the city of washington. net emissary s name was frances blair and he has an extraordinary offer, he said will you lead and the union army to crush secession? remember the story, blair tried in every way to convince robert e. lee to say yes. he said the country looks to you, quote, as a representative of the washington family to save the union george washington forged and that is not an exaggeration because the son of george washington son in lot of george washington s adopted child. so now only one word separated robert e. lee from the pinnacle of his profession, from command of what would be the largest american army ever raised, from glory perhaps that no american since george washington had known. what did robert e. lee say? he said he opposed secession and he did oppose secession, he thought secession was illegal. equally significantly he thought george washington was opposed to secession and that was no given at the time. people on both sides of the conflict claimed ge
of civil service so a lot of order purecratic functions, running the city harbors, establishing the weights and measures. those things were staffed by ordinary people who were put into position by lottery. but one of the things i argue is that sometimes modern political theorists exaggerate that too far. they sometimes people say they ran everything by lottery, and there was no division between rich and poor. the poor did everything. and that s actually an overstatement. actually the athennians had certain roles which by law or custom were reserved for the rich but the poor could still hold the rich accountable and that s that able to control the rich and hold them accountable that i think really account ares to the great powers the athennian people. host: one thing you talk about in your book is some of the things that modern politics has derived from both the greeks and in the romans, and one of the things is virtue. what do you mean by that? guest: so, virtue is the
site. your thoughts are important to us so please take a couple of minutes to fill one out and submit it to the festival committee. mr. mccutcheon and mr. mark will be signing books immediately after this presentation, copies are also available at the politics and prose tent at the festival here. a quick word about buying books. even though this is a free event and we want to keep it that way it does help the book festival if you buy a book here. the more books we sell for our events the more publishers will want to send their authors to speak with us, and purchasing books from politics and prose benefits the local economy, supports jobs and the book festival. so if you enjoy the program and you re in the position to do so, please purchase a book. mr. mccutcheon is the co-author of the 2012 and 2014 editions of national journal s almanac of american politics and was co-editor of congressional quarterly s politics in america 2010. mr. mark is a former senior editor at politi
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