Was the head of a regiment of the volunteers and became a major at appomattox for cutting off lees retreat. My great aunt was a strong toluence on me and came out montana by covered wagon, and they all met lincoln. In one of the daughters of one of the great aunts decided she would marry this fellow. And one said, he is a democrat. And she said, yes. And the other one said, we would rather you marry a dog. [laughter] was lincoln was my very much in the picture. Anyway, your party met all of our distinguished panelists here. So, we are going to have a about the and various topics that have been covered here. And i think, is somebody saying something . Anyway, so, lets which one of you, i guess we will take questions from the audience. There is a question over there. Good. Yes, some of the lectures have talked about, in their lectures, looking back 150 years ago with 21st century glasses, and either making judgments or whatever. Um, something that has always interested me in reading from that time period, what the United States was like at that time in the sense that it was , incredibly provincial. Most of what we would call first of today were all georgians or virginians or kentuckians, etc. , before they were americans. Would you speak to, in your research, how provincialism played into what transpired in 1860, along with the other factors we know about slavery, tariffs, regional differences, etc. Thank you. Doug . Doug ok. Um. I know that there is thank you. Doug i know it is a time of westerly, people are moving to the west and lincolns family is moving. That is very typical. People are coming out of the east. Geographershat the are fascinated by the fact that they tend to move within the same latitude. Not everybody, but that is the tendency. So, illinois gets tennessean and kentuckians, and lincolns family is one of those. And it makes for a different kind of society. Thely, lincoln illinois that lincoln started out in is a really crude frontier society. You think he is a lawyer, but you have no idea what a lawyer did. And herndon talked about this all the time, you should have seen the way we practiced in those days. It was really horrifying. And a very parent up and a very primitive kind of thing. And they brought them along and and they set up shop. And it has to affect the kind of country it was. It is hard to characterize onthefly. Maybe somebody has a better thought. Go ahead. Ok. William lee miller, and some of his works on making, compared lincolns preparation for the presidency to the canons preparation. It is generally considered that buchanan was the best prepared had as as we legislator and a diplomat, yet he is considered a failed president. Where as lincoln was considered to be utterly unprepared for the presidency, yet by most people with the notable exception of without lincoln was, in terms of personality and intellectual acumen, one of our best prepared president s. So would any of you like to comment on those paris and . I will take a shot at buchanan. [laughter] very good. Few people seem to have greater credentials for the presidency than James Buchanan, an opinion which he abundantly shared. He had long, long experience in government, and he had the advantage before running for president in of having been 1856, out of the country for several years. That means he was not around to be interviewed. And people did not exactly know what his opinions were. He was very happy with that. So buchanan has experience and , he seems to have all the attributes, but what he does not have is an undivided party behind him. He has to cope with stephen a. Douglas. And stephen douglas, who believed the nomination should have come to him in made life as 1856, difficult for James Buchanan as he possibly could. And one thing which conspired to assist douglas that way was the situation in kansas. The lecompton constitution came to congress. Buchanan put all of his political muscle behind it. And douglas did everything he could to stymie it. Buchanan calls douglas to the white house. They have a very unpleasant conversation. Buchanan says to douglas, i would like you to remember what happened to reeves, meaning somebody who had challenged president jackson and came out , on the short end of things. To which douglas replied, mr. President i would like you to , remember that general jackson is dead. [laughter] and the two of them faced off that way, and really, things spiraled downhill for James Buchanan after that. By contrast, Abraham Lincoln dark horse with no particular professional experience, and an executive search firm wouldve never given him a second look. And the impression he makes on people is that of a rough, intelligent, farmer. So much so, and this is one of the finest moments i think in doug wilsons book, where he quotes a newspaper editor asking, who will write this ignorant mans state papers for him . [laughter] none of this people dramatically overestimated buchanan and dramatically underestimated lincoln. In one of the most perceptive comments made about lincoln, one said, anybody that took him for a simpleminded man would soon end up with his back in a ditch. There are a lot of people in that ditch by 1865. People found out that this man lincoln was him this mimic and was a lot more shrewd, a lot more sharp a lot more , intelligent than they give him credit for. But he in a way invited them to underestimate him. He would sit there with that kentucky upper border drawl. He would tell these hokey stories. And people would immediately assume that they are dealing with a moron. Boy were they wrong. [laughter] best illustration i know this was an occasion in which senator benjamin wade, an ohio radical, very impatient with lincoln, one day found his impatience brimming over. Stocked came down from the capital to the white house, into the white house, into lincolns office and began telling him everything that he was doing wrong. Lincoln interrupts and says, senator, that reminds me of a story. [laughter] wade erupts, that was the wrong thing to say at that moment, wade erupts and says lincoln, i am sick and tired of your stories. Dont you know that hell is not half a mile off . Lincoln sits back and replies senator, isnt that about the distance between here and the capital . [laughter] wade turns around without a word and walks out the office down , the steps and into the driveway, passes a friend in lincoln told me that time. Sold me that time. Anybody who takes lincoln for a simple minded man is up with his back in the ditch. Buchanan was easy to overestimate, lincoln was easy to underestimate. Thank you. We got another question out here . Go ahead. You want to was that your own question . Make a comment . Let me see if i can stir things up a little bit. That the be apparent professor and i are not quite on the same page. But i do think that it can be framed in such a way as would not cast aspersions either one on either one of us. My interest has somewhat more to do with the period before the war when the old system was still in place, when the thought of being able to touch slavery was just unimaginable. The existing party system and existing power of the states in the union ruled out any involvement with slavery. But when the war started, and i believe the professor is more interested in the dynamics of wartime that creates the possibilities that never existed before of emancipation, and opens the door because the Southern States had abandoned the constitution and let the union, of something that could not of been imagined before april, 1861, so that is part of it. I believe, he is more tied to the wartime period, and i am more with prewar, but i will also say, as you heard the lincoln inside and out. That is extremely helpful in an audience of this sort because were fascinated with lincoln. And i am fascinated with lincoln, too. But my interest, i would have to say, take me out so that i am more interested, as well in the , Political Climate that produces lincoln. I associate with historians such as Michael Holt Emma who has got a wonderful forthcoming book on the 1860 election, which will argue that if you look at the lower north, especially pennsylvania, indiana and illinois, the big three states republicans lost in 1856 and they knew they had to win in 1860, the Republican Campaign had surprisingly little to do in 1860 with the slavery issue at all. Holt argues that this is where the famous moniker honest abe played well, because the republicans were running against the corruption of the buchanan administration, and presented themselves in a way as to turn the page and get away from that. I associate more with historians, certainly, i am one myself, who studied the broader, political environment that ultimately leads to the war. I would also say that i identify the historians who look more at the broader social environment. I have a world of admiration for ed who has happily backed away from his 10 years as the president of the university, and is back to writing again, and is doing a sequel to his wonderful book in the presence of my enemies. That book is essential reading for everybody in this room righte it shows you that down to the moment of crisis in and thatr of 1860 1861, there were very few people in the north who believed that it was possible or desirable to interfere with slavery. Ed looks closely at a community, chambers berg, pennsylvania, where the republicans had a majority, lincoln carried, but it was not a vote to touch slavery. And he makes that very clear. So, i throw this out, not with any effort to try to say anything unkind about the professor, but in the hopes it might motivate him to see if he can shed light on the issues i have tried to raise. Perhaps perhaps, steve you want to comment on the attitude of the governors of the nomination of the president. I know a lot of the senators thought they should be president. Fred, i am glad im glad after hethat because finished and i expected allen to respond, i kind of feel like a net in a tennis match sitting right here. [laughter] i suppose i should Say Something then. I seem to recollect having written a book about lincoln in the 1850s, 1858 to be exact, so i do have some familiarity with the territory. But, i think the distinction that will probably be the most useful, and this respect is to , understand that when lincoln is talking about slavery, he really has two things to say about it. One is, he believes it to be a fundamental, moral wrong. Second thing is that he cannot touch it in the states where it is legal. And he, all the time, is telling people, this is not what i am planning to do. I do not see that the constitution grants authority to touch slavery in the states where it is legal. Where he wants to draw his line is about slavery and the territories. That is the issue for him from the very beginning of his entrance into active opposition, politically. And that is in 1854 in the kansas nebraska act, and his opposition to kansas nebraska is all bound up with the question of, shall slavery be allowed admission to the western territories . An lincoln never works with assumption that his election is about dealing with slavery in the Southern States. But he does insist that it has a great deal to do with whether slavery is one to be allowed to expand into the west. That is the point which he says is the nub of the debate. That is the point at which point push comes to shove where the , tug has to take place and there can be no concession. So in a way, both professor croft and i are speaking to two halves of the same coin. That if that it is true, the issue was not how shall we burn down slavery in the slave states . Because there was no point in having that kind of discussion constitutionally, it could not happen. Nor were white people in the north particular leaguer to burn down slavery in the south, because the next question that gets asked is, once we do that, what do you do with the freed slaves . In the answers that northern white people tended to produce to that question are not very complementary ones. So the question was always then, what about slavery in the territories . This is the other half of the coin. Professor croft is correct. It is not a question of what we do about slavery in the south. Because whether temperamentally, in terms of racial outlook, or constitutionally, there was really nothing that could be done about slavery in the south. But there was a great deal to prevent slavery from expanding to the west. That is where lincoln wanted to draw the line. That is where the republicans made their Campaign Position clear. Lincoln himself at one point in 1864, when George Steward complemented lincoln at a white house reception for all the work he had done about freeing the slaves, lincoln pointed out the window at the south window and said, i really do not deserve a complement. I could not have accomplished anything if not for the people down there did. It was secession triggering the war that permitted the destruction of an institution, which otherwise, would have taken an enormous amount of time to have dealt with legally and constitutionally. In that respect, the the slaveholding southerners find the death warrant of their own institution. Very good. Let me just follow that up because one of the things i discovered was kansas keeps coming up in a lot of newspapers and a lot of historical memory as, lincoln becomes more popular and a lot of the documents that , i sought repeatedly across the states, not just the newspapers but in letters to and from politicians, the expansion of slavery, and kansas provides the example of what can happen if slavery is going to continue to expand. And i think that really was among the most alarming, because what happens in kansas, and then as john that is so fresh and the minds of what is inspired in kansas, and how they relate this revolutionary tendency that were prevalent in the region. And how the wonders another groups within new york trying to andote retaining restricting slaver to the slave states, but it wouldnt extend. For the professor, professor silverman, can you expand on what lincoln thought about foreigners, foreign countries, etc. , from his two trips to new orleans and what propelled him to be interested in other languages, for example. Lincoln had planned when he finished his second term. To travel term to travel. He wanted to go to california, he wanted to go to the holy land. He was looking forward to a time in his life postpresidency in which he would be able to sort of do the things that i think he was unable to do. The trip to new orleans was, the two trips to new orleans could very well have been the greatest education that lincoln had in terms of the topic of immigration. Because here he is a young man with his eyes wide open, and he is seeing all sorts of things that he does not see, certainly back in illinois for the most part, though his springfield neighborhood all Things Considered was reasonably ethnically diverse. He hired irish to work in the house. He also encountered on an ongoing basis portuguese farmers, in springfield, who were produce, greengrocers so to speak. So it is not like he was completely ignorant about all this. But he was not travel smart or a great deal of book smart about civilizations around the world, for example asia. I do believe in my heart of hearts that lincoln was the kind of human being who tried desperately to see the good in everybody. Rather than the bad in everybody. I do not think that lincoln drew any kind of broad brush, you know, paintings in which everybody was monolithically examined. So when he did encounter somebody like the gentleman i mentioned during my talk, joseph, he was receptive and extremely curious. So the answer to your question, at least i think, is that whatever he encountered sort of bond in him curiosity spawned in him curiosity, not bigotry or discrimination, he was very curious about people of foreign nations. If anybody else want to add to that . Anybody else want to comment on that . He made an important comment during the Lincoln Douglas debates, in one of the speeches, but not the debate. Where he talked about americans and immigrants. He said, at least half of our population are from some place else. They are from scandinavia, from france, from germany and so on. If you show them the law books of the states, then that is just somebody elses law books. But he said when they read in the declaration of independence that all men are created equal, then there is that in them which resonates with that. And that is the moment in which they feel that they are flesh of the flesh and bone of the bone of those old men who wrote the declaration. Yes, the elector court. This is the sort of thing that lincoln saw. He saw the american experiment as embodying something that was more than just american. It was universal. That the values captured in the decoration of independence about natural rights and natural law being shared equally by all human beings. These were things for him that trumped immediate nationality. He will go so far to say in his eulogy for henry clay, that clay loved his country partly because it was his country, but also because his country had shown how freemen could be prosperous. So lincoln is a nationalist, but not a romantic nationalist as a so much of the 19th century was. He did not believe there was a mystical elements of race or blood or linguist or ethnicity that governed peoples behavior, rather what motivated everybody was the position of his natural rights. And the american experiment, by founding all of his political life on the equality of natural rights, had done something which was not just american but was natural to all human beings. So in that respect, he is a nationalist who loves his country, but he is also somebody that believes that there are foundational characteristics of human nature, which is the american experiment in particular has captured. Thank you. I have one thing to add to that. Go ahead. I cannot resist saying the speech that alan quotes is a terrific statement. And i believe it isnt, i believe it is sincere in respect his views. It is the first speech in the Lincoln Douglas debates, where they are on the same platform, they have not started the rigler series of debates yet. In the regular series of debates yet. But he got hammered on that speech over and over again and he did not say anything like that again. As much as we would wish, why dont you give him that speech about the court, but he did not think it would be productive as a politician. He was a politician. So he took his lumps and tried to live with it. But douglas [laughter] you are taking too much time. Ok. The commentary you made about lincolns view of the United States being a great experiment and natural law as a beacon to the world, it sounded like Ronald Reagans<