Now enjoy a book. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Gilder Lehrman book break on june 14. Welcome everyone. Todays guests will be professor Elizabeth Varon in her book armies of deliverance prefer you who are not familiar with the Gilder Lehrman institute of American History we are so glad you could join us and to tell you a little bit about Gilder Lehrman the Gilder Lehrman institute is a Nonprofit Organization dedicated to k12 History Education while also serving the general public. Our mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American History. Occasional programs and other resources. We also provide direct access to unique primary source materials through Gilder Lehrmans amazing collections but if amazing collections but if youre in to sit out anymore about Gilder Lehrmans program and a collection please go to Gilder Lehrman. Org. My name is william and im your host. When im not hosting im usually working on the Hamilton Education program. You want to find out more about the Hamilton Education program go to the web site. I also have with me Allison Kraft a curator from the Gilder Lehrman production. For those in our audience you will notice that your screens are often your microphones are often so please just know that is normal. There is no video and microphone for you guys. So you say how shall i ask a question . And know we will have a great conversation today and we will generate a lot of great questions. If you look at the bottom of your screen you will see the q a feature down there. During the conversation please submit the questions they are and when you said that your question if you believe thats a little note of where you are from because we like to know wherever but he is from here. Allison will be gathering up the questions and asking them in the second half of the program. We have a big audience of several hundred people so please note we are probably not going to be able to get to all the questions that but we are really going to try to ask as many questions as possible. For our speaker today our speaker today is professor Elizabeth Varon Professor Emeritus of history at the university of virginia and serves on the executive council of the center for civil war history. She is a specialist in the civil war era and 19th century preachers also authored several books and the one we are talking about today. Some of her previous books include the need to be counted white women and politics in antebellum virginia, southern lady yankee spy, the true story of Elizabeth Van lou at union agent in the heart of the confederacy and disunion, the coming of the american civil war, 1789 to 1859 and appomattox, victory defeat and freedom at the end of the civil war. Today we will be speaking about her newest book armies of deliverance a new history of the civil war. This is an amazing book and ive had a chance to read it so now i want to stop sharing and welcome professor Elizabeth Varon. We do have and in the program. Thanks so much. A whole history of the civil war seems like an incredibly dont think task and you started through the theme of deliverance but this deliverance seems to touch on so many different topics related to the civil war from the emancipation to military but can you tell us why you decided to pack the whole emeritus of the civil war and what is meant by it deliverance . The story of american politics and my scholarship has focused on my home state of virginia. I was commissioned to write the supervise history of the entire civil war and i knew that was quite a learning curve for me and i was eager to answer for myself and for my readers some key questions about politics questions that historians have debated. The one synergistic name of most were as interested to learn more about the motivation of the soldier and how they sustain their morale over the course of a long war understanding why men enlisted in the early days when they hoped would be a short and sweet warring quick victory was what nerve them for combat. These were complex and i wanted in situ those. I was interested in the question of lincolns leadership and how we built a coalition to win the civil war. Northern society was sanctioned and divided to cross a broad political spectrum on where that abolitionists and the radical were conservative and democrats who are antiabolitionist and in the middle of that lyrical spectrum Abraham Lincoln who is a modernist who wrote about slavery and about abolition. I was interested to learn more about how coalitions sustain a coalition. There was a major question on the demise of slavery and the emancipation policy and how it took shape and the degree to which emancipation made political traction and how a sustained political traction. Over the course of my research i discovered northerners coalesced around this theme of deliverance and this was the belief that Union Victory would uplift southern whites and blacks alike isolate ring them from an elite holding oligarch secessionists who had held them under there for him as they saw it. You deliver to them but blessings of society but to put it another way Union Soldiers marched off to war in 1861 believing that their purpose was not to conquer the south and not to subjugate the south but to save it, save the southern masses from their own leaders. I argue over the course of the book that this theme of deliverance was so politically powerful that it had a message to the union cause and it permitted lincoln not only to forge a coalition but to grow that coalition of the course of the war that included republicans of all political stripes and some democrats from the opposition party, some loyal residents of the slaveholding states anticonfederate southerners and deliverance was key to all of this. I make the case that deliverance rhetoric proves very persistent over the course of the war. I tried to explain how it is that unions persisted in believing they could save the southern masses from southern leaders even under massive evidence that the confederates did not want to be saved. I also tried to address the issue of the longterm impact of this deliverance rhetoric and to note while this was instrumental in Union Victory in Coalition Building deliverance failed to persuade or except black freedom on the norths terms and deliverance rhetoric also failed in a longterm way to resolve northerners about what victory would mean and shape freedom would take. I will make one additional point about my a mint is because i know there are a lot of teachers on the line. I was thinking of teachers as i wrote this book in the sense that i was commissioned to write a book that general readers and also as a use for a textbook in College Classrooms and potentially high school too. I had it pedagogical aim in mind. I wanted students to take away two important things from this book and to learn and understand two things that americans sometimes struggle with. Those two things are first that racism was an american problem not only a southern problem. American society was fused with racism and 19th century in the north and the south. Africanamericans were waging a freedom struggle on two fronts a literal war against the horrors of slavery in the south but also a battle in the north for Political Rights and persistent discrimination in the north where they were free but relegated to secondclass status. I emphasized in this book that to understand the consequences of the causes of the civil war you had to grapple with american racism. Her mind student readers of the book and that is that the union and the confederacy were starkly different politically. Representing a starkly different ideologies and starkly different destiny for america and what these differences he famously said in 1878 there is a right side and a ron sighed. Douglas described a war of ideas between the old and the new, between slavery and freedom between barbarism and civilization. That was under no of delusion that Northern Society was perfect. Douglas knew that Union Ideology had an emphasis on free labor as opposed to leave enslaved work with a emphasis on moral reform. Union ideology created a former for which change was possible. Not inevitable by any means for easy or even likely but possible and activists like douglas pushed open the door and gave great odds in the face of greater diversity pushed open the door for change and progress. He also knew that confederates which were against change and progress. They were intent on pulling that door shut and chaining a shed and throwing away the key. Its important to understand all this. I want students to be mindful falling in the trap of a false equivalency between the union and confederacy and we know and are reminded all the time by events in charlottesville and their aftermath that thats the false equivalency is a very dangerous trap. In looking at the incredible challenge that lincoln had ahead of him when he got liked it trying to keep this gigantic complicated coalition in the north from democrats and republican abolitionist dealing with holdings in states that remained in the union. Can you talk a little bit then how emancipation and thought emancipation of golf to the emancipation of washington to the emancipation proclamation and how that played into the political dynamic when not in the north . Absolutely. The standard way as we view emancipation as a core war aid on the northern side is to emphasize the pragmatism as a politician. He knew he had to keep this political entity in border states but not to alienate moderates and conservatives. He knew soldiers wouldnt identify themselves as abolitionists. They were committed to the state of the union but not to end slavery. We know that lincoln had various policies. He offered gradual emancipation to lure slaveholders back to the union with the promise that they would be compensated for their losses and colonize. He made a series of appeals that we consider part of a long tradition of antislavery and gradualism. Lincoln comes around when he observes that events on the ground most especially the massive resistance he gave slavery by his their exodus from plantations to union lives. This activism and resistance by these is an institution that his offers to take him up on solutions and he comes around driven by a pragmatic belief that the right move for saving the union is abolition and abolition is a means to saving the union and he makes arguments on behalf of emancipation that are again pragmatic for a stunt hesitancy and convinced northerners by saying emancipation is a maintenance driven by pragmatism because emancipation takes free slaves away from our enemies. I recognize the value of that are together narrative but i emphasized in my book lincolns idealism when he comes around as it were in lincolns thinking and change. When it comes to emancipation he and his allies make when the context at the time was an idealistic argument that emancipation will benefit all americans and it will benefit southerners and it will benefit white southerners but it will benefit them by opening the way to the blessings of a free Society Education free speech Economic Prosperity and will remove the source of contention between the north and south. It will displace that slaveholding belief that has dominated Southern Society. He had attempts to enlist various allies people from the slaveholding border states in southerners from confederacy from going to support him. He tries to make his case that emancipation has brought benefits in giving freedom to the slaves. To recognize that lincoln is making this benefit northerners in southerners white and black on emancipation is its a little bit sobering in disappointing. One of think this signals is emancipation arguments remain more white centered centered on benefits for the white. The focus should have been on the suffering of slaves and their rights to freedom and citizenship. Northern antislavery remains centered in lincolns version of that. Another way to think about this in the context of what had come before this argument that emancipation will have wrought and if its for all americans is quite radical because it is a reputation of what had been centuries of zerosum game relations an argument that centrist had made in a colonial period that came at the expense of widespread lincoln and his allies reject did and its a big rate from the past in this kind of thinking. It has to be emphasized that lincoln is in a sense following the lead of the true antislavery vanguard and that is not only those enslaved people who have taken matters into their own hands and risen up against slavery eventually to enjoin the army but also very much to get to the intellectually those figures like Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists like lloyd garrison who had been building this case for abolition. Once he did embrace it here embraced it and await that was quite a big break from what had come before. Emancipation seem to play not just a role domestic way but internationally as well. Its all love can set concept of deliverance that you talk about which across the atlantic cotton was part of a Global Economy and the British Empire was dependent on cotton from the south and trying to prevent themselves from being recognized as a nation seeking selfdetermination. Can you talk a little bit more about the International Aspects of deliverance and emancipation . Again really the emphasis in deliverance for someone like lincoln and the central part of it was what we called the theory of Southern Society politics. This was a very widespread popular belief by northerners that the white southern masses most to did not own slaves had then cajoled or looted pressured terrorized into supporting the secession of leaders and somehow the union could break the spell that secession is head over the southern masses. Those southern masses would welcome deliverance at the hands of the union army. Lincoln was referred to rebellion insurrection he believed very staunchly that secession was essentially the work of a small group of secessionist conspirators and that it was not a legitimate movement that reflected the truth of the southern masses. We talk about again how didnt northerners say so much evidence of confederate support or ideology but this have implications in terms of geopolitics and diplomacy did the confederates are making a bid to persuade the british that they were a legitimate state that should be recognized as such. Like it was trying to make a case in this way to say this is not a bit jenna exercise in nationbuilding by the victims of tyranny. This is a conspiracy by a small number of slaveholders who are arriving riding roughshod over the southern masses and have to be toppled in order to restore slavery. Confederates hope of foreign recognition are dashed and a preliminary proclamation in antietam undermined the confederate bid for recognition by clearly identifying the union war with emancipation policy. And then for the confederacy how did they react to these notions of deliverance and the newspapers and the words that were. On the newspapers in the north. What was there ideology against the north so to speak . Heres an important thing to note that is at the heart of the ideological propaganda wars between the two sides. We tend to imagine that one side demonizes the other and we do see it in the civil war but the premise of the union war was that southerners would once again become chairman of northerners. This union would be restored and so unionists tended as i say to describe southerners metaphorically as people who needed teaching in drunkards who needed to sober up and madmen and centers who should repent with an accent on bringing them into the national old. Confederate leaders were dashed to this deliverance rhetoric and they wanted it all cost to discredit it. From the start of the war and before the fur shots were fired the folks with the confederate ideology is making the case to white southerners that the union is intent on the war of determination so its deliverance is the key word for unionists on the confederate side to keywords were things like degradation pollution and this was meant to preempt and discredit the southern masses by suggesting that northerners are intent on subjugation of the south. This raises the corollary issue and that is how much dissent white southern unionism was in the south and thats a tricky question to answer. Unfortunately confederate top again to us power a powerful and unionism never materialized among whites and Confederate States of the degree lincoln and others hoped it would. With the war showed was the true blue unionists were africanamerican whose participation in war effort at every level offered her assistance into enlistment into the union army was decisive in Union Victory. Another point i want to emphasize to people is while its a bit of a shorthand to equate the south and the confederacy we shouldnt do so because of course there were africanamerican stewart anticonfederate southerners and the 200,000 africanamericans who served in the union army, 80 were southerners. It comes back to your question confederate ideology argues theres a solid confederate nationalism devoted and loyal slaves and in reality it was a divided south end lincoln was able to capitalize on some of those divisions. And then taking a look at these two different ideologies to summarize the confederate viewpoint as they called it the northern barbarity and southern itemization and the north is on one hand trying to use deliverance to eventually bring the south back into the fold that their wayward brother so to speak. What were some of the impacts at the end of the war with the start of reconstruction and what are some of the legacies that in some ways the Southern View almost negates or takes advantage of the northern view of trying to bring them back into the fold in a peaceful way and make them again. Yeah i mean i found as a research this book although i hadnt started with the provisional pieces in mind, came to realize that what i was finding in these sources was in a sense the back story to a tale i told them my previous book. I wrote a book about the surrender of granted appomattox and i analyzed that they surrendered terms and their meaning and grant with some magnanimous to the defeat of southerners not to exonerate them but as a means of perfecting their repentance. He believed there was a right side and a wrong side in the war and responding with contrition and his leniency would the way of changing hearts and minds. In a sense what i describe in this book are the sources of those assumptions on grants part. Its easy to ask was grant delusional and why would he think that he would does you would get this kind of repentance and why would he believe he could change southern hearts and minds. What i argue in this book is southerners sought laces were self deliverance was working. Whenever they saw evidence of desertion in the south as a potential sign that deliverance was working. When they saw dissent in the south bay became evident that leverentz was working and the south bordering states in the union and the republican parties with antislavery agendas began to get traction in places like missouri and maryland. They thought deliverance was working for the breaking off of West Virginia and the formation of separate union of states they saw as evidence it was working. Theres a powerful yearning on their part to believe this and grant clung to this idea that he could change southern hearts well into the first phases of reconstruction. Part of what i tried to convey is the appeal for residents of this leverentz rhetoric that you can punish the elite and redeem the masses. It was an emotional resonance. Northerners knew even if they wanted to they could and have subjugated the confederacy and imp impose loyalty but they were truly open to changing hearts and minds in this he said they failed to do that but it turned out the confederates were not about to repudiate their leaders are repudiate their cause. We see defiance in the postwar south only see a rejection on the premise of the union. We see two things that are very telling which are often the case when wars end. Coalition would come together to fight and win the war. Once that goal is achieved it falls apart. Theres a meaning for freedom and for africanamericans going to be able to exercise progress and inclusion in American Society . He had resolve these questions and we see the falling apart of that coalition by Andrew Johnson who was chosen in 1864 when lincoln was trying to win reelection precisely because he was a southerner who had seen the light and supported the union by supporting emancipation as a military sais necessity during the war. At the end of the war johnson essentially revealed that his notion of lack freedom was a very narrow one primarily on the as a right for wages but not political war and the comes to light that he is seeking to build a new coalition of the south that included former planters and he uses lincolns amnesty policy. I really try to underscore in my book that while we focus on emancipation as a second signature policy of amnesty to the confederates taking away your right to vote will be restored to a peak to field disaffected southerners away and back to the union. Johnson the abuses that amnesty policy with massive pardons to the very secessionist elite who northerners had thought to punish. The result is the first days of reconstruction in which the white south imposes all kinds of forms of subordination meant to be as close to slavery as possible without defining the 13th amendment. I could talk with you the whole day but this has to be my last question so we can get to audience questions. My last question is because the audience has a lot of teachers viewing right now can you talk a little bit about how teachers can help them to understand this incredibly complex subject of the civil war to politics and diplomacy, the warfare, emancipation and also what were some of your favorite sources in doing research . Where did you turn to to hear the voices from the people of that time . Thats a wonderful question. Let me say this. First of all i feel this biography is a wonder we wonderful way of getting a tricky and difficult political questions and therefore id rather have students read very deeply of someone like Frederick Douglass and 15 short quotes from 15 different people. Giving enough context to understand the complexity of these key figures is very important. In terms of sources to me ultimately i found soldiers letters so moving. I read very widely letters from soldiers africanamerican soldiers, white soldiers new englanders and people from border states and so on. Oftentimes the sophistication of their own thinking surprise me sometimes with profound thoughts appear with grammar and spellings that seem less than polished but the sentiment nonetheless to provide great insight. Tuning into voices is so important and the unique thing about this project is we have to strike a balance between in the moment sources and post sources so for me the letters and diaries give a wonderful collection on soldiers letters and diaries that we have gotten now and those in the moment sources are so important because they are at daytoday control group that enables you to see how arguments that are being made in sermons by politicians and editors are resounding in peoples daily lives. That may be a little clearer. If i only found the deliverance rhetoric that i described in speeches and in sermons and in editorials i would have wondered how much really mattered. What i found was Union Soldiers diaries and letters those in the moment sources written off the battlefields will literally i found Union Soldiers professing and repeating a mantra. This desire to save the south from southern leaders. Again looking for that Broad Spectrum and certainly not all the soldiers sign on to that project. Africanamerican soldiers in particular made this case against discrimination slavery and in making the argument that deliverance will not be complete unless americas delivered from the institution of slavery and delivered from racism itself of lat cultures less hopeful about any quick conversion on the form of confederates and much more focused on the broad complicity of racism. What we say or soldiers diaries and the spectrum gives a chance to see how ideology again lands and shapes this experience. I should mention on my training of southern history and women as warriors in the cases of people like Elizabeth Stanley when Harriet Tubman and women as performers and people that are key to the medical apparatus and oath sections in the case of someone like suzie taylor and women as political commentators. Women are rather than having women set aside in their own separate chapter to hear the voice of women throughout great. Its been really great speaking with you and this is an incredible book. Thank you so much for writing it and i want to hand it over to allison with questions from the audience. Thank you you. Id be delighted to answer them. Hi professor. Thank you so much for being with us here today. We have almost 100 questions in the q a so we will take a few a small handful. We will fulfill the most burning questions the black. Of first question is from a teacher at the International School in germany. I would like to know if the north was so intent on delivering the south why the northerners had a lost cause view of the war in the reconstruction years and how did the southern era gained such traction . The confederacy is as a massive Misinformation Campaign and northerners prove susceptible to that Misinformation Campaign because of the persistence of racism in the north they prove receptive to that Misinformation Campaign because in a very cynical way white southerners cause chaos through violence and propaganda in the south and suggest the only answer to the chaos is to go back to the way things were before. To sort of selffulfilling prophecy white supremacist violence and propaganda. Its literally meant to wear northerners out and it does, it suggests they can only have peace by abandoning the hope of deliverance. We can see this the cynicism of it is quite telling but just to give one angle of a way of thinking about this, northerners dont sort of, whats the way to put this, dont give into the ideology easily. There always counter narrative. One cause ideology that the union calls was righteous that theres only one of the two parties to occupy the moral high ground and that is northerners. A reconciliation missed ideology that seeks to bitterness and defiance against the two sides on focusing on reconciliation. The message of lost cause ideology is that southerners former confederates i should say, would accept reconciliation only on their own terms. Only if they can share the moral high ground. The difficulties here are many. People sometimes say to me, if northerners wanted to win hearts and minds abthere was a Marshall Plan it was the Freedmens Bureau in many places gave more rations to poor white southerners than africanamericans. The Freedmens Bureau was pretrade in lost cause ideology as a sort of agency of subjugation and oppression and tyranny. There was no length that lost cause types wouldnt go to to distort history. And part of their distortion was sweeping under the rug the evidence of dissent in the south. Sweeping under the rug southern unionism. Sweeping under the rug the contributions of southern black history and their opposition to slavery and so on. In order to create an northerners and others who had hopes in change to come in the face of a Massive Campaign of propaganda and violence. Ive been thinking about this a lot in part because im writing about it, james long street confederate general who almost alone among confederate generals accepted grants terms that fermented spirit grants offered them and drew the conclusion that to see the confederates did have to yield to the ideas of the victor, mainly victorious unit, to support the Republican Party and black loading and be cast out of white Southern Society as a pariah for having made this surprising and almost singular switch. With grant and others who gave extended leave clemency hope for was to change southern hearts and minds and at the end of the day the long streets were very few and far between. In former confederates closed ranks to discredit and preempt any appeal to the masses. Thank you. The next question comes from lois. Lois wants to know if you can address what kind of Agency Formerly enslaved persons had and before president grant took office. We have to make a very very important distinction as we think about the postwar period of reconstruction before the first phase will johnson is president and the second phase congressional reconstruction and a wealth of wonderful recent historical work as shown former slaves in the wake of confederate deceit and lets keep in mind it was confederate deceit that was the true dawn of freedom potential dawn of freedom as lincoln did the emancipation proclamation in 1963 but as long as there was confederate armies in the field of slavery was protected by them the defeat of southern armies raises the hopes of real freedom among africanamericans and the defined that freedom very broadly not only freedom to work for someone like johnson would have it but political voice Legal Protections the kind that would void the old dred scott decision that denied them citizenship the rights to swarm families and protect the families and the rights to marriage Economic Opportunity and so on. They began instantly to move for and demand those rights to try to secure them. They are met from the very beginning of this president ial phase of reconstruction with white southern awhich is stopped by Andrew Johnson who gives former confederates to restore them to power. That has a series of laws passed which shows once scholars put the survival of the abwhen we have congressional reconstruction we see real change for the first time because African Americans have become rotors and officeholders and they choir in that window congressional reconstruction some of those key rights, rights to self protection minimal rights of self protection which had been denied them. They acquire a political voice and as i explained tragically that experiment in interracial democracy in the south and congressional reconstruction is under siege from the moment it began. In that southern democratic ideology was meant to provide the zerosum game thinking and propose and enshrine again the idea that any gain would come at the expense of white. Our next question comes from christopher from illinois. Christopher wants to know did the philosophy of deliverance play a role in a lost cause narrative of the confederacy . Does this make reconstruction physical in terms of the cell feeling they did not saving pee dee. A few things to say there i think the question sort of eluded to these things on the one hand the philosophy of deliverance was problematic because many southern southerners found it to be condescending if you tell people youre going to save them from themselves you could run a very great risk of angering them and many felt that this was part of a representative of the kind of northern condescension. It must be said that northerners felt southern slaveholding ideology was condescending toward them. We can see the problems with deliverance ideology. Deliverance ideology kept white southern suffering at the center of northern politics. Northerners, white northerners, were so concerned about southern union, seven refugees, and so on, images of white victimization and suffering at the center of northern politics and this is the problem because someone like johnson could come along and did come along and say in effect johnson said the white southern masses who had suffered under the domination of elite slaveholders are suffering under the domination of radical republicans. Johnson claimed he would fight radical republicans just as he fought secessionist in the name of delivering abthis had many potential uses and johnson put it to a retrograde and reactionary use. All of it was meant to underscore for us how Leadership Matters and president ial Leadership Matters. I alluded to some of the differences. I think i found i found it was ubiquitous among all the soldiers but with some important variations. For officers the deliverance rhetoric tended to be more class in fact devised by class the image of poor southern whites in the eyes of northerners was once an image of people who were who were uneducated, ignorant, living in primitive circumstances and so on and who needed to be not only also uplifted socially so this notion of sort of project of social uplift you see articulated a little bit more explicitly among the more educated and wealthy officers. The point i tried to make before, africanamericans believe in the power of free labor to regenerate the south. Some of the truly anticonfederate whites, the small number of truly anticonfederate southern whites like elizabeth bamboo at union amight be allies in the freedom struggle. Africanamerican soldiers were much more focused on they believed it very strongly you would not have National Security and peace unless you were awarded the truest of the south unionists. That is to say without that tool that vulnerability to exploitation you do see some variation as you think about the various social groups. Our next question comes from sherry. Sherry would like to know the africanamericans assert serve voluntary and Confederate Army . African americans did not serve in the Confederate Army. This is one of those myths. To shrine an idea of a faithful slave in a cell. African americans were forced to do hard labor by confederate soldiers labor of the kind they had always done labor that was meant to serve the interests of southern slaveholders and southern white so they were forced to clear roads, to build fortifications, to grow crops and so on. But they were not welcomed into the confederate military. There was a debate about the potential enlistment of black soldiers as my confederates in the very last stages of the war and some terrific work like people like kevin lewman and grace abbruce levine showed clearly that was a big tip preserve slavery by forcing some black men to bear arms in subordinate roles with no eye toward the potential equality or citizenship. To rescue slavery for the rest of Southern Society that debate that went nowhere because the slaveholders turned they were not willing to give their slaves over to the army in that capacity to be used in that way. Its very important to put that myth of black confederates to rest once and for all. Next question is from jennifer from washington dc. Can you identify a turning point or something that triggered lincoln to move from trying to stop the expansion of slavery to ending it. I would say its there in the sense that traditional stories have it right. Lincoln said hes offering gradual compensated emancipation to the border states they often never accept the friction and abrasion of war, he puts it, are ending slavery. He has in mind the mass exodus of slaves to the union army. He can see the writing on the wall. Its a combination of seeing the war arose slavery and the slaveholding border states are not going to abandon the union but also not going to accept his offer of gradual compensated emancipation a series of converging factors is also someone in this ultimately its important to remember when we take about avoiding false equivalency. The union gives us Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest president s, a man of moral striving a man of moral growth, a man who changes his views, adapts, listens, learns, admits what is wrong as he famously did to grant at the vicksburg and so lived traveled a journey theres a private lincoln and evidence that that private lincoln always load slavery on some level, up public lincoln driven by prop pragmatic concerns and balancing act of keeping his coalition together. We eventually on the eve of his assassination in his second inaugural in the last speech he gives he converging of that private and public lincoln as he really in some sense the key thing is once he knows abhe can having learned what he learned he can speak in truly antislavery cadences to invoke the abolition in douglas it cant be emphasized enough how much the performance of africanamerican troops as a factor in lincoln coming to defend emancipation the way that he does in moral terms. Our next question comes from joseph, joseph would like to know, how do you address those who continue to ababout the cause of the war as opposed to economics and political power of slavery. This is something that we as educators about the civil war deal with all the time we observe, for example, about states rights states rights is not separate from the issue of slavery. Thats a false dichotomy that the states rights the secessionist most wanted to protect was it the right to own slaves and they were very unabashed about that. We asked them to go read the primary sources. Secessionist were absolutely unabashed in telling us why they succeeded. The architect of secession succeeded to protect and perpetuate them protect slavery. They tell us so in their ordinances the ordinance of secession of georgia or South Carolina. Theyre not subtle about it. They tell us on no Uncertain Terms what secession was about. The question raises exists at another level. There is no dispute, no serious modern historian denies that secession was a bid to protect aslavery. As northerners of the time know most white southerners did not own slaves. Imagine that those must represent slaveholders who have kept for themselves the preponderance of wealth and power in the south. Northerners failed to reckon with the degree to which slaveholder ideology had sunk its hooks into Southern Society and coursed through their bloodstream of society. Its true only wanted for white family owned slaves but. But we also count the white sluggers who hoped to own slaves. Who worked for slave owners who had slave owners and their families and so on. We see that broad majority of white southerners in the seceded states believe they have a stake in slavery and the system of profit and social control. In white southern propaganda secessionist propaganda that led them to believe that the north was a threat to their own wellbeing and an end to that racial control was tragically very effective. We have time for one more question. You mentioned the South Carolina secession broadside. Our question actually has two copies and viewers can go to our website and view more information about those and what they say. Hours are broad size and quite large but very interesting to look at. Kelly wants to know how the confederate soldiers deflected or switch sides to fight for the north. Thats a good question. I dont have a figure i can quote right now. There are some books on socalled galvanized the yankee confederates who fought on the union side. I emphasize in my book that there were, lets put it this way, one of the things that is emphasized in wonderful book by a man named william freeling called the south versus the south and the title tells you a good idea about the thesis of this book. He observes that 450,000 men in slave states fought for the union army in blue uniforms. 150,000 of those 450,000 were africanamericans who fought in the union army but the other 300,000 were border state whites and slaveholding states he chose the abat 100,000 whites and Confederate States who chose the union army. There are substantial divisions within Southern Society that should lead us to think twice about equating the south with the confederacy. Northerners believe those southerners who switch sides who had been in the Confederate Army didnt deserve it but joined the union army. Or endorsed the unions war. Those kinds of southerners will are symbolically very important to lincoln and i could get you one example of confederate named edward gant who is from arkansas who came to embrace the Republican Party in the Lincoln Administration emancipation and was held up as a sign and symbol that this was possible. The last thing i will say on this is as follows, lincoln proposes this amnesty ofs december 1863. Nicknamed the 10 plan. The reason is this, lincoln was hoping that by offering amnesty to confederates he could get 10 of the confederate population to peel away from the confederacy join the union pledge allegiance to the union and that 10 can be a vanguard that might leave those restored states back into the union. The fact that he chose the number 10 tells you something about about the absence for the support of the union and those Confederate States. The fact that he had to adjust his expectations about the potential of people switching sides, there were pockets of unionism in the south particularly in the months off but in the sort of plantation area the seceded states true blue unionist among whites were few and far between. Somewhat leaguer and yearning for deliverance to be sure but having to wait a very long time for it. Professor Elizabeth Varon thank you so much for this absolutely fascinating conversation. I also thank you for corralling all those great questions. Much appreciated. And did i share my screen one more time so i can share with all you folks out there a whole bunch of important links. These are also going into the chat feature. These are not clickable but go to the chat window and for any of those listed here. With 100 odd questions and a chance to answer only a few of them that would be peoples Unanswered Questions and im happy to answer them by email if anyone wants to reach out to me im absolutely delighted to answer questions that are emailed. Fantastic. Thank you. If youre interested in buying professor Elizabeth Varons book armies of deliverance go to bookshop. Org this is the Gilder Lehrman page on bookshop. Org. The purchase of the book here will not only help support Gilder Lehrman but also help support independent bookstores. Once we end the webinar here you are going to be sent to this link for a two minute survey, please fill out the survey. We always like to know how we are doing and how we can improve. If youre interested in learning more about abi hope you will be able to join us next sunday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern time with professor ted widmer and his book lincoln on the verge and if youre interested in finding anything else out about Gilder Lehrman, our programs, and the collection, please go to Gilder Lehrman. Org. We are going to shut off our screen and sound and we are going to leave this appear for a minute if you want to copy down these links. They will you will also be sent these links in a followup email you should be getting tomorrow in the recording of this session will be on the book breaks website by the end of the week. Again, a big thank you to professor Elizabeth Varon for the great conversation. Thank you allison and thank you our audience out there and we hope to see you again next week. Have a great afternoon everyone. Recently at the nixon president ial library in yorba linda california, turning point usa founder charlie kirk offered his thoughts and what he calls the new conservative agenda. In this portion of the program he talks about how President Trump communicates via twitter. Of course people say, i dont like his tweets and i dont like, im going to address this one time and one time only this is the best way i can address it is america was drowning in the middle of the ocean under the managed decline of both Political Parties of the last 20 years and if were honest with ourselves its been both parties that contributed to this to Big Government management and adventurism of god while our country is crumbling and finally come in the middle of the night when we are just gasping for air rescue helicopter brings us back up to life and we are able to breathe again. The first thing you say to that person that rescues us is, i dont like you or tweet history. We are breathing again. Its completely and totally irrelevant. Its like the heart surgeon, thank you for the triple bypass surgery, by the way, i hate your tweets but im glad we are breathing again. Not to mention, i can make an argument that the twitter feed actually sets the cadence and its a public northstar for every Single Person to understand what the president is trying to accomplish and key people accountable for it. Because traditionally you have to hold a press conference, the media will always cover it but now theres a real time standard and realtime accountability measure for everyone to see exactly what the president is thinking and doing. I think hes hilarious, actually like a politician thats outside of the cocktail party, say one thing, do another thing, consensus in washington dc. Her care if he offends a couple people here and there, i like the fact that he punches back twice as hard because i feel as if our politicians havent been fighting for our country for the last couple decades and they been perfectly okay with this kind of managed decline. When i heard this time and time again, i said, thus the thesis of the trunk purchases at sea. Heres the big picture doctrine, we go to the doctor you say give me the bad news first. Tell me everything going on at bed and President Trump in his announcement address basically was pretty brutal he said we are losing, he said our borders are wide open, trade deals are stupid, china is laughing at us. Our economy is anemic. Obamacare is a disaster. The courts are compromise. The deep state is corrupt most of this was in like the first 30 seconds. It was the first honest assessment i think our country had received in a very long time. Thats the first part of his doctrine and philosophy and im going to tell it straight to the american people. Im not going to sugarcoat it, im not going to tell you one thing when its actually the other. The second thing is, what ideas are actually rooted in a renewal of a nation. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website booktv. Org search for charlie kirk or the title of his book mega doctrine using the search box at the top of the page. Booktv a prime time starts known. Michael long and Pamela Horowitz share collected writings by the late civil rights leader. Authors and activists offer their thoughts on race, rights, and the police pulitzer prizewinning reporter mary jordan on the life and influence of First Lady Melania Trump publican senator joni ernst of iowa talks about her journey becoming the first female combat veteran to serve as United States senator. And we wrap up booktv. Org in prime time with economics professor Stephanie Kelton and huff post Senior Reporter Zachary Carter talking about moderate economic theories and whether they hold up today. To find more information in your Program Guide or go online at booktv. Org. Here is a look at the life and work of civil rights leader julian bond. Charis books is the souths oldest independent bookstore we are 45 years old. Ordinarily we come to you live in person at 184 s. Chandler in decatur georgia, were now the new school store for scott
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