Editor’s Note: ABC News Correspondent Cokie Roberts discusses her bestselling new book Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation.

LESLEY: You write about Mrs. Alexander Hamilton in your new book. And I heard you say once that she was the Silda Spitzer of her day.

Click here to read Part Two: Who Was John Adams’s Political Compass? His Wife Abigail, Of Course.

Click here to read Part Three: ‘The Administration of Mr. Madison Was Saved by Dolly Madison.’

Click here to read Part Four: First Ladies Throughout History Have Just ‘Done What Women Do; Whatever’s Needed, Whenever That May Be.’

COKIE: Right. The first of our many, way too many, political wives who stood by her husband as he admitted to a scandal, having had an affair with a woman whose husband then blackmailed him to keep his silence. And when the blackmail was discovered, Hamilton had to go public because he was being accused of being blackmailed for trading illegally in government securities. So he had to say, “No, no, there was an affair.” And then Eliza Hamilton stood by him and she saved his political career because she was a Schuyler, a very prominent New York family, and the fact that she saved him and saved him. But you know, Lesley, I made the joke recently that she was probably wearing pearls because all these women seem to wear pearls when they stand by their husbands. And some woman sent me a note that said, “Pearls behind swine.”

LESLEY: Oh, my God. Pearls behind swine. Use it. Use it, use it.

LESLEY: Here’s something I never knew, and I have never seen pulled together the way you do in the book: how much the founding fathers relied on their daughters.

COKIE: Yes, isn’t that nice?

LESLEY: Wow.

COKIE: You really do get a sense of their appreciation for their daughters, particularly those whose wives had died. Martha Jefferson died when her oldest child was about nine or ten years old. And Thomas Jefferson really took over the education of his daughter, Martha. He educated her like a man and then depended on her mightily to run Monticello and take care of all of his personal life. And he wrote to her about politics all the time, even though he disapproved of women participating in politics. He kept her abreast of all the political machinations leading up to his presidency and then while he was president. And Aaron Burr, the very peculiar Aaron Burr — whose wife also died when his daughter Theodosia was about nine or ten — raised his daughter with a very solid male education. And he relied on her for amusement, comfort and advice about his many romances.

LESLEY: Oh, my gosh. Well, can you believe he turns to his daughter?

COKIE: I know. It was a little yucky.

LESLEY: Yucky. But so interesting.

COKIE: So interesting. Yes, because that’s what we’re doing here, Lesley, we’re reading their mail. And so that’s a lot of fun, you know. You really get to know people.

LESLEY: And they really used to tell things in their letters back then.

COKIE: Particularly the women, because they didn’t think anybody except the person they were writing to would read it. So they wrote about politics. But then they also wrote about fashion and who was getting pregnant and who was losing children, which happened way too often, and all of the various aspects of life. So you really get a full picture of what life was like. And also, of course, they are much more interesting about the men. We think of these founding fathers as deities. You can be sure their wives didn’t think of them that way. And the men are more interesting in their letters to the women than they are in letters to each other because, again, they didn’t expect us to be reading these.