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 its a wonderful chronicle of the four leaders in the networks that tied this together at the founding of the country. Its 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 countrys 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. Im 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 email 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 President s 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. Its 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 youve 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. Its what they entail in the systems and so forth and at the time it was back water as far as the world goes its trickled around washington, d. C. And at the time you cant help but think about it as an outoftheway 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. Thats 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. Its a mystery to people who dont 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, its one fascinating question after another and this is what takes me so long. I go down every rabbit hole even when im pretty convinced at the outset i will never put any part of what im 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 didnt 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 thats 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 im getting the cutting out a sign for me to just leave it to you. I feel like im there with you but sometimes youve got to listen to the staff so im 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 . Youve 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 wasnt 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 thats 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 its got to be jefferson. You look puzzled at that. I would have thought madison. Thats 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 doesnt 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 doesnt she use a handkerchief and what she meant is why doesnt 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. Thats 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 havent 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 wasnt 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 Ginsburgs 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 didnt 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 doesnt lose his temper and i think jefferson mustve 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 dont 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 thats 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. Im 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 didnt see a quite the same way and there is a wonderful quotation, i cant 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. Thats 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