Leaving. I wrote it down wrong and my notes. Jeremy is has written a remarkable. I will endorse it up front. Thats all i need to say here. He graduated with his earned his ph. D. At yale a number of years ago, came to madison, taught here in the History Department for ten years. And then im sorry to say, he was lured away to the university of texas and the lbj school of Public Affairs in austin, texas. The he he has authored or edited 11 books in all this. So this is the 11th. Including more recent are shortly a short time book called the impossible. Liberty surest guardians and a book about henry kissinger. Hes a hes written for the new york times, the washington wall street journal and a number of. Hes often quoted or appears is offered an invitation to comment on various news programs and radio and television. And he hosts a podcast called is democracy. Each week. As i said at the beginning, this is an important book and a remarkable book. It makes the point that civil war did not end with the surrender of libya, that but was continued in a very real respect respects by other during the ensuing 20 years. He makes point that frames this is being part of a long and unfinished fight for democracy. Thats the subtitle of the book. And from what ive seen of the book, its an accurate framing. And finally, he makes the point the recurring problems around inclusion and exclusion with voting and the meaning of representation who may vote are recurring in our time as a continuous of the same kinds of issues. We focused in the period hes writing about and indeed had prior to that time as well. So with that, please welcome. Oh, good afternoon. Its such a joy be here. I see so many friends in the audience and so many people who i know will have difficult questions. I see you, jim kurtz. Im so happy to be here. I want to thank fred, who has been among many of you, a such a longtime friend. And i had the great joy of coming out to austin last spring. I often come out because our daughter, a sophomore here, and fred is part of this group called bull moose club. And we had a wonderful dinner at the madison club that was just terrific. And so thank you, fred, for being such a good friend. I do want to acknowledge my wife and my daughter, allison alter. Allison. Allison still has a real job. I dont have a real job. I get to and teach. Its a hard job. But she has a real job. Shes the mayo tem in austin, texas and yeah, and natalie is a sophomore here at uw and were happy that shes back in madison. Im getting some feedback. Yeah. Okay. So am. Im delighted to have the chance to talk to all of you. And i want to explain, discuss my journey to this book a little bit. And then i want us to i want to talk about the book a little bit and then i want there to be plenty of time. Q a and discussion and then well leave at about 10 p. M. Tonight. How does that sound. How are we doing on sound . Are we okay . Were okay. All right. Good. So, as many of you know, im a child of and i came of age believing as the child of immigrants would, that our country was imperfect. I was well aware of that growing up in new york city in the 1980s, but i believed and i still believe that our country is what lincoln called the last hope on earth. I still believe that. But the last 6 to 10 years have shaken that belief. I think its shaken the beliefs of many of us. How many people have been shaken the last 6 to 10 years . Everyone you know, every room i talk to, thats what people every hand goes up. You see, were not divided. We all agree. We agree. These years have reoriented me. These 6 to 10 years. Theyve reoriented how i see the world. As a historian as a scholar, as a teacher, as a father, as a citizen i worry as i didnt before about the world. Were leaving to natalie and zachary and others. My new books effort to chronicle this issue to understand where it has come from. Its not an explainer version of whats happened the last 6 to 10 years. Its not a polemic. Its not designed to be yet one more polemical story. We have enough and we have journalists who are doing a great job of bringing salacious, sensationalist news to us every moment of the day. We dont need more of that. My books and effort to and my own effort to understand what roots of these difficulties. And as a historian it wont surprise you that the roots i think are very deep. They arent about one election. They about one man. They arent about even our moment. You see what historians can offer us. If we can offer anything, is that there are deep roots in the ground and they dont always bloom in our garden. We dont always see the flowering of those roots. But those roots are still there. And at certain moments, if theyre not dug up, they do invade our garden. And to understand where roots have come from, to understand is low below the surface that is influencing all of us. To switch metaphors, if i might. My book is an effort to diagnose the cancerous tumors that began to grow in our democracy about 100 years ago or so. Cancerous tumors that have metastasized metastasized in recent because of the conditions of the few years and because of the misbehavior. Certain people over the last years. But the illness the disease was already there. It wasnt seen. You can act in healthy and still have a disease deep within. I want to diagnose where that disease came from. I want us to understand what the sources of this are and what my book is about. My book talks about not what we should do, but how we can better diagnose the problem to be better prepared to remove the cancers in our system. And thats my plea at the end of the book, my plea to all of you today for why this matters. We cant fix what ails us if we know what it is, if dont know where the disease comes from, if we dont have an accurate pathology and the history of democracy is, the pathology of democracy by those who look at how the body has developed over time. And thats what my book does. Three pathologies in particular. There are others in the book, but three, i want to talk today. One is the pathology of war. As many of you know, where a society thats been almost continuously war. And there are many reasons why thats the case. Fortunately, madison has a wonderful Veterans Museum and i see dan checchi, the Veterans Museum here, a museum which i think chronicles at least wisconsin in war decade after decade. And correct me if im wrong, dan, every period is covered because every period includes war, right . So war is one of our pathologies. How is war destroyed treated our democracy . Leadership is another pathology. Why have we had such a mix group of leaders . What is that meant in our society . Fred referred to this already and then of course, the distortion of our democracy, the ways in which our democracy has developed, ways that dont meet anyones textbook of what a democracy would look like for each of these three areas for war leadership and democracy. My book takes us back to the civil war because i think the civil war is an important moment. The end of the civil war, the two decades thereafter, which are heart of my book, understood why war becomes so present in our why our leadership and why our democracy distorted. Those are current problems that have historical origins. Those current problems that go back to that moment. And thats why i wrote this book, to understand that better. And thats how we fix problems by going back, understand where they came from and trying to eliminate the initial conditions or back to my gardening to remove the roots from the ground and not just focus on what were seeing above the ground all the time. So let me start with war. You cant talk about American History without discussing war. Its so ever present, though. Theres people who like to talk about our history without talking about war. Then theyre not doing history. The civil war ended in april 1865. As many of you know, with this wonderful moment when the two sides come together and youve all seen images of this if we were in a classroom, id put up the powerpoint, the lovely paintings of Ulysses Grant and robert e lee at Appomattox Court house. The two men sitting in very stately civil eyes, demeanor, you would think they had just had graduate seminar sign, signing, signing. What is to be a truce to the war and. Most textbooks say thats the end of the civil war. In fact, it wasnt. Wars dont end when the paper is signed. Wars linger. So one of the points, carl von clausewitz made in the 19th century war is politics. The means and the politics dont go away simply because the belligerents have left the battlefield. This is something americans forget. We think we mobilize for war, win wars and home. Thats not it works. Were still in a certain way fighting the vietnam war, arent we . Were still dealing with the iraq war long after leaving iraq. Robert e lee says to grant and appomattox. And this is in grants memoir which by the way is still the best memoir written by any president in American History. I encourage you all to read grants memoir. And one of the reasons its the best memoir, he doesnt talk about the presidency off. He just talks about his time during the civil war. He recounts that lee said to him and are grants words, recounting lee that, quote, the south is a very big country and might have won on the battlefield. But if you want to really win this war, you to march over the south three or four times before the war, entirely end. What lee was saying was that simply because they were laying down their arms, it didnt mean the struggle was over. Lee is often depicted giving up. Its not true. He sees himself. The war moving to another phase. Hes no hero. Hes no graduate to when i say that south of the masondixon line but im here i can see that hes no hero. The soldiers return home in some cases. In some cases they dont. They dont give up. They dont give up. The war didnt end at appomattox. One of the things i did for this book was do research on those who decided not to surrender. And there actually a lot of them, 50,000, 50,000 confederates go to more go to brazil. Most people dont know that. One of my good friends, who has one of the most popular textbooks said, oh, my gosh, i have to rewrite my textbook because of your book. I was like, yes. These men i chronicle some of them, they dont give up. They see the war moving to a new phase. Ill give you some of their names. You havent heard of them . Joseph shelby. Joseph shelby was from missouri. He was a commander of famous commander of confederate forces, a vicious commander, not well known. The north very well regarded in south. How do i know this . Because my research relied about about a hundred heroic books about him still written to this day. And shelby took his forces down to mexico to join the government of emperor, who was installed emperor by Louis Napoleon in mexico joined mexico and emperor maximilians army with the intention, the explicit intention of fighting to protect the emperor in mexico. So hes a royalist with the intention of returning to the United States with his slaves. Another gentleman John Bankhead magruder. Anyone . John bankhead with magruder, youve got to be worried, right . John bankhead was from texas, though he had spent much of his life in new york, believe it or not. New york had a lot of sympathizers and magruder took his forces south. Well. He played a major role, shelby. And not only People Living on maximilians army, but also settling a new area of mexico called carlotta, named for the emperors. Carlotta. Amounts prize. You had plantations that looked like virginia, and they brought their slaves. There was no slavery. Mexico. So magruder came up with this great idea. We give them 20 year labor contracts are africanamericans, and they can get paid at the end of the 20 years. Im technically not slavery. Technically not slavery. Matthew fontaine, maury is someone you should have heard of. You havent he had a statue on richmonds way three years ago . Matthew Fontaine Maury was one of those prominent job. Anyone studying geography at uw in the mid19th century after 1848. Would have known him, would have known who he was. He was the confederate ambassador to england. He never came back initially after the war. He went straight to mexico. He was the chief promoter and recruiter for american citizens. Come down to mexico after the war. After that, he came back to the United States and founded Virginia Tech university, was offered the presidency of the university of virginia. Didnt take it. And he, by the way, he wanted live close to robert e lee intentionally. Thats why Virginia Tech is where Virginia Tech is. Robert healy was at washington and lee at that or i guess it was washington later named washington and lee university. The final the one i want to spend a little more time on Alexander Watkins, terrell judge in houston becomes general joins maximilian, becomes a spy spying grant and sherman and sheridan for the Mexican Government that is the definition of treason. Not just secession but spy for a foreign army is the definition of treason. After maximilian is defeated by Benito Juarez and the republicans who were supported by lincoln before lincolns death, after maximilian defeated. And in the book we have the famous photo from goya of the assassination, the killing of maximilian. After that. Tyrrell and morey and magruder and shelby and almost all 50,000 of these horrible people who refuse to surrender. Ladies and gentlemen they came back to the United States and they ran for and got elected to office. There was a statue for magruder in, galveston, until a few years ago. Maury was at the center of way Alexander Watkins terrell, who i mentioned, came back to texas, was elected to the state legislature, became leader of the Democratic Party in texas. He wrote the legislation to create the university of texas, my he wrote the voting laws in texas who. Do you think didnt get the vote when he wrote those laws he wrote those laws they were called the terrell election laws until the Voting Rights act of 1965. He also created the first primary in texas, which, if you know texas history, called the white primary because was the Democratic Partys primary governor for senators, etc. , and the party was the only party in texas. And the democratic did not allow nonwhites to vote in this primary. That only changed. In 1944, that only in 1944 with the Supreme Court decision. Smith versus all right, until that until that period there was no voting for nonwhites in primaries in texas. Can you believe that . Beto orourke and Governor Abbott recently had a debate and this actually came up indirectly there, abbott said. Weve always allowed for free voting in this state. And betto looked at him, said, where do i begin to tell you you are wrong . What worries me is how many people watching that debate dont know this history. Why is it to teach history . Ladies and gentlemen . Because it becomes significant to our politics day to day. Its not just these particularly bad actors who leave the country and exiles. Theres a continued throughout the country the creation of the ku klux klan, the red shirts, who are a version that in South Carolina, i talk in book it was very hard to write about this about riots in memphis, tennessee. Were not only in memphis, colfax and elsewhere, not only are hundreds of homes burned, thousands of people injured. But in these riots, often led by white sheriffs and business people, in these riots, quite often women are multiple, multiple times raped in public in fact, as a of white power. One congressional investigator and committee which the Congress Committees dont think that committees dont matter invest matter because they provide us with a historical if nothing else. The Congressional Committee investigations reported that it seemed as if rape was being used as a flagrant macina for intimidating all africanamericans and any of their supporters in this region, this is the world after the civil war. Now, while this is happening, the winners the good guys continue to push. Well, its not a one sided story. I write in the book about the extraordinary re activism of africanamericans, soldiers and many white and nonafrican american supporters, those who helped to start businesses, those who helped to try to change politics in the south, to create schools, to create the ame church, to create opportunities for people that didnt exist before liberty leagues selfprotection in militias and new alliances, actually quite extraordinary. Thousands slaves who did not any freedom in their lives and could not read or write become literate leaders of their communities because of their union and Army Education and participate. And then, as in world war two, as in many of our periods, the army, which has deep flaws nonetheless is probably the institution thats usually the spearhead for integrating and educating new elements of our society. And thats certainly true for africanamericans coming out the war. That is exactly what made change so difficult, though i remind people that what motivated john wilkes booth, perhaps more than anything else was seeing soldiers Holding White prisoners war in washington, dc and to think about what a shift in world that is, the war have ended on the battlefields, but these tensions, this violence actually spread through American Society. We dont appreciate how violent American Society was in 1860s and 70. Did not appreciate how violent our own history is. And one of the points i think thats absolutely is that war comes home, whether we like it or not. And when war comes home, it disrupts our politics for decades and even for centuries the memory of that period might, not be clear in many our actors minds today. But it laid the founding for much of what we see similar rhetoric, similar of force, similar paramilitary violence. It is actually not very far go from the groups ive talked about to. The proud boys today. They actually are right when