history is important, what his writing process is like, and how he -- here's previews his upcoming work about the pioneers of the u.s. territory. this for our 30 minute event >> wow, good morning. i am happy their students here from palm beach atlantic university. the people i want to reach most are the children and grandchildren of the people in this room. today i am introducing a dear friend, america's great historian, david mccullough. i'm also very happy to introduce his wife, rosalie. i said to david, is rosalie coming to the lecture? he said, i can't go anywhere without adult supervision. [laughter] is awesome. rosalie is to david what abigail adams was to john adams. she is the fabulous... [applause] she is the fabulous, indispensable life partner. she is not only beautiful inside and out, but she told me last night when she met david mccullough, she was only 17. the first time they want to a coming out party together, they danced until 7:00 in the morning. gon she took her heels often to bed, her feet hurt so much she had to put the heels back on in order to sleep because he -- her feet were bent and that shape. [laughter] they care deeply about each other and each other's well-being. they take advice from each other. she told me she often reads david's books to him because he likes to listen to his words and see where he might be boring. when you google david mccullough, you will be blown away. lifee richness of his productivity. i will not give you a long list, but google it. he has had the most extraordinary number of prizes and donors and honorary degrees during his lifetime. he has received not one, but two of the coveted pulitzer prizes. let me tell you more than i know about david. success in every aspect of his life. he is not only a great historian and writer and lecturer, he's a great husband and father and grandfather. he is a great man and a good man. think goodness counts life. in life. [applause] last week we had a dear friend visiting us, who is blind. , i listened to the content and rely on her. he said i would rather listen to david mccullough reading van anyone else. when i listened to the right brothers i thought, no reader as good as david macola. he has -- voice and a practice that word. [laughter] i was the region at mount vernon on friday, october 26's, 2006, we opened the exceptional orientation center, education center, and museum. was only one man i wanted to deliver the keynote speech, that was david mccullough. thrilled when he excepted, as was everyone at mount vernon. memorable speech, it meant the world to me. we were launched. that night at the ball, i watched david into rosalie dance. i will tell you, fred astaire .nd ginger rogers move over at2007, i hosted dinner mount vernon. many american patriots were there come a lehrman, peggy noonan, michael novak, richard , andn skate, rush limbaugh the regent to be session david and rosalie were there. david stood up and said, ladies and gentlemen, this is hollowed ground. just think of where we are sitting. we see and view across the potomac to maryland and there are no high-rises, no buildings, no lights. that is thanks to the mount vernon association who is protected this area. it looks almost exactly as it looked in the 18th century. he said, this is where and marthaington entertained, hamilton, y, madison;adams, ja we are sitting in the same place. everyone stood up to toast. all of us were misty eyed and had goosebumps. i once asked david, is it true to do all your typing on a typewriter? he said absolutely, i write on a that iandard, 1940 model bought secondhand in 1965. i asked him why he never changed to a computer. i understand my typewriter and i do not understand computers. and also, with a twinkle in his eye he said, i like to hear the paying at the end of sentence -- at the end of sentence. all he has ever had to do is change the ribbon a few times. rosalie also told me he is a great watercolorist. , and a fine painter rosalie paints, too, he said, she said he is going to have an exhibit some day soon. after reading john adams in 1776, which david rohde at martha's vineyard, i said, how do you get your mind into the 18th century? he said i got the back door leavebreakfast, and behind the 21st century, and they go to a small gate and a stonewall and i'm in the 20th century. and across by the bar over the garden and walk through another smoking where there is a stone fence. get to my cabin. from the 19 century opened door and i am in the 18th century. every single book in the room was either an 18th-century copy or about the 18th century. he said, nobody is ever allowed to interrupt me ever. except the people who were not as tall as the gate. he said, they're not really coming to see me, they are coming to see that old typewriter. excuse me. i always go home for lunch she said some of them back to work. i'm however working on a book working inside the subject. the good news is that means they are still being that and that is his books. i asked him what is your greatest accomplishment? he said i don't know but i'm awfully proud of the fact that all my books are still in print. all of his books are still being read. 18 this year, david's newest book, the american spirit, will be coming out. it is a selection of speeches and talks in the past 25 years. all of us in this audience are going to love it. it includes his talk at the 200th celebration of the congress. and the two hundredths celebration of the white house. it also includes he said, the hardest speech he ever had to give in his life, which was at the memorial service for her assessment of president john kennedy in dallas in pouring rain and cold. he said, the united states naval academy course was singing bettelheim hymn of the republic, and everybody was sobbing. also a speech that he didn't lafayette college. i think it was 2007, but it was all about the ties that bind, about lafayette, france's relationship with united states. it's about -- it's a fabulous speech. having lunch were with david and rosalie, about february of 2016, when i told him about my treatment having this series. he said, that's a wonderful idea . his reaction was positive, just as positive as joe ellis and newt gingrich. he said go for it. he given me lots of advice. .ut i had an idea i have the most amazing, positive support from chairman patrick henry, president david head of thend education -- i think her title is president of the education -- molly sherilyn. this really wouldn't have happened without them. it did, we are year, thank you all for coming. give david mcauliffe a warm palm beach welcome. thank you. [applause] david: thank you very much. good morning and thank you very .uch thank you, dear, for all of -- all that you said and all that you have done for your country. particularly in what you did for your country and the work he did year after year at mount vernon. there are very few sites in the departments much of what is important in our story is a people is mount vernon. i think that gay also is a perfect example of somebody who understands that the only way to get something of consequence accomplished is to work together. very little is ever accomplished alone, and boy can she bring us all together to create good things. thank you very much. [applause] i also appreciate your reference to my voice. [laughter] you never know where confidence can come from an life. one of them happened to me in boston two or three years ago when we had that horrific blizzard following another. we had cumulative snowfall of nine feet. it was really a disaster. the subways were not running, buses were not running, you could not use your car. so you would try and get out to the market to get provisions to the next blast of snow. rosalie and i made up the list, we were living in back bay then -- i went to the nearest supermarket to get everything on the list. i was doing fine, the whole place was a madhouse, everybody else was trying to get food, too. it was like the russians were on the horizon or something. [laughter] list everything on the except the cashews. has you know, you cannot survive without cashews. [laughter] there's this fellow going viral with the star market light on his shirt and i say excuse me, could you tell me where i might find cashews? he said follow me. we want around a few turns and he pointed it out and i thanked him and he went his way. later, i was checking out at the cash register. he came up to me and said, i don't mean to bother you but that -- your voice -- where you by any chance the narrator the ken burns series on the civil war? i said yes i was. he said, i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, because when that series first came on the air i was suffering terribly from insomnia. [laughter] he said i would hear you talk and go right out. [laughter] it is also a great privilege for me to take part in this series with so many other distinguished historians and friends. it's a lie -- really a lineup and i wish i had been able to attend their lectures. i admire each and every one and they know they are fulfilled -- has filled a void in our understanding of our history. i want to thank you all for -- gay and others for what they upset about rosalie. rosalie and i have been married for 63 years. we have 19 grandchildren, five children, and she is mission control. [laughter] she is secretary of the treasury and chair of the ethics committee -- chair of the ethics committee. [laughter] she is the start i steer by. i want to tell you a quick story. believe strongly in writing for the ear as well as the eye. lots of the greats have said this so it is very helpful for anyone who wants to write something that may have some value to get somebody to read it aloud to you. you hear things that you don't necessarily see, particularly if you are working on a manuscript day after day after day. you hear certain words being reported -- repeated more often. you hear certain sentence structures that get tiresome. most important of all, you can hear you are becoming boring. you want to cut fat or trackback or do something with it. rosalie was reading aloud to me as she has everything i've ever i rewrited -- since and rewrite, she has often read chapters three or four times. over 50 years now. -- she wasst book reading the next to last chapter of mornings on horseback, my book about theodore roosevelt. stopped and said, there is something wrong with that sentence. i said read it again, please. sure it again. i said, no there's nothing wrong with that sentence. she said yes there is. i said give me that. [laughter] this is not one of my better moments. aloud she said no, there's something wrong. i said just go on, keep going. finished, the was next chapter was finished, the book was finished, subject to the publisher, it was published, and it came out and was reviewed review, in thece new york review of books from corbyn doll. toward the end of the review he said, sometimes however, mr. mcauliffe does not write so well . listen to the sentence. [laughter] rosalie, where are you, sweetheart? please stand up. [applause] i am -- i feel very strongly that education is one of the most important aspects of life. not just in preparation to take part in life, but to appreciate and enjoy life. an education is one of the foundations of greatest importance to our whole american way of life. if one of the reasons the revolutionary -- 04 and the spirit of the revolution are so soortant cut -- is important, remains so important, is because of the emphasis in that time by those specific the importance of education. jefferson said it perfectly, any nation that expects to be ignorant expects what never was and never will be. everyone,m, each and i there was an example of the importance of education because he or she had education, or .ecause they did it themselves george washington being a prime example, abigail adams being another. self educated people. ways inms was in many his childhood and youth, living under the same kind of circumstances as abraham lincoln. he grew up on a farm where they had no money. his mother was illiterate, his there could maybe read, was a bible of the house, that was the only book. hard every day, childhood on. because he got a scholarship to this little college in cambridge called harvard, and as he said -- discovered books and read forever, he became the john adams who helped change the world. no question. when he was 80 years old, he was an barking on a 16 volume history of france and french, which he had taught himself. to one point way two become a representative in paris to try to get the french to help us win this revolutionary war. knowing no threat she decided he would teach himself and he taught himself on the way over on the ship which in those days was quite a journey. everything and never went anywhere without a book. lines his most memorable to his son, john quincy, was, you will never be alone with a poet in your pocket. he would carry a small volume of poetry. the emphasis on education also included libraries. one of the most emblematic in america and this respect as carpenters hall in philadelphia. when they go to philadelphia walk right by carpenters hall, it's right next door practically to independence hall. carpenters hall to the continental congress first met, this exquisite little building. upstairs in that building was a library created by benjamin franklin which in many ways was a public library, might it be called the first public library. , butest building a small great trees from -- acorns grow. that's one of the lessons of our story. we grow out of nothing. the whole population of our and 70-76 was 2 billion -- 2,500,000 people. that's all. 500,000 of them were in slavery. money.no we had no money when we went to war. we had no army, no navy. we had no officers with extensive experience in military . only about one third of the country or for the revolution. we forget that. for,rd of the country were a third were adamantly against it. the other third were waiting to see who one. [laughter] .et they persisted now i don't think we can ever know enough about the -- revolutionary era. i don't think we can never know enough about founders. we have to see them as human beings. history is human. course of human events, human is the operative word. history is not about dates and memorizing quotations. it's about people. it's about human beings. they are different from each other. they all have their faults, their failings. none of them ever knew how it was going to turn out. anymore than we do. the talk about foresight, the foreseeable future. no such thing as the for seeable future. at up to be remembered. fatso history should be taught and in my view how it should be written. favorst at all one who the few from the mountaintop, the wife's a story and who saying they should've done this, that. clear self in their places and then try to judge what they did. now i first started out to write about -- dual biography on jefferson and adams. i thought, this is an amazing story, it is the hourglass configuration if you're thinking about structure. these two different men from very different parts of the country, totally different backgrounds, come together in philadelphia, help create with others this miraculous achievement called the declaration of independence, and then when the story begins to develop beyond that they go in this direction to the point where they become not only rivals but enemies. then at the very end, they make up, they are out of power, they start to communicate and become friends again. to wonderful story. think about how it ends. if i walked into my editor's office, i was going to do a novel about adams and jefferson and i said, guess what, they are going to die on the same day. notably will be the same day, it will be the fourth july. no, of course not. that can't happen in real life, that doesn't happen in real life. and yet it is exactly what happened in real life. [laughter] reading about john adams. i knew very little about john adams -- i know a lot about jefferson. my first visit to a historic site was when i was 15, to charlottesville to monticello. i came back just thrilled to have seen that. there is nothing like taking your children or grandchildren to a historic site to light the fire of interest in our story as a nation -- as a people. it works. take them to story -- it doesn't have to be monticello or gettysburg, it can be all kinds of things. in any event, -- pardon me? >> mount vernon. david: what did i say? i was plugging you yeah. [laughter] monticello. [laughter] --ticello is the first place a historic site i visited. a group of pittsburgh, pennsylvania and i was interested in history. what i want to monticello things changed. when i started to read about adams, i thought, what an amazing story. when i begin to try to get inside jefferson's life i thought, their roadblocks everywhere. far into the very personal life, you can't get close to the human being the way you can with others, particularly adams. jefferson destroyed every letter his wife ever wrote to them. he destroyed every letter he wrote to her. he would reference of theirs who might have received a letter from his wife saying, if you have any letters from my wife, i would love to have them, and then he destroyed them. he did that we will never know -- we don't even know what she looked like. the contrast was abigail adams is -- with abigail matos is phenomenal. abigail adams in my view is one of the greatest americans ever. the more read about her the more the reader correspondence, the morempressed i am. you can't understand him without understanding her. you a vivid example, of the first seven presidents of the united states, john adams was the only one who never owned a slave. out of principle. abigail's feelings about it were even more strongly voiced than his. holdext president to not his life was john quincy adams. their son. talk about influence, setting an example. beingbout not inconsistent, to use a kind word. this was of the utmost importance. theicularly among many of new englanders who thought -- fought in the revolutionary war could it not believe in slavery, who were strongly against slavery. i am working on a book now about the settlement of the northwest territory, that territory ceded by britain -- seeded by britain iner the treaty of paris 1783. john adams and john ced allitain to seed -- ofe this territory northwest of the ohio river which constitutes a ohio, indiana, illinois, and empirein, a wilderness as large as all the 13 colonies, all of france. there was no settlement there. groupevolutionary war era put that bill through the northwest ordinance, through the congress, before he even had a constitution. because of their feelings on slavery they convinced the congress before he had a constitution that there be no slavery in the northwest territory. and longely important influential -- effect on our history. if you admit all you had to do if you are blacklist across the ohio river, and you are free. hence, the underground railroad came into existence. -- ideal wasa deal perpetrated by a group of people who were convinced that this had to be done and they would not give up. to bere is a lesson learned from the revolutionary war times, the story of that time and those people, it is that they would not give up. they persevered. were willing to accept the weaknesses or failures are flaws in others with whom they were working in order to accomplish this global -- this achievement and bake succeeded. the empirical methods of approaching problems is a very strong american characteristic. out what is going wrong, while you are not publishing something, what's the matter, then you correct that and keep going and keep going until you do it. this is different from the method -- a very specific way that everything must be handled and you only handle it that way until the job is done. examplese most vivid of why our system has worked , is thehers has not building of the panama canal. the french engineers were the greatest in the world at the time. you had to do everything a certain way. engineers came along, and the french failed because they failed to see what the problem ourand how to correct it -- people who came along, many had never been there in engineering school, there were some railroads have built bridges. they saw that something is not you make a correction and try again. that is in effect what was happening during the revolutionary war era with our people fighting the war and then trying to figure out what to do after it was over. peiord after the wars to little understood. we had one of the worst -- worthless script was being paid, maybe 10%. the government that help -- had no money. --the northwest ordinance there will be no slavery -- there will be public support for public education. hence the state universities which bring a thing. we never should ever take this for granted. anything for example that our public library system is imagine, you it -- can go to any public library in this country and get a complete education free. you do not have to pay anything. anything can be important in books and the development of mine does, who should just read what they wrote. we should read what they read. impact, read had huge the expressions from cervantes that we still locked room now -- one of my favorite examples of all, i was reading one of john adams letters to abigail. things were looking down and start. we weret a chance that going to succeed. but he wrote to her and said, we may not succeed in this struggle . we may not achieve success in the struggle. we can deserve it. i thought, we don't think that way anymore. what a mind, what a man. about a month later, i was reading letters george washington wrote, he is the same line. in thiseve success effort but we can deserve it. i thought, they're quoting somebody. centurye in the 18th you did not use quotation marks so it was hard to know. the familiar quotations turn to the 18th century and bingo there was. .t is a lie in the play kato there are countless other examples of this. we should understand and appreciate that. the idea of honor that, that comes from what they read. -- of character ofve all, strength character. george washington was not a brilliant general. anything but, there were others for more than he was. he made some serious mistakes. strength ofhat character, an enduring confidence, that sense of forgiving people who made mistakes who were on his staff, and never giving up. george washington was a miracle, with a stroke of infinite luck. ,uck is a big factor in history and life. washington never doubted the polluters to achieve in the government of the people by the people. for the people. never doubted that once this was cheap they would make sure we have education. .f the kind that is essential i want to go back to adams, and go through a list. just to make sure i didn't leave anything out. to his credit. stage for him looking back at my work in a way that i did not before. if there iso see any pattern to what i am doing. the years when i was being asked by friends and foes working in a am.book, i would say yes i if there were some of my academic friends they would say, what is your theme? i make something up. [laughter] what my theme was. i knew what i wanted to write about the what my theme was, no. that would he known to be eventually i hope by the time i finished the book. i am also often ask, perfectly good question, how much of my time to expend doing research and how much to expend writing. nobody ever has asked me how much of your time to spend thinking. [laughter] that just happens to be a hell of a big part of it, thinking. one of my favorite, most revealing lines and adam's diaries -- they are phenomenal write, at homely thinking. imagine if we had some people in public life today... [laughter] [applause] it may be said of john adams that he was the one above all who made the declaration of independence happen when it happened. that he could george washington's name in nomination as commander-in-chief of the continental army. but he insisted that jefferson be the one to write the declaration of independence. then you know you are the one. his thoughts on government written in the spring of 1776 before july 4 -- the declaration, he outlined fundamental checks and balances of the system of our government. influence on what followed. he wrote and drafted the oldest written constitution still in use in the world today, the constitution of the commonwealth of massachusetts. written and approved in 1778, nearly 10 years in advance of the national constitution, and with the bill of rights. quit -- he immediately questions they lack of a bill of rights and the constitution, wurster for some did not. he was -- consistent life on champion of the importance of the independent judiciary, he was one of the most vivid and appealing letter writers of his day, i would say of all time. is what most people have no idea about, he trembled further in the service of his country and cause than any of the founding fathers at a great risk to his own life. who stood before george the third after independence had been one as the first representative of the new united states of america. franklin and john j he was responsible for the remarkable treaty of paris, the end of the revolution that established the new country of united states of america. he was one of the very few men that it would be a long and costly war. she saw a early on, that power -- see power would be crucial in the long run. nobody austin. to beught -- here celebrated by the navy and all americans for his faith in the importance of the navy and for all that he did to create the navy. as president he bravely kept us out of a war with france which weld have been catastrophic, were not prepared to fight a war with france and yet it was very popular, the idea. the most learned and perhaps the best of -- an of his time, more than jefferson. he sent them to look the establishment of the library of congress. he never owned a slave out -- out of principle. he was the first president to entertain someone of african-american descent as his guest at dinner. not as a servant, as his guest. president to be defeated in reelection, and the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. he was the last federalist president. he was full and in latin, greek, french, and could get by an italian, and he had a little dutch. --was consistently solving hated death. was bound to determine through life of great open -- ups and downs to stay out of death. he never went south of mount vernon, virginia, never further west than your income pennsylvania, never further north than portland, maine. he was the first president to occupy the white house, use the first president to a con to harvard. he is the first president to have been a schoolteacher. he was the first president for massachusetts or new england. he was -- he lived longer than any president of that time. he was the first president to live to see his son become president, and that he was married to abigail adams. list.as been a partial once he wrote -- thousands of others -- letters between john and abigail adams. personal letters. neither one was capable of writing a dull or short letter. they are treasures and they are all in the library of -- the massachusetts historical society . read one of those in your own hands in his 1 -- humbling. humbling. we have to remember that they were living in a different time. therefore they were not just like we are. they had to do with hardships and sufferings and tragedies, heartbreaks of the time that we don't even have to think about. imagine standing in a hallway upstairs in your home with the door close on your daughter's bedroom. the other side of that door, your daughter was in middle age, is having a vasectomy -- mastectomy without any anesthetic. imagine not surviving the operation. having your teeth pulled no anesthetic. from disease that we don't even think about anymore. for women in particular. dark -- yetlight to abigail adams when john was away in europe serving the country, she would work all day long, then about 11:00 by the fire along her children after putting them to bed, she would sit down rate is externally letters. encourage, backbone, loyalty, perseverance, qualities in the ofndance in a dish people that time because fish they did not know any different. .hey were dangerously we are we think of transportation and communication is to different subjects. cannotm it was one, you transport and a communication any faster than someone on a horse or ship, which was mighty slow. correspondence was not only plentiful, it was slower than it is now. imagine if your husband is in europe, you cannot pick up the phone, email him, and you have to decide whether to take your children to have an oculist against smallpox, which might kill one or two of them. you have to make that decision alone. so responsibility is larger and more directly personal. politics and warm-up that -- that my sons will have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. -- naturalnastro history, navigation, commerce, agriculture in order to give their children for it to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. think about that. first of all he said, i must do this so my sons can't go beyond politics and war. in the next sentence he says, in order to give their children -- in other words he does not designate that they would just that to him as the upward climb, progress. it has all to do with education. he was right. i was driving down massachusetts avenue one day not very long ago on my way to an appointment in the spring, warm. sudden i had a tremendous traffic jam at sheridan circle. idea how many people drive that -- must be in the thousands, many thousands. there is sheridan up on his high horse with a requisite pigeon on his head. felt myself, how many people know that is, why he is there? out that almost none. what a shame. it getting pretty down about , i was frustrated. --ad the, on king rshwin's i begin to think, who was more important to us now from past days of the times? for or george? not much of a question. the point is you can't leave the gershwin's out. that's what john adams is telling us. one before we were country. so that their children have the right to study painting, poetry, architecture. all that most importance. many times with lasts longest poet back to the cave paintings. we have to remember that we need to teach history that way. we need to write history that way. so in the tradition again, of the founders. think of the importance of the painters of that time and what they meant to -- what do these people were. john trumbull's paintings, the sketches, studies he did for the signing of the declaration of independence -- the signing of the declaration of independence is almost totally inaccurate. the room did not look like that. doors are in the wrong place, the furniture in the wrong side. the big implemented display of flags never was there. importantcurate and for faces -- because half of them he did they going to do studies, life studies, with a real person. he started off with jefferson in france if you'd ever meet with jefferson. accuratethat they are does not just mean that they are therefore identifiable for us. it means that at the time of the painting they were accountable. if you signed the declaration of independence you are signing your death warrant, let us never forget. it. all knew that is courage and pride of a the of certainty in validity of the purpose is one could find. when i was working on the wright brothers two years ago, i got --rmously interested tremendous admiration for milton wright, the father of the brothers who was a minister. he raised those sons to have purpose and -- and life. that's pretty would find true happiness. he is taking that right out of the tradition of our country. you have the purpose of making life better. better for the next generation and the generation after that it didn't -- we've never been a perfect country, yes we have flaws, yes we have had problems, but we have always risen to the occasion and dumb what is needed to be done to correct that. we did not play on fear and hatred or any of these other cheap methods of gaining followers that so often come and go with different people and world political scenery. history is not just that we know more about how the government work specifics of it, which is all extremely important. the value of history is that it enlarges the pleasure of life. it enlarges your experience of life. admirableof the most interesting people you have met in your life for long gone, but you can still meet them because they tell us more in the letters of the everwood in person. today nobody in public life would dare keep a diary because it could be subpoenaed in used against you in court. nobody writes letters anymore. used to be considered the application of a child to write home, you did that all the time, if you didn't you got trouble at home. it was how we were raised. if you have any interest by the way in immortality, start keeping a diary and writing a lot of letters. when the time comes that you think it's about to go down for you, give them to the library of congress are one of these great libraries because they will be quoted forever because it will be the only one in existence. [laughter] having said all that about john who is one of the most admirable and interesting of all is thepresidents, sedition act was a mistake, yes it was wrong, yes it was done aliensressure of fear of and disloyalty to the country. itknew it and never enforced , and of course didn't last very long. but there is no memorial for john adams in our capital. imaginable has a statue or building or something, not john adams. but he did leave a message. roosevelt andklin later harry truman and later messagehn kennedy, that is still there in the white house carved into a metal piece in the safeguarding. this first night in the white house, the first president to occupy the white house, he wrote a letter back to abigail who could not be with him yet, she was still that come. in the letter he wrote, i pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house in an order shall hereafter inhabit it. none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. is helike best about that puts honest first. thank you. [laughter] [applause]