i also wanted to remind you that we have an exhibit up there in posterity palm. on lincoln. i hope you get to take a look at it sometime in the coming weeks. it is obligatory sitting in this chair to praise the author and to praise his book. ethically i think anyone who agrees to perform my role has to genuinely believe that. there are other occasions in which i have done this. but this really is an occasion in which i want to go a little bit over the top because i do think that alan is a very special historian. this is a very, very special book. as steve described alums career he really has been at a

remarkably early age and important public intellectual speaking to a wide audience about a wide variety of subjects . and now he has undertaken. it is hard to believe. by the way, i have already copy of the book in my hand. publishes bound. >> that is what an author likes to see. that barrier and a company. >> its stock year. i think there read it. >> i hope he read it. >> this is a very, very important book, and it is a first book. a lot of writing before this time, but this is the kind of booked that you would expect from a scholar who had written five or six or seven such books. it really does give a remarkable

picture of this first year leading up to and finally coming about in the civil war. adam has the style in which he makes a very important general points about the american nature of the nation and the coming of the civil war, but he does so by just telling some absolutely compelling anecdotes about individuals, many of whom you will be familiar with, but many of whom you will not until after you have read the book. so i must say, by this book. okay. i'm going to get to business. now, adam has been a very busy man in the past couple of days with all sorts of public appearances. maybe some of you saw the interview with him in philadelphia. he was on fresh air. yesterday he was on the radio. this morning, and there are

courses. yesterday was 150th anniversary of the firing on fort sumter and today the university of the surrender of fort sumter. we will eventually get to those moments because i know adam wants to get to those moments, but i want to begin the beginning of the atom by asking about december of 1860. abraham lincoln had been arrested. at think it is fair to say that effusive and politicians were pretty upset about this outcome. a few south carolinian is for more than a grumpy about the outcome. they were enraged by the outcome. and you introduce us to a relatively unknown and unheralded man. just been given command of the federal garrison.

also, i wonder if you could give us a little bit about those events. in particular, help us understand what is going on in in this is mind as he is to be given command of what might be a hopeless task. >> one thing i want to thank you for your introduction and also especially the part about being yanked. i've gone this a couple of times. i thought, only in the context of civil war historians that someone who is 40 years old get to because of this kid all the time. anyway, i like it. i am glad you brought up this character because he is one of my favorite. the first hero of the union cause delors the forgotten except for the real civil war gnats, and he is fascinating to

me because he is a very reluctant hero. sort of an accidental hero which, to me, is the most interesting kind. he is a southerner from kentucky, a slave holding background. in fact, his wife, the daughter of a very wealthy planter. selling of slaves that she inherited. i career officer in the u.s. army who finds himself stationed at this sleepy little post in charleston harbor. it was really a kind of car she army post before the civil war where this and officers who were seasoned to while away their time going to barbeques with the charleston audience. a very quickly, however, he is at the center of an unfolding national crisis. already unfolding when he arrives. the southern states began to secede, of course, a month or so

after lincoln's election as president. this little islh eout d ju btant of the!hbecaípsing

this ford is about as defense zero as a public park. they're looking out at his troops that are massing all around them. they feel, as anderson writes in the letter, like a sheep tied up watching the busher sharpen his knife. not very pleasant images. and so he does something very bold. he ignores his orders from the war department or more his lack of definitive orders and by night on the cover of darkness he and his men go to their boats

to fort sumter on board defense will position in the center of charleston harbor. this is seen throughout the south as an act of war. it's interesting. when we talk about the civil war the story tends to begin with this sudden shot being fired at fort sumter. a very dramatic moment and important moment in american history. but for many people in 1816-ton 1861 the conflict began when robert anderson and his men crossed charleston harbor and raise their flag above fort sumter, the south carolina newspaper headlines scream out by this act major anderson has inaugurated a war, a civil war in our country. so that is where i stop the book, this sort of night is gate. we were right there. the boats are slipping away. crossing over, and he has the

american flight tucked under his arm that he will raise. >> thank you. just one example of annan's techniques. he takes a person who we don't know much about who was not a conscious hero and the struggle but committed some quite extraordinary acts. >> yes. he was very ambivalent, and i like that. he was seen in the army has been this sort of great aircraft. let's relieve this very gray looking man, very serious and sort of dire and mostly known in the army for having translated certain french artillery textbooks into english and being everybody's instructor in artillery it was pointed. that guy who's course you had to pass in order to graduate, but no one really looked forward to it. so here's this guy that is a

major. he was also really a southern sympathizer of heart and he even said that. he sympathized with the sudden sense of grievance over the way that the institution of slavery was coming under attack and under threat. so, the entire time does he is there in charleston harbor is becoming increasingly clear that this is the spot where war is most likely to begin. he is already fighting a war within himself, and so i'd be this character in some ways as being a distillation of the war being fought. >> adam also adds to my one of the post scripps, major anderson, now colonel anderson -- general. >> general anderson is brought back to the end of the civil war to raise the union flag once again on fort sumter. on the evening of the day that he did so abraham lincoln was

assassinated. one of these wonderful coming together of dance. i want to ask you another, bordering on trivia, but i think my loyalty to the state of pennsylvania requires that i ask a question. some the only president. adam has a wonderful scene. new year's day in 1861 that the buchanan when house. what was that day light? both in the white house. maybe you can give us a brief assessment? >> well, you know, buchanan, of course, has been vilified by many generations starting with his own generation. he was seen as sort of a loser in and a misfit in disaster before he ever left the white house. not that this resonates at all with anything in our own times.

democrats, you take as you well, republicans, take that as you well. insert face here. me you can, i love these characters from history who have been pushed to the margins because for me in many ways they end up being more interesting than the heroes. you know, is so easy to celebrate the people who were on the right side of history. in my book and try to get into the hearts and minds of people who ended up being, we think of is the wrong side of history. this scene of new year's day. buchanan was a total contrast to abraham lincoln in many, many respects. where lincoln was the worst qualified man ever to become americans president, when you look at his resonate he had been a one-term congressman. buchanan was the best qualified

man. he had a long, glittering resonate. incidently he was born in a log cabin. not a lot of people remember that. so, he loved to host parties. he would host receptions for everyone from visiting japanese ambassadors test indian chiefs. he would open the doors of the white house and people would come in and partake of the three federally subsidized cake and punch and whiskey. they drank a lot of whiskey. a lot of whiskey. so, there is this seen in my book of the last dismal reception at the buchanan white house. january 1st 1861. there is a tradition that some of you may know of of the president to growing up in the door is quite literally to any decently washed in moderately sober citizens who wanted to say

hello to the president of the united states. this lasted until herbert hoover. you could just walk in and was the president have been years. it is a miserable affair. marine bandits. on one side of the room are all of the pros southern glaring across the room at the prone northern. it is the sputtering ember of this ill-fated administration. >> now i'm going to turn to a big question, but it is a big question that i have been struggling to figure out how to ask. there is a tangle of conflicting fronts in my mind relating to this specific moment to of april 12th and 13th. and they are tangled by more general thoughts about the close

of the civil war and tangles further by my recollections of my own inadequacies. the future of the american survey course, most of my career. i should confess that unlike most of the people who teach the first half of the american survey course i actually and the course with the firing on fort sumter and i do this because my memory about civil war battles is so terrible that i know that i can't get through them. i never make it through the whole civil war and a never make it through reconstruction. i focus on the moment in which i can conclude the course. and i describe that moments somewhat hyperbolically as the war of seven bolshevism. the radical militants seveners

leaves many more moderate residents into civil war. the norfolk is very reluctantly responding. halfheartedly responding to that challenge. it is not a conflict that there was to have been. your interpretation is not wholly at odds with that. but you do see northerners to, even at the moment of fort sumter as not merely occupying a defensive posture. it is standing up in an affirmative way for things in which they sincerely believe. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about your sense of what northerners thought they were about to fight for at the point. >> sure. first of all, when you talk about having a hard time keeping track of battles, i am the same

way. nobody asked me his cavalry when charging over which hill at the battle of antietam his infantry. i can't remember that stuff. i am interested in what is going on in the hearts and minds of the people living through this experience. the arts and minds of northerners and southerners were much more divided than we are often told to think. i do believe that the union cause was ultimately just a movement to keep the nation together but an antislavery cause and a very significant one. i know that is our rare thing to hear because we are told, and it is completely true that there were very few abolitionists in the north in 1860 and 61. seen as a sort of dangerous weird sex.

there were people whom one refused to burn fossil fuels in the course of their lives because they believed that this would harm the environment. people kind of accepted in a general philosophic a theoretical way that this was the correct position. who is going to be crazy enough to a spouse of live something that would of a bid to silence to undermine the foundations of society. but it was an anti slavery caused if millions of norman has had not drawn a line in the sand and said slavery shut go no further than this. if they had not done that the south would have had no reason to leave the union. northerners, while deeply ambivalent about this union,

also in that sense i found surprisingly when you read their words, they welcomed it to some degree. there had been a great, throughout the north to find people who put in their heart of hearts he did slavery and felt like they could not say it because it was going to risk splitting the nation apart. well, when the nation is already split apart it is like a great on stifling for people in the north. suddenly they're able to espouse these stocks that there were not able to speak before. suddenly everyone is not an abolitionist. far from it. there is a collective sigh of relief on the part of many northerners to. >> adam, tracing it beautifully. one person at a time millions of americans decided in 1961 that

if their grandparents had in 1776 it was worth risking everything. lives and fortunes on the country. not just on present reality either, not on something so solid but on a vision of what the future could be and what its passage meant. 1861. 1776. it was not just a year, what an idea. this is all part of a theme of minds and hearts. speaking of a person with a great mind and a huge heart abraham lincoln's not the obscure figure is nearly as massive the different portrayals of land slavery is decidedly a

secondary issue for him on the one hand. a great emancipate there on the other hand. i guess if you're living in charleston and the south carolina, the chief villain particularly in 1861 as he confronts the spread. i feel like in the course of writing this book as governor of very different when condemn the one i felt. he really surprise as of me. so much of our understanding of lincoln is informed by the arc of his greatness throughout the civil war and, of course, his martyrdom at the end of the war. >> 1861, eight is quite a different man.

lincoln comes to washington very unprepared for this high office. he gobbles and stumbles his way through the early weeks and months of this crisis. this is something where some historians disagree. i was on the panel last week. we came to blows. not quite. you have to hope there aren't carrying a cavalry saber or cold revolvers. he did not really understand the gravity. as he makes his way to washington d.c. in february of 1861 on his way to his first inauguration he gives the first series is beaches. the north and south. he had this crisis.

at least no one is really suffering yet. as this no one is really hurt. and be look around us everything is fine, and it's going to be all right. people saying, wait a minute. the country is split in half and everything is all right. we are about to plunge into a war. economic depression. he makes these remarks. again, it's paralyzed drought the purrs weeks that he is confronting this crisis. but then he has a bit of an epiphany. in response to the problem of what to do he is up making his first great masterstroke as an american when he decides that the war is going to start one way or another anyway. it's in his best interest to

make sure of that the south is going to fire the first shot rather than the north. this is again something that has been debated. southerners have sometimes said that it is a little bit like you hear these conspiracy to eris sang fdr invited the japanese attack on pearl harbor or someone was secretly behind the attacks on september 11th, but i really do think that clinton was thinking several moves ahead of jefferson davis and the situation. he may even with that masterstroke have ended up false a winning the war, but keeping the confederacy from winning at a crucial moment. so he goes from this sort of uncertain and in some ways bumbling guy to by the end of my book, a few months into the presidency becoming well on his way to the great leader and president that we think of

today. >> to answer your question, was a union as slavery? >> union and slavery were inseparable causes. the reason that the south was seceding was because of slavery. it was because of this stand that northerners are taking where there were willing to yield no further to what they call the slaves as slave power. this resulted in the degree of a national alexian, the election of lincoln. lincoln recognized that if he were to orchestrate some sort of a compromise. he played his hand very interestingly. in some ways a bit and

evidently. he ultimately realized that if the south were allowed to blackmail the north this would not be any kind of i union really worth preserving. i do believe that lincoln's personal sentiments was very much antislavery. there are some documents. lincoln was ready. really revealing his heart of hearts rather than standing up in front of an audience and speaking politically insane when needed to be said. one remarkable letter he wrote in 1865 to his friend to my joshua speed, being in lincoln's friend who was really one of the few people that lincoln became close to in the course of his life. remarkable that someone can likely deal with such a rich, and erica my emotional life. very few people that he could become close to end confided.

the know nothing movement, the anti-immigrant movement is really catching fire in america. he says, you know, our country was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. and then that became all men except negros sparker equal. and now this seems to be becoming all men except negros, catholics, and emigrants are created equal. and if this is what our country is going to be i might as all move to russia or i can take my despotism an ulcer is it with the allied effort is hypocrisy. so i think clinton did ultimately believe that freedom and slavery were incompatible. wherever he may have found it. >> adam, in your interview yesterday you said, and i'm sure

i am paraphrasing you. you may not even remember saying this. i hope this question resonates. you said something to the fact of lincoln did not free the slaves, the slaves freed themselves. if indeed you said that. >> sounds like something of would say. >> what did you mean? >> well, there were so many surprising things i discovered in researching this thing, stories i had not known about call one of this moment of the very start of the war when african americans, they turned this into a struggle for liberty and the moment when the vast majority of white americans in both the north and south are certainly not willing to conceive of the war the way.

like major robert anderson is an night time crossing. there are these two night time crossings by boats that book and my story. this one happens when three young african american slaves in virginia who have been conscripted by the confederacy to work on confederate fortifications, the confederate cannot in this war, we will beat the cavaliers with the shining soared. the negro's will be the man with the picks and shovels doing the dirty work that we won't have to do. so the slaves decide that they don't really feel like being confederates very much. can't imagine why. they pick up in the middle of the night, still above to across the james river, and present themselves at the gate of fort monroe, and i solicit lovely little union outpost in the middle of confederate territory.

the next morning there brought in to see the commanding general of the other is forced to decide what to do. this is weeks after the attack on fort sumter. this is a moment when lincoln has said this is not going to be a war about slavery but a war about the union. ..

he realizes by colossus of war is allowed to confiscate any property that's being used to aid the enemy cost so he says you know what, a confederate officer, major, if you and your people insist that these men are property, i'm going to say they are property to back and i'm going to confiscate them from you just like i would a shipment of muskets or swards so he commands them contraband of war as the legal term and a very quickly, not surprisingly, word spread a sort of mysteriously to the enslaved population and the next day another half dozen appear at the fort and the day after that, some 40 or 50 sleeves appear not only men who have been constructed to work but it's also women and children. its old people come and soon it becomes hundreds and eventually thousands, and they force this issue of slavery into the agenda

of the war, the force the lincoln administration to make a decision what to do with these people, the administration decides not to send them back and very quickly end up supporting the union calls fighting for the union cause sometimes literally they become laborers in the union camp's and become spies for the union. as the army's penetrate the territory there should be only friendly faces, the only people who come out and welcome them and help them, show them the way. and even weeks into the civil war as general benjamin butler is sending out his force into what becomes the first significant land battle in the war he sends out and whether the head of the force alongside the commanding officers is writing one of these escapes who's been helping them as a scout and

butler orders this man be given a gun to use when they go into battle. it's extraordinary moment. this is about two years before we think of as the beginning of black americans servings as glory regiments in massachusetts and so to me this moment emancipation begins is not something lincoln sat down and decreed with a sheet of paper and i start a chapter with a story that i love that hasn't been told very much and it's the day that the emancipation proclamation is finally issued an william seward, many of you have red team of rivals you know he was in many ways the crafty as a member of the lincoln administration. he's walking across the square in washington. the emancipation just proclaimed

he runs into a union army officer and the man says secretary, congratulations on the great historic act of the administration proclaimed today and he says what are you talking about, sir? the emancipation proclamation calling you freed the slaves, and she says emancipation was proclaimed the first guns fired at fort sumter and we've been the last to hear it. we let off a puff of wind about the established facts. [laughter] >> very interesting. >> this will be the last question that i will ask and i think then we will want to throw it open to questions from any of you who wish to do so. the south it seems to me has tried very hard particularly in the political debate leading up to session and then beyond to

appropriate america's founding documents, the declaration of independence and the constitution. they have a little bit of discomfort in the declaration of independence because it is that all cord mention of a quality. but nevertheless, the tralee convince themselves they were fighting a second american revolution against an overbearing government, and certainly they were also fighting for their own particular interpretation of the constitution. if i read your book is very powerful concluding chapter you don't want to let the southerners' get away with that political argument, and your conclusion to the year 1861 is in fact not december 31st, it's july 4th 1861 and in an event i knew nothing about that abraham

lincoln delivers his, quote come annual message to congress on july 4th, and it's a shrunken in congress obviously. it's missing all of these southern delegates. could you dhaka little bit about what you found important about that message? i think a message that most historians have tended to overlook. >> well, lincoln -- again it was something about him that surprised me and many people of the time. fort sumter is fired upon. lincoln calls at 75,000 militiamen to defend the nation's capital and be ready for this war it's going to begin. and then he very quickly seems to sort of disappear from sight during this crisis, and he's in the white house write-in draft

after draft of a message that he's preparing to deliver that is his special message to congress when it convenes a special session lincoln called beginning on independence day, 1861. and people were sort of asking where is a in the middle of this, where's the president in the middle of this crisis? at one point even with two or three weeks left until he has to present this document, he literally tells his secretary no more callers to the white house. i'm just sort of locked up with my rough draft. even ralph waldo emerson a great introspective thinker says this president of our seems to be introspecting this country to the point of disaster. well, to become a linchpin in writing this document, which is not gotten as much attention as what we think of was the great leading document, she was fighting the war intellectually

within himself. he was deciding if he was articulating what it was the was wrong about the secession, how it was thus a session was an existential threat to the united states and how it means to be countered. as you said the legacy of the american revolution was contested up this moment. i love discovering the moments win in virginia i was speaking about the been considered it territory the union troops like that on july 4th and they plan to celebrate the holiday by firing off a bunch of artillery salutes and then getting drunk. of course a great american tradition. then they start firing off their artillery and very quickly start hearing from the other side of the james river confederate artillery and they say holy hell they are opening fire on ossian

to realize quickly the confederacy is celebrating july july 4th. so who does this holiday belong to? of course july 4th was about this double shot of the united states of america and also as the southerners saw about separation from a tyrannical mother country, a tyrannical powers, and what lincoln freely expresses in his address is this july 4th idea belongs to us and the union and the reason it belongs to us in the union rather than the confederacy is fisa session is different from our revolution. the american revolution, the revolutionaries, very significantly were not represented directly within the british political system. that's what the revolution was about. taxation without representation.

they were not participants in the system of the majority rule and the southerners were and southerners simply decided to take their keys and go home when something came up the election they were not ready to acquiesce to sold lincoln realized this wasn't a revolution for liberty, in fact the secession was quite the opposite, it was a rebellion for anarchy and in a way tierney of the minority holding a majority hostage. and so lincoln center's this message to congress and sort of reviews the history of what has happened up until that moment and talks and the end how this is a people's contest, that's the great phrase that comes out, the people contest. this is about alternately space principles involved all of us. he uses the phrase it's about

allowing the government to give its citizens and unfettered start in the race of life. something really extraordinary and it's telling when you look at the rough draft lincoln originally said that it's about giving citizens and even start in the race of life which is a much cleaner metaphor than when you're talking about the race but he struck out the word evin and wrote unfettered which many say he's talking about slavery and they were right. >> if people want to start making their way down i'm going to pass while you do that i'm going to ask one more question which i warned about, and this might be a really nonsensical question but it's something that's on my mind. ken burns was that the constitution center couple weeks ago for wonderful stability and

democracy conference and because of the anniversary the head and rerunning the civil war series and there's probably so many of you out there whose understanding of the civil war has been shaped by that extraordinary documentary series. i also know that you are on a panel of ken burns just a few nights ago. do you see any sense is in which durable it has a different emphasis on this of ullrich? >> i do love and i hope my book does the same thing that can really uses individual stories to talk about history. he has a wonderful reading of letters and he makes you hear those people's voices and live their experiences. i love that but i think there's a sort of sense of overarching

poignancy and tragedy and suffering that so many of the books have can sort of color our understanding of the war back to the point that obscures so much else. it ended up being an awful tragedy but people didn't know what kind that is how we was going to turn out, and i think it will put in famously said the real war will never make it into the history books, and he was saying they're real war being the war that he had seen in the union hospitals in washington, the war of human suffering and the wounded and dying man but i think it's we tend to focus more on that war of scholar in shared experience of north and south and i think that's true in the civil war series for and it's so

powerful and compelling and simple ha it can mask deeper complexities. >> it was that squall or that a jury of the photographers of the world the stacks of bodies and it's harder to capture in a photograph in a sense the glory and the idealism to rivas began there was idealism but one of the great pleasures of studying and writing about the civil war era is you have these incredible letters and photographs, incredible music when people talk about the fascination of the civil war era we have to give a certain amount of credit to adjust to that stuff, that incredible legacy that we have and the way they can write to the ordinary civil war private in many cases coming up with

feasible phrases in the ministry where literacy was widespread but people's brains hadn't been sort styrofoam of mass popular culture so they're capable of this individual expression. >> we are glad they wrote letters flanagan tweeting home. now the fun starts. i will turn this direction because i can tell you're ready to ask a question. >> thanks. you were just deluding to the tragedy of the civil war, and after not too long ago, i watched the martin scorsese movie gangs of new york and the horrible tragedy of the draft riots and the know nothing party

went after black people in new york and lynched them in the streets and i was wondering if that happened in any other cities in the u.s.. >> nowhere was it as terrible as it was during those days in new york in the summer of 1863 but in fact, there were other aaa pursuits of that urban violence that close quarter slaughter that wasn't -- we think of these ranks of blue and gray soldiers marching against one another on the battlefield that often what is portrayed can't gettysburg the use to have this you see it progressing in neat lines of this way and that we like 1960. but in many places the civil war was like the kind of civil war that we think of today in a

place like bin zazi ferc sable or baghdad recently. it place of a very personal kind of violence come and one place i talked about in my book is st. louis, missouri where before any of these noble louis and gray battles were fought there was street fighting going on with civilians being mowed down in the streets of st. louis and it involved when you mentioned the know nothings it involved immigrants to a significant extent. i've tried in my book to include these people coming to america playing significant roles and the image and that martin scorsese movie is the image of the irish immigrants stepping off the boat and being handed guns before they know where they really are. you remember this in the movie, and i think that's sort of tarnished the irish immigrants

reputation unfairly for a lot of people. and in fact i found there were a lot of irish immigrants who were idealistic for the union cause but the experience themselves knowing what it was like to live under a sort of all the arctic tyrannical regime and there were irishman who marched in a regimen in the beginning of the civil war down broadway and all of a regiment with a banner over their heads within shamrock that said remember the battle in the 1740's fought by the irish against the english. there were many complexities to the relationships the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus especially in the state of

maryland. could you comment on how didier the situation was in that state prior to his rather momentous action? >> i live in maryland about half the times of this is close to home and one of the places people are still fighting the civil war. actually my office is just up the street from where the civil war monuments and it's interesting because of the more facing side is a list of the names of the men killed fighting for the union and on the south facing side fighting for the confederacy and many places the last names are the same. and i live in an old house in eastern maryland i wouldn't say i'm restoring but i'm holding up pieces of it before they crumble and this house was actually the house of a maryland confederate sympathizer with a judge who was literally dragged off the bench

in his courtroom, beaten bloody and unconscious by lincoln [inaudible] treen to mchenry one of these people without habeas corpus writing letters began to build the charges were against him and he gets no reply so this depression did happen in some very brutal way is, and it happened because lincoln was aware of the capitol city of washington couldn't be cut off but if that happened it might be game over for the north and the very beginning of the war in the first weeks the consider it maryland made it very concerted and very nearly successful effort to cut off washington in exactly that way. and i do think the -- i don't hold lincoln off as a demagogue. i do think it is a suspension of habeas corpus can be argued about today but he certainly

felt he had reasons for doing what he did. >> i'm going to stay on this side because people have been lined up for a while and then i will come back over here. >> if you look to the heart and mind of the average american, the average guy standing at the lincoln memorial at wiring lincoln, do you think the average american admirers and gloves lincoln because he played a significant role in ending slavery, because he played a significant role in keeping the union together or because of this magnificent war he has in his political, spiritual, intellectual gift and power clucks >> it's a great question and a magnificent or what is a wonderful phrase and you feel that when you stand at the lincoln memorial and part of it is also because of the extraordinary statute with such a presence in that temple.

for one thing i don't think every american knows revere lincoln. in that some of the best-selling books on lincoln in the past ten or 20 years our books by a guy named thomas dilorenzo, the historian whose shtick is what a fascist pay abraham lincoln was. [laughter] and it's something i found after writing the series for "the new york times" a lot of commentators want to paint abraham lincoln as a sort of pro obama that stands for arbitrary use of power to squash states' rights and individual rights and so it's still a controversial figure. i think it's hard to say why the average american loves lincoln if we do love lincoln. but i think part of it is certainly he freed the slaves and the union and part of it is simply his story is such an

active second story. his words are magnificent words, and those are things that we can't discount, those stories coming and i believe was a historian the job of the historian is to be a storyteller and not somebody who believes as many historians do in the fitting of these people into these neat categories of the blacks, whites, the northerners, the southerners, individual lovely is to be respected as we are individuals in our own time. i think lincoln was an extraordinarily complex individual but he speaks to our own humanity as individuals, too. >> hi, adam, how are you? historians believe the civil war did not actually start and fort sumter but in a 1856 pin lawrence kansas. what is your take on that? >> good question. it's great because my cousin is

here. [laughter] i'm looking out seeing where are my cousins and from the class of '88 looking to some of them. when they told me the event was sold all or booked i said 99% of the people are really did to me. [laughter] but anyway, to get back to florence kansas, yes, bleeding kansas has a was known as the place where the americans learned to kill other americans. it's where the bloodshed began. and i do think that it's fair to say in some ways the civil war began there. the battle, literally the battle over slavery began and in our country one of the reasons i believe we are so fascinated in the civil war is that in our space system we are always doing a battle against each other to we even use the metaphors of battle, political campaigns, so

it feels like we are on the verge of warfare but the civil war is the one time that it actually turned into real warfare and something happened at the moment the guns start to fire, a line is crossed and as we've seen in our own times people start to turn guns on their own fellow citizens i do believe that kansas city to 56 was where the became a sort of credible reality, and without that moment is a war could eventually haven't read this because a constitutional history and i can't resist this one. 1857, dred scott. i think the dred scott is important but that moment where the ballots become polis is a pretty big turning point. yes, sir?

>> my question is about britain's's response to the beginning of the civil war. i understand in the early stages of the conflict britain was sympathetic if not support to the confederacy and i would imagine because of the vital importance of the trade to the british economy in the middle of the 19th century. can you tell me when that attitude changed and how and why britain changed later on? >> i think when we talk about the british, again, it was a place and they were people as complicated and divided of course as americans are and so there were many individual britons, were in favor of the confederacy particularly within the ruling elites in england people felt challenged by the upstart republic across the waters and challenged philosophically economically and they also did hear what would

happen if the exports from the southern states were interrupted but there were a great many who were strongly antislavery. as we know britain had its own strong abolitionist movement for many decades, really got off the ground before the american movement and inspired the american movement to some degree and what have been politically difficult for the british government to step in on the side of a government estimate for slavery. queen victoria and prince albert themselves were strongly antislavery and i think especially as soon as that moment happened when the self fired the first shot rather than the north i think from that moment on a would have been difficult for great britain to come in on the side of this

house. >> general pierre was in command of the troops at fort sumter for the confederacy. i also read as a rabid southerner he was a gentleman of the first order. but i have never read that he personally tried to the demand of major anderson to surrender the four honorable ian leave under the rule full honors, the whole that the band playing and all that, and i was wondering if you could shed some light on that. >> we finally got around to that moment. >> this is good. this is the point. in all of my courses in american history and in all of my

readings, i've never found anything to this effect that they tried to settle. >> peter gustav was a sort of marvelous character and even with great facial hair and he had a great official here by the standards of the times much better than mine. [laughter] but anyway, he's major anderson, the confederate -- the man who becomes the confederate commander of the provisional confederate forces in charleston is a close friend and former student of major anderson the commander of the union and he takes command of the forces and the first thing he does is send a case of brandy in a box of cigars to his old professor to express his continued affection and you read that and say there

was a different era, a different kind of warfare. anderson being an officer probably sends them back unopened as much as he could use some brandy and cigars at that moment. but in fact he does sort of offer anderson the terms of surrender, and anderson than yours the terms of surrender command of language that is used as a wonderful and visa. it's all my dear general, major, have the honor to inform you we shall opened fire upon you within one hour's time your humble service, general. [laughter] they were opening fire so it didn't matter all that much. [laughter] >> but there was none of any kind. >> there was. he sent aids across the fort to

attempt to negotiate terms with anderson by which he would withdraw peacefully but anderson couldn't come to terms. >> you've got to watch yourself. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> which of us is which. >> yesterday i was watching news hour and a professor agreed that in the 1960's where the american people have started reinterpreting and it happened in the 1960's where they have a fire in europe as well as the united states i wonder if we will ever come to the conclusion of the history --

>> can we take that one first because that one sounds like a heavy duty unef to begin with. >> [inaudible] because we are existential and became existential. >> i would disagree with that. i think that argument about history have existed as long as history has existed. disagreements about the meaning of the past exist as long as history hasn't. i don't think that's a bad thing. i think we sort of grow towards an understanding of that and we always see the past through the preoccupation of our own times and rewrite the past according to the preoccupation of our own times and it's right for us to do that. we are never going to allow the passage as incredibly complicated a place as the

present we will never arrive at one understanding of that so maybe in some ways history sort of teaches us to be good post-modernist, good existentialist perhaps. >> we have one more question. is that the union army? >> you betcha. [laughter] >> good evening, sir. just a question. in regards to the right of habeas corpus, i know that this has been brought up, but chief justice karni declared that it was unconstitutional. my question, sir, is out of the legislative overrules the judicial? in my readings it said that justice karni said that it was, you know, illegal, the highest court in the land saying you didn't have the right to do it and i want to know how lincoln

got away with it. >> simply by ignoring them. >> that's what they're reading said. he ignored them. >> our constitutional system, and this is something that dr. demon can address much more -- >> at another time. >> they were in the process of working in many respects and 1861 prieta was not entirely clear where the jurisdiction of the supreme court began, and lincoln sort of simply decided to ignore the ruling >> in the same slightly different era when chief justice marshall rendered the decision the cherokee indian land case and the andrew jackson said a justice marshall rendered his decision now let's see him and force it. >> should we take one more question over here. >> one more. >> you may dillinger market almost seemed casual just be

before you opened up to questions. it was something to the effect of with the majority being held hostage by the minority. i wonder if you could elaborate on that. >> if it within our space system the foundation of our space system is that there is a vote of one sort or another that ultimately the majority wins even if it is just by one vote even as we have seen in our own times the presidential election can be extremely close, and ultimately the entire foundation of our space system is on the fact when that happens the minority acquiesces. as difficult and painful as that may be and they say they're ready for this is we're going to come back and fight another day within the system. as soon as that minority decides that they are going to pullout,

the entire concept of democracy is no longer sustainable and when lincoln asset in the gettysburg address it was for the government of the people, by the people should not perish from the earth he is in 600, he knew the world was looking at this american space experiment and it evolves within two or three generations into anarchy that would be it. democracy would show that there wasn't liable as a system so i do think secession was and anarchy need even a kind of terrorism against the foundation of our space system and lincoln's great genius was to hold fast to that understanding and not flinch from the fighting and winning that war. [applause]

thank you so much, adam. again it is a wonderful book. there will be a book signing in immediately following this. i think out there in the hallway. thank you all so much for continuing support. the wonderful program at the constitution center. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] adam goodheart is a columnist on the civil war for "the new york times" blog. to find out more information, visit

opionator.blogs.nytimes.com and search the author's name. >> there's a new self published book out on the market. it's written by richard toliver and we're joined now by richard toliver. who is that on the cover of this book? >> that's a young richard toliver. it's an air force fighter pilot of a few years ago and was taken during the time i was to be involved in the aircraft. >> when was that? >> 1974 to 1976 to be exact. >> why did you write a book? >> as i've gone through life and looked back over some 50 years i realized i had some unique experiences in my life and limit some very unique people and all of them of the experiences and the people made a significant difference as to why was at that

time. and so i decided with the encouragement of my family to write the story of those people i called uncaged eagles who were placed in my life all along the way. i must admit i didn't know who they were and i didn't know that was taking place at that time but when you get to be about 65-years-old and have the opportunity to look back you begin to see these things so there were a number of people who made a difference in my life that caused me to be to lie am today and i wanted to tell that story in the first person. >> who is one of those people? >> the first person was a little leedy who owned a one-room store and she gave me my first job and paid me $3 a week. on the other spectrum is a man by the name of ross perot and he gave me the opportunity to work with him and paid me a few more

dollars a week. in between there are people like jackie robinson, dr. martin luther king jr.. there were tuskegee airmen but i became a part of as the second generation and launched out into the air force. there were many people along the way in the struggles in my life there was always somebody there sali identified these people along the way in my late mother and older sister and next door neighbor who gave me a word or encouraged me and there were other people like many people in the air force the four officers and enlisted people and so on. as the accord to come up with the term uncaged eagle? >> when i was about 13-years-old i heard a sermon from the reverend who was a father of

aretha franklin and she told a story about an evil that had been trapped in a cage with chickens. i was about 13 when i heard that certain and because i was an eagle in side but i was trapped by circumstances and i wanted to get free. so that metaphor became trapped by circumstances, and the circumstances were in fact the chickens were the people that didn't know that there was an eagle inside of me or the burning desire to fly year plans. and so i took that as my way of going forward and i was going to get free juan de to fly airplanes. >> mr. toliver, where did you grow up? >> at that time growing up i was in the speech to my father and my mother's marriage had failed

and six children were left alone in the deep south in the 40's and 50's. my mother died young trying to raise those six children and so it was not people of means or parents of great statute but from that experience and from those who were brought along into my life made it possible for me to go forward. >> you self published this book. why and what was the experience like? >> i have some 20 years being a developer of small business and entrepreneurship and so on. and when i wrote the book and realized it was going to take an enormous effort to get published so i said about using my business skills or experience at the time said i think i can do this if i figure out what it is we need to do so i did and i was

able to establish a publishing team and then put together a book following the examples of the great publishers out there. i wanted to be able to put a book out there that would indeed look like a great publisher has done it and make sure that the story was there, and the process is were there and i was able to do that. >> forward by ross perot. >> yes, ross perot is a great american i happen to know. i was recruited by the ross perot organization back in the nineties when he was putting together the united withstand america and the leader of the reform party and when i met him we both realized that we shared the common interest in our country and our families and so on and we struck up not only of a relationship the personal relationship and so when i got ready to read the book i made a

visit with him and said i want to talk about ross perot has i know him, not as the people know him or the media knows him and i want to tell it as ross perot, up close and personal. he gave me permission to do that and i told about ross and his philanthropic work and his contributions to the country. and because of that when i wrote the book i had another visit with him and said to you want to take a look at this and give consideration to endorsing it? and he did. >> richard toliver and uncaged eagle with a foreward by ross perot. if people are interested where can they go? >> i have a website doud it's only available to people to get a book its