Previous book that was mentioned on Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass. That book prompted me to think the process by which slavery was destroyed during the civil war, and ended up producing the book, you mentioned, Freedom National last year. This is the rethinking of that process of slavery destruction. Before i continue the more i continue to think about the more i have to revise my freedom previous thinking. This book already revises some things that were in the Freedom National book. But they were all trying to do, all seem to be doing is complicating the usual, simple narrative of how slavery was destroyed. There are several of them out there. The most familiar one i suppose, lincoln freed all the slaves with the stroke of a pen by signing the emancipation proclamation. The more elaborate version of that, lincoln understood from the time he was a young man that it was his destiny to free the slaves, but knew that he had to wait until the American People came up to his advance to thinking about it. Another one thats become surprisingly popular recently is that slavery was abolished during the civil war inadvertently, that it was an accidental byproduct of the war that no one ever intended. Is outlandish but its there. And the most popular one among historians and the one most influenced me when i was a young historian is what i now call the skinner box theory, whether thats emancipation can be understood as through the principles of behavioral psychology as a simple stimulus response argument, that slaves run the union lines, thats the stimulus. When enough of them run to stimulus union lines, the stimulus is overwhelming and lincoln is forced to sign the emancipation. What ive been saying especially in the last book in this book is that those tend to be a historical. They dont appreciate the impact, for example, a special of the Antislavery Movement in formulating an antislavery agenda that was politically viable and constitutionally reasonable to americans who believed, almost all of them who believe that the constitution did not allow the federal government to go into the south and abolished slavery in the state where it already existed but that being the case, how can you have a national antislavery politics . Beginning in the 1830s, abolitionists began to think about this problem and formulate a series of policies that they believe will surround the south will with what they call a cordon of freedom. They will suppress slavery on the high seas. They will refuse enforcement of the fugitive slave clause in the north. Return all enforcement to the states themselves. That the northern states will be free straits truly free states. Abolish slavery in washington, d. C. And then slavery from the territory. Will allow new slaves to come into the union. They will support, not support slaveholders whose slaves rebel on the high seas and the like. They believed they could surround the slave states with what they called a cordon of freedom, till in a popular metaphor of the day, slavery is like a scorpio scorpion surrouny fire would ultimately sting itself to death, that they would restart the process of statebystate abolition that end in 1804 win new jersey abolished slavery. At the time folks thought the process would continue. It had been abolished state by state by state in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, and after new jersey did in 80 metaphor, people assumed the next it would be delaware and maryland and the like. But it didnt. By the time it got to be 1860, 65 years since any state of all is slavery. The point of the scorpion sting was to restart the process and so thats what im going to do. Im trying to say you cant understand what goes on during the civil war unless you understand the project that Abraham Lincoln and the republicans came into the war, intended to do. What he meant when he said that he wanted to put slavery on a course of ultimate distinction. What we do know is that in the first months of the war, lincoln is attempting to convince the border states to emancipate through state action. And even in the midst of war, that doesnt i know you say that i states do that, but kentucky, for instance, does not. Delaware does not. Even though we are very few enslaved people in delaware. And so how likely, i know this is counterfactual but im still going to ask anyway, how likely would it have been that slavery would have been extinguished that way, given that these estates of absolute are not willing to go in that direction . No, i dont know. Nobody knows because if things had been different, things would have been different. But the truth is that i dont think any interpretation of slaverys demise works without the war. The war changes everything. War makes things possible, right . I dont think the emancipation proclamation is capable without war against its a war measure. I dont think slavery wouldve died on its own without a war. I dont believe that interpretation. I dont think the scorpion sting wouldve worked without a war. On the other hand, wars dont automatically lead to slavery abolition. They never did in the past and theres a reason to think it would have during the civil war, had it not been for the fact that the republicans begin implementing these two very different policies right from the start of the war. The one that we are family with, military emancipation, slaves run to union lines and the union will emancipate them. Thats what armies have always done during wars. Happen in the american revolution, happen in the war of 1812, happened during the seminal war. The union start doing that very early during the civil war, by the summer of 1861. Its emancipating slaves come into union lines spent but its not universal, emancipation and their. Thats right. Military emancipation as it initially is intimate is more like the military emancipation from the revolution, from the were taking 12. They are following the practice. But you need to know thats what they are doing. You just cant assume again that the history of emancipation starts in 1861. It doesnt start in 1861. If you dont know the history, you dont know how military imitation worked in the past come in the american past. Americans were familiar with it. Joshua giddings published a book on the civil war in 1867, detailing the process by which the Union American forces in florida in emancipating slaves in the late 1830s during the seminal war, and explains why it was that we. They know what military emancipation is so that certain expectations that slaves will run the union lines. They responded initially in ways previous records and use the language and the justifications for military emancipation, your military officers using during the seminal war. The loss of war allow this, they overrule state laws and such. And its opel to know that because if you dont know the precedents, then you dont know what happened prior, dont know the history. You wont even recognize whats going on. So thats one of the things im trying to do here, reconstruct the prehistory, the assumptions about emancipation going into the war. And that as i say is therefore, you can see then why in the spring of 1862 when the second constitution act is radically shifts its military emancipation to a much more aggressive plane where theyre going to adopt a universal emancipation then you consider gone somewhere else. Theyre using it in a way thats different from the way it had been used in the revolution and the war of 1812. But theres a criticism of lincoln at the time. Hes not really enforcing the second act. Act. But he is enforcing it. That seems to me to be in controverted. Letters go from lincoln to Benjamin Butler in new orleans, as soon as Congress Passes a second act. Get going. Consider them for a. What is the emancipation proclamation necessary if there is a second act . The second act in and of itself applies only to slaves were already in occupied union locked. It also assumes it authorizes the president to issue a proclamation that will expand military emancipation to cover all areas in rebellion spent lets turn to the whole issue of the republicans and the scorpion sting, or plant itself. That plan requires gradual emancipation. Republicans are accepting gradual emancipation. How much is that plan a product of republicans in general, or just a small group of republicans . Because we know that there are abolitionists who certainly would never approve of a gradual plan. Plan. I would back off from that statement. I think theres a tendency in the literature to confuse the media an argument that the process of emancipation must begin immediately with a call for immediate uncompensated emancipation to be the starting assumption garrison knows the constitution doesnt allow the federal government to do it. So hes either an idiot welcome he doesnt want to abide by the constitution at all. He sees it as a proslavery document. And, therefore, he has two different ways of getting around it. In the middle of the 1830s his newspaper proposes a series of constitutional amendments to surround the south with a cordon of freedom. A constitutional amendment to abolish slavery in washington, d. C. , to repeal the fugitive slave clause. The difference between garrison and most abolitionists is most abolitionists believed that can be done by mere congressional statute. The constitution does allow those but its the same project. It just thinks it has to be done by constitutional amendment. Its odd to think he is proposing a series of constitutional amendments to do this but not a 13th amendment as we know it. No amended could absolute abolish slavery everywhere. The way theyre thinking is estates will do this on their own when, once their surround it will dawn on them, theyve lost the kind of artificial support that the federal government gives them by constantly allowing them to expand, i protecting slavery and protecting runaway slaves, and that sort of thing. The assumption all along is that the thing that is going to have to happen is to get the federal government to position itself so that the states will resume the process of abolishing slavery on their own. So i dont think even abolitionists assumed that if thats right, if garrison is saying this is the way its going to be done, then notwithstanding his rhetorical commitment to the immediate uncompensated emancipation include understands in practice its not going to happen that way. Its going to happen a different way. You know Frederick Douglass very well. Would he also be within that cant . No. Frederick douglass occupies, in a way, the other constitutional action of abolitionists movement. There are two extremes, constitutional extremes. One is the garrison, doesnt allow the federal government to do anything at all. The other extreme theres this very small but Ingenious Group of people who make the argument that the constitution is, in fact, an antislavery document, that it does, in fact, empower the federal government to do what most people in the United States, including most abolitionists dont believe it has the power to do. If you start from the assumption its an antislavery document, which is where Frederick Douglass into doubt, then anything short of that is a failure on the part of the government. So he is very critical of the republicans and the Lincoln Administration during the war because he believes the constitution in fact does allow them to be more than they are doing. But very few people, in fact id be surprised if you could find any historian today who believes that the constitution was an antislavery document. The dispute is really, how proslavery was it, you know . So it does tell you how in the middle of the 19th century the political position you take always depends on a constitutional interpretation. Its what they call political theorists call constitutionalism, the language of politics. Getting this plan of strength elation, are we to assume the Southern States were correct in their assessment, that they were in danger . And that they were at least, they had an argument . Again, one of the consequences of assuming emancipation sorts agencies to what is it makes the session inexplicable. But if, in fact, the republicans are committed to this policy of surrounding the south with a cordon of freedom, and i think the evidence is quite clear that thats how republicans were talking and thats how secessionists were talking but youre talking back and forth to one another in congress think the secession source in italy because if we dont leave theyre going to translate a scorpion until it kills itself. They are not going to come you. Theyre going to surround us. Everyone understood the terms of the debate. They leave because they wouldnt submit to the cordon of freedom. Thats what secession was all about. They believed like most americans in the middle of the 19th century that their future depended on expansion. And in some ways we talk about civil war as a war of what kind of the union the states was going to begin. A union with slaves or without but it was also a war over what kind of empire the United States would be. Based on freedom or an empire based on slavery . They are assuming, all operating for more a list in peerless functions in the sense they need to and can expand. If youre going to stop us of expanding, you going to open up the floodgates the futures slaves by refusing to return them and youre going to drop an antislavery said bill in between maryland and virginia by abolishing slavery, suggesting sucking up fugitive slaves and refusing to return them. Youre threatening us. We going to have to pull back from the border states and the border states lose interest in slavery and they will go. It is certainly true that kentucky and delaware hold out in ways that nobody expected, but on the other hand, by the end of the civil war, five states abolished slavery. Maryland abolishes slavery. Louisiana, tennessee, missouri and arkansas abolish slavery. Now, if one of the problems with the usual interpretations that focus exclusively on military emancipation and the emancipation proclamation and ignore these of the policy, the one that caused the war to begin with is that they have no use for the 13th minute. Theres no explanation for a 13th intimate is necessary. If you believe as i do, increasing historians are in come to realize that emancipation was not enough. Then what does it take to get the 14th amendment . What does it take to get any constitutional and ratified . 500,000 sites are emancipated by the civil war by the time the work into. But the number of slaves freed is a necessary very helpful in getting a constitutional amendment. What you need is threefourths of the states to ratify. In 1860 there were 18 free states and 15 your not even close to having an amendment ratified that will abolish slavery. Over the course of the war West Virginia secedes from virginia and is admitted only after it it is required to abolish slavery as a condition. Two more free states are admitted to the union, and after intense pressure why lincoln after the emancipation proclamation became a special in july 1863, using the emancipation proclamation, the states to begin to abolish slavery and by january 1865 when Congress Finally gets that amendment out to the states for ratification, the balance of power between free and slave states has shifted to medical and are now 26 free states and 10 slave states. One more state iwatches slavery and 279 and that is threefourths. In that sense its the cordon of freedom policy. The policy designed to get states to abolish slavery and its critical to completing the process of slavery destruction. The plan is based on damage done to these states economically. You have him to them in. They cant expand. They cant grow economically. Are we doing a disservice to the selective by forgetting that slavery is more than an Economic Institution . Delaware certainly is not benefiting much from slavery. I said in my last book i think the republicans when naive about the economic weakness of slavery. That it was as like so much stronger than it was. I think the republicans, i dont think the kind of people who make arguments about the weakness of slavery, or a slave our conspiracy, which these arguments are usually held up in some more or less robust that it is brutal and inhumane. The truth is that the people who make one of those arguments are most likely to make the other arguments as well. So slavery is wrong because its economically backward, because it generates a slave our aristocracy, and because it is brutal and inhumane. So theyre not mutually exclusive arguments. Theyre part of a series of arguments. But what we see is even given a benefiting economically from slavery, there is an incentive to keep people enslaved. Its a social institution as well. And so thats not changing. And so why wouldnt they still hold onto it might not be the pillar of the economy, but it would still oh, i agree. Without a war i cant imagine slavery having been abolished. This for me is the tragedy of the civil war, not that it was pointless but that it was necessary. I cant think of any other way. There is an argument out there that slavery would have died anyway, people still say that. They say it on the daily show. But i dont see it. I dont see it. And so if this is a republican plan, and the south decide to secede because they realize they were in big trouble since the Republican Party is in power, did it really matter who is elected president as long as that person was a republican . So is it about the Republican Party, or is it still about lincoln . Its about both. I think its about both. A modern republican spin to a more conservative republicans are more radical republicans but one thing that struc striping ai pointed this out in my last book, republicans divide on a lot of different issues things that we are familiar with civil war that are not religiously. The divide on the homestead bill. They divide on the taxation issue and the financial issues. They divide on the Pacific Railroad act. And those things get passed through coalition of northern democrats and republicans. On a meditation issues, on every issue, every time and emancipation comes out or slavery comes up, the votes are virtually unanimous. Republicans are looking for the ground on which all republicans can stand, and its a remarkable series of unanimous vote from the first of the war all the way to the end, on washington, d. C. And emancipation, on slavery in the territories, on the fugitive slave law, on ev