8. The court i think knows to be very careful and cautious in how it proceeds in dealing with those difficult cases. Obamacare is another one. The Affordable Care act. All cases that are political charged questions and the court knows that they can only do so much in that regard or they risk makes the same mistakes. Justice breyer on the legacy of the dred scott. Theres a theory what he was trying to do was avoid the civil war. His friends in congress had been telling him that if you can get this thing decided once and for all by an institution with the prestige of the Supreme Court people will accept it, it will bring peace to the nation. Believed that . Perhaps, if he was being political. Dont be political for three one, its wrong. Two, the whole point of this institution that hamilton set up was to have a group of people who werent politicians who would be deciding this. If you wanted politicians to decide it give the job to congress. And third and just as important if judges are go
Quite often, most of our most famous decisions are ones that the court took that were unpopular. Lets go through a few cases that illustrate dramatically and visually what it means to live in a society of 310 million different people who stuck together because they believed in the rule of law. Cspan and the National Constitution Center Welcome you to the landmark cases. We explore the people and stories behind some of the Supreme Courts most famous decisions. Tonight you will be learning more about the dred scott decision. Let me introduce you about the two guests about the history. A professor and coeditor of a book of the dred scott case. Welcome to our program. Thank you for having me. Martha jones is from the university of michigan and the chair of the Africanamerican Studies Program at the law school. They can for having me. Blacks, whether free or slaves werent citizens of the United States. And they limited the spread of sliverry and saying congress didnt have the authority. So
History. He wins and 72 over mcgovern , the biggest landslide in history. In fact, at dec. 72 he says someone asked not to write a book about all of this. And having the most successful presidency of all time. But, boy, how the mighty have fallen. That story, of constantly looking at the interest, how someone can be the most powerful person and take that kind of cataclysmic fall, and these tapes are forming of just a part of the story. They need to be supplemented with memo, oral history. I wanted to think john dean for coming here to austin and providing your insight and firsthand knowledge and stealing the buck. [applause] and he wrote a biography of warren harding. [laughter] [inaudible question] [applause] [inaudible conversations] and that was a conversation about the nixon presidency. We will be back with more live coverage from the texas book festival after this short break. Coming up next a memoir. [inaudible conversations] interested in American History . Watch American Histor
Be live from austin with two other events. Today you would hear from authors charles blow francis fukuyama. For complete schedule go to booktv. Org. We will begin at a panel on president Richard Nixon featuring former Nixon White House counsel john dean author of the nixon defense and historian Douglas Brinkley and luke nichter editors of the nixon tapes 19711972. Journalist Robert Draper is the moderator. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible] this is a wide broadcast on cspan. We will keep things moving smoothly. Thank you very much. We will have introductions in a moment and then we will move forward into our first panel of the day. Thank you all very much for being here with us. [applause] good morning everyone. My name is Robert Draper and im with the New York Times magazine. Our abiding fascination with the 30th president of the United States Richard Milhouse nixon has been stoked by two remarkable books
This is one area that we have done really well in. For the last seven years i have hosted an Energy Summit in las vegas. Governments and president and all kinds of cabinet officers there that is a bipartisan event. One of the things that we do better is recognize some of the smartest and most creative inventors in the world to show their latest discoveries. We learned about an American Company that is developing hightech batteries that has great potential. We want to store solar powered. And it looks like the cost of about a small plane. At the california border just about 2 miles from las vegas, there is a myriad of things going on out there. They have hundreds of thousands of solar panels and three very tall towers that look like skyscrapers. And it is so terrific. Once the sun goes down, it is not producing anymore, but this will no longer be the case because of the system in place. During debate heats up and at night it still produces energy after the sun goes down. And that is 90