Prop. The period that i tend to focus on is the early part of the arc, and its the improvisational nature of the the really fascinates more than anything else. The nation was founded in a world of monarchy. The United States was a republic. What the means was was not clear at the moment and people knew the they were trying to do something the wasnt act. Were not going to be creating monetary and the president isnt going to be a king but beyond the there was open ground. Theres a lot of improv in those early decades about with the nation is and how it functions, the tone of the government, how the station is going to stand up amongst nations of the worlds and other kinds of nations. We mean to be a republican world of monarchy. How is this nation going to get any degree of respect, and equally if not more, what kind of nation is going to be. That is true on every level you can imagine being true. Theres a broad kind of ideological level. There is a groundlevel, how democratic a nation will be, who is going to open the land and how is the land going to literally rest from other people. What kind of rice will some people have and what kinds of rights will other people not have it all. A lot of questions that we are grappling with now, are questions of acuity and equality and race in the lets go back to the beginning of the republic and beyond. As a historian, living in the moment that we are living in now and thinking in the blog, arcing weight, we deal with these pig questions and these pig legacies of undecided things. We are still dealing with them. The goal of the way back. Where we inherently democratic. Student no. [laughter] we were to monetary. Americans had a very strong sense or certainly elite white male americans in a very strong sense of their white. They felt the they were creating a more democratic regime than what had been around before. They were thinking very much about life. Theres a reason why there is a bill of rights attached to the constitution. So in essence, they were very right minded but by no means was a country founded with people thinking everyone will have rights and there will be equality. There were different i dont want to call them parties but certainly two different points of views. Hamilton the republics and jefferson is over simple fight. Because of the two camps. They had a different view and each side how democratic the nation should be. Federalist wanted it to be somewhat los democratic and the republicans more. Even so, pretty limited view of democratics. When i teach about this period, and tell my students there are all kinds of weird you have to think about and meanings of. Democracy is a pig one. You see the word in the founding. It is not mean what it means now. You have to rethink and recalculate what you are talking about when youre looking at the founding people. Now this political buzz. How many points of views where there back then. And since today we are divided democrats and republicans and independents. Was that the case back then . I would say it was more complex than the. They werent thinking in the way that we think about party. We think a party, its an institution right is a structure is an organization and you feel it yourself with one in being yourself back to the mindset of the foundings they were assuming the a National Party like the idea the the nation could get something the over arching the the many people would buy into amongst all of these diverse states the was beyond the, they didnt think the a National Party could seeing the public met lots of viewpoints banging up against each other ultimately some decision or compromise of the the was the. Of the National Center of how the banging of opinions would initially they werent assuming the there should be two or three viewpoints. There were federalist and they were parent publicans but even under i like to call them umbrellas of political thought even under those umbrellas were vast differences. Federalist in massachusetts federalist in South Carolina. The could mean something really different. In more of a spectrum, i would say than categories. In the founding. What were some of the privatizations the did not succeed as amended. Really fun to teach about our for political culture improv. In other words, some of the wonderful things about studying and riding about the founding is they put all of kinds of things in riding that we dont expect them to put in riding. John adams riding to a friend and saying how should an american politician rest. I want to look those sort of british or french european aristocrats. The clothing i have has a lot of lace on it, it it is it too much lace. Could i strip some of the lace away. How many horses with the carriage would seem appropriate in american versus how many in another place. It sounds really goofy in this part of whites abridgment to teach. On the other hand, they are seriously thinking about the back. The stylistic decision on really going to shape the tone and character of the government and the nation and let everything set a precedence. The kind of improv can have a pig impact. On one hand, its almost comical because it seems trivial on the other hand, it really isnt trivial and the in itself is really interesting. We had several hundred white male elites forming this country with their buyin from the three or 4 Million People who live here the time. On the one hand there is a small group of people who have power. On the other hand revolution is a popular revolution and not conducted by a few guys in a room. Its important to remember the whatever is going on in this time. Although the elite have power and are very rude about maintaining power a lot happening around them and part of the challenge for the what i want to call it, maybe the difficulties or challenges of tension of the. Is the American People figuring out how to voice what they want and how to demand what they wa want, how does the system work forum and if it doesnt, at what can they do to make it work forum better. They had the power. The American People understood in a broad kind of a sense the they had rights in some ways and different kinds of peoples had a different understanding with what rights but there was a broader sense of whatever the experiment was going on in this nation, the rights were something the were still being worked out and determined and they could potentially extend it more widely than some of what had come before in europe. What was awake and what did he believe. Joanne im going to talk about moving ahead in time about the wakes. About your earlier question about parties and categories. Particularly now, people like to go back in time and draw state lines between the parties of the present and the parties of the cast. If youre republican, it goes all the way back to jefferson. There are no Straight Lines in history. There are certainly no Straight Lines when it comes to political parties. So parties bounce back and forth in the name change all of the time. So with parties for a while you had the democratic party, which is going thing. And you had what was known more than anything else is the anti jacksonians, it wasnt really a party but it was people who really arent the. [laughter] we dont like jackson and we do like and what they represent. The becomes the whig party and become in the mid 19th century with essentially for a while, two main parties in one of them is jackson and democratics supposedly popular supposedly the common man or the common white man on the one side and then on the other side you have the whigs which are more centralized and more sort of pig National Government. Represent in a way sort of two threads that we can see. Really represented a different. Of view. If you were governor of massachusetts or president of the United States at the time, who held more political power. Joanne at the time, whenever i wanted to be. Okay yes, if you all of the way back, to the real founding moments, thats a good question. There were people like housing in the federalists who assumed that the bulk of the power was with the state. Not with the National Government which was new and who knew what it encompassed beyond the very skeletal constitution. Our constitution is really brief for what it does. The governor of massachusetts probably on paper might say the president has a lot of power, the fact of the matter is the for the people, their loyalties and their sense of belongingness and their understanding of powers is pretty much going to be grounded in their state. Over time the shifts but in the 19th century, certainly, the first half if you were to pick up a newspaper, are met. Congress would be getting a lot more attention than the president at the. Again we assume now that the president is allpowerful and the president is at the center of the news and thats not an early american way of really thinking about it. Reading your books, and i dont know if this is purposeful or if i missed it, the president doesnt play the large rule that the present place today in our world. Joanne right. I would say thats partly deliberate and partly reflects my interest. But it is true the throughout this. Although clearly the americans understood that the president was significant, in the early founding. They were trying to figure out what the means. Congress as the peoples understand that the congress is really where the nation is being worked out in a groundlevel and white and people felt the they had a direct connection with their member of congress and when members of congress set up and spoke, particularly when the you get into the 1840s and 50s, they assumed they were speaking to their can stick stitch with spin the in the press was creating the conversation back and forth. Congress matter tremendously. Nowadays were more focused on congress for Different Reasons but i think the 20th century we can focus on president and the was not necessarily the case much in the 19 hundreds. When we recognize Congress Today as it was back then in the early republic. One in the early republic. Joanne i dont think so. Maybe supposedly in some ways. It might be what we seem like it would look like. Somewhat tamer. It is a group of men, white men in the room, above and beyond the, there are debating and making decisions and passing legislation than those of things we see in congress. Over time the United States becomes a lot more violent and congress is a representative body. They become a lot more violent and in the case it begins to look like maybe not necessarily the. Tobacco use of, yes there were soaring yes the reunions shaking decisions being made underneath the speechifying and politicking, was a spit and spatter drug and Antebellum Congress had its admirable moments but it wasnt an assembly of demigods it was a Human Institution, with very human failing. Joanne the was an important. For me to make in the early part of my book. My function the what most people think particularly about congress in the side. , clay and webster and sort of reach man is congress was a bunch of people in boxes the were being waspy. Lofty. Its very important for me right off the cuff to say no. This is a really Human Institution number one and number two it is a unruly institution. Its a different world than you assumed. The book really is about this union Human Institution and how it functioned and shaped not just the nations politics but americans understanding of the nation. What is an affair of honor. Joanne thats another fundamental thing in the early part of my book that i talk about. People think about an allencompassing term, a dual, people assume the thats all there was to men on a field and shooting each other. Part of the. That i make in the first book, is an affair of honor was bigger than the. The. Of an affair of honor or even a dual is very counterintuitive read if you have to come in on a field and face each other and to someone. Youre going to kill someone. One of my early points is an affair of honor or a dual is to prove the you are willing to die for your honor. It means it is a long sort of ritualized series of whether exchanges and negotiations very often can take place in two men can redeem their names and honor and you dont even have to make it out to a dueling ground. An affair of honor includes all of the ritualized dual. Even at the. , the. Is the performance of it. If you think about it, this terrifying thing to stand out of the ground and pay someone with a cap gun. Instead there to allow someone to shoot at you. Thats the. Of it is to prove the you are the kind of man and thus leader who is willing to die for your name and reputation. It makes no sense to us now but clearly made so much sense to them the time. Hundreds and hundreds of people ended up working through those customers. Why are we taught at the beginning of us history about the bert hamilton duel of 1804. Joanne army because sometimes histories about good stories the seem to sum things up. You jefferson versus hamilton, the dual, the paintings, dramatic stories, the people sort of moved to encapsulate the thoughts of things. I think people teach the. The teacher first of all as one and only instance. Is a sign of this great unity of these two men and it somehow is typical of the period. Inmates were so fierce. Dramatic characters, it does a lot of storytelling work but not until recently has the been taught as a way of getting deeper and kind of understanding something about the guts of politics. How they really work in the time. What happened in 1804 and why did it happen. Joanne Vernon Hamilton certainly have been opponents for a long time. Hamilton was largely the fuel behind much of the opposition. He really deceptive or any thought of him as something of a demigod. Because he was somebody who came from the equivalent of royalty, his family was an opportunity this, early on in a relationship of sort. Back in 1792, pretty much a direct quote, i consider it my religious duty to oppose his career. Thats some serious opposition the you have going there. So he is pretty bound and determined to squash birds career and the goes on for quite some time. In the election of 1800, when it ends up being a tie between two candidates from the same party, jefferson and hamilton steps forward and doesnt eat everything he can do to squash his chances. This does not make her happy. It got moved over four years later, brett is running for governor of new york hamilton once again steps forward to do everything he can do to stop the from happening. As luck would have it, someone stepped forward after the and said have you seen there is a report of what hamilton said about you and a dinner party and hamza stupor. And brent this. Needs to prove the he is a man and a leader and he keeps contest after contest. He needs to redeem his name and honor. He acts on the and it happens to be hamiltons words. So you end up with bert being handed something the in his mind is dual worthy and so he commences an affair of honor with hamilton. The exchange these ritualized letters. Neither one, doesnt go swimmingly. Persons a letter, its kind of normal things in the letters. I heard you said this about me is it true or false. Validate or deny this. I deserve this Immediate Response as a man of honor. If you got a letter like this, you knew you were in trouble. You had to think very hard about how you responded. Hamiltons response is not a deal. He uses a very lengthy response in which he talks about he supposedly called something more despicable. Flaming despicable and hamilton gives this rather grammar lesson when shes talking about what is the meaning of despicable. Is the a bad word. [laughter] if youre a person at the end of the letter, to show the he is not afraid. Hamilton then said by the way, i always stand behind all of my words. Not an exception to the now. I am willing to fight for any words that i enter. Thats a not a strategically smart thing to send the kind of letter. Its offensive in two ways. My guess is the and is offended. Basically forms by saying, you are not behaving like a gentleman. This is not a gentlemanly thing to do. Now they are both offended. You can kind of see how things spiral to avoid the a trip to the dueling ground is the outcome. Dueling is not legal. State had its anti dueling regulations. A challenge might be against the law the dueling in self might be against the law, the punishment was different. In massachusetts you could be publicly humiliated in some way. Some places have a fine. If you in massachusetts anywhere prefer to go to another place, you could pay a fine a lot los daunting. But it was legal but it was largely the lawmakers. The people making the law were the people breaking the law which the lead in this. In how they do this. Duly spent too much much time talking about the actual duels and the set up to this rather than or does it a microcosm of what is going on in the country the time. The one people tend to focus on the story. There was a lot of dueling. The practice of dueling is worth looking at because it does tell you a lot about elite politics. Being a politician or political approach or at the time. I can tell you a lot about the emotional guts of some of the politics of the. But the pre shouldnt and its just dramatic. The Vice President of the United States killed the former secretary of the treasury and its a pretty dramatic story. If youre going to focus on one dual, it makes sense but if for too long it stood in for a lot of other things and hard with studying as well. We should note the he did not get elected at new york. Very effective to help smash various aspects of her career. I dont think burke wanted to kill hamilton. I dont think the was his purpose. First almost duels unless maybe youre andrew jackson, most dont go to a dueling ground where you are wanting to kill. I dont think burke did. Sometime before the dual is asked about a dr. , what doctor emer says something along the lines of you dont need dodgers, lets just get it over with. I think he assumed it would be in a typical dual. You shoot at each other you prove youre a man of honor at the nearly. But tragically, it has become the sort of villain of American History for killing hamilton. I dont think the was his aim. There are to be fun words in the english language. I dont think the was his purpose in going to the dueling ground. What was his life like after the.