So i have the very difficult task of going after gary. I would like to first thank carrie for inviting me and will, for accommodating all of my traveling snafus and being so gracious. And to thank liz baron, who is my former advisor and gary gallagher, who is also a dear mentor of mine, for not only having me here at the conference, but also just for years and years of mentoring. That dont seem to end. I am going to talk about i am going to begin with the battle that gary does not think is important, because it is in North Carolina. To be fair, i dont think many people think that the battle of newborn is incredibly important or significant, so i dont think he is alone. Nor am i arguing that the western theater is more important than the eastern theater. I wanted to throw my hands up and say that up front and maybe change the conversation a little bit. So, i will begin. On the morning of march 14, 1862, general john foster read the first troops to the front line in North Carolina. Foste
With union. For lincoln and most republicans the union was a sort of mystical perpetual indivisible eternal thing. Stephen dug zblas whoouglas the regular democratic candidate that year stated over and over that no matter what else happens the union had to be preserved. John c. Breckenridge says the constitution and equality of the states are symbols of everlasting union. And the fourth candidate old john bell, lo ran as candidate of the Constitutional Union party didnt talk about anything else. They didnt even have a platform. Their platform was in their title. It was union. And the constitution. Union comes up so often during this century which is not peters perfect century but it is his second favorite century after the late 18th century. Lincolns vision of union rested on free labor and a voice in selfgovernment for common citizens and the potential to rise economically. Not the guarantee but the potential. Jefferson davis also believed in the union as safeguarding selfgovernment a
Stay close, if you throw it, it will go farther away. It is completely autonomous. Next the communicators, monday at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Up next on American History tv, university of virginia history professors gary gail ger and peter onuf discuss Thomas Jeffersons views on federalism and the union of the states. They debate jeffersons provocative belief in the separation of races. President lincolns preservation of the union during the civil war and how jefferson would view todays federal government. This session from the Miller Center at the university of virginia is about two hours. Anyone who hopes to understand the 19th century in the United States has to come to terms with the importance of union. As a deeply important concept and highly charged word in the political vocabulary. It is a word thats gone from our political vocabulary now. It literally means flog to most americans now. The word union. If it isnt associated with labor. Union in a sense was so important during the
[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] french nation for information on our schedule up next on American History tv, university of virginia history professors gary gail ger and peter onuf discuss Thomas Jeffersons views on federalism and the union of the states. They debate jeffersons provocative belief in the separation of races. President lincolns preservation of the union during the civil war and how jefferson would view todays federal government. This session from the Miller Center at the university of virginia is about two hours. Anyone who hopes to understand the 19th century in the United States has to come to terms with the importance of union. As a deeply important concept and highly charged word in the political vocabulary. It is a word thats gone from our political vocabulary now. It literally means flog to most americans now. The word union. If it isnt associated with labor. U
Union in a sense was so important during the 19thcentury is gone. There were contending understandings of the meaning of union. Almost always tied to ideas about liberty and opportunity and frequently enmeshed with beliefs about the place of the institution of slavery in the american republic. All of the individuals who have been the subjects of lectures in this series talked about union from madison and other framers of the constitution who drafted what they thought would lead to a more perfect union, to Andrew Jackson who very famously referred to union in making a toast while he looked right at john c. Calhoun during the nullification crisis on jeffersons birthday in 1832. He said our federal union must be preserved, to which, as many of you know, calhoun replied the union next to our liberty most dear. During the election of 1860 when four candidates ran for the presidency under four party standards, all of them talked about union. All of them wanted to be right with union. For lin