Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV In Depth 20130303

History of the people, we say this is a picture if and who doesnt want to be a patriot . Host who are the pastries . Guest those who love america even with her false, went to see her improve, to stand beside her. Im always asked, who is a patriot and its easier to give an explanation of who was there. Someone says i love my wife. Youre not wearing a wedding ring. The last two times i heard you were running down in public. But you still live your wife . Shes getting beat up in the parking lot. She probably deserves it. That is not a patriot. Host in her most recent book, a pastries history of the modern world from americas exceptional dissent to the atomic, if you write its democratic processes or selfconfidence. America remains the worlds sole exceptional nation, which is to say it aloud is a self written narrative that explains why the u. S. Should, not just good influence others. Why is america exceptional . Guest we get into this with four factors that we are to make american exceptional nation. First of, ma and the germans started, ma, but a fella sometime around 101,100. A recent surge by the british. We have a common law system and we observed from a. The british are rapidly losing their common law system through the e. U. Not because we are the only nation on earth to common law. Everybody else follows french civil law. Common law is the notion that god plans the law in the hearts of the people, that they know whats right and wrong and the other theaters as the germans did to enforce the law that everybody else i ready knows is right. Civil law stems from divine right of games, which does god plans the law and the heart of the ruler and dispenses it as he sees fit. Thats really where most of the state fire. A christian, mostly protestant, i dont think too many people would argue with that. Private Property Rights with titles and deeds. This is brought out in a boat by Hernando Desoto called the mystery of capital, in which he argues one of the missing things in much of what i used to call a third world which they have property, but they dont have written titles and deeds to the property that allowed them to the socalled leverage that to build businesses. One of the first things they say is do you have collateral for the one. You cant prove the loud. Without the ability to build wealth. And the fourth factor everyone agrees with pretty much a free market system. So those four factors if you look at this taken together, were about the only one center to have all four. Some have three common in many have to come up to where the only ones who have, Bob Christian religion, and free market. Host in your book from 2011, but what the founders say a patriot answers to americas most pressing problems. One of the questions youve asked to resist if the government responsible for protecting the land and private property . Was the answer to that question . Guest in a very limited sense of days. And this is jeffersons idea, not mine. Jefferson wanted to get as much land and to people as possible. When should belong to individuals and of course if his ideas to craft the Land Ordinance of 1785. If the Northwest Territory were going to get read of the land as fast as we possibly can because the government should be the biggest landowner in america, just as the church was in medieval europe. It should be the people. Host what about the question of money supply in the government . Guest thats interesting, you know. In 1990, 91, was invited to a meeting in europe, the only time id had was to munich and there were a lot of big brained stare. I was on a barge with five nobel Prize Winners and i wasnt one of them. As Milton Friedman and buchanan and i forget the other two. I had a debate with Milton Friedman, mr. Free market about for you competitive money and he was arguing the government should control the money supply. Iud from American History in the 1830s to 1850s at competitive money will give you a sounder, more reliable economy with fewer panic. Host religion, what the founders say . Guest founders were unanimous that the government should not establish a religion, nor should it prevent the worship of any sort. Virtually every state constitution had the words god and half of them have the words jesus christ and. Many of them up and tell the 1820s by jesus christ in the constitution. So virtually all of the founders were of a mind to you needed to make sure the government did not force people to practice a particular religion. Too, that much different than saying you couldnt have a nativity scene on public property because at the time almost all of them were engaged in some sort of Government Support and churches being pastors, for example, having Prayer Services in the u. S. Capital. Jeffersons level, which is a private level in which he says theres a separation and theres no line in the constitution. Theres a wall of separation between church and state. Jefferson meant that in terms that we dont want to see the Anglican Church established in virginia, but we dont want to prevent anglicans from worshiping virginia appeared host professor schweikert, with the mention of christ, does that say we are a christian nation and christianity as the official . Guest i dont think its official, but i think its understood. The example is virtually other founders were christians. We go to pretty good links, for example, disabuse the notion that franklin was absolutely not. He believed an interventionist god. The only founder who could reasonably call it jefferson, certainly George Washington professing christian. He took oaths, including the words jesus christ once a month. They all came from a notion and a structured Christian Country and structured the government in light of that assumption. When the Federal Reserve act was in 1913, not one mention of the Gold Standard. And yet every single person, all the bankers who suggested this is operating under the Gold Standard. Its the same way with the founders. Host one more question about what would the founders say. You make the point that all the founders are what you call small government banned. What tv. Guest by that, they were all greatly concerned that government come to either through its executive branch in terms of the jeffersonian or in terms of the legislative ranch, the hamiltonian scum that were concerned that government could and would be abusive if given half the chance. To be built into the system every conceivable check and balance you possibly could to keep government from acting erratically and rapidly. They wanted to ask slowly with great deliberation and make it very difficult to do things. Host futurist world of the modern world. 1898 to 1945 just came out last year. You talk about one of the themes is progressive versus constitutionalism, that site. What do you mean by that . Where do we stand today . Guest this originated in the 1890s. The populist party, i hate using terms for an older era, but more of a leftist party, mostly rural, democratic, poorer. They died out after the election of mckinley. In their place came a republican backed waiting call to progressives. Teddy wristlet is the most famous, but there were a number of progressives in the progressives believed man could be reformed, that if you simply put man through enough hoops that he could be perfected. By the way, theyre the ones to change the penal system from one that punishes and incarcerates to one that reforms. I just miss him a comfortable they be the Charles Manson sitting next to them because he made a lot more license plates. They reform everything about the Financial System with the income tax and their goalie is nothing short of perfect man in this world. The constitutionalists right of the founders multicity dont trust men. Even good men, we dont trust the man. We want to make sure theres so many checks and balances that its difficult for people to enact laws on other people. Even out of the goodness of their heart, which are usually for the worse legislation comes from. Host where do you teach . Guest the university of dayton. Dayton has been very, very good to me. Ive been supported. Its a great place to work. Thisll be 27 years. Host how do you get into the history of teaching . Guest i grew up in arizona, a great town called chandler, only 12 dozen people. Today its a quarter of a million. All through high school and college i played drums in rock n roll bands and as soon as i got out, i got on the road with iraq beyond him for the next four or five years i paid for groups. Host what was the name of your band . Desk of that band was called rampage. But even used her music in the film rock n roll. The road is very hard. Especially if youre not springsteen without these rarities and dry setting stuff up and flying in planes. We rent vans, trucks, is very difficult. So i still wanted to play rock music at night, but i wanted a daytime gig that if i didnt work that we could have some money. I got teaching with the ec. I thought it would be an easy cake, so i wanted to Teach High School and i get back to arizona i dont have a teaching certificate. To get a certificate and 80 u. S. History class. Id gone through four years. No not then Arizona State. But i had a ba in Political Science can never took a single u. S. History course. So i had to go back during the summer in order to get this u. S. History course. At a professor professor named Robert Wallenberg who runs a think tank now in jerusalem and in six weeks he was so inspirational and he challenged the assumption is that within a fixed it. I said i want to be a professor and slowly accredited music, paymasters at Arizona State and they kicked me out because they said we cant get you a good job. Ended up at university of california Santa Barbara with Elliot Brownlee and got a phd and i went to one job before dayton. I taught in wisconsin and then i went to dayton. Host are you a conservative . Guest definitely. Host have you always been . Guest i was the only member of the band who didnt drink. Eyeballs they never did drugs, but i never did drugs the way they do drugs. The only time ive been drunk in my life, i tell the story to my students. We ran mississippi. The first big hurricane they took very seriously were boarding everything. So we were all watching monday night football with the readers and the dolphins. They are always writing me trying to get me to drink or do whatever. Come on, just drink it. It will hurt you. So they are back there spiking the wind with vodka and pretty soon the game seems to be going on forever. Pilatus corder football. Its that im getting drunk, can you get me some coffee . Of course their stake in the coffee with vodka, too. I decided that it a conservative. Host what does it mean to be conservative historian . Guest it means you are a historian who has taken her to bomb the world. One of the fallacies look up from the German School is you cannot truly object of history. You want to have accurate history, but that doesnt necessarily have to be object of history. Every selection of a fat, the mere fact that i choose to report this fact over that fact is a sofa by courtesy you cannot be free of bias. Her selection effect will determine your bias. So what you have to do instead is aimed for accuracy and truth. Does this tell the true story, not just factual story, but does that tell the story of what was happening in these events . That requires that historian put himself or herself in the era of the time. We have a lot of historians today who write train to criticize events in the pads would justify events based on their current political beliefs. You have to look at things in the context of what the people were seen at the time. It is most brought out by the filmlike and doing very well, the criticisms of lincoln. Lincoln was a racist. For his day, lincoln was phenomenally danced in terms of race relations. By todays standards accorsi was a racist. Every was back then. Compared to everybody else, lincoln was way ahead of the curve. Host 2004, teacher of history from columbus great discovery to the war on terror came out. Christopher columbus, a lot of writing that he wasnt the first. Just go right. We have a sidebar, almost a twopage sidebar and i think theres a tremendous amount of scholarship that come out is in fact a lot of the disease is attributed to columbus and the europeans existed in the americas before the spaniards ever got here. Does he introduce practices like slavery . Not really. Indians were engaged in slavery. Aztecs were enslaving thousands and cutting their heart though. So all in all, columbus arrival was a wonderful thing for all of humanity. Host what did you bring . Guest columbus brings the european context, the ideas of human life has value, the idea there is something called a polis with the chin people operate. Yes he may have a king, but even within the standards of the day, could be challenged within the Catholic Church and the Civil Society of to appoint. Once again, nothing like what modern democracies fire. But in the context of the time, is a pretty radical worldview, where seven Lake Montezuma is not a god and you could defy his work. Host Larry Schweikart, how many books have you written, co. Written, edited. Guest i cant tell you. Host over 20 . Guest i think so. Host Larry Schweikart is our guest on in depth this month. If youd like to participate on cspan 2, 202 5853880 in eastern and central time zones to go to 3551. You can also contact us via social media. You can make a comment on her face but page, facebook. Com booktv. Then each week. booktv and finally sent an email. Booktv cspan that work. Here are eight of Larry Schweikarts book. Columbus is great discovery to the war on terror in 2004. Americas victories, where the u. S. Wins wars and will win the war and terror, 2006. 48 liberal lies about American History probably learned in school came out in 2008. Seven event that make America America and proof that the Founding Fathers were right all along. America much but never came out in 2010 as well. But what the founders say . Featured answers to americas most pressing problems. 2011, teachers history reader essential document for every american also came out in 2011. In his most recent, capacious history of the modern world from americas exceptional ascent to the atomic bombs 1898 to make 1945. Is there a second volume . Guest yes, should be december. 1945 to 2012. Host seven event that made America America. Why do you include Martin Van Buren . Guest this is actually the most important event in the seven and the one least known. Martin van buren was antislaves. When the missouri compromise was agreed to, Thomas Jefferson said it will come like a fire bell of the night. Van buren had the same reaction. This is going to cause a civil war. His than jeffersons vision are not was at the territories or rip it up, more and more will be free. Asmara territories become free states, congress will get a majority of free throws. When Congress Gets a majority of free votes, sooner or later it will vote to end slavery. So when that happens to get a civil war. See that on the horizon from the van buren sought to make it and run in which he was shortcircuit all discussion about slavery and congress have in the political arena. The way he sought to do this has created a new political party. We worry one party system. From about 18162 mike 1824 called the democratic republicans. Theres a lot of people that think we are still a oneparty system. Van buren creates a new party. To be a member of his party, all you have to do is essentially vow not to talk about slavery, not to bring it up in legislature, legislation, not to speak about it on the stump. You wont introduce any legislation about it. Youre just going to shut up about slavery. What would he have to offer someone who is also antislaves who sees as he does that receipts will eventually be in the maturity. What can he offer them . Has the answer is jobs, patronage. He creates something called the spoils system where politicians promised supporters jobs in return for them getting out the vote. A great film version of this if you saw gangs of new york, where they go through and heard people to vote. Van buren system depended on to other things. It depended the states be sovereign, that the states have a great deal of power and the federal government remains weak and it also depended on having a person in the white house if he was in a southerner and van buren should not think youre going to get a southerner in the weekend. Van buren wanted somebody who would be sympathetic to the slave state concerns. The phrase was in northern minnesota in principle. He succeeds all the way up to 1860. But in keeping the stays strong in the the federal government week, his plan works against itself because each time there is an election, politicians are giving away jobs. If youre going to run against me as the weeks come in, theyve got to give away more jobs than i give away. Pretty soon cover but starts to grow with every election, become speaker of taker. States start to get weaker of the federal figure. Before you know it 1860 they havent paid much attention since 1828. Its very big and powerful and has a lot of influence and all of a sudden the wrong guy gets in the white house. Abraham lincoln, in northern end of the other principal who so slavery is wrong. Well keep it from moving into the territory and that is when the fight starts. Host Larry Schweikart, and van buren developed a system . He tries it out in new york state first with the bobtail parity and then he creates a democrat party, who its original Founding Mission was to protect slavery. Host Dwight Eisenhowers heart attack is another of your seven event. Guest i know. I kazin heart attack while playing golf and coincides with the movement to have a boat crash on Heart Disease by the American Heart Association and the use heart attacks has the opportunity to press for more concerned about Heart Disease. There was that more Heart Disease. What was happening was we had our testing methods, so we were discovering more Heart Disease. It was like breast cancer. We had better tested methods of fighting breast cancer, which looks like an increase in the number of cases. So this gets taken over by a nutritionist at the university of minnesota need esops at esops agenda is to reduce fat in the diet because he sees a connection between Heart Disease, cholesterol. He manages to pack the appropriate committees of his people and they began a campaign to get americans to eat less fat and less me, to eat more carbohydrates. Long story short the 1977, the committee is heavily lobbied and they put up the new food guidelines, 40 more cards, 40 less fat says pretty clearly that the obesity epidemic in america. Host going to the said title of your book, improve the Founding Fathers were right all along, how does that tie in . Guest i have a chapter in what would the founders say that the government getting involved in our diet. They would be a port at mayor bloomberg. Washington would go up there and whack him with his cane or something. Its not the federal governments role to tell people what to eat or drink. As we know, the founders were pretty good drinkers that weve gotten into some some of their diets and looked at what they were served at mayor. Very heavy on meat. Host americas rock music. That would show some video as you talk about why americas rock music is so important in our history. Guest rock n roll, and i include country and jazz, publishers say rock n roll. Its essentially American Music form. American rock music starts together as a band, ends together as a band, but what does almost every sans have in the middle . Is so low. This is a tremendous picture of america. We work together, but we never allow the individual to be subordinated into the group in socialist societies. I think that message comes out in the music itself, even when you dont know the lyrics. Ill give you two studies. One said 40 of kids dont know what any of the lyrics i and another study said that only about 30 , 40 heard or understood any of the lyrics. And yet they internalize this message that rock n roll is freedom. So one thing led to another. I ended up with producer mark leave, documentary producer in hollywood and we did a film on pbs right now prepared in november. Its going on right there. When i interviewed people from behind the iron curtain, they all spoke to a freedom rock n roll brat. It was inspirational. We see freedom when we hear rock n roll music. Host what are we watching here . Rock in the wall. Guest into snippets from the whole movie. Breaking down the walls, why arent the soviets sending in the tanks . Part is not only german bus but russia has been influenced. I interviewed bill for the book, he is not in the movie. I asked him about his experience when he went to moscow. The First American to play moscow since van cliburn in 1964, and he said, the guards were all armed with tranquilizer darts and they were told to trank the kids if they got too crazy. I said were you told anything you could or couldnt say . He says no, they told me, whatever you dont, dont encourage the kids to charge the stage. I said so the first thing you did was that. He said, told hem to come on down. The guards were throwing their hats at me. Host 48 liberal lies about American History. How did you organize these lies . Guest theyre pretty much juggled politically and cultural. We thought keeping them together might invite people to only read a little bit of the book. Host so you organize them by priority, your person priority . Guest not at all. Just in terms of what we thought would interest readers. The way i got them was i looked at 20 of the top u. S. History college textbooks. And i did include books like howard people0s history bought its used as a textbook, as is baker, and sometimes theyre used together, and i think is terrific. Thats wonderful. So, i found these were common themes on many of this subjects. And so i started kind of making a compilation of what would all these books say about these Different Things . And thats where he get them. Host lets go through some of them and let you comment on the ones you want. Number one, the intent of the u. S. To be isolationist, the number two, the mexicanspanish american war were empireol efforts drummed up be corporate interests. Number three, fdr knew in advance about the japanese attack on pearl harbor. Harry truman ordered the bombing of japan to intimidate the soviets. Jfk was killed by lbjs secret team to keep it from getting out of vietnam. Six, nixon expanded the vietnam war. Seven, the Peace Movement activists were not dupes of the kgb. Eight, reagan knew star wars wouldnt work but want to provoke a war with the ussr. Nine, gorbachev was responsible for end the colored war. We cant get through all of these. Read me the first one about the founders. Host the first one was the first president intended for the u. S. To be isolated. Guest one of the things i wanted to do the publisher didnt want it, i wanted to call it 48 liberal lies. You see the one on fdr, theres some falsies on both sides of the political spectrum. George washington was not a an isolationist. The famous speech in which he talked about no entangled alliances, includes the term 20 years, and includes the term several times, its written by hamilton. Hamilton believed that and in this 20year phrase is interesting. First of all lets remember, we took an alliance with france to win our revolution. We had an armed neutrality. Washington had negotiated successfully for alliances with the indians insofar as they were nonaggression pacts. You dont shoot at you, dont shoot at us0. Washington was fan of alliances. His concern was that the u. S. Did not have a navy, that the u. S. Did not have a Standing Army, we would be sucked into some sort of european war that might come over here on our shores and not be able to conduct it. And so he uses this term for 20 years and then says something along the lines as, at which time we will be free to act with immunity. In other words, after we established of us, an economy, a navy, an army, then we can say the people, bug off, we dont want to be part of your or not going to follow your rules or whatever. But he thought, until we got to that point, we were going to have to avoid any kind of alliances at all because it might suck us into something. Host why 48 . Guest we originally had 50, and then some overlapped. And then i began to think when you go on amazon, you see seven something, 50 something i need something where other books who does 48 of anything, right . But let me get back to roosevelt. This is another one that i think it starts on the list. That the amazing thing. Starts with charlesed into Charles Hansen but in recent times its gravitated to the right, and the idea was that roosevelt knew in advance about pearl harbor, he allows it to occur so we will get sucked into war. The fact is almost all the recent collars scholars, specially a man by jacobson, they have shown that, a. , various transmissions didnt get to us. B. , they werent translated or decrypted in any time that gave roosevelt any warning. And c. , they werent brought to his attention. We find for example that 80 of the crypts from 1941 did no go through the final phase where they were handed over as intelligence until 1944. So, its things like that. I have my axes to grind with roosevelt but pearl harbor is not one of them. Host if you cant get through on the fine lines because their busy, you can on tact Larry Schweikart, go to our facebook page, make a comment there. Youll see professor schweikarts posting up there. So go ahead and make your comment there and well look at those as well. Or send us a tweet host lets start with the female from sturgess, south dakota. Mr. Schweikart, i enjoyed two of your latest books. In your research for these books, what one of them surprised you as underappreciated or underreported in the course of American History . Guest Grover Cleveland doesnt get any credit. I call him the last good democrat. He was very constitutional in terms of his approach to the office. And he is famous for vetoing a seed corn bill. There was a drought in texas, and the texas farmers wanted government assistance, a la General Motors, to keep from going under and they wanted the government to provide them the seed corn. Congress, always being willing to spend taxpayer money, passed the bill. Cleveland issues a veto message and says, i can find nowhere in the constitution that empowers me to take taxpayer money from one group and give it to another group. He says i do encourage the members of congress who want to be so generous to take up a collection among themselves and give it to the farmers. Of course they didnt do that. Host david in homes town, florida. Caller good afternoon, david. Excuse me, peter. Become tv book tv. As a conservative, i just would like mr. Schweikart that in america, christianity was not perverted the way it was in to bring about wars, that american christianity is of a different variety than european christianity, and he should always mention this when he talks about conservatism, and other than that, keep punching, mr. Schweikart. Host david, as you call it, a nonchristian conservative, what are your thoughts about christian influence in the u. S. . Caller in the context of what i just said, for the most part christians influence the United States has been terrific. Terrific for the American People generally, terrific for catholics and protestantses, and yet terrific for jews. This is the golden era for jewish people because the american variety of christianity that was mottled on president washington and his and it was a matter of no and mr. Schweikart should talk about this when he talks about christianity in america. Host thank you, david. Guest thats very astute. He nailed it. Thats exactly right. American christianity was different. There was of course, concern about catholicism only because american president president extents were concerned they might take matching orders from rome. And one of the forgotten intelligence of history were the intolerable acts, rite after the boston tea party, one of them was going to take over juris hand over jurisdictional control of british north america to quebec, and in the eyes of the colonists, this is akin to placing america under catholic rule and one of the reasons why americans so quickly united behind the effort, the revolutionary effort. Let me also bring up your caller is exactly right. Tom payne is one of our most famous athiests and yet was certainly roundly accepted among the founders. Host bill in new hampshire, good afternoon. Caller hi, peter. Hi, dr. Schweikart. [inaudible] host bill, what is your interest in the Rosetta Stone . Caller pardon me . Host whats your interest in the Rosetta Stone . Caller i just to me its my argument, its [inaudible] host any comment . Guest i dont get into the Rosetta Stone very much and this is certainly pretty much before once in my work on europe. So im going to defray that question. Host john in traverse city, michigan. Youre on book tv on cspan2. Caller hello. Good afternoon. I want to make the point about the historians should be objective, i. E. , if you cant be, or dr. Schweikart mentioned, once you choose to report a fact, then having done so, to step into a realm in which you may be operating from an agenda standpoint, and i want to express to the country, of course, that therefore, could be called [inaudible] therefore, theyre cant be no such thing as a truly objective news organization. And i believe relatively sound [inaudible] guest he is exactly right. Two things. First of all,ll give you a caveat. Apparently we have a new book coming out from roman in littlefield, a journalistic history of america with jim of virginia tech, and we make that exact point. The news media was founded by Martin Van Buren. Mart vein van buren creates the first newspaper to support the democrat party. They only published democrat prop began dark only advanced democrat interests. The wig do the same thing. Back then they would tell you what theyre agenda was. It was called the richmond whig. They stated on the masthead what you were buying. Nobody pretended to be objective because their goal was to advance a political agenda. I think we are rapidly getting back to that point. We had about 100 years of seemingly objectivism with the news but were rapidly getting back to a very partisan news. I dont think thats bad. I think that eventually, giving the almost all the news sources owned and operated by some wing of one of the major parties. Host American History. The u. S. Will win the war on terror, came out in 2006, and in that book you write americans win wars because we tolerate and accept them as a fact of life and antimilitary segment of society constant criticism, pushes our armed forces to even greater economy with our soldiers lives and to even greater efficiency of destroying our enemies, and this email from david in new york city, the reasons given as to why nations start wars are usually just rationalization, most impressive in the benefit of the citizens who have control and will gabe from will gain from it. Guest strongly disagree. Of you look at, for example, the American Revolution, there have been a number of economic studies the economists are the only ones to quantify this. The economists have done a number of studies and looked at the impact of the navigation act on the American Revolution. Peter mcfarland is just one. He found that the cost of the navigation act on the average colonist was about between 20 and 40cents a year. Will you go to war over 40cents . No. The entire net impact of the navigation act was about 1 . Will you go to war over 1 of your gnp . No. And so the conclusion has to be that the revolution was about something much greater. It was about the rights of englishmen, and where these laws were not necessarily the taxes but the ability of parliament to impose taxes without even consulting those who were paying the tax. No taxation without representation. Let me get back and address your point about the idea that americans value life and that Peace Movements have found that trying to emphasize to the American Public what we are doing to another country, arent we destroying look at all these civilians being killed. Tragic as that is, that does not work on the American Public. The only thing that moves the public to oppose war are american deaths. And the Peace Movement has certainly learned that lesson. Early on, in world war i, the te American Army figured that out, too. That the taxpayers and the public citizens are not going to tolerate large numbers of casualties, and this was an official paper published by the u. S. Army called, the casualty issue, and hey said we have to train better, we have to find more effective ways so we take fewer casualties, and one of the if you want to you the term american way of war we just blow the hell out of something before we ever send in one soldier, and dday is a classic example. Huge loss of life but nevertheless 600 ships and 11,000 planes pummeled the beach before any american ever set foot on it. Host malcolm, columbus, ohio, good afternoon. Caller yes, i happen to teach down the road from your guest. First of all, the american version of christianity. [inaudible] terrorized ancestors and one of the most brutal forms of christianity. Second of all, lincoln was enlightened, not compared to stevens, not compared to hairot Beecher Stowe and many other white abolitionists of lincolns day. In lincolns day called the [inaudible] not tell the audience there are many white radicals, abolitionists who are far more liberal toward africanamericans thank you. Malcolm, have you soon the movie lincoln, and if so, what did you think . Caller i did see it and i leaves out the role of Fred Douglass in an Africanamerican Community and establishing i thought it was a good film. So people in euro centric film that distorts history but i think its a wonderful film. I think he this greatest president this country ever produced inlight of the most evil system of human oppression the world had seen, american slavery. Guest im glad he mentioned Frederick Douglass but none other than frederick dug laws said of lincoln he was extremely enlightened, and lincoln talked slow but he acted fast and decisively, and Frederick Douglass is a phenomenal admirer of lincoln. Those guys, despite the fact their views were maybe in the callers more advanced, the fact was they were far too radical for the time to accomplish anything. Nobody is really listening to stevens but everybody listened to lincoln. Host what about his point about american christianity and slavery . Guest i didnt really hear all that. Host that american christianity perpetuated slavery, particularly in the south. Guest thats true to an extent. Certainly christian teachings in the south changed beginning around 1798, 1800. They changed from a Necessary Evil kind of approach to the positive good kind of approach, and you see ministers coming up with the wildest kind of explanations of the mark of cain and the curse. I did some ghostwriting for a very influential africanamerican minister, and he did a series on race simple raisism racism in america and we talked about the biblical precepts dont support slavery in the concept it was used in america in any way, shape or form. Yes, jews had slavery rut under very strict conditions, had to be voluntary after seven years if you said i want to attach myself to you, you could but there was no racial or hereditary slavery in the jewish system and the system that originally came into christianity. So, the idea that these guys distort the biblical record is horrendous. This would have been fixed if you had free access of information in the south. But of course all abolitionist tracks were shut down by southern postmasters. You couldnt sell Uncle Toms Cabin in the south. Ministers who preached against slavery war tarred and feathered and driven out by government. So heres a case where you have government oppression, government restriction of the free market. Die think slavery would have ended if there had been a truly free market . No, because slaves were capital, and lincolns mistake in thinking he could buy emancipated slave, had a fundamental flaw and it was with each additional slave you purchase to liberate, the value of the next slave goes up, and so you would eventually get to the point where you couldnt afford to buy even the u. S. Could not afford to buy anymore slaves to rib rate. Host in your become, seven event that separate america you write about the dred scott decision. The decision in 1857 represented a unique moment in which the Supreme Court managed to simultaneously abuse the constitution, rule against human rights, severely damage the economy, and help start a war, all in one fell swoop. Guest yeah. That was quite a trick. Host explain. Guest well, a southerner, former slaveholder, was determined to interpret dred scotts appeal appeal by the way at that time scott was free to interpret scotts appeal not only in such a way as to say scott cant bring a case, he is a slave, but to make a grander ruling on all of american slave legislation, including in the northwest ordinance, which prohibited slavery in the american northwest. Including the missouri compromise, which said all territory before the 3630 line had to be free. This is why van buren got to agitated because all of the states, including south dakota, from which we just had a caller, would be free states and wouldnt allow slavery. So he looked to overturn that and he does, and he persuades two of them, northern justices to go along so it looks like a bipartisan court. A case for bipartisanship and he starts a panic, and this part is the only part i claim any kind of original rights rights to prr a professor and i did a paper in 1991 on the panic of 1857. I think we showed convincingly, at least so far, in the 20 years since it was written nobody has challenged itself the dred scott decision opened up the territories to bleeding kansas. It was going to make the dakotas and wyoming, all those territories look like kansas, with the massacre, bloodshed and all the rest, and as a result, what dred scott did was it caused the railroads running only east and west to just collapse. En in of the ones running north and south. That in turn caused the banks in new york city to fail. Provokes the panic. Host youre watching book tv on cspan2. This is our in department program. Once a among we feature an author, this month, Larry Schweikart. Robert in livingston, montana, good afternoon to you. Caller good morning. [inaudible] guest 1972. Caller in all the travels, university write, et cetera, et cetera, have you found any university that teaches two courses on the Federal Reserve and had you read secrets of the Federal Reserve with the creature of jet and montana, chapter 21 20 and 21 . Guest i have not read that. I do know the essence of that book. I have not found that again, i do not teach an Economics Department but ive not found any history departments that teach about the Federal Reserve. Now, as a conservative, im a dissenter in terms of demonizing the fed. I dont think the fed does a very good job, but on the other hand i dont believe in conspiracies. The fact is eugene white has a terrific book called regulation reform of American Banking and traces the fact that the Federal Reserve was the result of more than 30 years of efforts by local small, montana, arizona, nebraska, new york, South Carolina, unit bankers who were seeking to reform the Banking System to minimize the power of new york city and thought they had done that with the feds by splitting into it 12 districts of which new york is only one and missouri has two. Providing a lender of last resort so it would not be the new york fed or j. P. Morgan, and so i understand the concerns of the feds. My this is what i told professor friedman when we debated on the barge going down the danube mitchell view is the competition saw a soft spot and if you allow free and unlimited, private notes yes, allow people to print their own money, you will soon minimize the power of the fed because youll have groups and institutions whose money will be more valuable than dollars and the fed will have to compete with them. Host and last summer, book tv interviewed the author of the free system. If you want to watch that go to the web site, booktv. Org, up in the upper lefthand corner youll see a search section. Type in the name and you can watch it. R. J. In brooklyn, new york, youre on book tv with Larry Schweikart. R. J. , you with us . Caller hello . Yes. Professor schweikart . Guest yes. Caller i have a brief question regarding the [inaudible] [inaudible] caller the problem of the conservative movement is that the people [inaudible] guest okay, well, first of all, i grew up in arizona with tons of conservative hispanics. It wasnt odd to have conservative hispanics. What has happened in the meantime is that many groups have become wards of the state, as it were. This first happened with africanamericans, largely in the Great Society. People wanted to blame fdr, but the shift occurred in the Great Society with the single program, afdc, that we dont need to get into. In terms of the term itself, conservatism, im a political the muslims were the greatest slaveholding area in the world at the time. Certainly the vast majority of slaves did not come to america but went to south america and to cuba and the west indies. So, again, when you apply the present glasses to the past youre asking for trouble. But as political conservativeswhat the founders wanted to do is to maintain the rights of englishmen as outoutlined and keep the state small so individuals would have the greatest opportunity and freedom to purr sure their dream. Host Larry Schweikart is our guest. Heres a summary of his books americas victory, why the u. S. Wins wars and will win the war on terror, came out in 2006. 48 liberal lies about the American History. Came out in 2008. Seven events that made America America, 2010. American entrepreneur, also came out in 2010. What would the founders say, 2011. The patriots history reader, essential documents. 2011. And the most recent, patriots history of the modern world from americas exceptional in the patriot history reader. You write about this become that we hope this book provides anyone interested in our history a collection of some of the Central Documents placed into context that will aid them in understanding the time, place, and above all, the is in so cal setting. Does this book include the typical documents, the constitution, the declaration of independence, et cetera . Guest no. And we deliberately left those out. We figured that most people, most home schoolers are always going to have that. We wanted to include representative documents that arent always found. Obamas speech. Host why was that included . Guest because i think it was quite revealing about how barack obama sees the world, how he sees americas role in the world and how he sees is lamb. Islam. There were a number of other documents that were quite representative of the time. A mellon book on taxation, for example, is incredibly appropriate because Andrew Mellon came in, in 1920 never heard of the Great Depression in 1920. But we had 22 unemployment. Very high in some parts. Most unemployment was reaching on average well over 15 . As veterans came back from the war, and we were already producing at 100 , here come all the veterans. And of course, mellon does a study of tax revenue, and he says, you know, looks like tax revenues have been declining a little bit. Why are tax revenues declining in and in the study, he found that tax rates had gone up steadily, and yet everytime the tax rate went up more, the revenues declined a little bit more from that group. And he concluded that, you know, it might be better to actually lower tax rates and the government would get more money. Its an early version of the last theres two points on the curve at which the government will get no money and 100 . Nobody is going to give 100 of their check so mellon makes an argument for lowering taxes and then we get down to an astounding 1. 6 unemployment. Now, a president today who could get 1. 6 unemployment, they just blew up mt. Rushmore and just put him up there. He would be treated with that kind of appropriate level of achievement, and yet somehow the roaring 20s were demonized as this period that leads up to the Great Depression. Host Larry Schweikart, you included president obamas speech, did you think about putting in his race speech in philadelphia in 08 . Guest sure. We wanted to use his hope and change speech and could not get rights to it. This one was a Public Document so we were able to get it. Host hope and change not public . Guest as far as i know. Thats what i was told. Could be wrong. That was the first win we asked to get. We wanted to use a couple of other speeches, as i recall, which didnt all the time you cant get the writes to everything you want to use. But we have the agenda 21, which i dont think youre going to find in a lot of readers, which americans really ought to be aware of. Host which is . Guest the u. N. s agenda for Climate Change and all these other social changes theyre going to institute through central and urban growth, economic growth, and elements of the u. S. Government are unfortunately already adopting elements of agenda 21. Im not a cop spiers theorist, i dont think this is being done under the radar. Host john, in syracuse new york, go ahead with your question or comments. Caller yes, how you doing, mr. Schweikart. First i want you to comment on your book about that america will win the war against terrorism, and what happens back when you with afghanistan, they lost the war, because afghanistan did not have a [inaudible] therefore, [inaudible] in vietnam was similar to afghanistan, and the United States had also, i heard somewhere that washington was the eighth governor and not the first. Please comment. Thank you. Host why dont you start with the washington and then guest ive never heard that one before. Maybe ill google and it see what comes up. I argue vietnam is a very poor example how to win a guerrilla war. I think a better example of one we fought and won was the filipino incentury expression the moral wars of 1911. Interesting, in americas victories i point out that the percent of land forces fighting in the philippines, as the share of our total land army, that is, army and marines was very close to the percent of troops we had fighting in iraq and afghanistan in 2001 through 2010 as a percent of our total lan forces, and we won that. It does take time. One study ive seen of ten communist insurgencies in the late 20th century show that the government that would be the antiguerrilla forces won seven of the ten. Vietnam is obviously one we last. But ma lay ya is one the government won. The average length of time it takes to win an insurgency war is six years. Host where in your view do we stand on the war on terror . Guest i think that we have made some Great Strides in some ways. We have not experienced another major attack on americas homeland. I think al qaeda is pretty much defanged, and was before we killed osama bin laden. I think we had taken out the whole deck of cards and three or four others. In americas victories, for example i dont think that bush intended this but what happened was by putting troops in iraq we suck in certainly all of al qaeda from around the world, and so i did a study its in the conclusion of the revised edition only of americas victories. What i found were iraqi statistics and they separated out iraqis, others. Well, our soldiers had their own handling procedures. So we were not the other. These were clearly not iraqi soldiers. So, who are the other . If you have civilians, who remember the others who were being killed . They would be terrorists. And so i evaluated, add up all those and found that from 2001 to mid2006, we had killed conservatively about 40,000 terrorists. Most of them in iraq. Most of them al qaeda. We had captured by official statistics over 25,000. Using traditional military wounded to kill ratios, i cut it in half. They dont have very good medical care. I said four to one. You can figure in another 100 to 150,000 wounded and typical desertion rate shows of 10 . So from 2001 to 2006, the captured, killed, and wounded, took off the battlefield, almost a quarter of a million terrorists or insurgents. Nobody survives those kinds of losses the persian empire gave up trying to conquer greece when it lost 30,000 men. So, i think that we badly damaged al qaeda and the world terrorist network. Its also a mistake to say you cant win a war against an ideology. We clearly won a war against fascism, and a war against communism. So you can defeat guerrilla groups and you can defeat ideology. It does appear some of the northwest afghanistan is unraveling but thats a little too current to go there. Gregory, new jersey, youre on book tv on cspan2. Caller im amazed by your disingenuous. First of all, for those terrorist were in iraq was we innovated it. They werent there before half. Second of all, the previous caller when he said washington was the eighth president , its common in trivia games to count the seven president s of the Continental Congress under the articles of con federation as the first president. I know thats pseudo history. I want to talk about a comment you made early on in the program playing down the effect of columbus. I think if you look at the chronicles of the explorers of the generation of columbus, youll fine the population of north and south america was vastly more than it was than when those areas were settled 100 years later. I also think you rule fine its disengine reduce to compare the slavery imposed in the western hem spheres to any other slavery in duration and the whole sale integration of people into a new place, and not only was there much more slavery in the southern hemisphere, but lets not forget that after the war of jenkins, the slave trade was month knoppizeed by the birching in the abolished slavery. What i really host gregory, theres a lot of the table there lets get an answer. Guest first of all, lets start with iraq. In fact the information is pretty clear thatm as al al qaeda was pouring into iraq. I use the example of a roach motel. We set up a roach motel and the roaches came in. In terms of columbus, i had a charge chart that said columbus killed the indians and i have the recent scholarship you will fund. One thing you will note is every new piece of scholarship that comes us reduces the number of estimated i rule call them indians in the new world with every single new estimate that it gets lower and lower and lower. So this notion that indian population numbers were just decimated is just simply wrong. Dont do trivia a lot so i dont know the one about washington in terms of slavery, im sorry, the caller is wrong. Islamic slavery was the worst in the world. It was perpetual. Goings up and down the coast of africa, and this is where we get the very word, slave. From the slavs that the muslims were taken out of eastern europe. So he is right there theres no comparison. Islamic slavery was worse. Host a book we have not talked about. American entrepreneur, came out in 2010. Who was jack daniels. Guest he was a baptist whiskeymaker. Either in kentucky or tennessee. And he found that people had a hankering for his product, and he became quite famous at selling jack daniels history. Interestingly enough at almost the same time, dr. Thomas welch comes out with a grape juice so people dont have to drink wine and they can get the same wine taste. So, entrepreneurs out of almost any product. Host why did aclu jack daniel. Guest he was a successful entrepreneur. My goal was include as many different entrepreneurs from as many different walks of life as possible. By the way, thats a i coauthored chapman university, is a expanded version of a book auld run trip neurallal adventure, and i wrote that book originally to be a general trade book, but it was picked up as a textbook, and i learned a harsh lesson that textbooks dont get into book stores, so it never got out to a broader public. It was written to a broader public but never got out there. It was quite successful as a textbook but when we wrote american entrepreneur again, our goal was to make sure we had something that would go out the broader public in book stores. Host you mention that jack daniels is was a baptist, and in your book, american entrepreneur, you write capitalisms spiritual side was the most cheerly seen in the activities of entrepreneurs who constantly must act on faith. Ultimately they must believe their idea, product, service, or business, will succeed. Guest yeah. And i think authors know this as well as anybody. Right . Certainly your first book, to some people, you have to write it first. And you submit it to the publisher like a sacrifice. Here is my creation. Please say you love it. But you dont get a dime from it until its already accepted and put out and published and sold. So you really have to have the leap of faith that what you have done is worthwhile, that people will like it, and that youre going to submit it out on to the market and see what happens. Were very spiritual exercise. Do you. Host do you have a favorite entrepreneur you mention in the book . You talk about thomas welch and joseph campbell, isaac singer, charles post, the serial cereal, tupper of tupperware. Guest i think post is one of my favorites. He has done everything. Been a school teacher, sold insurance. And his health is failing and he is middleaged guy. Just like ray roc ray crock, a this is al bundy, a more than middle age shoe salesman and yet post goes to battle creak, michigan to kellogg sanitarium. And developed kell cereals and post doesnt get well so he goes to another sanitarium where he comes one if this stuff called postum, a coffee substitute, and then starts coming up with a cereal and its very crunchy and takes like grapes so its called drape nuts even though it doesnt have nut nuts or grapes in it. So he make a cereal empire out of almost nothing. Host jb in toledo, thanks for holding. Youre on with professor Larry Schweikart. Caller thank you for taking my call. A couple of questiones. One, you spoke of the johnsonjfk connection to the vietnam war. I was just wondering, jfk executive order 11110 in relation to his assassination. Host will you actuals what executive order 11110 is . Caller can give your [inaudible] i have another question. Can you give me an example of the influence of greenbacks during abraham lincolns presidency . Guest sure. Im not sure what order he is referring to i suspect its the order in which jfk removed a thousand engineers from vietnam after an Engineering Battalion completed its job, and this is used by all the conspiracy theorists to say, see, jfk was going to get us out of vietnam. I dont see how you make that argument when kennedy had 600 american advisers in vietnam when he starts and has 16,000 when he is assassinated. By his own admission in a speech, he later said he said that at one point we have, quote, 25,000 American Military personnel in southeast asia. So i dont know if he let the cat out of the bag and he actually had more there, if he was counting everybody in thailand, and he never made clear what he was talking about. Again, im not a conspiracy theorist. I think oswald acted alone, but if he didnt, show me the bullet and show me the audio sound track because we have no other shell casings no other bullets that day. The guys from csi would say, theres no forensic evidence, and we have audio recordings, and theres three shots. What with waist other question . Host greenbacks and abraham lincoln. Guest yes, lincoln doesnt have a lot to do with grownbacks. His secretary of the treasury from ohio, sam chase, comes up with the idea, and the unions job in the civil war, one of their main problems was to fund the war, and chase comes up with a number of methods to fund the war. He starts the first income tax, which is soon ruled unconstitutional. He borrowed a lot for u. S. Bonds. But he also inflates. Turns on the printing press. And the greenbacks were part of that effort to inflate the currency. Unlike National Bank notes, which were created in 186263, which had to be backed by gold and silver, greenbacks had that famous line that our money has on it today, this note is legal tender for all debts public and private. They were not backed by gold and silver. So it was a deliberate inflation area issue. They issued 480 million of them. It does not insulate in the north for a lot of reasons. Theyre convertible into National Bank notes which are convertible into gold and silver. B. , 480 million sounds like a lot but in terms of money its not that much money in the north. And c. , genius of chase, he accepted both National Bank notes and greenbacks as payment for cash. The cop fess was si does not accept confederate note for payment of confederate taxes. By doing that chase imbued the paper money with some value. You could always pay your taxes with it. In the south, confederate notes have no value. Couldnt even pay your tasks. Host wasnt there a lot of problems with counterfeit bills prior to the National Currency . Guest yes. After the National Banking currency act. But prior to that time, competitive money, and competitive money you had your printing press, and a lot of people take your money because you always redeem them in gold and silver, and word gets out i had in one of my books on banking in the american south, i had evidence of a atlanta bank whose notes were the sole circulating medium in chicago in the 1840s. Could be in 50. I think it was the 40s. But because he always backed them in gold, and because they had a great reputation. But it wasnt just the reputation. They had in the day something called bank note reporter, which was a telephone book, if you will, of all the notes out there and you could turn and say i got schweikart bucks from ohio. They only selling for a. 3 discount. Theyre okay. And you can find out if any money was of any value or if a 50 discountdont take it. Host ron, huntington beach, california. You are on book tv on cspan2. Professor Larry Schweikart is our guest. Caller good morning from southern california. My question has to do with, you wrote a book which i believe you said, what would the founders say. My question has to do with Political Parties and just a little context. Jefferson says [inaudible] George Washington wrote about the effect madison wrote all sorts of nasty things about factions and parties. In the context of the separation of power, [inaudible] legislative branch working together to put people on the court. Election day, you have two small minorities that provide those choices on the ballot for the general election, and the election the effect on representative [inaudible] guest thank you. You mention some of the most appropriate what you did not mention what madison went on to say after he denouns Political Parties. He then says but theyre necessary. He said, and in addition, check, and addition. Madison was the first one to say we need Competition Among in the political process among different groups. Now, madison had in mind dozens of factions that would thoroughly diminish the ability of any one group to control the government. This is where our friend Martin Van Buren comes back in. Van buren gets it down to two parties and the way van buren does that is that when he sets up the spoil system, he makes it so you have to appeal to a large segment of the American Public to get elected. We had a twoparty winner take all system, unlike, for example, israel or france where you have personal representation. This takes away the experience. The good news. Bad news it pushes all parties toward the middle. So third parties dont have a a voice because over time, due to the spoil system, theyre not going to have any speech in control no control of the executive, hence they wont have jobs to give away. And without those jobs to continually give away to your supporter, they arent going to continue to be supporters. So the libertarians might elect a single ron paul type to a single district. You reward your friends in the van buren system. So you can thank vanburn for the party system. Its what we have to live with. Host a couple of sweets. That probably is the context there. Host tane in king george, virginia, please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller hi, mr. Schweikart. Guest hi. Caller in doing research for my book, i came across a question im hoping you can answer. I included in the appendix to my book the various resolutions for ratification for the original constitution. And in looking at those and then looking at how the final bill of rights was written, theres a huge disconnect. Has anyone done a study or published anything that explains why the bill of rights used the language that they did . Guest yeah, and i cant name the books off the top of my head, but there are a number of good, scholarly books out there that deal with not only the ratification of the constitution, but the bill of rights, i think the first draft of the bill of rights i could be wrong, but i think it had 13 different rights enunciated. It was 12, okay, i was pretty close. And, yeah, i mean, i think theres some good stuff out there. If you just go to amazon and put in ratification and bill of rights, i think youd come up with probably the top ten scholarly books in a heartbeat. Host this is our monthly in Depth Program on booktv on cspan2. This month its history professor Larry Schweikart as a patriots history of the u. S. Came out in 04, americas victories came out in 2006. 48 liberal lies about American History, 2008. Seven events that made America America was his next book. American entrepreneur came out in 2010. What would the founders say, 2011. The patriots history reader essential documents for every american, and, basically, the first half of twopart series on that one. Again, very quickly, why the use of a patriots history . Guest the term was, first of all, to identify with the reader that this is not going to be a volume that bashes america. Its going to present an optimistic, proamerican approach to history. It doesnt mean we dont include warts because we have plenty of warts in there. But its not going to be my country always wrong i think was the line that mike allen wrote in patriots history. Its certainly not my country always wrong which is where, for example, zinn goes. Translator patriots history. Com is your web site. Guest all one word, and you can see the film at www. Rock www. Rockinthewall. Com. Host and which film is that . Guest thats rockin the wall. I started a film company, and you can see all our trailers at rockin the wall studios. Com. Host so a couple of different web sites. An hour and a half to go in our conversation with professor schweikart. Every month the producerrer of this program, tonya davis, likes to send the author a questionnaire to get some more background on the authors. We want to show you the answers that she got. Host and as we continue in depth for this month, our guest is professor Larry Schweikart, university of dayton. Want to start off with this email that weve received from james in tyler, texas. Given that you listed quite a few musical greatest influences, he says as a fellow drummer, i would like to know your opinion as to the greatest rock drummer of all time, and who was our greatest president . Guest well, its a tough question only because its like when you talk about greatest guitar player. You have to always throw in people like bebe king even though theyre not with hendricks or Clapton Hendrix or clapton. So i always go to run ringo starr. Most drummers will cite ringo starr as an excellent drummer. Most nondrummer musicians will say he was lame, which is kind of fun uny. That said, in terms of just at his peak carmine of peace, he backed up ozzy osbourne, when he was of in his prime from 68 to have 72, he was by far, in my view, the best. John bonham of led zeppelin said that he learned most of his stuff from carmine. I really like ginger baker of cream, but its interesting that baker said in his own biography that he was not a rock drummer. Hes a jazz drummer by the way, a very good polo player, too, did you know that . [laughter] so i would go in order with carmine, ginger baker, ringo starr, john bonham, and i love the guy from the tubes, native arizonaen in there, prairie prince. And president s top five are washington, lincoln, reagan, coolidge, cleveland. Host why coolidge . Guest coolidge was tremendous. He kept his hands off everything. Hes the one where unemployment went down to 1. 6 . We were at peace. We had a phenomenal economy. The only thing that i criticize coolidge for is he was a little too noninterventionist, and i think contributed very, very slightly to the rise of nazi germany and the japanese in terms of not wanting to get involved in some of the things there. Host professor schweikart, you list under favorite writers the prendergast series by Douglas Preston and lincoln child. What is that . Guest yeah. Prendergast is the fbi agent. I the sense i get from their books is hes very tall and almost an albino. Very interestinglooking guy. He can use a gun, but hes one of these guys that more often solves crimes with his mind. They wrote a whole series, one of the earliest ones was cabinet of the curiosities which is a tremendous book. They then got the relic which was made into a movie, but it doesnt feature pendergast, even though hes in the book slightly. And then they have a series, dance of death and wheel of darkness and a couple others. Those are tremendous fiction books. Host are members of steppen wolf still alive . Guest i dont know. Host what was their biggest hit . Guest these were some of the earlier guys, so by then hendrix and zeppelin, all the rest were out there. You look back at those early guys, all those guys with were just, you know, they were so lame. And when i heard them in concert, my jaw dropped at how tight and how professional they were. We just had newfound respect for steppenwolf after that. Host who is paul johnson, and why do you list him as one of your favorite authors . Guest paul johnson is a british author. He was the editor of one of the large british newspapers or magazines, i cant remember which. You probably know this, right . Host cant remember offhand either. Guest okay. But he saw every news article that came across his desk for 30 years. And he internalized all of it. And he wrote a book called modern times, came out in the late 80s. It was a history of the world from the 20s to the 80s that was just masterful in going through world history. He got everything. But he would make allusions to stuff that students today just would be, you know, very helpless. The names he throws out and just assumes, because youre a wellread person, youre going to know who, you know, the third president of tanzania was or Something Like that. At any rate, it was revised and updated in 91, so its now a his roy ri of the world from the 20s to the 9s. I cant really use it for world civilization classes. Its just too deep. Theres just too much there. Host and paul johnson has been a guest on this program as well. You can go to booktv. Org, type in paul johnson in the search function, and you can watch it online. In the tweet for you, professor what is your opinion of Alexander Hamilton and his relationship with George Washington . It comes from somebody tweeting under the moniker horoscope of usa. Guest im a big fan of hamilton. This torques off any number of my conservative friends, but i like hamilton a lot. The biography of hamilton is masterful. Hamilton put people in their context, right . Hamilton came out of a mercantilist background. He did not know capitalism. It was fairly new to him. And so when he seeks solutions for the american economy, they tend to drift toward bigger government solutions. However, as i show in what would the founders say, hamiltons first challenge was a panic in 1791, a bank panic. He refused to bail out Thomas Willing who was the perpetrator. He didnt pull a gm bailout. He said, sorry, bud, youre on your own. But in keeping with his background, he quietly went to all the private banks in new york city and said we want you guys to lend to each other, because we dont want this to become a citywide panic. So i thought that was the Perfect Blend of not newsing government power to bail out an individual who had messed up, but using the Governments Authority to encourage people to bail each other out. I think hamilton is a tremendous secretary of the treasury, and he was very close to washington, and he wrote all of washingtons speeches as i alluded to earlier. Quite brave man. He charged the bunker at yorktown, and he was one of the two men to charge one of the guardhouses at trenton. Host doubled the size of government and used terrorism to restrict civil liberties. Guest thats your opinion. Host jeff emails in to you and, by the way, if you want to dial in and talk with professor schweikart directly, well put the numbers up on the screen in just a second. 2025853880 in the east and central time zones. 5853881 in the mountain and pacific time zones. This is an email from jess. Some historian said, and i paraphrase history is a prism by which we could understand the present and see broad outlines of the future. My question, from the way its gown on all fronts going on all fronts, economic, political, demographic, etc. , where do you see america situated in the next 50 years . Guest um, you know, yoda said always in motion, is the future. And, um, im torn. Because if you go down a linear model of of his prism, i think hes right. Were in, were many trouble. Certainly, we cannot keep up with 16, 17 trillion debt. You have a sequester battle over either 12 depending on whose numbers you accept of growth of the federal budget. Not just 12 of the budget. And its heralded as the end of the world. How are we ever going to tame a 17 trillion debt if we cant deal with that . So on the one hand, if you just go by a linear progression, youd have to say by 2050 we probably wouldnt even be here. The other side of me sees how rapidly in history, literally overnight, things can change. For example, in may 1942 we were in deep trouble. The japanese had yet to lose a single battle in the pacific. They controlled onethird of the pacific, more people and territory than any empire in Human History. They had blown all of our battleships out of the water. They had already sunk one carrier. We only had two carriers actively left in the pacific at that time. And yet within one month they essentially lost the war. After the battle of midway, they could not win the war. They might not lose if we gave up trying to prosecute the war, but they could no longer win the war just one month later. And so i think and you can do any number of these things to see how rapidly history turns on just one or two sudden events. I mean, van buren, whom weve talked about a lot, forms the more than party system in less than four years, and its continuing to shape us today. Host Larry Schweikart is our guest, and bill from manhattan beach, california, is our caller. Caller hello, professor schweikart, youre a hero to me primarily because you insist on the truth, and i dont mind hearing about the warts as long as we figure out a way to not do that. Or soft it. Solve it. But i have a bone to pick. Coincidentally, both issues are about roosevelt. You straightened me out when you took apart the book about the day of deceit, roosevelt knew that pearl harbor was going to be attacked and all that. I respect your research and all that, so i stand corrected. But when you get on to the Federal Reserve and you say it was a good thing that we get off the Gold Standard, that sure was a disaster. Guest no, i did not say that. I didnt say that. I said that the Federal Reserve can work so long as you have a system of competition whether its private competition, i think other states can, you know, the yen, the peso, can work a little bit toward that. But i didnt want say that we should have i didnt say that we should have gone off the Gold Standard. I said that when the fed was conceived, nobody thought that a Federal Reserve would act without a Gold Standard in place. Does that help . Caller thats but look at the book by wayne jett on amazon, its called the fruits of graft, and itll tell you from roosevelts treasury secretary, roosevelt caused the depression by buying gold and rattling it in the sense that he didnt create currency to match it. Roosevelt knew it. Look at fruits of graft, please. Guest well, let me give you a slightly different take on that. I i certainly would agree, certainly, with burt folsom, my friend who did new deal or raw deal. I would certainly agree that roosevelt exacerbated a temporary recession and turned it into the Great Depression. I have a friend, former colleague at uc Santa Barbara, steven, hes retired now. Steve did a paper that very few people have ever cited, but ive never seen anybody really refute it in which he argues that the my mum wage law which first minimum wage law which first came into effect in 1934 as a temporary measure drove down hiring and Business Expectations to a catastrophic level. And we never would have gotten out of the depression as reasoning as the minimum as long as the minimum wage law made it such that an employer had to pay, ten employees a dollar each, now he had to pay 2, but he could only hire five employees, okay . So i certainly agree that roosevelt had a major role to play in exacerbating the depression. I would argue that when roosevelt took us off gold, he did the country major favor for the for this reason the world was on the Gold Standard at the time in the 1920s, but slowly nation after nation had gone off the a Gold Standard while the u. S. Was on the Gold Standard. Well, you know greshams law, bad money drives out good. And what was happening was other countries or were redeeming dollars in gold. Gold was flowing out of the country. Gold is the reserve or was the reserve for our nations banks. We were drastically destabilizing the nations banks by allowing an outflow of gold. So what roosevelt did was by taking the country off gold, he stopped that outflow. I think thats one of the few really good things roosevelt did. Let me mention to you since you brought him up stennis book, i did a review of ten net in a journal called continue knewty. Since that time a number continuity. Since that time a number of other things have come out such as the one i mentioned by Phil Jacobson that showed that, in fact, ten ets research was off. What i showed in my review, i went through every single phrase where he said something, what i would call an active and conclusive sentence such as this means roosevelt knew, except he never said that. In every single instance i found in his book, i think i counted 147, he said almost certainly or roosevelt should have almost certainly surely roosevelt knew. He couldnt say with a single footnote one time a piece of evidence that showed roosevelt knew about the pending attack on pearl harbor, and thats when i said this books full of it. Host alan lazarus emails in from shreveport, louisiana your guest misspoke when he attributed the phrase entangling alliances to washington. Guest jefferson. Host jefferson used it in his first inaugural. Washingtons was [inaudible] guest i think, though, sir, if you look at the draft i could be wrong, but i think if you look at the draft of the speech, im pretty sure entangling alliance is in the draft too. Either way, they both shared that view that at least for the time being we could not form an entangling alliance with somebody ls else. Host what was the gilded age . Guest guilded age, roughly 1870 to 1900. Its, um, its a derogatory term. All these people were getting rich kind of at the expense of everybody else. The fact is during the gilded age the wages of the average American Worker skyrocketed. People got to be better off faster than at any other time in Human History. It was really quite remarkable. And this is all, almost all due to the efforts of people like vanderbilt, carnegie, rockefeller, morgan, you know, the socalled robber barons who i think were, in fact, captains of industry. Host and thomas henderson, fyi, just tweeted in what is your view of the robber barrens . Do you want to expound on that at all . Guest sure. Ill give a plug to burt folsom for another of his books, he has a book called myths of the robber barons. And i think he shows these guys were indispensable. That carnegie was worth more to america and its future than all the people, unfortunately, who worked for carnegie, that he did something no one else could do. He found a way to make lowcost steel that was good and sell it. Rockefeller found a way not only to make very lowcost kerosene for home illumination, i argue rockefeller saved the whales, that he did more to save the whales than greenpeace ever did. Because interior illumination of the day was whale oil. But after rockys kerosene, whale oil was out, whaling came to a dramatic not total end, but it fell off dramatically. I tell my students that i think if James Cameron ever gets to the bottom of the marianas trench, hes going to find a statue to john d. Rockefeller erected by the whales and that once a year they do a pilgrimage to the statue and do the whale thing. Host doug in mercer island, washington, please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I very much appreciate what cspan does. Im hoping to give a little ammo to the professor for his myth about jfks assassination being due to a conspiracy to continue to vietnam the vietnam war. I had a radio show, and we had donald kagan and walt rahs tow who was National Security adviser both to kennedy and johnson for a while and asked him that very question. And he said, bunk. He said jack kennedy, before he died, had no intention of withdrawing from vietnam. Thank you. Guest no, youre absolutely right. And, um, im sure many of our viewers have seen jfk, the oliver stone movie. And the premise of that is that johnson has kennedy killed in order to sell more bell helicopters, because bell helicopters were gonna were used in vietnam, and they were made in texas. Now, a small problem with that. Nobody even thought of using helicopters in a widespread, antiguerrilla move until 1966 which is made famous in another book, we were soldiers once and young, when the 7th cavalry taliban began using began using helicopters to drop troops into a hot zone. So the notion that johnson has the prescience to say, oh, were going to be needing bell helicopters here pretty soon, its just nonsense. Host next call comes from cliff in claireton, pennsylvania. Caller yes, professor. Guest hi. Caller yes. You mentioned that you werent a conspiracy theorist on the jfk assassination. Guest right. Caller i was wondering if you were aware that hunt, former oss, former cia and watergate burglars on his deathbed made a taped confession that he was a back bencher on it and that cord meyer from the cia ran the assassination . Guest yeah. Theres all these deathbed confessions that come out, for example, jack ruby on his death bed apparently told a fellow convict that it was all Lee Harvey Oswald and nobody else. You know, who do you believe on all this . There is a conspiracy book out there, a more recent one that i think adds a little bit of light, which is, um, im drawing a blank. Big brown book. And the guys argue that kennedy one of them, okay, let me back up. One of my main arguments against conspiracy is that Bobby Kennedy was attorney general, the top Law Enforcement officer in america. His own brother was killed. If thats the case, if its my brother, im going to move heaven and earth to find out who did it. Yet bobby doesnt. So either bobbys convinced it was a single shooter, or theres Something Else in the works. Well, this new book i think its called legacy of secrecy, that has come out has some revealing information that the kennedys were involved with a guy named alameda, a cuban general whom they were backing to replace castro when and if they assassinated castro. And in this book their explanation is that bobby did not go after a fullscale investigation because it would have outeddal maid da and exposed him and revealed the source. Again, just a tidbit, i dont think that proves the point, but i think its interesting. Host jim emails in, and he talks about a new cspan series. Very quickly, a new cspan series that just began a week or two back. Its first ladies. And each week well be looking at all the first ladies. Well go for the entire year, coming up this week is abigail adams. Mondays, 9 p. M. Eastern time live on cspan. But his email is in conjunction with the new series on first ladies, did the british ever contemplate attacking mount vernon or kidnapping Martha Washington, and who is your favorite or most influential first lady . Guest well, i dont know of any british plot to invade mount vernon. This is well into virginia. Youve got to remember that the british liked to stay fairly close to the big torrey cities like new york city, that the further they got into the hinterland as they found in the south once they left charleston, the more casualties they took. And thats what i tell is a race to get up to yorktown and get away from the armies and be resupplied by the british navy. I dont know anything about that, ive never heard of that plot. Could be. Ive never heard of it. In terms of influential first ladies, Martha Washington was not a very influential first lady. I think Dolly Madison kind of sets the table for an active and somewhat aggressive first lady. One of my favorites is lemonade lucy only because she stands up to the Washington Party crowd and says no parties here, were going to serve lemonade. Host lucy hayes. Guest hayes, yes. Lemonade lucy hayes. Host robert in lancaster, pa, email how has the composition of the academy changed since you began teaching . Would you say there have been a suppression of conservatives and their views within Higher Education . If so, how has this affected you in your teaching career . Guest thats a great question. Um, i think that on most campuses there has been a rather dramatic change. I think that when the new left act da missions came in, the old left would respect you if you published and if you did your work and it was solid, youre welcomed as a colleague. They differed with you, but you would be treated with respect. But the new left began to come in the late 60s, really 70. And it became all about ideology. And all of a sudden conservatives, we have these various testimonies of people, in essence, being driven out of jobs because theyre conservatives or they had conservative viewpoints. My take on it is that its more institutional and more difficult to weed out because, um, once the left got control of the terms of the debate especially what was legitimate grounds for study, conservatives from the dock toral level on were in a world of hurt. For example, you could no longer write a new biography of washington or a new study of the civil war. It had to include race, class, gender. Well, those are all categories of the left. And they you can seeded, for example, in doing away with period history in most universities. Of theres no longer jacksonian era, theres no longer American Revolution constitutional, even at ud which, as i say is a wonderful school, we havent taught civil war during the day to students in maybe 20 years. Of so youre doing away with these classical interpretations of history, how we view history and replacing them with much more race, class, gender or orientation. So every new course has to have a race, class, gender aspect, every dissertation has to have that, and its very difficult to break out of that mold. Host less than an hour left with this months in depth guest, Larry Schweikart from the university of dayton. Tom in arizona, good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Thank you for cspan. Professor schweikart, i really enjoyed patriots history, the it was a tremendous refresher after all the other histories that have been published. Guest bucky oneill, huh . Bucky oneill. [laughter] caller thats right. The first volunteer cavalry. Im also a wallet ross tow walt ross tow student. He was my mentor at the university of texas. Guest uhhuh. Caller and as well as being a retired Intelligence Officer who has served in pakistan. So i have a real interest in jihaddism. Guest yes. Caller and in your statement you said we defeated the ideologies of naziism and, therefore, we can defeat islamism or jihaddism depending on what word you want to use. Guest yeah. Caller but in order to defeat those isms, we had to totally decimate the societies. And do you believe that islamism can be defeated without massive kinetic destruction . Guest well, yeah, thats a prescient point. Youve got to separate, and this is a hard part, separate the fundamentalist radicals from the majority of socalled moderate muslims. It can be done, but first step is you have to be willing to define your terms. And i think we have far too many politicians and even now people if our military who dont want to define radical islam for what it is. I mean, the fort hood shooter is categorized as a case of workplace violence. Well, thats nonsense. It was clearly an act of jihad, and once we get to the point where we can define that, well have a better chance at countering it. That said, i have a number of middle eastern students in my classes, and, you know, they say were sent over here to learn americas ways, were sent over here to learn freedom of speech and all these kinds of things. So they do want to learn, they do want to in some ways be like us. Not in all ways. And we have to be careful about sharia law. It is a threat, it is being imposed certainly in parts of england and other places, and weve got to resist that here. Host Larry Schweikart, what do you find your students are most interested in . Guest band stories. [laughter] better than the band stories. They like stories. This is history, his story, right . And as long as you can frame a point within a good story, theyll listen. And theyll internalize it. If its just a series of names and dates, theyre going to have trouble wit. But youve got to make it with it. But youve got to make it a story about people in the past. Host craig hoff, north las vegas. Email following the ussr collapse, the files of the former soviet were opened. Did these documents change the story of the recent u. S. History and the appraisal of our politicians of that cold war era . Guest certainly they have changed, all, our assessment of how deeply the kgb was involved in american politics. We have found through the files and others dozens and dozens of kgb outright agents, the highestplaced of which was the assistant secretary of the treasury, harry dexter wright. One heartbeat away from being secretary of the treasury. And white was being touted as the Vice President ial candidate if Harry Wallace won the democrat nomination. So or if he had stayed on as roosevelts veep and had askippedded to the presidency ascended to the presidency. This is very serious stuff. And i think alier hiss is now without a doubt exposed as a communist agent. The rosenbergs have been totally exposed. Even Nikita Khrushchev said, yeah, we couldnt have done it without the rosenbergs. So i think the fall of the soviet union has shown to all but the most radical on the left that, in fact, we had been deeply penetrated by soviet intelligent. Host next call, michael in westland, michigan. Please go ahead. Caller yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Guest hi. Caller mr. Schweikart, youve referenced the General Motors pailout twice bailout twice during this appearance, and you piqued my curiosity regarding the decision to loan General Motors the money. Also i would like your feelings towards that, and before you answer, can you take into considerations the enormous contributions General Motors made during the world war ii effort and the spectacular success that is undeniable of saving well over one million american jobs many in ohio, as a matter of fact and the ability for General Motors, a corporate icon in American History, to continue and thrive as it is . Thank you. Guest well, ill give a plug back to cspan. Just before i came on, your previous show had the current chairman host former chairman. Guest former chairman of General Motors. And he made an excellent casement case. Heres the criteria i use. The criteria thats used in what would the founders say when we talk about hamilton, and i discuss some of these bailouts. I thought that the chrysler bailout was legitimate pack back in, was it 84 . 79. Guest i thought that was legitimate, and the reason was chrysler was to Technology Manufacturer of m1a1 abrams tanks. I thought the lockheed pail outback in the 70s was legitimate because we needed them to produce military aircraft, and only they could produce certain types. I did not think the bailout of Harley Davidson was legitimate. So i think that your criteria needs to be not jobs saved. Yes, there will be jobs lost, yes, there will be pain. But the only criteria is, is it constitutional for the government to bail out a company . And i think that criteria needs to be used is, is this necessary to National Security. Absolutely, gm was critical in world war ii. I tell my students the Ford Motor Company outproduced the entirety of italy in world war ii. No doubt about it. But the question cant be will this cause pain and suffering as a result of a free market failure, which is what governments exhibit m was going up to that point gm was going up to that point. But is it constitutional that we put the burden on all the other taxpayers to step in and save a particular company . Host Larry Schweikart, when you look at todays budget and sequestration battles guest yeah. Host here in washington, is there a time in history that comes to mind . In American History . Tell you what, well let you think about that if you dont want to you want to think about that a little bit . Guest yeah, because i did have one in the mind the other day, but i want to remember how i phrased the argument. Host okay. And we will take this call from nick in monroe township, new jersey. Hi, nick. Guest hi there. And thank god for cspan, we love it. The professor, im sure, is familiar with the pinckney brothers book decision in philadelphia. In one section there, um, they comment on their position about madisons recording of the events at the convention where according to their research Charles Pinckney of South Carolina essentially originated the man for the constitution. Now, their position is that he was not given credit for that because madison as the secretary for the convention didnt record it. The their phrase was, i believe, that madison, James Madison suppressed it and, therefore, madison, you know, historically took credit for the origination. I would just like to know the professors, professor schweikarts position on that. Is there some veracity to this position . Guest i dont know. I am not a constitutional scholar. Its not my area of special interest. Its possible. But also remember the pinckneys, obviously, have their own historical position to assert. Its like its not the votes that count, who counts the votes. In the case of the history of the constitutional convention, its not what really happened, but what madison said happened. Hes our only source on that. So i dont know what to tell you. But, you know, theres a book called miracle in philadelphia thats an excellent review of that that you might want to check. Otherwise i dont know what else to tell you on that one. I did come up with an answer though. Right before the civil war we were at a total deadlock to the point the house of representatives could not even elect a speaker. We can still do that today. But they could not even elect a speaker. So there have been times in our history where we have had such divergence among the groups that the government was almost at a standstill. And ill give you one that did not result in war. In many in 191112, the only thing congress was concerned with was a revision of the tariff bill. And very similar to our modern tax debates, right . The debate was is so horrible that a group was so horrible that a group called the insurgents tried to unseat the existing speaker of the house. They failed. William howard taft cost himself reelection of the presidency by going back and forth between the insurgents and the traditionalists and not picking a side. Eventually, Teddy Roosevelt comes out of retirement, runs against him, splits the vote, wilson gets elected. The point is, tariff was never passed into law. Its a wasted four years where absolutely nothing happened. And so this happens from time to time in our democracy. It appears to be a little more exacerbated today, i think, because of the news media and the pressure on, for example, the republicans to constantly moderate their views and compromise. But well see. Host next call for Larry Schweikart comes from ed in stanford, connecticut. Hi, ed. Caller hi. Dr. Schweikart, im thoroughly enjoying your interview. Guest hi, ed. Caller my question has to do with abraham lincoln, and wouldnt he be even a greater president had he led us out of slavery without war . My premise to that question is i understand onethird of the human race was slaves in the tenth century. You allude today a lot of those slaveholding eras. The economic costs were tremendous of that war. Guest uhhuh. Caller i understand many countries used con traited emancipation to rid themselves of slavery, brazil, the spanish empire, etc. You also mentioned questions who regulated the treatment of slaves. Guest uhhuh. Caller similarly today, you know, pure capitalism didnt work for us, you know . We had to put in antitrust laws and other things the to regulate capitalism. Some will say lincoln had to go to war because of fort sumter, that he actually precipitated that war after only a few weeks in office before trying Different Things. I understand that great war, that great battle one horse was killed, so im just saying does the emperor really have all the clothes to be given credit for . Host thank you, sir. Guest yeah. I think that lincoln did absolutely everything he could to avoid war, you know . Nobody wants to plame, blame the criminal in this case which was the confederacy was the one that wrote slavery into their constitution not once, but three separate times. Lincoln had been one of the first to argue for compensated emancipation, but the economic reasons i gave earlier in the show, it wouldnt work here. Why did it work with britain . Well, britain had no slaves in england. All of the slaves were in tiny parts of the British Empire that the British Government could easily control. Thats not the case in the where the south made up onehalf of the American Land mass, if not more, made up more than a third of the american population, and, um, let me bring another book to your attention here. Historian out of oklahoma, james houston, has a book called calculating the value of the union. And houston made a phenomenal argument about the Capital Value of slaves. We always tend to see slavery in terms of its labor value; slaves picking cotton as the standard image that comes to mind. That was profitable. But what people forget was that slaves were property, and as property they had a great deal of value. How much value . Well, im grad you asked im glad you asked. They had more value as property than all the railroads and textile mills this the north put together in the north put together. Now, we were earlier talking about what does a man go to war over . Do you go to war over, you know, 40 cents a year . In this case the south went to war over something it constituted easily half of its entire Capital Assets in 186 of 0. So the answer is i dont think there was another way to get rid of slavery. And in large part this is due to the fact that capitalism couldnt work. It would have worked, but it couldnt work because the government, here we are with government again required able ablebodied males to be involved in posses that would chase down runaway slaves. The government, by spreading to the taxpayers the cost of bringing slaves, runaway slaves into court and so forth spread the burden of owning a slave onto everybody. There were innumerable ways houston points to out that government was involved in perpetuating slavery in the south. Not the federal government, but the State Governments. And this is what lincoln had to deal with. Host leonard ornstein, hi. Guest hi, leonard. Host do you know him . Guest i know him. Host well is William County high school . Guest i dont remember. Im pretty sure its arizona. Host arizona, okay. What are your views and feelings about the decreased history instruction time in american middle schools and high schools as a result of no child left behind and race to the top and common core . Should instruction of history be dependent on a standardized test . Should history teachers really be english and math teachers since that is what schools are judged upon in common core and race to the top . Guest yeah. These, these programs are disastrous. No child left behind had, as most Government Programs do, a good intention. Which was to institute a series of tests and thresholds over which every person should pass. Everyone should know certain things when they get out of high school, when they get out of, you know, junior high, whatever. And it usually becomes more about telling teachers what they must teach and, therefore, restricting what they cannot teach. And as a result, it looks as though History Education has fallen even further behind. There were some recent polls out that showed that students cant even put major historical figures in the right century anymore. I mean, its just its disastrous. That said, im not opposed to teaching to the test. I do that all the time. If youre a paratrooper, youre taught how to pack a parachute, you teach to the test, and you better be able to pass that test, because when you pull the rip cord, the parachute better open. It should not be the federal governments job to administer these itses, because the federal government these tests because the federal government constitutionally does not have a role in education and should not be involved there. So, leonard, i think were on the same page with this if i know you. This has been something with good intentions that went bad awry, and as a result were worse off than even 15 years ago. Host christine in santa fe, north carolina. Caller hi, im really enjoying the program. If im hearing you correctly, i believe you were not opposed to our going into iraq guest right. Caller and i think its a war that cost in the vicinity of half a trillion dollars. And, um, what im wondering is, you know, the war was questionable, and i believe its got questionable results. But if wed taken that half a trillion dollars and invested it into our infrastructure and leveling the playing field, all, in many our own country in our own country, that would result in the brightest and best rising to the top, coming up with the best idea, putting the u. S. Ahead of the curve in terms of, you know, all the new technology inventions, etc. That would be the strongest vote for our way of thinking, and, you know, our freedom system. Would that not have been a far better use of a half a trillion dollars . Guest okay. I think youre mixing apples and orangings. National defense is oranges. National defense is constitutionally ordained by function of government. Its something government should be doing. I do believe that there was a threat there. I think that a lot of those wmds have ended up in syria. I think that theres already rumblings in the obama cia that, in fact, the syrians have some stuff that they shouldnt have and that it probably came from iraq. That said, no president in his right mind in 2002 would have taken a chance that alqaeda could have gotten a weapon of mass destruction from saddam hussein. It just wasnt going to happen. Now, that said, you cant just say because we dont spend it here on something that is constitutionally approved we can go spend it over here. It is questionable as to whether the government should be spending money on roads and bridges. Indeed, for the first 0, 30 years of 20, 30 years of our exuns the government spent no money on roads and bridges. Those or were all privatelyfunded companies. I realize today it would be hard for a company to get its revenue back on a freeway and then, you know, if you dont pay your bilker what, your cars shut down on the freeway. I understand that. But the point is that just because you dont spend it on space doesnt mean youre not going to spend it on roads and bridges, or youre going to spend it on education. Theyre Different Things used in different ways. Host from 48 lies, no terrorists or weapons of mass destruction were hiding in iraq. Guest yeah. News article, i want to say 2009, 550 tons of enriched uranium was processed out of iraq quietly. And was hidden for a long time until it was processed out. I dont know what you call enriched uranium except a wmd in the hands of somebody like saddam hussein. Host from your book seven events that made america and prove that the Founding Fathers were right all along, one of those events, Larry Schweikart, is president obama and the media in 2008. What is that event you talk about, and why do you include that . Guest it was an event in which for the first time really the media absolutely failed to do its job. I think Bernie Goldberg has a book called a big, fat, slobbering love affair, Something Like that. Charlie rose was one of the first to say was we dont know what he believes. We didnt vet him. We dont know who influenced him. We dont know any of these things. Well, charlie, its your job to dig that stuff up. He wasnt vetted on any of this stuff. And to a large degree still has not been vetted on a last lot of this stuff. And on a lot of this stuff. And i think thats a shame that we dont know how you can sit in reverend wrights church for 20 years and not hear what the man had to say or how you can have friends like bill ayers and not have an opinion on, you know, what should happen with bombers. So, um, i think this was the epitome of van burens system. Thats why i use that. It comes full circle. This is back to the partisan press. And in this case the press overwhelmingly is liberal, democratic if you want to use that phrase. There is a minority voice press; fox news, Rush Limbaugh, is so on and so forth. But it is still a minority voice. And the phrase today is low information voter. Your low information voters are not going to hear a lot of that information. Host jack, deer harbor, washington. Thanks for holding, youre on with professor and author Larry Schweikart. Caller thank you for taking my call. Its been a long wait but worth it. Ive been a fan of booktv since its inception on television, and your guest today reminds me of of many that ive seen through the past years. They come on your program full of impressive credentials and well disposed with knowledge and facts, and they share a lot of valuable insights. And theres many things that he has said today that i enjoy. But in the middle of such discussions, sometimes itll come out with baffling statements if not absolute falsehoods. I refer earlier today when he called thomas paine an atheist. Now, lets forget that he died broke, forgotten, maybe fond of the bottle, a few other things. Back in the vital period of his life when he was writing the great works, in his book the age of reason on the very first pick he clearly page he clearly states, and im quoting i believe in the quality of man. I believe in one good and no more one god and no more, and i hope for happiness beyond this life. So i have to ask, how can any rightminded person construe these words as that of an atheist . Thank you very much. Guest i think what people believe, um, varies from time to time during their life. Ill use the example of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton early in his life was extremely devout. One of his College Roommates said ive never seen anybody pray as much as he does. By midlife, though, hamilton was all but an atheist. If youd asked him, he probably would have said i dont believe in god. By the end of his life and, admittedly, he didnt know it was coming to an end, but close to the end of his life, he began a transition back to god. So i think there are people at different points of their lives have different religious experiences, and youve just got to kind of reference them when they do. I dont think paine is ever held up as a christian voice among the founders. Let me put it that way. Host terry, brooklyn, new york. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, everybody. Love your channel, love everything. Its great to watch different per spent is perspectives and to get a different perspective on something you believe in. A but about something i saw a few months ago. I dont remember his name, he was an expert on Lyndon Johnson, and he said that towards the end of johnsons term in 68 that johnson pretty much had a solution for the vietnam war, and there was of a treaty just about to be worked out, and somehow Richard Nixon was able to or torpedo that and sabotage it. Considering all the deaths between 68 and 72 when the war was finally ended, why isnt that mentioned more in peoples recollections of nixon . I mean, hes known for watergate, hes known for but that, to me, is a worse sin that possibly he let the war continue for another four years just to get back at johnson for some reason. Loved your comments about band and beating the band. Its so true, man, all the work in the beginning is so hard, all the carrying equipment. You looking for great drummers, look into a guy called jerry no land. Heartbreakers, new york dollings. One of the great drummer ors. Thank you, guys. Guest i would say this, if johnson had a plan to end the vietnam war, he wouldnt have resigned. And certainly johnson was powerful enough and clever enough. He took a backseat to no one. Certainly not Richard Nixon who had no official authority. At the time, nixon didnt even have an elected post in 1963. So i find it very hard that johnson would have had a way to get out of vietnam that he didnt employ. Host i believe that caller was probably talking about robert caro whose latest book guest was he a guest . Host ye. Hes been on week tv several booktv several times. Have you heard that story before . Guest i have not heard that one. What i do find interesting is that nixon gets so much blame for vietnam, and he takes us down to 70,000 troops when he leaves office, when he resigns. Host what about the cambodian bombing . Guest and certainly people who, have you hat Victor Hanson on the show . Host yes. Guest he would say, hey, why didnt they do that earlier . I have students in my classes not so many now because, you know, age is changing, but maybe ten years ago id have students whose dads had served in vietnam, and i remember one student said my dad was serving up near the ho chi minh trail, he used to tell me he could see the north vietnamese in rifle range, and he was inhinted from shooting them knowing that the next day theyd be on the south side of the border, and hed have to shoot them then. Host ray from california, go ahead with your question or comment for professor schweikart. Caller yes, Larry Schweikart. You said fdr took us off the Gold Standard. What was it that Richard Nixon did with the Gold Standard when he was president . Thank you. Guest yeah. Because we were put back on gold after the war under bretton woods. The dollar became the words reserve currency backed by gold. Now, theres a difference between backed by gold and convertible into gold. Technically, we were on the Gold Standard, but you could not go into any bank and take a 20 bill and save give me a gold dollar. It didnt work that way. It was still privatelyheld gold was still prohibited in a marketplace. I remember buying my first krugerrands in 19, i think it was 73 or 4. I made a killing on them at time. But i took advantage of being able to get gold at the time. So theres a difference between gold as a reserve currency which it was not under roosevelt and gold being in private hands. I hope i didnt muddy the water there. Host Larry Schweikart, you mentioned that when you were arguing with Milton Friedman on the danube, that was your only trip to europe. Why was that . Guest i havent had a desire to go back. Host all right. You also report that when we asked you what youre currently reading, you say youre working on your next book which is patriots history of modern world, volume ii. Guest right. Host and reading scripts and screenplays. What does that mean . Guest well, since rockin the wall came out in 2010, um, ive started a little 23eu8 m Company Called rockin the wall studios. You can see our trailers, and weve been developing were currently completing a second documentary called other walls to fall about musics part in opening up oppressed parts of the world. We have a heavy metal band from inside tehran, we have a cambodian rapperrer whos on his countrys death list, and weve got celebrities like clint black and so on and so forth. And that movies almost done. But ive been reading a lot of scripts and screenplays for other things that we might produce and do. One of the things thats on the near horizon and some of your viewers might like this is we want to make patriots history of the United States into a Television Series like the men who built america or the pacific and we have a terrific trailer on the web site there. So if youre interested, by all means, get in touch with me, and well talk. Host dennis, orange city, florida. Hello. Caller professor schweikart, how are you today . Guest hi. Thanks for calling. Caller did i read that youre at the university of dayton . Guest i am. Caller im a buckeye, graduated from ohio state back in the 70s, and it isnt as leftleaning as some of the other i started ohio westland. But let me get to my point. Im watching cspan, well, maybe a month or two ago, and oliver stone and his associate come on. And, you know, oliver stone is a hollywood movie guy. Guest right. Caller well, hes presenting himself as a history expert. And what it was was a rewrite of history. They, he and his cohort are lamenting the fact that truman wasnt making nice with stalin. Guest uhhuh. Caller that if only truman would have been nice to stalin, things would have been dramatically different. We wouldnt have had the to drop the bomb and numerous other things, further lamenting that wallace a thats the right guy, wasnt he the commie b. Guest uhhuh. Caller that he wasnt elected. That, you know, things would have been dramatically different if only the trumans of the world wouldnt have to have torpedoed. You know, i have a hard enough of tomb trying to reeducate my nephew who went to ohio state and various other schools in ohio, and here you come with a complete rewrite. What in the world is oliver stone doing . Is he a dedicated commie . Host all right, dennis. Guest well, i wrote two reviews of two of the episodes of oliver stones the untold history of america, i think, is the correct title. One on jfk and one on Lyndon Johnson and vietnam. The errors were just overwhelming. The insinuations were stunning. And you can find these on frontpagemagazine. Com where i wrote these reviews. Im perfectly fine with stone producing and showing whatever he wants to show. My argument is lets get the other side of the story out. Of lets yet a patriots history of the United States out on film so people can see another version. And like i said before with zinn, well win that competition every time. Im convinced that oneonone our ideas will triumph. Host Larry Schweikart, world citizen is a little upset with you regarding your remarks about fox news. Several tweets, but heres one fox news has divided the country many a way not seen in a way not seen since the civil war. Guest a, thats just silly. And, b, why would that be . Would it be because the main three news organizations had a total no knop hi on news . Monopoly on news . I mean, Rush Limbaugh makes a great point. When he came out, the news organizations were in a tizzy because for the first time their view of what was news was challenged. And can now we have several places where that view of what is news is challenged. What we no longer have is that middle voice that tries to come up with some sort of objective news understanding that thats impossible. But it was a standard hued to by the socalled Mainstream Media for about 60, 70 years, about 1900 to 1960. In the journalism book that you dont have, there was a code of ethics for journalists in 1913. And it had some things in there x lets see be if your support of all these other news organizations holds to these. It says you should always get the other side of the story. It said you should always have more than one source for every quotation, that all sources needed to be public. You could have no anonymous or onbackground sources. Right there most of the news media is out the window in terms of their own standard of ethics that was adopted in 1913. Is so, um, no, i dont think fox has divided the country, i think its provided us with a muchneeded voice. Host joseph in omaha, nebraska. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, sir. Professor, i have a question for you, sir. I have a statement also, sir. War, war equals greed. Give em what they want, or theyll take it. Its the greedy if you win. Control, taking what you have if you win. Sir, your opinion on roosevelt, he had a chance to kill bin laden in the mountains of afghanistan, why didnt he do it . Guest roosevelt . Caller it was because of guest you just said roosevelt had a chance to catch bin laden host josephs, did you mean, were you talking about president bush . Caller yes, sir. Host all right, thank you. Guest okay. If you read tommy franks book and dont just go by what you think happened, franks made it very clear that he could not deploy 10,000 troops necessary to the tora bora mountains in time to seal off tora bora. Knowing the military the way i do, i dont find that at all unusual. I totally disagree with your statements about war equals greed. I think we proved that with the revolutionary war that, in fact, these men went to war even though it was only costing them 40 cents a person, a year. Why do they do so . Because ideas were important, the rights of englishmen were important, and, you know, i think your third point about it equals control, its interesting. The United States is the only country that im aware of in Human History that once it conquers someplace gives it back. And id refer you to the teller amendment which said within five years after conquering cuba, we needed to give cuba pack to the cuban people. It was an amendment place inside the or war resolution. Host alan, email. Some say the Second Amendment was put into the bill of rights to allow citizens to shoot at our government. Others say its there to allow citizens to chase off burglars or shoot dinner. What is your opinion . Guest both. Ill give another prop to p steven hall brooks book that every man be armed. Halbrook goes into an excellent analysis of what the English Version of the term militia meant leading up to the American Revolution and the constitution. And its pretty cheer that english understanding of militia was that the militia was an armed body of men apart from and separate from the Standing Army who could oppose and, if necessary, fight the Standing Army of the government. Its also interesting that coming down from the arms of 1182 henry ii said that every man should be armed and, in fact, a mayors job was to go through the town and knock on doors and not do a gun buyback program, but rather say, hey, are you armed . If not to, quote, give that man any weapons as he should so need. I doubt youll see this going door to door saying, hey, can i give you a shotgun . You need an a, ar15 . So i think the Second Amendment was put in so people would be able to oppose tyranny and protect themselves. Host susan, email ive lived in new york and new jersey my entire life but am a ud 78 graduate which is and she is happy that there are some conservatives at our wonderful catholic university. Um, her point is she agrees with you on most everything except when it comes to the monetary system. Guest uhhuh. Well, and, you know, youre not alone. I know theres a lot of gold bugs out there. People who think we need to get to a goldbacked currency. I spent, it had to be in the late 90s, i went to a liberty fund symposium. It was a threeday meeting with several scholars, most of them conservative and very devout libertarians. Studying a book by Leland Yeager called the fluttering veil about the Gold Standard. And at the end of three days, these libertarians and conservatives could not come up with a single monetary standard, a backing, gold, platinum, market basket, whatever, that would actually work. And they were all surprised that they couldnt do so. Our current gold supplies are totally insufficient to back money, but philosophically i dont want necessarily Gold Standard, i want a competitive standard. I want money to compete and the best money to win whether its private or government. Host daves in atlanta. Dave, youre on booktv. Ghk yeah. During the early 70s there was a pervasive amount of commune u. S. Propaganda communist propaganda that was kind of along with the Peace Movement, and ive come to believe that the left these days was offended by that more than they would like to admit intellectually, and i would just like to know what the professors feelingsing are on that. Feelings are on that. Guest i think youre right. I mean, there was a dedicated effort to influence people and american institutions. I have never seen anything that showed they attempted to control or place people in such institutions. I dont think that was always necessary. Youve got people like angela davis in there without much control at all. The soviets were very active, but they were also quite targeted in the what they did. And, peter, you were asking earlier about the fall of soviet union and the archives opening up, or one of our questioners did. And one of the things that we found was that they were spending 70 of their propaganda budget in the 80s on star star wars. Now, why would you spend all of your prop began da trying to stop something that, quote, wont work . You know, if im a football coach and the other sides running an up the middle play and i stuff it every time, im not going to try to get him to switch to a pitch or a pass. Im going to, yeah, keep running that play. Were going to stop it every time. Yet the soviets were desperate to stop star warses. That should tell people that they knew star wars would work and, in fact, they had done extensive work on lasers and stuff in the early 70s. We talk about this in another book that we dont mention here called trident. It was doug dog lesh. And as a result, i think they didnt immediate to target american hippies, as you call them, i think they kind of felt they had them already. I think their propaganda budgets were going elsewhere. Host aryan brown, email earlier you made a comment that howard zinns book premise was that in history america got it wrong. Guest yeah. Host i disagree. Zinns book is a manifestation of the african proverb, quote if lions had historians, the tale of the hunt would not always glorify the hunter. Of. Guest i would ask this of anybody who reads zinns book and wants to think its even reasonably accurate as a portrayal of history. Forget American History, history. People would agree at least 90 of Human History has been war and combat and fighting. How do you write a history of the united United States withoug into the impact or the battlefield occurrences of a single battle . He doesnt discuss a single battle. And yet the greeks thought military history was the most important of all history. Again, professor hanson, im sure, would agree with this. In that one day at antietam did more to change america than all the social history that has ever occurred, all the i love lucy episodes for whatever they may show about the role of women or sub you are by ya or even cubans. None of that had the same impact on america that a single day on the Antietam Battlefield did. And how you can write a history of anything, let alone a history of america without discussing war and the impact of war, its beyond me. Host brian emails in could you please respond to this statement, quote, more so than any other founding father we are the country we are and the people we are because of Thomas Jefferson, because of the declaration of independence and because of the louisiana purchase. Guest theres a lot of truth to that. Im not sure id say more than anyone else. When i go to a founding father, i tend to jefferson is there, but he wasnt at the constitutional convention. And i think thats crucial that he he wasnt there. I tend to look at washington as the person who set the tone for what america is and what it should be. Certainly, he was the indispensable man. Hes the one guy that everybody agreed had to be the first president. Not jeff. Its interesting not jefferson. Its interesting that everybody didnt want jefferson to be the first president. Indeed, more than half didnt want him to be president at all. Absolutely, the declaration is critical. But lincolns greatness was that he tied the declaration to the constitution and said theres a reason that you have all men are created that the constitution is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. In other words, that, yes, we have this body of lies, but they have to enforce this body of laws, but they have to enforce jeffersons laws. I wouldnt want to minimize him, but im not sure i would say he more than anyone is responsible for who we are. Host just ten minutes left with this months in depth guest. Next month, amy goodman will be our guest. Larry in minneapolis, youre on with Larry Schweikart. Caller yes, professor, what branch of the Armed Services did you serve in, and when did you serve . What was your specialty orr mo guest i didnt serve. I was 4f. They wouldnt take me. Host and, larry in minneapolis, why do you ask that question . Do you have a follow up . He is gone. Were going to move on to mike in lisbon falls, maine. Hi, mike. Caller hi. Hi, i was just ive been in an argument with several of my friends. Did the south ever have an out out of the constitution once it was ratified . Or was their extension of the con fed rahs is si an extension of the American Revolution . Guest thats a great question, and its a point that is debated certainly by neocon fed rate types of historians. More of those types and libertarians in the present time. Here are the two arguments. One argument was that, um, the government of the United States, the union was a mens club and that in this mens club anyone could pick up and leave the mens club anytime they wanted. The other view of this was that the union was a body. This is lincolns view, that you have a body, and you can no more sever an arm or a leg from the body without doing horrible damage, possibly killing the body. Um, so the answer is it depends on which of the two views you take. Now, its very interesting. Jefferson, going back to our previous caller, jeff szob was quite influential. And one of his most influential acts was inspiring the land ordnance of 1785. And this is in our reader, and i think its one of the most crucial laws ever passed in america. Because it put property into the hands of the people. Jeffersons argument in why we needed such a law was he had virginia unload all of its property from what it was called landed state. It had land theoretically going all the way to the pacific whereas states like delaware and rhode island were trapped. And jefferson said we virginians, we need to give up this land to the union and sell it off because there are going to be settlers going out there. And at some point these settlers, if we dont make it possible for them to become citizens toward us and a part of our government that are our equal, they will become rebels as we were to england, and they will rebel against us. I say all that to get to this. In that argument we haveson said that jefferson said that these new lands needed to be loyal, they needed to sign a loyalty oath or take a loyalty oath to the constitution, and he went even further, and to the congress. Now, i would not go that far, but its interesting that jefferson said, im sorry, these lands all have to be to bead crept to the constitution. Host if you enjoy history, reminder that cspans new first ladies series is every monday night, 9 p. M. On cspan. You can go to cspan. Org firstladies, and you can look up the whole series and see the whole schedule. Every monday night, 9 p. M. Eastern time. Larry schweikart, seven events, another one, the johnstown, pennsylvania, flood. Why do you say that made America America . Guest understand that these are not the most important events in American History, but events that delineate our character, that say who we are. And the interesting thing about both the johnstown and dayton flood of 1913 is that in both cases the people did not look to the federal government for relief or support, they didnt even look to the State Government for relief or support. In johnstown they immediately, as soon as the floodwaters assuaged a little, they immediately cut out ten stars for 70 deputies. They deputized 70 men to stand guard over the town. There was no looting. They immediately began to get relief supplies from all over pennsylvania. Carnegies famous manager captain bill jones personally paid for an entire Railroad Train full of relief supplies to go into johnstown. They got it as far as the road would go, and then they took it over land with pack mules, horses, on their shoulders if necessary. And they told the National Guard forget federal, they told the National Guard, stay out. We dont need you. In dayton in 1913, same thing. Hay told the ohio National Guard, stay out, we dont need you. Of mr. Patterson of National Cash register immediately turned his company into a boatbuilding business. They built about 400 small boats. As soon as one was done, hed seasoned out a couple of ncr employees to sail around dayton, rescue people who were stranded, pick up people in the water, deliver food stuffs to people who couldnt otherwise come in, and he turned ncr headquarters into a giant aid station. And, again, they said stay out, we dont need your help. It was days before the ohio National Guard came in. Federal troops never got there at all. Host john in parkersburg, west virginia, pleads go ahead. We have just about a minute and a half left. Caller yes, professor, i see that you teach at a catholic university. Guest yes. Caller and with all thats about to happen in rome, i would like your thoughts, especially the thoughts of young people. Now, as i read the new testament, you know, i see that christ was sort of like a peasant. And he was not even recognized after his resurrection by his own. Now, if he were dressed up like these cardinals, he would have been recognized. Whats the leap between the simplicity, the simple life that christ lived in the new testament with whats happening in rome with all the pomp and circumstance and is ceremony and gold and banners and all the rest . Host john, i apologize, but were going to have to get an answer from our guest. Guest well, first of all, im not a catholic. I think this is one of the wonderful things at the university of dayton is that they allow all faiths to teach there and be a part of the community. And like i said, theyve been very good to me in that respect. In terms of who jesus was and what his life was all about, i think it would take us at least another three hours, and im not prepared to go there. Host what about the pope as a political figure though . Guest pope is a very important political figure who played a key role in the demise of the soviet bloc. The three key figures were reagan, thatcher and john paul ii, without a doubt. Host hugh, telford, pa, 30 seconds. Guest 30 seconds. Caller i will talk as fast as i can. I think this is a fantastic show. I watch cspan, and the, mr. Walk art is unbelievable. Im going to the library tomorrow to pick up as many books guest no, no, no, buy the books dont go to the library, buy them [laughter] caller but i just enjoy it v or very much, guys. I appreciate it. Guest thank you. Host all right. So if you were to suggest one book for our viewers to go to the library and or purchase, which one would it be . Guest if you want just an easy read introduction, it would be 48 liberal lies or seven events. If you want to know American History, you need patriots history of the United States. Host and the books, 20plus that Larry Schweikart has authored, coauthored, we want to show you quickly eight of them. Americas victory, why the u. S. Wins wars. 48 liberal lies about american lust ri. What would the founders say a patriots answer to americas most pressing problems, 2011. The patriots history reader essential documents for every reader, 2011. And finally the most recent, the first half of a patriots history of the modern world up through45