from this small extensive land on the north american came four of the nations five, a dynasty securing independence and building the republic. what a great way to start a book. i spent last night reading it and it's a wonderful chronicle of the four leaders in the networks that tied this together at the founding of the country. it's a story that evokes what the historians called spirit of hope and perseverance that runs straight through the american experience. doctor cheney is a longtime member of the faculty so i want to take a moment to acknowledge how much we appreciate the scholarship and intellectual contributions not to mention the service for the country. this is the latest of the works that examine the country's history, consideration. the last book james madison a life reconsidered became a "new york times" bestseller in 2014 and shed new light on one of our most underappreciated founders. i also want to thank the interviewer today, vice president cheney for his service to the country and great friendship. i'm so pleased both of you here with us for the conversation today and we will be taking questions after the conversation so if you want to ask questions you can e-mail catherine quigley at aei.org or on twitter using the hashtag virginia dynasty. before handing things over i want to say one last thing. a well treasured piece of history concerns the time vice president cheney conducted an interview with the current vice presidents of the united states. during that interview, he was polite but relentless and asks tough questions. it was a great dialogue but there were some who worry that he pushed the envelope a little bit. our view, have at it, give it your best shot and with that i want to turn it over to doctor cheney to speak about her new book the virginia night. >> thank you and i think you did lay out the context by reading the part that you did. it's where i started. it was just remarkable to me on an isolated part it was on the periphery of everything that in that spot these four men would go to greatness so i think the preface and you've read it so well does set the context. >> take it away, vice president or are you going to go to the questions now? >> usually she has more to say. we will get there. [laughter] i was struck also when you take the enormous consequences. it's what they entail in the systems and so forth and at the time it was back water as far as the world goes it's trickled around washington, d.c. and at the time you can't help but think about it as an out-of-the-way spot and remarkable accomplishment for a handful of men who were involved in the effort. >> was that a question? [laughter] >> as far as he knew for a very long time like five or six years i disappeared and i was writing away on my book in faraway corners of the house and he must have wondered what i was doing. >> that's been too many times in a 56 year marriage. >> i will turn over to both of you but i do want to say your presence was always felt here. we knew where you were and it was a joy to have your work going on inside of the building and with the research assistants you worked with and your examples that you set for everyone who works here. >> it's a mystery to people who don't write books how anyone can spend five, six, seven years writing a book, but i just love it. i love the momentum that you build up as you learn and i love the research. the writing i am not so sure about, but the research particularly when you have the terrific assistance that i had at the time, it's one fascinating question after another and this is what takes me so long. i go down every rabbit hole even when i'm pretty convinced at the outset i will never put any part of what i'm doing in the book. you have to love research and i like writing a lot, but in order to spend this amount of time on a project you have to love your subject, tomac. >> one of the questions that comes to mind is not only were these men and architects of ourr tremendous political system and so forth, freedom and liberty and all that entails most of them also owned slaves and that was clearly a significant element as we go forward in the 19th century. how do you reconcile on the one hand the architects in the historic political system and the fact most of the architects were in fact owners of slaves? >> that became a very big question nowadays as you see staff in washington being tossed into the river. i am not opposed to taking down the confederate soldiers and leaders. they were traitors to the union and i think that taking those down is fine, but i am appalled when the statues of washington fall of the government has a commission that suggests that if we do not start explaining the washington monument and the jefferson memorial better, then maybe they should be moved to some other place. to achieve the full emancipation that the justice demanded. that didn't stop them once they understood what a unique place they were in and time they were in. they were all educated in the enlightenment. the ideas of freedom and liberty and justice and inequality were essential. they were ready to start a new nation based on the highest principles and that's what they did. it is a contradiction, but i sure am glad they did it. >> how long did it take you to write the book? >> we are disconnected. there we go. we have no sound. >> of the producers would like me to step aside so that the two of you can just dialogue. we are hanging on every word. we can hear every word but i think i'm getting the cutting out a sign for me to just leave it to you. i feel like i'm there with you but sometimes you've got to listen to the staff so i'm backing out so the two of you can engage in a dialogue and we are all enjoying it, so keep at it. he was just about ready to ask me a very tough question. >> why did you write the book? you've written your biography on management and we are proud of that. it was on a "new york times" list but this sort of rolled out of that experience. >> it was certainly the case that i saw when i was working on madison how important the relationships were between him and jefferson in particular. they were committed to one another for life but madison also his life was entwined with munro and everybody was entwined with washington. i decline a lot of research on the synergy of groups. what happens when you have people find intellect in one place and it turns out what happened is that they inspire one another. the conversations leave them to thoughts they might not have had otherwise. their disagreements are important. out of the disagreement that washington had with madison and jefferson and munro to some extent, out of that came the political parties. washington felt the government ought to be running one way and that was you elect your politicians and then you leave them alone. the voter should go home and just leave the politicians alone. well that wasn't how jefferson and madison in particular were thinking about it. they believed politicians were as a subject to criticism as any other citizen and that made washington crazy so that's when the original divide between washington on the one hand and the other three began. >> which ones did you most admire? >> i like to think of it this way, which one would i like to have lunch with. the answer is it's got to be jefferson. you look puzzled at that. >> i would have thought madison. >> that's different what kind of an experience must it have been to have jefferson talk about his experience or have jefferson talk about his theories in government or talk about anything? according to one woman who talked to him early in his presidency, he was modest which really surprised me. she had no idea that he was the president elect. i think though i do admire madison more. he is steady, stable, very profound finger. the most studious of them all. he had a wonderful wife, dolly who was an unusual person in her time. she doesn't think twice about asserting herself. she was three or 4 inches taller than madison and when they went out to formal occasions, neither of them seemed to care she wore plumes in her -- that were foot taller. there were some women everyone noted how exciting the dress was but there were some women who were distressed if she showed so much and it was the style at the time but one route to another why doesn't she use a handkerchief and what she meant is why doesn't she talk a handkerchief in her neck line. if you look at the portrait of dolly madison in the white house, it is certainly the most revealing. that's dolly. she was just out there. .. >> and not spend much time or be very aware to the extent there were conflicts among them. i just wonder how that crew looks at the whole question of appointing a new supreme court justice and one of the first woman to serve on the court of how that would be dealt with by the president. >> let me just say a word about ruth bader ginsburg it has been deemed politically incorrect but i haven't heard a single person mentioned her sense of style she had. a great lawyer and intellect always wearing something a little exotic there is the picture of the supreme court members walking on the steps of the building and ruth bader ginsburg has on a long skirt and it is so appropriate for the moment. she just had that so now my politically incorrect complement. they would have far just as hard as the senators but one more thing about ruth bader ginsburg during the merrick garland nomination, this was in "the new york times", someone asked her if the president should wait and not a point where year before the election or if she thought the senators should hold off voting. to answer the president is still the president during the last year. it is the job of the senators is to vote. i think it shows the kind of changes that people in public life undergo. madison changed all the time. he was the father of the constitution. he was the man who got the bill of rights through. but after he has struggled to make the constitutional convention work, he wasn't sure it was any good. but within three or four weeks he was promoting it and he promoted it on the basis we really needed a more powerful government. in the and he changed his and of one - - his mind about that or so and was worried about a very powerful central government. there is a british politician i wish i could remember his name who said sir, when the situation changes i change my mind. what do you do server? washington and jefferson and they had a fraught relationship with marshall i went to school with monroe. under the late 18th early 19th century is so little you keep coming across connections like bernard baylin once said it was like a little country of cousin we everybody was related to everyone else in a way. >> i was intrigued by some of the dissipate one - - debate discussions on the court with justice ginsburg's contributions a personal friend antonin scalia they knew each other well we would hunt and fish together and i was always struck by the relationship between nino and ruth bader ginsburg because they were so opposite with the positions they represented with fiscally conservative and ginsburg really liberal but very close with families and times they spent together a member justice scalia talking about ruth peter ginsburg in glowing terms and how much he enjoyed the relationship. >> you are much closer than i but it always appeared to me that their love for classical music and opera and justice ginsburg said at one point when i go in listen to the opera the voices inside my head stop and i am just relieved of the feeling of conflict and uplifted by it i never heard him say why he loved it so much but i suspect it was probably the same with him. >> one of the things that you touch on and the book the extent that there was conflict between these men who were all involved and founding the nation that there is a feeling i think in the country today the relationships politically have evolved in a way of the feelings between the congress and the white house. [inaudible] but he was a significant ally and jack was a democrat. >> when i left 1966, over the years good relationships did grow with the four years i spent as secretary of defense , my strongest ally in the house the man i did the most work with was jack murtha. a marine, the first vietnam vet elected to congress, and my closest ally but in the defense bill together he chaired the defense appropriations subcommittee in the house while i was secretary of defense so there were relationships like that that were significantly different than you would see today on capitol hill and so your book shows that sometimes they got down and dirty just like they do now. >> i think the most most rewarding relationship for both men was jefferson and madison they didn't always agree. jefferson tried to undermine the constitutional ratification. he sent letters out to friends and then showed them on the floor of the virginia assembly during the crucial ratification criticizing the constitution saying they should not ratify with some more discussion and changes made. madison, the steadiest of all not that he showed it jefferson was embarrassed. so it took madison a long time to send him a copy of the federalist papers. i just love it as an example of jefferson and winging it and i will criticize the constitutionality ratification and madison doesn't lose his temper and i think jefferson must've been a very difficult friend. so now it is 1130 you can ask me a couple more questions then we will go to the questions in the chat room. >> when we married you had your phd in english literature. >> you drifted quite a ways from that spending a lot of time on american history and political history. but how did you account for the transition you made from literature to politics and the founding fathers et cetera? >> i could not get a job as a traditional journalist we began writing and there was nice people along the way to do some historical writing for different magazines and outlets. i wrote history for grade drifted toward it. there is a sense that i think i could major in history it was not political science. i don't know why but the idea that you could possibly get a phd in history but i did when i get a chance to start writing it was wonderful and then one job allowed everyone to take one aspect of washington and explain it and get to the underlying basis from the lincoln cemetery to the call him. and why we had all these columns. so that's the direction so it like to turn it over to the folks? >> i what i think they have some questions. >> i would like to hear them. >> i'm coming back just to say thank you. that was lovely we are hanging on every word now we will continue the questioning but i just cannot resist to come back on to say thank you to both of you for a wonderful conversatio conversation. >> i am the gerald ford visiting scholar at aei it is a pleasure to be with you mrs. cheney and vice president cheney we have some interesting questions. the first i want to ask about is the quality of statesmanship. and i really struck that it all their professional life they wanted to go home or stay home. and then to take the secretary ship of state back in montpelier where the wife and the stepson wanted to go home but they all sacrificed for the sake so tell us the quality the leadership that set the foreman apart. >> i sense the importance of the task they were about. and it was also punishing and madison went home whenever he could but it was six years washington was gone from home during the revolution he was more home at a boarding house in philadelphia than he did at home and that reflects feeling you are part of something bigger than yourself and then no doubt there were many. but if you would ask them the choice if you would rather have a life that you were well off for had a life to create a great nation sure you have chosen the latter. >> a reader points out you have a network of men that you discuss in your book these four titans and other networks as well like the bostonians and the hancox and also work in new york and philadelphia with hamilton and morris and scheidler so how do you describe the relationship of these different networks in light of the fact they were more focused on commerce while the virginia and network was more agricultural? >> they didn't see a quite the same way and there is a wonderful quotation, i can't remember who wrote it. maybe you can help me, and which person a set of john adams he is wonderful and he is smart but he is half mad. and when he became commander of the continental army went to boston others were appalled at the moneygrubbing and virginia you did money grab and in the end of slavery just did not work and did not allow a profitable enterprise. but they were much more polite than adams then to stir up trouble. >> very well put. >> that's just one example but the northerners and the southerners were very different and part of the reason the civil war happened they never reconciled those differences and certainly by the middle of the 19th century they cannot reconcile itself to slavery. >> the first big three and the father of the constitution and to be often overlooked and way choosing to focus on somebody like marshall over monroe 200 years later what have we as a society missed about him? >> we missed a lot for a long time because there is an comprehension of the papers and there is now. and with that monroe scholarship he was a curious man. and angered perhaps more than any other washington had a formidable temper that monroe is one of those i was angry about most of the time with washington and then leading the country into monarchy. but to see that aspect and the ability to anger so quickly and easily, he was a good president and did not preside over great defense like the louisiana purchase. of course he was there to do some part of the negotiating what it was jefferson, i'm sorry monroe and john quincy adams. and in some sense real there was a common the country and the presidency he had the most stable cabinet of any other president and that is a security and continuity that people felt. and jefferson and the governor of virginia much to the delight of patrick henry and james madison and of course not cut of the military cost and the problems of public finance. talk about the ways in which the war shape their character and their understanding of the unio union. how does that affect them? >> he could not become a warrior because he had epilepsy. so this is a theory i think pretty much substantiated in my madison book with a complex partial seizure. and to have such an event so that is what happened in the military didn't want them at that point so that was madison story feeling a little left out but then turning to what he felt past. and that study became more important to him. jefferson spent his whole life and then fled charlottesville. the charlottesville exit he tried to act like he wasn't worried and it was at his home and invited legislators to stay the night and give them with food and drink. a young man came to warn him the british were coming and he offered him a beer then finally began leaving and he tried to do very casually but in the end he took the fastest horse to gallop away. and with washington in particular that he didn't appreciate what he had done monroe was nearly killed at the crossing of the delaware and take and now it of action not given the attention he thought was deserved making out washington feel was turning his back on him so word got back to monroe as an opportunity in one of the things i admired about him no matter how tough he would have the aura. but not at the beginning and at the beginning they were worried about his indecisiveness spread as the war went on they would understand him better. it was that rockhard confidence or the ability to appear confident. >> i may be projecting confidence but more broadly , all four of them have a very distinct with the public appearance and that in one - - and he participated in princeton in the way they comport themselves in public and in this age where i am so chagrined to see politicians on twitter all the time. >> is there a way to recapture that? and the expectations of what that means to participate but that seems to be lost today. >> i think the atmosphere in virginia encourages people from a very young age to participate in public service. so they were 24 and 25 and 26 and an actual legislation so that helps them. so that shouldn't overestimate that they letter on - - later demonstrated. with those lyrics that you would not want repeated in front of children. so there was a lively time in princeton learning a great deal from a great man named john witherspoon. >> a question for you mr. vice president, thomas jefferson was among his many accomplishments as vice president so how word you assess his tenure as vice president. >> he didn't do a thing. [laughter] >> and he did get squared away and set up to be president. no mean achievement and i thin think, speculating that is a hopeful outcome for many of my predecessors. but there is a sense now taking on the most significance the legitimate job but that's an interesting question and i'll think of jefferson as vice president the way i thought of myself as vice president that the history is such that it is clear the job didn't amount to much. >> as a follow-up becoming vice president having finished second in the electoral college to john adams, if you could we envision an american and history in a way the second-place finisher that they become vice president , how do you react to that? do you think the 12th amendment was an improvement? >> harry truman was a tremendous president he made even though he was a haberdashery from missouri roosevelt really had included him in anything in a period of time as vice president and he came in and world war ii. when the cold war started and in my mind and it was his time as vice president to perform the task. >> this always makes me laugh. >> the vice presidency from the beginning in order to establish voting and as you pointed out and then the majority as president and then the second member vote was the vice president that was really the afterthought. the question was what are we going to do with him? now what? so they gave him the presidency of the senate. they did that largely because they wanted to keep them out of trouble. >> and then to set up there. >> the tie-breaking vote? >> yes. i was busy. [laughter] >> we're just about out of time but with one final question like with mr. vice president talking about contemporary politics and difficult times for our country but what do you think would be one or two lessons the virginia dynasty can guide our politics moving forward? >> they were a raucous bunch and fighting with each other they were smart. that was an important element. jefferson was smart and a flighty way so how do i succeed. so to have that natural intellect and attitude and interest toward intellectual issues to make them successful. >> one more question what do you think of the musical hamilton and the way the dynasty members are remembered? >> i love hamilton. we sought a long time ago still off-broadway. i heard how excellent it was so i got tickets and had the hardest time to persuade dick to go to a wrap musical but then he did and he really admired it as well. i thought washington was humorously done but madison was the most disappointing but madison was a hunk of a man and so far that come my attention. i would maybe have changed that a little bit. >> thank you for your time it has been an educational and enjoyable opportunity for me to speak with you and the viewers enjoyed best wishes to you both. thank you so much.

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