Can you waste your hand . E your hand . [applause] and thank you to all the other members tonight. I did want to name everyone but i thought the fact since the two of you have been getting since before we open was special, so thank you. At that conclusion, we invite you to the book signing which will be downstairs in the library. Joining us tonight is Sidney Blumenthal and jamie raskin to discuss mr. Blumenthals new book, the third volume in his series on the 16th president. Sidney blumenthal is the author of a selfmade man and wrestling with his angel, the first two volumes in his biography, the political life of Abraham Lincoln. He is the former assistant and andor to resident clinton Senior Advisor to former secretary of state hillary clinton. He has been a National Staff reporter for the Washington Post and washington editor and writer for the new yorker. His books includes the clinton wars and the permanent campaign. Raised in illinois, he lived in washington, d. C. Jamie raskin represents marylands eighth Congressional District in the house of representatives. [applause] the district includes part of montgomery and frederick counties. He was sworn into his second term at the start of the 116th congress on january 3 of this year. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was a professor of constitutional law at American University for 25 years. He and his wife have three children and live nearby. Lincoln had a fascinating rise from the second half of the 1850s, the years in which mr. Blumenthal featured in all the powers of earth. He was a successful lawyer who decided to return to politics with the passage of the kansas nebraska act. He was the rePublican Partys first president , ready to take the white house as at the nations most dangerous moment. There were rhetorical battles with Stephen Douglas, lincolns house divided speech, some of casesfaces most famous overlapping with lincoln and mary raising three boys. His project went from a trilogy wasnt a planned as a trilogy to a fivepart series, right around the time he was working on this volume, the result is a detailed and informative description of lincolns prepresident ial years and we have two people who know the juggle and struggle of politics to discuss it tonight. Please join me in welcoming Sidney Blumenthal encompassed in raskin. And congressman baskin. [applause] all right, well, i get to ask Sidney Blumenthal questions, which is awesome in itself that i get to pose the questions. I make no pretense of objectivity. Im a huge fan of this extraordinary series that Sidney Blumenthal is writing and i find it dazzling. I hope every american goes out and reads this book. Its remarkable. Let me start with this. You call one of your chapters about Stephen Douglas, who was lincolns lifelong nemesis in some sense, you give it the title, vaulting ambition. Thats a phrase lifted from macbeth. It over leaps itself. That phrase was invoked by senator Charles Sumner referring to douglas and you pick it up. I raise it because lincoln was a profoundly ambitious man in his own way. I wonder if you would be willing to define and characterize the ambition of Stephen Douglas, the ambition of Abraham Lincoln, and talk about the ways in which their ambitions were intertwined over the course of careers. Thank you, jamie. Its my great pleasure and honor to be here with my friend, jamie raskin, who represents the 8h Congressional District of maryland, and to be here in this special place in the room and i wish to thank the staff of the Lincoln Cottage for holding this event and inviting all of us here. Stephen a. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were locked in a rivalry since the 1830s. Douglas shot like a star into the firmament early on. He rose and rose and rose. Lincoln said of the little giant, i walk between his legs as if hes a colossus. And yet, lincolns law partner said lincolns ambition was like no cease,ngine that no stops. We are dealing with two extraordinarily ambitious people. Lincoln was envious of douglas. Douglas ran for president for the nomination of his party, the democratic party, in 1852, in his late 30s. And lincoln, at that time, was already obscure. He finished his one term in congress. He had no prospects. He would stare for long periods of time into space. He felt defeated. He said, what is there to do and what is to be done . How could ones life have any meaning . He saw his lifes meaning in terms of public purpose and in changing the country. So his private ambition was linked to a public ambition. And became more and more so over time as the crisis grew. The ordinary word people use is evolved. They say lincoln evolved. But there was something deeper going on. Lincoln was always, antislavery. He didnt think it was an issue that would grip the country until after the kansas nebraska act sponsored by douglas and one of the most interesting things in their relationship is that douglas, through his own ambition and douglas is a ferocious figure. Hes a formidable figure. Hes a man of great a compass mentor. He is a selfmade man himself. He comes from vermont to the frontier state of illinois. On his own, he becomes this fullblown character who becomes a judge on the state Supreme Court. Elected to congress, becomes a senator. Dominates his estate controls , it. And becomes a major figure on the national stage. Takes over from henry clay as he falters both physically and politically in passing the compromise of 1850. He makes a ton of money too. He controls the lobbies in washington and he owns real estate in chicago. He happens to sell lakefront property to the Illinois Central Railroad for a nifty profit after sponsoring the Illinois Central Railroad act. [laughter] douglas places the path for lincoln through his ambition. In his fears ambition, he knocks down all the barriers downe ambition, he knocks all the barriers and rips the country apart, a house divided. While his ambition is vaulting, he vaults lincoln out of his obscurity because of it. He catapults him. Lincoln, he is in a chrysalis , then suddenly, he emerges. How calculating was that on honest abes part . You report he would show up at douglas rallies. When they ended up doing the lincolndouglas debates in the senate race, that did lift lincoln out of obscurity to national fame, right . Jumping forward. 1854, lincoln is back into politics. Hes in the resistance. He says, we grabbed whatever we could that was nearby. And acts. And we ran toward the sound of the battle. And hes battling the extension of slavery in the territories. So by 1856, he founds the Illinois Republican party. His old party, the whig party, has fallen apart and lincoln and many others in the state have to put this Party Together from disparate pieces and hostile personalities. He uses that as his platform to run for the senate against douglas in 1858. In order to get douglas to debate him, lincoln stalked him. [laughter] he went from city to city. Everyone wants to see douglas, douglas is holding rallies of thousands of people in open fields and lincoln is standing in the front row and lincoln jumps on the train to follow douglas. He is going to go to the next stop, the next rally. Balconyanding under a and while douglas is speaking from a chicago hotel, and douglas intooads the famous debates. Lets talk about the Political Parties for a second. Lincoln was instrumental in the creation of the rePublican Party. He really put these pieces together, as you tell the story. Tell us first, why were they afraid to use the name republican in illinois . You say that was controversial in some places for a while. What made him such a diehard whig . And tell everybody why he hated the know nothings so much. So this is a period in which once slavery breaks out as an issue in the country, both parties fragment. There are two parties. The whig party and the democratic party. The whig party breaks apart into the northern and southern parts. But it breaks apart into more parts. And a lot of whigs in the north in the border states join another party. In a movement called the know Nothing Party or the american party. This is an antiimmigrant nativist party. This party is a reaction to the great wave of immigration of the irish and germans. They come for different reasons. The irish come because of the potato famine and the germans come because of the failed liberal revolutions of 1848. The germans are liberals they , are politically liberal. They come into the United States and the know Nothing Party has a platform. The platform is one plank. The plank is only nativeborn protestants, protestants, should hold Public Office in the United States. No catholics. And you have to be nativeborn. So it excluded all the immigrants from ever running for office in the United States. Lincoln was proimmigrant. Dip oln low the loathed nativism and the know nothings but he didnt denounce them publicly. Because they thought he would break up they would break up and he could coax whigs into a new formation. He bided his time. Lincoln is a patient politician who believes in cause and effect and he waits for the effect understanding the cause. , he does that with nativism. He thinks they will join a greater cause against slavery. At least some of them, if i just wait it out and i could create the party. He is pushed by the leading abolitionists in illinois and owen lovejoy, who is a minister whose brother was the first great martyr, an antislavery editor who was murdered in 1837 by a proslavery mob. Lovejoy says, we have to get this party going. Lincoln says, too soon. Cant organize this party. Too many of the people i work with are still with the know nothings. Just be patient. Be patient. So that is important in terms of thinking about lincoln all the way through his career, even through the emancipation proclamation, which is, lincoln is patient about when he steps politically because he wants to step on solid ground. Ground onto hold that a principled basis. And thats why the abolitionists distrusted him. In illinois, they understood him. The new england abolitionists. The new england abolitionists and new york abolitionists were always wary of lincoln, even through the 1864 election. But the illinois abolitionists who came to know him trusted him implicitly. They came to understand. They went to him initially because they understood they needed a skilled politician they could trust to form this. They understood they couldnt do this on their own. Quick break just from lincoln specifically. I want to ask you a question about judgment and decisionmaking. You did something that i have not seen in other lincoln biographies in this third volume. You devoted a lot of time the political repercussions and fallout. You also devoted i dont know if it was several chapters, but lots of lots of pages to john brown and then the hanging of john brown and what the political effects were. Talk about the decision you made to do that and how that relates to writing what you describe as a political biography, as opposed to just a biography. Lincoln does not enter this book until really almost 200 pages. [laughter] it is a long book, you have to bear with me. [laughter] its gripping along the way. But the story is the creation of the crisis in politics. What happens with Charles Sumner , who is the abolitionist senator from massachusetts who delivers a speech on the floor of the senate on may 19, 1826 called the crime against kansas. To sumner,according raped by the proslavery forces claiming it as a territory and as a state for slavery. Engaged in violence against the settlers there. Preston brooks of South Carolina, from an undistinguished congressman. Who was a scion of slave owning wealth who was encouraged to do this vile act by the leading powers of the south who control the congress, some of them are in a common mess known as the f street mouse. Mess. [laughter] that is their name. And there the chairman of all the committees and they run the congress and country. They are the collective Mitch Mcconnell of the day. [laughter] and that was Stephen Douglas crowd. And Stephen Douglas was desperate to win their approval in order to gain the nomination because they were the powers that be. And they never trusted douglas because he was always out for himself. They thought he was uncontrollable. What happens with Charles Sumner is, Preston Brooks enters the cane, hed with a bashes him on sumners head while hes seated at a wooden desk and almost kills him. Charles sumner falls on the floor of the senate. Blood flows through the senate. And whats important about this politically, sumner is the leading order against slavery in the United States senate and the congress. He represents the commonwealth of massachusetts. Standing against slavery. He represents the idea of the United States, as opposed to the southern idea of the nation. And he is almost killed. Sumner believed in a certain kind of politics. It is a moral politics, he believes in moral suasion. He believes in humiliating his enemies. And hes got to this position in massachusetts, elected to the senate. He is in politics, but not really of politics. Once he is bashed on the head and spent several years trying to recover by the way, Stephen Douglas watched the whole thing. Veryephen douglas, impassively but tentatively watched the near caning to almost death of Charles Sumner. Without moving a muscle to interfere. So, he was not disapproving. An extraordinary scene. Charles sumner is recovering. He travels around. No one knows how hurt he is. Medically, no one knows what brain trauma is. He travels around europe trying to recover. He finds his himself in the home of a french, liberal aristocrat who has written democracy in america in the jacksonian era. He has a chateau and in this chateau is a study. The study has two portraits, washington and hamilton and thousands of books. Sumner and tocqueville sit there. Hoped aboutsumner how slavery must inevitably ends. Tocqueville says, how . How will it happen . Sumner says, i dont know. But i know it must end. Tocqueville says, the man is a prophet. And then in my book, we move to lincoln. How does it begin to end . I call a chapter on lincoln, creation. Lincoln is on the train. Hes a lawyer. Hes just wrapped up 10 cases in decatur, illinois. He is going to bloomington to the First Convention of the illinois but Publican Party antidoes not know who is going to be there. Hes walking car to car while the train is moving, to see if there are any old whigs in these cars coming as delegates. Any old friends. He wants the widest coalition. Id do that. [laughter] old whigs. Arly for there are not many left. In illinois, the abolitionists, not necessarily new england, understood they needed somebody like lincoln, a person, even at that point, of great political experience. He had been the floor leader in the legislature, he was the leader of the whig party and put together this new party and no one knew what it would be. You raise a question about the word republican. It was too radical to use. Why . It was associated with radical abolitionists. Stephen douglas never referred to the rePublican Party, he would refer to the black rePublican Party and always call it the black rePublican Party. In the beginning, it was called the peoples party, not the rePublican Party, it took a long time for the republicans in illinois to fully accept the use of the word republican, not exactly like today. The radicalism of the origins of this party. Lincoln was sensitive to language and all of the nuances of language. He basically missed out on formal schooling, he was a passionate reader, shakespeare phonetic. Who has are somebody made your career on language and political language. Talk about the importance of language and speeches in the development of lincoln as a politician over the course of his career and how speeches were turning points for him. Crucial for the rise of Abraham Lincoln, which is what this book covers. And it was important for politicians of the time. We may forget that in the leading universities of the time , oratory was a major subject and it was considered part of being a public person, learning what oratory was. Lincoln never received almost any formal education, so he picked it up on his own. He would spend not simply ours, nuts sickly days, but weeks , hising on his own speeches. You can mark lincolns rise by these speeches from the 1854 to, against the can kansas nebraska act, in which he lays out the history lincoln knowlawyer and he wants to what the argument is of his opponent and he wants to knock it down and he wants to be thorough and he wants to be logical. And fairminded. He wants to be fairminded and he always appeals, including in some of his most famous speeches in the beginning, he makes an appeal to the facts and evidence as a lawyer as if to a jury. He regards douglas as an illogical liar. A demagogue. A demagogue, which he was. Capablery clever and one. Does the whole constitu