>> consider reckoning power and politics and the civil war south, the author is history professor stephanie mccurry of the university of pennsylvania. first of all, professor, what is this painting on the front of your book? >> this is a civil war painting of a going down, a confederate flag going down in flames. it is an allegorical painting, not a military history, but it tells you a little bit about what the book is about. >> start by giving us a demographic of the south in 1860. >> that is a crucial question because we went to war, try to make this new nation.

smaller to start with, roughly 10 million people compared to the union's 22. already a tough blow, but i think the military it is not as much paid attention to as it should be. 4 million of those 10 million were blackened and slate. when it came time to mobilize for war we did not have access to 10 million people. they have access to allow white population of 6 million, half of whom were women, many of whom underage to. the demographics first tough to start with. >> have many white males at that point to the confederate have? obviously that was the base. >> right. well, i try to figure out how many men were of voting age. that would be the link between the voting and sold during was very tight. about one-and-a-half million military aides -- military age voting age white men.

>> what advantage is going into the war decides cotton, and we hear about, and, we have heard about that, what was the advantage? >> it's hard for moderates to figure out how they felt they could do this. the free labor north, two-thirds of the capitol is enslaved human beings. after ship it out across the embargo. it is a great question u.s. a lot of confidence just as they had made the united states what it was between 17871960 that

they could succeed and make this of a country, independent , a nation state, and that they could build a proper nation state in the 19th century sense of the word on the basis of cotton. they talked about this a lot. they compare themselves to other european countries in terms of population, national resources, the value of the trade. they were riding high. the confederacy's often look understood. we tend to look at it as a defensive move. it decided to take this gamble. they did take a gamble, but the only slave-holding class in the 19th century world to get it. slaveholders did not do. why did these guys? that is a really interesting question, and i try to explain, there was a mindset. completely fascinating to get inside the mind of this

incredibly powerful, not just in terms of social power and wealth, but political power of this elite, and they were running the united states and did not doubt their ability to do this separately. confidence is there. big piece of the story. >> overwhelming support for secession among south? >> note. it is a really interesting put duke campaign. as interesting as any campaign in modern history. they needed -- most of the political elite, only one-third of white adult man owns slaves in the south so the political elite that was orchestrating this were extremely confident that they could do this and believe that they would be able to pull it off and did not have

any trouble lining each other, but the real challenge for them was that this was theoretically a white man's democracy. every adult white man got to vote. were not many properties. they had to do this by to orleans. there were not at all confident about that and it was an incredible amount of paramilitary violence and intimidation. the results are very uneven. voter that secession by lunchtime on the first day. that's so they went out of the union. this the back story as to how they pull that off.

democracy was being violated. it really was, i think it is interesting that it is very revealing of what democracy was an man in as slave regime in 1860. they called it a democracy. they often made the case, especially the political elite, but what they're really wanted was a republic. as democracy : that was part of the reasons. they did not like the direction electoral politics was going, but they had to play that came to this session through. a strong run it through and in the upper south the normal democratic process did not yield secession. none of those states seceded until fort sumter was fired on.

even then there were eight states and four of them seceded and for did not come as of a completely split. it was incredibly contentious commended meant that the confederacy ended up fighting with 11 slave states. seventh -- 11 instead of 13. the rich 15 slave states in 1860 and 11 in the confederacy. you can already see them breaking off a part of the south , just never put it. >> to jefferson davis ever when an actual election? >> he was a senator. wesson elections were -- and he was nominated in a constitutional convention as a moderate in montgomery alabama in february of 1861. i don't think he ever did stand for election.

one of the things americans think, one of the things they're told, the confederate constitution was a replica of the u.s. constitution, but it was not. a number of crucial changes, and one of them was they had a one-term executive, and i believe it was 5-year executive term. he avoided reelection. >> professor mccurry, did -- was there a lot of political infighting during the war? >> yes. there was. and there were no for more -- for all political parties. one of the things that is interesting is that it so quickly became on the ropes that a lot of things that were planned never really materialized. and there was political opposition, but it was theoretically everybody was a democrat. there was no republican party. no republican party ticket offered in the south. you could not vote for lincoln.

but there were all lined with the southern wing of the democratic party. during the war opposition arose, and some were profoundly opposed to the davis administration, on very good grounds, with the davis administration was one of the most centralizing federally concentrated power regimes of the entirety of american history . one political scientist to look at this look at the union government, the structure of the states under federal government and the union and the structure of the state and federal governments in the confederacy and said they could better see was the goliath. that top down until the new deal. so they seceded on states' rights and had to build this enormous central state apparatus. they conscripted within one year. think about that as a statement of state power.

constricted to five texas within basically a year. they had agents of the federal government all over the south, literally taking food out of people's mouths, the only way they could feed the army. not the fascinating part of the story, a huge slaveholders go to war to protect slavery in and find out the new government is there to protect their slaves in more demoted turns out that the needs -- wants and needs to use those placed to win the war. an enormous struggle. they also wrote the clause that said that congress could never abolish slavery. they literally had a problem of sovereignty. they cannot even reach the slaves as bodies to use for military labor. they could not use them without

the permission of the owner. they codified a slave as private property and had to live with that. can you imagine slaveholders were mortgage to their eyeballs. not interested in sending slaves out to build forts with 20,000 other slaves to of the were talking about that the war was about, the eagle, what it meant to have a powerful ally like the united. one of the engineers said that slaves to like to do this work and know they don't like to for personal reasons "they also know that they don't like to do it because they don't want to do in the labor that will 40 union who they see is fighting for their investigation. one of the things i love it, the stories the the most interesting , launching the psychology of slaveholders changed. these are people who are so accustomed to thinking of slaves as human beings of a sort, but once a desire has no meaning.

just instruments of business and will to some extent. from the minute lincoln is elected they start noticing the difference in the behavior of slaves on the plantation. one of the things i did in that book that think is different than most historians as i use the plantation record to watch these guys to start out saying slavery as an element of strength in the war. we can put every white man into the army because we have the slaves to build and do the dirty work and then they come up against these planters who will sends letters to the army because they're already in rebellion on the plantation. communicating with the enemy, getting them through this wall. it is complete the fascinating. that human struggle. this season of history, slaves, and the highly intimate nature of that struggle with their owners, slave men and women and

children is just an amazing part of the story. it is communal, not one that often makes it into the documentary's then it is very fine grained, but at a human level it is absolutely epic and compelling. >> what about the role of southern white women during the founding of the confederacy and the war itself? >> well, this is one of the things that i have worked on my whole career, sort of feel this really have the weight of history as a historian to say, you know, are we really only to go on the 21st century and write history lite "and don't matter, don't also attempt to shape the presence of there future? the confederacy, time of secession obviously women don't have a vote. that does not mean that on a political opinion. but the interesting thing is that they get made into this symbol of the nation and the patriotism and the people who are for secession say the women

with ours. in fact, it's a divide along the same lines that men do. many women who are very pro confederate and become increasingly so. many who think that this is a crazy idea. some elites as well. sometimes more rational and pragmatic about what war is going to bring. leyna the moment women stepped into history and the confederacy have to do with a question u.s. with the beginning about the demographics crenshaw are running this show. more and more and more and more men to press the confederacy simultaneously size.

it refused and the ability to move men around. the pressure of the numbers and the confederacy contracted cancer of the war department correspondent. the rate of military service 75 and 85% of cultivation of conscription and volunteering. of many other examples in history. let's help people that they say, are you sure? what do you think the home front looks like with 84 percent of men go.

they always worked at the field. the other doing it on their own. one of the main things i write about in this book, the way women become tremendous sense from a political persons that the government has to reckon with, especially at the state level, governors, because they start to besiege the government with letters, initially telling these tales of woe about how they are struggling to make food and survival in the home front, but the start out begging and then they get angry and threatening, bring that deserters down on you, bring the guerrillas down a new. in the end the confederacy really has a starvation level food crisis in the spring of 63, and when it happens they know it's coming.

governors and county clerks are writing each other and writing the secretary of war and saying you can take more fruit of these counties for the army. these people are starving. the women stepped in to represent the communities and start really attacking the confederate government about the justice of the military policies. the rich man's work and a poor man's fight really becomes the woman's fight as well. mayor of hull. woman stepped up. they start to reroute power. the victims of this powerful constituency. officials have to take account, and the spring of 63 there is a wave of food riots the start in atlanta. and for one month to more than a dozen food riots sweeping confederacy, armed bands of women numbering from a dozen for flintridge and 300 followed by a crowd of a thousand of the people.

this is -- the press initially thinks it is a conspiracy. they have conspiracy theories. the union is preventing this. it is not. and in richmond and mayor indebted the women in municipal court and the records of their show one-woman organizes, called these women. being planned for ten days. call all these women to a public meeting in the baptist church, told them to come to the market the next morning, leave the children at home and to come armed. they did. they showed up the next morning and ripped up the wharf and warehouses. for one month the confederacy, davis tried to stop the telegraph line. it got out, and the union was just floating over this. this must be the end. the women are up in arms and giving. they step into the making of

history at that moment in a decisive way and really put the confederate states and government on notice that if they take their men they're going to have to answer to them, and it is a really interesting and important political motive for the confederacy in the united states. >> what was the level of desertion? >> i don't remember the numbers, but it is tired and the unions, but the union also had a desertion problem. the confederacy struggled mightily. they struggled with unions, armed unionist grill barons. those states i told you about in the upper south that did stay with the confederacy had a lot of unionist activity within them and is another place where women matter. with davis the ministration mix the governors go after all of the men who have -- who are refusing to serve or who have deserted, and they try clemency,

all kinds of things, but they sent out troops after the to bring them back in. and they go out to look, they cannot find them because the deserters are not staying at home. there in the woods and hiding. the only people they can find other women come in the torture them for information about the whereabouts of the mint. i don't know if you have read, but it uses documents that i have read which really describe the torture of eunice woman who to try to extract information about the whereabouts of the event and in many cases they find those men of the times that bring them in the subject to various kinds of procedures. but the thing about the confederacy that is so interesting, so few men to start with. they have to use -- constantly

deploying troops to prevent slaves for murder when the enemy in joining the union army. they have to divert troops to contain the deserters. they'll have an extra troops. the pressure by late 80's 64 in early trouble 8063 the secretary of war says there are no more white men. the perfect arc of justice from slavery as well let of strength to we have to consider investigating slaves to force them to lessen the confederacy. that's another story to on the book. they don't contemplate emancipation of the goodness of their heart. a lot of people think that the confederacy chose independence

over slavery because by the end some people were willing to enlist white minyan the army combat the confederate congress and the virginia legislature refused to write an emancipation clause that actually expected these people to serve while there were still enslaved to was a you can imagine how much of an nonstarter that was, but that is how desperate they were. the demographics you asked me about that first are intimately connected with the political challenges from enacting a political failure of the confederacy. one of the things are trying to do is test, let's talk about the confederacy -- all of these

people played a part in the weight of the confederacy, but just the union army, but it was the connection between the actions within the confederacy and the military pressures that were coming from the outside there really explains what happened. >> consider our reckoning. it won the organization of

american historians credit the word. a finalist for the pulitzer and the university of pennsylvania truck with history professors stephanie mccurry. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on week nights watched the public policy events, and every weekend, lettuce nonfiction authors and books on book tv. past programs and get our schedules that our website in joining the conversation on social media sites. >> next from politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c., how russia's unstable political and economic systems could impact the countries will help put with 12 percent of the world's oil supply coming from russia. he also exploits what this could mean for the global economy. this is a little under an h