his way to be sophisticated. there's a story about him walking six miles to get a book of english grammar and teach himself grammar. he lived at a time when everyone had an intimate connection with death. when he was a boy his mother died and his aunt and uncle died of milk sick which sounds cute and charming now but the cows would wander into the woods and eat a poison weed and their milk would become poison, you would drink the poison and your skin turn black and you would be nauseous and paralyzed and you would die within days. that happened -- are we serving milk at this dinner? don't be so squeamish. his sister died very young in childbirth. his first love died while he was courting her, sending him into

depression. in the white house his son died, the son that was most like abraham lincoln. a very bright kid be loved by both his parents. it drove mary, his wife halfway mad. she would have seances in the white house to reestablish contact with willie. lincoln played around with these saying the spiritualists remind him of his cabinet because they had such divergent views on everything. he had extremely odd appearance. he was 6 ft. 4. every time you see him described they say his trousers didn't nearly reached his shoes. extreme highwater is all the time. when he gave a speech in new york when he introduced himself to the eastern elite he was sitting on the stage and the

story goes when he stood up people gasped because they had never seen someone that tall. he was a plain looking liberals some would say agley man. he thought god must love, and looking people because he made more of them than anyone else. we like to flatter ourselves that lincoln's greatness was attached to what a man of the people he was. he was a brilliant man touched by genius from the beginning. when he was a kid and here's something you wouldn't understand he would go into his room and stay up all night trying to puzzle it out and figure out the best way to explain it which gives you a sense of his rhetorical gifts. when he came to congress he was delighted to go to the library of congress to by euclid's geometry which he taught himself as an adult.

he had an anecdote for every possible situation and a credible memory and sense of humor. he used just to deflect tension from things he wanted to pass by and also to entertain himself. there is someone who met with him during the civil war to got frustrated with the constant anecdotes and jokes and lincoln told him i have to do this or i am going to go in sane given the pressure he was under in the civil war. i want to hit four points about the content of his statesmanship and what he achieved. there are four key things. one, he was utterly devoted to this nation's founding and the founders. he loved to talk about our

ancient faith in the old father's. he said i never had a sentiment that didn't spring from the declaration of independence. the declaration of independence is a little tough on george iii. when he went bad the first delusion he had was that he was george washington. it is like barack obama waking up and thinking he was dick cheney or something. the declaration was key to lincoln. i would like to have a participatory portion. there are three key sentences to the declaration that are key to understanding lincoln and this country right at the beginning. i wonder if i can have a volunteer come up and read these three sentences.

will your voice be as deep and resonant as will's? that is the key question. read it like you mean it. here we go. there you go. >> we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. to secure these rights governments are instituted among men they arriving just powers from the consent of the government. whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form. than most likely effect their safety and happiness. thank you. [applause]

>> so that is it. that represents the summit of human wisdom about the purposes of government. what do those three sentences say? very simple things. we get our rights from our creator, we don't get them from government. our rights exist prior to government and we own them as a matter of natural law. the purpose of government is to protect those rights. and if government fails in protecting those rights it loses its legitimacy and there's the right to stage a revolution. this is a direct steal from john locke. the most major american political philosopher. it set out basis for limited government and commercial capitalism as we know it in this country. if you want to go further back

than that this passage relies on genesis. if we are truly made in the image of god this is what government should do. what did the declaration mean for lincoln? it meant the theory of our government is universal freedom and you cannot have slavery or any coercive dependence of one man on another. no man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent. this is the leading principle of american republicanism. what lincoln did is took this it and used it as a weapon in the political battles of the 1850s because he believed the democrats had turned their back on the declaration. they had turned their back on the immortal words of the founder of their own party

because they wanted to defend and accommodate slavery. you cannot defend the declaration of independence and defense slavery. if you are proslavery you have to deny all men or created equal or you have to deny that blacks are men. southerners often did both of those things. this was the crux of the debate between stephen douglas and abraham lincoln. are their rights that we have that cannot be violated even by a democratic majority? and lincoln said yes there are. douglas said know there aren't. lincoln said the declaration of independence is the golden apple and the constitution is a silver frame. that is an image drawn from the bible and it means the declaration is -- sets out the ultimate purpose of our government and the constitution

exists to achieve that purpose and lincoln asked again and again why is this philosophical statement there in the declaration? the american revolutionaries could have said you are not representing us. we have a list of 20 grievances. we are splitting. see you later. instead they put this philosophical statement in that document. lincoln's answer for why it is there is encapsulated in this statement. all honor to thomas jefferson, the man who in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence had the coolest, forecast and capacity to introduce into a nearly revolutionary document an abstract truth applicable to all men at all times and to embalm it there that today and in all coming days it shall be a review and stumbling block to the very

harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. they put that statement in not for themselves but for us and all subsequent generations so we will constantly be called back to their truth and that is the way lincoln used it. the second point, lincoln fought the promise of the declaration had its concrete expression not just in opposition to slavery but in economic advancement. as he said all should have an equal chance. if there's something lincoln hated besides slavery it was economic stasis. he hated the economic vision of thomas jefferson that we would all be yeoman farmers living on our farms forever more. that is the way lincoln's father lived. he was a subsistence farmer who never lifted his vision to

anything higher. and lincoln hated him for it. he was estranged from his father. his father would said lincoln -- send lincoln and take the money lincoln earned. lincoln said i myself once was a slave and it was to that he was referring. what did lincoln make of himself? he became a lawyer. in today's context we think of lawyers as parasitic bottom feeders. but then lawyers were great champions of the new capitalistic order that was emerging in this country. they helped set out the rules of the road in the new capitalist economy. things like bankruptcy law and land title litigation and often who did lincoln represent? he represented the railroads, foremost engine of economic progress at the time. lincoln said i hold the value of

life, a very strong statement, is to improve one's condition. at that time you have the south defending themselves and the notion they were pro slavery by saying in the north there is wage slavery. people have to work as chattel in the south but they work for wages and not for themselves and the north and isn't that the same thing? one southern advocate wrote of the concept of the mud sill, the lowest of the low, foundation of everything else. every society has these blood cells that exist to support everyone else. lincoln's reply to that was they think men are always to remain laborers here but there's no such class. the man who labored for another last year this year labours for himself and next year he will hire others to labor for him.

that is the dynamic of american middle class society and lincoln identified himself with aspiration. one of the lincoln douglas debate there were lincoln supporters who came to the debate with a sign that said bad skills for lincoln and what lincoln realized is you make it possible for people to rise you had to have a sophisticated financial system where people have access to capital and an industrializing economy with innovative networks and transportation and you have to snuff out an aristocratic system fundamentally based on hierarchy. lincoln's secretary of state used the phrase that we have an irrepressible conflict in the united states and he didn't just mean the conflict between slavery and free labor. the conflict fundamentally was

the battle between the privileged few and the under privileged many. he was there to protect the prosperous system which opens the way for all, gives hope to wall and energy and progress to all. hard to imagine a more succinct statement of the economic promise of american life than that. .3 is prudence. as conservatives we make much rightly of principle but we also need to focus on the value of prudence. a lincoln biographer focuses on a lot. the politics of prudence has four elements, not just in tensions. you are willing to make trade-offs because you will never have an ideal world.

you see problems in society as problems of human nature, not just individuals who are wrong headed and have a sense of irony. things will go wrong and there is no straight line to glory. you have a battle between romantic politics based on these axioms and lincoln had this challenge. people on his side were romantic radicals like william garrison who burned the constitution as a pact with the devil because it accepted slavery or john brown whose raid on harpers ferry went so disastrously wrong. they had no sense of compromise and work heedless of the consequences of their actions. lincoln was different. he was always concerned with what the outcome could be and there could be unintended

consequences. would you really need is both of these things. you don't go from a society like the one lincoln grew up in. he was indiana and illinois as a kid or a young man. all those states that one point or another banned free blacks from their borders. you don't go from that to the abolishment of slavery without outsiders agitating all the time and have that in the form of abolitionists and radical republican who headed lincoln, beating about the head and shoulders calling him a sellout and an ignoramus and you had lincoln who agreed with where they wanted to go and his method was to carefully put one foot in front of the other and to see if he could stand on that foot or not and when he could to take the next step. he called the abolitionists the un handiest devils he ever encountered but ultimately he

said they are loo and have the same said they are looking sign word and have the same goal and different methods of getting there. freedom. if you take this vision and that message you get what lincoln called at gettysburg a new earth of freedom. one myth is the civil war was not about slavery fundamentally. if you believe that you should look at the speech by theing president of the confederacy, alexander stephens, who talked about theing american founders and set our government is found on the opposite idea. foundation are laid as cornerstone on the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man and subordination to the superior race is as natural, this our government is the first in the history of the world based on this great

physical, philosophical and moral truth. if you don't believe the civil war was about slavery after slaves about that. many of them learned about the emancipation proclamation before their owners because word spread so quickly by word of mouth. as soon as you have little beachheads in the south you had slaves fleeing to be free. they are then called contraband but the fact they came to those for its forced the issue in the north and ultimately led to the chain of events that led to thhhr emancipation. the other myth is that lincoln in some sense didn't oppose slavery. he did his entire life. even when he was in the illinois legislature there was a resolution to condemn abolitionism that passed by a 17-6 vote. lincoln descended and put down in paper his reasons for opposing that when he was a

congressman, he was appalled that near the capital there was an auction block for slaves. he called the delivery stable. you see his relationship with frederick douglass. douglas said lincoln was the only white man he ever encountered who made him feel comfortable. aaider lincoln's second inaugurl address frederick douglass went to the white house for reception and was held up in line because he was black. he gets in and when lincoln sees him he goes up to him and says mr. ip uglas, there's no person whose opinion i value more than yours. what did you think of the speech? he said was a sacred effort. because of emancipation not for the first time in the united states our military became a great foct te for liberation. thousands of slaves flocked to it. the front lines of the union army became great moving camps

of freedmen. at an end of the war when lincoln entered a bombed out richmond word began to spread that he was there and you had a black laborers coming out. the whites of richmond were not so thrilled. they said praise the lord. they fell on thhhr knees in front of lincoln and he had to say don't kneel to me. you must neil to god only and thank him for the liberty you will hereaaider enjoy. we shouldn't sugarcoat lincoln. he had the racial attitudes of his time. you see slowly in the course of his ministration his mind changed and a big reason is because blacks were allowed to serve in the ylitary and served with honor. blacks are 1% of the northern population at a tarce and made p 9% of the military. lincoln wrote a public letter responding to people complaining

about blacks serving in the ylitary. some whites say they don't want to fight for blacks. that is funny because they are willing to fight for you. lincoln's last speech at the white house, with blacks in mind he expressed an openness to the idea of giving li yted suffrage to blacks in louisiana. there is an ite ortant man in that audience. john wilkes booth said that means negroing this will be the last speech he will give. i am going to run harc throu fu. lincoln gck.s to see our americn cousin, the secretary of war ip esn't want him to go. he goes. john wilkes booth gets easy access to lincoln's box and shoots and kills him and what frederick douglass called

appropriately a hell black act of revenge at lincoln's deathbed stand and the secretary of war says as he dies now he belongs to the ages and so ip es. that is lincoln, four poinip e quickly about lincoln. i would like to cast this forward a little bit. who else do we know in american history that comes from relatively humble roots, has a great sense of humor anding kind hearted man, talented writer who fought his principles all the way tg.ou fu? aighone? ronald reagan. his father was an alcoholic. he wasn't living on the frontier but described once having to 's pst his father who was drunk and faint off the front porch. he became president, he hated nuclear-weootons. lincoln was famous for pardoning

deserters who didn't want to kill these 4 kids. you see the same aspect in reaipln. his advisers feared if there was a nuclear attack on the united states he woulptha't retaliate because he couldn't bring himself to cause that mayhem and mass murdehim h lincoln road is the radio scripts and thought throu fu hi conse comatism. one of my favorite stories is from when he was governor and went to a meeting of the board of trustees of california. ks6 cc1 a protest broke out. his advisers wanted him to avoid these demonstrators, he's at our luill walk through them. he walks into his car and these hippy types found on his future and say we are the future.

read and lacked a window and said i am going to sell my bonds. there's a sarcilarity counter t luhat we have in the white hous right now because these were deeply modest men deeply grounded men who understood human nature. a guy's wife runs away with the gardener and the neighbor comes by and says that is terrible. your wife ran off with a gardener. he set about to urare harc aigh. the sarcilarities go to the substance. he loved the pg.ase we the people from the constitution. no one was more eloquent about

the power of the market and innovation to lift everyone in our countr mi he was a prudent statement but he was willing to be flexible and he created a great new birth of freedom not just in this country but globally initially in europe when the berlin wall fell and a decade after the great flowering of freedom of around the world but the deepest and most important sarcilarity o the revitalized the nation and moved it ahead by drawing on the principles of the past. in the founders they found the basis of the american future. that founding and those principles are still under threat toda mi obviously a much df1 o erent threat than 150 years ago but you had progressives running ip wn our founders for 100 year.

the word debunking is from progressive historians. debunking of the myth of george washington. a perfect stat1ent that captures this attitude yoadecan do bette than woo's ow wilson. these to not fit the present pr grle% a they reflect documenip e taken t of a forgotten age. lue need to get beyond the declaration of independence. it did not mention the questions of our da mi it is of no consequence to us. a great riposte to this was calvin coolidge when talking about the principles that if aighone wishes to deny thhhr tre por soundness the only dirn to proceed historically is not porwaip e but backwards t the time when there is no rights of the individual, no rules of the people. the principles of our founders

are still under threat. the value of individual investment is under threat. you can't have a lively commercial society if profitmaking ising ed and enterprises are taxed and regulated. you can't have people getting ahead on their own if the important virtues like marriage and self diradipline and work ao washing away and you can't have labor have the dignity it dese comes if you have people o the right and left saying there are uropb americans wons of o d. lue are in a monumental conflic and we need a lincoln reaipln revival. bismarck says dog looks after drueats and full and the united states. i have seen all we have done to

pf de wo back and it is so important. if you allow me another quote from lincoln he said the struggle of today is not for today but for aing and ailfer aighone heaip e lin he gave a speech as a young man where he talked about even back then the united states was impregnable to military assauls you could take all the armies of the world combined and give them all the wealth of the world and the greatest military genius and that army could not leave a track in the blue ridge mountains or take a drink from the ohio river by force. then he went on to say if destruction is our lot we must oursenot es be iip e author and finisher. as a nation of free men we must live tg.ou fu all tarce or die

suicide. what we should ip is to resono to live. thank you very much. ha so questions. i should have said at the beginning recently got married so i am now -- [applause] -- i am just getting used to being wrong about everything so please challenge me on everything. the married men in the audience would appreciate that grow that

joke. >> i am from georgetown university and a member of the national journalism center. i agree with your analysis of abraham lincoln. my one question would be how do you look at lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in maryland? that was one incident that would seem to contradict the constitution and a declaration of independence but might have preserved the union. >> but great question. it is in the constitution that you can suspend it in a time of insurrection and we had a large insurrection. at the beginning he suspended on its own. there's an argument whether you need congress to do it or not and he took a bunch of measures on his own authority that in the best interpretation were

extralegal. he goes to congress and says these blessed the fief and he blessed them all except for habeas corpus. i think it was the correct call. you have the nation under a fundamental threat and if you do not get an army into washington the capital can collapse and in baltimore you have a near insurrection and maryland officials saying stop -- don't send them through baltimore or through maryland at all and lincoln said they can't go under maryland. they have to get here somehow. he suspend the writ of habeas corpus on the eastern front. was that necessary wartime measure. and subsequently he will suspend habeas corpus and a lot of the

arrests had to do with incidents that were genuine guerrilla warfare or resistance to the draft. that is a mark against him but people call him a tyrant is going too far. if he were a tyrant he wouldn't have had an election. he still had that election. his ultimate goal was to save the country, preserve the union and put it on a basis of freedom. that is what he did. if you look at the confederacy these were not libertarians. is that an answer? people are laughing in agreement or in derision? >> paul mackey. my question to your anecdote about reagan and the parking garage the u.s.'s credit rating got downgraded from aaa to aa

are learned. what that means for our future? >> reagan has the answer to everything. it is extremely disturbing. the s&p downgraded us. they forecast this and it goes back to something that was discussed all week with people arguing back and forth that the debt deal when talking about this over dinner, manifestly inadequate. it is ridiculously inadequate. the reason i supported it is there was no alternative given the correlation of forces in washington. we need a republican senate and republican president. and we will take care of this problem. the thing that is scary that is only dawning on me could really

be true is what if you don't have another two years? that is a really frightening prospect. if you have europe going off a cliff with their debt since the financial system is interconnected we could go into recession again. all these debt numbers look worse than they do now and you have the banking system shaken to its core again. it is a very frightening and perilous time for the country and the wisest thing to do would be never to have gotten anywhere close to the situation where you are running these risks but we did. >> i am refuge and -- i am from the university -- the first gentleman took my question. i have another one. >> always the right to habeas.

>> the abuse that southerners suffered during reconstruction delivered the south to the democrat party for so many years but we are seeing now the republican party is the party of the south but there are holed out in rural areas. do you think we will continue to see this trend of purging democrats. the blue dog democrats are almost nonexistent any more. do you think there will be a viable option in the south? >> this is my take on it. if you have a corrupt social system in the south that had to be broken and it wasn't broken during reconstruction, reconstruction is lifted in a

corrupt deal and they repressed blacks and continue to deny them their rights. when that system broke you saw this off over time really joining the american mainstream, joining the commercial dynamism that characterized this country and that is when you saw the south become republican because he began to see broad swaths of people becoming middle and upper middle class and having to pay taxes. republicans did not rise in the south on issue of race. it was the issue of the size of government and taxes and it was the new deal coalition that depended on pandering to segregation in the south. as long as you had segregation in the south you had ignorance, for education and not the wealth generation you needed. you have a lot of people not

making enough money to pay for this new deal. the civil-rights revolution broke that system and it was a great victory for justice for most but ended up through twists and turns in history being a boon to the republican party. >> some other things attached to it. people in the south of all religions clearly there is more of a bonding to the social issues and social platforms of the republican party but the south economy doing better than the rust belt to the sun belt. in the long term i wonder with these people moving into the south and bringing in different ideas and more liberal voting policy i wonder if there will be a more viable option for democrats in the future because

right now the democrat party once you get below it is completely decimated except for florida. >> we could talk about this a long time. the south is freer now then the rest of the country in economic terms. the hierarchy's and structures that characterize the old south now characterize the midwest because of the size of government and union rules. in the south you build a more genuinely free market economy and that is becoming the locus of industry in the united states. >> thank you. >> i attend birmingham, alabama. do any northerners have questions? >> my question is i have always been taught the main reason the southern states seceded was not slavery but they were

underrepresented in the federal government and those sort of reasons and slavery was a non-issue for a lot of people. >> this is a highly contested ground so don't take my word. what i think happened, the south dominated the federal government since the nation's founding and with the ascension of the republican party which is no. based party they saw that totally slipping away and why that was so important to them was they saw as a threat to the expansion and ultimate existence of slavery. i say it is ultimately an issue about slavery. lincoln's take was the south will agree to let the issue go away as long as we stop saying

slavery is wrong. it is simplistic but there's something to that. whenever someone is in fundamental error they don't want to be challenged which is why the south bend the abolitionists. they don't want to hear about it. it is easy for me to condemn the south for that but if i lived in that time and was on plantation with a bunch of slaves my view would be different. lincoln had a humane and merciful view because the same was true of him. there were huge economic interests. slaves were the greatest source of wealth in this country so eliminating with a huge and difficult deal. that is a way of saying slavery was ultimately the issue but i don't want to get too much on my

high horse about it. there are people who will disagree with me in birmingham. >> i am from the university of cambridge. i want to talk about lincoln and the lawyer. the chief justice gave a lecture about lincoln as a lawyer. one thing we talked about was lincoln was a prominent figure, he went back -- research overnight and came up with an argument by the dread scott decision was wrong. in academia you see a lot of

debate as to whether dread scott represented the constitution. my question is did he represent -- or do you think it was something else? >> it was judicial activism. i'm not a lawyer or an expert in this area but i think lincoln gets the best of that argument because he was saying the founders didn't need to include blacks in the declaration and lincoln goes back and looks at the founding and says blacks can vote. they are obviously people. this is an issue that came back again and again. if they're not people why not

just kill them? why isn't it legal to kill them in the south? if there like horses why don't they just walk around free? his view was we had progressed since the founding and the views in the 1850s for more danced on racial matters. therefore the founders must have been worse than they were. lincoln's view was we regressed and i think his view was correct. our patriotic robe is dragged in the dirt and swale and we must purify in blood of the revolution. those were correct words and a warning in contemporary society we think things are going to get better. everyone will get more rights and we will get freer and things get better all time. it is not always true.

>> good evening, mr lowry. >> this guy is a marketing genius. i haven't formally introduced myself. >> i am following you. [applause] >> for decades liberals have bashed ronald reagan and all he represented. in recent years this back off given the popularity of the great communicator. what can be done to prevent the false reagan/obama comparison from taking form in 2012? >> great question. it is such shameless body snatching.

they hated him at the time. they thought he was a dangerous with fixed -- lunatic. you couldn't read anything in the mainstream media that said otherwise and now he is mr. flexibility throughout his career. what they focus on. they're not strictly wrong in this is one of the points i was talking about, statement has to have an element of practicality. how he is going to get to the ultimate end. that is what reagan did and there were times he felt forces were against him and he had to surrender. he did it on taxes in 1982. after the big tax cut there was a revolt in congress with the deficit and helping the rich. the house was against him and democrats -- there was no alternative so he gave into a tax increase. liberals say reagan was in favor

of increased taxes which is of surge the this absurd. he was forced to give in. same with the soviet union. reagan negotiated with gorbachev. reagan was in favor of negotiating with the enemy. sometimes. he spent his first term not negotiating with the soviets because he wanted to build our arms so we had the upper hand and he wanted to wait until there was someone worth talking to which he had in the form of gorbachev. this constant effort that you have to beat this back. the other person who will do it too is bill buckley. by the time his biography was written he will be a great liberal figure. they always want to engage in body snatching with our people and one reason they can do it is

they have been so successful. the reason everyone can accept reagan's ends is because he achieved them. we realized he could drive the soviet union into the ground without a major war that cause nuclear armageddon. now they can all -- even liberals can accept it and try to make the case that he wasn't fundamentally one of us is just absurd. >> i am the founder of tea party and i am reading the national news. i have a question. for you a curve ball first. can you -- >> can you throw a soft curve ball? a hanging curveball? >> we see this developing throughout conservative media. big education is coming focusing on students campus section.

what is the future for students as far as national review goes? something exciting to look forward to? >> yes. we will be learning about it very soon. >> do you have any ideas? >> it would be excellent. >> we have a higher education blog. >> i go in the direction of wanting something for students. that is what i was -- love to see. >> on behalf of the tea party movement i would like to know what would you say abraham lincoln would think of the modern tea party movement today? >> it is very much in the spirit

of the civic activism use are at the time. outside questions of ideology -- i don't want to sound like a will be headed guy but i love people being involved. wonderful to see people newly involved. one thing i love about this period is voting rates were the highest they have never been. people would go to the lincoln douglas debate and want more. at cooper union lincoln gave a speech closely -- lots of constitutional evidence. he gives a speech. everyone on the host committee was on the podium with them, give us more speeches. you had these nighttime marches called wide awakes. i thought about covering the ron

johnson senate campaign in wisconsin. we woke up. we are finally awake. that is a wonderful thing. what lincoln believed is we like to think the constitution is our ultimate protection. if not if you lose people. public sentiment and public opinion is everything. that is why you need people engaged with every fiber of there being and you need to be pushing on all fronts to change public opinion and shift the center of public opinion. you mention big education and glen beck, we need everyone on all fronts. some people think the national review doesn't do and never would as our nature as a

publication but it is all for the good. if you conseco this country and our founder's principles you need everyone on all cylinders. >> trevor carlsson of the university of san diego. i was hoping you could comment on the creation of west frigid new with reference to article iv section iii. >> west virginia is more problematic. do we have west virginians in the room? your state never should have existed. are you really a west virginian? the creation of your state was dubious but we love you anyway. desperate to get support in the border areas he thought were so important. you had virginia in a state of revolt and you didn't have a legitimate government you could work with so you worked -- in

terms of constitutional niceties it is difficult to defend. never gotten a west virginia question before. >> jeffrey washington from denver. you make a call to return to lincoln but this is a question i don't hear many people dealing with. do you think lincoln was right when he said as long as blacks and whites remain among each other that one would be superior and the other would be inferior and as long as we remain integrated both would suffer? >> no are don't. one of the worst moments of his presidency -- you are bringing out all the bad stuff. that meeting in the white house. the first time blacks had been invited into the white house. to urge them to leave the country. he was a lifelong advocate of

colonization, voluntary colonization. his view for the longest time if you are in favor of colonization you believe blacks are an alien in this country that should be rejected. i think his view began to change for some of the reasons i talked about which is blacks began to serve this country. the 1850s were a huge time of immigration. thomas sold doesn't like the phrase african-americans because they have been in this country longer than most european americans so lincoln's view was fundamentally wrong and all i can say in his defense is he was slowly changing over time. if you look at the lincoln douglas debates you will see he

does change his tone depending on where he is because illinois was a microcosm of the country. the north settled by new england, very republican. south settled by people from kentucky and slave owners. depending where the debate swirling and would change his tongue but if you read it very closely he never gave away the fundamental principle that blacks were people to whites. he was cautious in the way he said it. are you familiar with the book forced into glory? >> yes. >> i knew it. you couldn't get by me. [talking over each other] >> is not an accusation. it is a book that makes the case

that lincoln shared the racism of american society and was pulled kicking and screaming and very uncomfortably to doing what he did. thank you very much. >> i go to denise is college in buffalo, new york. northeastern states have fallen to democratic hands in presidential elections and given their struggle i feel they will eventually transition into republican states. do you feel the nomination of a presidential candidate like "national review" -- like chris christie would hasten that process and help them transition into republican states? >> i wish i could share your optimism about the northeast. you have senator pat toomey of pennsylvania who was amazing. [applause] >> scott brown a little off the reservation but to have a republican in the center and

chris christie, you are seeing that traditional northeastern labor union dominated model of government breaking down. that is what chris christie is about trying to fix and you can see a democrat like andrew cuomo trying to fix it in new york. maybe i shouldn't be so pessimistic. ideally i would want a presidential candidate who is not a southerner because there is too much southern iteration to republican party and chris christie is a little different or someone from the midwest or the upper midwest but chris christie is likely not going to run and a candidate from the upper midwest because tim pawlenty is not doing so great. to you have any favorites in the field? >> not in the northeast but john

huntsman. >> are you a republican? [applause] >> i am running for my home town board of education so sometimes i wonder. >> i and teasing. on my honeymoon i went on not bike trip in tuscany. first time i met a huntsman supporter i would never meet when iowa but in tuscany you confine them. she was a lovely woman but was a moderate democrat from connecticut. that is a problem if you are running for the republican nomination. >> his knowledge of china was helpful to him given recent demographics. >> thank you very much. >> i am with the national journalism center internship

program. >> excellent. >> i see a growing influence of libertarians and the republican party and they have a problem with lincoln. how do you think we should address libertarians in regard to lincoln or just in general? >> they are an important element of contemporary conservatism. one of buckley's last books referred to himself as a libertarian journalist in the title. in terms of practical politics you really need all three legs of the conservative school. you need economic libertarians as a more free-market -- national security hawks. another thing i find heartening about the tea party is the hawkish foreign policies made an exception but libertarian and

surge 0 -- social conservatism have emerged. i am sure there are pro-choice tea party ears. i never met one. all the major tea party candidates have been pro-life. if you tilt too far in the libertarian direction and ignore those issues or kick them overboard you will split the coalition. on a practical level you need both. i don't think libertarians have anywhere to go. there is some notion in the bush administration which was a disappointing in terms of spending that libertarians can format alliance with liberals and you see what we get what liberals have unified control of the government. in the last two years plead for and you get historic expansion of of government. i wouldn't be worried about libertarians' splitting off.