theorists, in order for something to exist somebody has to look at it. somebody has to make an observation. before you observe something in principle it could exist in all possible things. when you look at it it then assumed one state. therefore the observer in some sense determines existence. but observation requires consciousness. conscious of people make the observation. so the greatest paradox in all of science is the cat problem, the shortage of cat problem. if i have a cat in a box and i don't open the box, they can't could be either dead or alive. so how do we physicists describe a cat that we cannot observe? well, we add the dead cat to the live chat.

we add the two together. the cat is neither dead nor alive. until you open the box. now, einstein thought this is stupid. i mean, how can you be neither dead nor alive at the same time? what can i say? einstein was wrong. electrons can be here or there at the same time. so this is the greatest paradox in all of science. how do you resolve the fact that you can have dead cats and live chats simultaneously exist in another state before you make the observation? and if you ever find a solution to this puzzle, tell me first. [laughter] nobel prize winners debate this question. there is an alternative. the alternative vision is that the universe splits in half.

in one universe the cat is dead, and any of the universe the is alive. and universes keep splitting into other universes, and that theory seems to be the one preferred by string theory. this lens is to the last question, and the last question is, is at all those presley still alive in another parallel universe of? the answer is possible yes. possibly as. if this theory is correct in the universe splits, then perhaps in one universe that team is still alive. let's take one last question because i have to get to signing your books and a half to get towards the photographs. one last question. >> a superhero on his t-shirt. >> thank you. my question was if you could some one spot in the stuff onto

discs, could you build them a robot body and put them in there and they could live out their days in a robot body? >> okay, if you can put the mind onto a disc, the question is can that disk can be put into a robot and then you would have superpowers. this is something that cannot be ruled out. if one day -- this is for any future -- we put all our pathways of the brain onto a disc and put this disc into a robot, a robot could be perfect. the robot could be handsome, gorgeous, beautiful, superhuman. with the powers of the cyborg and look just like us except of superpowers. this is something that cannot be ruled out. this is called almost superior. however, i should point of homo superior is 100 years away. so we're not going to see in our lifetime, okay? however it is something you cannot rule out, the fact that

maybe these surrogates may be will live our lives as surrogates, and that's what the movie surrogates starring bruce willis was all about. in that world people preferred to live in superhuman bodies. they don't want to go back to being human anymore. they preferre preferred to be sn spirit and that, of course, because as a hollywood movie, bruce willis messes it all up and turns off all the superhuman bodies at the end. anyway, thank you so much for being here today. [applause] and what i want to do now is to sign your books, okay? you have been a great audience. thank you so much. >> you are watching tv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at booktv.org.us >> booktv continues with

karima bennoune who profiles muslims around the world including in the u.s. who are fighting against islamic fundamentalism. this is about one hour. >> karima bennoune is a professor of international law at the university of california-davis school of law, she grew up in a jury and in a jury and unit states and now lives in northern california. the topic of "your fatwa does not apply here" is a very personal one for her. her father was an outspoken professor at university of algiers who faced death threats during the 1990s to continue speaking out against fundamentalism and terrorism.hea in writing thisut book, she sait to me people who are today doing what her father did it back then, try to garner for wha them latert fat international f support.

she graduated from a joint program in law and middle eastern and north are at the un university of michigan school a have been used in journals and used by the violence against women and the u.n.protecting human right and countering counter terrorism. she has spoken all around the world and around the united states as well. she served as a member of the executive council as a member of law and on the board of the international usa and sits on the network of women under

international law. she has been on the counsel of human rights, the coalition to stop the use of child soldiers and for the united nations education policy and scientific cultural organization. human rights field missions have included afghanistan, lebanon, pakistan, south thailand and others. in 2009-2010 she was a group sent under the dutch foreign n ministry to develop new laws. she supported the urgent action funds for women's and human rights and wrote about the event for "the guardian." she wrote during the elections with gender concerns international. and her writing about north and west africa has appeared in the

san francisco chronicle and new york times. thank you for being here. [applause] >> thank you. >> i would like to read a selection from your book. >> absolutely. first let me say thank you for coming out and for the texas book festival for having me and apologizing for being a little late. i want to tell a story that is not funny at all. i story that is at the heart of my book that stays with me all of the time when i do this because i am a law professor and this is the story of a law student. i want to give you background before i read this story called dying from a knowledge. this takes place in algeria, back in the 1990s, in what they call the dark decade because it

was a decade of violence because jihadist groups that were the so-called islamic state at that time and the algerian government backed by the military. we don't know the exact figures but somewhere between 100-200,000 people were killed. the international community didn't pay much attention. this was the pre-911 world and we had not woken up globally to the dangers opposed by jihadist members. so it is in that context i would like to share this particular story. the watch stopped at 5:17. that is the moment she fell in the street on january 26, 1997 an instant after a member of the islamic group cut her throat.

in november of 2012, when i am able to locate them east of algers, i spend several hours talking with the woman's mother and her surviving daughter. sitting on the couch, she wore a long blue dress and glasses around her neck. she showed me the watch that was returned to her by the police. its white face features flower buds just under the spot where the class is broken. the secondhand hangs upward frozen 57 seconds after 5:17. 22 years old and a second year law student she lived in the

dorm and wanted to visit her family on a celebration day for ramadan. she borded to bus to go home but never came back to law school. just outside the town the bus was stopped at a fake checkpoint. she occupied a seat behind the driver who was a neighbor of hers. she didn't cover her head, but had a friend's shawl wrapped around her head when the men from the islamic group climbed aboard. one came to her and hit her on the shoulder saying partisan of the government. get up. someone kill her. they grabbed her by the arm and she dared to say don't touch me. then ml turned and looked at

everyone, even now the mother appeals to her fellow passengers as she weeps and tells me the story. ml didn't speak but begged with her eyes and asked you to save her but no one could. when they got out of the bus, one armed man had a knife and was rubbing it on the pavement preparing to kill her. there are two versions of what happens next. some said ml was kicked getting out of the bus and falling to the ground. others remember she had her throat cut while still standing. her death was an atrocity and meant as a warning as well. in the moment after ml's watch stopped, the gia men told all of the other passengers if you go to school, if you go to the university, the day will come when we will kill all of you just like this. the terrorist posted plaque

cards all over saying young people must stop studying and stay home. as a law professor i want to understand why a young woman with a whole life ahead of her continued her legal education when she could and would be murdered as a result. apparently ml said to her father, i will study law and have my head held high. i am a girl and you would always be proud of me. i will do the work of a man. a housewife, dreamed of her children studying and all six of them. her sister explained our mother told us study means you are a free woman. mom said i am ready to loose all four of them. i will sacrifice them -- lose -- for knowledge. when people remember ml who was assa

assassinated by the terrorist they say she was the girl killed for studying law and people say she was an example for us. while still cherishing the values she died for, her death was an agony for the family and so was the way they found out about it. it was a wasteland of terror outside of alger. there was no running water or power service so they were never sure when to expect ml or their other daughters home. 20 police officers showed up at the door and found themselves unable to deliver the news they had come to give. one asked her how many daughters she had studying and told her she and her husband was invoked to be prosecutor the next day.

the cops drove off and left them wondering in the dark. she had a bad feeling. any of her college students, or all three of them, could have been headed home that night. a group of neighbors came to the apartment after the police left, including the bus driver's wife, everybody assumed the family new the news. she begged the driver's wife, tell me, she shared as much as she could. they cut your daughter's throat. she asked which one and one neighbor said the one who wore glasses. no one knew precise fact and no one able to give her a definite answer and no telephone she ignored the curfew and took off with her young son running through the streets until getting to the police station.

when she finally found herself face-to-face, she remembers, my son, tell me how many of my daughters. and he said madam, only one, the one at law school wearing jeans and a coat. the mother insisted swear to me. and he swore. so she felt gratitude in the worst moment of my life. she said i prayed, kissed the earth and said god give me strength. they were all three at the university so it was a little less painful it was only one. the reality one was gone and how sank in. but her agony in that moment gave way to rage. she told me i sat on the ground and said everything that came into my mind. that was the hour my struggle

began. her daughter describes her mother's long walk home. the commissary was far from where we lived and mama insulted the terrorist all along the way. the police said if we had ten mothers who lost their child and did what this mother did the terrorist could have never won. many died before ml and no one did what mom did. it was enormous to make that journey and not have fear. for her it might have been in her head. in the dark streets of the town, she taunted her who took her children. you killed ml, now come and kill me. they came to the house and told her husband and the rest of the family they had to leave immediately. they buried ml and left their

lives behind them. one of her younger sisters overcame dispair and went to law school in her memory and practiced in algiers today, something her sister hoped would one day be possible. fundamentalism will not win even if they say god is great all day long. the other sister, the lawyer sister, takes me into the small, neat living room to see ml's portrait which is hanging on the wall. she had pitch black hair that fell below or shoulders and luminous dark eyes that are the center piece of the room. her determined expression displayed what a classmate told me of her. she had the eloquence and the personality needed to be a

successful lawyer. she had a big future in front of her. somehow the portrait on the wall, she looks serene and entirely aware of what her future might hold. apparently she had said to her mother a few weeks before her murder. mom, put this in your head, nothing will happen to us god willing, but if something happens, you must know we are dead from a knowledge. you and father must keep your heads held high. her watch stopped at 5:17 but she lives on in algeria and everywhere elsewhere women and men fight for freedom my struggling for knowledge and keeping their heads held high. [applause]

>> the thing about your book is you are able to balance so eloquently very traumatic, difficult stories to read with hope and with encouragement for people to continue to do good in the world. i want to hear a bit about your reporting on the youth theater program in pakistan. can you tell us a bit about that and what lessons -- or why practicing theater is a form of resistance? >> thanks. that is a great question. let me start with the hope part. i agree hope is absolutely critical in this story. in fact, ml's name means hope in

arabic. she manage todd to maintain homd one place i found that was the workshop you mentioned. this has promoted pakistani artist but brought artist from all over the world to play. the company was named by the sons and daughters of the founder who run it for him. in 2008 they started receiving death threats saying what they were doing with music and dance was unislamic. i had the advantage of meeting one of the siblings who ran the company and rejected the

characterization of the work. ... part of worship. they absolutely refused to give in. they continued with their performances but the jihadists refused to give up as well. in 2008, there are a eight world performing arts festivals which actually struck by a bomber with three explosive devices the injured nine people which was very serious but luckily no one was killed. they had to evacuate the premises. the case is difficult in the way this relates to the theme of optimism which is do you go ahead the next day with the festival? do you decide freedom of expression and the arts are so important that not withstanding the threat you will go forward, decide the safety of your audience is so important, so primary you just can't take that responsibility and after a long

debate at 1:00 in the morning the family decided literally the show must go on. ladies and gentlemen, this is not going to work. this festival is going to go ahead. there is nothing against islam in this so th so they announced that they would go on the next day as planned but they had no idea if anyone would come. i mean think about it.n you mad when you made the decision to come here today if you have to wonder whether there was a possibility of a bombing at this event, what can that have radically changed the calculus especially those of you i see around with kids and it appears they have lots of children that came to their events. they thought they had to go ahead anyway. if we bow down we will just be sitting in a dark corner and there will be nothing. didn't know what would happen. and in fact thousands and thousands of people came out the next day more than they had had

before. and they were daylight and completely terrified. and he told me he ran up to a woman that had come into the venue with two small children and said you do know that there was a bombing yesterday and you do know there is a threat of more bombs today. and she said i know that, but i used to come to the festival with my mother and i still have those images into my mind and i want the festival to go on and we have to be here. so, with those amazing audiences they were able to finish the festival on schedule. then of course and because the sponsors were so afraid of the security threat so when i met them in 2010, they were actually in the middle of the first subsequent events that they were able to have been a missing then you bomb had gone off in 2008.

and it was an environment where they had began the systematic targeting of the schools that would later culminate in the attack of the heroic and you can ask having been to the bombing did they try to be careful or did they shy away from the danger and in fact what they decided to do this stage of the theater. so i had the honor of seeing a musical in the punjabi language performed by the girls in the grammar school and you could feel everyone holding their breath collectively to see if we would get to the end of this wonderful show and when we did there was a kind of group exhale and a burst of applause and i remember standing there in the middle of that ovation of women

and mothers and they thought that they made the headline two years ago for their pessimism but this night full of hope and optimism is just as important to the story but importantly it is a story that is much likely to be told. >> i wonder what you think the important lesson should be and what we should give do about the issues coming up. >> i thought about that a lot had to boil this down into the sort of take away and particularly the take away in the context of the u.s..

and the fundamentalist movement. there are journalists, artists, ordinary people who are defining those movements were sometimes risking losing their lives to stand up to those movements and we don't hear about those people and that has to change if we want to see a successful process defeating the movement globally which i think it's critical for human rights, we need to listen to people on the front lines who have the most experience with dealing with these movements and who have a very sophisticated analysis that doesn't often get translated into english. co english and we have an interest in for me.

>> if people are interested in lining up in the center aisle if you have a question. i want to ask about isis. they have come to power after you wrote this book but i know that it is going to be in a lot of people's mind and i wonder if you could talk a bit about what the appropriate strategy to the u.s. would be if it is a useful or appropriate answer to those tragedies that we are seeing in theory and iraq now. >> if you look back at the media coverage including "the new york times" about the story, the reality on the ground has been around for much longer than the media coverage when it was just

local people in iraq and syria, they were often standing up to these movements and were sometimes dying in droves i think that is a terrible shame. i think the world is now paying attention. but now because we we had waited i think that it would be even more difficult to really take on these movements. i think it is so important not just to think of isis as a security threat for which it is especially in the region but also globally. but to think of it as a threat to human rights, to think about the that the struggle and the human rights struggle command again to remember the kurds in both contexts who had been leading the charge against these movements and again i wonder why are we not hearing about them. so i think of that a very brave iraqi woman lawyer who was

killed in late september after speaking out very publicly denouncing isis in particular for the destruction of the struggle site in the hometown and i keep wondering why we never see her picture on television along with the pictures of the terribly murdered journalists and i'm glad we see the photographs that we should see her, too and those that have stood up to these movements. i wish i could have gone to iraq but for logistical reasons i wasn't able to. although i was lucky i was able to interview a very human rights defend her from having an organization called the organization of women's freedom in iraq. and this remarkable organization today is not only speaking out against isis atrocities against women including the practice of sexual slavery in what appears to be very widespread use of

rape, forcing women to dress in certain ways and using corporal punishment when women do not not, so they are denouncing those abuses. but they are also running a shelter on the ground in iraq for the women fleeing from violence and if they even have a helpline to look for number one in ten call that are in need of assistance. think about how courageous it is to do that work. so i think one of the key challenges is to find out how best to support those organizations and individuals on the ground who are taking this issue on. you can go to the website which is the acronym for the organization and find out ways to support them. i do think that is an appropriate response to those that systematically targeting civilians because it may be the only way to protect civilians and i do think that this is one of those cases.

that is a professor of international law i would say that always has to be used in accordance with international law. both of the un charter and the geneva conventions and their additional protocols. as i mentioned earlier, the left doesn't like -- the first part of what i said sometimes the force is necessary necessary into the right sometimes doesn't like the second part of the rules still apply. for me that isn't a reality. force can only be part of the solution. force is a very blunt instrument and a has to be part of a much broader approach that includes the support for human rights defenders in the region and that includes massive economic reconstruction and includes the support for humanists education which everywhere i went people told me what the most important long-term solution to the problem -- >> we have a question.

>> [inaudible] at the present moment and libya in the past in afghanistan and the distant pastdistant in relative terms. so, why aren't you talking out against that and isn't that the first thing to do as well as to produce the support for the propagandist etc. who are also underwriting the jihad must movement? >> i don't have that as the take away because everything is not always about us. [applause] people have their own regional dynamic. i do address the very negative

role that the u.s. foreign policy has played in the region including some of the things that you deleted to support in the past for the mujahedin groups and the most extreme of the groups in afghanistan and the war against the soviet union had hoped the problem to metastasize it caused young people came and fought and got training and it wasn't supported and went home. there was no question and i see this in the book that's what i believe was an illegal u.s. war in iraq in 2003 created the situation in a situation in which the problem is now unfolding and the u.s. was clearly warned by this including allies in the past who whom i didn't agree with a lot of things things that i agreed about this this piece team said if you overthrow saddam hussein, you will create 1,000 osama bin laden's and that is basically what happened.

there are the causes of the muslim fundamentalists. my father was an anthropologist and always explained that to me and i finally understood that meant internal and external and i think we have to look at all of those causes and layers of responsibility. i wonder in the middle east and north africa where i travel a lot people use the idea that this is all coming from the west as a kind of conspiracy theory that alleviates the responsibility having to talk about the cause is closer to home i could wave of religious education has been carried out. but you're absolutely right. for americans it is critical to have the discussion about how our policy has contributed to this problem and therefore how we have an obligation to help. [applause] >> i hear you talking about force.

let's talk unstable government and politics and how you separate the military -- i mean our history and my question to iraq currently have a stable government and do we see a stabilization of the iraqi government for the foreseeable future? isis took over because the army abandoned these fantastic weapons and we spent ten years and billions of dollars how do you separate the code mangling of the unstable government with military force? >> i think it is important that it's only part of the response. so the force that you need to try to protect the civilian population in the immediate circumstance a big part of the solution and the iraqi context has to be a political solution and a big piece of that is overcoming sectarianism in the

iraqi government. i know that there is some optimism about some of the new nominations but great pessimism about some of the interior minister who is said to have ties to the nasty militia groups that help to create some of the anger in iraq that helped to sort of foster this problem but one of the key things we need to do is to stop talking and sectarian terms. i heard a lot of them complaining about that they saw them as pushing a very sectarian agenda which was the agenda that they've really need to defeat to be able to move forward in iraq >> my question is from an american perspective it is difficult to get accurate information on what is going on in the middle east. do you think that al jazeera is a good source or would you recommend another source of the

best accurate information we can possibly get on what is going on currently in the middle east? still make a lot of people seem to like al jazeera as an alternative news source but i will tell you sometimes for me it looks like the fox news of arabia. [laughter] >> it depends. arabic and al jazeera english are a bit different but many people in the middle east and north africa especially the north defenders would tell you that especially al jazeera arabic is that it is a finance station that has promoted fundamentalism and has been soft on fundamentalism in many instances and so i would encourage you to look for alternative independent news sources. one that i love and write for a lost twice to publish voices from that region including in the translation is a wonderful website called "-open-double-quote see and you can find the voices from tunisia and serious and iraq and it's

critical that we find ways that are not communicating in english and make the material available. you can also do what i did although it is getting more dangerous and that is actually go to the region and talk to people. i interviewed 300 people from nearly 30 countries and i think you're right we cannot always believe what we are necessarily hearing in the headlines. you have to work hard yourself to get out there and find more of the truth. >> hello. my name is valerie brown, and i was wondering about, i think it's very important we should be engaged with what goes on in the middle east. i am a writer as well, and we have problems in america, too. and i was wondering what could a person do to get engaged with what goes on with -- i was

wondering what can a person do to get informed -- i noticed you were talking about that is important for a person that has insight to be a part of a movement that can make a difference. and i was wondering what can i do to get engaged with what goes on? i'm in a struggle in america, and when you talk about the middle east and the young woman neck being slashed, and the terrorists group getting involved. in america, it's important for us in america to be a part, a part of a movement that not only affects us abroad, but also

domestically. and i was wondering what can we do to get engaged? >> i think it's true there are very serious human rights problems here that need to be taken care of but i think we also have to care about what happens on the other side of the world. i believe in universal human rights. i believe in solidarity. every one of the stories i heard wherever i went with was my father's home country or another, we became a part of the. i hope we will both think locally, think globally and act locally but think globally and act locally. seems both of those pieces are important. one of the things we can do in terms of people getting involved is bring some of the people like those in my book to the us to talk to be heard for themselves. last the last . .. te for the buck and there is an excerpt you can share.

salon.com ran an article of the stories with the stories and you can share those as well. i think it is critical when of the things we can do is help these people be heard here. >> to talk about the egyptian military establishment and their democracy in the form of the muslim brotherhood clerics and how are we supposed to choose between which is better in terms of human rights in that struggle because both seem to be lacking in human rights. >> the first thing i have to say today when asked a question about egypt is to express solidarity after the horrible killings yesterday of 33 egyptian soldiers in the peninsula and if you think about the amount of press coverage that was given, but we have hardly heard anything about this mass killing of egyptian soldiers. it appeared by ag hottest group

in the peninsula yesterday in a litany of killings of law enforcement and military personnel. the situation is of course very complicated and i don't think we have too much time for me to go into it. there is no question that the military backed government is also committing abuses. but i think that i likewise understand why the mass movement of egyptians last summer, not this past summer but the summer before strongly felt they did not want the muslim brotherhood in power when the they saw the way the muslim brotherhood was trying to install and they still believe that the muslim brotherhood was further cracking down on the press and was imposing more and more. so i can understand but popular anger against the muslim brotherhood that led to this

posting by the military. now the activists i talked to, one in particular that i think of as a women's rights activist was so determined to still find another alternative which is either the military or the muslim brotherhood and i think that is the challenge. one of the things that they stressed to me is one thing that can help is if we really understand that there are multiple forces of threats now there is a discussion in the west about the military's repression and it's a good to discuss that. women's rights activists have been put in jail, journalists come all of that is wrong whether it is happening in the name of fighting the brotherhood or not but we also have to talk about the large-scale terrorism that is being carried out by the movement and some allege at

least some are happening with some collusion in the muslim brotherhood but that isn't clear and that challenge remains. it wasn't designed to install a theocratic dictatorship or to bring back the military. it was about building something better. and in my book i called it the imaginary and the poetic republic of north africa during the phrase from a writer. i still believe that those republics are out there somewhere. >> i was wonder how you balanced fundamentalism and the islam of phobia that is taking place -- i was wondering how you balance the fundamentalism with not being seen as part of the islam of phobia that is taking hold in much of the media in the u.s. and what do you mean by the

term? >> i don't use the term is one of phobia because i think it mixes the criticism of islam and i believe the criticism of any religion is acceptable depending on how you do this perhaps, but it mixes that with discrimination against the real evidence of a particular faith which is entirely unacceptable. the term i talk about this discrimination against muslims or people that assume the muslim we have seen the rise of the far right in the west because a particular anti-muslim and anti-immigrant agenda. that is not my agenda and it pains me to say that in my book. i believe that both the right and the left have gotten this wrong and at the far right increasingly here we are hearing this sort of suggestion that all muslims are somehow waiting to be sparked into action and that is just offensive.

but i absolutely believe that people of muslim heritage have the right and indeed the responsibility to speak out against the fundamentalist movement. and i take very seriously to plead from a very brave pakistani human rights lawyer who asked us in the diaspora to please speak up in support of the people in pakistan working for peace, working against terrorism and i asked the problem and she said i firmly believe that if you speak openly and clearly about this problem thereby distinguishing the phenomenon which doesn't reflect the views of the muslims, they will actually be less discrimination, not more. and that is what i am trying with many people to do. [applause] >> thank you very much for joining us. >> you're watching booktv, televisn for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at booktv.org.

>> richard brookhiser, senior editor of "national review," recounts abraham lincoln's affinity for the founding fathers. this program from the new york historical society in new york a city lasts about an hour. >> we are absolutely thrilled to welcome back richard brookhisera to the new york historical society. as you know, he is a renowned to historian author, senior editor of "national review" as well asa a columnist for "americantor history." in 2004 mr. brookhiser served as historian curator for our really spectacular and important andn n path-breaking for this institution exhibition on alexander hamilton, the man who made modern america. we also want to recognize mr. brookhiser's receipt of the national humanities medal. he's, of course, run numerous books on revolutionary america

including biographies on george washington, alexander hamilton and james madison. his most recent book which wasit released just last week is "founder's son: a life ofnt abraham lincoln," and it is already getting wonderful reviews. as always, i'd like to ask before i invite mr. brookhiser to the stage that you make sure that anything that makes noise like a cell phone is switched off, and now please do join me in welcoming richard brookhiser to the stage. [applause] >> thank you, louise, for that -- i'm being adjusted here. [laughter] they didn't need this stuff in the 19th century. they also didn't need to tell people to be quiet, because they wouldn't. [laughter]th it's always a pleasure and an honor to be here at the historical society. i just want to thank some people who are in the room; my

publicist from basic, cassie nelson. basic books has done a terrific job with this book. it's handsome, they're really publishing it well. i couldn't be happier. roger hertog, i'll embracer him again -- embarrass him again. he particularly was very generous supporting the publicity of this book, very grateful l.ppor lew lehrman, whom i've known since 1982. he gave me crucial early advice when i was trying to find my way through the land of lincoln. there have been 15,000 books published on lincoln. i guess now 15,001, and so one does need help. lou was very generous with it. and also my friend and agent for 20 years, michael carlyle. this is our tenth book together. we started with washington, now we're with lincoln, andrew

johnson next. [laughter]our we'll try to do better than that. [laughter] abraham lincoln was preoccupied with the founding fathers from 1854 when the missouri wit compromise was repealed, and he was roused, as he put it, as he'd never been before all the way through appomattox and the civil war to thend of his life. to the end of his life. in 1863 in the get fits burg --d gettysburg address he wan with four d -- he began with four score and -- at another great speech in new york, cooper union, he kicked off his

presidential campaign. he referred to the founders again. kic as our fathers marked slavery,t so let it be again marked asen evil not to be -- as an evil not to be extended. let us speak as they spoke and s act as they acted upon it. and six years before that in the speech that kicked off his mature political career in peoria in october 1854, again hs references the founding fathers. a republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust.ga let usin turn and wash it whiten the spirit of the revolution. let us return slavery to the position our fathers gave can it. gave it. and these examples can be multiplayed dozens -- multiplied dozens of times. lincoln looks to the founding fathers for inspiration, helied looks to them for guidance, and he uses them to persuade and

lead his fellow americans. tonight i want to briefly look at where that interest came from, how it arose. what the founding fathers gave t him, what he looked for from them. ng fathers gave him. the three most important were george washington thomas paine and thomas jefferson. but i also want to touch on to other fathers. thomas lincoln his actual father will never rises with dissatisfaction from his own father.

born in virginia thomas lincoln 1778 moved to kentucky and there he had his family daughter sarah, abraham and a little boy thomas that only live three days. thomas linkedin was a subsistence farmer and a carpenter to depict tem and as a ne'er-do-well but historians and biographers have revised that thomas he had some problem with land titles in kentucky, but everybody did. surveying in that state was just a nightmare. that's one of the reasons the

lincolns moved to indiana and then to illinois. thomas lincoln was on several juries, which was a sign of respectability, and he was also a trustee of a baptist church that he and his wife belonged to. he sent his children to little one-room schools on several occasions. now, this wasn't for a long time. if you add up all the time that abraham lincoln spent in school, it as up to a -- it adds up to a year. but his father did send him. he wanted him to learn how to realize, to write and how to do simple mathematics up to the level of cross multiplication. these were useful skills, and he wanted his son to have them. but father and son never truly got along. they were not alike. they inhabited different mental worlds. thomas lincoln wanted his son to

read, but he could not understand abraham's passion for reading. for abraham lincoln reading was both an escape and also an explanation of the world. it was a way to have an alternative life and to understand better the life you were living. and this was something that was just beyond thomas lincoln's ken. when lincoln was running for president, he wrote a campaign autobiography, and in it he said that his father never learned more than to bunglingly write his own name. there's a lot of scorn in that word, "bunglingly." i learned how to write, you could have learned how to write if you wanted to, but you never did. i think that's the symbol of the distance between father and son. now, there were some things that

abraham did get from his father. his father was strong, and so was abraham. and in the frontier conditions in which they lived, this was very useful. it meant you wouldn't be bullied when you moved into a new place and were hazed by the locals, had to do a challenge match with the local tough guy, you could beat him or hold your own, and this happened both to thomas and to abraham. so that was one important resemblance. ooze resemblance was -- another resemblance was that thomas lincoln was template, he was not a drinker. this was a country of alcoholics. the consumption of liquor that ordinary people performed is simply astonishing. and neither thomas nor his son, abraham, drank. maybe the most important resemblance is that thomas lincoln was a great storyteller.

two of abraham's cousins who lived in with the lincoln famil, dennis and john, they both testified to this, and john hanks said that thomas was as good a storyteller as abraham, dennis said that he was better. so this must have been a quality that the son saw in his father and learned from. but abraham never acknowledged those resemblances, never mentioned them. when he was 21, he left the nest, went off to live on his own. there are some rather strained letters between him and his father. the father dies in 1851. abraham named a horse after him, old tom. [laughter] then he named one of his sons. ten years later when he's about to leave for washington to be inaugurated, he visits his father's grave, and he notes

that there's no stone on it, no monument, and he says he'll have to arrange for one to be put up. he never did. so that was the relationship between this father and this son. none of us ever gets everything we want from our parents. it's not possible. but especially when there's a great gap between with our expectation and what they give us, then we look for substitutes, we look for surrogates. and for a young man in early 19th century america, the handiest substitutes were the founding fathers. the men of the generation just passed who had won the revolution, who'd written the constitution. and many of these men were still active when lincoln was a little boy growing up. thomas jefferson had one month still in the white house afterabraham was born -- after

abraham was born. he was followed by eight years of james madison who was followed by eight years of james monroe, the last founder president. but by the time abraham lincoln is in his 20s in the 1830s, the very last of the founding fathers are dying off. none of them ever went to indiana or illinois. lincoln never went to the places they lived. so the only way he could encounter them was in books. and the first founder he end countered -- can end countered in a book was george washington. and he met him in parson weems' life of george washington. this was one of the first biographies that was published. weels knew very slightly. weems was not the rector of it.

but he claimed that connection, and he was an itinerant book deal or as well as a clergyman, and he realized that biography of washington would be a good seller. so washington dies in 1799, weems comes out with his biography in 1800. he makes some changes to it as the 1808 version that abraham lincoln would read. and weems' biography, it's still in print. you can still, you know, you can still buy it on amazon, and we still remember stories from it. the writing is, the sentences are not good, but the paragraphs are great, and the stories are terrific. and the proof is that we still remember some of them. the most famous one is young george and the cherry tree. his father gives him a hatchet, the little boy swings it around, and he accidentally chops the

bark of a prized cherry tree. the father asks george how did this happen, who did this, and george says you know i can't tell a lie, pa, i did it. and then his father thanks him for being honest. so story told, lesson learned. but that's not what impressed abraham lincoln about weems' life of washington. and we know this because lincoln said what impressed him in 1861 when he was on his way to his first inauguration. he'd left springfield, illinois, by train, he traveled through seven states on his way to washington, and he made appearances in six of them. he was showing the flag as the country was falling apart. and in february he came to trenton, new jersey, and he addressed the new jersey state senate. and this he talked about weems' life of washington and the battle of trenton, and that's

what had most impressed him in weems' book -- weems'book. he said boy even though i was, i suspected that there must have been something more important even than independence that those men fought for, something that was of value to all men in all times and places. and what lincoln meant by that was liberty. and he's drawing a parallel between the revolution in 1776 and the troubles that he fears he is about to face in 1861. and if you go back and read weems' life of washington, you see that that is exactly the lesson that weems draws from the battle of trenton. he has dramatic descriptions of the crossing of the delaware, he gives a lot of pages to the hessians, he depicts them as sort of comic marauders with

heavy, almost vaudeville january accents. but when they're captured, they're pit i can't believe prisoners, and the americans treat them well, so they change sides. he introduces annal gore call figure which is hovering over their line of march, and this is the figure of liberty. and he says she has been driven from her home in europe. america is her last refuge. he's presenting the battle of trenton as a struggle for liberty in the world. and the line he gives to washington before the battle

agains is all i ask of you -- begins is all i ask of you men is you remember what you are about to fight for. and in 1861 abraham lincoln remembered. and he told the new jersey state senate you know how impressions that are made on us when we're boys stick with us throughout our lives. so it was an all-male senate. that's who he was addressing. so george washington for lincoln was not a good boy. he was great man. and a great man because he was a champion of liberty. the second founding father lincoln encounters is in his 20s, and this is thomas paine. paine was the great journalist of the american revolution. i would say one of the greatest journalists who ever lived. "common sense" was his great polemic in favor of american independence. the american crisis, which he wrote on the eve of the battle

of trenton, has the greatest lead paragraph i would say ever written in journalism, "these are the times that try men's souls." on it goes. and lincoln read all of those works. they were reprinted. they were in print. but he also read paine's book "the age of reason," which was his ferocious attack on revealed religion. paine had written this in france. he's gone over there for the french revolution, been thrown in jail, and while he was there, he begun "the age of reason." he argues that all religions are falsehoods that are set up to terrify and enslave men. and he makes some cracks at islam and more at judaism, but most of his fire is for christianity. and he writes the sort of the ideal or the anti-ideal book for

a bible-reading public. his technique is to take the bible to look for any inconsistency, any contradiction, any seeming inconsistency or contradiction and to make relentless fun of it. so lincoln reads this book and, like many 20-year-olds, he thinks this is great, this explains everything. jesus was a bastard, he was an illegitimate child, who could believe in the virgin birth? the accounts of the crucifixion all disagree with each other, on and on and on. and we know that lincoln was so impressed with this, or there's a story that when he was a postmaster in his early 20s -- this was one of the jobs he held when he was trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life, also to pick up a little money. and postmasters in those days

did not work out of post offices. they kept a desk in someone's store, and that's where they sorted out the mail, that's where they read everybody else's newspapers. so lincoln is at his desk, and he's telling all his pals about his new religious views, and he says i've written a pamphlet myself, you know, and this is going to show that jesus was illegitimate and only test for religious belief should be reason. and the owner of the store, an elderly man named samuel hill, took the manuscript from lincoln and put it in the stove. because lincoln was already interested in politics, and mr. hill knew that attacking christianity was not the way to win votes in illinois in the early 1830s. [laughter] so, and lincoln learned over the next few years to be discreet about his views, and over time they would change.

hard to track because he became very close-mouthed about a lot of his opinions. but one thing he learned lifelong from paine was how to use humor to win serious arguments. whether you like paine or dislike him, whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit that paine is brilliant at making serious points humorously. his attack on the virgin birth is that if any girl now were to say that she was made pregnant by a ghost and that an angel told her so is, even if she swore to it, would she be believed? now, and there are lots of ways to think about the virgin birth, but this is a very aggressive way. it takes it very literally, very championshipically, and -- common senseically, and it bores from that angle.

and that's the kind of argument that when lincoln came to master it, he would use again and again. he already knew how to be funny. he'd learned that from his father, he'd learned how to tell stories. but this was using humor to make serious points. and one of lincoln's jokes he told over and over again when democrats would accuse him and other republicans of being race mixers, because if you want to limit slavery, you must, you must like black people and, therefore, you must want to sleep with them, right? so lincoln would say just because i don't want a black woman for a slave doesn't mean that i have to have her for a wife. i can just leave her alone, you know? and sometimes he would elaborate on this. it always got a laugh, but it also made a serious point. because if you're leaving her alone, aren't you also leave aring her to be free? so he's amusing his audience, but he's also getting them to

think. and i think that is something that he retained from his youthful encounter with thomas paine. the third founding father who influenced him -- and this influence begins to show itself in the 1850s -- is thomas jefferson. and it's the jefferson of the declaration of independence. jeff had a very long life -- jefferson had a very long life. there were a lot of hesitations and second thoughts and retreats from some of his earlier opinions as he aged. but it was not that jefferson who lincoln invoked. it was the jefferson who wrote the declaration of independence in 1776. and lincoln would use this over and over as an expression of his principles and of the republican party's principles and of the

principles that should guide americans if they confronted the question of slavery's expansion. in 1854 he called the deck la asian of -- declaration of independence the sheet anchor of american republicanism. a sheet anchor is the toughest anchor a ship has. that's what a ship puts down in a storm. and the storm was beginning. so lincoln calls the declaration our sheet anchor. in 1859 he said the declaration gave the axioms and definitions of a free society. this was in response to an invitation to come to boston to celebrate jefferson's birthday. lincoln couldn't go, but he sent a letter that he had clearly labored over, and it was a -- [inaudible] to jefferson is. he said all honor to jefferson

who had the coolness and the forecast to insert and into a merely revolutionary document a principle which should be valid for all times and all ages. and then, of course, his final, his final ringing of this chime is what i started with, the gettysburg address, where he looks back four score and seven years ago to the declaration, and he says that this is the proposition to which this country is dedicated. now, the gettysburg address and the other speeches that day were given to dedicate a cemetery. and there were a lot of cemeteries filled during the civil war. lincoln was not a warrior president. he had served in the blackhawk war which was an indian war hen he was a young -- when he was a

young man. he didn't see any action, but he had seen some men that had been scalped. he knew his own grandfather, abraham lincoln -- also abraham lincoln -- had been saved from an indian attack when he was of a little boy, an indian had shot, rather, had shot and killed abraham lincoln and his son thomas, lincoln's father, was saved by a brother who shot the indian and rescued him from the field where this violent encounter had happened. and also in lincoln's life he'd a mother, a sister and a sweetheart to diseases. and these were, these were common losses in early 19th century america. but the civil war was uncommon. and even a man who is not in arms himself could not be insulated from it. elmer ellsworth was one of

lincoln's law students. he'd read law in lincoln's office, he'd accompanied lincoln on his train trip to his first inauguration, and ellsworth was in the army, and he was killed in a union operation to take the city of alexandria from rebels early in the spring of 1861. at the end of 1861, edward baker who was an old friend of lincoln's from illinois politics, lincoln had named one of his sons after him, he was killed at the battle of ball's bluff. lincoln was described at the funeral as "weeping like a child." also in 1861 a man named william mccullough asked lincoln for his help to get in an illinois regiment. mccullough had been a court clerk in bloomington, illinois, on the circuit that lincoln traveled, and the reason he needed the president's help was that mccullough was 50 years

old, and he'd lost an arm in a farming accident. but lincoln intervened for him. he got in his regiment, he became a colonel, and in 1862 he was killed in northern mississippi in the run up to the siege of vixburg. -- vicksburg. lincoln also saw a lot of wounded. noah brooks, who was a reporter who'd known him in illinois, then moved to california, came back to washington to cover the war for the sacramento union. he accompanied lincoln on many visits to hospitals that the president made with the first lady. and on one of these visits lincoln and brooks or were going down the line of beds, and ahead of them was a charitable woman who was handing out literature for the wounded soldiers. and one man takes the pamphlet that she hands him, and he looks at it, and he sets it down laughing. and when lincoln and brooks come up to the man, lin cob says, ah

that woman, you know, she meant well. it probably wasn't nice to laugh at her. and the soldier says, well, she's given me a pamphlet on the sin of dancing, and both my legs have been shot off. and, you know, this has the shape of a joke. but the joke was on the president. and also on the legless soldier, of course. so lincoln is seeing this in people that he knows, he sees it in visits that he makes and as commander in chief, of course, he is getting all the casualty reports. they're all being funneled to him. and it's horror after horror. the battle of gettysburg two years into the war, it's about the length of the mexican war and the war of 1812, the other wars of the 9th sent re. -- 19th century. we talk of it now as the turning point in the or war, and

certainly lincoln hoped it was, but still the war went on. and the problem for lincoln, the particular problem for lincoln, it was related to his logic. he had a very logical cast to his mind. he was also a determinist. the baptist church that his family belonged to believed in predestination, and lincoln, you know, he left the church, but he kept the belief, he kept that belief. ask one of the little phrases -- and one of the little phrases he had was that the motive was born before the man. so even before you're box the motives of all your actions are determined because every act has a cause, and that cause also had a cause, and so on back and back and back. so everybody is cast into a web of determination. by the civil war, you're trapped in such a web.

so lincoln thinks to himself, and he makes a note of this, and he talks about it with a couple people. he thinks to himself, god rules the world. remember, paine was never an atheist. he always believed in god and so did lincoln. but god rules the world, god rules everything. and yet the war happens and the war continues. god could have stopped it from happening, he could stop it at any moment, yet it still goes on. both sides pray to him, they both can't be answered. maybe neither side is being answered. what does god want in continuing this war? and lincoln beats his head against this problem for years. and then his solution or his best attempt at a solution is revealed in the his second inaugural address.

in march of 1865. the war is not over yet, but it looks as if it's ending. and here's what he tells americans in this state paper. "if we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of god must needs come but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove and that he gives to both north and south this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which which the believers in a living god always ascribe to him?" if god wills that it continue until all the wealth, 250 years of unrequited

toil shall be sunk and shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said that judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether." now, this is a very punitive father, more punitive than thomas lincoln ever was. you'll also notice that the founding fathers have disappeared from this speech. the gettysburg address said four score and seven years ago, going back to 1776. but the second inaugural says 250 years of unrequited toil. 1865 minus 250 takes you back to jamestown which was the first american colony, the first colony to accept slaves from africa. so the founding fathers have become a dimensionless point in

250 years of our experience with slavery. and because of that william mccull log and edward with baker and the young man whose legs were blown off and so many other people who never owned a slave, most of the southern soldiers did not own slaves or never saw a slave. you know, not a lot of slaves in key wisconsin. but -- in wisconsin. but they have to die by thousands. you can see in the speech how far lincoln has traveled from paine. paine was revolted by the notion that god would accept the sacrifice of his son as a payment for men's sins. but lincoln is now saying that god requires the deaths of americans to pay for the national sip of slavery. sin of slavery. but that's not where the second inaugural ends. there's a last paragraph, a last sentence.

"with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cher you should a just and -- cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." and when i, when i came to write about that, i noticed that all those verbs and all those verbal phrases are two-syllable verbs. strive on, finish, bind up, care for, do all, achieve, cherish. and i thought it's like walking.

it's as simple as walking. it's as hard as walking after you've walked so long and there's so far still to go. and this is what lincoln gave to america a month before he died, this is what he gives to us now, strive on, do all, achieve. thanks very much. i'll take your questions. [applause] ank you very much. i will take your questions. [applause] you should know to ask a question there are microphones in the aisles so come up to a microphone and state your name and please remember only ask one question no speeches with a

rising inflection is. [laughter] if you read and dash read the debates they were rooter then they would say hit him again are sometimes they would say the white man is a disgrace to light people but we have to be more pte >> thank you. i'm jim, i'm a docent here. you -- lincoln got his hatred of slavery from his father, and as you mentioned, other inspiration from jefferson and washington. how did he coincide his hatred of slavery with their belief in slavery? >> well, certainly his father, his father may be a source of it. that is probably one of the reasons that he left kentucky. i mean, the two reasons are troubles with land titles because surveying was just, you know, was just a mess. there were conflicting surveys, and thomas lincoln had had to go

to court because of rival claims, and he just, he wanted to get to the old northwest territory because the federal government had surveyed that and guaranteed the surveys. also, there's also, i think, the possibility that he didn't want to compete with farmers who had slaves. i mean, he was a small farmer, these were bigger farmers, who needs that? so that was an incentive for him to leave. i notice that in one of lincoln's books, one of his primers it was called the kentucky primer, and one of the questions that the kids were given is who has more cause to complain, the indian or the slave? it was a book written in 1790, and it's, you know, it's a kind of academic exercise for school kids. but there it was. and then, of course, people -- lincoln took two trips to new orleans.

it was the only place in the deep south he ever went when he was an older teenager. and people have speculated, well, what did he see there? i mean, new orleans is, you know, lots of black people, free black people, slaves, slave markets, slaves being sold, slaves being inspected, you know? how's the body on that young ' un, you know? some people would be thrilled by that. we have some accounts that lincoln was appalled. but there are problems with those accounts. one is thirdhand, another is by one of his cousins who didn't actually get to new orleans, he stopped in st. louis. so lincoln might have told him this later, but he didn't see it firsthand. so with the founding fathers who, those who were slave owners who include washington and jefferson, lincoln always said

that they found slavery existing in the country in which they were born. and the policy that they wished to follow was what we would now call containment. that's my word, that wasn't lincoln's word. but he said they cut off its expansion in one direction by forbidding it in the north, and they cut off its supply in the other by stipulating in the constitution that the slave trade could be ended in 1808 and, indeed, it was. he also made the point that although the constitution gives guarantees to slavery, it says that fugitive slaves should be returned to their owners who come to seek them, and it counts slaves in the apportionment of the house of representatives. but it never uses the word "slave" or "slaves" or

"slavery." and lincoln would have read madison's notes on the constitutional convention, because they were published in 1840. and there was a set of them in the springfield, in the state library in springfield. and there madison says -- mad's a slave owner -- madison's a slave owner, and madison says we should not use this language in the constitution. you know, and lincoln will later say so that when slavery has disappeared, there should be no sign that it ever existed in the great charter of our liberties. so this is lincoln's view of the founding fathers. that they hoped it would wither away, that they took certain concrete steps to cause it, ultimately, to wither away, that america had strayed from this program, america had let it expand, you know, across the

southwest and in 1854 with the repeal of the missouri compromise, there's the possibility that it could go into kansas and nebraska. and this is what really changes lincoln's life and changes american politics. but he is saying that this was their program, i'm getting back to it. so this is how he tries to reconcile that thorny point. yes. >> yes, what's the name of the sweetheart that he lost to disease? >> his first sweetheart was ann rutledge. and, you know, i have to say there's a civil war over every point of lincoln biography. [laughter] and ann rutledge is one of the contended, contending subjects. i mean, there are lincoln scholars who said, oh, no, no,

no, you know, there was nothing there. i mean, and their evidence is people who knew lincoln then, like half of them say, oh, he was really torn up by this. and then there are half of them who say, ah, you know, he didn't seem to be affected. i didn't see anything. but i think that's a stupid reason. you know? people don't show everyone what they think. do you show everyone you know what you think? you show the people who are closest to you. also some people are just dumb. i mean, they wouldn't know -- [laughter] oh, yeah, i didn't see anything. [laughter] but numbers of people have said, you know, oh, he was, he was distressed, we had to hide the razors, he talked about killing himself. and it seems like the thing -- one thing i learned in writing this book, i mean, i knew lincoln was melancholy. all you have to do is look at a picture, and you can tell that. but i did not, i was not aware of the depth of his depression.

this was a serious, lifelong curse that he bore. and after ann rutledge dies, the thought that a torments him is that rain will fall on her grave. now, illinois was having the wettest summer then on record. it had rained for four and a half straight months. but that's a very depressive thought, because rainfalls everywhere. rain falls everywhere. it falls on us, it falls on houses, it falls on graves, you can't stop it. but if you're depressed, you think it's falling on me, it's falling on me, it's falling on mine, i can't stand it. so that's the name of the young woman, and that's what i believe he experienced. yes, sir. >> my name is norman arnoff, and i'm a member of the abraham lincoln association. my question to you is which has the greatest pull on abraham

lincoln's thought and conduct, the declaration of independence or the united states constitution? >> well, lincoln writes an interesting memo to himself when he's president-elect, and and he never used these exact words in a speech, but it's -- sometimes he would jot down thoughts, and he might incorporate them later, or he would just leave them there. but in this particular thought he uses a biblical phrase that a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pictures of silver. and ironically, it had just been used in a letter to him by his old friend alexander stephens. his colleague from his one term in colleague, a whig from georgia. who was urging lincoln to

condemn john brown's raid which had happened the year before. and stephens would become the vice president of the confederacy, but up to the last minute he was a unionist. and he's looking for lincoln to, like, make some gesture to the south. and he says a word fitly spoken by you now would be like apples of gold and pictures of silver. lin cob had already -- can lincoln had already read that, he didn't need stevens to instruct him in the bible. so there it is in his mind. and later on when he's writing to himself, he uses this phrase again and he says that the declaration is the ap apple of gold, the constitution is picture of silver. now, the most eminent lincoln scholar of the last 60 years is harry jaffe that, and he has used this phrase over and over again to say that the declaration is more important to lincoln than the constitution. certainly gold is more valuable than silver. i mean, it is.

but the metaphor, it's jewelry. you know? robert alter, the hebrew scholar and translator, he says pictures of silver means jewelry, like a jewel frame. so the picture of silver, it protects the apple of gold, you know? it preserves it, it guards it, that's how we keep it. and, indeed, lincoln says in this note so let neither be changed or altered. you know? and he's the man who, you know, in his self-presentation he says i'm the man who holds to both of these things. you know, there are some people who want to chuck the declaration. they either -- well, they either openly disdain it, or they reinterpret it. you know, stephen douglas says all men are created equal, it doesn't mean negroes, it doesn't mean savage indians.

and lincoln said, no, men means men. the continental congress knew what they were signing off on. men means member. then -- men means men. then he says there are also people who hate the constitution. these would be ablutionists. william lloyd garrison burped it. and lincoln always says i'm the man who stands with both. so in answer to your question, yes, the declaration is more important, but they're equally important, you know? and lincoln would never, you know, would never untangle them or distangle them. that's what he'd tell you -- >> i would go with the lie sin yum address and the rule of law. >> well, you know, lincoln puts a lot out there, but i think he's, he is the one who is going

to uphold both of them. yes, sir. >> how was lincoln eligible and successful as a president without a real education? >> well, he was self-educated. i mean, he, you know, he went to these five one-room schoolhouses, two in kentucky before he was 7 and three more in indiana. there were lots of people who were better read than he was. people in his own cabinet. i mean, i'm sure william seward was much better read than abraham lincoln, much more widely read. lincoln loved shakespeare, he never read all his plays. , but you know, what lincoln read, he read pretty seriously, he read pretty deeply. so, you know, lincoln, he is an autodidact. he teaches himself. one of his law partners, his second law partner, steven low began, i think the first name was steven, he said lincoln's

general knowledge of the law was never very great. but william herndon, his third law partner, said he always dug up the root. you know, if there was any case, he would just, he would master all the details, he would master all the precedents for that case. that's the way his mind works. i mean, he fastens on something, and he bores in. and the most moving testimony to that, his mother died when he was 9, then his father married again. the stepmother was a remarkable woman. she knew she had a remarkable stepson. her name was sara bush lincoln. and she was interviewed as an old lady by lincoln's last law partner, william herndon, who did what he would now call an oral history. and, you know, he knew that this friend of his was a remarkable man, and he studied him, he observed him. and after he was killed, he decided to write a biography,

and he started interviewing people, and e realized there's -- he realized there's stuff i never heard about, stuff i was never aware of. and he did dozens of interviews with people who knew him well, a little, smart people, stupid people, all sorts of people. it's amazing work. but maybe the most moving one is he looks up sara bush lincoln who's this old lady. and her husband's dead, her son has just been killed. he goes to meet her, and he thinks, at first he thinks they're having dip, it's too late. -- having dinner, it's too late. she's gone, i won't be able to get anything. but he starts talking about the old days, he warms her up, and then she gives this terrific interview. and she says when lincoln was a boy and he didn't understand anything, he had to ask, you know, what did this mean? what were these people talking about? and then he would write it down,

and he would rephrase it. and he'd keep doing it until he had it fixed in his mind. and then he'd, if he was writing it on a piece of wood, he'd shave it off so he had a clean piece again. but he had to, like, figure things out, get them fixed in his mind. and that's the way he continued to educate himself. yes, ma'am. >> thank you. i'm jane mccall politti, and i was just wounderring if you'd turned up -- wondering if you'd turned up any literature about newton bateman. he was my great, great grandfather and a friend of abraham lincoln's. >> no, sorry. [laughter] but, look, there are -- i mean, look in the indexes of lincoln biographies. >> okay. >> you know, michael burlingame has a two volume, it's huge, look at the collected lincoln papers which are online, i mean, there ought to be a way of

chasing this down. >> oh, i have seen, he was dependent in public schools, director of public schools in springfield -- >> well, that's my best advice -- >> and he shared the same law office -- >> -- relationship. >> -- with abraham lincoln anyway. thank you. ... >> can i ask you a what if question? what if he had not been assassinated? with the south and reconstruction? >> johnson was a bad pick pick, was that he? and what is astonishing is two presidents had died already and abraham