Put this bike of a drawing compass into a map of virginia at dairy farm, George Washingtons boyhood home, extent of the like of the compass of reaches out 60 miles and draw a circle. Whence in it not only washington but also Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and james monroe were born. Grew to manhood and made their home. From this small expanse of land on a north American Continent came four of the nations first five president s. A dynasty whose members lead in securing independence, created the constitution and building the republic. What a great way to start a book. I spent most of last that reading it and its a wonderful chronicle, four major leaders and interconnected networks that tied them together at the founding of this country. Its a story that evokes the spirit of hope and perseverance that runs straight through the american experience. Dr. Cheney is a longtime member of aei faculty so want to take a moment to knowledge how much we all appreciate her scholarship and intellectual contributions to aei, not to mention service she has done for our country. This is of the latest in a series of several works by dr. Cheney that examines our countrys history with consideration and rigor. Our last book James Madison a life reconsidered became New York Times bestseller in 2014 and sheds new light on the life of one of her most underappreciated founders. I also want to thank dr. Cheney interview today, Vice President cheney for his service to our country and great friendship to aei. Im so pleased for both of you are with us for this conversation today and we will be taking questions after their conversation going to want to ask questions you can email her Research Assistant, Catherine Quigley at aei. Org or on twitter using the hashtag virginia dynasty aei. But before handing over i want to say one last thing. A well treasured piece of aei history concerns the time Vice President cheney conducted and if you with the current Vice President of the United States, mike pence. During the interview Vice President cheney was polite but relentless. He asked tough questions to challenge Vice President pence pic was a great dialogue but there were some not be of course the word are question qun mark push the envelope a little bit. Im sure you will agree that your adversary today is far more formidable than one you face that day. I want you to know that and argue, have adequate give it your best shot. We are not concerned. With that i want to turn it over to dr. Cheney to speak about her new book the virginia dynasty. Thank you. Iq, robert. I think you really did let out the context by reading the part of the preface that you did. Its where i started it was just remarkable to me that on this isolated part of what was then a not very important continent, and certainly not an important colony well, virginia was an important colony, but in the periphery of everything, that in that spot these four four men d grow to greatness. And so i think the preface is as you write it so well really does set the context. I agree. Take it away, Vice President. Are you going to go to the questions now . Well, usually she has more to say. Keep going. We will get there. I was struck, to, when you take the enormous consequences of what these men did and how they were able to achieve it and what they were part of, building the United States of america and all that it entails, our political system and so forth. And at the time it was a real backwater as far as the world goes. The circles are bound what is now washington d. C. , but at the time you cant help but think about it and outoftheway spot, and just remarkable accomplishments for a handful of men who were involved in the effort. Do you have a question . No. [laughing] well, i have to forgive dick for that because as far as he knew a very long time, five or six years, i disappeared. I was writing away on my book in far corners of the house, and i think he must have wondered what i was doing. Thats true, many times, 56 year marriage. Im going to turn over to both of you to continue this dialogue by do what you see her presence was always face here. We knew what you were and its a great choice had to work going on inside a building and with the Research Assistant you worked with and your example that you set for everyone who works here. You may have missed her, Vice President , that we didnt. You know, 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 more and more of it. I love the research. The writing and not so sure about, but the research particularly when you have terrific Research Assistance as i have had at aei. Its just one fascinating question after another. This is what takes me so long is i go down every rabbit hole, even when i am pretty convinced at the outset that i will never put any part of what im doing in the book. You have to love, as i do, research. I like writing a lot, but in order to spin this amount of time on a project, you have to love your subjects, too. One of the questions that comes to mind is not only were these men architects of our tremendous levitical system and so forth, freedom and liberty and all that is detailed in debt, most of them also owned slaves. That was clearly a significant element as we go forward into our history in the 19th century. But how do you reconcile, on the one hand, the architects of our historic political system with the fact most of the men, most of the architects were, in fact, owners of slaves . That has become a very big question nowadays, as you see statues of washington being tossed into the river. I am not opposed to taking down the confederate soldiers, confederate leaders. They were traitors to the union, and i think that to take those statues down is fine. But i do, i mean, i am appalled actually when statues of washington fall or when the d. C. Government had the commission that suggested if we dont start explaining the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial better, then maybe they should be moved to some other place. They cant do this because those statues and those monuments on private land. But i am appalled at this, and they were slaveholders. They knew slaveholding was wrong. Jefferson called it a stain on virginia and others of them spoke of it as a moral sin, and jefferson called it a a sin against god. So they were fully aware of the dilemma in which they lived, the contradiction in which they existed, but they found themselves unable, the circumstances were not such that they could achieve the full emancipation that justice demanded. That didnt stop them once they understood what a unique place they were in, what a unique time they were in. They were all educated in the enlightenment, in the scottish enlightenment. The ideas of freedom and liberty and justice and equality were central, central to the scottish enlightenment, and they were all washington educated himself but the other three went to find schools and learned this. So they were perfectly ready to start a new nation based on the very highest principles, and thats what they did. You are right, dick, it is a contradiction. I sure am glad they did it. How long does it take you to write the book . Im not sure hello . We are disconnected. There you go. Robert, we have no sound. The producers would like me to back, take a backseat so that the two of you can just dialogue. We are all hanging on every word, i assure you, so we can hear every word. The audience can hear every word that i think im getting a cut sign for me so we just leave it to you. Everybody okay with that . Okay. You were just about to ask me a very tough question. Yeah, thats right. [laughter]. Why did you write the book. Youve written your biography before on madison, very proud of that and legitimatesy so. It was on the New York Times list, but this sort of rolled out of that experience, the time you spent on madison. Well, 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. I mean, they were committed to one another for life, but madison was also, his life was entwined with monroes and everybodys life was entwined with washingtons. I really did quite a lot of research on the synergy of groups, what happens when you have people of fine intellect, welltrained in ones life. And it turns out that what happens is that they inspire one another. Their conversations lead them to thought they might not have had otherwise. Their disagreements are important. Out of the disagreement, there was a huge disagreement that washington had with madison and jefferson and monroe to some exte extent, no for sure, out of that quarrel came political parties. You know, washington thought that the government ought to be r un run in one way, you elect your politicians and leave them alone. The voters should go home and leave the politicians alone. That wasnt how jefferson and madison in particular were thinking about it. They really believed that politicians were as 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, the three younger men, began. Which one did you most admire . I like to think of it this way, which one would i like to have lunch with and you know, the answer has got to be jefferson. Oh, youre looking puzzled at that. I would have assumed it was madison. Well, thats different. What kind of an experience must it have been to have jefferson talk about his experiments, or to have jefferson talk about his theories of government or talk about anything. He was such a man and according to one woman who talked to him in his presidency, he was modest which surprised me. She had no idea he was the president elect. He would be very pleasant to have lunch with. I think i do admire madison more. Hes steady, stable, not subject to whims. Very profound thinker. The most studious of them all. And plus, he had a wonderful wife, dolly. She was really an unusual person in her time. She didnt think twice about asserting herself and you know, she was gosh, three or four inches taller than madison and when they went out to former occasions, neither of them seemed to care that she wore plumes in her turban that made her a foot taller than madison. He loved her extravagance and i think that people generally loved the incredible way she dressed. She had one outfit that was pink velvet and decorated with many chains. I think it was sort of warrish, but everyone noted that there were some women everyone noted how exciting her dress was, but there were some women that were distressed she showed so much of her bosom. And it was the style at the time and one woman wrote to another, why didnt she use a handkerchie handkerchief, and what she meant was tuck it in her neck line. If you look at the portrait of dolly madison, thats just dolly, shes out there. Interesting. In the current environment, i cant help, but talk about something thats current. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, obviously, has set up a situation for a fairly, apparently fairly bitter fight in terms of picking her replacement, trumps so forth. There were times in your book when there were conflicts between the members, but i think most of this most of it those of us who read history of the era have a tendency to think, well, they were working hard doing good things and not spend much time or even be very aware of the extent to which there were conflicts amongst th them. And i just wonder how that crew would look at this whole question of appointing a new Supreme Court justice before the election and one of the first with i am women to serve being replaced. And im curious how that would have been dealt with by your four president s. Could i just say a word about Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Sure. I think its been deemed politically incorrect, perhaps, because i havent heard a Single Person mention what a sense of style she had. You know, she was not only a great justice, she a great lawyer, a great intellect, she also has this sense of style. She was always wearing something a little exotic. Theres a picture of the Supreme Court members walking down the steps of the building and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has on longish skirt and its so appropriate for that moment, she just had that. So now my politically incorrect compliment. They would have fought just as hard as i suspect our senators and the country as a whole are going to fight. One more thing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg though, during the Merrick Garland nomination, someone this is in the New York Times, asks her if she thought that the president should wait and not appoint in his last year before the election, or if she thought that the senators should hold off voting and her answer was, look, the president is still the president in the last year and the job of the senators is to vote. So i think it shows the kind of the kind of changes that people in public life sometimes undergo. Madison changed all the time. You know, he was the father of the constitution, he was the man who got the bill of rights through. But after he had struggled to make the Constitutional Convention work, he wasnt sure that the constitution was any good. But within thee or four weeks he was promoting it and he promoted it on the basis that, you know, we really needed a more powerful government. In the end he changed his mind about that, too. And became worried about a very powerful central government. Theres a british politician, i wish i could remember his name, who said once, he said, sir, speaking to someone i dont know who it was, sir when the situation changes, i change my mind. What do you do, sir . So, you know, i think that part of the back and forth about who supported what when is just a natural part of politics. And certainly, washington, madison, jefferson had a very fraught relationship with John Marshall who, by the way, had gone to school with monroe. The world of the late 18th, early 19th century is so little. You know, you keep coming across a connection. I think bernard baylen once said it was like a Little Country of cousinry. Everyone was related to everyone else in a way. So i think they would have fought it out hard. Im intrigued by some of the debate discussions on the court talking about Justin Justice ginsburg opinions, and personal friend was Justice Scalia and hunt and fish and i was struck by the relationship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg because they were such opposites in terms of their positions they represented with ni ni nino, and then ginsburg being the lead liberal. But they were very close personally, in terms of families and time spent together and so forth. And i can remember Justice Scalia talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg in glowing terms, how much he enjoyed the relationship. Well, thats interesting. It always appeared to me and honestly, you were much closer to it than i, that it was based mostly on opera, and their love of classical music. And judge Justice Ginsburg said at one point, you know, when i go, i listen to the opera, the voices inside my head stop and im just, im just relieved of the feeling of conflict and uplifted by it. And i had never heard, nino talk about why he loved opera so much, but i suspect it was probably the same with him. The one of the things that you touched on in the book, obviously, the extent to which there was conflict between these men who were in some respect involved in founding the nation. My feelings, and obviously, i wasnt there then. Oh. [laughter] but there is a feeling, i think, in the country today that the relationships politically are have evolved in a way that its not what you would expect, the feelings between the congress and the white house, the president and so forth, that the relationships are pretty severely strained, the battles are pretty significant, and my own sense of it is, theres been years since we first came to washington that thats evolved to a significant extent. That there were periods of time when the relationships were bet efriendlier, more collegial as they often are in the court as it is today. I know, just because i know you, that you had some experience with this, that working across the aisle and no one ever really condemned you for doing it, but talk about well, he was a significant ally of yours, jack was a democrat from pennsylvania. Sure, well, when i arrived here in what, 1966 to go to work on the hill the first time, the over the years good relationships did grow. I mean, i look back on my time, four years as secretary of defense, the republican secretary of defense, my strongest ally in the house, the man that i did the most work with was jack martha. He was a marine, the first vet elected to congress and he was my closest ally. At the time putting the defense bill together, he chaired the feds appropriation subcommittee of the house while i was secretary of defense and so there were relationships like that. Id call them significantly different than a lot of what we see today happening on capitol hill and ive always anticipated some degree of Cooperation Among the founders, the collecttivity. But your book shows that it was sometimes down and dirty there just like it was from occasions now in congress. I think the steadiest and probably the most rewarding relationship for both men was jefferson and m