Programs dale gregory really is a delight to welcome you to our Robert H Smith auditorium read the next program, the second founding of the civil war and reconstruction relayed the constitution is a part of our bernard and Eileen Schwartz s english speaker series, the height of our Public Programs and as always wed like to thank mister swartz for all the support which has enabledus to produce such a wide array of wonderful programs the white we give him a hand . And of course our board of trustees who has been active and helpful in bringing this institution to the level it is today. We have a trustee who is with us in the audience and all of our Chairmans Council members are with us for their great work and support. The next program is going to last one hour and include a question and answer session read the q a conducted questions and notecards and you should have received something from one of our volunteers had no notecards and pencils and i will be going through as soon as im done ill go through and i will collect oncards as well and i will handout to anyone who did not receive one on the way in. Also, tonight after the onstage talk, the speakers will be signing books for us in our ny history store on our 17 seven side of the building and available for purchase, we hope you will thjoin us for that so tonight we are thrilled to welcome back to our state eric foreigner, he is Professor Emeritus of his three Party University and has served as president of three major historical associations. The organization of american historians, American Historical Association and the society of american historians and hes the author of numerous books on the history of Race Relations in america and as that awarded the pulitzer prize, and cross price and in 2015 the American History book prize right here at New York Historical for his book way to freedom his newest book which was released a couple weeks ago is the second founding of the civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution. And our moderator this evening, its a great pleasure to welcome back minnie sisson bob, American History chair at the university of connecticut and militant blessing or fellow at the radcliffe institute. Shes the author of numerous books on slavery and the Abolitionist Movement and bring her most recent the slaves cause the history of abolition for the National Book award for nonfiction and winner of the Frederick Douglass prize. She has also written for numerous publications including the New York Times, huffington post, boston globe and washington post. Before we begin as always id like to say if you can silence any cell phones you might have, anything that makes a noise and i also realize i forgot to mention the name of our trustees, so thank you to our trustees are all the work that they dofor us. And now please join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] thank you alex for that very nice introduction. And id like to welcome all of you to our public program. On the second founding, how tthe civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution. And so of course eric holder is a preeminent american historian and youve already heard all the accolades he has one but i thought i would also introduce him today with a contemporary description of the radical republic congressman, patty s stevens of pennsylvania during reconstruction and i just gave came across it, the instruction is very appropriate. And the observer said quote, at over 70 years of age he was not attended with any perceptible abatement of the intellectual cassidy or fire of youth. So i heard it was an appropriate introduction this is in fact a historical quote and can be verified. So let me begin with a question that i think most authors get rid you eric have written already what is commonly called the bible of reconstruction this is one reconstruction. So what motivated you to write this book on the reconstruction constitutional amendment . Before answering that i just should say im happy to be here back at the Historical Society and particularly to have her as the interrogator today area she didnt quite mention it but i supervised her doctoral dissertation at columbia a few years ago now and she did get her phd there. And this is her chance to get back at me because i was on her orals exam so now she has a chance to ask me questions. Why did i write this book . Youre right, of course ive written a lot about reconstruction. Im not a lost dollar , im not a legal historian, im not a lawyer althoughsome of 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 d a of our Supreme Courts doesnt fully understand the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and has even in our own time in the late 19th century, they really a serrated them but even in our own time they have not used these amendments in the way they were intended, to really try to combat Racial Injustice in this society so why not just tell the Supreme Court they are all wrong and maybe one or two will listen . But in that way its sort of revisionist but also there is a debate among historians about it which i felt was going in a somewhat uninteresting direction about well, where these Court Decisions based on racism, on federalism, on both and theres a certain narrowness. Without denigrating legal scholarship at all its important but theres a narrative of vision where the evidence is always either speeches in congress for maybe editorials in the new york tribune, Court Decisions but be vast debate in reconstruction about rights, citizenship. I hope elizabeth in the book saying that was a moment in her memoirs when all these issues were debated upanddown society in the pulpits, every fireside. Every fireside. Youve got to bring ordinary americans into this debate, particularly africanamericans as voice is almost never heard in the Supreme Courts of rulings or in a lot of the literature so i felt it was sort of a gap out there that i would try to fill, i guess. In the book you talk about the reconstruction amendments as the Lasting Legacy of reconstruction. But we dont course reconstruction was that period after the war when an attempt was made to establish an interracial democracy in this country and it was overthrown with a combination of racial terror, legal and political apathy inand reactio. And so i was just wondering how you saw this concept that this was the Lasting Legacy when that period itself proved to be relatively shortlived . We often say with certainly a good argument can be madereconstruction failed. But theres perfectly good evidence to say that but if we start with that premise and then work backwards, then what happens is historians work backwards. Why did it fail to what was the problem, maybe they messed up on this thing but 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, theyre still there even though president from as indicated like to get at least the first sentence of the 14th amendment area is a sign that that impulse towards an interracial democracy didnt totally fail and many other things. Obviously reconstruction is about many things other than constitutional issues although most of those things discuss in constitutional terms at one point or another. But many other things, the establishment of black educational institutions read they survived, they didnt all fail. We still have black colleges today which were founded in reconstruction read the black Church Becomes a Major Institution in reconstruction at the center of those communities. And it has wep the voice said in black reconstruction, the very idea of racial democracy survives even though the implementation of it didnt to inspire subsequent struggles. Thats why the Civil Rights Era was sometimes called the second reconstruction because the issues on the agenda right after the civil war came back but i think the constitutional amendments are important, even though they were nullified in many ways around the turnofthecentury. The fact that they were there and usable was really determine the legal strategy of the civil rights revolution. I agree, i guess i always like to say reconstruction was overthrown because there was a real attempting to overthrow it ofcourse. So you also visualize this period as the second founding, thats the title of the book. That has to do with these constitutionalamendments. As a way in which black citizenship is actually a capstone of this new founding moment. And im going to just go back and look at those three specific amendments. You discussed in the book of course. And i was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about something that has garnered a lot of attention recently and that is the criminal exception in the 13th amendment. Can you tell us a little bit about how this exception became part of the amendments . And its tragic if unforeseen consequences. Let me just take out my constitution here and 13th amendment. Just what is she talking about . Neither slavery nor servitude except as a punishment for crime shall exist in the United States. Involuntary servitude can continue for people convicted of a crime, where did that come from . I wondered about that. The first thing is theres a lot of literature on the 13th amendment and nobody has written about this. Theres books on the 13th amendment that dont even mention it but thats not surprising. It wasnt mentioned in congress. The press debate about the 13th amendment said virtually nothing about the dangers involved in allowing servitude for those who were being convicted of a crime read so where did it come from western mark the language as was widely declared came from the northwest ordinance written by Thomas Jefferson and it had migrated there from jeffersons Land Ordinance of 1784 which wasnt an active would have barred slavery in all us territories at that time so where did jefferson, why does jefferson put it in their . I called up a couple of my good friends who were jefferson scholars, peter who went to graduate school with me and alan taylor and i said why did jefferson put that in and they both gave the same answer read i havent the slightest idea. And we dont actually know but the real point is it had become boilerplate language. The thing people have never mentioned is every Northern State that barred slavery included that phrase. So it was familiar language that will not proviso banning slavery in territories acquired from mexico and the mexican war included that criminal exemption. This has become kind of again, got a lot of attention because there was this documentary 13 a few years ago red had a slightly conspiratorial edge that this was put in there in order to anticipate mass incarceration. No, there were hardly any prisoners back then read there were hardly any prisoners read this was not supposed to be the basis of the giant system that it did create this unfortunate loophole which later after the end of reconstruction, Southern State created this giant coptic labor system as you know where people, mostly black, not all but mostly 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 a r railroad or a mine and it became a horrifying system. One of the books about this is called worse than slavery because the conditions were so horrible and the courts always said this is allowable because the 13th amendment allows that criminal exemption so one of the points where we are thinking about is a lot of people talk about original meaning, original intent. A conservative view of how to interpret the constitution w but here you have an unintended consequence tiread nobody anticipated what would happen and has undermined some of the purposes of the 13th amendment area. One of the reading portions and valuable contributions of this book to look at this exception as something that wascustomary, no one thought about. There was no conspiracy to undermine freedom but that Southern States and southern politicians on that new poll and they thought it important to get that history right because we live in a time where conspiracy theories are right and so its probably good cyto have our facts straight. So you of course argue in this book and have argued earlier to that the 14th amendment is themost consequential. Reconstruction amendment and i would like you to talkmore about that. Especially given the fact as you mentioned earlier from and some others want to revoke its provision of national birthright. At one point i want to make to start with is that professor sinha here, i quote you where she says abolitionists hitched their star or whatever to black citizenship. That was a crucial question coming out of the civil war. Slaves of course were not citizens, what about free africanamericans . White people born in the country were deemed to be citizens before the civil war. There was little question about that t. What their rights as citizens were was unclear but what about free africanamericans and it was very murky. Some states like massachusetts recognize africanamericans as citizens of the state. Many states did not. The federal government usually didnt, sometimes it did but then the dred scott decision in 1857 that citizenship is for white people, no black person can be a citizen of the United States. Tiit was the law of the land when the civil war took place but with the freeing of 4 million slaves, the service of black soldiers in the civil war that question is on the agenda and the first sentence of the 14th amendment says yes, anybody born in the United States is a citizen. With no racial qualification whatsoever. In fact no qualification. Any religion, any race, any background and relevant today has nothing to do with the status of your parents. Because the debate today, and undocumented immigrants woman who gives birth to a child in the United States, what is the status of that child . Its clear, there born in the United States, they are a citizen. The fact that their mother th they have committed a crime of some kind is irrelevant read the mother can make a bank robber, that would mean a child cant be a citizen but the 14th amendment goes beyond that. First of all its the longest minute ever added to the constitution. Its got all source of convoluted provisions and some of them of no particular relevance today like the confederate debt cant be paid they put in, we talk about reparations today read they put in the 14th amendment theres never going to be any payment to the owners because they were demanding reparations or the loss of their property but no, no one is going to get paid for the loss of their property in slaves. In other provisions you know about but the first section is the key of course which first creates this birthright citizenship and then says that states cannot deny, cannot deprive any citizen of the privileges or immunities of citizens whatever those are. It doesnt tell you and then at no person, thats more than a citizen. At anybody, not just citizens, noncitizens have to be accorded the equal protection of the law. At isa bit of the 14th amendment , equal protection and the notion of equality is so deeply ingrained in the United States, at least in our ideology that we may not realize there was no such thing before the civil war. There were no laws establishing quality among different kinds ofcitizens. The common law was based on inequality, employer employee, malefemale, all inequality to read the word people is not in the original constitution except for talking about what happens if two candidates get an equal number of electoral votes tso this notion of equal protection, its not racial. This applies to everybody and the fact that the language is nonracial as allowed in the 20th century expansion of equality to all sorts of groups, most recently famously gay marriage. At 14th amendment decision, equal protection. That straight people have a legal right to marry ocean day people. Obviously that wasnt on the mind of the people who wrote the 14th amendment but its a logical use of the 14th amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburg used it to attack laws discriminating on the basis of gender. Equal Protection Area so thats why i call it the second founding because you have a new constitution after these three amendments. It not and in a way i say that because one of the reasons i wrote this book is that even though those amendments are so important, most people dont know much about them. If you ask a man or woman in the street what are the key documents of American History , theyll say the bill of rights or the emancipation proclamation. Theyre not going to mention the 13th, 14th or 15th amendment and the people who wrote them, john bingham is hardly a household name. And in his hometown in ohio there is no statute of john bingham or any recognition and yet he was more responsible than almost anyone or rewriting the constitution of the United States. And hes the one who gave the first 10 amendments, the bill of rights. You should know this guy. And youre right, in a way h, i think this new legacy of the 14th amendment and the ways in which its been used in expand rights for a lot of people has really vindicated the version that this was a Sleeping Giant in the constitution. The i