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#1308 American Dialogue with Joseph Ellis

from 2018 by Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

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The following is a rush transcript.

David Swenson: 00:00 Good Day, Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast listeners, and welcome to this week's show. We're, we're pretty excited about it

Clay S. Jenkinson: 00:07 Because we have, um, one of my oldest friends and now your dear friend, Dr Joseph Ellis, formerly of Mount Holyoke, one of the supreme historians of the early national period in American life.

DS: 00:18 You know, I talked to him early a couple of days ago before the show, you know what he told me?

CSJ: 00:22 No

DS: 00:22 I talked to him about, uh, about Adams and you occasionally accusing me of being an Adamsite, which I think he even wondered if that word existed as a descriptor and told him about Crisler's portrait. And he said, David, you should wear that like a badge of honor.

CSJ: 00:42 He's becoming an Adamsite, Joseph Ellis. He always has been in a certain sense

DS: 00:45 No, he's an eminent historian

CSJ: 00:49 He's so interesting. He's back by popular demand. We get a ton of mail when he's on and people say, we like that scholar.

DS: 00:57 Plus he's got a new book.

CSJ: 00:58 He's got a new book. And he wrote this book because - it's kind of a summing up in a certain way. He is is toward the end of a very, very distinguished career. He probably has some more books in him, but he also, you could hear it in his voice is deeply, deeply troubled by what's happening to this country and he thinks maybe the founding fathers can help illuminate this. Maybe they can help us find a path. And I think that he wrote this out of a sense of urgency and he says in the interview today that we cannot recover as a nation without a fundamental crisis. And that again breaks my heart to think that crisis is going to be required to pull us out of the morass that we're in. That's not Jeffersonian. Jeffersonian is we wake up one morning and say, let's solve these problems.

DS: 01:47 Yeah, you know, I, I go back to this line I pulled out of his introduction, which is, "Indeed, if I read the founders right, their greatest legacy is the recognition that argument itself is the answer. Democracy is messy."

CSJ: 02:03 So there are all these dialogues. There's, there's a Jefferson-Washington dialogue about you want to be a provincial Virginia and, or do you want to be an American? There was a Jefferson-Hamilton dialogue about do you want to be a rural backwater kind of fifth rank nation, or do you want to be America the great and powerful; there's a Jefferson-Adams dialogue about can we really be a republic? If so, what safeguards do we need to put into our constitutional basis so that it can actually work. So it's not just something like a student council, um, exercise that we're engaged in and there's a Jefferson, um, dialogue with James Madison, maybe the most important of them all in a certain sense because Madison is like, I'm with you, I'm with you. I'm with you. You're right. This is beautiful but - We need to think about the real world here. Not everyone is a Jeffersonian, so he's not as - Madison's not as pessimistic as Hamilton and Adams, but he's a realist and he's saying to Jefferson, I love you man, but you know, you're kind of out there. You're kind of run drinking the Koolaid of Utopia here. And my job is to bring you down off the ledge and see how much we can save of your beautiful vision, but make it work in a real world. And so all these dialogues are essential. And here's this book in which he goes through chapter by chapter, each of these major founders and then the next chapter projects their concerns about America into our time. And he says, you know what? Jefferson said, there's going to be permanent race tension. He is right. Here's where we are. Jefferson said that equality is going to be something we need to strive for, but it'll be elusive. They were right. It is elusive. And so the book tries to look at the founders and, and measure the fracture lines in American life. And then to say, and here's how it seems to be playing out at the beginning of the 21st century. It's a brilliant book.

DS: 03:57 And it's, uh, again, American Dialogue: The Founders and Us by Joseph J Ellis. If you go to Jeffersonhour.com, you can find out more about where the book is available. It's just out. We can't thank him enough

CSJ: 04:11 And his dogs. And Lucy and Lucy and Phoebe has, what are they called? Labradoodles. Go now to the interview with Joseph Ellis here on the Thomas Jefferson Hour

DS: 04:23 Thanks for listening.

DS: 04:26 Good day citizens. And welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, your weekly conversation with or about President Thomas Jefferson. I'm your host, David Swenson. And seated across from me is the creator of the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Mr Clay Jenkinson. Good to see you, sir.

CSJ: 04:43 Good to see you, my friend. I bring you greetings from our friends at Monticello. And today I don't want to spend very long at this piece. We want to get to an interview with my favorite historian and I know yours too, Joseph J Ellis, formerly of Mount Holyoke, author of many books, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the winner of the National Book Award. And now the author of a new book just out called American Dialogue of the Founding Fathers and Us. And it's a rich and wonderful conversation. We don't want to get in its way.

DS: 05:09 Do need to hear about Monticello. I know you were just there. And uh, I would, I would like a report, sir.

CSJ: 05:16 I've been to Monticello maybe 50 times in my life. This time I was invited to come do two things. I gave a long talk, although it was moved indoors because of inclement weather. Um, and then I gave a desert talk at a meal, uh, for special patrons of, of the foundation in the entrance lobby in the entrance hall. At Monticello. And let me just say my dream through my whole adult life has been to go to dinner at Monticello, I went to dinner at Monticello and you're in the entrance hall and it's low light and you just feel like you are in a magical precinct, a kind of sacred space. And frankly, I never thought that this would happen to me because I'm a guy who dresses up and tights and, and so on and so forth. But it was great. And I, I got a chance to talk about the objects in the entrance hall. It's what in the enlightenment was known as a cabinet of curiosities and kind of private museum and Jefferson was greatly fond of displaying to all visitors the things he cared about. In my living room. As you know, in my house as a kind of a cabinet of curiosities, busts of people and paintings and microscopes and so on and so forth. Um, that's what Jefferson was doing. And after Lewis and Clark came back, he called it as Indian Hall and there is one and only one Lewis and Clark artifact at Monticello. And that is a set of elk antlers. And the rest has been dispersed and lost because there was no national museum. And so it was just,

DS: 06:49 Thanks for that Mr Jefferson

CSJ: 06:51 He was a strict constructionist and said, until we pay off the national debt. We cannot have a national museum of the United States. And so for me to go there was just such pure joy, David, and I wish you could've been there to see it because it is, you know, it is a uniquely delightful, droll, whimsical, eccentric place by an eccentric genius. Thomas Jefferson. And I want that to be the preface to what happens today because we're talking about the founding fathers and particularly Jefferson with Dr. Joseph Ellis.

DS: 07:26 Well, before we go there, may I share an email?

CSJ: 07:28 Yeah, do.

DS: 07:28 This came to us last Week from John Blake. He says, this is not a question. This past week my wife and I visited Monticello. We got lucky and the head gardener, Pat Brodowski was out in the garden.

CSJ: 07:43 Hey Pat

DS: 07:43 I mentioned your show. After some small talk she laid into me for not being a supporter

CSJ: 07:49 1776 Club member, yes.

DS: 07:51 I couldn't find the price for the 1776 clubs. So I just pledged $25 a month. From a guy finding his way back to Jefferson's view. So thank you very much John Blake. And I'm so glad to hear that he, uh, took time to meet Pat.

CSJ: 08:06 I asked Pat when I was there, how often do people come up to the garden and introduce themselves and say that they're Jefferson Hour listeners. She said all the time and I said, is it a burden because we can stop mentioning it. She said, no, she loves it and she loves to talk with them about their own gardens, talking about her, her deep abiding fascination in Jefferson, the horticulturist

DS: 08:26 John Blake, thank yoU so much and thanks for supporting this show. You can do that at JeffersonHour.com

CSJ: 08:31 But David, my point is that I want people to remember that Jefferson is a whimsical eccentric and genius and one of the great creative artists of all time as we move into a somewhat bleak assessment of Jefferson on race and our conversation with Joe Ellis.

DS: 08:47 You know, I think you have to take, you have to take the whole man when you talk about Jefferson. I think you have to take the whole man when you look at Ellis' books - this is, this is intended. I, you know, I, I really believe it's constructive. This, American Dialogue is intended to be constructed. Let's hold up the mirror, look at ourselves and, and do it, as he says in the introduction, through the founding fathers, the period of history that he knows the best.

CSJ: 09:13 I loved the book. I urge everyone to read it. He's, he's a great man and a great scholar. And his insights are tremendous. I do, however, think that he's too hard on Jefferson. Um, but that's all right.

DS: 09:26 Well that's kind of your job isn't it, to stick up for Mr. J?

CSJ: 09:29 It isn't - I'm often very hard on Jefferson

DS: 09:31 Yeah, you are

CSJ: 09:33 But I think that Jefferson, he clearly is all the things that Joe Ellis says. He's a hypocrite. He's a racist. He's an apartheidist. I think it's hard for us to imagine what it was like to be caught in this horrible trap. Jefferson said it's like having the wolf by the ears and I think he's right. That slavery and race have been this besetting fundamental issue of American life and it's not over yet. We're still - think of the the race conversations we're all having right now that have nothing to do with Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers or even slavery. These issues are so deeply woven into the fabric of American life and they cause such tension and they cause presidents to say crazy things and tweet crazy things, cause I'm a whole series of black athletes to say we're going to jeopardize our careers because we feel so strongly about structural racism in our police departments. They - the fact that the nfl thing has caused a, an actual national conversation about race. That that is long overdue and so I applaud them for that. That's the nature of protest, but my point is that this is - This is so deeply woven into the very business, the very idea of America. Jefferson is right at the center of it, but it's also a trap that you and I can't get out of that - You're more hopeful than I think Joseph Ellis is in some ways, but. But my point is this thing does not go away. This issue continues to rock American life 200 or more years after all this.

DS: 11:09 Maybe that's why I think American Dialogue is constructive at its heart because it is also bringing up the conversation that we should point out, too - it is - Yeah, he is pretty tough on Jefferson. It's the first chapter. It's on race, but that's the only part of the book

CSJ: 11:24 That broke my heart to read. I just felt heartbroken because I think he's right

DS: 11:28 But then you get into the next chapter and Adams

CSJ: 11:33 It's much more fun

DS: 11:33 But it's also very thought provoking because he. He, you know, who is more of an expert on the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams is the world's leading expert on the subject. Makes me want to revisit that whole series of programs. We should do that. Yeah. And, and then, uh, you know, we go into Madison who you and I have talked about - really we need to spend a little more time with -

CSJ: 11:54 The underrated founding father

DS: 11:54 yes. Jefferson's best friend, um, at one point and then also with Washington. So

CSJ: 11:59 And then he - Hamilton doesn't really come up in this book

DS: 12:02 He does at the end

CSJ: 12:03 he does at the end

DS: 12:05 And we are so pleased to be rejoined by our friend, professor Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer prize winning author. And Joe, you said call me Joe. So I'm going to do that and congratulate you on this latest effort of yours, American Dialogue, which I just found to be a fascinating read. So welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour again, sir

Joseph Ellis: 12:26 and you can call me Joe all the time.

DS: 12:27 Thank you.

JE: 12:29 Thank you for that - those nice comments.

CSJ: 12:32 Oh my, Joe. So I've read your book and I love the book and I hope that every one of our Jefferson Hour listeners, will get an American Dialogue, the Founding Fathers and Us published in october of 2018 by Joseph J Ellis, not only the Pulitzer prize for Founding Brothers, but also the national book award and many other prizes. So Joe, let me get right to the point you on this show on the Jefferson Hour a few weeks ago said that we used to play our race card face down and now we are beginning, especially in the era of Trump to play our race card face up, which you regard as a very dangerous trend for the United States. And when you trace this all back, if you look at the, um, Black Lives Matter movement, of the police shootings, of the nfl debacle, et cetera, when you trace it all back through the course of American history, for you, it appears to sort of center on one enormously important figure. None other than Thomas Jefferson.

DS: 13:37 Yeah, it's a good place to start too because your first chapter in American Dialogue deals with pretty much face up, if I may steal that phrase.

JE: 13:45 Yeah. I mean, I think that if you want to understand the problem of race in America, which - and slavery - and slavery is America's original sin, I don't think any historian would disagree with that. Jefferson is the most resonant and potent figure because he simultaneously wrote the magic words in American history: We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal - and he lived a life as a slave owner and is a dedicated racist.

CSJ: 14:21 So Joe, I'm quoting from your page 39 here. "A younger Jefferson had insisted that the central principles of the American revolution were inherently incompatible with slavery. The aging patriarch now argued that the spirit of '76 precluded any attempt by the federal government to end slavery. It was a sad and pathetic spectacle for he was linking his revolutionary legacy to the most reactionary segment, southern political culture, and in the end to the destruction of the republicans had helped to create." Those are strong words, my friend

JE: 14:56 indeed. Well, by destruction, I meant the civil war. I meant the confederacy - because in his old age, Jefferson became a strong advocate for states' rights and he'd always been that. Jefferson never believed that the constitution created a nation. It created a confederated union in which sovereignty resided in the states. And Jefferson defended that position, not in terms of slavery, but in terms of the principles of 76, which he knew something about, um, namely that we were freeing ourselves from British tyranny by recognizing the parliament had no authority over us and that the sovereignty resided in the individual legislatures of the 13 colonies. When you get to 1861, the south is going to say that Lincoln is George III and the south is defending the principle that the American colonists were defending when they withdrew from the British empire. But I think that, that in that sense, Jefferson's insistence that the federal government could not legislate for domestic policy and domestic policy meant that there could be no legislation for interstate commerce, canals and roads. Because that would be a stocking horse for the federal government's claim that it could rule on slavery, both in the existing slave states and in the territories and the incoming states, and he regarded that as incompatible with the values that he believed were the values of the revolution.

DS: 16:40 Gentlemen, we need you to take a short break. We'll be back in just a moment. We're speaking with professor Joseph Ellis about his new book, American Dialogue. You're listening to the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

CSJ: 16:53 Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. We're having a conversation today wIth Dr. Joseph J Ellis, the author of many extraordinary books on the founding generation, including the award winning Founding Brothers this time about his latest book published in October of 2018 American Dialogue, the Founding Fathers and Us. And we have a bunch of questions, David, to ask Joseph Ellis. Let's, let's return to the conversation. So here's the great Joseph Ellis saying it was a sad and pathetic spectacle and then you go on to say that Jefferson wanted so much for us to be a republic, a unique experimental government in which the people were actually sovereign and to an extent unprecedented in human history, govern themselves and that the greatest architect of that vision in the second half of his life and particularly in the last two decades actually gave his mighty energies to the self destruction of that very concept because he was so paralyzed by his racism and by his complicity in slavery. That is such a powerful argument,

JE: 18:06 Jefferson envisioned the civil war in his mind as a possibility. But he believed that it was the north that was causing it potentially to occur by insisting on slavery as an, as an institution that had to be removed. And, um, and Jefferson said, this is the thrust of the chapter, I guess, that 'I too expected slavery to end. And I believe it is incompatible with the values of the American revolution. However, it has to happen a certain way for it to work. And one of the ways that it has to happen is each state needs to decide this on its own, but secondly, we need to have a plan to remove all the freed slaves from the continent of north America or from the United States before we implement any kind of emancipation plan.'

CSJ: 19:02 You've been at this for a long time and when I first met you, we were at the American antiquarian society and then we were in Ken Burns' shop in New Hampshire. And at that time you were. I think it's, I hope I'm not mischaracterizing you, but you were less severe about Jefferson than you have since become, so can you tell us a little bit about the trajectory of your historical thinking on this subject?

JE: 19:26 Severe is probably not a wrong word. I don't like it, but I, I, I understand why you use it. Um, at the time I wrote American Sphinx, when you and I got to know each other and we co-consulted with Ken Burns on his documentary, two things have changed. One is that I've become more aware than I was then of the existence and pervasive influence of race in America. I thought we were on a path after the civil rights movement that would gradually and inevitably carious to some form of biracial justice. Ironically, the civil rights movement and the legislation of the early sixties - civil rights acts of 64 and 65 - merely said we're going to actually implement the decisions we made after the civil war in the 14th and 15th amendment. And we just waited 100 years to do it. Um, but that in that sense, I thought that Martin Luther King was right when he said that the arc of the moral universe, uh, moves towards justice. And I still think tha

lyrics

"Indeed, if I read the founders right, their greatest legacy is the recognition that argument itself is the answer."

— Joseph J. Ellis

We welcome back Professor Joseph Ellis — the eminent historian, author and friend of the Jefferson Hour — to speak about his new book, American Dialogue: The Founders and Us, which is out now.

No historian of the early national period of American life has done more than Joseph Ellis to give us a sense of what it was like then: what were the challenges, what were the opportunities, the different types of personalities that went into the mix. It was not a monolith. Ellis is maybe the most spirited prose stylist of all of the historians of that period, and he's interested in four of our national figures from that era, particularly Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and the first president of the United States, George Washington. Ellis uses the founders as a springboard to wrestle with eternal problems of American life.

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from 2018, track released October 16, 2018
jeffersonhour.com/blog/1308

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Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson

The Thomas Jefferson Hour is a weekly radio program dedicated to the search for truth in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson.

Nationally acclaimed humanities scholar and award-winning first-person interpreter of Thomas Jefferson, Clay S. Jenkinson, portrays Jefferson on the program, and he answers listener questions while in the persona of our third president.
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