good afternoon, everyone. i'm a president, robert, and i'm delighted to be here today with a senior fellow emeritus, michael brown to discuss his new book released today, the mental maps of the founders how

geographic imagination guided america's revolutionary leaders. now, michael is an old and dear friend of aei, and we're really honored to have you with us today, michael. and i want to, before i say a little bit more about you, tell you how grateful i am to you for all that you've done for the american enterprise institute over the years and for america. i grew up reading the almanac of american politics, and i loved it from the first time i started reading it. your voice i could hear. then i still hear now. whenever you open your mouth. but don't open it yet. oh, well, today's event is part of the edward and helen handbook forms at aei. these forums provide a platform to host prominent authors for discussion of their books on issues of national significance. and we are very grateful to edward and helen hanse for their tremendous support of aei and deep commitment to our mission, which make conversations like this one possible. michael brown, as i mentioned, has been a fellow at aei for many years.

he's one of our nation's preeminent political analysts and election experts and is currently a columnist for the washington examiner. he's the author of many books in american politics and history, including the yearly editions of the almanac of american politics from 1972 to 2006. the most authoritative annual resource on elections, parties and our country's political geography. and it's interesting that i start with i end with the word geography, because this book, mental maps of the founders how geographic imagination guided america's revolutionary leaders, takes us out of the 21st and 20th century. back into our founding period. but what is what is a mental map? what are you trying to what are you getting at there? well, a mental map. we all carry mental maps around with this, although some of them are now some of us are now delegating that to our phone devices. but you know how we get to the grocery store with which entrance to the parking lot. we want to use and things like that. we have a sense of of geography.

some people have much more well-developed senses than other people. and i've always been kind of a map buff. i grew up originally on in northwest detroit in one of those square mile grids that thomas jefferson actually originally suggested that much of america, the northwest territory of them, would be plotted out into streets were straight north, south, east and west and so forth. and they were and and i have always had a capacity for maps, and i you have to tell a lovely story in here about traveling with your parents as a six year old. well, we were going down to florida to pick up my grandmother, coming back from the winter or something like that. and we were in some small town, i think, in georgia, and there was a traffic circle. and my parents said, well, we're going out this way. i said, no, no. the other route we should take

this other street here about eight or ten miles later, they said, like, you seem to be on the wrong route. so from that time on, i did the i did the mapping geography. i applied for a job at the triple aa to set up people's vacations. when i was a teenager, i was told we only hire women. huh? young women for that. so this was before the civil rights act of 19 came to your defense? yeah. so? so and the mapping part very is reminiscent of your political work because elections and maps maps go with elections where the territory, who's where, where the voters and and how does the layout of rural urban how does the layout of this district work? and so i get that and i love that. but back then you start with washington and you say this, this man from virginia, he's a southerner i ended up having a map that took him north.

and what's what's the draw to the north in washington? well, it's he he his own map of where he wanted to go. and george washington, you know, did not did not grow up in an area that had been platted with square miles. once you got inland from, the potomac or rappahannock rivers or his native ground, you were in wilton, this with lots of trees and, you know, overgrown in that way. and he got to know the interior of the country through a kind of accident with through he was hired at age 16. his father had died five years before, hired by fairfax, who was the proprietor of an enormous land grant. and i, i tell the story in the book about the strange land grant. and lord fairfax, his lengthy litigation to have it confirmed covered everything between the

rappahannock and the potomac rivers from chesapeake bay, going up to the origins of those rivers up by west virginia. so it's a huge tract of territory. and lord fairfax hired to go along on this trip, a surveyor, george washington, aged 16, just developing his full six foot two height, great horseman. and they go out, they have to go out in the fall, in the winter, because leaves have to go down. it's much easier to draw lines and surveyors don't like to survey in the spring and summer. yeah, so consequently in washington to get to know that in washington. so he becomes an expert in this and then at age 18 he buys his first tract of land in the shenandoah valley, but leases that from lord fairfax with the money that he's earned. when the house of burgesses is looking for somebody to go out into the wilderness to follow an order from london to keep the

french from infringed on, the forks of the ohio, where the allegheny monongahela river has come to form the ohio river. now, pittsburgh, who else do they hire? they find young george washington in his twenties, and he goes up, he gets within miles of lake erie. he falls into the icy allegheny river and swims himself out. he knows this and he has this vision that he pursues as a retired general, as a president, to pierce through the appalachian chains that were separating the coastal, the north american colonies, the north american united states as it became, and to go through there to the vast interior of the country which he was investing, he bought a lot away. so he's got a scholar of america. so he goes, the potomac sends him sort of northwest.

and then you're going to follow the yogi. yogi journey or something to over connect with the manhattan heel and and so forth. so that was washington's vision, the chesapeake and ohio canal. you can walk along it today and see 18th century technology at work, or at least at leisure. but this was part of his vision. he also notices as he goes up there on these military expeditions that it's indian country. he, you know, faces he goes up with general braddock, who was defeated near pittsburgh. in 1755 and dies is buried secretly on the road. he goes up there and he notices, among other things, they have some very good, high quality coal here. he said. so washington and you know, they knew coal was needed for heating and for furnaces. washington has got an inkling somehow of america because industrial future does it.

that goes on to pittsburgh and cleveland. exploration coal of the new world x developed in him a love of the country he lived in as opposed to the british or europe or looking east. yeah, he never he never went to england. his only overseas trip was with his tubercular brother to barbados. he his physician was america. that that might be a continental expanded or at least after the treaty of paris in 1783. as reaffirmed by js treaty with it ordered and got ratified in 1795. goes up to the mississippi river. he's he's thinking the country is going to expand into the northwest. he didn't like the south. he went on this southerner did not like the south. he went on as president. he did tours of the country. he thought he should show himself. his first one was 1789 to new

england, and he goes to rhode island. it's after ratifies constitution of 1790 and he really likes new england. it's orderly at things put together. well, there he had learned to deal with the new england soldiers. they he understood this was already a country of cultural diversity in the revolution. and the way you dealt with virginia soldiers and the way you dealt with new england soldiers was different. and you better figure it out. he goes, he loves that part of the country. the next year, too, he goes on a trip to the south, trudging through north carolina, trying to find a decent in the ramshackle buildings. he doesn't like the south carolina coast that has 90% of the population are black slaves. he does not like that kind of society he'd seen in barbados. he didn't like that total slavery. and it's one of the stories that comes through in this book when you're thinking about the mental

maps, is that the founders changed their minds about slavery in washington. ben franklin, thomas jefferson all grew up in an 18th century where slavery was part of life. so did hamilton and madison and taken for they turned against it in different ways in washington, most effectively in the last year of his life, his the makes he he he virginia legislatures passed some laws making it easier to free slaves and he writes a will himself personally hand writes it out to free slaves after his death. he's conscious there i think as he was as president, that he was setting precedents for a republic that might exist for quite a long time. he hoped, and as president, he does, among other things,

retires and relinquish his power to become a private citizen, as he had done as a general. now he's going to free his slaves. he was sending a signal, which unfortunately was not followed everywhere. but this is a i mean, we had a story in gordon wood here last week and he said i asked him, who was your favorite founder? and he right away said washington. and because the other founders loved him the most, he was their leader. but what you're describing is someone who was so comfortable with traveling and seeing the country in the land. new york, new england, the south. he came to love america and know it through his. the map in his mind, is that what you're trying to say. well, through the maps he mapped that he knew a lot. you know, the general has to be aware of true and things of that sort of the he knew the territory he he knew new england and boston he knew new york where he'd been chased out. had skedaddle away and 70, 76 he

knew that a forge he knew princeton and the delaware where he he knew all those colonies. he knew the potomac country and he knew you know, he he he knew williamsburg as a member of the house of another funny friend, thomas jefferson, not quite as broad where in his map. well, thomas jefferson. thomas jefferson is a man who has a background that similarities to washington. he's 11 years younger, not that much difference in age, but he's not military. thomas jefferson's, he had a father that was a robber man who was also a surveyor for lord fairfax and established the fairfax stone, which i visited at the western extremity of maryland and west virginia, served saying the western edge of large fairfax property, peter jefferson there's a map that peter jefferson and joshua fry

make in 1751 that washington uses when he's going there. bounds so he was kind of a burly outdoors guy. he dies when thomas jefferson is 14 and basically thomas jefferson is a rich at age 14, washing up to son of a second marriage, totally different multiple brothers doesn't inherit much money, inherits three slaves. jefferson inherits a hundred and and his father is the mapmaker, not him. and the father was the father was the map maker. jefferson establishes environments and you can see the final ones that he established in monaco and also at his house that he had in poplar forest near lynchburg, virginia, establishes environments. he establishes environments where you enter monticello, you see indian artifacts in the front thing, as well as these gadgets that jefferson was inventing. but they're all centered around him. they're references to places.

he wasn't much of a traveler. he never went as far as this west as his father, peter jefferson, did, never really went west of the shenandoah valley. he travels when he's minister to france. his one tours abroad. he lives in a very grand place in paris, dresses up in the fancy aristocratic dress. he does go on a trip down the rhine and climb is what was then the longest, the highest structure in the world, which is the tower of the strasbourg cathedral. but he's kind of a first elite. he's a first well, he's an elite. he's he's a person. he's he's a scholar and a student of natural history, a student of political history. he's an esteemed. he doesn't like williamsburg architecture. he wants what's a lady in architecture by italy. but when he goes to the north of italy, he he steals some silk plants. he trying to plant silk or

silkworms and mulberry trees in virginia. but he doesn't go and actually see palladio villas. he skedaddled back to paris. and and so forth. he likes an environment where he is the center of attention and people adore him. and he gets this at william and mary with the law professor george with the governor of virginia, francis -- yeah. they keep inviting jefferson to dinner. he plays the violin for them. he tells stories about natural history, things he's learning. as president of the united states, he manages the congress by a series of dinners with carefully calculated guest lists to fortify his own party, split the opposing party. no politics is discussed. the president is talking about everything, and he has adopted a very informal dress that his colleague benjamin franklin had had used in paris to enchant the aristocrats.

they're no longer is he wearing fancy clothes. he's wearing old slippers and kind of scruffy slacks that obviously need ironing and he is sam bankman-fried. well, he's he he ended up sort of at the same financial condition as sam thinks agreed without the fraud. so so there's little bit in your book about jefferson and maybe some of the others becoming disenchanted with america. does jefferson at the end or is it as time went on that he did. he did he like americans? well, he you know, he he liked americans, but he wanted them to be he wanted them to be he had to be followers. you know, the historian forrest macdonald writes that thomas jefferson would take care of all the people around them, that he he would see after their needs and help them find to express themselves in a good way.

and he said it to monitor their lives. and he asked only one thing in return, i total devotion. and he got it. but america doesn't turn out quite the way he thinks. he starts the, you know, the university of virginia, many of you, if not all, have been to the lawn and the buildings he supervised the architecture there, but the students there seemed to want to get drunk. most of the time. and race horses and not do what thomas jefferson did when he was a student at william and mary, which is to study the classics and study architecture, to study natural history and refute french naturalist, both lines charged that the animals of north america were inferior to those in europe. he was determined to prove that and pretty much right, rightly so. and he was he wanted a more subservient population. he planned things out for them.

he planned the square grids that you see in the northwest territory. and if you fly across the country on a clear day, you can look down and see thomas jefferson's grids all the way from western pennsylvania to orange county, california, new. but, you know, it almost makes me think about the lewis and clark expedition, which he sent off. and i don't know whether you cover that extensively in the book, but but he was more interested in the the the land and the and the the flora and fauna in the west than he was in the people. why he was interested in the indians, too. he was interested in the indian mounds which most of the american pioneers going west just kind of leveled over and said, what is this junky earth here? and he thought, well, there's something to learn from the indian mounds quite correctly. m.t. he, he, he wanted to kind of settled, orderly society. and we become kind of a disorderly society in the 19th century. we've become and we don't ever

said we don't follow his leadership. and it's it's a little more chaotic than he would like and it's while more capitalistic it's more make you know, people making gains. we'll get to hamilton in a minute. but before we do that i want ask you about how these founders all of them, any one of them you want to pick saw america or the united in the world you know, when we were kids i remember there being a controversy because if you got a map on a single of paper and the united states was always put in the center, did they see the united states as the center of the world or did they see europe as center of the world? what was their attitude? europe? well, i think they had different attitudes. obviously, all of them had been part of the, you know, the british empire, as they started off jefferson madison as a very young man. and hamilton and in the west indies, they so they had that

connection. they saw themselves. but i think, you know, of them saw themselves as part that jefferson was determined to prove that north america was the good part of the world. and that the animals were not of fury or that we were going to plunge westward. madison wanted to go south, in particular, which we can get into alexander hamilton and contrast looked his his map, his mental map, a mental map of sea lions. i mean, he had grown up in the west indies islands, st croix, a sugar island with 90% tradeable. there were well, he was he was hired by a firm named beet boy, beekman and krueger, just about the time that his mother died of a disease the father had abandoned him. he had nothing. the uncle who was supposed to be his k caretaker committed

suicide. he lived. he was always against slavery. really didn't like this slave society, right? beekman and krueger, the partner beekman. and krueger decides, well, he's got to go to new york for medical treatment. puts alexander hamilton in charge. the office. he, 16 years old. he tells the caps captains where to go, what to what prices to charge, how to change the currencies. and so forth. he collects debts that the partners had never been able to collect. he starts running things in a very detailed way with beautiful penmanship. and he manages to impress there to the point that the the good burghers of, say, croix sent him to new york. in 1773 to go to university. there he leaves. he never return. right. but he had this view of the

society that he had superintended and when you read the writings that he has in federalist papers or that he has when he's washington's aide to camp this job that he in washington was good at spotting talent, it's hamilton, who was a really smart guy and very active. so he is reading about the commercial cities of the world and he's talking about how we have to have national, like the bank of amsterdam in, the bank of england. we had to be trading like the hanseatic cities of hamburg and bremen and lubeck, the italian city states. he's doing this well. he's a 20 something staff aide to washington and a revolutionary war army, where things are really and difficult and so forth. he is absorbing somehow all this history. he doesn't have an ipad or a kindle. he's managing to do this. and and his view is always of of

the sea lanes of the. and how to get a proper commercial society going, which can enhance not just rich people. jefferson madison thought he was just aiming to help the rich people, which they were terribly. and hamilton certainly wasn't. yeah, but also other people, when he's in charge of the coinage, he make sure that we mint a half penny so that the people with very little money can at least have a coin and do not have to just live as a colonial americans largely did by barter because they didn't have enough coin age, enough silver. so i wanted, you know, i think about your other writing and the geography of america and characterizing people by where they're from is hamilton, a new yorker? is he the beginning of the new yorker? well, he goes to new york and he's he's a immediately caught up. he goes to king's college, the

ancestor of columbia university. he's he immediately gets caught up in the revolution every after he's out, he's writing. there's a episcopal minister and in westchester county. this writing a pamphlet about how you've to be loyal to the british. and here's hamilton, 18 years old, writing another of 20,000 words or something. so, again, opinionated, arrogant new yorker. yes, they're both trading well and comfortable with diversity, comfortable with quoting the fearless, the first sense of wistful suffers as a new yorker approaches. yeah, he was well, he he ends up marrying ex-wife betsy, the daughter of other philip schuyler, who was a general in the revolutionary war and a big dutch origin landholder in albany, new york. they had a big sort of fort like

house in albany, which was kind of the edge of settlement in that period with the iroquois all to the west. and so, you know, when he leaves the department and before he becomes a lawyer in new york, makes a lot of money, builds a house up in the harlem heights, you could visit it now expanding. well it's been moved several blocks i'll explain it to you. it's what is it? 441 west, 141st street. i think something like that. you can take a subway up there. and it's a nice thing. the house had views of both the harlem river and the hudson river at that time. it was way uptown and it's an it's up north of city university. it's interesting place but he he believed in commerce and new york and so and he fits in in a i think it's you know new york

has a culture and one of the things that that i got of working with this book and, reading the terrific histories and accounts of current academic philosophers, historians and craig gordon would be in a nice comment on the book. i was going to say marina and andrew robertson gordon, would you do any better than that? yeah. and basically and that that he they they didn't have albion's seed david the historian david fisher, an aei award winner, as a matter of fact, book how there were four different colonial folkways that were transmitted from different of the british isles to different colonies in north america. the founders didn't need seed. they lived. they knew about it. washington as i said, knew the new england soldiers were just different folks from virginia soldiers. and you better figure out the

differences ben franklin knew that he was he had print shops he licensed printers to print his almanac and things and cities besides philadelphia, where he set down roots. he knew all these different things. and hamilton goes towards new york, which, as fisher says, and now being seed is an exception because york was founded by the dutch and it has a tradition that goes back to the dutch traditions of the dutch republic, which is a belief in commerce and making money and doing that in and so forth, a tradition of tolerance. it's of religious diversity and things it also has a tradition in which hamilton doesn't know of not being to concern about principle. well, new york was was full of tories during the revolution, so it was perhaps a majority of a majority of people there were

quite content that the british occupy it and they didn't really the revolution washington wanted to get it back hamilton of course but did they all during the revolution periods see in their mental map new york as the center that the new england was and that the british strategy of splitting the colonies in new york between virginia and boston was something that needed to be pushed back against. well, one of the things that you get out of this is that during the revolution, they didn't have a clear idea of what the map of the new nation would look like. yeah. yeah. they want to go up to montreal and they go to montreal and quebec, 1775 to try to get the french speaking people there. the french are not interested. they have military defeats. new york washing it and strategy of many ways is cap and around new york. i mean new england he goes to as commander of the continental

army in new england in 1775. it's basically successful the british get thrown out. st patrick's day roughly 1776 they abandoned they the new englanders are so against. yes the british crown that they kept troops can occupy there so they go to new york and and washington wants to chase them out of new york military defeat after military defeat he's to save any of his army he's defeated in brooklyn and upper has to get out to new jersey all the way down well and if you look where's winter and were there all around they were all centered around new york they're in new jersey when the british occupied philadelphia ghost of valley forge which is now part the philadelphia metro area wasn't there is is going new jersey, upstate new york, the

hudson they're holding the hudson the chain across the hudson to keep the british fleet going to albany. and it's only with difficulty that our french allies can persuade washington that they really, really this time are going to send a french fleet up from the caribbean where the profitable colonies of both britain and france were. they're going to sent the french fleet up to the chesapeake and that if washington brings its troops down with the french troops, they can corner general corps and wallis's true war. washington and had not with the british staged this whole series of of of raids occupation in georgia south carolina north they were threatening split those heavily slave colonies away from the rest of the country. washington didn't seem to care too much about this. but when the french finally persuaded them that, yes, the fleet was going to go, he down to wash, he he says, okay, and they march the ships and take a

boat down the chesapeake bay and they go to a place called yorktown where it all where alexey andreu hamilton finally gets a chance to lead troops in combat. you know, where cornwallis is cornered and surrenders. and when washington sees the fleet coming before cornwall, he starts. he literally dances, as we think of him, as a very reserved person, but he's jumping for joy at the fact that they they're going to defeat the british. so one more last founder madison what's his map? map is in his mind, how is he different than the others? well, madison is a man who, you know, our colleague here at aei, lynne cheney. her biography, think a couple of years ago, he he you know, he was he's often portrayed as a solitary scholar as a person who

didn't get around the colonies as lynne cheney points out, he did travel in upstate new york and, different things. he went to princeton where he had to the college of new jersey, is that that was and where he's taught by the reverend john witherspoon, who was a college president a member of the signer of the declaration of independence and so forth. a revolution honoree who was a product of the scottish enlightenment. this was the princeton was a presbyterian school church of scotland, and it was the scottish universities in the late 18th century were much more intellectual really advanced. and and and productive there, you know, you get adam smith sort of society sit and so forth. so madison is counter to this he's a scholar and he spends part of that. year 1786 up in a little small

in his family's house in montpelier, which you can visit, not too far from here in orange, virginia, not much of the square footage there with all these books, some of which jefferson has sent him from paris about republic, ancient and modern and reading. but he'd also gotten around and he'd been member of the virginia house of delegates as the house of burgesses was renamed after the after the revolution. and so and a collaborator with jefferson, his geographic, it seems to me, tends to go to the southwest. one of the things that you see when he's a young delegate to continental congress under the articles of confederation in the early eighties, he has this sort of tussle with john jay, who was the a new yorker french huguenot

ancestry, who was the who is the secretary of foreign affairs for the confederation government and john jay is saying, well, we let's not the spanish then have louisiana, the western bank of the mississippi river. he says, we're not we insist for the moment on navigation rights in the mississippi river just the western boundary of the united states. we should get to have a treaty with the spanish more for trading with the west, with with with spain or west indies, with europe and so forth. because there's nobody really in the mississippi valley at or across the appalachians that are going to need the mississippi as an outlet for their tribal medicine. won't buy that at all. he he has a whole big argument and he basically maneuvers jay

and to losing that and pursues that argument of new orleans which of course is secretary of state when jefferson is president, they pick up on the idea of of the you know, the louisiana purchases offered to them by napoleon, which is taken over in louisiana from the spanish jefferson's very quick to insist on it. but jefferson and madison have sent over to france when napoleon takes over louisiana, this message with kind of provocative, not very diplomatic statement, which they say there is one spot on earth, the possessor of which is the natural of the united states. and that spot is new orleans. and if if another should called new orleans, we must marry ourselves to the british fleet, take possession. well, this is talk, napoleon.

look, give it up. yeah, napoleon never thought much of america he is european. yeah, right. and you know, give it, give it up and so forth. and they do pounce on it and give it up. madison also does that. i'm not sure any other president has done in the run up to the war of 1812 when we are contesting we've been arguing both with the french and the british who are in a world war against each other, and they're trying to restrict trade that. the america ship, built ship owners have been carrying on to great profit. jefferson madison have an embargo. the jefferson's embargo acted basically shuts down this huge lee profitable shipping industry or at least encourages smuggling. and they really are headed towards war with britain madison

just orders the seizure of what was called them west florida, which is actually not what we think of as at all. but the southernmost part of what is now alabama, mississippi. and louisa anna, north of the mississippi river and up to baton rouge madison says so who is now president? says, oh, well, this was part of the louisiana purchase. nobody else really believes this. but madison says this is part of the louisiana purchase are taking this these local people want to be part of the united states and we're going to we're going to take them over. so it was a tough character here and he was looking towards that sort of thing. he also unleashed as the elected captain of the militia of tennessee, was state office, was electing a general of the militia, a guy named andrew jackson.

yeah. who? jefferson. mr. mustard. but. and who? originally madison's administration. he wanted jackson wanted send troops down to natchez, mississippi, on the mississippi river. madison's secretary of war orders them back to tennessee, but they've had some among the indians and they say, i guess we have to send this jackson down there. and they do. and he defeats the red stick creeks at madison, wasn't it? this map of his mind wasn't just in the library he saw the country, but it was to southwest. he saw the country to the south. and that included florida, where general jackson is concerned that having he carefully in the indian treaties that he enforced is that that he after during madison administration he cuts

creeks off from florida so that they're not they don't have any adjacency to the spanish held territory and that paves the way the acquisition of florida, which is a policy basically pushed through by andrew jackson and and john quincy adams, who were political enemies for many years, but were allied in this effort. but we're getting past. so now i want to turn to current politics for a minute, because you are michael brown. but before i do that, i want to ask you if there's anything else about the book that we we haven't covered. you want to make sure you across to our audience? well, i think one of the things that fascinates me is is how contingent the success of the american revolution and the success of the american republic were on factor. is that were that could have easily gone the other way.

i mean i you know mentioned about george washington doing a survey for lord fairfax that enables him to get a military command, which in turn him the obvious to command the forces and give us this man whose character insisted on giving up power and who, you know, was was a person who appreciated people of the talents, even though their opposition, they opposed each other of jefferson and hamilton and so forth. how what how does the fairfax grant come there? well, the fairfax grant was actually an original grant in 1649, made the exiled king charles the second he was a teenager at the his father had been beheaded earlier in the year. he was in exile on the continent of and he was selling off. he was why did he grant all this land?

he had no way of enforcing it, whatever. it was a way for him to raise money. and this land was this grant was by a number of people it gets consolidated by a family name, culpeper and then an inheritance has fallen on lord fairfax. it's disputed by the virginia house of burgesses. lord fairfax conducts for 11 years from 1732 to 1743. a lawsuit in the british privy council to establish that he does own this land. and then he goes over and superintend and hires washington to be his so so that the chance anything could have happened could have gone another way was a close run thing. no lord fairfax, no george washington, all right. so now let's turn to the america, because i want to ask you this question i asked you earlier. we have had landslide elections in america, 1980, 1984, 1972, 1964, but not since then, what's

what's happened to the unifying impulse, americans? well, you know. since 1984, no president has won more than 53% of the popular vote. during the first, george bush was a little higher than, you know, 53 point something. in 1988, barack obama was 52.8. i think in 19. in 2008, we don't have those big landslides anymore. i think the answer is that when we had we had landslide heights, when we had an electorate that had experienced the great depression and the world war two, who had gone through these two, really could catastrophic. and and fundamental different of things. and well and unifying experiences were country shared the experiences of economic deprivation. a disappointing one where they shared the culture the things and where they all popular

culture movements of people. yeah they also we also technology us universal popular where of radio of the movies of the 1930s and forties movies to celebrate sort of common americanness of the end in television starting in the 1950s and you get the voters are used to that who would live through those experiences were ready reward presidents of both parties who seem to have produced peace and prosperity who have not produced another world war, who would not produce another depression to cross over from their usual voting behavior and reelected with large majorities. so you get 57% for eisenhower in, 1956, 61% for johnson. and 1964, 61% for richard nixon. so it's working for both parties and 59% for ronald reagan in

1984. now, by 84, we are starting to be a country where a substantial part of the electorate does not remember. but we also have a president, ronald reagan who had made his pre political career in those media of universal appeal literally, and radio in movies and intel edition and who spoke that language naturally and convincingly and so he gets 59% a little less than than johnson and so forth. and so that that's gone. well, you know, we have we have a few voters who still remember world war two. i was born during world war two, but i don't have any memory of it. my and we don't have very many we have very, very few who remember the great depression, who have any living of that.

and so it's a different electorate. and i think one of the problems with the discipline, political science over the years is the political scientist apparently of the name want to have rules that always apply every to, you know, what they do. and the answer is people who've had different experiences and who have developed different mental maps, if you will. right, right. will behave differently. we have this is the unifying popular culture, nor the living memory of depression and real world war. well, thank you for. i wanted to get that in because i that's a very good point. so we have some time for questions from the audience and let's see what we get way back in the back. yeah, congratulations on the publication of a great book. so i am curious about the phrase

empire of liberty that was coined by thomas jefferson to describe, you know, the united states. it coins it in 1780. how the geography of jefferson understand, the american geography play into this phrase, which has really been defined, used to define the american mission for centuries. well, the empire of liberty was a phrase that the jefferson used. i with a. with with something of a sense that. there was an inherent contradiction. the two words that it seemed like an anomalous combination of things the empire was run by an emperor would run everything. liberty was freedom of individuals. and in part because the you know, the united. when the constitution was being formed of the, you know, james madison up that little room upstairs, he had something like

15 brothers and sisters in that little room upstairs and his mother was still mother lived until age 97. they studying these books and what they had all told said and you know, from the greek the roman republic. the greek republic, the republics of the middle you know, of renaissance italy at the dutch republic was that republics only worked in small geographical areas. but the united states madison argues federalist ten, federalist 51, i think, and so forth. he says, no, actually this can work better because ambition and will counter ambition and in a diverse diversity will give you stability. actually, you can have an empire liberty. so jefferson is is using that phrase and building on his younger ally, madison, in that regard in doing it.

it's this it's what is the title of one of gordon woods books this survey the 17 of the earlier republic and so forth. you know i think the term empire imperialism did mean to jefferson what it comes to mean in the late 19th century early 20th century or when it's being taught, you know, these days, which is imperial, you know, imperialism was the word. the fact that european countries, the united states to some limited extent, had colonies was the worst thing in the history of the whole world. i don't think it was. it's the best thing either. but it's not the worst thing. and the they weren't really seeing it. they were seeing it. that we had created something unique and and and and we're setting a path for the world and the really important term for

them was liberty rather empire. it's interesting say diversity gave them stability and also the way our system is set up, it's designed to check and balance and stop radical change and that makes us frustrated and it makes our democracy complicated and boisterous and frustrating, but stable. use that i use it well. it tends to be a tense you know it doesn't always go the way you would it one of the things in writing this book is i mentioned earlier is the founders in their personal lives and in their public policies move against slavery. they take it for granted as young men and even into middle, they turn against the hamilton was always against it from the time of teenager live in the west indies, franklin turns it although he had on washington freezes slaves jefferson and the one book that he wrote notes on

virginia returns to the subject of slavery uncomfortable three different times and says how bad it is. but of course, jefferson had too many debts to pay and freed members of the hemings family, which so he may have had an affair with. so despite their opposition it didn't. it took a civil war 100, you know. well, took us to work. they seem to be on a trajectory that things were going pennsylvania, connecticut, were ireland, massachusetts, new hampshire abolishing slavery gradually starting to do that in the 1780s. new york under governor john jay does so in 1799. new jersey always a follower follows. in 1804, we've got slavery on the way to abolition north of the mason-dixon line, and that mostly gets abolished in delaware as president might tell

us, by 1860, 94% of the black people in delaware were not slaves. but on happily, other things change in the 19th century, the trajectory that the founders seemed to had set america on, moving away from slavery did not continue in that way. okay. yes, ma'am. maybe that this will be a yeah. thank so much for being here. my favorite description of the founders just along the subject of the more things change the more they say the same is just how they were at each other's throats generally, which reveals them as being human. but now robert indicates another aspect of humanity, which is how they ripened as. they got older and i'd like to follow up on his question about was there any other material about another founder,

jefferson, reflect in on how america developing and whether it was all going to the dogs are actually that we're proud of what they did. yeah that's a good one well if you have a number of the founders were very long lived you know john adams whom i don't treat in this book you know lives long enough to see that his son john quincy adams is president. he writes days that's a good moment for him. and of course you have the you have the death on july 4th of 1826. exactly 50 years from the first 4th of july, both thomas jefferson and john adams, who had been conducting who had been political enemies in the 1790s, hadn't spoken. and by about 1810, when jefferson, a retired from the presidency, richard rush acting of state, i think at that time a

member of the next generation suggests adams. the white house and he write jefferson and they can be friends again and they carry on this correspondence from braintree, massachusetts, in charlottesville, virginia. they so they they continue on if they vary jefferson isolate himself from from the world pretty much up on top of his little mountain, which is what monticello means in an italian. they madison stays more involved in public affairs. and as a matter of fact is writing. in 1832 as an old man writing against the nullification doctrine that john c calhoun was advancing, that the states south carolina can nullify federal legislation and madison is explaining that neither he in the kentucky in the in the in

the virginia resolute actions nor jefferson in the more radical of kentucky resolution of 1798 were actually early advocating nullification by states of federal laws. even though those resolutions could be read as doing so. so he's he says miss mr. jefferson, like all men of genius, went a little too far in his enthusiasm for new ideas and so he's he's participating in national debate at age. what would it be age age 81 going on and so forth the last founder that i have in the book here, the founding of albert gallatin, secretary of the treasury, 1801 to 13, who drew up a whole plan of transportation, canals and turnpikes and everything short

of railroads. in 1807, which is actually a come to pass eventually he brings us together. he's got a map of the country with, you know, something like the pennsylvania turnpike and the new york three way and the erie canal all all draw on the inner coastal waterway. he lives until 1849 comes out against the mexico and war in the acquisition of texas and california so i think the the question is that really jefferson was the one that ended up most disgruntled and disappointed. i think jefferson know john adams. that's sort of predictable, it seems to me, knowing getting know him well. he he wanted everyone to take the country to take on a certain character. you know, his is ideal was sort of the yeoman who would follow through the lead of the gentleman who was the big

landowner and the property right with his own himself and the answer is that we become yeoman farmers who are also merchants and commercial operators and manufacturers all at the same time. and they don't necessarily follow the lead of anybody. and so he's a little disappointed in that respect. think in some ways i think that the country turned out more the way washington would wanted, although and hamilton. well and hamilton hamilton we become a commercial country and you know but washington you know one of the things that washington has that's fascinating we could sort of follow his mental maps. we can follow the surveyor gauging the of the new country and where particular lines of migration are going to go. but washington as in his counsels generally, is silent.

he talk a lot. he listens. he's he's famous as a young man and older to listen to his elders listened to his colleagues, listen to subordinates. and then he makes a decision and he follows through on it. and in some ways in the 19th century, we are more the country. we become more of the country, the post-civil war, america is more like what washington and hamilton wanted. it is a mixture of industry and agriculture. it is a society that has moved on and beyond and abolish slavery. it has it has become involved with the rest of the world and has a military and naval or develops it in the 20th century that they felt was necessary and so i think in some ways jefferson wins the political

battles against the federalists the allies to the revolution of 18, hard as he calls it. and there's three successive presidencies suffrage, the house of virginia, jefferson and madison. monroe. the sort of dominance that we haven't seen of a particular political group really or state sense, state since then. but the country in ways that maybe washington is he's sitting there silent in the portrait with his uncomfortable and looking a little grim to us and hard to imagine young red tinted horsemen going this finding charming the sound of bullets. but he may have gotten his way more. and with that, let's call it an afternoon. thank you very much, michael. thantonight's authors talk a prm

that is made possible in part by a from a generous gift from the massachusetts society of the cincinnati features dr. cynthia kerner discussing her new book, the tories wife, a woman and her family in revolution mary