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

LESLEY: You know today – well, in our lifetime, the presidents try to hide how influential their wives are.

COKIE: And it was so interesting to me the other day that Laura Bush took the lectern herself on the subject of Burma because she feels strongly about it. She knows more about it than anybody in the administration. And instead of just feeding the information to someone else, she decided to hold the press conference herself, which I thought was great.

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

Click here to read Part One Cokie Roberts: Eliza Hamilton, the Silda Spitzer and Pearls Behind Swine of Her Day.

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

LESLEY: And she was strong.

COKIE: She is very strong on the subject.

LESLEY: And she’s been hiding that from us.

COKIE: Well, anybody who knows her knows she’s strong.

LESLEY: But I meant the public at large doesn’t know that.

COKIE: Well, I think they’ve gotten glimpses of it over the years. But she’s out there now.

LESLEY: We look back at the founding fathers, I think that whole time, and marvel at how this group of men all came together at the same time with such extraordinary, not only intellectual power, but moral force. And we say, how did they all get there at the same time? And I’m wondering if the women at that time were just as extraordinary.

COKIE: Well, I think the answer is yes and no. I think that some women were. I think the men were very much aware of the enlightenment and studied the philosophers of the time and were trying to do something extraordinary and they knew it, in the American experiment. I think the women were great supporters of the men and became very passionate about the cause. But I think what they really were, were women like women always are. You know, just doing what needed to be done when it needed to be done. And in their case what needed to be done was defeat the British, elect their husbands and get a country off the ground.

LESLEY: Just little, tiny things.

LESLEY: Now, Cokie, the research, the new materials you’ve come up with, the vividness of your portraits, are so impressive and it is so much fun to read. Let me ask for a sum up. In doing all this work, and in the writing, did you learn anything that you think could help today, as the country seems in such dire need of leadership?

COKIE: I think, yes. One of the things I’ve had people say to me is, “Oh, you know, things aren’t so bad today,” when they see what the country was like in the past. There’s some kind of a rosy glow over our history that makes people think that these are the worst of times, and that’s just not the case. We’ve gone through much tougher times in our history. We’ve gone through much tougher times in yours and my lifetimes, Lesley. And I think that sort of looking back and seeing how well the women handled it and how they kept sort of pushing and prodding the men into understanding what was important, and then created the institutions that made it a better country – the benevolent institutions, the social safety net, the educational institutions. I think that people should take a look at that and say, “I can do that, too. I can make it a better country through civic participation.” And that will encourage people.