Transcripts For CSPAN2 Wrestling With His Angel 20170610

With sydney blumenthal, former Senior Advisor to president bill clinton. His book is a look at the political life of Abraham Lincoln. With that, im going to throw it over to our interviewer, elizabeth taylor, the literary editor at large for the chicago tribune. [applause] hi. Thank you. Are these mics on . Great. You can hear me . Thank you so much for coming out. This is a wonderful turnout for a wonderful book, and were delighted to be here. Ive actually in this chair, year ago, talking about the first volume of Sidney Blumenthals four to be four volumes on lincoln, and im really excite it excited about this one. I loved that one and this is even norwich. Wrestling with the angel. So, like to set the stage. Begins in march 1849. Lincoln returns to springfield to practice law. 1849. And then 1856, nonothing party, nominates bill moore for president , National Convention for the Republican Party. We have that blackdrop. Whats the title about . Host wrestling with his angel is a title i took from the story of jacob in the bible in the bible, jacob wrestles through a long night, possible my with himself. The bible says an angel. And at the end of the night, and with the break of dawn, he comes to a realization of who he is and he adopts a new name. Israel. Lincoln wrestles through a long night, its his long, dark night of the soul, for lincoln. The last years. He enters it coming home to springfield after one term in the congress, and he ends it by founding the Illinois Republican party, and adopting his own new identity, and emerging with husband his cause against slavery. This is the story of how lincoln became the man that is recognizable to us today. If we met lincoln at the beginning of the story we would not recognize him as lincoln of history. By the end he is lincoln. Host so interesting. Want to get into lincoln the man and also you do a wonderful job of sort of settling the stage for all these events, through the politics, history, culture, and lets first talk about the fascinating 16th president. Recent years he is sort of depicted as melancholy. Was he depressed . Could you read about it . I just love this passage. There you go. Guest well, this is about ling ling as younger man was depressed and he did suffer from depression all the way through. When he was younger, he was even suicidal, and his friends kept razors from hip at one opinion. But now he has returned to springfield, a form congressman, and ill read here the more time i spent with lincoln the more i began to see the arc of this story was unease, unpredictable and often unintended yet his thoughts and words were the careful result of his intense consciousness. And i should add, selfdiscipline. The opass silences that his law partner and others of his friends described as lincolns melancholy, were also a mask for his concentration, intellectual absorption and focus. He made his depression as well as every other feeling into instruments of selfdiscipline in a wilderness of political despair for a destiny he could not foretell. Even when hi life was reduced to simple insignaturans he was vanning the horizons and quietly interpreting its signs. His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest, as hernan called and it he was professional partisan politician who early in his career, in the name of party fidelity, perjured from the list of candidates for local offices in new salem, illinois, his surrogate father, though later shead tears over it did not arise as recognizable lincoln until he lined the ambition and the political schools in the democracy as a unique experiment that might be undone from within. Host thats beautiful. So, he had sort of interesting imagination and discipline that he actually constructed of a coherent argument, an intellectual argument, for a political coalition. Can you just thats, i think, one important part of this book. Guest this is also a period of party chaos. Lincoln the party of lincoln is the whig party. He is a whig. A leader in a state legislature in illinois at the age of 27. He invented the Convention System in order for not get himself nominated for the congress in illinois. And so he is a stalwart whig but his rival, steven a. Douglas, perennial rival, blows everything up with the passage of the kansasnebraska act that eliminates repeals of the missouri compromise by which slavery was prohibited in the north. So now the extension of slavery becomes an open question. This is a question also about the political balance of power in the country and the power of what people called the slave power. The parties blow up. The whig part cracks apart. After 1852 theres never another whig president ial candidate. This party just disspin entity greats between lincolns feet and the Democratic Party splits went anne and pro slavery and theres an antiimmigrant movement that turns into a party called the knownothingings and one plank, only nativeborn protestants can hold Public Office in the United States. So,. Host history repeats itself. Guest they have a slogan, and heres the slogan of the knownothings americans only shall govern america. And theres a lincoln writes a letter in 1855 i know im not a knownothing. Thats certain. The declaration of independence began by saying, all men are created equal. Then some people say, all men are created equal except negroes and if the nonothings get called it will say all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and catholics, and he said if thats the case, i would emigrate to a country where they make no pretense of loving liberty to russia, for instance, where they do not where despotism is taken pure and there is no base alloy of hypocrisy. Lincoln had way with words. Host yes. Guest but lincoln had to construct a Coalition Just to get back to your thought here in this whirlwind with everything falling apart and he had to construct an argument, and the argument theres a lot to say about lincoln and argument itself because he is a lawyer, he trains himself in logic, he is very cognizant of appealing to people and persuading them and bringing them along and being accessible and using plain language, and lincoln also wants to construct an argument that appeals to different parts of these fragments, this floating across the landscape, in order to bring them together in an antislavery coalition. He is waiting out the knownothings and waiting out the temperrans movement, the big movement against liquor, and he has got to bring in antislavery dem chats who hate antislavery whigs who have been running against each other forever. He has his work cult out for him cut out for him. Host a great line from the book is, for him the courtroom and the campaign were transferable arenas. Can you explain that a little bit . Guest well, in this period lincoln from 1849 to 1855, to 1854, really, he is not running for Public Office and says at one point it was almost indifferent to politics, which is not true. He was paying very close attention to the politics. But for Lincoln Lincoln is traveling from county courthouse to county courthouse, sometimes on his horse, old bob, in central illinois, and people line up as clients at the courthouse before the court is in session, and he agrees to take their case and argue it before juries. So, he has to persuade jurors. That that was lincolns great strength, was to speak to juries of ordinary people in central illinois, and to him, this was the law but he was also a politician. So, he is thinking about this all the time, and every time he is trying to win a case, he further develops his mind and his ability to persuade, and the other thing that he is doing while he is a lawyer is in traveling around, he is developing this travels around in a kind of entourage of lawyers. All travelingaround illinois today. They have a maestros, judge davis who lincoln later names to the supreme court. The richest man in bloomington, a whig, and they travel around together and do these cases in different courthouses and the judges travel too and they all live in boarding houses. This network of lawyers, of these lawyers in central illinois, become his campaign team, and, you know, people may have thought that this was these were a bunch of provincial lawyers from central illinois, but when it came to it in 1860, they outplayed everybody and won the republican president ial nomination at the convention in chicago for lincoln. These were very canny, shred and experienced shrewd and experienced political panel. To lynn, even as he is just practicing the law, is developing his political network. The lines are invisible between the two. Host you write about one interesting case that i dont think much is known about. Thought it completely fascinating. The hers case that helped him the todd ahres case. Guest it was a revelation to me, too. I had read as much as i can about lincoln, and and i decided to begin the book with this. Think this is a seminal event in lincolns thinking and life. He returns to springfield and his wife sends him to her home town of lexington, kentucky. Her father, john f. Todd, who is henry clays Business Partner and political ally, has died of cholera. And he has for about a decade been contesting for the todd family estate, which is a large fortune in kentucky. And the todd family wants the estate, except its held by john s. Todds political rival, an enemy, robert whit cliff because he married john s. Todds cousin, polly, and woodcliff has the estate. So theyre engaged in a kind of its like jarndicevjarndice, going on for a decade. There are two subtexts to it. One is woodcliff is the leader of the pro slavery movement, and he succeeds in creating a new state Constitutional Convention to make the kentucky constitution more proslavery. There had been something call the nonimportation in kentucky which stopped selling of slaves. So, whitcliff is a powerful man. The state constitution is being rewritten. Lincoln arrives as all this is happening and it happens and he watches as the he loses the case, loses the family fortune, he watches henry clays legacy destroyed. John s. Todds personal financial and political legacy destroyed, and he observes slavery in kentucky up close. Hed seen it before as a boy. Hes seen it in washington, dc where slavery was legal and he now sees the rise of what people call the slave power. This is a rising power in the country. A very powerful right wing, if you will, and he is very embittered. Theres a secret, another subtext. Heres the secret. There was a todd family secret. Its in memoirs and pamphlets. Ive read these pamphlets. I found these pamphlets. Turns out just following me polly todd, who had died, who is whitcliffs former wife, his wife, had a son, and the son had died, and the son left a living heir. So, he is the rightful heir, except he is not legally a person. And the reason is that he is the son of the of polly todds son, and the house maid, who is a slave. And so this boy, who is a slave, was emancipated and sent to liberia, and heres the kicker in the story. He becomes the president of liberia. Decades later that means that Mary Todd Lincoln was related to two president s. Two kentuckians. So, this case is very important for lincoln, and he is simmering, angry in private, and he starts to he observes slavery as a social force, as an economic force, as a political force. He says its most us a asu us a ostentatious in the world and he is fuming, and this is in 1849. Its all private, its all in private conversations with people that are not recorded and not known until literally decades later. Almost all the conversations come out in an oral history that his law partner, herndon, conducted after lincolns death with people who were still alive. So, people you know, couldnt really understand lincolns evolution at the time because it was unknown except to some of his closest friends and associates. Host do you think that Mary Todd Lincoln was aware of any of this . It was her familys money. Guest i think she was aware of everything. She is a she was describe as a child as a volatile, firey whig, and very political. She is very devoted to the whig party, longer than lincoln. Host in your previous volume, you said that i think, without mary there might not be lincoln. So, got me thinking as i was reading, this book, she plays a somewhat less Important Role, prominent role. Would there be a lincoln without steven a. Douglas . Well, let me address mary and then douglas. The answer is mary todd and steve steven a. Douglas are completely indispensable figures for the creation of Abraham Lincoln. Theres no lincoln without these two people in illinois. Mary doesnt play quite the same role as she did earlier in the first volume, but she plays a very Important Role here, and its a little known incident in which lincoln runs for the senate in 1855, not 1858 against douglas. He runs for the senate in 1855. She pushes him to run. He was slated to run for the state legislature, and she hes elected again, and she hes been a congressman in the legislature, she thinks the senate seat opens up, and she thinks this is completely beneath him. His ambition is a little engine that knew no rest, and marys was real are knew no rest, and lincolns friend describe a period of two days of yelling and shouting and lincoln hanging his head and at the end of which he drops his being elected to the state legislature and announces for the senate because his wife says, youre a senator. And its really important the way he loses for the creation of the Republican Party, because brief story host tell this. Guest the democrat who is now i. F. Douglas is in second place. Lincoln has the most votes but looks like he is just shy of a majority. And so the democrat starts bribing legislators. I know thats unknown in illinois. [laughter] host highly unusual. The person in third place is a man named trumbell and he is a democrat, too, but an antislavery democrat. So he hat the fewest votes, and lincoln realizes the other democrat, douglas ally, is going to win if he allows him the time to bribe everybody. So he quickly throws all of his votes to the antislavery democrat and elects Lyman Trumbell as the senator from illinois. Remember, the elects are held with the legislature, obviously. Theres no thats who decides who is a senator. So, the result is that the antislavery democrats trust lincoln, who had been their rival as a whig, but now they trust him and that becomes a basis for a year later in the creation of the Republican Party. Of bringing all these people together. So, lincolns done something very important in sacrificing himself in making something larger possible. And mary hates this, by the way. And her best friend was Lyman Trumbells wife, and she never spoke to her again. She held it against her. Douglas host oh, douglas. Guest douglas, the little giant, the senator from illinois, is most powerful figure from illinois. Hes on the national stage. He is young. He is already run for president in 1852. He is not even run when hi is 37 years old. 1852. A meteor. Lincoln is envious of him. Says his acolossus and i walk underneath his legs. He has been his rival for decades and has been attacking him for decades. They have rival newspapers in springfield. Editorials flying back and forth. And lincoln feels completely insignificant. Douglas is everything and then douglas blows up the world because his ambition is thwarted. He has run for president , didnt get the nomination. He wants the nomination, in 1856. So he needs to do something enormous. He wants to build a Transcontinental Railroad across the United States, get credit for it. He also wants to make money off it, and he has bought land in dubuque, iowa, and he made a lot of money off the illinois stroll because the owned the lakefront in chicago and sold it to the ic as the right of way land after he passed the Illinois Central Railroad act. So, theres nothing new in politics. And he needs the south, and he also needs to open up this territory. He is the chairman of the committee on territories and what is in the ways these territories are not organized. Kansas, nebraska. Sponsors kansasnebraska act and repeals the missouri compromise, withdraws a erases the line of slavery in north and throws it all open. Whoever settles there can doo decide whether theyre a free state or slave state. And you have bleeding kansas, and as a result of that, the issue of the extension of slavery in the country lincoln calls it the nationalization of slavery and says pretty son well have it in illinois and then across the country. He has this cause and now has to develop his argument. Host referred to the newspapers, and theres so many newspapers and the time, Harold Holzer wrote a wonderful become about newspapers and lincoln, and lincoln wrote a platform at a meeting of the antislavery editors. Can you talk below the role of the newspapers about the role of the newspapers at the time and lincoln . Guest well, lincoln had a close relationship with the media of his day. He played media politics. He was an avid reader of newspapers since he was a boy. Partly how he selfeducated himself, reading newspapers. And then the telegraph came into existence. The internet of the day. So it made daily newspapers you could really follow the news every day. They were very current, and people kept up, and in the Northern United States was the most literate area in the entire world, and had the greatest number of newspapers anywhere in the world. All the newspapers were partisan one way oar another. Host very. Guest very partisan. They were idiosyncratic, eccentric editors but partisan. Lincoln was in this law office and is more or less the coeditor of the illinois newspaper in springfield and he anonymously writes hundreds of editorials. We dont know everything lincoln has written for the newspaper. And he and herndon have the best library in central illinois, and lincoln is reading the new york times, the new york tribune, the the richmond inquirer, journals from london. So here is, the circumference of his life appears very small. His house, his law office, the state capitol. He travels around, but actually he is living in a much larger world in his head and is paying very close attention. So newspapers are very, very important, and the key meeting to found the Republican Party is called by newspaper editors in illinois. Host thats phenomenal. Guest theyre all political. Theyre the only people its antislavery newspaper editors from around illinois, call a meeting and invite lincoln as the only noneditor to attend because they acknowledge that he should be their political leader. Though they have this meeting in decatur on washingtons birthday, february 22, 1856, which almost splits up when one of the editors, an important man named george snyder, who edits one over the most important papers in chicago, the german language newspaper. Biggest german language newspaper in the United States and the proposes a planning against the know nothings, and theyre nativists in the meeting, other editor, and the whole thing thens to disintegrate, and snyder says, let lincoln decide. And lincoln says, gentlemen, the answer is in the declaration of independence. And you cant found a new party on any other principle. All men are created equal. So that settles it. They say lincoln says, its all right. And they found the Illinois Republican party. Without that it would november have existed. So it would not have existed. So newspaper editors and newspapers were very much intrinsic to the politic of the day. They were political players. Host just one of the personal things about lincoln, much is discussed recently about the death of willy, the wonderful George Saunders novel, but we sometimes forget it was eddie two died during this period, and write about that. Can you tell us how that loss affected lincoln and guest this is my thinking. Lincoln in the early 1850s had a beloved son namedded edward, eddie, who died. A child, very young and mary was inconsolable and so lincoln was. Lincoln suffered from depression. But heres what i take away from it. Mary was so inconsolable she wouldnt eat, and lincoln said, he comforts her. He extends his sympathy. This is lincoln who is a depresssive overcoming his depresssive out of empathy for this wife. I think its a really important episode in his emotional life. Host i agree. Its very we dish want to make sure there are time for questions so sort of get to the periphery of the room and microphones, i think theres one. Let me just ask questions and as you come up. So, you write, lincolns political education was long but his moment of awakening was sudden. And i just wonder if you can just talk about that sudden awakening. You can either read from it or tell is, whichever you prefer. Guest well, if you can show me what ive read ill try to remember it. Host i think this is here. Guest at the end. Host at the end, the last part. Guest the last part. Its about slumber. Host sorry. You can find it. Guest ill find it. I think i know. Host very last page. Guest this is a host slightly funny story, actually. Guest yes. This is a story that is recounted by people who were caught years after lincoln had died. A lot about lincoln comes out long after he is gone, and some of the story there were a lot of people present. Theyre corroborating accounts of contemporaries. So in early 1855, traveling trae county court sticker, staying overnight in a boarding house, his discussion with a former judge and fellow lawyer, t line dickey, a conservative old whig, went on deep into the night. Now, another lawyer who was present recalled, judge dickey contended that slavery was an institution which the constitution recognized and the could not be disturbed. Lincoln argued that ultimately slavery must become a extinct. After a while, said dickey, we went upstairs to bed. There were two beds in our room and i remember that lincoln sat up in his night shirt, on the edge of the bed, arguing the opinion with me. At last we went to sleep. Early in the morning, woke up and there was lincoln, half sitting up in the bed. Dickey, said lincoln, i tell you this nation cannot exist half slave and half free. Oh, lincoln, replied dickey good, to sleep. Apparently a true story. Host a great story. The question over here. Yes. About current republican president of the United States. With your political experience, after events of this week, how you see future of american president. Small question. Well, our current president did you know lincoln was republican . He has an interesting sense of history. So, im hesitant to get into great detail, and i could, about the current occupant of on the one hand i feel like the main character in the british version of holiday publish house of cards who are says you might say that. Couldnt possibly comment. Lincoln was and ill gave sense of how i feel, which is that lincoln was a shakes speedwayan. His favorite play was macbeth but im sure he saw king lear but in king lear a character says this is not the worst so long as you can say this is the worst. What was lincolns relationship to his brotherinlaw, the one that turned out to be a particularly nasty jailer of Union Prisoners . Did they have a falling out early . And was lincolns animus towards senator shields, personal or political. Two good questions. On the second one, mary todds half brother was the head of the prison called libby prison in richmond, which u. S. Soldiers were held under retched conditions. Lincoln was very concerned with the treatment of u. S. Soldiers, and he even met with some of the released prisoners and was very anxious to have them released because many of them died because of the conditions, and the todd family was split north and south, including her one of her sisters whose host elizabeth edwards. Guest no, emily helms, white house, whose husband was a confederate soldier and visited her in the white house, which is a point of controversy. James shields is somebody who was a senator from i believe three states illinois, minnesota, and ill forget one iowa. Missouri. Thank you. And he was an ally of steven a. Doug loss and therefore a political antagonist to Abraham Lincoln when he was a whig, and lincoln engaged in writing under a pseudonym of a woman named rebecca who was supposed an old country woman, satire about shields that were insulting, and as it turned out, mary todd participated in writing these insulting satires, and shields discovered that lincoln had done so and in order to lincoln feeling he was protecting mary todd, with whom he was reconciling after having broken up with her. Shields challenges him to a duel and they good to an island in the mississippi, john harden, a state senator, and a cousin of mary todd, rided up at the key moment and says youre ridiculous and its illegal and you have to stop the. Lincoln is completely humiliated. The famous broad sword where shields its relatively sport and lincoln is 64, and lincoln chooses as the weapons broad swords because he has long arms. And he practices by slashing prairie grass or whatever, and the duel is never fought, and whenever anyone brings it up, lincoln is very embarrassed at the entire episode, but it contributed to his marriage helped lead to his marriage to mary todd. Dueling was illegal and it was considered well, it was point of southern honor. In the north it was considered something that belonged to a barbaric past. So, then he ran against shields in 575 for in 55 for the senate. Shield is knocked out by another democrat who is bribing the legislature. We have time for for more quick questions. I know during his time people were very critical of lincoln, and recently i read a book, six encounters with lincoln, that was pretty critical of him. How do you balance that when you write a book . Is it hard to be critical of him because he has this mythic like following, people adore him. Is it hard to write critical things about him . I think lincoln is criticizedded from all points of view, as he was in life. He was considered as from be on the one hand a tyrant, conducting the war, and on the other hand to be weak and vacillating. Both, by different sides. And i try and write it accurate a portrait as i understand it. I do go i try and this is the past, and its history as i understand it, and i try and account for it by reading as much as i can and even finding a new sources that shed light on his understanding of his thought and the issues of the day, and were all what frustrates my is, having been a journalist my whole life, is that i cant interview anybody about this. They are sadly unavailable. This question is sort of relate. Theirs a tremendous amount of lincoln in lit tour and would literature and if you could let us like and what you dont like in all this massive lincoln literature out there. Well, the lincoln literature is has been the subject of entire books itself, some theres the lincoln historyogy, tells us a lot about the history of the country and what i will say is that i find many of the contemporary historians of lincoln to be among the best, right now. Those writing right now are really fine historians, whether allen galto or Harold Holzer, among others, doris kearnsgood wins book is good, too. Its said theres nothing new to say about lincoln and i want to mike another point that every generation has something new to say about lincoln because were all americans, and were facing new circumstances, and we inevitably see the past through our own lens, and reinterpret it, and we learn different lessons from lincoln. And that accounts for the evolution of the histories and the biographies about lincoln as well. Well, i think were our time is up, but i just want to say thank you so much to sidney blumenthal, this wonderful book, and you can go right outside and buy it. Its worth every dime and i just want to say he was here last year worth a lincoln penny. It was here for the first volume and the second volume and im really hoping youll be here for the third volume next year. Thank you, elizabeth. A pleasure to be with you, and here in chicago. [applause] once again, thank you to aberdeen for coming and watching at home. Books are log sold right outside the auditorium. [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2, our live coverage the chicago tribunes printers row hit fist. One more author will be peeking, its lisa napoli think author of ray and joan, about the life othe late mcdonalds founder, ray kroc and his wife, joan. Well be right back. [inaudible question] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] im following the book from the beginning where lincoln to the theology in favor of slavery. Southern theologians. His father i believe was a baptist minister wasnt a minister. He was belonged to various primitive Baptist Churches in kentucky and indiana. Hi father was from my understanding was very antislavery as well. He was. My rex is that is why they moved from kentucky, first for indiana and then illinois. Thats right. Places where poor white people moved from. Thats a story of the family, of his father. Brian. Your book to the stack big towers. The interpretation center. I was out there about a month ago two months ago. Quite the stack of books, i tell you that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Help your brother likes it. Hes a big lincoln guy, too. So thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thank you. I hope there is going to be a third book. You should inspiration and take six book like the Thomas Jefferson biography. Ill have four. If were up to me there would be more. Thats what theyre allowing me. My comment is that lincoln was a religious man, must have read the bible cover to cover a number of times. Ive always thought that in the gettysburg address where the says four score and seven years ago, think the took that from the bible where he psalm that says the national length of a persons life is three score and ten, and may have been unconscious on his part. Three scour and ten and he gets a lot of these from king james bible. Like house divided. Okay. Anyway he gets that directly from a house divide cannot stand and i think. I appreciate the talk and see you next year. Thank you. Connect the dots. Thank you for that. Hi there. This is my daughter, elizabeth. Hi, elizabeth. [inaudible conversations] therapeutic environment [inaudible] i guess the point in the publication is a little bit of a discussion [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] shes going to read it some day. With an s or a z. Z. Bye, elizabeth. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] well, it is not even onesided. But she died in a tragic car crash, so just cant defend her. Right. I appreciate it. Sure. Thank you very much. Hi, how are you . Doing fine. One is for my friend. Whats his name . Chuck. Chuck taylor. So this one is for chuck, right . That one is for chuck. Right. One is for me. Emil. Hope youre here next year, too. I hope so, too. Thank you. Hi. Very first picture of lincoln. How different they look. 1846 to 49. This is 1857. Did he degree a beard saginaw kept the razors away from him