Lafayette Returns! with Ryan Cole

We talk with historian Ryan Cole about memory, gratitude, and the young republic’s most celebrated guest.  Cole's new book, The Last Adieu:  Lafayette's Triumphant Return, the Echoes of Revolution, and the Gratitude of the Republic , explores the extraordinary 1824–1825 return tour of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. Nearly fifty years after the shots at Lexington and Concord, Lafayette’s journey across all twenty-four states became a rolling national reunion, a living bridge between the Revolutionary generation and a rising America eager to define itself.

 Lafayette’s visit was more than ceremonial pageantry. It was a reaffirmation of republican ideals, a masterclass in civic memory, and perhaps the most unifying event of the early nineteenth century. From parades and banquets to emotional reunions with aging veterans, the tour rekindled revolutionary spirit at a moment when the nation stood at a crossroads.

This conversation reminds us that anniversaries are not simply about looking backward. They are about renewing vows. Lafayette’s farewell tour shows how a grateful republic honors its past while quietly shaping its future.

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:00.896 --> 00:00:02.818
 hello everyone welcome to the revolution
 
 00:00:02.858 --> 00:00:05.059
 two fifty podcast i'm bob allison i chair
 
 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:07.041
 the rev two fifty advisory group we're a
 
 00:00:07.060 --> 00:00:08.663
 consortium of organizations in
 
 00:00:08.702 --> 00:00:11.464
 massachusetts planning commemorations of
 
 00:00:11.484 --> 00:00:14.188
 american independence and our guest today
 
 00:00:14.348 --> 00:00:16.989
 is ryan cole and ryan cole is not
 
 00:00:17.149 --> 00:00:19.211
 only from the hoosier state home of
 
 00:00:19.271 --> 00:00:19.873
 champions
 
 00:00:20.472 --> 00:00:22.814
 He is the author of Light Horse Harry
 
 00:00:22.873 --> 00:00:23.094
 Lee,
 
 00:00:23.114 --> 00:00:25.475
 The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero.
 
 00:00:25.574 --> 00:00:26.934
 But we're here to talk about your new
 
 00:00:26.975 --> 00:00:28.556
 book, The Last to Do,
 
 00:00:28.696 --> 00:00:30.335
 Lafayette's Triumphant Return,
 
 00:00:30.477 --> 00:00:32.457
 Echoes of the Revolution and Gratitude of
 
 00:00:32.476 --> 00:00:32.996
 the Republic.
 
 00:00:33.017 --> 00:00:34.037
 So, Ryan, great to see you.
 
 00:00:34.597 --> 00:00:35.537
 Thanks for having me on, Bob.
 
 00:00:35.578 --> 00:00:36.939
 And thanks for mentioning the national
 
 00:00:36.959 --> 00:00:37.518
 championship.
 
 00:00:38.908 --> 00:00:40.128
 Well, here in Boston, you know,
 
 00:00:40.149 --> 00:00:41.609
 we take those things seriously, too.
 
 00:00:41.670 --> 00:00:43.511
 And the rest of the country will learn
 
 00:00:43.530 --> 00:00:46.991
 to love us.
 
 00:00:47.033 --> 00:00:51.295
 So this was it's hard to overstate how
 
 00:00:51.314 --> 00:00:53.595
 important Lafayette's visit was to the
 
 00:00:53.636 --> 00:00:55.436
 country in eighteen, twenty four,
 
 00:00:55.457 --> 00:00:57.218
 twenty five.
 
 00:00:57.237 --> 00:00:58.838
 I think it's one of the most important
 
 00:00:58.878 --> 00:01:00.539
 events in the country between the
 
 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:02.140
 ratification of the Constitution and the
 
 00:01:02.180 --> 00:01:02.761
 Civil War.
 
 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.641
 And the story is connected to both of
 
 00:01:04.662 --> 00:01:04.921
 them.
 
 00:01:05.343 --> 00:01:06.783
 But it was thirteen months.
 
 00:01:07.364 --> 00:01:07.384
 I
 
 00:01:09.579 --> 00:01:10.540
 you want to say something that really
 
 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:13.822
 resonates with viewers or with an audience
 
 00:01:13.981 --> 00:01:16.522
 i say well it's kind of like taylor
 
 00:01:16.563 --> 00:01:18.963
 swift but much bigger and with the civic
 
 00:01:18.983 --> 00:01:20.844
 component attached to him but it really
 
 00:01:20.864 --> 00:01:22.766
 was something i've heard people say beetle
 
 00:01:22.786 --> 00:01:24.186
 mania elvis but it's something that
 
 00:01:24.206 --> 00:01:25.906
 consumed the country for thirteen months
 
 00:01:26.227 --> 00:01:28.207
 and actually before and after because
 
 00:01:28.828 --> 00:01:30.188
 there was a build-up to him coming and
 
 00:01:30.209 --> 00:01:31.528
 then there was you know a lot of
 
 00:01:31.549 --> 00:01:33.109
 sentimentality after he was gone
 
 00:01:34.471 --> 00:01:34.650
 Yeah.
 
 00:01:34.671 --> 00:01:36.733
 Last major general from the revolution.
 
 00:01:36.834 --> 00:01:38.155
 And he comes as a guest of the
 
 00:01:38.215 --> 00:01:39.075
 nation, as you said,
 
 00:01:39.096 --> 00:01:40.878
 travels through every state over the
 
 00:01:40.897 --> 00:01:42.400
 course of a little over a year.
 
 00:01:43.447 --> 00:01:44.367
 Yeah, exactly.
 
 00:01:44.987 --> 00:01:45.128
 Now,
 
 00:01:45.168 --> 00:01:47.929
 he had wanted to return to America many
 
 00:01:47.969 --> 00:01:48.390
 times,
 
 00:01:49.310 --> 00:01:51.090
 and he'd come back in seventeen eighty
 
 00:01:51.111 --> 00:01:52.072
 four famously.
 
 00:01:52.132 --> 00:01:53.733
 And then I tried to come back after
 
 00:01:53.972 --> 00:01:55.353
 after being freed from prison.
 
 00:01:56.433 --> 00:01:58.254
 George Washington had encouraged him not
 
 00:01:58.295 --> 00:01:59.956
 to come because the political dynamics
 
 00:02:00.135 --> 00:02:01.376
 shifted so dramatically.
 
 00:02:01.816 --> 00:02:05.019
 The French war with America's neutrality.
 
 00:02:05.498 --> 00:02:06.840
 Then he had thought of coming, I think,
 
 00:02:06.859 --> 00:02:07.680
 in eighteen oh five.
 
 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:08.681
 He had planned to come,
 
 00:02:08.721 --> 00:02:09.901
 been discouraged because of British
 
 00:02:09.961 --> 00:02:10.442
 warships.
 
 00:02:11.402 --> 00:02:12.024
 on the Atlantic.
 
 00:02:12.044 --> 00:02:14.366
 So his whole life passes by him and
 
 00:02:14.507 --> 00:02:17.349
 he's at C-sixty-six at this point and at
 
 00:02:17.370 --> 00:02:19.453
 a low point politically, personally,
 
 00:02:19.473 --> 00:02:20.153
 a widower.
 
 00:02:20.394 --> 00:02:21.294
 His health is not great.
 
 00:02:21.335 --> 00:02:22.836
 His finances are a wreck.
 
 00:02:23.217 --> 00:02:25.039
 So the opportunity with this invitation
 
 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:26.942
 extended by Congress and then transmitted
 
 00:02:27.582 --> 00:02:29.683
 by the American minister, James Brown,
 
 00:02:30.524 --> 00:02:32.104
 is a gift for him in a lot
 
 00:02:32.145 --> 00:02:32.525
 of ways.
 
 00:02:32.585 --> 00:02:34.665
 It's going to restore his finances,
 
 00:02:34.725 --> 00:02:36.687
 as we probably get to allow him to
 
 00:02:36.727 --> 00:02:39.367
 visit with his old brother soldiers one
 
 00:02:39.407 --> 00:02:40.128
 last time.
 
 00:02:40.528 --> 00:02:41.810
 And then you mentioned the twenty four
 
 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:43.669
 states to see the progress that has
 
 00:02:43.710 --> 00:02:45.730
 unfolded in the forty years since he has
 
 00:02:45.770 --> 00:02:46.491
 been to America.
 
 00:02:48.395 --> 00:02:49.717
 And as you alluded to, I mean,
 
 00:02:50.338 --> 00:02:51.121
 he's in prison.
 
 00:02:51.441 --> 00:02:54.888
 His life had not gone really that well
 
 00:02:55.168 --> 00:02:57.252
 after he gets back to France.
 
 00:02:57.292 --> 00:02:58.054
 So why is that?
 
 00:02:59.306 --> 00:03:01.608
 After the American Revolution, well,
 
 00:03:01.627 --> 00:03:02.949
 it's a roller coaster in ways, right?
 
 00:03:03.430 --> 00:03:05.331
 He's one of the stars of the French
 
 00:03:05.352 --> 00:03:07.594
 Revolution's early optimistic period and
 
 00:03:08.194 --> 00:03:10.477
 writes the unused Declaration of the
 
 00:03:10.497 --> 00:03:14.001
 Rights of the American Citizen and leads
 
 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:15.201
 the Parisian National Guard.
 
 00:03:15.222 --> 00:03:15.782
 And then, I mean,
 
 00:03:16.143 --> 00:03:18.245
 it's caught between the radicals and the
 
 00:03:18.264 --> 00:03:19.826
 royals not seeming sufficiently loyal,
 
 00:03:19.866 --> 00:03:20.086
 right?
 
 00:03:20.127 --> 00:03:21.389
 And then flees the country and ends up
 
 00:03:21.449 --> 00:03:21.508
 in
 
 00:03:21.889 --> 00:03:24.691
 yeah risen and then the trajectories he's
 
 00:03:24.751 --> 00:03:26.891
 only comes back because napoleon is able
 
 00:03:26.912 --> 00:03:28.272
 to bring a promise out of him not
 
 00:03:28.293 --> 00:03:30.234
 to be involved up with life i thought
 
 00:03:30.253 --> 00:03:31.955
 the great symbolism was i was in i
 
 00:03:31.974 --> 00:03:34.497
 was in um washington and lee last week
 
 00:03:34.796 --> 00:03:36.437
 talking about lafayette and white horse
 
 00:03:36.457 --> 00:03:39.180
 harry lee you know and your listeners will
 
 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:41.080
 know this light horse fairly famously
 
 00:03:41.181 --> 00:03:44.682
 eulogized washington first in war first in
 
 00:03:44.723 --> 00:03:46.463
 peace first in the hearts of his country
 
 00:03:46.484 --> 00:03:46.544
 but
 
 00:03:46.810 --> 00:03:47.110
 Yeah.
 
 00:03:47.131 --> 00:03:49.453
 So when Lee is having the star of
 
 00:03:49.473 --> 00:03:52.956
 this incredible memorial service in
 
 00:03:52.977 --> 00:03:53.578
 Philadelphia,
 
 00:03:54.038 --> 00:03:56.901
 Lafayette isn't even invited to the public
 
 00:03:57.042 --> 00:03:59.204
 memorial service in Paris for Washington
 
 00:03:59.343 --> 00:04:00.104
 or his adopted father.
 
 00:04:01.907 --> 00:04:02.206
 Wow.
 
 00:04:02.707 --> 00:04:02.987
 Wow.
 
 00:04:03.027 --> 00:04:04.008
 He had really fallen.
 
 00:04:04.049 --> 00:04:07.110
 And then Napoleon keeps thinking he can
 
 00:04:07.230 --> 00:04:07.510
 use him,
 
 00:04:07.531 --> 00:04:09.173
 but Lafayette refuses to serve in a
 
 00:04:09.233 --> 00:04:10.633
 government that's not elected.
 
 00:04:10.993 --> 00:04:11.334
 That's right.
 
 00:04:11.354 --> 00:04:12.555
 All right.
 
 00:04:12.615 --> 00:04:14.415
 And it has a brief return, right?
 
 00:04:15.377 --> 00:04:17.158
 Helps convince Napoleon to abdicate after
 
 00:04:17.218 --> 00:04:17.718
 Waterloo.
 
 00:04:18.038 --> 00:04:18.779
 But then it goes back.
 
 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:20.180
 There's a wonderful quote by a former
 
 00:04:20.221 --> 00:04:22.843
 Massachusetts governor, William Eustace,
 
 00:04:23.142 --> 00:04:24.704
 who was also a veteran of the revolution
 
 00:04:24.764 --> 00:04:26.665
 and host of Lafayette when he comes to
 
 00:04:26.685 --> 00:04:26.886
 Washington.
 
 00:04:27.987 --> 00:04:32.091
 to uh roxbury right yes letter things were
 
 00:04:32.110 --> 00:04:33.512
 in an eighteen eighteen eighteen nineteen
 
 00:04:33.752 --> 00:04:35.653
 he writes back he's the the american
 
 00:04:35.915 --> 00:04:38.557
 ambassador to the uh netherlands yeah
 
 00:04:39.177 --> 00:04:41.620
 where he says general lafayette waits
 
 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:43.622
 patiently on his farm for a better state
 
 00:04:43.661 --> 00:04:45.184
 of things so that's where we find him
 
 00:04:45.663 --> 00:04:46.865
 before coming back to america
 
 00:04:47.946 --> 00:04:50.148
 So then it is President Monroe who is
 
 00:04:50.228 --> 00:04:53.350
 the second Revolutionary War veteran to
 
 00:04:53.389 --> 00:04:55.230
 serve as president who invites him to
 
 00:04:55.271 --> 00:04:55.571
 come.
 
 00:04:55.850 --> 00:04:57.552
 What prompted Monroe to issue the
 
 00:04:57.591 --> 00:04:58.932
 invitation to Lafayette?
 
 00:04:59.776 --> 00:05:02.519
 I think now there's I know some historians
 
 00:05:02.538 --> 00:05:05.762
 have written that it was a a conspiracy
 
 00:05:05.783 --> 00:05:06.983
 is not a kind enough word.
 
 00:05:07.004 --> 00:05:09.107
 It was a strategic invitation to bring
 
 00:05:09.146 --> 00:05:11.028
 Lafayette back to cool the temperatures
 
 00:05:11.810 --> 00:05:13.312
 that we were in the middle of a
 
 00:05:13.391 --> 00:05:15.254
 very divisive presidential election in
 
 00:05:15.314 --> 00:05:16.095
 eighteen twenty four.
 
 00:05:16.495 --> 00:05:18.357
 I have not seen any documentation of that
 
 00:05:18.497 --> 00:05:20.119
 in terms of letters from from.
 
 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:22.399
 you know or anyone's administration i
 
 00:05:22.440 --> 00:05:25.221
 think there was a sentimentality lafayette
 
 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:27.901
 had corresponded with fellow veterans of
 
 00:05:27.942 --> 00:05:29.822
 the revolution like meredith willett for
 
 00:05:29.862 --> 00:05:33.403
 example and those letters his letters to
 
 00:05:33.803 --> 00:05:36.004
 uh his friends in america had been shared
 
 00:05:36.704 --> 00:05:39.845
 with the press and had been published and
 
 00:05:39.865 --> 00:05:41.946
 they'd often contain sentiments of his
 
 00:05:42.005 --> 00:05:44.127
 desire expressing his desire to come back
 
 00:05:44.266 --> 00:05:45.047
 one last time
 
 00:05:45.627 --> 00:05:47.387
 Very, very tender, you know,
 
 00:05:47.427 --> 00:05:49.490
 to embrace his brother soldiers one last
 
 00:05:49.509 --> 00:05:49.870
 time.
 
 00:05:50.630 --> 00:05:52.651
 This combined with his perilous state
 
 00:05:52.732 --> 00:05:54.872
 politically in France at the time,
 
 00:05:54.932 --> 00:05:56.613
 Americans wanted him to come back.
 
 00:05:57.014 --> 00:05:58.536
 There was also a boom of nostalgia for
 
 00:05:58.555 --> 00:06:00.536
 the revolution leading up to the fiftieth
 
 00:06:00.596 --> 00:06:02.117
 anniversary of the Declaration.
 
 00:06:02.577 --> 00:06:03.858
 So I think this was the impetus.
 
 00:06:03.939 --> 00:06:05.800
 These letters you even see in the debates
 
 00:06:05.841 --> 00:06:07.482
 in Congress or the language of the
 
 00:06:07.502 --> 00:06:08.041
 invitation.
 
 00:06:08.062 --> 00:06:10.002
 You see some members of Congress bringing
 
 00:06:10.043 --> 00:06:11.805
 the letters that Lafayette had written,
 
 00:06:11.944 --> 00:06:14.365
 including one that he'd written to Monroe
 
 00:06:14.786 --> 00:06:15.127
 saying,
 
 00:06:15.786 --> 00:06:16.526
 I will come back,
 
 00:06:16.706 --> 00:06:17.668
 but the time is not right.
 
 00:06:17.708 --> 00:06:18.987
 I don't want to abandon the fight for
 
 00:06:19.007 --> 00:06:20.408
 the rights of men in France.
 
 00:06:20.728 --> 00:06:22.189
 But I can't remember the name of the
 
 00:06:22.228 --> 00:06:25.769
 Virginia congressman or senator that read
 
 00:06:25.831 --> 00:06:26.690
 from Monroe's letter.
 
 00:06:27.211 --> 00:06:28.831
 He didn't mention that it was written to
 
 00:06:28.872 --> 00:06:29.211
 Monroe,
 
 00:06:29.232 --> 00:06:30.831
 and he left out the parts in the
 
 00:06:30.851 --> 00:06:32.673
 letter that said, I can't come back now.
 
 00:06:33.052 --> 00:06:35.514
 So there was public desire for Lafayette
 
 00:06:35.954 --> 00:06:38.134
 that Congress ends up being the instrument
 
 00:06:38.435 --> 00:06:38.555
 of.
 
 00:06:40.238 --> 00:06:41.740
 So but there is a debate in Congress,
 
 00:06:41.779 --> 00:06:42.600
 but they support it.
 
 00:06:42.939 --> 00:06:43.560
 They support it.
 
 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:44.701
 Yeah, they support it.
 
 00:06:44.761 --> 00:06:47.083
 It's just about most about the language of
 
 00:06:47.103 --> 00:06:47.682
 the preamble,
 
 00:06:47.723 --> 00:06:49.764
 about whether he said he wants to come
 
 00:06:49.803 --> 00:06:51.584
 back or whether he's just expressed a
 
 00:06:51.625 --> 00:06:52.125
 desire.
 
 00:06:53.045 --> 00:06:53.745
 Yeah.
 
 00:06:53.786 --> 00:06:55.687
 So who does he travel with when he
 
 00:06:55.706 --> 00:06:56.887
 is on this trip?
 
 00:06:57.228 --> 00:06:58.728
 He brings along his son,
 
 00:06:59.069 --> 00:07:00.370
 George Washington Lafayette,
 
 00:07:00.569 --> 00:07:03.091
 who had lived briefly in America at Mount
 
 00:07:03.130 --> 00:07:03.451
 Vernon.
 
 00:07:04.651 --> 00:07:06.774
 He brings along a new secretary named
 
 00:07:06.994 --> 00:07:08.214
 Auguste Lavasseur,
 
 00:07:08.615 --> 00:07:10.896
 who he hires shortly before leaving,
 
 00:07:10.937 --> 00:07:13.079
 who's going to help with correspondence,
 
 00:07:13.579 --> 00:07:14.100
 speeches,
 
 00:07:14.139 --> 00:07:16.841
 and also ends up in a series of
 
 00:07:16.942 --> 00:07:18.783
 letters that he sends back to Lafayette's
 
 00:07:19.363 --> 00:07:20.225
 daughter-in-law.
 
 00:07:21.125 --> 00:07:23.827
 It's an incredible record of their travel.
 
 00:07:24.007 --> 00:07:25.249
 And I always say unique.
 
 00:07:25.428 --> 00:07:27.451
 It's very useful to us because Lafayette
 
 00:07:27.630 --> 00:07:28.951
 obviously had been in America.
 
 00:07:29.052 --> 00:07:30.312
 It's been forty years.
 
 00:07:30.333 --> 00:07:32.194
 And George Washington had been in America
 
 00:07:32.233 --> 00:07:32.675
 previously.
 
 00:07:33.115 --> 00:07:35.117
 Everything Lavasaur is seeing is new to
 
 00:07:35.156 --> 00:07:37.158
 him and strange and wonderful.
 
 00:07:37.639 --> 00:07:39.081
 And obviously they're predisposed to be
 
 00:07:39.122 --> 00:07:40.822
 favorable to everything that they see.
 
 00:07:41.303 --> 00:07:44.406
 But these letters in his Journal of the
 
 00:07:44.447 --> 00:07:46.269
 Tribal ends up being published at the end
 
 00:07:46.309 --> 00:07:46.850
 of the decade.
 
 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:49.351
 And that's really our primary source for
 
 00:07:49.392 --> 00:07:50.553
 this event.
 
 00:07:51.134 --> 00:07:52.654
 It's really a tremendous document.
 
 00:07:52.714 --> 00:07:52.894
 I mean,
 
 00:07:52.975 --> 00:07:54.975
 a tremendous book that Levasseur writes
 
 00:07:55.255 --> 00:07:56.396
 about this visit.
 
 00:07:56.456 --> 00:07:56.656
 I mean,
 
 00:07:56.696 --> 00:08:00.656
 it really is a tremendous source and great
 
 00:08:00.697 --> 00:08:02.937
 insight into the period, the people,
 
 00:08:02.997 --> 00:08:04.297
 as well as to Lafayette.
 
 00:08:04.697 --> 00:08:05.218
 Absolutely.
 
 00:08:05.577 --> 00:08:06.237
 I mean,
 
 00:08:06.697 --> 00:08:08.017
 you put it on the shelf next to
 
 00:08:08.458 --> 00:08:09.278
 Tocqueville, really.
 
 00:08:10.298 --> 00:08:12.478
 It's how perceptive it is about our
 
 00:08:12.499 --> 00:08:14.538
 institutions and our society.
 
 00:08:14.939 --> 00:08:16.459
 It's got a lot of value beyond just
 
 00:08:16.500 --> 00:08:17.139
 the Lafayette.
 
 00:08:19.661 --> 00:08:20.781
 His letters, by the way,
 
 00:08:20.862 --> 00:08:21.762
 which was something really special,
 
 00:08:22.163 --> 00:08:24.803
 I was thrilled about his letters,
 
 00:08:24.824 --> 00:08:25.684
 which are in Cornell.
 
 00:08:26.184 --> 00:08:27.545
 I was able to get and then I
 
 00:08:27.644 --> 00:08:28.324
 had a translator.
 
 00:08:29.245 --> 00:08:31.026
 His letters have quite a bit of material
 
 00:08:31.065 --> 00:08:33.706
 in them that isn't in the journals and
 
 00:08:33.726 --> 00:08:35.687
 some really fun stuff that wasn't
 
 00:08:35.727 --> 00:08:36.748
 entirely, you know,
 
 00:08:36.768 --> 00:08:38.489
 the published journals predominantly
 
 00:08:38.528 --> 00:08:39.889
 favorable to the United States.
 
 00:08:40.070 --> 00:08:40.490
 Yeah.
 
 00:08:40.509 --> 00:08:42.250
 Things that are a little more unvarnished
 
 00:08:42.389 --> 00:08:43.390
 in the correspondence.
 
 00:08:43.410 --> 00:08:43.551
 Mm hmm.
 
 00:08:44.947 --> 00:08:46.470
 Yeah, because Lafayette does make a point.
 
 00:08:46.529 --> 00:08:48.974
 I mean, he meets with enslaved people,
 
 00:08:49.014 --> 00:08:50.876
 free people of color, Native Americans.
 
 00:08:50.897 --> 00:08:53.020
 I mean, he does.
 
 00:08:53.061 --> 00:08:54.783
 And it also seems like every school child
 
 00:08:54.803 --> 00:08:56.647
 in the country is presented to him with
 
 00:08:58.437 --> 00:09:00.460
 especially in nowhere more spectacularly
 
 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:02.402
 than in boston on the comment you have
 
 00:09:02.442 --> 00:09:03.643
 i mean the newspapers contemporary
 
 00:09:03.683 --> 00:09:06.226
 newspapers of thousands of school children
 
 00:09:06.626 --> 00:09:08.048
 were presented to him and you know one
 
 00:09:08.068 --> 00:09:09.490
 breaks rank and is held up to the
 
 00:09:09.509 --> 00:09:11.393
 carriage and i mean it's such incredible
 
 00:09:11.993 --> 00:09:13.816
 spectacle really and that's one of the
 
 00:09:13.836 --> 00:09:16.158
 things that drew me to the story in
 
 00:09:16.259 --> 00:09:17.179
 in the first place
 
 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:19.941
 And Boston furnished an apartment for him
 
 00:09:20.020 --> 00:09:21.522
 on the first visit.
 
 00:09:21.581 --> 00:09:26.163
 And then the Lafayette Mall is the name
 
 00:09:26.182 --> 00:09:28.144
 of the strip along the Common where he
 
 00:09:28.203 --> 00:09:28.624
 was.
 
 00:09:28.683 --> 00:09:31.164
 And there are two streets in Boston named
 
 00:09:31.225 --> 00:09:33.505
 LaGrange, as we say it here.
 
 00:09:33.586 --> 00:09:36.106
 And there's Lafayette Place is near the
 
 00:09:36.147 --> 00:09:36.748
 Common.
 
 00:09:36.847 --> 00:09:37.927
 So he left a big,
 
 00:09:38.048 --> 00:09:39.749
 and then they say it's too bad you're
 
 00:09:39.769 --> 00:09:41.529
 not here next year because we're laying
 
 00:09:41.549 --> 00:09:42.789
 the cornerstone for Bunker Hill.
 
 00:09:42.830 --> 00:09:44.350
 So he comes back to be part of
 
 00:09:44.370 --> 00:09:44.910
 that ceremony.
 
 00:09:45.110 --> 00:09:45.350
 Yeah,
 
 00:09:45.431 --> 00:09:47.293
 it's the people are always really
 
 00:09:47.312 --> 00:09:49.333
 interested in the naming of places because
 
 00:09:49.754 --> 00:09:51.056
 really, no matter what state you're from,
 
 00:09:51.076 --> 00:09:52.976
 there's like there's some there's a city,
 
 00:09:53.037 --> 00:09:53.518
 there's a town,
 
 00:09:53.538 --> 00:09:55.698
 there's a county that's named Lafayette or
 
 00:09:55.879 --> 00:09:57.760
 the Grange or it.
 
 00:09:57.900 --> 00:10:00.003
 I mean, I was this, you know,
 
 00:10:00.043 --> 00:10:01.183
 sometimes you write these books and then
 
 00:10:01.303 --> 00:10:03.304
 things you realize things after you've
 
 00:10:03.325 --> 00:10:04.046
 already written the book.
 
 00:10:04.605 --> 00:10:05.366
 And I was thinking, you know,
 
 00:10:05.386 --> 00:10:06.827
 I live in southern Indiana.
 
 00:10:07.328 --> 00:10:10.230
 I live in Monroe County, Indianapolis.
 
 00:10:10.270 --> 00:10:11.351
 I go through Morgan County.
 
 00:10:12.951 --> 00:10:13.092
 Right.
 
 00:10:13.113 --> 00:10:13.192
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:13.212 --> 00:10:14.552
 And then Indianapolis and Marion County.
 
 00:10:14.572 --> 00:10:16.114
 Right.
 
 00:10:16.173 --> 00:10:17.153
 This is Hamilton County.
 
 00:10:17.413 --> 00:10:20.054
 And then Fayette County is and is to
 
 00:10:20.075 --> 00:10:20.436
 the east.
 
 00:10:20.456 --> 00:10:22.115
 Then you've got Lafayette, Indiana.
 
 00:10:22.155 --> 00:10:24.397
 There's such a physical legacy of this
 
 00:10:24.616 --> 00:10:26.857
 this trip that astonishing.
 
 00:10:26.878 --> 00:10:27.658
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:27.817 --> 00:10:29.899
 But the other counties I was going to
 
 00:10:29.958 --> 00:10:31.059
 I mentioned only mentioned that because
 
 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:33.201
 they're those are all founded in eighteen,
 
 00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:34.240
 eighteen, eighteen, nineteen, eighteen,
 
 00:10:34.301 --> 00:10:34.520
 twenty.
 
 00:10:34.541 --> 00:10:36.461
 It shows you leading up to Lafayette's
 
 00:10:36.841 --> 00:10:37.241
 return.
 
 00:10:37.282 --> 00:10:39.442
 There is an incredible interest in the
 
 00:10:39.482 --> 00:10:40.543
 heroes of the revolution,
 
 00:10:40.583 --> 00:10:41.063
 not just
 
 00:10:41.903 --> 00:10:42.965
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:43.184 --> 00:10:43.304
 Well,
 
 00:10:43.325 --> 00:10:44.024
 I do want to say that I was
 
 00:10:44.044 --> 00:10:45.846
 invited to speak in Decatur County a
 
 00:10:45.865 --> 00:10:48.246
 couple of years ago because he, again,
 
 00:10:48.307 --> 00:10:50.528
 he was the two hundredth anniversary.
 
 00:10:50.567 --> 00:10:52.649
 The naming of Decatur County was a big
 
 00:10:52.668 --> 00:10:54.789
 deal and as it should be.
 
 00:10:55.730 --> 00:10:56.870
 But this is again,
 
 00:10:56.910 --> 00:10:58.611
 you're on an area that, well,
 
 00:10:58.652 --> 00:11:00.472
 it was tangentially part of the
 
 00:11:00.513 --> 00:11:01.332
 revolution,
 
 00:11:01.513 --> 00:11:03.974
 but they're claiming this or naming this
 
 00:11:04.073 --> 00:11:06.296
 after these guys who are part of this
 
 00:11:06.355 --> 00:11:07.035
 big story.
 
 00:11:07.076 --> 00:11:08.576
 And they're looking back after fifty
 
 00:11:08.616 --> 00:11:08.976
 years.
 
 00:11:09.736 --> 00:11:11.198
 thinking about what this meant.
 
 00:11:11.239 --> 00:11:12.799
 And here Lafayette's visit is a time
 
 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:13.581
 really to think about this.
 
 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:14.802
 We're talking with Ryan Cole,
 
 00:11:14.841 --> 00:11:16.322
 whose new book is The Last to Do,
 
 00:11:16.383 --> 00:11:17.945
 Lafayette's Triumphant Return,
 
 00:11:18.424 --> 00:11:19.626
 Echoes of the Revolution,
 
 00:11:20.067 --> 00:11:22.249
 and Gratitude of the Republic.
 
 00:11:22.568 --> 00:11:24.630
 So what's his tour route then?
 
 00:11:24.711 --> 00:11:26.293
 I mean, where does he start from?
 
 00:11:26.332 --> 00:11:27.734
 And then how does he wend his way
 
 00:11:27.754 --> 00:11:28.455
 around the country?
 
 00:11:29.710 --> 00:11:30.389
 Great question.
 
 00:11:30.629 --> 00:11:33.051
 When he is on his way from France
 
 00:11:33.350 --> 00:11:35.831
 in July of eighteen twenty four in
 
 00:11:35.871 --> 00:11:37.091
 correspondence to his daughters,
 
 00:11:37.111 --> 00:11:38.652
 he indicates that he's going to get to
 
 00:11:38.672 --> 00:11:39.192
 New York.
 
 00:11:39.432 --> 00:11:40.592
 He travels on a packet ship.
 
 00:11:40.653 --> 00:11:42.832
 He's offered the use of a government ship
 
 00:11:42.873 --> 00:11:43.734
 and he turns it down.
 
 00:11:43.774 --> 00:11:46.833
 And it was kind of a symmetry between
 
 00:11:46.953 --> 00:11:48.355
 him originally coming to America in
 
 00:11:48.414 --> 00:11:49.495
 seventeen seventy seven on.
 
 00:11:49.914 --> 00:11:51.437
 finding his own way, buying his own ship.
 
 00:11:51.876 --> 00:11:53.038
 But in eighteen twenty four,
 
 00:11:53.077 --> 00:11:54.078
 he has to catch a ride on a
 
 00:11:54.139 --> 00:11:54.679
 packet ship.
 
 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:56.802
 He can't afford to buy his own ship.
 
 00:11:57.261 --> 00:11:58.342
 He's going to land in New York and
 
 00:11:58.383 --> 00:11:59.783
 he's going to immediately come to Boston
 
 00:12:00.024 --> 00:12:01.686
 because Boston are the first cities to
 
 00:12:01.765 --> 00:12:03.128
 extend a formal invitation.
 
 00:12:04.249 --> 00:12:07.191
 Josiah Quincy, the mayor, sent it to him.
 
 00:12:07.731 --> 00:12:09.533
 And then he's going to come back to
 
 00:12:09.573 --> 00:12:11.394
 New York and then begin slowly to make
 
 00:12:11.434 --> 00:12:13.417
 his way towards the capital city where
 
 00:12:13.456 --> 00:12:13.758
 he's never been.
 
 00:12:14.457 --> 00:12:16.918
 didn't was swamps when he was in America
 
 00:12:16.999 --> 00:12:17.639
 previously.
 
 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:20.320
 This is on purpose because he doesn't want
 
 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:21.441
 to rush to the Capitol.
 
 00:12:21.961 --> 00:12:23.361
 One reason is because Congress is not in
 
 00:12:23.381 --> 00:12:24.302
 session and the others,
 
 00:12:24.701 --> 00:12:26.102
 he doesn't want it to appear to be
 
 00:12:26.123 --> 00:12:27.143
 a public tour.
 
 00:12:27.163 --> 00:12:28.583
 This is sponsored by the government.
 
 00:12:28.624 --> 00:12:29.923
 This is a private citizen.
 
 00:12:30.464 --> 00:12:31.904
 So that's the first part of the tour.
 
 00:12:31.924 --> 00:12:33.405
 And you alluded to the return to Bunker
 
 00:12:33.446 --> 00:12:33.706
 Hill.
 
 00:12:34.525 --> 00:12:36.947
 That's that will take place the remainder
 
 00:12:36.967 --> 00:12:38.408
 of eighteen twenty four he arrives in
 
 00:12:38.528 --> 00:12:42.793
 August Fifteenth and by the way we talking
 
 00:12:42.812 --> 00:12:44.413
 about symbolism in the revolution one
 
 00:12:44.433 --> 00:12:45.654
 thing I thought was it was really
 
 00:12:45.674 --> 00:12:48.496
 interesting was that he gets to Manhattan
 
 00:12:48.756 --> 00:12:51.480
 on August sixteenth doesn't travel on the
 
 00:12:51.519 --> 00:12:53.561
 fifteenth because it's the Sabbath right
 
 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:55.763
 stays on Staten Island That's the same day
 
 00:12:55.783 --> 00:12:57.104
 that Charles Thompson who was the
 
 00:12:57.224 --> 00:12:58.965
 secretary of the Continental Congress
 
 00:12:59.365 --> 00:12:59.905
 dies.
 
 00:13:00.405 --> 00:13:00.767
 Oh, wow.
 
 00:13:00.787 --> 00:13:00.846
 Oh
 
 00:13:01.167 --> 00:13:02.427
 Yeah, I thought that was an interesting.
 
 00:13:02.488 --> 00:13:03.208
 And so at that point,
 
 00:13:03.229 --> 00:13:05.149
 there was four remaining signers of the
 
 00:13:05.190 --> 00:13:05.770
 Declaration.
 
 00:13:05.831 --> 00:13:08.092
 Thompson, Charles Carroll of Carrollton,
 
 00:13:08.253 --> 00:13:09.354
 Adams, Jefferson.
 
 00:13:09.734 --> 00:13:11.956
 Thompson dies the day that New York and
 
 00:13:12.336 --> 00:13:13.557
 Lafayette's tour begins.
 
 00:13:14.297 --> 00:13:14.918
 So anyway,
 
 00:13:15.577 --> 00:13:16.778
 so that's the first half of the tour.
 
 00:13:16.818 --> 00:13:17.799
 He spends some time.
 
 00:13:18.681 --> 00:13:20.062
 He has to have the great visit,
 
 00:13:20.081 --> 00:13:21.403
 the set piece of the whole tour is
 
 00:13:21.423 --> 00:13:22.583
 his visit to Mount Vernon,
 
 00:13:22.724 --> 00:13:23.283
 goes to the train.
 
 00:13:23.303 --> 00:13:23.605
 Right, yeah.
 
 00:13:24.465 --> 00:13:26.147
 And then he goes down to Yorktown for
 
 00:13:26.167 --> 00:13:26.788
 a celebration,
 
 00:13:27.467 --> 00:13:30.211
 spend some time with Jefferson,
 
 00:13:30.791 --> 00:13:33.013
 Monticello, Madison, Montpelier.
 
 00:13:33.033 --> 00:13:35.655
 And then he gets back to Washington
 
 00:13:35.796 --> 00:13:36.836
 towards the end of the year.
 
 00:13:37.557 --> 00:13:40.860
 The election is unfolding and is indicated
 
 00:13:40.900 --> 00:13:43.043
 by the return of the electoral votes from
 
 00:13:43.383 --> 00:13:45.044
 Louisiana that it's going to be thrown.
 
 00:13:45.284 --> 00:13:46.926
 It's a four man race to be thrown
 
 00:13:47.486 --> 00:13:48.027
 to the House.
 
 00:13:48.047 --> 00:13:49.087
 So he's going to stay there.
 
 00:13:50.048 --> 00:13:52.009
 at the at that time invitations are coming
 
 00:13:52.090 --> 00:13:54.850
 in from the western and southern states he
 
 00:13:54.890 --> 00:13:57.732
 wants to try and go before the end
 
 00:13:57.773 --> 00:13:59.232
 of the year he's convinced that the
 
 00:13:59.273 --> 00:14:01.333
 weather will be too dangerous because
 
 00:14:01.354 --> 00:14:03.695
 you've got primitive roads and so he
 
 00:14:03.735 --> 00:14:05.235
 decides he's going to wait out the winner
 
 00:14:05.336 --> 00:14:07.116
 he'll be there when congress decides the
 
 00:14:07.157 --> 00:14:09.878
 election and then he'll depart in the
 
 00:14:09.957 --> 00:14:14.820
 spring actually in february to go south
 
 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:15.660
 through the carolinas
 
 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.864
 to georgia right then over to new orleans
 
 00:14:19.965 --> 00:14:23.048
 up mississippi to st louis and then back
 
 00:14:23.187 --> 00:14:25.029
 east by way of the ohio and then
 
 00:14:25.169 --> 00:14:29.134
 the erie canal but as you mentioned he's
 
 00:14:29.173 --> 00:14:31.096
 made a commitment before he leaves because
 
 00:14:31.115 --> 00:14:34.299
 he visits bunker hill in august of and
 
 00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:37.503
 he meets with the uh leaders of the
 
 00:14:37.543 --> 00:14:38.923
 bunker hill memorial association
 
 00:14:39.625 --> 00:14:41.025
 who saved them we've got we're going to
 
 00:14:41.046 --> 00:14:43.106
 have some type of celebration here next
 
 00:14:43.147 --> 00:14:45.249
 year and if you're still in the country
 
 00:14:45.609 --> 00:14:48.071
 could you participate so at this point he
 
 00:14:48.110 --> 00:14:50.432
 realizes he'll be there so he says
 
 00:14:50.732 --> 00:14:52.714
 basically this is my solemn promise i'm
 
 00:14:52.754 --> 00:14:54.916
 the representative of the revolutionary
 
 00:14:55.056 --> 00:14:59.158
 army i will be at bunker hill on
 
 00:14:59.177 --> 00:15:01.940
 the seventeenth of june so i will travel
 
 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.402
 all across the south into the west and
 
 00:15:05.442 --> 00:15:07.263
 all the way back i mean four months
 
 00:15:07.543 --> 00:15:09.344
 so this this is the whole he calls
 
 00:15:09.384 --> 00:15:11.203
 it when he gets back on he gets
 
 00:15:11.364 --> 00:15:13.845
 to boston on the fifteenth the following
 
 00:15:13.904 --> 00:15:15.745
 day he's at the state house speaking to
 
 00:15:15.765 --> 00:15:18.366
 the legislature and he says bunker hill is
 
 00:15:18.427 --> 00:15:21.908
 my polar star so the whole journey the
 
 00:15:21.928 --> 00:15:23.869
 great journey was to get back to boston
 
 00:15:24.210 --> 00:15:24.669
 wow wow
 
 00:15:25.909 --> 00:15:27.951
 But he had been invited by these other
 
 00:15:27.990 --> 00:15:30.493
 places to come and visit after President
 
 00:15:30.513 --> 00:15:32.113
 Monroe extends the invitation.
 
 00:15:34.014 --> 00:15:36.456
 And he travels at the expense of the
 
 00:15:36.495 --> 00:15:37.775
 nation or the expense of these places.
 
 00:15:37.816 --> 00:15:39.476
 I mean, who pays for the journey?
 
 00:15:39.917 --> 00:15:41.378
 A lot of times it's the locality,
 
 00:15:41.437 --> 00:15:42.038
 the state.
 
 00:15:42.558 --> 00:15:44.600
 And just to give you an indication of
 
 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:50.283
 how the level of excitement and mania even
 
 00:15:50.363 --> 00:15:50.783
 celebrates.
 
 00:15:51.143 --> 00:15:51.844
 Some of these states,
 
 00:15:51.903 --> 00:15:53.244
 Alabama was one in particular,
 
 00:15:53.384 --> 00:15:54.144
 over budgeted.
 
 00:15:54.884 --> 00:15:56.426
 and this this is a state that hasn't
 
 00:15:56.466 --> 00:15:58.447
 settled on a permanent capital hasn't
 
 00:15:58.508 --> 00:16:00.509
 built a state house i don't think they
 
 00:16:00.529 --> 00:16:02.871
 even funded a state college or university
 
 00:16:03.511 --> 00:16:07.095
 is uh appropriating incredible sums of
 
 00:16:07.174 --> 00:16:09.897
 money to pay for refurbishing this
 
 00:16:09.937 --> 00:16:12.239
 building to hire a band all the i
 
 00:16:12.298 --> 00:16:14.760
 look through the receipts and invoices
 
 00:16:15.160 --> 00:16:16.923
 that are that the state of alabama has
 
 00:16:16.942 --> 00:16:17.763
 about just
 
 00:16:18.484 --> 00:16:21.284
 the liquor and the food and the paint
 
 00:16:21.345 --> 00:16:22.784
 and the musicians they hired.
 
 00:16:23.125 --> 00:16:25.424
 So the localities are paying for
 
 00:16:25.585 --> 00:16:26.544
 Lafayette's tour,
 
 00:16:26.846 --> 00:16:28.546
 but there's one really important federal
 
 00:16:28.605 --> 00:16:29.426
 expenditure here,
 
 00:16:29.446 --> 00:16:31.306
 and that's the two hundred thousand dollar
 
 00:16:32.326 --> 00:16:35.366
 gift that Congress votes to give Lafayette
 
 00:16:35.386 --> 00:16:37.687
 in December of eighteen twenty four as
 
 00:16:37.748 --> 00:16:39.368
 compensation for services in our
 
 00:16:39.388 --> 00:16:39.947
 revolution.
 
 00:16:40.508 --> 00:16:42.628
 Well, OK, so that is an incentive,
 
 00:16:42.687 --> 00:16:45.188
 an additional incentive for him to come to
 
 00:16:46.629 --> 00:16:48.850
 enjoy the the gratitude of the republic
 
 00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:51.230
 for his past services quite literally yeah
 
 00:16:51.331 --> 00:16:56.131
 and shortly after congress had voted had
 
 00:16:56.552 --> 00:16:58.993
 passed the resolution of invitation to
 
 00:16:59.033 --> 00:17:01.014
 lafayette you see jefferson and others
 
 00:17:01.173 --> 00:17:04.315
 writing to monroe and saying uh i'm gonna
 
 00:17:04.375 --> 00:17:06.454
 not get his language quite i'm not gonna
 
 00:17:06.474 --> 00:17:08.496
 do it justice but saying i hope we
 
 00:17:08.516 --> 00:17:10.356
 don't intend to just have the general here
 
 00:17:10.396 --> 00:17:10.836
 for dinner
 
 00:17:13.098 --> 00:17:15.000
 Very early on in the sense of he's
 
 00:17:15.020 --> 00:17:17.443
 in a pretty difficult financial place.
 
 00:17:18.023 --> 00:17:19.605
 Let's make the rest of his life
 
 00:17:20.086 --> 00:17:21.788
 comfortable.
 
 00:17:21.847 --> 00:17:23.569
 Interesting.
 
 00:17:24.070 --> 00:17:25.451
 Charles Thompson, of course, has died,
 
 00:17:25.491 --> 00:17:28.455
 but he does meet with Jefferson and Adams
 
 00:17:28.576 --> 00:17:31.439
 and others of that band of revolutions.
 
 00:17:31.945 --> 00:17:32.246
 Yeah.
 
 00:17:32.425 --> 00:17:35.527
 And those are some of the most poignant
 
 00:17:36.028 --> 00:17:37.448
 episodes of the story.
 
 00:17:37.928 --> 00:17:40.269
 And a lot of it's in a lot
 
 00:17:40.288 --> 00:17:41.049
 of the source book.
 
 00:17:41.150 --> 00:17:43.190
 One wonderful source was Charles Francis
 
 00:17:43.269 --> 00:17:44.111
 Adams diary.
 
 00:17:45.050 --> 00:17:46.291
 He was in he was at Harvard at
 
 00:17:46.311 --> 00:17:46.811
 the time.
 
 00:17:46.971 --> 00:17:47.511
 Yeah.
 
 00:17:47.531 --> 00:17:49.972
 And he's there at Peacefield when
 
 00:17:50.492 --> 00:17:52.413
 Lafayette comes the first time.
 
 00:17:53.453 --> 00:17:56.934
 in uh late august of eighteen twenty four
 
 00:17:57.255 --> 00:17:58.855
 to see adams and it's wonderful because
 
 00:17:59.174 --> 00:18:01.455
 charles francis adams who's john adams
 
 00:18:01.516 --> 00:18:04.957
 grandson yeah quincy adams son writes that
 
 00:18:05.057 --> 00:18:06.477
 the night before lafayette visits he
 
 00:18:06.517 --> 00:18:08.278
 writes very candidly that he says my
 
 00:18:08.317 --> 00:18:10.998
 grandfather's nearing death and incredible
 
 00:18:11.018 --> 00:18:13.479
 people and he writes the night after
 
 00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:16.219
 lafayette's there it's like his
 
 00:18:16.259 --> 00:18:18.259
 grandfather john adams was a young man
 
 00:18:18.299 --> 00:18:20.660
 again he was so energized by being with
 
 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:22.361
 lafayette one more time
 
 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.082
 well and there's another one of my
 
 00:18:25.102 --> 00:18:27.623
 favorite stories too is of um John Quincy
 
 00:18:27.663 --> 00:18:29.864
 Adams on a steamboat and they're going
 
 00:18:29.903 --> 00:18:32.006
 from I think Manhattan to Albany and
 
 00:18:32.365 --> 00:18:34.346
 Lafayette and his son and secretary have
 
 00:18:34.366 --> 00:18:37.748
 the only cabin and Adams who is not
 
 00:18:37.788 --> 00:18:40.109
 only the secretary of state he's a
 
 00:18:40.190 --> 00:18:42.951
 contender for the presidency is uh
 
 00:18:43.651 --> 00:18:46.292
 unrolling a bedroll on the deck to sleep
 
 00:18:46.512 --> 00:18:46.972
 yeah right
 
 00:18:47.212 --> 00:18:50.054
 that's they have to convince this is one
 
 00:18:50.074 --> 00:18:51.615
 of those things where where lavasaur is
 
 00:18:51.674 --> 00:18:53.615
 stunned by the character of the americans
 
 00:18:54.036 --> 00:18:55.297
 they have to convince this man who's
 
 00:18:55.376 --> 00:18:58.338
 secretary of state whose potential as
 
 00:18:58.398 --> 00:19:00.240
 history would show is the next president
 
 00:19:00.339 --> 00:19:02.921
 right and who's also the son of this
 
 00:19:02.941 --> 00:19:04.961
 hugely important figure historical they
 
 00:19:04.981 --> 00:19:06.742
 have to convince him not to sleep on
 
 00:19:06.762 --> 00:19:08.163
 the deck with the rest of the passengers
 
 00:19:08.203 --> 00:19:10.825
 but to come and share lafayette's captain
 
 00:19:10.845 --> 00:19:13.705
 yeah and it loves courses it's well the
 
 00:19:13.766 --> 00:19:15.666
 royalty is very strange in america it's
 
 00:19:15.727 --> 00:19:16.907
 not like it is in france
 
 00:19:18.449 --> 00:19:19.989
 And then another of my favorite episodes
 
 00:19:20.048 --> 00:19:22.589
 is when John Quincy Adams has become
 
 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:24.830
 president and he and Lafayette are going
 
 00:19:24.851 --> 00:19:27.672
 to visit Monroe and the toll keeper stops
 
 00:19:27.692 --> 00:19:31.453
 them and Adams has to pay the toll.
 
 00:19:31.534 --> 00:19:33.375
 And then as they start rolling along,
 
 00:19:33.394 --> 00:19:34.694
 the toll keepers are shouting, Mr.
 
 00:19:34.755 --> 00:19:35.455
 President, stop.
 
 00:19:35.476 --> 00:19:36.695
 He was a penny short.
 
 00:19:36.736 --> 00:19:38.916
 So John Quincy has to dig around to
 
 00:19:38.936 --> 00:19:40.198
 find another penny for the toll.
 
 00:19:41.478 --> 00:19:42.659
 That's exactly, that's right.
 
 00:19:42.959 --> 00:19:44.699
 Again, Lavasseur's, in his journals,
 
 00:19:44.719 --> 00:19:47.720
 completely stunned that the chief
 
 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:49.300
 executive would be, you know,
 
 00:19:49.580 --> 00:19:52.461
 this tollkeeper would come and demand an
 
 00:19:53.221 --> 00:19:53.961
 exact change.
 
 00:19:54.342 --> 00:19:55.843
 It's much different from France,
 
 00:19:55.863 --> 00:19:56.363
 and that's, I think,
 
 00:19:56.442 --> 00:19:58.163
 one of the points Lavasseur is making in
 
 00:19:58.223 --> 00:20:00.683
 his book, as de Tocqueville is, like,
 
 00:20:00.743 --> 00:20:01.585
 contrasting.
 
 00:20:01.724 --> 00:20:02.825
 He's not saying, boy,
 
 00:20:02.845 --> 00:20:04.405
 this wouldn't happen in France, but,
 
 00:20:04.905 --> 00:20:05.226
 you know,
 
 00:20:05.246 --> 00:20:05.326
 the
 
 00:20:06.909 --> 00:20:08.250
 The public figure is the one who wouldn't
 
 00:20:08.290 --> 00:20:09.051
 have to pay a toll,
 
 00:20:09.071 --> 00:20:11.134
 but here the toll keeper is telling John
 
 00:20:11.153 --> 00:20:12.736
 Quincy to cough up another penny.
 
 00:20:12.976 --> 00:20:13.717
 That's exactly right.
 
 00:20:13.737 --> 00:20:15.378
 And that's actually a thread of the whole
 
 00:20:15.439 --> 00:20:15.960
 story.
 
 00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:17.501
 And I think it's the purpose of the
 
 00:20:17.541 --> 00:20:17.862
 visit,
 
 00:20:17.922 --> 00:20:20.404
 not just to visit with old friends or
 
 00:20:21.385 --> 00:20:22.928
 to meet the children of the old friends
 
 00:20:22.948 --> 00:20:23.409
 who had gone.
 
 00:20:23.848 --> 00:20:26.851
 to the grave it's to also transmit back
 
 00:20:26.990 --> 00:20:30.114
 to Europe that Republican government works
 
 00:20:30.713 --> 00:20:34.257
 and is superior to systems in Europe and
 
 00:20:34.676 --> 00:20:36.018
 the whole trip in a lot of ways
 
 00:20:36.057 --> 00:20:38.740
 is a documentation of that of the growth
 
 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:41.221
 of civil society of Lafayette's delight in
 
 00:20:41.261 --> 00:20:43.242
 seeing colleges and hospitals and museums
 
 00:20:43.282 --> 00:20:45.484
 and engineering fees like the Erie Canal
 
 00:20:45.505 --> 00:20:47.326
 with waterworks in Philadelphia
 
 00:20:47.806 --> 00:20:49.448
 That's a great part of the story is
 
 00:20:49.488 --> 00:20:49.667
 that.
 
 00:20:50.028 --> 00:20:51.309
 And Americans are participating.
 
 00:20:51.451 --> 00:20:53.452
 There's a wonderful sense of affirmation.
 
 00:20:53.472 --> 00:20:55.275
 I always like to say they're catching
 
 00:20:55.295 --> 00:20:56.997
 their reflection in Lafayette's eyes,
 
 00:20:58.038 --> 00:20:59.700
 the success of the revolution and this
 
 00:20:59.740 --> 00:21:01.241
 bright future that the country has.
 
 00:21:02.883 --> 00:21:04.243
 We're talking with Ryan Cole,
 
 00:21:04.284 --> 00:21:06.105
 whose new book is The Last to Do,
 
 00:21:06.164 --> 00:21:07.884
 Lafayette's Triumphant Return,
 
 00:21:08.026 --> 00:21:10.406
 Echoes of the Revolution and Gratitude of
 
 00:21:10.426 --> 00:21:11.047
 the Republic.
 
 00:21:11.586 --> 00:21:12.027
 What do you think?
 
 00:21:12.047 --> 00:21:13.048
 I mean,
 
 00:21:13.067 --> 00:21:15.709
 this does seem to revive the idea of
 
 00:21:15.769 --> 00:21:17.410
 the revolution for Americans,
 
 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:20.010
 Lafayette's national tour.
 
 00:21:20.891 --> 00:21:21.471
 Absolutely.
 
 00:21:21.651 --> 00:21:24.353
 One of my favorite lines of any of
 
 00:21:24.532 --> 00:21:26.453
 the correspondence that Lafayette wrote
 
 00:21:26.634 --> 00:21:29.655
 during the trip is on his way back
 
 00:21:29.675 --> 00:21:32.938
 from Boston in September of eighteen
 
 00:21:32.978 --> 00:21:33.678
 twenty four.
 
 00:21:34.178 --> 00:21:34.638
 He says,
 
 00:21:35.058 --> 00:21:36.660
 memories of the revolution have come back
 
 00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:37.180
 to life.
 
 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:40.082
 And that's the story to me.
 
 00:21:40.102 --> 00:21:41.382
 There's there's a lot of elements.
 
 00:21:41.402 --> 00:21:41.602
 You know,
 
 00:21:41.622 --> 00:21:43.903
 we talked about the difficult presidential
 
 00:21:43.943 --> 00:21:44.304
 election,
 
 00:21:44.344 --> 00:21:46.105
 which cools when Lafayette shows up.
 
 00:21:46.944 --> 00:21:48.625
 and a lot of i think the reason
 
 00:21:48.645 --> 00:21:50.027
 for that there's a practical reason that
 
 00:21:50.086 --> 00:21:51.547
 newspapers were less focused on their
 
 00:21:51.626 --> 00:21:53.208
 election more focused on lafayette but
 
 00:21:53.248 --> 00:21:54.709
 it's because the memories of the
 
 00:21:54.729 --> 00:21:57.109
 revolution had come back to life there was
 
 00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:59.770
 already nostalgia as we talked about
 
 00:21:59.830 --> 00:22:01.652
 leading into the fiftieth anniversary of
 
 00:22:01.692 --> 00:22:03.992
 the country lafayette's return he's
 
 00:22:04.073 --> 00:22:06.554
 special obviously right his sacrifices are
 
 00:22:06.594 --> 00:22:09.194
 special right he made to fight for people
 
 00:22:09.255 --> 00:22:11.955
 he didn't know he'd never been too special
 
 00:22:12.376 --> 00:22:12.497
 but
 
 00:22:13.596 --> 00:22:15.218
 One thing that's constant through the
 
 00:22:15.258 --> 00:22:15.538
 story,
 
 00:22:15.557 --> 00:22:17.500
 if you read the newspaper reports and Lava
 
 00:22:17.559 --> 00:22:19.721
 Sores journals that wherever Lafayette
 
 00:22:19.740 --> 00:22:19.961
 goes,
 
 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:21.721
 an old veteran of the revolution appears.
 
 00:22:21.961 --> 00:22:24.324
 The crowd, an old man limps forward.
 
 00:22:24.763 --> 00:22:26.884
 Just say to Lafayette, Brandywine,
 
 00:22:28.105 --> 00:22:29.007
 Yorktown.
 
 00:22:29.326 --> 00:22:29.467
 Mm hmm.
 
 00:22:29.906 --> 00:22:30.928
 over and over again.
 
 00:22:31.429 --> 00:22:32.730
 And I think it's Lafayette, yes,
 
 00:22:32.769 --> 00:22:34.711
 but it's also the reappearance of these
 
 00:22:34.791 --> 00:22:36.653
 old soldiers and an opportunity to
 
 00:22:36.713 --> 00:22:40.498
 celebrate them and to gratitude to them
 
 00:22:40.518 --> 00:22:41.519
 before it's too late.
 
 00:22:41.940 --> 00:22:43.101
 And I think that's the story.
 
 00:22:43.121 --> 00:22:45.103
 It's a celebration of the memory of the
 
 00:22:45.163 --> 00:22:46.984
 revolution that lasts thirteen months.
 
 00:22:48.057 --> 00:22:50.157
 It's useful for us now as we once
 
 00:22:50.238 --> 00:22:51.518
 again celebrate our revolution.
 
 00:22:51.778 --> 00:22:52.758
 Right.
 
 00:22:52.778 --> 00:22:53.939
 In a contentious time.
 
 00:22:53.999 --> 00:22:55.979
 We wish there was a Lafayette who could
 
 00:22:56.019 --> 00:22:56.460
 come back.
 
 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.280
 There's so many great stories in this
 
 00:23:00.621 --> 00:23:01.721
 national tour.
 
 00:23:01.780 --> 00:23:03.741
 And again,
 
 00:23:03.781 --> 00:23:06.041
 seeing this progress being made,
 
 00:23:06.061 --> 00:23:07.903
 but also he's at the White House for
 
 00:23:07.923 --> 00:23:10.123
 the first meeting between John Quincy
 
 00:23:10.163 --> 00:23:11.763
 Adams and Andrew Jackson after the
 
 00:23:11.804 --> 00:23:14.003
 election's been decided against Jackson.
 
 00:23:14.384 --> 00:23:14.805
 Yeah.
 
 00:23:14.825 --> 00:23:15.404
 So how does that go?
 
 00:23:16.247 --> 00:23:18.348
 the election it's a complicated election
 
 00:23:18.529 --> 00:23:19.651
 it's kind of a i think it's a
 
 00:23:19.770 --> 00:23:22.574
 precursor to the era of jackson where you
 
 00:23:22.594 --> 00:23:24.655
 know democracy gets a lot the people get
 
 00:23:24.675 --> 00:23:27.138
 a lot closer to their democracy and it's
 
 00:23:27.159 --> 00:23:28.980
 the last it's a one weird one-party
 
 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:31.143
 election the federals have gone or out of
 
 00:23:31.182 --> 00:23:32.345
 business by the end of the decade
 
 00:23:33.246 --> 00:23:35.548
 And it ends up,
 
 00:23:35.587 --> 00:23:38.089
 because of a series of circumstances in
 
 00:23:38.130 --> 00:23:40.332
 the preceding years, an economic panic,
 
 00:23:40.772 --> 00:23:42.273
 Missouri's entrance into the Union.
 
 00:23:42.294 --> 00:23:43.555
 You have all these sectional economic
 
 00:23:43.595 --> 00:23:46.458
 tensions that are aired in this election.
 
 00:23:47.459 --> 00:23:49.681
 And it also starts to introduce –
 
 00:23:49.800 --> 00:23:50.000
 you know,
 
 00:23:50.040 --> 00:23:51.301
 new states coming into the union.
 
 00:23:51.342 --> 00:23:53.462
 Part of the the kind of appeal to
 
 00:23:53.522 --> 00:23:54.723
 get settlers was we're going to have
 
 00:23:54.743 --> 00:23:56.924
 direct election presidential election.
 
 00:23:56.964 --> 00:23:58.905
 So you have increasingly Americans are
 
 00:23:58.925 --> 00:24:00.067
 playing a more direct role in their
 
 00:24:00.507 --> 00:24:01.287
 choosing their president.
 
 00:24:01.708 --> 00:24:03.588
 And that creates a more dynamic election,
 
 00:24:04.048 --> 00:24:04.628
 more contentious.
 
 00:24:04.669 --> 00:24:07.151
 And you have six newspapers covering it.
 
 00:24:07.270 --> 00:24:09.192
 So you have incredibly contentious time.
 
 00:24:09.811 --> 00:24:11.432
 And Jackson, Henry Clay,
 
 00:24:11.813 --> 00:24:13.513
 John Quincy Adams and William Crawford,
 
 00:24:13.534 --> 00:24:14.714
 who was secretary of the Treasury at the
 
 00:24:14.755 --> 00:24:14.954
 time,
 
 00:24:14.974 --> 00:24:16.096
 are that
 
 00:24:16.736 --> 00:24:18.717
 candidates and some of the commentators
 
 00:24:18.757 --> 00:24:20.057
 are worrying that the union can't
 
 00:24:20.096 --> 00:24:21.237
 withstand this contest.
 
 00:24:21.257 --> 00:24:22.397
 As we talked about,
 
 00:24:22.417 --> 00:24:25.638
 Lafayette gets here and temperatures cool,
 
 00:24:25.659 --> 00:24:26.818
 but they flare up again because the
 
 00:24:26.838 --> 00:24:28.118
 election is thrown to the House.
 
 00:24:28.138 --> 00:24:28.339
 Right.
 
 00:24:28.420 --> 00:24:28.660
 Yeah.
 
 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:30.119
 And there's a lot of bargaining and
 
 00:24:30.140 --> 00:24:33.020
 there's a lot of clays is eliminated in
 
 00:24:33.101 --> 00:24:33.560
 December.
 
 00:24:33.621 --> 00:24:35.402
 So it becomes a three minute election.
 
 00:24:36.041 --> 00:24:39.722
 And in love soar in his journal reports
 
 00:24:39.782 --> 00:24:41.383
 that when he's in York, Pennsylvania,
 
 00:24:41.442 --> 00:24:43.544
 he hears some of Jackson's Parsons saying,
 
 00:24:43.963 --> 00:24:45.005
 if our man doesn't win,
 
 00:24:45.065 --> 00:24:46.305
 we're going to storm the Capitol.
 
 00:24:49.008 --> 00:24:50.469
 John Quincy Adams received threatening
 
 00:24:50.509 --> 00:24:53.231
 notes in the lead up to the election.
 
 00:24:53.291 --> 00:24:55.013
 There's some of the journalists in
 
 00:24:55.054 --> 00:24:56.615
 Washington at the time were terrified
 
 00:24:56.635 --> 00:24:58.678
 about the crowds gathering at the Capitol.
 
 00:24:59.578 --> 00:25:01.820
 What ends up happening is that Congress
 
 00:25:02.121 --> 00:25:02.801
 ends the voting.
 
 00:25:04.364 --> 00:25:05.924
 This is a whole nother podcast, obviously.
 
 00:25:06.144 --> 00:25:06.786
 Oh, yeah, it is.
 
 00:25:06.806 --> 00:25:07.205
 Yeah.
 
 00:25:07.747 --> 00:25:07.987
 Right.
 
 00:25:08.027 --> 00:25:10.229
 But Congress ends up voting for John
 
 00:25:10.249 --> 00:25:10.970
 Quincy Adams.
 
 00:25:11.390 --> 00:25:14.534
 What in in last Lava Sword describes and
 
 00:25:14.713 --> 00:25:16.295
 those who are there describe the crowds
 
 00:25:16.434 --> 00:25:18.376
 walk away peacefully from the Capitol that
 
 00:25:18.436 --> 00:25:18.678
 night.
 
 00:25:19.278 --> 00:25:22.580
 Adams struts or Adams is in the White
 
 00:25:22.601 --> 00:25:24.423
 House and Jackson struts up to.
 
 00:25:25.523 --> 00:25:28.507
 Adams and extends his hand and they shake
 
 00:25:28.527 --> 00:25:28.946
 naturally.
 
 00:25:28.987 --> 00:25:30.867
 That all changes shortly afterwards.
 
 00:25:30.907 --> 00:25:31.709
 But for that moment,
 
 00:25:32.229 --> 00:25:33.130
 the country gets through it.
 
 00:25:33.250 --> 00:25:35.291
 And one thing I want to add,
 
 00:25:35.672 --> 00:25:36.853
 one of my favorite things is shortly after
 
 00:25:36.873 --> 00:25:37.433
 this happens,
 
 00:25:37.453 --> 00:25:40.895
 I think it's Lavasor or maybe it's one
 
 00:25:40.915 --> 00:25:42.837
 of the contemporary diaries who wrote
 
 00:25:42.877 --> 00:25:44.358
 about this is shortly after this happens,
 
 00:25:44.598 --> 00:25:46.280
 Clay Saunders in with a woman on both
 
 00:25:46.401 --> 00:25:46.681
 arms.
 
 00:25:48.102 --> 00:25:50.864
 But Lafayette in his correspondence in the
 
 00:25:50.884 --> 00:25:52.605
 days leading up to the election writes
 
 00:25:53.086 --> 00:25:53.326
 that
 
 00:25:54.519 --> 00:25:55.480
 there's an incredible amount of
 
 00:25:55.520 --> 00:25:56.942
 apprehension about this election being
 
 00:25:57.001 --> 00:25:58.223
 settled in this way.
 
 00:25:58.384 --> 00:25:59.305
 And there's an incredible amount of
 
 00:25:59.644 --> 00:26:01.946
 anxiety about a second generation of
 
 00:26:01.987 --> 00:26:03.169
 Americans taking over.
 
 00:26:03.189 --> 00:26:04.289
 Because as you pointed out,
 
 00:26:04.329 --> 00:26:06.311
 Monroe is a veteran of the revolution.
 
 00:26:06.332 --> 00:26:07.172
 He'll be the last.
 
 00:26:08.113 --> 00:26:09.875
 Jackson has participated in the
 
 00:26:09.914 --> 00:26:10.375
 revolution,
 
 00:26:10.395 --> 00:26:11.836
 but it's a different generation, right?
 
 00:26:12.116 --> 00:26:13.157
 So you have a generational...
 
 00:26:13.999 --> 00:26:15.599
 passing of the torch and lafayette
 
 00:26:15.619 --> 00:26:18.642
 addresses this saying this election and
 
 00:26:18.682 --> 00:26:21.064
 this passage of leadership from one
 
 00:26:21.084 --> 00:26:23.986
 generation to the next will be successful
 
 00:26:24.465 --> 00:26:27.208
 and those who are looking on from europe
 
 00:26:27.228 --> 00:26:28.969
 particularly england waiting for this
 
 00:26:28.989 --> 00:26:31.451
 thing to end the crisis will be incredibly
 
 00:26:31.490 --> 00:26:33.852
 disappointed and he's proven right yeah
 
 00:26:33.971 --> 00:26:38.454
 yeah it's a great story uh about this
 
 00:26:38.535 --> 00:26:42.157
 this moment and then the um and lafayette
 
 00:26:42.218 --> 00:26:43.018
 also um
 
 00:26:44.358 --> 00:26:46.599
 addresses some of the kind of unfinished
 
 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:49.000
 business, the institution of slavery,
 
 00:26:49.201 --> 00:26:51.862
 as well as the Native Americans.
 
 00:26:51.902 --> 00:26:53.521
 I mean, he meets with Red Jacket,
 
 00:26:53.541 --> 00:26:55.742
 who both had been much younger men.
 
 00:26:55.762 --> 00:26:58.784
 And he meets with a woman who in
 
 00:26:58.824 --> 00:27:00.505
 Illinois pulls from a satchel this
 
 00:27:00.924 --> 00:27:02.664
 medicine her father had given her.
 
 00:27:02.724 --> 00:27:04.445
 And it's a letter from Lafayette about her
 
 00:27:04.506 --> 00:27:06.026
 father's service in the revolution.
 
 00:27:06.507 --> 00:27:08.666
 So what can we say about the issue
 
 00:27:08.767 --> 00:27:10.127
 of how he addresses
 
 00:27:10.988 --> 00:27:11.390
 slavery.
 
 00:27:11.410 --> 00:27:12.472
 I mean, he discusses it.
 
 00:27:12.854 --> 00:27:16.284
 Does he do anything else as he's on
 
 00:27:16.304 --> 00:27:16.726
 this tour?
 
 00:27:17.728 --> 00:27:17.847
 Well,
 
 00:27:17.867 --> 00:27:20.568
 we know historically Lafayette has been
 
 00:27:20.588 --> 00:27:22.309
 opposed to slavery his whole life and
 
 00:27:22.369 --> 00:27:23.269
 encouraged his friends,
 
 00:27:23.329 --> 00:27:24.451
 including Washington,
 
 00:27:25.351 --> 00:27:28.071
 to take action to free their slaves.
 
 00:27:29.212 --> 00:27:30.913
 Lafayette himself had pursued innovative
 
 00:27:30.933 --> 00:27:32.973
 ways to address the issue.
 
 00:27:33.013 --> 00:27:34.454
 So obviously when he comes to America,
 
 00:27:34.815 --> 00:27:35.596
 he's disappointed.
 
 00:27:35.675 --> 00:27:36.695
 I would say heart sick.
 
 00:27:37.336 --> 00:27:39.116
 There's an interesting balance here
 
 00:27:39.136 --> 00:27:40.577
 because he comes to America.
 
 00:27:41.258 --> 00:27:43.598
 There's a wonderful correspondence when he
 
 00:27:43.618 --> 00:27:43.898
 comes back.
 
 00:27:44.278 --> 00:27:45.357
 He has a trip up the Hudson in
 
 00:27:45.417 --> 00:27:46.439
 September.
 
 00:27:46.479 --> 00:27:47.898
 He comes back down and he writes to
 
 00:27:47.919 --> 00:27:50.279
 a fellow French veteran of the revolution.
 
 00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:50.660
 And he says,
 
 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:52.221
 you can't imagine the miracle made
 
 00:27:52.280 --> 00:27:53.941
 possible here by representative
 
 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:54.481
 government.
 
 00:27:54.862 --> 00:27:56.342
 It surpasses my imagination.
 
 00:27:56.761 --> 00:27:59.682
 So he's thrilled by the expansion of the
 
 00:27:59.702 --> 00:28:00.344
 population,
 
 00:28:00.443 --> 00:28:02.765
 the growth of institutions for the
 
 00:28:02.805 --> 00:28:03.664
 betterment of people.
 
 00:28:04.105 --> 00:28:07.465
 But he has to to reconcile that with
 
 00:28:07.506 --> 00:28:10.105
 the fact that slavery still exists and
 
 00:28:10.806 --> 00:28:12.846
 religion has grown in terms of number of
 
 00:28:12.886 --> 00:28:13.326
 slaves.
 
 00:28:13.767 --> 00:28:14.747
 Even in the northern states,
 
 00:28:14.787 --> 00:28:16.287
 it was still legal, right?
 
 00:28:16.307 --> 00:28:17.987
 It was only said in a place like
 
 00:28:18.007 --> 00:28:18.407
 New York.
 
 00:28:19.567 --> 00:28:21.788
 What he does is we know we can
 
 00:28:21.827 --> 00:28:23.907
 certainly gather from correspondence
 
 00:28:24.489 --> 00:28:26.769
 between him and Jefferson and Lovers
 
 00:28:27.969 --> 00:28:28.308
 Journal.
 
 00:28:28.769 --> 00:28:31.509
 He had conversations in private with his
 
 00:28:31.549 --> 00:28:32.490
 friends about
 
 00:28:33.269 --> 00:28:35.612
 some doing something to address slavery
 
 00:28:36.531 --> 00:28:38.493
 what he does what i think he does
 
 00:28:38.554 --> 00:28:41.154
 publicly is not to get in front of
 
 00:28:41.194 --> 00:28:44.317
 crowds and say all this progress is
 
 00:28:44.376 --> 00:28:48.839
 somehow nullified by slavery it's to speak
 
 00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:50.441
 by gestures when he's in new york he
 
 00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:55.223
 visits the free school for children when
 
 00:28:55.263 --> 00:28:58.246
 he's in the south he visits publicly with
 
 00:28:58.326 --> 00:29:00.426
 men who participated in our black men who
 
 00:29:00.467 --> 00:29:01.567
 participate in our revolution
 
 00:29:02.127 --> 00:29:03.289
 One of my favorites is when he's in
 
 00:29:03.329 --> 00:29:03.931
 New Orleans,
 
 00:29:04.310 --> 00:29:06.153
 he requests a meeting with a battalion of
 
 00:29:06.213 --> 00:29:08.517
 free black men who fought alongside
 
 00:29:08.557 --> 00:29:10.159
 Jackson in the defense.
 
 00:29:10.638 --> 00:29:12.040
 And when he addresses them, he says,
 
 00:29:12.501 --> 00:29:15.285
 I recall very specifically that black men
 
 00:29:15.325 --> 00:29:17.528
 participated in America's revolution to
 
 00:29:17.567 --> 00:29:18.630
 help win our freedom.
 
 00:29:19.671 --> 00:29:22.253
 when he's in gal police on the ohio
 
 00:29:22.314 --> 00:29:24.797
 river founded by french expatriates he's
 
 00:29:24.897 --> 00:29:26.259
 heard because it's reported in
 
 00:29:26.298 --> 00:29:28.682
 contemporary newspapers today you have no
 
 00:29:28.761 --> 00:29:30.384
 idea how lucky you are to live on
 
 00:29:30.423 --> 00:29:32.086
 this side of the river where slavery
 
 00:29:32.105 --> 00:29:35.269
 cannot breathe wherever he goes he makes a
 
 00:29:35.349 --> 00:29:36.471
 subtle point i think
 
 00:29:37.869 --> 00:29:40.932
 America has made the world is better
 
 00:29:40.952 --> 00:29:41.712
 because of America.
 
 00:29:41.752 --> 00:29:44.134
 The American Revolution changed the world
 
 00:29:44.695 --> 00:29:46.817
 in incredibly positive ways.
 
 00:29:47.317 --> 00:29:49.199
 But the revolution is ongoing and work
 
 00:29:49.239 --> 00:29:49.779
 continues.
 
 00:29:49.900 --> 00:29:51.840
 That's how I'm putting those are my
 
 00:29:52.521 --> 00:29:52.902
 obviously.
 
 00:29:53.222 --> 00:29:55.104
 But I think he's subtly nudging his
 
 00:29:55.144 --> 00:29:57.645
 friends and saying the work continues and
 
 00:29:57.705 --> 00:29:59.708
 that we can argue continues all the way
 
 00:29:59.748 --> 00:30:00.648
 into the present day.
 
 00:30:01.048 --> 00:30:01.128
 Yeah.
 
 00:30:01.969 --> 00:30:03.109
 We're talking with Ryan Cole,
 
 00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:04.692
 whose new book is The Last to Do,
 
 00:30:04.771 --> 00:30:06.333
 Lafayette's Triumphant Return,
 
 00:30:06.452 --> 00:30:08.194
 Echoes of the Revolution and the Gratitude
 
 00:30:08.234 --> 00:30:09.195
 of the Republic.
 
 00:30:09.215 --> 00:30:10.836
 I'm wondering, too,
 
 00:30:10.876 --> 00:30:12.638
 about some of the other improvements he
 
 00:30:12.659 --> 00:30:12.898
 sees,
 
 00:30:12.919 --> 00:30:15.842
 like the Erie Canal and waterworks and
 
 00:30:16.041 --> 00:30:16.863
 other things.
 
 00:30:16.883 --> 00:30:19.525
 This is really a striking change from,
 
 00:30:20.184 --> 00:30:21.747
 and he had been in upstate New York
 
 00:30:21.787 --> 00:30:22.627
 back in the
 
 00:30:25.329 --> 00:30:27.393
 you know cities i mean the sound of
 
 00:30:27.554 --> 00:30:29.076
 axes as they're cutting down trees to
 
 00:30:29.096 --> 00:30:32.381
 build places like buffalo and utica and
 
 00:30:32.421 --> 00:30:34.324
 other of the cities that are growing here
 
 00:30:34.344 --> 00:30:36.227
 and he sees this as part of the
 
 00:30:36.267 --> 00:30:37.950
 benefit of representative government
 
 00:30:37.990 --> 00:30:38.830
 making this possible
 
 00:30:39.300 --> 00:30:39.922
 Yeah, absolutely.
 
 00:30:39.942 --> 00:30:41.683
 There's a wonderful passage in Lavasaur's
 
 00:30:41.723 --> 00:30:44.465
 journal where they're on the canal and
 
 00:30:44.486 --> 00:30:46.367
 they're on one of the locks and they
 
 00:30:46.929 --> 00:30:48.590
 come out on deck of their boat and
 
 00:30:48.611 --> 00:30:49.352
 they're suspended.
 
 00:30:49.372 --> 00:30:51.173
 They think they're suspended in the air
 
 00:30:51.213 --> 00:30:52.835
 and Lavasaur just says casually, well,
 
 00:30:52.855 --> 00:30:54.517
 the Americans apparently excel at this
 
 00:30:54.557 --> 00:30:55.258
 type of thing.
 
 00:30:55.317 --> 00:30:56.118
 So
 
 00:30:56.638 --> 00:30:58.240
 yeah the eric canal i thought was i
 
 00:30:58.279 --> 00:31:00.460
 try to conceive as almost a subplot or
 
 00:31:01.260 --> 00:31:03.520
 a tertiary character in my book because
 
 00:31:03.561 --> 00:31:05.261
 it's coming it's just about to finish in
 
 00:31:05.301 --> 00:31:07.883
 the fall of the year and it's such
 
 00:31:07.903 --> 00:31:10.144
 a fascinating story itself you know
 
 00:31:10.163 --> 00:31:12.625
 there's no real civil engineers in the
 
 00:31:12.664 --> 00:31:14.305
 country to speak of when the project
 
 00:31:14.325 --> 00:31:16.026
 begins and it's all kind of innovated on
 
 00:31:16.046 --> 00:31:17.906
 the fly which as you pointed out to
 
 00:31:17.926 --> 00:31:20.287
 i think lafayette and his companions
 
 00:31:22.147 --> 00:31:24.210
 construe as something that's cape that's
 
 00:31:24.250 --> 00:31:26.932
 possible in a country with representative
 
 00:31:27.012 --> 00:31:30.115
 government and free men and later free
 
 00:31:30.155 --> 00:31:33.338
 women right um so it's astonishing to them
 
 00:31:33.579 --> 00:31:35.381
 i'd love to see their the correspondence
 
 00:31:35.961 --> 00:31:37.542
 lavasaur and lafayette's when they're when
 
 00:31:37.584 --> 00:31:39.905
 they're in buffalo when they're in
 
 00:31:39.965 --> 00:31:43.670
 rochester just incredible wonder of of
 
 00:31:43.710 --> 00:31:44.750
 traveling on the canal
 
 00:31:45.391 --> 00:31:49.432
 and seeing the locks um and it's obviously
 
 00:31:49.531 --> 00:31:51.413
 the american his hosts are making a point
 
 00:31:51.593 --> 00:31:54.114
 of this there's a connection i try to
 
 00:31:54.233 --> 00:31:55.713
 write it there's a connection between the
 
 00:31:55.753 --> 00:31:58.595
 revolution and the erie canal there's an
 
 00:31:58.634 --> 00:32:00.715
 inscription on on um
 
 00:32:01.476 --> 00:32:03.636
 is it lockport where is it and one
 
 00:32:03.676 --> 00:32:05.438
 of the one of the early on the
 
 00:32:05.818 --> 00:32:08.559
 the western terminus or western edges of
 
 00:32:08.579 --> 00:32:10.820
 the the canal that that made a point
 
 00:32:10.902 --> 00:32:12.803
 of this is connected to the revolution and
 
 00:32:12.843 --> 00:32:14.763
 free men this is possibly good for men
 
 00:32:15.223 --> 00:32:16.545
 and i think that's not just the area
 
 00:32:16.565 --> 00:32:19.125
 canal but over and over again i i
 
 00:32:19.145 --> 00:32:20.646
 thought what was interesting to give you
 
 00:32:20.686 --> 00:32:22.969
 kind of something analogies to the canal
 
 00:32:22.989 --> 00:32:24.368
 but further west was
 
 00:32:25.569 --> 00:32:27.211
 When he gets to the Ohio River,
 
 00:32:27.291 --> 00:32:29.074
 I'm pretty supposed to be more interested
 
 00:32:29.114 --> 00:32:30.615
 in this part of it.
 
 00:32:30.655 --> 00:32:31.836
 From there, obviously,
 
 00:32:32.258 --> 00:32:35.441
 when he gets to Indiana, our states,
 
 00:32:35.521 --> 00:32:37.423
 the preamble to our state's invitation
 
 00:32:38.244 --> 00:32:39.885
 says, you know, what the...
 
 00:32:40.406 --> 00:32:44.691
 father was never allowed to see fate has
 
 00:32:45.010 --> 00:32:46.792
 allowed the sun to see and i my
 
 00:32:46.813 --> 00:32:48.354
 interpretation was obviously washington
 
 00:32:48.394 --> 00:32:50.615
 had envisioned right an expansion of the
 
 00:32:50.655 --> 00:32:52.637
 country particularly in ohio river valley
 
 00:32:52.657 --> 00:32:55.339
 oh yeah travel there right um and
 
 00:32:55.380 --> 00:32:57.102
 lafayette gets to see it so he's in
 
 00:32:57.382 --> 00:32:59.403
 louisville for example and he goes to the
 
 00:32:59.443 --> 00:33:01.486
 theater and the circus
 
 00:33:02.026 --> 00:33:04.067
 yeah and he goes to lexington and he
 
 00:33:04.086 --> 00:33:05.967
 goes to transylvania college which is the
 
 00:33:06.146 --> 00:33:08.607
 first one first institutions of higher uh
 
 00:33:08.748 --> 00:33:10.528
 education west al gehaney's and then
 
 00:33:10.568 --> 00:33:12.650
 cincinnati which is the boomtown west
 
 00:33:12.670 --> 00:33:14.529
 where he goes to the western museum so
 
 00:33:14.609 --> 00:33:16.851
 if you have society that has moved
 
 00:33:16.931 --> 00:33:19.251
 westward because of freedom and because of
 
 00:33:19.271 --> 00:33:22.073
 the revolution yeah so what is his
 
 00:33:22.153 --> 00:33:24.554
 reception like then in places like indiana
 
 00:33:24.653 --> 00:33:26.733
 and along the ohio river what's the what
 
 00:33:26.854 --> 00:33:28.434
 is this new world to him
 
 00:33:28.855 --> 00:33:29.816
 It's enthusiastic.
 
 00:33:29.855 --> 00:33:33.137
 It's a little more modest than New York,
 
 00:33:33.317 --> 00:33:35.579
 Philadelphia, and Boston,
 
 00:33:35.700 --> 00:33:37.621
 where obviously you have more people and
 
 00:33:37.641 --> 00:33:40.583
 you have more resources in those places.
 
 00:33:41.023 --> 00:33:42.664
 So they have just stunning,
 
 00:33:42.704 --> 00:33:44.445
 spectacular celebrations in the East.
 
 00:33:44.826 --> 00:33:46.007
 But, you know, and for example,
 
 00:33:46.027 --> 00:33:47.067
 he comes to Indiana.
 
 00:33:47.628 --> 00:33:49.470
 He's in Jeffersonville on the Ohio River
 
 00:33:49.490 --> 00:33:50.631
 for, I think, six hours.
 
 00:33:52.432 --> 00:33:52.751
 Every...
 
 00:33:54.032 --> 00:33:55.973
 veteran of the revolution who's in the
 
 00:33:56.074 --> 00:33:58.095
 areas there obviously and always always
 
 00:33:58.496 --> 00:34:02.657
 it's lafayette allegedly recognizes this
 
 00:34:02.837 --> 00:34:05.799
 veteran we had not seen in you know
 
 00:34:05.819 --> 00:34:07.941
 forty plus years and the local war lives
 
 00:34:08.121 --> 00:34:11.003
 on about all these veterans they bring
 
 00:34:11.083 --> 00:34:13.103
 people come from miles and miles and miles
 
 00:34:13.144 --> 00:34:15.585
 away to see lafayette shake his hand they
 
 00:34:15.666 --> 00:34:17.126
 do what they can with their resources
 
 00:34:17.146 --> 00:34:18.527
 their banquets there's a wonderful
 
 00:34:19.128 --> 00:34:20.648
 transparency on the table in
 
 00:34:20.688 --> 00:34:22.690
 jeffersonville this is indiana and
 
 00:34:22.730 --> 00:34:25.371
 seventy-six uh wilderness in eighteen
 
 00:34:25.391 --> 00:34:29.492
 twenty-five civilized society my favorite
 
 00:34:29.532 --> 00:34:31.934
 though is when he get he crosses from
 
 00:34:32.173 --> 00:34:33.914
 georgia to alabama on the chattahoochee
 
 00:34:34.135 --> 00:34:36.655
 river he's brought across the river onto
 
 00:34:36.695 --> 00:34:38.436
 the alabama shore by a band of creek
 
 00:34:38.456 --> 00:34:39.016
 warriors
 
 00:34:39.916 --> 00:34:42.179
 And one of the Alabama militia who's there
 
 00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:44.240
 watching says it was the greatest show of
 
 00:34:44.260 --> 00:34:46.483
 a river crossing he'd ever seen in his
 
 00:34:46.543 --> 00:34:46.722
 life.
 
 00:34:46.782 --> 00:34:50.606
 So to underscore that, wherever he went,
 
 00:34:50.786 --> 00:34:52.507
 even if the resources were meager,
 
 00:34:53.288 --> 00:34:56.590
 there was an incredible presentation and
 
 00:34:56.650 --> 00:34:58.833
 the communities gave everything they had
 
 00:34:58.873 --> 00:35:01.235
 to demonstrate that they're going to write
 
 00:35:01.315 --> 00:35:03.817
 their chapter in this huge national
 
 00:35:03.876 --> 00:35:04.456
 celebration.
 
 00:35:05.458 --> 00:35:05.838
 And of course,
 
 00:35:05.858 --> 00:35:07.443
 the Creeks had fought a war against the
 
 00:35:07.483 --> 00:35:09.469
 United States just a decade earlier,
 
 00:35:09.489 --> 00:35:11.434
 and here they are celebrating the hero of
 
 00:35:11.454 --> 00:35:12.777
 the revolution who can bring them
 
 00:35:12.838 --> 00:35:13.219
 together.
 
 00:35:13.976 --> 00:35:14.916
 Yeah, absolutely.
 
 00:35:15.117 --> 00:35:16.557
 That's exactly right.
 
 00:35:17.579 --> 00:35:18.760
 He gets there, you know,
 
 00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:20.860
 I think a month after the signing of
 
 00:35:20.900 --> 00:35:22.501
 the Treaty of Indian Springs.
 
 00:35:23.202 --> 00:35:25.043
 So he's there at an incredibly difficult
 
 00:35:25.083 --> 00:35:27.166
 time for the Creek Nation.
 
 00:35:27.266 --> 00:35:29.246
 And the theme in the story is that
 
 00:35:29.286 --> 00:35:30.527
 wherever Lafayette goes,
 
 00:35:30.829 --> 00:35:33.510
 he's intersecting with momentous things,
 
 00:35:33.710 --> 00:35:34.291
 you know,
 
 00:35:34.331 --> 00:35:35.612
 with the canal that are happening
 
 00:35:35.972 --> 00:35:37.092
 independent of his visit.
 
 00:35:38.313 --> 00:35:39.195
 It's really incredible.
 
 00:35:39.215 --> 00:35:39.355
 Ryan,
 
 00:35:40.235 --> 00:35:43.257
 what effect does this have on Lafayette
 
 00:35:43.277 --> 00:35:44.518
 when he returns to France?
 
 00:35:44.559 --> 00:35:44.778
 I mean,
 
 00:35:44.798 --> 00:35:47.001
 this thirteen-month visit he has had,
 
 00:35:47.541 --> 00:35:49.764
 it's not simply a trip down memory lane,
 
 00:35:49.804 --> 00:35:51.664
 it really is reviving something,
 
 00:35:53.425 --> 00:35:54.407
 a triumph.
 
 00:35:55.748 --> 00:35:58.411
 So what happens to him after he returns
 
 00:35:58.431 --> 00:35:58.891
 to France?
 
 00:35:59.355 --> 00:36:01.976
 well there's a the um early on in
 
 00:36:01.996 --> 00:36:04.416
 the trip we talked previously that his
 
 00:36:04.476 --> 00:36:08.278
 health isn't uh he's struggling with gout
 
 00:36:08.318 --> 00:36:10.360
 particularly it's bedridden continually
 
 00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:12.960
 and the years leading up to his return
 
 00:36:13.001 --> 00:36:14.581
 he walks with a limp obviously from
 
 00:36:14.681 --> 00:36:16.922
 falling on some ice and and having the
 
 00:36:16.963 --> 00:36:19.903
 bone improperly set he's a number of
 
 00:36:19.963 --> 00:36:21.965
 health difficulties his finances are in a
 
 00:36:22.105 --> 00:36:22.746
 difficult place
 
 00:36:23.806 --> 00:36:25.686
 about a month into the trip lavasaur
 
 00:36:25.726 --> 00:36:28.648
 writes back to france and says everyone in
 
 00:36:28.688 --> 00:36:32.268
 the party is exhausted from shaking hands
 
 00:36:32.548 --> 00:36:35.369
 banquets speeches not general lafayette
 
 00:36:35.889 --> 00:36:38.070
 he's behaving like he's twenty years old
 
 00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:38.351
 again
 
 00:36:38.971 --> 00:36:41.233
 so that's wonderfully symbolic answer to
 
 00:36:41.253 --> 00:36:42.733
 your question that he comes here and he's
 
 00:36:42.793 --> 00:36:45.295
 revived his fortunes are revived by twenty
 
 00:36:45.574 --> 00:36:48.137
 two hundred thousand dollars that allows
 
 00:36:48.197 --> 00:36:50.498
 immediately by the way buying pianos for
 
 00:36:50.539 --> 00:36:52.599
 lagrange and sending money to italian
 
 00:36:52.619 --> 00:36:56.222
 revolutionaries weeks after if not days
 
 00:36:56.342 --> 00:36:59.405
 after the congress passes the approves of
 
 00:36:59.425 --> 00:37:02.327
 the gift he is revived mentally he's
 
 00:37:02.407 --> 00:37:04.507
 revived physically he writes from
 
 00:37:04.688 --> 00:37:06.088
 monticello i don't know what happened to
 
 00:37:06.108 --> 00:37:07.550
 my gaudy disposition
 
 00:37:09.451 --> 00:37:11.431
 and his faith in representative government
 
 00:37:11.452 --> 00:37:13.291
 which i don't think was waning but it's
 
 00:37:13.711 --> 00:37:16.393
 stored and he goes back obviously and and
 
 00:37:16.472 --> 00:37:17.992
 he he leaves at a point shortly after
 
 00:37:18.012 --> 00:37:19.813
 being voted out of the chamber of deputies
 
 00:37:20.454 --> 00:37:22.094
 the french parliament he goes back and the
 
 00:37:22.134 --> 00:37:24.375
 rest of the stories he re-enters politics
 
 00:37:24.394 --> 00:37:25.574
 and then is at the center of another
 
 00:37:25.594 --> 00:37:28.635
 revolution all right which doesn't
 
 00:37:28.675 --> 00:37:29.876
 ultimately end
 
 00:37:30.896 --> 00:37:33.318
 He doesn't ever live to see his dream
 
 00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:37.443
 of some version of a constitutional
 
 00:37:37.483 --> 00:37:39.585
 monarchy that he had envisioned in France.
 
 00:37:39.625 --> 00:37:42.088
 But the trip lifts him up again.
 
 00:37:42.148 --> 00:37:44.610
 I think it revives him is the best
 
 00:37:44.650 --> 00:37:45.650
 way to describe spirits.
 
 00:37:45.731 --> 00:37:47.012
 It revives his spirits and his health and
 
 00:37:47.032 --> 00:37:47.592
 his fortunes.
 
 00:37:48.762 --> 00:37:49.903
 It's amazing.
 
 00:37:50.023 --> 00:37:52.826
 And just speaking of this connection he's
 
 00:37:52.905 --> 00:37:53.467
 making,
 
 00:37:53.686 --> 00:37:56.989
 a couple of weeks ago when Maria Corina
 
 00:37:57.030 --> 00:37:59.070
 Machado met with President Trump,
 
 00:37:59.090 --> 00:38:01.132
 she presented him with her Nobel Prize in
 
 00:38:01.172 --> 00:38:04.416
 saying that Lafayette had been given a
 
 00:38:04.476 --> 00:38:06.998
 medal of Washington that he sent to Simone
 
 00:38:07.018 --> 00:38:07.617
 Bolivar.
 
 00:38:08.318 --> 00:38:10.481
 So seeing Lafayette as this continuing
 
 00:38:10.581 --> 00:38:13.163
 link between free people.
 
 00:38:14.440 --> 00:38:15.601
 Yeah, that's that's wonderful.
 
 00:38:15.721 --> 00:38:16.701
 And that he continues to be.
 
 00:38:16.721 --> 00:38:18.742
 That's the most interesting thing to me is
 
 00:38:18.762 --> 00:38:21.023
 that a lot of times when I've been
 
 00:38:21.742 --> 00:38:22.903
 talking to people about this book,
 
 00:38:22.943 --> 00:38:23.543
 they'll say,
 
 00:38:23.784 --> 00:38:25.025
 why do you want to write this book?
 
 00:38:25.065 --> 00:38:26.224
 And I always say, well,
 
 00:38:26.244 --> 00:38:27.186
 I'm interested in Lafayette,
 
 00:38:27.246 --> 00:38:31.268
 just like our our ancestors were in
 
 00:38:31.307 --> 00:38:33.929
 seventeen seventy seven when they learned
 
 00:38:33.949 --> 00:38:35.730
 that this young Frenchman had been wounded
 
 00:38:35.769 --> 00:38:36.590
 at Brandywine.
 
 00:38:36.969 --> 00:38:38.431
 And it is almost a continuum.
 
 00:38:39.010 --> 00:38:41.431
 despite his his fortunes rise and fall of
 
 00:38:41.452 --> 00:38:42.492
 his fortunes in France.
 
 00:38:43.193 --> 00:38:45.114
 We have seen him as this link to
 
 00:38:45.173 --> 00:38:48.215
 freedom continuously since the revolution.
 
 00:38:48.554 --> 00:38:50.436
 He has many fans and not just because
 
 00:38:50.456 --> 00:38:51.056
 of Hamilton.
 
 00:38:51.076 --> 00:38:52.376
 Yeah, he does.
 
 00:38:52.657 --> 00:38:54.117
 And then, of course,
 
 00:38:54.137 --> 00:38:56.798
 he goes home on a Navy vessel,
 
 00:38:56.898 --> 00:38:57.599
 the Brandywine.
 
 00:38:58.467 --> 00:38:59.628
 Yeah,
 
 00:38:59.748 --> 00:39:02.809
 it's John Quincy Adams is president now at
 
 00:39:02.829 --> 00:39:03.311
 this point.
 
 00:39:03.951 --> 00:39:05.672
 He became president in March of eighteen
 
 00:39:05.693 --> 00:39:06.253
 twenty five.
 
 00:39:06.793 --> 00:39:08.295
 And he's convinced that we have to send
 
 00:39:08.355 --> 00:39:09.655
 him back on a national ship.
 
 00:39:10.335 --> 00:39:12.297
 And he quickly has to figure out what's
 
 00:39:12.338 --> 00:39:13.179
 in the Navy yard.
 
 00:39:13.478 --> 00:39:14.659
 And he finds out there is a ship.
 
 00:39:14.760 --> 00:39:16.960
 I think it was was originally called the.
 
 00:39:17.762 --> 00:39:18.262
 Saratoga.
 
 00:39:18.322 --> 00:39:19.463
 I can't remember what the name of the
 
 00:39:19.483 --> 00:39:19.983
 ship was.
 
 00:39:20.364 --> 00:39:21.103
 I think that's wrong.
 
 00:39:21.184 --> 00:39:23.445
 But it already had a name designated for
 
 00:39:23.465 --> 00:39:23.505
 it.
 
 00:39:23.565 --> 00:39:25.407
 And Adams asked for it to be renamed
 
 00:39:25.447 --> 00:39:27.748
 the Brandywine after the first engagement
 
 00:39:27.947 --> 00:39:29.228
 that Lafayette participates in.
 
 00:39:29.248 --> 00:39:32.251
 So I thought Brandywine brings him into
 
 00:39:32.311 --> 00:39:33.231
 America's hearts.
 
 00:39:35.431 --> 00:39:35.572
 Right.
 
 00:39:35.592 --> 00:39:35.733
 Yeah.
 
 00:39:35.793 --> 00:39:36.452
 September,
 
 00:39:36.932 --> 00:39:39.554
 and Brandywine takes him away from America
 
 00:39:39.594 --> 00:39:40.655
 for good in September of
 
 00:39:42.317 --> 00:39:43.938
 So there's a wonderful symbolism there.
 
 00:39:43.958 --> 00:39:44.878
 It's also, by the way,
 
 00:39:45.298 --> 00:39:47.400
 it's a bit of a flex, too.
 
 00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:48.262
 And that's the way I saw it.
 
 00:39:48.282 --> 00:39:51.804
 The contemporary analysis of it was that
 
 00:39:51.844 --> 00:39:53.226
 we're going to outfit this ship
 
 00:39:53.266 --> 00:39:55.467
 immediately in such a small amount of
 
 00:39:55.487 --> 00:39:55.628
 time.
 
 00:39:55.648 --> 00:39:57.289
 And we're going to send Lafayette back to
 
 00:39:57.369 --> 00:39:59.451
 Europe on this mighty frigate,
 
 00:39:59.771 --> 00:40:00.452
 the Brandywine.
 
 00:40:00.472 --> 00:40:02.114
 And we're going to show those Europeans
 
 00:40:02.474 --> 00:40:03.755
 our maritime might.
 
 00:40:04.536 --> 00:40:05.036
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 00:40:06.916 --> 00:40:08.759
 So we've been talking with Ryan Cole,
 
 00:40:08.798 --> 00:40:10.880
 who is the author of The Last to
 
 00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:12.601
 Do, Lafayette's Triumphant Return,
 
 00:40:12.701 --> 00:40:14.461
 Echoes of the Revolution and Gratitude of
 
 00:40:14.481 --> 00:40:15.081
 the Republic.
 
 00:40:15.121 --> 00:40:17.284
 It's a great book, great story,
 
 00:40:17.403 --> 00:40:18.443
 and you've told it well.
 
 00:40:20.025 --> 00:40:21.485
 So is there anything else you'd like to
 
 00:40:21.545 --> 00:40:22.586
 add before we let you go?
 
 00:40:23.047 --> 00:40:24.027
 I do want to share one thing with
 
 00:40:24.047 --> 00:40:25.708
 you because I just got it last week
 
 00:40:25.768 --> 00:40:27.728
 is that someone who had read the book
 
 00:40:27.967 --> 00:40:30.309
 reached out to me on Facebook and they
 
 00:40:30.349 --> 00:40:32.108
 shared a letter that they had that
 
 00:40:32.148 --> 00:40:33.268
 Lafayette had written, I believe,
 
 00:40:33.289 --> 00:40:34.849
 in November of eighteen twenty five.
 
 00:40:35.110 --> 00:40:37.570
 So he's returned to France.
 
 00:40:37.630 --> 00:40:38.971
 It's written to three veterans of the
 
 00:40:39.010 --> 00:40:40.411
 revolution who live in Boston.
 
 00:40:40.431 --> 00:40:41.771
 And I can share the names.
 
 00:40:41.851 --> 00:40:43.150
 I didn't know the names and share them
 
 00:40:43.190 --> 00:40:45.231
 with you later if you're interested.
 
 00:40:45.251 --> 00:40:45.452
 Yeah.
 
 00:40:46.012 --> 00:40:49.253
 And he was writing to them about their
 
 00:40:49.293 --> 00:40:49.733
 pensions.
 
 00:40:50.373 --> 00:40:52.134
 because you know leading one there was a
 
 00:40:52.233 --> 00:40:54.936
 little bit of dissent in congress at the
 
 00:40:54.976 --> 00:40:56.356
 end of eighteen twenty four about voting
 
 00:40:56.818 --> 00:40:58.057
 to give lafayette two hundred thousand
 
 00:40:58.117 --> 00:41:00.139
 dollars because veterans of the revolution
 
 00:41:00.780 --> 00:41:02.661
 increasingly pensions were more generous
 
 00:41:02.981 --> 00:41:06.143
 more generous but in crawl involved an
 
 00:41:06.164 --> 00:41:07.864
 incredible amount of documentation of your
 
 00:41:07.905 --> 00:41:10.467
 service and also your financial status so
 
 00:41:10.487 --> 00:41:12.688
 a lot of veterans were thrown off the
 
 00:41:12.708 --> 00:41:14.409
 rolls or were not able to get pensions
 
 00:41:14.969 --> 00:41:16.271
 So some members of Congress were
 
 00:41:16.311 --> 00:41:17.152
 complaining and saying,
 
 00:41:17.333 --> 00:41:18.574
 we're giving Lafayette two hundred
 
 00:41:18.635 --> 00:41:19.356
 thousand dollars,
 
 00:41:19.657 --> 00:41:21.960
 very little documentation when we have
 
 00:41:21.980 --> 00:41:24.583
 veterans coming to us begging for bread.
 
 00:41:25.264 --> 00:41:26.266
 I thought it was an interesting,
 
 00:41:26.326 --> 00:41:27.827
 very interesting and also dangerous
 
 00:41:27.867 --> 00:41:29.791
 politically to vote against giving
 
 00:41:29.851 --> 00:41:31.132
 Lafayette two hundred thousand dollars.
 
 00:41:32.385 --> 00:41:33.027
 In this letter,
 
 00:41:33.086 --> 00:41:34.987
 Lafayette says to these veterans,
 
 00:41:35.568 --> 00:41:37.590
 if any good comes out of Congress giving
 
 00:41:37.650 --> 00:41:38.990
 me two hundred thousand dollars,
 
 00:41:39.090 --> 00:41:40.893
 it's that they will see they can give
 
 00:41:41.512 --> 00:41:43.153
 all the veterans of the revolution
 
 00:41:43.494 --> 00:41:44.534
 pensions as well.
 
 00:41:44.596 --> 00:41:45.755
 And I thought that was moving.
 
 00:41:46.097 --> 00:41:46.436
 And again,
 
 00:41:47.137 --> 00:41:48.398
 I try to draw some lessons from the
 
 00:41:48.438 --> 00:41:50.300
 story that we can use for the two
 
 00:41:50.320 --> 00:41:51.021
 hundred fiftieth.
 
 00:41:51.061 --> 00:41:53.282
 And one obviously is to revere our
 
 00:41:53.302 --> 00:41:55.344
 veterans and to honor our commitments to
 
 00:41:55.364 --> 00:41:55.523
 them.
 
 00:41:55.563 --> 00:41:57.244
 And I thought that was a wonderful story.
 
 00:41:58.186 --> 00:41:59.507
 And then ultimately in the eighteen
 
 00:41:59.527 --> 00:42:01.489
 thirties and Congress does vote pensions
 
 00:42:01.528 --> 00:42:02.210
 for veterans.
 
 00:42:02.650 --> 00:42:03.851
 It does take a long time.
 
 00:42:03.891 --> 00:42:05.672
 But so thank you so much, Ryan.
 
 00:42:05.733 --> 00:42:06.974
 It's a fascinating story.
 
 00:42:07.333 --> 00:42:09.335
 And as I said, we could go on.
 
 00:42:09.376 --> 00:42:10.936
 We could talk about lots of other things
 
 00:42:10.956 --> 00:42:13.018
 because this does intersect with so many
 
 00:42:13.179 --> 00:42:13.940
 other stories.
 
 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:14.280
 So yeah.
 
 00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:15.782
 So thank you for joining us.
 
 00:42:15.802 --> 00:42:16.621
 Thanks for having me.
 
 00:42:17.922 --> 00:42:18.923
 I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
 
 00:42:18.943 --> 00:42:19.463
 our producer,
 
 00:42:19.503 --> 00:42:20.943
 as well as our listeners around the
 
 00:42:20.983 --> 00:42:21.945
 country, around the world.
 
 00:42:21.985 --> 00:42:23.244
 Every week we thank folks who are
 
 00:42:23.264 --> 00:42:24.324
 regularly tuning in.
 
 00:42:24.364 --> 00:42:25.485
 And if you're in one of these places
 
 00:42:25.525 --> 00:42:27.286
 and want some of our Revolution Two-Fifty
 
 00:42:27.346 --> 00:42:28.987
 swag, send Jonathan an email,
 
 00:42:29.027 --> 00:42:31.327
 jlane at revolution two five zero dot org.
 
 00:42:32.068 --> 00:42:32.507
 And this week,
 
 00:42:32.527 --> 00:42:33.708
 I want to thank our listeners in
 
 00:42:33.847 --> 00:42:34.909
 Lafayette, Louisiana.
 
 00:42:35.568 --> 00:42:38.291
 as well as in Avancon in Gironde in
 
 00:42:38.351 --> 00:42:40.152
 Buffalo, New York, Charlottesville,
 
 00:42:40.492 --> 00:42:42.275
 New Bern in Raleigh, North Carolina,
 
 00:42:42.375 --> 00:42:43.675
 Cumberland, Rhode Island, Derry,
 
 00:42:43.695 --> 00:42:46.038
 New Hampshire, Argonne in Upper Savoy,
 
 00:42:46.197 --> 00:42:48.719
 and Etre in Charente Maritime and all
 
 00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:50.240
 places between and beyond.
 
 00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:51.181
 Thanks for joining us.
 
 00:42:51.282 --> 00:42:52.682
 Now we will be piped out on the
 
 00:42:52.722 --> 00:42:53.384
 road to Boston.