Transcripts For CSPAN2 Edward Ayers The Thin Light Of Freedom 20180115

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And that it is our guest speaker, a leading civil war historian, edward ayers is professor of humanities at university of richmond where he is president emeritus picky was awarded the National Humanities medal in 2013 by president barack obama and his family serving as president of the organization of american historians with the 20172018 term. He joins us to discuss his latest book the thin light of freedom the civil war and emancipation in the heart of america which is on sale today in our store. Please join in welcoming ed ayers. [applause] so thank you so much for being here to discuss this great new book. My pleasure. The book came out a digital project, the value valley of the shadow. Can you tell us about the project outlet to you writing the previous book and this book . We thought this up in 1991, and those of you who will remember the World Wide Web didnt exist then. The idea was quickly be great if we could share every piece of evidence about every person who lived into communities, Shenandoah Valley, and Augusta County virginia virginia, stanton. Instead of history being something that just is presented as a done deal, the students and the people who like to read history, we could share the actual evidentiary record. That seems like a great idea and it took us 14 years to do that because it turns out there is enormous amount of material about 19thcentury america. Its every letter, diary, newspaper article since this entry, military record, church record, tax records, all those kinds of things. The idea was that i wouldnt be the only one to see all that evidence, that people could explore it for themselves. You can see every source that a use for this book for yourself and see exactly how wrong i was. Its been used many millions of times all around the world. Teachers use it to get a sense of where history comes from. Its not just that we make up stuff or its our opinion. Its based on evidence. I have to admit i often think of my mom who is a fifthgrade teacher. I told her i wasnt going to go to graduate school history. She said what for, we already know what happened. Ever since it up and show her no, we dont. Its a lot more complicated than you think. The valley created the opportunity to write the presence of enemies in 2003 and then became a dean and the president and then fulltime valley of the shadow was waiting for me to come back. Last year i was able to spend a year exploring it again. The beautiful thing is it still works, so i hope you will the valley of the shadow. Great. This book focuses on two counties answer the broadcast of characters. Can you tell us who are some of your favorite characters . Yeah, i mean, its better to be lucky than smart. And so it turns out that after i chose these two places because i knew they were centrally involved in the work we discover these remarkable records about people. It turns out were the only payable direct of the husband and wife threat the entire war from franklin county, rachel and samuel. Everybody who reads the book falls in love with it. They are entirely appealing people who from canada come back to pennsylvania to help save the United States. So samuel is in the 17th cavalry. Rachel is at home with her baby, and watching as big events sweep over the invasion of pennsylvania that becomes the battle of gettysburg. We are able to follow them on the homefront and the battlefield threat every step of the worker im big big, big faf them. Theres a guy who has left the direct evidence of instant. His newspaper men he sees everything with the eyes of reporter but as it turned that his baptized him he cant fight so we saw with ten women, his wife and sister and other people including enslave people, and he writes down every day what it looks like from, hes kind of skeptical. He admits before the war he has doubts about slavery. He admits along the way he has doubts about the confederacy and jeff he is a staunch defender. So to see what it looks like behind the scenes. As any of the thing i felt so lucky for the valley of the shadow and this book contains the largest single collection of letters from africanamerican soldiers who fought the United States, color troops. They were misfiled in the county next door because the widow of the man who is one of the characters, she remarries after the war after he dies from loans at fort wagner, and they are filed with her second husband in the next county over. New york times did a story about the value of the shadow back in 1999. This professor said you never find it but you wont believe how great these letters are. So we have come yell remember the story of glory. These been armed with that unit at every step from drilling in boston all the way up through marching back through the streets of boston after the war. I love all those people. Sometimes people make cameos. They just have one quote, or they appear just a fleeting instance. Theres one that i like, i dont know her name, a Union Officer is in the Shenandoah Valley down near augusta and he notices a 75yearold woman who is marching along with the union army determined not to be left behind. He says shes walking for freedom i suppose. Theres hundreds of people in there, and its hard choosing just which vignettes capture them so thats an unfair question but we will stop with that. In the book you discussed gettysburg where 50,000 50,000m both sides were killed. Once this was the turning point in the war . And also i was wondering if youd like to talk about the story of john, another character in the book. It seems a little insensitive to come from virginia to pennsylvania and civic gettysburg was not the turning point of the war, but here i am doing that. We look back on it and it seems that it was the pivot of the war, and both the white north and the white south agree it was a pivot of the war because it ended being exactly in the middle as it turns out. What reminds this is that many men died after gettysburg as died before. That war is certainly not determined by gettysburg and even its coincidence with the book in general is telling us to forget what you know about the war, which are self initiated other people who were living it at the time. You will realize that there are so many turning points, and that one thing at point out is that the war was impossible. The civil war could not have happened. The things that happen in the civil war was a deeply unlikely. So gettysburg is very important. Theres a reason that polly went into with gettysburg and volume two begins with it so you get double your gettysburg worth. It is dramatically important, but in some ways its important for what didnt happen. Winds book begins, leak patches come up big victories at chancellorsville. He feels the need to get the armies out of virginia. They are ravaging the country side. He also wants to demonstrate to the north that they cannot believe Abraham Lincoln, that he cannot predict to protect them, that they can just walk right into pennsylvania, this beautifully rich area, and is nothing the union army can do to stop them. He writes his wife and says what i really want to do is affect the election next year. Everything thats political is also military, and vice versa. What could it happen and what lee expected to happen is to be able to stay in pennsylvania for a long time, resupply their very hungry horses and men, ship massive amounts of the bounty of pennsylvania back into virginia, and maybe make it all the way to philadelphia. Maybe make it to harrisburg is what they think theyre going to be able to do. They did not limiting able to stay such a short time to be driven way. If you consider what mightve happened and what consequences of that and didnt happen, gettysburg is a turning point. If you consider what did happen, there was much hard fighting and much still up in the air after gettysburg. You discuss the election of 1864, which you describe as the most critical in our history. Can you talk about what were some of the issues in the election and why was the elections of critical . And maybe just a little bit about the platform of the republicans and democrats. I can. What i argue is that the Pivotal Moment in the civil war was the election of 1864. Many things are pointing towards that. The Confederate States of america adopt the United States constitution almost in all, changes couple of things. One, frank a talisman of slavery rather than people held the upper surface and exceeding the term of the president of six years. The Jefferson Davis never has to come up for reelection. But as soon as lincoln is elected in 1860 he knows hes going to come up again in 1864. A lot of the war pivots around that knowledge. Heres what you need to remember. After gettysburg, after the gettysburg address, after vicksburg, lee does not think in the fall of agency before is going to be reelected. Lincoln in the fall of 1864 does not think hes going to be reelected. The war is going so badly, especially in virginia, sherman is still bottled up at the board of tennessee and georgia, that the United States has to made us so much, and get cannot seem to defeat this enemy that they outnumber and have so much more material than they do. So democrats are vicious against lincoln. I think if people read this book, and all of you will, its a wonderful holiday gift, whatever holiday you may have. [laughing] but you will see that they are seeing things harder about Abraham Lincoln than we can imagine. Hes an imbecile, its on his bloody hands the rest the death of your sons can things like that that are very powerful. So the democrats are in a tough position because they dont want to pull against the United States, but they in some ways that won the war to go to war because lincoln would be reelected. They are on a platform that says what we should before is peace. Harmony of your sons are you you willing to give . Do you really want to see the slaves freed . Do you want them to flood into places like pennsylvania . Do you really want that lacks because thats not what we went to war for. We went to war to save the United States, this Republican Party has turned it, perverted it into an antisleepy war is what the democrats are saying. Heres the remarkable thing. Its very close, the democrats have their convention in chicago. They are feeling great and when they get back home, sherman has taken a letter. Its like, you know, it undercuts the whole argument that the war is being lost and theyre going to have to negotiate with the confederates. The democrats dont say much about the future of slavery. Slavery has been deeply disrupted wherever the United States army army goes but remer even as late as this, 3 million of the enslaved people in the south have never come with the intent of the union army. That the south is a size of the Continental Europe and the United States without all all e paraphernalia that we have today cannot penetrate a lot of those places. Its not clear what the future of slavery might be. After sherman falls, things look a lot better but pennsylvania still hangs in the balance. Lincoln says if i lose pennsylvania i might lose everything. The two largest states, new york and pennsylvania, new york is going to go to the democrats, but pennsylvania could go to the republicans. I dont what to ruin the story, tell you how it turns out, but i would say this. Lincoln persuades almost nobody from the democrats to vote for it in 1864. Nearly 48 of white northern meck would not vote for a dream lincoln in 1864. Isnt that amazing . The greatest National Crisis with our greatest president for the greatest purpose, that democrats will vote for George Mclellan and the end of the war. 80,000 votes in critical areas going the other way wouldve not elected Abraham Lincoln. Sort of the number we may have heard in recent elections about the same percentage we understand now, but the Electoral College it what it was supposed to do. Give lincoln a great mandate took on added election theres a question that that all the things republicans are pursuing. Remember, all through reconstruction that nearly half of white northern and who would support lincoln have not changed my going into reconstruction. Thats a a crucial part of the story we usually leave out. Were eager to cheer on grant and lee. Not lee, lincoln. To see the great outcome of the war that we know, that we forget how many white northern resisted every step of the way. Did i get all the different clauses the things that you asked . Yes. Thats a kind relating to that, lincoln one issues mandate but necessarily kidnap all popular support. He started to believe that a a constitutional amendment was necessary, 13th amendment. Can you talk about what led lincoln to this. Was i can. Ive reasonably people who might be interested in the constitution so lets talk about that. Lincoln says that the election faking of 1864 is really the first popular referendum on emancipation, and it is because everything that happened to in slavery before then have been done by lincoln himself as commander in chief, emancipation proclamation most important. So he realizes that if someone like mcclelland wins in the future, or if the courts challenge his authority to have ended slavery, if theres a different light on the courts, or if congress decides, that it is imperative. You will remember the Great Lincoln movie, and i remember being puzzled all the things you could show why are we seeing after the war is almost over and were seeing lincoln politicking . Thats because what has to happen if you dont get the 13th 13th amendment passed before the war ends, that these things are in jeopardy. So the end of slavery needs to be solidified. He has a lameduck congress, can he persuaded democrats have been an elected that was to be there for another year to go ahead and sign the 13th amendment . Hes able to get it through neroli pics of people dont often realize that the 13th amendment comes before the end of the civil war. But it has to or everything is imperiled. So after the war ends, lee 70 at appomattox, the north is pretty ecstatic about victory until lincoln is assassinated. Johnson becomes president which is not very long of course. So johnson is president. What is the effect on postwar reconstruction . Lincoln doesnt leave very specific instructions from what position for reconstruction would have been. Thanks for all the easy questions. Id sit on that is that lee less public address how i keep saying lee. Lincolns less public address is about reconstruction. This is not a direct quote but if Something Like this. Ill get back to you on the details picky since i have more to say about this in some future date and tragically course he does not. Lincoln does not let lay out an for reconstruction except to try to put the country back together as quickly as he can. He had a plan for each state, 10 of the population would declare the loyalty to the United States and come back to the country they could. So Andrew Johnson believes that he is following lincolns plan which is to help restore the country. Ill be honest with you, i went to Andrew Johnson Elementary School at east tennessee. I think theyre only two in the country, 135 miles away where he was from and for some reason in the town where i grew up. Hes just universally despised, but what we need remember is upon lincolns death, democrats and republicans it at least thank goodness with Andrew Johnson. Because he was the great hero, the only white southern senator who refuse not to go to the confederacy. And then the bent at great peril wartime governor of tennessee. And had been lincolns running mate. Republicans had reason to think this is just what we are looking for. Heres a guy who understands the white south by this committed to union and our success. But johnson, unlike lincoln, really did not value the freedom of the enslaved people. He was willing to sacrifice them and their rights for the quickest reunification of the country that he could come up with. In his mind what that meant was, that you almost all white men in the south support the confederacy. Even though they had been for unity for the work, a massive conversion to the confederacy. That if we dont have those men, including those who fought against the United States, being put back into power their suckling to be a base for a new Republican Party. So we will have to reach out to the good men of the south, i will pardon them, i taken at the word that they have acknowledged that they lost, the slave is over and the secession will not be permitted, and then they can come back into congress. The republicans say, these are the men who were killing us just months ago and now youre going to have them back to terminate our fundamental law . That becomes the fundamental issue is, what will be done with the former confederates . What are the consequences of a rising up and regarding against the United States . Whatever the pretext issue you may have had that it was your right as a state or whatever, the fact is is that this is been what republicans called a rebellion. They should be punished. They should not only not hold office can they should not vote. So the fundamental issues of reconstruction are constitutional. Its that should people be allowed back in power who rose against the United States . So the republicans say absolutely not. There is no reason in the world that we should honor these men who have been traitors. Instead what we should do is to enfranchise the men, all men at this time, who had been held in slavery for 250 years here they are the ones that deserve political power. When we were talking before about the unlikelihood of the things that happened, nowhere else after slavery ends was of such an expansion, such an experiment, expansion of the rights of the formerly enslaved people. You go from the democrats who have been confederates thinking that every expectation of running the south again, to instead the former enslaved people running things. A huge switch in a very short time. So despite johnsons almost conciliatory approach to reconstruction, how did the south responded . It seems like you discussing book covers a lot of resistance. There were institutions like the Freedmens Bureau but with a effective . How did this lead to the 14th amendment . I think that a couple things to argue. One, if the south doesnt secede, theres no way the largest most powerful system of slavery in the modern world can and in five years. The only way the south come to the way the United States couldve had immediate uncompensated emancipation was if the south seceded. Because of the constitution. Lincoln says i have no right to end slavery where it exists. Our plan is to stop the expansion of slavery, it will turn myself and kill itself. And he said it should be gone in about five generations, about 1960. Thats what the constitution permitted. But the south in great arrogance really said we dont need the United States. Where the fourth richest economy in the world by ourselves. We are remarkably wealthy and successful. We will be our own country. We helped create this country. We helped write the constitution. We should not be hemmed in by a tyrannical nor the majority. By risking everything the south lost everything. And 4 Million People held in slavery became free. Then the white south says okay, we know that you and more men than we did and more stuff so you need us. But that does not mean that we were wrong and it does not mean that slavery was wrong. And they refused to accept what the white north demands as an acknowledgment of the wrong that was slavery and that was secession. The white south resist every effort to create rights and opportunities for the formerly enslaved population. So as a result you at major massacres in new orleans and in memphis. You have smaller scale violence across the south in every county, every part of the south. And bitter resistance to things like the Freedmens Bureau and some of the most come just about my favorite characters, the white schoolteachers who come down from the north to basically risk their lives to teach the Young Children and adults have been held in slavery and in the literacy for so long. They are resisted. The white south stands up and says we will not tolerate black voting and the loss of our power. This is where reconstruction comes in. We talked about this, the thing i discovered people comprehend the lease is that what we think of as reconstruction starts two years after the war. We have seen gone with a wink and dislike theyre still there there, thats reconstruction but, in fact, its two years. During those two years the white south does everything it can to resist the creation of black rights. So congress as, heres what were going to do. Were going to have to write another amendment to the constitution granting due process of law and granting citizenship to every person who was born in the United States. Including the enslaved population. If you look back at the 14th amendment, a lot of the language betrays the date of its creation. It says you have come unless you rose the rebellion of the United States, the funny thing to say, two years after its not. So in some ways the white south creates secession, crates emancipation. In the white south dries radical reconstruction as well. It takes us back to the white northern democrats. The republicans realize if they dont put these gains in the constitution, that the next term with the democrats are in power, so much of what has been one in the civil war could be taken away. The 15th amendment comes in the same way. So the 14th amendment is not only the embodiment of these Great American ideals, the most important in the come to accept that . Probably. Maidan spot. It is easy to ask questions right out of the blue, is it . The most important one but it doesnt go out of the innate goodness of american people. It goes out of the profound challenge that was presented to them that unless we enshrine this in the constitution theres no guarantee that the freedom and opportunity and rights that were one in this world will endure. Of course as you know it is nullified in many ways for another 100 years by segregation and disenfranchisement. But the 14th amendment is there when the great war struck in the Civil Rights Movement comes. They can draw on that. So without the 14th amendment we dont really have the completion of these great rights even at the time the white south is able to steamroll over a large part of the 14th amendment as specified. And in terms of what is specified, you were talking earlier that the 14th amendment even went beyond what lincoln envisioned for the rights of the enslaved your was that the result of what the south was doing during reconstruction . We dont know that lincoln would have opposed the 14th amendment, but at the time to simply not a plan for what the formerly enslaved peoples lives would be. He said in that last speech that he could imagine that there would be some very intelligent black man, perhaps some of the 200,000 veterans who fought for the United States, who would be in franchise. Thats all that he really announced that he would be. That led john wilkes booth, however, to say this is going to be the trigger for my assassination. He Just Announced black men voting. You could argue the 14th amendment is the fulfillment of the direction that lincoln was laying out. But i think it went farther than people imagined in 1865. And so you mentioned that throughout segregation and the Civil Rights Era the 14th amendment contingent of relevance. Kind of flashing for two today on your podcast back stricken which is great, i recommend everyone check it out, you recording episode discussing some of them a recent events that it meant going charlottesville with confederate monuments and confederate flags. How can understanding the history of the era in foreign debates, content great debates about how to understand these monuments and what to do about them . Yeah, our show, our back story, and it is awesome, check it out. [laughing] is based in charlottesville. So we were there. I scored to teach a class of university of virginia that afternoon, some kind of alternative to things were going on in the streets and, of course, that was canceled after the death of Heather Heyer we had reflect on this, pretty college town sort of engulfment all this from a statute built in the 1920s. Also i lived in richmond and upon the commission appointed by the mayor to think that what we do with the largest collection of confederate statutes in the country, including monument avenue. Statues. Ive been listening to hundreds of people, different opinions about this. Im not going to announce opinion right now because my job is Civil Servant might now is to keep an open mind and listen to what everyone, but when i go into unless it would wouldve d i will argue with. So whatever position you believe, let me tell you what the alternative argument is. Heres what i think is that its necessary that we have this discussion. I dont see this as a dysfunction in some ways that we were talking about you statues. I think its time we talked about the statues and that we think about who put them up, when, for what purpose, what did they say when they put them up, what did other people say against them when they were put up, and how have they been sort of use in the public spaces of the country . So i think it all the conversations that i have, people tend to want to skip over the civil itself. Often i hear that robert e. Lee was a fine man, that he had been for the union. He was in favor of slavery, therefore the civil war could not have been about slavery and so forth. To those people isaac lets think what wouldve happened had the south one. What is an and on the statues had one . Jackson and stewart and davison, lee. You wouldve had the creation as a separate nation of the largest slaveholding country in the world that was at the pivot of the world economy, and had a monopoly over the sink of most valuable commodity in the world. And it would already announced that it thought it should expand into cuba, maybe to mexico, to Central America here what would World History have looked like had the confederacy one . Its a more useful way of thinking about it than to say what were the motives of the men and what with the character of them along the way . But then i find that other people dont really want to think about the hard journey of how it was that the rights and emancipation came about, and would wonder, well maybe, what we really should have the statues to 200 black man who fought or for the for people held in slavery. Or that we should acknowledge that nearly half of white northern and wouldnt over every lincoln in 1864. Maybe we should be acknowledging the complications of our past rather than keep trying to simplify it. Statues just are not very good at telling a complicated story. Thats their whole point is to tell the simple story. It was a great man, and thats a problem. Were going to need to find other ways to explain this complicated story. Books are one way. Podcasts, but also ways a different case of memorials. What are the only memorials we have a minute horseback . And about the way we struggle to memorialize the vietnam war and how powerful that statute is. One thing that feels to me is we dont feel the gravity of this war as we should. We talk about civil war bus that cannot drain the suffering and trauma out of this. One thing we do remember is that if the civil war occurred today and the same share of the population was killed, we would lose 8 million americans. Give people some sense of what was at stake. I think that we attended to think of the support as a white thing and emancipation as a black thing. We need to see if they are the same thing and to understand one we will have to understand both get we need a new vocabulary. Its not so much about moving the same pieces like a chess game around. We need to reimagine the central event in our history. Thats what i think is that were close to beginning of this conversation that we are to the end of it. Good for this country to think about how the most important thing that ever happened to this country, the end of slavery, actually happened and what it meant when it did. I see your questions. We have some audience questions. Before we get to them about asked one last thing, dovetailing off what you just said. Eureka story, he hosted podcast so what you think the role of historians is a should be . You know, what actually happened mattered. Thats somewhat of a naive interpretation, but i believe that there are standards of proof based on evidence that actually matter. Knowing who said what and when, how they change their minds, is actually important. So people whose lives just skip all of that and say whatever they want to say about the civil war, and i find this very often, that people often begin a sentence with will, the civil war was just about. I said you already lost me when you suggest. If you think something is constituted on the civil war in favor of a slavery will fit on a bumper sticker, youre mistaken. The civil war is not just one thing. I think its important we actually look at the record that we have that tells us a lot more than just unfounded opinion. I believe more in history everyday as i see that a history that is suppressed, that silenced doesnt actually go away. It just grew stronger when it comes back. Okay . Its better for us to be honest with ourselves to acknowledge complications, to acknowledge shortcomings rather than try to make everything a monument that is only to our best selves or the cells that we wish we were. I mean this for the whole country. I mean this for all facets of our history. Its better to be honest with ourselves rather than to kill ourselves fairytales. So first i didnt question come is the constitutional amendment requires approval of state legislatures, how did it pass is the south was 100 opposed to it . Thats a great question. Did everybody here that . So if constitutional amendment requires the passage by the state, how would these amendments passed . That was one thing that the 13th amendment passed was when the south was not in congress, right . And the Southern States that are under unique patrol. The 14th amendment, this is what reconstruction is. The republican say okay, you former, they call it the socalled confederacy, that they never actually acknowledge the confederacy, the socalled confederacy. If you want to come back to the United States heres what you have to do. You have to have elections to write new constitutions. In those elections lachman have to be able to vote, and black men have to be able to be elected as delegates. When you come together and have Constitutional Convention and write a new constitution that accepts the 14th amendment. Then if you may come back into the United States. That is what unleashes enormous amounts of black political activism. They have been waiting all this time, mobilizing the churches. White southerners have told themselves for 250 is the black people are not capable of Self Governance here these elegant speeches and watch voter turnout that put us today to shame, and the bravery of going to the polls when your boss is telling you if i see you in that line, you better not be at work on wednesday. And despite that, the book. Then they go to these conventions and their eloquent and they write you constitutions, and then they are accepted. This happens over a couple of years and thats how that happens. In virginia they write the new constitution, and everybody, all the former confederates know its going to be a joke because theres 24 africanamerican men and the number of white northerners who were there. I know its going to be a terrible constitution. The most radical thing it does is create virginias first hired public education. So they go you know, thats not so bad but heres the fact. 186869. By 1901 every seven, by the turn of the 20th century every Southern State has new Constitutional Convention in which they basically nullify all the constitutions written during reconstruction. Its during those constitutional inventions from 18901908 in which things like the grandfather clause and understanding clause and the poll tax and all those things are put in. So the Constitutional Convention endorses the 14th 14th amendme. Other Constitutional Conventions bypass it and actually make a travesty of it and the 15th amendment. 15th amendment says you cant restrict somebody voting on account of their color. So instead they do it through every other means that they can think of. Thats what hobbles the south for the next century. By the 1920s voter turnout in virginia is in the twentysomething percent. The political system is hollowed out by this reaction to reconstruction. So in many ways reconstruction takes 50 years to play out and it looks for all the world as if the south has one. And then the Civil Rights Movement comes back it overturns that, but the Voting Rights act and the civil rights act. To what extent was the Supreme Court involved in any of upholding for the south was doing . The Supreme Court was not really very important to this. This is a deeply electoral process. One thing that surprised me when i start think about the civil war was how thoroughly electoral it was here americans basically voted to have the civil war, then they vote to have reconstruction. When they dont vote that way it in. Almost immediately after the construction is inhibited the democrats start winning in the north. Undercut. They start reconstruction within the political power in favor of it begins to wane. Thats why you dont find the Supreme Court or white northerners doing anything to stop this reassertion of white southern power after reconstruction. The white south calls that redemption. They are redeeming the south from the sin of emancipation and reconstruction. The Supreme Court, plessy v. Ferguson about segregation, basically say local practice trumps these provisions. So the Supreme Court pretty much about the white south to reassert its control. How did the public narrative of the civil if opening 1861agency to five . Im going to extend the question is a bit about the story. Its like we see today, i dont know about you but every time i look at my phone, hows the story unfolding . Whats the next installment . Every but he has all the time that explains. If you change the into the store you change the beginning of it. They keep going yes, this is, this wasnt the and but its coming soon and will go back and theres getting right in the middle. It was a pivot around everything. The story along the way is that the north is fighting for purposes and have a good, the restoration of the union. Notice is a fundamental problem. If you restore the union you restore the union with slave in it. Howd you restore the reunion and get rid of slavery . Thats what lincoln has come the democrats are saying youre being hypocritical, doing something thats keeping the south from coming back to peace with us by attacking the slavery. Thats what the democrats hate. Lincoln said theres not going to be a true reading until we get rid of slavery. So thats the story. The democrats tell a very simple story. We went to war to reunify the country. The republicans rooted by turning it into a war against slavery. We hate the republicans. We hate Abraham Lincoln. We resist this evident. But republican say we have now seen that for a true reunification slavery will have to be destroyed. The republicans actually grow better before our eyes. They actually mobilize themselves to be the party thats in favor of freedom for all america and in favor of the 14th amendment. What we see is Abraham Lincoln is great, but unless he wins it doesnt matter. Its the republicans at every level for mobilizing people who could not have cared less about africanamericans a few years before in denouncing yes, we believe that the country requires their rights for us to be truly redeemed. So the story is changing that way. Whats interesting to see in light of the question about the monuments and so forth is that memorialization begins as soon as the war is over. The white south begins i singing songs and writing poems about Stonewall Jackson who is dead, unlike robert e. Lee who is not. And children throwing flowers on the grade and celebrating confederacy as soon as the war is over. They never go we were wrong, its a terrible mistake. Instead they said we were overwhelmed but we were not wrong. In those same towns of black residents would march to the cemetery where the Union Soldiers had fallen and put american flags and flowers on their graves. So theres never a time when everybody just what it said hey, good game, its all over with. When lee dies the republican paper in pennsylvania says, we see newspapers around the country putting black borders around the papers talking but what a great guy robert e. Lee was. But we refuse. He betrayed his country. If he had stayed with the United States, the war would not have gone on for so long. Its by him we place the blame for most of the deaths in the last winter of the war, that horrible winter of 64 and 65. Lee, if lee it said to his compatriots, we lost, we should surrender, your son might not be dead. And then they said, this is most relevant for the current debates, for the five years after the war he with the right words couldve helped reconcile the White White House to what t happened. Instead he sat there silently. He is being praised for not saying much but he should have said something. So their final conclusion is we think that he should just be buried and his deeds along with his body. I think then after that the white north and the white south slowly begin to come back together and the white north says yeah, you fought the good war, you were wrong but you are honorable, brave, good soldiers the white south said we are actually glad slavery is gone, especially now that were back in control of the black population. They come together and celebrate their military struggle and forget about everything underneath. Thats why you can have all these statues in the south pickets like the north says you lost the war, you control home come you can make these statues if you want to. This is a question about kind of about grant, and so what was his role in emancipation of slaves of the restoration . How did grant grant response in reconstruction . He became president and Geneva Council talk about it was grant to recognize his military victories were decisive to the election and to the outcome the war. Yeah, i dont know, i mean, grant had undergone this great resurgence of reputation, and i was talking to some folks just two days ago who said everybody said grant was a drunkard and a butcher and robert e. Lee was a gentleman and a leader. Now those things seem to have been flipped. I think people look back and see that grant and lincoln won the civil war and they were the team that could do that. I think its true lincoln certainly knew that if the armies in the field didnt win, he was not going to win at home. Sherman played a large role as well. After the war grant had not been known as a particularly political person. But grant could see that so much of what had been want at such the cost would be wasted if reconstruction were not seen through. The most important thing that grant it was he launched investigations in resistance to the ku klux klan which emerges in 1870 and 71, especially in south carolina. So grant does what he can, but imagine, we talked today a lot about the world war, imagine you have to fight every white southerner all across the south with none of the power of surveillance or the radically declining number of soldiers who cant communicate. So pacifying the white south, we seen how hard it is to pacify places in the modern world, grant i think did what he could. I think he is seen in reconstruction as kind of coming in when the dye and cast in some ways. In your book, rebel soldiers in the valve on more considerate of civilians than Union Soldiers. Do you think this was true threat the nation or would you agree with that statement . Well, i can see why people say that. Thats what lee wanted the people of the world to believe, that were going to come into pennsylvania, walk right up the valley turnpike writing to chambersburg and were going to pay for everything that we take with our good confederate money. And they have Printing Press and so theyre actually making a great show. And theyre making a show merely a taking everything that they want and need, not of destroying things. So that is the story that the confederates want to tell. The next year they come back into that same town in chambersburg and burn it to the ground after demanding that they pay 100,000, which the leaders of chambersburg thought that they, the city fathers left with all the money, so the confederates said pay us, we cant come we dont have any money. Sorry, but we need to burn this tent. Town. And they do. Then the newspapers of the south say we wish the entire Susquehanna Valley were in flames. So the Confederate Army and, of course, the first time they come in, they round up every africanamerican they can find whether they were free or enslaved and put them into slavery and ship them back down south. Thats a big exception. I do think that, i think you watch over the course of the war, i dont believe theres a big difference between the way the confederates and the federal soldiers act towards civilians. The thing is theres all this burning but by the standard of the 20th century, they consider women and children to be offbalance, compared to anything that would happen as early as world war i with bombing, the civil war is relatively constrained on that front. In the part where you talk about gettysburg you mention the gettysburg address previous and this question is about, what was lincoln referring to when he cited fourscore and seven years ago . Relatedly, you mention when is talking about a new birth of freedom. What did that mean to lincoln . What did whites at the time understand that any . These are good, hard questions. I feel like ive in my phd exam. You guys are asking tough questions. Fourscore and seven years ago his talk about the declaration of independence and the constitution. Lincoln wouldve said his entire purpose is to defend the constitution. That was his argument are not allowing fort sumter be taken. This been a lot written about the gettysburg address, and the thing to remember is people say why does he ever mention slavery . He mentioned slavery and things he writes before and after about all this. Hes trying to kind of alchemy to bring together those two purpose of restoring the union and to bring together a broader kind of freedom. He recognizes that without the victory of the United States, there is no hope for any kind of freedom for black people and white people. I think that lincoln believes that he is mainly think you think is consecrating the lives of the man who died there and who are buried there, its not a political speech. He believes that the they Union Victory will actually bring to its to fruition of what was started in the declaration of independence, in the constitution, that both of those documents were meant to point toward freedom but had been holed up short. Now it would have a chance to come to their true fruition. Earlier you were talking about the process by which the 14th amendment was ratified. So the question is, asks whether making a ratification as a precondition for readmittance, how did this affect how people, maybe everyday people and covered the legitimacy the amendments and does that continue today . I would say that white southerners considered reconstruction to be bayonet rules, and considered these constitutions to be illegitimate, and thats why they overthrew them. You consider that mississippi is the first new constitution in 1890. That shows you how long there was between these things come right . 2025 years and during that entire time they were basically being nullified through practice, if not by law. In mississippi when to write this, they come together to write this new constitution they say we have to because we cannot hand our sons responsibility for the state of mississippi with a shotgun in their hands and a lie in their mouth. So well have to change the constitution. So they dont have to bargain for or intimidated intimidate. Sort order to stop ourselves from behaving in a properly will have to change the law of the land to do that. They felt vindicated in basically overwriting the 14th and 15th amendments by what they consider to be constitutional means. To realtime for two more questions . Sure. How is the civil war proceed throughout the world, i. E. In europe . You know, i dont think it takes anything away from the greatness of america nation to acknowledge that we might not be it if it werent for the french who helped us in the revolution. And so the confederacy thought, you know, france and england really need us. Were fighting for the same rights of selfdetermination that are all over the world. And that they are supporting in places like that. Maybe they should support us. Its too to a disconcerting ext they might have if the confederacy had actually succeeded earlier in the war, especially at antietam in 62. And made it appear the confederacy was a growing concern. The main way that you saw this was a disaster for suffering of the white population. They saw it as, not human rights to think of what the word is. A word we use today. Ive actually used all the words them i had. I didnt think was possible but ive done that. [laughing] that it would be a crisis of suffering and the coal was trying to in the war as soon as they can. But as the war proceeded, it were their cartoons against Abraham Lincoln were brutal in london. But after it became clear that this was going to be a a war tt ends slavery and restore the United States, then people grew especially after his death, to very much admire a man lincoln. But the great confederate hope all along had been if we can do Something Like win a battle in pennsylvania, then we would be able to get the european nation behind us. This will come to a negotiated end and the confederacy would be allowed to exist and will have slavery and the world will be restored the way it should be. Okay. So for the last question there been a couple of about the monuments. I know you dont want to take a particular stance. I guess relating to what you said about how learning about the civil war and how we got here, where we are today can help inform the debate about the monuments. What you think it says about where we are now that this debate has been resurfacing recently, and does it suggest maybe we need to take a look at the civil war, learn about it more . What you think is going on . I think people should learn as much as they could about the civil war. [laughing] the monuments that we have in the south were put up in a time but i just described to you with these new constitutions, in which it was im questions about who ran things. And the monuments were a vindication of the earlier losses of so many of the men who had died fighting for what turn out to be a lost cause. There was a celebration of those men, and of the returned power of white people. Today there is a greater equity in political power in the south and in the country, and its not surprising to me that when africanamerican people have a chance to reconsider the public landscape, they should say why are the monuments to people who try to perpetuate slavery and to separate from the United States . What are we supposed to tell our children when we see these big statues . For a long time just ignore the statues for them to allow them to fall silent. But id say in the many conversations that i have, a fundamental position is generational. Young people, whatever their ethnic background, just dont get why these statues should be there, because they were not raised for any veneration for robert e. Lee or even ulysses grant, right . Why would we allow these legacies from the past to be haunting our present . Other people say the statues are history, you cant erase them. What they really are is manifestations of, not the civil war themselves, but of a later period of history when they were revising their thinking about history. So what id like people to do is generally the answer to address historical problems is not less history, but more. To think about why are these statues here . Who put them here . Did people resist them at the time . In richmond, when the robert e. Lee statue went up, the editor of the local black newspaper who was on the city council said this is a monument to treason. Its not as if people didnt think this all along, its now that theres empowerment where they can say this in the public sphere. So i think that it is not an accident that were doing it now because we live in a time where people are thinking about, you know, what does it mean to memorialize certain parts of the american past. You know, thats why i place the Constitution Center why a place like the Constitution Center is so essential. Not only to put up a monument to the founders and say, well, that was great, thanks a lot, but actually to talk about all the challenges that we still have every day. I see them as directly analogous. I would hope that we will find that we need a richer vocabulary to talk about all these things, that well think about new ways to connect with the past, that well recognize with all the means at our command that we dont just have to have bronze statues, but there are other ways, maybe even all the way back to a digital aver kentucky kentucky archive that lays out all these stories. There are new ways for us to think about the past, new ways for us to touch the past, and thats what we should be doing going forward. Great. Thank you very much, everybody. [applause] thank you so much for coming, and ed will be available briefly after to sign books outside the museum store. Where do i go . Youll show me. Yes, great. Thanks very much. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some of the best books of the year according to publishers weekly. In ants among elephants, petr man sow, curator at the museum of natural american history, recalls the life of a photographer in postcivil war america known for his spirit photography in the apparitionists. City university of new york professor Ashley Dawson explores how cities could be affected by Climate Change in extreme cities. In fear city, new york universitys kim phillips fine recalls the fiscal collapse of new york city in 1975 and how the citys brush with bankruptcy reshaped ideas about government. And wrapping up our look at publishers weeklys best books of 2017 is the color of law. Richard rothsteins report on how local, state and federal legislation is responsible for americas segregated cities. Today those homes sell for 300, 400,000. The africanamerican families who are prohibited from moving into those homes and rented apartments in the city did not gain 200, 300,000 in equity over the next two generations. White families gained that equity from and today those homes are unaffordable for working class people. 100,000 in 1940, in our terms, in 1947, 48 was twice the National Median income. Working class families could afford to buy a home with an fha mortgage. Today those homes sell for seven times. Working class families, and you all know this, middle class families cant even afford to move to these suburbs that were created in the 40s and aye 50s. 50s. So today nationwide we have a ratio in income, africanamerican income on average is about 60 of white income. Africanamerican wealth is 57 of white wealth. Most families in this country gain their wealth through housing equity. This enormous difference between 60 income ratio and 5 wealth ratio is almost entirely aricket bl to attributable to unconstitutional federal housing policy that was practiced in the 1930s, 40s and into the 50s. So the wealth gap, i think, is attributable. Some of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv. You can watch them on our web site, booktv. Org. You know, the title came in the spring of 2016 before george w. Bush had purportedly said to aides off the record i may be the last republican president. It was very clear to me that regardless of who won the presidency in 2016, there was a kind of republicanism that was dead. And when he said that, i remember talking to my wife, i was i sort of hit my head, well, its gone, now i cant call it that. Then i realized, wait a minute, all the more reason to call it that. Thats right. And he said the same thing to me when i met with him, i may well be the last republican president. If you think about donald trump, he is absolutely anathema to the bushes. George h. W. Bush campaigned under a platform of trying to create a kinder, gentler nation. George w. Bush campaigned under a platform of compassionate conservativism. When we were attacked, even after 9 11, george w. Bush resists taking the path of least resistance and sounding this message of xenophobia and nativism, and instead visits a mosque to emerge and say that us islam is peace. Its quite remarkable in todays, by todays standards. To take this further, if i may, just you look at Ronald Reagan. Ronald reagan is the republican icon. Hes the emblem of republicanism. And hes called, of course, the great communicator. What is his most favorite, famous rhetoric . Its standing at the Brandenburg Gate and saying to his soviet counterpart, mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. America at its best stands for both literally and figuratively tearing walls down, not building them. And then you have donald trump [applause] if i could take it just a little further, just look at Ronald Reagans policy toward the soviet union. Which was trust but verify. [laughter] when he was talking to gorbachev during those famous summits during the course of reagans administration, he would say repeatedly to mikhail gorbachev, trust but verify. So much that gorbachev got sick of it. [laughter] in fact, gorbachev stood on this stage and talked about how sick he was [laughter] of Ronald Reagan saying trust but verify. With donald trump, his policy toward russia is trust. Trust vladimir putin. Not trust his own intelligence apparatus. That is remarkable. That is absolutely astounding, that a republican would say, oh, this whole business about russians meddling with our election is over because, you know, my counterpart denied it. [laughter] yeah. Think about how so that sound you hear is Ronald Reagan rolling in his grave in simi valley, california. [laughter] you can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. [applause] good morning. We, this is the last regular convocation of the semester, right, david . And and huh . [inaudible] i know, harlem globetrotters, but they had to use their convos gifts by the end of the semester, right . All right. So i see a lot of them are using them today. [laughter] its my fault. We gave them an extra one, corey and robert, because they turned out in such big numbers to vote. So a lot of them are using it today, but dont take it personally. It has nothing to do with you guys. Its just the end of the semester. Weve got some very special guests here today. T,