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Alexis de Tocqueville took his American roadtrip in the 1830’s and not only saw the New World whole; he read the American character and foresaw its future. De Tocqueville traveled by foot and horseback, stagecoach and riverboat circling the young country from New York City to the Mississippi and the deep south. He met tradesmen, farmers, craftsmen, manufacturers, teachers, ministers, Indians and Indian hunters, slaves and masters, even Supreme Court Justices and Presidents.

An aristocrat born in Napoleon’s France, de Tocqueville saw in America “a great democratic revolution” that was changing the world. And he saw the future: including our civil war over slavery, and also the American Century, the rivalry with Russia, and something very like our presidential muddle in Florida. Alexis de Tocqueville’s fortune-telling account of American character and destiny is this on The Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Political Science at Harvard and translator of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

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Bill Monroe will be known forever as the father of Bluegrass music. But that only tells you that he was one of the original greats of the lonesome musical sound that originated from the Bluegrass state of Kentucky. It doesn’t tell you that he invented the genre, named it and managed it like the best and worst kind of control freak until his death 4 years ago. Bill Monroe was a farmboy from Rosine, Kentcky who grew up behind mules and a plow in the Deep Depression and learned early on to play Appalachian ballads and folk songs on guitar and mandolin. And then he transformed Kentucky mountain music into what he called the “hillbilly version of jazz.”

Bluegrass is like country music on speed. It’s hard and fast. It whines and twangs and squeaks. The tenor voices sing of hard times, religious faith and lonesome days. Bob Dylan said Bill Monroe’s music is what America is all about. Bill Monroe and Bluegrass are this hour on the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Richard Smith, author of “Can’t You Hear Me Callin': the Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass”

Allison Brown, bluegrass musician, banjo player

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Will we say when it’s over that judges picked the next president? Would you rather have the Florida legislature, or the US House, do the job? Nine robed justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have been drawn into the argument this morning–it’s George W. Bush’s argument that the Florida Supreme Court overreached, made new law, when it extended the deadline for recounting votes. It’s been Al Gore’s argument that somebody well outside the partisan fight had to doublecheck the scorecard–that the sanctity of the deadline was less important than the sanctity of people’s votes.

The Florida Supreme Court agreed with Gore and outraged Bush with the judicial intrusion. But of course the Bush recourse is to yet a higher court for a remedy. The country lawyer Sanders Sauls could be the colorful Judge Ito of the Gore suit contesting the Florida returns. But who gave colorful judges and courtrooms the last word in our politics this hour on The Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Heather Gerken, Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and specialist in election law

Lino Graglia, Professor of Law at University of Texas

Jeff Bell, principal at Capital City Partners

Peter Shane, Professor of Law and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University