Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War The Unions Moral Motivations In The War 20240713

The Lincoln Forum symposium hosted the event. Good good morning morning my name is, my name Jonathan White and is jonathan im vice chair of white and im vice the lincoln chair of the Lincoln Forum. Our form. Our next next speaker this speaker this morning is morning Elizabeth Elizabeth are farran. She is williams professor of American History and varon. Associate director of the john shes the associate l now the third center for director Civil War History of the museum of civil War University of virginia. History at the University Author of of virginia. Shes the five book books author of five books that probe that probably important important issues from issues of the sectional the american conflict from the revolution to the civil American Revolution to the war. Her masterful civil war. Her masterful biography, biography, southern southern leaning, yankees by the lady yankees spy, true story of a true story of Elizabeth Van lou a union agent a union agent in in the heart of the the heart of the confederacy was confederacy was published published by by Oxford Oxford University University press in press in 2003 and when 2003 and one three prizes three prizes including the including the Library Library of virginias virginias peoples choice award. People choice award today she will. Today she will speak to us speak to us about her about her new book, new book, armies armies of of deliverance deliverance a new, a new History History of the civil war of the civil war which was which was published earlier this published earlier this year by year by oxford. Oxford a. Review in the a review in the wall street wall street journal, journal by some guy named by someone named Harold Holzer, maybe Harold Holzer some of you heard of him, called the called the book book quote, quote, a highly original and a highly original and sweeping new sweeping new study. I had the study. I had the good fortune to good fortune to hear liz speak hear her speak on the subject a few on the subject weeks ago a few weeks ago in and Hampton Roads virginia and im so virginia and im so glad that we can ever glad that i can have hear today at the form you here today to speak to speak to. Us to us. Please join me in welcoming Elizabeth Varon all right. Can anyone everyone hear me . Good all right. In his first wartime message to congress delivered on july 4th 1861, Abraham Lincoln casts secession as the work of a small band of conspirators who had duped and cowed the south into submission. After drugging the public mind of their section for more than 30 years as lincoln put it, secessionists had relied on ingenious sophistry and coercion to mid bring many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the government. There is much reason to believe, lincoln speculated at this moment in 1861, that quote union men are the majority in many if not in every one of the socalled succeeded states. Lincoln imagined that if only the north could break the grip of the slave power oligarchy over the southern masses, this latent Southern Unionism loyalty would come to the fore and assert itself. More than two years later, deep into the war, speaking here at gettysburg in november 1863, the famed order Edward Everett did lincoln one better. Everett proclaimed quote, i do not believe there has been a day since the election of president lincoln when, if in ordinance of secession could have been fairly submitted after free discussion to the mass of people of any single southern state, then a majority of ballots would have been given in its favor. Secession, he was saying, was the work of a small band of conspirators. The hour was coming everett promised here in gettysburg, when quote the power of the leaders of the rebellion to delude and inflame must cease. Modern years, this sort of rhetoric, what we would call the diluted masses theory of secession sounds strange. Naive at best. Cynically propaganda this stick at worst. Lincolns early message can perhaps be explained away as wishful thinking. Lincoln hoped that Union Victories would result in the quick evaporation of secession sentiment. But surely Edward Everett new, in 1863, surrounded here in gettysburg by the graves of thousands of dead men that the southern masses were in earnest. They were die hard confederates, not the unwilling dupes of slave holding aristocrats. Could lincoln and everett really believed what they said . I will argue this morning that the answer to this question is yes. Lincoln and everett were giving voice in the speeches that i have quoted to a powerful and resilient belief among northerners that they were fighting a war of deliverance. A war waged not to subjugate the south, not to conquer the south, but instead to save the south. To say the southern people from their own leaders. And to deliver to southern whites and blacks alike, the blessings a free society. I aim to show this morning, that deliverance with such a powerful political theme that it drew followers like a magnet to the union cause. And enabled Abraham Lincoln to forge a Broad Coalition for winning the civil war. I will focus on three themes today. Union soldiers and their motivations, the wartime process of emancipation. And lincolns reelection in 19 1864. Along the way, i will try to explain why northerners belief that they could say the south persisted even in the face of massive evidence that confederates did not want to be saved. So first let me provide a little bit of prewar context. I will build on what gary and joan told us last night. The liberals rhetoric had its roots in the northern critique of the south. A critique that republicans such at as lincoln had popularized in the prewar period. According to that critique, the institution of slavery had rendered the south undemocratic and backward. Only one in four southern white families owned slaves. But elite slave holding all the guards dominated southern politics and they did so, republicans argued, by depriving the white slave Holding Masses of free speech. Of education. Of Economic Opportunity and of social and technological progress. As the secession crisis unfolded, this critique resonated more and more. Not only with Republican Voters but also with northern democrats who increasingly felt betrayed by the slave holding wing of their own party. So the critique primed northerners if you will in the wake of lincolns election that a small group of cutting secessionist leaders had seduced and terrorized the southern masses into accepting secession. As the New York Times put it in june of 1861, quote the people of the south are regarded as our brethren. Diluted, deceived, betrayed, plundered of their freedom of inquiry ofs speech and action, forced into treason by bold bad men. The secessionists. Such rhetoric was ubiquitous in the early days of the war. And indeed, Union Soldiers marched off with such deliverance language, literally ringing in their ears. As a local dignitary told when mess situ sits regiment that a flag presentation ceremony in the spring of 61 sending the boys off towards quote, there are millions of the white race in the south who daily pray to god for the site of your advancing columns its their only hope of salvation from a bondage worth worse than death. Over the course of the war Union Soldiers would profess and repeat like a mantra, so they had been handed a script to read from when they wrote their diaries and letters their pledge to save the south and i dont dispute one word that peter said i think the pragmatism is a very important theme of the adaptability of the Union Soldiers is an important theme but i will try to persuade you have todays the concept of deliverance proves exceptionally adaptable and. Resilient take for example the correspondents of private george w. Sherman of the volunteers. He wrote 160 something letters home to, his family over the course of three years while he was deployed louisiana at, and again and again he described the war as a struggle to break the hold that sleep holding all the guards had over what white southern masses in the spring of 1862 for example, sherman observed of the souths common whites quote, they do nothing for themselves but let their political leaders lead them by the nose wherever they please. Sherman looked forward in this letter to the time when this quote diluted people unquote, wed be brought back to the faith and love of its youth. Not like peter, i feel it is very important to emphasize the emotional needs and worlds of soldiers. I emphasize in my book that this language, this political theme of deliverance filled emotional needs for soldiers like Charles Sherman. Union soldiers shared a fealty to what historians have called the affective theory of union, as an affection. This was the idea that the union was designed by the founders to be consensual rather than coercive, found together not by force, but by mutual affection, the mutual affection of its citizens. These bonds of perfection reckon what made the Union Exceptional in the world, the shining beacon of representative government. Thus, to achieve victory, Union Soldiers like Charles Sherman felt that they had to do more than vanquish confederates on the battlefield. They had to teach the southern rebels to love the union again. Deliverance rhetoric with its emphasis on the guilt and punishment of the elite, but also the emphasis on the potential retention deduction of the southern masses, helped northerners maintain this hope of restoring a union that would be held together by heartstrings, not by force. Moreover, for northern soldiers, the deliverance of the south meant reclaiming the southern landscape as well as population. As they march through the confederacy, Union Soldiers of course commented extensively on the southern terrain, and they did not see the south simply as enemy country, as forbidding and hostile. Instead, they saw the south as part of their own National History their own patrimony as a land of faded glory and unmet potential that slavery had degraded and that a free labor system would regenerate. As a Charles Brewster of the tenth massachusetts wrote in april 1860 to, quote this country is a wonder to all yankees. There is no reason why this should not be as thickly settled and thriving as any country on the globe. The soil is good, the climate to. Everything grows here as we could wish and it would be a magnificent region but for the curse of slavery slavery which has plighted it. A man like booster believed in other words, that as the federal army moved through the south they would bring progress, prosperity, regeneration in its wake. Deliverance rhetoric served for Union Soldiers as a counter weight the feelings of bitterness and dungeons. They earned to establish the justice of their war. Imagining themselves as liberators, not conquerors, helped northern soldiers defend the escalating brutality of the war. The use of tactics like confiscation seizures bombarded the southern home front. None other than a much better known shown and williams comes to sharon in the premiere purveyor of hard war, sherman imagined himself as a liberator, all deliverer of southern whites. He aimed to prove to the confederate people he professed the leaders cannot protect them, and thus to expose the empty promises the false political doctrine on which the suggestion rested. So sherman instructed his soldiers as they need it up destruction on their famous march to the sea, that they should quote discriminate between the rich who are usually hostile and the poor and industrious usually neutral or friendly. This is a targeted severity. Sherman predicted that adds the union army exacted its toll on the rebel elite, the masses would, quote discover the error of their ways, and repent of their hasty actions and bless those who had maintained the Constitutional Government Strong Enough to protect its citizens sherman as deliver. All of the specs the question, and it is a doozy of a question. How much suppressed and latent unionism was there among whites in the confederacy . We historians of course have the benefit of hind sight and it is clear in hindsight that lincoln and his allies over estimated an exaggerated, grossly estimated an exaggerated the extent of unionism among whites to be sure. There were pockets of unionism in the mountains south, that when we get to the plantation districts, white Southern Unionists are hard to come by. Confederate military authorities aggressively fostered a culture of fear to snuff outs potential dissent, suspected unionist were subject to arrest and imprisonment, confiscation, the degradations of guerrilla bands. Unionists willing to suffer such abuse were few and far between in the states while confederate eager to meet it out were numerous. The robust and resilient southern nationalism and the succeeded states, reflected themes that gallagher and what told us about last night, a deep investment, the broad swath of southern rights and slavery. As a system of economic profit and racial control, but that robust southern nationalism also reflected the power of confederate propaganda. Confederates were well aware of this argument that desired republicans to make inroads in the south. And the confederates were determined to preempt and to discredit and to silence any yank he appeals to the southern masses, thus from the start of the war to its finish and indeed even before the first shots were fired, confederate propaganda insisted that the north waged ruthless, remorseless war, and sought the brutal conquest not the deliberation of the south. In early may of 1861 and a typical formulation quote, blood thunder fire smoke and entire subjugation, are now the favorite terms of the north men who are bent upon violence and extermination. The dispatch added again and a typical formulation that lincoln was mustering a mercenary army of quote, cut throats outlaws and vagabonds, motivated by green and bloodlust. This was the confederate image of the yankees army and it was needless to, say a far cry from the self image as liberators. Over the course of the war, the rising tide of death and destruction intensified the fervor of die hard confederates. Predisposed by their own ideology to believe that the head of the yankees would not fight fair, confederate circulated endless tails of the invaders legit atrocities and accused northerners of seeking the extermination, the violation, the pollution, the degradation of the south. These are the key words of southern propaganda. Extermination, pollution, degradation, violation. As the union army took aim at slavery, confederates reviled the emancipation proclamation as the culminating proof that any reunion between the north and south was utterly impossible. None of this voted well for white southern loyalism in the south. Unionists never materialized in the seeded states in the numbers northerners hoped for. Mike point is this. Union soldiers remained to southern deliverance because they their commitment was ideological. Soldiers fit the facts to conform to their belief system. A belief system that emphasized mans capacity to reform and repent. Northerners went to war in other words determined to change southern hearts and minds. That determination never wavered. Now i will address one more crucial facet of the battlefront before turning to the politics of the home front. The composition of the union army changed direct dramatically during the war of course. Midway through the war as African American men were finally permitted to join its ranks. The more than 200,000 represented fighting power that proved critical to the unions ultimate victory. Black soldiers have left us letters and diaries whose meetings we can plum. They too wrote and spoke of the war as a war of deliberation and deliverance. They heralded the potential of free labor to remake the south. But black soldiers defined deliverance more broadly than white ones did. African americans understood themselves to be fighting a war on two fronts. A war against the horrors of southern slavery and racism. But also a campaign against persistent Racial Discrimination in the north where African Americans were free but relegated to a second class citizenship. Four black troops, deliverance can noted more than freedom from bondage, it can noted full citizenship, full inclusion in American Society. I will turn out to the crucial war of deliberates rhetoric in the story of emancipation. As we all know in this room, lincoln faced the challenges of managing a divided Northern Home front. His critics on the right, northern democrats, sternly warned him not to take radical steps against slavery. His critics to the left, abolitionists and radical republicans, urged him to move more quickly towards abolition. How then did lincolns emancipation policy take shape . The conventional explanation is that lincoln initially avoided drastic action against slavery for fear of alienating moderates and conservatives in the north. Gradually came to embrace emancipation when he saw that events on the ground, most notably the mass exodus of slaves from plantations to union lines, events of grounds were eroding the institution. Lincoln then adapted and justified emancipation once he had settled on it. He justified it for skeptical northern electorate primarily on expedient grounds. As a military necessity. A way of punishing the confederacy of by depriving it of resources. In other words, the prevailing image of lincoln on this question emphasizes lincolns pragmatism. I would like today to emphasize lincolns idealism. The case that he and his allies made that black freedom would have broad benefits for all americans including and especially for the souths common whites. Lincoln and his allies commit themselves to buildings such a case. Slavery lincoln reason was the root source of southern despotism, it was the primary obstacle to national reunion. In giving freedom to the slaves, we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. Words from lincolns famous december 1862 message to congress. Here lincoln is arguing that black freedom will enhanced white freedom. Lincoln was echoed by many of the most influential public figures in the north. Harry beach are stow, author of Uncle Toms Cabin for example, wrote that the emancipation proclamation promised not only deliberation of slaves but the liberation of white southerners too. It would deliver our misguided brethren from the wages of sin as he put it. And make it possible that the very confederates who killed Union Soldiers, that their descendants with sometimes someday grow up in liberty and justice were his words. Crucially, lincoln and his party enlisted slave state whites, some of them, in making this case. That emancipation will have broad benefits for American Society. You all know that for slave states, kentucky, maryland, missouri and delaware had resisted the siren song up to session. Keeping the states in the union was a major priority for lincoln. And so men from these border states who were willing to endorse emancipation such as kentucky republicans Robert Breckenridge and cassius clay, became valuable allies for lincoln to make the case to other border rights. Equally important, was a statistically tiny but symbolically very significant vanguard of white southerners from Confederate States who were willing to stand by the union and defend lincolns emancipation policy. Tiny number but very symbolically important. The most influential of these unionists, Andrew Johnson of tennessee, Andrew Jackson hamilton of texas, a few others. They cast the emancipation proclamation for southern audiences as a seeming punishment that in time would do momentous good. Hamilton in a january 1864 address to texans promised that their sense would be pardoned if quote like the prodigal son they repent and asked to be forgiven. Emancipation he said would deliver whites from their present bondage and put texas on a new career of success predicated on intelligence and industry. Heres a key point, as hamiltons reference to the prodigal son reads suggests. Loyal americans turned to metaphors to conjure how the union would save the south. Confederates were in these metaphors, pupils who needed teaching. Patients who needed curing. Children who needed parenting he thens who needed converting. Drunkards who should sober up. Mad men who needed to come to their senses. Errant brethren who shell returned to the path of righteousness. Particle sons who should return home. An era where they thought you werent healing if you are not in pain. Oftentimes these metaphors evoked the redemptive nature of suffering itself. Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell of the womens Loyal National league used a medical analogy in which the south was a wounded lynn. She said we have no idea of lopping off the offending member. Let us bear with it and heal its infirmities even if we are forced to in apply the severest remedies and suffer ourselves from the agony. Religious images of purification being saved by fire as it were, also abounded. Here is a striking example. Describing the union more as a holy war. The prominent unitarian minister and Sanitary Commission head henry bellows, a very influential fellow, in tone from his new york city pulpit quote, we smite to heal and resist to bless and kill to make a live. Pain will bring redemption. African american abolitionists whod long been in the vanguard of the anti Slavery Movement made their own distinct contributions to deliverance discourse. Their focus was on how black freedom and citizenship could redeem america not only from slavery but also from the sin and the burden of racism. The Old Testament story of israels exodus from the egyptian bondage was central to anti slavery politics as were other biblical texts such as the story from julie from the book of limited guests and the biblical proverb ethiopia shall soon stretcher hands up to god. He has come the pacific appeal proclaimed, the deep lamentation of slaves, how long, how long or lowered before our deliverance shall come to past, had been answered. Highlighting the crucial role of slave resistance and black military service to undermining a confederacy, African American leaders argued during the war, that the only sure way to reclaim the south of the union was to grant full citizenship and Voting Rights to former slaves. The truest of the souths unionists. Most important Southern Unionist. I will note, parent that it glee, that of the 200,000 African American men who served in the army and navy, nearly 80 were southerners which should complicate our short hand, there is a substantial number of anticonfederate southerners that are crucial to union victory. As federal douglas put it, the more men you make free, the more freedom of strength and, and the more men you give an interest in the welfare of the state, the greater is the security of the state, and other words give men the vote. Give men the steak and society. This douglas insisted was quote the path to Permanent Peace and prosperity and quote. The African American poet agreed declaring the lesson of war to be, this simple justice is the right of every race and the world. There were in short, varying degrees of anti slavery sentiment among unionists in the north. And again, some in the south, but together, those who championed emancipation did something quite radical, and we should not miss this. And claiming that black freedom which enhanced white freedom, defenders of emancipation rejected the old zero sum game theory of american Race Relations that had prevailed in american politics up until that time. They rejected an age old pro slavery argument, black freedom could only come at the expense of white freedom. That any gains from blacks would be lost as fort whites. The idealistic defensive emancipation that it would have brought benefits for American Society was a bold argument. Its a to mobilize loyalists was given a stern test in the Reelection Campaign of 1864. Ill say a few words about that. Then i moved to some conclusions. As you all know in this room, lincolns reelection was not a foregone conclusion. To understand how we can prevail, we have to recognize that the campaign of 1864 was a referendum not only on emancipation, but also on lincolns other signature policy about which we do not talk nearly enough. That other signature policy is program of amnesty. Amnesty for confederates announced in december of 1863. Lincolns Amnesty Program offered forgiveness and restoration of Political Rights to any white southerner who took a loyalty oath, an oath a future loyalty accepting abolition and pledging future allegiance to the union. The amnesty plan also offered readmission to succeeded states that could form an electoral core of these oath taken loyalists equal to 10 of a given state 1860 electorate. Hence the nickname 10 plan for the amnesty scheme. Lincoln imagine that states such as louisiana and arkansas and tennessee, where there was a strong union Occupying Force in a small but asserted of vanguard of local white unionist would lead the way, take lincoln up on this amnesty offer model and Confederate States it is impossible to overstate how enthusiastic Abraham Lincoln was about this amnesty plan. How hopeful he was that it would appeal to wavering confederates, how hopeful he was it would encourage desertion from the rebel army, union scouts carried the amnesty proclamation to enemy lines. Cavalry expeditions with send out supply were copies of that were left behind and southern dwellings just as emancipation proclamation was propagated by the army, there was this massive outreach and hopes that this which age southern hearts and minds. Indeed, for lincoln the emancipation of the slaves and amnesty for southern whites were two sides of the same coin. The link each of them was inner growth to the president ial contest of 1864. We will talk about that election over the next two days, hoping to attract a wide range of voters, lincoln and his allies dropped the divisive label republican and choose a new moniker, National Union party to nationalize parties over to neutralize the threat from lincolns rival to George Mcclain in the Democratic Party. They were running on a platform that declares the war of failure and calls for negotiated peace as we know and we have heard about this theme from peter and it will arise again, the most variant of lincolns critics copper had democrats seemed willing to sacrifice the union and concede the confederates. They condemned emancipation in the harshest terms and copper heads echoed confederates in portraying lincoln as a remorseless, tyrant waging war without mercy. Here is the key point. Lincoln would not permit himself to be painted as a conqueror. The National Union partys campaign in 1864 was built around the theme of southern deliverance lincoln shows us his running mate the most celebrated of all white southern loyalists, 80 johnson of tennessee. Lincolns moderate and conservative supporters in the north could and did hold up amnesty, his theme of forgiveness as its crowning achievement. The franklin repository of pennsylvania had noted approvingly of lincolns amnesty policy during the campaign that the president still quote aimed at the great and, the descent through element of a great people. By which the paper meant white southerners. Lincolns backers trumpeted what they considered to be deliverance Success Stories parables, the state of west virginia, a part of the confederacy that yield back at the union column. Its commitment to gradual emancipation the rising influence of the Republican Party in missouri and maryland, charting a course towards its abolition in those states. The Union Success that were recruiting soldiers and kentucky and louisiana. Deliberation of the beleaguered union as tvs tennessee. All of these stories fueled this deliverance narrative and of course, to tell them, lincoln and his packers had to gloss over the persistent factionalism and anti abolitionists him and all the states i have just listed, but their narrative was not entirely fanciful. Lincoln would win the electoral votes in 1864 from missouri, maryland and west virginia, and in the eyes of lincoln and his backers give this this gave credence to this deliverance argument. In other words, the National Union party expanded lincolns coalition in 1864 by perfecting a big tent approach. Lincolns mainstream backers at the size of the theme of amnesty, forgiveness of white southerners, theyre deliverance from slave holding olive guards. Radical republicans and abolitionist could end it instead foreground black freedom and citizenship as the central achievements and themes. Frederick douglas for one, criticized lincolns amnesty policy. He was very disappointed that it failed to establish black Voting Rights as a condition for readmission of the union. But douglas of course, nonetheless, endorsed lincoln, because although the Republican Party was not perfect, the Democratic Party represented something far worst. The mcclelland victory as douglas put, it would restore slavery to all its ancient power and make this government just what it was before the rebellion, simply an instrument of slave power. Abolitionist supported lincoln in the end, because the choice was between moving forward and jumping backward. In the end, lincoln want won a resounding victory in 1864. Well have more to say about that tomorrow. 212 Electoral College votes to mcclellands 21. At this critical juncture of the war, lincoln had not only maintained his coalition, he had extended it, winning a greater electoral mandate in 1864 that he had in 1860. Calling lincolns victory the ballot box, the great deliverance, reverent corny leaves edgar of eastern pennsylvania marveled at how lincoln had in his conduct of the war quote, magnetize, blended, harmonized and unified the discordant elements of northern public opinion. The fall of the last rebel stronghold to the federal army in the spring of 1864 brought deliverance to full circle. After the union army entered richmond, secretary of war and winston given him prompt address to a rejoicing throng at the War Department of washington, declaring quote, in this great hour of trial my heart as well as yours is penetrated with gratitude to almighty god for his deliverance of the nation. You will teach us how to be just in the hour of victory. Grants lenient surrender terms at apples were intended precisely to ease reunion by affecting confederate submission and repentance. The reaction to the surrender would reveal to the north the deaths of southern defiance. As lincoln fell to an assassins bullet, loyal americans began to grasp that no such southern repentance was forthcoming. The slave power conspiracy was crushed but the southern masses had no intention of repudiating their leaders or of renouncing their lost cause. The union won the war but its victory was incomplete. Although deliverance rhetoric had helped to promote solidarity among unionists it had proven instrumental to Lincoln Building and maintaining is coalition and helping the union win the war. Such rhetoric ultimately failed to convince confederates to accept peace or black freedom on the unions terms. And in a dynamic that often happens in the wake of war, once the shared goal of defeating the slave power conspiracy was accomplished. A goal that had united all these discorded elements, the Unionist Coalition lost its common pursuit purpose. And disagreements over the meaning a victory came to the four. The most striking example of this is the conduct of lincolns successor Andrew Johnson. Hes in the news because of the impeachment analogy and so on. Johnson during the war had fancied himself a liberator and had gone so far in one speech as to describe himself as a moses to enslaved blacks. You all know where this story is going. After the war of course johnsons deep racism came to the four. He accepted black freedom but a very narrow definition of it. Only freedom the right to work for wages, not full citizenship, the vote, a political voice. To make matters worse, johnson cynically revived the zero sum game thinking about Race Relations. Suggesting that any further gains for blacks would come at the expense of whites. Indeed, johnson used the presidency to push a reactionary argument. He argued that the southern masses, white southern masses, who had been the victim of the slave holding oligarchy before the war were rendered the victims after the war of radical republicans and their egalitarian agenda of black suffrage and civil rights. Johnson pledged that he would fight radical republicans just as he had fought secessionists in the name of these white southern masses. The black reformer lewis hagan lamenting these developments wrote quote, deliver us from such a moses. I fear he will prove to be the pharaoh of our day. As former confederates regained power and drove blacks out of southern politics, the long lived hope that the white southern masses could be delivered ran aground. On the scholes of racism and recalcitrance. Now i have tried to suggest here with this focus on deliverance that 19th century americans had their own distinct political vocabulary. It consisted of words, union and disunion are good examples which would fade from years or change of meaning during the modern era. Indeed, deliverance is such a word. As american politics became less steeped in biblical references, the word became less prevalent as a political signifier. But retained its power as a signifier in the freedom struggle. As the scholar john coffee has observed quote, the collapse of reconstruction ensured that the biblical story of exodus retained its residents. Living under jim crow and segregation, black protestants found they had neither reached the Promised Land nor got clear of egypt. Over the course of the long civil rights crusade, generations of African American activists together with some white allies have again and again drawn on the symbolic power of deliverance narratives. Americans opposed to change, in a grammar with its own long history, have revived the rhetoric of white southern victim hood whenever the system of racial privilege is challenged. Thank you. We have a few minutes for questions. These come to the microphone here. Thank you doctor. Rachel riley alexandria virginia. As we know lincoln normally had his finger on the pulse of public opinion. He was, he was also very trusting of the Southern Unionists. That they would do their part in reconstruction and the 10 plan and everything. Why do you think he was so wrong in assuming that they would come through for him. Was he misinformed . Its a great question. Ive had people ask me that northerners were sort of diluted that southern hearts and minds could be changed. Ill note a few things. First of all lincoln did not always exactly have his finger on the pulse. His clinging to colonization suggested at times he was not a terribly good listener because he claimed clung to that scheme one it was long past viable. What was called the sweetheart deal. The compensation of gradual emancipation to the border states have been rebuffed. It seemed so clear in retrospect that he should not have been surprised to be rebuffed. There was no intention of giving up slavery without a fight. I would emphasize, again, this is part of a deeper ideology and worldview in that that the key to understanding lincolns reading of events is to recognize the border states were southern places that had to be rested from the grasp of rising secessionists. In retrospect we say the slave Holding Border states are in the union column. It goes of course without saying that they were slaves societies. The fact he was able to hang on to them, not only to hang on the to them but have the Republican Party establish some beach heads in places like missouri and maryland where they had not been strong before, again suggested to him and his allies that in some respects this deliberates policy was working. If it had worked in the border states, if it had swung them firmly into the union column, slave holding societies the they were, maybe there was a chance particularly western virginia, eastern tennessee, places where there had been for whatever reason some pocket of unionism before. But another thing i want to say in other words, they are political calculations. This gets back to peters point of studying the history of emotions which scholars are doing more and more. There is something here, a will to believe that comes from a desire to cling to the idea that the ward can end with something other than the complete destruction of these to societies. That there is some hope for resolution. In some sense, the belief in deliverance was in another sense it was pragmatic. Northern us could not have conquered the entire south and held it even if they had wanted to. So he realized that he was going to have to change the hearts and minds as a point of political pragmatism. But there is an emotional desire in the northern population and leadership, a will to believe this theory of deliverance because they saw want to believe that this is not going to come down to a mutual mutually assured destruction sort of scenario. And the other thing of course, in some sense, about the genius and adaptability of this deliverance theory is that it could not be disproven until the confederate leadership was in the grasp of the union. Until the war was over. You could always say well just wait. Once weve cut the head off the snake, once weve broken the iron grip of the secessionist elite then we will see this latent Southern Union come to the four. And so it is a bitter lesson northerners learn at the end of the war about again the unwillingness of southerners to repudiate those leaders elizabeth failure support abolitions attempts to free the slaves . And did she also believe that the war was deliverance of the southerners from the power of the slave Holder Society . Wonderful question. Elizabeth van lou, a northern spy, an elite white southern women, denison of richmond runs aspiring for the union during the war many if not all of you know her story she had been sort of an abolitionist from birth, she told, she comes to embrace anti slavery gradually and it is really the secessionist crisis in virginia isnt a pacifist effendi. She saw what looked like an active mass hysteria secessionistss leading virginia into the confederacy and she concludes watching succession unfold that slavery has rendered southerners irrational and self destructive. By the time the war starts, i described as an abolitionist. She absolutely thinks of the war as a war of deliverance it is the deliverance of the slaves that she is most interested in. People like van lou the first couple of weeks of the war, the high command has only heard rumors of her socalled richmond underground. By the second half they know theyre there they reach out to them and she becomes a spike for granted. It is the very existence of van loo that helps sustain the deliverance narrative for people like lincoln and grant. Yes there are some white southerners yearning to be delivered by this army. So one of the things we see is just an enormous clinging to anecdotes, individual stories of redemption, and the plight of east tennessee unionists as proclaimed by others who spoke to northern audiences. The existence of a richmond underground. These things fuel that deliverance narrative. I will say one more thing about this and that is that, white Southern Unionists of the die hard anti slavery kind, of whom there were very few, were not terribly optimistic about changing the hearts and minds of secessionists. What they had in mind more ways that the loyalists the loyals would be the Leadership Class those would really prove their loyalty, African American soldiers and white southern units would be the Leadership Class in the south after the war, and van lieu was more realistic and less optimistic about changing the rebel hearts and minds than some people who observed the south from a distance rather than living in the heart of confederacy. Would you comment on the story about the avon lushness group and tennessee lincoln an early 1861 he needed to come out for emancipation so he would have gone on the north side and he supposedly said he would like to have god but he had to have kentucky. I am familiar with that story. Again it shows lincoln has this very delicate balancing act that is so important to offer up an argument on behalf of more that can appeal to those border state who are not not only not enthusiastic about emancipation that many hostile and that is a big part of what im trying to emphasize. Consisted in the fact that for those skeptical they could focus on the redemption of the white south. For them this was a war to restore the white southern brethren and prodigal sons to the full sir. Deliverance seems to be an early for manifestation of an american theme of idealism which workers at the end of world war one, in vietnam, operation desert storm, the tension between idealism and realism. Any comment . I would say this kind of deliverance rhetoric, the scholar john coffee has written a wonderful book about this. This goes way back in western society, angela American History,. His book is about britain and the united states, and shows all of the Many Political uses that deliverance rhetoric has been put to there is both an idealistic and a realistic and reality politic aspect to deliverance rhetoric, and it has sometimes been used, were going to save you from yourself rhetoric, sometimes used by colonialist, by people with bad intentions, looking to interfere with peoples sovereign rights to establish political sway over them and so on. There is this deliverance rhetoric a measure of condescension that this was part of the problem. If you tell people youre going to save them from themselves that will likely them off. So there is just many angles the key thing to know in the civil war its that northerners wanted to deliver southerners not simply to bring them back into the union as constituents, but to restore them at the seat of the table of leadership. Northerners revered the southern founders. There was a strong undercurrent of nostalgia about the southern founders and they were fascinated by the south, again virginia especially, they saw it as a land of their patrimony, so there was a sense in which deliverance reflected not only a concern to really absorb the south, but a northern interpretation of American History which secessionists had divert from its natural course, as lincoln said it was to get back to the original blueprint of the founders. Go ahead. My name is john. Im from fair lawn ohio. I would like to preface my question by saying first of all, that i am a unionist to the core. Glad to hear. It but i believe the right side won the war, and i make no excuses whatsoever for confederate excesses of which there were many. Amen. That now my question to you is, how do you reconcile this concept of armies of deliverance with the union excesses of which there were . Many such as for example, the burning of atlanta where sherman had complete military control of the city and therefore did not have to destroy it, but destroy it he did, such as the march to the. See ok yes. A couple of things. What you are alluding to here is a transition on the part of the union to hard war policies targeting the southern infrastructure and home front and i will say a few things. Those policies are present from the very start of the war in places in recent studies of the western showing this to be true. We have a number of recent books wonderful work, there were debates within the union about what kind of policies were just wore policies. There were criticisms of those excesses and a recognition of those excesses. There were excesses absolutely, i am not denying. It when i am saying is we have this image that after having a embraced policy of conciliation, lincoln says 63 64, now this is a hard war and i will wage war without mercy. Lincoln never sees hard war tactics in that light. He sees them in the context of this notion that there will have to be some pain and reckoning for greater good. My point about all those metaphors and analogies to suffering as in alignment through suffering and healing through suffering is meant to suggest that even the death and destruction of the war can be folded into the narrative of deliverance. Ill give you one last example since were gettysburg. You would think that the ultimate contradiction of this Union Rhetoric would be these usually costly battles which thousands of men go to their deaths this does improve the confederate if this doesnt prove that this brutal, what would . That even confederate. Battlefields like gettysburg ruffled it by unionists into the story of deliverance. In the sense that they said what kind of a rebel leadership with send these men to die in a fruitless cause . We also see it kind of trimming which union nurses and places like gettysburg minister to confederates and report the confederate smell of fido yankees were gonna be so nice that wouldve thought twice about joining the army, and so these kinds of anecdotes are clung to. That is because of that deep emotional investment in this idea. Thank you. applause good morning my name is Jonathan White and im the vice chair of the Lincoln Forum. Our final speaker this morning is brian dark. Brian is a professor of history at Anderson University in indiana. He is the author of numerous books on Abraham Lincoln including lincoln and davis, imagining america. Lincoln the lawyer. Lincoln and the constitution. Abraham lincoln and what america. And lincoln in indiana. His subjects probe some of the most interesting and relevant topics in blankets life. Hes won awards