Tribune printers low lit fest. The theme of this festival is whats your story and we encourage you to share on instagram or facebook using prlf16. You can keep the spoirt by downloading the printers row app where youll find all of the chicago tribunes premium books content, free and discounted ebooks for subscribers and the complete printers lit. Download today and get 5 off. Todays will be broadcast live. We ask you to use the microphone locate today your right so that the homeviewing audience can hear your question. We ask that you silence your microphones and turn off your camera flashlights. Please welcome elizabeth taylor. [applause] hi. So happy to be here, its an honor to be here with Sidney Blumenthal to talk about a good person from illinois, the great Abraham Lincoln and we were just chatting before coming on about another and that was scott circle, someone who had spent printers row lit festival every year. But he is with us in spirit. So we are here to talk with Sidney Blumenthal about the great Abraham Lincoln. Big best seller. Now back in chicago. Rogers park. Went to sullivan high school. Yeah for sullivan high school. And he traveled back centuries to a time when actually there was an illinois but there was no chicago. As a boy he revered Abraham Lincoln and visited lincoln landmarks. Now he has written first of four volumes about lincoln. This one is a selfmade man, political life of Abraham Lincoln. Its available, can be purchased outside, and right after the program, well talk, have some open it up for questions. I want to say this is a book that is written with passion and a real love for politics and instincts for telling a great story. Its informed by a sense of how power really works, and the fluidity of power, having it, losing it and then row regaining it. Its an engaging account informed by lincolns early years, and intellectual and personal revolution. But i guess the first question is, the library, vast library of lincoln books, why take this one on . Well, thats always a good question. It said theres nothing new to say about Abraham Lincoln. And its daunting to approach the monument of lincoln, but what ive tried to do is to bring him down from his pedestal and have him walk among us and examine him as breathing, living, person, who becomes a incredibly skillful politician, and to show how he developed stepbystep along that way, and as well at the same time develops intellectually. Selfeducated, having spent on a few weekness the formal school weeks in a formal school, called the blab school. Memorizing things and repeating them. His reading was both sporadic and systemic, as he developed. Originally he was a wandering labor boy in indiana and discovered men who had long libraries. Thats how the discovered the law. Read the constitution, declaration of independence, first history of the united states, and developed from there. So, i thought i had something to contribute. Also wanted to use my own experience as a journalist, who had journalistic skills and having been in washington, and having come from illinois, and having served in the white house, and worked closely with a president , and been involved in campaigns and elections, i thought that i could bring to bear that experience which would, as i examine the material, provide a different angle of vision than many academics who see it differently, understand it differently, understand the motivations of people in politics politics and those around them. Also, as i drilled down i discovered many, many new things and aspects about lincolns life, his thinking, his intellectual development, and how he wrote. So, i hope i have something new to offer here. And you also reflect your journalistic skills in this book, but its free of journalistic cynicism about power. You look at how politics works and the fluidity of it and what its like to gain power and your voice in the book is wonderful. I wonder if i could ask you to read a short part. Age nine, i think. Well, im happy to read something. We spoke earlier and i might just read a few paragraphs, and its a wonderfully written theres a joyous language that springs off the page. Thank you. So, let me just read a little bit here, sitting here. N mythology of ling lynn as too noble for politics long obscured the reality of lincoln. Lincoln above politics was lincoln. What . This a simple, minded man, exclaimed, William Henry herndon, his law partner, this a politically innocent dear man, this a mere thing without ideas and policies, away with all such opinions. Lincoln did not believe that politics were unsavory creatures he felled compelled to associate with out of duty. He did not hold himself above the political give and take or dismiss the dealmaking or logrolling at is was called as repugnant to his higher call. Calling help did not see politics as an enemy or unpleasant process that might pollute. These notions were wholly alien to him. He never believed politics corrupted him. He always believed that politics offered the only way to achieve his principles, and he never thought of politics aspirate from who he was as set separate from whom he was. He discovered the promise of American Life and crated the man who became Abraham Lincoln through politics itself. Lincoln thought of politics as both a vast leader and intimate society. He was stagestruck from an early age, after politics, the theater, and especially shakespeare was hit greatest eest passion in his drama the audience was not a random gather offering strangers. It members were not paying customers who would come for an evening of entertainment. They were citizens, not spectators. Lincoln had a key knowledge of who they were before every jury and crowd in illinois, he could name friends and neighbors. But the rest were familiar to him as well. He grew up among them. Spoke their language and hoped to give voice to their aspirations. Standing on stage he sensed which words connected. Nor did he make an artificial distinction between campaigning among voters and working among politicians. Politics itself was always seamless for lincoln. Collective and individual action were of a piece, community and man inseparable. In every group of politicians and before every audience the theater of politics was his natural environment. Wonderful. In the book you do uncover new authorizations bring attention to things that had been been under the surface. If there is kind of a rose bud moment its your recovery of one of the quotationed that is infrequently used. One of the most dramatic statements lincoln made. I think you know what im talking about. Can you talk about it. Well, the first chapter of this book i called the slave. And the slave is lincoln himself. Lincoln in 1856, after he had helped create the Illinois Republican party that was the party of lincoln went out campaigning for his party in the president ial election and then statewide contests, and . Standing on a platform, in illinois, he said, i used to be a slave. Extraordinary statement. Of identification with most branded, stigmatized can oppressed group in society. Its not a popular thing for him to do. The facts behind his statement are these, that his father, who was a semi literate dirt farmer who fled from kentucky because he had to compete for wages against slaves, to indiana, across the ohio river to a free state. Oppressed his son. He took his wages, which was legal, until lincoln was 28 and rented him out as an inden temperature indentured. His father believed education was a waste of time and a form of laziness and he would hit his son for reading. He thought that he was distracting himself from learning a trade, getting on with life. His stepmother, who lincoln loved, protected him from his father. So, this is more than a side incident in lincolns life. This is at the core of his identity and at the root of what became his full development into the man we know as Abraham Lincoln, who was, as he said, naturally antislavery and developed a whole politics based on that. Lincoln was selfemancipated. This book describes that process of selfemancipation, from an impoverished, stunted, oppressed boy, the poorest of the poor, who rises to become a respected man, married to a woman of the southern upper class, who believes deeply in his star, and elected to congress, and is on the eve of while he enters the wilderness at the end of the book, the political wilderness, he is on the eve of entering into the wider arena of politics in which he will crystallize his beliefs, his principles, his politics, and fight the battle against slavery that will lead him to the presidency. So at the root of it is his identity, historying, hisstruggle to become something other than what he thought of himself, slave. It does bring class into the whole i web site to get back to Mary Todd Lincoln but bring he lived in what was known as abolition house in washington. Its fascinating. Lincoln was leaked to one term in congress, and he served after the mexican war. Mexican war had seized vast western territories, and the question was whether they would be free or slaves, which would be free or slaves. And that was the principle issue facing the congress that lincoln was a member of. And he voted numerous times against the extension of slavery into these western territories, voting for a proposal known as will not proviso. Lincoln lived in a townhouse, boardinghouse, that no longer exists. Its on the present site of the library of congress. Is failed the capitol. Directly across from the capitol, and that house was informally known as abolition house. Was was the leading abolitionists of the congressed and had longs resided for morning a decade. He knew where he lived. Thereincidented that surround lincolns life as a congressman who dont have to do with the direct response of congress and let affect his experience and his thinking. They are among others that slave hunters and catchers, they came to abolition house and seized a situater as seized a waiter and tried to sell him, and every wilted this and they saved the waiter. The other involved the ship known as the pearl this is a little known incident now but while lincoln was a congressman, a group of more than 70 slaves in washington, many of them in the most privileged positions, including working the white house, working for dolly madison, all gathered at night, and had collaborated with the local Abolition Network in washington, to get on a boat and sail away, down the potomac to the Chesapeake Bay and go north to freedom and escape. They were caught. There was a trial of the captain. And the famous figures became the attorneys for them. A horse man who founded the Common Schools who by the way was something of a mentor to lincoln in this time of congress in the congress. Salomon p. Chase, a senator from ohio and was a leading abolitionist known as the attorney general for fugitive slaves and brought in as for advice was william stewart, who was then living in new york and would later become lincolns secretary of state, and was a very wellknown figure of the time. Leader of the whig party in new york. Some of these many of these slaves were sold to the deep south, and lincoln himself saw the slave pens that existed on independence mall. On the site today, right next to where the Supreme Court is, that building didnt exist. It was an openair slave pen and they would sell slaves there and keep them there and they would march them to the waterfront, past the capitol, manacled. Lincoln would comment on this later. So, lincolns the sights and sounds of washington where slavery existed, unlike in illinois, affected lincoln deeply in his time in the congress. Lets go back. Some of the figures that were around lincoln were fascinating. Bring them secondary characters to life. Lets start out with the key one you mentioned, Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary todd lincoln in my view, gets a bad rap from many historians. And thats because she was volatile, she was often illtempered, created embarrassing scenes and at the end of her life she went mad and was committed by her son, Robert Todd Lincoln to an insane asylum. Her life was tragic. She lost two sons and her husband. She had a difficult upbringing. Her mother died when she was a child. Her father married his stepmother who did not love her. She was a poor little rich girl. Her father was the Business Partner and political ally of henry clay, one of the most distinguished and powerful politicians in america. Who what lincolns ideal, his idol. He modeled himself on. It ways henriquezrobertsry clay who invented the term a selfmade man, and lincoln borrowed that as his own idea of himself lincoln she was known as a child among her family, as a violent little whig. She was not silent in mixed company on politics, which was very rare at the time. Women were not supposed to voice political opinions before men. She was the she was brought to springfield by her sauer, liz by her sauer, elizabeth, who married the governor of illinois, the sisters came one by one to find new husbands, and mary todd found this unlikely person who her sister and family did not really approve of, who they considered beneath her socially, 0 social inferior, and they called him a plebean. She revolted against her family in marrying lincoln. She was she believed deeply in his political future and in his ability and capacity for growth, and she referred to their marriage from the beginning as our lincoln party. So, what begins as lincolns party is he and mary. Were often shaped by our rivals. Lets talk about the little giant, stephen a. Douglass. Appropriate to discuss douglass here in chicago. Douglass basically is a father of chicago. There would be no chicago without douglas. Douglas moved to chicago from jacksonville, illinois. Let me start at the beginning. Stephen a. Douglas was a poor vermont boy, who came here to illinois, which was the frontier, and he became he was another selfmade man, although he was welleducated, informally, and he made himself into what he considered to be a westerner. Illinois was a predominantly democratic state, not a whig state. There was only one whig district in the state, which was around springfield, and douglas was the became very quickly, by his late 20s in and early 30s, the dominant political figure in the state. He created the Convention System in order to control the party. He became a judge on the Supreme Court and then a senator. And immediately began setting himself up to run for president. He created the Illinois Central Railroad through an act of congress, which was the First Federal railroad created through federal act. The equivalent of the Mississippi River from chicago to the gulf of mexico, and douglas owned up a ol all the rice right of way land and he owned a mississippi plantation through this wife, and which made hem a slave holder. He was lincolns great rival. Not only had he briefly courted mary lincoln but they were the opposing figures of their generation, of the first generation of professional politicians in america in illinois. And lincoln was you dont think that lincoln this way but he was deeply envious, jealous, measured himself constantly against douglass, always believed that he was coming up short against little giants, and he frequently disparaged him and disparaged his height. Their battles were were waged over decades, including through the newspapers of springfield. Douglass was the coowner of the register and lincoln was the de facto coeditor of the journal, and their entourages around the newspapers which were both highly partisan even had street battles. Lincoln wrote many anonymous newspaper editorials deriding douglass and those around him. Eventually lincolns following douglass path as douglass sought the great prices of the presidency and led lincoln upwards because lincoln was the only one in the whole country who could challenge douglass on his home ground of illinois. Everything depended upon illinois in the end, and that is what enabled lincoln then to become a national figure. Now, then we think about what was going on in springfield. Some another character is the selfappointed guardian of the flame. How reliable was he and what is your take on herndon . Herndon is a fascinating character. Lincoln has a law firm consisting of himself and a younger man, William Henry herndon. Who let me describe herndon, herndon had attended illinois college, which was an abolitionist college, headed by a leading abolitionist, Edward Beecher of the famous beecher family, and he had revolted against his father, who was a proslavery democrat. Herndon was also a prohibitionist and believed in temperance but also sometimes found drunk. He was a stalwart partisan whig and lincolns allaround aide and he was also a radical. Who would write to all the leading abolitionist around the country and had ongoing correspondence with people like ther to parker, the great apts slavery antislavery in boston. Herndon worshiped lincoln, resented mary todd, who he called the hellcat. She would not allow him into their home. Never allowed lincolns partner into their home. Herndon, after lincoln died, did an incredible thing. The rated the first oral history of the president. Hi went around and systematically interviewed everybody in illinois who was alive and almost everyone was still alive who had known lincoln from his earliest days of arriving in new salem, and many historians have discounted that oral history because it depicts a lincoln that is not grand lincoln who was the martyr, the the man who had won the civil war, been shot on good friday, and fell on it. This was a different lincoln. It was a russ rustic lincoln, unfinished lincoln, lincoln in process. But i find that almost all of it is incredibly valuable, and many historians have come to value it. So, i think herndon performed not only many, Many Services for lincoln as his law partner, but also the ultimate service in history of Abraham Lincoln. Was Mary Todd Lincoln in the oral histories. She was. He did interview her. There are many interesting things she says, and including a few comments. Lincolns religion or lack of religion. Intere