the boy. he used to buy him a voice, -- tollwayys, candy, cookies, take them places. they outfitted a room just for his nephew. he was a very loving guy. when the kid got into all these problems as a teenager, george wythe offer to take him in four months at a time to straighten him out. -- four months of the time -- for months at a time. it was worth eight or $9 million and he put his nephew in for half of it. the other half went to michael brown. his nephew knew this because he read the will. he knew that george wythe died, he could pay off the rest of his gambling debts and of the highlights. >> why would he give him half as well? >> he had enormous confidence in michael brown's future. he did not have all lot of other family. he and his wife never had any children and he did not want to leave a lot to charity. no charity was near as big as they are today. he thought it was a good split for his money. he never thought at all that this would happen to him. >> back to george wythe. the declaration of independence, what did he have to do with that? >> he was a delegate to the continental congress. he said he would read it and do the final right. all of these intelligent, patriotic, well educated men would read these paragraphs and you read them today and they're very ordinary. jefferson would take their ideas and then come up with then inalienable rights, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and george wythe was part of that committee. he was one of the most radical people in congress at that time. he was 50 and far more radical than guys in their 20s. >>what did he sign a declaration? >> he signed it later. everybody did not sign the declaration on the fourth of july like we all believe. that the space at the top for the virginia delegation. they knew that george wythe had gone home so that left room for him. >> what about the constitutional convention? what's he was a delegate for -- >> he was a delegate for virginia. he did not stay there that long because his wife became very ill. she died shortly afterward. >> other things that pop in your book was that he started five beta kappa -- by the cap of -- phi beta kappa. >> it was started at the college of william and mary. john marshall was one of his first dance in it. >>what about moot court? >> he invented the new court -- the moot court. >> why? >> he thought it was a good way for people to do a lot. -- how to do law and to do politics. the new court was a setup where he was the judge. the jury and he would resolve the case as part of a classroom exercise. a very effective. he got a lot of students, just like today, there are a lot of smart people who are shy. the moot court makes them shine. they can see themselves being admired by people in need moot court. it helps them change their ways. >> of did he name it moot? >> he did. after he had success with it, they picked up the idea and every law school in the country today there is a moot court. >> how do you do that? >> i had done a number of works for source books. >> who are they? >> 8 commercial publishing house -- a public -- a commercial publishing house. i had done some history books for them. >> back to stumbling onto this by the book hitting you on the head. >> it hurt, too. >> what did you do next and when did that happen? >> this was almost two years ago. i think it was in the summertime. what hit me in the head was a couple of journal articles from the college of william and mary, about 50 pages. i read them, and at the time at rutgers, i'd teach a class called "murder in america." i've done that for 12 years. when i saw that he had been murdered, the intrigue of it was that his three doctors were three of the best physicians and the united states and they really messed up the investigation and the autopsy. knowing how hot forensics this, i thought this would be really interesting to apply this to an old murder case and then to probe the other areas of the case that were so surprising. i hoped that it would make it could have tale -- it would make a good tale. >> did you decide right there on the spot to do that? >> i did. i told my wife that it hit me in the head. she said that that was a great idea and i should pursue that. >> how long did it take them to buy your book? >> i think a couple of months and then it took nearly a year to write it. >> how did you go about writing it? >> very carefully. i went down to williamsburg to the college of william and mary to the rockefeller library and i went to the state library of virginia in richmond and the richmond historical association. then, the rutgers library and a couple of other places. i did a lot of medical research on this one because of this group -- the forensics and research. i was really surprised. i think everyone realizes that medicine in the colonies was quite primitive. on autopsies and detection of arsenic, it was pretty advanced. >> you are back there looking around for the information on this. did you find other books that have been written about this? >> no, there have been maybe two or three biographies of george wythe that had been written in the beginning of the 1970's. there were five biographies. -- find biographies. -- fine biographees. but they did not get into it. said that -- i thought that was kind of unusual until i started the investigation and realized how complicated the whole case was. >> what was your best find out that told you the most. >> when george wythe was the rest -- sweeney was arrested, she said she saw him put the dollar in the coffee. -- lydia told everyone that she saw sweeney put the poison into the coffee. everybody knew that he was guilty and that he would hang. lawyers would not touch him to defend him. they wondered who would be the pro bono lawyers that the court would appoint the would get -- some inexperienced rookie that would get stuck with the case. all of a sudden, he gets not one lawyer, but to. -- but two. one was the attorney general of the united states and the other one would soon become the trade -- attorney general of the united states and they took on the kids defense. that is where the whole case turns around. >> how did those to come together? he said they did not like each other. >> they hated each other. they were the conservative republicans and the liberal democrats today. that is how they got along. >> how did they get together to the form -- to defend george wythe sweeney? >> randolph had been forced to resign. >> he was involved in an ethics scandal and then a year after that, was involved in another scandal. his career was ruined. he was looking for a high- profile case to repay this huge debt he had incurred. >> how old was he? >> it must have been in his late fifties or early 60s. he had a lot of experience and was a good lawyer. the other lawyer was the opposite. he was in his early 30's. until he was in his 20s, he had suffered from a very bad stutter. in those days, anybody that had a starter, you were just kept in the house by your parents. there were embarrassed by you. there was no school to go to our method to insure your stutter. he cured himself and he came up with a way to continually talk and chatter to overcome his daughter. -- overcome his stutter. bucs to get the impression that he would go into a starter, you would go off and study that part. the autopsies that i want to ask you about later. how often did you want to divert? if you find other books to right after this book? >> no. every time i would turn a corner on the stroke, it would lead me to another area. like the speech problem or the autopsy problem. for me, as a writer, a special historians, this journey was a lot of fun. >> go back to michael brown, libya brought max -- olivia boardnax -- lydia brodnax. and george wythe. what happened after they consumed the coffee? >>they all got violently ill. wythe died. lydia survived it. she lost most of her sight, but she survived it. the crux of the investigation on the medical side was that most people, when they are poisoned by arsenic, die after two or three days. george wythe live for two or three weeks -- live for two or three weeks. was he really poisoned by arsenic? did he just died of old age? if that was the case, how did michael brown die? he was 16. >> george wythe dies in 18 06. what is the country like then? we are pass the constitutional convention. who is still alive that he mentored? >> a lot of the people that he mentored were still alive. john marshall was the chief justice of the supreme court. jefferson had been reelected easily as president in 18 04 and had just concluded the lewis and clark expedition monroe would go on to be the fifth president of the united states later. other proteges have become governors, senators, and congressman. clay, at that time, was in his early 20s and thinking of running for congress. >> once george wythe died, what was the reaction from all these people that he mentored. >> shock, absolute shock. they all had letters from his friends that they had been poisoned -- that he had been poisoned and there were very angry about that. in the city of richmond, people were aghast that the poisoning took place. they had revered george wythe for all the years he had lived there. he had lived there for the last 16 years and on and off a few years before that. his funeral was the largest funeral in the united states up to that time. george washington had been buried privately. thousands of people -- businesses were closed, schools were closed and thousands of people lined the streets in richmond. >> today, with the law, you could have a two or three-year wait before trial. how long was it back in? >> 2.5 months. it was the early part of september that they have the trial. everybody thought that the trial would be a few hours and then a few weeks later, they would have a hanging. things took a different turn. >> george wythe sweeney is where during this time? >> he was in jail for forging the checks against the bank. then when george wythe died, he was charged with murder. randolph and worth served as the mayor -- edmund randolph served as the mayor and went to the constitutional convention and was an aide to general washington. he was one of the youngest governors in the country when he was 33. he became the attorney general of the united states. when jefferson resigned, he became the secretary of state. he had a story career. >> was ran off one of the three that did not sign the constitutional convention document? what's he did not. there were a lot of guys that did not sign it. 19 of the 55 delegates did not sign. >> of george mason and randolph are prominently ones that were there and did not sign it. a bunch of them were not even there like george wythe. who was the lawyer on the other side? >> a fellow named philip nicholas, one of the most aggressive prosecutors in the country. in addition to that, he was a close friend of thomas jefferson. he was on the committee to elect him. he was very friendly with george wythe. if anybody wanted to have the killer executed, it was nicholas. that was one of the things people, don to bring about a burger of guilty. -- that was one of the things people counted on to bring about a guilty verdict. they were astonished when that did not happen. >> what role did these three prominent physicians play in the trial? >> dr. james mcclure, dr. samuel mccall and dr. william q. she held onto the -- they were acclaimed as doctors. they had fought off the small pox and yellow fever epidemics and were declared heroes for doing that. towns issue proclamations thanking them for doing that. two of the three had gotten into politics. one was mayor and served in city council and their religion -- and they were really connected to active politicians at that time. there were assigned to the autopsy. >> you pointed out that at the time, we only had six medical schools in the united states. >> right. >> so they all have to go -- how is the madison in the local -- how was the medicine and a local -- in the local schools compared to edinburg. >> there were just part of copies of the curriculum at the university of edinburg -- carbon copies of those curriculum to university of edinburg. if he were to be a doctor, you would study for 14 weeks. he could be an apprentice to a doctor and hope he knew what he was doing and then you could become a doctor. it 89n 1806 less than 2% of america's doctors have been trained at all. people took it upon themselves to be doctors. the governor of rhode island said that he was a doctor and he made house calls. a shoe maker comes close -- declare himself a doctor and treated people. madison was primitive. -- madiedicine was primitive. the revolutionary war, dr. benjamin rush, the country's chief surgeon told soldiers of if you get really sick, don't go to the hospital. it's the worst thing that could happen to you. >> how are you checking to make sure that you do not make a historical mistake? >> i checked a lot of different references. i read reference textbooks to double check on sources of medical books that were printed and articles. i did a lot of research ought autopsies. the history of poison. going back to the greek and latin times. poisoning was prominent in the 16th, 17th and 18th century. at that time, all of the american cities were infested with rats and there was a rat poison that everybody bought. you just went to a store and you got the poison. people would use the rat poison to kill human beings. his defense was that you don't poison in his room, so what. -- you found rat's bane in my room, so what? >> worded to get the idea to take a course -- to offer a course on "murder in america." a teacher at rutgers university in the summertime, at night, when it is scary. when i started the course, i was amazed that the murder rate in the united states to the mid-1990s had dropped dramatically. today the murder rate is 40% less than it was 40 years ago. new york city was notorious as the safest city in america crime in the u.s. is down about one-third of what it was 20 years ago. you see more and more stories about murder, plus all the news shows about murder. far more attention to it. how is that possible? why are americans so intrigued by homicide? that is what i set out to do, to prove why an adornment -- what an inordinate amount of media, this murder has become the landscape. it is not anywhere else in the world. that is why the course. >> what are we so fascinated by it? >> because the media hits us over the head with it all the time. steve mcnair, the quarterback for the tennessee titans' was just murdered. the mysterious death of michael jackson, possibly from prescription drugs. people are fascinated by homicide because the media has instructed them to do so. when you go to the movies, there are stories about the murder. this weekend, the story of john villager. -- john dillinger is opening with johnny depp. in the night, in the united states, if you include cable and commercial tv, there are over 90 hours of television devoted to a homicide. >> how many people show to your class ever summer? >> 50 or over. it is a good turnout. there are very good students. they do a good job. >> at what time in the course work to you find them to be the most interested. >> right away. right away. coming in. >> in your book, when did you decide to write this book and did you find any of the ideas for this book when you're doing research on this one? >> the only connection is that george wythe player radical on -- played a prominent role in the ratification of the the constitution. that is the only connection. all my life, i had always read that the constitution of the united states had barely passed and that was it. that was it. i would read a few lines about it and that was it. i'll ask myself how the constitution and barely passed. so i went to study that to see if there was some sort of a story and there was. it was the idea that three guys, james madison, n.j., and alexander hamilton -- john jay, and alexander hamilton together, lobbied through all the 13 states to get the constitution past and also with the federalist papers. it turned out to be a dramatic story. >> one thing that i noticed in this book was the discussion about the bill of rights. we all think that james madison was the champion of the bill of rights and you say that madison worried about everything it was lee who was one of the first to do this. you go on to say that madison did not even want the bill of rights. >> he did not. he assumed, and he told them that all these rights of the people are in the constitution in some form. you do not have to spell them out in the bill of rights and everybody said that you do. the people have to know what their rights are. then, they would say that there was nothing to worry about. george washington would probably be the first president. he would do the right thing. then, the opponents to the constitution said that is five, but what about the 10th president and the 40th president down the road. it needs to be spelled out. the more they insisted that it needed to be written down, they would defend themselves and said they did not have to do that. it was not until the last two states were madison and hamilton finally said,"when the new government takes place, our first order of business would be to write the bill of rights." it was, madison wrote it. fox which to do like the best? -- of those three men, which did you like the best? >> madison. he was a scholar and an intellectual all his life. when they started to try to ratify the bill of rights, george washington called him to mount vernon on a secret trip and is said to madison that all these things he had written and all these nice speeches that he gave were wonderful, but that is not what you have to do. you have to get down in the dirt and be a bare knuckle politician and cut deals to get this passed or you're not going to do it. madison realized that he had to do that. it turned into a really good politician. that gave madison backbone he needed to be secretary of state and president. >> one more note on madison and then i will go back to george wythe. if you talk about him wanting to run for the senate and i did not happen. i had never heard that james monroe had run against him. what about the senate side? why did he not become a center run out of the box -- a senator right out of the box? the senate was appointed by the state legislatures. he met a lot of enemies. >>how was it that monroe ran against him? >> the defeated moreau on that one. >> it is interesting, all of these characters in history were at each other's throats and the point that out in your latest book. >> they were at each other's throats. the thing that amazes most americans is that at the time of the american revolution, we had some really talented people doing this. >> did george wythe ever mentor james madison? >> no. he never did. they met when madison was in the state legislature. it would have been nice. >> where is wythe buried? >> he was buried in the church there in richmond. >> the trial starts and you have randolph and work on one side defending george sweeney. what happens? >> everybody assumes he is going to be convicted despite these two attorneys. the first order of business is the results of the autopsy. this dream team of doctors had done it. everybody was certain that there would have found also that because the woman said she saw him. the botched the autopsy. they did not do any of the things that they are supposed to do an autopsy. the did not cut out the organs and examined them. they only got as far as examining the stomach and liver and into the examination because in the stomach, they found a big buildup of bile. dr. mcclurg wrote a book on file. -- about bile. if anybody knew of aboutbile, it was him. dr. mccall was his nephew. so he either said this file in the stomach, that is what killed him, not arsenic or the three of them, who should have known better, just completely botched an autopsy that could have been conducted a lot better by college students taking anatomy 1 01. the completely messed up. the told the jury that it might have been arson, but it was -- and it might have been our senate, but it was -- get my head and arsoenic -- it might have been arsenic, but it was probably bile on michael brown and george wythe. the jurors knew these guys were top doctors. if they said it was a file, then it was wild. -- if they said it was bile, it was bile. part of the backdrop is that the defense attorney asked these calculated questions too slowly come about this verdict that it is by no. it was like he knew the results of the autopsy. he did. mcclurg always tried to ingratiate himself and had been boarded the results to virginia's governor. virginia's governor was worth's brother-in-law. he told him. that is how he was able to get all that testimony in in such a progression. but that did not matter. they have the eye witness. she saw the guy put the poison in the coffee. libya cannot testify because she is black -- lydia could not testify because she was black. there were going to call another witness and she could not testify because she was an african-american. african-american carpenters had seen him grinding up what appeared to be arson attack in a -- arsenic in a wood shed. they could not testify, there were african americans. what they said to what people in richmond was here say and not admissible. none of this evidence ever got into the trial. all that you had was that there was no evidence and no eyewitness testimony against him. everybody in richmond uses that poison. you do not have a case against him. in an hour, they acquitted him. but then, they figured that will give him on forgery charge and at least put him in jail for a couple of years. before jury trial starts the next day and worth says that he did not break any laws. there is no law that you cannot force a check on a bank. the law is that you cannot forge something against another person. banks did not come until after the revolution. in the middle of the revolution, a trio of edmund pendleton, thomas jefferson and george wythe grow the laws of virginia. -- we wrorewrote laws of virgin. they missed the 43 law because there were no banks -- they missed a forgery law because there were no banks. they did not allow african- americans to testify against white people. george wythe let his own killer go free. >> you suggested that he was a lenient towards some of these rauf crimes and sentences people would get. >> what they were. in england there were 200 offenses for which she could be executed. in america, in virginia, the narrow that down to about 12. some states, if you stole $5, you could be hanged for that. they may be laws extremely lenient in virginia and in making bill ball's lenience -- making calls -- making the laws lenient -- he thought that the laws were just too harsh. it was wythe's own idea. in england, at that time, from charles dickson and oliver twist, the criminal class had erupted in london and in america's cities, too. about 1800, there was a lot of crime in american cities. the government said they have to have harsh punishments as a deterrent. >> george wythe and his attitude about slaves? >> he was against slavery all of his life. he argued with thomas jefferson that he needed to do something to eliminate slavery. he had given his servant her freedom 20 years before he died. he freed a handful of other sleeves -- slaves from his home in williamsburg when he moved to richmond. he sold his plantation and all the slaves and it to get rid of slavery. by his early sixties, he elevated slavery. -- he had eliminated slavery. >> why did he not free the slaves before he sold the plantation? >> it is a tricky answer. it has to do with the legacy. he had to hold -- sell the whole plantation together. >> what proof was there that thomas jefferson was against slavery? >> he had written about how much you was against slavery. we pay too much attention to when he denounced the african americans. >> he said that in the book. >> yes, a lot of negative things. but he never got rid of slaves. i think jefferson lived into his 80s and he never freed the slaves, so he is a little hypocritical about that. >> by the way, george wythe sweeney was not convicted. what happened to him? >> he disappeared. everyone was aghast that he got off the hook. his family gave him a horse of some money and he disappeared. he went to tennessee and people lost track of him. a few years later, he did several years in prison for horse thievery in tennessee and people in richmond had a sense that he had at least been punished for something someone. >> by the way, is it true that lewis powell would always ask his clerks whether or not they knew george wythe? >> yes, he would ask them if they knew about george wythe and if they did not, they could not be his clerk. >> at it you find out where george wythe sweeney ended up? >> i really tried to track through law enforcement archives in tennessee. the prison system was not formed in tennessee with archives until 1826. so there was no sign of him. >> to talk about autopsies, but you have a whole section about the first high-profile person to be autopsied. who was it? >> julius caesar. that was a wild story because the men that killed him in the roman senate, they were the ones that pushed for the autopsy so that they could prove to the roman public that they had murdered caesar, that it was then, thinking that the public would think it was a great idea. the public did not. the public was appalled by this. every single one of them were killed in prison or had to flee the country. the whole assassination backfired. >> has there been a lot written about autopsies? >> vet has. i was surprised to find that in the 17 80s and 90s -- and a 17 80s and 17 '90s, there were three files and autopsy results in europe over a 20 year period of time. " i wanted you to tell the story about she was buhner. -- about sheba spooner. why did you include that? >> i was trying to drive home the point that on physical examinations, you really do not know what somebody is conditioned is, but the autopsy proves that. she was a woman that was in an arranged marriage with a much older man. her husband was in his late sixties which was considered old. she tried to get someone to kill her husband so she could benefit from his money. he would not do it. did she spotted two british soldiers who had fled from prison and talk them into doing it. the killed him, don't come down a well and then wore his clothes all over town. they got picked up at a local tavern and they all point the finger at her in the courtroom. at that time, in the united states, it was a law that if it was pregnant, she could not be executed. she said to the judge that she was pregnant. he said, we'll see. he appointed a midwife to give her an examination and the midwife says that shi'a is not -- she is not pregnant, she is making it up so she does not get han't. she said that she was pregnant. the judge appointed a second midwife and a midwife comes in and said that she was pregnant. now you have to different midwives the said she is in one as she is not. the judge said he would go along with the first midwife. you are not pregnant. she said i am. you are not. they hung her. after she has hung, the did an autopsy and she was four months pregnant. >> alice is doing? >> oilwell. >> board to start with all this -- >> how is this doing? >> well. i of lived in the same county in new jersey all my life. >> where did you get your education? >> i got a master's at [unintelligible] and a got my doctorate at rutgers. >> how many years for you with the new york daily news? 23 years. >> when you look back, was it more fun being a reporter or writing books? >> the satisfaction to me is the same with both for different reasons. i had a lot of fun in the newspaper business, but the fun was just the same as the informal i get out of writing books. -- as the joy i get out of writing books. i can tell my students that i learned something last night. >>what's your teaching both at rutgers and at new jersey city university? >> yes. i teach american history and american studies at rutgers. >> what do you tell studies about journalism that you would not have told the 25 years ago? >> i tell them to explore all the different areas of journalism because journalism is having a lot of problems to date. -- a lot of problems today. a lot of newspapers are going out of business. students have to be a lot more diverse in their writing skills of the want to stay in -- if they want to stay in journalism. >> what is your next book? >> i do not know. i don't know. i do not know what i will talk next. >> how long did it take you to write the brand new one that's out? "triumvirate." >> one year. all of my books take about a year to research and to write. >> you do not have an inkling as to what your next book will be? >> no. >> what sells better? people or the history? >> they both cell wall -- they both sell well. i don't understand why people buy what they do. i wrote a book about george washington about five years ago that sold well to. i really cannot analyze why people bought it. >> bruce chadwick, thank you very much. >> thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> for a dvd copy of this program, called1-877-662-7726. for free trade scripps, visit us at q&a.org. they are also available as c- span podcasts. >> coming next, a house hearing on fema plans to respond to emergencies. then a discussion on the future of social security. following that, the makeup of corporate governance and boards of directors. tomorrow on "washington journal washington journalanna edney looks at how members of congress will discuss health care in their district. stuart taylor examines statements on race by both sun yes sotomayor en others on race.
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