>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. [ Silence ] >> Good morning everyone. We're going to get started with our program today. I'm Guy Lamolinara and I'm the communication's officer for the Center for the Book which is presenting this program in conjunction with the Serial and Government Publications Division today. Just to tell you briefly about the Center for the Book where the reading promotion division of the Library of Congress and we promote books, reading, and literacy nationwide here on Washington and through our 52 States centers for the book. We even have one in the US, Virgin Islands. I also need to let you know that we're going to webcasting and recording this presentation today. So if you ask your question at the end of the program, you'll become a part of the webcast. I also ask you to turn off all your electronic devices and I need to tell to you also that there will be a Q and A at the of the program and our speaker will be glad to answer any questions that you have and following that, there will be a book signing here at this table and the books are being sold in the back of the room at a discount of 20 percent. It's now my privilege to introduce to you Teri Sierra. She is the assistance chief of the Serial and Government Publications Division and she will introduce our speaker today. [ Applause ] >> Thank you Guy, that was lovely. First, I offer my excuses for my runny nose, my cough, and the fact that I may lost my voice, but I'm going to try not to. I'm very happy to be here despite my cold and I'll try not to give it to any of you. To introduce our speaker, whom I actually just met, but I have known about him through his wife, Arlene Balkansky who works in my division and is one our top notch reference librarians. She started out as a cataloger, I might add, but we've persuaded her and brought her to our side of the world and she's embraced it. So I have known about Mark for a while and I will tell you somethings him, about his career highlights, but if you Google, then you probably have Googled his name or go into Amazon to look for his books, you probably know that by a large, his career has been as playwright or a screen playwright for actually real celebrities like Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin who he told me a little bit about today. That was fun. He himself is a celebrity, I think, because he has appeared in a number of episodes in the History Channel series that has the name of the first book, How the States Got Their Shape, and if haven't read his books, I am here to tell you, you should. I've enjoyed them tremendously. I particularly have liked the flexibility of it because each chapter has its own story. You can read the chapter when don't have a lot of time and later you can read another chapter. I now have the-- in my upstairs, I have the first one and this one, the one that we're going to hear about today hopefully, I have downstairs. So-- and I can go back and read parts that I don't remember easily, you know. Plus, his writing style is, to me, like, it's like having a conversation with a friend. It's very gentle-- I mean that as a complement. I think, when I can read something and I-- it's like to listening to a friend, it's just fun for me, so I've enjoyed it. I want to put in one more word before I-- we have Mark come up and this is about the fact that in the second book, there are two chapters, not one but two chapters about the District of Columbia of which I'm a proud resident. The first one is about how the district came about and who the players were. The second one is about Eleanor Holmes Norton, our non delegate and about the efforts of the people of the district to gain statehood. Thank you for doing that Mark because we all forget. And I was particularly interested in one quote in that particular chapter by Representative Dingell from Michigan, where he said-- and this is a democrat, they've been more favorable to the statehood in D.C. than the republicans have. But here he said, "If they don't like it, they can just pack and leave." And I was like, "No! He couldn't have said that." But anyway, that's the quote in the book. So I learned a good deal and I'm very happy to be able to introduce Mark and I know we're going to have a very good time listening to what he has to say. So please come up Mark and thank you all for coming today. It's very exciting to see a full Mumford. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Thank you Teri and also thank you to your division, Serial and Government Publications, and Guy, thank you, and the center for the book for arranging for this event and thank you Arlene, my wife who works there. I will just say in passing that anyone, there's some young people here, anyone who's thinking of engaging in a career that may involve research, I would urge to marry someone who works at the Library of Congress. [Laughter] I've-- the [inaudible] to say that you mention about Eleanor Holmes Norton, one of the things that I discovered in writing that chapter about her, which actually comes though documents available through this division, is I wondered when the debate about non-- not having voting rights for those who live in District of Columbia. When did that for common issue? Answer? When they were writing the Constitution, there was an extraordinary dispute that went on between James Madison on the one hand and George Mayson and Patrick Henry on the other. I've mentioned it in the book, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but you can-- it comes right of the page that these guys where nose to nose in this debate. I mean, it was emotion right from the get-go and has remained part of the discourse, this conflict, not-- ever since, it didn't do to sleep, ever since. This book, when I wrote this book, what got me passionate was something very different from when I wrote the first book. The first deals with why the lines of our states are located where they are. And in the course of writing it, the questions started-- kind of a thought that's kind of germinating in my head which was that, you know, nobody to my knowledge, when they were a kid, tell me if I'm wrong we've got some young people here, ever said, "When I grow up, I want to establish a state line." And so in this book, the people that I write about, it's a bit-- all had a quest in their lives, a personal quest of some kind. And somehow, that quest ended up on the map. In researching the book, I claim to discover that most of the people involved were not particularly famous people or famous people at all. And among those that were famous, I have to confess, I didn't know as to why they were famous. Stephen Douglas. What do you really do, you debated Lincoln? Daniel Webster debated the devil? I don't know. [Laughter] Is that-- maybe that just a short story I read in high school. What did the guy actually do? In one case, it wasn't even a person Lyman Cutlar neighbors pig was responsible for two British battleships and 400 American troupes faced off this close to war which ultimately didn't erupt but did alter the boundary between Canada and what is today the state of Washington. In one case, it was only a part of a person. Robert Jenkins ear was severed by a Spaniard, resulted in a war between, it triggered the war, between England and Spain. And one of the up shots of that war is the boundary we have today between Georgia and Florida. But the person I want to talk about today is Thomas Jefferson. And one reason for talking about Thomas Jefferson is how instrumental he was in the founding of the institution where we're gathered today, the Library of Congress, but also bringing Jefferson full circle, if you will, is how important the Library of Congress has been to me in writing this book. So as I move through this discussion, you'll see in some of these background images websites that I use that are available through the Library of Congress. And I consider these websites as whole institution really, as part of the legacy of Jefferson's quest because he had one too. I would, the way I would word his quest, is to create a nation where the people have the liberty to pursue happiness. It was an imperfectly pursued quest and it was a quest that encountered great obstacles, but it's a quest that over the next 200 and some years, I think the nation has come closer to. And I also think that it's a quest that you can see on the map, it's not something that jumps off the map, but it's something that with a little dusting powder, if you will which is what I hope this talk would be, I can make visible to you the imprint of Thomas Jefferson on the American map. So here is the map as it appeared at then end of the American Revolution. What I want to point about this is that at point in time, the nation extended only as far West as the Mississippi river and did yet not extend to the Gulf of Mexico. Jefferson-- oh, yeah. More importantly, these are the states that existed at the end of the revolution. As you can see, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia are much bigger than they are today. I also want to point out to you that Maine was still part of the Massachusetts and Vermont was still part of New York, but in particular with that dark area called the Northwest Territory, that was a land that the British with their American colonist, acquired in the victory of the French in the French and Indian War. After the revolution, it became part of the United States but it was not of any state. I have pulled it from a-- here, this whole piece of text is from a letter Jefferson wrote that-- from a-- to a French encyclopedist who had corresponded to him and said, loosely translated, "Wow, tell me about this new country of yours," and so Jefferson did. And one of the things that he said in the letter was, "Yeah, the confederation," meaning the articles to confederation, but the same as true, the constitution wanted when it was ratified 1787, "has no mechanism to create new states. There is no procedure in place." So Congress, I mean, at this point, we're talking about the Continental Congress, created a committee which Jefferson shared to form some procedure, protocols, for creating states and governments in the Western territory. The image in the background, I'll point it out, is from the Library of Congress's Century of Lawmaking website available through American Memory, and it has for about 100 years what today we call the Congressional Record, went by different names in different periods of time and you-- there are the words, that's why I found the thing about Patrick Henry. It got pretty exciting, these guys were longwinded then too, but every now and then [laughter] it's like, "Wow." So Jefferson was charged with this, and by the way, I'll also point out, it says, "The Western Territory." In fact, they meant not only that Northwest Territory, but all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains because for a number of reasons, Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina, they, too, even wanted to be broken up into smaller but more states. Here is the report that Jefferson came back with in 1784. What jumps off this map probably, that's it did for you probably as it did for me, is that isn't what we did. The page here is from the record of the time. It shows where the names were, Jefferson's proposing this wacky-sounding names, they are some in most cases. The other thought I had was, "Mr. Jefferson, did you put a ruler down on the map and [laughter] draw some lines and called it quits? I mean, is that what you did with this assignment?" Well in fact, no. Jefferson had reasons behind this. There were issues that faced the nation that Jefferson believed the original 13 states. Now, let's call it 15 because Vermont assumed to coming to the union and it wouldn't be long, everyday knew until Maine came into the union, that these states, east of the mountains, these original states, they were not going to solve these issues. Slavery of course was the biggest of these issues, but there were issues over economic issues over banking, whether or not they have a national bank. Issues of re-trade, whether there should be a terror, you know, terrorists should be-- Jefferson believed that if these issues were ever to be resolved, and if this nation was going to get really continue to hold together, it would be through what I'm calling in this thing, middle Americans. But what really what he'd, I think envisioned was this next generation of Americans, both chronologically and geographically, that would have the detachment to collectively find the optimum way to solve these problems. So if you count the number of states that Jefferson has proposed there, it is about equal to may be even a state or more than original-- those 15 States that would occupy the eastern part of the country. Now, a clue or footnote here on the legislature here. Under the Articles of Confederation, there was only one legislature; it was called the Continental Congress. No matter how many delegates a state sent to the Continental Congress, each state one vote. So in the days of the Continental Congress, this really is a very important number to keep track off. 1787, we have the Constitution, we now have two legislative bodies, but this remains, still, very important in the Senate where as you probably know, each has two representatives. Well, congress clearly didn't do this. They strayed from the vision of this founding father, something that we hear quite a lot about today. And so, I kind of wondered, when did they begin to stray from this vision of this founding father? And the answer, if I remember right, is about two weeks after he handed in the report. [Laughter] They started tinkering with it and they continued to tinker with it and the final shoe fell three years later when they passed what's called the North-West Ordinance in 1787. Under that, they proposed tentative boundaries for the North-West territory, and by then, those states further south were already coming in to being in a different way. So of course you look at this and again I suppose your reaction like mine is, "Well yeah. That's kind of what we have today. Wisconsin's going to get chopped down a little and that horizontal line east and west at the southern most tip of Lake Michigan, that's going to get adjusted northward in various ways for Illinois and Indiana and Ohio," but that's kind of what they did. Why? You know. It's fair to ask why Jefferson came with his idea why did congress change it, why did they come up with this idea? Well, it turns out that those Appalachian Mountains were much more inconvenient then than they would be today when we have railroads. They were no railroads at the time. Rivers were the primary avenue of commerce. And virtually, all the rivers west to the Appalachian Mountains flow to the Mississippi River down to the gulf-- directly to the gulf. And in that era, the Mississippi River was controlled on and off, but more on than off by Spain. And during this period of time, the residents of what we today call Tennessee got very impatient with congress because it wasn't getting the job done of creating a state for them. Sounds a little like things today too. So in Tennessee, they simply proclaimed themselves a state. They called it the State of Franklin and they started to negotiate with Spain for navigational rights on the Mississippi River. The text that I've pulled out here is from that same letter to the French Encyclopedist where he explains that under the Articles of Confederation, but the same by is true in the constitution; no state can negotiate a treaty with a foreign nation. And once-- the people in what is now Tennessee started doing that, suddenly the word united in the phrase "United States" was appearing incredibly fragile and congress got on the stick and they proceeded to create this new proposed boundaries and fixed boundaries. And in doing so, they engaged in the biggest Jerry Matador in American history. Think about that slide that was up there a minute ago with Jefferson and the number of votes that this area of the country had compared to the area east of the Appalachians. Well you can see here there-- the way congress did it, only nine votes compared to probably 15 votes, more or less you haven't know exactly how someone would vote. Foreign policy, which stay in the hands of the eastern part of the country, because treaties under the constitution, are negotiated by the president and ratified by the senate. And a lot of other issues, the weight would be decided much more by the eastern part of the country. When this happened in 1787, Jefferson was not here, he was in Paris. He was our ambassador to France, but he heard about it. He was not particularly happy. He wrote a letter to his friend, James Monroe, that little image up at the top of five and three quarters pages, that's the letter. He had a lot of things to say about this. I've pulled out a little bit of it to show how profoundly Jefferson thought about what a state should be, how big it should be, what happens if its too big and the people have diverge in interest, how serious is it if it's too big? Well very serious. They-- he felt would end by separating and becoming our enemies. He was really upset. This is going to comeback a little bit later on this talk. Jefferson's going to comeback right now because he returns to the United States, gets elected the president and proceeds to make the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. And what I've pulled here is from, again, correspondence from Jefferson. What's interesting to me about his, I don't if you can see, probably can't, but the date of that letter is 1803. He's immediately talking about this quest of his. He's using phrases such as giving as much satisfaction to the inhabitants as that-- of that province as it does us in acquiring it and about the necessity of congress making the best arrangements for its tranquility and security and government. This is the quest of Jefferson, but there's a new wrinkle now. In acquiring all this land, we acquired all these people who did not ask to become citizens of this country and they did not speak our language, most of them spoke French. So part of the challenge is how do we bring this people into this country and provide a place where they can, if you will, pursue happiness. Jefferson in another letter says that he envisions, and this is still way back in 1803, that the inhabited part of Louisiana and when he says inhabited and when I say inhabited, forgive me we're talking about white people as he was too, we'll go from Pointe Coupee to the sea and that this will become a territory in state. Well, when I read that as a researcher I go, "That's so cool. Where's Pointe Coupee?" And I go to google maps I see, "Oh it's a parish county," like a county in Louisiana. But I have to wonder, was it a region then, was it just maybe a point as it's name implies on the river. How do I find that out? Well, I go to the Library of Congress. This website is the geography and map division. This is a map from 1764 and there you can see it circled, Pointe Coupee. My circle actually-- I realized this morning, I'm looking at this, blocks the fact that there is no dot there. It was a region already or probably based on a point along the river, but nevertheless this tells me where Jefferson intends the boundary to be for his anticipated state of Louisiana and there it is. Well, what you see here is what we saw before. Jefferson has a state in mind that's much smaller than what we know congress is, at some point in the future, going to do. And I want to emphasize it because it not only reflects what happened, but the story with Louisiana's boundary is also a microcosm of what's going to happen down the line with so much else in the nation. Louisiana became a state in 1812 and these are the boundaries that congress assigned to it at that point in time. So it looks like-- well then once again they've gone and made a much bigger state, but by 1812 the inhabited, if you will, part of the state the-- which was still predominantly French speaking people, had migrated in large and migrated further north along the bayous and the rivers to a region or regions actually just a little bit south of the northern border of what is today the Northern Border of Louisiana. So what congress did was create a boundary that in effect assured this people, we are not going to yank the levers of power away from you. This is a state that will in effect remain in your control and they can pursue their happiness. Think of the difference today between our relations in this country with Louisiana and Canada's relations with the Province of Quebec in which the British did do certain things, but they also yanked the levers of power from the French speakers, the Province of Quebec. So we could pat ourselves on the back for that and see the wisdom of Jefferson in that. The root that continues taking us back toward Jefferson, begins with this man, Robert Lucas, and this state, Iowa, back in the days when it was the Iowa territory. Robert Lucas, prior to this had been the Governor of Ohio, I'd like to say briefly, in that capacity, he had a really virulent boundary dispute with the territory of Michigan to the north to militias face-to-face, they call it the "Toledo War." It in fact came very close to war. Michigan was given the Upper Peninsula as a consolation prize but Robert Lucas got what he wanted for Ohio. He then goes to Ohio. He immediately has virtually the identical kind of boundary dispute with the state to his self, Missouri. Only in this case, that's the state, he is the territory, no votes in congress, no votes for president, only a militia to deal with. Robert Lucas won that one too but Robert Lucas, the boundary champ, lost round three and that's the one that's important through our discussion here, the northern border of Iowa. This is what Robert Lucas had proposed and the legislature of the Iowa territory proposed, would be the northern boundary of Iowa. It makes sense in a way, it follows its eastern boundary along the Mississippi to what is today called the Minnesota River, for us is over the state through that, peaks up with the Big Sioux River, comes down to Big Sioux River, catches a little bit of the Missouri River down to the southern border at Missouri. When Iowa came up before congress for statehood, Congressman Samuel Vinton from Ohio, someone that Robert Lucas would have known, said that, "Yeah, yeah. In fact, it's about the same size as Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan." And then Vinton went on to tell congress that you have to remember that those midwestern states violated the proposal of Thomas Jefferson for political reasons and for equitable representation in the senate. I want to read to you what Vinton said on the floor of the House of Representatives. "What has been the effect of this change? The vast and fertile region between the Ohio," that's that river down bottom right there along the states, between the Ohio, the lakes, I mean the great lakes, and the Mississippi, "has thus been reduced from 12 to 14 states to 5 at the most that can never have but 10 votes in the senate. As an equitable compensation to the western country for this flagrant injustice, I would make a series of smaller states, small states on the opposite bank of the Mississippi River." And then he proposed the boundary that you see on the map. Iowa had a nonvoting delegate there, a man named Augustus Dodge who did not like this idea. And among other things, he said, "That's just an arbitrary line." And the question I want to put in the air here, we'll get back to it a little later, is was that an arbitrary line? I'll tell you this, it is the line that got enacted and what I'm showing you here is I've highlighted it a bit, some, a little from the news coverage of the day when congress did in fact enact the line that Vinton proposed. This is from the Chronicling America website from the Serial and Government Publications division here. This is a particular website. You don't-- you can actually access right at home. It's a terrific website for all kinds of stuff in historical newspapers. But we have this question, was it an arbitrary line? And the answer to that and the continuation of the return of Jefferson is found in this man, Steven Douglas. Well, here he is and these states. New Mexico, Arizona and Kansas and Nebraska. And this part of the story begins after the Mexican War in 1848. This website by the way, U.S. Geological Survey not Library of Congress, but nevertheless, a great website. This is their interactive national atlas. What I've pulled up for you to see here is the land acquisitions in the United States and the one I want to call your attention to first is that greenish-yellow area, that's what we acquired after the Mexican War. Just above it, I don't know if the color has a name; it's sort of peachyish looking area. And then with west, we acquired that the very same year, 1848 in a treaty with England. And we acquired also a great big national heading because up until this point, ever since 1820, slavery in this country had been regulated throughout by the Missouri Compromise. This was a line that Henry Clay came up with when Missouri became a state in 1820. It was located in 36 degrees 13 minutes, which is a southern boundary for pretty much the whole state of Missouri. And the Missouri Compromise said this, "No new state or territory north of this line can have slavery with the exception of Missouri," that's why we have the word "compromise" in the name. Well, as the south could easily see with this new land, this line wasn't going to work anymore. In not too many years, the non-slave holding part of the country would greatly outvote, outnumber the slave holding part of the country. So beginning with this acquisition to this land, there were a series of increasingly virulent conflicts in congress and in the country about slavery that ultimately erupted in the Civil War. The first big conflict occurred in 1850 and Civil War was averted by a package of legislation which today we know as the-- we call it the Compromise of 1850. One piece of that legislation created the New Mexico territory and it was Steven Douglas who as Chairman of the Committee on Territories wrote that legislation. And in it, he-- it authorized the United States to buy which they did, a chunk of land from the State of Texas which at that time went all the way to the Rio Grande and to make it pat of this New Mexico territory. And in the legislation, Douglas said, "Yeah, let's do that all the way east to the 103rd meridian, 103 degrees west longitude." Really Mr. Douglas, 103? [Laughter] You know, why not 100, you know. This line that you see there is the most brilliant line on the American map in my opinion. [Laughter] And I say that based on what surfaces 13 years later when the New Mexico territory is going to be divided to create the Arizona territory. When that came up, the delegate from the New Mexico territory was John S. Watts. He-- I just mentioned, opted, he did not want to run again so he was replaced in the next election by a friend of his, Francisco Perea. These two men were extremely significant in keeping the New Mexico territory loyal to the union in the Civil War. You'll note that we are right in the middle of the Civil War when this division of the territory is coming up. The big question before congress was how do we do it? Do we divide this territory horizontally or do we divide it vertically. Watts proposed that it be divided vertically and that he proposed a line along the 109th meridian. When we did, one congressman, William Miller from New York said-- it's sort of like Mr. Jefferson. Did you just put a ruler over the map? You are just continuing the line that separates Colorado and Utah which gives us that little four corners thing that we have today. Watts answered that and in answering it, you can hear echoes of Thomas Jefferson. The first thing he said is, no, if you put the line there, the two territories that will result and they've altered a little bit because there are some land shifts in and around that time. But nevertheless, they'll be virtually equal in size. He then went on and said this, "Mexico was compelled to relinquish a portion of her people endeared to her by 10,000 pleasant memories and doubly endeared by 10,000 painful for votings for the future." What is he talking about? But when we acquired this land in the Mexican War just like Louisiana, we acquired a bunch of people who did not ask to be citizens of this country, who did not speak our language. Most of them lived along the Rio Grande Valley. And as you follow Texas up to that area between the two little colors of New Mexico, that's the Rio Grande. And the biggest community was located at Santa Fe. Therefore, votings for the future, their biggest fear was a five-letter word, T-E-X-A-S. [Laughter] A group of Anglos, not that very many years before, had come into the Mexican province of Tejas. It didn't take very long before they turned it into an independent Republic of Texas. It then became the State of Texas. Texas always claimed its boundary went to the Rio Grande, though they had not yet sent their militia to actually lay claim, but these Hispanic people along that valley and in Santa Fe feared them. Even more so as time went on, because Anglos, many of them Texans, were now migrating into the western part of the New Mexico territory. So look at that line that Watts has proposed and you will see that it puts the Rio Grande pretty securely in the center of the New Mexico territory. And Santa Fe in particular, three degrees from Texas, three degrees from Arizona, creating a territory and future state six degrees wide, and a future state of Arizona, six degrees wide more or less since the Colorado River is mainly its boundary. Very much the principle of Thomas Jefferson as it worked in the creation. But it can only happen because Steven Douglas said 103 degrees. He never said why. We're going to come to something in a moment where he doesn't always tell you why, but damn it works out in very interesting ways. [Laughter] The second big-- oh, yeah. Let me mention that we have 50 states today. So how close together are they in size? Well, New Mexico is the fifth largest, Arizona the sixth largest. They turned out to be extremely close in size. The next big fight was in 1854 when Kansas came up for statehood and the question about slavery there. This time, Douglas said, "Look, I have a-- I think we can avert this whole conflict once and for all simply by relying on the genius of democracy. Will let-- from here on out, will scrap this Missouri Compromise line and we'll let the people in the state or the territory decide for themselves whether or not they have slavery and we will begin this with this state of Kansas territory." Well no, now, I'd be a State of Kansas. It's an idea called popular sovereignty. It really only had one drawback. Nobody liked it. Northerners didn't like it. Southerners didn't like it. Huge, huge conflict. Douglas said, "Okay, let me revise it a little." Watch what happens in his revision to the southern border of Kansas. He proposes Kansas and Nebraska, the common wisdom, commensal wisdom is Nebraskans will vote to become-- prohibits slavery, Kansas will vote to allow slavery. As it turned down, after a good deal of bloodshed, Kansas did not allow slavery, but did you notice what happen to the boundary? It moved up just a little bit. It moved up one half of one degree. That left the gap and that gap resulted in what is today that panhandle of Oklahoma. Why this Douglas do this? Well he told congress why he did it, sort of at the time, and I'd like to read that to you. He said, "My attention has been called by the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs to the fact that the boundary would divide the Cherokee country whereas by taking the parallel of 37 degrees as opposed to 36, 30, it's now 37 north latitude as the southern boundary of Kansas. The line would run between the Cherokee's the Osage." "It's very perilous," said of Mr. Douglas. It's not entirely irrelevant but the full relevance of it occurred two weeks later when that chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs said in congress, "My committee is maturing a policy upon which the title of the Indians to the lands guaranteed to them by treaty is to be extinguished," and by extinguishing them which happened quite a bit later 'cause the Civil war got in the way, they ultimately created the state of Oklahoma, so all that was already in the works in 1854 when Kansas-Nebraska act was coming up. But Douglas moving it also did something else. By moving it up to the 37th parallel, 37 degrees, he created a baseline. And from that baseline as the years went on, we created the state of South Dakota, North Dakota, right up to the Canadian Border, each of the state from that tier of prairie states has 3 degrees of height. Let's come back to Mr. Viton and ask, "Was that line in Iowa an arbitrary line?" It's not looking so arbitrary now. Iowa is 3 and a half degrees high. All of that kind of begs another question, why move the boundary 'cause had you left it in place, Kansas would have been 3 and a half degrees high. Remember this Oklahoma thing, because when they did get around to creating Oklahoma, though is a rather bizarrely shaped state, it is about 3 degrees high. And although this is total speculation on my part since it didn't get rolling 'til later, this never came about, but I can't help but wonder if they might have been some effort to get Texas to participate in this for some sort of recompense and create a State of Kansas that might have looked like that. Be that as it may, again total speculation on my part, I'm not even sure I agree with my self, [laughter] be that as it may, the-- with 37 degrees as the baseline, if you go a little further to the west, the nation was able to create a tier of mountain estates. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. Each of them have 4 degrees of height. And during the same era of state making, six of our western states have 7 degrees of width. So what we are seeing is a return of state prototypes, and it's beginning to look very similar to Jefferson's original proposal but bigger. But now there are rail roads and the need for states to be the size Jefferson conceived isn't-- the nations changed, so the vision is modified. There's one other way that Jefferson left an imprint on the map and I want to mention it briefly. One thing the nation-- the congress did adopt way back when he made his proposal, was that with this land, when it's surveyed, that they used something called the Rectangular Survey System. Jefferson was a surveyor. He didn't invent this system, but he thought this would be the best system to use. The letter that you're seeing there on the left, well, I've highlighted something at the bottom is a letter he wrote to Governor William Henry Harrison of the territory of Indiana in which in that highlighted area, he's basically saying, "Oh by the way, I hope you're using this Rectangular Survey System to mark off the land." Today, when you fly in an airplane east of the Appalachian Mountains and look down, the roads are going to look pretty much like those Virginia roads there. Once you crossed the Appalachians and get into the North West territory region and areas further west, and look down, you will see road that probably look pretty much like those roads in Indiana. That is the Rectangular Survey System. And so what we have is the imprint of Thomas Jefferson on the map. I said at the beginning that the people came from all walks of life, the people who impacted on the lines, they go all he way back to the very beginnings of what became this nation. Roger Williams I talked about him, 1641-- yeah, well, too forward, too fast? The picture of the gentleman that it's in color down there, is David Shafer, he is a Georgia State senator who had a resolution that passed in 2008 in Georgia to correct the boundary between Georgia and Tennessee. There have been Native Americans involved and I want to just kind of quickly note some of this participations. Chief Green McCurtain sought to create a Native American state that would be called Sequoyah in what is today the eastern end of Oklahoma. Sequoyah, year's earlier, was part of the Cherokee delegation that negotiated what is today the line that divides Oklahoma and Arkansas. I find it sort of meaningful that is a bent line. Chief Standing Bear's life resulted in altering the boundary between Nebraska and South Dakota. Among African-Americans, Edward P. McCabe sought to create a majority African-American state in what is today the western half of Oklahoma. Benjamin Banneker was on of the two men he and Andrew Ellicott who surveyed the boundary line for the District of Columbia. And as the years have past, that line had shown itself to be extraordinarily accurate. And this is the men that who did the calculations for the fieldwork to tell the board where to put the line. He has the Jacky Robinson of his era. It is an incredible gig that an African-American at 17-- , excuse me, -- 92, could get hired to get work, his story is amazing. Eleanor Holmes Norton, as Teri mentioned, very instrumental in her dream and that of the many of the others of us to create a state for the District of Columbia. Should that comment actually would alter a line, because in the District of Columbia as originally as convinced, there was a federal enclave that had very specific boundary. It was called was Washington. Hence, Washington, D.C. The boundary, you can see today on the map, it's called Florida Avenue. So that old line is no a longer a boundary that would altered if she should ever succeed or if someone who follows her. I've mentioned Francisco Perea in terms of the Mexico territory, Luis Ferre was the leading voice in Puerto Rico urging his fellow Puerto Ricans to vote in favor of becoming the 51st state. Among women, [inaudible] group defined because they weren't given a seat at the table and I suspect that they have much more influence then we have a record of. But we do know the Queen Liliuokalani struggled to prevent Hawaii from become a part of the United States. She lost that struggle to a man named Sanford Dole, who's family put pineapple in cans. You know Nichols attended the Kansas State-- the Kansas Statehood Convention where they have boundaries for laying out. She was not allowed to vote or participate or let's say, didn't let her speak. And she was less concerned about the boundaries of Kansas than she was around about the boundaries about the voting booth, the boundaries around child custody, and the boundaries around our property rights for women. She won two over three. She didn't get the vote. I have Eleanor Holmes up there twice partly because as Teri somewhat suggested-- when I-- as I got to learn more about her-- just her life, what a remarkable woman no matter what you think at D.C. State, what a remarkable woman she is. But also, that we have reached the point were not only are African-Americans and women at the table, but we have an African-American women at the table. And so, I think that the greatest legacy of Thomas Jefferson and the greatest evidence of the progression toward realizing his quest, as it turns out he is really just one of so many people who'd have an impact on the American map. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] [Inaudible Remark] So yeah, if there are questions and someone would cut me off when the time is over but, yes sir? >> Hey, just a quick question. Thank you for coming, first of all. [Inaudible] Washington D.C., do you think the state boundaries are still evolving today? Do you foresee the future where states maybe will be mixed up with the smaller dates, going forward, you know, [inaudible]? >> Yeah, yeah. You know my feeling on that is no, they're fixed, they won't change. And every time I look at any historical atlas, the boundaries of places are always changing. It makes me very uncomfortable. [Laughter] So that's my answer to you. Yes sir? >> A few years back, Congressman [inaudible] proposed retroceding non federal D.C. to Maryland kind of build on out on how Arlington and Alexandria retroceding to Virginia. What do you think is more likely outcome that D.C. becomes a state or that eventually before that it eventually becomes a part of Maryland? >> I'm going to have to [inaudible] him, he said that there was a proposal recently to retrocede, which means to get back to Maryland that portion of the District of Columbia, borrowing probably a federal enclave I think that's the way that proposal goes. So that rather than become a state, Maryland, D.C. would become part of Maryland. And he asked did I think that might be more likely than statehood? By the way, the original, he mentioned related to this also, the original District of Columbia was a full square, the other half is in Virginia. And if you look at the map today, particularly the map of Arlington County, you will see the lines the original District of Columbia, Alexandria has expanded its boundaries. A part of King Street though, you'll see a continuation of what was that part of King Street that was laid out while it was part of the district because it was laid out right just inside the line. As to you question, I actually don't know what, if everything changes, which is more likely between statehood or retrocession. Maryland would have to agree to retrocession under the constitution to change any state line. Any state involved in that change, in other words, so that the two states, both states have to agree and congress has to agree. So that's one of the factors that are there, so I don't know. Kind of coming back to the first man's question, I sort of wonder with what's going on the way Virginia is developing and the way you hear phrases about real Virginians versus Northern Virginians. [Laughter] If there may not be-- way down the line. And this is totally just me and I don't know more about this than you folks. Probably less than some of you if there might be something a state that's composed of the Washington Metropolitan Area or something. I really don't, all I have to say, "I don't know." Have a question here, yeah? >> Yeah, so, like, kind of something like what's going on to Northern Virginia and [inaudible], how the economic activity in that area is like so much greater than the rest of Virginia? Do you ever see Texas because, like the way their economic [inaudible], they might ever secede from the union? >> Well of course Governor Perry made a remark about that. I don't know how much history he knows but [laughter] Texas was a republic for I think it was 10 years and acquired tens of millions of dollars of debt as a republic. It didn't work out too well. I don't think Texas would do that. I point out though that when Texas entered the union, also in California is with the union, congress was not happy about the size of these states. Congress did not create California or Texas, they created themselves. In the case of Texas, they said to Texas, "You can subdivide into as many as 5 states."-- 1845, is that we're talking about, I forgot the date, '48 I guess, '47, and enters 5 states. The other southern states said, "Do it," that's 10 votes in the senate, slave state votes. Texans had so much history that they didn't subdivide. Whether they had secede-- I don't think they would secede, Texas would secede from the union. You do hear talk of other states by the way of breaking up. There's some in long islands where they feel they should be a separate state. Several times in California's history and currently there have been talk about this section or that dividing from the state. So there is, there is when-- it by the way, it did happen once on a large scale. There have been some little scale trades, but it did happen once, I've read about it in a book on a large scale and that was in the Civil War. The western part of Virginia broke away and formed West Virginia. And I tell you real quickly a little thing about that, they had been a big con-- it was not conducive to slavery out there at the mountains. In all kinds of ways, they were a very unhappy part of Virginia. Not just in regarding slavery, for all the way back. And when the war broke out, they had a convention in Wheeling, Virginia at which they said, "Hey, they seceded from the union, let's secede from Virginia." And Francis Pierpont, and he's the gentleman I write about, stood up and said, "You can't." The federal government has said it's illegal to secede; they're not going to recognize a state that has seceded from a state. Pandemonium, I mean, this man was a little bit in danger, I would say for a few moments, before he said, "Well, well, well, what we have to do is come up of some way of seceding based on the illegality of secession." [Laughter] Not only a lawyer can do that, but Francis Pierpont was a lawyer, he's a really good lawyer. And I won't go through it, but he came up with it, absolutely eye-popping legal tap dance. And it worked, should create the State of West Virginia. Other questions, are we good? Yes, here. >> What's your favorite state? >> My favorite state. You mean, do you mean in terms of its shape or just my favorite state? >> What's your favorite state history? >> My favorite state is Wisconsin [laughter] because-- >> It's not that bad. >> Yeah, dare you, well it's a great state. I don't know if this is in your paper or not, but I went to the University of Wisconsin and I had a girlfriend there. She's standing in the back of the room, [laughter] she's my wife, we have two boys. One of them graduated from the university and one of Wisconsin and is there now. And the boy who graduated, he's, there he is back there, works for Senator Herb Kohl who maybe in your paper who's the senior Senator from Wisconsin. So for me it's the state of Wisconsin. Excellent question, okay. >> Right back there. >> Do you suppose to in the [inaudible] where the state lines are based on cultural lines as opposed to the official state lines today in [inaudible] map in United States would look like and such? >> I didn't catch the, what the [inaudible]? >> [Inaudible] lines, such as of them, you just ignore in Virginia-- >> Yeah, yeah. >> And how [inaudible] if could you possibly make it 5 or 6 years of-- >> Right. >> What kind of-- >> You know, I don't-- and but you know there's a wonderful book-- ah, I'm going to be embarrassed 'cause I'm not going to be able to remember the title. It just came out about the cultural history of the map and how, when you look at those lines as opposed to the state lines, those divides remains so much more relevant today than the state lines. Oh, how I wish I could [inaudible] that, I've met the author, he's a wonderful guy and the title is not coming up. I wish someone here may know of it. But there is a book on that. [Inaudible Remark] Yeah, it's a wonderful book. I read it, I just can't remember the name. [Laughter] >> Don't run for president. >> Yeah. [Laughter] No plans to do that. Any other questions, are we good? Okay, well thank you so much. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.