to say, the founders, this was an issue about them. how it became an issue is curious. james madison was dealing with a legacy in virginia about whether or not the taxpayers should pay for pastors and the maintenance of church. they were. madison said we have to get out of this business. now that we are breaking from england. it is interesting what happened. they had a religious toleration bill. madison flipped on a key principle based on his experiences in virginia. he learned, the anglicans, the church of england, wanted to keep going in that direction. but there were multiple factions. initially he disagreed with one of the philosophers who said the best way is to have a

whole bunch of factions. they will cancel each other out and check themselves. that was actually contra to the council of the wise. madison says, i will be darned, maybe hume is onto something. the multiple factions outvoted the people that wanted to keep paying. the largest thing was that he wanted religious freedom. when the left says they wanted to keep god out, that is not true. the founders deeply believed in god, wanted to be reverent in that way. jefferson was not in any one of the particular denominations. john adams literally says, when he writes to jefferson, i know you love the french. just explain how 20 million atheists are going to be able to govern themselves. he believes you need a core set of values to make a republic work. so it is conflicted.

the point is, we were not trying to keep god out, but we were trying to set up a constitutional system that we were to through with. one last point on education. i listen to your last segment before i came on. i appreciated the gentleman who came on and said culture matters. he said the reality is we are dealing with indoctrination, made some comments about howard zinn. with regard to the trump administration's view on education, i think the record is a little mixed. but i have to say that the arc of what they are trying to do, to teach history in a way that is constructive, so that we recognize we have challenges, but we are a good nation. we are basically a good force in the world. think about it, wewon world war ii, saved the earth from passage in.

then we dedicated 5% of our gross domestic product to rebuild those nations. so we are a good nation with laws, no question about that. the one place where i did disagree with the caller -- and i thought he was well communicating, had important points. i'm a believer in american exceptionalism. the first term of the trump administration published a paper called the 1776 project. i like it a lot. i like it so much, i have no problem debating it. in my class, i have students reading both. 1619 project, and the 1776 project, along with all the founding documents, what the founders were influenced by. then we read secondary sources. i assigned both howard zinn and bill mcclay. the previous caller talked about

howard zinn. bill mcclay writes a book called "land of hope." i believe it was pretty balanced. but i was not there to indoctrinate my students. i wanted them to make their own call. i am not for banning books. if you feel strongly about 1776 project, you should not be afraid. what i did insist upon was a debate. in the book, i explain, i insist upon a debate. a lot of academia today is of the left. i think it is important there is a balance of that. host: less than 10 minutes left. the book is called "the spirit of philadelphia." will, virginia beach, independent. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. sounds like a very interesting book. planning on adding it to my summer reading list.

i do want to preface the statement by agreeing with the concept, certainly, faiths of all kind will almost inevitably bring their ideas into policy and legislative derivation, creation. but certainly shouldn't be the source exclusively. aside from that, i wanted to point out an idea where i come from, a scientific viewpoint. when you create something like a chemical, it requires a catalyst, reaction, and in that process of creation, you create a target of some kind. however, there is always a byproduct, something that is not part of the target. that consequence, unfortunately, can be very toxic sometimes, sometimes deadly. i'm times it can be benign. there creation of an idea,

policy, legislation, there is inevitably going to be some sort of aspect of it that is not the point of the creation of that policy. i just wanted to see if there was any idea from that that can be derived, in context to your writing. guest: exactly. madison actually addresses this point when he is arguing for the constitution. he says that among all the things they considered, they were trying to figure out how to deal with faction. i mentioned moments ago when his experience was in virginia. he saw it could be a good thing. but we just considered, just basically banning it, the idea of factions. he said the cure would be worse than the disease. so he is getting into this enterprise that you are talking about, you have to think about ideas and their consequences.

consequences can be good or bad. you couldn't be more right. the founders had this dilemma. they knew the articles were failing. it was failing because there was not enough energy in the national government. i went through all of that earlier in the segment. they understood. they were trying to get it right. it wasn't about some idea of progress, which is 19th century german idealism, it was a classical idea from antiquity, getting it right. recognizing that you are going to create externalities. the question is, do you have a system that can be malleable to deal with those? what i call in the book, optimal decisions, not ideal. one last thing, thank you for your commitment to read the book. what i want to do is to get all americans engaged.

it's a renewal of citizenship. here is what i would love to do. when you finish reading the book, perhaps you inspire some of your neighbors to read it, as well. maybe get together for a book club. the first session with an introduction, section one. this is about philosophy and history. section two can be the second subject with your colleagues. the third session would be the third section and the conclusion. you get through all of that, reach out to me. i have a website, the spirit of philadelphia.com. you can contact me. i will zoom with your group. i will take questions, interact with you. what i would love to see is across this great country that we would, swords down, say where have we been? what were the reasons behind the initial choices that we made,

which were not perfect. we had slavery.. obviously a huge error. why did they do what they did? we have walked away from some of that. what has been the consequence? i am hoping we can get a real revitalization in our citizenship to consider these things. i give a series of reforms, but you have to get to the end of the book. host: joanna in germantown, maryland. democrat. caller: there are two things going on now. i actually agree with a lot of what you are saying and i intend to order your book as soon as i'm done on the phone. two things that are going on now that go against everything you are talking about. the first is the death of expertise and expert. this administration is banning experts in their field, whether it is science, education,

medicine, health, national security, they are being banished. what happens when you do that and there is no expertise anymore, it destabilizes the country, destabilizes the society. i'm going to be honest about this here. you have a group of congresspeople on the republican side that are so afraid of being primaried, the exchange of ideas, debate, they are not bold enough to do anything but get along. they will sell their integrity and honor to stay in office. i think that is not what the founders were all about. i would like you to address those two things, please. host: final two and a half minutes. guest: joanna, thank you for the sentiments. i will make the same offer to you that i did to will.

when you are done reading it, if you can find other folks in your neighborhood, regardless of ideology, if you read the book and do these sessions come i'm willing to have these conversations. to your point about expertise, here is the reality. we are living in a moment where americans across the partisan landscape -- remember this movement, in some ways, trying to get in front of bernie sanders. the system is rigged, you cannot trust these institutions. a lot of that actually started with left-wing populism. trump gets out in front of it, moves in this direction. it didn't come out of nowhere. the fact of the matter is, the wall street crash, americans looked at the experts. they knew so much about finance, how does this happen? you look at the wars that are seem to be endless and pointless for many. even now with education, they

look at the fact that we pay so much for it, we don't seem to be doing well with regard to standards across the world, and people think that it is moved against some of our culture. on both ends of the ideological spectrum, who do we trust now? obviously, we need knowledge. we cannot live as a species without knowledge. i want to affirm your point that we need to get back in the space were expertise matters. but let's recognize that we are a public formed on constitutional and democratic principles. half the country is really concerned and moving in that direction. the last thing on congress being afraid. this is where you can make a difference. they are like anybody else. i was a member. nobody wants to lose. they are thinking the best way to win is to hug trump. i am talking about you, will, bob, who seems to have conservative sentiments like me,

if it woman reaches out to their executives and says that representatives and says we understand there is widespread disaffection, but we don't believe we should centralize power. we shouldn't spend beyond our means. i think there is happening right now. there is a burgeoning split in the right wing know about these deficits. you will see it in the senate. i would say don't lose faith, joanna, bob, the conservative, will, the independent from virginia. we are a republic, we can change, but we have to get involved in this. look at all those dimensions of balance and ask those hard questions. how are we doing on that? i look forward to hear your reactions to the book. host: before you go, you have been a college professor, served in the u.s. army, member of congress, author now. what job have you found --not most enjoyable, but fulfilling?

guest: i get this question a lot. i would say soldier. i thought about it one day. i was a working-class kid. nobody had gone to college and my family. they were all working-class irish democrats. i was the first republican in my family. remember thinking, only 12,000 people in history of our country that sat where i sat. it was an enormous privilege. frustrating, too, if i'm being candid. i love academia, in the classroom. i don't love grading. on a scale of one to 10, being a representative was probably a seven. professor, seven or eight. being a soldier, nine on an average day, 10 on many days, eight or less on hard days, like in combat. the thing about being a soldier, it doesn't matter your

background of any kind. we are therefore the team. i have a section on that because i think it is encouraging for the country to see that section. host: the book again is "the spirit of philadelphia: a call to recover the founding principles." the author, >> on wednesday, victor davis hanson wiltalk about the importance of national borders, hosted by the heritage foundation. watch live on c-span, c-sn now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> in a nation divided, a rare moment of unity. this fall, c-span presents cease-fire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. in a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table,

two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. this fall, cease fire, on the network that doesn't take sides. only on c-span. >> c-span, democracy unfiltered. we are funded by these television companies and more, including midco. midcoay nights, watch c-span's >> where you going? or maybe a better question is, how far do you want to go? and how fast do you want to get there? now we are getting somewhere. so let's go. let's go faster. let's go further. let's go beyond. announcer: midco supports c-span as a