>> over new year's in 9100 people visited this building to visit the original emancipates san proclamation some stood in line and hours to read the words declaring slaves and states of the rebellion shall be then it henceforth and forever free to see abraham lincoln's signature. although it did not end slavery in america is a fundamentally changed the character of the war. overnight a war to preserve the union became liberation and nearly 4 million slaves it was a symbol of hope. hope of freedom was realized in the 13th amendment of the constitution that abolished slavery in the u.s. jurisdiction. these landmark documents they are filled the

documents that tell the story of the emancipation of the individual level. from a black soldier to the life that shows the difficulties are great yet i look forward to a brighter day. when she as president lincoln issue was free sadly the answer was no the tissue lived on a border state unaffected by the decree. the military pension files provide a window before and after the war. some choosing a name to bear to reunite our families to and slave population going to school on land to become possible for free people and those that contain stories.

the stories on the panel and other research institutions with their own investigations leading the discussion tonight and professor farm history of law school at harvard and professor at the radcliffe institute coming adjoining here are james mcpherson historian from princeton university, author and president of the university of richmond and historian author professor of history at columbia and james oakes and author of freedom national. of book research at the new york public library all

panelist will sign books after the program. please join me to welcome them on stage. [applause] >> good evening. i am glad to see you here. we will have a conversation and one of our discussion amongst ourselves then take questions from the audience. do not be shy about asking them. jim, asking you about the title of the book that people may not understand freedom national comes from the inaugural speech as a

u.s. senator that it is called the freedom national slavery sectional. first it is a constitutional doctrine in which they claim the constitution made slavery a local state institution but everywhere the constitution was solvent freedom is the policy of the united states so on the high seas washington d.c.'s and the western territories freedom should be the policy and second, logically a series of policies the federal government could undertake to make freedom national slavery sectional on hopefully if the course of ultimate extinction. >> what is the moment he

thought that would convey what you most for people to emancipation something that's starts with the war and republicans came in with policies to make "freedom national" a controversial doctor and. my book is mo know about this time and era? >> the discovery that we tend to write about emancipation something that's starts with the war and republicans came in with policies to make "freedom national" a controversial doctor and. my book is mostly about the origins of slavery policy and i realize there are more antebellum origen's denied this long negative anticipated and "freedom national" captures the organizing framework. >> host: it is against consensus or conventional wisdom? you are about to overturn something?

>> to the extent people argue republicans come into the war james oakes with slavery and as a consequence may be emancipation was an accident, inadvertent comic did not intend, to those historians imf against them. >> this is obviously an issue not in the past it is here doubt why it is important to say that they came to this later on. >> of had this discussion the last four years somebody was to resist the idea a lot of skepticism i was at a school in new york yesterday

and young african-american men said isn't it true we just needed a hero and they would put that story to address the fact that slaves forces upon them? i find it all the lincoln is obliterated there is skepticism. >> a lot of rehabilitating and people who have problems not just confederates. [laughter] >> they have focused problems but they point* to the anomalies they believe that when not a plan for reconstruction? i think jim is right even

the people recognize lincoln is responsible there may be a projection they could not have guided us through i think there is a full knowledge that lincoln was a racist so we cannot give him all the credit but then the evidence that suggest they are focused on the knobs of contradictory evidence. >> at what point* did they develop the plan? they will go after slavery. >> it is clear i start the of the usual place then

moved on and it didn't do anything that i decided what was said about? it was understood to be the emancipation lot and this summer of 1861 congress called into a special session five months ahead of schedule two days later the instructions are issued to begin emancipating they could not have thought this up right away sure enough republicans say if you leave the union we will emancipate the slaves and rigid that come from? through the 18th century.

>> i am understand the resistance of lincoln because people have a hard time with those arguments the tendency to turn him into that great emancipate air as a racist reluctant it is hard to find a middle ground that when i tried to do is he is a republican the a plug gage implement very quickly and they learn over the next several years they have to go further, not in the border states and all to believe they realize by 1864

these policies are not enough to these policies nobody mentioned the 13th amendment to the constitution. saw the evolution of policy by a party. >> not lincoln? he is part of responding to the limits. >> host: you start off with a more conventional place and then pushed it back why did other people not push back? >> why you come to that point*? >> surely it must have occurred to you. >> i don't like that

question. [laughter] i don't want to get into fights with other historians. [laughter] there are a lot of different reasons, among professional historians there are socialists, political that say different things. with lincoln history and there lincoln scholars that said he knew from the time as a young man he would free all the slaves. >> host: is there anything politically at stake aside from professional quirks? what is at stake? >> the resistance? i don't know. it is too complicated to have an idea? >> no.

you go through this and say look at this why doesn't anybody see this? then you discover something. >> is started in the '60s of what politics could do and up until the '60s and '70s there was a body of scholarship after world war to talk about anti-slavery and did traces back but think the scholarship by a cynical -- got cynical and they took an interest of social movements affect policy and people would write history from the bottom up and house slaves

participated and lincoln scholars went off on their own son is the fragmentation of professional scholarship so i decided you need to put social history and political history and movement history together. >> i tried to do that to avoid the question who is the person responsible for the agent and say how did it happen? what is the process by which it happened? >> anybody else have thoughts of the fragmentation? >> i am not really like that

[laughter] you say you knew what they were about but that they held that a great distance if a parent to the republicans then why not the man who leads into the question to end slavery? >> and nothing he was as distant, a second more than a realize my previous book was about frederick douglass [laughter] and negative as you know,

, more than i realized, that particular position in the constitutional debate he shifted to the 1850's to a view of the constitution very few believe you believed it was the antislavery document entitled the federal government to create a moral obligation to abolish slavery. all malls no abolitionists believe at and he ecologists hardly anybody believes that but a lot of it is driven what is holding back what you resisting but that is the position they are

supposed to push and he is pushing no weighing you will not push against the democrats it's only because they are movable that democrats aren't. >> was he reluctant? >> republicans have policy and he goes with the policy and don't think they are reluctant, they talk about restoring slavery of through the crisis and he goes along with that also late may through '60s to the cabinet and within a few days they approved the decision to not return slaves to the owners of congress passes this act

that emancipates all slaves used in the rebellion and implemented two days later. i think the reluctance argument is mistaken as a great imitator i wonder if it is like the one who is in the movie. [laughter] but with the imperial presidency looking back looking for the imperial president i don't think it worked that way. we want them to do things that would be inconceivable for a president to do. he is a republican he signs a lot and implements all law north carolina of freeing the slaves of the stroke of the pen.

>> i discussed this before as an individual who. >> he says lavery goes back as far as he could remember but before the civil war, the first thing to remember is nobody knew the civil war was coming. it seems so l who. >> he says lavery goes back as far as he could remember but before the civil war, the first thing to remember is nobody knew the civil war was coming. it seems so inevitable and clear now that nobody in the 1850's knew there'd be yes civil war and slavery dead within a few years. people like lincoln who hated slavery but working within the system i'd like frederick douglass who was outside of it, what can they do about slavery? even with this freedom national idea there is nothing it can do so to say

we would abolish slavery to talk about the periphery now most said reelecting to an end to slavery in the future so lincoln in the 1850's with a plan to do get rid of slavery with henry clay premised on states abolishing slavery had to encourage the states to do that? we will give you money money, property, over a long period of time and encourage the free negros to leave the country because you don't want a gigantic population of free blacks so they will go to central america and

that is a plan not one that anyone except in the plots of for word 1861 and said here is the plan they say we're not interested. you don't understand we want our slaves. >> but clinton's evolution is someone who's sees the necessity but moves to different ways to deal with that by the middle of 1862 he moves to a completely different way as a military measure, a military order but put it that way you'll need the consent of the slave owners.

this is for military reasons it is a form of the evolution but is most impressive lincoln does not start as the great demands a peter and shares prejudice abuse but every step for word he never goes back and thinks of the implications he is never willing to go back, he is pressured in 1964 but the question of blacks in american society he really has to think about

what role african-americans will play and he moves forward on that. he thinks of the logical consequences. he is willing to except the logic of what is happening in by the end of his life occupying different positions with slave in america and early in his career. >> what about in terms of policy? did it help push him along? >> the military is on the frontlines of getting rid of slavery may of 1861 the

union commander there say they look on confederate fortifications say they've belong to do so and so and butler says no. the next up is for more and more slaves then congress passes the first confiscation and emancipation act borders go out to military commanders so the military is right on the cusp of this process, an interesting thing happens rarely aid during the course 18 and 62, jr.

officers, soldiers, don't see themselves as a man's evaders but the more they see slavery the more they realize this leaves a -- the slaves as frederick douglass said are the backbone, the stomach of the rebellion providing labor that stitches -- sustained the confederate armies, they begin to say by should we return to slaves and reno there would be used to sustain the war effort? one way is to take away the slaves and the labor power

to bring it to our side. it is time to take off the kid gloves one way to do that is to take the slaves. this penetrates down and you will find many examples even when there were officers but don't want this to become a war against slavery when the slaves come to the union lines the masters says joe is then your army camp by one than back. and we will drive you out of fear.

played at several levels from the top down and down to the common soldier in the ranks. >>. >> one of the things that happens is the soldiers are right team back but they also say the only loyal people we can trust are the slaves. one of the ebullitions is the realization that the war would spark the uprising to throw the rebellion into chaos but the major part his soldiers were riding back

home and commanders in the field said there are no oil whites feel -- on the people that could give us information we contrast, the only people who will, as are the slaves. frederick douglass said there is no such thing as a disloyal slave. that also involves the realization slaves were loyal and could not count on the uprising that is critical. >> but the first message to congress lincoln said there is reason to believe except for south carolina he was willing to grant that most were rebels but it is

reasonable to think the majority of rights or a closet unionist if lee appeal to their better nature and conciliate to bring them back into the union maybe we can do that. july 1862, that is gone and from lincoln and on down it is the slaves, there is no solid core from the 11 confederate states. >> i am not true to the argument but james oakes tells a story how he traces the life back where it came from and i say people of

history in one direction at all let my students use the word antebellum. it always is and we don't organize our lives around of war they didn't know was coming and neither do we so i jockey a little bit with james mcpherson to point* out of the things you said are true but this project we visualize emancipation and everything we confined fair 1865 episodes of being betrayed, abandoned, and i think one is the abolition of america wakes up to become better but i point*

out 1864 linking up the same percentage of the vote he got 1860, 45 percent of the white northern been put it against lincoln 1864. which is amazing after they have lankan transform the "gettysburg address" and after shenandoah valley so it strikes me as necessary to look at the whole universe look at the republican party and the policy and leaders jim is right people the camera back this is one thing to do a good job to show the democrats, i don't think

reconstructionists understandable until you understand 45% are not in the program in the beginning. so what is gained and lost from a different historical perspective today? i think the danger of seeing this as a vision and our plan our policy is we forget how opposed it was, how risky it was coming and the election of 1864 was a turning point* but nobody can do little, and as gm has brilliantly put down down, another frame would be looked at the population as a whole and a look at the

southern population that lee 1,000 white men in virginia fought for the union after so many voted for it people are constantly redefining loyalties so i just want to stimulate. >> you could say isn't it remarkable after the incredible casualty's of 1864 that lincoln still carried every single northern states. >> that is where i differ you look at the electoral college but still to

continue the war under those circumstances is remarkable because after all it was up policy of peace not just given to the rebels but like i have a peace plan. [laughter] >> you can look at it both ways that the north was deeply divided and even some unionists in the south but it the place that did have to support the union. >> my point* is what you do is write to find what the

universe was like to be on the side that wins and the reservations are sloughed away. so to account for all the variants and when people see us for the anomalies and reservations we seem to be making a case but then you and the story and go back and find the beginning. but it strikes me we need to resist that its return because that is just my own

take. >> we have to explain what happened. some things didn't something's didn't. it is true there are many options out there the other hand to say that emancipation and did have been cut from there to be other options on the table the it we suppress the alternative history along the way. why do i keep doing this? [laughter] >> it is not a question

necessarily but when i tried very hard to say nobody knew until the very end with the outcome would be a and i tried to show in my story with a rap against again -- up against the the second question but to talk about emancipation in the sense was the disastrous situation. that the failure of things to turn out that we have had liked the way emancipation have been to begin with with that physiology other they

and, that's not true some people say some say he knew when he was 10 years old and some say looking at the proclamation '04 signers with the socialist make scholars arguments but the literature is from reconstruction. that is to learn trying to resist. what was critical importance? what is critical about the proclamation?

>> it is a critical turning point* it implements the policy decided upon the previous summer to expend to the entire confederacy. and it attempts to implement that in two important ways. to open in the army to the armed forces based on the militia act that allows him to do that. and miffs the ban on enticement. but from 1861 they banned soldiers going on to plantations in encouraging slaves to leave.

to see and officers and soldiers to say look he has freed you come drain the union army then you see this laser always running to the union lines but at that point* you see to the enormous ones running with the active policy to encourage this. >> you cannot sell short the symbolic value with the enormous exposure not only in the united states but abroad and the one single document that stands out, a part of a process, yes, before the emancipation and

proclamation and continued after but it is like in a cagey with this enormous visibility and the word circulates to the south to encourage more slaves but it is also the announcement the war now has another purpose and is no longer the old union to give it a new birth of freedom and it is symbolic in 1863 is the emancipation of proclamation >> because it is universal

throughout the seceded states in the customs number voters to the idea the war will not end without slavery through the abolished and the fact that turned out not to be a case was crucial it was the of political will that the 13th amendment was possible in a way was inconceivable in 1862. >> i think that many of you have the opportunity to see it, it is a little hard to read and faded but every they can easily find out what it says but what strikes me is that lincoln addresses of paragraph that the union must win there loyalty and says first of

all, they have a right to defend their freedom by violence if necessary. i urge you not to except self-defense many people thought if you call them then rise up, that lincoln easily could have said don't do anything he said to have the right to defend your freedom even by violence of necessary and says i urge you to go to work for reasonable wages. probably the least important part but why is it reasonable not just wages which were not always available that is the free labor idea for people to negotiate and to some player

but that is interesting thing in the middle of the "emancipation proclamation" but lincoln was a master of the language and he chose words with extreme care say you have to read him carefully to get the full depth of what he is saying in a particular moment. >> i think the "emancipation proclamation" says now it will be prosecuted to its end the way the war is fought now there is no turning back i think it is a private one negative pipit. >> overseas was there and the fact? >> surge in the overseas one

month after january 1st 50 public meetings were held around the u.k., thousands of people attended and praised united states for the "emancipation proclamation" and ended definitively any possibility of of the confederacy which was up problem, a potential danger write-up and tell the proclamation with european intervention up until that time. >> anything else you would like to say before we turn it true in the audience?

>> by the book. [laughter] >> as his publicity agent one saying that is important is it urges us to get away from the dichotomy is the war about the union or slavery? both issues are in the minds from the very beginning but then suddenly become interested in slavery from the beginning people tried to save the union in which slavery is on the way out but to get us away from the either/or situation. >> you expect opposition? >> yes.

[laughter] i have been telling my friends for two years the book nobody will believe. >> i thought he was talking about historians. >> i really don't know but at this moment in book nobody will believe. >> i thought he was talking about historians. >> i really don't know but at this moment in time, i just don't know. i cannot tell. >> of course. if people have a question, you know, the drill. i will start over hear.

>> micra sinn is about the prelude in the evolution of republicans but with the conflict that happened with the kansas border area that is one of the changes of the decision to leave behind the compromise and allows states to vote whether to be free and what impact do you think that had with a march to war and the national abolition? >> the kansas controversy gave birth to the republican party. with a set -- success to bring an end to slavery with opposition to the kansas nebraska act, not where the story starts but a

punctuation point*. >> i have a question for professor james oakes way the commanders interpreted the first confiscation act than military orders what was the rule with what hath been with fugitive slaves? how did they feel about emancipation? >> you neuter me is like the north and it is divided their anti-slavery generals there is a general resistance on the part soldiers who are democrats democrats, but that said also in the army war there

realized a commitment to civilian rule if congress passes the law and for department issues the orders we have to obey. it is not too much resistance but in the border states. they don't leave the union the state laws are in existence their policies that are contradictory. most of the conflict greasy about the implementation in kentucky, missouri, what we see most often it is relatively clear-cut in the disloyal state especially in

the army. >> given that the president lincoln working with congress what do you think are the odds of the 14th amendment? >> that is counterfactual history that is fine. [laughter] you cannot be wrong. >> it is inconceivable lincoln would have gotten himself into the fix he was far too committed, far too good a politician it is impossible to imagine the

way johnson ended up to be impeached. link and a congress a good workout during the civil war they had debate -- debates but lincoln's signed every single bill which was more about reconstruction and they worked out the deal it was the measure that was something probably like the 14th amendment. would they go further than that? may be not because the dynamic that push them was the impasse with johnson.

but getting into speculation like the 14th amendment would have the cooperation not the opposition. >> i am not a professional historian but i am far the public that does not by your argument. is your thesis from the outset of the republican party bent on abolishing slavery the energy required to tell us which republicans were and at what time to those republicans who did not want to end slavery? also frederick douglass changing his position was and that smith patronizing

his news newspapers? did he have the other view before that? >> he was certainly influenced by a garrison is. said of the thought to pay him but he was not that type of person. >> when i say the republican party was committed to putting slavery on a course, what does that mean? what they were talking about before nobody believes the federal government has the power to go into this state to abolish slavery.

it is a series of policies republicans accepted no slavery virtually all republicans want to revise but not all of them believe they have any business to abolish slavery on military installations but there let's talk about that. but then a general framework it is the natural condition that exist under the constitution. only in the state's do they create a loss of the commitment to "freedom national" is the overarching policy.

>> just based on reading books. [laughter] >> i thought we agreed. >> a two-part question. while i appreciate your response with the effect of the emancipation and proclamation, they all spoke to the effect of so war. but what about the people in it freed? for the spirit is brought the words that said forever

free with the plantation. to sit in dark and rooms on the night of december 31st , 1862 and waited until midnight when the "emancipation proclamation" would take effect. it may not have met for sure they were emancipated but certainly the spiritual shackles came off in the physical shackles in the legal shackles would never be on the same way again. that's my statement. anyway. [laughter] [applause] >> let me quickly respond

respond, thomas wentworth in south carolina a famous abolitionist and became the colonel of the first black that was called the first south carolina and in talks about a celebration of and thousands of former slaves and over the course of all the speeches higginson of serves this in during a break a woman's voice starts singing "my country tis of thee", a black woman for the first time she had a country. that is what the "emancipation proclamation" that to her and thousands of

others former slaves january 1st, 1863, a south carolina. >> thank you. >> another approach is there are many different stories and what jim said is right in the area where the union army would occupy the sea islands. many parts of the confederacy the union army did not get to the very end of the of war, a texas, they did not get there at all. not until june the union commander announced slavery was over there had not been a single battle or anything. . .

emancipation is a process. it does not just happen on january 1st, 1863. not only political emancipation but even the personal emancipation of people feeling they were free. >> people were never within reach of the union arm y, never. so i think it's how we combine these into the same story that i think is true -- >> some would argue it's still happening. i still have another question. >> quick. >> all right. am i naive in thinking that,

unless you're taking the measure of the man, meaning abraham lincoln, should we care what his motivations were in freeing the slaves and move opening the 13th amendment? >> as historians we should care. we try to figure out everything. >> not everything. >> but, yes, if we want to look at him as a moral question, but as a political question, is an important to second-guess the result. >> i'd say the spirit of the first statement, turn the telescope around, the question is, if you're becoming free, he can believe whatever he wants to. heat getting it done. >> i have two questions.

francis lieber established the treatise on army's kind of war, and i understand that the direct result of the emancipation proclamation because lincoln was concerned about slave uprisings in the south, and the saying indicate they'd were going to enslave black soldiers. so i think based on what i've been reading that lieber treat kiss war part of the emancipation proclamation, and there were 200,000 blacks served in the civil war. approximately how many blacks were battle casualties as opposed to blacks that died as a result of disease or illnesses? just want to get your thoughts on that.

>> i can answer the second question, and then i'll deal with the first part. 200,000 -- of 200 thousand 37,000 died in the war, which is a slightly higher percentage pan the white soldiers but that was more because of disease mortality. which was higher among the black soldiers than the white soldiers. here nearly all the blacks who dirked died of disease, so i was a ten to one ratio, whereas among white soldiers it was a two to one ratio. >> if there's any book about francis liebber that says that -- it's interesting, he admires it and also says that winning nations -- wanting to codify the rules of war, and

they were linked together. that lincoln was looking for a larger rationale by which this policy made sense in the eyes of international law and was consistent, and so lieber is making sheer as much as possible that -- making sure as much as possible that the great fear, that there's going to be a slave rebelon. lieber is trying to codify as much as possible what jim oak yes is something what the army doing. much about the code is actually about slavery. that's kind of falling away with people using it for international law today. that's my limited understanding of it but you're right, they work together. >> had to do with a lot of other things as well, including how to

treat guerrillas in guerrilla warfare, behavior of occupation troops in their relationship with civilians. so it's not just -- >> all of that part has endured. >> now, had a question for james mcpherson, i read in your book something interesting about at the start of the war, very early on, how both side didn't -- believed the war wouldn't last long. the rebelled and the yankees going bo it, even before sumpter, it would be relatively short skirmish, ask that's -- they were going to squash each other, and both things entoured starting with bull run and -- shen anyone dough -- and at the

rfk of sounding tyrannical. was there evidence to suggest that perhaps the eman's make proclamation was issued by abraham lincoln as props a bold measure to really speed up the war by way of total war versus a head rush tolds total war, and this perhaps could be a real reason for his issue, speaking beyond the stairs of making it more about slavery and freeing the slaves, could it be more about that? >> well, lincoln himself said this is a measure, a military measure to help win the war. you're quite right to suggest that it's -- at it also part of the process of the war becoming what historians now call hard war. the idea that the war would be over in just a few months, that both sides shared back in 1861, long gone now, and clearly this was a measure -- a military

necessity was the phrase that was used, widespread phrase used to justify the emancipation proclamation by weakening the cop fed rissi to win the war. it was part of the process. >> in anticipation of greater bloodshed, too, for that party, and some of the skirmishes that followed. >> well, nobody in january 1, 1863, could know whether the war was going to go on for another 28 months as it did, or even longer or less. but clearly it had already gone on for almost two years, and one of the -- i think you're quite right to suggest that one of the hopes was that it would help the north to win the war sooner than -- the reaction among a lot of northern people, as well as most southern whites, was that this would prolong the war by making the southern people fight

even harder because now there was much more at stake for them if they lose the war, than there might have been before emancipation became the professed policy with the emancipation proclamation. so there were reaction one it would speed up the war and the other it might prolong the war and make it even more bloody. >> i think the book that ed mentioned by john whitt on lincoln's code speaks directly to the question you're asking. one of the points that book is making is that in order to find -- to embed emancipation in the laws of war to justify it, lieber and the lincoln had to expand the powers of the union army in it attack on civilians. you have to broaden the

definition of military necessity to include going on to plantations and taking what the southerners viewed as -- nonmilitary homes and farms in the south, and the paradox for which is that to get emancipation legalized, you had to expand the parameters of were in ways we may not like. >> there's another indirect result. the emancipation proclamation calling for enlistment of african-american soldiers stopped the confederacy of exchange prisoners, and in the hard wars you would see a skyrocketing of death and andersonville because of the lack of exchange directly as a result of that policy. >> thank you. >> because we have so many historians on the same stage, a bigger pick picture question in the course of doing your

research and writing your books, not only about what we're talking about here, but things that preceded that, things that happened now, things that might happen in the future, there is a north star you keep coming back to when it comes to the way events unfold? no matter how basic it might be. as historians, do you see something that keeps coming up over and over again? >> do you mean specifically about the war or just -- >> anything about people or leadership or the way events just happen. kind of a broad question, i know. >> yeah. well,'ll go first. i kind of -- the idea i had in my book about the civil war is deep contingency, in which there are people's entire identity pivot offed -- i talk about

people who voted for the whig whigs and then die for the confederacy, and they decide that god has become a cob fed rat, -- confederate and you can see at various points in history, not all that offer, where these things will shift. maybe 9/11 will prove to be that where the view of the world has a consequence and people are not anticipating at the outset. so, i think that history for me is a series of punctuations and if i throw a rock, it's going to raidout out from that rather than a flowing stream. gary? >> okay. >> there's a bunch of historians on the stage here, he began by saying. >> to me it's an ancient problem. structure and contingency, always as an historian balancing

those things that seem driven by irresistible forces against the backdrop that anything can happen, and it'ser in easy to -- there's no answer, and every particular situation you are describing at any point along the way is driven by both of these forces of facts. accidents happen, and when they happen, they don't come out in completely unpredictable ways. >> anything can happen, and work within existing structures ideologies. >> so a good example is the point we have referred to a couple of times. when benjamin butler decides not to send the slaves back to the union -- to their owners in may of 1861, in one sense he is playing it by ear. nobody has done this. there's been no policy. on the other hand he is not going blindly.

the arguments he is beginning to make about why he shouldn't send them back would be familiar to anybody involved in the antislavery movement for the previous decades. >> the language of the law. >> so nobody could have predicted this would happen at this time, in this player, these three slaves went to union lines and forced the decision, but the decision they force isn't just a blind accident. it's always -- and that's something i think all the historians have to deal with all the time. and resist -- don't pretend that we do have to explain what happened. >> good evening. i have enjoyed all of your work but i specially wanted to ask professor foner about a couple of things. the golden age of the emancipation proclamation was between 1865 and 1876 when reconstruction came.

it wasn't completely implement in 1865, as you pointed out, but by 1876 we knew the deal was not going down. in other words there was a complete reversion. now, the notion of a decent beige the notion of a right to defend. but there's some people in the south who still do not believe they lost the civil war. and still do not believe the emancipation proclamation means anything. you have 1898 the uprising -- white people uprising -- uprising because someone dared print a newspaper, a whole area of a up to was burnt down, or the 1921 burping of black wall street in tulsa, oklahoma. so we know 'reconstruction basically gave people permission to go back to a kind of quasi-slavery. i'm asking you to do a little speculation. what kind of political

configuration would have allowed the emancipation proclamation to be implemented? furthermore, what kind of political configuration would have distributed the 40-acres and a mule that was promised, and what kind of political configuration would allow -- one of my favry writers, steven carter, wrote a book about the assassination of abraham lincoln, and that presumes that lincoln lived longer than when he died -- not too much longer but lived longer and talks about what height have happened. so i'm asking you to take it from 1876 to as far as you want to, to share what kind of political configuration could have made this thing work so much better we wouldn't still be grappling with these issues today. >> this is awfully complicated. >> you have to do it very quickly. >> you're really asking, was

there any possibility of reconstruction being successful or more successful than it was? if reconstruction had been successful, if the political basic civil political rights of african-americans had stuck in the south that were implemented and then taken away later on, then many of the things -- you wouldn't have had utopia or nirvana but a much more democratic and modern society in the south in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. we are opressed by the tyranny of the facts. if you know that reconstruction failed and it's very hard to figure out alternative scenarios. if the republican party had maintained its commitment that it did have at the very end of the civil war, its willingness to enforce the law of the land this the 14th and 15th 15th amendment, the civil rights laws, then maybe this

could have happened. it's almost impossible to say, but i don't think we should throw up our hands and say i it was absolutely inevitable that -- it's 50 years since martin luther king stood up and said we've come to cash the promissory note from the enance pacing proclamation. i don't think it was inevitable it would take another century for freedom to be implement for many people. but it's hard to work out a speculative scenario which would sort of get you from reconstruction to a more democratic and progressive kind of situation in the south than actually happened. so that's about all i can say. >> something mr. ton are said. you made a point that despite all the casualties, the republicans wonin' 186 4 ,

nixon won -- i mean -- lincoln won, but it struck me that not only did the republicans win that election but they dominated presidential politics for a couple of generations after the civil war, and that's a real contrast from recent wars. world war i, world war ii, korea, vietnam, iraq, the opposition party won the next chance they that. iraq is striking because the casualties in that one are minuscule than the civil war and yet the republicans lost the election. so that indicates both people on the both sided of thesive war thought they were fighting about something more important and americans may have a less tolerance for war than at that time. >> i don't want to make a general rule about wars and elections. i think it is an important fact that the civil war fit the political structure of the united states for two or three generations, really up to the

new deal. you look at the maps, the republicans always won the north almost entirely after reconstruction, the south was solidly democratic for a long, long, long time and even if you look at the map of the last election you can see the civil war imprinted on that map. the parties have switched but the south voted completely differently from most of the rest of the country. and for whatever reasons. but the civil war is imprinted in our politics still today, which suggests, as you said, it had a tremendous impact on the way different regions of the country think of themselves. >> this helps explain the last question, too. popular votes than hayes in 1876. the next klose elections are imprinted by the civil war,

they're so close that things could have turned out differently. i think -- i'm a historian of the south and i've studied all these race riots and lynching and so discouraging to see that without the power of the federal government, no chance the white south was ever going to change, and they had half the power and everything was pivoting on that even fdr had to kowtow to the white south. so thinking about the generations and that follow and the century of segregation that followed, what eric is saying is that very precariously balanced structures of power that white governors run the south, and until they can't, that stays in place. >> well, we have to leave it with that. i thank everybody for coming. thank you to the pammists. [applause]

>> knowing you and knowing about covenant house was a no-brainer. i felt very privileged to write the forward for it because it gave me chance to recognize that my dad without the kindness of others would have been homeless himself. my father now exaggerates it now more dramatically. he was not poor, he was po. he couldn't afford the other two letters. but it was an extraordinary community that was very intact and very watchful of the children, and my father basically was taken in by another family, the pilgrims, who, through extraordinary love, kept my father on a trajectory forward. going to college, people in the community put dollar bills

together to help him afford the first semester tuition to college bake a reality for him. so all these things which i call the conspiracy of love that happened that made me who i am today. but really starts with the young people, and what bothers me is about our society, is we talk so dramatically and in such a negative fashion about the adults who fill our prisons, and we don't realize that every one of those adults was a child who we could have done more for to prevent a lot of the challenges they face as an adult. and i think douglass said it's easier to raise strong children than to heal broken men. so i just feel a real urgency in america that we do not prioritize our children as much as we should. favorite part of the book is your forward, which is lovely because we worked for two and a

half years on the book. [laughter] >> but it's so moving because it's so from the heart and this week you're doing something else from the heart. you're engaging in the snap challenge. you can talk about that and why you're doing this. >> my staff teases me. i was up late with my girlfriend, twitter, and -- -- when is our mayor going to get a life. it was sudden night before i was going to bed, and i was going back and forth, and for those on social media, people throw out things that are dumb, frankly, but this one i was getting into an intellectual question about the role of government, and the person said that government is -- should not provide for the nutrition of children, and it really struck a chord to me because i really don't think people think about what that really would mean, and we don't realize we live in a society that if we make in small amounts of investments early we won't

have to make the big investments late and we all in fact are deeply invested in the success of kid because the more successful the children are, the more our economy grows, artists, teachers, professors, entrepreneurs, you name it, children are our greatest natural resource in america but yet we leave it undercultivated to late at night this woman said this, and i go back at her and the she goes back at me and i say why don't we see what it's like to live on food stamps or the snap program, and so i went to bed thinking, no big deal, and i woke up and it was a big story, and so i called my staff and i said, guess what i'm doing? and so -- but it was a powerful thing because we're one of 14 cities in america that has a food policy director, and i think all cities should have it.

and we had already done a lot of work on trying to expand affordable healthy options, and the more i talked with my food policy director, i said, this is a great thing. we cannot only raise levels of compassion and understanding and dispel bad stereotypes about snap and families on snap, and focus them instead on the realities of that but also about the policy changes we can be making at a local level to empower -- to address food insecurity, nutrition deserts, expand more healthy options, and that's what we're doing this week, and i see -- today a very poignant moment, we have to think as a society as a whole. i had a moment today where i had security guards in my office, and we were talking with them because these are guys, some of them making seven dollars and change an hour, and many of them working overtime to try to make more money but still qualify for

programs like snap. and so here we are allowing many of our employees, especially as i was saying hip the curtain, the curtain there is to block the sex and love section. you notice that is the one that is curtained off here. it's like in 7-eleven, the loin across certain magazines. so you guys should put your book on the sex aisle. it would sell better. >> we some have called the book 50 shaded of homelessness. >> would have sold better. so -- sorry. you guys have such dirty minds. get back to the subject here at hand. get out of the gutter. but these guys, the poignant testimony -- we live in a society where here are front line first responder, talking about intervening in petty crime. we had one building that was birth in people who had terrorist intents and they're on the front lines and yet we can only pay them seven dollars and

change an hour, and they have no benefits. no retirement security. one guy said he work for ten years and no healthcare. if he gets sick he has to work through the sickness, and that's not the america i think of. and so i'm really hoping this week -- this is an overly long answer -- is too bring more attention to these problems, and right now, this session, congress is going to be debating cuts in the snap program, and in this time of austerity we can't be dumb and cut things that ultimately provide long-term benefits that are not into it. ments. they're investments in us and our society and we should prioritize things, federally and actions locally. >> mayor, you were speaking in your forward about the small actions that people took to help your father. we talk in the book about the small actions that people take that can help homeless young people. can you talk about how that work thursday the city? >> first of all, i've had lots

of conversations with people who quote-unquote are native. and famous pipe like tyler perry, who was homeless, living in a car. to people i know throughout my community who have gotten broken drug addiction, dealt with brutal, brutal hatred because they came out of the closet at a young age. all these stories, and it's amazing to me that everybody, including tyler perry, has these stories how one person's small act of kindness was a differencemaker for them, and it gives me chills to think we all have that power, and the biggest thing we actually do in any day probably could be a small act of kindness to someone else. and so the vulnerability and the fragility of life you get to see up close and personal in cities like ours, and how it doesn't take that much e