This week, Clay Jenkinson has a conversation with Dr. Kevin Gutzman, Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University and author of The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe held the presidency between 1800 and 1824. These three close friends and Virginia neighbors pursued a common set of public holidays. They managed to extinguish the Federalist Party and by the time Monroe began his second term, a Boston newspaper called it The Era of Good Feelings. Clay and Dr. Gutzman explore the friendship and political collaboration between Jefferson and the greatest of his proteges, James Madison, and the ways in which poor Mr. Madison had to talk Jefferson off the ledge of some of his wilder ideas about America.

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Thomas Jefferson is interpreted and portrayed by Clay S. Jenkinson.