Example to turn to in a time of crisis. He is notable for his empathy and accountability and humanity. Those characteristics were on display when he was living here at the cottage. Hit, we Current Crisis turn to dr. Jared peatman. Our First Program with jared sold out to capacity quickly and he agreed to do this on core program. Encore so much has changed that it will no doubt be a Different Program in its own right. From better for the college with a masters degree from texas a m. A metaphor toy as examine current leadership challenges. Is a senior fellow at the George WashingtonUniversity Center for excellence in public leadership. He has delivered over 500 leadership seminars and dozens of different sites including gettysburg, mount vernon, the alamo, waterloo and president lincolns cottage. Jared was named the organization of american historians doctoral fellow. Prize fore received a the best work on a bram lincoln. Abraham lincoln. He is the author of a book on leadership lessons from gettysburg. He is currently working on a book about the battle of gettysburg. A certificate in Experiential Education from the National Society of Experiential Education. Please join me in welcoming jared. You everybodyhank for being here. Im hoping that this can be kind of an interactive presentation as we go. Several times i will ask questions and we will analyze a few things together. One will be via the chat function. We would like to have some of you be able to unmute yours elves and engage here live as well. The first question i would like when we saybody is, Emotional Intelligence, what is that mean for you . How would you define it . What are the examples that come to mind . I would love to see your thoughts around that. If you want to put one in the chat, that is great and if you want to alert us that you have some thing to share with us verbally, that would be great as well. I will be quiet for a few seconds to let you think about that. When we saythink of Emotional Intelligence and how do you define it . Im seeing some interesting thoughts here. Nina, i am intrigued by your comments that is the ability to understand more than just the tangible aspects of a person. More,re willing to add im curious what you mean. Do you want me to speak or to type . Dr. Peatman speaking would be great. I was at a loss for words, i still am. That is why i say not a tangible thing. What is the emotion of how , being able to understand and relate on a deeper level than just getting the work done. Dr. Peatman that is great. Thank you very much. Does anybody else have something to add . We see some great comments about adjusting and reading peoples emotions. A lot about awareness, putting ourselves into peoples shoes. Some interesting thoughts. The model that we are going to by as we go was developed guy named steve stein. He offers this particular definition. Emotional skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way. If you have seen this concept before, and it is becoming more popular, you are likely to have seen it in relationship to a guy named daniel bowman. Of interestinge things as to why it is important. He says all emotions are an impulse to act. Says, allnges he emotions are ok. If you are angry or frustrated or happy, that is a natural reaction. The challenges that not all actions based on those emotions are fine. Reactre angry, how you is what has to be more controlled. Goldman suggests that the key start of Emotional Intelligence is awareness of your emotions as they are happening. Only if you are aware of them can you manage them in some sort of way. People, that is a challenge. In this the emotions moment and how are they pushing us to act . Perspective, iip think it is worth studying and working with. You can get better. These are not are born with these traits and they are what they are. Skills that you can work to improve. Empathy, there are things that you can do to get better. Are things that you can do. O work in those areas as well has fiveicular model parts. There are half a dozen models. Daniel goldman has one. This when i find most useful personally because it has two composites that most of the others dont or deemphasize. The Decision Making composite and the stress management composite. Those are so critical as we think about performance and leadership. Recognizing the emotions of others. What is the impact of those emotions on how you make decisions and how you manage stress . For today, the thing we will focus on is the stress management composite. Do is to offer you three slices at that, three different ways to think about it. You will find one of these useful as you move forward. The first comes to the idea of control. There are a lot of different ways that people think about handling stress, responding to adversity and resilience. If you are listed on the screen a few are listed on the screen. One is hardiness. It comes under three things, how well you do with challenges, how you feel you can control a situation, and how willing you are to commit to effort in handling adversity. The second is called cibd. It stands for when adversity hits, what are the things you can control . How can you limit the impact . The breath of the diversity . The duration of the diversity . Is then another one that same concept with a different acronym called core. This idea of control comes up over and over. What can wety hits, take control over so that we can feel like we have some way to move forward . An article came across my email this morning from Harvard Business review. How to get through covid19. One of the things they talked about was trying to establish some sense of control. It gives us a sense of Psychological Safety and comfort. Suggest that there can be a problem with control. Researchers have found that when people experience adversity and scarcity. Emotionalney, time, resilience, mental bandwidth, the problem is not that we focus on the big problems and forget the little stuff, the problem is that we focus on the little stuff, the easy stuff, the quick wins, and we put the big stuff to the side. That is the challenge with control, how do we do the big things as well as the things that make us feel better in the moment. Wight eisenhower put it well he said what is urgent is seldom important and what is important is seldom urgent. When we think about things going wrong, how do we continue to think about those longterm things and not just the low hanging fruit right in front of us . Over, i doubt im going to remember that i spent 20 minutes this weekend cleaning the light on my back porch. That is a true story. I will probably remember some of the more significant work things i have done. But howh have a place do we find the balance . Lincolnwhat made abe successful is he was able to find that balance. He was able to find that balance between doing the small things that gave him a sense of Psychological Safety and comfort, but not all the time. Also being able to focus on the important things. There is this great quote from the summer of 1863. , one offrom john hay lincolns secretaries. He says the tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him more serene and busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the union all at once. We do say usually. I say this as a balance. Its not always the case. Scanning famous for the courtmartial records and looking for examples of some private sentenced to execution for falling asleep on duty, scanning those and looking for the sentences he can commute. Why does he do that . He does it for those individual soldiers but i think he does it for himself too. At a time when there is so little he can control. There are times when he cannot get his generals to do what he wants, politicians are not listening, there is resistance to the draft. This is something he can do. He does it for the soldiers that for himself. Those of you who have been to the cottage, there is the famous colonel story, colonel scott. To comes to lincoln asking for this big favor that lincoln should not take the time to do, all the time and effort he would have to go through term grant his wish to recover his wifes body, but he does. I view this not so much as something for colonel scott, but something that lincoln does for himself. It is kind of that balance between them. Do the small things that make you feel good, but at the same time, what are the big things that we will remember longterm . Lincoln is able to keep a foot in both camps. That is what i would offer as a take away. The second part comes to how incoln a small case study how lincoln handles two different crises. They are slightly different. One is personal and one professional. The bigger difference is the span of time. What we can see from looking at his disparate reactions is how lincoln grew over time. That is one of the key parts of Emotional Intelligence. How he grew and improved his ability to handle crises over time. The first incident occurs in 18 41. It is january and lincoln has been dating mary todd for a while. The engagement breaks up. Lincoln breaks off the engagement. Almost immediately afterward he starts to have second thoughts. He starts to think, maybe he did love her. He worries he has broken his bond. He becomes despondent. We can see the analysis of a couple of his friends. His roommate at the time saying, lincoln went crazy. They thought he was suicidal. They removed sharp objects from his room to make sure he did not take his own life. Lincoln city did not have sufficient composure. Mostid he was the miserable man living and that he must die or be better. You can see how extreme his reaction to this personal faced. Is that he has . . As people look a as people look at this, what strikes you, what jumps out to you . It is interesting. Some of the thoughts that you all have. Mind,rious, if you dont chiming in. You said how calm and collected he could be in politics but how quickly he fell off the track in his personal life. That is interesting. If you want to elaborate on that. The different spheres that people have. Did you have anything more to add . Yes, can you hear me . I think that is interesting. I have studied him a little because he is my dads favorite. I thought it was interesting that he was always so wellbalanced with something removed from his cell. Even if he was the president , sometimes it is easier to make decisions for other people and to be levelheaded even if the weight of the decision is so big. Sometimes there is a whole other side of you and when it affects implement that same thing you could do easily for somebody else. Dr. Peatman sure. It is easy to think about that compartmentalization. I think that is true. Reason that i see this as an example, and i will show you in a minute what he handles better, but the reason i see this as an example of growth over time rather than the split between public and private is when lincolns son willie dies in 1862 this is the event that drives him to the cottage. They are trying to get away from the experience of the white house and reconnect as a family in the aftermath of tragedy. Lincolns reaction to that tragedy is different. It is 21 years later than this. To me, that suggests a growth in perspective over time, as well as the possibility that there is a difference between the professional and the private lives as well. Interesting. A lot of you know a lot about lincoln. His firsty into foray into relationships and the impact that it had. , 31 at the point that this happens. May be a different person than he would be by the time we see him in the white house. The second crisis that lincoln encounters that i think is a is when he loses to Stephen Douglas in that Senate Campaign in 1858. All of our lincoln people know it is a little more complicated than just losing to douglas. Lincoln did extremely well and he knew it. The reason he doesnt get elected is largely because this is an era before the direct election of senators. What lincoln and douglas are doing is campaigning for the state legislators who would then vote for either the republic or the democratic candidate to go to the senate. Legislaturehe state was even up for reelection. Some of them were holdovers. Wellln performed very during this period even though he didnt get the nomination. His reaction. It hurts too much to laugh and i am too big to cry. We can see his sense of humor that has developed over the years. The second comment is really interesting. People are always putting me in a place where something has to sacrificed for the welfare of the party or the common good. But then he says and this is a great line, walking home on the night of the election, this is a slip and not a fall. This is an ancient quote lincoln has come up with, he says this away. All pass another then another blow to charles ray, we shall have fun. How do you analyze this . And howotes themselves, he has handled adversity, and also in contrast to the last sort of incident. And do you see as different what explains his different reactions here . I think we have a general sense of seeing an increased emotional resilience that some of you are suggesting, putting things in perspective. , you noted some humor in the first comment. I think you are absolutely right. What is the use of that in this particular case . Why did it strike you as important . When you are in a situation that you cant control, sometimes you just have to step findingd it is a way of some humor in a situation that isnt yours to control. And i think lincoln had a very dry wit about him anyway and it comes out to in this quote. Too big to cry. This will come back to idea of humor. Way thatf humor is a he manages crisis as well. Important point. Its interesting as we look at the difference here, maybe he has had other setbacks. The first time that we saw the breakup of the relationship with mary, he portrayed it as that it was over. The world is ending. Now he views it as a slip and not a fall. Things will get better in the aftermath of it. One of the leading thinkers is a guy he is the leading thinker. He has been conducting research into optimism and learned optimism since the 1970s. Psychologistsme were just estimating problems people head and they were not looking at the positive examples. That, noted to change to study pessimism about optimism instead. Typically people said you are born an optimist or a pessimist. Time, suggested at the that you can learn to be more optimistic. Chat somebody in the earlier mention the concept of self talk. Can sullivan said is you talk your way into a more optimistic view of the world. Viewid pessimists tend to negative events as permanent, pervasive, and personal. Its not just one event, my personal life that is terrible, its everything, my entire life ended his personal. Its because of me, because im terrible, i made these mistakes. There is no way to see how things will ever be better in any part of your life. Conversely when positive things happen, pessimists see them as temporary. They can say it went well on the one project but the rest of my life is a train wreck. It went well here but thats because the other person was being nice. There are notce many places to go from there. Optimists take the opposite point of view. Occur,gative events think about lincoln losing to douglas, when negative events occur they see them as temporary. This is one campaign in a lifetime. They see them as specific. The voters chose not to elect me. They see the causes as external. Lincoln was immediately explaining away the reasons that he had lost in terms of the holdover, legislatures, a bunch of other things that were going on. As a rejectionit from the voters. It was more of a contextual thing than anything else. But i think is fascinating is that when you look at this model, and you look at it in relation to Abraham Lincoln, you can almost hear the self talk that lincoln goes through cooking for the temporary, the specific, and the external. The one quote we have on the screen that sounded odd the st time that we read it people are always putting me in a place where somebody has to be beaten and sacrificed for the welfare of the party or the common good. It sounds like sour grapes but when you think about it, it is looking for the external process. Put not that i feel i was up as the sacrificial lamb. As a consequence of looking at it this way, lincolns selfconfidence isnt rocked in a way that it might have been if he thought it was a personal rejection of him by the voters. This is a fine line. Especially for people in a leadership position. Normally when we talk about the role of a leader, it is to take the blame, to take the responsibility when things go wrong. To stay optimistic we need to do the opposite. We need to reject responsibility, we need to reject that it was our fault that things went this way. Optimistic,o stay and on the other hand to be a good leader, to accept it in other ways. It is a challenge here to do that. The last thing that i want to leave you with, and we have alluded to it already, is lincolns sense of humor and how ownsed humor to manage his stress. There are all of the stories of him staying up late to read humorous stories to his friends and secretaries. Using that humor to manage his own stress but also the stress of people around him. There was an article a few years of right in the aftermath the lincoln bicentennial, and we are still riding we are still writing a lot about him. They talk about the particular type of humor that lincoln used. I will give you a second to read the full quote here. What is so significant here is the idea of humor where nobody is the but of the joke. Humor is a way to bring people together, not to pit people against one another. This was an area where lincoln had to grow. In the 1840s, he and mary had written some editorials lampooning the state treasurer. Lincoln was challenged to a dual because of his cutting humor he had used. He learned that important lesson from that. The value of humor to bring people together to get through some of these stressful times. It is the brand of humor, not just things that sound funny. Humor where there was no but of any, it wasif himself. That is important for all of us to keep in mind. I will conclude the formal part of the program. I would like to throw it open for questions. I will stop sharing my screen so we can see each other more effectively. I would love to hear what followup questions or other questions in general that anybody has. Your point about the difference between wit and humor. I always thought the advantage of selfdeprecating humor was that the target of the joke gets angry, you have only yourself to get angry at. Dr. Peatman it is a lot safer, right . Sometimes when i teach a class on lincoln and communication, use a couple of clips from that 2012 lincoln movie. Not the vampire hunter one. I use a clip of lincoln talking about when he was a lawyer and whole scene where he has a defendant who will he found guilty and she asks if she could have a glass of water. He tells her to go to tennessee to get one and she escapes out the window. Such an interesting use of a joke and contrasted with the way we see the wit displayed thaddeus who is making fun of everybody. It is very funny but all the bridges he is burning along the way. It is a stark comparison between the two. Debbie, did you have a question to ask . Muted unmuted . On the theater and backstarge. People dont realize how much he went to the theater. Get free ofter to his own mind and to be in a different place and laugh. Dr. Peatman that is such a great point. Something in the last decade we began to understand a lot more, the extent to which he was escaping to the theater on a regular basis. The last play, our american cousin, that is a comedy he was watching at the time. Maybe he felt like he finally had something to celebrate with the war coming to an end. Joy has a question as well. Did you want to ask with your voice . Sure. Thank you so much. I am curious how you think lincoln developed so well emotionally seemingly later in life . Was it someone knew that he met . Was it a new philosophy . That he wasreaking in his early 30s at that point. What changed . Dr. Peatman i dont know if you saw them at lincolns cottage but if you go to a lot of these historic sites, they have those parchment posters which are all of lincolns losses on the one side and on the other is two victories, actually winning the presidency. Those are overdone, but what that reveals is that lincoln had a lot of practice over the years in handling adversity. Is not being elected to congress or to the senate as many times as he would have hoped. Remember that he essentially retires from politics in 1850 for four years until the kansasnebraska act. He deals with the death of eddie, his second son, many years before the white house. Maturation here is a over the years. Years between these incidents, lincoln has dealt with adversity. Part of what that has taught him is that these adversities are not permanent. There will be another chance in the future. They are not pervasive. If it is a setback in this one area, his law practice is good. He has a family life and is able to keep it in those buckets. A lot of it is that experience of seeing it has been bad before but it got better. That is what allows him to keep going. I was telling the staff from the cottage that ever since i have been doing programs, i will often have people at the beginning of the session say, you are a historian. We have never been as divided as we are right now. This is the worst it has ever been. Things have been worse and then they get better again. There is that hope. Wink and ask about perspective from his own tragedies and on a broader scale of what had come before made him realize that things will get better. We have a question from Daniel Forrester. Thank you for this. Im curious about building on this last point, time horizon. He didnt face the pandemic but the pandemic and the war have similar components. Outcome,ear, no clear massive uncertainty, and a time horizon that is completely out sf your control, yet there i something built into the dna of this man that is able to bring to himself,ernally to his family, to the country. What might looking into the abyss of the civil war teach us about how he would behave now in a pandemic . Lincoln,an you know, any day, could have said, enough. I will end the war. If you look at what was happening his day, the real number is that 500 people died every day of the war for over 1400 days. Have said what to these Southern States really want . Do they want an imaginary line on the map . They want to be independent and keep slavery . How will that affect connecticut, new jersey . Maybe not that much. Yet he persisted throughout the course of that. It is incredible. There are two things from that. He was convinced that the longterm result, these twin purposes, and we can debate which might have been primary in his mind these twin purposes of saving the union and ending slavery were worth it. That is how he personally persisted. Part of what he had to do to rally the nation. For most people, when the war started, they thought it would be a shortterm thing. They thought it would be a few months and back to normal. As it goes on, it is clear that isnt the case. Lincoln junta redefined the wars perp lincoln had to redefine the wars purpose. That is what we see at gettysburg, the sacrifice that made the war worth it. To talk about not just restoring what we had before. He had come to believe that wasnt good enough. What we had before with 4 Million People enslaved, with a system that ended us up in the middle of the war, we couldnt go back to that. That is where he redefined the purpose of the war and arguably what the nation was all about. We have a question from dave draper. Thank you. This is an interesting session. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of this. My question builds on the theme that Daniel Forrester mentioned. I wanted to focus on the time in the middle of 1864, in the summer when atlanta had not fallen, and there was so much pressure to end the war, particularly in the north. That point, Abraham Lincoln was absolutely certain he would not win reelection. At that particular juncture, he was saying i have this much time to do the best i can before the next president. That is a very different thing from what daniel was talking about the uncertainty of the openended position that we find ourselves in now. You have started to answer the question in your response to thatl, but i see that as for me would be the most valuable thing to learn about how he dealt with stuff. That is the eye of the needle that im trying to thread emotionally. Not knowing exactly how long it will go, and trying to stay focused on the things we can do that will make the world battle better. This is a golden opportunity for all of us to make the new world better than the old one. That is something i think we should all do. Dr. Peatman what i think is interesting about that summer of 1864, the whole blind memorandum. Things looked bad. Lincoln could have compromised. Lincoln could have negotiated with the south over, come back and we believe slavery intact and we will rollback the emancipation proclamation. We will do some things where we get some things but not everything we wanted. He stayed focused on that big ,ision, preserving the Union Getting those states back. By then they are already working on not just emancipation but legal abolition. That is of crisis the biggest moment of crisis in the war for lincoln. He doesnt deviate from that vision. He keeps working toward it. They start to go his way again. Right, whought was knows how different the world might have been. We have a question from bill justice. Hi, im calling from vicksburg to throw that in. One of my observations about Emotional Intelligence in the case of president lincoln is that he wasnt beyond being frustrated or expressing his frustration. The example i use is his comment andt if general mccall isnt using the army general isnt using the army, maybe i could borrow it. The way he used those expressions of frustration generalin front of mcclellan. We will never know what they talked about at antietam. They were private with his secretaries. They record those in their books about lincoln. You dont see them much beyond that. Dr. Peatman sure. Lincoln has to show a great amount of Emotional Intelligence in dealing with some of these generals. Mcclellan and the problems that came along with him, even the issues in vicksburg that came along with grant and sherman. You have to manage those different people to get the best out of them. His response to george meade in the aftermath of gettysburg. He had won a great victory but lincoln felt he had not done enough. How do you, and all of those cases, moderate your own emotion so you can deal with them productively . That is the challenge. The other challenge is that some people think Emotional Intelligence is simply biting your tongue. Is hard part about that people can get a sense of what you are feeling. That can come across as inauthentic quickly. How do you find that middle ground between being true and honest to your feelings, being authentic, but doing so in a way that is productive, that is difficult . One of my favorite examples, you nightned mcclellan, the when Abraham Lincoln goes to meet with George Mcclellan at his private residence, doesnt call mcclellan to him. Mcclellan comes in and knows that lincoln is there and snubs him, goes to bed without meeting the president. Lincolns response to that is to accept it. To say we need general mcclellan in this moment. Blowing up at him is not going to accomplish anything. Is an interesting example of control over emotions, that slight he had experienced. We have a related question about how to deal with the generals when they are being recalcitrant. Where there are others who lincoln was able to rely on to help him do that . I dont know if there is anything you wanted to and add to that question . Thats fine. All right. Dr. Peatman i think that there are cabinet members whom lincoln draws upon. He had talks at the cottage about Edwin Stanton and William Seward, two of the members of the cabinet that he is drawing upon. He is close to the secretaries that he has, hay and nikolai. He is able to use them as sounding boards. Others as well. Even within the army, there are generals he is able to confide in. They are not always the commanding generals that we put the names to. To and we askides questions of. We see lincoln checking out books from the library of congress about the theory of war and the ways to manage the military. He is trying to get up to speed himself so that he can handle those things also. One of my favorite quotes, and ,t comes from general mcclellan is when benjamin wade, a senator, comes to lincoln and says you have to replace mcclellan. He is awful. Lincoln says, who should i replace him with . Waita says, anybody will do. Lincoln responds, anybody will work for you but i must have somebody. It is this recognition that people arent perfect, but you have to work with the tools that you have. Lincoln is able to keep in mind the difference between the ideal and the reality. It comeseone who, when to people is operating in that realm of reality. If folks are curious about other people lincoln might have valued in his life, one episode of our podcast q and abe is titled, who did Lincoln Trust the most . Might be good to explore if you are interested in that subject. I see we have a question from diane. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the relationship and the way that he was able to build trust with people in order to be an effective leader. . Dr. Peatman lincoln is in everett is an interesting one. Matt has an interesting way of phrasing lincoln. He said lincoln was always honest with people. That is the way that he built trust. Matt also says that lincoln was seldom forthcoming. Lincoln did not lie to people. What lincoln told you was the truth. He didnt always tell you what was going on but he was someone that you could believe in in that particular way. He built those relationships and that trust with other people. I mentioned the Harvard Business review article talking about how do u. S. A leader get people through the situation . A lot of it comes down to trust. People have to believe you and believe that they know where you are going and why. That is all the questions in the chat for now. If people have additional questions, now is the time to let us know so we can get them answered for you. Joy, i have one if thats all right, again. Hear a lot about lincolns relationship with his generals and the public. Im curious if there are counts of his relationship with surviving children that show his Emotional Intelligence and that dimension of his intimate interpersonal leadership. I would say that my one complaint about the 2012 Spielberg Lincoln movie is the scene where lincoln slaps his son. That is so far from everything that contemporaries described as being part of their relationship. As to why theyed put that in the movie. It is true that lincoln had a strained relationship with his , and there isert a variety of reasons as to why. Robert lived until the 1920s. Robert could be difficult and we see a lot of evidence of that in his adulthood. The lincolns were very permissive with their kids, if anything. The kids are running wild and wrestling with abraham and, he is almost like a fifth child in his interactions with them, particularly with the three younger boys. Some of the books about the lincoln marriage or the children, there are some different theories on that, but in terms of how he is interacting with those kids there is a scene in the lincoln is running wild in the white house, burning holes in the military maps. That is backed up by what you see in the historical evidence. Hiseems to be able to let guard down with the children more so than he does in some other venues. Thank you. I was wondering if i can ask a question . Go ahead. Im curious what your thoughts were on lincolns intelligence as it relates to the average americans he regularly engaged with . I read a few years ago that they ,new lincoln by John Washington which thanks to we are all able to know the story. What are your thoughts as it relates to Emotional Intelligence with the Africanamerican Community . Dr. Peatman i think this is another area where you see growth in lincoln over time. Some of the comments and things that lincoln said and how he thought about and interacted with africanamericans in the early 1850s is different from what you see in 1863 to 1865. One thing that is critical to keep in mind with abraham is the, with all of us, impact of our experiences. The impact of everyday life. One thing that is true of ofcoln, he hasnt had a ton interaction with africanamericans on an individual level before he moved to washington, d. C. If you look at the population of springfield in the 1850s, the dearth of the Abolition Society is in illinois at that time. Inthe time of the civil war the 1860s, the refugee camps that lincoln is going by to get to the cottage on a daily basis, there are 10,000 or more former enslaved people in washington, d. C. His interactions with Elizabeth Keck who is close to him. With Mary Williams who is mentioned as well as the cottage with william slate and william johnson, who are menservants or butlers as we would call them today. Those interactions start to fundamentally change lincolns perspective. Not about whether slavery was right or wrong. He is consistent and always feeling that slavery was wrong, but what could and should be done about slavery, the place of africanamericans in society, and what type of rights they had an expectation of, you see that evolve over time. A lot of that comes from more interactions that he has with africanamericans, the more he thinks about those issues. I would agree, i think the powerful leadership lesson, and full disclosure, i previously served as the dcps chancellor, but the leadership lesson with all of this is that there is power in proximity, in getting close to the people that you serve as a leader. This book toody read in the city because i thought it was a wonderful lesson in history, for leaders, for parents, for teachers. There is power in proximity, power in these encounters. Dr. Peatman yeah. I think lincoln shows us that. Dr. Peatman there are two stories or tell if the cottage when i do programs about his leadership that try to make that point. One is about the cabinet. When lincoln surprisingly wins the nomination and the election and he goes to William Seward and stanton and chase and says, i want you to serve in my cabinet, even though you think you should be here, why do those people say yes . They want that influence. They want to be close to him. They are a huge influence on his policy. On the other hand, when you look and if youh koechly, and you askoir, that question about what things she might have told him about what enslaved life was like. She talks about seeing one of her uncles killed himself because he had a pair of plow line stolen and he knew the master would be so upset with himself this man killed him. R than deal with her fathers master decided to take to make his home in the west and took her father with him and she never saw him again. She is in the white house all the time and interacting with lincoln, interacting with mary. She is the one with willie when he dies. What does she tell lincoln about slavery . Movesnot just seward that him toward this road of emancipation. Y, is Elizabeth Keckle William Slade and others as well. You are absolutely right. We have hit 3 00 and we want to respect your time. I will turn it back to jared for some final thoughts to close us out. Dr. Peatman i want to thank you for being here and the quality of the questions. It is nice to interact and engage with everybody and so many spot on questions about lincoln not just in the 1860s but what he means for us today. One of the reasons i like to bring groups to the cottages because they do such great work. Forward. That message thank you for being here and thank you to the folks of the cottage for giving me a chance to do this. Youre watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend, on cspan 3. The president s, from public affairs, available in paperback and ebook. President , of every organized by their rankings, from noted historians from best to worst. And featuring perspectives into the lives from the nations chief executives and leadership styles. More our website to learn about each president and historian featured and to order your copy today, wherever books and ebooks are sold. Announcer you are watching your eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in college classrooms, and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan 3. Announcer each week, american artifacts take you to museums and historic places. 45ing up we travel about minutes west of new orleans to visit whitney plantation to learn about the history of slavery in america. Ashley hi. My name is ashley rogers. I am director of Museum Operations at the whitney plantation. We are beginning our tour today in a historic freemans church, which was built circa 1870 by