Out about jason, so i went to rate my professors. Com. Indicatione is any about how the students feel about him, i can tell he is well loved. Im going to review a few comments. One student wrote, dr. Silverman is an amazing professor. He lectures, but they are far from boring. You will need to read for the test because he doesnt cover everything for the book. You also have to attend class, because every day is something new. Another wrote, this class is not easy, but if you are struggling, go talk to him and he will tell you to take notes. He is very helpful. [laughter] a number of students remarked that he always begins class with a joke. One of the students wrote, most are dirty, but funny. , youve gotrn you to be careful when you ask questions during the queue and day, because one student wrote, i would kill for this man, literally. ,nd finally, a few years ago one student called him the best professor at winthrop. For a 52yearold man, he is too. Damn hot, welcomingjoin me in dr. Jason silverman. [applause] dr. Silverman that was 10 years ago. [laughter] dr. Silverman i would have to imagine my hotness has deteriorated with age. This is just an incredible experience for me. Thatt to thank john for touching interview. He certainly went back in time, didnt he . I want to thank Abraham Lincoln institute for inviting me and fords theatre for hosting. This is a dream come true for me to be here today. I grew up in alexandria, virginia, just across the potomac. Washington, d. C. Was always a place where field trips came and theatred where fords and Lincoln Memorial and all of those things always held a very dear spot in my heart. I would be remiss if i didnt tell you that i have been interested in Abraham Lincoln since the fourth grade. I must confess, it was an act of defiance on my part. , forurth grade teacher parents night, decided we were going to have silent vignettes. In other words, you just stood there and the parents look that you. It was a historical vignette. Maybe dated amelia ehrhardt, iwo jima. The ones they chose was the Lincoln Douglas debates. I got my hopes up tremendously until she said, you cant be Abraham Lincoln. You are not tall enough. [laughter] you have to be Stephen Douglas. It was on that day i decided i was going to be interested in Abraham Lincoln out of defiance, if nothing else. I am completing my 33rd year at winthrop university, where i have taught about Abraham Lincoln to packed classes of south carolinians. [laughter] if i lookforgive me up at the president ial box and say, mr. President , i made it. [applause] i have been fortunate enough to have done some work in an area of Abraham Lincoln that really has not attracted an enormous amount of attention. I would like to share some of that with you today. As i tell my students at the beginning of every class, please fasten your seatbelts and come back in time with me to the era of Abraham Lincoln. 4, 1865, Oak Ridge Cemetery thomas springfield, illinois. Warm. Ather is the weather is peaceful and a slight wind blows from the prairies to the west. Everybody in springfield is on the streets, silent and mournful. Their sorrow is so allencompassing they dont know where to go or what to do. The landscape is beautiful and has been especially cared for on this occasion. The clergyman is a tall, distinguished looking academic sort who spoke with a softness that belied his younger evangelical days. Bishop Matthew Simpson was delivering the funeral sermon. He quoted the deceased in words of deep conviction. Words that spoke of a great work to be done. They conjured up a specter of evil in the land. Broken by it i may become about to it i never will. The probability that we may fail and the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we believe is just. It shall not deter me. If i ever feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those unworthys, not wholly of its almighty architect, it is when i contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the upld besides, and i standing violencele hurled at her oppressors. The bishop interpreted his text in a way and with an authority that seemed only natural to the mourning nation. Here was a testament of the beloved martyr dedicating himself in his use to the great in his youth to his great struggle against the slave power. Bishop simpson quoted lincoln accurately. A longlostthed speech that would soon be lost again. But he did make one error. Lincolns speech had nothing to do with slavery. Its subject was banking, industry, and immigrant labor. , labor andin industry. The combination should not surprise should not us. Lincoln probably talk more about economics and labor, to use those terms broadly, than any other issue, slavery included. The bulk of his discussions with an economic focus preceded the period of his fame and went for the most part unrecorded. The main lines of his thinking survived. Significantly, his noneconomic speeches and writings often brimmed with economic implications. Lincoln . On, abraham absolutely. Lincoln lived in an era when immigration was as much controversial as it is today. 1860, 4. 540 and million newcomers arrived, most of them from ireland, the german states, and scandinavian countries. Many more crossed back and forth back across the border of mexico. From an early age, lincoln developed an awareness and tolerance for different peoples and their cultures. While no doubt a product of his time, lincoln nevertheless refused to let his environment line him to the strengths of diversity. Throughout his legal and political career, he retained an affinity for immigrants, especially the germans, irish, jews, and scandinavians. Indeed immigrants in their plight were never far from lincolns thoughts or plans. His travels at a young age down the Mississippi River to the port of new orleans exposed lincoln to the sights, sounds, and tastes of a world hitherto he could only have dreamed about. More importantly, however, it established the foundation and a sympathy for the rest of his life when it came to the foreignborn, as well as to the enslaved. Must have been an onsite sightsite see and odd seeing that tall, lanky boy sailing down the mississippi in justf everything he saw, 22 years old and finally freed of the obligations to his father and his farm. Lincoln set off from illinois on a flatboat with his stepbrother, cousin, and employer. Sailing on what must have been an amusing site, a log cabin on hogs, with barrels and lincoln, john johnson, john and dennisennis hoff its set off. Lincoln was traveling afar, and what he could not know it, what he would see what shape his thoughts for the remainder of his life. During this trip, link it would first come in contact with foreigners in the exotic city of new orleans. As one author wrote, he probably did not distinguish swedes from the dustman, italians, spaniards, swiss, norwegians, and russians he had counted on the streets of the city. He did realize for the very first time in his life that immigrants from many lands formed a significant part of the american population. Lincolns two flatboat voyages to new orleans were exceptionally important in his development. They formed the longest journeys of his life. His first experiences in a major city. His only visits to the deep south. His sole exposure to the regions brand of slavery and slave trading. His only time and the subtropics. The closest he ever came to immersing himself in a foreign culture. Lincoln never wrote or spoke of his trip save for brief description of trip of preparation for the trip, but others did. In interviewing john hanks, the cousin of lincolns biological mother who joined lincoln on his 1831, lincolns eventual law partner and recorded in may we landed in new orleans. I can say knowingly it was on this trip that he formed his opinions. It ran its iron and him then and there. May 18 301i have heard him say often and often. May 1831 i have heard him say often and often. They immersed him and the relationship between transportation and Economic Development in the west. And preachedstood that a better Transportation System would improve the Economic Life of illinois, raising Living Standards for all and enhancing property values. Alsolns river journeys illustrated to him that by controlling the unsettled domains in illinois, the state could accelerate immigration. Residing in a sparsely populated region, it is understandable that wealth and population were practically synonymous for him. Immigrants would bring economic wealth and growth and all that it implied. Indeed, seeing america firsthand from a flatboat at a young age transfixed on lincoln the core social and economic philosophies such as free labor, modernization, internal improvements, and most assuredly the need to attract immigration. Lincolns trips to new orleans represented his only journey deep into the slave south and places where enslaved africanamericans not only abounded but predominated overwhelmingly. New orleans also ranked as the largest city that Young Lincoln had ever seen, and would remain so until he stepped on the National Scene as a newly elected congressman in 1848. Representedntly, it the most ethnically diverse and culturally foreign city in the United States. While lincoln would take a day 1857,o Niagara Falls in new orleans would represent the closest lincoln whatever, to entering another country. I must add that, come on. Really isnt like leaving the country. [laughter] and while lincoln occasionally encountered french or Spanish Speaking immigrants or catholics in illinois or on the ohio river, his trips to new orleans engulfed him in a different cultures and ethnicity on religion, language, race, class, caste, cuisine, architecture, and sheer urban size. It gave him a perspective that no other place or time in his life would provide. In the midst of this complex and conscientious and contentious social and economic Political Landscape walked a young Abraham Lincoln in 1828 in 1831. Evidence of ethnic tension would have been obvious to any observant visitor. In the streets, in conversation, and in the press. Local newspapers that im sure lincoln saw were filled with prejudice and scorn for one group of immigrants or another. Editors promised that their views and principles would be purely american, whatever that meant. To theous portent american or know Nothing Party that would rise in the 1850s to exploit american xenophobia. Lincoln would have been present in new orleans at this time, and he would have seen firsthand the difficult time that some emigrants had in the city that was heavily populated by a foreignborn element. Lincoln was present when the creoles suffered at the hands of nativeborn americans. Alliances were established between them and german and irish immigrants, and the creoles became an object of scorn. The experience of treatment of immigrant groups informing the cast onto visitors like lincoln lasted his entire lifetime. Would orleans, lincoln see the nations concentration of free people of color, among them some of the wealthiest and best educated people of african ancestry anywhere. Lincoln never specifically commented on the citys diversity, that he came close when he personally handed hand edited the biographical words on that topic wit by topic written by william dean howl. After marveling at the many negro planter of the sugar coast , a creole of louisiana t met thetan por polished old world exile and tongues of france and spain and england. Lincoln found himself enthralled by the multitude of cultures he witnessed in that Large Population of new orleans. Late in life, he would recover what he saw as a youth and would forcefully oppose the Nativist Movement of the 1850s and the know Nothing Party, which was gaining popularity at the time. A part of new orleans would follow lincoln to springfield. William fourill ville found new orleans a hostile place to free people of color. Fearing kidnapping and enslavement, he fled for st. Louis and then found his way up the illinois in 1831. While approaching the village of new salem, he overtook a tall man wearing a red flannel shirt and carrying and acts on his shoulder. They fell into conversation and walked into a Little Grocery store together. The tall man was Abraham Lincoln, who soon learned that the stranger was a farmer and now out of money. Mr. Lincoln took him to his boarding house and told the people there of his business and system situation and his situation. Later lincoln convinced him to settle in springfield. There he married, raised a family, and prospered as a barber to hundreds of men, women, and children, who knew him in daringly as billy the barber. Over the years, it is likely that lincoln enjoyed many conversations at the barbershop on east adams street at about new orleans, slavery, and the Mississippi River with a bilingual catholic french haitianamerican man who became his friend. The conversations would seem to be of substance, and the foundations of a genuine friendship. Late in 1863, he wrote lincoln a warm letter of gratitude for the emancipation proclamation that had gone into effect a year earlier. I thought it might not be improper for one so humble in life and occupation to address the president of the united urville, yet io do so knowing that it will be received warmly by you from your friend billy the barber. Lincoln first learned of haiti when the men first met. Three decades later, president Abraham Lincoln officially established diplomatic relations with the independent caribbean nation of haiti. There had to be some influence their. Ironically, it was through lincolns connection with new orleans and the efforts of several immigrants that the great emancipator freed one of his first people of color. John shelby, a free black and son of one of his fellow africanamerican barbers in springfield, while traveling in new orleans in 1856, found the same hostility directed toward found yearsrville ago. Not having the proper papers to travel freely in the city, shelby was arrested and imprisoned. Somehow, however, he made contact with a springfield raised new orleans attorney named benjamin jonas. Shelby suggested to him that jonas contact a prominent lawyer back home in illinois whose influence might help this case and arrange for shelbys release. Jonas recognized the name because lincoln was a very good , abraham his father jonas, a leading citizen of springfield and one of the first jewish settlers in the region. Up river to shelbys mother and to lincoln. Mr. Lincoln was very much moved, wrote one of his early biographers, and requested mr. Herndon to go over to the state house and inquire of governor William Henry bissell if there was not something that could be done to obtain the possession of the negro. Andherndon made the inquiry returned with the report that the governor regretted to say he had no legal or constitutional right to act. Mr. Lincoln then rose to his feet and great excitement and exclaimed, by the almighty i will have that negro back soon or i will have 20 years of irritation in illinois until he does have legal or constitutional right to do something in the premise. problem was, lincoln lacked any further recourse. He was all too aware that new orleans had the law on its side. So lincoln and herndon drafted 60. 30 of the metropolitan bank of new york cannot and on may bank , sent the funds sent the funds to jonas. Shelby was then returned safely to springfield. It became among the first africanamericans ever freed by Abraham Lincoln. Surely his new orleans imprisonment would have resulted in his force labor, and quite possibly his permanent enslavement, but lincolns affection for the jonas family determined that he would take action as much for them as for shelby himself. Lincoln regarded Abraham Jonas as one of my most valued friends. Their friendship dated back to the 1830s. Lincoln never forgot, nor did he ever minimize the role in his personal development that the experiences in new orleans and those of the flat Boat Operator played. While on the campaign trail in 1843, lincoln cast his flat boat dues payingffirming experiences, assuring his political supporters that is presently rising stature made him no less a man tolerant of the people. It was astonished if not amuse the older citizens of this the 12wrote lincoln, years ago to me as a strange, friendless, an educated annulus boy working on a flatboat at 10 per month to learned that i had been put down as the candidate of wealth, pride, and aristocratic family distinction. Yeah, sure. [laughter] 20 years later, lincoln returned to the same theme. Free society is such that a poor man can know his better condition. He knows there is no fixed condition of his labor for his whole life. Im not ashamed to confess that 25 years ago i was a hired laborer, mauling rails at work on a flatboat. Just what might happen to any son. Any poor mans on a personal and littleknown episode in his life, lincoln became friends with the reverend lars as gordon lars esgorn. Lincolns oldest son robert attended his classes, and lincoln frequently called on the professor to discuss his son studies, since at the time robert was not an enthusiastic student. I bring this up to my students on a number of occasions to tell them that see, all you need is a little enthusiasm and youre going to be that much better ,tudent in Robert Todd Lincoln the son of the president of the United States, and they kind of look at me like your point is what . [laughter] lincoln even served on the board of directors of the school. Esgorn had experience as at princeton. He was a strong opponent of drink and slavery. Lincoln took a liking to him since based shared similar political police. As he