Q&A with David McCullough

David McCullough, your new book "The American Spirit," fifteen speeches since 1989 through 2016, when did you get the idea to do this?

Last summer, summer of 2016, and I just was not discouraged but distressed by the tone of the political campaign and the animosity and the nastiness of some of it.

And I thought, I've got to do something, maybe, that I - to help to bring some balance back and remind people of who we are and how we got to be where we are and what we stand for.

And I thought you've been speaking up and down the land for 40 years or more, maybe there's some of those speeches, that if we dusted them off and put them together, not as a - an anthology but speeches, where I addressed ideas or - or subjects that pertain to reminding us about who we are and what our values had down the years.

And my daughter Dorie Lawson, who has been arranging all my speaking dates all these years, wanted very much to help with it and she had whatever records we had of what I said, as many of the speeches, there was no record of what I said but we had enough that there were manuscripts of it.

I've never wanted to give a commencement speech or a speech some - celebrating some important national event or anniversary that I didn't put it on paper; I didn't want to just wing it.

I love to speak and I - I've been able to speak often my whole working life. And I - I've been able to speak without notes, and it took a while to learn how to do that but I did.

But even though I can do that, I felt in many, many instances that I must commitment my thoughts to paper and work on it. And some of these speeches I - I would work on it for a week or more to get it to where - what I really wanted to say, and particularly if I felt it was an occasion of - of importance to our country.

And there are four of those speeches in the group, and - and reading them again after many years, I thought they hold up. Now, there were some that didn't hold up and I didn't include those.

There was some that were too first person singular and I didn't include those. And my dedication in the book is to my grandchildren.

19.

19 of them, yes, that's right. And so, I'm reaching out to that generation with the hope that they might draw some guidance or inspiration or motivation from what the old boy said in the days past.

My publisher - I didn't know they would react to the idea, and they were enthusiastic from the beginning and thank - thank goodness. And they've done, I think, a beautiful job of publishing it with the photographs and the archival material that they reproduced.

But we - in the meantime, are you writing another book?

I am and the subject of the book is - is touched on in one of these speeches, the speech I gave at Ohio University in Athens.

I'm writing - I got very involved in the history of Ohio when I was writing my book about the Wright brothers and really fascinating aspect of the American story when you think of who came from Ohio and how relatively vast Ohio produces so many remarkable people.

More - more of our presidents have come any other state, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and if you include the Northwest Territory, which is what much of the book is about, you have Abraham Lincoln, you have - it goes on and on.

The Northwest Territory was the subject I knew nothing about and very briefly, quickly, the Northwest Territory was ceded to us, to our country, by the British at the end of the Revolutionary War in the Treaty of Paris, 1783.

And it was a brilliant stroke of genius on the part of John Adams and others who were the diplomats on that occasion, because what they ceded to us equaled in size the entire area of the original 13 colonies.

In other words, we doubled the size of our country geographically, physically, with one stroke of the pen and there was nobody, except the natives - Native Americans, nobody living there, no settlements, no towns, nothing.

And there was sort of squatters and - and traders, fur dealers and trappers and so forth, but no - no settlement and the idea that was cooked up by this fellow Manasseh Cutler, and others from up around Boston, was to create a way of paying back to the veterans of the Revolution who never received any money for their service.

They received certificates but by the time the war was over, all of that was virtually worthless, about 10 cents of the dollar. So, this would be a way to provide the sale of land, primarily farmland would be - mainly farmland, to these veterans at about 8 cents an acre.

So - and as most people don't know, and I didn't know, there was very severe depression following the Revolution, as bad, proportionately, as was the Great Depression of the 1930s. So, every - everything was way down and it was hard as can be to get by and make a living.

And the man who put that bill through the Continental Congress, summer of 1787, the same - just before the Constitution, before we had a Constitution (so nobody) had no presidents yet, was this man Manasseh Cutler who was a minister and a doctor - physician and a lawyer and a brilliant botanist, astronomer.

He was an 18th century polymath at the ultimate peak, very much like Benjamin Franklin and he was often compared to Benjamin Franklin in that respect.

And he sold the Congress on the idea of creating this territory to comprise five states and in those five states - this is what's so exciting about it, there would be complete freedom of religion, totally free from religion, there would government support, public support for education all the way through college, hence state universities came to be, and, and there'd be no slavery.

Now, there were slaves in all 13 colonies in the summer of 1787, but they passed this ordinance, as it was called, the Northwest Ordinance, so there'd be no slaves in half of the geographic reach of our country, but it also meant, of course, Brian, that the Ohio River - Northwest meant Northwest of the Ohio River.

The Ohio River now, if you could get across it and you were a slave, you were free. So, that's where the whole advent or birth of the Underground Railroad came about. It was one of the most important decisions Congress every made.

And this one guy pulled it off and I thought to myself, "woah, who is he? Who was he?" and I got to know him and once I got into his life and what happened consequently, I thought "this is a great book, great subject."

So, that's what I'm working on, but it all began when I was invited to come to Ohio University to give the commencement speech the year they were celebrating the creation of the university in the central building in the university campus.

The oldest building is Cutler Hall, named for Manasseh Cutler. And we don't sufficiently appreciate, I don't think, how much education mattered to the founders and how much emphasis they put on education as being essential to whether the whole idea of democracy was going to work.

But Jefferson said any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never can be. Now that idea of the importance of education I think is extremely pertinent, relevant, and important today, if ever was. And I think that one of the things that we Americans don't sufficiently appreciate is -- a lot that we have a lot that we've achieved that we don't sufficiently appreciate -- but one of them is our college and university system.

Yes they've gotten very expensive, too expensive. And yes some of them have gotten too politically correct or incorrect or whatever. But we have created the greatest universities and colleges in the world. And we have more of them than any country in the world. And now the percentage of who gets to go to college it keeps rising steadily. I don't know about how it was with you, my father didn't go to college.

He graduated from high school and that was thought to be pretty darn good. And that aspect of trying to reach greater understanding through learning in order to perfect society, to improve the problems that need to be solved, and so forth, is one of the major lessons of our story as a people.

You point out in a book that the Northwest Ordinance creates basically Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Yes.

This speech was given at Ohio University in 2004.

Yes.

Why were you going to Ohio? Why did you agree to go there?

They invited me to come and give a speech of the year of their bicentennial.

So do you remember when you went through the process how did you -- how long did you take to get ready for this speech?

Well I had been spending about four years in Ohio working on the Wright brothers' book. I was not living there but going back and forth. And I got very interested in its history and met a lot of people that I thought were extremely interesting. Both people, you know, from the past and present day people.

And so when I was invited to give the commencement speech in this fascinating state whether -- it was the first university west of the Allegheny Mountains. I thought, I'd love to, so I just did the digging, did the homework, and came up -- ran into this guy Cutler. And

Manasseh

Manasseh Cutler.

Who also went to your school, Yale.

Yes, and I found out he went to Yale. And then I found out that for three years he lived on Martha's Vineyard running a store there in Edgartown and had two of his sons were born there on the vineyard not very far from our house. And that of course -- oh and to get to Ohio you have to through Pittsburgh which is my hometown so it was -- it was in the cards. It was in the stars. I had to do it.

How long is the perfect speech? In minutes?

In my judgment? Speeches in general?

Yes. In other words when your speaking to a graduation?

Oh, no more than 20 minutes.

Why?

Well because it -- you're part of a ceremony. And the ceremony has many elements and you don't want to hog more space than you should. I've never been told how long my speech could be or how short it must be or any of that. Now if I'm invited to come to a university to address a general audience then it's expected that you're talk will run about 45 minutes.

Let's look at a speech that was given back in 1989 that kicks off this book. This is only about 30 seconds and you gave this speech in the House of Representatives.

Yes. No, joint session.

Joint session?

Yes, in the House.

And how often does that happen to a historian in history?

Well, someone who is not in the congress is very rarely ever invited to address a joint session. If it is it's somebody like the President of another country or.

The Pope.

Yes, or General Lafayette. So it was a very high compliment.

Well, let's watch a little bit of it just so we get the flow.

Oh, I've never seen it.

Really?

No.

(Begin Video Clip)

The 20th century Senator that has been written about the most is Joe McCarthy. There are a dozen books about McCarthy yet there is no biography of the Senator who had the backbone to stand up to him first. Margaret J. Smith. I speak as a Republican she said on that memorable day in the Senate. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American. I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny -- fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.

(End Video Clip)

Do you remember how you went about preparing for that speech?

Oh, you know, I go about it. Hardest I've ever worked on anything I've ever delivered from a podium. And that line, just then, I just recently looked up calumny again. To make sure I know -- it means untruthful, audacious, defamation of somebody else's character.

Joe McCarthy.

Yes. And then there's a wonderful line -- let me just see. I can't quote it off hand, where Truman, who -- he was President, and had been President -- speech was given in 19 -- her speech 1954. Harry Truman later said to Senator Smith, Mrs. Smith, your declaration of conscious was one of the finest things to happen here in Washington in all my years in the Senate and in the White House.

President of the other party. But he saw what courage that took. And he knew a lot about courage -- he -- and strength of character. And he was never reluctant to praise somebody who disagreed with him or was on the other side politically if he felt that they deserved praise.

Here's a speech August 5, 1994 at Monticello.

(Begin Video Clip)

The Declaration of Independence was not a creation of the Gods, but of living men. And let us never forget extremely brave men. They were staking their lives on what they believed. Pledging as Jefferson wrote in the memorable final passage of the Declaration, our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.

(End Video Clip)

How's Jefferson doing in history?

Well he's having a little trouble and he'll have more because there's an awful lot about his time and his nature that seems inconsistent and hypocritical. But we should never ever dismiss someone whose values counted in the long run because aspects of their way of life are no longer tolerable.

Why do you think the founding fathers came up, you know, we're all created equal and they really didn't seem to mean it?

Well, some of them meant it. John Adams never owned a slave.

But the first seven Presidents besides John Adams and John Quincy Adams all had slaves.

That's right. Yes. It just doesn't gel -- it doesn't jive. The pieces of the puzzle don't fit. I think that what it was that the people who are appalled by slavery, who hated slavery, and there are lots of them. It wasn't just John Adams and Abigail and their son John Quincy, lots of the people who went out to Ohio, for example, to settle that territory -- they didn't want slavery because they didn't like slavery.

They thought it was evil. An evil. But I think that the original founders who were against slavery though we'll never pull all these colonies together -- which are really like, in many ways, as different one from another as foreign countries were -- we'll never get ahead with it if we don't tolerate this for a while. But when you think that with one stroke of the pens of the members of Congress in 1787 they eliminated slavery completely in this vast territory.

What if they had done it for the whole deal then? Or what if the government prior to the Civil War had offered to buy the slaves? It would have been a bargain price compared to the horrific cost of that war. I'm just talking financially, let alone the lives lost.

May 30, 1998. This is a speech at the University of Massachusetts at the graduation:

(Begin audio clip): From history we learn that sooner is not necessarily better. That what we don't know can indeed hurt us very often and badly. And there, and that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. We all got where we are as did everyone before us with the help of others. (End audio clip)