What are your thoughts?

I think she's the most unifying figure of the late 20th, early 21st century.

Like, you just, you just said it.

Like, her, her Q- Q- QScore, her Q rating, i- uh, w- is better than anyone else's.

That's the, that measure that, that people used to use in the media that determined who was the most likable, h-how much were you liked, and she's liked on the right, and she's liked on the left.

And, uh, I think, you know, for me, uh, the, uh, Trump lowering the flags and honoring her-

How did he come to present anti-slavery petitions in Congress?

So back in this day, we didn't, uh, reach out to our politicians by going on their website and filling out a form.

To petition the government for a redress of grievances, you literally sent a petition to your congressman, and congressmen would literally read a petition from, uh, a Mr. Inskeep in my district.

But they also came in from abolitionists.

And so while Adams didn't agree with the abolitionists and their tactics, he nonetheless felt it was his job as a congressman to read their petitions and have their voices heard.

What was the response?

They wanna shut him up.

They wanna stop him, because what happens here in these years is you have the Nat Turner uprising.

Right.

And that, um, things evolve for the good.

And what this period has shown us, and I really believe this period starts in the '90s, um, that history doesn't stop.

It doesn't stop, and there have been other hinge points where everything kinda breaks down and reconstitutes.

And so, and why, John? Because history doesn't repeat, humanity doesn't change.

The human heart doesn't change.

The human condition doesn't change.

Right

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.

That they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Uh, and t- uh, so frame the moment for us.

It's frighteningly like 2016.

It's-- I mean, we-- you know, history doesn't repeat.

Maybe it rhymes.

I don't know.

Um, I think that really it's human nature doesn't change is kind of the secret to this whole thing.

But Adams, appointed to his first diplomatic post by George Washington, serves in the diplomatic corps under his father's administration.

Tell us about his emotional isolation, and tell us about his relationship with his dad and how it impacted all of this.

Tell us about that.

Yeah.

So it's funny you say that because early in his congressional career, you know, nullification, the nullification issue is is like right.

He enters Congress in 1831.

And that is right.

That nullification moment.

And in fact, he gives the July 4th oration.

Tell us a little bit about Theodore Weld.

So tell us what happens in 1820.

In 1820, he is serving as Monroe's Secretary of State and the nation is in the midst of the Missouri crisis.

Missouri is going to come into the Union.

Will it be slave or will it be free? Missouri territory.

Well, that Missouri territory had long been populated by southerners and their enslaved property.

And it seemed like a foregone conclusion, I think, for most until James Talmadge, a one-term backbench New York Congressman places these amendments, attaches these amendments to the Missouri statehood bill, and they are essentially to emancipate all enslaved people over a period of time.

In return, if Missouri comes into the Union, it ultimately will have to be a free state.

an option and

So tell us what happens in 1820.

In 1820, he is serving as Monroe's Secretary of State and the nation is in the midst of the Missouri crisis.

Missouri is going to come into the Union.

Will it be slave or will it be free? Missouri territory.

Well, that Missouri territory had long been populated by southerners and their enslaved property.

And it seemed like a foregone conclusion, I think, for most until James Talmadge, a one-term backbench New York Congressman places these amendments, attaches these amendments to the Missouri statehood bill, and they are essentially to emancipate all enslaved people over a period of time.

In return, if Missouri comes into the Union, it ultimately will have to be a free state.

an option and

So tell us what happens in 1820.

In 1820, he is serving as Monroe's Secretary of State and the nation is in the midst of the Missouri crisis.

Missouri is going to come into the Union.

Will it be slave or will it be free? Missouri territory.

Well, that Missouri territory had long been populated by southerners and their enslaved property.

And it seemed like a foregone conclusion, I think, for most until James Talmadge, a one-term backbench New York Congressman places these amendments, attaches these amendments to the Missouri statehood bill, and they are essentially to emancipate all enslaved people over a period of time.

In return, if Missouri comes into the Union, it ultimately will have to be a free state.

an option and

[laughs] And I thought I was a tough parent.

And you thought you...

Yeah, we all do, right? And so his early life, seven years old, he's an eyewitness to the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Abigail takes him by the hand.

They walk about a mile to a nearby overlook from their home at, at the time it was Braintree.

It would later be Quincy, Massachusetts, and they see the flash of the cannon.

You know, they can smell the smoke.

[laughs] Yeah.

So when did you first find a historical figure that you respected and you wanted to know more of, and what did you do about it?

Well, so this, like, I didn't re- I read a good bit, um, out of high school, but it wasn't till we started traveling in the band, you know, in 2002 and '3, '4, where, um, it, reading became a habit because you have many hoursjust of, of, of driving and of sitting.

And, um, during, this is very specific, during the war in Iraq, um, David McCullough, that was the time period when David McCullough put out that John Adams in the 1776 book.

And I think it was when he was touring, uh, doing the, the media circuit for 1776, I, I began to see him on television every ti- like every time I turned him on tele- turned on television, he was there.

And I loved the way he talked about history.

So many of us do love the way he talks about and talked about history.

And so I got his books, I started reading them, and it was, you know, this...

in your book?

So why don't you explain what the corrupt bargain was and, um, and whether you think it in fact happened.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, let me explain it first, and then we'll, we'll talk about this.

Um, Andrew Jackson wins a plurality of the electoral vote and a plurality of the popular vote.

He doesn't win a majority.

And again, you got four guys standing here for office, and based on the 12th Amendment, the top three go to an election in the hou- in the, in Congress, where...

[laughs]

Right

...

so you can, so you can handle the personal s- stuff.

Um, and that has been history for me.

So I always knew this, um, 'cause I always...

Like, one of, one of my things I say, uh, is like, history, people are like, "Well, history repeats.

Those who don't learn are doomed to repeat it," or, "History doesn't repeat, it rhymes," um, which is attributed to Twain.

I see.

You have a remarkable election with a very strange outcome.

[chuckles] New-- I think it is the oddest, most remarkable election in our history.

And there's a couple others probably in the 1870s and '80s we could talk about as well.

But 1824, Monroe is finishing up his second term as president, and his presidency's defined by this phrase, the era of good feelings.

The old two-party system was gone.

The Federalist Party was no more.

There was only the Democratic-Republicans, and that was the party of Monroe, and it became the party of John Quincy Adams.

As part of that, talk a little bit about the whole gag rule fight.

It's, it's early days of the band, and you are in the back with a giant history tome.

Okay.

So 2004, 2005 probably, we're in Iraq.

The nation, the United States is, is in, uh, fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, um, at the same time, David McCullough, the...

I think he considered himself just a writer, but we, we consider him a historian, uh, put out these books, this John Adams biography and this book about the year 1776, ri- in that same time period.

I think 1776 is when, when I really got hip to this.

Um, what are some presidential biographies that you think everyone should read?