Transcripts For CSPAN3 Civil War-Era Politics 20171224

The political history of the coming of the civil war is as important as history can get the only timeause weve ever had in the political system disintegrated. Have three people to talk about this. We have tried to mix the generations. Comment. State general we like to mix the generations. We dont want everyone as old as me. Our first speaker will be pamela brand line. She holds a professorship in Political Science at the university of michigan. She has also taught at ut austin. Historians andof social scientist to. She is the author of two important books. Rethinking the judicial system of resettlement. A title long before the age of trump. That was a slip, i didnt mean that. Honestly. Pamela is going to speak on the of rethinking Party Appeals and capitalist contexts. Lynnecond speaker is josh who is a postdoctoral fellow here at yale. Hes part of the macmillan center. He did his phd at the university of North Carolina at chapel hill. Is teaching a course here at yell on jacksonian democracy. He has planned a major conference the first weekend in december. On that old but still very important problem of who was jackson and what is jacksonian democracy . Book is now accepted preservinpress called republic. Ans hes artie ridden an essay about this, comparing Frederick Douglass and Stephen Douglas. Called the black douglas and the white douglas. There were more relationships and connections between those two then i ever realized. Frome lifted shamelessly his article in my forthcoming book. Lastly, joe murphy, who helped us organize this conference. Organizerwas a prime of the conference at cuny four years ago. The cunys phd at graduate center. He is currently a postdoc fellow over the seer at the New York Historical society. He is a scholar of antislavery politics and is himself writing neither a slave political and teh rise of antislavery nationalism. Josh will speak on the theme of 1850s populism, economics, and white supremacism. Each person gets 15 minutes. Then we open it up to you. Dont be shy. Will pamela thank you, david. I want to return to a question that civil war historians used to argue about in the 1980s, and that was the nature or character of the republican appeal. The contributors to this debate, all agree that political ideology is a central feature of sectional conflict and political realignment. They mean a worldview or relatively coherent set of beliefs. Agreement among them about the character of the republican appeal. Causes of the realignment in the 1850s. The focus for my remarks, im going to focus on the disagreement between two scholars. We can start with a free labor story, which is familiar. Lets do a couple highlights. The free labor story talks about slavery degrading labor. The right to rise. Small, independent producers had a stake in the story about the nation and the nature of the nation. Aspirations for social mobility. Storypower comes into the , threatening the life blood of the nation. Threatening the aspirations of laborers. The notion of a safety valve was crucial. Northern workers needed the west to rise. Says the comes in and free labor commitments divided northerners from seven slaveowners. But he says its not clear that free labor commitments divided republicans from northern democrats. Asturns to the slave power the major construct, the master symbol of the Republican Party, identifies with her public and values. He says of the essence of appeal were republican values. Free labor concerns were about economics and slave power concerns were about public and is him, small are. He is referring to things such as northern rights and liberties. Free speech. Clause. Tive slave concerns with aristocracy. Slave power was seen as an aristocracy under republican principles. Also, they were a political minority. Seen as a violation of republicanism and an increasing extremity of southern demands. According to the scholar, this created a profound fear of republican values. For republican values. , i thing that can be said would offer the suggestion that republican ideology, especially as articulated by seward and lincoln, fused economic concerns with republicanism. False blip is evidenced in the very five fed aristocrats were seen as nonproducers. The very equation undermines the idea that economic concerns and republican, small are, concerns were separate. I want to focus the presence in the Republican Party of what trueled true them democrats. These were a group of political actors that i dont think have been well understood by historians. With their name. They left the Democratic Party in the 1830s. They are coming out of ohio. Ohio Liberty Party but they called themselves true democrats. Under the leadership of john hale they called themselves independent democrats. These are not the barn burners. These are not the northern democrats who said they want the west for white labor. These are a group of asked democrats that said the Democratic Party were not being true to the principle of the equality. They criticized the slave power argument. They also borrowed a jacksonian , andpts, the money Power Building a critique of the wrist across of the south and the risk as of the north. The northern aristocrats included merchants, financial ors, and business owners. Thinks something i dont we have enough of a grip on in terms of our understanding. At bottom, the fact that these true democrats also launched a slave power critique as well as the whig republicans launching a slave power critique, what that means is that the slave power cannot be the essence of the republican appeal. Thats because these true democrats are combining a slave power critique with a critique of the northern economic system. Something is going on here, and this is where i want to pick up. , theire democrats presence, is signaling that not just do we need to expand our time verizons, we have to look the history through of antislavery politics. I want to add another feature to this, which is the creation of this true democrat political movement. I want to put on the table the idea that capitalist development in the north was more evolved, more advanced, more developed than has generally been recognized. These true democrats are appealing to an antislavery contingent that is less racist than one might imagine given conventional stories about the irish in new york city. These folks are not prospering under the growing capitalist system. The way of exploring these appeals, repeals the whig republican and true democrat appeals, i want to tie the question of these appeals to a question that economic historians of slavery used to talk about. And talking of gavin right. I want to expand on their conceptualization and crucial ways. By 1790y have proposes and 1800, you had property systems in the north in conflict with the property system of the south. The property system in the north , i dont have time to talk about in detail, but the critical feature was property in yourself. Property in your labor. There was an evolution of this in the north. Courts also got rid of something called specific informants performance which was when workers, if they did not fill the contract, could be put in jail. Of labor law stoppect operative by the 1820s. You have this property system in is north, a feature of it the gradual emancipation of the north from slavery. Areges in property law vital here. I just want to reference briefly to works, one by Charles Poston one by david meyer, who give us some tools to think about capless context in the north. Populationh we had a a system in slavery. As part of a system. There a hybrid dimension to this. Slaveowners traded in commodities. They got very wealthy. They looks like cap lists that its is not a capitalist system. I want to talk about some features that are typical and unique. Once we brought in the context even this far, back to the rise of the atlantic economy and the transit clinic slave trade, he gives us some purchase on when and how southern democrats amped up there demands. Poston ights from post and meyer. I dont think we can reduce this to property systems. Can reduce itwe to economic determinism. But theres something he contributes that is vital. He talks about demythologizing the family farm. History,of civil war that family farm is mythologized as independent. Post gives us some tools to d mythologized this. The late 1830s, family farms were no longer independent. They came under the law of value. That means they become embedded in northern markets. They have to sell to survive. They must. ,hey have to specialize output they have to create laborsaving tools, they have to accumulate land. 1830s, theo late cost of entry into western farming was prohibitive for urban poor laborers. This fact is final because it gives us some understanding not just the republican appeal to these poor urban laborers but whether or not that appeal was feasible. Post suggests that appeal was not feasible, yet it was made. We have these dependent family farms, dependent in a particular cents. Dependent on market, dependent on credit from capital, but not pursuing what is called competency. They have to grow to survive. Want to pullm my i in, david meyer has a new book out and he talks about prosperous northern agriculture. And industrialization. As processes that happen together and are interrelated. We cannot understand industrialization in the north without understanding prosperity among commercial farms. He gives us all kind of information. Philadelphia area, boston area, new york area. Ional metropolises since metropolises. Population is rising in rural areas, which seems counterintuitive. That between 1840 and 1860 we had these incredibly prosperous farms thatll generating social differentiation. Folks with access to markets are doing well. Folks with good land are doing well. But there are a lot of folks who are not doing well. Between 1840 in 1860, we have the fastest. Of industrial growth in the 19th century. The number of employees in manufacturing is increasing threefold. Productivity is increasing fivefold. This shouldnt come altogether as a surprise given irish immigration and the fact that labor scarcity was a problem that no longer existed. Underline points, this is not the world of the small producer. Lastly, i just wanted to come to this question of southern democratic aggression. And their increasing demands and timing of the session. There are features of southern slavery that were typical of Atlantic World slavery. And there are features that were unique. This combination i want to bring us back to. Typical, theres a rachel basis. Typical slaves ran away. Typical, slaveowners got very wealthy. Typical, slave property was compatible for a. Of time with capitalist markets. Boom in a single export crop is what drives this wealth. We have this with cotton starting in 1800, when the south became britains primary source. And the huge boom in the 1850s. Also typical, busts follow these booms. The horizon on already but folks in the south could not and did not know that. What is unique, resident planters. Very important for understanding the formation of a slave society. Unique, profound regional political power and National Political power. This is unique. This fact is absolutely vital for understanding the timing. Its not just population growth in the north. This is constitutional design. This is the 3 5 clause. This is over representation in the house that turn do the Electoral College that turned into the presidency agenda to Supreme Court appointments. The political power of the southern democrat is combining with this huge wealth thats been dimming being generated from a world market. Britain are the market for carton from the 18 four cotton from the 1830s to the 1860s. It creates the sense that the south can do it on their own. They dont need the union anymore. The thing i want to underscore is this idea that we need to reintroduce property systems as a category of analysis. Say, and i want to underscore this, no economic determinism. This is not progressive history. Aboutys of thinking property systems have to include the fact that theres a wonderful article in the american Historical Review where it says racial slavery has an economic motive. He shows that the empires in europe, if they want a cheap way of getting slavery, they should have enslaved convict laborers in europe. There are means to do that. They should have enslaved poor people in europe, there are means to do that. Slaverypest way to put in the new world was to enslave europeans. They didnt do that and all by underlines an economic determinist story of the south. The property system has to be very complicated and worked out. Gender has to be a piece of this as well. Men weres of english seen to be absolute. Property systems is a category of analysis, we need to do that. Understand these true democrats that were stepping out of the Democratic Party and fighting for the west ultimatelyntry and this fight between wig republicans and these true thecrats over what was problem in the country and how youre going to fix it. The new democrats said we have to get rid of the slave power. To getso said we have something about the northern economic order. I will stop there. [applause] as david mentioned, 2017 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Jackson. As ourll know, but president seems a little confused about in his musings on American History, Andrew Jackson was not alive in the air we are here to discuss. But his ideas were. The populist political style that he pioneered divided a template for americans to approach this crisis in 1840s and 1850s. Today, some americans are also looking to that jacksonian template. Many americans youre in for an hour of jackson. As reviving the jackson style. President trump himself has embraced the idea that he is a modern day old hickory. Earlier this year he went to the hermitage to celebrate Andrew Jacksons history and said he was a fan. Drew a parallel between his populism and that of jackson who he asserted confronted and defined american elite and reclaimed the peoples government from an emerging aristocracy. Rehabilitated old degrees portrait to the oval office. Liberals have responded with soulsearching over how to reconnect with the people. Earlier this week, columbia professor gave a talk on his book the once and future identityagainst politics. Example of only one liberals trying to reconnect with a broad swath of americans that trouble allegedly speaks to. Others have likewise recommended of the Democratic Party sees to be the party of identity politics and rebrand itself or to being a party of class or economic appeals. They believe they can do that and bring back the white middle class without pandering to homophobia, and classes him on the right. That identity politics is an artificial one. American pipe is an is pioneered by the jacksonian has always both been a populism of political economy and a populism of identity politics and in this of white malem identity. Jackson taught his followers to conceptualize politics as a struggle between the nations natural majority of producers and entrenched economic elite. He mobilized against the money ofer, a conspiratorial cabal financial elites and corrupt government officials. Scholars have charted how that jacksonian appeal endured into the civil war era. Some talk about how antislavery jacksonians substituted the slave power for the money power in later decades of the 1840s and 1850s and this caused them to leave the ancestral party, the party of jackson, in order to fight monopoly in this new guys. TheDemocratic Party of 1850s then becomes nearly an appendage of the slave power. Democrats seem to exist outside the Democratic Party. These accounts emphasize the pivotal role of antislavery jacksonians in the fight against slavery and often deemphasize the racism of jacksonians. Worthd something preserving and seek to differentiate it from a party that is proslavery, prosouthern, and under the leadership of people like Franklin Pierce and james buchanan. For many, the jacksonian legacy should belong to Abraham Lincoln and not stephen jackson. But how many of those democrats were in the Democratic Party in the civil war era . Or they true democrats . I would say yes. The 1850s Democratic Party still the party of jackson. Once we recognize that, it raises implications for jacksons politics. Like republicans in the civil war era, the Democratic Party also detective a dangerous monopoly that threatened white mens liberty and the union itself. But it was not the slave power, it was the antislavery power. Instead of protesting against slavery and slaveholders, democrats detected a conspiracy among abolitionists, antislavery republicans, reformers, and their africanamerican allies. Democrats believed these reformers want to consolidate governmental power to aunt democratically takeaway white mens liberties through reform. Antislavery power for these democrats replaced the money power in their jacksonian populist formula. For example of this, governor henry wise virginia in 1857 reminisced that jackson once had to contend with the money power it was subdued by democracy. We now have to meet the black andent of abolitionism, sampson survives to fight for the chosen people. The Democratic Party continue to be white mens champion. Pamphleteer saw that a remarkable phenomena has reason the antislavery now inspires to control the union. The antislavery feeling some of the republican power, was this new grasping monopoly which threatened not just white mens economic rights, but theyre very identity as white men. The antislavery americans also fit into the jacksonian template for politics by being seen as arrogant elites who thought they knew better than the people. Abolitionists and republicans, they did not care about the average white man and not about enslaved americans. A democrat wrote in his diary in 1860, republicans do not care for the negro if they can carry their point to elect an antislavery president. And get the support of antislavery states. His third up sentiment stirred up sentiment to consolidate their position. Explain some of the antipathy toward the end of slavery movements. Because jackson had talked white men to bristle at any dictation or kind intention from others. Condon from others. Abolitionist were seen as the ultimate in arrogance because the present to talk to white men all racial equality. Talking to conservatives today railing against elites, southern and western democrats complained about new england chauvinism in the 1850s. The antislavery power can be seen as one last attempt by the cosmopolitan ghost of a John Quincy Adams to exact revenge on jackson and the laborers. Indiana democrats for example, hated those that traversed the midwest and presumed to instruct them all racial equality and black suffrage credit they regarded the people of indiana as little children, incapable of making laws themselves. And then republicans joined a long line of jackson enemies who doubted the white mans capacity for selfgovernment, joining wigs, federalists and even tories in that pantheon. Democrats resented anybody that questioned democracy. The white mens democracy and especially white mens to my to decide the fate of americans of color and women. And in the key debate that became popular was popular sovereignty. Democratically decided the status of africanamericans in the territories. It was seen as the ultimate distillation of jacksonian democracy for the Democratic Party and as much as the Democratic Party of the 1850s is derided as a shield for andlavery, it was a genuine passionate advocate of white mens democracy and a very fast in a very real sense. Which will lead to a whole host of questions about american democracy itself. If this was a Democratic Party. In the jacksonian further linking democrats to the 1850s to jackson, submitting to a monopoly, whatever it is, whether it wasthe money power of old or the civil war eras slave power, was to be enslaved. The monopoly was to be enslaved with the racial connotations that came with it, a forfeiture of whiteness and manhood. 1847, a true jacksonian, a true democrat, william leggett, urged the people to incite money power now driven will be riveted a new. This trip of enslavement and racial degradation to form a monopoly of contractor to power continued into the civil war era. Part, it fueled a lot of people to leave the Democratic Party and protest the slave power and it brother racism with them into the Antislavery Movement. And yet for any one of these men that feared enslavement to the slave power, there were white men in the north and in the south who allied together in their fear of enslavement to the antislavery power. An Alabama Democrat cautioned against the concentrated power in the movement and he used that the rights of the slaveholder will not be the only ones innovative, but every privilege will be destroyed. And northern democrats agreed, they often saw their rights as white men linked or bound up with the whites of those in the south and the economy of the south over the question of Race Relations antislavery. Thus it was the Democratic Party and it was very much it was able tod, hold together a National Party on the way until 1860. We know that it fractured, it was losing about twhirl strength, and perhaps it was flailing in the cultural wars of the civil war era, losing ground on certain issues including the , butption of patriarchy they were still a National Party and they were a National Party that was a populist coalition of white men who coalesced on a political ideology from the 1850s democracy which seemed to be lacking doubles, and around shared conceptions of white mastery. The united wightman in the north and in the south, not through opportunism, but their shared assumptions and political theory. United protestants and catholics and the united foreign and nativeborn white men, this was the party that was most passionate often and in its denunciation of nativism. It is a topic that is underappreciated in that the northern Democratic Party, even if it is increasingly a minority within the north, it was still part of a larger National Party. And it was a vibrant party. On the eve of the civil war it also continue to be jacksons party, raising troubling duplications about the popular zone he had and those who try to invoke it today. Old hickory had an enduring way for us to imagine politics, people versus the powerful. So compelling was this worldview it animated both sides in debate over slavery. The enslaved power joining the Antislavery Movement or hunkering down in the party to fight abolition. Jacksonians fighting the slave power helped galvanize the movement into a mass movement, but it also inspired a severe politics of White Supremacy within his original party. Jacksonian popularism was the identity politics of the civil war era. The seamlessness with which jacksonians transitioned from their fiscal populism against the money power in the 1820s and 1830s, the white supremacist populism in the 1850s suggested that these appeals cannot be disentangled when trying to be deployed in the populist style credit democrats united white men nationwide in the 1850s, not against the agents of economic inequality, but against the advocates of racial inequality. So as politicians today on the right and on the left flirt with as populist style, and some try to emulate it, we should remember that populism has rarely been inclusive and i would suggest in closing that on old hickorys 250th birthday lets let donald trump keep his jackson legacy all to himself. Thank you. [applause] good morning. Thank you to david, michelle, tom, melissa, daniel, and thank you all for being here. Well compared over the past 20 or 25 years weve witnessed an erosion of the political center, wherever that was, as well as over the last year or so something that looks like realignment of the party system, as the populist movements on the white and right and left, both taking aim at the establishments of the major parties, republican and democrat. All of this has refocused attention on the theme in American History of Coalition Building in a democratic republic, specifically on the relationship between popular movements and editorial politics, it looked World Politics electoral politics. Behind that, morality and expediency, and radicals versus moderates, a whole host of issues, which are familiar to historians of the Antislavery Movement who have long been focused on what mcdaniel called the bonds and bounds of big tent antislavery. The rise of antislavery politics is i think a classic example in the american past of a movement interacting with politicians in a way that advanced a great moral cause. The movement ultimately produced a revolutionary party, the Republican Party, which believed in among other things equal protection of the law and expansion of human liberty. What made the Republican Party revolutionary, in my opinion, is that it broke pretty dramatically from the madisonian compromise of fundamental human rights and it melted together moral principles and the power of politics. Confronting the slave power oligarchy in the very seat of its power, congress and the federal government, and eventually overthrowing not just the slave power by the kind of politics it created and enabled. Now these two groups within the antislavery coalition which i have identified, we will call them the politicians and calvert syrians, were often suspicious of one another, outright hostile sometimes, but bound together by a common faith in american institution. Above all, the u. S. Constitution. This morning i will say a few words about antislavery constitutionalism and how it served as a kind of nexus between the Abolitionist Movement and antislavery politicians. Antislavery constitutionalism, at least in its basic contours, predates the rise of second wave radical abolitionism after 1830. For a wide variety of americans, from the 1790s onward, the constitution was not just a blueprint for government, the architecture for a confederal unions, it was a bulwark of liberty, not just White Liberty or american liberty, but human liberty. Americans read the constitution through the prism of the declaration of independence, in particular the ideal of all men are created equal and they read it quite literally as all men, not all white men, are endowed with a natural right of self ownership and are entitled to legal it civil protections of the natural right, among other things. According to this view, the constitution recognized slaves not as property, but as legal persons entitled to certain basic rights, applied to the u. S. Federal system this meant that the u. S. Government rested on what Abraham Lincoln called a foundation of human rights and operated on a legal presumption of freedom, that is to say all persons should be presumed to be free regardless of skin color. Slavery was said to be a state institution, that is instituted, regulated and abolished by the states alone, hence the Republican Partys slocum, freedom national, slavery sectional. And crucial to understand and the slavery politics is the ephesus in antislavery ephesus in antislavery on the due process clause of the fifth amendment, which prohibited congress from keeping property from persons, and from a antislavery perspective it meant congress could not establish or maintain slavery in areas under its direct jurisdiction because the do so would be to deprive persons of their liberty and property in themselves. These views of the constitution were held by what i call the antislavery mainstream, that is to say and the slippery politicians, antislavery jurists, as well as the majority of abolitionists. It did not include the more vocal, more famous, guerra sony and faction, or the smaller radical constitutionaling movement two groups that were very important. I will set aside them now to focus on the mainstream. Now, antislavery constitutionalism, such as i described it, may seem almost like a common sense to us i, but it stood outside the mainstream of antibellum politics. Beginning in the middle of the 1820s, the socalled Second Party System of jacksonian democrats and the opposition instituted ar the systematic shutdown of all the discussion of slavery in National Politics, which for reasons we can get into later maintained the functionally proslavery regime that unfolded in the early republic credit the Second Party System celebrated the ideology of unionism, that is the National Politics of the depended ons compromise between the two sections, the north and south. Which is viewed the constitution as itself a product of that kind of compromise, as well as a template for the kind of compromise politics to its National Politicians should aspire. Henry clay comes to my, then burn comes to mind, john kelly these days, but my main point [laughter] my main point is an antibill politics, and political culture, there is virtually no for the antislavery constitutionalism i described earlier and thereforefor antislavery politics, or at least a mass, viable powerful politics. That changed in the 1830s with the arrival of the socalled second wave radical abolitionism. Among many other things, the abolitionists pushed back against this shutdown in government by forcing antislavery politicians and jurists in the north, the moderates, to defend and act on antislavery constitutional principles more aggressively than they had in the past. Throughout the process, abolitionists channeled energies toward political ends. Among other things, the second wave abolitionists were the first to greet the countrys first truly national antislavery project my known alternately as divorce, and essentially it upont upon called congress to withdraw support for slavery in areas under its directors diction, so in washington dc in federal territories, u. S. Coastal waters from cape may to the savon river. The northern states could join congress in the process bypassing personal liberty laws and depriving slaveowners in the south the right to hold slaves within their state lines, even temporarily. Needless to say, abolitionists pressed the program relentlessly, into congress, state courts, legislators, in the forms of petitions, questionnaires, and lawsuits. As we know can either action provoked know, their actions provoked those in the north. But that reaction also forced antislavery jurists and antislavery politicians to defend antislavery constitutionalism and especially at the state level, to implement parts of the abolitionist project. I would like to explain an example, but i will set it aside and we will come back to it. Meanwhile, the abolitionists to the legal opinions and developed them into more aggressive and radical constitutional doctrines in line with their theory of immediate emancipation. And developing the due process line of that i mentioned earlier. The relationship between abolitionists and antislavery politicians is that it creates a space within the antibellum constitutional order, and political culture, for a more aggressive antislavery politics. That potentially has massive voter appeal, at least in the north and is therefore more viable and potent as a political movement. Later on, in the wake of the first great rupture in the party system, the socalled political abolitionists, those that advocated direct Political Action against slavery in third parties and through independent candidates, particularly the socalled coalition this, those that wanted to work with the dissidents within the major parties, virtually ensured that the chief platform of antislavery politics rested on the due process line of reasoning in antislavery constitutionalism, rather than on mere legislative presence. Let me explain it briefly. The moderate majorities within the free soil and republican parties initially sought to base opposition to slavery in the territories on the old northwest ordinance of 1787, which had been a positive ban on congress in the old northwest. It was a kind of legislative president , the idea of banning slavery from the territories before and congress can do it again. The political abolitionists by this point recognized that that platform was rather weak and it failed to address the aggressions of the socalled slave power, as well as the fundamental question of whether nation,ed states as a or as an empire, would rest on freedom or slavery. Political abolitionists pressed colleagues in the free soil and republican parties to ground their policy of not extension on the due process line of reasoning that i mentioned earlier, that congress has no power under the constitution to establish slavery in the western territories, because to do so would be to deprive the person of their liberties, property in themselves. It was a platform that emerged from the free soil property 48 into 1850 two and again into the Republican Party from 18561860 and you can look in the 1860 platform, you will see the due process line of reasoning credit it created a spectrum or a sliding scale within the republican coalition, such that one could endorse the relatively limited moderate position of nonextension, yet explicitly give endorsement to the idea that congress not only has the power to take action against slavery in areas under its jurisdiction, but ought to do so, something the old party never would have said. This is why i think the Republican Party was a revolutionary party, because it broke dramatically from the old madisonian tradition of compromising fundamental human rights. If you think about it, antislavery constitutionalism is not just a blueprint for defending Northern Liberties against the aggressions of the slave power, it was a blueprint for an alternative nation, premised on fundamental human inequality and a uniform human equality and uniform freedom throughout the empire. It should gode, without saying that deep structural change in our Society Today would require both politicians and working together, even interacting would be enough. It helps, if a movement understands power politics, how it works, how it can be influenced and what is. It also helps that the debate if there is an ideological bridge linking movements to politicians, it does not have to be the constitution. What i find interesting is today the kind of political organizing undescribed an Antislavery Movement appears to be happening, and i could be wrong about this, it appears to be happening more on the right than on the left. What i have described as reminiscent of what we have seen in the tea party movement, which is not a strictly Grassroots Movement to be sure, but the organizing and embrace of the constitution and in fact antislavery constitutionalism is attractive the modern conservatism, with the Classical Liberal ideas of putting limits on states in order to expand individual liberties. One could say that the antislavery project of the nationalization has overtones of this in the project. Deconstructing the modern liberal state. But make no mistake, into slavery politics and antislavery constitutionalism are legacies of the left in america, yet i think we are seeing much less emphasis on this clinical organizing, at today. O far, on the left i think it would be a mistake for the left to ignore this antislavery political parish heritage, because as many people know, the constitution can be and has been a very, very powerful weapon for expanding human liberty and protecting the rights of the powerless. It should not be dismissed as a mere bastion of privilege and power. I reminded to conclude, i am reminded of the words of the english social historian ep thompson, not about the constitution, while the law can be seen to legitimize existing class relations, it also has a distinct identity, which may on occasion inhibit power and afford protection to the powerless. Thank you. [applause] david i wonder what ep thompson i wondered when ep thompson would emerge. [laughter] that is amazing, all kinds of information. Remarkable. I promised, we saved time for you to get engaged, so this is your chance. Questions . Back there. Thank you very much for your talks. If the tea party is a party of grievance, as many of the current republicans a re, of white grievances, is that parallel to what was happening in the 1850s . Josh i think there are parallels and i think we need to reconceptualize i think part of it was the white backlash of the 1850s, but it is not always presented as reaction in the 1850s, it is presented as a positive vision of National Development in the future, the idea that the white mens democracy is a genuine one and it is a progressive democracy, this is the party that called itself the progressive party. In the same sentence they call themselves liberals and progressives and conservatives. They were passionate about the rights of immigrants, and advocates of White Supremacy, so i think the parallel, if today it is about grievances, can be overstated it would go to the parallels of the 1850s, the Democratic Party at least. David anybody else . Up here. Fascinating discussion. I am guessing we will go over this a lot, so i will be in conversation with pamela. I had a question for josh. Idea,keptical about the just on your concluding note, that the 1850s are a cautionary tale against populism, it seems the case that you made his misses the kind of laboratory argument for the idea that the only way to defeat a reactionary populism like how you present a a leftwingopulism, populism, the antislavery populism that joe talked about, it seems the alternative to that the only people in the 1850s that really entered any populism whatsoever was the moderate, politicslite consensus of daniel webster, the old exclusive Silk Stocking vickery, which in its way had a degree of inclusivity in the sense that those conservative wigs were more sympathetic to black rights and the jacksonian populist, but nevertheless proved completely in able to deal with the slave power or the reaction of populism and the only party that could was the revolutionary and the populist party that joe describes, so i wanted to hear your thoughts on that . Josh that is a great question and i am sure that people were cringing at my use of the word pulists,aces, po because it can be used in different ways and i think it is important to dictate which ween Democratic Politics distinguish between Democratic Politics. It is jacksonian populism, which i would argue cannot be separate it from ideas of race and gender. So if there is a liberal, colorblind populism in the 1850s, im not sure where it is. There could be a popular politics that is doing that, but the jacksonian template for populism, i think in the 1850s, whoever is using it, it is very hard to separate it from race, even antislavery jacksonians race may not have been their motivation to jump ship into the Antislavery Movement, but often they carry racial assumptions with of them. So where the colorblind really progressive populism is, i think it is, i would say it is hard to identify generally populist movements that are as you described. I think it is a debatable point. Pamela can i add something . I do not want to way into the debate on what counts as populism, but for the radical jacksonians i would add that William Hayden in philadelphia, the leader of the philadelphia worker mens party, a labor organizer, and i think that he has a reputation among historians as not being concerned with slavery, but if you actually look at his newspaper and you look at what he is saying and doing, the mechanics is absolutely chockfull of antislavery and abolition sentiment, abolitionism in the sense that there should be immediate emancipation, but antislavery in the sense that you see the ulatedm of the artic very early among the working men, and this constitutional project of divorce is something that thomas morris, an ex democrat, a true democrat, they are articulating this and so one andhe ways in which hayden the philadelphia workingmen, even those in new york, the labor organizers, they are still part of they are working in an intellectual context in which theories of ethnology are still surviving from the enlightenment era, so it is a debate between fredrickson and jordan on when these enlightenment era theories of science and peoples sort of declined. They are still in the atmosphere, the idea that we are one people and the rising ethnologys of the racist technologies really are ethnologys are really power charged with what was going on in the 1830s, so there is Historical Context for making sense of why early on in the jacksonian period these workingmen are able to tap a much more, i would not say a glad tethering egalitarian, but far less racist then we are used to seeing in 1840s. Things were things were better in the 20s and the reasons that fredericks suggests. If we can include the Labor Movement as a populist movement. It is far too lazy to say all jacksonians are racist. Theres a lot of variety. I dont want to cast them all with a broad brush. Tothat term divorce, clarify, they are talking about divorce from the slave towns, the south, the union . They are talking about divorcing the federal government from the protection of slavery. One of the things in terms of rrisrce that thomas mo advocated was interceding in the interstate commerce clause. That is something that is dropped out of this discussion of divorce. There saying, look, congress of power over interstate commerce. Slaves are a species of commerce. Lets interfere. In the 1830s and 1840s, that metabecause slaves are not being traded anymore. They are going from all tobacco country into the cotton country. Interfering in interstate commerce of slavery would have strangled the cotton kingdom much more quickly tahhan in fact nonextension. As i said in my paper, i want to reiterate, it is really the 833 americann the 1 Antislavery Society constitution in philadelphia, this program, de nationalization, it is right there. They were the ones who really came up with this. Who cobbled together arguments, constitutional lines of reasoning from the early republic and peace to together and created a truly National Freedom project and one that attacks slavery as an institution, not only in the territories but throughout areas jurisdiction. s n. How its pressure the slave states to immediately of abolition. Whether it is immediate or gradual within the process, thats a question we should talk about. But the idea was that this asject, the abolitions hoped early as 1833 would get the states to start moving in the direction in which the northern states had already moved as of this turn of the 19th century. Just wanted to add that. Richard rabinowitz. Youre up. Where do we see the Young America movement . Is everybody in the country resentful and angry . Is that part of the Democratic Party operates in this context . Its realizing that the Young Americans were people like Stephen Douglas, who was one of these archetypal doefaced democrats. They are sometimes one of the same group. Its a movement within the party. Also, a literary movement. The usefulness of americans in the wake of world revolutions. The United States has spearheaded global progress. Wanted advances in science, industry and arts, but also manifest destiny. It is often democrats who her spiriear heading it. It is the Second Generation of jacksonians who are still jacksonians and very much bound expansionism, with militarism, with protecting the interests of the slave states. My interpretation is that they are often one in the same. And, if there are there are those like Stephen Douglas is said he was one of the most aggressive americans in the country. I dont think many of us would give him that label today, though. Benedict right up here. Got a mic . A loud voice. Use both. For, the mic on . Yes. For josh, but both of joe and pam, too. This strong identification when you talk about jacksonian populism that with white identity and racism. And you argue that this is a problem for populism in general. One potentially for now. To what degree do you think this is an historical artifact, which being an artifact, is hard to shake . To what degree do think it is an inherent aspect of populism that, separate from the historical origins otf it in jacksonians in, is inherent in a populist approach to politics . Thats a great question, and i would say that i would say that populism, its roots often an abstractout as political theory, yet the Historical Context in which it has existed in American History have given it that inherent in certaineadinning directions. In many movements that can be cite, including the the 1890s it is not just about white. It is about identifying with a household structure and other elements of culture the on just political economy. Have given rise to when populism talk about the citizens or the virtuous farmer or the laborer. It is often a very specific entity they have in mind. It can seem like this is a transistor oracle entity. It often is. Yoemanten a white farmer. And that leaves with the inability about the citizens ofe to build alliances with the Labor Movement in that they do not really constructs the producer in the same way, although it might sound in their platforms like this is universal idea. I think that often the context makes the populist appeal a lot the complicated than just rhetoric taken at face value does. I think this is the value of putting political ideology in dialogue with political culture and the broader culture itself. Elizabeth . Im sorry, what . You were next. Thats fine. My name is Wanda Williams from maryland. My question is to josh. Here representing the national archives. In your talk, you mentioned men uniting around this assumption of whiteness and nativeness. How would you parallel the eness duringf whitn that time period to was happening today . This coalition certainly united around whitessness, but this was somewhat of a cost function party for a cosmopolitan party for white men. The racial lines they draw are sometimes pretty nebulous. But democrats always know where to draw racial lines. Democratetters to saying, what about native americans, can we be included in your coalition . Cant i be part of the Douglas Party . But theres certainly expensive and their notions of what white included. Catholic, protestants, and the nativeborn. That is different to today. You look at white nationals and it is very much nativists. I would not want to speculate on where that entered in the equation but it certainly didnt exist in the 1850s. In that democrats were willing to expand these prerogatives of political mothership and the republican to the white man. And now liz youre on. Would like to ask the panel is to say a few words about how the respective wartime politics once the war started in the north, what we learned if we have in mind your analytical framework, true democracy and its critique of the northern economy. In palace case, and jacksonian democratic populism in joshs case, and due process in joes. All right. Ill go first. Antislavery constitutionalism i sort ofeds light, creates a backdrop for understanding military emancipation during the war, civil war. But, also, the policy of the Lincoln Administration toward the border states and d. C. , the loyal slave states in the union, and jim has written on this, but the idea is that antislavery constitutionalism is the architecture for a municipal, peacetime antislavery project. But then the war arise and if jim has said, these two policies going into the war. In the border states, policies, the due process line of reasoning i described in my paper dont apply because the constitution still applies. The Lincoln Administrations interpretation of the constitution applies there. So, the policy of denationalism in whatever form it takes in, say, kentucky or missouri or delaware or maryland, thats antislavery in action, being actuated after all these years. At the same time, there is military emancipation and most of the now defeated southern states. And these two policies are intertwined, sort of informing one another. Ill lever that thats everybody has time to answer. But i hope that as is your question. A couple of things come to mind. The first one is that, well, if we understand the way i am proposing that republican wig republican discourse is revolutionary in a number of very important respects that has been identified. At the same time, it extolled th e capitalist order that was already in place and to pride folks of tools within wig republican organizations to critique that order. One of the things we see with the war is that the true democrats lose power within this organization. Chase, one of these two democrats, give up a number of his positions. Like benjamin butler, gideon welles, higher profile members of this true democrat group, kind of bleed into wig republican to some extent economic policies, even though they had very strong objections to these economic policies. Part of the war does, is that it gives fuel to wig republican economic policies and minimizes to work against the efforts of true democrats to push for labor reform that urban labor and reform, we are not just talking about land reformed. Truessons the strength of Democrat Organization because of, because the ways in which the economy are then goosed, not create industrial nation is not created by war but goosed by war. For the Democratic Party, the northern democrats during the key we key in on two aspects of their politics is their. Unionism, and the willing to fight for that unit but also, their resistance to a lot of republican war measures, especially emancipation and the elizabeth of black soldiers and the enlistment of the black soldiers. Prior to the war they were part of a National Party. Wartime accounts but late antebellum accounts often discuss northern democrats or southern democrat separately. I dont think we can understand their union is a without understanding that northerners and southerners were in the same party, shared a lot of assumptions, so that the secession of the slave states was an act of betrayal for a lot of northern democrats. They didnt expect their compatriots within the parties to do this. Their suregain political culture also i think explains their opposition to a lot of the Lincoln Administrations measures and the quickness and the ease with which the party came back together after the war. Chase . Im sorry. Im behind. You go first. I have a question about thinking about the strand of jacksonian populism that and the investment in whiteness, and beingu might see it related to the questions of indian policy and removal. It grows out of indian policy. Beenndian removal had affected in most places, not everywhere, there was an ongoing process, the midwest, still a developing process, but it is not as much debated among jacksonians. The assumptions with which they talk about further expansion, they assume native americans will disappear. Will get out of the way. I found they are not really defending theyre just assuming it. But theres a a lot of similarities in their racial views. And there is really not, there are interesting cases of the Democratic Party including native americans as supporters and as elected officials in certain locales. As a National Party, it is used to on strict racial lines. Theuring the war, republicans advanced indian removal policies in the west. So, this is not something that is just associated with jackson and the trail of tears. And republicans, wig republicans come are doing this during the war to clear land, and this sits with this idea that the western not sories are wanted, much for urban laborers but for those commercial farmers who are already successful, they need more land to leapfrog into these western territories. Again, this is about a vision of the republic. Is a millennial republicanism built into this economic expansion but it is on on backs of, its premised indian removal. That land has to be cleared. For these commercial farms to be establish. And so, i want to make sure that indian removal keeps this association with even republican policies during the war. Im sorry . [inaudible] yes, yes. I mean, a handful of folk are not subscribing to it, but those are not the power holder. Its an ongoing process. It does not end in the 1830s. You want to weigh in on that . Is there a mic . Shout it out. Ill shout it out. The republicans are very partial, there is plenty of racism in the republican politics but the problem for republicans is different than democrats. Democrats believed in removal because it was an inconsistent race inherently unable to accommodate about it. Republicans in the civil rights a provision that enables native americans that a tribal societies to become part of modern society. The problem is that of course native americans do not want to do that. Then they have to be removed to places where they can pursue their own cultures on reservations. But that is a significant difference between the two parties. But that is a nice way of bridging this concern with, an economic concerns and millennium republican concerns. There were also a lot of republican generals unde thr the newt years who conducted a kind of removal, which was the reservation system. That gets really compensated by the 70s. All those generals who identify as republicans who are now fighting the indian wars. Chase, is this your turn . I think i want to ask a different version of steves question. But two years ago, i was in colorado and i had a brief romance with a man which ended after the Trayvon Martin verdict. We had very different interpretations of it. He thought it was representative of justice, goodness, i thought it was racist. Then it turned that we disagreed with each other about everything. Drom feminism to the role of go in schools to gun rights and gays. The list went on and on. And this is when people this is what people mean when o ur nations power lies and there is no overlap between democrats and republicans. To what extent was this politics in the 1850s also polarized in that it was totalizing competing worldviews versus, um, collections of issues that you could agree with your opponent on something which others, yes . Is that your question on that personal individual level . Its very difficult to argue with people you think are andormly dumbt, stupid, wrong. The 1847estion is did a lot of that, too . Do you have an anecdote. Is there a true democratic had to get divorced . From his friends . Anyway. Question but fun. One of the names associated with true democracy was bailey. He was a newspaper editor, an abolition. And often his critiques of vague Economic Policy in the northern capitalists policy get drained out. He worried about losing his wig allies. And when the true democrats were organizing they were very careful about not wanting to alienate the wigs. Of overlap i would identified is that shrewd democrats believed in independent. They believed in this thing called millennial republicanism. They to find those things very typically. And so, at the level of agreement, they were what we would call values, but theyr, very different meaning was given to property and independence. To be independent as a worker you means you get to keep a substantial share of the surplus value, their term, that their labor produce. Wig revolt against said you got your independence with the right to contact. It gave you the independence. And the democrat said write a contract is a fraud, it deprives you of the surplus that is generated by your neighbor. At the level of are we committed to a system of property. They agreed. But very different visions about what that meant and what that entails and how slave property really threatened their specific visions of property. The fight is a fundamental question of slavery versus freedom which abolitiosts recognizes a fundamental question led to radically different views not only of that question but of the american institutions themselves, such are almost0 there nearer image fundamentally imaged mirror fundamentally oppose interpretations of not just the constitution but all of the institutions that are framed within that document. It was like a fundamental construct of the civil war. I have less to say about, i do not have an anecdote. I cant remember anybody, what is this person thinking . It races said, bailey, thought about people who watched this polarization happen and used the media to kind of explain it and understand it. He took over from james burney of the cincinnati philanthropist in 1837 and one of the first things he started ongng was publishing l articles from the charleston mercury and other post slavery newspapers to say, this is what they are saying and this is what we are saying. It reminds me of the person nbc,y who is on fox news, ms wall street journal, try to figure out what are the opinions and why are they so disparate . This is something which has happened in our past. Do you read the other sides blogs every morning or avoid them . Abraham lincoln became president of the United States and he with alexander stephens. Lots of those stories. About congressman trying to kill each other on the floor of congress. Talk to joanne if you want some stories about blood letting among rivals. Back row, in the corner. Then up here. Persistingly the dismaying things in american Politics Today is to watch a lot of major religious leaders, you know, move for, you know, work against Climate Change and, especially here with immigration and this sort of thing. On the other side we see southern evangelicals who just line up right behind a guy who was conspicuously one of the most immoral men in our country and to see politicians just coopt their religion as if they were southern preachers. Not all not, um, its evangelicals. There are the sojourner evangelicals who do not believe that. So, im wondering about how religious leaders are relating to this jacksonian populism and support for chasing down slaves and that sort of thing. Say with the Democratic Party was avowedly secular and often caricatured the clergy as an enemy to fight against as part of this dangerous onspiracy to force abolition the country. There is not a lot of cooperation with clergy. Certainly democrats are not irreverent but they tend to not bring religion into their rhetoric. Often the clergy fortune as a negative reference for the Democratic Party. Function as a negative reference. It is no secret to say that abolitionists were holy warriors, evangelicals. But there is a tendency to assume that, because they were end in jellico evangelicals, they stood apart from politics but the evidence suggest otherwise especially after the churches split over the slavery question. There are a number of churchbased organizations that Liberty Lobby with the parties in the 1840s and engage in the political fight against the religiousing arguments into the political sphere in ways that i think we dont necessarily assume when we go into the sources. I would agree. I would also add that the true democrats, now that i am becoming a mouthpiece for, a messenger. Im a messenger. They are speaking through me, channeling. I hope that is not what i am doing. No. Many of the true democrats fo were deists. They believed in god. They also believed in science. And that they were put off by much of the, the, the religious stuff that was coming out of the wig side of, soon to be wig side of the abolition movement. There tends to be this view that all of the abolitionists, you know, that this was religiously, there was a religious dimension trueis but the deism among democrats is really distinctive in terms of the way the religious politics plays out. And in terms of organization. So, if were talking organization, organization, organization, they are using separate organizations and just politicalot parties but they are using Labor Organization to advance abolitionist and antislavery causes in the late 1820s. It is not churches. Sometimes it is bars. But it is the labor union, the mason hall sometimes. Deiste religious, the element shows up as a level of organization for the folks who come to be associated with true democrats or independent democracy as john hale and his followers were known in New Hampshire. In the 1850s Democratic Party stays true to that with a deist and a secular heritage. It is another one of these interesting ironies, one of the architects of the fugitive slave law james mason of Virginia Campaign to have the chapter removed from uva, because he saw that as, as an adulteration of the secular state. This is just one of the splits within, one of the splits within the Antislavery Movement. There is a religious split between the evangelicals and the deists. With the deists, gently being the ones advancing the criticism of the emerging northern capitalists order. Abolitionists and antislavery folk were hardly one giant, happy family. Contrary to certain recent books that have been written. But anyway, quick point. Those schisms in the churches were a very big deal by the 1850s. And one of the lincolndouglas debates, lincoln goes right to the list of the southern and northern methodists, southern and northern presbyterians. As a monitor, as a reference of what is happening to the union. It is a big deal by then. Anyway, who is next . Yes, sir. I have. I have two brief questions for josh. You referred to as skipped over for purposes of time certain examples you were going to offer that i think you implied were key turning point in the intersection between the antislavery constitutional argument, antislavery political Coalition Building. If you can elaborate on those. And second of all, you referred to slavery de nationalization and anti nationalism in the context of the book you are working on. I wonder if you see them as being analogous two different ways to say the same thing or if you see differences about trying to split hairs in terms of language. Thank you. Great question. You know, the policy de nationalization, Congress Withdraws as support for slavery. This means abolition or at the least regulation of chattel slavery in washington, d. C. Interdicting the coastal slave trade, the main artery of the internal slave trade in the United States which was massive by this point. The admission of new states into the union and crucially the northern states could take action by enacting personal liberty laws. They extend rights of habeas corpus and jury trial as writ to these fugitive slaves who make toacross or in order prevent free blacks in the states from being kidnapped. I mean, look at what slaveowners are saying. These laws are basically they may not be right but they are designed to undermine the security of slave trade along the ohio river. Those personal liberty laws are part of this project of creating toas well as, so id like talk about messages is very briefly. Massachusetts in 1836, state Supreme Court, shaw denies sojourning slaveowners the right to hold slaves as property within state lines. The next year the state personalr passes a new liberty law extending right to jury trial, restoring that right which had been taken away by democrats. And thats just really the first state to do that. Connecticut follows a year later, denying that right of sojourn of slaves. And then all of the northern states, new york. And they are at least among people like seward they are recognized as part of the larger containment policy. It is worth keeping in mind, switching to the nationalism question, that this vision that you want to call it, the scorpion sting, you have to think about in terms not only of the United States as a nation state that within the broader context of the british empire. Because the british have already done that by 1835. They abolished slavery or at least chattel slavery in 33. Theyve created a kind of accord [indiscernible] in americans are interested this antislavery state that is emerging in the Early Victorian england. Y some of the legal tactics and certainly there are some state buildings tactics that are already happening. And so, yeah, i see denationalization as the political strategy version of an existing antislavery nationalism. The idea we have to de nationalize a week because the nationstate is premised on human freedom. Slaverytionalize because the nationstate is premised on human freedom. Sense and iis makes hope this is the right place to ask the question but i have been thinking since this morning and i guess since i registered about the usefulness of the limitations of parallels. I think it was late august there was some comparisons made between trump and maybe trumpism to lincoln and lincolnism. It seems ludicrous to me. He wrote that oped. Probably nobody here. Is there any scholarly legitimacy to that or is that a propagandist effort . I think Newt Gingrich may have advanced it. I just one your thoughts on it because i do not know what to do with it. From mars. [laughter] is everybody taking that and running with it within the parties . [laughter] whats the question . Can we really draw parallels . Or that parallel. [inaudible] i was going to often a different parallel. This is a different parallel and it is one that i think was brought appear today and it is something that pertains to the Democratic Party today, not the Republican Party. If we look at the republicans before the war, they are a coalition of folks who are fully this capitalist development and a lot of people are benefiting from it. These prosperous farmers are benefiting. These in dutch death industrialists are prep are benefiting. Wage laborers, those in the building trade, paid by the hour are benefiting but there are a lot of folks who are not benefiting. We go back to gary nash book urban crucible. Urban folks are not benefiting. The groups that were advocating for those left out and who were displaced by the reorganization of work and the true democrats are trying to voice to give voice to these folks within a commitment to getting rid of chattel slavery, who wins out in terms of who runs the Republican Party . Its the wig republicans. There might be a parallel today for the Democratic Party. There was a fight going on in the Democratic Party. And there is a lot of money and there is a lot of very welloff part of there Democratic Party, and then there were folks who are not as well off who are part of the Democratic Party. So, one of the lessons might be about how coalitions work. And again, this is why im saying paying attention to property systems and how they evolve and how they benefit some and do not benefit others but paying attention to those politics. There might be something here for the Democratic Party to Pay Attention to. A quick word on that particular lincoln. Look, i dont know where that came from in the fox news world. Newt gingrich. Ok, well, sure. But lets be honest, lets try to be honest about this. The current Republican Party is always trying to sell you the fiction that they are still the party of lincoln. They have not been for 85 years or so. But never mind. Ok, whos next . I got two up here and one in the back. I have one question for everybody on the panel before we break for lunch. God, i got one in the middle. You have got the mic, go. A question about frustration because one thing i find in a lot of debates today e leftt it seems from th on the right, more and the right, that people are frustrated with thinking about changing and things not getting done so they are willing to reject our institutions. And my question is, like, do you see frustration playing a role in the Political Development of a time period of people radicalizing and whatnot . Theow, um, whats his face, liberator made some speech against the constitution, garrison. Its all technical term. But did you see political analysts refer to him as that. Do you see frustration playing a role in the formation of these parties and people giving up on institutions. If they did or didnt why was that the case . In becauseo jump garrison is an interesting case to say the least. But for a long time, political historians wrote him off as certainly not a certificate but sort of shooting himself in the foot, being so reticle that he and his movement pushed them to the margins to the mainstream becamecs and irrelevant by the civil war, only to return when lincoln and republicans began to move towards emancipation. Pushed backel has and shown that while he was certainly frustrated and certainly burn the constitution on the stage that day, and the him, the not just maintained anns acute clinical visibility throughout the antebellum period. They emphasized Public Opinion as essential in a democratic republic to not only changing our minds but producing antislavery votes. I think garrison understood his role as operating on the outside, and people like chase and bailey and other antislavery politicians not to say lincoln as operating on the inside, as a pivot, giving focus to the activities of garrison. They were working together on this. That may be a little too, you know, easy, too superficial, but i am intrigued by that line of reasoning nonetheless. Garrison would condemn Political Parties and write about them all the time in the liberator. Hed cover congressional debates and then to announce them. Then denounce them. Anyway. Can we go right here first and then the back row and then up your . Up here . Thank you. Were there, how effective for the moderators in the 1850s who tried to bridge the gap, and are there Lessons Learned we can apply to the present . I go back to your comment, joe, about power politics and influencing and communicating. Given the pull, the centers pulled to the left and the pull it seems to be that moderators whether the situation or individuals or you name it may be needed in a big way. What are the Lessons Learned . I think one of the lessons, and there are many, is that we need these kind of nexus groups and political abolitionists as opposed to radical abolitionists performed that role. And performed it pretty effectively. Just to take one example. Se, who was probably the most important of these kinds of players in the antebellum northern politics. Hes writing led us to Garrett Smith, the radical, extensively antipolitics, antiparty abolitionists, sharing ideas, disagreeing, but he knows what Garrett Smith stands for and he bring some of the spirit of Garrett Smiths political, modifies it when he bees with people like benjamin f. Butler, true democrat, who comes from a totally different world of politics. And chase sort of fuses their antioligarchy republicanism on side with therat moral opposition to slavery in the Abolitionist Movement which were never separate. I do not want to give the impression that moral arguments are somehow abstract from politics ever. But chase is instrumental. Ee is in the room writing th free soil platform with all of these two democrats and former wigs. True democrats and former wigs. He borrows a frame from a poet that congress has no more powers to make a slave than to make a king, which invokes the lowercase republican tradition to create this kind of fusion of the moral abolitionism with the antioligarchy, antislave power tradition. Yeah, i think among many other lessons we could use a few more of these fusionists. Fusionists are distinct from another type of compromiser. Idea that there couldve been a compromise. Maybe moderates, it compromises the moderates, the cotton wigs, the civil grace the silver grays, they might have success and the short term but in the long term they dont. But there is a lot of attention right now in the scholarship going back to look at these people in the middle. There have been a lot of new works on this, and the really good works are the works that look at them in the short term and look at what they are trying to affect. Then look at how they stand on slavery and how that defines the outcome. I would say an example of that is matt masons biography of edward everett. Which was really, really nice. It looks at a moderate and someone the squishy middle, these people in our Politics Today are being disowned by their own parties increasingly. And it looks at someone like that and then realizes at the end of the day slavery was an intractable issue. John hale he is a fusionists. He gets elected from New Hampshire on a fusion ticket and does well. Just to add to what you both said, the fusion stuff did work for many of these northern, true democrats. Hale was a former democrat who became a real abolition. He was already an abolitionist. He leaves the Democratic Party and runs on a fusion tickets and he wins. They talked about the halestor m in New Hampshire and there were a number of New Hampshire congressman that are part of this. Yes, sir. Going back to religion and politics, looking back in the 18 54 connecticuts governor was elected from the know nothing party. Know nothinghe party merges with the Republican Party. How much of what was going on with the evangelists, democrat,olic or anti they did not want the irish to be with the democrats or whatever, but you had a group of people who want to expel the irish from this country and looking back at the british weretionists where they really antislavery while people were dying by the millions in ireland. That seemed to be a break between what they cared about and the religious myths of it. Want religiously motivated people to be consistent . Just wondering. The democrats and believe that what nativists said they believed, that they were, they were natives. Some of it was probably very pragmatic. Democrats,for especially as the democrats would tend to in franchise the irish before they were city ens, which was not illegal but a lot of nativism was january and democrats believed all nativists were january and then they went further in that nativism was identical to abolitionism and identical to temperance and they linked together all of these reforms. Of ways thatew will take away white mens rights. They took native rhetoric at face value. Panel . The potato famine and hurt ends. So the salience of irish immigration starts decline. But William Seward really becomes the model for these wig republicans and seward is a republican, heal embraces catholics and talks about schools. Seward becomes a model for many only republicans to manage the, the immigration thing that had been huge with irish immigration since the mid1840s. One of the stories we are always trying to tell, how did antislavery ultimately incorporate all of that nativism . Why was it so strong . Youre next, then i have a question. I would like to ask if you can connect two subtitles. One is the parallels for today. I did that once. And the other is the subtitle from your book, the production of historical truth. Book. T was my first parallels today about the, how historical truth is produced. Thank you. Ok, wow. Um, ok. The historical truth thing, its this gets into big issues. I think the production of historical truth about the e laborcan party, and fre ideology and republicans moving in a world of the small producer, i think that story is we needcritique, and to critique that story and critiquing that story actually gives us some traction on understanding the rise of capitalist democracy in the United States that has actually made it very, very difficult to get at both race and class in the quality. Inequality. There are a lot of moves i just made with that. Truebut the fact that the democrats have not been perceived as a stream of antislavery activism that critiqued both the south and the interactivecombined race class analysis, that that not been a part of our historical truth in the book. Tells us about our dominant story about antislavery. I think, if we had a more nuanced story, about the fights going on within the Antislavery Movement, wed actually have better conceptual tools for managing what today is, a real lassuncture of race and c inequality. In terms of parallels for today, race and therse on shaping american politics. And i teach about whole literature that is not get touched on here. It is about the legacies of slavery and the legacies of stereotypical thinking about black men in particular but also black women. Ideas about africanamericans that go cross gender that have to do with laziness and on trustworthiness and this is a realignment story for the 1960s and onward, where southern democrats were made republicans. And the strategies for doing that drew on very old stereotypical thinking about blacks a abuses of welfare, as sexually promiscuous, and whites there he easily believe these stereotypes but these are also whites who were in economically bad situations. And we have a tendency not to tell the stories about economic developments that advance some people but hurt other people and class politics get intertwined is a theme that i wou connect in thehistoriographyl of civil war and our understanding of political realignment that i think starts with the 1960s. Im not sure, i connected a lot of things really quickly. I dont know if that made sense. Right before we break for lunch, i have one big picture question for all three of you. You can briefly answer it and take it to lunch. Answer it again. Pamela, perfect transition. It is about realignment. Nothings,rs, know true democrats, wigs. This coalition becomes the revolutionary Publican Party and i left out seven or eight other labels we heard this morning. What made americans in their thetics of the 1840s in 1850s believe that third parties could work . Today there is a widespread assumption, is there not, that that we keep having them, and we always are talking about them, there is always a year and for them, students are urine for realignment, i always tell them we had two big ones one by the civil war and the one by the great depression. Which one do you want. Students are always yearning for them. Yearning for realignment. In a big picture way, what do we say about this era that made all of these break up the parties. How does a true democrat become one . You know. Any reflections on that. Period do we see this actually happening because it is never happened before . The Republican Party is only the third party to win the presidency within sixyear senates creatio of its creation. A lot of americans did not hird parties would work. A lot divided them, and for democrats in the Democratic Party, they did not conceptualize politics in terms of parties. It was politics in terms of political theory. There were two great lyrical theories out there. Democracy and aristocracy. Monarchy, federalism. It did not matter what it was called. Enemies, whether no nothings or liberty parties are republicans as just the same thing, the forces of ancient aristocracy against democracy. A bipolart as clinical system regardless of how many parties are floating around. And it makes it easy to move back and forth this way. I would accentuate that, because i do not really see third parties per se. You see the breakdown of the Second Party System but you have lots of other opportunities or efforts, but the chu democrats the true democrats, many were folded into the Republican Party. The key thing about the Republican Party back then as it was nonextension, nonextension. That was the lowest common denominator. And they knew that was the lowest common denominator that could hold everybody together. And it is not a surprise that after the war, the coalition fell apart. And so, then wig republicans come to define what really, ultimately works as a republican program. They were the core that persisted . I think they were the most powerful element of the party, but i do not think we can say that. We had the Workingmens Party back in the late 20s and early 1930s. But the economic depression of illed that. 3 k so, economic crisis kills reform in general. So, i would agree it is not clear that there really were third parties, the fact that nonextension is something everyone can organize around, everybody hopes week are talking about made it so that the republicans could win. Ill focus my brief remarks. Im very humble. On the Liberty Party. I would say maybe not most but many Liberty Party activists kind of assumed they were not going to wi elections, especially early on and they did notn win elections. But, overtime in west new york, they won it once or something. Build constituencies between 1840 and 1844 and create a Small Movement but the idea was never to win big at the national level. Rather, speaking of historiography, id point people to two books, Leonard Richard slave power and corey brooks liberty power. Howthe one book tells you entrench slavery was and the Second Party System and the other book shows you how abolitionists undermined that system slowly but surely by attacking it and building a constituency and wresting control of the balance of power in the northern states at a state level, regional level and finally, he argues, at the national level. Of the Republican Party. It is not about winning elections as a third party, it is about controlling and shaping the balance of power. That is fascinating, and we will stop. Lunch is upstairs. In Frederick Douglasss case, some of you know this, he struggles mightily how to warm up to antislavery politics. He is fascinated with the Liberty Party and he joins it through Garrett Smith. Then he is under the free source. Free soilers. It was what was so attracted to him about the Republican Party and he did not get real comfortable but suddenly you realize, god, these people can win something. Theres a story there for all time about how a radical can finally find a politics that you can learn to live with that might actually win something, there is a big lesson in that story. A quick announcement. Anyway, yes, thank the panel if you would. [applause] this was [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] monday, Christmas Day on cspan, a 10 a. M. , Queen Elizabeth delivers her annual christmas message. And at 8 p. M. Cornell west and Alan Dershowitz debate the impact on middle east peace. What kind of moral character, what kind of human values, are we willing to promote, are we going to forget, the very ugly realities in gaza and west bank. Today,look at the u. N. There is one country in the world that is the focus of 90 of u. N. Resolutions and that is israel. On book tv on cspan 2 at 6 30, world war ii veteran jerry yellen it revolves recalls his Bombing Missions over japan with his book the last fighter pilot. For a mission the squadron took off, led them to a front. 27 fighter planes went down. 25 guys were killed. And my airplane. Tell you the truth of how i felt them but i miss my airplane. Ourere there to protect freedom, we were there to fight and we did that. It was after the war that i suffered for 30 years. On American History tv on cspan 3 a 8 p. M. , hamiltont men wilmer and accepts the historical societies 2017 freedom award. When you are theater kid, you make friends from different social groups. You learn to work hard to create something greater than the sum parts, for the sake of making something great, you learn to trust your passion and let it lead the way. Watch Christmas Day on the cspan networks. On the civil war, craig talks about the content very allies and enemies of confederate general joseph johnson, highlighting his rocky relationship with confederate is an jefferson davis. This hourlong talk is part of the park symposium called generals we love to hate come up looking at the Controversial Military leaders of the civil war