We would like to thank mr. Schwartz for all of his support which has enabled us to reduce a wide array of willie wonderful programs. What we give him a hand. Of course our board of trustees has been really active and really helpful in bringing this institution to the level it is today we have a trustee who is with us today in the audience. All of our Chairmans Council member with us for their great work and support. Tonights program is going to last one hour and include questionandanswer since june. The q a will be conducted via written questions on note cards and you should have received something from one of our volunteers in the audience who note cards and pencils. And i will be going through, as soon as im done with introduction i will go through and collect cards as well. I will hand out to anyone who did not receive one on the way in. Also tonight after the on stage talk the speakers will be signing books for us in our ny history store on our 77th street side of the building and the books will be there available for purchase. We hope youll join us for that. Tonight we are thrilled to welcome back to our stage eric phone eric foner he has served as president of three major historical associations the organization of the american historians, American Historical Association abalso the author of numerous books on the history of Race Relations in america and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in bancroft prize in 2015 the American History book prize right here at New York Historical society for his book gateway to freedom. His newest book was released a couple weeks ago is the second founding, how the civil war reconstruction remade the constitution. Her moderator this evening its a great pleasure to welcome back monisha adraper chair in American History at the university of connecticut and them melons for us and your fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at harvard university. She is the author of numerous books on slavery and the Abolitionist Movement including her most recent the slaves caused a history of abolition which was long listed for the National Book award for nonfiction and winner of the guilder lemon center Frederick Douglass prize. Shes also written for numerous publications including the New York Times, huffington post, boston globe and Washington Post before we begin i would like to say if you can silence cell phones anything that makes a noise and they also realize i forgot to mention the name of our wonderful trustees in the audience, clean athank you to trustees for all the wonderful work they do for us. Join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] thank you alex for that very nice introduction for both of us. Id like to welcome all of you to our Public Program on the second founding, how the civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution by ericy eric foner. Of course hes an american historian and you already heard the accolades he has won. But i thought i would also introduce him today with a contemporary description of the radical republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens of pennsylvania doing reconstruction. I just came across it so it struck me as very appropriate. The observer said over 70 years of age he was not attended with any acceptable abatement of the intellectual vivacity fire of youth. [laughter] i thought it was an appropriate introduction. This is in fact a historical quote and can be verified. Let me begin with a question i think most authors get, you eric have written already what is commonly called the bible of reconstruction. What motivated you to write this book on the reconstruction constitution amendment . Before answering that i should say im very happy to be here back at the Historical Society and particularly to have monisha as the interrogator today. She didnt quite mention it but when i supervised heard doctoral dissertation at columbia quite a few years ago now and she did get her phd there. This is her chance to get back at me because i was on her orals exam. Now she has a chance to ask me questions. Why did i write this book . You are right, of course ive written a lot of the reconstruction, im not a law scholar, im not a legal historian, im not a lawyer, although some my best friends are. I often write books because i get slightly annoyed about the way scholarship is developing without going into earlier books, and in this case over the years i became convinced that our Supreme Court doesnt fully understand the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments. And even in our own time and let tenant 19 centuries they really eviscerated them but even in a long time they havent used these amendments and the way they have intended to combat Racial Injustice in the society. So why not just tell Supreme Court they are all wrong. [laughter] and maybe one or two of them will listen. In that way its sort of ab but also there is a debate among historians about what i felt was going into somewhat uninteresting direction about where these Court Decisions based on racism, federalism, both . Theres a certain narrowness without denigrating legal scholarship at all its very important but this narratives the vision of the evidence is already seen in speeches in congress or maybe editorials in new york tribune things like that. Court decisions. But the sort of fast debated reconstruction about citizenship that was a moment when all these issues had been debated up and down the society and the courts in the pulpits at every fireside. You got to bring on the americans into the base. Particularly African Americans who voices almost never heard in the Supreme Court rulings or in a lot of the literature. I thought there was a gap out there i would try to fill. The book you talk about reconstruction amendments is called the Lasting Legacy of reconstruction. Between your course of reconstruction in the period of the war when attempt was made to establish interracial democracy in this country. It was met with a combination of racial terror, legal and political apathy and reaction. I was just wondering how you saw this concept that this was a Lasting Legacy when in that period itself proved to be relatively shortlived. We often say with certainly a good argument, reconstruction failed. And theres perfectly good evidence to say that. But if we start with that premise and work backwards then its hard to work back, why did it fail . What was the problem maybe they should have been on land or messed up on this thing . We dont actually see that it didnt all fail and the fact that these amendments were added to the constitution and remained in the constitution until today they are still there even though President Trump as indicated he like to get rid of the at least the sentence of the 14th amendment is a sign that the impulse toward interracial democracy didnt totally fail. Obviously reconstruction is about many things. Most of those things get discussed in constitutional terms at one point or another. Many other things the establishment of black they survived they didnt all fail. Still have black colleges today and found it in reconstruction. The black Church Becomes a really Major Institution in reconstruction in the center of those communities. The very idea of it interracial democracy even though the implementation date to inspire subsequent struggles. Thats when the Civil Rights Era was sometimes called the second reconstruction. The issues on the agenda right after the civil war . But i think the constitutional amendments are important even though they were kind of notified in many ways around the turn of the century the fact that they were there any usable was really determined the legal strategy of the civil rights revolution. I agree. I dont like to tell failure i always like to say reconstruction all is overthrown. Because theres a Real Campaign to overturn the score. So you also visualize this period as second founding thats the title of the book. That has to do with these constitutional amendments and the ways in which black citizenship is actually touchstone to the new founding moment. Im going to go back and look at those three specific amendments that you discuss in the book. I was wondering if you want to talk a little bit about something that has gotten a lot of attention recently. That is criminal exceptions in the 13th amendment. Can you tell us a little bit about how this exception became part of the amendment, and its tragic unforeseen consequences . Me take out my constitution here. [laughter] 13th amendment, just what is she talking about . Neither slavery or involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime so is this exist in the United States. Involuntary servitude can continue for people convicted of a crime. Theres a lot of literature on the 13 amendment nobody has written about this. There is books on the 13 amendment that tony did mention it in the slightest. Thats not so surprising. It wasnt mentioned in congress hardly. The press debate about the 13 amendment said virtually nothing about the dangers involved in allowing servitude for those who had been convicted of a crime. So where did it come from . The language, as was widely declared. Came from the northwest ordinance. I called up a couple my good friends they both gave the same answer. I havent the slightest idea. [laughter] and we dont actually know but the real point is, it had the boilerplate language the thing that people never mention is every Northern State that barred slavery included that phrase. It was familiar language that will not proviso manning slavery in territories acquired from mexico in the mexican war included that criminal exemption. This has become to get a lot of attention because there was this documentary a few years ago. That sort of had a slightly conspiratorial edge that this was put in there in order to anticipate mass incarceration. There were hardly any prisons back then. This was not supposed to be the basis of a giant system. But it created this unfortunate loophole which was later at the end of the reconstruction Southern States created this giant labor system. People mostly black were convicted of stealing a chicken and they are sentenced to eight years in the penitentiary and then they are leased out to work on a plantation or railroad or mine and it became a horrifying system. One of the books is called worse than slavery. Because of the conditions were so horrible. The courts always said this is allowable because the 13th amendment has this exemption. One of the points were thinking about is a lot of people talk about original meaning, original intent conservative view of how to interpret the constitution. Here you have an unintended consequence nobody anticipated what would happen that has really undermined some of the purposes of the 13th amendment. I think thats one of the really important and valuable contributions of this book to look at this as something that was customary that no one thought about and there was no conspiracy to undermine black freedom but the southern politicians saw that pole and worked it. He wanted to get back to the history we live in a time where conspiracy theories are right. Its probably good to have facts straight on that. So if you of course argue in this book i have argued earlier to that the 14th amendment is the most consequential. I would like you to talk more about that. Especially given the fact that you mentioned earlier some others want to revoke its provision of national birthrights. At one point i want to make to start with is that professor cinda in her book a great book on the Abolitionist Movement to quote you what she says abolitionist hitch their star to black citizenship all that was a crucial question, not the civil war. Slaves were not citizens, what about free africanamericans. The white people born in the country were deemed to be citizens of the civil war. It was little question about that. What their rights of citizens were unclear. What about free african and African Americans and citizens of the state. Many states they said citizenship is for what will, no black person can be a citizen of the United States. It was a law of the land when the civil war took place. With the freeing of 4 million slaves to Service Black soldiers in the civil war that question is on the agenda in the first sentence of the 14th amendment says anybody born in the United States is a citizen. And with no racial qualification whatsoever. No qualification to any religion or race or background and relevant today it has nothing to do with the status of your parents. An undocumented immigrant woman who gives birth to a child in the United States with the status of that show is clearly a boy the fact that their mother may have committed a crime is irrelevant. The mother could be a bank robber. That would mean the child can be a citizen. The 14th moment goes beyond that its the longest amendment added to the constitution. It has all sorts of convoluted provisions. Some of it has no particular relevance today like the confederate debt cant be repaid. We talk about reparations they put in the 14th amendment is never to be any payment to the owners. No ones going to get paid for the loss of their properties. In other provisions but the first section is the key which first creates this birthright citizenship. And then the states came out cannot deprive any citizen of the privileges or immunities of citizens whatever those are it doesnt tell you. And then that no person, more than a citizen, thats anybody, not just citizens, noncitizens have to be afforded equal protection of the law. That is the pivot of the 14th amendment. Equal protection. The notion of equality is so deeply ingrained in the United States at least in our ideology that women we may not realize theres no such thing as in the civil war. The word equal is not in the original constitution except for talking about what happens if two candidates get an equal number of electoral votes. This notion of equal protection and its not racial and this applies to everybody. And the fact that the language is nonracial has allowed in the 20th century the expansion of equality to all sorts of groups and most recently famously gay marriage. Thats 1 14 amendment decision. Equal protection. That is why i called the second founding. You have a new constitution after these three amendments. Another reason i wrote this book is even those amendments are so important, most people dont know much about them. What are what are the key documents of American History. John bingham is hardly a household name. In his hometown in ohio, there was no recognition. He was more responsible than almost anyone for rewriting the constitution of the United States. Absolutely. He has a one that gave bill of rights. We should know this guy. You are right. I think this legacy and the ways in which it has been used is for a lot of people. This is kind of a Sleeping Giant in the constitution. The irony is, it has enormously expanded the right of every american. When it comes to racially quality, since nixon began with conservatives and adopting the strategy, the court has whittled away at the use of the 14th amendment. They are more attuned to what they call reverse discrimination white people somehow protection. A vast expansion. Narrowing at the same time when it comes to what was on the same mind of the people debating this in congress. Just a followup, there is a villain in this history of the reconstruction amendment. The Supreme Court. There are a lot of villains in the reconstruction story. More about the Supreme Court. We reconstructing. Another thing i wanted to do with this book was, in a way, allude to the president. The right to vote, right to vote, terrorism, these are issues, not just just 150 years old. I am alluding to the present, i am not writing a commentary on today, but what happens to your rights when you have a conservative Supreme Court. What happens to these amendments really starting reconstruction with the slaughterhouse decision. Going all the way into the 20th century as a warning. Not self enforcing. If you have a hostile Supreme Court, they can do tremendous damage to the expansion of liberty. Why did the Supreme Court do that . Public opinion in the north was shifting away. The reconstruction et cetera. One of the things that surprised me is i dont think that that is really true. Many of these decisions were renounced by Republican Leaders by the republican press. We historians have a tendency that we like people will like us you get a lot of quotes from the chicago tribune. The new york tribune. Washing the hands of reconstruction. They did not like any of these measures. They thought that the court was doing the right thing. If you if you go to mainstream Republican Newspapers which may not have been educated by college people, they were all aghast by some of these decisions. I do not think you can let the Supreme Court off the hook by saying public opinion. You have to look at who they are. Most of the Supreme Court justices are, you know, know, railroad attorneys. People that come up very few of them have any contact with the movement or any contact with black americans. The most radical died early reconstruction. John marshall harland, the only one who ever owned a slave becomes a great dissenter on these things. Most of them, you know, these are not issues of great importance to them. Theyre much more interested in the rights of corporations. Using the 14th amendment. Theyre much more interested in the balance of the states and the federal system. I just think they are going down the wrong path. Another point, very important, there was other jurisprudence being proposed at that very time. It is not like the Supreme Court chose the only available path. Black and white. Putting forward very strong critiques of Supreme Court jurisprudence. Those ideas are still out there. If we get a better Supreme Court one of these days, what i would like to see them do, what i would like to see them do is have the, you know, gumption to say we have been pretty much wrong for the last 75 years. Lets start again. They dont tend to do that. Right. [laughter] this whole question of Legal Precedents in jurisprudence. A formal parameter of. They adhere to president until they dont like president and then they dont adhere. Many of the Supreme Courts decisions lately have had nothing to do with precedent. They sort of eviscerated the Voting Rights act of 1965. You know, i dont believe when they say we just have to go with precedent. If we dont, they find other ways to get around it. Leading up to the historic rule. What is really interesting, and you mention this, designed to protect the right to free people to protect railroad creation from government regulations. Roscoe comp ling, one of our new york, you know, major new york politicians, u. S. Senator, he was on the joint committee on reconstruction which drafted the 14th amendment. In a railroad case in the 1880s. This had to do whether counties have a right to tax railroads. Where the corporate person. We have the same rights under due process. Et cetera. I have got the, ive got the journal of the joint committee right here. If you read this journal, you will see that corporations were intended to be protected by the 14th amendment. That is pretty good evidence. Roscoe dies, actually, he died because he fell into a snowdrift in the pleasure of 1888. Later on, the journal is published in 1914. There is not a word about corporations and it. We have seen political leaders mixing this up all the time. This is a Great American tradition. [laughter] i guess this is where we get that corporations are people. Obviously a long history and law. The constitutional isolation of that which has tilt even more lately with the citizens united, now they have freedom of speech. The idea that corporations have the same basic Civil Liberties as normal human beings is certainly not what was intended by the people that put the amendment together. No. Definitely not. It introduces the word into the u. S. Constitution. Black men and this leads to the Womens Movement with some supporting the 14th and 15th amendment and others opposing it you have this moment of progressed constitutional as is him where rights expand and sometimes theyre constricted for others. I wonder if that would make you revaluate this sort of constitutional moment. It is very important that the rights of women were given no consideration. The 13th amendment has no gender distinction, obviously. In the 14th amendment section two, you have a gender distinction put into the constitution for the first time. The original constitution does not say freedom of speech is only for men or anything like that. And that is in this convoluted clause of which is a compromise about what happens if the Southern States dont give black in the right to vote. The bottom line is, if they dont, they will lose some of their congressman as a result. Mississippi 50 50 black, 50 white. If they did not give the right to vote they would lose 50 of their congress. If they denied any group of men or male citizens the right to vote, in other words, they can deny women the right to vote with no political penalty. No state allowed women to vote at that moment. They were quite outraged at that. It seemed to put in the constitution the notion of political inferiority of women. The 15th amendment, as you, as you say, lead to even more debates splitting the Womens Movement. Some of them said, no. A step forward. Black men now getting the right to vote. Now with the fight for an amendment giving women the right to vote. The grounds that it was creating another barrier. No citizen of the United States can be denied the right to vote because of race. It does not say anything about women or men. Because of race. Africanamerican people can no longer be denied the right to vote. States can continue now that language, they did debate this very strongly. We will never get a woman suffrage amendment ratified. We have this opening to give black men the right to vote. If we add sex, you cannot deny a person a right to vote for that. The amendment will never be passed. Probably that was true. On the other hand, the radicals brand name was standing up for principle. You know this, wrote a letter to members of congress saying for the first time in my life i urge you to be politicians, not idealists. If phillips is not an idealist, what is his job . Suddenly i am no longer an idealist, i am just going for what is practical. It is a complicated thing. The best emphasis on this was by lucy stone. She said both are right. Both are right. Unfortunately, that does not give us an answer to what needs to be done. The other that you mentioned earlier about representation in congress, if you deny, that was never triggered. Never enforced. In my book, there is a little cartoon. Showing congress asleep and the second clause there and Wise Congress dash they did lose the right to vote in the south. Southern states should of lost a lot. It is supposed to be automatic. It did not not happen. There are Voter Suppression laws in many states. I believe that texas should lose a member of congress because of the second section. I will start start a movement to deprive texas of one of their congressmen because they have some of these Voter Suppression laws which have limited the number of people voting. They get a lot of congressmen. 30 or something. You just need to get up to 3 deny the right to vote and they should lose one of their 30 congressmen. Lets get bernie on the case here. Absolutely. Wish him a speedy recovery. They believe in the 10th amendment. Beginning a movie. Deny the right to vote to someone you will suffer. It should be enforced. Absolutely. A lot of very good historians they argue that reconstruction would have succeeded only to have prolonged military occupations in the south. It goes against the argument that you are making about evaluating this expansion. What do you make of it . It is not 100 different from what i argue. I am arguing that these have to be enforced by somebody. All three of those amendment say Congress Shall have the power. They did not actually expect the Supreme Court to do a lot with these amendments. They did pass those enforcement acts. The ku klux klan passive 1881. Striking down. There needed to be enforcement the sweeping over the south. At first, president grant did send troops and crushed the clan you can do that if youre willing to use harsh measures. As time goes on, that becomes less and less politically viable it seems. I am not that interested in imaginary scenarios. George julian said. Lets reduce them to military rule for like 30 years. Then we can really remake the society. They were not ready for 30 years in the south. A scenario of what wouldve happened if if more troops were sent, i dont know. It is certainly the way the court operated and the fact that the Democratic Party comes back and becomes powerful nationally means that federal enforcement becomes harder and harder. Once the democrats win control of the house of representatives in 1874, you have a period of 25 years, almost, where no Party Controls both the presidency and the two houses of congress at the same time. Except for a very brief period of time. It is like today. Divided government and its impossible to get anything accomplished. One can say there should have been more enforcement. I agree. Another way, no, there shouldve there shouldve been land distribution. Take away the land and distributed and 40acre plots to the former slaves and then you will really begin to create the Economic Foundation for these rights. There is a lot of what if. We have gone into enough trouble figuring out what did happen. Trying to figure out a scenario of what did not happen. One of those off of American History that people argue about that maybe we should not be talking about. A really long and productive academic career. The one thing that ive noticed is that you have always unearthed some new piece of evidence. It is never just the same story. In this book, you have discovered this fascinating organization in baltimore. The brotherhood of liberty. The book that they published justice and jurisprudence. Tell us a little bit about how you found this book and why you choose to end your book. I found about the government of liberty in the way you and i did research. A professor at howard years ago publish an article about them. I just happen to stumble upon it. I got very fascinated and i tried to find the book. The book is in the columbia law library. In fact, paperback edition reprint was put out 20 years ago or something. Why am i interested in it . There is an argument that people like me who say the Supreme Court should be thinking about these amendments in other ways, we are imposing modern views on the past. It is the same thing they say about, you know, free to slaves. You cannot take take modern views and put it back there. That was not such an unusual idea. Their view of the 14th and 15th amendments in the 13th as a bargaining like discrimination in the labor market, borrowing, you know, opening up all kinds of public accommodations to africanamericans, that the rights to citizens are expansive and robust and should be enforced. That is 1880s. That is not today. When i say that as a way the Supreme Court ought to be thinking, im drawing on what people at the time were saying. Not just current views back 100 some odd years. How come they were not thinking like i am today. People there with what i think much better understanding of these amendments than the Supreme Court actually had. Just happens that they did not have any power. The question of interpretation is fundamentally one of power. Who has the power to determine what that language means. Unfortunately, people put forward a long book. 600 page critique. They did not have the power to see it enforced, but it is still out there. It can be rediscovered. Maybe one of these days, it will be. I think my time here is up, it seems. We do have a number of questions. The first one is actually really quite interesting. For better or worse, do you foresee [laughter] well, the reverend William Barbour who was fighting a very good battle in North Carolina against a completely retrograde State Government they have there , recently published a book called the third reconstruction. We need a third reconstruction. The Civil Rights Era. We need a third one, but more focused on economic inequality than constitutional rights. What is interesting is the civil rights revolution did not need or require or implement any significant change in the constitution. Unlike in south africa where they had to write a whole new constitution. We did not chuck out our constitution. It was there. We finally got it enforced to some degree as a result of many people in the streets demanding that. Do we need a new resounding of the constitution . Do we need a more vigorous robust understanding of what is latent in the amendments . Which people like the brother of liberty put forward back then. You might call that a third founding if we completely reinterpret what these things mean. I think we should do more with what weve got than worry about a new founding. Absolutely. Reconstruction amendment, here is another interesting question. You have written multiple books. Devoted your career to reconstruction. How has it changed or involved over your distinguished career . Well, sadly, even after i published my book, scholars cap finding new things about reconstruction. No book of history is the final word. We know that. The fate of all historians is to be superseded. I think what interests me in the work of younger scholars is the way in which the cast of characters of reconstruction has expanded. The women, the gender, what was the impact on women, white and black, north and south. I did not do much with that. Admittedly in my book, the literature on that was pretty thin. The professor, she is writing a book now called the greater reconstruction or at least that is the theme. I dont know know if that is the title. People have expanded the parameters of reconstruction. They have included the west native americans. If you are thinking of an interracial democracy, the fate of the former slaves is crucial. There are many other groups who citizen status was being debated at the same time. That is a very fruitful position some are even expanding reconstruction in time. Did it really and in 1877. You know, some people say should go to 1890 or 1900 because these issues did not go away. History never just just in that one moment. I think that there is a lot of new work which is good. I would say, maybe i am patting myself on the back too much. Not the last word, but it is still the latest word for those that want a narrative history of the whole. People have pieced together new elements or new insight, but they have not merged into a coherent new version of what happened altogether in reconstruction. Somebody will do that, soon, i am i am sure. The overall conceptualization i think still holds. Even though there has in a lot of work on very specific elements of reconstruction. An alternative to that. Here is another interesting question. Given the economic disparities that exist between northern and Southern States, is it fair to say that reconstruction never really ended . I do say reconstruction never ended. And that the issues of reconstruction are still dividing our society. Citizenship, Voting Rights. Things like that. I am not sure this is about the economic disparities today or just generally, historically. Certainly, you know, sadly, if you look at the indices of social and economic progress, whether it is healthcare or education levels or life expectancy, the former slave states are still at the bottom of the list. That is true in many countries, actually. True throughout the western hemisphere. Slavery has a very long shadow onto the president. It has somehow warped these societies in ways that they still cannot fully escape from. I remember when i taught, a visiting professor at the university of South Carolina. They used to say, South Carolina has problems, but thank god for mississippi. [laughter] we are number 49 on all of these things. In a way, if, the element of reconstruction, that meant reuniting the nation. Once the civil war was over. That has never quite happened either at least on the basis of regional equality. The subtitle of your book was unfinished revolution. This question actually follows up with that quite nicely. Do you think schools, libraries and other institutions have responsibility to move or change dedications to the leaders. Sports teams, et cetera. This is a big debate, of course. Before i came here tonight, i stopped over over at the museum of National History where, as some of you know, they have they have that controversial statue. Not a confederate, and then, instead instead of taking it down, they set up a whole thing indoors where people can comment. They have a whole range of comments on this and i wanted to see how that worked. We have never really quite reckoned with the reality of the old confederacy. Despite what many people think, this was a rebellion in the name of creating a slaveowning republic. That is what they said it was. They were not trying to beat around the bush. We are trying to protect slavery here. Thats why were going to war. I am sympathetic to people, like, mississippi, johnny webb. Their mascot is no longer johnny webb in a confederate uniform. I think he is now a brown bear or something. Certainly, you know, im not saying take down every single statue of a confederate anywhere, that is an important part of the history of these regions. Right now, the presentation presentation is totally onedimensional. Where are the statutes of the black leaders of reconstruction. They are part of southern history. Again, if interpretation is a matter of power, so is deciding who gets a statue. This is a statement of power, not just history. White southerners who supported the union. Plenty of them, too. James, you know, know, james, a Major General could not get a statue at gettysburg until very recently because why . Now because of bad generalship, but because after the civil war he supported black rights. He joined the Republican Party. We do not want to have a statue of long street. Even though he was the right man at gettysburg. There is no one alive today that owned a slave back then. We never went through what south africa did. Where people actually confronted head on the reality of the history of this era. Debating about statues and mascots and team names and all that. There is an installation right here. I went to times square with the very impressive i recommended the statue of the man on horseback. In richmond, virginia. Of all the confederate generals. It will be moved to richmond. Here is another question. I think we do have time. If the u. S. Government was actively pursuing expansion of the country and people and resources to territories west of the mississippi, did this reconstruction it is true that a lot of investment money might go in to help rebuild the south in mining and lumbering and other railroad construction. In the it is not nearly as wild as some aspect of reconstruction there shouldve been a marshall plan. If you really wanted to boost up the south, black and white. You know, a lot of money for the civil war. They were not that interested in digging into their pockets and pouring more money into the south. Westwood expansion is going on. Part of the greater reconstruction. It is diverting resources directed to the south. After reconstruction, you did not get a giant flow of money into the south. When you did, just buying up southern. A colonial economy. The south was just absorbed the National Economy as a second rate region. That lasted a long, long time in the 30s. The one economic africanamerican the poorest part of the nation. Economically where the welltodo merchant that we had helped to overthrow reconstruction, they did pretty well for themselves. They were colonial. The one that made that decision i think. To really develop the south, you would have had to crack the gym crow system. Allowing them real economic opportunities. You would have had to have education for them. They did not want to play the bill. For actual modernization of their society. Heres a question from todays or yesterdays headline. Yesterdays New York Times editorial tweeting about civil war. Comparing to todays political pilot. First of all, let me say that i do not follow the tweets of the president. In fact, i am not even on twitter. It is all so ridiculous. Invoking the civil war. I think the president is throwing things at a wall. A civil war is a treason. Was just about all these accusations and see if any of them gained popular support. We have a deeply divided political system. Go back to the 1790s. His opponents condemned the british agent in all of this. They were right about that. We went out in the civil war. Of course it is being encouraged rapidly from the powers of the optimism that i feel the one law of all history, all times in history that this too will pass. That is how i maintain my optimism at the moment. I used to think Andrew Johnson was the worst president we had. [laughter] he is getting a run for his money right now. [laughter] you know, obviously, the first president to be impeached by the house, the senate fell one vote short of convicting him. That is a little misleading. Basically his lawyers, the Republican Party controlled the senate and they could easily have removed him. They were fed up for a million reasons. They were a little nervous about the impeachment process. Another new yorker promise, look , i promise you, if you dont convict him he will not try to reconstruct. He will not violate the law. He only has about eight more months in office anyway. By the way, that is what happened. Johnson kind of shut up after being acquitted. Reconstruction went forward without his instruction is him which was very cute at that point. They could have removed him. They probably would have impeached him again and really gotten rid of them. Whether impeachment is a good idea is a political question which people can all debate. You know, my only fear is it makes it impossible to get anything else accomplished. You know, there are pressing issues facing this country. If everybodys talking impeachment all the time, we will not somehow be thinking about all these other things. Our time is up. This is a good question. The union paid so dearly for the civil war. That is a very good question. 750,000 deaths. Most of them Union Although confederacy caused a very large number of deaths. Many other disastrous things. I think there are two things. A desire for normalcy. You dont want the crisis. The white south outlasted the north the will to oppose that. Also, a civil war. A little different. Whatever the reconstruction, the longterm aim was to have equal society. They put it into the constitution. There is a case in mississippi right now where they passed where mississippi can never reduce the educational system to reconstruction. That is being violated. This is so horrible in mississippi. They are violating that law requiring an adamant education. They tried to make sure that these governments would act properly. The mechanisms for absolutely ensuring it were very difficult. A military occupation to the south. A ratifying the amendment abolishing slavery. They did, the reason they did not ratify it in 1865, the Legislature Said was because they were afraid that congress would legislate on the negro question. Giving the power to protect the rights of these people. They did legislate on the question very quickly. They were already thinking how are we going to maintain control here even though slavery has and abolished. They did not want to open the door. We will not ratify this amendment unless Congress Says they will not do anything against us ever again. Question . [applause] a a tremendous thank you. Such a pleasure to have you both on our stage. We hope youll join us for the book signing. Thank you all very much for coming out this evening. Here is a look on book tv afterward. Our weekly Interview Program that sells nonfiction books and guest interviews. Former Harvard Law School dean will question whether forgiveness can strengthen the american justice system. This weekend on afterwards, former speaker of the house of representatives Newt Gingrich offered his thought on the threat the u. S. Face from china. In the age of Cyber Capabilities in the age of space, you can become a global power without rebuilding the american military. We are so to the end of a 20thcentury military system that we dont realize how many changes are underway. I dont think that the chinese have any planning and the next 20 or 25 years. A traditional sense. I do think theyre trying to build the type of Cyber Capabilities. I think that they are trying to build capabilities of space. Global educations. Afterwards airs saturday at 10 pm and sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on book tv. Cspan two. All are available as podcasts and available online. Booktv. Org. I think the clock has told us to begin. Thank you for joining us this evening. Dating back to 1791. We have a fabulous library. An amp bowl number of programs and expeditions