worlds of slavery and freedom, next on book tv. he argues that it historians are presented an incomplete picture of african-american emancipation and the struggle for civil rights that followed. professor happ was interviewed at the university of pennsylvania in philadelphia. part of book tv's college series. >> host: university of pennsylvania history professor, stephen hahn is the author of this book "the political world of slavery and freedom." professor hahn, before we get into the subject of the book, what's the image on the front cover? >> guest: that's a very good question and the answer is i have no idea. the editor proposed -- thought it was a very eye-catching image and when i showed it to friends and colleagues they had no idea what it meant. it doesn't clearly relate to anything in the book but i think they were interested in selling books, and that's how they chose it. i think it is a really

interesting photograph, and i think it speaks to sort of complex connections within african-american communities that involve gender as well as power. but beyond that, i don't know. >> host: well, professor hahn, what do going to the topic of the book -- what do we know wrongly about slavery in the u.s.? >> guest: well, one of the issues that i try to deal with in the book is the process by which slavery ended and the geographical reach of slavery. i think the view that tends to be handed down is by the 19th century, certainly the country neatly divide between the so-called free states states ste so-called slave states and the civil war out of that conflict. my issue is not whether slavery is at the root of the civil war, which is certainly was.

but what interested me was the relationship between the early emancipation of slaves in the northern states, and the later emancipation of slaves, much larger in scale, in the southern states. slavery was legal in all of the british colonies and all of north america at the end of the 18th century, and gradually northern states, northeast and mid-atlantic states abolished slavery. i learned this was a gradual process and it took a long time. what we scoffed is there were slaves in new jersey 1860, and most of the states that abolished slavery between, say, 1780 and 1804, which is the period we custom marrily look at -- had to do it again later in the 19th century because there was so much ambiguity as to what the road from slavery to freedom was. so, thinking about that, i tried

to then step back and say, well, if this is the case, what does this mean for how we should understand the course of emancipation in the united states and the difference between freedom and slavery. so i inauguration the become that slavery is national, that slave -- communities of runway slaves should be understood as what we call marooned. fugitive slave communities, and that the links between people of african-american descent in the norway state -- northern states and slaves in the southern states are important circuits of communication activity they we should pay more attention too. >> host: what are the primary documents you used to research your book? >> guest: i was using a lot of different things. i was using narrative that were

written by a slave who so-call ran away to freedom, and one thing that struck me is that although we tend to think about the mason dixon line or the ohio river as the great divide and once you got to the other side you were so-called free, and i tended to focus on the first half of the narrative, the experience of enslavement in the south. when you got to the other side, a very powerful theme was the gray areas of freedom and how precarious life was in the so-called free states and how many runaways felt the need to either go to canada or to go to britain, because there was no way of really achieving freedom because of the fugitive slave laws, and so these are really important. looking at the emancipation statutes that were passed by individual states, and

recognizing that basically they didn't free anybody with rare exception. the only freed the children of slaves and only when they became adults, depending on the age and gender and the state. in each particular case. and then the very gray areas when courts seemed to be okay with former slaves then being indentured. so some people who had been enslaved, who then were liberated by emancipation statutes, ended up signing multiyear, if not life-long indent tours. somehow the courts thought that was okay for a while. and also the fact that there was hiring of slaves, say, someone who is a slave in kentucky, might be hired in pennsylvania where slavery had been abolished. the law would often allow a

slave to romaine -- remain within that state for a specified period of time. all of this to say the line between slavery and freedom in the united states was indistinct, and even as late as the election of 1860, although lincoln, i think, very powerfulfully and the republican party tried to make a case for -- i think it's more of a political construction and a reflection of the reality. >> host: we talk a lot today about red states and blue states. but there are a lot of conservatives in california and a lot of liberals in texas. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: was it the same with slavery? was there a lot of sympathy towards the institution of slavery? >> guest: more to the point, the democratic party was probably -- up to the election of 1860, during the period of popular elections for national office -- was the majority party in the

united states. and it washat was devoted to what we might call state rights, and local control. and they put together a coalition that included slaveholders in the south and a hole variety of people in the north, including urban laborers who were pushing back against the centralization of power. think what is true is state right sentiment was widespread. some sympathy for secessionism was sufficiently widespread that the lincoln administration was really worry evidence about it. remember, california and oregon are very far away from the centers of power in the united states. this is one of the reasons that lincoln wanted to build a transcontinental railroad once the civil war begins, because he wants to extend the reach of federal authority. there were fears that there would be a west coast -- i mean, if you think about why did lynn

do what he did at fort sumpter in south carolina? part of the logic was not just the states that had already secede from the union but the prospect of the country as a whole falling apart if the federal government didn't assert its power and its authority. the west coast, there was some secessionist sentiments in the midwest, talk about new york becoming a free port of entry like in germany. so we look back knowing the result of all this, which, of course, led to the emergence, really, of the nation state, for the first time, and one with much greater powers and reach than it had before. you can forget how precarious the union was for a long period of time, and -- but i think it's important to recognize -- this is about state rights and

slavery in terms of the civil war -- it was a broad state rights sentiment but the only people who sees succeeded from the union were slave states. so i think there's no way of understanding secession and state rights outside of the slavery question. >> host: professor hahn, 1863, the emancipation proclaimation, did it put an end to all the discussion and any existing remnants of slavery? >> guest: it didn't. it was a very, very important moment because the united states -- the lincoln administration exercising his power as commander-in-chief -- a war measure -- abolishes slavery without compensation to owners. this is new. the northern states abolished slavery gradually because they were addressing the issue of compensation, slaves were property. how do you abolish property rights? and without threatening other private property.

so they abolish slavery without compensation they dropped colonization, which had been central to emancipationist discourse from thomas jefferson to abraham lincoln and provide ford the military recruitment of people of african-american descent, both of whom were slaves and who were not slaves. this also was a break because african-americans were not allowed to serve either in the united states army or the in the state militias because of the difference between military service and citizenship claims but the emancipation proclaimations did not cover all the slave states. left out areas under federal control. the tension between who is really going to complete the process. lincoln encouraged the bored states to do it themselves, even gradually, and he was going to offer federal assistance.

what is more is that, as important as the emancipation proclaimation was, it was mar measure and that's gets to the issue of the 13th amendment. what was going to happen once the war inned was the emaps pacing proclaimation retain it legal authority, or would it effectively be overthrown by the courts? the press for the 13th 13th amendment came to secure emancipation. but we have to remember the emancipation proclaimation would only be in effect if the union side won the war ask the confederate side surrendered, and until late in the war that's a lot of talk about armistice, and it was clear if there was an armistice, the principals of the emancipation proclaimation would go out the window. there's no question that slavery would not return as it had been before but history does go

backwards. >> host: the political world of slavery and free dome. what was the par addition pacing of african-american slaves in their own political freeman -- freedom? this is of enormous interest to me and this is a pushback against steven spielberg0s film because he doesn't acknowledge the significant effect that slaved a differents had on pushing emancipation. there's no question -- one of the things that interested me is why slaves did what they did during the war, and from a long time, as scholars ban to recognize, they did play a role, meaning leaving plantations and farms, heading to union lines, undermining slavery which had been in existence, and forcing the union side to deal with the slavery question when the lincoln administration initially, at least, would have preferred not to at all. they wanted to deal with the issue of secession, and

reconciliation, and thought that slavery would complicate the process. but the issue is, why did they do that? i was really interested in the ideas that -- political ideas that slaves brought in into the civil war era, and i think they had a much more sophisticated understanding of american politics than we recognized. they understood that the nation was divide politically. they had imagined they had allies in the republican party and in lincoln. if you read the newspaper accounts, in the summer and fall of 1860, there's a lot of talk about what slaves think is going on, that they think that once lincoln wins -- that lincoln is on their side, lincoln wants to end slavery, lincoln is going to move against their owners, once he is elected they're feeling that in fact emancipation may have come or when he ising gnawing rate, emancipation is declared but not enforced on the

ground, and once the union army invade, this interpretation, which is wrong but nonetheless one of the amazing cases in history where people seem to be so outside the process, understand the meaning of the event better than anybody on the inside and act in a way sort of bring it to reality their imagined sense of the political issues. >> host: how many african-american -- southern african-american slaves fought in the union -- on the union side? did slaves also fight for the confederate states? >> guest: roughly 150,000 southern slaves fought in the union army or navy during the war. about 185,000 african-americans in all at about 80% of them were from the south. there is talk about african-american slaves fighting for the confederacy. there's no evidence for this. there are some slaves hoped up

in the confederate army and were taken by the openers as basically body servants. by the opened the war there was discussion about whether the confederacy in order to preserve its rebellion, and to enhance its military capacities, ought to try to enlist slaves. the recognition by anybody who thought about it was that you couldn't do that without abolishing slavery. at the very end of the war, the confederate congress does pass an emancipation bill that provides for enlistment but no guarantee of emancipation, but the war ended really before it could go into effect. the only other case is the louisiana native guards, a regiment of free people of color in new orleans, who initially support the confederacy, but as

soon as the union army moves into new orleans they switch sides. so i know there's talk about this as an example of loyalty to openers, but i just have never seen evidence that is compelling along these lines. >> host: professor hahn, your narrative in the political world of slavery and freedom goes beyond the civil war. why and -- whoa does marcus gar by get so much attention in your back? >> guest: that's a very good question. when the 0 -- the book i wrote before the political worlds of slavery and freedom is, a mission under our feet. it is about african-american politics, from slavery to great migration, and i wasn't sure how the book was going to end, and i also became more and more interested in and persuade by

what i saw was powerful separatist tendency among former slaves in the post-emancipation period. i saw it crop up in a lot of different ways. and then i came across information that suggested that garvey's movement had a bay is? the south i had never nope about before. the more i looked the more interesting it became, and the more i came to recognize that garvey built a nationwide movement based not only in northern cities that we associate with it, but in the rural and small town south. there were more garvey chapters in the southern states than anywhere necessary the united states and also an international movement. so i was really interested in this. one of the things i discovered and the reason it's in this book, is that as i was finishing "mission our our feet "i was hoping to rely on what i thought

would be secondary literature on garvey's movement in the united states, and i discovered there basically was none. there was a lot on garvey himself who, as you know, very controversial figure, but in terms who joined the nia, who was moved by it, who embraced the vision and what they're understanding of garveyism was, there was visitly nothing, so in "mission under our feet" i cob eled things together and thought i need to know more about this. one thingness the book is what historians don't write about is why. why are there certain episodes or certain interpretations that starve you in the face but you refuse them or ignore them, and garvey is one of them. almost any historian conversant with african-american history would acknowledge that the unia that garveyism was the largest mass movement of people of african-american descent ever and yet we know almost nothing about it.

it's just -- seems to me a very odd thing, and i think the reason is that it complicates our slavery to freedom narrative, which is about the civil rights movement. garvey does not fit it, and it identifies a tendency that is very powerful -- and i i might add does show up among a lot of civil rights activists. the more i've looked, the more i found that the connection that the unia is much more widespread than anybody would have thought. think about bob moses, rosa parks, e.d. mixon, all of these people had garvey connections. so there's a picture of african-american politics that is much more complicated than we want to acknowledge and i think we have come to terms with our pass and the disgrace of slavery by constructing a narrative that is about how slavery ends and

about how freedom is ultimately realized so that the civil rights movement becomes the crucial end point, and episodes, people, movements that don't fit into that, are very problematic, and i think there's also scholars across the political spectrum who have an investment in denying it, and that's -- i've been struck by that. i have had a lot of pushback of anything i've written. more about that but what i discovered is that the movement is still alive. there's a garvey chapter in philadelphia. i organized the conference about three years ago on the unia scholarly conference of small number of scholars who were going to present their work but at the last minute i advertised in a local newspaper and 150 garveyites showed up. we were all astonished by this but it gives you a sense there's a lot out there that we need to know more about. >> host: professor hahn, you

mention garveyites. whose they're political focus today? >> guest: well, the unia, the universal negro improvement association, there are chapters, a chapter in philadelphia, there are some chapters in the united states. there are chapters elsewhere in the world. i think it's also people who are kind of nationalist in their political views. they might embrace ideas about separatism. and so garvey's ideas or their understand examination sense of connection with africa is very, very powerful, and i think it tends to be especially powerful among sections of african-americans who are working class, poor, whereas the civil rights narrative, and the civil rights movement, i think connects a lot more african-americans who are middle

class, who are well-educated and the civil rights movement had its greatest accomplishments in promoting the expansion of the black middle class, and its greatest failures in terms of the large number of african-americans who are working class and working poor. >> host: book tv is on location at the university of pennsylvania in philadelphia. we're talking with history professor steven hahn. what do you teach the university? >> guest: i am currently teaching a very large lecture course on the history of the american south from the civil war to the late 20th century. i teach a lecture course which is called slavery, race, and revolution, which starts with the haitian revolution of the late 18th century and goes to garvey in the early 20th 20th century. kind of about slavery and emancipation in the broad

western hemisphere and it's a comparative on international history. i teach a introductory course called the making of the modern world, which is a world history course i do with one of hi african history colleagues. that startness the middle of the 18th century and goes roughly to present. then i teach graduate students and my work is in the history of the 19th century broadly, and history of american empire that i've been interested in. i'm now working on a book that is a history of the 19th 19th century, and it's a lot about the west. so it's new area of interest. >> we have been talk big professor hahn about his most recent book, the political world of slavery and freedom. he is also the pulitzer winner for his 2004 book, a nation under our feet. professor hahn, thank you for your time today. >> guest: thank you for having me. i enjoyed it.