WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.297 --> 00:00:02.880 (gentle music) 2 00:00:04.470 --> 00:00:05.303 - Good morning. 3 00:00:05.303 --> 00:00:06.420 I'm Michael Atwood-Mason, 4 00:00:06.420 --> 00:00:08.100 CEO and executive director 5 00:00:08.100 --> 00:00:09.570 here at President Lincoln's Cottage 6 00:00:09.570 --> 00:00:11.340 at the old Soldier's Home. 7 00:00:11.340 --> 00:00:13.440 We're delighted to welcome you 8 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:15.540 and our distinguished guests this morning 9 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:17.790 for an amazing conversation 10 00:00:17.790 --> 00:00:22.790 about the commemoration of America's 250th birthday in 2026. 11 00:00:24.540 --> 00:00:27.360 President Lincoln's Cottage exists as a national monument 12 00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:30.150 where we connect people with the spirit of the Lincoln's, 13 00:00:30.150 --> 00:00:32.040 engage their empathy, 14 00:00:32.040 --> 00:00:35.070 we inspire them to live out their own brave ideas 15 00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:36.210 for social justice. 16 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:39.660 And we do that by preserving this amazing house 17 00:00:39.660 --> 00:00:41.370 and sharing it with people. 18 00:00:41.370 --> 00:00:42.960 We're excited today 19 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:46.230 because we feel like the spirit of this conversation 20 00:00:46.230 --> 00:00:49.230 is very much in line with the spirit of this place 21 00:00:49.230 --> 00:00:51.300 and the work that we do here. 22 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:55.770 As we prepare as a country for the Quincentennial in 2026, 23 00:00:56.940 --> 00:00:59.010 I think that we will be deeply engaged 24 00:00:59.010 --> 00:01:01.110 in reflection as a nation. 25 00:01:01.110 --> 00:01:04.950 We'll be asking hard questions about ourselves. 26 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:06.480 Where do we come from? 27 00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:08.340 Where are we headed? 28 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:09.840 What brings us together 29 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:12.660 at a time when so much pulls us apart? 30 00:01:12.660 --> 00:01:16.200 And what happens when we share the stories 31 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:19.080 that matter most to us? 32 00:01:19.080 --> 00:01:23.010 what happens when we share those really powerful stories 33 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:24.090 with each other? 34 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:25.770 How does that change us 35 00:01:25.770 --> 00:01:28.950 and how does that change the communities in which we live? 36 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:30.570 It's in that spirit 37 00:01:30.570 --> 00:01:35.370 of exploration, conversation and reflection 38 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:37.170 that I'm just so delighted 39 00:01:37.170 --> 00:01:40.170 to welcome our guests this morning. 40 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:44.610 First, I'd like to introduce Dr. Edna Medford, 41 00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:48.000 who's a professor of history emerita at Howard University. 42 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:49.050 She was the director 43 00:01:49.050 --> 00:01:51.780 of the African American Burial Ground Project 44 00:01:51.780 --> 00:01:54.360 in New York City and is a distinguished author 45 00:01:54.360 --> 00:01:57.900 who's focused on the Jacksonian era, 46 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:01.470 focused on reconstruction and the Civil War era, 47 00:02:01.470 --> 00:02:06.470 a real expert of the highest quality 48 00:02:06.630 --> 00:02:11.580 and one of the most unassuming people in this space. 49 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:13.800 We're just delighted to have you. 50 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:17.640 And also, I'm pleased to introduce Crosby Kemper, 51 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:18.990 who's the director 52 00:02:18.990 --> 00:02:21.990 of the Institute for Museum and Library Services 53 00:02:21.990 --> 00:02:25.170 and the former director of the Kansas City Public Libraries. 54 00:02:25.170 --> 00:02:26.610 So without further ado, 55 00:02:26.610 --> 00:02:27.660 I'd like to invite you all 56 00:02:27.660 --> 00:02:31.090 to begin this important conversation. 57 00:02:31.090 --> 00:02:34.257 (audience applauding) 58 00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:40.440 - So thank you so much, Michael. 59 00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:43.230 We're grateful to you for that kind introduction 60 00:02:43.230 --> 00:02:46.620 and for hosting us here at Lincoln's Cottage, 61 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:50.520 here where Lincoln worked on the Emancipation Proclamation, 62 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:52.260 and I'm joined, as Michael said, 63 00:02:52.260 --> 00:02:55.470 by Dr. Edna Medford of Howard University, 64 00:02:55.470 --> 00:02:57.630 the chair emeritus of the history department 65 00:02:57.630 --> 00:02:59.550 and an authority on Abraham Lincoln 66 00:02:59.550 --> 00:03:02.160 and the Emancipation Proclamation. 67 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:03.270 It's our intention 68 00:03:03.270 --> 00:03:06.540 at the Institute of Museum and Library Services 69 00:03:06.540 --> 00:03:08.430 that this should be the first in a series 70 00:03:08.430 --> 00:03:12.303 of conversations with historians, critics, civic leaders, 71 00:03:13.470 --> 00:03:17.070 to inform and engage libraries and museums, 72 00:03:17.070 --> 00:03:19.500 their communities and patrons 73 00:03:19.500 --> 00:03:22.650 in commemorating, celebrating, 74 00:03:22.650 --> 00:03:24.990 interrogating, debating 75 00:03:24.990 --> 00:03:28.350 and invigilating the 250th anniversary 76 00:03:28.350 --> 00:03:30.510 of the Declaration of Independence. 77 00:03:30.510 --> 00:03:33.930 Dr. Medford, I would thank you so much for doing this 78 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:35.820 and being here. - It's my pleasure. 79 00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:38.820 - I want to start by asking you two related questions, 80 00:03:38.820 --> 00:03:42.040 questions about the contradictions that American history 81 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:45.150 is frequently all about 82 00:03:45.150 --> 00:03:48.150 and certainly the Emancipation Proclamation. 83 00:03:48.150 --> 00:03:50.850 In the forward to your book 84 00:03:50.850 --> 00:03:52.470 on the Emancipation Proclamation 85 00:03:52.470 --> 00:03:54.770 written with Harold Holzer and Frank Williams, 86 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:58.657 John Hope Franklin quotes you as saying, 87 00:03:58.657 --> 00:04:02.460 "Lincoln is the embodiment of our national character, 88 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:04.590 at its best and most hopeful, 89 00:04:04.590 --> 00:04:07.590 at its worst and most pessimistic." 90 00:04:07.590 --> 00:04:09.000 But later in your essay, 91 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:14.000 you say, "Lincoln was an atypical 19th century American. 92 00:04:14.310 --> 00:04:18.510 In a nation awash in racial hatred, 93 00:04:18.510 --> 00:04:21.720 he believed in the fundamental right of all people 94 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:24.720 to enjoy equality of opportunity." 95 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:29.403 So is Lincoln a contradictory character? 96 00:04:31.196 --> 00:04:33.450 Is he a typical 19th century American 97 00:04:33.450 --> 00:04:36.930 or an atypical 19th century American? 98 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:40.263 - That's a tough one to answer because Lincoln is such, 99 00:04:42.060 --> 00:04:43.410 he's so different 100 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:46.170 from anyone that we've had in history I think. 101 00:04:46.170 --> 00:04:49.200 So he is a contradiction in a sense, 102 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:53.130 but also the nation's ideals are contradictory. 103 00:04:53.130 --> 00:04:57.603 I mean we talk about and they talked about equality, 104 00:04:59.430 --> 00:05:02.850 they talked about liberty, they talked about freedom, 105 00:05:02.850 --> 00:05:05.910 but that's not what the reality was 106 00:05:05.910 --> 00:05:08.100 at the founding of the nation. 107 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:12.180 I think that we like to think of Lincoln 108 00:05:12.180 --> 00:05:14.550 as an example of who we are 109 00:05:14.550 --> 00:05:18.480 because it's who we would like people to think we are, 110 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:21.450 but we really are not, not yet. 111 00:05:21.450 --> 00:05:23.700 We may get there someday, 112 00:05:23.700 --> 00:05:27.840 but we certainly have not gotten there up to this point. 113 00:05:27.840 --> 00:05:32.790 Lincoln certainly is different from the average American 114 00:05:32.790 --> 00:05:35.640 in the sense that he has the ability 115 00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:38.460 to sort of put his prejudices aside 116 00:05:38.460 --> 00:05:40.323 and do what's best for the nation. 117 00:05:41.340 --> 00:05:44.250 We have seen then throughout history 118 00:05:44.250 --> 00:05:46.890 and now I think we're also seeing 119 00:05:46.890 --> 00:05:51.240 that people are taking a more selfish perspective. 120 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:52.710 And so they're looking more 121 00:05:52.710 --> 00:05:57.710 at how the nation can do something to advantage them 122 00:05:58.140 --> 00:06:03.060 as opposed to what they can do to make the nation whole 123 00:06:03.060 --> 00:06:05.040 and to make it a better place to be. 124 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.950 But Lincoln is that example 125 00:06:07.950 --> 00:06:09.963 of who we would like to think we are. 126 00:06:10.875 --> 00:06:13.380 - And that's such a great point 127 00:06:13.380 --> 00:06:17.610 about the sense of obligation not being as important 128 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:22.110 as perhaps it once was or as it was to Lincoln. 129 00:06:22.110 --> 00:06:25.260 And let me put it this and ask you a question 130 00:06:25.260 --> 00:06:30.260 about the context of the Emancipation Proclamation. 131 00:06:32.070 --> 00:06:35.617 There is a quote on the mantelpiece here from Lincoln, 132 00:06:35.617 --> 00:06:37.590 "If my name ever goes into history, 133 00:06:37.590 --> 00:06:41.550 it will be for this act and my whole soul is in it." 134 00:06:41.550 --> 00:06:43.740 So I'd like to ask you about the act, 135 00:06:43.740 --> 00:06:45.633 the Emancipation Proclamation. 136 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:48.750 Recently, it's been written about, 137 00:06:48.750 --> 00:06:51.180 as the Gettysburg Address has been written about, 138 00:06:51.180 --> 00:06:55.320 as perhaps a fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence, 139 00:06:55.320 --> 00:06:57.780 as related to the Declaration of Independence, 140 00:06:57.780 --> 00:07:00.033 why we're here today in a way. 141 00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:02.970 But it's also seen by many 142 00:07:02.970 --> 00:07:06.150 as not a fulfillment or a partial fulfillment, 143 00:07:06.150 --> 00:07:11.150 a divergence from the ideals of the declaration. 144 00:07:13.350 --> 00:07:16.620 Is it a step towards all men are created equal? 145 00:07:16.620 --> 00:07:19.410 Is it a step towards the inalienable rights 146 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:24.240 being finally given to those to whom it was not given 147 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:26.850 at the time of the Declaration in the Constitution? 148 00:07:26.850 --> 00:07:29.550 - Certainly, it is a first step. 149 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:31.020 Lincoln understood 150 00:07:31.020 --> 00:07:34.710 that the principles of the Declaration of Independence 151 00:07:34.710 --> 00:07:38.340 could not be realized as long as you had slavery, 152 00:07:38.340 --> 00:07:40.920 'cause you can't say all men are created equal 153 00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:43.680 and have the right to life, liberty 154 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:45.030 and the pursuit of happiness 155 00:07:45.030 --> 00:07:49.470 and have almost four million enslaved people 156 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:52.530 who had none of that, none of those opportunities. 157 00:07:52.530 --> 00:07:55.080 So he understood that if the declaration 158 00:07:55.080 --> 00:07:59.580 is going to be what the country said it was, 159 00:07:59.580 --> 00:08:01.740 then you had to do something about slavery. 160 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:05.250 But that doesn't mean that Lincoln did this 161 00:08:05.250 --> 00:08:08.970 to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence. 162 00:08:08.970 --> 00:08:12.810 Lincoln makes this move because he's in the middle of a war 163 00:08:12.810 --> 00:08:14.820 and he's so concerned 164 00:08:14.820 --> 00:08:18.390 that the nation is going to remain divided. 165 00:08:18.390 --> 00:08:21.210 He understands that the issue is slavery 166 00:08:21.210 --> 00:08:23.760 and that as long as slavery is there, 167 00:08:23.760 --> 00:08:25.290 there's always going to be 168 00:08:25.290 --> 00:08:28.200 this divisive element in the country. 169 00:08:28.200 --> 00:08:29.670 Now, he's able to say 170 00:08:29.670 --> 00:08:31.950 those beautiful words that are on the wall 171 00:08:31.950 --> 00:08:34.890 because there is a part of Lincoln, of course, 172 00:08:34.890 --> 00:08:36.570 a major part of Lincoln 173 00:08:36.570 --> 00:08:40.350 that understands that slavery was immoral 174 00:08:40.350 --> 00:08:45.300 and understood that everyone had the right to liberty. 175 00:08:45.300 --> 00:08:48.240 I don't know that I would go so far as to say equality. 176 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:51.540 I don't think Lincoln had gotten quite to that point, 177 00:08:51.540 --> 00:08:55.140 except that he believed in equality of opportunity. 178 00:08:55.140 --> 00:08:57.450 And in that way, he's very different 179 00:08:57.450 --> 00:09:01.290 from the average white American of the 19th century. 180 00:09:01.290 --> 00:09:03.030 - And I want to get in in a minute 181 00:09:03.030 --> 00:09:06.270 to the question of his views of race 182 00:09:06.270 --> 00:09:07.440 and his views of slavery, 183 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:10.170 which debated among historians, 184 00:09:10.170 --> 00:09:13.560 if they're the same thing or very different things. 185 00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:17.193 But I want to ask you again about the proclamation. 186 00:09:18.214 --> 00:09:20.760 There are a series of steps. 187 00:09:20.760 --> 00:09:24.270 There's a preliminary proclamation 188 00:09:24.270 --> 00:09:26.310 and then there's the proclamation itself. 189 00:09:26.310 --> 00:09:27.930 And at each step along the way, 190 00:09:27.930 --> 00:09:31.410 he's criticized, particularly by abolitionists, 191 00:09:31.410 --> 00:09:34.200 by Garrison and Wendell Phillips and 192 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:36.930 also by Frederick Douglass. - Yes. 193 00:09:36.930 --> 00:09:40.290 - For being too legalistic about it, 194 00:09:40.290 --> 00:09:44.266 for it being a war measure in which, 195 00:09:44.266 --> 00:09:46.410 and of course, in the detail, 196 00:09:46.410 --> 00:09:48.693 he doesn't free all the slaves, 197 00:09:52.230 --> 00:09:53.703 it's complicated. 198 00:09:55.710 --> 00:09:56.580 Were they right? 199 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.800 Was the Emancipation Proclamation, 200 00:09:58.800 --> 00:10:02.070 you've said essentially it was a war measure? 201 00:10:02.070 --> 00:10:04.380 Or was it, Lincoln himself says 202 00:10:04.380 --> 00:10:09.380 when he writes the actual Emancipation Proclamation 203 00:10:09.750 --> 00:10:13.470 on January 1st, 1863, he rewrites it a little bit. 204 00:10:13.470 --> 00:10:15.120 And one of the key phrases, 205 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:17.160 it's structured as a war measure, 206 00:10:17.160 --> 00:10:19.290 his war power has given the right to do it, 207 00:10:19.290 --> 00:10:22.127 but he says it's an act of justice. 208 00:10:22.127 --> 00:10:24.660 - Right, right, so it can be both 209 00:10:24.660 --> 00:10:28.230 'cause remember Lincoln is a very complicated person, okay? 210 00:10:28.230 --> 00:10:32.010 So he's using the war measures, 211 00:10:32.010 --> 00:10:35.113 he's using that part of the constitution that says 212 00:10:35.113 --> 00:10:39.300 that the commander in chief has the right 213 00:10:39.300 --> 00:10:44.300 to seize or destroy any property that belongs to the enemy 214 00:10:45.780 --> 00:10:48.840 or even to someone who's in support of the Union 215 00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:52.350 if that property is being used against the Union, 216 00:10:52.350 --> 00:10:57.350 but he also understands that this is a moral issue 217 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:01.770 and so he's willing to say that, 218 00:11:01.770 --> 00:11:03.840 but I think that we go too far 219 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:08.130 when we say that Lincoln did this 220 00:11:08.130 --> 00:11:13.080 primarily because of his moral position. 221 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:13.913 That's not it. 222 00:11:13.913 --> 00:11:15.930 Lincoln would've been more than willing 223 00:11:15.930 --> 00:11:18.570 to allow slavery to continue 224 00:11:18.570 --> 00:11:21.750 if it meant preserving the Union. 225 00:11:21.750 --> 00:11:25.290 And so we need to understand the position he was in. 226 00:11:25.290 --> 00:11:26.700 He was fighting a war, 227 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:29.790 a civil war that was absolutely horrific. 228 00:11:29.790 --> 00:11:34.590 He believed that the Union was not dissolvable. 229 00:11:34.590 --> 00:11:37.200 He had to do something to preserve it. 230 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:40.230 He was willing to do whatever he had to do 231 00:11:40.230 --> 00:11:41.610 to accomplish that. 232 00:11:41.610 --> 00:11:45.180 And so he came to the realization fairly early, 233 00:11:45.180 --> 00:11:47.250 and this is how I differ with myself 234 00:11:47.250 --> 00:11:50.070 because initially when I started studying Lincoln, 235 00:11:50.070 --> 00:11:52.470 I thought, wow, this guy's taking way too long 236 00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:55.410 to get to the real crux of the matter. 237 00:11:55.410 --> 00:11:57.060 And when I look back now, 238 00:11:57.060 --> 00:12:01.110 I see that he came to the realization pretty quickly, 239 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:05.220 but he understood that the nation was not with him yet. 240 00:12:05.220 --> 00:12:08.400 You know, we sometimes think that it's only in the south 241 00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:10.590 that people think that slavery is okay. 242 00:12:10.590 --> 00:12:11.940 Well, there were a lot of northerners 243 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:13.200 who didn't care either. 244 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:16.350 As long as they weren't touched by the institution 245 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.230 in a negative way, they didn't care. 246 00:12:19.230 --> 00:12:23.130 And of course, everybody is benefiting from slavery, 247 00:12:23.130 --> 00:12:25.860 not just the south, but the north as well 248 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:30.860 because it's the products from the enslaved laborers 249 00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:35.370 that are fueling the economy in the north as well. 250 00:12:35.370 --> 00:12:36.840 - And one of the things 251 00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:39.360 that historians seem to have come to agreement on 252 00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:41.730 over the last couple of generations 253 00:12:41.730 --> 00:12:45.210 is that slavery was in fact very profitable, 254 00:12:45.210 --> 00:12:48.340 profitable for the country's whole plantation economy 255 00:12:49.472 --> 00:12:53.850 was in a probably its best state economically 256 00:12:53.850 --> 00:12:55.530 than it had ever been. 257 00:12:55.530 --> 00:12:59.280 The price of a slave had gone up dramatically. 258 00:12:59.280 --> 00:13:02.280 The number of slaves had gone up dramatically. 259 00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:05.520 And so as you wisely say, 260 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:07.500 there there's a lot invested in this, 261 00:13:07.500 --> 00:13:11.250 not only in the south, but in the north as well. 262 00:13:11.250 --> 00:13:14.190 And Lincoln was dependent on Northern Democrats 263 00:13:14.190 --> 00:13:19.190 to get things done who were resisting the emancipation 264 00:13:19.380 --> 00:13:23.280 and he was about to go into an election. 265 00:13:23.280 --> 00:13:24.113 When he gives, 266 00:13:24.113 --> 00:13:29.113 the preliminary proclamation is in September of 1862, 267 00:13:29.247 --> 00:13:31.830 and the off year election is about to happen 268 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:33.840 where he is reasonably certain 269 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:37.560 because the war's not going well, among other things, 270 00:13:37.560 --> 00:13:39.510 to not do well, which in fact happened, 271 00:13:39.510 --> 00:13:41.279 they lost seats. - Yes, the Republican party 272 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:43.097 does suffer as a consequence, yes. 273 00:13:43.097 --> 00:13:45.540 - And so in some sense, as you say, 274 00:13:45.540 --> 00:13:47.430 he's a realist about this, a pragmatist, 275 00:13:47.430 --> 00:13:50.733 but at the same time, he knows what he wants to do. 276 00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:55.150 Horace Greeley famously sends him an open letter 277 00:13:57.150 --> 00:13:59.790 wondering when he's gonna do something about this 278 00:13:59.790 --> 00:14:03.053 and he replies in the way that you suggest 279 00:14:03.053 --> 00:14:07.740 that he would free the slaves if that would keep the Union, 280 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:09.240 free all the slaves, 281 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:12.120 free none of the slaves if that would keep the union whole, 282 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:13.140 or free some, 283 00:14:13.140 --> 00:14:15.180 which is essentially what the proclamation does, 284 00:14:15.180 --> 00:14:16.620 and not free others. 285 00:14:16.620 --> 00:14:20.190 - And I truly believe that he believed that. 286 00:14:20.190 --> 00:14:22.800 Some people say, well, he's just preparing them 287 00:14:22.800 --> 00:14:24.117 for what he's about to do. 288 00:14:24.117 --> 00:14:25.800 But I think that if something had happened, 289 00:14:25.800 --> 00:14:28.200 if the south had said, you know, 290 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:33.200 in that 100 day period between September 22nd of '62 291 00:14:33.330 --> 00:14:36.787 and January 1st of '63, if the Confederacy had said, 292 00:14:36.787 --> 00:14:41.070 "Okay, we're giving up, we're coming back to the Union.", 293 00:14:41.070 --> 00:14:42.690 Lincoln would've allowed that, 294 00:14:42.690 --> 00:14:43.530 not just Lincoln 295 00:14:43.530 --> 00:14:47.700 because it's not just Lincoln who makes this decision, 296 00:14:47.700 --> 00:14:50.130 but the north certainly would've allowed them 297 00:14:50.130 --> 00:14:51.990 to keep their enslaved laborers 298 00:14:51.990 --> 00:14:54.690 and Lincoln would have been okay with that 299 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:59.100 because his whole idea of ending slavery 300 00:14:59.100 --> 00:15:01.350 was that it be done gradually. 301 00:15:01.350 --> 00:15:03.270 So the irony is 302 00:15:03.270 --> 00:15:07.080 that someone who believed that slavery should end over time 303 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:10.710 is the very person who attempts to end it overnight, 304 00:15:10.710 --> 00:15:13.440 at least for certain segments of the population, 305 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.810 or puts the wheels turning toward that. 306 00:15:15.810 --> 00:15:18.180 - There are three principles that he seems to have 307 00:15:18.180 --> 00:15:20.550 and that he proposes over and over again, 308 00:15:20.550 --> 00:15:22.410 particularly to the border states, 309 00:15:22.410 --> 00:15:25.320 Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, 310 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:27.540 who are so important to main, 311 00:15:27.540 --> 00:15:29.790 they have enslaved populations, 312 00:15:29.790 --> 00:15:32.194 significant enslaved populations, 313 00:15:32.194 --> 00:15:34.227 but he needs to keep them in the Union. 314 00:15:34.227 --> 00:15:37.410 And so he proposes, as you suggest, 315 00:15:37.410 --> 00:15:41.430 gradual compensated emancipation, 316 00:15:41.430 --> 00:15:45.300 but also the thing that he always adds is consent, 317 00:15:45.300 --> 00:15:50.130 they need to vote for it because in a democratic policy, 318 00:15:50.130 --> 00:15:52.290 he needs consent he feels. 319 00:15:52.290 --> 00:15:53.123 - Exactly. 320 00:15:54.140 --> 00:15:58.045 And let's not forget the other C, colonization 321 00:15:58.045 --> 00:16:01.083 'cause that is a part of his plan as well. 322 00:16:01.083 --> 00:16:03.093 - Which he does propose, 323 00:16:05.400 --> 00:16:09.930 but January comes or December when he must make the decision 324 00:16:09.930 --> 00:16:11.550 about whether or not he implements 325 00:16:11.550 --> 00:16:14.340 the preliminary proclamation, 326 00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:16.980 January comes and all that's gone. 327 00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:20.220 It is sort of overnight changed. 328 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:24.420 And even though it still leaves some slaves 329 00:16:24.420 --> 00:16:28.860 outside of the proclamation, it's fairly clear, isn't it, 330 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:32.831 to everybody in the north and most people in the south 331 00:16:32.831 --> 00:16:35.850 that this is the declaration that slavery is over? 332 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:38.820 - Well, there are 830,000 people 333 00:16:38.820 --> 00:16:42.450 who are not touched by the proclamation. 334 00:16:42.450 --> 00:16:44.310 And certainly someone like Frederick Douglass 335 00:16:44.310 --> 00:16:45.600 felt that it didn't matter, 336 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:49.200 that with slavery ending in Virginia, 337 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:52.440 it would have to end eventually in Maryland as well. 338 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:55.230 But look at what happens with the 13th Amendment. 339 00:16:55.230 --> 00:16:58.110 It's not easy to pass that. 340 00:16:58.110 --> 00:17:01.110 You got the Senate approving, 341 00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:02.880 the House of Representatives does not. 342 00:17:02.880 --> 00:17:06.330 It takes some time for that to actually be passed, 343 00:17:06.330 --> 00:17:10.380 and it's not passed without a bit of maneuvering 344 00:17:10.380 --> 00:17:13.710 on the part of Lincoln and the Republican party. 345 00:17:13.710 --> 00:17:16.770 So it was not a done deal, I think, 346 00:17:16.770 --> 00:17:19.110 but it would've been very difficult 347 00:17:19.110 --> 00:17:22.080 to go back to what it had been before. 348 00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:25.560 First of all, African Americans were not going back 349 00:17:25.560 --> 00:17:27.060 because you have a situation 350 00:17:27.060 --> 00:17:29.880 where even before the proclamation is issued, 351 00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:33.480 you have African American soldiers, there are volunteers. 352 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:36.180 They may not be regular military, 353 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:38.130 but they are already fighting. 354 00:17:38.130 --> 00:17:39.840 There are African Americans 355 00:17:39.840 --> 00:17:42.300 who leaving the farms and plantations, 356 00:17:42.300 --> 00:17:44.340 they are taking their own freedom. 357 00:17:44.340 --> 00:17:47.040 So it would've been virtually impossible 358 00:17:47.040 --> 00:17:50.850 to reinstitute slavery as it had existed before. 359 00:17:50.850 --> 00:17:52.320 Even those African Americans 360 00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:54.960 who choose not to leave the plantations 361 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:57.780 are tearing the system apart from within. 362 00:17:57.780 --> 00:17:59.490 So I think we need to understand 363 00:17:59.490 --> 00:18:01.680 that although it was not a done deal, 364 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:06.330 there were things in place that would've made it difficult 365 00:18:06.330 --> 00:18:09.420 for them to ever go back to the system that they had before. 366 00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:10.410 - Right. 367 00:18:10.410 --> 00:18:15.410 And so one of the larger questions is, 368 00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:21.360 it seems almost inevitable at a certain point 369 00:18:21.360 --> 00:18:24.210 that this is all gonna happen. 370 00:18:24.210 --> 00:18:25.680 Some historians believe, 371 00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:27.390 and some people at the time, 372 00:18:27.390 --> 00:18:31.320 the founders probably originally believed, 373 00:18:31.320 --> 00:18:34.020 that slavery was on its way out, 374 00:18:34.020 --> 00:18:37.860 that the Enlightenment and progress, industrial progress, 375 00:18:37.860 --> 00:18:38.693 et cetera. 376 00:18:38.693 --> 00:18:40.950 And in fact, as John Hope Franklin 377 00:18:40.950 --> 00:18:44.298 has pointed out in his book on the emancipation, 378 00:18:44.298 --> 00:18:47.940 there was lots of emancipation going on 379 00:18:47.940 --> 00:18:52.050 in Europe and in Central America and South America. 380 00:18:52.050 --> 00:18:57.050 Mexico had freed its slaves, the French 381 00:18:57.120 --> 00:19:00.210 though they went through doing it 382 00:19:00.210 --> 00:19:02.370 and taking it back and doing it again. 383 00:19:02.370 --> 00:19:05.070 And of course, the British had eliminated slavery 384 00:19:05.070 --> 00:19:06.993 in the colonies in 1833. 385 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.860 Was the ending of slavery inevitable? 386 00:19:10.860 --> 00:19:13.150 And the real question I want to ask is 387 00:19:14.126 --> 00:19:16.860 how important was Lincoln 388 00:19:16.860 --> 00:19:19.263 to this happening when it happened? 389 00:19:20.505 --> 00:19:23.640 If Lincoln hadn't existed, 390 00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:26.070 if the president of the United States 391 00:19:26.070 --> 00:19:30.660 had been John Breckenridge or John Bell or Stephen Douglas, 392 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:35.160 say Stephen Douglas, would slavery have ended? 393 00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:39.180 Would slavery have ended in the 1880s as it did in Brazil? 394 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:41.010 How important was Lincoln in this? 395 00:19:41.010 --> 00:19:41.910 - Well, first of all, 396 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:45.990 Lincoln was the right person for the right time, 397 00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:49.650 who did have the courage to do what was necessary 398 00:19:49.650 --> 00:19:51.930 to preserve the Union first and foremost 399 00:19:51.930 --> 00:19:54.960 and then what was the right thing to do. 400 00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:59.280 But to the question, would slavery have continued 401 00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:01.080 or would it have occurred, 402 00:20:01.080 --> 00:20:04.650 would it have ended anyway? 403 00:20:04.650 --> 00:20:08.220 My position is that slavery would have continued. 404 00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:13.220 There was no reason for anyone to voluntarily emancipate. 405 00:20:14.280 --> 00:20:16.230 People were making too much money, 406 00:20:16.230 --> 00:20:17.910 they had too much power. 407 00:20:17.910 --> 00:20:20.760 They had power not just in the south, 408 00:20:20.760 --> 00:20:22.983 but look at the Supreme Court. 409 00:20:23.978 --> 00:20:27.240 They have a lot of political power. 410 00:20:27.240 --> 00:20:29.910 They have economic influence. 411 00:20:29.910 --> 00:20:34.910 They have such a social, a strong social position. 412 00:20:34.980 --> 00:20:39.570 I think we sometimes think that slavery could not be, 413 00:20:39.570 --> 00:20:42.360 would not be successful in the Western territories, 414 00:20:42.360 --> 00:20:43.710 so why fight over that 415 00:20:43.710 --> 00:20:48.210 because they're not gonna be growing cotton say in Kansas. 416 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:49.770 But it's more than that. 417 00:20:49.770 --> 00:20:51.780 First of all, enslaved people 418 00:20:51.780 --> 00:20:54.030 served in a variety of capacities. 419 00:20:54.030 --> 00:20:57.060 They were in industrial situations as well, 420 00:20:57.060 --> 00:20:58.710 they were in mining. 421 00:20:58.710 --> 00:21:01.050 So I don't think that we can say 422 00:21:01.050 --> 00:21:04.230 that economically it would not have survived. 423 00:21:04.230 --> 00:21:07.710 But even if it had not survived economically, 424 00:21:07.710 --> 00:21:09.750 socially, it would have, 425 00:21:09.750 --> 00:21:13.860 because slavery was more than just an economic institution. 426 00:21:13.860 --> 00:21:17.700 It was an institution for social control as well. 427 00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:21.390 So you had, for instance, in my little are of Virginia, 428 00:21:21.390 --> 00:21:25.230 south of Richmond, where you had plantations 429 00:21:25.230 --> 00:21:29.070 where they didn't grow tobacco, they didn't grow cotton, 430 00:21:29.070 --> 00:21:32.970 they didn't have a single staple crop economy. 431 00:21:32.970 --> 00:21:35.640 They had mixed farming, 432 00:21:35.640 --> 00:21:38.430 you know, cereal, grains, livestock raising, 433 00:21:38.430 --> 00:21:39.960 that kind of thing, 434 00:21:39.960 --> 00:21:42.960 but they had tons of enslaved laborers. 435 00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:47.910 And so some of those they freed until the 1820's and 1830's, 436 00:21:47.910 --> 00:21:51.360 but they sent others to the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. 437 00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:54.780 They rented people out, they hired them out. 438 00:21:54.780 --> 00:21:57.747 And so they would've been able to make money that way 439 00:21:57.747 --> 00:22:01.710 and they could have ensured that in perpetuity 440 00:22:01.710 --> 00:22:04.413 black people would be controlled. 441 00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:10.280 What do you do when for 200 plus years 442 00:22:11.040 --> 00:22:16.040 you have held people in horrible conditions, 443 00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:19.740 you have separated children from parents, 444 00:22:19.740 --> 00:22:21.660 husbands from wives, 445 00:22:21.660 --> 00:22:24.510 you have raped black women? 446 00:22:24.510 --> 00:22:27.000 What do you do to ensure 447 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:30.270 that this is not going to be visited upon you? 448 00:22:30.270 --> 00:22:33.300 So you keep slavery intact 449 00:22:33.300 --> 00:22:36.030 if for no other reason than for social reasons. 450 00:22:36.030 --> 00:22:41.030 And also, slavery was a form of conspicuous consumption too. 451 00:22:41.550 --> 00:22:43.920 So you might have a planter 452 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:47.430 who has 20 or 30 or 40 enslaved people and he's not, 453 00:22:47.430 --> 00:22:49.890 he or she is not doing much with them 454 00:22:49.890 --> 00:22:51.540 except hiring them out, 455 00:22:51.540 --> 00:22:54.600 but you are the big guy in the county 456 00:22:54.600 --> 00:22:57.300 because you have that many enslaved labors. 457 00:22:57.300 --> 00:22:59.940 So slavery is very complicated. 458 00:22:59.940 --> 00:23:04.260 There's no one thing that would have prevented it 459 00:23:04.260 --> 00:23:07.710 from remaining as a part of society. 460 00:23:07.710 --> 00:23:09.780 - And you point out 461 00:23:09.780 --> 00:23:13.260 that this is something of a cast system for social control, 462 00:23:13.260 --> 00:23:14.490 which exists in the north. 463 00:23:14.490 --> 00:23:17.070 I mean during the Civil War, 464 00:23:17.070 --> 00:23:21.690 the draft riots in New York are Irish and others 465 00:23:21.690 --> 00:23:25.910 rioting about the African Americans in New York 466 00:23:29.297 --> 00:23:33.300 taking positions away from them, they think. 467 00:23:33.300 --> 00:23:35.400 - And these are people who in many instances 468 00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:36.870 have just gotten off the ship 469 00:23:36.870 --> 00:23:39.330 and they came to America for opportunity 470 00:23:39.330 --> 00:23:44.010 and now they're being drafted to fight a war to free people 471 00:23:44.010 --> 00:23:46.560 who are going to come north and take their jobs. 472 00:23:46.560 --> 00:23:49.203 And so from their perspective, it's understandable. 473 00:23:50.236 --> 00:23:55.236 - The racism is pervasive in 1860 America, 474 00:23:56.220 --> 00:24:01.220 and yet, still, 300,000 people lose their lives or more, 475 00:24:03.183 --> 00:24:07.020 from the Northern side, 700,000 perhaps all altogether 476 00:24:07.020 --> 00:24:08.380 in fighting the civil war 477 00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:15.333 and a long war, a desperate war at many times. 478 00:24:16.350 --> 00:24:20.670 How is it possible that this happens 479 00:24:20.670 --> 00:24:23.610 given the importance of slavery economically, 480 00:24:23.610 --> 00:24:25.590 given the attitudes? 481 00:24:25.590 --> 00:24:27.630 And again, I go back to Lincoln 482 00:24:27.630 --> 00:24:30.687 and I go back to Lincoln's principles 483 00:24:33.690 --> 00:24:35.670 that he thinks he is defending 484 00:24:35.670 --> 00:24:38.070 of the constitution in the declaration, 485 00:24:38.070 --> 00:24:41.763 from the Lyceum speech that he gives in 1838, 486 00:24:43.085 --> 00:24:45.270 to his Dred Scott speech, 487 00:24:45.270 --> 00:24:48.300 what he talks about during the Lincoln Douglas debates, 488 00:24:48.300 --> 00:24:52.080 it's about preserving the political principles 489 00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:53.793 of the founding. 490 00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:57.900 How does he get the country to go along with that? 491 00:24:57.900 --> 00:25:00.720 - Well, he doesn't get a lot of them to go along with it. 492 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.540 There are many people who certainly are resisting, 493 00:25:03.540 --> 00:25:05.280 not just in the democratic party, 494 00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:08.000 but in his own party as well. 495 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:10.557 But I think that northerners are going to war 496 00:25:10.557 --> 00:25:12.750 for the same reason that southerners are. 497 00:25:12.750 --> 00:25:14.100 Southerners are going to war 498 00:25:14.100 --> 00:25:16.890 because they're trying to preserve a way of life 499 00:25:16.890 --> 00:25:19.080 that they think it is superior 500 00:25:19.080 --> 00:25:21.150 to the way of life in the north. 501 00:25:21.150 --> 00:25:26.010 Northerners are also going to war to preserve their nation, 502 00:25:26.010 --> 00:25:28.920 what they see as what America 503 00:25:28.920 --> 00:25:31.530 has always been and is supposed to be. 504 00:25:31.530 --> 00:25:34.470 They're not going to war, let's be certain, 505 00:25:34.470 --> 00:25:38.460 they're not going to war to free anyone. 506 00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:42.663 They are going to war to bring the nation back together. 507 00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:48.500 It becomes a war for freedom as well after 1863 508 00:25:49.800 --> 00:25:52.980 and there are many people who don't like that at all, 509 00:25:52.980 --> 00:25:54.630 who are very much against that. 510 00:25:54.630 --> 00:25:57.570 So Lincoln took a real gamble in doing that, 511 00:25:57.570 --> 00:26:00.870 but he was able to sell it by saying, 512 00:26:00.870 --> 00:26:03.870 this is what we need to do to preserve the Union. 513 00:26:03.870 --> 00:26:07.170 So that proclamation was not about what is right, 514 00:26:07.170 --> 00:26:10.740 except for that ending part where he brings God into it. 515 00:26:10.740 --> 00:26:13.440 But it's telling northerners, 516 00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.100 this is what we have to do for the nation to survive 517 00:26:17.100 --> 00:26:19.230 and people buy it 518 00:26:19.230 --> 00:26:21.870 and they're willing to make that sacrifice. 519 00:26:21.870 --> 00:26:23.841 - I mean he needs military victory. 520 00:26:23.841 --> 00:26:27.930 And so he issues the preliminary proclamation 521 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:29.043 after Antietam, 522 00:26:30.120 --> 00:26:33.540 the bloodiest day in American history, 523 00:26:33.540 --> 00:26:34.560 not a great victory, 524 00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:37.353 but he and McClellan could claim victory. 525 00:26:39.109 --> 00:26:42.053 And then this impossibility, 526 00:26:42.053 --> 00:26:44.730 and the 13th Amendment rides on this, 527 00:26:44.730 --> 00:26:46.710 that he could have lost the presidential election, 528 00:26:46.710 --> 00:26:50.490 'cause again, in the summer of 1864, 529 00:26:50.490 --> 00:26:52.110 things were not going well, 530 00:26:52.110 --> 00:26:56.880 only in the fall, it begins to go the Union way. 531 00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.730 And so it's heavily dependent on military victory. 532 00:26:59.730 --> 00:27:01.110 But at the same time, 533 00:27:01.110 --> 00:27:05.725 I want to say that he's constantly expressing, 534 00:27:05.725 --> 00:27:08.737 I quote from the Dred Scott speech, 535 00:27:08.737 --> 00:27:11.790 "They," the founders, "meant to declare the right 536 00:27:11.790 --> 00:27:13.710 so that enforcement of it might follow 537 00:27:13.710 --> 00:27:16.440 as fast as circumstances shall permit." 538 00:27:16.440 --> 00:27:18.607 He's always aware of the circumstances. 539 00:27:18.607 --> 00:27:22.200 "They meant to set up a standard maxim for a free society 540 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:25.050 revered by all, constantly looked to, 541 00:27:25.050 --> 00:27:27.090 constantly labored for, 542 00:27:27.090 --> 00:27:32.090 never perfectly obtained, but constantly approximated 543 00:27:33.639 --> 00:27:38.639 and of value to all people of all colors everywhere." 544 00:27:39.630 --> 00:27:41.460 He says this in 1857 545 00:27:41.460 --> 00:27:44.400 in response to the Dred Scott decision. 546 00:27:44.400 --> 00:27:48.390 It seems to me, it's clear that he's always working for this 547 00:27:48.390 --> 00:27:50.970 within the context of what's given to him 548 00:27:50.970 --> 00:27:53.040 in terms of Northern Democrats, 549 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:56.250 in terms of border states, in terms of the military, 550 00:27:56.250 --> 00:27:58.290 in terms of the British potential 551 00:27:58.290 --> 00:28:02.163 for recognizing the Confederacy, et cetera. 552 00:28:03.390 --> 00:28:05.700 But he does have, to quote Churchill 553 00:28:05.700 --> 00:28:09.127 who talks about consistency in politics, 554 00:28:09.127 --> 00:28:12.030 "You bend to circumstances one way, 555 00:28:12.030 --> 00:28:14.130 you bend to circumstances another way, 556 00:28:14.130 --> 00:28:16.950 but you always have a dominating purpose." 557 00:28:16.950 --> 00:28:19.260 And this was Lincoln's dominating purpose. 558 00:28:19.260 --> 00:28:20.100 Is that fair to say? 559 00:28:20.100 --> 00:28:24.877 - Yeah, you know I love a quote from him where he says that, 560 00:28:24.877 --> 00:28:27.273 "I claim not to control events, 561 00:28:28.479 --> 00:28:31.317 but declare that events have controlled me." 562 00:28:31.317 --> 00:28:35.370 I think he's very honest about his situation. 563 00:28:35.370 --> 00:28:37.170 Yes, in the back of his mind, 564 00:28:37.170 --> 00:28:41.850 there's always this idea of how do I get this job done 565 00:28:41.850 --> 00:28:43.290 and how do I do it in a way 566 00:28:43.290 --> 00:28:46.530 that is in the best interest of the nation? 567 00:28:46.530 --> 00:28:49.980 Not am I gonna win the next election, 568 00:28:49.980 --> 00:28:53.640 but what is in the best interest of the nation? 569 00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:56.360 And what was in the best interest of the nation 570 00:28:56.360 --> 00:28:59.760 at that point in time from his perspective 571 00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:01.770 was doing something about slavery. 572 00:29:01.770 --> 00:29:04.710 Now, there were many people who from the very beginning 573 00:29:04.710 --> 00:29:07.380 before the war even starts, you know, 574 00:29:07.380 --> 00:29:09.600 when the south starts seceding, 575 00:29:09.600 --> 00:29:11.257 there are people who are saying, 576 00:29:11.257 --> 00:29:14.700 "This is our opportunity to do something about slavery." 577 00:29:14.700 --> 00:29:15.840 And Lincoln is saying, 578 00:29:15.840 --> 00:29:17.797 in his first inaugural address, he says, 579 00:29:17.797 --> 00:29:21.180 "I have no inclination to do anything. 580 00:29:21.180 --> 00:29:24.480 I have no ability to do anything." 581 00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:28.950 I'm always a little amused at the idea 582 00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:33.950 that it took him until the summer of 1862 583 00:29:34.020 --> 00:29:36.900 to come to the conclusion that he did have the ability 584 00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:38.940 to do something about slavery. 585 00:29:38.940 --> 00:29:41.400 As bright as that man was, 586 00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:43.830 he certainly understood what he could do, 587 00:29:43.830 --> 00:29:47.820 he just chose not to do anything about slavery 588 00:29:47.820 --> 00:29:49.740 until it got to the point 589 00:29:49.740 --> 00:29:53.460 where he had to do something about slavery 590 00:29:53.460 --> 00:29:55.080 to save the country. 591 00:29:55.080 --> 00:29:58.470 He understood how precarious the situation was. 592 00:29:58.470 --> 00:30:01.140 He knew that he was gambling. 593 00:30:01.140 --> 00:30:03.510 And so he didn't want to take that step 594 00:30:03.510 --> 00:30:05.850 until he could be fairly certain 595 00:30:05.850 --> 00:30:09.243 that he would be able to win the war by doing it. 596 00:30:10.375 --> 00:30:12.990 - So I want ask you a little bit 597 00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:15.190 about the African American reaction 598 00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:18.167 to not only the Emancipation Proclamation 599 00:30:18.167 --> 00:30:23.167 in the 13th Amendment, to Lincoln in general, 600 00:30:23.580 --> 00:30:27.033 but also specifically about Frederick Douglass's reaction. 601 00:30:28.500 --> 00:30:33.363 Douglas says in 1865, he says emphatically, 602 00:30:34.297 --> 00:30:37.290 "Lincoln is the black man's president." 603 00:30:37.290 --> 00:30:41.070 In 1876, when they celebrate, 604 00:30:41.070 --> 00:30:44.160 unveil the Freedman's Memorial 605 00:30:44.160 --> 00:30:47.917 in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C., he says, 606 00:30:47.917 --> 00:30:52.350 "He's the white man's president, 607 00:30:52.350 --> 00:30:54.477 preeminently the white man's president." 608 00:30:55.452 --> 00:31:00.051 And talks about how Lincoln's background 609 00:31:00.051 --> 00:31:04.833 and view of the world are a white view of the world. 610 00:31:05.809 --> 00:31:09.360 That's a contradiction it seems to me in Frederick Douglass, 611 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:13.470 but how does he come to this conclusion? 612 00:31:13.470 --> 00:31:16.980 Why in 1865, one thing, in 1876, the other? 613 00:31:16.980 --> 00:31:18.630 - Yeah, we have to look at the timing. 614 00:31:18.630 --> 00:31:20.070 He's saying 615 00:31:20.070 --> 00:31:23.310 Lincoln is emphatically the black man's president 616 00:31:23.310 --> 00:31:26.190 in June of 1865. 617 00:31:26.190 --> 00:31:29.700 He's in mourning, as is the rest of the nation. 618 00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:32.430 And so Lincoln's going to, 619 00:31:32.430 --> 00:31:35.580 people are going to say all kinds of things about Lincoln 620 00:31:35.580 --> 00:31:39.570 that would be glorifying him. 621 00:31:39.570 --> 00:31:43.350 And so it makes sense that Douglass would say that 622 00:31:43.350 --> 00:31:48.090 and he probably did believe that at that point in time, 623 00:31:48.090 --> 00:31:51.750 because in Lincoln's final address, 624 00:31:51.750 --> 00:31:53.400 his final public address, 625 00:31:53.400 --> 00:31:55.860 he's talking about the possibility 626 00:31:55.860 --> 00:31:59.283 of enfranchising certain groups of black men. 627 00:32:00.120 --> 00:32:04.140 That's understood as a movement forward for black people. 628 00:32:04.140 --> 00:32:06.240 If we want to talk about equality, 629 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:10.050 that's an example of where Lincoln was heading 630 00:32:10.050 --> 00:32:11.640 at least politically, 631 00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:15.570 and people like Frederick Douglass picked up on that 632 00:32:15.570 --> 00:32:18.030 and understood what was going on. 633 00:32:18.030 --> 00:32:23.030 But by 1876, when reconstruction is ending 634 00:32:23.610 --> 00:32:27.180 and black people are being shot down in the streets 635 00:32:27.180 --> 00:32:31.500 and lynched and their businesses are being burned, 636 00:32:31.500 --> 00:32:33.840 their schools and churches are being burned 637 00:32:33.840 --> 00:32:35.545 you've got the KKK 638 00:32:35.545 --> 00:32:39.810 having to be contained by the Grant administration 639 00:32:39.810 --> 00:32:41.310 and that kind of thing, 640 00:32:41.310 --> 00:32:43.800 Douglass is looking at the proclamation and saying 641 00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:46.740 the proclamation was supposed to be a promise, 642 00:32:46.740 --> 00:32:48.990 and the promise has not been fulfilled. 643 00:32:48.990 --> 00:32:52.140 And so Lincoln as the author 644 00:32:52.140 --> 00:32:55.110 or the guarantor of that promise, 645 00:32:55.110 --> 00:32:57.210 he has failed somehow, 646 00:32:57.210 --> 00:33:01.230 although he's not around to make any difference there 647 00:33:01.230 --> 00:33:03.540 because he's been assassinated, of course, 648 00:33:03.540 --> 00:33:04.920 but it makes perfect sense 649 00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:07.140 that Douglass would take that position 650 00:33:07.140 --> 00:33:08.580 in 1876. - And of course, 651 00:33:08.580 --> 00:33:12.787 he ends his speech that speech in 1876 by saying, 652 00:33:12.787 --> 00:33:14.250 "If you're an abolitionist, 653 00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:17.493 if you're an African American, he's tardy, he's cold, 654 00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:23.550 but if you get understand the sentiments of the nation, 655 00:33:23.550 --> 00:33:26.654 he's swift and sure." 656 00:33:26.654 --> 00:33:31.654 So Douglass recognizes the circumstances change everything. 657 00:33:33.060 --> 00:33:35.340 I'd like to talk for a minute about monuments 658 00:33:35.340 --> 00:33:37.740 because that very statue 659 00:33:37.740 --> 00:33:42.180 of Lincoln raising his hand out 660 00:33:42.180 --> 00:33:45.000 to a slave who's breaking his chains, 661 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:48.270 an enslaved man who seems to be rising up 662 00:33:48.270 --> 00:33:49.830 or seems to be kneeling down 663 00:33:49.830 --> 00:33:51.120 depending on your point of view, 664 00:33:51.120 --> 00:33:55.320 but that monument has been protested, 665 00:33:55.320 --> 00:33:58.800 significantly protested here in Washington, D.C.. 666 00:33:58.800 --> 00:34:02.070 And I want to talk a little bit about monuments 667 00:34:02.070 --> 00:34:05.610 and what they represent and what you think that statue, 668 00:34:05.610 --> 00:34:08.553 what Douglass thought of that statue, 669 00:34:09.460 --> 00:34:11.970 and who we should be building monuments, 670 00:34:11.970 --> 00:34:14.460 how we should be structuring our monuments today. 671 00:34:14.460 --> 00:34:15.630 You and I talked a little bit 672 00:34:15.630 --> 00:34:18.390 about the other great monument, 673 00:34:18.390 --> 00:34:21.570 or perhaps the greatest public monument in my view, 674 00:34:21.570 --> 00:34:25.230 a piece of public sculpture, the Shaw Monument in, 675 00:34:25.230 --> 00:34:28.240 which is the 54th Massachusetts Monument 676 00:34:29.160 --> 00:34:33.330 to Colonel Shaw and his African American troops 677 00:34:33.330 --> 00:34:36.423 who fought at Fort Wagner, the movie "Glory" is about it. 678 00:34:38.340 --> 00:34:42.120 What kind of monuments should we be building today? 679 00:34:42.120 --> 00:34:43.290 - You know, we should be building, 680 00:34:43.290 --> 00:34:44.190 monuments, first, 681 00:34:44.190 --> 00:34:47.620 symbols are really important to any society 682 00:34:48.497 --> 00:34:51.810 and to this society, to our society, 683 00:34:51.810 --> 00:34:53.280 they're extremely important 684 00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:56.610 because of our history of the civil war. 685 00:34:56.610 --> 00:35:00.150 And so we were bound to clash at some point 686 00:35:00.150 --> 00:35:02.370 over what was being erected 687 00:35:02.370 --> 00:35:06.120 that sort of glorified and honored 688 00:35:06.120 --> 00:35:09.570 men who had fought against the nation, 689 00:35:09.570 --> 00:35:11.700 and they're not just in the south, 690 00:35:11.700 --> 00:35:13.530 there's some in the north as well. 691 00:35:13.530 --> 00:35:15.960 I've always wondered about that. 692 00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:18.300 It's almost like northerners 693 00:35:18.300 --> 00:35:22.200 are sort of giving the Confederacy a pass. 694 00:35:22.200 --> 00:35:25.620 They have bought the idea that this was about, 695 00:35:25.620 --> 00:35:27.840 these monuments are about heritage, 696 00:35:27.840 --> 00:35:29.910 they're not about supporting 697 00:35:29.910 --> 00:35:32.900 the idea that people were fighting this war over slavery, 698 00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:35.070 it was just about heritage. 699 00:35:35.070 --> 00:35:37.440 Well, it certainly is more than that. 700 00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:42.180 So we need to understand that when we build these monuments, 701 00:35:42.180 --> 00:35:47.180 we are saying that these people share American values. 702 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:51.873 So we have to determine what our values are going to be. 703 00:35:52.770 --> 00:35:57.003 The idea of the Freedman's Memorial, 704 00:35:57.930 --> 00:36:00.240 to me, that's more than unfortunate 705 00:36:00.240 --> 00:36:02.670 that that one came under attack. 706 00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:03.810 I know Frederick Douglass 707 00:36:03.810 --> 00:36:05.850 didn't like it when it was first built, 708 00:36:05.850 --> 00:36:08.190 a lot of of people didn't like it 709 00:36:08.190 --> 00:36:12.210 because it had the black man kneeling, 710 00:36:12.210 --> 00:36:15.870 as opposed to being on the same level 711 00:36:15.870 --> 00:36:18.003 as any other human being. 712 00:36:18.906 --> 00:36:20.490 And it also suggested 713 00:36:20.490 --> 00:36:24.360 that Lincoln single handedly freed the slaves 714 00:36:24.360 --> 00:36:25.830 when we know the reality 715 00:36:25.830 --> 00:36:27.990 is a lot more complicated than that. 716 00:36:27.990 --> 00:36:30.510 Lincoln absolutely opened the door. 717 00:36:30.510 --> 00:36:34.410 He was central to freedom for black people, 718 00:36:34.410 --> 00:36:37.830 but black people fought for their own freedom as well. 719 00:36:37.830 --> 00:36:42.830 And black and white Union soldiers and sailors 720 00:36:42.870 --> 00:36:45.540 made that emancipation possible, 721 00:36:45.540 --> 00:36:49.170 made freedom possible through that proclamation. 722 00:36:49.170 --> 00:36:52.920 That monument was built primarily 723 00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:56.940 through the fundraising of black people, 724 00:36:56.940 --> 00:37:00.360 poor black people who didn't have much to give, 725 00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:03.180 but they recognized Lincoln's importance 726 00:37:03.180 --> 00:37:05.910 and they gave money toward the erection of that statue. 727 00:37:05.910 --> 00:37:07.770 - You talk Charlotte Scott giving 728 00:37:07.770 --> 00:37:08.603 the first five dollars. - Charlotte Scott, 729 00:37:08.603 --> 00:37:10.920 her first five dollars, yes, 730 00:37:10.920 --> 00:37:13.140 to this monument, yes. 731 00:37:13.140 --> 00:37:17.310 And she wasn't freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. 732 00:37:17.310 --> 00:37:21.240 She is freed because her owner, who's a unionist, 733 00:37:21.240 --> 00:37:24.510 can't stand being in the Confederacy any longer 734 00:37:24.510 --> 00:37:27.300 and he leaves and goes to Ohio and frees her. 735 00:37:27.300 --> 00:37:30.630 So she didn't have any real obligation to Lincoln, 736 00:37:30.630 --> 00:37:33.750 but she understood the role that he played 737 00:37:33.750 --> 00:37:36.840 in freedom for black people in general. 738 00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:40.950 So hands off the Freedman's Memorial. 739 00:37:40.950 --> 00:37:43.050 Nobody should be criticizing that. 740 00:37:43.050 --> 00:37:46.710 If you have a problem with how it's structured, 741 00:37:46.710 --> 00:37:48.900 put up another monument next to it 742 00:37:48.900 --> 00:37:51.067 or put up some signage and say, 743 00:37:51.067 --> 00:37:55.800 "This is how people thought during this period 744 00:37:55.800 --> 00:37:59.100 in 1876 after the war, 745 00:37:59.100 --> 00:38:03.360 but the reality is black people had a large hand 746 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:04.950 in their own liberation", 747 00:38:04.950 --> 00:38:07.200 but don't take it down 748 00:38:07.200 --> 00:38:10.020 because you have some issue with Lincoln. 749 00:38:10.020 --> 00:38:11.099 - Right. 750 00:38:11.099 --> 00:38:14.910 And are there statues that we should be building now 751 00:38:14.910 --> 00:38:16.950 or have we lost a sense, 752 00:38:16.950 --> 00:38:21.480 you talked earlier about this sort of me generation 753 00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:24.930 view of the world that we have now, 754 00:38:24.930 --> 00:38:27.240 what's in it for us? 755 00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:29.250 So have we lost a sense of heroic? 756 00:38:29.250 --> 00:38:32.580 Most monuments are about our heroes, 757 00:38:32.580 --> 00:38:34.499 sometimes we get it wrong, 758 00:38:34.499 --> 00:38:37.290 I understand why anybody would want to tear down a statue 759 00:38:37.290 --> 00:38:38.673 of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 760 00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:44.550 but why aren't we building statues to Harriet Tubman 761 00:38:44.550 --> 00:38:47.310 who's one of the great figures in American history, 762 00:38:47.310 --> 00:38:49.500 a woman of incredible courage? 763 00:38:49.500 --> 00:38:52.830 - She has a few, but not nearly enough 764 00:38:52.830 --> 00:38:56.043 and I would say it's because she's a woman, 765 00:38:57.120 --> 00:39:02.120 she's African American, she was not educated, 766 00:39:02.610 --> 00:39:07.610 so she doesn't fit the American standard 767 00:39:08.010 --> 00:39:11.340 of who the Patriots are in this country. 768 00:39:11.340 --> 00:39:12.480 But you're absolutely right, 769 00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:14.250 it's people like Harriet Tubman. 770 00:39:14.250 --> 00:39:18.510 Why don't we build monuments to the enslaved people 771 00:39:18.510 --> 00:39:23.490 who kept this country going for so long with the labor, 772 00:39:23.490 --> 00:39:26.160 certainly uncompensated labor, 773 00:39:26.160 --> 00:39:29.130 but they kept the country moving 774 00:39:29.130 --> 00:39:31.530 because of the work that they were doing? 775 00:39:31.530 --> 00:39:33.990 They get no recognition for that, 776 00:39:33.990 --> 00:39:38.640 and instead what happens is any books that deal with that 777 00:39:38.640 --> 00:39:40.980 are banned from the school system. 778 00:39:40.980 --> 00:39:43.890 So how are we ever going to move forward 779 00:39:43.890 --> 00:39:47.010 if we don't at least acknowledge our history 780 00:39:47.010 --> 00:39:52.010 and allow ourselves and our children to read that history 781 00:39:53.220 --> 00:39:56.880 and have a better understanding of who we are 782 00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:00.030 so that we can become better in the future? 783 00:40:00.030 --> 00:40:04.050 I just don't quite understand it. 784 00:40:04.050 --> 00:40:06.660 - And I did want to ask you this question 785 00:40:06.660 --> 00:40:11.100 about teaching history today, 786 00:40:11.100 --> 00:40:12.750 how you teach students today, 787 00:40:12.750 --> 00:40:16.770 what students know and don't know about our history. 788 00:40:16.770 --> 00:40:20.400 And obviously, you're very eloquent on the subject 789 00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:24.120 of being told perhaps from outside 790 00:40:24.120 --> 00:40:27.813 by legislatures or others what we should teach. 791 00:40:29.400 --> 00:40:30.780 Is it harder to teach today? 792 00:40:30.780 --> 00:40:33.840 I mean, there's less history teaching going on, 793 00:40:33.840 --> 00:40:35.730 fewer history majors. - Absolutely. 794 00:40:35.730 --> 00:40:38.490 - And we know that one of the stunning things 795 00:40:38.490 --> 00:40:39.870 is the Citizenship Test, 796 00:40:39.870 --> 00:40:41.850 which is a test of a knowledge 797 00:40:41.850 --> 00:40:44.820 of American government and American history, 798 00:40:44.820 --> 00:40:48.033 that every immigrant who becomes a citizen has to pass, 799 00:40:49.020 --> 00:40:53.760 70% of Americans, adult Americans couldn't pass it. 800 00:40:53.760 --> 00:40:55.767 - I bet it's higher than that, probably. 801 00:40:56.695 --> 00:40:57.528 - Uh oh. 802 00:40:58.470 --> 00:40:59.880 How do we correct that? 803 00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:02.403 I mean, what can we do about this? 804 00:41:04.350 --> 00:41:05.550 - It's difficult. 805 00:41:05.550 --> 00:41:09.783 It certainly has to start at the grammar school level. 806 00:41:10.680 --> 00:41:14.100 I don't think that you can start early enough 807 00:41:14.100 --> 00:41:19.100 to teach students about citizenship and about history. 808 00:41:20.580 --> 00:41:23.460 You just tailor it to the age. 809 00:41:23.460 --> 00:41:25.680 And so you're not going to teach a kindergartner 810 00:41:25.680 --> 00:41:27.930 in the same way that you're teaching a high school student, 811 00:41:27.930 --> 00:41:32.430 of course, but you've got to get them involved early on, 812 00:41:32.430 --> 00:41:33.930 because if you don't, 813 00:41:33.930 --> 00:41:36.060 then they're going to come under the influence 814 00:41:36.060 --> 00:41:40.590 of people who know even less about history and citizenship 815 00:41:40.590 --> 00:41:45.590 and have this view that is totally different from reality. 816 00:41:46.830 --> 00:41:49.353 So we've got to start working on that now. 817 00:41:50.245 --> 00:41:52.260 You're absolutely right, 818 00:41:52.260 --> 00:41:57.090 it's difficult to get history into the curriculum 819 00:41:57.090 --> 00:41:59.160 in a way that it needs to be, 820 00:41:59.160 --> 00:42:03.750 and that's not just in elementary school and in high school, 821 00:42:03.750 --> 00:42:08.190 but it's also the case in colleges and universities as well. 822 00:42:08.190 --> 00:42:11.310 There are so many HBCUs for instance, 823 00:42:11.310 --> 00:42:15.750 that don't even have history departments anymore. 824 00:42:15.750 --> 00:42:18.870 So they will have a social sciences department 825 00:42:18.870 --> 00:42:22.260 where they're talking about history and political science 826 00:42:22.260 --> 00:42:24.600 and sociology and everything else together. 827 00:42:24.600 --> 00:42:27.570 No, history needs to be taught separately. 828 00:42:27.570 --> 00:42:30.990 We know that it connects to all of these other disciplines, 829 00:42:30.990 --> 00:42:34.890 but it needs its own space as well. 830 00:42:34.890 --> 00:42:38.610 We don't value history in this country. 831 00:42:38.610 --> 00:42:41.910 And as long as we have that position, 832 00:42:41.910 --> 00:42:43.560 we are never going to advance. 833 00:42:43.560 --> 00:42:45.240 We'll just keep making the same mistakes 834 00:42:45.240 --> 00:42:48.690 over and over again and maybe that's what we want to do, 835 00:42:48.690 --> 00:42:52.470 but it is not good for the country as we can see now. 836 00:42:52.470 --> 00:42:53.730 I think part of the reason 837 00:42:53.730 --> 00:42:56.070 why we're in the predicament we're in 838 00:42:56.070 --> 00:43:00.210 is because we don't know our own history. 839 00:43:00.210 --> 00:43:03.210 I've had conversations with friends, close friends, 840 00:43:03.210 --> 00:43:06.330 and I am appalled at some of the things they say 841 00:43:06.330 --> 00:43:08.940 because they have been misinformed. 842 00:43:08.940 --> 00:43:11.520 And when I was teaching, 843 00:43:11.520 --> 00:43:16.520 I told my students, "You can hear what I have to say, 844 00:43:16.620 --> 00:43:18.630 but don't take my word for it." 845 00:43:18.630 --> 00:43:22.560 Pick up a book, look at some primary sources 846 00:43:22.560 --> 00:43:25.020 and come to your own conclusion 847 00:43:25.020 --> 00:43:28.860 about what is happening in any given situation. 848 00:43:28.860 --> 00:43:31.320 Historically, take the time 849 00:43:31.320 --> 00:43:34.650 to know who you are and what your country is about 850 00:43:34.650 --> 00:43:36.780 so that you can work with it. 851 00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:39.870 We all have a responsibility as Americans 852 00:43:39.870 --> 00:43:42.660 to be the best country we can possibly be 853 00:43:42.660 --> 00:43:44.910 and we can't do that if we don't even know. 854 00:43:44.910 --> 00:43:46.590 - If we don't know where we've been. 855 00:43:46.590 --> 00:43:48.243 - Absolutely, absolutely. 856 00:43:49.659 --> 00:43:52.290 - And is it possible to teach history today 857 00:43:52.290 --> 00:43:56.760 with shared ideals, a sense of our shared ideals, 858 00:43:56.760 --> 00:43:58.710 the notion that Lincoln had 859 00:43:58.710 --> 00:44:01.170 that we all could learn something 860 00:44:01.170 --> 00:44:03.483 from the Declaration and the Constitution, 861 00:44:04.358 --> 00:44:07.590 the apple of gold and the frame of silver, 862 00:44:07.590 --> 00:44:12.273 as he talked about it, the psalm. 863 00:44:14.310 --> 00:44:19.230 Is it possible that narrative history of this country 864 00:44:19.230 --> 00:44:22.620 can bring us together instead of pushing us apart? 865 00:44:22.620 --> 00:44:25.530 - It certainly could if we had shared ideals 866 00:44:25.530 --> 00:44:27.963 and I'm not so sure that we do anymore. 867 00:44:28.830 --> 00:44:31.830 We used to believe in certain things. 868 00:44:31.830 --> 00:44:34.747 I think now it's all over the place. 869 00:44:34.747 --> 00:44:38.520 People believe whatever is expedient 870 00:44:38.520 --> 00:44:42.960 and what advantages them and that's the unfortunate piece. 871 00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:46.440 I think you have to teach American history in a way 872 00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:48.180 that it's much more inclusive. 873 00:44:48.180 --> 00:44:50.220 It's got to be a shared narrative, 874 00:44:50.220 --> 00:44:54.300 but that narrative has to include everybody's story 875 00:44:54.300 --> 00:44:57.540 because that's what America is made up of. 876 00:44:57.540 --> 00:45:02.540 It's not just the British settling North America. 877 00:45:03.510 --> 00:45:07.440 It's not just the Declaration of Independence 878 00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:09.720 and the revolution. 879 00:45:09.720 --> 00:45:12.180 It's all of these other immigrants 880 00:45:12.180 --> 00:45:14.280 who have come in over time as well 881 00:45:14.280 --> 00:45:16.380 and what they're bringing to the table, 882 00:45:16.380 --> 00:45:19.290 because they are bringing a lot to the table 883 00:45:19.290 --> 00:45:21.060 and we need to recognize that. 884 00:45:21.060 --> 00:45:23.850 We need to understand that this is not just a country 885 00:45:23.850 --> 00:45:26.850 with an Anglo-Saxon heritage. 886 00:45:26.850 --> 00:45:28.890 There's so much more going on here. 887 00:45:28.890 --> 00:45:29.723 - Oh yeah. 888 00:45:29.723 --> 00:45:33.930 - And if we recognize that, we will see how special we are, 889 00:45:33.930 --> 00:45:38.930 if we can manage our expectations of where the country, 890 00:45:40.500 --> 00:45:41.790 what the country should be. 891 00:45:41.790 --> 00:45:45.807 It cannot just be some Anglo-Saxon tradition. 892 00:45:47.520 --> 00:45:51.127 It's got to be something much broader than that. 893 00:45:51.127 --> 00:45:55.450 - And the relationship that Lincoln had with Douglass 894 00:45:56.663 --> 00:45:59.070 and what they both represented to the country, 895 00:45:59.070 --> 00:46:02.760 is that the kind of narrative that we can teach 896 00:46:02.760 --> 00:46:04.260 that brings us together? 897 00:46:04.260 --> 00:46:06.660 Understanding from Douglass's point of view, 898 00:46:06.660 --> 00:46:09.210 what Lincoln did and didn't do, 899 00:46:09.210 --> 00:46:12.630 from Lincoln's point of view, what he could do and did do? 900 00:46:12.630 --> 00:46:15.870 - Absolutely, it's about including everybody's story. 901 00:46:15.870 --> 00:46:17.820 It's about including ideas 902 00:46:17.820 --> 00:46:20.520 from all of the groups that we have. 903 00:46:20.520 --> 00:46:22.170 It's about showing, 904 00:46:22.170 --> 00:46:24.330 if you're looking at Lincoln and Douglass, 905 00:46:24.330 --> 00:46:28.740 it's about showing that you have two men who mean well, 906 00:46:28.740 --> 00:46:31.680 these are not, neither of them are bad people. 907 00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:33.420 These are people who me mean well 908 00:46:33.420 --> 00:46:36.330 and they mean to do what's best for the country. 909 00:46:36.330 --> 00:46:39.000 They have a different way of going at it. 910 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:41.790 I think in my book on Lincoln and emancipation, 911 00:46:41.790 --> 00:46:42.930 I talked about the fact 912 00:46:42.930 --> 00:46:47.930 that you have black revolutionaries, so to speak, 913 00:46:48.510 --> 00:46:51.360 who have the same agenda, 914 00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:53.910 but they're going at it a little bit differently 915 00:46:53.910 --> 00:46:54.750 than Lincoln is. 916 00:46:54.750 --> 00:46:59.220 Lincoln's move toward freedom is not, 917 00:46:59.220 --> 00:47:01.800 does not have the same urgency 918 00:47:01.800 --> 00:47:06.800 as does the actions of the revolutionaries. 919 00:47:07.463 --> 00:47:10.500 Even a John Brown, who's not black at all, 920 00:47:10.500 --> 00:47:14.190 but he certainly fits into the black revolutionary, 921 00:47:14.190 --> 00:47:16.530 or the revolutionary category. 922 00:47:16.530 --> 00:47:21.530 So if we show that people can have the same goals, 923 00:47:21.990 --> 00:47:24.360 but they come at it in a different way 924 00:47:24.360 --> 00:47:26.460 and they learn to respect each other, 925 00:47:26.460 --> 00:47:28.200 and Douglass would've never agreed 926 00:47:28.200 --> 00:47:32.220 that Lincoln did the right thing by moving slowly, 927 00:47:32.220 --> 00:47:34.710 I mean that's just not Douglass' thing, 928 00:47:34.710 --> 00:47:38.430 but he certainly had respect for, 929 00:47:38.430 --> 00:47:40.320 after the fact he had respect 930 00:47:40.320 --> 00:47:44.040 for the conditions that Lincoln had to work under 931 00:47:44.040 --> 00:47:46.110 and Lincoln certainly I think 932 00:47:46.110 --> 00:47:50.400 grew to respect the Douglass' position, certainly did. 933 00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:53.310 Otherwise, he would not have accepted Douglass 934 00:47:53.310 --> 00:47:57.810 into the White House uninvited initially in '63. 935 00:47:57.810 --> 00:47:59.820 He certainly would not have brought him 936 00:47:59.820 --> 00:48:04.410 back to the White House in '64 to ask for his assistance. 937 00:48:04.410 --> 00:48:06.090 And he certainly would not have allowed him 938 00:48:06.090 --> 00:48:09.510 into the reception uninvited in '65. 939 00:48:09.510 --> 00:48:11.460 So these are people 940 00:48:11.460 --> 00:48:14.700 who can see the positions that other people have 941 00:48:14.700 --> 00:48:16.470 and still disagree, 942 00:48:16.470 --> 00:48:20.720 but try to move forward for what's best for the country. 943 00:48:20.720 --> 00:48:22.624 And I think that's something that's lacking 944 00:48:22.624 --> 00:48:24.103 in our society today. 945 00:48:24.103 --> 00:48:27.338 - I so agree with you and I think this is a great place 946 00:48:27.338 --> 00:48:29.820 to leave our conversation, 947 00:48:29.820 --> 00:48:33.300 this sense of the tension in our history, 948 00:48:33.300 --> 00:48:35.811 the tragic in our history, 949 00:48:35.811 --> 00:48:37.361 but the fact that we're always, 950 00:48:38.315 --> 00:48:41.190 we hope we're always working on making it better, 951 00:48:41.190 --> 00:48:43.830 approximating, as Lincoln said, 952 00:48:43.830 --> 00:48:47.310 the ideals of the Constitution and the Declaration 953 00:48:47.310 --> 00:48:50.220 and doing what Lincoln did so well with Douglass, 954 00:48:50.220 --> 00:48:52.350 which Douglass did so well with Lincoln, 955 00:48:52.350 --> 00:48:53.700 which is working together 956 00:48:53.700 --> 00:48:57.450 even coming from such dramatically different points of view. 957 00:48:57.450 --> 00:49:01.500 Dr. Medford, thank you so much for this conversation. 958 00:49:01.500 --> 00:49:04.590 I think it's been a wonderful, provocative 959 00:49:04.590 --> 00:49:07.890 and ennobling conversation. 960 00:49:07.890 --> 00:49:08.840 - It's my pleasure. 961 00:49:11.287 --> 00:49:14.454 (audience applauding) 962 00:49:19.583 --> 00:49:23.310 - So any dialogue from the audience, 963 00:49:23.310 --> 00:49:27.240 any conversation from the audience you might like to have? 964 00:49:27.240 --> 00:49:29.290 I want to say thank you to Senator Blunt. 965 00:49:30.390 --> 00:49:32.130 - [Man] Extraordinarily well done. 966 00:49:34.033 --> 00:49:35.940 I did wonder about your comments 967 00:49:35.940 --> 00:49:38.760 about teaching history today. 968 00:49:38.760 --> 00:49:41.010 I think I missed a point 969 00:49:41.010 --> 00:49:45.270 when you mentioned talking about Harriet Tubman, 970 00:49:45.270 --> 00:49:49.890 but books that include her are sometimes now 971 00:49:49.890 --> 00:49:52.890 not part of the curriculum, what? 972 00:49:52.890 --> 00:49:55.140 - Well not so much Tubman, 973 00:49:55.140 --> 00:49:59.760 but the idea that anything that's negative 974 00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:01.650 about American history, 975 00:50:01.650 --> 00:50:03.720 there are certain parts of the country 976 00:50:03.720 --> 00:50:06.450 where people don't want to hear that 977 00:50:06.450 --> 00:50:10.320 and Tubman is a part of American history that's positive 978 00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:12.780 in the sense that this is a woman 979 00:50:12.780 --> 00:50:15.543 who's actually risking her life, 980 00:50:16.440 --> 00:50:20.370 spiriting people out of the south to freedom. 981 00:50:20.370 --> 00:50:21.870 And then during the war, 982 00:50:21.870 --> 00:50:24.780 actually leading a group of soldiers 983 00:50:24.780 --> 00:50:26.193 up the Combahee River. 984 00:50:27.030 --> 00:50:29.430 It's just amazing the kinds of things she's doing, 985 00:50:29.430 --> 00:50:33.420 but we don't really celebrate her the way we should. 986 00:50:33.420 --> 00:50:36.750 But it's not so much that Harriet Tubman has been banned, 987 00:50:36.750 --> 00:50:41.220 but there are these other books that some would say 988 00:50:41.220 --> 00:50:44.760 have a negative portrayal of American history 989 00:50:44.760 --> 00:50:47.820 because we don't want to upset our children. 990 00:50:47.820 --> 00:50:50.940 Well, I would rather let them see 991 00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:53.490 the history of the country now 992 00:50:53.490 --> 00:50:56.790 rather than have them repeat something 993 00:50:56.790 --> 00:51:01.620 that's going to be just as dangerous for the nation. 994 00:51:01.620 --> 00:51:05.220 But I think our children can take it. 995 00:51:05.220 --> 00:51:07.590 We should be able to. 996 00:51:07.590 --> 00:51:10.380 This isn't about a feel good kind of thing. 997 00:51:10.380 --> 00:51:13.920 It's about being realistic about who we are 998 00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:18.270 and how we can better the nation, that should be the goal 999 00:51:18.270 --> 00:51:20.250 of all Americans. 1000 00:51:20.250 --> 00:51:21.120 - [Man] And for your work, 1001 00:51:21.120 --> 00:51:23.070 what you understand so well too though 1002 00:51:23.070 --> 00:51:26.670 is we also have to try to present things 1003 00:51:26.670 --> 00:51:28.590 in some context of the time. 1004 00:51:28.590 --> 00:51:30.420 What you've done so well with Lincoln 1005 00:51:30.420 --> 00:51:35.420 and the mission that the commission is on 1006 00:51:37.110 --> 00:51:39.513 to celebrate 250 years of history, 1007 00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:44.707 there's a current view to say, 1008 00:51:45.570 --> 00:51:48.240 well, we've really kinda got it wrong in the bicentennial. 1009 00:51:48.240 --> 00:51:52.710 Now we have to overemphasize the other side of history. 1010 00:51:52.710 --> 00:51:55.380 And I'm not opposed to any of that, 1011 00:51:55.380 --> 00:51:59.520 but I think the way your writings and your discussion here 1012 00:51:59.520 --> 00:52:04.520 very much does bring things into context 1013 00:52:05.411 --> 00:52:06.686 and people aren't perfect, 1014 00:52:06.686 --> 00:52:11.686 and like Lincoln, often have to be moderated by events. 1015 00:52:14.190 --> 00:52:18.000 - Yeah, I think that my aim has always been 1016 00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:23.000 to show that when the story is more inclusive, 1017 00:52:24.060 --> 00:52:25.260 it's more truthful. 1018 00:52:25.260 --> 00:52:26.220 - [Man] I agree. 1019 00:52:26.220 --> 00:52:29.550 - And so it's not to put 1020 00:52:29.550 --> 00:52:32.880 so much the other side of the story, 1021 00:52:32.880 --> 00:52:35.190 but to have the fuller part of it. 1022 00:52:35.190 --> 00:52:39.611 So it's trying to weave everyone's story into it. 1023 00:52:39.611 --> 00:52:42.278 (gentle music)