figures, obviously, in history. thomas jefferson is somebody we remember as a glamorous figure. george washington in some ways, and, of course, in recent history, more recent history, president kennedy is somebody

is the seed of conservatism. god, not tong to other men. that is it, right there. jefferson said something similar when he said no man was born with a saddle on his back, and another man with boots and spurs to ride him by the race of god. all men belong to god. not to other men. idea is codified in our founding document. the 55 most important words in world history. we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are rated endowed by they are their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. no more important words have been written in modern history. those 55 words, all men belong to god. lincoln, standing on the graves of thousands american , four scoreysburg and seven years ago, he talks about that very idea. a nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. what's he say at the end? these here who have given the last full measure so that a nation

goes to washington." the late i'm a great jimmy stewart's character, jefferson smith, ed come to washington full of national pride and wonder and yet in a short time, he has been framed and scandalized by the forces of washington corruption. he is about to be banished from the u.s. senate. in a pivotal scene, he stands with his suitcase in hand, statuely sobbing in the -- in the shadow of the statue of abraham lincoln. he is implored to resist the forces of corruption. she says the following -- your friend, mr. lincoln, had his enemies. so did every other man who try to lift his thoughts up off the ground. odds against them did not stop them. they were fools that way. all the good that ever came into the world came from. faith like that. they're not all tailored in washington. that kind just throw big shadows. you do not have faith in any other living man. you had faith in something other than that. you had decent, everyday, common rightness and the country can use that. you said mr. lincoln was sitting up there waiting for someone to come along. you're right. he was waiting for

years after lewis and clark were out here. and thomas jefferson had, essentially, the same vision. and as or to have came up with this idea -- astor came up with this idea, approached thomas jefferson with it. they met at the white house. thomas jefferson gave it his enthusiastic endorsement. it was astor's idea to try to capture, essentially, all the furs in the western part of the continent, funnel them through a set element at the mouth of the columbia river and sell them to china. and in china these furs would fetch extremely high prices because the chinese mandarins, for instance, used sea otter furs which were extremely luxurious, something like a million hairs per square inch. i think the finest, most densely coat of any mammal in the world. the chinese mandarins would pay incredible prices for these furs. so astor, he was not the first ship here on the west coast, but he was one of the earlier ones, and he came up with this idea of sending trade goods from new york around cape horn by ship to the mouth of the columbia, trading them to the coastal indians here for furs, trading

between john jacob astor and thomas jefferson, creating a kohl gnu on the pacific coast -- colony on the pacific coast in the early 19th century. the settlement, dubbed astoria, had a short tenure. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> well, thank you for that nice introduction, and thank you, powells and you all, for being here. normally i have a more formal presentation. i have a video that i've shown at readings, but tonight's a special night, so i'm going to do something a little different. and i'm going to tell stories a little bit more and, of course, i'm going to do some reading as well. but it's special because, one, this is powell's, we're in oregon, astoria is very nearby. the center of this story. and also we're here with c-span, booktv. and so we have a national audience as well as a oregon audience. so i'm going to tell some stories, and you oregonians may know some of the stories, and you may not know others. but i'll start with how i came to this story. and, actually, what's surprising about it is how this story was very well known in its day. in 1836