So it seems to be couched in the erms t terms of Voting Rights and it is about reconstruction. I think you all know that and get it, because what undermines the whole progressive effort for reconstruction is the lack of Voting Rights for those freed men and women. So were going to expand this beyond voting, but we just couldnt get there as a nation with the 13th amendment, final freedom, with the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It didnt give Voting Rights to the africanamericans, and neither did the 14th amendment with its equal protection and due process. It took the 15th amendment, and of course that didnt work either because of every effort by some to deny africanamericans this great franchise of voting. Why do you think people come to this country . One of the things is the ability to choose their own representatives. So we have a great panel. I dont say that every time that we have a panel, but we have we have a great one today. Joan wah, who is vice chair of academic personnel and a professor of history at ucla. But what so impresses me is the groundbreaking work she did with her u. S. Grant, american hero, american myth. As i have told her more than once, it has done so much to the restore the reputation of a real hero, ulysses s. Grant. Next is douglas edgarton, professor of history at la, in oyne college in syracuse. He doesnt know it although i tried to allude when i speak to him he has been a mentor to me in understanding reconstruction with the legal, political and cultural implications, and he did that through his wonderful book, the wars of reconstruction, the brief, violent history of americas most progressive era. His newest book is terrific, too. Thunder at the gates, the black civil war regiments that redeemed america. Finally, edna green medford, our executive board member of the lincoln forum, speaker here. Chairman of the department and professor of history at Howard University, coauthor with me and Harold Holtzer on Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation proclamation, three views. And her own volume, lincoln and emancipation, part of the presser lincoln series. So before i ask each of them to make a few introductory remarks, i have asked each and they have agreed to pe fspeak for three t five minutes and then i will give them some questions and then we will open the floor to you. We hope there are many questions from you. But for many americans, reconstruction is still remembered, if it is remembered at all, as a period of racial anarchy, political failure and the humiliation of the defeated south. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that americans impressions of the era have been shaped, if only half consciously, by films such as birth of a nation and gone with the wind where their charact caricatures of scalliwags and carpet baggers, more than by what happened in the south in 1865 and 1876 and the years that followed. It is an inspiring and shocking story that rereels the nation at its best and worst when newly freed slaves and idealists both black and white struggled heroically against white terrorism to preserve the rights that union armies had won on the battlefield and that republican members of congress affirmed in the years after the war. But, you know, i think we have to see reconstruction too not as bad policy further doomed by corruption and incompetence, but as a profoundly forwardlooking program that was subverted by organized violence, domestic terrorism. The central question about reconstruction is usually why did it fail as opposed to end it, which hints that the process itself was somehow flawed and contributed to its own passing. So a question, the first question for me to professor joan wau is did reconstruction fail . Good morning, everybody. First of all, im going to pander to the audience for one second or two seconds and tell you how much i have enjoyed attending my first lincoln forum, both as a presenter and as a member of the audience and getting to meet you. Youre terrific. [ applause ] i will say that reconstruction gets an f grade now that were all professors, and it always has in terms of the history books. First, it was awarded an f grade by the lost cause historians. Then it was awarded an f grade by the 1950s and 1960s historians, and it is still being awarded an f grade for different reasons, and i think thats something that we should talk about. I always tell my students, and i know this is a pat answer but i think we can flesh it out, that reconstruction is a qualified success and a qualified failure. What do i mean by that . I mean that it was a qualified failure if that it didnt live up to the promise of equality that many africanamericans expected at the and of the war and many white ab olitionists. It was a qualified success, and i may be outside of the consensus of reconstruction is that the People Living at the time and i say the majority of the northerners who voted on reconstruction issues that the premiere the premiere concern was would the union Stay Together after this terrible war. The union stayed together, the United States persisted. They considered that a great, magnificent achievement. So we have to understand even if we dont agree that it was, we have to understand that that was an overwhelming consensus confirmed in the elections of 1868, 1872 and 1876. Ill leave you with that for now, but also i want to tell you my favorite quote from about that. It was originally not applied to reconstruction, but i have applied it to reconstruction, and that is by the novelist and social critic william dean howell who said what the American Public always wants is a tranl dgedy with a happy endi. And that is what appomattox provides for generations to come, and that is what we are discontented about in reconstruction. Yes. Thank you very much. [ applause ]. It also raises the question, i think it begs the question on really did the civil war end at appomattox. And i think if you read the good work of professor Michael Vorenberg who wrote the great book on the 13th amendment, final freedom, he has an opinion that, of course, as we all do that appomattox really didnt end our civil war. So for professor doug edgerton, we talk about Voting Rights being denied africanamericans and people of color. What about any effect on Voting Rights in the north, for example . Let me start out by echoing yoen to say how nice it is to be here. It doesnt happen to me very often, dinner with president lincoln. It was nice. My friend catherine warned help to speak slowly, which is not one of my skills, especially when given three minutes to answer a long question. Im probably going to talk fast. Let me put it this way. In my book i tried to write about black activists, north, south, east, west, and of course you have conservative democrats like Andrew Johnson who dont want to use the term reconstruction. They prefer to use the term rest tore ig to restoration, who imply the war is over, all is forgiven. They say reconstruction is a policy for the defeated confederacy many when you ask Frederick Douglass, he says it is a national policy. He once said it is a war for national reclamation. He wants an abolition war and peace. Bear in mind as we all know, lincoln in his last peach, had gone to richmond and came back and gave that speech in which he said that Voting Rights were something to be earned and the 179,000 black men in blue uniform earned that right. The more intelligent negroes earned that right. Lincolns modern critics are not impressed. There are four million freed americans at that moment, half of whom are men, so 200,000 is a small drop in the bucket. But lets put it in larger context. When lincoln says those words really on the eve of his assassination, black men can vote on the equal basis with white men only in five new england states, and new york where i lived, a qualification imposed on blacks going back to 1821 is not imposed on whites. Frederick douglass who owned a house and business in rochester can vote. His son Sergeant Major lewis douglas, badly wounded at fort wagner, cant. Worse in lincolns illinois, and in ohio, no blacks can rote in indiana. Of the 179,000 black men who served, 38,000 were born free in the north. Probably all of you have seen the film gloria because everything wrong you could possibly get wrong in a movie, and of course it gives the impression all of these soldiers in the 54th are run away slaves from the south. The largest contingent, tate contingent in the 54th is from here in pennsylvania. New york is number two, ohio is number three. These men are serving, fighting and dying and living in states that do not allow them to vote. So when it comes down to whether it is a successor a failier, if you are a black soldier who comes back to ohio and the 16th amendment is ratified, you never lose that right to rote. It is one of the things that reconstruction gets right, is in franchising black men across the north. Thank you very much. [ applause ] and professor edna green medford from freed blacks point of view, what was their reaction to what was going on after appomattox . Was there anything positive about what was dreamed about or anticipated in the efforts for reconstruction or restoration . I would like to first echo the sentiment i never remember to do that. I usually can carry my voice. I want to echo the sentiments of my fellow panelists regarding the special place that this is and the special audience that you are. In the 21 years of this organization i have been here for 19, and i always return because this is such a special place. [ applause ] at the end of the war, africanamericans expected full citizenship, and what that meant was not just Voting Rights or polite will cal voice but it also meant all of the rights that other americans had shared for all of the years that the nation had existed. And so they expected to be able to control their own destiny. They expected economic independence. They wanted an education. They simply wanted to be allowed to exercise their american birthright. We all agree that reconstruction was tragic. It was tragic not because not necessarily because no one had a plan for the freed people. There was a plan that was developed eventually, but it was because the kinds of accomplishments that occurred during this period were not sustained. And so, you know, it is easy to say that everything went wrong but everything didnt go wrong. Actually, there were many accomplishments during this period. One of the most important, of course, was after people got their freedom they were able to at least attempt to reconstitute their families. There were so many people who had been separated during slavery. So one of the first things they were attempting to do is to find loved ones. They werent always successful at that, in many instances they were not successful at that, but they were at least trying to do that. Men could now at least have the expectation of taking care of their families, of protecting their families, an expectation that was not always realized because of violence and all of the other things that happened of a negative sort during this period. But the expectation was there. There were some people who did get economic independence and they were able to do it by becoming subsist ent farmers. They didnt want to enter the commercial market because it would make them beholden to white men, and so they were able to acquire a small piece of land. Soldiers, for instance, had bounties. They used those funds and they pooled their resources with other africanamericans and were able to purchase land. Thats not the case for most africanamericans but it is true for a few of them, depending upon what part of the country they lived in. Education was extremely important and possible for them at this time. As a consequence of a great deal of effort by the freedmens bureau, by the American Missionary Association and other organizations, and largely by the freed people themselves, schools were established. Not just elementary and secondary schools, but schools of Higher Learning as well. Now, we know that some of those early schools that called themselves colleges were really not. They were normal schools to train teachers, but that was extremely important. And at least one of them, Howard University i have to give that plug, i do want to go back to work on monday. Howard actually was established as a university. So it didnt have just a normal school, but it also had had a divinity school, a law school, a medical School Almost from the very beginning. So the important thing about that is people realized that there were some africanamericans who were ready to get that level of education. Most were not because they had been denied literacy while they were enslaved. But there were a few who had been free born and some enslaved people who had been able to get an education who were ready for this advance in education. Thank you very much. Does anyone wish to comment on any comments made by your fellow panelists . If not, well continue. Joan waugh, i think it is true that reconstruction dominated grants presidency. Unlike many, he knew it brought liberation, not occupation, and empowered or should have empowered africanamericans in states where they were a majority or a large minority. So can you comment on what role you see president grant in the whole issue of reconstruction and the progressive philosophy that it was intended to provide or give . Do i have three minutes for this . Yes, you do. Three minutes. Yes, i can comment. Richard currance, a historian maybe some of you are familiar with, said this about grant. He was commander in chief during the reconstruction phase of the continuing civil war. Although i have to say, i remind this audience and i would emphasize that it is important to important to know, to think, to put this in your pipe and smoke it, that after in the chaotic few months after appomattox, the confederate ral armies disbanded, the confederate ral stat Confederate States of america was gone and there was nothing to he replace it. The majority of enslaved pell were still not officially free, and in many states the owners tried to tell them that they werent free. This was a period it is really dramatic and fascinating, and the fate of africanamericans in the south, enslaved in the south and as well as southern whites remained in the hands of the politicians in washington d. C. And at the fate of elections. So this dynamic, this tennis game back and forth is fascinating, and to me it has always been has always been one of the most exciting periods in American History. As far as grant was concerned, last night and yesterday i heard a lot of people say, well, he, of course, including mr. Williams say that he was utterly unprepared for the presidency. What president is you know, the most prepared president im going on a a ranrant, i can it. I need to stop. The most prepared president in American History was james buchanan. Excellent job, james. How could you not be prepared if youre a Senior Commander in the union army, the Union General by the end who was identified as winning the war for the United States and tasked with not only fighting, developing strategy, but also dealing with politicians from washington, d. C. And policy from washington, d. C. That changed from one day to the other in your occupation of various territories . He dealt with with issues of emancipation. He knew it was not going to be easy and he was also commander in chief during reconstruction, overseeing military reconstruction. He brought to his presidency eight or nine months, the ad interim secretary of war in a comic opera situation where stanton was removed for his office. The reputation of grant as president has been deeply influenced by the lost cause historians who found him a dictator, a cesar, as he was called by the democrats of that day, and an utterly incompetent and stupid. And the view now, of course, since the 1960s is that he didnt do enough. But if we can can read the volumes of the u. S. Grant papers now presided over by the brilliant john marzalick and his crew in starksville, mississippi how great is that in you can find out that he was a serious president. He struggled, yes. No president who has been elected to the office doesnt feel that hes walked into to use a 20th century term, the helicopter propeller. You are just bloody. Youre in pieces. But you learn in your job, and i would argue that u. S. Grant did learn in his job, but he did have a hard task. The hard task facing the people who believed in bringing civil rights and Voting Rights to africanamericans in the south had to face the fact that beyond emancipation there was no agreement accepting africanamericans population and their supporters, was agreement on what can be done in terms of civil rights and civil rights and voting rates. At the same because one of the goals of reconstruction was to figure that out, but the premiere goal of reconstruction was to reunite the United States. How could you do that, incorporating i mean reunion, restoration, reconciliation, the three rs, had to deal with kbitkbi em bitter ed white southerners who were still the majority of the population and had the power. This was the difficult task grant had before him when he was elected president in 1868. I tried to enforce the 14th and especially the 15th amendments, and he passed laws before he was reelected to force acts that made the election of 1872, which used the federal government coming down in Southern States where the kkk was suppressing the vote, as we like to say, and putting the force of the federal government behind breaking up the kkk and allowing the freest and fairest election that could be imagined or possible in 1872, but it quickly broke down. But he he himself believed that africanamericans once given the suffrage you count take it away from them and you shouldnt. He kept to that belief and tried to put it into policy the rest of his presidency. It is such a complicated story. I have already gone over my three minutes. Thank you. Yes, you have. [ laughter ] and in my c