History tv was at the annual meeting in denver colorado. Professors,h authors, and graduate students about their research. This interview is about 20 minutes. He is best known for his liesatively titled book, my teacher told me. Lies across america. War knowof the civil him for his collection of primary source documents. In 1971s first book is derived from his harvard dissertation. Mississippi, conflict and change was the subject of a Court Decision articulating the right to read. He taught Race Relations at the university of vermont and previously in mississippi. He has recently been a professor of sociology at Catholic University in washington. Today, every monument tells a tale of three eras, implications. James and gentlemen, dr. W. Loewen. I am delighted to be here. Involved i have been with three of these controversies. I wrote a piece in the called fiveost myths about why the south seceded. That came out after secession. Marylandpeople in questioning the Confederate Monument next to the courthouse. I got involved in the commission that they wound up. We did not deserve that, either. Then i got involved in discussionsongoing about their Confederate Monuments. I have been involved with the issue of Calhoun College at yale university. Baltimore has kind of been resolved. Start with the caucasian. Speaker ended with a quote from abraham lincoln. My quotation is from the historian named Stuart Townes named enduring legacy. 20th century white southerners learned how to think about race, the north, the civil war, and reconstruction, and about themselves from the rhetoric of a lost cause. He is right. In fact, i think he understates it. Monuments became the continuation of war by other means. Nevermind. That is my name and if you want to email me because you are upset, that is my email address. Is most i wrote relevant here. To to aing to subject quiz i have given to probably 10,000 people across the United States since 2010. That is, the question, why did the south secede . The waters got muddied this morning we have let the cat out of the bag already. Im not going to have you vote. It would break my heart if you voted wrong. There is actually a wrong on this. Not everything is a matter of competing perspectives. This is evidence. I have asked this and College Cleveland and south florida. I haveerent places where spoken and you always get the following alternatives. The south seceded for slavery, andes rights, lincoln, taxes. Nd then we vote christine mentioned the survey on this. My resources go back little further and are worse in fact. Thats the results we get nationwide. Many of those people. Are teachers k12 teachers. What is so bad about it is the south flatly did not secede for states rights. This is just not a matter open for debate. Most of you know that some i will not be that dead horse. I will quote two short things from the confederate and neoconfederate reader, but every document and here about secession. There are six chapters. Every document about secession says the same thing, for almost the same thing. This is from the first state to secede, South Carolina, which a Christmas Eve of december 24, 1860, is seceded by convention. It said that he gives a bizarre two or three page history of the United States of these of the constitution. This is not easy. You can see how it is done by referring to it. Then they get to why we are seceding. We assert that 14 of the states have deliberately refused for years past to fulfill their constitutional obligations. We refer to their own statutes for the truth proof. This is vague but they go on to tell us what they mean. The constitution of the United States and its fourth article provides as follows, no person shall labor in one state, escaping into another shell in consequence of any law or regulation be discharged from such service or labor. They shall be delivered up to the party for the labor may be due. You all know this, the fugitive slave clause. Then they go on to denounce the states rights being asserted by northern states. They list 17 of them. The states they end with wisconsin and iowa have a negative laws which will nullify the acts of congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many states the fugitive is discharged it is back to the s word, slavery. They definitely have a position about states rights. They are against them. They are against other states rights. They are of seven new york because new york has come out against the we might call temporary slavery. Lets say you were a rich plantation couple from charleston. You do want to spent august the charleston. I did that once and i understand that you give it that view. [laughter] you dont want to cook your own meals in manhattan so you want to bring their cook along. New york is now saying we are trying to run a free state. If you bring your enslaved cook into new york, she goes free. They are outraged about this. They are outraged in hampshire, along with four other states, let africanamericans vote. Who votes in america is a states right. Until the passage of the 15th amendment during reconstruction, that is too whole eras after what we are talking about. Were talking about 1860. Who votes in North Carolina . For a while there that blacks vote, but who votes in North Carolina is none of south your latest business. But they make it their business. The infamous dread scott, which decision do they cite . That was an incredible slip of my tongue. Some of the decisions from 1857. I dont hear you all saying it. Yeah, dredd scott. I was just teasing. They say you are letting the vote . These people have no rights. It has nothing to do with who votes in new hampshire. They are seceding. They are 65 average, dead wrong. Slavery is the right answer. Nothing wrong with saying the election of lincoln. They certainly mention lakin. They call him they certainly mention lincoln. They call in the black republican. He was actually a white republican. They say they are against him because he is the spearhead of this new party against the s word. It all comes back. Nothing about tariffs and taxes. We were operating under an extremely low tariff. It had been an issue in 1830. This was 1860. It is something to think about. How come those people, including most teachers of k12, are teaching it wrong as we speak . Not quite as we speak. The numbers have slightly gotten somewhat better in the last year and a half. Just in the last year and a half or two years. Now its about 8045 saying slavery, and maybe 40 saying states rights. That is considerable improvement. It is still terrible 40 say states rights and 10 , sometimes 20 say tariffs and taxes. Its still an improvement. One of the reasons they are saying this is because our public history says it. And by public history i mean our monuments and Historical Markers and museums and things like that. I think that is part of the reason why we are here. So, the statement by historian towns is too weak. He said 20 century white southerners learned much that we should say miss learned much mislearned, but he couldve said 20 century americans. North dakota, for example. The overwhelmingly black Teaching Staff of memphis. You dont have to be white to be stupid about the past. It helps. In fact, i have to give you two examples above the public i should not take for granted and i kind of didnt, that you knew better than the states right thing but i hope you knew better thats what i did really rebut it. Let me review just a sentence or two from a virginia source. After the first seven states seceded there was a gap. During that time they, the first seven, sent ambassadors to all the rest of the slave states. Im not sure they went to delaware. The ambassador to virginia, none other than whats his name . Banning. Henry benning. He appeared before the legislature in virginia and painted a lurid, amazing picture of what will happen if you dont secede and what will happen is eventually black folks will take over the deep south and i will give you one or two sentences. The white race having been exterminated that is if you do not secede the land mobility exclusive possession of the black and will in consequence rapidly pass into the condition of santo domingo, haiti, and will become a howling wilderness. I will read it all i will not read it all. He is making this pitch to get you to secede. Eventually they did. The rest is history. Well, a couple of jokes shall we say. These are unfortunately real comments. I collect them from the National Park service whenever i go to a National Park service site. I ask what is the stupidest question to get asked over and over . They love me to ask that question. They always have stuff. All from gettysburg down to louisiana has civil war sites, the one they tell me is, isnt it amazing how they fought all these civil war battles in parks . Calm down. You can all use that for free. You cant make this stuff up. I told it to my tour guide when i toured before him in rome. She said we get the same questions from americans. Isnt it amazing how they all these ruins next in metro stations . [laughter] but the followup comes from gettysburg. I will have to im sorry for half of you. A woman tourist says, how can they fight a battle here with all the statues . All right. It is impossible to underestimate the stupidity of the american people, especially when it comes to history. Well, how could this happen . This being 65 saying that. We have to look at when it started to happen. This is called the historiography. Decided between 1890 and 1940. The name for that period is the nadir. The nadir of Race Relations. Its a word meaning, low point. She mentioned jim crow. That is part of it but its much more than that. It is the period when native americans in every americans to their lowest point in some ways. Im not saying it was better to the africanamerican in 1855. Either survey not saying that. I and saying things got worse and worse after 1890. They did not really begin to not get worse until about 1940. Im also here to say the United States, meeting the rest of us other than black folks and native americans, got more and more racist, more racist than at any other time in our past. We see this in various ways. I will let you read the rest of it, except to say during this period around 1890 the south won by softening the confederate white south, nonblack folks. I dont mean anticonfederates, from richmond had quite a few and many other Southern States did too. I shouldnt only say confederate because most are dying off. I will say the neoconfederates won the civil war. Im aware in ended in 1865, but they won it in 1890. In several ways. One was they get to rename it. Between 1890 in 1940 mccain the war between the states. Not one person told them that while it was going on. It was either the civil war, duh, or the war of the rebellion, for the great rebellion. Against the rebels hence the rebels. Another with a one it was they got to won it was makeup what it was about. This is when they said, the new confederates, it was about states rights. Which you already saw in document after document. It was not about states rights. It was against states rights, certainly not for states rights. In 1890 they got to assert or Research White supremacy. Three things happened at the end of 1890 that caused us to name it the nadir. First of all, what used to be called the battle of wounded knee, but now is the massacre of wounded knee in south dakota were native people go to their nadir first sure. They lose the last shards of independence. Second, the state of mississippi passes its new constitution. There was nothing wrong with the 1868 constitution, except that let blacks be citizens. They were explicit. They were going to remove that error in 1890 and they did. You probably know and you can ask me that i have to rush along. The third thing that happened before 1890 let me say this about the second thing. The 1890 constitution was in complete defiance of the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. United states did nothing about it. Seeing this, every other state as far as oklahoma followed suit by 1907. Third, 20 in the 1890, the senate refused to pass more or less by one vote the Voting Rights act of 1890 that had been passed by the house. It would have been signed into law by republican president benjamin, but it failed. After it failed im going to have to use the nword, hopefully just once, but i shall in a minute. After it failed, democrats do what they usually did. Democrats remained Perfect Party unity. Every democrat in congress voted against every civil rights measure. You cannot imagine the kind of unanimity among democrats today, can you . After they succeeded in defeating it, they did what they usually do they try to tar the republican party. They said you people are nothing but a bunch of nigger lovers. Republicans in the past have said, you are darn right. Somebody has to stand up for black folks in the south, but they rated new reply, which was, no, we arent. At that point, African Americans become without a little go allies and within a few years get dispossessed of citizenship in virginia and every other state that seceded and some that did not. During this era after 1890, northerners just did not have the guts, shall we say, or the energy to dispute the southern claim that they had seceded for states rights. Lets just let it go but then tell the story. They would not say to themselves that, but thats how it went. My title, as you mentioned i dont know if its my title, every Historic Site is a tale of at least two areas, maybe three. A tale of what it is about, when it went up, and today. I teach this by using i think you to read every single state Historical Marker in the United States. I was defeated by the state of texas. Texas, it turns out, has more than 3000 i mean, excuse me, more than 13,000 state Historical Markers. Almost as many as the rest of the country put together. I pointed this out to the woman in charge of markers in austin, and her reply was, well, yes. [laughter] weve had more history. What do you expect . By the way, virginia comes in second, and i think you have had more history than texas. This is a piece of slate carved into the state of idaho, which is no easy task. If you read it, here is what it says dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in a most horrible indian massacre 1861. Why do i use this slide to illustrate my point . Because it turns out in 1861, 300 immigrants in their little wagon train were not killed in Southern Idaho. 30 were not. Three were not. It never happened at all. And its not easy to prove a negative. I only can say that with such confidence. A fine historian who died recently spent 10 years of his life proving that this could not possibly have happened, and he nailed it. I submit that this has nothing to teach us whatsoever about 1861 because not that much happened in Southern Idaho in 1861. What does it teach us about 1938 . It teaches us that a bunch of white folks in idaho will believe any damn thing about savage indians with no justification whatsoever. It needs to be in an Idaho State Historical Museum of the signs saying artifact of 1938 and tell us some things about what it teaches us about 1938. Almost no museum anywhere in the United States features anything about it or a little thing called jim crow. The Idaho State Historical Society does not want to take it. They do wanted to be taken down, but they will not take it down because its the biggest thing that ever happened there even though it never happened. You can see they got it decorated for christmas. Read this slide. I dont know if you can read the bottom. By the way, i taught with these pictures to kids as young as fifth grade, and they can handle them fine. They have to be taught that this man is not the boys uncle. Uncle was a term of quasirespect we used ruminator during the nader nadir of more senior, older black people. We still use them today on aunt jemima, uncle bens rice. The cream of wheat people believed this would make most americans feel warm and friendly inside and make them want to go buy their product. Another thing that happened during the nadir was lynchings went to their alltime high. Usually, a subject you to a picture of that now. One of my books which is not for sale here, but thankfully, the others are and by the way, they are at a slight discount. Im really happy to see that because i dont want you to pay full price, and i will sign any book i wrote. Thats my policy. Sundown towns are towns that are all white on purpose. They are massively common across the north. Even today many are still sundown. They are very uncommon in the south. You did have colonial whites excuse me, colonial heights. That is the nickname. You did have 2. 5, maybe three whole counties way west in virginia that were sundown counties. They are common in appalachia and go into the northern part of alabama. This was a recent issue in alexandria just like so many counties in the United States, not just the south having issues these days about confederate names and monuments and buildings and so on. This is a monument before the nadir. I would say that is pensive, wouldnt you . Like most of the early monuments, it is colored on three sides with the names of the dead. It is a very different frame of mind and a very different spirit. That is a nadir monument. Theres a word for that called hieratic scale. That in our history word. Of course, the nadir did not set in crisply on january 1, 1890. Most Confederate Monuments go up during the nadir, and the twin 1890 and 1940. When you eliminate those monuments at cemeteries, almost all Confederate Monuments go up the twin 1890 and in places of power like this one. Monument row, monument avenue is not exactly a place of power, but it is an impressive, important avenue. Many of them go up at state capitals, county courthouses like the one in rockville, maryland, and so on. Earlier monuments have mostly gone up at cemeteries, so these new monuments are saying something quite different in line with the statements being made about the civil war. We were right, and we have the power to say so. In the last 10 years well, 16 years richmond has taken some heroic steps to deal with this public history, which is confederate. I kept track of richmond. In my book that i mentioned lies across america, richmond gets more entries than any other city. Virginia gets more interest than any other state. Before you say, gee, we must be great, remember it is called lies across america. Im working on a third book about how we remember america called surprise across the land unexpected places that get history right. Ive met folks in richmond who do not even know some of the places youve got. I keep track of richmond. Its amazing how the city has changed and mostly for the better. You now recognize lincolns walk. You know what im talking about . See the ones who nodded . Ask them. You have this Lincoln Statue about which christy spoke. I know how that came to be and it is kind of a capitalist invention, but its accurate. You have the slave walk. All kinds of things done by this group hope in the cities. You have this guy ralph white. He was working for the Park Department and put up surreptitiously markers about accurate history along the riverside and many of them have now become more official. You have this one. I was talking to people yesterday and they did not know about it. Reconciliation, which is about the triangle trade. There are a few places in america talk about the slave trade because the slave trade is even less palatable than slavery. This ties in with two other monuments, one in africa and one in the united kingdom. You have our thrash arthur ashe. You have this. Theres a whole story i do not have time to get into it, but you guys uncovered it and did a good job with it and then put more dirt on it. You have the amazing civil Rights School desegregation monument at the city capital, and various other things. I am impressed. At the same time yeah, lets read that. Despite heroic steps towards change, which i just delineated richmonds public history has only gone a little bit of the way of where you need to go. I submit that if we can divorce ourselves from this time, put ourselves 10 years or four years hence, you keep mentioning when the social definition of race is less important to us, hopefully, we will see how little of the distance we have come by 2017 and how much farther we have to go, so unlike urban, im going to tell you what to do. However, i recognize fully that i dont even live in this state. Im going to tell you what to do, and im going to leave. You are going to listen to me hopefully and then do what you want to do. Im just going to give you some suggestions, some ideas, and you make of them what you will. I submit that every one of your civil war monuments is a creation of the nadir period, and it has more to tell us about when it went up than it has to tell us about what it is about. You folks have to make clear that these monuments tell, first and foremost, about the era in which they went up. That is the story that they had to tell us. You catch what im saying . How can you do that . Well, until you do that, i want to suggest that they will basically connote what confederates know they connote, namely, these are valuable people. Re we revere the heck out of them. How do we get past that . Heres a couple of ideas. I will just give them to you. You have Jefferson Davis highway. It starts at the Potomac River do you know it winds its way through various parts of virginia and finally all the went to mississippi and then goes off, for no known reason, to los angeles and goes up to the Canadian Border north of seattle . Im not sure what Jefferson Davis did in Northern Washington state, but thats where it goes. It is time to on unname it. Number one, says he was great and number two, its as we honor him. He was great. Nobody can be head of insurgent government and put it together, too, and not be great. Lots of people can be great. Youll have to make any of the odious comparisons you do not have to make the odious comparisons that come to mind. The second part is we honor him. We dont honor him from being a good secretary of state or a really good senator. We honor him because he led the confederacy and left the United States because of slavery. That is a problem. So you have to un name it and put a marker up explaining that it used to be the Jefferson Davis highway and why it was named, when it was named, who named it as part of the nadir, and why we renamed it. Because we are no longer racist, or at least not as a primary descriptor of our political activity. Admittedly, that part is only told when you stop and read the marker, but its better than what it is now when theres nothing but the name. I think you need to get lincoln on the landscape so you can follow it without just doing on special occasions. We are now in the sesquicentennial of reconstruction. That is a fascinating era that is so misunderstood still an almost invisible on the landscape. Richmond could take such a terrific lead. Theres not one place in richmond that was a slavery place that is not also a reconstruction place, right . By definition. This markers you can put at the capitol, at city hall, and on all types of other places. A good marker for William Mahone how many of you know who he was . More than average, but fewer than half of you. This market doesnt say nothing except about what he did in the civil war this marker. It does say he was a United States senator afterward, but thats all it does. He made a remarkable transition. He became the leader of the readjusted party, which was a black white coalition, which had some sensitivity to the idea of black folks being citizens, and he is therefore a person with whom whom white youngsters need to know about. And for that matter, black youngsters need to know about, too. Theres the guy who came in second in your election for mayor in 1864, i think i know im within one year. He was a peace candidate and would have tried to take richmond out of the civil war. Do you know about him . He needs a good Historical Marker, ok . Now, monument avenue. We have to get to monument avenue. Monument avenue as it is is going to stick in richmonds throat like a fishbone from here on. It will never be a unifying place for richmond again, and theres a sense in which it never really was except that the people who were not unified by it were not citizens. What could you do about it . You could move them all to a nadir park. That would be interesting. I think you guys need to get better bids. 700,000 dollars . I cannot believe we cannot get it done for 95,000 . Anyway, if it cost what . [inaudible] mr. Loewen well, the legal fees could bring it up. Im getting heckled in the front row, in a positive way. This is probably a 4 billion enterprise, but still. Put them all in the nadir park. Nobody else has a nadir park. [laughter] mr. Loewen think of the tours money. Im not even kidding on that last point. 4, if you cannot do that or are unwilling to do that, how about desegregating sexually. Heres where you can put them. You can put them wherever you want them, but theres a little place on monument avenue that has a cross street coming in i think its mulberry and she could be there, the two of them looking at each other. You dont have to make another one of those circles. That costs money to make a traffic circle. Just have them kind of speaking toward each other across the street. Blow peoples minds, you know . Explain what was going on. Here is an idea for Jefferson Davis. A friend of mine who is slightly better at photoshop than i am but not very you already have this kind of bar going across. How about put real sculptures representing some of the hundreds of slaves that he owned . Or you come up with your own idea about that. After all, you did do that one, and that was hard to get done. I know there is criticism to be made of it, but it also had some very interesting and positive effects, one of which was on the udc, united daughters of the confederacy. After this statue went up for this monument, the united daughters of the confederacy had on Jefferson Davis birthday always put a wreath at this. After this went up, even though it is not anywhere near this this is in the way and probably a mile of the avenue. After this went up, they dont do it anymore. They now put the reef at hollywood cemetery, the tombstone of Jefferson Davis. Very interesting. They decreed that monument row is no longer their space, and this is just for this one statue at the end of it. Somewhere in town, you need to have some impressive recognition of the United States colored troops, who, indeed, liberated richmond, and i make that statement absolutely deliberate. Theres no doubt that a majority of the People Living in richmond wanted to be liberated when they came in, and quite possibly, a majority certainly a large minority of the white population at that point wanted to be liberated. Almost nowhere in richmond for the entire south is there any notation on the landscape that there was a massive and increasing Peace Movement during the confederacy. There was a Peace Movement contingent to the bread riot, and i dont know if the bread riot is memorialized in this city. Is it . Ok, good. Tell me about that afterward. Lets see what else i wanted to say. I think i have one more slide to show you. I was going to try to get you to sing this, but im not. This is my favorite verse of the civil rights anthem we shall overcome. I think its true. That is to say, i think if you look carefully at history, you find, for example, no evidence whatsoever for black inferiority. You actually find, for instance, that reconstruction was not a period of intense corruption and disaster and violence by the black population. You actually find a lot of violence by the way by some of the white population. I think accurate history is, in fact, useful to us all as we try to achieve justice in the present. I think there is a reciprocal relationship between truth about the past and justice in the present, reciprocal in the following way, for instance. From my book lies my teacher told me, i read first 12 and now 18 High School History textbooks in u. S. History. I am the only american ever to have attempted this feat. It was a neardeath experience. It took years of psychotherapy, but i see a change in them and how we treated, for example, japaneseamericans during world war ii. This was a woman fact in 1942. We knew what we were doing. It was in all the textbooks. In the history textbooks of the late 1940s, the late 1950s, even the 1960s. One tiny little paragraph about it, often agreeing with the policies. In the history textbooks of the 1990s and 2000s, considerable treatment. Often a photo. In one case, a twopage spread, and they do not let us off the hook. Right on the cusp of the reagan and george w. Bush administrations, we apologize, did we not . And we paid reparations of 20,000 to each survivor. In that sense, we made it right. We didnt make it right exactly, but we did what we could. It therefore becomes an american success story. Similarly, if you will, we now have fairly good treatment of slavery in several American History textbooks, because we did end it, you know . Yes, theres arguments that it continues today, and i will honor that argument, but we did literally end it, so it becomes an american success story, so i think justice in the present helps us be better able to see truth in the past, and i think that truth about the past can help bring about greater justice in the present. I think what you folks doing richmond in that regard could the a guide and a lamp for the entire nation. Thank you for your attention. [applause] mr. Loewen i am allowed to take to the questions, one of which has already got his hand up, and not more because were going to take a brief break. Stupidest white person in the room, which you said we are all in some sense, i find the explanation of secession due to slavery extremely simplistic. I do not find it in any other war over 1, 2, the coming world war iii if we have one. A lot of people go back to the documents and say every state in the south, it was slavery, slavery, slavery, slavery. If i go through the divorce papers of everybody in this room, i that all or 95 percent, incompatibility. Its not one explanation. It cannot be one explanation, and i dont think you gave enough choices of their. Please respond. I actually said slavery was the cause of secession, not of the civil war. I did not mean to imply and i hope i did not imply, and i certainly dont imply that the United States went to war to end slavery. The United States went to war to hold the country together. As many of you know, it took some time and some actions on the ground, including actions by africanamericans, to make ending slavery a war aim of the United States, which, of course, it became formally only with the preliminary announcement of the emancipation proclamation in the early fall of 1862, and thats quite a bit after then, so im not trying to claim that the United States went to war with the high ground of ending slavery. Not at all. In terms of why Southern States seceded, if you do not agree that it is slavery, then you have to answer the next question, which is why did every southern leader who proposed secession lie about why . Because they all say, we are doing this about slavery. There is a broader sense in which i agree with you. One is white supremacy. That is slavery is a tool in support of white supremacy. This is why a common neoconfederate dodge, if you will, is to assert lots of confederate soldiers did not have any slaves. That is certainly true. Incidentally, when i say the self went to war for slavery, that does not mean individual soldiers went to war for slavery. They went to war because their sweetheart would probably want them to or because their best friend did or all kinds of reasons. I have a cousin who wound up in vietnam because he wanted to learn how to fly an airplane. Thats why he went to war. Im not talking about that. So maybe i have answered it. Because otherwise, you have to have an assertion why would they lie . I have never seen anyone attempt that explanation. I certainly have never seen a convincing win. At the very least, if the leadership of, lets say, Jefferson Davis or of South Carolina or mississippi mississippi, you have the most famous statement of them all. Something like our cause is thoroughly identified with because of slavery, blah blah blah. It could not be clearer. If that is not the cause or if theres Something Else that is at least equal, why would they not mention it . Maybe because it would not be convincing to the general people, who would be the audience for these statements. When conventions make a statement about why were seceding, they are first trying to convince South Carolina or mississippi or texas, and second, they are talking to the citizens of virginia. This is what you are to join us and so on. Theres a general in the north who wrote his autobiography, and its a terrible book never read it but it is interesting and i once bought it and read it. He argued that it was simply to have their on country, to be in charge. No doubt in a sense. Nobody is ever going to say we are seceding so i can be in charge, having lost the election or whatever. Some people say they were seceding in order to have a states right to secede. You may have noticed that was circular, and thats why they did not make that argument. I would not argue against johnny logans argument, but the only thing i see people actually arguing is slavery, including the expansion of slavery into the territories, and with that matter, the eventual expansion of slavery south by maybe mexico and cuba. That would be my answer at least. We will put it into the panel. Thank you for your attention. [applause] mr. [applause] announcer visit our website, view ourg history to schedule and watch museum tours, and more. American history tv, and cspan. Org history. Announcer sunday night, ken buck of colorado, a member of the freedom caucus, discusses his book drain the swamp. When you arrive in you have the surroundings i described, you get very comfortable in that situation. The way to continue to earn the comforts is to spend more money and grow government and not solve problems but create programs and take credit for those programs. So, many of them members of congress are here. It is the highest paying job they have ever had and it is a job that they do not want to give up. Their reelection is more important than the actual problem solving. Announcer sunday night at 9 00 eastern on book tv. Announcer tonight, Gettysburg College professor teaches a class on abraham lincoln. Preview. Away, lincoln is critiquing a problem. Is that it cultivates indifference toward something that is a monstrous injustice. Hate it because it deprives our republican example of influence in the world. ,he United States is a republic an island of republican practice in a sea of dictatorships. What kind of an example are we setting . If we tolerate slavery . Or encourage its growth. What are we saying about the ,dea of republican government in which the people are sovereign . Doesnt that suggest that republicanism is a fraud . How can you talk about the sovereignty of the people and . Ay, they can never participate announcer watch the entire program tonight on lectures in history, American History tv. Announcer check out our classroom website. Resources of teaching for classroom members. Easyayout gives teachers access to the classroom resources including current is in videos. Constitution clips bring the constitution to life, social studies lesson plans and other resources. The search function allows teachers to search and filter by date, person, topic, and grade level. I love the bell ringers. I will use them in conjunction with whatever activity we are doing that day. The new website is something that is fabulous. Y students use it regularly right now, they are making questions that they can design intern into their own bell ringers. My favorite aspect is the deliberation page. It is the perfect classroom discussion on a variety of topics that are relevant today. Announcer join thousands of your fellow teachers across the nation as a member of cspan classrooms, and cspan. Org classrom. You can request our timeline poster, a graphic display of the biographies of all 45 president s. Find out more at cspan. Org classroom. Announcer next, author and historian gregory nobles looks at the influence of john james audubon, the 19th century ornithologist and painter. He talks about how he often collaborated with and encouraged ordinary people to study birds in Natural History and pioneer what is known as citizen hourlong talk took place in worcester, massachusetts. [applause] gregory nobles thank you, jim, and thank you to all of you coming out. This is wonderful. Special thanks to jim moran and Shelley Rodman and also set scary who cannot be here tonight, for working together so i could speak. These organizations that i admire so much, the american aquarian society and mass audubon. We have been working at a variety of times maybe 30 years,