on a ranch and that was on our book program. you can watch it online at booktv.org white c-span.org. thank you for being with us. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. television for serious readers. >> here are some programs to watch out for on booktv this weekend. on sunday we will be live with a reporter and author talking about the supreme court and she will take your questions from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern. on "after words", heather cox richard looking at the beginnings of the republican party. and books about the camp david accord, not the occupied paris,

the war of 1812, and henry kissinger on international affairs. for more information about this weekend's 48 hour television schedule, visit us online at booktv.org. >> you are watching booktv. starting now, todd brewster recounts when president clinton announced his plans to free the slaves in july at of 1862 and the signing of the emancipation proclamation january 1, 1863. the author reports that contrary to popular belief lincoln struggled with his decision and spent a great deal of time crafting the document as he battled self-doubt and depression. this is about one hour. >> hello and welcome.

i am sure that todd will be happy to sign them after the talk as well. i've like to let you know about a new book on robert ely coming out as well and c-span is also here tonight filming for their booktv program. and so i'd like to welcome a member of the history and faculty at the united states military academy at west point. a longtime journalist who has worked as an editor at time life and is a producer at abc news. he grew to dissipate in many publications and he was also the

author of the best-selling book the centuries the young people and the search for america. he lives here in critchfield and i know he's an avid baseball fan and that might be a bit of an understatement. i know that he was part of the richfield little league for three years. this is "lincoln's gamble: the tumultuous six months that gave america the emancipation proclamation." ken burns, who some of you may know him, and please welcome todd brewster. [applause] >> thank you, mark. think you, leslie. i have been on the start of the book to her and i was at the stt

of a book tour and i go to san francisco tomorrow and this is e most intimidating one so far. >> c-span is here. you know you can watch me again again and again and i'm delighted to be here. i'm delighted that you all took your time to come here tonight to listen to me talk about the 16th president. and i think the library for this opportunity and this is a wonderful town and i'm very proud to be here and i'm thrilled to talk to you tonight

were the first things i did is is there not to be said about abraham lincoln? he's the most written about person in american history. according to a world card catalog online, there are 274,000 books written about lincoln, including these. the life of abraham lincoln for young people told in words in one syllable. [laughter] and the personal finances of abraham lincoln. just so you can check on his ira. and abraham lincoln on the coming of the caterpillar tractor. and first published only a decade ago, including the following chapters. [inaudible] muscles, skin, eyes, height, and my favorite, the homeliest man i ever saw. so is what candy left to say

about him? he was leaving my driveway one day and they said if you're reading this book, don't you have to write what people havarti rhythmic and? does the story really change? can he survive the assassination? and if not, why are you doing it. and i listen to him very carefully and i told him to get off my property and never come back ever again. [laughter] but the truth is that he was right and there are no new facts, only new interpretations of the fact that we are to have. so was not the discovery of a lost letter or telegram that prompted me to write this book but my persistent feeling that you might say my frustration with the storybook image of lincoln and the one that has rendered him a larger-than-life figure in my belief that he has been done a great disservice.

especially in somewhere he appears not at all like a god but is a self-serving racist whose sensational death on easter weekend obscured the less noble aspects of his character and mistakes and overtly political nature, the real preference being not for immediate emancipation but a future with the south putting this well into the 20th century. lincoln told stephen douglas at the phaseout of slavery, the ultimate extension could take 100 years or more, which would've meant slavery until 1958, the time of eldest presley and let her walk and eisenhower and brown v. board of education, what he referred to as god's own good time. of course, this is hard to imagine.

lincoln or no lincoln, but it's stunning to think demand that we call the great emancipator is speaking in such a way. who knows if he really meant this or if this is an example of a worthy political nature that people have described. still, in such statements, and there are many of them contained in the fury of this book, there is so much more clarity proclaimed and a man of many faces lingering unchangeable to greet the moment at hand and hiding when he truly believed whatever he truly believed. and it's my preference to look at both the good and the bad. he was, after all, a man, first and foremost. brock, self-serving, incompetence as well as billions and i think you'll find in reading my book that all of this

is acutely part of what is perhaps most turbulent and tumultuous part of his life. centered around the issue over what is almost certainly the third most important documented american history and that is emancipation proclamation. it contains no poetry in no great praises for the ages like those in the second inaugural address. and no identifiable elements refined like all men are created equal but instead a carefully written typed document praised in the language of a contract in my book begins with a carriage

ride on july 13, 1862, when lincoln first mentioned the emancipation proclamation to close cabinet members, secretary of state seward and it ends with the signing of the proclamation on jiri first of 1863. and in between we watch like a network on his first draft sitting among the clerks in the telegraph office and we remember the scenes from the movie. scribbling on paper with a little water mark and it was known as a fools mark. playing with the spiders crawling around the window of the telegraph office we written as his first reading and i think that we have urged him to put this away and wait for a moment less desperate to issue it upon

the next union victory, whenever that might be. then paradoxically, at least in tone, we see him greet a delegation of black leaders at the white house with the expressed purpose of encouraging them to begin a migration out of america and is not there to panama or someplace where he told them that you and we are different races. even when you cease to be slaves, you are far removed from being placed on equality with the white race and it's better for us both, therefore, to be separated. so we listen to him go even further when he appears to blame them for the very war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. before your race among us, there could be no war. to which frederick douglass, the great black leader said that was like blaming the presence of a

horse for this crime. we discovered him the least with the scientific rationalist and a spiritual crisis where he, a lawyer, begins to doubt the power to affect outcomes and turns to a god that works in mysterious end on noble ways. he writes this in september of 1862, that it shall not end yet. we watched them deny the emancipation proclamation to a group of clergymen who visited the white house in september, even as the very doctrine lies in us and then he goes further, insisting that emancipation would not only be wrong but a foolish act like the pope's rule against the comet, a reference to [inaudible name] >> you all know him. [laughter] >> in this took the feeble

gesture of issuing an edict and excommunicating it. so then we see him finally getting his long-awaited victory, qualified though it is, and that quite a price. today is the anniversary. it remains the country's worst day at war with 23,000 casualties and twice as many deaths as we suffered in the entire mexican war are you four times and all that in one day. lincoln finally issues very document he has just denied, but only as a threat, declaring that he will emancipate the slaves if the rebel states do not put down their arms and return to the union whereupon he continues to say that if they do put down their arms, they will be granted the opportunity for a gradual compensated phaseout of slavery

in months, years, decades. and of course all efforts will continue to colonize persons of african descent to other lands. we watched them lose support in the midterm elections in general, george mcclellan, and discovering that his replacement as more competent than he was at war. he begins to step towards a more brutal less forgiving kind of war that attacks civil society as well as the army, assured by his legal advisers at the freeing of the slaves can be seen as part of that very method of battle. then in the summer of 1862, at the annual address at the state of the union today, he reverses his approach yet again, never mentioning the proclamation instead offering constitutional amendment turrentine compensation to those states that agree to gradual emancipation plans extending to the year 1900 and states taking

advantage of such an offer should take the money and then readopt slavery, all they have to do is repay the money they received. so who is this man? to be fair, there are obstacles, from one there were constitutional issues and could the slaves be freed without a constitutional amendment two and if so? under what power of congress? they were, after all, property in a legal sense, even if lincoln found that a boring. and protected private property for the government taking. and so how is it to be realized. and that is what he chose and it is to be written with great care to emphasize this power and this power alone. the ironies were rich.

.. was no military necessity to free slaves in states that were not in rebellion like kentucky, maryland, delaware or those parts of the state in rebellion where the confederacy had surrendered those slaves would be left in their shackles untouched by his proclamation. this meant as he sat working in

the telegraph office lincoln, a man history admirers for his moral absolutes was offering a document of astonishing relativity. freedom for a time only and only for some, not for all. there is more. for lincoln the idea that after centuries of slavery the black and white races were going to live in opposed civil war world in harmony was wishful thinking. as convinced as he was that an end to slavery was the right thing to do he feared it could lead to servile insurrection with slaves turning on their former masters or master's turning on their former slaves in an act of pure genocide. in the aforementioned meeting where he urges black leaders to become a mass migration away from america, he believes the state of slavery can never be erased, there will always be a better history in which blacks and whites have to contend.

this is the impulse of his zest for colonization, his feeling that there was no future for biracial america. finally there is but serious issue to consider whether to the emancipation proclamation was a wise political move, a wise military move or a wise social moves. democrats' opposition building for the 1862 midterm elections have already sniffed out the dangers inherent in the freeing of slaves, how they would flee north and take away the jobs of northern white laborers. how would the much contested border straits react? there interests were what lincoln had in mind when he refused others who pleaded with him to free the slaves. would they respond to the emancipation proclamation, provide with renewed enthusiasm for the battle? what would be the response among the troops, were they ready to fight to end slavery or would they set on their swords so to speak at the thought of fighting

for the rights of what most considered an inferior race? as much as the emancipation proclamation was for lincoln and the war it was for warfare. up and told this time war was the clash of armies, with the emancipation proclamation, a work as a clash of societies, not simply soldier against soldier but soldier against the entire civil structure of the south. institutions and labor supply. and the precursor to the boards of the twenty-first century was unchristian, and becoming of a great people. there were no opinion polls, no studies, he had to work from his gut, this man who was good at building the case for both sides of anything. there was a remarkable scene in late august when lincoln, stewing over the proclamation

invites his friend, an illinois lawyer, ask to sit with him while he reads from letters containing all manner of arguments regarding emancipation. lincoln loved to read aloud, for as he said when i read aloud i hear what is red and i see it. catching the idea by two senses. and in front it is silence, and socked by of lincoln. he told a friend for lincoln it appeared to be an instance of stating conclusions allowed, not that they might convince another but lincoln might see for himself how they looked when taken as a region of their reflection and embodied in words. lincoln's approach was so careful and judicious and absence of any will to persuade his presence was less a year of lincoln's views that a witness

to the president's mental operations. and on and on it went. lincoln debating with himself and with others, preparing for what would be, what only could be a gamble, the greatest gamble of his life, the greatest gamble of his young nation's life. i would like to read you two excerpts from the book. the first when he issues the preliminary emancipation proclamation. there are three versions of the proclamation. the first is the one lincoln has been working on in the telegraph office. brings it to a cabinet meeting in late july and reads it aloud, that is where he is told by seward the best idea is to put it in your pocket, wait for the union victory and then issue it so he does. he put it in his pocket and works on it off and on, and gives it some attention, privately still in the telegraph office presumably and in

september as he nears the end of the month in september during the battle of antietam, right before the battle of antietam he goes to the soldiers home in washington, a small cottage reserved for the preparation of soldiers and worked on his second draft of the emancipation proclamation. finally brings that to the cabinet after antietam as he gets prepared for preliminary emancipation proclamation. who knew of the subtleties lincoln made into the preliminary proclamation those intended to diminish its authoritarian rhythms and those aimed at reaching all reference to moral purpose would be recognized after that appreciated? such careful nestle gave the proclamation and are of mystery and even disguised as if lincoln was hiding something behind his tightly wound prose, which he

was. lincoln who had spoken out forcefully against slavery for decades had offered a proclamation of freedom without mentioning the most forceful reason for doing it which is that it was the right thing to do. just as odd he had written a proclamation removing 4 million people from bondage yet among his greatest concerns was that he and his old position of power not be seen as acting and democratically forcing his will on others, even as there was no denying he was indeed acting and democratically. this from the same man who in 1854 had quoted the declaration of independence not only for his expression of the quality of all men but his expression that government derive their just powers from the consent of the government. the whole situation was like one of those russian nesting dolls with the signing encased within another irony, and inside one more. was also possible there was for lincoln no irony? if we are to believe the 1862

date applied to lincoln's meditation and a divine will that i referenced before, it would be reasonable to determine lincoln was less assured the moral issue was argued and instead reduced his ambitions to a simple recognition that god wills his contest and wills that it shall not end yet. with that unusual interpretation when he just started his day off by saying as he did to the cabinet that this was not his act but was an act will by god, this proclamation was only responding to a mystical sign from the almighty that had been shown to him. by this point of view the argument for the emancipation proclamation was not a moral one. it could only be as a war measure, a way for the contest that god will for whatever reason he willed it to continue until he will it to end. whatever was going through lincoln's tortured mind, those in the room with a recognized they were part of no ordinary cabinet meeting. they were witnessing a historic moment that could be the opening

salvo of the second american revolution. 's and the jeffersone n flourish for words this proclamation was a brave adjustor as the declaration of independence that inspired it for as with the declaration, no one knew what would happen next, with this bold expression might be the saving of the union or lead to a certain destruction, whether it would render them heroes for their courage or autocrats for their brazen and unwanted use of authority. many in the room thought it unlikely that the proclamation would shorten the war. if anything that might link the and it. there was little probability that the rebels would accept terms for the rebellion and now more than ever before the north's mission was what so many in the south always thought it secretly was. with so many in the north increasingly felt it rightly should be, providing emancipation to the slaves. no matter the obfuscation of the president's public statements with the density of his legal prose the war was now down to

its essentials issue. the cabinet meeting ended with lincoln handing the proclamation to seward for publication and seward passing it to lincoln's private secretary and turning the document to an assistant secretary named william stoddard whose job was to make copies, each for the house in the senate. years later, described what was going through his mind what he considered the normally of this simple task. lincoln's own hand, his draft of the proclamation of the emancipation proclamation. what does it mean for the future of your country in the future of the bond men who it liberates, try to but cannot. you are not nervous but spoiler sheet or two of paper beginning your copy. no wonder you cannot but think while writing. outside the white house on the evening of the 24th a group of

revelers serenade lincoln. upon hearing news of the proclamation they gathered at brown's the talent of the pennsylvania avenue keeping time to the music of the marine band and abruptly stopped before the white columns of the portico of the executive mansion, standing lucid and diaphanous like the architecture of a dream. the crowd flowed in and filled every nook and corner of the grand entrance as instantly and quietly as molten metal fills a mold. before lincoln, startled, emerged and deflected their tribute to. what i did, i told them, i did after a full deliberation and under a very heavy and solemn sense of responsibility i can only trust in god that i have made no mistake. you then begged off any further dialogue yet of respect to the soldiers. i will say no more upon this subject. in my position i am environed with difficulties yet they are scarcely so great as the

difficulty of those who on the battlefields are endeavoring to purchase with their blood and their lives the future happiness and prosperity of this country. let us never forget them. the crowd dispersed and made its way to the secretary of treasury's three story town house on the corner of sixth and eat, they're the ohio and and abolitionist crusader cassie is clay so long a critic of lincoln's for not declaring emancipation earlier appeared before them. someone called for a gaslight to which cheese respond all the light that was needed would be emanating from this great act of the president's. the proclamation was, chase said, the dawn of a new year a. baptized by blood but grounded in justice and humanity. klee added a few words of his own and then the men joined by secretary a and a few other diplomats, old fogeys was have a's affectionate term for the

group, retired inside where they enjoy it wine and conversation. if the slaveholders had stayed in the unions they might have kept the life of their institution for many years to come, chase speculated the group sounded like a man who was already enjoying victory. they all seem to feel the new and exhilarating life, wrote a of the gathering. the president's proclamation freed them as well as the slaves they gleefully and merrily called each other abolitionists and seemed to enjoy the novel accusation of appropriating that once horrible name. a wonderful description of the scene. can you imagine? if they didn't know what was going to happen next, lincoln had issued it a preliminary emancipation proclamation in september. the south had until january 1st. some accused him of why preliminary? why not proclamation right way? some argued the provisions for a gradual and compensated emancipation plan that could

have admitted the southern states back into the union was itself a kind of dodge of the emancipation question. lincoln stopped referring to the emancipation. by the time he gets his annual message in december that year he is not mentioning it at all and many abolitionists are worried that he is not going to fulfill the task, he is not going to do the final act but here he is on december 31st, 1862. along with making final edits on the proclamation lincoln spent new year's day eve occupied with other executive business and there was plenty. he cited build it knitting 48 counties of western virginia into the union as west region yet but as part of the agreement the new state had to adopt a plan for gradual emancipation. lincoln prepared to meet with his top general ambrose burnside

knowing he would have to tell me lost confidence in him, junior officers had come to complain about him. entrepreneur bernard coke and the resettlement of five former slaves on the coast of haiti. lincoln had not given up on colonization. he also met with a piteous old lady of genteel appearance who had been ejected from her home by the war department and had no place to go. lincoln-off a note to secretary stanton asking him to look into the matter and as night fell in the streets of washington lincoln went to his study and paste. robert lincoln, his son, later told a friend his father stayed up his entire night. why the younger lincoln waited decades to reveal that tantalizing fact is unknown but if true what a cinematic scene it suggests especially from the vantage point of 150 years of history. there is lincoln, whoever it may

really be, alone in his cold dark study. what was likely the first time in a long time he could permit himself the luxury of concentration. we do not know for certain about this for tonight tad fell asleep in his father had studied but eventually lincoln would pick up the boy and carry him to bed. once lincoln was alone and settled in developing silence what went through his mind? robert lincoln said his mother before retiring repeated her opposition to the proclamation but even then lincoln had not revealed his intentions. he simply paste pausing once in awhile to read a few favored versus from the bible and gaze to the white house window at the night sky. that six months preceding this had been transformed if, built a career on reason and document on the powers of human agency to affect change. his entire life was a self educated backwoodsman of

questionable birth whose literary, or rhetorical and political leaders brought him to the greatest of heights. the awful war and exasperatingly task of ending slavery reawakened and hamas fumbling respect for the unreasonable, for what he did not know or what he could not know. it was uncanny the same personal eat tiffany had occurred around all the challenges in his life. she trusted the war to men this plotted the movements of troops and artillery with slide rules and diagrams yet they had failed and now in the light of their failure he learned for not more muscular, lesser riegle war, one that permitted any act deemed to be of military necessity, any act that furthered the intended ends of the war. he believed in a gradual, peaceful and compensated path to the extension of slavery, one that took into account the interests of slaveholders and slaves, rejected the riskiness of sudden emancipation with harsh rebuke and potential for violence, here he was, hours

from freeing the slaves not by the construction of some deliberate and measured plan that it by the legislative process but by presidential fiat announced from the barrel of a gun. ironically for someone accused of such a bold faced grab for power lincoln probably move toward submission to the will of something greater than himself. he may have described this force as the almighty god intended his references to province and the divine being, increase as the conditions in the war and his presidency got worse but it was the same god he had contemplated in his sept. meditation of the divine will. god is a force of inevitability, of cause and effect, of the working of a process only. got a faith. lincoln's philosophy wrote his of proffered -- part was the source of his legendary grace and humility for food to our mutual in the hands of fate made as they are by conditions then to praise them or blame them was

pure folly. this philosophy stretched quality, the president upon him so many great theories of american history depend saw himself as no different from anyone else, no one was less or more responsible for the conditions of the world than the next person because all were helpless to change events as they were directed from above. when marion robert rock and lincoln's that in the morning asking what he had decided, the president looked up the great light eliminating his face and answered i am a man under orders. i cannot do otherwise. thank you very much. [applause] >> i will take questions from

anybody. >> how do you think lincoln would be viewed in today's political spectrum, liberal, conservative, democrat? >> that is a loaded question. certainly, people described the civil war as the turning point for american history, is a plural noun, after resisting the letter known meaning the federal government attains a certain level of supremacy that it didn't have before. you could argue the fights the we see going on day in and day out even today about supremacy of federal government versus power of the states, movement for the federal government, towards that point and american

history. the supremacy of the federal government over the country, a single unit. his arguments about secession and key for is this, secession is unconstitutional. in some respects you can imagine an element of democracy here because in north carolina wants to secede and he wishes that is unconstitutional or unacceptable and that is what he was fighting for to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. with respect to the argument of the federal government versus the states, he would have come out on the side you would associate with the democratic party. he was a member of the republican party. i hesitate to apply modern issues more deeply than that, because it is unfair to him,

unfair to us what we should be making our own sense, rather than seeking heroes in the past to attach them one way or another. an interesting thing about what happened after the civil war, after his tragic death, everyone started grabbing on to association with him, there were biographies that he developed prayer for christian which he was not. he was a man of god in some respects. he was questioning man, he could not be labeled the traditional christian i don't think. his law partner wrote a very controversial biography about lincoln being an agnostic, and use the biography. much less biographies by tons and tons of people who want to

claim him as a member of their party truly or another party truly, and lincoln's legacy associated with everything under creation. scholarship in lincoln's image was not done in some respect. i want to reclaim the humanity of lincoln, i am looking to fight that here in a small way. more questions? >> i heard some time ago that part of the reason for the emancipation proclamation was to keep england out of the war. >> yes. i didn't touch on the impact of foreign relations on this please secretary seward was keen on making this point to the president. more about the recognition great britain recognizing the

confederate states of america as a legitimate nation, recognition, the confederacy would gain a new stature that lincoln did not want to have. and this is a familiar question. coming back to this for a second, i attach him to one party or another -- the issues that were present in a lot of what was going on in lincoln's times are present today as well. not only competition between the federal government and the state's but think of this. lincoln trying harder to find whether it was a war or not. what we talking about the past few weeks, we have been talking since 9/11 with respect to the treatment of the detainees in guantanamo. is a crime or an act of war? lincoln was dealing with the same thing. as generals would say, it is not

them, it is us. don't refer to the south as something separate from what we are, they are states in rebellion. they're not in the additional sensible for more, this created problems for him because taking of personal property which he justified as an act of war have always been applied to foreign wars, not to civil war. team needed a decision by the supreme court. it was not coming until 1863 which allowed him to conduct the civil war according to the same terms a foreign war might be conducted. so the definition of what is a war and what is a rebellion, what is crime and what is an act of war was very much part of the conversation in the 1860s. was part of the conversation as to what was supreme, the federal government or the power of the

states. >> one more. one of the things i thought about was in the south, it was a natural border. might they have declared war -- that was one of the reasons. >> great britain. they could have, sure, they could have declared war on us but of course they didn't. >> you spoke about the states that were not included in the declaration -- proclamation, emancipation proclamation, ky, md. i believed it was. how did they then deal with freeing the slaves? they were not included. what was the process and how did they get around it? >> it is always up to the 13th

amendment so the slaves are freed by the 13st amendment. the story i tell is the precursor to the story in the spielberg film which is the passage of the 13 amendment. he was passionate about getting it done because he does not believe that the emancipation proclamation will be durable enough to have a freedom of the slaves past the war. you raise a question that is consistently raised by the man to patient proclamation, if it was not freeing slaves and the territory where the federal government controls, how would it free anyone? in fact it didn't free anyone immediately, but the union army became an army of liberation. wherever the army went, they would liberate slaves. the key differences between -- we didn't get into this, i referred to three versions of the emancipation proclamation, steward, brilliant man working carefully with lincoln, changing

the language, trying to make a stronger, better, not only recognized the freedom of the slaves but maintain it, defend it with the september proclamation, he does that and in the january proclamation that becomes law, he says encourage the enlistment of freed slaves in the union army and so 180,000, 200,000 black soldiers emerge in the union army in the last years of war, significant to the conduct of the war, most of the more freed slaves who left the south, blue uniforms, and returned, very key. >> did they not get their freedom until the thirteenth amendment passed? >> that is right. they did not get it until the thirteenth amendment passed. others? >> did you notice in your

research if lincoln or anybody, when a slave is free, they didn't have education. they had a certain lifestyle which was horrible, now they're free, how they are going to for lack of a better term come up to speed with the rest of the population? was education in process? people could write stories that they couldn't read, they were not allowed to read, kids growing up, is there something like that, a more personal thing, that person, that man, that woman? >> in lincoln's mind about it but of course -- it is hard to -- hard to not list the wars of slavery. there were a multitude of them. but yes, the slaves were illiterate. nonetheless -- illiterate meaning we have little in terms of information about the lives of the slaves because there is little recorded information. nonetheless the message about the emancipation spread very quickly into the south, to the

slave community. they received word of it before their slaveholders actually learned it nearly because the enthusiasm for the message was so great that it was being passed by word of mouth for about the south. if you look after the civil war, some wonderful books about this, history of the next 50 to 75 years in the black community arguing over how to do the precisely the thing you are saying, how to establish a education, jobs, foundation of the community, argument between booker t. washington and w. e. b. du bois, whether to attack the white power structure, get more favors from them, repay them for the abuse that happened or whether to separate oneself out and create another societies that looms on its own and has its own foundation to respect. a big argument in the black community going on today, still

going on. >> to the gentleman's question, maybe you can speak a little bit. in lincoln's own mind, relocating the black population, into africa. i was surprised to learn in your book that for three decades prior to the civil war, there were committees, henry clay included, who were 100% re-signed this -- concept of relocating, the ability to integrate these folks back into the population was seen as impossible. >> and the feeling that if they returned to a place where they could start off on greater footing they would have a better chance of gaining a respectable life. this movement for colonization went back several decades before, lincoln was introducing it in 1862. it was a benevolent argument.

it was always a sinister one. from burlington, there is -- i reference that part, but frederick douglass takes this as you are blaming us for the war. i am sure he heard it that way and a lot of people heard it that way but what lincoln meant in the context of the complete quote, the notion of the terrible story, the slave system, for that we would not have white men slitting the throats of the white men. slightly better said that way, and more benevolent toward the black race in terms of saying we messed this up and we ought to start all over again. that was the root feeling he

had. in the back. >> there were about two million in the union army and 340 died in the war. most of them died after the emancipation proclamation was signed. prior to the war, the beginning of the war. they were fighting for preservation of the union. >> does it not clarify the emancipation proclamation. ratio of it. just to show you how brilliant the question was, one more time. the mission of a war is so critical to its success, we heard that from our experience with recent wars, experience

with the vietnam war. a walleye titillated mission is critical to success of the fighting man in the battle theater. it becomes much more direct and completed. lincoln establish a commission the restoration of the union. the two were linked finally. even though, and the first version in july, third version in january, and the mission of the war's restoration of the union. subservient to that mission. the writing is clear. he linked the two. the american idea started not

with the constitution which was slavery protecting of course but the declaration of independence, that is an argument, we could have an argument today, declaration of independence is not a legal document. it was a rebellious tracked. was a statement of revolution. and he and many of his legal advisers believe the origin point of the nation was the declaration of independence, not the constitution. interesting for someone to argue as a lawyer because you might say the constitution being in the document formally established the union. however to him, if you went back to the origin point and freeze from jefferson's can of all men are created equal, attach the end of slavery as an aspect of the national idea, you all know that we are unique in world

history in the we go to our identity around a national idea. at the same time people in the confederacy would have argued all men are created equal, in the way we think of it today. and white men and only men are created equal. and that was their understanding and was driven -- the vice president of the confederacy made it clear in his cornerstone speech by new kind of scientific understanding that the raises were in a hierarchy where the white race was at the top. and the founders if they knew that would have understood all men are created equal could only mean all white men, and for lincoln, and the preservation of the union was not hard thing to do, and the the two were linked.

we will deepen the question, it was a subject that historians have gone over and over. what did the men think they were fighting for? this goes through every war. what are they fighting for? they were fighting for the guy next to them. they lose contact with anything having to do with mission. many good books have been written about this, some of them articulated the shift to ending of slavery was a powerful motivating force for the fighting men. others say it was not and i believe there was a justification that the mission of fighting for preservation of the union after two years lost some of its luster in a war that was thought to be over quickly and energizing of its through the application of the end of slavery did for many people in the fighting force give the new

energy and commitment, subject worth study. that is how i can reflect on it. other questions? yes? >> you mentioned up until the proclamation, it was army against the army and the emancipation proclamation changed the calculus so that it became totaled war or at least a precursor. do you think from your work that that registered on lincoln, that the implications of what he was doing in terms of the future potentially registered in his mind? >> it is hard to say. i don't know what he thought about the future of battle but let's back up to a lot of territory around your question. we can hit at it. lincoln arrived in office with

no military experience, makes fun of that short stint in the black hawk war where he mostly fought mosquitos as he says. and he arrives with a war in front of him. jefferson davis was the west.-- was a west point alum. and making strategic decisions as opposed to warfare but lincoln becomes our most hands-on warrior president in the history of the country. he spends a lot of time studying war theory. we don't know exactly what he read. and that was his nickname, and imagine what respect he had, lincoln took out of the library of congress and didn't return it

for two years. and i will over say this because it is the only way to the us say it. without being a war theory scholar, the war first taught at west point in the middle of the nineteenth century. and inspired french feria out of the enlightenment, all the idea about war is science. and probably all know is famous for his line war is politics by other means, i think that is right. he had not been translated to english yet so we know that lincoln probably did not read

him. there's a wonderful passage in board feet tall's novel lincoln, an exchange between lincoln and seward and reference him and said war is politics by other means and gore vidal being an important writer asserted something to the effect that john hay, secretary to lincoln did read chairman and whispered it to lincoln. and it happened organically, and america not working. it combined with the fact, and cannot move. and execute as a fighting force. lincoln's frustration built with the fact he was not getting

results. lincoln became quite a sophisticated war strategist. he did it formed the basis from grant and sherman to the 20th century that we referred to as total war and more belligerent war, a fascinating book called the leader code that came out a few years ago the story of a -- francis lieber was a political scientist and age to lincoln who was a proponent of this hard work theory, he believed if you couldn't stand out the opponent can't stand him out to the point of utility that like a fire and amber would catch again and the rebellion would return and he was very key as an adviser to lincoln and established the legal code, what was acceptable or unacceptable which included a

much wider territory that was 6 of the bling terms of civil society, freeing slaves, the seizing of private property, the attack upon civilians under certain circumstances and lieber was an important person to the history of the rest of the war, so there is a lot to be read into is that. i don't think lincoln was looking ahead to what would happen after the war. he had a lot in front of him to conduct in the war had at hand so i doubt he had -- was thinking about the historical perspective going forward. interesting to contemplate. maybe one more question? >> when the proclamation was issued, what was the nature of the debate subsequently in

congress particularly with regard to the legal and constitutional questions lincoln was working over the previous six months. >> i am not sure i know enough to speak because this debate in congress that went forward in 1863, the period i was studying, but -- one key element that happened in 1862 that change lincoln's chances for the emancipation proclamation as far as a legal document is that he gained control of the supreme court. the chief justice of the supreme court, famous for -- famous for the dread scott decision, author of the dread scott decision, had been a big enemy of lincoln's, when lincoln suspends habeas corpus, he rules that it is unconstitutional, the president doesn't have the power to do

that, he is a bitter opponent of lincoln's but lincoln makes several appointments that change the complexion of the court so that by the time we get to the prize case of 1863, the ones that declared the civil war could be conducted under the same rules as a foreign war he has a majority in the court favoring his policies so he is in a new position with respect to legal position of the emancipation proclamation. >> first of all -- >> wait for the mic. >> george right here, this tall, distinguished looking gentleman in the second row. >> thank you for really interesting talk. it was fantastic.

one central message or listen from your book, what would that be? >> i could have planted you for that one, couldn't die? he is also the godfather of my children so it could have happened. i would say the fragility and loneliness of leadership and how we tend to think about big decisions about greek men as having arrived at them with little consternation, little uncertainty, making their stab for history when in fact there are a lot of things competing for those choices, and history turns on making the right decision at a moment it could have gone the other way. first and foremost, great men, great women, men and women, and