Madison was the only framer that we know of that took complete notes that summer. The book argues that the book was not written in its entirety y wrote it. The road madisons account was the most complete. How did you get this idea . As i began to investigate the notes and read them, i realize there were a lot of mysteries. Things were not quite how i expected them to be. As they spent a lot of time with the notes, and really wonderful access at the Library Congress, it became evident that this most important document was not what we thought it was. Where are the notes at the library of congress . How hard was it for you to see them . They are in a big vault at the library of congress. You need special permission. Most people dont need to go that far. You can see them on the Library Congress website, and the library has a wonderful website with many documents, including madisons notes. In this book, it was important to look more carefully on the notes. After working on it for about two years, the lightweight decided i could go down and see it. I get my hands behind my back the entire time, and only they touched them. Why did that take two years . I dont think they want everyone who is just a regular person to wander in and see it. Madisons notes are considered a National Treasure, and the librarys very cautious about it. After a while, i think they realize the questions i raised about the news were worth investigating, but it took them a while to be persuaded. What is the vaults look like jekyll where is it in the library . Way did you actually look at the notes . Part of thethe best project. Some of the letters, they hold in the reading room. If someone is careful to explain why they dont need the microfilm, they will let you in the meeting room. Elevator, behind to locked doors, and passed the vault where they hold everything, and inside a conservation lab. One of the things i was interested in was seeing whether the pages matched, whether the watermarks with the same. Something we did was put all the pages on the table with flight that allows you to see what the watermarks on the pages were. Had you not been able to see so to speak,lesh, what difference would it have made to what you are able to write . Book is based on oldfashioned textual evidence. I was confident, without looking at the actual paper, but the paper really helped. It confirmed a lot of what i suspected. Particularly important is madison took the notes on sheets of paper, and he full that the inep folder the sheets half. At some point, he sowed all of these pieces of paper together into a manuscript. One of the things we noticed is the last quarter of the manuscript, the holes he had ewn did not match with the earlier one. That confirmed by suspicion that the end of the manuscript was written later. How long did you spend looking at the notes . The live to stop like you to be there long. We looked fast. I think i was there for maybe , and again two hours another time. The library was wonderful. They took some extra images for me. They took a number of watermark images. They keep all of that for anyone to look at now, but it was really wonderful. How long couples notes than at the library of congress je . In ther madison died 1830s, he left his papers to Dolly Madison, his wife. Them todisons sold congress. He thought they would be worth money, congress did not think were worthorth money. Friends of his in congress agreed to by the papers. They sent them to washington. For a long time, they were in the state department library. Then, the state department moves them over to the Library Congress itself. Eventually, they were in the big in epic volume. When were they first made public so the public could read them . Not until 1840, after madisons death. They were share the way that madison prepared them. Theanted them published in middle of the collection, including his letters to famous people. When the government First Published them, they publish them in three volumes. To to bringentials to the whole project . Was that part of the reason why the library eventually said, come in . I am a lawyer by profession and also have a phd in American History. I think one of the things that the library new is i had written about madison before, i had written about madison as a law student, and has worked with materials, library arguing that something classified by jefferson was a lost document by madison. Where did you get a law degree . Harvard law school in my phd is from harvard also. Why did you get both a phd and law degree . My last year of law school, i had planned to go and be a greater lawyer. Agood friend of mine told me person with teaching a history of the constitution course at the law school. Everybody was going to take it. I thought, if everybodys going. O take it, i will take it too i was captivated. I had spent all my life in moscow, learned about the constitution, and in my last semester, finally someone was explaining to me why it was how it was. For athat, i worked wonderful judge, and he suggested i go back and do more work in history. I have not looked back. I want you to tell folks who he is. Bernard balin is probably one of the most eminent early american historians. He won the pulitzer prize, and ofined ann enormous number historians now. He was important in making clear how interesting the struggle regarding the founding of the country was. What to do now . Besides the book . College lawt boston school. I want you to set up, in a moment, the whole Constitutional Convention, and what happened. Back in 2005, we went to the hall of statues in the Constitution Center in you are sending even though he is only a giant, you think he has gotten his due in American History . A think he has. I think he has. We are standing next to two people who did become president. At from tend be looked the standpoint of the president ial administration. I think James Madison plus greatest contribution to American History is the work he did in the Constitutional Convention and then the work he did in the First Congress. He served in the first five houses of representatives and the First Congress that met in thatthat he is the one pushed through the passage of the bill of rights. Comfortable there. Tell us what you can about James Madison. When you walk around there you realize everyone was a lot shorter than you think they are. Except for George Washington. There is a couple of people who by modernut it is not standards. He was the eldest son of a prominent person and held a lot of slaves. He had left virginia to go to college at what is now princeton. He had served in the Virginia Legislature and then what we call the confederation of congress. He was born in 1751. He was not really old enough to be a big player in the revolution. Thetime will come with generation that helped form the country, not with the generation that fights for independence. Quiet, fairly studious. Brian what did he study . Learned mary t he . He studied very quickly. Everyone talks about how he tried to get through pretty quickly. He studied political thought, a lot of political thought, the college was very much run by people who were at that moment interested in scottish enlightenment and european political philosophy and madison really seems to have loved that a lot, although a lot although a like a lot of people he doesnt have enormous amount of notes of what he read. Only one book of commonplace books where he wrote things down. A lot of them learned many languages. He isnt Thomas Jefferson. Madison is much more pragmatic and he tends to read pretty quickly and never held a Great Library like jefferson. He is a different person. Brian this is a group of people who were at the Constitutional Convention. You can talk about any of them when you see it up on the screen. Its we have Charles Pinkney who was 29. Alexander hamilton, 30, Edmund Randall mary you are missing randolph, 34. And george mason, 62. Mary you are missing franklin who was in his early 80s. So madison. George mason and Benjamin Franklin had been the movers and shakers at the time of the revolution. And george mason had the wellknown out of virginia for having drafted the virginia bill of rights and very important. Madison was ok. Ben franklin drives him crazy and he is in his 80s. Madisons competitors a little bit at the convention, the people he has captivated is that younger group. Charles drove him crazy. As i read the notes theres a , lot of competitive desire for credit, a little jealousy with Charles Pinkney. Writes this letter and puts you he writes he writes this wonderful letter. It put you back in that moment. He had enormous handwriting and writes madison and croge how he and crowing how he is married and joint enjoying married life and big dig toward medicine. But of course you are not married yet. And he and madison were quite competitive. Brian you mentioned in your book, kitty somebody, he was pursuing at the convention who was 16 years old. Mary James Madison was interested in kitty floyd long before he went to the convention. She was very young and he scored out the letters where he talks about her with jefferson. A lot of the people have focused on her. I tend to think he was interested in a woman from a boarding house, who married and of person who had been in prison in new orleans and then died. And madison writes a lot of letters to her and my own guess is he was quite close to her. Brian you tell us he was 40 when he got married to dolly who was 25. That was in 1794. I want to show the actual physical room at the Independence Hall where the convention was held. Tell us when were the dates of that and when were they inside this room . Mary that is Independence Hall. And the delegates met there from may of 1787 to the end of the convention, which was september 17. And the delegates we believe sat by state because they voted by state, each state had a vote and the president , who was of the convention, was George Washington, would have sat in sort of governing the entire situation. Brian where would have James Madison sat in that room . Mary he said Different Things at different times. Presumably he sat up close. One would assume he sat close with the virginians and they voted together. He was close to randolph. Brian you imply that madison was for openness and transparency and that room was nailed down. Mary one of the things we forget, what we take for granted, general assemblies wasnt true back then. In fact, when congress opened, it was closed when public outcry. People thought you should have the right to know what congress did and to have the final product, but they didnt necessarily have the belief completely to watch the deliberations. People would have liked to have known what was going on but historians have misinterpreted it as if the convention was a wrong secret proceeding. It was normal. Only after the convention when the ratification debates began did america switch towards the notion that the public has the right to observe the delegates or representatives. Brian how many delegates and how were they chosen . Mary madison wrote the legislation in virginia that said people should be elected and then he was elected. The states sent different numbers of people to philadelphia. I think the number is like in the 70s are elected. In that summer, there are less than 50 people who are in that room, and by the end in the low 40s as in terms of who are there. Brian i want to put on the screen and it starts with somebody who is 26. We dont have their names but you can see those between 2529, there were four. Mary franklin holding up the tail end there. Brian is it a young group . Mary i dont think its a young group. We know they are writing the constitution. They didnt know they were writing the constitution. The year before, madison and others had gathered in annapolis to try and write the constitution and failed miserably. The constitution stopped and they had to say to congress, you need to have a better constitution. A lot of important people go, but its not clear that its the place to be. My own sense is that is the age we would expect. Huge numbers of those people have political experience. Many of them were serving in congress at the same time. Many of them were governors. It is an Impressive Group of people. You want with people with daytoday political experience. Brian how did James Madison get into politics . Mary he begins in politics and he serves locally but he serves in the Virginia Legislature and its during those years that he becomes friends with Thomas Jefferson and also becomes very much antagonistic to people like Patrick Henry and the lees in virginia. He begins to dislike the Virginia Legislature. He felt that the Virginia Legislature was counter to national interest. Madison is part of a group of people who want the government to move towards National Stronger power and want to be respected by the European Countries and pay the soldiers off and want commercial regulation and want all sorts of things and see the Virginia Legislature and other state legislature as working against those interests solely for the sort of individual interests of each state. Brian i dont know whether you directly do this, but i get the impression that George Washington and hamilton are one side and madison and jefferson are on the other side. Im not sure thats right. What is the difference between hamilton and jefferson and what they think. Mary madison, washington and hamilton are on the same side and jefferson is in france and serving as the ambassador to france. And he wont show up until later in the United States. Jefferson is off screen and madison and washington along with james wilson, governor morris, Alexander Hamilton, they want a Strong National government. They go to the convention looking for a Strong National government. And the people opposed to them arent jefferson and those people, the people who are worried, people from small states like new jersey or connecticut who thinks a Strong National government and held by big states by virginia will be swallowed up. Madison is exposed at the convention. Brian in that same room, and we have some video to put on the screen, there are three people that did not vote for that constitution and you write a lot about them on your book and you can see, you have jerry from massachusetts who went on to be Vice President and then in the middle, you have randolph and on the right, george mason and randolph and mason are from virginia, why didnt they sign the constitution . Mary people disagree about why they didnt sign. And he drove madison crazy. Randolph was young and goodlooking and madison is close to him. Randolph is saying we should have a president who is three president s. Randolph is with madison and sometimes not with madison and goes back and forth and that is extremely frustrating. George mason said the government is too powerful and wants a bill of rights and no bill of rights and george mason refuses to sign and he was an i con particular class and what he believes about anything but true at the convention what he complains about, he worried about the power that was given to the Southern States and worried about National Power, so the three of them refused to sign. Randolph goes back to virginia and he decides he is for the constitution and argues in favor of ratifying. Brian who is your favorite character . Mary well, in terms of a character, ben franklin. He had more oneliners. I think for myself, governor morris came across as the most interesting. He was the only person at the convention who speaks passionately about slavery. Speeches that madison recorded in which morris basically says we are going to have a divide between the north and the south over the slavery issue. He is a remarkable person. Brian he is 35 and then is a missing leg. Do we know how that happened . Mary he liked to tell different stories and certainly the other delegates told stories. He was one of the people who was sort of a little bit of a hero and he got his peg leg but i think it involved an accident. He thought we ought to divide the two houses into the wealthy and not wealthy and everybody would know what the welty people were doing and so he is own quite interesting thinker. Brian if James Madison could have gotten what he wanted in the house of representatives and senate, what would he have done . Mary he wanted strong power and senate to be based on proportional representatives and i think most shocking to many people, he wanted congress to be able to veto all the laws of the the states. Its the word that is called a negative and we dont have that word anymore. But it was very similar to what the British Government had over the american colonies. Madison wants a far more