Making up the earliest class of United States presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were all born and raised within the same sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, making up a “Virginia Dynasty” that came to shape America during the formative decades following the revolution. Author Lynne Cheney examines the friendships and rivalries within this “Virginia Dynasty,” and the contradiction between their espoused ideals of American liberty and prosperity and their status as slaveholders.
Recorded on December 3, 2020