go to booktv.org and click on afterwards in the booktv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page. >> up next on booktv, david goldfield examines what led to the start of the civil war mimic the role that religion played. he reports on how evangelicalism provide a backdrop of good versus evil between the north and south. and argues that the politically mediated resolution between the two sides became unrealistic to do the inclusion of religion in political affairs. this last about an hour.

>> 150 years ago today the firing on fort sumter in charleston harbor launched for bloody terrible years we know as the american civil war. we realize the impact of that conflict has been felt in almost every area of our culture since. it has shaped our nation in ways, good and bad, and remains a focal point for controversy, discussion, and dispute for millions of people. if you have any doubt about that, consider that just yesterday the placement of a historical plaque denoting the union and burning of atlanta during the civil war was protested by the naacp because its location in the middle of atlantis civil rights district was deemed to be insensitive. the war may be 150 years old, but the feelings that it generated are as fresh as this morning's pollen.

so today, this nation of officially begins the commemoration of the civil war sesquicentennial. it is in observance we begin here at the center for the book earlier this year with the intent of finding ways of examining the war and what it means to us that move beyond the celebration of battlefield exploits, and probe more deeply than cost you reenactments. to that end we are proud tonight to welcome dr. david goldfield, a distinguished robert lee bailey professor of history at the university of north carolina at charlotte. the just published book he brings to us is "america aflame how the civil war created a nation," which is nothing less that a major narrative of the war and reconstruction that gives us new ways to perceive some of the most fundamental matters of this special history. indeed, as jim cobb, our good

friend and a new university of georgia historian writes, and once greatest contribution may lie in showing us new ways to understand what we already know. would you please join me in welcoming our special guest this evening, dr. david goldfield. [applause] >> thank you very much, bill. there are not two places more beautiful in the spring than georgia. glad to be here. thanks to the georgia center for the book, for inviting me. and thanks to you for coming out this evening. you know, several years ago i came out with a book called still fighting the civil war. and in the research for that book i found that religion was really central to our culture. it wasn't the first time i have

discovered that. but particularly for those who had fought in the war. and the second thing i discovered is that many of those who came home from the war on the confederate side came home maimed in mind and body. the war had a profound impact on them. and i thought, well, maybe the yankees experienced the same thing. and maybe religion was important also, particularly evangelical religion. and maybe the union soldiers also came home maimed in mind and body. and it's not surprising that the first treatise on what we called it a post-traumatic stress disorder, ptsd, was written in 1876. and it dealt with the civil war veterans. so surviving the war did not necessarily mean surviving it whole. and so i wrote this book,

"america aflame." "america aflame" is dedicated to these men who fought and died, the men who came home and the millions at home who mourned their loss. i open the book with the following paragraph. convent life no longer suited sister mary john. born elizabeth harrison in philadelphia, she had converted to the catholic faith and entered the order at the age of 18 in 1824. by all accounts, sister mary was a gifted teacher and musician. now in the sweltering summer of 1834, at the order's convent school in charlestown, massachusetts, she walked out. the oppressive heat touching 14, teaching 1445 minute classes a

day, conducting music lessons, and attending to administrative duties as a mother assistant, all of us became overwhelming for her. she needed some time off. now, you may be wondering what in the world does a missing nine have to do with the civil war there it has everything to do with the civil war. because sister mary john would soon become a victim of evangelical protestantism. born in the second dash of which occurred in the turn of 19th century and swept her up the country and the next several decades, evangelicals converted hundreds of thousands of people with a simple message that if you give your life to jesus christ as your personal savior,

you will be saved. now, the problem i encountered in researching the origins of the civil war was not in this very simple and give a message of evangelicals. but in the fact that evangelicals of this message into the political process. thomas jefferson who wrote the first amendment to the constitution with the help of james madison, was crystal clear on the role of church and state. in 1802, congregation, in danbury, connecticut, said thomas a letter. when they be great if we could send in a note to the founding fathers and get a response back? and in this case, they wonder, what exactly did you mean, congress shall make a lot of started religion? what does this mean in practice? and he says here that adhering

to this expression of the supreme world, on behalf of the rights of consciousness as he goes on, he says that their legislature should make no law respecting an associate of religion or braving the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall, a wall of separation between church and state. now, here we have a picture and there's something wrong in this picture. and many of you can recognize what is wrong in this picture because this is a picture of a nun holding her child. [laughter] and most of you know that that probably doesn't work too well, at least in the roman catholic church. the nun is maria, and maria wrote this book called the office closures of maria. right around the time that sister mary john disappeared. and in this book she talked

about priests ravishing her inner convent, hence the child, and when you went out into the basement of the convent, you opened it and there was the bones of aborted infants. as a result of the ravishing of the priests on the nuns. well, it turns out everything that maria wrote in this novel, are actually memoir called the awful disclosures of the hotel nunnery, everything was false. there was not a word of truth in the. but it became a bestseller. in fact, it was the nation's number one best seller because "new york times" wasn't around, but again the nation's number one bestseller, and it was displaced in the 1850s. do, never underestimate the ability of the mayor can people to believe almost anything. well, what happened to sister mary john is that protestant

workingmen in charlestown, massachusetts, became so exercised over her disappearance that they burned down the convent. this is the convent in flames. but they were less concerned really about sister mary john and the fact that the convent was built on a hill right next to bunker hill. we all know bunker hill is a pretty sacred site of the market revolution. and here you have this catholic convent, not only that can but is confident 60 pupils, all girls, and, of course, girls could not get an academic education in boston. the only place they could get an academic education to learn about history, to learn about science, learn about myth, learn about literature is in the catholic schools. so you at 60 students, 60 students in this condit, 50 of them were protestant girls. and as we all know with protestant girls go to catholic schools they all become catholic. right? that's what happens to them.

well, this was the fear of the protestant workingmen. end of the time of increased irish catholic immigration. and the fear was that the irish catholics would overturn american democracy. why? because they would owe their allegiance to the pope in rome and not to the president of the united states. not only that, but the roman catholics would not adhere to democratic forms because they were accustomed to hierarchy. they were accustomed to differing, to the superiors in the church. so lyman beecher, and you may have heard that dan, lyman beecher whose daughter was harriet beecher stowe, and his son was probably the greatest evangelist of his age, henry ward beecher, moved his family from new england to the raw frontier town of cincinnati because he wanted to save the west from roman catholic. he erected a seminary in cincinnati, but he came back to boston periodically they often

and he was the guy who preached the night before that this convent should be burned down. now, this occurred at a time when the westward movement had just begun. and the westward movement had sort of a sacred element to it, particularly among evangelicals who believe that god had chosen america to be the new nation of israel, that america was god's chosen nation. and part of being chosen was to span a convent from "the atlantic" ocean to the pacific ocean. this was not only a responsibility for american citizens but they were doing the work of god. you can see here on this painting that appeared in 1861, you can see the cross on the rock perhaps. get mileage out of make sure i don't point it at anybody. but you can see the cross on the wrong. this was a sacred duty.

of course, in the west you at indians and mexicans living there, but that didn't matter. because they were not of god's anointed people. so they could be pushed out of the way. will come in 1848, revolutions occurred throughout europe. and americans were very excited about this because until 1848 the united states was really the only democratic nation in the world. and we were very concerned about this experiment because if you're the only one, it is an experiment. and with pashtun with this expanded succeed or fail. if other nations are following your lead, that's good news. that's wonderful news. the problem was, of course, that these revolutions eventually failed and the regimes that replaced the revolutionary regimes in many instances where much worse than the regimes that the revelation had gotten rid of that. there was also a revolution in the streets of american cities.

here we have a street riot between two rival gangs, one posit and one catholic, in the city of new york on july 4, 1857. this right was immortalized in martin scorsese's movie gangs of new york. this relates to the fact that in many cities of america in the 1840s and '50s, especially as irish immigration increased, it is not much different than the way belfast was in 1970s and early 1980s with protestant and catholics fighting each other. if you'd walked down the streets of philadelphia, if you walked on the streets of new york in 1850s, and asked somebody well, what is the most pressing problem facing america at this time, they would've told you it's the sectarian conflict, the fact that the catholics are trying to take over, trying to take over america. and as a rumor that the pope was going to come and establish

headquarters in cincinnati. [laughter] >> why cincinnati, i don't know. it would seem the pope would have better sense than that. [laughter] but nevertheless, this was, this was the rumor. is going to establish his headquarters at the jewish hospital in cincinnati. [laughter] you get this connection, there's a conspiracy. and americans love conspiracies. this was part of the conspiracy. so so far we have nothing about slavery, right? ..

>> and here he is, a cartoon, which shows that he made think a crocodile is coming ashore, but actually the bombing catholic churches coming to take the children. in the background is not the white house, but st. peter's cathedral. i know you can't see it, but it says it tammany hall. the dinner -- the democratic party organization of new york. the republican party was the first major evangelicals party in america founded in 1854. it brought together the entire catholic wing of the party with the anti's slavery ring.

here is the anti catholic wing. the american patriot. it was a party newspaper for the american party which eventually folded into the republican party. they are opposed to people aggression and drummond the palaces and. they are opposed to foreigners holding office, opposed to nunneries and the jesuits. opposed to secret foreign orders and so on. they wanted to restrict immigration, but particularly restrict the rights of roman catholics to vote and to hold office. now, the republican party was the offspring of these two strains, the anti slavery strain and the anti catholic. when i say antislavery, keep in mind that the republican party, most of the people in the republican party did not care about slavery where it already existed. they wanted to keep the

territories white. they wanted to keep slaves out of the territories. a white man could have opportunity there because they believed that any place where slaves go whites cannot compete obviously because slaves don't take wages. the republican party built itself and bills itself as the white man's party. here we have abraham lincoln debating stephen douglas in that famous 1858 senatorial campaign. the republican party slogan that here was, a bank which that twin despotisms, catholicism and slavery. again, going hand in hand. i should tell you in full disclosure that abraham lincoln was not a religious bigot. he hated religious bigotry. he's all of the republican party line because it was very effective among the republican party base. you have heard in politics,

again at the base. republican party base working in cities, the small towns and farms across the northeast. and this resonated to this constituency, this anti catholicism. and so clinton campaigned under the slogan in 1858. in 1860, of course, abraham lincoln was the republican nominee for president. by this time american politics was becoming polarized. it was becoming polarized because evangelical religion was being injected into the political process. now all slavery and immigration and the catholic church for no longer political issues. they became moral issues. the problem in our system of government, ladies and gentlemen, is that our system works best with compromise and

with moderation. our greatest results from our government, nuclear registration to civil rights has occurred because we have been governed from the center. we should get into trouble as a nation. we could lot. we don't get much progress. this is what happened in the late 1850's. you have a republican valley in new york city during the campaign. 300,000 paramilitary groups, 400,000 members called the wide awake. they paraded around in these black cloth tapes and a red shirts after the italian revolutionaries in italy, and it was like a religious revival.

the republican party was not a political party in 1860. it was a movement. and the problem with injecting evangelical religion into politics is that your opponent is not really misguided or misinformed. your opponent is evil, a bad person. how do you compromise with sen? you don't. you don't. here is abraham lincoln scanned it preaching in in reward teachers plymouth church of brooklyn. i mentioned the event's telecast at the time, he was invited to preach at this church in brooklyn. it never happened, but nonetheless this poster was circulated throughout the country. again, you know, sometimes

aren't you surprised that sometimes the truth does not come out in politics? but the point is that they wanted to show lincoln as a religious man. this picture is showing that he is not just saying, hi, folks, nice day. he is preaching the gospel. he is preaching the brimstone that we have to get after those slaveholders, the roman catholics. well, southerners have their own evangelicals, the rev. benjamin polymer. the rev. benjamin ballmer, by 1860 southerners were defending slavery as not a necessary evil, but a positive good. it was a positive kid because it was ordained according to palmer, ordained by god because southern slaveholders bought the slaves to christianity. they saved their souls. not only did they bring the

slaves to christianity, but they provided them with sustenance. they also lifted them up from the barbarian of africa. so slavery was a god ordained institution. if in fact slavery was the same, then god will take care of it on his own with time and did not need the help of more of an evangelicals to do it. so what happened? well, we all know what happened 150 years ago today, the firing on fort sumter that brought about the civil war. here is a depiction of that war. you know, we get the word nasty. and this picture, i think, but it does a good job in showing how northerners and southerners view the civil war as a holy war. rhett butler, you all remember gone with the wind. great book.

he said all wars are sacred because if they wouldn't be nobody would fight the. did they wanted to make this more sacred. this was god's will. god is on our side. these nine men are not in union uniforms. they are crusaders. they're going to liberate the holy land from the infidel, in this case they will liberate the south from the confederates. you know, worse to have consequences. one of the consequences of worse is, of course, staff. and over the course of the civil war 620,000 young men died. i would like, not like to

comment on these pictures, but i will do is just to read the passage from my book that i think summarizes this very well. it was then, and death was more. how to deal with it possibility as a soldier, and how to process its reality, if you will, a friend, or family member. how did you die when you are of lying helpless and the world or fire is about to consume you were a wild pig is tearing at your entrails or you lost your legs to an artillery shell and know that you will bleed to death. do you think about the united states, the union, state rights, god, your family. the you plead for someone to shoot you? is it better to die as your

comrade did this morning as you sat eating breakfast together and then many ball crashed into his brain and splattered all over your plate? how do you die if your stress epo hospital bed, sweating from "america aflame" and infection while a young woman likes your face with a cold cloth. u.s. car if you're going to die and don't hear an answer. going in and out of consciousness catching her breath and gasping, water. maybe the nurse here's in jesus because that is what she writes to your family. how do you respond when you receive a black ramed envelope bearing an official seal? how do you respond when you're handed a letter from a stranger, nurse, comrade assuring you that your husband or father or son

died boldly for his country? do you think god? is this from in germany in 1945? no, it is from america in 1864. because of war. it is easy to get into board. much harder to get out. we all know that. we also know that there are many unintended consequences of war. these are some of the unintended consequences of war. hey, 4 million human beings are liberated. the union was saved. one of the questions that i would like you to take away after reading my book is to ask,

was there a better way? was there a better way than to kill 620,000 men? liberated slaves and save the union. as far as the slaves are concerned, my goodness, it took more than a century for african americans to achieve the efforts of that freedom in terms of full citizenship. as far as saving the union is concerned, the union would have already been saved. the north was an economic juggernaut. in fact, the south was more than economic furred generations after the civil war. but, in fact, did the civil war accomplish that peace might also have accomplished? here you have a union soldier coming home.

it seems he is wounded, but it is an nice homecoming. beecher stowe became an episcopalian renouncing the evangelical faith of her father and moved to florida. he did not care much about african americans anymore. she wrote a book on how to decorate your home. seven men aboard decorating graves. this was how the confederate that our in can home, although bit different. the complex plan. you know, bill, in his introduction, says i talked about reconstruction, and i do because i think you cannot talk about the meaning of the civil war without talking about its aftermath. many people have said, many

historians have said that reconstruction was a failure. it failed in giving the promise of freedom to african americans. that is wrong because of failure assumes that there is a chance of success. i mean, the world's failure means that there might have been a chance of success. there was no chance of success because, and you will see in the book, like northerners and white southerners, almost all of them believed in the inferiority of the african. they believed that africans were not suitable to a vote. in fact, during reconstruction eight northern states turned down, turned down an opportunity to give african-americans the vote. yet they turned around and said to alabama and mississippi and

georgia the commonwealth, you have to have african-americans vote, but they were not doing it. we call this hypocrisy, but as we know, that never happens in politics. the point i'm trying to make clear is that we construction never really happened -- had a chance. it wasn't that northerners became in difference were abandoned reconstruction. they never had any intention of doing this. of course in the south this is one of the results. whiping a black girl in north carolina. now, i showed this slide to my students, and ask them, where did this come from? where does it come from? what state? just a guess. new york. absolutely. new york city. 1863. and this just proves my point. a black man hanging from this

tree. a southern white boy did not put him up there. new yorkers, white new yorkers did. this is the democratic party poster from the 1864 president's election. the miscegenation ball. the democratic party calling the word miscegenation. we use the board today. first came into being in the 1864 presidential campaign. if you elect abraham lincoln you will have race mixing. when you have race mixing, of course, you will have babies. i . this out to you because this is the mindset of many white northerners in the 1860's swing. this is a campaign song for the democratic party ticket in 1868 called the white man's banner. this was not in the south. this was in the north.

this is a depiction that harper's, which was a national magazine one, the south carolina legislature. the south carolina legislature was the on the legislature and the former majority with black members. you can see what happens. there is the voucher all over the place. lots of parties, and not much budget cutting going on. but there are also problems of north as well with fraud been. many northerners went to the two, that is the artery schroder in new york as the black voters in south carolina. they were both unqualified to votes. too much democracy. you cannot have ignorant malicious people voting and certainly not holding office.

so here is a cartoon. 1876. south and north. by the way, he always depicted irish immigrants as monkeys. rationalize in the immigrant. we don't do that today. in fact, the black caricature of looks of little better than the irish caricature. the idea is, why give the vote to any of them? so reconstruction had absolutely no chance, not only because of the racial attitudes of northerners, but also because of the racial attitude toward the emigrant. again, this linkage of catholic immigrants and african americans. of course the catholic emigrants were rioting as they did in new york in 1864. what happened, the story every

construction really is not the story of african-american struggle for freedom because as glorious as that was coming it was doomed from the beginning. the story of reconstruction is this a up to the american industrial institution. instead the evangelical religion we have science. we have this picture of america going across the plains. she had a telephone -- telegraph wire and the school book year you have henry ward beecher on the right in this charlatan scientist on the right. the arrival sunday shows in brooklyn. making fun of evangelical preachers. again, the decline of evangelical protestant does not

pinpoint. if we want to pinpoint the death of the second great awakening, the death of this evangelicals fervor that swept across the land and swept this nation into civil war, we can say it was abraham lincoln's second inaugural address when he said, hey, i don't know what god wants our nose because i am just a man. there is no servitude. there is no self righteousness. the war was not the fault of the south with the north, it was the fault of all of us. slavery was not a southern institution. it was a national institution. of course, this was the great industrial revolution. new york city, pittsburgh. thomas edison and his phonograph. consumers' shopping, advertising. this is what post war america was about, not for construction.

historians have focused on this issue of race and reconstruction. it was certainly important to african americans in the south and to some white southerners. the nation could care less. they were concerned with the growing of the cities. this country grew in the 1870's faster economically than any other time in our history before or since. it was a marvelous decade polling many into the middle class, the homes and to montgomeryward. what about the south? this was a depiction of the south, the semi south, the south of black people picking cotton just like they did in the 1830's and 1840's and 1850's and 1860's. nothing had changed. why did we fight the civil war? why did 620 men die for this picture?

we are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the american civil war. it is not a celebration. it is not a celebration. it is a commemoration. we honor those men who fought and died. we should honor their courage as well. it would be a greater tribute to our nation and the left. thank you very much. [applause] thanks you. i will be more than happy. we have some time to take questions.

>> you teach in the bible belt. howdy your students react to this kind of perspective? >> rao, many of them are confused. they are confused because they have, as you indicated, grown up in that evangelicals tradition. the deal with it positively. personally view it positively as well. they are confused because they associate the south with this evangelical tradition. they don't know about this northern story. in fact, number evangelical and southern evangelicalism are very different. the church is split, particularly the methodist and a

bath -- baptist, two leading evangelical denominations. for seveners the important thing was your personal relationship with jesus. it was a means to reform society, our means to hasten the second coming of jesus christ. we do that by expiating san. two of the greatest sins or slavery in the roman catholic church. they are confused. they have not attributed it to to this background of this civil war, and particularly the self righteousness of northern

evangelicals. >> it sounds like they were against slavery -- is this thing on? it seems like the kkk was the same. deasy -- dca correlation? >> not really. first, we are talking about different times. and secondly, number evangelicals generally would support violence. i mean, ralph waldo emerson claimed to be a pacifist, but he was right in there with the war

effort. harriet beecher stowe also plans to be a pacifist, but she has this great passage in the -- she talks about the book of revelation, and she says, harriet beecher stowe police she was witnessing the unfolding of the book of revelation right at sumpter. the last struggle for liberty would proceed the coming of the war. caen's wrath shall be reached. her brother said pretty much the same thing. third good friend and said, the author would have the wrath of almighty god bury the south in the battle of the republic.

>> to questions. what was the role of roman catholics in terms of fighting the civil war? for the active combatants? another was a draft. the second was, what was the role of religion in terms of its connection with death? and help people viewed death of their family and their fathers and sons and so on? >> abcaeight. a meticulous questions first. in terms of death many americans, evangelical or not believe that life was part of a continual. maybe this order is part. that the extended beyond that. they looked at life as something that began and ended but rather something bad was part of a much

bordure process. that was the intellectual explanation. i will tell you, if your mom, and your son has been killed and more the explanations may bring some momentary comfort, but you miss the heck out of it. you want them with you right there. and when a young woman who just had married and lost her husband to the war, she understands this idea of the continuing to. the other thing is that americans at the time were very sensitive about proper burial. you have to have proper burial. and, you know, for about 25, maybe 30 percent of the soldiers' remains were never found. ever ground under the wagons of the heavy guns were eaten by animals were just exposed to the

elements. they didn't have enough time, especially in the last year of the war when the war, the pace of were accelerated. so, this was particularly troubling for civilian population, much more accustomed to the death with dignity. there wasn't much dignity about this war. as far as the irish were concerned, there were irish brigades in both the confederate and union army. jefferson davis tried to entice our soldiers to come over to the confederacy because he said, look, they don't like you up there. they don't like you are out there. come down here. during the mexican war the mexican army had been successful in encouraging our soldiers and the u.s. are to desert. about 2,000 irish catholic soldiers deserted forming the center see a battalion, patrick.

many more irish soldiers defecting had not general zachary taylor issued the order to shoot anyone who left camp, and that stopped the desertion. >> doctor, i have not read your book. i understand a lot of the basis. the war was unnecessary, and i have read some refused. basically you are stating that political means would have solved the problem of slavery. i no you're not a speculator and you don't great speculative fiction. looking after the civil war, assume for a second that it did not occur. do you think something like the great war, world war one would have resulted?

>> of course we will never know the answer because you were not given that option. the united states was the only country to abolish slavery with the civil war. there were other models out there. many different scenarios that could have happened. personally i think that the lower south, the lovers of states would have wanted to stay in the group. the border states, particularly north carolina, virginia, and tennessee, would have remained in the union making it difficult for those seven states from the deep south to really exist. very difficult to find foreign loans and recognition because by that time the slavery was not very well liked in the world.

first slave -- pretty quickly. a political solution. it may have had a practical solution that may have disintegrated. that may have taken some time. if that process had occurred. perhaps we will not have waited for african americans to attain full rights of citizenship. that is the other part of the equation that we need to consider when we consider what might have been, what could have been. >> what was the percentage of catholics in the south as opposed to the north?

>> well, i don't know the exact percentage, but in some -- well, let's take richmond, for example. grant took richmond. that is okay. that is the end of my stand-up routine for the night. 40 percent of richmond's white working-class population in 1860 was immigrants. people had a hard time understanding that the south had immigrants to end slavery was not a damper on white advance opportunity as the republicans had intimated. many of these were irish. some were german, boston to my catholic, jewish. irish came to the south to build the railroads because states like to record hours to build railroads because, as you know,

particularly in georgia there are things called swamps and diseases, although not now him but there are diseases like yellow fever and malaria and so on. the state could not afford to employ slaves because lawyers are too valuable. irish life was cheap. to the irish came to the south. in terms of actual discrimination of anti irish and catholic sentiment, it was relatively low. existed in border cities like baltimore or louisville. of course you have a large catholic populations. but in the deeper south the governor of virginia said, why should we make war on the catholic church? the catholic churches and making war on us. >> i -- one thing about this that shows me is what is happening today.

it seems to me that when you introject evangelical christianity in particular into politics you get the radicalization of politics. i very sternly concerned right now that we seem to have lost our center in this country. but you are describing sounds very familiar to me. i am concerned. it does not seem like rational people could get elected in either party. you can make some sort of parallel, and appreciated. >> i think? a very good point. it is interesting, i did not have the contemporary because politics was consensus. they really weren't corrosive as they are right now. certainly there are an hour of parallels you can draw. for one thing, the erosion of the center. who holds the center in american politics now?

i saw a statistic were in 1980 there was a lot of republican carcase of about 40 members. in 2010 that group had gone down to three. you know, you can make the same argument on the democratic side. the structural reasons and how we hold our primaries and we do have two months democracy which places power in the hands of those people that are both organized and financed, but not necessarily in the center. you're absolutely right. when you inject religion into politics it tends to radicalized that politics and polarized because, as i said earlier, how do you compromise with sen? it is really impossible to make these compromises. moderation really is the grounding of american political system. there is a great book written a half century ago by a political

scientist. he makes the case that he shows through american history that the great advances of our society both in terms of the legislature and in terms of social interaction and support mobility have occurred during times of political moderation. i think he makes a very good case for that. certainly that did not happen before the civil war. it resulted in the civil war, and i am not predicting that we will be in the civil war. certainly the breakdown of the political process that occurred in 1861 has some parallels with the breakdown in the political process today. >> very interesting narrative. in your narrative, how do you

factor in the european influence and the financial interest in your narrative? >> that is a great question. the european interest has significant impact on the civil war itself. several reasons. first, the republican congress, and there have been an overwhelmingly republican congress, have very strong majority in both houses. they pushed through very strong economic nationalist the legislative agendas become a national bank, the purchase of bonds to finance -- the selling of bonds to finance the war. national land grant college, subsidies for transcontinental railroad being proven and rivers and harbors. just an array of economic legislation. some of that, some of this legislation was held by financing from europe, particularly from great britain.

one of the reasons why great britain is so hesitant to jump in and recognize the confederacy is they have an economic state in the union, in the north. this was a very powerful argument for just staying out of the conflict. so english investment in particular was very important. you know, i would not call it a funny incident, but an interesting incident. the russian fleet, the closest ally of the union, of the european powers, the most despotic regime on earth. the czarist russia. why? well, because this are needed a few well watered ports. it gets very cold in the winter. where did they go? they went to san francisco. they went to new york.

the russian fleet used the u.s. as a way to enhance its navy because it was very difficult to train and keep your round naval activities in russian ports because of the icing. but, that is what we know after the fact. people interpreted them that if they confederacy got a little too ambitious and rambunctious in terms of its blockade running the russian fleet would take care of it. >> so, was sister mary john ever found? >> well, you will have to read the book to find out. [laughter] okay.

>> what, if any effect, do you think the assassination had on the programs? >> it is an interesting question. the effect of lincoln's assassination, and i'd go into it at some length in the book. it is interesting to speculate. we can say anything we want to. lincoln was the type of guy who grew in his opinions. he was not particularly antislavery, but he became antislavery. he began -- believe that once the slaved believed they should move. you could not amass slaves. you have to offer compensation. so he was very flexible. when he was confronted with faxed to the contrary he would change his mind. he would never survive in today's political climate. he would call that flip-floping.

he advanced a very lenient reconstruction policy. okay. so blacks won't be able to vote. well, you know, you have to have the ag before you have the chicken. he always liked these little metaphors. the thing is he wanted the nation reconstructed. he had an almost religious passion for the idea of the union, and he was willing to compromise on other issues and ordered to get at that objective of reuniting the union. that said, i don't think the outcome of reconstruction would have been any different. again, the vast majority of white americans did not want to grant basic civil and political rights to african-americans. it is just that simple. >> this seems to me, and tell me

if you agree with this, the south really overreacted to the election of lincoln. i mean, here they started seceding even before the man took office. i never understood why they did not at least see what he was going to do before they started seceding. what happened to to the southern moderates during this time? i know that there were a lot of southerners here did not believe in secession. well, they just silenced by the run-up to the war and all of the noise? i know at least alexander stevenson was against secession. a lot of strong leaders, they just drowned out by the fire eaters? >> i think he brought up alexander stephens. one of the devices i employee in this book is not to talk about events from a disembodied