>> let's -- at a time when there is enormous discontent in our own country today, people are hurting, millions of workers, the standard of living is going down. 50 million people, no health insurance, we have the most up equal distribution of wealth and income since the great depression. people are worried what's going to happen to their kids. all the workers losing their jobs, not finding any. so there's a lot of discontent today. how could in your judgment, the lessons of the '70s impact in a positive way the problems we're facing as nation today? what lessons can we learn and apply to the serious crises facing the country today? >> i think we face serious crises and it's not a coincidence that other countries

are face those crisis, particularly advanced economies, europe, japan, et cetera. but the reason i stressed what i did about president obama when he came into office and the absence of cooperation, was because i think we would have had a better and faster economic recovery, and public confidence in the government, had there been cooperation. we should have had in my mind, a larger stimulus. >> let's review what happened. what in fact happened there was no republican support for that. >> we got three republicans, which included senator suspecter, who switched parties at the time. almost no support. >> very partisan. >> those senators who supported if were very much as industry sized in their caucus. that didn't have to be that way.

if many republicans, who i think knew better, had stepped forward, we would have had the stimulus. we would have done it more quickly. the country would have felt, we've got a government. what those us last year, when we almost defaulted, public confidence, which was already low, went dramatically down. the lesson of that -- of the book, i think, is that the senate is one of the balance wheels in our system. it's the -- walter mondale called the senate our national mediator. if the senate works it makes a difference. if it doesn't work it takes a toll on the country's ability to govern itself. >> by working i'm hearing you say, not only in responsible though problems facing the nation but in bringing the nation together in the sense of confidence that government is in fact functioning properly. >> yes. you put it very well. there's an example in my book

there, president carter, at the end of 1978, saves we're going recognize the people's republic of china, and he gets -- the right wing republicans and some of the democrats are saying, you're selling out taiwan. looked like it would be another pan mall canal-like fight. within a very few weeks, the senators led by frank church and jacob javits, on the foreign relations chillee, fashioned a compromise that solved the problem, that we would recognize china but wouldn't dessert taiwan and they had diffused the whole problem. the brought the country together. jesse helms even supported the package at that point. so, yes, the government working and working together, means something to the country.

>> and people's respect for the institution at that point was much higher. >> i think it was higher. look, some people would say, you know, congress bashing is a uniquely american habit. right? goes back to will rogers and mark twain so people are always complaining about congress. but when they saw this senate, the civil right act of 1964, the arena in which the vietnam war was most opposed, and ultimately brought to a close, holding richard nixon accountable in watergate, coming up with an energy policy, however difficult it was. they saw it working. >> ira, we are rapidly running out of time. i want to thank you very much for discussing your book. it's "the last great senate: courage and statesmanship in times of crisis." thank you very much for being if us. >> thank you, no. really appreciate it.

>> up next, on a recent trip to

georgetown university in washington, dc, book tv talked to chandra manning about her book" what this cruel war was over." part of the college series and was recorded at the library on campus. >> i'm now on your screen is professor chandra manning, the author of this book "what this cruel war was over: soldiers, slavery, and the civil war." professor manning, what was your approach to this book? >> guest: the first thing to say about approach is that you give me way too much credit when you say approach. the book is not at all the book i thought i was going to write when i started. i started with an interest in civil war soldiers and a desire to read their mail. but absolutely no intention at all of writing about soldiers and slavery.

i was interested in enlisted soldiers and the shop keepers and the slaveholders and northern grain growers. so i really didn't think we were going to care about slavery very much at all and i was interested in their war. and especially interested in how they differed from each other. not just north and south but how is somebody from boston different from somebody from ohio or somebody from chesapeake different or similar to somebody from appalachia. so what did it mean to be an american if you were from different parts of the nation? so my plan was to do that. to look at how these guys talk about america. how do they talk about the united states? how do they tike about the union, talk about the confederacy, the south? hoping that they would do it substantially different from each other, and voila, i would

have something to say. so i headed off into the archives -- >> what archives. >> guest: i was in the archives from every state but one. so 45 archives represented in this book. some of them, the huge ones that immediately come to mind, the library of congress or pennsylvania, which has an enormous army history collection, but also smaller libraries, state historical associations, the alabama department of archives and history, the vermont historical society, jackson county historical society in independence, missouri. and again, the point was i really didn't want to read more about u.s. grant. i wanted to read about the grunt, and i wanted the soldiers to say, i look at the flag and i think of my farm. or i think of my wife or my mother. and they just -- they didn't

cooperate. they wouldn't do what i wanted them to do and i was really frustrated with them for that reason. >> host: were few finding a similar theme in. >> guest: two things. i knew the union and confederate differences. i was less interested in those than -- and i found very little of the east-west difference that i was looking for. there were americaners who thought people from the east were prissy, and you can hear that conversation today on the metro. that was not that surprising. they weren't talking about what i wanted them to. they wouldn't stop talking about about slavery and that's what way were not supposed to care about. at least it wasn't supposed to enter in the center of their world. so i spent a good long time annoyed with them for not doing what i wanted them to do, until

finely, duh, i realized there was a story here. they were talking about slavery and they are. so why did they care and what difference did it make to somebody from arkansas or alabama, who never owned a verification whether or not slavery survived. what difference did it make to somebody who grew wheat in illinois or who made shoes in massachusetts? why did they care whether something called the union survived or whether there was slavery or not and once i sort of figure oust that was my question, that became my approach but again approach sounds like i knew what i was doing from the jut set and i didn't. it took me two years of archives, days in the archives, to figure that out. >> host: so professor manning, as you went through in the letteres, what were you fining northern soldiers saying about slavery. >> guest: at the beginning i was struck by the wide range of opinions on slavery.

at the beginning the war really is about union for most northern soldiers -- not all but most. and what i mean by that is that most of them enter the war convinced the united states has to survive. it has to survive to show the world that representatives from government can work. these guys are kids in 1848. in a series of evolutions in 1848 in europe failed. it failed democratcat include, and they see the united states that the world's last shot. if it doesn't work here, it will never be tried again. so a few states think they can destroy the government, because they didn't like who we elected we have to say self-government doesn't work so we have to prove this thing can survive. and that's how they start. but you don't have to be the south very long before they begin to think, hmm, why did they get into this fix to begin with? they talked to southerners, and

they're really struck by how we got into this problem to begin with, because of this institution of slavery, and if you want to solve a problem, the only way to do it is to root out the cause. so, union soldiers made a shift. much, much earlier than i anticipated. the big shift begins in the summer of 1861, where soldiers beginning to write home to their families and also to their elected officials, to say if we want to win this war and if we don't want to fight it again in ten years we need to get rid of the problem, get rid of slavery or it's going to be right back at square one. so they at first take a really practical approach to the slave slavery problem. the tie solve a problem. get rid of the cause, problem goes away. but this is their first reaction to what they view as the causes of the war. but then as they stay in the south, more and more they

interact with real live slaves, real live people, who run to the union army by the thousands and suddenly it's harder to dismiss slaves as an abstraction or black people as an undefined category, something you never heard of before. part of us think of them that way when you have individuals with names and their stories and families in your camp, and the do things like your laundry. so the initial feels about slavery are quite instrumental. it's a problem. solve it. but extended experience in the south humanizes african-american people for soldiers and the say, there's something wrong with this. not just inconvenient. it's wrong and it's got to go because you only win a war when gods on your side, and no way god lets you win if you let something like slavery exist.

so a sort of practical response in the early months is joined by a kind of moral and even religious reckoning as the war proceed. >> host: you're find that across the board? >> guest: i really am. there's differences of opinions about everything. two million men in blue. and people are going disagree but one exception is the food is bad. they all agree. what is striking is how weighted the opinion is. again, not at the outset. there's a big range at the out. as the war proceeds. so there are a lot of guys who enter the war -- i want nothing to do with slavery. i can think of one in particular, chauncey welton, i call him mouthy chauncey. i think 18 or 19. from ohio, and he enlists and he is and his father and uncle are close and very active or very

enthusiastic in the sort of following of the democratic party, the wing of the party most -- most opposed to the notion of emancipation. and gets mid-way through the war, he is still not sure this emancipation is a good idea and it's not what he signed up for. not going to leave but he is not happy about it. but again, he stays in the south. goes through experiences, no one at home can even imagine, and he, who is the most rabid antiabolitionist i found in the early months, by the end of the war is writing home to his father and his uncle to reeducate them. at one point he writes to his father and he says, well, you think that i have turned again miss country. i enthusiastic you are mistaken considerable, which is a very mouthy chauncey. he mouths off to his father.

and he proceeds to explain exactly why we have to take down slavery. then at the very end of the war, how he greets the ending is, yes, we are free, free, free, free from the blighting curse of slavery, praise to god we are free. that's 180 degrees turn-around, and so if you look at any moment in the union ranks, of course you're going to find range of opinions. but by the end of the war that range has considerably narrowed, and at any time in the war it's -- there are a lot of people who are shifting. >> host: were northern soldiers' letters censored? >> guest: that a good question ask the answer is no. 'that's really one of the charms. here are three million men who fought in the civil war. most of whom would never have left us their personal thoughts were not for the war. the people you love you talk to as opposed to writing to.

well, for four years they're away from home so they have to use writing to talk about what they care about. and that's actually what drew me to the project in the first place. it's very hard to get at what did ordinary people care and the think about? because they don't leave papers in the way that george washington does. so that is how i was drawn to civil war soldiers. the letters are completely uncensored. they're expected to leave out sensitive military information, but they don't know any. but there's no office, there's no officers have enough to do, they don't look at the men's male. they also don't -- a really publication, so there's newspapers and these were really interesting. so, no office of morale, welfare, and recreation yet in the civil war. so these guys amuse themselves, and one of the ways they do it in many is enlisted guys brought newspapers, and sometimes they

do it with a piece of paper and a pep and they're hand written, and sometimes they do it by occupying the printing press of the local southern newspaper, the berryville conservator. the editor was sitting his type. in marchs the first mississippi -- first minnesota, and the newspaper exist with one paper of local news and three pages of minnesota news, and men traveled with portable printing presses and these newspapers are exclusively enlisted men's are ideas and words and they write for themselves, circulate them amongst themselves and those aren't censored. they're also not self-censored in the sense that it if you're writing a letter to your mom,

you give -- i wouldn't want to know that my friend hadn't had a decent meal in two weeks and his fox had holes kind of thing. when you're writing for other soldiers they know that stuff and there's no need to soften edges a little bit. so those newspapers are especially interesting because of the intended audience. so they're almost the raw voice of the soldiers and it's hard to imagine anything like that today. it's not like stars and stripes in world war ii which has a censorship process. >> host: when did you've get interested in the civil bar and what do you teach? >> guest: i can't remember not being interested in 19th 19th century u.s. history in particular. i loved little house on the prairie, believe it or not when i was a kid, and that drew me to the 19th century. i was very close to my grandmother, who -- she taught me to read when i was two, and she was fascinated by the civil war. and i can't really explain why. our family wasn't in the united

states. it wasn't a genealogical kind of next but she was. and anything about her i was going to be just like her so i became interested in the civil war rate pretty young. probably eight or nine when i red the story of johnny reb, and one was in 19434 -- 1943 and 195 2. if you want to know what a soldier wore or what the buttons on the uniform look lied or practical jokes, anything about this daily life, they will never be surpassed, and i read those quite young. and the bug bit then. so, i've been interested for a very long time. here at georgetown i teach 19th century u.s. history and a teach a class on civil war and reconstruction and i call it my

total immersion experience class because we play civil war music every class. i have them eat hard tack, but my supplier went out of business. but i teach classes on the history of baseball and other 19th century topics. >> chandra manning, what what did you find in the southern soldiers' letters? >> guest: they surprised me even more. i lucked into -- leapt into this project convinced they were not going to talk about slavery. i couldn't see how in two out of three white families in the confederacy did not own slaves. the majority of the men were nonslaveholders. i thought there would be an attitude towards slavery and the war for them would have been fought for different reasons and i kind of went into the project -- it was clear that secession happens to saveguard

the institution of slavery. i knew that. i didn't think that the regular guy saw the war the those terms. so i expected the war to be for him a sort of progress of disillusionment almost. i entered for one reason and find it's about something else and this isn't my war after all. and that's what i thought i was going find and i really didn't. what i found were men who did care as expected, first and foremost about their loved ones, their family, their homes. but what i was unprepared for is exactly how closely they linked those things to the institution of slavery. so, you don't -- you've live in north carolina or arkansas or virginia and you don't own any slaves but you're connected to the institution and you know it. in a number of ways. there are structural ways. kinship. your family doesn't own slaves but great uncle hal does. the process of slave hiring or

slave renting. you can rent a slave for far less than you can hire labor and that will help you in the crunch times of harvest and planting. you also are no fool. you know that the wealth of your reon is deppent on this enormously valuable source of property. so there are real structural ways in which regular white southerners are connected, and they're not dumb. they know it. but the connection are deeper, almost down to a gut level. if you are white southern man and you don't own slaves, you still enjoy a certain position in society and you live in a society that really values equality. really values the idea that you and are just as good as one another. we also grew up in an age of inequality, and people are on the move all the time. you grew up in a very insecure

world. so what if i live in a shack and you live a plantation? what makes us equal? neither of us can be slaves and that is important. not the whole story but that's important to who these men think of themselves. they also think of themselves as husbands, fathers, brothers, protectors. what do they see as the greatest danger in the greatest threat to the people they love? emancipation is a terrible threat. the live in a society that's 40% black. what happens when 40% of the population who has pretty good reason to be a little upset with the other 60% -- is freed. they really believed their loves ones are in danger if slavery goes away. so there's a safety -- genuine gut-level safety issue of nonslaveholders. and the final sort of reason why shavely matters to these guys -- is religious, and that sounds

funny, but slavery is in the bible. not even in the new testament does christ come out directly against the institution of slavery. who are these northerners who think they know better than god how to order society? that's dangerous. and so if everything you know and love in the world seems to you to rest on this foundation of slavery, and some are talking about messing with the foundation you feel like your whole world got rattled, and so in that sense i found right from the outset, white southerners who really don't see themselves having a direct economic interest but see the very things they love the most as deppent on the survive of slavery and that keeps them in the field. >> host: how easy was it to find a trove of letters at these

archives? >> guest: easier than i thought it would be. tended to go to smaller ones. so, the letters tended to be the from somebody's attic got cleaned out and they went to the state or the county. so, there are hundreds of thousands -- uncountable amount of these letters out there, and that actually turned out -- i didn't have the problem i couldn't find enough sources. i had to have a strategy for there are more sources than i can ever look at. how do i choose? so i stuck with enlisted. some guys would be promoted and become junior officers but i look at men who enlisted. and i wanted just ordinary people. so i went to people you have never heard of before and i wanted my army to look close to how the real army looked. so i tried to keep the number of how many easterners and

westerneres, rural and urban, farmers and teachers and tried to keep those ratios as close as possible. so i chose by sort of demographic data as much as anything. and i tried really hard not to overrepresent any particular group in who i looked at in one way, though, there is one -- there is one -- well, two -- two not quite representations. one is obviously illiterate soldiers. there are fewer than we think bus over 90% of the union army and # 0% of the confederate army could read and write. so literacy is such a small thing as we might thing but there are illiterate soldiers in both. so they're harder to get at. there are now people in regiments who write for illiterate soldiers. the people who are least likely to be literal are black soldiers so those are the voices that are

hardest to get at that needed the most digging, and there are a couple of ways to get those. one is the family-somebody in the regiment could write for others. the other is that black soldiers who could write, often wrote into northern black newspapers so columns and columns of black soldiers' letters in northern free black newspapers. i got it that way. sometimes black soldiers will hold public meetings, and together they will come if with a series of resolutions, things we agree on, and somebody will wrote those down and record a vote or a reaction, and so it's not the same as writing to your sister, but it's there. so those are the soldiers that are there, purposely there because they're part of the army, bought i have to admit, the sort of escaped slave who had never