i can't think of a better way to

cap the 28th annual lincoln forum than by welcoming a dear friend and history's friend, the incomparable doris kearns goodwin, and her very gifted producing partner, beth laski, now. beth has been the co-executive producer with doris for there for wonderful history channel, a channel series, washington, lincoln, theodore roosevelt, and most recently fdr. together they form pastimes productions, which will next be producing a new series on the west with kevin.

i auditioned for that, but they chose kevin costner. they have already created a unique and appealing look and style to these shows. you'll see some of some sampling of it during this evening. not only authoritative talking heads, but remarkable, authentic looking action scenes featuring performers and settings that evoke the colonial revolutionary periods, the civil war, the progressive era, the new deal, and world war two. scholarship and scenery. discussion and drama. and tonight, a special focus on their abraham lincoln, of course. so we're glad beth is here and we thank our history channel friends for coming as well, and also for history channel's truly generous sponsorship and support of the forum this year. mary.

not only a wonderfully generous donation to help make this big forum work, but also in case you thought those dvds just appeared in your packages by magic, it through the generosity of the history channel. now, as for beth's co-producer, what more can be said when emcees declare that this person needs no introduction? that might have been written for for doris. not that that's going to stop me, because i'm here. she is really nothing short of a national treasure. not only one of our most respected historians, but i would suggest our most beloved and trusted his story. and i suspect, you know the reasons. wait till next year. no ordinary time. the fitzgerald and the kennedys. lyndon johnson and the american dream. the team of rivals.

the bully pulpit. leadership in turbulent times. classics by an author who has now added to her impact in nonfiction literature, including a pulitzer prize. a lincoln prize. yes. a richard nelson current award. the definitive of motion picture. because the oscar winning steven spielberg film of lincoln was on her. her approach to the passage of the 13th amendment in the house of representative. and now television with the performance and docu dramas. history channel, in which with characteristic generosity, she shares the spotlight with lucky fellow historians. allen guelzo, who is here today and catherine clinton and edna greene medford for and offers fresh interviews featuring. her featuring her latest reflection on the subjects she has mastered and obviously, as we all learn tonight, i don't

have to convince you she shines the light further by utilizing very gifted actors who bring life to these heroes. so it's it's it's not a team of rivals. it's kind of a bench of doris fans fans. if there is a medium she hasn't conquered yet, i don't know what it is. i'll just say that if i want to clone an exemplary, exemplary american historian, then they need look. no. that's probably a dangerous thing to say legally. but we don't need a we have the original. so please join me in welcoming doris kearns goodwin and beth laski.

all right. so. let's go back. oh, we're up to this. okay, that was fast. so with all that doris has accomplished now with beth, the work has inspired this wonderful series of docu dramas. but so here's the elephant in the room. why did decide to do television? and both of you, why did you decide that this was the next realm? well, we really owe a lot to the history channel because they came to us. how lucky we were. i see. mary donahue there. she's my great friend and our friend. and they came to us and they asked us if we'd like to work with them on something. and they came up with the idea of george washington, which was a little scary to me because i never had studied george washington. and everywhere i went, people would say, why aren't you doing george washington? and i thought, oh my god, i'm now years old. it will take me ten years to do

george washington like it took me everybody else. and i write these big fat books and it'll be another fat book. and then i thought, wow, what if i were able to spend two years, which they projected projected this might take to do a six hour miniseries on george washington. i could learn about him from my fellow historians on their shoulders. we could sit. and so beth and i had formed we started to form a production company. i've known beth for 25 years. it all began. you love origin stories, right? so ours is a great story. so when when i had not even married my husband, but he was in washington dc and he his son from his first marriage was going to the georgetown day school and had a best friend named andy blankstein. and i fell in love with andy blankstein, the best friend. we took him everywhere every summer. we took him whenever we were on vacations. he became my other son. and when we moved to california, after -- was getting the quiz show movie made, he came with us and he met beth laski and they

eventually became husband and wife. so andy blankstein was eight when i met him. and as you know, the story, right. you can tell the rest of the story. oh, well, i had a lot of pressure because before very early on in our relationship i had to get a stamp of approval. so had to come meet the whole goodwin clan. and i was very, very nervous. and it turned out well. but it was it was a little scary and a little intimidating for me. a month in, two on be on my way to cape cod to to spend time with the goodwins. so immediately said to andy, don't f this up. she's great. anyway so we started to work on george washington and the thing was we had a team i mean, between history and two great guys who were working from, from rail spitters. right right. from ralph's going, yeah. matt ginsburg and, and oh my gosh. tim. tim hill i just went like, yeah. tim healy and they were terrific. and they held our hand through this because we had not done

this before. and so it was really great to have them by our side and to have mary and eli and all of the people on the history side to help us. and i think what mattered so much was that it was collaborative. i mean, before my husband died, which was shortly before we got involved in all this, i had him as a partner every day to work with. so it wasn't lonely because i'm not a very social person, i'd rather be with people than being alone. i'm not the typical kind of writer, but i had -- all the time. but then when he was gone, it was really lonely. and then somehow i had that whole team to work with with history channel. so it made a huge difference. and then we produced in two years i learned all about george. and so that began all of this. and i feel like it's 75. i pivoted to another whole world of dementia and i'm very grateful to history as a result. so i think the question, one question that might be on the minds of your readers, i'm sure everyone here is a good one. reader is, with all due respect to mary and the group. so how much how much editorial

control do you guys have? and how much does history channel you what you must do or should do? well, we knew so little at the beginning, to be honest, and we had to hold their hand. they had to hold our hands. and sometimes we would say, we'd like this or that. and they'd have to tell us, well, no, that's not really your role as an executive producer. and yet then they were really we really became partners. i mean, there was no question right from the beginning, right? they let us be involved in the early storytelling, the outline, everything. yeah, that was really amazing for us because we were learning as we went along and yes, we did get our hand slapped maybe once when we went too far, but we didn't know what. we didn't know. so they, they really guided us. it's been really amazing, but we've been involved with every step of the process and it's a lengthy process. and there are a lot of people involved. it really is a team, a big team of people that it takes to put these things together. so we're going to together look at the opening of the next

project, the lincoln series. so i'm going to cue the clip. ladies and gentlemen, some you may have heard of him, his story has been passed down from one generation to the next. fourscore and seven years ago, he felt that democracy in its purest form is for all people, all persons held as slaves shall be sent forward and forever free. but there's something deeper than what he did. it's about who he was. lincoln grew up in poverty. haven't done anything to make anyone remember the day ever live. he's living proof that americans can rise from obscurity to power with that wit and that charm and that intellect is better to stay sound and be thoughtful and to speak up and move down. he has a deep sense of empathy. he takes the declaration of independence. all men are created equal and turns it into a nation his moral

compass. as the country is breaking apart, there's a turning point where he's going have to take a stand. will be on your hand. blood is already on my hand. you can learn how to be a commander in chief. i can't have a war to fight. he was willing to admit he was wrong. and to change. we can attack immediately. he was the right person at the right time. if we let this stand for one minute now, we might as well say goodbye to the whole thing. union democracy. oh. you you had. you had some pretty good gets there, right? i, i recognize one of those guys. i think, you know what's a lot like president obama? i thought you were going to say it looks a lot like, you know, no more glasses.

it's out of sight. so what what might strike people for who this group watched? every documentary series about lincoln and there were others as we know in the last few years. but this is a stylist this is stylistically different there's graham to add the drama and and clearly production value. so what how did you come to this format? the history channel had done this before us and it's a great they sometimes call it they sometimes call it docu dramas. but what it allows you to do is to have the ordinary experts who come. i don't meet that the experts are ordinary. the idea of experts who can provide the story, what what you really want, whatever you're going to produce is a story. i mean, storytelling, as lincoln said, people remember stories better than back facts and figures. there's something in our brain that wires us to want a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. so in looking for the story, were able to mix together in this new the combination of

talking and the problem especially because george was first they didn't have any photographs of him they didn't have any film. all they had was stiff paintings. there's no way you're going to understand who he is unless you get actors who can fill in the spaces that history can't. i remember when i was working with steven spielberg on on lincoln, he gave a talk, actually at gettysburg where he talked about the difference, a film and a history book. and he said the film can fill the spaces that maybe you don't know what somebody said in a conversation, you know, from a memoir or, you know, from a diary, what they might have said. and i when i was writing these books, i say, i know what they're thinking. i'm living with them. you know, my kids used to tease me when i was working on franklin and eleanor. they'd hear me in my study and i'd be talking to franklin, said, oh, franklin, she loves you. just be kinder to eleanor. forget that affair that he had so many years ago. it's a long time ago. he's your partner and they come in. what is going on here? and i do think that i think what they were thinking. but you can't do it in the history form.

but in a drama form you can. so it allows the viewer to not only see the larger picture and the that the experts can provide, but to see the intimate details that an actor like graham and mary and the people who played stanton and seward and you feel that combination think of intimacy. 30,000 feet in the narrator and then the storytelling that act that the people who are the historians provide. i love the combination i think it's it really allows both things to be enhanced in a way that they wouldn't be otherwise by themselves. you know, to me this the series is in a the the broader series the series are in a sense, based on leadership in turbulent times. and i just want to know if you were reminded as you both produced this series how much lincoln was influenced by washington, how much lincoln meant to teddy, how much teddy meant to fdr. yeah. i mean, beth pointed out one time to me that they were like a

big family tree, right? that you start with the last guy, lyndon johnson and his hero is fdr. in fact, he used to call him my political. that's fdr. and there's a great of there was a one time when johnson was a young congressman and he met fdr and there was a picture of him and there was some guy in the middle and he cut the guy out of the middle. the picture was just him and fdr. but fdr said after meeting him, you know, i have a feeling there's something about that young guy. he may be the first southern president or as incredibly something in him. and so then then you get fdr as hero and fdr as hero as teddy roosevelt. in fact, during this huge he just they knew each other because they were related to some extent. and of course, eleanor was related to teddy roosevelt because teddy roosevelt, her uncle, because eleanor his father had died and etc. and and so all mixed in together, the genealogy of the thing is incredible. but anyway, when and franklin got married, teddy her away and

they said that teddy was superseded. then there was nobody interested, the two of them. and all they cared about was teddy. well, teddy loved to be, as you said, the center of attention. and so he liked to be the baby at the baptism, it was said and the bride at the wedding and the at the funeral while he did that there. so anyway. but the summer that he was going through a big then teddy's teddy teddy himself is reading about lincoln and when he goes to a big coal strike he spends the entire summer reading the nine volumes of nicolay and hay. and then, of course, lincoln, we know connected to washington. so as pointed out one time, it's a very short history that we have and they really did feel like big old family tree and of course teddy has they had an extra advantage of having as his sister inheriting as secretary of state abraham lincoln's former assistant private secretary the author of the book they coauthor of the book that he can solve. it is a very close connection by way, you left out the best part of the story. that's not the best part, but another part that teddy would only agree to be best man at the wedding if it was held on

columbus day. so he could also be the grand marshal of the parade. oh, i just think that st patrick's day, st patrick's day parade just i killed the story. but the same idea, same idea, same idea. and just a half a block away to fifth avenue. you're right. so let's let's turn our attention back to lincoln, because that's why we're here. and let's have a look at the early years of lincoln in a new salem scene from the abraham lincoln docudrama. it was always interested in politics and loved politics. thank you. in little towns like new salem, politicians running for office would come on saturdays and, give speeches. illinois needs railroads. you a railroad. you can get your goods to market all like me to stay assembly. and i swear i'll bring the railroad right here to new salem. no, you.

i beg your pardon? who said that? i did see the way i figure it. if they do build that railroad, it'll be near springfield. i saw as much in the paper. and how far away from springfield? by, what, 20 miles. i won't do us a lack of good. see this fella? he's right about us needing to get to market. but what we need a new salem is to widen the river so the steamships can get here. then this town will take off like a rabbit in front of a pack of wolves. well, i could vote for both waterway and the railroad. i don't think so, mr. how much are railroad going to cost? a lot, right? this fellow, you might be able to talk the hind leg off a donkey, but if they build that railroad, there won't be a dime left. the tax money for our river. and we'll just be like the like a runt of the litter left behind, squealing a mule when there's nothing left to do maybe there was something about the way lincoln spoke, he was able

to translate complex issues into something simple in terms of the daily life of the people within eight months of his being in new salem, the residents wanted him to run for the state legislature. so wow, that's. tell us a little bit about the art and set design because it's it's simple, but it's very evocative and i think it's very true. yeah. who who are the involved in that project? again, a whole team effort and do mood so for lincoln we work with this wonderful company called radical media dave saranac heads radical media and he's partner and all in in the teddy one in lincoln and in and he's incredible he puts together this wonderful team and it starts really with a mood board they do that right in the proposal stage and then work out from there and. they hire the best people to put together the best sets and that and they do a lot of studying

and we we've done a lot of that. and mary and they they are able to really replicate, you know, for in a in a really it's so hard to explain but in a very evocative way, they're able to replicate something that in some cases we don't have all the information. and so, again, they have to fill in where we don't know. and they also have to source all of these things and these these are not ten year projects. they are two year projects maximum. and so it's a really big order in a short amount of time. yeah. what i really love about this scene is first of all, the thing about graham is he plays lincoln the time he's like 23 until he's dies. you so he wasn't supposed to be the young but then he was so good as the older they said, can you do this? young it too. and he obviously did. but this this scene what i love so much about new salem is that's where lincoln starts becoming. a politician at 23 years old, as was said, he decides to run for the state legislature and he

gives this amazing talk in those days, if you ran for the state legislature, you had to put out a that said what you are running for. it was called a handbill. and his is extraordinary. it starts you. every man has his peculiar ambition. mine is to be esteemed of by my fellow man. even at 23 he wanted something to accomplish so that people would remember who he was later. and then he said, well, i've, you know, i don't have any popular relatives to sustain me. i don't know a lot of you. i'll probably lose, but i'm so familiar with disappointment it will be okay. but he says, but if i lose, i'm going to come back five or six times until it's really disgraceful. and then i promise i'll never run again. and then he says, and if i make mistakes, i'm going to i'm going to correct them. i mean, it was a one derful it was just a wonderful i mean, compared to other, you know, opening statements of what they're going to be doing. he kept his word, that's what mattered to him, right from beginning. and you see it in that 23 year old and just just listen to the language when he talks about,

you know, runts and cattle and things like that. that's what made him so connected to the people because he understood their daily lives and he gets almost all the votes in his home town. oh, that was a great thing. even though he lost, he got 277 votes. out of the 300 people in new salem. so the who knew him, he was a clerk in the general and they started following his career. they saw him reading books and poetry when he was not serving, even though he served them well and they'd start writing fires for him to read at night. they lent him books. they were part of his his upward climb. and even though he lost that first time, he wins second time. and then they all chip to give him possible suit. so that he could wear it to the state legislature because he'd never any clothes to do. it's great to see the young lincoln. i think that's it. just makes you connected to him from the beginning, the end. and i've always thought he might well have won that first time had he not re-enlist voted in the black hawk war for another another spin, whatever it's called. yeah. and then and then course he

doesn't get to campaign and he runs on his war record in absentia, which is not the most impressive on earth as he was the first to say. and of course, you argue in your book. catherine has argued in her book that lincoln's steady but kind of stumbling and limited aspirations for forward momentum are irrevocably changed. altered, magnified by his meeting with and courtship of mary lincoln. so let's take a look at abraham lincoln meeting. mary in this clip. you play on a pawn that. i consider. i didn't expect to see you here. thank you.

oh, mr. douglas, you haven't introduced your friend miss mary todd. he's mr. abraham lincoln. mr. matthew, i'm honored. mr. lincoln's a stubborn, determined to drive his carriage over a cliff when everyone else is reined in their horses. perhaps mr. lincoln sees a road where you don't, mr. douglas. mr. trump, i would to dance with you in the worst way. i. lincoln had a great for women. he was very bashful he was very shy. but that didn't mean that he was not always thinking about women.

mary todd was the bell of the town. she was beautiful. she was witty. she attracted many suitors. she was actually courted by stephen douglas, among others she was educated. she came from a long line of diplomat, ambassadors, governors. she was very interested in politics. she was from a prominent whig political family. her father was a slaveholder, but he was also a whig who knew henry clay, who was lincoln's political hero. i myself am a great man can play really well. well, i think the lady like yourself, he interested in well, i hope you'll find i'm not like other ladies. mr. lincoln. and tell me, what is this, cliff? you determined to drive lincoln felt an instant connection to her and she.

to him she saw something in him right away. well, mr. lincoln, you said you wanted to dance with me in the worst way. and you certainly did the don't look so wounded. it's not your dancing skills interested in. you know, what i love about that is? that that's a kind of sexy thing, she says embrace you know your dancing i'm interested it when i was on john stewart at one time they asked me about lincoln's and i said, you know, i think he's sexy. now that is not the normal thing that we think about with lincoln. but there's this picture of him, i'm sure, you know, in 58 before the beard and, he's rugged and he's got that gray hair flat, you know, became it flying

around. and i loved it. and i never i never got over it being teased every single time i went on john stewart or or stephen colbert, she thinks he's sexy. became headlines married it and it was a headline in today i remember that sexy lincoln question mark yeah we'll pass over the line about all the hair though. talk for a minute about again, just branching out from the lincoln story a bit the the kind of the continuum of first ladies who had somewhat stormy relationships their husbands through the years but who still managed to exert huge influence by which by i mean, mary and eleanor in particular. yeah. you know, i mean i think that we know there's been a lot of controversy in the lincoln world about mary's influence on on lincoln. but i think i already said in the clip, you know, that he she saw something the early on. she believed in him early, and

he needed that confidence. she gave him a channel into that larger world that she knew of. she knew poetry and politics and and i think she was very important in his life. and in the early days, when you read books in the 19th century about presidents they'd hardly mention the wife, they might be called mrs. polk or mrs. whatever, so that it's a huge change in literature. i think that we understand the importance of women in the whole world, much less in the world of presidents wives. eleanor, of course, is sui. i mean lincoln lincoln lincoln. i get my guys mixed up sometimes. fdr said of her that she was a welcome thorn in his side, but what thorn she was. i mean, without so much, would not have happened. i mean eleanor was the person who said so many memos to general about discrimination in the army that he had to assign a separate general whose only task was to deal with eleanor roosevelt. she had weekly press conferences where only female reporters could come. so all of a sudden, the stuffy publishers had to hire their

first female reporter. she was insistent on women going to work in the factories that they should have an equal role with men. the men said. at first all, they'll never learn how to operate these complicated machines distract the men on the assembly line production will go down. but of course, by the middle of the war, they had to open their doors to women and production went up when women were 60% of the of the of the workforce in the airplane factories and the and the shipyards. so these same old factory owners decided we better do a study and, figure out how are these women learn to operate these complex machines. so well and so quickly. i love the answer they came back on one of the study forms was very simple. when a woman, unlike a man, would be asked to operate a new machine, she would ask directions. i like the men, any of us. i used to travel with you in the old days before the gps know what that means. but i mean, every every every president's wife and that's what it's been so far. a male president and the wives. someday there'll be a presidential spouse that's there for a woman. someday, someday. but anyway, everyone has as an

influence on them, whether it's private or public, and it's important thing. and mary, mary still very complicated character. and it was grateful to catherine because she did such great work on her. and it's shown in here. and she's a formidable figure, i think has to be reckoned with. and i think just to add to that what we really tried to do with all this series, really give a fair shake, the women, i mean, we really took a lot of time and and we talked to a lot of experts so that we were sure to really give them their due and we loved working with eleanor and mary and mary lincoln. it's been really exciting. and in with teddy too i mean to try to really explain that relationship the best we can in this format. and in just three weeks it's the 75th anniversary of eleanor's crowning achievement, the u.n. declaration on human rights. and as our friend craig simon says in his biography of chester nimitz, when when eleanor went on her tour of the south pacific

and nimitz met eleanor, he said privately, now i know who the brains of the family. so they say, let let's let's talk about lincoln as a communicator and of course, all eyes were on lincoln at the period that you just talked about when the sexy lincoln goes into the lincoln-douglas debates. now, i'm not going to let you forget that, especially because of the hair stuff. so let's take a look at this clip, a scene recreating the lincoln debates. lincoln felt that his life had been a flat failure compared to douglas's. douglas had gotten further than he had, and now they're running against each other. the senate now i am no giant like judge. i'm a mere mortal. so now his ambition is far exceeds my own. his party, they all him to be president. one day and, then they will all

reap the benefits of his greatness. yes, but nobody has ever looked at my lean like face and expected me to be president. people come these debates with all the fervent love and attention that they would bring to a giant sporting event today. but these were more important than. any sporting event could have been. i am here to talk about basic principles. now, if the -- is a man well, then my age and. faith teaches me that all men are created equal and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man making a slave another. belongs to all about principle. i care more for the great principle of self government, the right of the people to rule than i do for all the -- in

prison. no. when a white man governs himself, that is self-government. but when he governs himself and he also governs another man that is more than self-government, that is despot despot. graham, your incredible. it's just incredible. i've watched it many times and it just doesn't get all. you're just incredible in that role. just spectacular really. you know, i'm so glad resisted the temptation to that that robert isherwood and hollywood fell to making their great lincoln-douglas debates scene a nighttime scene with torches because these were daytime time events with people. so in the heat or in rain and chill, and that's, you know, whatever the drama of light poles, that's it. and yeah, graham is effective

and very effective. and one of the things that followed this in one of these real debates is showing how lincoln was able to spar with the crowd because it was really like football games, you know, hit him again, hit them again, harder. they'd be yelling from the crowd. and at one point, somebody yelled out at lincoln, two faced mr. lincoln, and he had immediate response, if i had to faces, do you think i'd be wearing this face? i mean, he was great that way. and you'll see that on your dvds in my show. it just happens not to be in this class. but let's just going through all the subjects. well, after washington, we don't know about well, we know about his communication when he did his his farewells troops, he evoked tears. but is that a common denominator that runs through the leadership? oh, without a question. i mean, communication and adapting to the necessity of that. exactly. of the technology of the time. we we tend to talk alike after all these years. the technology this time. i mean, lincoln was lucky to live in a time when the speeches would be printed full in the papers, when they would then be pamphlet ized and people would

read them aloud in their country homes or city city homes and. then you come along. teddy roosevelt and the newspaper papers have finally come into being the tabloid newspapers, and they love these sports headlines. and teddy had all those pithy statements, you know speak softly and carry a big stick. don't hit until you have to, and then hit hard. i never knew what they even meant, but they sounded good. even gave maxwell house the slogan good to the very last drop. but even more importantly, he was the president to ever have a phrase for it to do to distinguishes legislative program in in just a few words the square deal and that told everything about his whole presidency a square deal for the rich and the poor the capitalist and the wage. so he mastered the technology needing to be in those newspapers and needing to project a fighting image and, needing to have something that could reach entire country. and then fdr of course comes along with the perfect voice for the age of radio. and it was just a conversational voice. he made it intimate so that people felt he was really

talking to them. he used small words rather than big. at one point, somebody drafted something for him, we want a more inclusive society. and he changed it to we want a society in which no one is left out. it's just so much more powerful. and there's stories. i mean, saul bellow said you could, the novelist, you could walk down the street on a hot chicago night and he could watch. everybody was having the radio on in their kitchen or their living room. you could hear his voice coming out the window and you could keep walking and not miss a word what he was saying, because everybody was listening. so it was a common denominator, which we don't have today with our divided network. there's a story about a construction worker hurrying one night and somebody said, where are you going? and he said, well, i've to get home immediately because my president's coming to speak to me in my living room, it's only i be there to greet him when he comes. and then of course the television comes and you've got jfk and reagan that are masters of that. and now we come to the tweet and where we are with a divided network and the inability, i think, for people to be

listening to the same thing. facts are not the same. opinions are not only different, but facts are not the same. so we don't have that same power that these earlier forms of communication had in many ways, they can reach many more people, but not with the same ability to create community that we had before. although you know about partizan press, i should say we had a community back in the 1850s. one of our teachers scholars asked, me at lunch, whether it was true that before his fireside chats, fdr would take a cap out of his teeth because it whistled and the was. yes, absolutely. you know, the importance of the way that sound sounded. yeah. on radio he could deal with it in oratory, but he knew that the whistle could be heard on radios and always tell the story about fdr that, you know, i asked my parents once who were, you know, big fdr fans. well, how often was he on the radio? and they said, well, every night, every night, like bing

crosby or bob hope, he was always on the radio. what does it 29? i mean, that's right. he said that if he only gave 30 fireside chats and his whole 12 years, he said, if my speeches become routine, they will lose their effectiveness again. something our modern people should learn about right. but think about the now compared to these debates. i mean, these debates had philosophy. they had history, they had arguments, they had humor. they had the crowd being part of it. they had literature, they had no moderators saying time up. exactly. so, i mean, until the end and the humor. and they had over 60 minutes, 90 minutes and then 30 minutes, 3 hours of standing mostly. yeah, yeah. oh, for the old days. i know that this crowd would stand up for 3 hours about i'm not sure everyone else. well we've talked about communications, we've talked about other forms of leadership. we should, of course, turn to the area that doris perhaps in,

certainly in the lincoln world is most for. and that is dealing with competitors and peers and the r word rivals. let's take a look. a scene from abraham lincoln that takes us back to what a cabinet meeting might have been like in the 1860s. i if we sent troops down south, we'll lose virginia arkansas, all the warring states. time is running out, abandoning the fort inevitable. we can't let the rebels humiliate us by overrunning it. the sooner we leave on our own, the better. now we have a clear cut majority. an agreement. so it's decided.

no, it's not decided. secretary seward. it's not decided until i decided decided. mr. president. now. i reckon that everything secretary seward says is true. but there are also other things are true. one of them being that i'm not willing to go back on my word and i'm also not ready to give up. the way i see it is that surrender would be ruinous to the union. but i discouraging the folks at home and our adversaries and it might get this illegal confederacy recognized by foreign powers. i have talked to a navy who's got a plan to send supplies by sea, by a warship.

and i have decided to do. lincoln's response was brief and firm. that puts seward pretty firmly in his place. and it is something of a tribute to seward that. he understood that lincoln was the boss and that there was more to abraham lincoln that he had originally. yeah, exactly. there was more to it. and graham not only handled his role as lincoln with his team of rivals, he actually was the leader with the actors as well and was able to work with them on, their lines, and he would have them to apartment and and he didn't take a moment off in the months that he did this. i mean he barely slept. he barely eight he he worked nonstop and really built that community, not just as a fellow

actor, but really embodying lincoln. it was really extraordinary to hear about it. we would do zooms with with him as he going in the process and to hear what he was up against and actually looking at michelle. michelle was our lifeline. anytime we didn't know the answer to something which happened you know even with doris he was been doing this for a long time and michelle would be our life line and we would say, michelle, help win. what? here, what? what did this look like? and so it's really great and but graham just embodied lincoln in a way that it just blew away, you know? and the great thing is, of course, that when lincoln, as you all know, couldn't sleep that first night after he's elected, he makes that decision that night that i need to put these three chief rivals into my cabinet, each one of whom was more educated, more celebrated, each one of whom thought he should be president instead, lincoln and his friends said, how are you going to do this? you're going to look like a figurehead. and he famously said, the country in peril. these are the strongest, the most able men in the country.

i need them by my side. but my old friend lyndon johnson might have put that same idea in less noble language. he like to say it's better to have your enemies inside the tent -- out than outside the tent --. not so noble, but. but thoughtful. and for our c-span audience, michelle is michelle crowl, who is the lincoln in civil war specialist at the library of congress and the keeper of the lincoln papers. the biggest treasure in the world. for those of us who write about life, i guess i just that everyone knows michelle krowl, you know, the scene us back to the moments when cabinet meetings actually took place routinely they don't anymore this kind of photo now and where consent process was kind of required more in the israeli cabinet system where they need a majority of the cabinet. so i think that's recreated that i think that's really right. i mean, what what lincoln did i mean, it has an enormous meaning

with the emancipate proclamation is by having these right within his cabinet they represented different factions in the north. i mean, the big problem for lincoln was not only the south but how to keep north together, because there's radicals. there's moderates in this, conservatives in their right sitting next to him in those cabinet meetings. so if he can get them to come along with what he wants to do, then he can reach their constituencies. so he searched for months to try and talk about what to do about emancipation. and there were some who thought he should have it right away. there were others who thought he should never do it and he could not reach a consensus at first. so he finally decided and this is something i think leaders have to come to, that you may have to just make a decision and he goes to the cabinet, as you all know and says, i've made my decision i'm going to issue this emancipation proclamation, but i'd like your thoughts on its timing and its implementation and and what he really wanted was for all of to at least publicly go with him, even if they still didn't agree.

but the great thing was, even though several not agree, still they never said it publicly because had formed some sort such respect for him. he had them with kindness. he had shared credit when credit needed to be shared, he shouldered blame which when blame was them perhaps. and there was a sense in which he said he wrote handwritten letters to them all the time, telling me, you did a good job, said people like a compliment. he had all those emotional qualities of of knowing how to deal with a team so that when that huge moment came, they kept their private dissent, private and it meant that the country saw a unified kind of leak free. not always, but i mean, if we'd ever read what they said about other in their diaries and letters right? oh, my god. it would have been incredibly exciting, but terrible. let's look at another another side of lincoln that's explored in your writing and in in darker drama. and that is lincoln as commander in chief. so let's cue to that.

i-man ford well enough. we did not expect strength of the cowboy to there was a lot of bragging before. the fighting started, but what we need now or who had it serious minded, hard fighting soldiers and we need them than 90 days those boys out there were listening to my book so if you don't mind, sir, i prefer you don't do too much to write it, boy, we've got a special visitor at east end. oh, understand. thank you. thank you. yes. hey, no, no, no no, no. go to your boys. i like it myself. colonel sherman here tells me that it's not military.

so i'll just say this before tough battle. and we came in second. but brighter days are coming. so if you need anything, please feel free to speak of. mr. president. mr. president, can i really ask you anything? yes. go ahead. well, my 90 days are up and i've got to get home. spoke to the colonel, sir, but the conversation? well, he said he'd shoot me. shoot you? well, colonel sherman threatened shoot. i trust his word because i believe he might just do it. so the 90 days are up. of course you're free to go. but just know this. this isn't over. your country still needs you no need to. i hope you boys all re-enlist. yes.

yes. but i need every single one of you. every single one of you. yeah. so this is, of course, right. after the loss at bull run and the soldiers took him in his word. i think there were more than 2000 of them visited the white house to complain about something. but the important thing is he went to the battlefield more than a dozen times, the active battlefield during the war. he just wanted to bolster the morale of the soldiers to visit the wounded in the hospital and to really get a sense of where they were at and that kind of intelligence was what allowed him to know timing. it's such an important thing for a leader is when to do what? he later said that because talking to the soldiers, he could figure out when they would be willing to have black soldiers amidst their met their their troops when he was able to do the emancipation proclamation if he'd done it six months earlier, he would have lost the border states.

have you done it any longer? you have lost the morale boost it provided. and so it was the perfect timing. on january first, 19, 1863. but there was a problem, as i'm sure you all know, which is that morning he had signed. so many he had had open house in the morning anybody could come to the white house and anywhere, any day of the week actually. but on new year's day, they could all come and he'd shaken so many hands at his own hand was numb and shaking. so he put the pen down and famously said, you know if anything my whole soul is in this thing. but if i sign with a shaking hand, posterity will say he hesitated. so he waited till could sign with an unusually bold hand. but all of that came from the accessibility that he had to the troops, to the people. i mean, ordinary people come in, in the mornings and talk to him and him. why they wanted a clerkship or a postmaster. and after a while, nicola and hay. you know, mr. president, you don't have time for these ordinary. he said you're wrong. these are my public opinion base. i must never forget the popular assemblage which i have come. so that trait in a leader is so

important and was beleaguered by all those people who kept running in. that's why he had to go away to the soldiers home. to be able to think and think through the emancipation proclamation, to get away from them for a while and of the things i wanted to add is our leader in in making this it was malcolm and he was our director and as you it was just so stunningly beautiful he had such a vision and was so committed to telling story the way we all wanted to. i mean, there were very few times that we disagreed things with history, with radical, you know, with malcolm. i mean, there were and we all had conversations. if there was something that somebody strongly about that somebody else didn't or if there was some, you know, something that was going to take more time or cost more money. i mean, these the conversations that we had very help. mary donahue oh, my gosh. talk about a lifeline. yes, absolutely. but that was the thing. and malcolm is was just extraordinary and worked so closely. graham, i mean, they really it's quite beautiful brothers during

writing, not like writing on your own, right? no, like a book. oh, my gosh. it's such a team. a team of non-writing roles, right? yes. i mean, no, it's your vision, it's your words. it's the phrases and the interpretations. we know from you. but in this new format which makes it so, so new and vital that's what i liked. well, and we're so lucky to have the history channel as our partners. i mean, it starts with the boss. that's paul mcgarry and rob sharon now and eli lehrer and mary donahue and jen wagman and dr. kim gilmore. i mean, there's so many people that come together to make this happen. it's it's just a joy for us because to reach people in a different way than a book might or, that a news program might. i mean, to have this kind of format and to this this leeway, i mean, we this was supposed to be a six hour documentary. and the first cut came in at seven and a half. and normally they would say trim, trim, trim. and mary can attest, mary, they watched it and they were they

made an exception and they made it seven and a half hours, which is a huge amount of time. i mean, think about how much time graham was on the screen, how many different scenes he shot in one day. it's just it's and, you know, just to add i mean, obviously, the other thing that we're seeing pieces of here because we've chosen the acting scene is but the historians that were brought in are the key to this whole thing. i mean, they're the majority of the time talking and it was such it for me to get to know them. i mean, they knew each other this lincoln world, as you know, is is such a family that i know one. and they had already known each other. and i felt like such a rookie getting into it, but it was such a great treat, a result of that, to be able to learn from each one of them. and i felt like, you know, we would the interviews would take place. we'd be involved with that as well. so yeah, writing questions and fitting all the puzzle pieces together. i mean, that was really i mean, we have a script that, you know, it starts with an outline and then it goes to scripts and we revise the scripts. but you have the scenes and then you fit in experts or you have

the experts and you fit in the scenes. and looking at edna and it it was really we the both pieces needed each other. yeah, let's, let's try to find time to do a couple more aspects of the lincoln story and the the film probes lincoln's crucial mind expanding relationship with frederick douglass. so let's have a look at a scene that that illustrates that. mr. president, i'm frederick. oh, you are? mr. douglass. glad to see you. have a seat. i read your recent article about the tardy hesitate and vacillating policy of the

president of the united states. tardy and hesitating, perhaps, but vacillating. i tend to speak my mind well. i admire that. i expect it's what you're here for. it is. mr. president, when persuade men to enlist, i to do it with my heart. but i cannot in good conscience, recruit for the union army any longer. first, there was the issue of pay, and now the retaliatory order. and your response? it's too little, too late. my own sons are fighting as if they have halters around. their necks. i am in a difficult position, mr. douglass. if i could find the rebels, respond before acting out those orders, i could execute them. but to kill just any captured

rebel, you'll agree that there's difference between stating the principle and putting it into practice and had i issued the order any sooner, there would have been a public outcry against the measure. but now that the the blacks have proven themselves and american abandoned in fort wagner public, opinion is changing. oh, you see, i to wait you you say all this, but i hear only one word. wait, wait. for equal pay. wait for justice. when we are done waiting, what will be left of us? you're right, mr. douglass douglass, but you must know it will. come once i take possession and

never retreat from it. wow. so. tell how you decided to visualize and dramatize that very complex relationship. and because it's quite powerful and it's got several issues, you know, conflated for reasons of the dramatic story, but a lot to unpack there. yeah, well, luckily the meeting was pretty well described by frederick douglass and by others, so it was the way to do it. because you knew we had these conversations. we even know that that's what douglass said. they talked about. so but the important thing was something even larger, i think, is that it showed the relationship between an agitator on outside and the inside politician. and they form a certain important leverage with each

other. i mean, one of the things that that douglass later said after after lincoln died was that if you judged him by abolition standards, he would seem tardy, cold. but if you judge him by the standards of a president who has to get the country going along with him, then he's swift and and resolute. and that's something so important to understand that they have different constituencies they're dealing with. and and that one of the things lincoln later said was, don't call me a liberator. it was the anti-slavery movement and the union soldiers that did it all. and that's part of the history of social justice in our country. the progressive movement was there before teddy roosevelt, the antiwar movement was there in the sixties. civil rights movement, of course, was there before lbj and that's why the citizens are responsible for so much of what happens. and that's what we wanted to show here, too. it wasn't just the leader on the top. it was the people who are from the ground up making that change. and frederick douglass

symbolized that. so i think that's why this was important to have this as a as a theme running through the entire story. and when you talked about the meeting was so well documented, you know, in the parts where we didn't know, we worked with a team of writers and obviously they did a lot of research and that elizabeth ball and her team under with radical and then also you know we had a showrunner who then kept it all together and that was sarah enright and all of these pieces the parts that we knew we were able to lean into the parts that we didn't we were able to research. and that's why and for time and efficiency sometimes we had to put some things together and then we had doris and other experts that we would run it by them to say, you know, does this seem plausible? is okay? and, you know and we wanted to be as pure and true as we could to lincoln's story and to the country story. what liked about this scene in particular is that it reminds people or should remind people that leadership is not all about yelling and carrying on and

staking a position for much from which one cannot change sometimes. but it's keeping different. arguing ments and interest groups at bay, perhaps finding a middle ground displeasing almost everyone to get to the truth and the right and learning as you go along right. and this is going to change your opinion when. yes, of course. you need to. this is not a heroic lincoln scene. it's kind of a frustrating lincoln scene. but that, as you pointed out, is an aspect of leadership too. i'm glad we've saved this scene as our last excerpt because i love trains. i love all trains. i think this is lincoln on a train. so that does it for me. so let's let's see this. hello. oh, pleasure bringing julia. oh, what's your name.

amy from maine. hello. i was going to see you. hello. pleasure to meet you. no, you're even taller than they say. i am. better look here you are. you had the rebels here this past summer. you just too many. i had three sons for that one know they come home to. thank you. you have done our country a great service. sir. that's gettysburg, right? yeah, very so powerful. how many mothers? widows. glad handing city did he experience and the pain that

must have caused him. and of course the pain he he saw others of. i don't know. we can comment further, but in your experience, doris, are leaders created by the moment or our leaders just born leaders? and can take on anything? you know, when was in graduate school. these are the kind of questions would talk about at night our leaders are made. does the man make the times or the times make the man kind of nerdy things but it was fun when we were young and actually those are the things that that were so interesting to me in the leadership of and i think this is a example what you see lincoln's face there is empathy which is a quality that i do believe he was born with. i mean, i think some are born with it. they say even when he was a young little kid, that his friends would be throwing hot coals on turtles to make them wriggle. and he said, that's wrong. would you want to hurt another being?

and he went against the tide of his friends. and there's other times when he's walking home with people and there was a drunken man who had fallen into a puddle and it was very cold out and went by and he went back and him home because he couldn't bear the thought of the pain that he was feeling. but i think other people can learn empathy from experience is i mean, there's a famous story, teddy roosevelt, who was against a bill when he was in the state legislature that, would regulate cigar making fanny manufacturing that was going on in tenement. so the families were living in terrible conditions where the cigars being made in these tenements. but he didn't, as most conservatives didn't at that time, that should regulate private property. but the union guy said, can i take you and show you the situation? and he saw it. something happened inside, some feeling of identifying nation with this is not right. and he not only championed the bill, but he became the sponsor of the bill. so and we and we made that a scene in our in our night, that scene in the teddy roosevelt thing, because we're trying to we're trying to look exactly for

where these qualities come from. and when i think about empathy, which i think was a central quality in abraham lincoln and how could you just discuss it if you don't see on his face? that's that's where the acting really can matter. but empathy is what i think we're missing in our country more than anything right now. people feeling other people's points of view. i mean, teddy roosevelt warned democracy would be in peril if people different sections and regions and parties began seeing each other as the other rather than as common american citizens. and what we do with that, i think, is the challenge of this generation. i, i sometimes wish that we could go back to some idea of national service, which teddy roosevelt was for eleanor roosevelt for just so the kids coming out high school go to a different part of america and experience those lives. i mean, military does it. my son was in the military right after 911. he graduated from harvard in june of one. join the army in september. and he said nothing will match in a certain sense. what was like to lead a platoon of kids from all over the country from different points of view and meld them together as a

team. and that's that's our challenge. i think this country right now as to how to feel and empathy for people from different points of view that that need to be put together as a common american citizens. we still need that in this country. and we see that in lincoln's face right there. and if more of us could have that, i think we we that's the thing about lincoln, you know, the one thing that when i first started studying lincoln, i went to david donald's house because i lived in concord and he lived in lincoln. and he took me through his library and showed me all of his books. and i was so scared, i didn't know the 19th century. it was so huge to take on lincoln. but i just wanted live with him. i thought, and i no idea how extraordinary it would be except david donald said to me, you will never regret living with abraham lincoln. and and it's true. you felt like somehow you'd be a better person, that somehow he had the normal emotions of anger and envy and jealousy that we all do. but he felt like had to damp them down. if you let them fester, it'll. it'll poison you. so every time one of those emotions come, i think. abraham would be mad at me. stop feeling that.

and then i told that to daniel day-lewis when he started doing lincoln. i it to tony kushner i told it to graham. i said, you will feel like you'll be a better person it and i think what are we all here for? there's some camaraderie in this crazy group when i listen to you singing last night, the top of your lungs and i hear you running around hugging each other. there is a sense of connection here because we feel connected to this man. so i'm so glad that lincoln has brought us all together. thank you. and where it. and you know, 28 years, i can truly say that you bring out the best in us as well so we want before we we tonight to express our gratitude and our admiration to doris and to beth for their accomplishment and just finding way to bring this story to millions more people and

jonathan white is going to join me on stage. doris has won every award there is to win, and she's our lifetime achievement award. we created a new award and hopefully, hopefully it will go to because we're setting bar is frank polk in the audience? stand up, frank. now, frank frank is, as you may know, our official lincoln form sculptor. so we engaged him to help create the first lincoln forum history and film award, which john and i will now present with great affection and respect to doris kearns goodwin and beth. come over and have a look.

of. oh one. so without. so without giving too much analysis of a sculpted work, it's still damp it it's kind of a frank signature standing lincoln. but as you may see, like an oscar, there's a roll of film here and a strip of film. i know we don't use film anymore. mary but, you know, it's symbolic and it's sort of a combination. and. lincoln yeah, yeah. let's hold on.

the topic of our final segment this morning has been the one liner used by comedians, scholars, politician and common folks. for 100 ye