just say jesus needs my lunch. i just paid my taxes and is y'all ain't going to mess me up with my jesus. unless you are going to our range to feed these hungry people i am in trouble. if i'm in trouble you are going to be in trouble. [applause] ..

when we hire people to run our choice churches we want them to have a voice. instead, we call them pastor, we want this them to be administrator, financial officer, so they instead of being a progressive voice they wind up running an institution. so progressive voices fall for the main problem of churches that is civil religion. what would be wrong with hiring someone for a church and calling him prophet? and we would expect the main job she or he did was bring together a community of compassion and justice, and with the spirit's help. help us to learn that salvation comes through a compassionated and just community struggling to find salvation?

>> okay. i think my answer would be that you should stop putting pastors up if you think the primary focus and energy is found in that. i would rather go with james luther adams called the property fete -- prophet of all believer. everybody who is brought to the church and baptized should be told that part of what be baptized is in to is a tradition. each of you is called upon to fulfill a vocation. when you get red i i -- ready to hire a pastor, find a pastor whose primary task it is to mobilize the energy present in the people or the stimulate to be prothreatic with respect to the responsibility.

we can't expect the preacher -- [applause] you want me to tell you something? the preacher is most frequently primarily a reflecter of what these people are as well as what god is calling them to be. i would rather -- in fact -- let me say. what you're calming for is i think we need another great awaking. that is a revitallyization of the culture so almost all of the majors institutions know we need spiritual rerevisittization that's what happens. i would like to be -- if you hired somebody who was primarily going to be a prophet. number one, that's audacious. many call for the fear -- but let's challenge the church to fulfill the pastor, the

prothreatic function. and let the lord pick out some specialist because the dna and our personality inventory will say some folks will do that and others. here's why we do it. some folks to march, other folks to pray. so the marchers don't get weary on thuation. [applause] maybe to make sure we get the question up here. maybe we can take the questions back to back and give you a chance to respond so we don't run out of time. >> mine is a quick one. thank you. the panel is great. very eye opening. on one point the person on the end -- i'm sorry i don't know your name. [inaudible] you said the church sob the site of struggling. that struck me. i was wondering, like, i feel like, like, the church could be the side of struggling. i'm whether or not you feel that --

anyone on the panel, the church ha to be on the side of struggle ago whether or not the energy put in to make the church struggle is really worth it. because we can also be putting energy directly in to political activity that is really not, you know, complicated by the mission of the church. >> that's a good question. let me get a couple of more questions in so we have time. get them all. >> hi my name is -- [inaudible] black and i'm a cure rater. i'm going to do have something swt art. in term of the tight of the panel, the struggle for american democracy and church. i grew up in the church of god and christ, so, you know, the salvation is still there. it's part of a me. i'm still passioned but i'm also ab artist. what the lord has given me some years ago was go to the church and struck the church, show the

church, the lack of using the arts in the struggle, the lack of using the art to bring the people in to the church. so my question is looking back at the harlem renaissance, that's the first movement addressing social, educational, and culture change in america. low do you see the church being a part of that struggle? is it or not part of a struggle today? >> another great question. >> thank you, again, as well for the panel. it's enlightening. i also had a quick question. my question was have taken the tbhiebl blueprint of, you know, all things. the belief. the little bit of research that i've done, you know, africa had a, you know, had, you know, values, rights, religion and everything like that. why have we abandoned that? could there be some answers for us, you know, african-american in that african religion?

outside of christianity. >> yes. i've been the deacon in my church for the last tbel of years. i don't make the distinction between religion and politics. i think it's the social movement. my question is, you know, the black community has churches all over the place. you can go in every corner. how do we effectively get them involved? i'm telling you, if you have all the black churches in one direction, it will be powerful. >> i would like to also thank all the panelists for what has been an insightful conversation. what i'm hearing is that there's a crisis in the black church and, you know, i appreciate and support, i think, hendrix leading the panelists to have us

think about many things. the black church doctrine around radical, social democracy. and so i support that as well. but i would like us to go a little bit further and think about, you know, why is that we don't see ourselves as black people in the church? why haven't the u.s. black church been able to incorporate something that perhaps one of the questions already asked african culture traditions. other black communities in the caribbean and latin america have been able to singtize -- what about the black church reenvisioning. taking a more critical, you know, examination of the history cam theologies see ourselves in the sacredness of the church. it has been done elsewhere, it can be done, i think, that

perhaps it may, you know, make the black church in the u.s. a little bit more legitimate, you know, at least people like me look like me. >> one more question and give you a chance to weigh in. >> thank you. good evening. i enjoyed the panel so much. and i think that religion right now in the black community is very important. as [inaudible] i still have that belief. some of my family are catholic. [inaudible] became politicians -- [inaudible] one of the things i was concerned about our youth. the church now as the congregation get older and die off we haven't been bringing

enough young people to the church. we need to find a way to bring them back to the churches. i belong to a church that has a thick youth in the church. and after the absence of -- [inaudible] trayvon not guilty for zimmerman -- we were upset about it. i cried a lot about it. and not there but assistant pastor said one thing that was profound and i have to take it to heart he said that trayvon died that it was an -- it wasn't an evil face that killed him. it was an evil system. the stand your ground must be stopped. >> we have a question of youth, mobilization of all the churches, the relevance of other religious tradition to the church, the art, and the viability of the church on the sight of strewing l. we have five minutes. if you want to weigh in briefly. >> the church -- what i meant is as a basis for

movement, does it make more sense? i don't stay in the church and struggle in the church. our empowered to go for it and do must be done. not just visually empowered but politically empowered as well. and second was what? -- [inaudible] the churches have to be -- [inaudible] they have to nurture the people and change the world. that's the responsibility for all churches, not all churches responsibility but they have to do that. what that says is that we go beyond institutional maintenance. we get empowered to go outside the wall of the church and must be that we want to change the society and change the world. not just go out and save soul

and bring them back to the church and do what you do. you -- you see what i'm saying? it has to be a real basis of movement to really be the choice jesus envisioned. >> some of the work in the church is preparation, socialization, learning the tools, the skills to engage if broader activity. so what we engage in struggle in local organizations and institutional space within civil society. those are training ground for when we stop out of the institutional space. it has some -- i understand. i would like to respond the question about getting black churches together. it was my privilege to participate some years ago in what was called the congress of national black churches. it brought together the major black denomination, the heads of the major black denominations to be in collaboration with everyone. this organization was funded by

a foundation. as a law as the foundation money kept coming, we were able, at least, to strengthen the institution, but then as point came when it was asked that each denomination make a contribution to the coalition, and beyond that, they were asked, well, give us your mailing list so that we can appeal to your people. the bishop and the major leaders president of the organizations were fine as long as somebody else was funding it. they were all at the survival within their own institution and carefully mating their list let somebody else brick about other division of the resources.

my thinking that is until black institutions have economic viability sufficiently, to think about being sacrificial for a larger movement beyond institutionalization is not going happen. so that's a good problem to say that marginal economic existence is the fame of most of our institution. and none of us can be what god wants us to be until our community is lifted above the mere survival level. which means that you don't have to teach us to be political. we have to, as charge -- churches say, we can't be all that jesus wants us to be if poverty continues to be the defining realty regarding most of the member of our church. it becomes necessary for every church not only to ask how do we

keep the institution going, but how do we manage to do the hard work? that's a real struggle. the hard work of getting our fair share of the resources. and god called us to do what we are called to do. i gave the resources somebody must be hording it. and the word redistribution, which was the major problem with the president, because when he said the word some folks said he's not our man. we have to recognize we cannot be the chris christians we ought to be apart from redistribution of pressure resources so we can say yes to the lord in substantiative ways. >> real quick. [applause] i know we are about to leave. i want to say this. this is not a direct answer to one of the questions. it has something to do with the church's capacity. i think churches around the country need to focus on one of three issues. they need to figure out how to mobilize the con gracious around

education, problem of the criminal justice system, and the problem of jobs. for example, if you are organizing around the criminal justice system. how do you engage in a preventing church -- go back in to jail. or you mobilize around undermining mandatory minimum. how do you do it? in other words i'm saying every church should organize itself around a particular issue focused in around education, criminal justice system, or jobs. we can focus our resources in one of the areas around a particular issue in one of these issues then the churches can begin to do some serious work. i think that can make a tangible effect impact in the -- the reasons and religions within the church. ting would be hard for some churches, not all, but some to embrace this. because they have deep seated

theological issue. having said that, i think the place to look for this kind of vitality are in african immigrant churches already here in the country who are doing dpe nominally well. if you want to have a change about what you want to see what a black church looks like. you need to go to an african church that is from an immigrant perspective. either from the caribbean or africa itself. that has a lot of vie brans. vie brans. what is important we need think about how do we incorporate our ancestors? how do as live though this is a cosmologist we don't see that separation? because we have got to think a lot like western thinking. this is the problem. once we let go of the western thinking, there becomes more possibility for spiritual life and listen to the voice of our ancestors who are telling us and -- showing us what we need to develop peanut don't have to struggle the church neesdz to be a place

of life, fruitfulness. a place where people can be built instead of torn down. last throughout sister. we can talk about it after wards. it's a hugely important piece. without the art and the play and these things things where that happened that was a drawing or sculpture, music, all the things produced out of the black church. we need another renaissance. we absolutely need another renaissance. because we can't just keep singing the same old thing and expect the youth to be there. they're not coming. [applause] >> let's give our panel one final round of applause. plls [applause] all right. we want to quickly just recognize that we have reached the end of a great day of programming. that we want to thank all of our day's sponsors, including

colombia university, our host, as well as which is c-span which has been broadcasting all day as well as the host of other sponsors out on the street and in the reception area all day long. most importantly, i want to thank you for sticking around for the final conversation. please give yourself a hand. [applause] with that note. good night to our panel, to you all. all right. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] you're watching and listening to live coverage 15th annual harlem book fair in harlem.

last panel was on religion and politics. one of the panelists of the new york theological seminary and colombia university is joining us. take your calls, tweets, facebook comments. sir, we'll begin with a tweet that came in. this is from -- [inaudible] he writes, appreciate the panel. but is the black church even really relevant in 2013? >> well, it's interesting question. some say -- it is relevant. black church is relevant because it remains an important parking lot -- part of black life. if one wants to reach -- [inaudible] on the other hand, the question is as well as it can be or should be with regard to policy making and policy influence.

and trying to offer bottle or economic justice and civil justice. it can be a lot more relevant than it is in that regard. but overall, yes, it remains a relevant institution, in my opinion. >> professor hen ricks -- end ricks of jesus teachings. debra in richmond, virginia. good evening to you. please go ahead. >> caller: yes. good evening to you. i want to say to the african spiritualty -- [inaudible] have been told to disregard it by the black church. because of this without the reconnection there would be no survival of the black people. when are you planning on connecting? you have to do that the creation is never as powerful as the

creator. honor our brothers and sisters. thank you. >> debra, what is that mother of all churches? >> the mother of -- mother of all religions. all religions. which is what? >> caller: came out of the african spiritualty that we had in ancient africa. >> thank you, ma'am. professor? >> i wasn't really clear on what the question was. >> okay. her point she was asking, i think, i hate to interpret somebody's question. but why are we ignoring the african spiritualty that she says is the mother of all religion? >> yeah. yeah. interesting question. i think it was the nature of american society. african-americans are very much assimilated and there was an important institutionalized push

to the african of their own spiritualty and knowledge of the religion. take away people -- take away the religion. if in fact most african-americans have been embraced christianity. they embrace the whole compilation of issue and belief they are not really -- in some ways are nothing but belief that many of us had in before our kidnapping and stealing to america. >> next call comes from james, santa maria, california. hi, james. >> caller: good afternoon. -- [inaudible] i'm sorry we didn't tune in earlier. i believe that we have the answer to the world's problems. these answers were given in principle over 150 years ago. manifestation for today, and --

[inaudible] the essence is the -- not separation of black churches or white churches or jewish churches or islamic churches or christian churches. we're all believed that one tree in the -- waves in one sea. and unity and oneness becomes a factor in our lives and our teachings, [inaudible] i would pass away any new world order which all religions would be one. there's two -- [inaudible] >> that's have a very good point. when we talk about black church -- the black church was created out of necessity. the church was created because of richard allen and other christians were put out of the church. they had to to form their own. it's a means to a certain kind

of social end. it doesn't mean that only one can become spiritual us is us is stens -- we must talk about without oneness. before we start -- oneness must be the goal we get to oneness is through justice. being committed to justice and being committed to loving one another and treating our loving our neighbors as ourselves. it has nothing to do with religion. i know, you talk about the -- and you made the distinction between that and other religions. you mare a hierarchy of it. and others -- [inaudible] i have great admiration -- [laughter] i have great admiration for it. i wouldn't value it above other religions. you see what i'm saying. we can't put one religion above another and be on the same level and be brothers and sisters.

>> trevor is in new york city. trevor, go ahead with your question. >> caller: yes. when a very good point about religion -- [inaudible] you think your religion is more superior. [inaudible] but they all -- [inaudible] it's a very good point they have also have no money. now, i think the quite -- the white and the black community, and i really want --

educate to take a look at this. we have a black president. we have a -- black educate -- [inaudible] what we have is that -- a feeling who community that everything is -- [inaudible] meanwhile what we find is that millions have no jobs, no security, and no way -- [inaudible] and no way to support that 10% that is on top. >> trevor, we have to leave this there. we're out of time. professor, final comments from you? >> well, he made a number of points. i must admit, i wasn't able to make everything out. i heard him talk about black

president, black intellectual class, and responsibility of black intellectual. what i would rather, i think is much more pressing when we talk about religion and christianity in particular, is that we really focus on what is supposed to be about and it goes back justice the most off used term in the hebrew bible. and when we -- our concern with justice doing justice, treating love your neighbors as ourselves, looking to tear down all kinds of barriers to access and obstacles and institutions that exploit. that's how we can move together. now in different group have to colens out of time out of necessity. our goal must be to make -- to ultimately love our neighbors. all of our neighbors as ourselves. come together as oneness.

so the church not only do black and white and other churches go out of business. we should try to make such a world that, you know, the church goes out of business. we don't need a church in the sense of a they go freely and -- [inaudible] without concern with all the things terrible things that are coming in the world. we have been drk -- that wrap up our coverage. thank you for being with us. everything you seen today it reairs at midnight eastern time. [inaudible conversations]

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[applause] thank you. it's a pleasure to be hire. thank you for being here and folks at the library for hosting me. it's always good to be among friends and among fellow, i would assume em battled conservatives here. right since we're conservatives here in california. i know, a something or two about what it's like to be em battled conservative is a right-wing guy that lives and works in new york city. i used to live in union square in new york which was the epicenter of obama mania in '07 and '08. i remember on election night i was up late at fox in 2008. like 2:00 or 23-bg in the morning i went back home. i was, you know, tired

it was like we won a war. the streets were thronged, people were chanting. singing, banging on pots. randomly high fiving people. including me. little did they know. whenever i encountered the kind of liberal youth i'm reminded of a reagan story when he was governor here in california. at the time when protest oftentimes spontaneously broke out he was at the meeting of board of directors while he was there a demonstration started at the front of the building. the staff wanted to sneak out the back. he said i'm going go through them. he walks through the protesters, gets in his car, and, you know, there are scuffy-hippy looking

types. they start banging on the car and chanting "we are the future ." the story goes that reagan cracks the window a little bit and in said in that case, i'm going sell my bonds. [laughter] i have written this book on lincoln as you know now, which has been out about a week. i've had some interesting experiences. with unof them -- my wife and i live in new york city in a doorman building. a great guy, an immigrant from ireland. very hard working. just had a kid. from what i tell basically has conservative instincts through things you hear him randomly say. i give him the book. he's delighted. it's wonderful. and he says, wait a minute, you wrote a book about lincoln. i thought you were a republican? and he meant this -- this wasn't a jibe. he wasn't trying to get at me.

it was a sincere inquiry. which tells us how much we need to do to save -- that's what i want to discuss tonight. progressives have been of a lincoln for about 100 years started tr, fdr was intense on this. and president obama has been even more intense. he announces for president and springfield before the old state house. he takes the oath on the lincoln bible. i believe someone told me i haven't independently confirmed this. he mentioned lincoln 230 times or something since he's been president. i think it's important for us to get lincoln right. if you get lincoln right, then you get america right. you get what i believe should be our animating purpose as conservatives. by way of introduction, i think

the common misconception of lincoln. we tend to think of him as a man of the earth. this kind of accidental president. try biewn of the common people and common sense. and i think that really underestimates him. he wouldn't be surprised. he's undersmimented throughout his life. part is super official. it was the way he looked, the ungainly character. he said once in the white house that he had the insight that god must love common looking people more than anyone else. he made more of them. he was common looking. anyone who was judged him on the basis of his looks or thought any of those things i mentioned about him was making a grave mistake. this was a ferociously man ambition man and ambition man from his very youth, really. possessed of an pensional and

extrord their intelligence. again evident from the time of his youth. people would record he was curious about politics when he was young. he would borrow newspapers. we would return them. he would be able to recite entire editorial line by line. an incredible memory. then he had, you know, a wisdom about the world. a judge about things and about human nature. i love a story he used to tell when he was trying to illustrate if you try to change people's behavior on the promise of a far off reward on the threat of a far off something bad could happen to you. you're not really going get very far. he youd to say there was an irishmen who stole. and someone went him and said, patty, they used politically incorrect language then. so you to pay for that when you meet the end of your days, and

you meet your maker. and the irishman said, in that case, if you are going to credit me that long. i think i'll take another. [laughter] lincoln, one of the reason he knew so much about human nature. the kind of life he lead and how roughed up he was. he had the most inawe pushes beginnings you can imagine. he was born in kentucky. moves to indiana, literally in the middle of nowhere. literally in a log cabin, and there were reports in that area that people who had log cabins at night when they had fires in the cabin, they would see the shining eyes of bears peering in at them outside. there was a story about the little girl in the area was killed bay panther because her brother wasn't to be kill the panther with a hatchet to the skull fast enough. it's not suburban bliss. this is a very unforgiving

environment. lincoln said he had an axe put in his hand almost at one. he handled that most useful instrument until about the age 23. one of the great irony of lincoln's life is that he didn't like axes. he didn't like splitting rails, even though we know him as the rail splitter. he wanted to escape this unforgiving environment. his mother, at a very young age, and aunt and uncle came down with something called milk sick. a cow would wander off and eat poison weed. the milk would become poison. nobody would know. you drink the milk and you would die in a week. it happens to his mom. i think about 8 or so. he has to fashion the wood coffin with his father to bury her. there's no one to give the sermon. eventually someone, a minister

happened by the area, you know, months later, and his sister would die in childbirth, which was not uncommon. lincoln's family was upset. thought the inlaws didn't do enough to help her. the inlaws said, well, we wanted to help her, but the nearest doctor was too drunk to help her. it gives you an idea the way of life. lincoln said there was nothing to excite an ambition for education in this time and in this place. his mother, sign her name with an x. the stepmother who was very caring and a great blessing to him, she signed her name with an x. his father could barely sign his name. e had could bunglely -- there were school but huge big part of what instructors did was to beat the kids.

okay. lincoln told the story in the white house that captured what the educational environment was like. he said there was a school room of kids and reading from the book of danielle, you have to cast your mind way back to the mid 19th century context. when it was legal to read the bible in the school room in america. they were reading, the one boy stumbled over a name. anybody could stumble over the name. boom, hit up against the head. so continue to read the passage and the kids calculating in his head, seeing how many kid are left until it comes back around to him. he's looking ahead to the line and starts women perking again. the instructor is now like what is wrong? why are you crying? he's like, master, there come the three damn fellows again. [laughter] he probably get hit again.

lincoln wants to escape this. okay. this is all -- this might be charming to us, it might for us speak very well of him he frame this. but everything in his life was geared to escaping this. if you want a story that captures lincoln, and the ambition in this way. s a story he told in the white house about his boyhood that stuck with him and meant a lot to him. he had fashioned a row boat and by the side of the ohio river and two guys road up in a carriage with their luggage and in a steam boat in the middle of the river. they wanted to meet. there was no war of. they wanted lincoln to row them out there. he willingingly does it. helps them with the luggage. he says wait a minute. you forgot to pay me. to his surprise each one throws a silver half dollar. he said all the years later in the white house he said i realized at that moment i had

earned my first dollar. he said the world opened up to him and he was a more hopeful and optimistic being from that time. so lincoln wanted to escape that isolation, and he wanted to make possible america where no one had live in that kind of isolation ever gun. in a nutshell that's why he didn't become a democrat. he grew up surround bid democrats. people who worshiped andrew jackson. the great general. who was a mean son of a bitch. if you remember the late senator arlen specter. take his percent except he might kill you. that was andrew jackson. andrew jackson was a person his family and the neighbors loved. the democrats before them, they are manhattan -- are manhattannized the backwoods

and frontier. lincoln had seen that. he experienced it. he wanted to have nothing to do with it ever again. he goes in the on sit direction. he becomes a wig and then a republican. lincoln and the wigs were consumed with the question how do we blow up that economy on the frontier. how do we make something different? this was a purpose of their entire program. well, you need cash. couldn't have a barter economy. you needed cash. so the wigs supported the banks. you wanted industry because you didn't want a country that was exclusively agricultural for all time. so they supported the tariff. you needed markets, if you have market you have to knit together the country. so they support, and are excited by canals and railroads. and this is where the more activist side of lincoln comes in with regard to the role of

government. because he supported subsidizing those comprises. -- enterprises. the context is very important. again, you're lincoln, you're growing up in an area. there's no way to get goods to the market. unless perhaps you live near a river. .. those areas are utterly transformed because the appalachian mountains were huge

in super bowl barrier between the east and the rest of the country. the railroads and canals eliminate that carrier and you are a farmer now. you can buy manufactured goods at a reasonable cost from the east. you can buy clothing from the east. how are you going to buy them? them? you need cash. how are you going to get cash? you have to grow goods for the market and instantly when this transformation happened farmers, they are no longer subsistence farmers farmers and impact they might not even grow their own food anymore because food is not the most efficient crop. they want to grow for the market so as soon as the railroads come boom everyone near them is a player in the market and that is what lincoln wanted. so he supported these transportation improvements as they are called towards the ultimate end of a market dynamism where you create a diverse economy where there are many different ways for people to rise up in the world and you

have to have he believed rightly in my view, some amount of government support because these are enormous projects. you have no sophisticated financial system to speak of. you don't have angel investors of this sort of back facebook now. you didn't have big industrials so you needed some level of government support. that is in a nutshell the way economic program. the other great whig insight had to do with culture and it was that people had to live orderly lives and practice self-discipline to make the most of themselves. lincoln lived this ethic. he also preached this ethic. aspiring lawyers later on in his life when he would become a lawyer would write to him saying how do i become a lawyer and he would write back things like work, work, work is his thing. his step or other state back on the farm living that kind of life where lincoln had grown up

in and would fairly often ask lincoln for loans. the letters that lincoln wrote back were just excoriating. he would say you are not a bad person but you are destitute because you idle anyways all of your time. go to work. that is the only cure for your case. this might've made for awkward thanksgiving dinners but this is where lincoln was coming from and he of course himself exemplified this ethic. from his youth he was determined and stubborn leader and this is part of the great lincoln myth, legend that we celebrate that a lot of people frown on it at the time. you had me for saying you are awfully lazy. he just sits around waiting all day. there's a quote from a neighbor saying he wasn't any good to do real work like killing snakes

that he read anyway and it was really a very specific and conscious program of self-improvement that he embarked on and at a time when the country was soaked in alcohol, soaked in tobacco, he didn't drink, smoke, swear or chew. he just liked to tell a story on himself sharing a railway car with a gentleman from kentucky who offered him a shot of whiskey. no thanks. offered him a fine cigar. no thanks. upper jimmy chew of tobacco. no thanks in the kentucky and looks at lincoln and says can i tell you something, sir? lincoln said what is it? i have learned one thing in life. those with few vices have few vices that lincoln had few vices. add the fact of the time when casual cruelty towards animals with common lincoln was incredibly and embarrassingly tenderhearted towards animals. when he wrote the circle with

other lawyers and there was one incident where he was at the back of the pack about the sudden disappeared and waiting for him wondering where he had gone and the lawyer who had been writing in the back asked what happened at lincoln. he said oh he is off looking for the baby birds that fell out of the nest. when he finally caught up as you can imagine these are tough guys. they said what are you doing? they made fun of him and he said if i did not return those birds to my -- the mother i would have been able to sleep tonight. there is a cat in the white house and there's a story of how lincoln at dinner one night the cat was sitting in a chair next to him and he started feeding the cat with the official white house flatware and mary todd is understandably outraged as those who witnessed the essay then don't you think that it's crazy the present of the united states is eating -- no feeding the cat with the official white house silverware? he said if this is good enough for buchanan it's good enough

for tabby. [laughter] through this relentless effort of self-improvement he becomes a lawyer. we tend to think of lawyers these days as parasitic bottom feeders present company -- they were creating the rules of the road for this new emerging market economy. lincoln initially wasn't a big-time lawyer. he would carry letters around in his hat. there is one letter that exist from him to a client saying i am sorry it took so long to get back to but i left her letter in my old hat just when i bought a new one so it took me weeks to realize where was. one clerk says that actually because when lincoln was a congressman apparently he carried around seeds to distribute to farmers. it's something that congressman did back then, the equivalent of porkbarrel but much deeper. apparently he chose some on the office and the four were so 30 that there was enough soil for plants to spring up from the floor.

eventually he became much more important as a lawyer. the illinois central railroad and lincoln -- the liberals have a hard time getting his their heads around this. he was a friend of corporations and he gave a speech once saying that pat and love was one of the top three discoveries of all of human history. lincoln and his legs didn't believe there was really a zero-sum economics properly working market economy benefited everyone and they rejected class warfare and redistributionist economics. lincoln famously said to to a delegation of work and many came to visit him in the white house during the war, let not him who is houseless pull down the house

of another but let him labor diligently and build one of his own. the most important thing undergirding his entire view was that belief in the fundamental dignity of labor and the rights of people to the proceeds of their own labor. again and again lincoln would come back to a line from genesis thou shalt be through the sweat of thy brow or is he put it more informally he who earns the corn should be not the corn and anything that violated this principle was an act of theft. this brings us to slavery because he talked about slavery in exactly these terms. the second inaugural address the famous phrase i'm required to boil. what was slavery? it was the theft of people's labor and just to give you an idea how strongly lincoln felt about this, when he was a young

man his father hired him out as was his father's rights so lincoln would go and take care of hogs and split rails then chop down trees. his father would take the proceeds as was his right into lincoln was age 21 and lincoln said, this is self-pitying and an exaggeration but again it gives you an idea where he was coming from on this. he said i used to be a slave. i used to be a slave because he wrote -- worked in someone else took the proceeds. of course you have more serious and literal slavery in the south, a system as lincoln said based on classification and cast and human bondage that required stealing the labor of others. lincoln hammered away at the system throughout the 18 50's and he argued that slavery is the only good that people want

for others but not themselves and he wrote, when he was thinking things through he would write these fragments to himself. there is one on the ants. he says this is such a simple and universal a natural principle that even the ants crawling insects if in and gets a crime it works to take it back to the nest and you try to take that crumb from the ants. they and knows the crown belongs to it because it worked for it and it will fight you to hold on to that crumb. advocates of slavery they fought back and said okay sure we have the slaves that you have wage slaves in the north. you have this whole class of people who may not make very much money and may not have very much opportunity to get ahead. at least we care for our slaves. you have this callous system of every man for himself and you pretend to care about paying them eight deviants. lincoln rejected this with every fiber of his being and he said

they don't understand the way a free economy works works and the way of free economy should work. he said the man who labored last year they see her labors for himself the next year will hire others to labor for him. on another occasion he said advancement, improvement of conditions is the order of things in society of equals. whereas slavery on the other hand he said had a tendency to dehumanize using antiquated language to dehumanize the and take away from him the right of striving to be a man. and that is such a that is a chilling call me and sentence. strive to be men and women and it's in the pursuit of bettering ourselves that we are fully human. throughout this period lincoln's rhetoric is infused in a profound sense of loss because he believed our founders had been embarrassed by slavery.

they tolerated it does it existed and there was no easy way to get away, to do away with it right away. the constitution tolerates slavery but it doesn't mention it. it's clearly embarrassed by it but you happen the south in defense of slavery that rose up that was affirmative in nature, that was positive in nature that said this is a good thing, it's good for society, it's good for the slaves. so lincoln looks back to the past with yearning and american culture at almost all times would celebrate the new and lincoln was unabashedly about referring to the founders as those old-time men. he called us back to the old declaration of independence abdicating for the old faith and his program i believe as in any conservative program and america worthy of the name should be was about renewal, about progress in

creating more opportunity but doing it through a return ,-com,-com ma through a restoration of our principles. one gorgeous passage in his speech said our public and roll is soiled and trailed in the dust. let us be purified. let us turn and wash it white. the spirit is not the blood of the revolution. he believed these for institutions bequeathed to us not only guaranteeing our rights but they guaranteed our prosperity. there is a little speech he gave during the war to a regiment from ohio, with a 166th regiment and he said any time troops come and see me i want to tell them why they think this struggle, why this war is so important and why we are fighting it. he said i am this big white

house. your son can be in this big white house and he said it's order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence that you may have equal privileges in the race of life with all its desirable aspirations. it's for this the struggle -- struggle should be maintained that we may not lose her birthrate not only for one but for two or three years. the nation is worth fighting for to secure such inestimable jewel. obviously the struggle was won and i believe it bequeathed to us modern america. so here you have this great american. he believes in a dynamic economy. he has this deep-seated belief in the importance importance of individual striving and individual initiative. he rejects class warfare. he has this ironclad fidelity to our free institutions and our

founders and we are supposed to believe that barack obama is a natural heir to him which i just totally reject. i think it's so important for us to focus on lincoln at this time because i believe there is a crisis of opportunity in america. a lot of focus in the last several years over in a quality which has genuinely grown over the last several decades. i think at some level equality is inevitable in a free society but we should focus on mobility. to people like lincoln? do they have a chance to rise up from nothing in this country? the fact is we are not as mobile as we think. western european countries are more mobile than we are and other english-speaking countries, scanty and -- the scandinavian countries that are more mobile than we are and this has obviously a large