Richard Brookhiser has been writing about American politics for half a century, though he has refreshed himself by writing a dozen books about the founding period, beginning with Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, with additional books on Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, the Adamses, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, "the Founders' Son." We talk with him about the political ideas of the founding generation, and how they were viewed in their day-- his next book is on the artist Jonathan Trumbull—and ours.
Richard Brookhiser has been writing about American politics for half a century, though he has refreshed himself by writing a dozen books about the founding period, beginning with Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, with additional books on Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, the Adamses, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, "the Founders' Son." We talk with him about the political ideas of the founding generation, and how they were viewed in their day-- his next book is on the artist Jonathan Trumbull—and ours.
WEBVTT
00:00:01.237 --> 00:00:02.137
Hello, everyone.
00:00:02.157 --> 00:00:02.876
Hello, everyone.
00:00:02.916 --> 00:00:05.198
Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
00:00:05.217 --> 00:00:06.118
I'm Bob Allison.
00:00:06.177 --> 00:00:08.098
I chair the Rev 250 Advisory Group.
00:00:08.137 --> 00:00:10.759
We are a consortium of about
00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:11.519
70 organizations in
00:00:11.558 --> 00:00:12.679
Massachusetts planning
00:00:12.739 --> 00:00:14.638
commemorations of the 250th
00:00:14.679 --> 00:00:16.339
anniversary of the American Revolution.
00:00:16.940 --> 00:00:19.600
And our guest today is Richard Brookhiser.
00:00:20.179 --> 00:00:22.821
And Richard Brookhiser is a journalist.
00:00:22.861 --> 00:00:24.541
He actually published his
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:26.602
first article in the
00:00:26.702 --> 00:00:29.474
National Review at the age of 15.
00:00:29.474 --> 00:00:30.596
And at the age of 23,
00:00:30.596 --> 00:00:31.858
he was an editor and he is
00:00:31.897 --> 00:00:33.679
a senior editor at the National Review.
00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:35.162
He's also published in the
00:00:35.182 --> 00:00:37.165
New Yorker and Cosmopolitan
00:00:37.246 --> 00:00:38.908
and Commentary and in
00:00:38.948 --> 00:00:40.631
Vanity Fair and other venues.
00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:40.731
And
00:00:41.899 --> 00:00:42.941
I first got to know your
00:00:42.981 --> 00:00:44.241
work in a big way in the
00:00:44.942 --> 00:00:45.963
1990s when you wrote a book
00:00:46.103 --> 00:00:47.484
about George Washington.
00:00:47.503 --> 00:00:48.505
And that's the first of
00:00:49.024 --> 00:00:50.887
maybe a dozen books now you
00:00:50.926 --> 00:00:52.588
have written about history,
00:00:52.607 --> 00:00:54.450
particularly focusing on the founding.
00:00:54.469 --> 00:00:56.591
You've written about Washington, Madison,
00:00:56.811 --> 00:00:59.634
Marshall, Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton,
00:00:59.993 --> 00:01:00.713
John Trumbull,
00:01:00.834 --> 00:01:01.914
and a book about Abraham
00:01:01.954 --> 00:01:03.216
Lincoln called The Son of the Founder,
00:01:03.375 --> 00:01:04.296
or The Founder's Son.
00:01:04.716 --> 00:01:05.697
So thank you for joining us,
00:01:05.737 --> 00:01:06.498
Mr. Brookhiser.
00:01:07.179 --> 00:01:08.000
Thanks for having me.
00:01:09.644 --> 00:01:11.266
So can you tell us what drew
00:01:11.325 --> 00:01:14.787
you as a journalist to studying history?
00:01:16.668 --> 00:01:16.948
Well,
00:01:17.829 --> 00:01:20.850
the first thing is that I think being
00:01:20.870 --> 00:01:22.852
a journalist was not a bad background,
00:01:23.433 --> 00:01:25.414
especially being a political journalist,
00:01:25.993 --> 00:01:27.495
because, you know,
00:01:27.515 --> 00:01:29.656
you have some experience of
00:01:29.736 --> 00:01:32.218
observing politics and you
00:01:32.257 --> 00:01:33.879
know things like what a deal is.
00:01:35.046 --> 00:01:37.066
You know what a stab in the back is.
00:01:37.847 --> 00:01:39.569
So when you see this being
00:01:39.629 --> 00:01:43.230
done 250 years ago, you recognize it.
00:01:43.891 --> 00:01:45.971
And I do think the founders
00:01:46.052 --> 00:01:48.513
had a high percentage of great men,
00:01:48.873 --> 00:01:49.653
very great men.
00:01:50.394 --> 00:01:52.195
But they were also politicians.
00:01:52.956 --> 00:01:55.436
And politics is a contact sport.
00:01:55.496 --> 00:01:56.518
It always has been.
00:01:57.197 --> 00:01:58.838
And a lot goes on.
00:02:00.393 --> 00:02:04.174
that it isn't illegal necessarily,
00:02:04.233 --> 00:02:05.914
but it's not pretty,
00:02:05.933 --> 00:02:09.194
but you have to be aware of that.
00:02:09.974 --> 00:02:13.634
Also, there's the fun of politics,
00:02:13.875 --> 00:02:15.475
just the inherent interest of it,
00:02:16.596 --> 00:02:18.056
how things happen,
00:02:18.116 --> 00:02:19.656
how things are made to happen,
00:02:20.096 --> 00:02:22.637
how people get drawn into it,
00:02:22.676 --> 00:02:24.356
how they make careers out of it.
00:02:25.736 --> 00:02:27.437
So that was sort of where I
00:02:27.457 --> 00:02:28.337
was coming from.
00:02:29.431 --> 00:02:30.072
background.
00:02:30.231 --> 00:02:33.115
But I got attracted to this
00:02:33.375 --> 00:02:35.037
era when I was in college
00:02:35.437 --> 00:02:36.397
for two reasons.
00:02:36.957 --> 00:02:38.500
One reason was I was taking
00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:40.020
a course on Thomas
00:02:40.122 --> 00:02:41.883
Jefferson taught by Gary Wills.
00:02:42.743 --> 00:02:45.227
And he was, I was an undergrad at Yale.
00:02:45.667 --> 00:02:47.669
He was then teaching at Johns Hopkins,
00:02:48.109 --> 00:02:50.912
but he had this adjunct position.
00:02:50.931 --> 00:02:51.932
He had a fellowship.
00:02:51.992 --> 00:02:53.594
So he would come up every other
00:02:54.277 --> 00:02:55.618
a week and do like a four
00:02:55.658 --> 00:02:58.060
hour seminar on Thomas Jefferson.
00:02:58.240 --> 00:02:59.441
He was getting ready to
00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.062
write Inventing America,
00:03:01.162 --> 00:03:02.682
which was his first book on
00:03:03.062 --> 00:03:04.824
Jefferson period.
00:03:05.645 --> 00:03:08.445
And he liked Jefferson.
00:03:08.485 --> 00:03:10.187
He thought he was fascinating,
00:03:10.527 --> 00:03:13.609
very quirky mind, interesting figure.
00:03:14.530 --> 00:03:15.550
But I could tell that he
00:03:15.651 --> 00:03:16.950
loved George Washington.
00:03:17.692 --> 00:03:18.752
It was just a different
00:03:18.872 --> 00:03:22.294
quality when he spoke about Washington.
00:03:22.474 --> 00:03:22.754
And he
00:03:23.649 --> 00:03:25.150
Sort of used Washington as a
00:03:25.270 --> 00:03:27.812
stick to beat Jefferson with sometimes.
00:03:27.932 --> 00:03:30.175
Gently, but he did.
00:03:31.276 --> 00:03:32.777
So that got my attention.
00:03:33.998 --> 00:03:35.139
Then the second thing that
00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:36.921
got my attention was Yale
00:03:37.401 --> 00:03:39.123
has a collection of
00:03:39.223 --> 00:03:41.847
paintings left from by John Trump,
00:03:42.387 --> 00:03:45.430
who was a revolutionary veteran.
00:03:46.270 --> 00:03:46.871
He was...
00:03:47.679 --> 00:03:48.919
related to the Trumbull
00:03:48.979 --> 00:03:50.260
family in Connecticut,
00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:52.323
which produced two governors,
00:03:52.622 --> 00:03:54.343
very well-connected family.
00:03:54.944 --> 00:03:57.926
He knew Washington, Hamilton, Adams,
00:03:58.146 --> 00:03:58.867
Jefferson.
00:03:59.207 --> 00:04:00.628
He was with Jefferson when
00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:02.110
Jefferson was in Paris,
00:04:02.871 --> 00:04:05.293
introduced Jefferson to Maria Cosway,
00:04:05.372 --> 00:04:07.495
who was the love of
00:04:07.574 --> 00:04:09.657
Jefferson's life for a period there,
00:04:09.736 --> 00:04:11.598
very intense flirtation.
00:04:12.378 --> 00:04:14.561
So he was very well-connected,
00:04:15.040 --> 00:04:16.302
but he also had a talent.
00:04:16.341 --> 00:04:17.062
He was a painter.
00:04:17.913 --> 00:04:21.278
And he decided shortly after
00:04:21.338 --> 00:04:23.980
the revolution in the 1780s
00:04:24.062 --> 00:04:26.084
that he wanted to tell the
00:04:26.225 --> 00:04:29.769
story of this event in paintings.
00:04:30.529 --> 00:04:32.093
And it took him a long time
00:04:32.132 --> 00:04:34.495
to do it because he got distracted.
00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:36.560
He painted other things.
00:04:36.982 --> 00:04:38.863
Sometimes he didn't paint at all,
00:04:39.423 --> 00:04:41.466
tried to raise money other ways.
00:04:42.047 --> 00:04:43.267
It was, you know,
00:04:43.288 --> 00:04:45.189
it was a life like any life.
00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:46.850
It has a lot of twists and turns.
00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:48.932
But after 45 years,
00:04:49.112 --> 00:04:51.035
he did do the eight
00:04:51.194 --> 00:04:52.797
paintings that he projected
00:04:53.396 --> 00:04:54.678
and he left them to Yale.
00:04:54.738 --> 00:04:56.100
So I saw them there as an
00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.382
undergraduate and they also
00:04:58.442 --> 00:04:59.343
got my attention.
00:04:59.670 --> 00:04:59.829
Yes.
00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:02.430
There are tremendous scenes
00:05:02.591 --> 00:05:05.851
that he painted of the key moments,
00:05:05.951 --> 00:05:07.432
critical moments in the Revolution,
00:05:07.452 --> 00:05:08.233
which includes both
00:05:08.293 --> 00:05:10.553
military as well as political moments.
00:05:10.634 --> 00:05:10.973
Yes.
00:05:11.434 --> 00:05:11.713
Yes.
00:05:11.834 --> 00:05:15.154
Jefferson, he'd done two battle pictures.
00:05:15.375 --> 00:05:16.675
And then Jefferson,
00:05:16.716 --> 00:05:19.117
this is when Trumbull was in Paris.
00:05:19.396 --> 00:05:20.956
He went to Paris to look at the art.
00:05:21.377 --> 00:05:21.596
Right.
00:05:22.798 --> 00:05:23.658
But he was also,
00:05:23.737 --> 00:05:26.259
Jefferson invited him to stay with him.
00:05:26.439 --> 00:05:27.579
Because Jefferson was always
00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:28.800
looking for bright, young,
00:05:30.889 --> 00:05:32.870
And Jefferson suggested that
00:05:32.889 --> 00:05:34.850
he do the Declaration of Independence.
00:05:35.271 --> 00:05:37.252
Jefferson described the room
00:05:38.091 --> 00:05:39.973
in the State House in Philadelphia.
00:05:40.312 --> 00:05:42.434
He drew a sketch of the room for Trumbull.
00:05:42.774 --> 00:05:44.954
He got a couple of details wrong,
00:05:45.555 --> 00:05:47.776
but that was the basic outline of it.
00:05:47.896 --> 00:05:49.416
And you can tell on that
00:05:49.476 --> 00:05:51.158
piece of paper on the back of it,
00:05:51.237 --> 00:05:52.377
Trumbull does his first
00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:55.959
little sketch of a possible, you know,
00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:57.701
figures for this painting.
00:05:58.865 --> 00:05:59.786
And then the painting
00:06:00.247 --> 00:06:02.427
appeared rather rapidly in
00:06:02.507 --> 00:06:04.007
one of the early ones that
00:06:04.048 --> 00:06:05.327
he was producing when he
00:06:05.387 --> 00:06:07.449
was going at a good clip early on.
00:06:07.769 --> 00:06:09.189
And that's the most famous one.
00:06:09.389 --> 00:06:10.468
I'm sure all of your
00:06:10.509 --> 00:06:13.009
listeners have seen this in textbooks or,
00:06:13.029 --> 00:06:15.430
you know, it gets reproduced a lot.
00:06:16.130 --> 00:06:18.851
It's also in the Rotunda Capital, Trumbull,
00:06:19.192 --> 00:06:22.273
four large copies of the
00:06:23.112 --> 00:06:24.593
paintings that he was doing
00:06:24.673 --> 00:06:27.314
in his preferred small size.
00:06:28.107 --> 00:06:30.728
but the Declaration being one of them,
00:06:31.127 --> 00:06:32.548
Washington resigning his
00:06:32.629 --> 00:06:34.088
commission at the end of the war,
00:06:34.488 --> 00:06:37.329
being the other peaceful political scene.
00:06:37.990 --> 00:06:40.630
And they're really a pair.
00:06:40.711 --> 00:06:43.833
The Declaration is why this
00:06:43.913 --> 00:06:44.992
revolution is happening.
00:06:45.973 --> 00:06:46.814
This is the theory.
00:06:47.954 --> 00:06:49.374
And then the resignation
00:06:50.154 --> 00:06:53.475
shows that they really matter.
00:06:53.755 --> 00:06:56.677
At the end of all this bloodshed,
00:06:58.319 --> 00:06:59.579
The Revolution is the
00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:02.201
longest war we fought until Vietnam.
00:07:03.242 --> 00:07:04.882
It was longer than the Civil
00:07:04.942 --> 00:07:06.783
War and our part of World
00:07:06.803 --> 00:07:07.985
War II put together.
00:07:09.526 --> 00:07:10.526
Eight and a half years.
00:07:11.507 --> 00:07:14.788
After all that, at the very end,
00:07:15.288 --> 00:07:16.709
Washington goes home.
00:07:17.689 --> 00:07:20.031
He returns his commission to Congress.
00:07:21.791 --> 00:07:23.252
Trumbull does this scene,
00:07:24.113 --> 00:07:25.574
Congress sitting on the left,
00:07:25.995 --> 00:07:26.714
Washington sitting
00:07:27.346 --> 00:07:30.208
and military men behind him on the right,
00:07:31.447 --> 00:07:33.149
and with very little tweaking.
00:07:34.189 --> 00:07:35.009
This might have been
00:07:35.149 --> 00:07:37.569
Cromwell dismissing Parliament.
00:07:38.350 --> 00:07:39.591
It could be Napoleon
00:07:39.711 --> 00:07:41.230
dismissing the Directory.
00:07:42.612 --> 00:07:45.052
And now the military men saying, okay,
00:07:45.072 --> 00:07:46.252
you've been talking
00:07:47.221 --> 00:07:50.144
We've been fighting.
00:07:50.165 --> 00:07:51.386
Now we're going to be the law.
00:07:51.846 --> 00:07:53.646
But that's not this scene.
00:07:54.067 --> 00:07:57.511
This scene is my authority was yours.
00:07:58.331 --> 00:07:59.552
You gave me this.
00:08:00.512 --> 00:08:02.154
Now I'm giving it back to you,
00:08:02.295 --> 00:08:04.596
to whom it has always belonged.
00:08:05.918 --> 00:08:08.720
And when Trumbull was
00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.041
talking about this painting
00:08:11.081 --> 00:08:13.504
with James Madison, who was president,
00:08:14.634 --> 00:08:15.913
And Madison said, yes,
00:08:15.954 --> 00:08:17.295
it was a glorious action.
00:08:17.995 --> 00:08:19.255
It was a glorious action.
00:08:20.115 --> 00:08:20.675
And it was.
00:08:22.437 --> 00:08:22.937
Just honestly,
00:08:22.956 --> 00:08:24.076
there's a wonderful scene
00:08:24.117 --> 00:08:26.937
when George III is asking Benjamin West,
00:08:27.017 --> 00:08:28.077
another artist,
00:08:28.418 --> 00:08:29.718
what he supposes Washington
00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:31.279
will do now that he's won the war.
00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:33.080
And West says,
00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:34.760
I imagine he'll go back to his farm.
00:08:35.061 --> 00:08:36.860
And the king says, if he does that,
00:08:36.921 --> 00:08:38.782
he will be the greatest man in the world.
00:08:39.315 --> 00:08:40.215
Yes, yes.
00:08:40.315 --> 00:08:41.395
And West, you know,
00:08:41.436 --> 00:08:43.495
West was Trumbull's mentor.
00:08:44.255 --> 00:08:45.537
He came to England to study
00:08:45.596 --> 00:08:46.356
painting with West,
00:08:46.537 --> 00:08:47.738
and West was an American.
00:08:49.398 --> 00:08:50.677
Kind of odd that he ends up
00:08:50.798 --> 00:08:52.578
being George III's history painter,
00:08:52.619 --> 00:08:53.658
but he, you know,
00:08:53.698 --> 00:08:55.940
he came to Europe to study
00:08:56.059 --> 00:08:56.980
art as a young man,
00:08:57.019 --> 00:08:58.301
and then he stayed in England,
00:08:58.321 --> 00:08:59.740
and he was a great hit there,
00:08:59.821 --> 00:09:01.642
and George III took him on
00:09:01.701 --> 00:09:02.841
as his history painter.
00:09:02.881 --> 00:09:03.682
But he always,
00:09:04.221 --> 00:09:05.702
people always knew that he
00:09:05.743 --> 00:09:07.423
had this American background,
00:09:07.482 --> 00:09:08.943
so occasionally he would be
00:09:09.721 --> 00:09:11.241
Either that would be thrown
00:09:11.302 --> 00:09:13.322
in his face or the king, you know,
00:09:13.602 --> 00:09:15.524
who was personally a very gracious man,
00:09:15.543 --> 00:09:17.144
asked his opinion.
00:09:17.203 --> 00:09:17.823
What do you think
00:09:17.884 --> 00:09:19.524
Washington's going to do?
00:09:19.684 --> 00:09:21.144
And to his credit,
00:09:21.205 --> 00:09:22.926
the king gave that answer.
00:09:22.946 --> 00:09:23.666
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:24.365 --> 00:09:25.706
Now, I noticed as you were talking,
00:09:25.745 --> 00:09:28.807
of course, about Gary Wills and Jefferson,
00:09:28.907 --> 00:09:30.727
that you have written about
00:09:30.748 --> 00:09:31.868
a lot of the people
00:09:32.923 --> 00:09:34.604
around Jefferson who didn't
00:09:34.764 --> 00:09:37.065
really like him or didn't get along,
00:09:37.085 --> 00:09:39.004
you know, the Adamses, Gouverneur Morris,
00:09:39.105 --> 00:09:42.225
Washington, but never Jefferson.
00:09:42.265 --> 00:09:43.306
I wonder if you have a
00:09:43.706 --> 00:09:45.106
Jefferson project in the
00:09:45.147 --> 00:09:46.126
works or you think
00:09:46.267 --> 00:09:47.907
Jefferson's been done enough.
00:09:48.886 --> 00:09:52.227
Well, Jefferson's hard.
00:09:54.687 --> 00:09:57.869
I think of Jefferson's mind
00:09:59.149 --> 00:10:01.230
as like a house with a lot of rooms.
00:10:02.335 --> 00:10:04.296
and they don't all have connecting doors.
00:10:06.477 --> 00:10:08.600
A great man, certainly.
00:10:08.620 --> 00:10:10.581
You know, in a way,
00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:11.881
I'm always writing about
00:10:11.922 --> 00:10:14.024
him because all my subjects know him,
00:10:14.083 --> 00:10:16.565
so he always appears.
00:10:16.765 --> 00:10:19.206
And I think in a way,
00:10:19.226 --> 00:10:24.650
I dug deepest maybe with my Lincoln book,
00:10:24.791 --> 00:10:28.073
Founder's Son, because I was looking at
00:10:29.407 --> 00:10:31.467
Lincoln scholars have looked backwards.
00:10:32.427 --> 00:10:33.849
A number of them have said, well,
00:10:33.908 --> 00:10:37.110
what was he trying to carry on?
00:10:37.130 --> 00:10:38.671
What was he getting from this?
00:10:38.770 --> 00:10:41.613
But I wanted to do it in the
00:10:41.712 --> 00:10:42.613
other direction,
00:10:42.633 --> 00:10:45.094
a founding writer looking ahead.
00:10:47.414 --> 00:10:49.035
And so I thought the three
00:10:49.895 --> 00:10:50.876
people of the founding
00:10:50.976 --> 00:10:52.096
generation who mattered
00:10:52.157 --> 00:10:54.138
most to him were Washington
00:10:56.259 --> 00:10:58.039
from boyish reading.
00:10:58.432 --> 00:11:00.254
He was very struck.
00:11:01.495 --> 00:11:04.158
He read Parson Weems'
00:11:04.220 --> 00:11:05.561
biography of Washington,
00:11:05.660 --> 00:11:07.322
as lots of people did.
00:11:08.083 --> 00:11:11.206
And he was most impressed, he said,
00:11:12.408 --> 00:11:13.089
years later,
00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:15.172
by the story of the Battle of
00:11:15.251 --> 00:11:18.235
Trenton and the desperation
00:11:18.274 --> 00:11:19.015
of that moment.
00:11:20.044 --> 00:11:22.307
And when Weems talks about
00:11:22.386 --> 00:11:23.628
crossing the Delaware and
00:11:23.668 --> 00:11:24.948
the ice and all that,
00:11:26.230 --> 00:11:29.331
he says that there's an
00:11:29.552 --> 00:11:32.274
allegorical being hovering
00:11:32.494 --> 00:11:34.235
over the American troops.
00:11:34.455 --> 00:11:36.535
And it's a woman who is the
00:11:36.635 --> 00:11:37.736
spirit of liberty.
00:11:38.177 --> 00:11:40.958
And she has been driven from Europe.
00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:43.421
This is her last refuge.
00:11:44.280 --> 00:11:45.701
But her enemies have come
00:11:45.741 --> 00:11:47.662
here to pursue her here.
00:11:48.202 --> 00:11:49.363
Who will defend her?
00:11:49.883 --> 00:11:51.303
Only this band of men.
00:11:51.443 --> 00:11:53.804
This is how Weems sets the whole thing up.
00:11:53.945 --> 00:11:56.166
And Washington says when
00:11:56.206 --> 00:11:58.307
he's on his way to his inauguration,
00:11:58.326 --> 00:12:00.408
he goes through the
00:12:00.447 --> 00:12:02.389
Northeast and New Jersey
00:12:02.408 --> 00:12:03.349
and he addresses the
00:12:03.428 --> 00:12:05.269
legislature in the New Jersey Senate.
00:12:05.951 --> 00:12:08.013
And he says that when he was a boy,
00:12:08.072 --> 00:12:09.434
he read Weems' book,
00:12:09.835 --> 00:12:11.917
and he was impressed by how
00:12:12.476 --> 00:12:13.839
Weems said that these men
00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:16.461
were fighting not just for independence,
00:12:16.520 --> 00:12:17.481
but for something that
00:12:17.542 --> 00:12:20.325
would matter to all people of all times.
00:12:21.605 --> 00:12:25.769
So Washington I. Thomas Paine, I thought,
00:12:26.150 --> 00:12:27.611
was also an influence.
00:12:27.692 --> 00:12:28.173
Interesting.
00:12:28.932 --> 00:12:29.573
Partly.
00:12:31.538 --> 00:12:33.299
in in lincoln's early life
00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:35.780
religiously because pain is
00:12:35.801 --> 00:12:37.902
the great skeptic right the
00:12:37.942 --> 00:12:39.322
great enemy of organized
00:12:39.383 --> 00:12:41.903
religion and as a young man
00:12:42.543 --> 00:12:44.264
lincoln swallowed that all
00:12:44.384 --> 00:12:46.125
up and you know their
00:12:46.285 --> 00:12:47.907
anecdotes of him holding
00:12:48.106 --> 00:12:50.388
forth to uh you know young
00:12:50.528 --> 00:12:52.489
law clerks and saying well
00:12:52.528 --> 00:12:53.710
the bible doesn't make any
00:12:53.870 --> 00:12:55.870
sense and contradictions
00:12:55.931 --> 00:12:57.451
and on and on and on now
00:12:57.731 --> 00:13:00.173
lincoln changed and he became
00:13:01.321 --> 00:13:02.662
Without perhaps ever
00:13:02.721 --> 00:13:04.822
becoming an Orthodox Christian,
00:13:04.883 --> 00:13:05.923
he's certainly one of the
00:13:05.984 --> 00:13:07.804
most religious presidents
00:13:07.945 --> 00:13:10.245
we've ever had by the end.
00:13:10.625 --> 00:13:15.808
He's an inaugural.
00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:18.791
But Paine also influenced him rhetorically,
00:13:18.831 --> 00:13:20.272
because I think Paine
00:13:20.331 --> 00:13:21.812
showed him how to use humor
00:13:21.832 --> 00:13:23.514
in making serious arguments.
00:13:24.594 --> 00:13:26.475
Something Paine is very good at,
00:13:26.575 --> 00:13:27.676
and something Lincoln
00:13:28.115 --> 00:13:29.336
became extremely good at.
00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:32.000
Then the third one is Jefferson.
00:13:32.922 --> 00:13:34.202
And of course, you know,
00:13:34.283 --> 00:13:36.224
it's in the Gettysburg Address,
00:13:36.563 --> 00:13:38.326
four score and seven years
00:13:38.365 --> 00:13:42.107
takes you back to 1776.
00:13:42.107 --> 00:13:45.649
He references that in the
00:13:45.730 --> 00:13:47.071
Cooper Union Address.
00:13:47.110 --> 00:13:50.013
He references that in the Peoria speech.
00:13:51.553 --> 00:13:53.956
Jefferson and the founding
00:13:54.620 --> 00:13:59.945
is the tool he uses to repel
00:14:00.144 --> 00:14:02.427
Stephen Douglas and people
00:14:02.506 --> 00:14:07.451
who he says don't care about slavery.
00:14:07.892 --> 00:14:09.513
We can't take that attitude
00:14:09.552 --> 00:14:12.596
because that's against our own founding,
00:14:12.775 --> 00:14:14.258
our own realization of who
00:14:14.317 --> 00:14:15.879
we are and also of our
00:14:15.918 --> 00:14:18.541
knowledge of who people are.
00:14:18.660 --> 00:14:19.721
And Jefferson is the
00:14:19.822 --> 00:14:21.423
eloquent man who wrote all this.
00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:23.799
And but for Lincoln,
00:14:23.860 --> 00:14:26.721
it's also an effort to save Jefferson.
00:14:27.162 --> 00:14:27.841
Of course,
00:14:27.942 --> 00:14:30.144
he knows perfectly well that
00:14:30.524 --> 00:14:32.065
Jefferson in his own life
00:14:32.666 --> 00:14:34.167
never freed his own slave.
00:14:35.807 --> 00:14:40.510
And he you know, he he he lives in.
00:14:41.168 --> 00:14:43.029
in illinois which was a
00:14:43.250 --> 00:14:45.451
state that is a free state
00:14:45.511 --> 00:14:46.692
because of the northwest
00:14:46.893 --> 00:14:48.514
ordinance right which was
00:14:48.573 --> 00:14:49.855
something that jefferson
00:14:49.894 --> 00:14:51.496
had had pushed for an early
00:14:51.697 --> 00:14:54.759
version of that so in a way
00:14:54.818 --> 00:14:56.240
that was a fulfillment of
00:14:56.900 --> 00:14:58.861
jefferson's youthful hopes
00:14:59.001 --> 00:15:02.965
for free trans appalachian west
00:15:05.096 --> 00:15:08.678
But then he also knows that
00:15:08.759 --> 00:15:10.340
Jefferson late in life just
00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:12.941
kind of gave up and backed off.
00:15:13.280 --> 00:15:15.042
He never said that slavery
00:15:15.062 --> 00:15:17.923
was good or that blacks
00:15:18.024 --> 00:15:18.804
ought to be enslaved.
00:15:18.904 --> 00:15:19.605
Never said that.
00:15:20.025 --> 00:15:21.206
But he just seems to have
00:15:21.726 --> 00:15:23.187
despaired of ever doing
00:15:23.268 --> 00:15:23.927
anything about it.
00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:25.440
And then Edward Coles,
00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:27.321
who had been Jefferson's secretary,
00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:28.201
becomes governor,
00:15:28.221 --> 00:15:29.260
actually brings his
00:15:29.321 --> 00:15:30.481
enslaved people to Illinois
00:15:30.522 --> 00:15:31.182
and frees them.
00:15:31.201 --> 00:15:32.241
He becomes governor.
00:15:32.302 --> 00:15:33.923
So that's something Lincoln
00:15:33.982 --> 00:15:35.143
would certainly have known
00:15:35.222 --> 00:15:37.283
about the struggle in Illinois.
00:15:37.302 --> 00:15:37.482
Sure.
00:15:37.604 --> 00:15:39.624
And Coles shakes his hand
00:15:40.043 --> 00:15:42.125
when he's on the way to be
00:15:42.184 --> 00:15:43.465
inaugurated because Coles
00:15:43.664 --> 00:15:45.365
ends up in Philadelphia.
00:15:47.398 --> 00:15:50.360
And he's voted for Lincoln,
00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:52.421
and he manages to shake Lincoln's hand.
00:15:52.500 --> 00:15:56.342
So they have this physical meeting.
00:15:56.663 --> 00:15:57.503
It's very moving.
00:15:58.724 --> 00:16:00.044
Amazing.
00:16:00.085 --> 00:16:01.365
And Lincoln does take
00:16:01.445 --> 00:16:03.125
seriously the idea that all
00:16:03.166 --> 00:16:04.386
men are created equal.
00:16:04.427 --> 00:16:06.388
As you said, he uses that against Douglass,
00:16:06.488 --> 00:16:08.629
and the others at the time are saying, no,
00:16:08.668 --> 00:16:10.169
it doesn't mean what it says.
00:16:11.302 --> 00:16:11.524
Right.
00:16:11.543 --> 00:16:12.563
They were only talking about
00:16:12.624 --> 00:16:14.846
white men or they were only
00:16:14.926 --> 00:16:17.746
talking about people who were citizens.
00:16:18.107 --> 00:16:18.368
You know,
00:16:18.427 --> 00:16:20.568
there were different ways to slice it.
00:16:20.989 --> 00:16:21.269
Right.
00:16:21.450 --> 00:16:21.669
Yeah.
00:16:22.409 --> 00:16:24.572
And Lincoln's friend, Alexander Stevens,
00:16:24.611 --> 00:16:26.013
they were in Congress together.
00:16:26.153 --> 00:16:28.134
And Stevens becomes the vice
00:16:28.173 --> 00:16:29.674
president of the Confederacy.
00:16:29.695 --> 00:16:31.556
And he just comes right out and says, well,
00:16:31.576 --> 00:16:32.456
Jefferson was wrong.
00:16:32.856 --> 00:16:33.037
Yeah.
00:16:33.376 --> 00:16:33.537
Yeah.
00:16:33.576 --> 00:16:34.577
Jefferson thought that.
00:16:36.546 --> 00:16:37.326
But he was wrong,
00:16:37.405 --> 00:16:39.427
and we in the Confederacy
00:16:39.567 --> 00:16:40.668
understand this.
00:16:40.868 --> 00:16:41.947
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:42.148 --> 00:16:42.489
And again,
00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:43.629
it's always hard to say what
00:16:43.708 --> 00:16:44.549
Jefferson would have
00:16:44.590 --> 00:16:48.010
thought had he been there in 1860, 61,
00:16:48.010 --> 00:16:49.111
or Madison.
00:16:49.131 --> 00:16:50.511
Do you have a sense what Washington,
00:16:51.312 --> 00:16:53.374
he's on the emblem of the Confederacy.
00:16:53.453 --> 00:16:54.214
You know, Frederick,
00:16:54.474 --> 00:16:56.215
if Washington or Madison showed up,
00:16:56.254 --> 00:16:56.995
they would have hung him,
00:16:57.235 --> 00:16:59.716
hanged him in the Confederacy.
00:16:59.836 --> 00:17:02.258
Washington is an American
00:17:02.337 --> 00:17:03.438
even more than a Virginia.
00:17:03.839 --> 00:17:03.979
Yeah.
00:17:04.835 --> 00:17:06.056
So I think I know what
00:17:06.135 --> 00:17:09.517
Washington would have done.
00:17:12.718 --> 00:17:15.098
Madison did say,
00:17:15.219 --> 00:17:16.259
one of the last things he
00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:17.941
wrote was that anyone who
00:17:18.040 --> 00:17:19.760
advocates disunion should
00:17:19.800 --> 00:17:22.221
be treated like Pandora.
00:17:23.103 --> 00:17:24.784
So that was, for Madison,
00:17:24.824 --> 00:17:25.983
that's pretty blunt.
00:17:27.044 --> 00:17:28.744
It's not given for blunt
00:17:28.805 --> 00:17:31.365
rhetoric of that kind, but that he wrote.
00:17:31.807 --> 00:17:32.547
So I think if...
00:17:33.375 --> 00:17:33.556
You know,
00:17:33.576 --> 00:17:35.676
if Jefferson survived all by himself,
00:17:35.777 --> 00:17:36.717
you know, oh God,
00:17:36.817 --> 00:17:38.018
who knows what mistakes he
00:17:38.057 --> 00:17:38.498
might have made.
00:17:38.778 --> 00:17:40.678
But if Madison also survived,
00:17:40.718 --> 00:17:41.659
he probably would have
00:17:43.278 --> 00:17:44.660
talked to Moran and said, come on,
00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:47.621
do you really want to go off to Richmond?
00:17:47.980 --> 00:17:49.280
Maybe we shouldn't.
00:17:49.320 --> 00:17:51.162
That's why Jefferson said to Madison,
00:17:51.201 --> 00:17:52.582
take care of me when I am dead.
00:17:52.602 --> 00:17:53.442
He also took care of him
00:17:53.462 --> 00:17:54.323
when he was alive.
00:17:54.542 --> 00:17:55.383
Yes, yes.
00:17:55.903 --> 00:17:58.263
So we're talking with Richard Brookhiser,
00:17:58.344 --> 00:18:00.144
who is the author of many
00:18:00.204 --> 00:18:01.746
books about the founding
00:18:01.925 --> 00:18:02.786
and the founders.
00:18:03.715 --> 00:18:05.076
And we've talked a bit about
00:18:05.096 --> 00:18:06.357
John Trumbull and a bit
00:18:06.397 --> 00:18:08.460
about Washington and Jefferson.
00:18:09.701 --> 00:18:11.702
One of the characters who
00:18:11.942 --> 00:18:12.703
emerges is really
00:18:12.784 --> 00:18:13.865
fascinating in this period,
00:18:13.884 --> 00:18:14.884
and you've written a book about him,
00:18:14.924 --> 00:18:15.905
is Gouverneur Morris,
00:18:16.287 --> 00:18:17.827
who was an absolutely
00:18:17.867 --> 00:18:18.808
astonishing character.
00:18:18.848 --> 00:18:19.449
I'm surprised there aren't
00:18:19.469 --> 00:18:21.111
movies made with him as a
00:18:21.250 --> 00:18:22.111
central character.
00:18:23.531 --> 00:18:25.894
Well, one problem is that first name.
00:18:26.434 --> 00:18:27.756
Yeah.
00:18:27.855 --> 00:18:30.097
This French-looking first name,
00:18:30.137 --> 00:18:31.398
and how do you pronounce it?
00:18:31.954 --> 00:18:33.936
And I still don't know 100%.
00:18:33.977 --> 00:18:37.398
Abigail Adams once wrote it
00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:38.539
out as Gouverneur.
00:18:39.101 --> 00:18:41.021
She wrote a lot of stuff phonetically.
00:18:41.162 --> 00:18:43.784
Because although she was very smart,
00:18:43.845 --> 00:18:45.205
she'd been homeschooled and
00:18:45.266 --> 00:18:47.227
her spelling was quite erratic.
00:18:47.366 --> 00:18:52.811
But look, he is a fascinating man.
00:18:52.991 --> 00:18:56.374
And the short way I put it
00:18:57.434 --> 00:19:00.538
is that if you were in four situations...
00:19:01.436 --> 00:19:02.938
And you had one phone call
00:19:02.958 --> 00:19:04.338
in each of these situations,
00:19:04.419 --> 00:19:06.279
and it had to be to a founding father.
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:08.461
And here are the situations.
00:19:09.461 --> 00:19:10.781
You've just been thrown in jail.
00:19:11.701 --> 00:19:12.663
You've just been taken to
00:19:12.722 --> 00:19:13.762
the emergency room.
00:19:14.644 --> 00:19:17.224
You need $10,000 immediately.
00:19:18.986 --> 00:19:20.646
And you're throwing a dinner
00:19:20.686 --> 00:19:22.188
party and someone just canceled.
00:19:23.327 --> 00:19:24.909
What founding father do you call?
00:19:25.409 --> 00:19:26.630
In all of those cases,
00:19:26.650 --> 00:19:28.371
I would say call Governor Morris.
00:19:28.730 --> 00:19:30.392
He would come to jail.
00:19:31.146 --> 00:19:32.347
And he would go your,
00:19:32.508 --> 00:19:33.509
he'd put up your bail.
00:19:34.148 --> 00:19:35.569
He'd come to the emergency
00:19:35.630 --> 00:19:36.691
room and give you very
00:19:36.790 --> 00:19:37.731
sympathetic and
00:19:37.811 --> 00:19:39.333
knowledgeable medical advice.
00:19:39.492 --> 00:19:41.074
This is a guy who lost a leg
00:19:41.115 --> 00:19:42.394
in a carriage accident.
00:19:42.496 --> 00:19:43.536
When he was a little boy,
00:19:43.556 --> 00:19:45.978
he poured boiling water over his own arm,
00:19:46.397 --> 00:19:46.699
you know,
00:19:46.778 --> 00:19:48.839
and he knew from Melvison and he
00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:49.520
sympathized.
00:19:50.141 --> 00:19:52.923
He would loan you the $10,000,
00:19:52.923 --> 00:19:55.404
might even give it to you,
00:19:55.744 --> 00:19:57.787
depending on how, you know, your circle.
00:19:58.644 --> 00:19:59.263
And finally,
00:19:59.684 --> 00:20:01.185
he would be a great dinner guest.
00:20:01.425 --> 00:20:07.469
Just don't seat him next to your wife.
00:20:07.628 --> 00:20:10.590
He might stay longer and
00:20:10.770 --> 00:20:12.491
after dinner than you would like.
00:20:12.913 --> 00:20:13.073
Yeah.
00:20:13.313 --> 00:20:13.432
Yeah.
00:20:14.183 --> 00:20:15.884
He winds up marrying, actually,
00:20:15.904 --> 00:20:22.407
a relative of Jefferson's late in life.
00:20:23.048 --> 00:20:23.508
Right, right.
00:20:23.528 --> 00:20:24.509
She's a Randolph.
00:20:24.648 --> 00:20:25.729
A Randolph, yes.
00:20:25.769 --> 00:20:27.650
Jefferson has a Randolph connection.
00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:30.371
And she was on hard times
00:20:30.471 --> 00:20:32.711
because she had been
00:20:32.892 --> 00:20:34.053
indirectly accused of
00:20:34.073 --> 00:20:35.173
adultery and murder.
00:20:35.492 --> 00:20:38.074
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:39.515 --> 00:20:42.355
The story was that her...
00:20:44.118 --> 00:20:44.980
She had been having an
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:46.820
affair with her cousin,
00:20:46.840 --> 00:20:48.823
who was also her brother-in-law,
00:20:48.923 --> 00:20:50.284
her sister's husband.
00:20:50.463 --> 00:20:50.785
Right.
00:20:51.125 --> 00:20:53.186
And that she had given birth
00:20:53.426 --> 00:20:55.449
and that they had killed the newborn.
00:20:55.848 --> 00:20:56.108
Yeah.
00:20:56.430 --> 00:20:56.690
Now,
00:20:56.950 --> 00:21:00.853
he was charged with this in a Virginia
00:21:01.032 --> 00:21:01.473
court.
00:21:02.535 --> 00:21:03.035
Or rather,
00:21:03.154 --> 00:21:05.777
he went to court to prove his innocence.
00:21:05.817 --> 00:21:06.377
He said, look,
00:21:06.657 --> 00:21:07.858
these rumors are going around.
00:21:07.898 --> 00:21:09.441
If anyone has any proof,
00:21:09.500 --> 00:21:11.241
I invite them to come to
00:21:11.321 --> 00:21:12.323
court and prove it on me.
00:21:13.203 --> 00:21:15.567
And then he discovers he has
00:21:15.606 --> 00:21:16.627
to defend himself.
00:21:16.708 --> 00:21:17.749
So who does he hire?
00:21:17.828 --> 00:21:20.111
He hires Patrick Henry and John Marshall,
00:21:20.991 --> 00:21:21.992
the first dream team,
00:21:22.452 --> 00:21:23.795
the great dream team.
00:21:24.055 --> 00:21:27.598
And Patrick Henry examines the witnesses.
00:21:27.679 --> 00:21:29.259
Marshall prepared the
00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:31.122
arguments for the defense.
00:21:31.982 --> 00:21:33.144
And so he was clear.
00:21:33.163 --> 00:21:34.905
The jury didn't even leave the box.
00:21:34.965 --> 00:21:36.507
They acquitted him.
00:21:37.835 --> 00:21:39.476
Because all the evidence, you know,
00:21:39.536 --> 00:21:41.396
people seeing things,
00:21:41.497 --> 00:21:44.678
did Nancy Randolph look pregnant?
00:21:44.939 --> 00:21:46.439
She'd asked for a drug that
00:21:46.499 --> 00:21:47.900
could produce abortions,
00:21:48.019 --> 00:21:49.681
but the drug had other uses.
00:21:49.961 --> 00:21:50.181
You know,
00:21:50.401 --> 00:21:52.602
every piece of supposed evidence
00:21:52.682 --> 00:21:54.403
could have another interpretation.
00:21:54.423 --> 00:21:55.284
So he gets on.
00:21:55.663 --> 00:21:57.644
But still, there's this taint, you know,
00:21:57.684 --> 00:21:59.726
this woman is involved in the scandal.
00:22:00.405 --> 00:22:01.767
And so 20 years later,
00:22:02.487 --> 00:22:04.087
Morris meets her in New York.
00:22:04.188 --> 00:22:06.669
She's been kicked out of the Randolph
00:22:07.309 --> 00:22:09.151
house and she's drifted
00:22:09.971 --> 00:22:12.074
north and Morris wants a
00:22:12.193 --> 00:22:13.994
gentle woman to run his household.
00:22:14.055 --> 00:22:14.855
He's unmarried.
00:22:15.355 --> 00:22:16.757
He's got a bunch of servants
00:22:17.317 --> 00:22:18.738
who don't get along with
00:22:18.778 --> 00:22:19.818
him or with each other.
00:22:19.838 --> 00:22:21.700
And he wants some gentle
00:22:21.760 --> 00:22:24.461
woman to bring them into line.
00:22:25.123 --> 00:22:26.324
So he hires her.
00:22:27.634 --> 00:22:29.695
He assures her that he will
00:22:30.596 --> 00:22:33.599
only love her as much as he can.
00:22:33.619 --> 00:22:35.901
He's not going to force himself upon her,
00:22:35.980 --> 00:22:37.403
but, you know,
00:22:37.742 --> 00:22:40.144
he wants to make that clear up front.
00:22:40.305 --> 00:22:43.768
And then they do get engaged.
00:22:44.428 --> 00:22:47.070
And his nieces and nephews
00:22:47.171 --> 00:22:49.172
are very unhappy with this because,
00:22:49.251 --> 00:22:49.772
you know,
00:22:49.792 --> 00:22:51.914
he's been a bachelor and they
00:22:51.954 --> 00:22:53.496
were expecting to inherit.
00:22:54.317 --> 00:22:55.978
So he told one of them, well,
00:22:56.617 --> 00:22:56.877
you know,
00:22:57.018 --> 00:22:59.378
if the world were to marry my wife,
00:22:59.538 --> 00:23:00.659
I would have, of course,
00:23:00.818 --> 00:23:02.058
considered its opinion.
00:23:04.079 --> 00:23:05.039
But the world isn't.
00:23:05.140 --> 00:23:09.381
So they marry and very happily.
00:23:10.300 --> 00:23:15.241
They have a son who does inherit.
00:23:15.301 --> 00:23:17.001
But the importance of him
00:23:17.041 --> 00:23:19.242
historically is a couple of things.
00:23:19.502 --> 00:23:21.563
He is the draftsman of the Constitution.
00:23:22.304 --> 00:23:23.943
He is on the Committee of Style.
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.240
to put all these resolutions
00:23:26.401 --> 00:23:27.721
into a final form.
00:23:28.182 --> 00:23:30.483
He not only does a very good job,
00:23:31.344 --> 00:23:33.705
and scholars are beginning
00:23:33.766 --> 00:23:35.487
to recognize this even more
00:23:35.547 --> 00:23:37.307
than I did in my book,
00:23:37.407 --> 00:23:40.849
he really shapes it in such
00:23:40.890 --> 00:23:42.391
a way that he's almost like
00:23:42.490 --> 00:23:45.113
a pitching machine sending
00:23:45.212 --> 00:23:47.054
balls down the strike zone
00:23:47.453 --> 00:23:49.194
for Team Federalist to
00:23:49.275 --> 00:23:50.316
knock out of the park.
00:23:52.252 --> 00:23:54.114
Treasury Secretary Hamilton
00:23:54.913 --> 00:23:56.654
and Chief Justice John Marshall.
00:23:57.395 --> 00:23:59.376
He leans as hard as he can
00:23:59.517 --> 00:24:03.338
to make their lives possible and easier.
00:24:04.499 --> 00:24:05.980
The second thing he does is
00:24:06.099 --> 00:24:10.902
he is in France from February 1789
00:24:10.902 --> 00:24:12.982
past the end of the reign of terror.
00:24:13.002 --> 00:24:14.884
He is in Paris all that time,
00:24:15.064 --> 00:24:16.325
first as a businessman,
00:24:16.744 --> 00:24:18.986
then as our minister to France.
00:24:19.205 --> 00:24:20.366
And he keeps a diary.
00:24:21.166 --> 00:24:23.667
And this is just a fascinating record.
00:24:24.528 --> 00:24:26.128
It starts off, it's all business.
00:24:27.569 --> 00:24:29.893
I wrote a report on something or other,
00:24:29.932 --> 00:24:31.194
and then I had supper with
00:24:31.234 --> 00:24:32.615
this person and that person,
00:24:32.695 --> 00:24:34.898
and then I gossiped with this, you know,
00:24:34.919 --> 00:24:36.099
and then I did with this
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:37.102
woman and on and on.
00:24:37.362 --> 00:24:38.923
And then the Bastille falls.
00:24:39.944 --> 00:24:40.065
Oh,
00:24:40.085 --> 00:24:42.288
we want to see what happened afterwards.
00:24:42.688 --> 00:24:45.869
Then he sees a politician
00:24:45.890 --> 00:24:47.050
there parading his head on
00:24:47.090 --> 00:24:48.310
a pike through the streets.
00:24:49.372 --> 00:24:50.633
And okay, all right,
00:24:50.732 --> 00:24:52.012
this is now taking a very
00:24:52.053 --> 00:24:53.153
much darker turn.
00:24:53.334 --> 00:24:55.194
And then it's back to I
00:24:55.255 --> 00:24:56.496
wrote a report and I had
00:24:56.576 --> 00:24:58.557
dinner with this person, blah, blah,
00:24:58.576 --> 00:24:58.717
blah.
00:24:58.856 --> 00:25:00.077
And then something else happens.
00:25:01.342 --> 00:25:02.923
It happens more and more and
00:25:02.963 --> 00:25:03.683
more frequently.
00:25:04.265 --> 00:25:06.865
And it's almost like cabaret
00:25:06.905 --> 00:25:08.126
at a higher social level.
00:25:08.307 --> 00:25:09.708
There's a world of people
00:25:10.429 --> 00:25:11.509
doing their thing,
00:25:11.869 --> 00:25:13.250
but then this whirlpool
00:25:13.310 --> 00:25:16.413
begins to suck them in from under.
00:25:16.813 --> 00:25:18.674
And he's there to see it all.
00:25:18.894 --> 00:25:20.655
Then he has diplomatic immunity,
00:25:20.756 --> 00:25:21.297
so he's...
00:25:21.977 --> 00:25:24.038
not much risk he's not a no
00:25:24.137 --> 00:25:25.519
risk there's one moment
00:25:25.598 --> 00:25:28.279
where uh he gets a knock on
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.340
the door at night and uh
00:25:30.922 --> 00:25:32.442
you know a revolutionary
00:25:32.481 --> 00:25:33.923
says look we've got to
00:25:33.982 --> 00:25:35.003
search your house there's a
00:25:35.023 --> 00:25:36.084
report you've got weapons
00:25:36.163 --> 00:25:38.144
in here and he says there
00:25:38.204 --> 00:25:39.266
are no weapons in this
00:25:39.286 --> 00:25:41.047
house I want to know your
00:25:41.126 --> 00:25:42.666
name I want to know your
00:25:42.707 --> 00:25:43.928
boss's name because I
00:25:43.988 --> 00:25:45.729
represent a friendly nation
00:25:45.788 --> 00:25:47.369
I'm going to protest this right
00:25:48.018 --> 00:25:50.078
So he bluffs him out of the house.
00:25:50.118 --> 00:25:51.900
And he was hiding people.
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:53.859
Oh, wow.
00:25:54.059 --> 00:25:55.961
He had people he was hiding.
00:25:56.181 --> 00:25:57.721
So then the next day,
00:25:57.741 --> 00:25:59.343
the higher up comes and says, oh,
00:25:59.623 --> 00:25:59.803
you know,
00:25:59.843 --> 00:26:01.383
we're very sorry about all that.
00:26:01.442 --> 00:26:03.483
But, you know, these things do happen,
00:26:03.523 --> 00:26:05.305
but we're sorry.
00:26:05.884 --> 00:26:08.165
So there was some danger.
00:26:08.445 --> 00:26:10.626
So that's a thing he does.
00:26:10.646 --> 00:26:12.028
And then the third thing is
00:26:12.087 --> 00:26:13.788
he pushes for the Erie Canal.
00:26:13.887 --> 00:26:14.449
He's an early...
00:26:16.530 --> 00:26:17.471
about that.
00:26:18.132 --> 00:26:19.291
The man who makes it happen
00:26:19.311 --> 00:26:20.211
is DeWitt Clinton,
00:26:20.251 --> 00:26:22.712
who's a younger politician
00:26:23.532 --> 00:26:25.294
and outlives Morris.
00:26:25.354 --> 00:26:26.973
But Morris is in at the
00:26:27.013 --> 00:26:28.213
beginning of the project.
00:26:28.233 --> 00:26:30.835
He helps survey the route,
00:26:31.674 --> 00:26:34.096
and he really sees what
00:26:34.175 --> 00:26:35.915
that can do for New York
00:26:36.036 --> 00:26:37.396
and for the United States.
00:26:37.477 --> 00:26:40.877
So those are his three legacies.
00:26:41.018 --> 00:26:42.357
And then the fourth one, though,
00:26:42.397 --> 00:26:43.417
the reason I wrote about
00:26:43.438 --> 00:26:44.919
him is he's just such a great guy.
00:26:46.624 --> 00:26:48.244
And so much happened to him
00:26:48.285 --> 00:26:49.565
and happened around him,
00:26:49.665 --> 00:26:52.267
but it never dampened his spirit.
00:26:52.666 --> 00:26:54.386
Yeah, that's true.
00:26:54.446 --> 00:26:54.948
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:55.167 --> 00:26:56.147
You gotta love that.
00:26:56.508 --> 00:26:57.588
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:57.608 --> 00:26:59.308
We're talking with Richard Brookhiser,
00:26:59.549 --> 00:27:01.430
author of a dozen or so
00:27:01.470 --> 00:27:02.770
books on the founding,
00:27:02.810 --> 00:27:05.192
as well as on more books on other topics,
00:27:05.251 --> 00:27:06.952
senior editor at National Review.
00:27:07.752 --> 00:27:10.334
And talking about the French Revolution,
00:27:10.354 --> 00:27:11.233
of course, reminds us,
00:27:11.253 --> 00:27:12.694
and we've seen revolutions
00:27:12.934 --> 00:27:14.836
in our own era since, which
00:27:15.855 --> 00:27:17.457
end badly that is the easy
00:27:17.518 --> 00:27:18.278
thing even though it seems
00:27:18.317 --> 00:27:19.759
impossible is getting rid
00:27:19.798 --> 00:27:21.461
of the bad old regime but
00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:22.101
then the much more
00:27:22.142 --> 00:27:23.603
difficult task is creating
00:27:23.663 --> 00:27:24.564
something that won't be
00:27:24.644 --> 00:27:27.105
worse you know we can name
00:27:27.145 --> 00:27:28.307
the countries which have
00:27:28.346 --> 00:27:30.167
had revolutions and how
00:27:30.249 --> 00:27:31.390
things have gone so I
00:27:31.849 --> 00:27:33.912
always wonder why the and
00:27:33.971 --> 00:27:35.272
why and how the americans
00:27:36.253 --> 00:27:37.315
avoid that you know they
00:27:37.335 --> 00:27:38.915
get rid of the monarchy and
00:27:40.491 --> 00:27:41.873
don't bring in the reign
00:27:41.972 --> 00:27:44.634
simply of a different set of tyrants.
00:27:45.433 --> 00:27:46.875
And I wonder if you've given
00:27:46.934 --> 00:27:49.875
any thought to this in your... Well,
00:27:50.355 --> 00:27:51.477
a couple of things.
00:27:52.116 --> 00:27:54.817
The enemy is mostly abroad.
00:27:55.898 --> 00:27:56.118
Now,
00:27:56.358 --> 00:27:59.799
there were lots of loyalists in America,
00:28:00.340 --> 00:28:02.241
and a lot of them suffered
00:28:03.582 --> 00:28:05.123
during and after the Revolution.
00:28:05.242 --> 00:28:05.423
But
00:28:06.133 --> 00:28:08.875
Most of the Native American
00:28:08.934 --> 00:28:10.536
population was either
00:28:10.635 --> 00:28:12.876
patriotic or indifferent
00:28:12.998 --> 00:28:14.659
and willing to go along
00:28:14.699 --> 00:28:17.480
with whoever they want.
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:20.883
America had had experience
00:28:20.942 --> 00:28:23.663
of self-rule to a degree.
00:28:23.784 --> 00:28:25.285
Each of these colonies had
00:28:25.325 --> 00:28:28.488
at least one elected body
00:28:28.508 --> 00:28:29.667
of the legislature.
00:28:30.489 --> 00:28:32.490
Two of them, Connecticut and Rhode Island,
00:28:32.690 --> 00:28:34.230
elected the legislatures
00:28:34.451 --> 00:28:35.231
and the governors.
00:28:35.311 --> 00:28:35.432
Right.
00:28:36.636 --> 00:28:38.538
So there was some experience
00:28:38.657 --> 00:28:41.900
of politics and political life.
00:28:42.299 --> 00:28:43.599
And then, you know,
00:28:43.660 --> 00:28:46.501
the third thing is the
00:28:46.541 --> 00:28:47.801
Americans were obsessed
00:28:47.842 --> 00:28:49.643
with politics and with
00:28:49.722 --> 00:28:51.844
political theory and political systems.
00:28:52.684 --> 00:28:55.066
Because the imperial crisis was a long,
00:28:55.105 --> 00:28:57.366
was like a 10 year long thing.
00:28:57.426 --> 00:28:59.027
And then so people were thinking,
00:28:59.087 --> 00:29:00.048
what is going on?
00:29:00.441 --> 00:29:01.721
Why is this happening?
00:29:02.482 --> 00:29:04.223
Why do we feel suddenly
00:29:04.924 --> 00:29:06.465
oppressed by this system?
00:29:06.826 --> 00:29:08.386
What would a better system be?
00:29:09.627 --> 00:29:11.589
And so they thought about this.
00:29:12.230 --> 00:29:13.971
And perhaps because there
00:29:14.011 --> 00:29:16.473
was so little else going on
00:29:16.554 --> 00:29:18.075
intellectually and culturally,
00:29:18.174 --> 00:29:21.377
this is where a lot of energy got put.
00:29:21.397 --> 00:29:23.680
And then the fourth thing is luck.
00:29:25.397 --> 00:29:27.318
A lot of them were very
00:29:27.419 --> 00:29:29.858
smart and most of them, not all of them,
00:29:29.919 --> 00:29:32.859
but most of them were honorable.
00:29:34.181 --> 00:29:36.201
And I think we have to say
00:29:36.641 --> 00:29:40.182
to give the honor prize to
00:29:40.201 --> 00:29:41.362
the commander-in-chief
00:29:42.383 --> 00:29:45.022
because the military man
00:29:45.324 --> 00:29:47.703
always can have the option
00:29:48.064 --> 00:29:51.644
of oversetting the whole table.
00:29:53.346 --> 00:29:54.246
And that is something
00:29:54.980 --> 00:29:56.740
Washington does not do and
00:29:56.780 --> 00:29:58.563
never thought of doing.
00:30:01.045 --> 00:30:04.267
Has Washington surprised you
00:30:04.487 --> 00:30:06.729
as you've been engaged with
00:30:06.848 --> 00:30:07.890
learning about him or
00:30:07.950 --> 00:30:09.632
things about him that you
00:30:11.093 --> 00:30:13.674
didn't know or that didn't
00:30:13.714 --> 00:30:15.516
turn out the way you imagined they would?
00:30:17.718 --> 00:30:17.917
Well,
00:30:17.958 --> 00:30:20.259
you have to do some work with him
00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:21.441
because he is
00:30:23.088 --> 00:30:24.470
more guarded than some of
00:30:24.509 --> 00:30:26.750
these other figures.
00:30:27.171 --> 00:30:28.171
He's a good writer,
00:30:28.431 --> 00:30:30.672
but he's not an eloquent writer.
00:30:31.393 --> 00:30:35.775
He's not a self-revealing writer or man.
00:30:37.095 --> 00:30:38.836
Occasionally, but really not.
00:30:39.576 --> 00:30:41.958
You know, not like John Adams, who's like,
00:30:42.038 --> 00:30:43.178
heart can be on his sleeve.
00:30:43.397 --> 00:30:45.318
Not like Hamilton, who's so aggressive.
00:30:45.378 --> 00:30:46.259
You know,
00:30:46.279 --> 00:30:47.819
he writes a 90-page pamphlet
00:30:47.859 --> 00:30:48.961
about his girlfriend to
00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:50.481
show that it's not corrupt.
00:30:50.721 --> 00:30:51.422
Right, yeah, yeah.
00:30:51.903 --> 00:30:53.924
unimaginable with Washington
00:30:54.065 --> 00:30:54.805
either being in the
00:30:54.865 --> 00:30:56.625
situation or behaving that way.
00:30:58.327 --> 00:31:00.849
But I did feel when I was
00:31:00.950 --> 00:31:03.391
first writing that first book,
00:31:03.451 --> 00:31:06.534
there came a moment and I
00:31:06.834 --> 00:31:08.055
had to figure out something
00:31:08.095 --> 00:31:09.075
he did as president.
00:31:09.355 --> 00:31:11.636
And I did the reading, did the work.
00:31:12.198 --> 00:31:16.181
And then I had this feeling, once again,
00:31:17.101 --> 00:31:20.042
he has not let me down.
00:31:20.584 --> 00:31:20.923
Mm-hmm.
00:31:22.042 --> 00:31:24.346
Once again, he has not let himself down.
00:31:25.626 --> 00:31:26.928
And I realize there's this,
00:31:27.368 --> 00:31:28.450
when you get to it,
00:31:28.509 --> 00:31:30.392
there is this consistency
00:31:30.491 --> 00:31:34.036
there that he really means it.
00:31:36.939 --> 00:31:39.662
And I think his
00:31:39.761 --> 00:31:42.025
contemporaries watched that.
00:31:42.772 --> 00:31:45.174
You know, his life was like a performance.
00:31:46.635 --> 00:31:47.696
They watched that through
00:31:47.737 --> 00:31:48.758
eight and a half years of
00:31:48.798 --> 00:31:51.240
the war and then the post-war period.
00:31:51.640 --> 00:31:53.721
And then he's president for eight years.
00:31:53.781 --> 00:31:55.884
So 20 plus years,
00:31:56.003 --> 00:31:59.826
he's at the center or near the center,
00:31:59.967 --> 00:32:01.729
usually at the center of attention.
00:32:02.935 --> 00:32:07.218
And there's some tension and
00:32:07.317 --> 00:32:08.538
anticipation there.
00:32:08.598 --> 00:32:11.660
No one ever says this, but it's like, oh,
00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:13.401
gee, suppose he missteps.
00:32:13.601 --> 00:32:14.942
Suppose he screws up.
00:32:15.001 --> 00:32:16.782
Suppose he disappoints us.
00:32:17.843 --> 00:32:19.463
But he doesn't.
00:32:20.644 --> 00:32:21.704
And there's this letter.
00:32:21.904 --> 00:32:23.846
I have to give John Adams credit.
00:32:23.905 --> 00:32:25.767
And sometimes I can seem a
00:32:25.826 --> 00:32:27.147
little rough on him because
00:32:27.208 --> 00:32:29.588
he just goes off and he
00:32:29.628 --> 00:32:31.549
shouldn't have done that and so on.
00:32:32.414 --> 00:32:33.335
When he's an old man,
00:32:33.375 --> 00:32:34.875
Washington's been dead for years,
00:32:35.115 --> 00:32:36.336
and he's corresponding with
00:32:36.375 --> 00:32:37.876
Benjamin Rush.
00:32:39.037 --> 00:32:42.837
And they're like sorting out the founding.
00:32:42.857 --> 00:32:44.439
These old guys are trying to
00:32:44.499 --> 00:32:45.219
figure it all out.
00:32:46.058 --> 00:32:47.519
And so Washington comes up.
00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:49.680
And Adams writes this charming,
00:32:50.520 --> 00:32:51.861
very Adams-like letter.
00:32:51.941 --> 00:32:54.481
Why was Washington so successful in pop?
00:32:55.099 --> 00:32:56.260
And he gives 10 reasons.
00:32:56.840 --> 00:33:00.042
And this is like very John Adams-like.
00:33:00.403 --> 00:33:02.163
One of the reasons is, well,
00:33:02.223 --> 00:33:04.346
he was a Virginian and then
00:33:04.405 --> 00:33:06.047
all geese are swine.
00:33:06.626 --> 00:33:07.468
And they said, well,
00:33:07.587 --> 00:33:09.308
he was very rich and he got
00:33:09.348 --> 00:33:11.009
a lot of money from Martha.
00:33:11.690 --> 00:33:12.570
Well, he was rich,
00:33:12.590 --> 00:33:14.172
but it didn't all come from Martha.
00:33:14.602 --> 00:33:15.301
And, you know,
00:33:15.321 --> 00:33:17.702
and he goes through these various things.
00:33:17.883 --> 00:33:21.523
And then he says that, you know,
00:33:21.544 --> 00:33:26.484
the people wanted to admire someone.
00:33:26.885 --> 00:33:28.965
They wanted someone like that.
00:33:29.986 --> 00:33:31.146
And then he quotes some
00:33:31.287 --> 00:33:35.667
cynical Renaissance pope saying, well,
00:33:35.688 --> 00:33:36.988
if the good people want them,
00:33:37.088 --> 00:33:37.729
let them have them.
00:33:39.088 --> 00:33:40.809
Meaning, you know, it's all nonsense.
00:33:41.109 --> 00:33:42.109
Well, let them have them.
00:33:42.737 --> 00:33:46.778
And then Adams adds that
00:33:46.818 --> 00:33:49.059
they were not deceived.
00:33:49.960 --> 00:33:51.580
So he says, yes,
00:33:51.701 --> 00:33:53.441
they wanted someone to be
00:33:53.540 --> 00:33:55.541
honest and virtuous.
00:33:56.742 --> 00:33:58.843
And so they looked for this
00:33:58.884 --> 00:34:02.345
in Washington and they were not deceived.
00:34:03.450 --> 00:34:05.813
So in his great old age and
00:34:05.853 --> 00:34:08.795
with all his somewhat mixed feelings,
00:34:08.815 --> 00:34:11.077
his envy in there, but he says, no,
00:34:11.476 --> 00:34:12.798
he really delivered.
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:17.081
And that's why he's succeeded.
00:34:17.121 --> 00:34:18.163
That's why he's honored.
00:34:20.657 --> 00:34:21.057
Interesting.
00:34:21.097 --> 00:34:22.719
We're talking with Richard Brookhiser,
00:34:23.059 --> 00:34:24.878
author of four books on Washington.
00:34:24.898 --> 00:34:25.960
The first was Founding
00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:29.541
Father Rediscovering George Washington.
00:34:30.001 --> 00:34:30.780
And you've also written
00:34:30.820 --> 00:34:32.081
about Washington's rules of
00:34:32.141 --> 00:34:34.902
civility and a book about
00:34:34.922 --> 00:34:37.322
the Adamses as an American dynasty,
00:34:37.342 --> 00:34:38.643
a book about Gouverneur Morris,
00:34:38.722 --> 00:34:40.264
the gentleman revolutionary,
00:34:41.083 --> 00:34:43.123
James Madison, John Marshall,
00:34:43.143 --> 00:34:44.684
the man who made the Supreme Court.
00:34:45.505 --> 00:34:47.106
It's a fascinating
00:34:47.126 --> 00:34:50.128
collection of a fascinating
00:34:50.188 --> 00:34:51.289
study you have done in
00:34:51.349 --> 00:34:53.070
addition to your career as a journalist,
00:34:53.110 --> 00:34:54.010
really bringing these
00:34:54.130 --> 00:34:56.652
characters to life in such
00:34:56.672 --> 00:34:57.532
a compelling way.
00:34:58.213 --> 00:35:00.253
Is there someone you hope to
00:35:00.293 --> 00:35:03.516
write about or wish you had
00:35:03.615 --> 00:35:05.336
when you were starting off?
00:35:05.498 --> 00:35:06.878
Or is this, you know,
00:35:07.438 --> 00:35:09.000
I'm just thinking of other characters.
00:35:10.201 --> 00:35:10.400
Well,
00:35:11.576 --> 00:35:13.516
An interesting moment is
00:35:14.097 --> 00:35:16.179
when Lafayette comes to the
00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:18.320
United States in 1824-45.
00:35:19.842 --> 00:35:21.623
And he was here during the
00:35:21.702 --> 00:35:23.543
war and then for a couple
00:35:23.563 --> 00:35:24.664
of years after the war.
00:35:24.724 --> 00:35:26.545
But then for decades,
00:35:26.626 --> 00:35:28.166
he has been in France.
00:35:29.188 --> 00:35:30.367
And he's been very involved
00:35:30.427 --> 00:35:31.548
in French politics,
00:35:33.130 --> 00:35:34.791
often very unsuccessfully.
00:35:35.771 --> 00:35:37.193
He's been encouraging
00:35:37.293 --> 00:35:38.753
revolutions in others.
00:35:39.434 --> 00:35:41.454
countries in Spain and Italy.
00:35:41.775 --> 00:35:44.815
And then President Monroe,
00:35:45.096 --> 00:35:46.936
towards the end of his second term,
00:35:46.976 --> 00:35:49.356
he invites Lafayette to come here.
00:35:50.396 --> 00:35:52.197
And Lafayette does.
00:35:53.018 --> 00:35:55.239
And he goes around the Northeast,
00:35:55.778 --> 00:35:57.820
but then every state
00:35:57.980 --> 00:36:00.739
demands that he visit them.
00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:03.840
So he has to go through 24 states.
00:36:04.641 --> 00:36:06.842
And this was a real epic of
00:36:07.041 --> 00:36:09.302
travel in an age when that was not
00:36:10.045 --> 00:36:12.867
easy, and also planning and logistics,
00:36:13.186 --> 00:36:16.827
because you had to keep your tempo going.
00:36:17.429 --> 00:36:19.208
So it's an interesting moment.
00:36:19.248 --> 00:36:22.030
It's interesting what he saw here.
00:36:23.391 --> 00:36:25.791
And he had a young aide who
00:36:25.871 --> 00:36:28.492
came along and wrote a long
00:36:28.572 --> 00:36:30.492
account of their travels,
00:36:30.592 --> 00:36:32.233
which was then published in
00:36:32.313 --> 00:36:33.733
France and then also in the
00:36:33.753 --> 00:36:34.534
United States.
00:36:34.974 --> 00:36:35.394
And of course,
00:36:35.434 --> 00:36:36.675
the trip was covered by
00:36:36.775 --> 00:36:38.695
every newspaper in town
00:36:39.585 --> 00:36:41.387
you know, he went to.
00:36:41.746 --> 00:36:44.768
And it was a moment where
00:36:44.929 --> 00:36:47.972
you ask of a revolution, okay,
00:36:47.992 --> 00:36:49.793
you've had almost 50 years.
00:36:50.934 --> 00:36:53.516
How has this worked out?
00:36:53.936 --> 00:36:54.858
How have you done?
00:36:55.798 --> 00:36:59.661
And a lot of things had
00:36:59.722 --> 00:37:01.083
worked out very well.
00:37:01.222 --> 00:37:02.965
I'd say maybe most things.
00:37:04.045 --> 00:37:06.407
Some hadn't.
00:37:06.507 --> 00:37:07.367
There was still
00:37:08.596 --> 00:37:11.297
slavery in half the country.
00:37:12.197 --> 00:37:16.278
Lafayette is anti-slavery,
00:37:16.358 --> 00:37:17.239
and he brings it up.
00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:19.721
He asks his host about this.
00:37:20.501 --> 00:37:22.121
And they tell him, well,
00:37:23.222 --> 00:37:24.182
it's on the way out.
00:37:24.682 --> 00:37:26.963
We all understand that it's a bad thing.
00:37:27.364 --> 00:37:30.284
And the people who are
00:37:30.344 --> 00:37:32.425
telling him this want to believe that,
00:37:32.485 --> 00:37:34.947
and Lafayette wants to believe that.
00:37:36.007 --> 00:37:36.728
It's a mistake.
00:37:37.516 --> 00:37:38.998
Because people are beginning,
00:37:39.157 --> 00:37:40.659
are just at the point where
00:37:40.679 --> 00:37:42.820
they will soon say, well, no,
00:37:42.880 --> 00:37:44.643
it isn't a bad thing that's lingered.
00:37:44.983 --> 00:37:47.965
It's actually a good thing.
00:37:48.005 --> 00:37:49.146
There's a lot of good about it.
00:37:49.385 --> 00:37:53.829
So, you know, he misses that development,
00:37:54.210 --> 00:37:55.391
doesn't foresee it.
00:37:56.192 --> 00:37:58.012
But so it's an interesting thing.
00:37:59.487 --> 00:38:01.608
contrast between the still
00:38:01.688 --> 00:38:03.789
rather young United States and Europe.
00:38:04.409 --> 00:38:05.469
And it's an interesting
00:38:05.550 --> 00:38:08.010
moment of a revolution
00:38:08.510 --> 00:38:10.110
being able to judge itself
00:38:10.971 --> 00:38:12.891
both by the people who live
00:38:12.951 --> 00:38:14.711
there and also by this
00:38:15.532 --> 00:38:19.393
visitor and admirer from another country.
00:38:19.793 --> 00:38:24.014
So that might be something of interest.
00:38:24.034 --> 00:38:25.273
I've been thinking about that.
00:38:25.514 --> 00:38:27.054
That's a great topic.
00:38:29.025 --> 00:38:30.206
leave it to you or one of
00:38:30.286 --> 00:38:31.427
our listeners might pick up
00:38:31.507 --> 00:38:33.547
that story because that is, as you said,
00:38:33.608 --> 00:38:35.108
really a tremendous moment.
00:38:36.869 --> 00:38:39.190
We've been talking with Richard Brookhiser,
00:38:39.311 --> 00:38:41.952
who is the author of Founding Father,
00:38:42.112 --> 00:38:43.494
and I think your most
00:38:43.574 --> 00:38:45.355
recent book is Give Me Liberty,
00:38:45.375 --> 00:38:47.476
A History of America's Exceptional Idea.
00:38:47.577 --> 00:38:48.777
You've probably written
00:38:48.818 --> 00:38:49.637
something since then.
00:38:50.057 --> 00:38:51.860
Well, I've got a book coming out in May.
00:38:52.260 --> 00:38:55.302
It's Glorious Lessons, John Trumbull,
00:38:55.382 --> 00:38:57.182
Painter of the American Revolution.
00:38:57.545 --> 00:38:58.146
Oh, wonderful.
00:38:58.547 --> 00:39:00.307
And Glorious Lessons is from
00:39:00.367 --> 00:39:01.909
a letter he writes to his
00:39:02.009 --> 00:39:05.791
friend Thomas Jefferson in 1789,
00:39:05.791 --> 00:39:07.693
where he wants to describe
00:39:08.172 --> 00:39:09.253
what he hopes to do,
00:39:09.414 --> 00:39:10.655
which is paint the history
00:39:10.675 --> 00:39:11.695
of the revolution.
00:39:11.735 --> 00:39:13.436
He says he wants to give
00:39:13.496 --> 00:39:15.657
glorious lessons to present
00:39:15.858 --> 00:39:17.239
and future sons of
00:39:17.358 --> 00:39:20.360
oppression about how they should live.
00:39:20.891 --> 00:39:22.512
maintain their rights.
00:39:23.492 --> 00:39:25.074
So he's not just doing the
00:39:25.134 --> 00:39:26.494
history of this event.
00:39:26.614 --> 00:39:30.717
He's saying this event has consequences.
00:39:30.936 --> 00:39:32.438
You can look at the story
00:39:32.918 --> 00:39:34.619
and you may have to do this
00:39:34.699 --> 00:39:35.699
yourself later.
00:39:36.099 --> 00:39:36.400
You know,
00:39:36.481 --> 00:39:40.342
you in France or South America or
00:39:40.543 --> 00:39:43.364
also you Americans later in the future.
00:39:44.324 --> 00:39:47.686
But here's examples and here
00:39:47.947 --> 00:39:50.429
are examples that you may have to follow.
00:39:51.981 --> 00:39:52.782
Maybe we can have you back
00:39:52.822 --> 00:39:55.244
to talk about that when it comes out.
00:39:55.686 --> 00:39:56.586
Sounds like a great book.
00:39:56.646 --> 00:39:57.967
And I want to thank you for
00:39:57.987 --> 00:39:59.429
the glorious lessons you've given.
00:39:59.449 --> 00:40:00.371
I'm really glad you took
00:40:00.411 --> 00:40:01.771
this up and you're taking
00:40:01.811 --> 00:40:02.793
time from your career as a
00:40:02.833 --> 00:40:04.514
journalist to illuminate
00:40:04.574 --> 00:40:06.157
history in this way and to
00:40:06.197 --> 00:40:07.217
give us these glorious
00:40:07.297 --> 00:40:09.260
lessons about the founders
00:40:09.320 --> 00:40:10.440
and what their work meant.
00:40:10.581 --> 00:40:11.802
So thank you so much.
00:40:11.822 --> 00:40:12.824
Thank you for having me.
00:40:14.059 --> 00:40:15.701
And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
00:40:15.740 --> 00:40:16.280
our producer.
00:40:16.300 --> 00:40:16.541
And, you know,
00:40:16.561 --> 00:40:17.880
we have listeners actually
00:40:17.940 --> 00:40:18.701
all over the world.
00:40:18.740 --> 00:40:20.521
And every week I thank folks
00:40:20.541 --> 00:40:21.641
who have been tuning in.
00:40:21.722 --> 00:40:22.561
And if you are in one of
00:40:22.601 --> 00:40:23.902
these places and want to
00:40:23.961 --> 00:40:26.702
get some of our Revolution 250 gear,
00:40:27.063 --> 00:40:29.523
lapel pins, magnets, posters,
00:40:30.003 --> 00:40:31.403
send Jonathan Lane an email,
00:40:31.443 --> 00:40:33.603
jlane at revolution250.org.
00:40:33.704 --> 00:40:34.885
And this week I'm thanking
00:40:34.965 --> 00:40:37.505
folks in Philadelphia and in Goose Creek,
00:40:37.565 --> 00:40:40.085
South Carolina, Idaho, Florida, Idaho,
00:40:40.606 --> 00:40:41.786
Pensacola, Florida,
00:40:42.469 --> 00:40:45.530
And in both Manhattan and Queens,
00:40:46.050 --> 00:40:46.751
and I think we also have
00:40:46.791 --> 00:40:48.550
listeners in the Bronx, Staten Island,
00:40:48.710 --> 00:40:50.891
and Brooklyn, Hanover, Massachusetts,
00:40:51.012 --> 00:40:51.992
Shelburne, Vermont,
00:40:52.092 --> 00:40:53.592
all places between and beyond,
00:40:53.652 --> 00:40:54.554
thanks for joining us.
00:40:54.634 --> 00:40:56.833
And now we will be hyped out
00:40:56.873 --> 00:40:58.074
on the road to Boston.
00:40:58.135 --> 00:40:58.474
Thank you.