Episode V of Founding Fathers Legacy Series (James Madison) – Unpacking the Complex Truth Behind the Legacy at Montpelier - IPPH On Air

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good afternoon. All right. I'mCarla Thompson pay End, Vice President for
Program Strategy at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and it's my distinct
honor and pleasure to welcome you allhere today for the Founding Father Legacy Series
Symposium unpacking the complex truth behind thelegacy. Where do we go from here?

(00:25):
Key question? Where do we gofrom here? The Legacy Series includes
a series of symposiums and a podcast, and it's an initiative by the Institute
for Politics, Policy and History atthe University of the District of Columbia.
Through this series, Founding director formerDC Mayor Sharon Pratt. Mayor Pratt takes

(00:50):
us on an eye opening journey,engaging presidential historians who unpack the founders values
couple with the complexities of slavery.This afternoon symposium invites you to evolve the
Founder's aspirations with deeply examining the legacyof slavery in the United States and the

(01:14):
ramifications that exist today. The KelloggFoundation is keenly interested in this narrative because
we believe narrative change is important.We believe that in order for us to
have a thriving community where children thrive, which is our key constituent. We
need to have children who understand boththe past, the present, and the

(01:37):
future because children live in families andfamily lives in community. And only with
that narrative and that understanding of bothour common humanity, our shared history,
both the good and the bad,can we all move forward together. And
so we are proud to be afunder of the Founding Series because this is

(01:57):
exactly what we hope happens on aregular basis. Many of you may know
that we host the National Day ofRacial Healing the day after Martin Luther King
Day every single year. We startedat in twenty seventeen. If you haven't
had a chance, please go tothe website and look at the MSNBC series
with Joy and Chris talking about thelegacy of enslavement. We've also done a

(02:24):
series in Telemundo talking about the historyof colorization and the ways in which those
negative conversations and perceptions continue to carryforward today. We want you all to
understand that what may Or Pratt hasput forward is dynamic, and we want

(02:46):
to continue the legacy of her workand her public service. In this day's
conversation. Montpellier Are Foundation has alsogone through a historic change in shift,
and we commend you for all thehard work that it took to have your
ancestors and their legacy recognize. ButI'm not the only sponsor who feels keenly

(03:15):
about this work, and so Ialso have a distinct pleasure of introducing Jennifer
Ramato, Senior Director of Sustainability atIron Mountain Foundation. Jennifer, please come
up and welcome everyone, and Ihope you enjoy today and take this back
to your communities and tell the storyas it should have been told from the

(03:36):
beginning. Thank you, Carlo.It is an absolute pleasure to be here
today at Mount Pillier. The IronMountain Charitable Foundation is honored to serve as
the corporate foundation sponsor for the Instituteof Policy, Politics and History Symposium.
Where do we Go from here?I too, am looking forward to gaining

(03:59):
a or in depth knowledge of thecomplex legacy of our founding fathers to help
us create a better future for all. Openness and trust are an essential value
at Iron Mountain. We strive tomake a positive environmental and social impact.
We foster a culture of collaboration andinclusion. Our colleagues, authentic selves are

(04:23):
welcomed accepted. It is at ourcore to fuel innovation through diverse ideas,
backgrounds, and perspectives. We believein the power of information as the fuel
for that innovation, and we hopethat the knowledge gained from today's discussion will
make us all better as individuals,as community members, and as a country.

(04:48):
We're proud to be part of thiseffort to ensure a more complete narrative
is brought forward. And now,speaking of innovative, it's my distinct pleasure
to introduce the native leader of theMountpelier Foundation Board of Directors, Chairman James
French. James Jennifer, thank youfor your kind introduction from Iron Mountain,

(05:14):
and thank you Carlo for your openingremarks from the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation. It's indeed an honor tohost everyone here today at Montpelier. At
the Montpelier Foundation, we value ourpartnership with IPPH founding director Sharon Pratt,
and we know that today's forum willinspire us all to new heights. So

(05:38):
thank you, Matt. Mountpelier isa memorial to the Madisons in the enslaved
community, a museum of American historyand a center for constitutional education that engages
the public with the enduring legacy ofJames Madison's most powerful idea, government by

(05:59):
the people. Yet one of theworld's greatest paradoxes is the irony that the
eloquent concepts and carefully constructed principles ofliberty and freedom came to light on the
second floor of the Montpelier Home,right nearby a space built by those enslaved
in a home in existence because ofslavery. On his deathbed, Madison was

(06:24):
concerned about two main crises that Americawas facing. One was the struggle to
stay united as a single country,and the other was wrestling with the conflict
of slavery that he saw as animpending storm. Giving the professed founding principles

(06:45):
of America in current times, theMontpelier Descendants Committee was formed to ensure that
a complete history be told at Montpelier, one that is inclusive of African Americans
and their impact in the founding ofthe country. During Madison's time, there
were twenty eight enslaved people for everyfree person who lived here. As such,

(07:06):
the influence of the enslaved was thissubstantial. In fact, this was
an African American community. Today,unique efforts have been undertaken to operate Montpelier
under the type of democracy James Madisonhimself proposed for America. This Madisonian model
of structural parity now enables descendants ofthose enslaved, through their representatives at Montpelier,

(07:32):
to have equal power sharing. Montpelier, the estate of James Madison,
fourth President and the father of theConstitution, where the Constitution was conceived,
created an equitable structure of power sharingwith representatives of the descendants of the plantations
enslaved people. This unprecedented board restructuringof the Foundation and Descendants Committee is a

(07:59):
model for history excites and museums everywhere. It's important to remember that more than
three hundred American men, women,and children were enslaved here at Montpelier for
over one hundred and forty years.They played vital roles throughout the founding era
of our country. The true historyof Montpelier and our nation cannot be known

(08:20):
without including the fundamental contributions, stories, and perspectives of all of these people
and all people enslaved in America.Writing in eighteen forty nine, Henry David
Thorreau, the philosopher and abolitionists,said in an essay entitled civil disobedience.

(08:41):
I cannot for an instant recognize asmy government that which is the slaves government.
Also impelled by his opposition to slavery, he questioned whether citizens should submit
to any government that pursues policies theybelieved to be immoral. Thoroau believed in
the moral autonomy of the people andasked whether governments should be in the business

(09:03):
of deciding questions of right and wrongin the first place, comparing democracies to
unprincipled machines tethered to majority rule.In the essay, he professed that governments
would more often than not decide onthe basis of expediency rather than conscience,

(09:24):
with the a question of legal slaverybeing exhibit a. There is but little
virtue in the action of masses ofman, he wrote. Thoraux argued for
the cultivation of moral courage at leastas much as for the respect for legal
principles. This was a powerful pleathat influenced many, including Mahatma Gani and

(09:46):
Martin Luther King. It is truethat madison seventeen eighty nine Constitution was a
finely crafted mechanism for self government,propelled by checks and balances. But is
also true that it was grounded ina moral purpose. After all, one
of the foremost objectives was to securethe blessings of liberty for we the people.

(10:11):
But here we sit today, confrontedby the central paradox of Madison's time
and ours. What influence did thecenturies long practice of slavery have upon a
conscience of liberty? The practice ofparody at Montpelier, home to Madison and

(10:31):
generations of enslaved people that he dependedon, compels us to center the vital
questions of conscience upon which liberty rests. These questions were as important and relevant
to Madison and Thoroaux as they areto all Americans today. As a cultural
institution and as a museum, ourcharge is to provide a public service to

(10:54):
increase knowledge about our complex past,memorializing its pain and its promise. Us
the light as well as the darkness. We believe that a broader, unblinkingly
honest telling of our origin story invitesmore Americans to engage with their history and
see themselves reflected in it. Asa truly unique, global historic site,

(11:18):
we will strive to make Montpelier aforce for building a more resilient democracy through
learning, dialogue, and reconciliation.As always, our work will be guided
by Madison's Democratic Principles of seventeen eightynine, to which we will add Thorough's
challenge to us sixty years later tocommit to action from principles at Montpelier.

(11:41):
We believe history must be truthful inorder to have meeting. So let us
begin our IPH Symposium for today.Thank you. Unlike Frighten and I bring
my purse, I'm like James Brown, I just get it on the good

(12:07):
foot. Well, you want towelcome everyone. Thank you so much for
being a part of this important andincredible conversation beginning with this this Founding Father
series. So grateful for your participation. I'm Michael Steele. I am the
former Lieutenant Governor of the Great Stateof Maryland, former chairman of the Republican

(12:33):
National Committee, political analyst for MSNBC, but most importantly a native Washingtonian.
So my parents still live in petWork in our family home, and hopefully
they're watching. So if y'all watchhim, I'll be good. So let

(12:54):
me also welcome you on behalf ofIPPH, where I serve as the co
chair of the IPH Advisory Committee alongwith my co chair Karen Tramontano. Very
nice to see you and to haveyou here, and of course our fearless

(13:16):
leader, Mayor Pratt, she isthe founding director of the Institute of Politics
for Politics, Policy in History,housed at the University of the District of
Columbia, and of course our formeresteemed Mayor. Other panelists includes James French.

(13:41):
Thank you, sir for the opportunityto be here and to be a
part of this conversation as the FoundationBoard of Directors, and we really appreciate
the hospitality even warm Welcome. DoctorTyson Reader, Assistant Professor and assistant editor
Papers of James Madison at the Universityof Virginia. Welcome, sir, Doctor

(14:03):
Holly Colwin Schulman. Holly is aprofessor of History at the University of Virginia,
editor of the Dolly Madison Digital Edition, and co author of the Selected
Letters of Dolly Payne Madison. Welcome, And Doctor Hassan Jeffreys, Associate Professor
of History at Ohio State. Atthe Ohio State I've been told, Ohio

(14:28):
State University and Vice chair of MontpellierFoundation Board of Directors. Welcome to you
all. So before we get intothe panel discussion, I'd like to ask
the Mayor to sort of set thestage for us and to give us a
sense of the moment and why we'rehere and why this work that we're exploring,

(14:50):
in this history we're exploring is soimportant. Thanks Michael, and thank
you all for being here. I'malmost a little nervous to do anything that
Carol Faulk didn't prescribe for me todo. Carol faulf have to acknowledge as
the one who has choreographed this entireconversation and this effort, and we can't
thank Faulk Diversity enough. So justlet me give you a sense of what

(15:18):
the founding Father's Legacy series is about. Why we are so delighted to have
such distinguished individuals who can help usengage in this conversation. Now. As
you know or may not know,the Institute of Politics, Policy in History
was founded on the campus of theUniversity of the District of Columbia. We

(15:39):
have a particular all right, wehave a particular mission that is to rediscover
the history of Washington, DC.And like Michael, I was born in
DC. But a lot of thathistory is not well known, and while
exploring that sustry rediscovering it also dealwith some of the touchstone issues of today.

(16:04):
Not surprisingly, there's a confluence therein terms of touchstone issues and how
it was that we became the capitalof the country. And I have to
thank Fergus Borderwick, who's here,who is an extraordinary historian, author of
nine I think non fiction works,one of which is Washington The Making of

(16:27):
the American Capital, and he helpsthe chronicle how it was that we became
the capital, and that's what wewant to explore. There are many reasons
possibly that we were became the capital. Now, for example, George Washington
was a principal holder of the PotomacCompany. He saw this as the gateway

(16:48):
to the West. But ultimately,basically the reason that we became the capital
is that a lot of those foundingfathers did not wanted in the state of
Pennsylvania, which was leaning abolitionists,and they wanted it in the South.
And anybody who doubts that Washington,DC is the South, all they have

(17:11):
to do is listen to me talk. And so it was Madison, Jefferson
and Washington who ultimately were pivotal playersand establishing the capital here along the banks
or ultimately along the banks of thePotomac. Now, what we want to
do in this exercises look at themas men, What are the pressures,

(17:34):
what are the influences in their life? Who was the person that most influenced
their life? And we certainly knowwith James Madison he had larger than life
spouse that you know, Holly's goingto help us understand. Dolly Madison basically
set the template for first ladies inAmerica. What are the economic pressures on

(17:55):
them? Had a lot to dowith the issues that we're struggling with today.
Now, what we want to dois to really sort of explore us
history and then out of it.That's why we have all of these wonderful
people with us. Discover how thiscould make us a stronger nation. That's
really ultimately and have our children betterinform I used to say, it's really

(18:19):
we're all a family, like itare not dysfunctional. Look, but we're
a family. And the question issort of when you look at the family
photo album, you'd like to seepictures of yourself, and as it is
now, you really don't. Youknow, as a woman, the only
thing I'm gonna see is somebody's sewinga flag. There's no real history,

(18:42):
no real reflection of all of us, and you have to ask, and
then we'd time. I'm not totalk, but I'll give you a sense
of what we're trying to do.Why do we often come back to this
issue of slavery. Well, ifyou look at the hierarchy in the country,
it's tough on a lot of folks. But if you could ever do

(19:02):
with this fault line where there weresignificant swath of our population that were commodities,
not even human for a very longtime, a very long time,
you have to have a mythology tosupport it. I mean, you're good
people, so you have to comeup with a system to rationalize it.

(19:26):
That mythology soon becomes a part ofthe DNA of the country. That is
why we want to try to explorethis and come out of it with really
honoring mc madison was about and theywere all about that we the people moving
towards that more perfect union, andthat's what the founding fall of the series
is really all about. So withthat, have I done it, I'm

(19:51):
supposed to go. So with that, I think we're going to start the
conversation with people who have more thanopinions, actually have scholarship. Oh and
that Michael listened to I will Iwill do that. Thank you, mayor
thank you so much? Can shelay a foundation or what? And when

(20:18):
you look at the growth of IPPHsince it was born out of Sharon's efforts,
is an amazing testament to your tenacityand that true washingtony in spirit.
So we really and really appreciate it. So I want to start with you,
Professor Jefferies. You did a verypowerful TED talk entitled Confronting Hard History.

(20:48):
And one of the things that Ithink an appropriate way to begin this
conversation is how and why do weneed to confront that hard history? And
why is it so hard for usto confront of that history. Give us
a sense, if you will,of that fuller history of James Madison in

(21:12):
the context of that history, andwhy the ideals I guess, in some
sense of forming a Sharon, notof forming that more perfect union, are
made that much more difficult. Yeah. So I don't have a good answer,
Okay, but James Baldwin did.James Baldwin said, we are our

(21:37):
history. We are our history.In order to understand who we are as
a nation at any moment in time, who we are as a people at
any moment in time. We haveto look back at our history who we
were to make sense of who weare. Just a few steps from where
we are right now at the MadisonHome and featured in the Mere Exhibition of

(22:00):
Color, there's a film and oneof the featured people in the film is
literary performer Reggie Gibson, and hesays in that film, he says,
we as Americans hate history. JamesBaldwin, we are our history. Reggie
Gibson, We as Americans, wehate history, and he adds, but

(22:23):
we love nostalgia. We hate history, but we love nostalgia. We love
stories about the past that make usfeel comfortable in the present, even if
they're not true. The problem withthe problem that we have in confronting the
most difficult aspects of our past,enslavery being one of them, is that

(22:45):
it makes us uncomfortable in the present. Enslavers weren't denying that they were holding
people in bondage. James Madison understoodthat what he was doing was wrong.
He had friends, his boys,if you will, who would come to
dinner and be like this ain't right. He couldn't untether himself from it.

(23:07):
He didn't untether himself from it.He didn't want to untether himself from it.
When we think about what it meantto hold people in bondage on that
side of the car, this isnot something we talk about all the founders.
This wasn't a side hustle, Thiswasn't a side job something that this

(23:33):
was who they are. James Madisonis a third generation enslaver, third generation.
He is born into enslaving, holdingpeople. This was fundamentally who we
were. So if we're trying tofigure out and make sense of the role
of the institution of slavery and layinga foundation for this country, if we're
trying to make sense of how Jamesmadison political genius is mapping out a political

(24:00):
way forward for us, we cannotseparate that from the ways in which slavery
is informing every aspect of his life. To be sure, he's reading the
great volumes of political thinkers from theEnlightenment and errors before the great Greek thinkers,
if you will, to understand whatour basic freedoms that people need to
have. But he also simply hadto look out of the window and see

(24:27):
the people he was holding in bondageand denying. These very basic rights that
he was saying and putting on paperare essential to free people. That's our
history as a nation, that's encodedin our DNA, and we can't understand

(24:52):
both the triumphs and the travails withoutunderstanding that this is where we come from
again as a nation. We areour history, to be sure, but
we have to lean into those difficultaspects if we are not only to understand

(25:12):
that history, but to understand whowe are today, but of how far
we've come and how far we stillneed to go. Michael, you deal
with these kind of conversations on acontemporary basis, on a regular basis,
how do you think what we're talkingabout today really resonates with what is happening

(25:34):
or what we're talking about in thisconversation in terms of our history resonates with
what is happening today. And howmuch of America, including the leadership of
America, get that it connects thatthere is a definite time with what happened
in the past with what's happening now. There are so many ways to kind

(25:56):
of come at that question because itit is foundationally what Professor Jeffries just said,
and the way he started it thatillustrates how difficult this is. That
we hate our history, and yetBaldwin says, we are our history.

(26:22):
So we hate ourselves, and wehate ourselves for what our true history has
been, and so therefore we grownostalgic about a time that didn't exist.
I like to comment, particularly inthe circles that I tend to hang out
in politically from time to time,to the extent that they still let me

(26:48):
this nostalgia for the nineteen fifties,nineteen fifties American as I like to point
out to them, nineteen fifties wasn'tthat friendly the white folks either of d
Appalachia, he lived in Mississippi,he lived in other parts of the country.
This compartmentalized view of America, andas largely with the founders, I

(27:11):
think, did they compartmentalized it?And what enables you? In my estimation,
and certainly having traveled around the countryin particularly of the last seven or
so years, listening more and moreto the visceral hot rhetoric that people have,
says to me that that compartmentalization isrooted in the dehumanization of others.

(27:36):
I no longer see you as afellow American. I no longer see you
as a human being, and thereforewhat happens to you I'm largely indifferent to
and how this story unfolds. Iget to write that narrative in my head,
irrespective of your experience in your history. I recently had the Colohannah Jones

(28:00):
on my podcasts, the micro SteelPodcasts and Original Name Right, and I
started off the conversation with her byasking the question, how come when black
folks start telling their history, somewhite folks get real upset because it breaks

(28:21):
into that compartmentalization. It deconstructs thisimage that they have of themselves and how
they fit into the American story.You cannot exercise us from that story.
As much as James Madison would lookout on these fields and see the Negro
working, he could he could notexercise that reality from the story of America.

(28:44):
He could not exercise the whippings andthe beatings and the blood that was
shared, as well as the goodtimes and the songs and the and the
religion and the family aspects from theAmerican soil. And so I think that's
a big part the way you openthat, I think, really sort of
sets in front of us the problem, the conundrum that we have, and

(29:08):
it makes it it makes it areal challenge, which is again why we
need to have these conversations so thatwe can begin to see the humanity of
each other and in that humanity,recognize the link to history and the relationships
that we have one to the otherin order to form that more perfect union.

(29:30):
And it's a challenge, um,Professor Reader. Madison fervulently believed in
creating this sort of broad view ofand and really kind of deliberate idea around

(29:51):
this system is governing system of America. Um. What were the results of
of that in his life that broughthim to those conclusions to sort of write
the word but then sort of ignorethe reality. Yeah, you know,
I when I look at Madison,I think, and when we think about

(30:14):
the deliberative system that he created andthem and the republic and the democratic Republic,
he would have just called it arepublic in his time. But when
when you look at the system thathe created, Madison had a few things
in mind, and one of themain things that he wanted to create was
a system that worked in adverse indiversity, a system that worked with diversity,

(30:42):
and that made diversity an asset ratherthan a liability. Because Madison was
a very different type of thinker thana lot of political philosophers of his time.
Most the political wisdom of the timewas, you cannot create a republic
that is so broad, covers somany square miles, so much landmass,

(31:04):
and is so diverse as as theUnited States, as these new United States
were republics. Again, this isconventional wisdom. Republics work much better in
small groups, in homogeneous groups,So otherwise it's just going to fracture and
it's going to fall apart, andit's going to dissolve too quickly. Madison
turns that reasoning on his head.Now we have to say from the outset,

(31:29):
as we've obviously been talking. ButI think it's worth stating the obvious.
Madison obviously saw diversity in different termsthan we do now, and obviously
he enslaved individuals. And but that'snot to say that early America wasn't diverse.
They hadn't. They didn't think interms of racial diversity, or in
terms of the body politic of genderdiversity and so forth. But that doesn't

(31:55):
mean they were just a big homogeneousgroup of white men who were voting.
They were They were different in termsof religion, of region, of their
regionalism, and sometimes even languages thatthey spoke, nationalities. They were diverse
in all sorts of ways. AndMadison looked across this broad spectrum and he
said, this is actually what willmake the republic work. Is this diversity.

(32:20):
I don't want to get to Pollyannaabout this, but he did say
that it's going to be He essentiallysaid, it's going to be the United
States diversity that makes it work.Why because all of these different groups are
going to be vying for power,they'll they'll more or less follow their self
interest, but we can actually makethat self interest work for the United States,
make it a part of the system. Because nobody can get an oppressive

(32:45):
majority. That's one thing that he'sreally worried about as opposed to these you
know, small or more homogeneous republics. You can have a majority. If
if you're not in the majority inthis small homogeneous group, life is going
to be really really difficult for you. And so he said, actually,
this is going to work much betteracross this broad diverse republic. And again,

(33:08):
he thought of diversity very differently thanwe do. But I think that
we can take lessons from the waythat he originally thought about the republic and
incorporate them into our political culture today. And I think that now this didn't
end up working out the way thatMadison imagined it would. I mean Madison,

(33:30):
he would have called them factions.Today, we'd call them political parties.
You know, we don't need tospend too much time on the differ,
you know, the finite differences betweenthe two. But but he imagined
a lot of different parties who aregoing that are going to be vying for
power. And the problem is,and he didn't he didn't really realize this

(33:52):
at the time. With the structure, especially from the electoral College, the
structure that was built into the constitution. When you say that a presidential candidate,
for instance, needs fifty percent plusone of the electoral votes to be
elected, that's going to give allof these small coalitions an incentive to say,

(34:15):
well, we may not agree ona lot of things, but let's
actually conglomerate into like two big justtwo main parties and create a two party
system, each buying for that preciousfifty percent plus one. And so it
didn't turn out the way that Madisonimagined. But I don't think that we

(34:37):
need to turn our backs on whatMadison originally thought, and we can think
about today how is how does diversitycontinue to be an inherent benefit to the
republic? And there are a lotof great political philosophers today who are trying
to think of ways how do webreak out of this two party system?

(35:00):
Um. When when Madison was framingthe Constitution, he just wouldn't have thought
in terms of majority and minority parties. You know, every party would have
been a minority party. Um.And that I think can go a long
way to bringing down a lot ofthe political temperature in the nation. UM.

(35:22):
When when you don't feel like yourhalf of the country is pitted against
the other half of the country.UM. And And Madison what didn't say
that we're all going to hold handsand seeing kumbayah. I mean he said,
uh, you know, there's goingto be a lot of political acrimony,
but that's good. That's liberty working. Um And and we can make

(35:44):
that work for the system. No. I we're talking about, you know,
sort of pulling the covers off ofsome tough issues, but you have
to give them credit for the audaciousnessof their concept and that they moved to
this We the People notion. KarenRamentano does a lot of work in Europe
the saying the rest of the worldfar behind us for all of our struggles.

(36:07):
So it's much to think about.James French, it really was in
many ways the Madisonian principles that havegone a long ways to inspire the Descendants
Committee and your role and the DescendantsCommittee, and you were the founding chair
of that committee, a role withthe Mountpelier Foundation Board. So can you

(36:30):
sort of elaborate on that? Thankyou well, it's interesting dovetailing into this
conversation. I think it fits nicely. The Descendants Committee was formed in twenty
nineteen, and we were formed aroundthe principles that are contained within another document

(36:51):
that was produced at Mountpelier. Notmany people know about this. You know
about one the US Constitution. Theother one was one called the Rubric of
Best Practices for Engage Descendant Communities,and that was produced here at Mountpelier by
a group of esteem scholars over aperiod of time in twenty nineteen, and
it really set the gold standard forchanging the relationship between institutions such as this

(37:15):
and others, you know, theMonticello Vernon and many others, and the
communities of descendants of those who wereenslaved there and are responsible for their existence.
And it was a great um,a lot of thought put into that,
but it was really put together basedupon some familiar principles. And we

(37:37):
thought that since this this uh thisdocument was produced at Mountpelier, that our
new organization would be welcome as apartner, no longer as a as a
kind of a you know, callus up when you need us type of
relationship, but as a committed skinin the game partner. And at first
it was we were accepted as such, and then you know, people on

(38:00):
the board changed, leadership change andwe were actually treated very very differently and
not accepted in any way. Thatchanged how the relationship would work. So
we focused on one particular principle inthe rubric, and that principle you've heard

(38:21):
me mention it today. It's calledstructural parody. And what it is is
basically the principle of representative democracy thatthat Madison himself expounded, which is to
say that the rep for a bestpractice between these communities, the community of
descendments, and that the board ofof an organization, that there should be

(38:45):
equal representation at levels of authority.So on a board level, for example,
there should be at least equal decisionmaking power and various different types of
authority between the community and the legacyboard. And so it was ironic in

(39:06):
one sense that we're taking a veryMadisonian principle to be heard. It was
a rough negotiation, stretched over many, many months, but we really stuck
to the notion that that's what Madisonwas, That that's the diversity right that
Madison is that you were talking aboutearlier, that the community of descendants who

(39:29):
Madison lived, He lived amongst theancestors of these descendants. He knew what
they were responsible for, he knewhow much he depended upon them for literally
everything, and there's no reason thatin his vision of democracy that this community
should not be represented. So that'sthat's the that's what we pushed as in

(39:50):
terms of a principled approach to achieveparody. M as I said, it
was a it was a bumpy road. Um it was eventually acknowledged, put
into the by laws, and thenwithdrawn at the last minute, and that
started some true acrimony that ended lastmay. Um. I just want to
mention one thing about this, whichis so what right, so so so

(40:16):
what what now? What next?What does that change? What? What?
What is the potential for this typeof thing? Um? And it's
really important because there's another irony,which is that in the political system that
you you talked about just now thatyou know is fifty fifty and very hard
to get anything done. It's kindof about a deadlock, right right,

(40:37):
and it's very hard to get substantialthings done right now. Um. Well,
we look at history itself as beingfundamentally different in some sense from the
practice of politics of you know,day to day kind of gridiron politics,

(41:00):
and we think that maybe the problemof deadlock can be resolved by looking at
our origin story in a more honestlife, by acknowledging the fullness and the
completeness, completeness of history. You'rehere today, you know that this place

(41:22):
was a source of huge, immensegenerational wealth. Creation didn't happen by itself.
This was because of the blood,sweat, tears, and brains of
hundreds and hundreds of people over severalgenerations who were just as brilliant and ingenious

(41:43):
as the son of this plantation thatwe all know of. And that was
a community of exchange of ideas oflabor that was stolen in a system that
produced James Madison. It wasn't uniqueto hear. So if we can learn
about this history in all of itslight and darkness and it's pain and it's

(42:05):
promise, then perhaps we can seeeach other as that family that you were
talking about, that dysfunctional family,right, And in a family you can
recognize each other. That that's astructure through which you can recognize each other.
It's not necessarily easy history. It'svery difficult, we know that,

(42:27):
but it's our history. And sohistory has a special power that politics doesn't.
Ironically, maybe history through parity canhelp us transcend the limitations of politics.
Good. Fine, So we're pickingup with that talk about the backbone

(42:50):
of history women, and here inparticular the lady of us, the woman
who made it all um real everyday, Uh, Dolly Madison. You're
writing a book about her story andher experience. You you've studied it.

(43:15):
Share a little bit about Dolly andhow her impact on that history as well
as on this place and the WhiteHouse and everything she seemed to have touched.
We I mean, I think ofall the first ladies out maybe outside
of you know, a certainly modernary, someone like Jackie Kennedy or Michelle

(43:36):
Obama, Dolly Madison, people like, yeah, that was a cupcake right
now. You know, people peopleknow. But I mean, share a
little bit of share a little bitof her history and her story. Um
I will, But I want togo back first to something we were talking
about before, which is Dorothy Heightas the not the creator of, but

(43:59):
the long standing leader of the NationalCouncil of Negro Women. And my mother
worked with Dorothy Hight during the CivilRights movement, and one of the things
that doctor Hight always talked about withwomen as the backbone of society. And
yet and therefore she was head ofa woman's only organization and worked with women

(44:23):
around the country and especially in theSouth. And yet at the same time,
I would like to remind all ofus that black men got the vote
before white women. So when wethink about who we are as a country
and what our diversity is and soon and so forth, Dolly is both

(44:44):
both representative and singular as we allare. And I think that when Dolly,
Dolly was only the mistress of Peeyear as the wife of James Madison
here full time from eighteen seventeen toeighteen thirty six, and I think that's

(45:08):
important in terms of her I'm notpeeliar to remember, so that from eighteen
oh one when James Madison's father diesand Thomas Jefferson assumes the presidency and asks
James Madison to be his secretary ofState, and so the Madison's moved to
Washington, DC and remain there untileighteen seventeen. Now they're back and forth,

(45:32):
but nevertheless, there's nothing quite likesomebody always being on the spot and
running things. I think a coupleof other things about Dolly Madison. First
of all, to doctor Jeffrey's point, I think that in fact, James

(45:53):
Madison actually didn't really want to getcaught up in the system of slavery,
and he bought land in New Yorkand he did hope for himself to extricate
himself from what he knew was abad situation, but he didn't. Dolly

(46:16):
was part of that, because bythe time we get into the seventeen nineties,
James Madison, well, there's JamesMadison senior, but James Addison Junior's
brother. First one brother dies andthen another brother dies, and it becomes

(46:36):
increasingly imperative that he run the show. But the second thing is that he
marries in seventeen ninety four Dolly Madison, then Dolly Payne Todd, and she
had grown up in on a plantation, was the child of Quakers, had

(46:57):
her first marriage was to a Quakerabolitionist. But I truly believe she wanted
to return to a situation where shewould be taken care of by slaves,
that she that that for her contentednessand happiness, she envisioned it inside of
the system of enslavement in a waythat I think probably was not true for

(47:23):
James Madison. And one way Ithink that's actually reflected is do you all
know who Paul Jennings was. Well, if you go back and you it's
on Lawe. You read Paul Jenningsmemoir, and when he talks about Dolly
Madison and James Madison, what comesthrough very clearly to me is how much

(47:45):
he deeply respected James Madison and howprofoundly, in many ways he disliked Dolly
Madison. So we have a verydifferent kind of situation here. I want
to end this little piece here bysaying where Dolly is important in our national
history is that she is as anew nation. There are many things that

(48:08):
had to be established, not simplya constitution, not simply the acceptance of
political parties, not simply the understandingof states and the expansion of the nation.
But we need a republican culture.And who were we to be as
people? What did we understand,how we dressed, how we displayed ourselves,

(48:28):
how we ate. Now, ofcourse it's fractured. There are many
different ways in which we in whichwe all eat and go back to our
ethnic and racial roots. But nevertheless, to have a united center, that
center has to reflect something about whowe are as a people. And Dolly

(48:51):
did that. Now she did thatwithin a white environment, but not in
a way I think there was ultimatelyexclusive of people who are not white.
And what she did is she said, we're not Europe. We're not like
George Washington, who when people cameto greet George Washington for tea in the

(49:13):
afternoon, he and Martha Washington wouldbegin a dias so that you would come
and you would bow to him.This was very monarchical. Nor was he
as radical, if you will,as Thomas Jefferson, who in eighteen oh
three received the new British Minister insoiled corduroys at slippers. They had to

(49:38):
create something that would work and wouldwork at home and it would look work
abroad. And that James Madison reallyin many ways left to Dolly, so
that when Dolly, when there isthe inauguration, on the one hand,
James Madison dresses in a good marinowool suit, an American suit made from

(50:00):
wool grown in America. But Dollywore a simple velvet gown for the ball
in the afternoon and cambric for theday, and did not emulate what would
have been European. It's hard forus to go back and imagine what Europe

(50:21):
was like at the time it was. But those are Europeans who came here,
by and large, not as assettlers, but as ministers, were
aristocrats, and they would look atthe White House and see it as a
rather small place. And if youcompare the White House to Buckingham Palace,
you could see what they would havethought. And they saw America in that

(50:45):
sense as a rather rural and undignifiedplace. So one of the things that
she does if she raises the levelof dignity of the more republican sort of
a more ordinary sort. And shedoes that through dress, as I say,
she wears pearls rather than diamonds.She does that through food, She

(51:09):
does that through entertaining. She doesthat through the establishment and the furnishings of
the White House. So I thinkthat if we look at somebody who helps
to bind the nation to this isDolly as a sort of meta figure,
as opposed to Dolly as a particularindividual who we may not always think we

(51:37):
would have liked. Sort of thefollow up on that, if I could,
I guess the only way a womancould exercise power then is that she
had to be probably married to adaughter of a man with power. Abigail
Adams was clearly an abolitionist, aswas her husband, but she was also

(51:58):
probably one of the most educated,yes of the women of that time.
Twid Row, to what extent isDolly Madison typical and in the sense of
being a woman who did find thissystem advantageous? You know this, this
this this hierarch of system uh thatbasically reinforce a principle of law into the

(52:23):
daily social practices of our country.I mean, is there in two ways.
First of all, Abigail Adams wasbrilliant, well educated, and fifty
percent of the time not with herhusband. So when they are in Washington,
DC, she for four months,she can't bear it, she's really

(52:45):
there. When they're in Philadelphia,she's there half the time, not full
time. She doesn't take on theburden, if you will, or or
perhaps the joy of establishing some kindof Republican way of living as an icon

(53:06):
of the nation. But Dolly Madisonas as somebody who can we understand her
power? It was. I hada long conversation with Carol Fulp about this,
which was unbelievably wonderful. If anyof you get to have a long
conversation with Carol, you would bevery much. But we talked about Dolly

(53:29):
Madison and what was important to her, and why did she marry James Madison.
I would contend, first of all, she was married before she was
married to a Quaker lawyer named JohnTodd, who was an up and coming
successful lawyer who was in fact anabolitionist, worked for the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,
which I would compare to the NAACPLegal Defense Fund, which is to

(53:52):
say they were not radical abolitionists,but inside of the system they tried to
ameliorate it. But he died inseventeen ninety three in a yellow fever epidemic.
Her father had already failed at business, her mother had been forced to
open a boarding house, and shewanted security. The most important professional life

(54:20):
making decision a woman could make waswho she married. It was the single
most important thing she ever did.And Dolly did quite well the first time
she married, in part to redeemher family within the Quaker community. And
after that she chose an enslaver anda man who was not remembered yet either

(54:42):
President of the United States or Secretaryof State, but nevertheless an important politician.
But I would, as I say, contend that she could have stayed
in Philadelphia, as she had inheritedmoney from her husband. She was courted
by other men Philadelphia, at leastone of whom we know was an anti

(55:04):
slavery Quaker lawyer who was doing quitewell at the time. And she chose
something, and she chose to liveon a plantation. She chose to be
protected by slavery and I would argueit goes back to the period in her
life and when she's very young,like a year, until in seventeen eighty

(55:25):
three they moved to Philadelphia. Theylive in Hanover County on a plantation,
the Coleshill Plantation, of which there'snothing left, and she is taken care
of in that environment in a waythat's just uprooted her. In seventeen eighty
three when they moved to Philadelphia.Her father was never a success, and

(55:49):
his father in law took care ofhim, and then he moved to Philadelphia
and nobody took care of him,and he failed. And all of the
girls married successful men. All oftheir husbands were owned slaves. Professor Jeffreys
talking about choices that we've made,help us unpack a little bit the four

(56:14):
hundred years of choices that have beenmade around slavery, Jim Crow biases and
the impact that that's had on institutionslike education, housing, healthcare, economic
compartment, particularly given you're looking atnot just this location, but other locations

(56:38):
here in the South and elsewhere thatwere huge economic engines that the African slave
did not participate in to the samedegree that the slave holder did, even
though that wealth was being generated andcreated. Help us understand a little bit

(57:00):
and contextualize some of those choices byboth black and white individuals in sort of
creating this new landscape in America.Well, certainly before eighteen sixty five,
the greatest source of wealth in thenation was enslaved African people, enslaved African

(57:25):
Americans. I mean, that's whereAmerica's wealth was. And so when we
think about that for the first youknow, two hundred and fifty years of
this nation, you know, ofthe four million or so enslaved folk in

(57:45):
the South by that time, theyare excluded from that wealth. Obviously,
So what happens at the moment ofemancipation and you mentioned choices. I do
think it's important we often celebrate thefounders for making the radical choice to break

(58:07):
away from England, but then toooften we give them a pass. Are
not making the radical choice to breakaway from slavery? What happened to that
spirit when it came to that.But in eighteen sixty five, we have

(58:30):
this moment of emancipation, when we'retalking about wealth. Enslave African Americans receive
their freedom with nothing but the tatteredclothes on their backs. And the bonds
of love that they have between oneanother that helped them survive and endure this
holocaust of slavery. There is nocompensation. There is no reparations. Now

(58:59):
DC is a little different because there'ssome compensation, but it ain't for the
black folk. It's for the enslavers. So it's not like we don't have
a history of compensation. It's justnot for those of us who needed it
the most and deserved it the most. So the critical point is that at

(59:20):
the moment of emancipation, enslaved AfricanAmericans the freed with nothing, nothing,
and it set off into this world. What do you do? Everybody has
choices when everybody has the same setof choices, And so in America,
we know that wealth isn't just whatone is able to generate during their lifetime.
Wealth is what you are able totransfer from one generation to the next.

(59:45):
And so when we look at wealthinheritance and wealth transfer from the generations,
there's something that is particularly distinct aboutthe African American experience. They enter
into the society as equal citizens thatin quotes, without anything, but then
something amazing happens. They begin toaccumulate wealth. They begin to build,

(01:00:09):
they begin to own, to purchaseland, and we see this by the
time we had nineteen nineteen ten isthe large is the moment in American history
where African Americans own the most landthat they ever will right at the turn
of the century, which is alsothe height of the Nadia, the height

(01:00:30):
wind. You have two to threeAfrican Americans who are being publicly murdered every
year. But what happens, andthis is why the African American experience is
also fundamentally different than many immigrant experiences, is that we see repeatedly that African
Americans, despite the obstacles, areable to accumulate a modicum of wealth and

(01:00:50):
then it's taken away a series ofracial programs, whether we're talking about Rosewood
or Tulsa, oak Homa, andthis happens again and again Forsyth County,
Georgia, where African Americans are ableto come together build these institutions from nothing,
and then they're robbed of it andthen they have to start over,

(01:01:12):
not in the same place, butsomeplace else. The remarkable part of the
story is they do it again.Part of the great vigration black folks losing
their land, the wealth that theyhad accumulated then moving out of the South,
and he said, starting over,And then what happens if you moved
to a Detroit Then you hit theDetroit racial massacre led by the police in

(01:01:35):
eighteen forty three, the destruction ofland and property, wealth, accumulation lost,
African Americans having to start over.The story of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
in which that black community is literallyburned to the ground in nineteen twenty one,
that's not what destroy's Tulsa, BlackTulsa Black wall Street. African Americans

(01:01:57):
a Tulsa rebuild. It actually destroysTulsa, rips the heart of that a
community is an interstate highway. Again, we talk about wealth on a large
scale. Wealth is destroyed through displacement. We see it in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
We see it in Philadelphia, wesee it in New Orleans, Louisiana.

(01:02:22):
That racial wealth gap that is soreal does not exist because black folk
haven't worked hard, does not existbecause black folks haven't value education. Does
not exist because black folk don't understandhow to save. Nobody understands better how

(01:02:44):
to save than poor people. Theyappreciate it. I got a grandmother who
who can attest to that. Weoften default back to that as an explanation,
and we don't look at the systemsand structures that prevent people from accumulating
wealth over time. And then ifyou were to say nothing about sort of

(01:03:04):
the New Deal and the preferences formoving into suburbs and delight, if you
were able as an African American topurchase a home by the time you get
to the sixties or seventies, andwe're able to hold on to that home
for thirty or forty years, thenwhat happens in two thousand and eight.
Yeah, the largest certainly for AfricanAmericans. We know as a whole that

(01:03:30):
wealth, individual wealth is mostly concentratedin homeownership. African Americans consistently decline denied
access to homeownership. And then finallythese communities held together all in their homes,
and then you get that mortgage crisisin two thousand and eight, and
that wealth disappears, vanishes. Sofor me personally, a family coming out

(01:03:55):
of slavery in Georgia one side inGeorgia one side and have a history of
owning land, securing land. Thatland is lost, that land is taken
away, moving family members, movingup to Ohio, Great migration and then
eventually over to New York, NewJersey grandparents who worked as in dry cleaning

(01:04:17):
and as a custodian. I meanby the time for the Port Authority of
New York. It wasn't until myparents purchased a home in nineteen eighty purchase
a home in nineteen eighty that theyheld on to now that improved in increased
in value exponentially in Brooklyn, NewYork. Not during the first twenty years

(01:04:41):
they owned it, when black peoplelived there, but during the next twenty
years and white people moved in.Thank goodness for white people that and they're
still alive. But when they passon one hundred and fifty years after the
moment of emancipation, it will bethe first time in my family's history that

(01:05:03):
there will be a significant transfer ofwealth. The one hundred and fifty years
later. That's how long it took, and that's not it a unique story.
And so when we think about what'sthe playing field, how do we
level things out? We can't ignorethat history because the history explains what's possible,

(01:05:26):
and certainly in American capital society,that access to wealth and all the
things that then become possible when youhave access to wealth then become limited if
you were African American born here overthe generations point well checking, So I

(01:05:47):
have a question, doctor reader.But I do think doctor Matthew Reeves is
with us and Lindsay Trabinsky here theywere both of them are too extraordinary out
of missions who have contributed to ourfounding Father's Legacy series. So I just
wanted to acknowledge their presence. SoI'd like to ask you about foreign intervention.

(01:06:15):
And we've been sort of consumed withit as of late in the United
States with the Russian bots, especiallyin the twenty sixteen election and the life
and really concerns even since then,the ripple effect of that. But at
the time the country was founded,there had to be and I think Madison
really concerned about this because we werean emerging nation. We were so I'm

(01:06:40):
almost like a third world nation,you know, And I think that has
much to do with the Monuments clauseand so forth. Can you sort of
speak to us about his preoccupation withthis? Yeah, I'd love to.
I'm actually writing my current book aboutthis. How long do you want me
to go? Oh? This isthis is one thing that comes up for

(01:07:01):
Madison again and again when he's helpingto frame the Constitution. There there was
not a single major debate at theConstitutional Convention where when they were debating a
certain policy or clause that that Madisondid not take into account whether it would
prevent or facilitate foreign meddling in USpolitics. So so it's incredibly important to

(01:07:26):
him early early on UM. Butthis comes back to what I was discussing
earlier about the emergence of this twoparty system that Madison didn't foresee. Nevertheless,
he did help institute UM and hedoes become a partisan for the Republican
Party, not today's Republican Party whichhas formed later obviously, but you know,

(01:07:46):
but the Democratic Republican Party as it'soften called UM and and what we
see is early Americans getting get intomuch of the same cycle, trapped in
the same cycle. Unfortunately, Ithink that we're seeing a lot today,
like you said, since at leasttwenty sixteen, where you get foreign meddling

(01:08:10):
into US politics, and that foreignmeddling makes Americans distrust each other, and
so that heightens the partisanship, andthat heightened partisanship creates a greater chasm for
more foreign medaling in US politics,and so it becomes a cycle. And
as much as Madison Madison was afierce a fierce opponent of foreign meddling when

(01:08:31):
he was helping to frame the Constitution, once he started to get elected to
public office, he was as trappedin this cycle as as anybody else.
So one thing I have, aslong as we're looking at the good,
the bad, and the ugly,here, one thing that Madison ends up
doing when he's running for reelection ineighteen twelve is essentially almost point by point,

(01:08:55):
obviously different circumstances and different specifics,but almost point by point doing the
exact same thing that Donald Trump wasaccused of doing in two thousand twenty sixteen
and then was um impeached for withthe Ukraine debacle in twenty nineteen. UM
in that Madison paid foreign nationals,He misused public funds to pay foreign nationals

(01:09:18):
to obtain what he believed would bedirt on his political rivals, the Federalists
in an election year. UM.Okay. So so the question becomes,
well, how do we get fromthe first Madison to the to that last
Madison? Um, And a lotof it is this terrible cycle, and

(01:09:39):
partisan politics is part of that.And I think if we if we go
back and again to to Madison's originalvision for the way that the constitution would
work, um, drawing on thediversity of the of the nation, drawing
on a diverse array of political parties, that that is one way to at
least mitigate it. Foreign meddling willbe part of republics um and part of

(01:10:05):
democracies. But if you can diffusethe tension between rather than these two behemoth
political parties, you know, andassuming that one half of the nation distrusts
the other half of the nation evenmore than they distrust foreign powers, um,
if you have this multiplicity of politicalparties, that you can actually diffuse

(01:10:27):
some of that tension and mitigate akey part of that disastrous cycle. And
in a lot of ways, that'swhat's going to end up in the causing
the War of eighteen twelve is isthis utter distrust. And one thing that
I think is healthy for us torecognize in the democracy that we live in

(01:10:48):
today, in the time that welive in today, is to recognize that
there needs to be a balance betweenseeing democracy is fragile, something that needs
to be protected, something that isdelicate, and yet at the same time
recognizing the robustness of our institutions arepretty strong. If you go back to

(01:11:12):
January six, twenty twenty one,is as horrible a tragedy as that day
was. The duly elected president ispresident yeah today. And I think that
the problem is when you are soconvinced that your democracy is on the precipice
of demise, as many early Americanswere leading up to the War of eighteen
twelve, that you see everybody asan enemy, and you see anybody who

(01:11:34):
has a different vision for the nationsas an enemy, and somebody who must
be collaborating with actual foreign enemies.And so I think that there needs to
be a healthy balance between recognizing thedelicacy of democracy but also having confidence in
the strength of our institutions. Andif I can say one last thing about
lead up to the War of eighteentwelve that I think will be helpful for

(01:11:56):
the context of the conversation we're havinghere, one of the things is one
of the many things that cause it'sgot to be the most boring war in
US history. Nobody knows anything aboutthe War of eighteen twelve, But among
the things that do lead up toit is that Britain adhered to a concept
of perpetual allegiance that you could notrenounce once a British subject, always a

(01:12:20):
British subject, so that they thoughtthat they could board US ships and take
US sailors whom the United States hadrecognized as naturalized citizens. In contrast to
that, James Madison is going toabsolutely defend the ability of other of immigrant

(01:12:43):
immigrants to naturalize and become US citizens. So I think that there's something really
fundamental to recognize that, at leastto a degree, the United States actually
fought a war over the concept thatbeing an American is inherent with birth.
But there's something more to being anAmerican than than a natural place of birth.

(01:13:08):
It's a very good point, So, Chairman French, Um, in
light of Professor Reader's words there,and particularly sort of looking at the interpretation,
um and understanding a little bit moreof uh, you know, Madisonian
democracy, and and you know theman himself, the flawed man. Um.

(01:13:30):
What what can we learn from thework that you're doing with the mon
foundation, Um? How can webe a part of that journey and better
understanding not just this founding father,but his connection to the larger narrative of

(01:13:55):
America. Um and and how howdo we contextual lies that with the backdrop
of slavery and those things that weoften refer to as the original sin of
America? Thank you, Michael,And I would say, how can we

(01:14:15):
not only connect it to slavery,but how how can we not only connect
the up founders to slavery and tothese to this history, but also to
ourselves, to the president and thatthat I think there's some very direct connections
that day. Before I answer yourquestion, I just want to recognize too
very important descendants who have joined ushere today, Rebecca Coleman and Bruce Monroe,

(01:14:42):
both of whom have history here atMontpelier to go all the way back,
and are now the founders of theOrange County African American Historical Society.
So thank you. He was hewas in the room earlier, and I

(01:15:08):
do he's not sitting here right now. There is there's Larry right there,
Larry perfect time. I want torecognize Reverend Larry Walker, who is my
successor and much better than me atleading the Muculiar Descendants Committee, and I

(01:15:30):
thank him also for coming here today. Let me answer the question. It's
a very important question. I thinkabout two things, so um, I
think about what I've already mentioned before, which is the power of the transcendental
power of history itself, and thenI think about power itself. And those

(01:15:50):
are two really important concepts to exploreas we consider this history. We all
know that history can be weaponized,that when it's stripped of fact and it
becomes slogan, that it can beused primarily to divide people because it just
kind of it's it's a drug init. It can know little words,

(01:16:13):
phrases that really have no meaning otherthan some emotional kind of dopamine receptor reaction
can be used to short circuit criticalthought, and that's how history is misused
to divide. I would contend,though, that what we're trying to do
with parity is the opposite. Webelieve in the notion that history can unite,

(01:16:34):
even difficult history, and the waythat works is what we are trying
to do here is to show amodel by which history can be approached and
embraced in all of it's you know, good, bad, and ugly detail.

(01:16:56):
To use an expression you use before, to create a wider origin story
that current and future generations can seethemselves reflected in as opposed to a lot
of the nostalgia that you mentioned earlier, Hassan, and some of the division

(01:17:18):
that is used right now when historyis weaponized. So I look at,
you know, the demographic here thatthat visits a lot of house museums right
now is unfortunately trending older right now, and we're very interested in looking at
ways that we can reverse that tointerest younger people to come to sites like

(01:17:42):
this, because these are very veryimportant sites to understand what it means to
be American. And so we're doingsome really exciting things at Muntpelier. We
are launching a project to memorialize whatwe call who we call the America's invisible
Founders, and there are about threehundred people that we know of we've identified

(01:18:04):
graves on this very property who sitin shallow, unmarked graves, and we
intend to memorialize them with a monument, with an interpretive center, with programs
of forensic archaeology to restore the visibilityto the invisible Founders, in other words,

(01:18:26):
to discover their identities and do genealogicalresearch to connect them to us today.
To many of you sitting in thisaudience and to people who live around
the country, and we think that'svery important to do that memorialization, that
level of you know, that creationof a monument to those who truly had

(01:18:47):
a major, not a not acomplementary hand in building this country, but
a huge role in building this countryin every way that the word build can
be used. It's important to dothat here here where the Constitution was conceived.

(01:19:08):
And that's if you know, therewere people who were enslaved throughout the
land, obviously, but there's onlyone Montpelier where the Constitution was conceived.
And to be able to understand howthat history played out, that paradox of
liberty, the vision of liberty,this consciousness of liberty that we have was

(01:19:29):
given life in the context of itsopposite of slavery. And that's difficult to
hold cognitively, those two things thatwe want to turn away and favor one
over the other, but that's notwhat true history is. And if we
can deal with that cognitive dissonance,we can create a more a broader origin

(01:19:51):
story and a more resilient commitment towhat it means to be American, because
what that means to be Therefore,American means that you had to go through
a lot of pain to get towhere you are today. And here we
are here, we are one family, one nation, and we're still here.

(01:20:12):
So history, we believe, hasa very important role in doing this,
in transcending the short circuitry of politics. But then I mentioned power.
One of the things that we hopeour model will show the nation, and
people who know me say, youknow that, I say this quite often,

(01:20:33):
is that power is not a pizza. Power is not stuff you can
chop up and you divide and thenit's gone. Power is not a finite
resource. So what the descendants didwas to say, hey, the principle

(01:20:54):
of representative democracy, remember that we'dlike to sit at the table, is
your equals. Now there are twoways of looking at that. You can
say, I love this principle,I accept it, it makes sense,
It's what it means to be American. Or you could say powers of pizza.
In other words, if you wantto say, at that table,
I got less power, I'm threatened. It's less for me. I want

(01:21:16):
to be kind of the gateway ofinterpretation of history. What we are trying
to show is that when new peoplecome and sit down at a table where
decisions are being made. Those whoare at the table don't lose power.
They gain power. They gain thepower of the people who are sitting down

(01:21:41):
with them, and that power isexpressed in the more resilient, more complete
story that we tell the nation.So no one lost power. Everyone gain
power. And so it's really importantthat we see power as an infinite resource

(01:22:02):
in almost any domain. So whatis it that we can do for the
we can do for this Uh,what do we hope to do by this
journey for the country is it's reallythe show that we have. We're tough
people, right Americans. We canhandle difficult truths and we can become all

(01:22:26):
the better for it, and thatif we recognize and accept each other as
equals, we will be more powerfulfor it. So that's what we want
to do. That's what that's whatwe're trying to show. No, it
said, we applaud you for it, and what I do want to have
now as well, because we've gotsome very enlightened people on the panel,
but we've got some extraordinarily enlightened peoplein the audience. So Michael is going

(01:22:49):
to you know, in those ofyou who have questions. We've got folks
phoned the Smithsonian, the Ladies Association, Amountain Vernon, the National Parks Service.
I mean, we've really got someexceptional people here and so we'd like
to to get your questions and yourcomments. We're trying to have a conversation,

(01:23:10):
not just wouldn't say it soliloquations.Now, before we do that,
I want to thank the panel beforefor coming and sharing your thoughts and your
experiences. Very very much, verymuch appreciate that there are microphones on either
side of the room. So ifyou have a question of our panel,

(01:23:35):
m please go to one of themics. Uh, tell us who you
are, where you're from, andyour question and keep in mind what a
question is not what it isn't.That would be very very helpful. So

(01:23:56):
we can move off. So again, Mike's there, Mike there, if
you have any questions of the panel, Good afternoon and everyone. I'm a
jolim in quantity of mine is notso much a question but a comment.
Listening to what mister French was saying, this is beginning to work in places

(01:24:20):
beyond the confines of Mount Pelion.I'm here representing Mount Vernon because we have
a parallel organization, the League ofthe Descendants of the Enslaved in Mount Vernon,
and our mission is very parallel,very similar, and very influenced.

(01:24:41):
I was blessed to be one ofthe representatives here when we had the conference
on the Rubery that created the Ruberygo studying the institution of slavery and how
to teach about the institution of slavery. And you may not know, but
it's spread to certain places, universitywide, upper levels education, and we're
beginning to see some progress, someadmission where the issue of slavery is difficult

(01:25:05):
as it is to face some ofthe tenets of what was endured and how
we've come through and how we arestill surviving and will prosper and still we
rise. As Maya Angelus said,is very much becoming a part of small
but it's growing. And I justwant to say that this panel here is

(01:25:27):
but another colonel on that corn cubto really help us move this thing forward.
I just want to thank you.That's right, Thank you very much.
Guy. So I'm Denny Wiley,I'm I live in Boston. Among
my many attributes, I'm sharing hissister. But these issues are justice and

(01:26:00):
businesses they are and every other aspectof our society. And I guess my
question is, as a bunch asI believe and we believe in what you're
saying, and how important it isfor us to have these kind of conversations,
how important it is for everyone blackand white people to understand our history,

(01:26:24):
for everyone black and white people tosee how it plays out in our
day to day. How do wecreate these conversations in these other rooms.
How do we create these conversations inboardrooms? How do we create these conversations
in a way that we can getpeople that think very differently from those sitting

(01:26:45):
in this room to engage in thiskind of understanding because there's there's no interests,
they don't well, Doctor Jeffrey's talkedabout it, that it's too hard
and so we don't want to faceit. How do we get people to
face it? I guess that iswhat I can offer, just a real
quick and Doctor Jefferies, from yourexperience you may also from see how it's

(01:27:08):
playing out along a number of economicfronts. But what you're seeing, at
least from my experience in the lastfew years, that that effort is beginning
to take hold and gain currency becauseof everyday folk in these businesses, the

(01:27:30):
employees who are stressing and pressing organizationalleadership to be more aware of the diversity
of the communities that they serve andthat they're providing their products to holding them
accountable for that. So you hearit the under the titles of diversity,

(01:27:55):
equity and inclusion programs, things likethat. A lot of that's germinated by,
you know, from a political stytemI would saying grassroots, but in
a business setting, employees that arevery much engaged in wanting to have that
conversation from the bottom up sort offorced management, the forced senior leadership forced

(01:28:16):
the c suite to pay attention tothese particular concerns and how they are getting
played out. So it's it's socialconsciousness, its social awareness, it's where
they are investing their money. It'sthe products that they're selling, a lot
of things that they're beginning to speakto because they're finding their workforce is much

(01:28:42):
more involved in those areas and arepressing. It's beginning. It's not it's
you know, some leaders are notbuying it necessarily, but you are beginning
to see more and more businesses sortof reorient their thinking in their boardrooms in
these in this area. So itdoes matter who's in the room, it

(01:29:04):
does matter who's at the table,and more importantly, it matters to a
lot of folk out there where thosedollars are being invested at, etc.
Fergus good everyone. My name isFergus Borderwek. I'm an historian. I've
written on the founding of Washington anda number of other related subjects. Thank

(01:29:28):
you, by the way, foran excellent panel and many, many,
many provocative and refreshing ideas. Iwant to give you a highly abbreviated anecdote
here and then then I'll develop thatinto a question. Some years ago,
I was invited to give a talkin Charleston, South Carolina, to an

(01:29:48):
audience happened to be about the archinsof the underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement
in Charleston. And the audience Ihad, I knew had a very large
representation of sons of Confederate veterans,who, as you probably know, are
not the most progressive group politically inthe United States. And I had some

(01:30:12):
anxiety about what kind of reaction Iwas going to get from this, and
it turned out to be one ofthe best audiences I'd ever had. I
mean, my focus was very muchin talking about how in many places African
Americans were dominant in the abolitionist movement, and so on and so on.

(01:30:35):
I found an extraordinarily receptive audience.I don't didn't change. This wasn't a
political discussion. I don't think anybody'spolitics changed. But the receptiveness to hearing
history laid out was really very Idon't want to see inspiring. It wasn't
quite that far, but at leastit was very, very reassuring about the

(01:31:01):
willingness of Americans whom we may notassume want to hear what we have to
say because it's difficult, and you'reall right, it's very difficult, especially
if you're talking about people's ancestors.Okay, it's very tough. But nonetheless,
I think we're living in an erawhen there is a great deal of

(01:31:21):
overness, often in quarters we don'teven recognize to hearing much more of the
truth of history. And so todevelop a question from this, I be
interested in hearing what any of youvery diverse panelists have to say about how

(01:31:46):
we can talk to those people forwhom this history is the most difficult who
slowly and systematically you want to winover in order to have more monpel heresh
if you like, how can wetalk to people whom we may even be
a little afraid of, may ourselvesbe somewhat hostile to and expect expect to

(01:32:14):
resist us. And you know,it's easy to say, you know,
dialogue is great and need more dialogue, But dialogue means talking in both directions,
and frankly, based on some ofmy own experience, I have to
be prepared, at least forbid tolisten to people whose views really are not
very similar to mine in order toget them to pay attention to me.

(01:32:39):
But if I can can jump inhere, and I think this dovetails nicely
with the previous question and something thatI was thinking of at the previous question.
Um, I was here at Montpellier. Um, maybe it was just
six months to a year ago.I don't remember exactly when, but I
was here at Montpellier, and Iwas giving a talk to a group of

(01:33:00):
very different demographics and I'm going toventure to guess quite different politics than what
we have present here today. Um. And but but that group came in
from a tour from the mere distinctionof color from seeing the mere distinction of
color. And I heard them reallyheaping praise on it, and you know,
talking about how it helped you knowthat that these were difficult questions that

(01:33:21):
we had to grapple with in historyand so forth, and um, that
was eye opening. And I wantto say that I think it's a testament
to what James French and everybody hereat Montpelier is accomplishing. Accomplishing, so
applaud you for that, but butit is opening doors to people who may
be the most resistant. Um.And I think going forward it may be

(01:33:48):
I hope is a historian that wecan all kind of at least end up
at least a similar place when itcomes to the history. Different groups with
different politics are going to disagree aboutsaying, okay, now what do we
do going forward? But recognizing theproblems and that the problems have deep historical
roots is vital to that conversation,and we can say, well, we

(01:34:12):
disagree about what's going to happen movingforward, but it's an important conversation to
have that I that I think that, um, you know, things like
the mere distinction of color are creatingand reaching audiences that maybe we might be
surprised. Could I add on tothat thank you that I so. Um,

(01:34:33):
First I wanted to say something aboutthe previous question about business and corporate
boards and things. I also comefrom the world of business, and I
look at what we are doing hereas being really related to corporate governance issues,
and they're not. It's not it'snot confined to museums, right,

(01:34:55):
Um. These are the same questionsthat you might encounter, you know,
in a for profit boardroom, andI would I would say that once again,
there's a there's a big difference betweenallowing someone to come in and sit
at the table as an equal.So if you share power and understand that
you're gaming power and saying, well, let's make an effort for more diversity

(01:35:19):
in a particular area. So Iwhat we're trying to do is really a
little bit different from d ei efforts. That's not what We're not asking for
more representation on the front line,this, that, and the other.
We're just saying, hey, let'ssit down as equals and we can then

(01:35:39):
make decisions together. But the firstthing is to sit down as equals and
and kind of the details can behandled and I think that happens that very
same process is can be can bedone in the corporate world. I've seen
it done. I've been involved inthose efforts myself. But I want to

(01:36:00):
get back to this, to thisum other question. So, UM,
we are approaching We approach difficult conversationsin a way that UM in a kind
of a unique way. UM.And I saw doctor Reeves just entered the

(01:36:21):
room. Matt Reeves or a headof archaeology. I want him. Everybody
should meet him. And Matt taughtme something very fundamental about how about humans.
UM. He taught me that ifyou take someone out into a field

(01:36:41):
and you give him a shovel andyou dig together, and you come upon
an artifact, which you will ifanyone here take a shovel, dig anywhere,
I don't care where it is heremetaphorically allegen, yeah, thank you,

(01:37:01):
thank you for that. Got youmaking a metaphoric point. If you
were to be so silly as todo that without talking to Matt Rebecca,
you would no doubt come across anartifact, right okay, and you would
pick it up and you would say, that's real. And I can't deny

(01:37:26):
the fact that that thing that Idug up is old and real and it's
in my hand. And that's calledground truthing. That's what archaeologists called ground
truthing. And the process that wetry to adopt in approaching difficult conversations is
how can we help people who comeperhaps with a filter or a very strong

(01:37:49):
point of view or an ideology thatcontributes to resistance. How can we help
them overcome that themselves through whatever empiricalprocess they have inside them to acknowledge what's
sitting in their hand. And thatprocess really is all that is is.

(01:38:10):
It's called learning. So if youcan engage people in the learning process,
as soon as that begins, defensesgo down. And there's one other aspect
to it. It's empathy. There'sno one that we would want to come
to Montpelier and learn something different thanwhat they've been told and feel bad about

(01:38:33):
it. We want to welcome peoplewhere they are, to meet them empathetically,
humanely, and accompany them on thatjourney. And I think that if
you combine those two things, groundtruthing and empathy, you can do something
that you can't do in the politicalrealm. Right. You can help people

(01:38:57):
grow and discover on our own intheir own terms. So that's that's that's
kind of how we um hope thatwe can contribute to those those difficult conversations.
All right, Yes, just tothink so that one is how do
we how do we encourage people tolisten? Means that people listening won't be

(01:39:25):
threatened by what they hear. Andthe more inequitous are our system is,
our economy is, our population is, then the more afraid people are.
I have no idea how at themoment to translate that into a policy where

(01:39:45):
they're are as you know, congressmenwho are interested in doing away with the
income tax. But but nevertheless,I truly believe that how that there is
a problem at how you create anenvironment in which it does not people don't
shy away from things or turn theirback on things because they're threatened by them.

(01:40:11):
The second thing I think that Iposed all of you as a question
is that we live in a momentin which the study of history is becoming
increasingly unpopular and undone. In ourschools and in our universities. People aren't
majoring in them. History departments arecontracting. I can't I don't have the

(01:40:41):
wisdom to tell you why. Butit is empirically so and not just in
the United States. And so whatis it that, What is it that
makes that? Why is that?Why are we as a society withdrawing from

(01:41:02):
history? Part obviously is that academicsdon't make a lot of money and people
who go into technology do, sothat's part of it. But there's something
I think that's more fundamental and Ithink probably does relate to the fear of
failure, and that is, ifyou go to college and you open your

(01:41:27):
mind and you major in things,you won't find a job and you won't
succeed. You need to major insomething practical. Even in high school,
you have to think about something that'spractical because it's only the practical that will
save you as an individual. AndSo, how do we as a nation

(01:41:48):
create the environment, create the economicreality where we don't have not only the
hatreds that we have each other,but the fears that seep into so many
different segments of our population. Yeah, right, well do we do we

(01:42:11):
have anymore? Yeah? I wantto say thank you a million times.
I'm a public school educator from preK to adult education, and every time
I enter into these kinds of forums, I'm talking to my generation. Everything
I learned in elementary school I carry. My children are the voice that makes

(01:42:33):
us change. You get us together, and we get our children involved.
We used My question is when didwe decide, and I'm a public school
educator, when do we decide thatthe public schools of America were so dysfunctional
that all of our children had toattend different kinds of public education. We

(01:42:57):
had one education system. All ofthe new cultures that came in went through
that crucible. And having traveled allover the USA and in Russia, and
when I was in Russia when theywere deciding to copy our educational system,
and the chairman of the board ofthe Board of Education told us, we're
just doing what you all are doing. We're setting up church schools. We're

(01:43:21):
setting up schools for the very wealthy. But the public schools where most of
their citizens, most of their childrengo to school, were being left.
They have a lot of elite schoolsin Russia. We have a lot of
elite schools in the USA. Butpublic education was the essential factor for all
of the ethnic groups that have cometo this country except us. And I

(01:43:45):
say us because I'm a product ofboth the American system and the American suppression
system. But what I got inthe middle was the quality education that changed
the life of my whole family fromgeneration to generation. But it was public
education. And to the family here. I don't know which one of my

(01:44:06):
cousins may be from around here,but thank you, thank you all.
But understand public education. And I'mat a public education university who is very
proud and honored to participate in thisforum with our mayor and with our community
and with our homeboys. But again, we appreciate you and thank you.

(01:44:29):
But again, public education is thekey. Thank you. Thank you DoD
for shelfing. So so with that, I want to thank all of you
for your questions and participations. Thankthe panel again, and I'll leave the
best and last word to our mayor. Well, thank you, Michael.

(01:44:51):
I'm all for all of our panel. You were terrific, our wonderful audience,
you've been magnificent. Some really theseare tough robing questions and we recognize
it. So it's a it's abit of an exercise to try to get
to that more perfect union that we'reall trying to achieve. But we do

(01:45:11):
hope that the truth of history isa great vehicle together us there. Normally
you get when you get all thedata, you can get better outcomes.
That's what they say in almost allthe sciences, and I studied political science
in sort of a stretch to callit science. But but at the end
of the day, you can't geta good outcome unless you have all the

(01:45:34):
data, and we need all thedata. That's what we're hoping to promote
of all of everyone's contribution to theAmerican family, and that's what this dialogue
is about it. So thank allof you for today Montpellier, Kellogg,
Iron Mountain and our wonderful audience.Thank you all say you want to come

(01:46:00):
on behalf of the Montpelier Foundation.I want to thank our panelists, Thank
you Mayre, thank you Michael Steele, thank you everybody who came here today
and absolutely and I want to alsothank our audience. Some of you came
from very far. We appreciate it. Come back again, be a member

(01:46:20):
of Montpelier, be part of ourfamily. We'd love to have you,
so thank you. This episode wasedited by Baywolf, Rockland, Roosevelt Heine,
and Lisa Hudy of Two Squared MediaProductions. Special thanks to Isabel Dorville

(01:46:44):
for her research and production support folkDiversity, for ensuring purposeful conversations when reflecting
on our complex history, and basketstrategies for engaging our stakeholder community. Thanks
as well to joy Ford Austin,Jodine Simuda, and Amy Anthony at the

(01:47:09):
Institute of Politics, Policy and History. We are grateful to the Kellogg Foundation
for their generous support of this foundingfather's Legacy series. Be sure to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts.

All Episodes

Episode V of Founding Fathers Legacy Series (James Madison) – Unpacking the Complex Truth Behind the Legacy at Montpelier

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode V of Founding Fathers Legacy Series (James Madison) – Unpacking the Complex Truth Behind the Legacy at Montpelier