Garfield is one of the most intelligent president s we have ever had. He is up there in the top half dozen and when we go through his life, by the end of the middle of it, and youre going to say no, that cant be. He cant be that good in that field. Its just not possible, and then well find something else, and youre going to no. He is just incredibly bright, and the hope for his presidency was enormous, and were going to discuss an absolutely brilliant human being. I was chatting with a friend before, and he asked me if i thought garfield was the most intelligent. I dont know how you test Something Like that, and its not as if you give president s iq tests. Its a lot easier with things that are easy to measure, tall ask short. We all know that madison was our shortest president , lincoln was our tallest president because thats easy. I dont know how you know who the most intelligent. Certainly the two adams, jefferson, madison and Lincoln Garfield is right up there. So one of the reasons
I write mostly comic novels. We have written seven or eight of those. This book is a memoir probably the only memoir i will never write. I dont have that much to say. May be going out on thin i. C. E. I dont think i will write another book than this one in part because it is so singular in nature. About two Extraordinary People who provided me with some amazing material for a book. Host what was it like to write the book . I sat down shortly after i buried my father last year i woke up in the morning with no intention of writing a book and started writing a book and i wrote a in 40 days. Was accidental there was no biblical collusion but when i looked at the calendar i saw 40 days had lapsed. I work hard to on my writing. It wrote a lot of it itself but we pretty much poured out. Host were you surprised at what poured out . Yes. I think the first sentence read Something Like im not sure how this book is going to turn out. I was indeed surprised at how it turned out. Host thats exactly
Test garfield figures this out, goes up to new york and suddenly saves millions of dollars in his first week as president. Lots of appointments we dont have time to go into. The one that i think is one of the more fun ones, we talked about him last week because he was one of the judges at the lincoln conspiracy trial and that is general lou wallace. Garfield appoints him to be the ambassador to turkey. Lou wallace wrote about the ben hur. And he tells lou wallace, im appointing you to be an ambassador to a Muslim Country so you can write another book. He gets involved with an ohio senator by the name of George Pendleton to try and draft civil supervisory form. Sadly, it only passes after garfields death. Good point for us to stop here and shift to the second character in our story. And there is nothing more different than this absolutely brilliant latin and greek scholar, president of the university, lawyer who argues ex parte militant, architecture, designs his own house, mathematicia
Her own husbands assassination. Though her life was filled with tragedy, as lincolns political partner, she also relished in their success. As we focus on the civil war years, one of the defining moments in our countrys history, a look at the life and times of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of the most complex first ladies ever to live in the white house. Thanks for being with us for cspans continuing series on first ladies influence and image. Tonight, as we look at Mary Todd Lincoln, we invite two of our academic advisers, our history advisors for the whole series to be our guests for this program. Let me introduce you to rosalyn terborgpenn. She is a history Professor Emeritus at morgan state university. Richard norton smith, our other guest tonight and at our table again, is the director of five president ial libraries, including the Abraham Lincoln library in springfield, illinois, and a president ial biographer. Thanks to both of you for being here. Mary todd lincoln is and this is a que
Witnessed the death of three of the four as well as her own husbands assassination. Though her life was filled with tragedy, she relished in their success. As we focus on the civil war years, one of the defining moments in our countrys history, a look at the life and times of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of the most complex first ladies ever to live in the white house. Thanks for being with us for cspan continuing series on first ladies influence and image. We invite to history advisers for the whole series to be our guests for this program. Let me introduce you to roslynter borg penn. And Richard Nortan smith our guest and at our table is the director of five president ial libraries including the Abraham Lincoln library in springfield, illinois. Thank you both for being here. Mary todd lincoln and this is a question for both, well start with richard, is viewed in broad strokes, bouts of depression, criticism of her lavish spending and and indulgent mother and what do you see. Oh, boy. That