nearly two decades before the official founding of the university of virginia thomas jefferson wrote to artist charles wilson peale in january 1802 i have for a considerable time been meditating a plan of a general university for the state of virginia on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for jefferson considered the university to be one of his three greatest achievements with the declaration of independence and the virginia statute for religious freedom. in his post-presidential years he was able to devote himself to fulfilling the dream of an academical village. today, we'll hear from andrew j o'shaughnessy about jefferson's aspirations for his university. his book is a twin biography of jefferson and retirement and of the university of virginia's first years in seeking to understand figures from the past the ability to read their own recorded thoughts is immensely valuable today's author andrew j. o'shaughnessy used founders online in researching. this book founders online a website hosted by the national archives through the national historical

because of that speech, virginia now has an army of armed man in virginia all greeting england. well, that may have something to do with the governor leaving town last night. but, seeing as they are not here, what do you say we go upstairs and the private chambers of the family. right this way. here we are, it's quite a few stairs up to this floor. i suppose that is a trouble with high ceilings, so many stairs. but this is the largest bed chamber in the house. it belongs to lady catherine and lady augusta, they're the oldest of the children. they are 15 and 14 years of age. i think they left in a hurry last night. you see these young ladies have the largest bed chamber because they also take their lessons here in the house. that bed over there is for their governess, mademoiselle -- . yes, a french governess! we may not like the french but we do like their style. very important that these young ladies speak french, they will be presented to the royal courts. their father has a seat in parliament. but now, the governor has taken his entire family off to his ship. there are sailin

because of that speech, virginia now has an army of armed man in virginia all greeting england. well, that may have something to do with the governor leaving town last night. but, seeing as they are not here, what do you say we go upstairs and the private chambers of the family. right night. but, seeing as they are not here, what do you say we go upstairs and the private chambers of the family. right this way. here we are, it's quite a few stairs up to this floor. i suppose that is a trouble with high ceilings, so many stairs. but this is the largest bed chamber in the house. it belongs to lady catherine and lady augusta, they're the oldest of the children. they are 15 and 14 years of age. i think they left in a hurry last night. you see these young ladies have the largest bed chamber because they also take their lessons here in the house. that bed over there is for their governess, mademoiselle--. yes, a french governess! we may not like the french but we do like their style. very important that these young ladies speak french, they will be presented to the royal courts. their

he recognized that virginia was falling behind. especially behind an education. >> i'm sure you know that at the debates over the constitution for virginia and 1830, one of the worries, one of the concerns, expanding the suffrage to win three white adult men. they would all vote for free public education. even then, we weren't necessarily willing to pay for it. they were willing to find, at least in part literary finds that set up an eighth of payments of $15,000 a year. they were willing to find this institution for a university. how does that fit within the american republic. in the famous letter, adams in 1813, he talks about an aristocracy of talent. what did he mean by that? what was he arguing with adams about? how did that fit into -- they, in many ways, had a different ideas of what an aristocracy talent meant. john adams was always much more a pessimist and felt that you would always get an aristocracy in society. they might not have titles, they may not be in the context of the monarchy, but you would get these very wealt

in addition to a campaign through virginia, you can see this old map of the interior, virginia. label this railroads to richmond. you've we've we've discussed this topic already review it in a minute. before i discuss that grant does have a couple of peripheral campaigns planned in virginia. it's not just the grants going to take the army of the potomac and he's not going to be the army of the potomac commander. he's gonna we'll get to that in a minute. but he is going to be supervising the army the potomac directly, but from a distance he's going to be supervising a couple of other other small armies and peripheral campaigns. that he hopes will pay off for him. one of those is going to be in the shenandoah valley now. we've seen the shenandoah valley before we saw jackson was out there and made a real headache. for the union in the spring of 62. well grant's going to send an army into the shenandoah valley. small army, which he hopes will keep the confederates from using the shannon to a valley to distract from his main campaign. and hopefully will distract some confederate tro

families of virginia. robert lee himself embarked on a military career entering west point in 1825. he did so marvelously well that he was commissioned upon graduation in 1829, into the elites corps of engineers, were he undertook a series of coastal engineering projects that ranged from georgia to new york city to the st. louis waterfront. he earned his most impressive military bouquets, however, serving under winfield scott in the mexican war, acting as scott's chief aide in the dramatic campaign from the coast at veracruz to mexico city in 1847. from there, robert lee served as superintendent of west point. and from 1857 to 1861, he was the lieutenant colonel of the second cavalry. and then, for a brief period, he was also colonel of the first u.s. cavalry. then, with the outbreak of the civil war, he was offered field command of the united states forces in dealing with the secessionist states. and at that moment, he turned his back on more than 30 years of service. and took command, first of the virgin

this happened in not throughout the state of virginia, but in multiple cities throughout, virginia. so the local residents were so opposed to integration after the ruling brown v board of education. they closed their schools, right? it had a deeply racist history. and so when the city voted to remove the statue of robert e lee, but they didn't do it quickly enough, right? it became a site. a great site for them to have this protest uva somehow or another manages not to integrate. it's undergraduate population until 1968. well after the civil rights movement and i will point out well after the university of alabama the university of mississippi, right you can go on and on with other schools that integrated earlier. so it's connection to civil rights is in a group of very powerful white southerners whose vision of uva in the past looks a lot like what they reconstructed with these gardens and this beautiful erased history of slavery. so it matched their mythology. yeah. one more question okay, that was me. my question is if it's similar though, but i was gonna say that i noticed that

virginia was too perfect. finding flaws about her and i was like is that just the way women were represented in history at the time like st. louis fakers? i felt to know how you made her a more complex person and erika i know virginia hall didn't want to become a public figure. she was not giving them her story. how do you turn these real women into full complex characters that they deserve to be on the page? >> stephanie do you want to go first? >> would the duran i had the advantage of a little bit of biographical -- her daughter had a biography of her and she had written a little bit of biographical information about herself while trying to document her mother's life. the fact that adrian wrote her mother's biography with a toothpick and inc. while she herself was imprisoned i think indicated an incredible level of guilt for what happened during the french revolution. .. women into full complex characters that they deserve to be on the page? >> stephanie doing to go first? >> with adrienne i had the advanta

and when virginia was different, he was obliged to follow virginia into the confederacy. one was he? hello robert e lee was born onto northern neck of virginia in 1807, he had grown up in alexandria, which was then part of the district of columbia. alexandria and northern virginia would only be retro seated in virginia in the 1830s long after left. most of his life thereafter they lived in other places. in georgia, st. louis, baltimore and new york city as an engineer. his father had been politically a federalist. though married into one of the foremost families of virginia, the cost of arlington, arlington overlooked facing the national capitol, not virginia. his in-laws allies the nation first of state loyalty "afterwards". we could not more in 18612 factors. first, harry lee for all of his revolutionary fame had been our clock husband and father and left family when robert was only six years old. the shadow harry cast over the lee name was one of robert struggles to redeem the broad street of perfectionism in his behavior. robert also yearned to briefly of his father's

lee has the team that he wants there in virginia. he well, he doesn't have stonewall jackson because he's dead. he would've liked to have had him. otherwise, but lee gets the officers he wants in virginia. he is very, good his armies good. it was totally unrealistic for grant to win within a matter of weeks, to win very cheaply and easily. another unrealistic aspect of expectations about what we are seeing here was that, somehow, not that picture -- let's look at this one. somehow with an officer like grant, people expect that he is going to call his shots. like babe ruth, the famous time he points to the center field stand and then he hits the ball there. i think ruth probably got lucky. you really have to get lucky to be able to do that. here is a plan, i'm gonna do this and this and actually, to some extent, grant did actually do that, which we will see but -- you know grant really is an opportunistic general. he will look for you to make mistakes if you are his opposing general. he will take advantage of them. he cannot necessari

virginia to jefferson is my country. so, if you think of it in those, terms you can understand the articles of confederation. it is a treaty just like the treaty of lisbon which is the basis for the eu. something has to happen. in 1776, nobody in his wildest dreams, and i mean no one, even conceived of a strong national government of the kind that we finally got ten years later. no one even imagined it, now and throw that out as a possibility, it's not anyone's consciousness. so, something awful had to happen in those ten years to change a lot of people's minds in order for them to create this federal government. it ran against all of their experience, they had the distant government and one that was trying to dictate to them. why would they create another long distance government? and all the theories of the time, -- being the most important, said republics have to be small and homogeneous in size. they can't be large. so, why? why would they create this national government? you don't want to think of the national gover

the css virginia. the purpose of this ironclad of virginia and what stephen mallory is hoping to do for i'll ironclads is to use them to target the u. s. votes that are doing block a duty. he wants to be able to fire on and disk dry the u.s. blockade ships. so he can wreak in the blockade.. they started the confederates, they started building them first, the u.s. is going to find out what the confederacy is up to. the u.s. secretary of the navy, gideon, wells is going to find out what the confederacy is up to. a former enslaved woman by the name of mary to vestry is going to steal the blueprints. she's going to steal the blueprints and then bring them to d. c.. this is dangerous. she is a former enslaved black women. she is traveling to the u.s. capital. she is never caught or captured and never arrested. and they actually believe her when she shows up with the blueprints. it is pretty remarkable story. now the u.s. navy in the u.s. military knows what the confederacy is up to. they are like, we should

in virginia. you had the right to bear arms on your own property. others others created a you know a different take on the right to bear arms, and then they were rights in this list that aren't enumerated in the us bill of rights and we'll talk about what some of them were. but george mason started his decoration of rights with a broad statement about natural rates and you can see this is all the same language that's going into the decoration of independence. right? it's that all men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent natural rights, which they cannot by any compact deprived or divest their posterity. so no constitution can take these rates away. these rights aren't from the constitution. they can't be taken away or violated by any government. whenever formed in this class immediately became the target of a lot of discussion within the virginia convention, right the old house of burgesses. and many, you know, these people were slaveholders the george mason was a slaveh

that virginia story was too big. i put her aside but virginia with another woman who was having dreams about and they haunt you. put the two of them together in virginia almost seem to say this is about me so focus. but that woman aside i started writing the first mission. i got to the end of it she's got that gestapo honor tail i realized oh my gosh this is so back story pitch she went back to occupied france why? why did she go back? that answer the question. you find pays one and off you go. >> i guess that wouldn't have any other way. when it be nice to write a tiny little book that's all outlined? life is messy and writing is messy. but when it comes together so profound it's worth all the trouble. >> discover all these things have a family member who let's you in a new discover this trove of information. >> a hidden letter. >> the generosity both of these families to both of you is something that really hit me when i read the books. i want to talk about the complexity and bravery of these women. heard something

this happened not throughout the state of virginia, but in multiple cities throughout virginia. the local residents were so opposed to integration after the ruling board of education, they closed their schools. it had a deeply racist history. when the city voted to remove the statue of robert e. lee, they did not do it quickly enough, it became a site, a great sight, for them to have this protest. uva somehow or another manages not to integrate its undergraduate population until 1968. well after the civil rights movement. i will point out, well after the university of alabama and university of mississippi. you can go on and on with other schools that integrated earlier. it is connection to civil rights is in a group of very powerful white southerners whose vision of uva in the past looks a lot like what they reconstructed with these gardens and this beautiful erased history of slavery. it matched their mythology. one more question? >> my question is similar. i was going to say you talk about nearly search about the work you had to do, records you had to uncover a lot of that los

it's part of virginia. he fought the shawnee indians out there and even returned here to his house with a few young shawnee warriors, who are living here awaiting for their peace treaty, which might get very interesting seeing as -- well, i'm not sure if you have heard the news yet. it would seem that our governor lord dunmore ran out the back door in the middle of the night last night. interesting times. you would think he would feel safe here in this house, but apparently not. normally he would attend to his business right here at the palace, a good bit in this parlor over here. you might notice there's a desk here in the parlor. that is for his secretary. although apparently he and his wife left last night as well. i think he's taken some of the servants with him as well. the professional english housekeeper, she would have never left the pantry door wide open like that. all the valuable things in that pantry. well of course the governor would be coming back. why would they leave all of these things behi

i've never seen it west virginia senator literally undo the state of west virginia is a victory supreme court and bankrupt one of the most important industries in the entire state and yet that's what were facing right now. >> hannity: why would doubling the number of irs agents is somehow a good, they consider this if it happens a win for joe biden and one for democrats. since one has hiring irs agents a win for any republican? >> there a lot of socialists. they never met spending they don't like. they never met taxes they don't like. it reminds her of that old "saturday night live" set when he's there and there's a band playing in a solution everything is more cowbell, more cowbell. that's what the democrats are want more taxes and more spending is all they know what's amazing this and he's a good guy i like joe. but to the degree that he's been there. senator from texas that would be really dumb. he just signed on the legislation bankrupting the coal industry was a huge industry in the state of west virginia it is a make any sense is what the democrats are doing this they are counting

in july, rives had a novella, "virginia of virginia," rejected by gilder. some believe it is the best of her early writing. it is the story about an ill starred relationship between eight tenant farmer's daughter, virginia, and in englishman who bought a plantation in the war-ravaged state. the people speak in dialect, and the african-americans, while warmhearted, speak in malaprop is him. common whites and the englishman show racism, yet the heroin rises above her impoverished origins to show kindness that illuminates the story. gilder seems to have rejected rives' story because he believed himself a guardian of morality. according to a literary historian, he excluded from his family magazines whatever he thought would offend the mothers of the nation or corrupt their daughters. the headstrong nature of rives' heroine, who is passionately attracted to an upper-class englishman, probably appeared unseemly to gilder. gilder was an active editor who pushed authors to remove passages that offended him. it suggests his objections to the story was to its general

virginia makes for that was. and the other was scotland and england and i think the other was wales. the point was we are just under the king and our assembly should be equivalent to parliament. that is the other places they tried to come down. one point is franklin's argument and i agree in the british parliament that didn't fly for practical reasons pre-but the argument can be okay we are each equivalent of england just as scotland. just like scotland before the union of 1707 where scotland had its own parliament but under the king or they would often say hanover was directly under the king. the king was a director of hanover and he was a ruler there. let's be like that. and as you're pointing out when they had to transfer sovereignty and they had a very difficult idea of exploiting sovereignty that's gonna be a problem on the constitution. had he split sovereignty between the states and the central government. the only thing if we own them consensually view ourselves as equivalent of scotland before 1707 or as

first, a backround about the university of virginia. founded by thomas jefferson, he referred to it as the hobby of his old age. he selected the first faculty, decided which books were needed in the library, designated the liberal arts curriculum, and designed all of the buildings. importantly, he did not construct the university, as it is often said. in fact, dozens of enslaved laborers were key to all of the work that was done, from -- the land, to digging the clay for brics, from laying the bricks, to plastering, and painting, the walls. we saw this as a project that would involve students, and on the screen, you will see some of the names of the student who were part of this journey. and then, with involving students, and is involved in the history. we've begun to change the collective memory to the institution, and in powerful ways. with the universities archives, and learning first read cursive. they learned how to transcribe documents, and tank them with very sophisticated xml tags, so we could do the kinds of complex searching,

connolly of virginia and mr. mceach be of virginia -- mr. mceachin of virginia, mr. trone of maryland, mr. cohen of tennessee and mr. huffman of california, i inform the house that these 10 members will vote yes on the motion to concur. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee seek recognition? mr. fleischmann: madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. green of tennessee, mrs. lesko, mr. palazzo, mr. lamborn, mr. garbarino, mr. jacobs, mr. lamalfa, mr. desjarlais and mr. crawford, i inform the house that all of these members will vote nay on h.r. 5376. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. waltz, mr. steube and mr. buchanan of florida, i inform the house that these members will vote no on h.r. 5376. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mrs. flores of texas, i inform the house that mrs. flores will vote no on h.r. 5376. the speaker p

planter that the virginia planter could be and take on this role of demonstrating new kinds of farming that would diversify farming it would open up new kinds of commercial opportunities. what's even more surprising is that that this commitment to english has been british husbandry increases over time and is becomes stronger and stronger after the revolutionary war after independence from from the empire washington is still deeply committed to these british models and and 1785. he announces that he wants to undertake a complete a course of husbandry as practice in the best farming counties in england, and this is not just cultivation methods or new crops. this is a very elaborate complicated system of crop rotations immigrated with livestock management and especially restoration of the soil stewardship of the soil. and it leads him to to redesign the entire agricultural landscape over thousands of acres have mount vernon and also leads him to demand that the enslaved construct a whole new infrastructure of farming including what washington thought was the largest barns in the united st

this death ethics virginia miller greatly. in fact, it affects many people across the south frankly. if it happened letter later in the war, it would be a scrimmage. we are talking handfuls of men when you compare it to bigger battles like gettysburg. it's literally the biggest thing that has happened since -- it does make a big difference. it makes an impact in the lives of here. there's a funeral procession

the css virginia. the purpose of this ironclad of virginia and what stephen mallory is hoping to do for i'll ironclads is to use them to target the u.s. votes that are doing block a duty. he wants to be able to fire on and disk dry the u.s. blockade ships. so he can wreak in the blockade. . they started the confederates, they started building them first, the u.s. is going to find out what the confederacy is up to. the u.s. secretary of the navy, gideon, wells is going to find out what the confederacy is up to. a former enslaved woman by the name of mary to vestry is going to steal the blueprints. she's going to steal the blueprints and then bring them to d.c.. this is dangerous. she is a former enslaved black women. she is traveling to the u.s. capital. she is never caught or captured and never arrested. and they actually believe her when she shows up with the blueprints. it is pretty remarkable story. now the u.s. navy in the u.s. military knows what the confederacy is up to. they are like, we should

virginia to jefferson is my country. so, if you think of it in those, terms you can understand the articles of confederation. it is a treaty just like the treaty of lisbon which is the basis for the eu. something has to happen. in 1776, nobody in his wildest dreams, and i mean no one, even conceived of a strong national government of the kind that we finally got ten years later. no one even imagined it, now and throw that out as a possibility, it's not anyone's consciousness. so, something awful had to happen in those ten years to change a lot of people's minds in order for them to create this federal government. the ran against all of their experience, they had the distant government and one that was trying to dictate to them. why would they create another long distance government? and all the theories of the time, -- being the most important, said republics have to be small and homogeneous in size. they can't be large. so, why? why would they create this national government? you don't want to think of the national gove

i know like virginia didn't want to become a public figure from rotr i read. she wasn't giving of her story. how t do you turn them into full complex characters that they deserve to be on the page? >> do you want to go first? >> i had the advantage of a little bit of biographical information. her daughter had written a biography of her and she had written a little bit of biographical information about herself while trying to document her mother's life. the fact that she wrote her mother's biography with a toothpick in a tank while she was in prison i think indicated ant incredible level of guilt fr what happened in the french revolution. you read a little bit between the lines and what if someone is not saying and why they are saying it. she's intimately courageous. this is a woman that was a damsel in distress that ended up saving her night and risked her own life again and again and again during the french revolution in ways i can't even imagine being that courageous. all of her contemporaries describe her of being without jealousy and of the sort of perfect

virginia the virginia state government the general assembly and the governor and we confederate congress which meets in the virginia state capitol. as well as of course the confederate president and in his cabinet. i immediately just soon after the war begins in the spring of 1861. the confederacy is looking to see how they can extract labor from free black men as people who were not enslaved. and in virginia in july the 1861 on the very first day of the month the general assembly passed first of several laws about their participation in the war. and it was very clear that they were looking for men of prime age between 18 and 50. to do very arduous labor in constructing earthworks and other tasks. and this comes at an interesting moment. his award is just starting high as the confederate government. it just moved to richmond, but already there was campaign of constructing earthworks the new confederate capital. and in the city council in richmond, which is the third government that's not creating enrichment during the war. just seven days after general assembly passed this new law they d

i'm so glad to be welcoming you all to virginia tech's annual civil war weekend. my name is paul quigley. i'm director of the i am so glad to be welcoming you all to virginia tech's annual civil war weekend. my name is paul quickly, i am the director of the virginia center to civil war studies. it was one of my jobs to split these nine talks into three different sections, one for each week. they seem, the sub theme i came up with for this week's man power and horse power, which sounds kind of weird but was the best way i could come up with two separate these topics out. you are going to hear three really excellent talks on a theme tonight. each speaker is going to speak for about 15 minutes. so, fairly short presentations. that is going to leave us plenty of time for questions and discussion at the end. you can type your questions into the question and answer box anytime throughout the evening. and we will respond to those later, after all three talks have taken place. so, we are looking forward to hearing your questions and feedback very much, that is the excitem

to virginia. they retained an established church. it did not get taken away until 1785. pennsylvania offered complete religious freedom. no taxes would be paid to support the church. massachusetts retained the church. we offer religious toleration and the ability to protect religion but also you could have people turn. the puritan church. this remained in massachusetts until the 1820s. the u.s. constitution says that the u.s. will not establish a religion, federal government won't, but it did not stop the states from doing it. in fact, there are bills right now in some states to reestablish churches within states. this idea it has been floating around. to establish this as a here, adams actually was open to say christian. you need to be christian to be an officeholder. the people of massachusetts wanted protestant, i proudest, in a protestant. the catholics under this constitution was a little vague. there was language that would exclude catholics. it certainly excluded the jews, and technically,