new york state assembly when he was managing editor of another paper in new york. a member of the assembly and lieutenant governor of new york while he was editor of the "new york times." that beats even greely, and here is 150 years ago if you were alive 150 years ago you would have sea henry raymond has done the hat trick. he is editor of the "new york times," chairman of the republican national committee, and he is running for congress as a republican from manhattan in new york city. and just in his spare time, he writes a campaign biography of abraham lincoln about 700 pages of lincoln's speeches with commentary, which is the equivalent of campaign biographies where are very important in the 1850s and '60s so that's the equivalent of actually producing the television commercials for the candidate. so that's all in a day's work for the editor of "the new york

times." i found i admired raymond a great deal. greely called him the little villain, a nickname that stuck. cartoonists portrayed him as a very little fellow with a big beard. but he stuck to and it made "the new york times --" he committed "the new york times" to the same idea of all the news that is fit to print that it still practices today, albeit under a different ownership. >> -- how does he fit into this scenario. >> bennett was the first on the scene and was the oldest and born in scotland, before the turn of the 19th century, fell in love with newspapers, had a facility for language so he got jobs as a translator of foreign news, and then ultimately wrote so many good things about the andrew jackson administration that he expected that jackson and jackson's successor, martin

van buren, would find a way to get him money to start his own newspaper. the administration didn't like it. vaguely foreign, a little smarmy and from that day on, bennett is more independent than practically any newspaper editor in the country. totally prodemocratic racist antisemitic, a little crazy, but amazing self-promoter. he wrote about himself the way other reporters wrote about politicians and he thought the world wanted to know about his come examination goings his schedule his romances he founded the "new york herald" as a penny newspaper, like a tabloid, and became the most popular newspaper in the country. probably would have been the most influential if it was instruct lay democratic party paper, or openly.

he was very mach democratted it to -- but said hi hated all politicians, hated the pope, hated the ashe bishop of new york. hated lincoln liked douglass for a while and then hate him. greely called raymond the little villain, but bennett got into duels and incidents on the street. walking on the tens of the new york symptom exchange a fellow publisher whacked him with the kane and knock him down the sets so pennet buts out a editioning that -- he lived to do another edition. a iraq cause time. these are to three dominant new york character. >> greely would have been twitter, and bennett would have been facebook with the post0s, i just had a cheeseburger. >> exactly.

exactly. that's very good. >> so, let's get to lincoln. >> use this for the rest of my book tour. >> somewhere between chopping wood and reading i by candlelight in his log cab begin, abraham lincoln started to devour newspapers and i took an interest how he could use them. how did this get started. >> newspapers were around, and it is true, the-in in the yin and yang of lincoln. we like to think of him reading the bible and shakes spears but visitors spoke about him spreading out this newspapers bigger than today's nontabloid papers and devouring them and memorizing facts as he memorized shakespeare and biblical passages. when he became postmaster that was a great job for him because people mailed newspapers and it was much cheaper to mail a newspaper than to mail a letter.

so that people in fact would write messages to people in their newspapers. and keep in touch with their family by posting messages in the newspaper. so congress of course took great umbrage at this rather than equalize the postage rate the banned the use of special messages in newspapers so people got around it by circling letters and doing a crossword. how important the newspapers were. so lincoln gets new salem and all of these subscribers suddenly finding they're arriving in nonpristine condition. they're opened and refolded and then they get the idea our new poster is reading our newspapers first. they get a kick out of it. it's amusing. and lincoln becomes the official agent of the journal new newspaper founded in springfield, illinois byarden

whigs, siemian francis and his brothers who became lincoln's first newspaper sponsor and lincoln began feeding them editorials anonymous editorials attacking democrats, and when he decided finally to run for the state legislator no surprise in the newspaper championed him as if he was combination of paul bunyan and god, and the relationship existed for 30 years plus. well, 30 years of lincoln's life in illinois. the journal was his trusted organ, as they put it in those days. doesn't sound entirely kosher to say the newspaper was lincoln's organ but a in those days it was accepted, it was his tribune his messenger. anything lynn lib wanted to community to the community was in the -- so his political career became as one with his newspaper career.

>> how would a politician and specifically how did lincoln rangel the newspaper to make sure that he was controlling his message? because newspapers have a tendency to get a little independent. >> well, politicians -- again it was a sim sim by another -- they were allies but government printing contract, if your party has a legislative majority you got the government printing contract. very luke contractive. the difference between success or failure in the case of many weekly newspapers like the journal that then became twice weekly and eventually daily. better than that when you got into positions of power you could appoint the editor to some official position that would provide them additional income. so steven a. dug loss has his

own official organ in springfield, the illinois state register. its editor becomes a clerk on the state assembly which is largely democratic and douglas offers him johns when buie -- buchanan is elected president and they keep the patronage going bang and forth. when lincoln was elected in 1960 an astonishing number of politics got jobs as post masters -- that was a big deal. scripps became postmaster of chicago, which meant he got to appoint 100 other postmasters. lincoln's favorite german editor became minimum store vienna. a diplomatic post. the joke what the "new york tribune" had so many managing and assistant editors were appoint today diplomatic posts there would be nobody left to

turn out the paper. so patronage and advertising. that was the control. and ideology. and they shared sincerely. >> and so lincoln understood the connection between the newspaper and its readership, and one of the stories i love is of a newspaper he purchased because he saw an opportunity there that had to do with both. >> it had to do with votes. it is a very strange story. in 1859, immigration became an issue in boston of all places. started in massachusetts. democrats proposed a two-year rule that hyphenate americans could not vote until they were in residence for two years and it really was a strange thing to propose because the democrats encouraged irish immigration and

favored irish immigration because the irish voted overwhelmingly democratic. but the german immigrants voted overwhelmingly republican. so bearing that in mind, abraham lincoln in 1859 learned that a german born editor had recently moved his printing presses from southern illinois to springfield, illinois, to start a new german language republican newspaper. but he got into financial trouble. we're not sure precisely what kind. and his printing presses and all this type-setting operations were confiscated. held in hock. guess who came to the rescue. abraham lincoln did not attend a rally that this editor organized to protest the two-year residency law although he sent a letter 0 couple of days later. but he gave him $500 to get his printing press out of hock, to start a new newspaper called the

illinois state advertiser a weekly german language paper, and lincoln wrote the contract himself. i note the admonition that lawyers should not have themselves for clients but lincoln did. he couldn't spell the name of the editor. he spelled it incorrectly. but here is the contract he wrote. i will give you $500 to reclaim your apparatus. you will start a republican newspaper. if it is conformable -- that's the word lincoln used -- with the national republican platform and the state republican platform, then after the end of 1860 -- that's an interesting date after the presidential elect -- you can have it all-the-type-setting, the printing press no charge no repayment no interest. that's all you have to do. and that's all he did. the sad thing is not one copy of

this paper exists in illinois. no one has been able to find one. but we know from the reports in the daily english language paper that those who could speak german said that the paper was totally prolincoln in 1860. why would lincoln buy a newspaper printed in a language -- by the way he didn't understood. he had taken german lessons in springfield with a group of friends but was such a wisecracker in the class that no one learn anything and they disbanded the class. i should circle back -- i didn't answer the main thing you asked. why was this important? because germans were migrating westward. illinois had been democratic. if enough germans moved to illinois, read this republican paper, got into a hullabaloo spirit like republicans a/k-a

elect republican the state could be turn republican. the same in iowa and -- german registration increasing and the vote below can -- went from red to blue. lincoln was aware of that. never understood a word of the paper. relied on people to assure him that it was quote conformable, unquote. that was lincoln -- by the way people were open about being editors and politicians attachment. lincoln must have had a little bit of a problem with it because just about the only guy i found in this entire era who wouldn't tell anybody about the cross-over. he kept it's secret. his banker knew. one of his cronies in politics knew and said, don't invest in this guy. he is a leech. lincoln ignored him. he knew but nobody else knew. didn't want it to be known. >> let's stay there for a moment.

everything you described is specifically the sorts of things we have tried to stay away from in terms of the relationship between the free press, one of the tools of self-governance and our elected officials, and yet we have a growing country, we have a country on the move and apparently it did not descent into chaos because of the practices, or did it? >> you know in 1860 mate this chaotic, certainly cacophony culture of -- 80% of men -- went to the polls. maybe the wildness of the culture was kind of irresistible and magnetic. that's one of the things i speculate about a bit. but abraham lincoln probably

would agree with you in one way when he became president and there was an unprecedented rerebellion at expand a war to be fought. he became less tolerant of the clamor and the raucousness and the independence. but that another story. >> we are going to get to that. i want to make one more little side road here because the third rail of news and information in politics is always technology and all this was going on when we had the telegraph coming into play. we had photography, and we had the railroads. put those three together. what impact did that have on what newspapers could now do? >> well, let's take photography out of the equation sadly, because no one had figure out a way to publish photographs in newspapers. photographs and artist sketches sketches during the civil war,

would be engraved in soft wood and made into wood cuts but they didn't have the process in hand. certainly the telegraph revolutionized news reporting news that had taken a week or a week and a half to amble west through the u.s. mails, which were not overnight and made newspapers truly current, truly daily bastions of news and that was unheard of at that time. the railroad brought the newspapers of new york west, south, and north. i found this -- wonderful line and of course as a new yorker i took special pride in it, that someone -- all of new york's newspapers seem to flow out to other cities but no other newspapers come into new york. i find that is completely unsurprising. but they were surprised. one more technological thing i would add to your mix.

and that is the printing press. no more of this. no more of the hand-cranked operation. the whole lightning press made it possible to rush hundreds of impressions every minute and that is why the "new york herm" reached a circulation of 100,000 during the civil war. the prints press added to that. both bennett and greely talk about the fact that the most assuring moment of their day always came even though they usually sat on the top floor of their building when that hum started and in the basement and that was the printing press starting, meaning the first round of the newspaper were rolling off the presses. two or three in the morning. >> i take your point about photography. i love photography of the era because lincoln himself said the brady portrait we see on the old five dollar bill won him the

presidency -- >> no the cooper union. >> you're right. you're right. and brady when we got into the civil war giving imagery. it was not a part and parcel to newspaper -- jurick bit "the new york times" writes a really seminal piece in 1862 when -- they say the war has been brought to our doorstep because people were now finding ways to see the images. again, the relationship if you don't know that this gallery has gardner's brutal and devastating photographs of dead bodies the newspaper will tell you there will be a long line outside of that gallery because of that review. >> the civil war begins -- i think especially being in this town we have to remember that the battle of bull run, something that people want to

spectate. we have a situation where julie howell wrote a the words of "the battle hymn of the rub" at her room in the willard hotel. and i don't think abraham lincoln realized what was about to happen, but let's go into what you were saying about the unprecedented actions that he took against press freedom in terms of censorship as the nation descends into war. >> it's an extraordinary story because most people have acknowledged that the freedom of the press was challenged during the civil war, north as well as south. but have focused on some of the most spectacular of the cases understandably, the closing of the "chicago times" now 1863 by general burnside, and the closing of the "new york world"

by lincoln's order in 1864. but found as i assembled my notes to make this book as chronological as i could, that press suppression began in 1861 and continued all through the war, in not surprising places and shocking places. it began right after bull run when lincoln lynn -- abraham lincoln issued a cowl for volunteers. newspapers editorialized against joining the army. newspapers that suggested that the battle of bull run had been a humiliation for the north, a humiliation of the american troops-felt the brunt of the first wave of suppression. it was disorganized at the beginning. the post office -- the postmaster general said don't let those newspapers be mailed. the secretary of state said,

let's not allow this editor to be at liberty. arrest him. without charge. the army in the border states that were teetering on the brink of secession, maryland baltimore, shut down newspapers. so the army the state department the post office department, and then the justice system. a grand jury in new york city issued what amounted to a subpoena suggesting that eight or nine newspapers be shut done because they were arguing against join thing military. this in turn inspired mobs to attack newspapers in new england, in massachusetts in rhode island in maine. can't get much more north and out of the danger of secession than med. it continues through the war.

indiana, im. going deeper into the war there is -- there are limits, probably much more understandable limits on giving away army positions, military secrets. so generals are -- almost always develop an extreme mistrust of journalists in their midst, and to their credit, to their enormous credit, journalists are out the at the front, determined to gather news, determined to bring stories to the public. eventually right here in washington the war department sets up -- moves the military telegraph to its library to saul the journalists have to bring their stories to the war department to get sanctioned. my friend craig simonson who is here tonight, and i wrote story about henry raymond, the editor of "the new york times," who covered the battle of bull

run himself, and sent word via a runner probably horseback runner the union has won and that was transmitted and first editions of "the new york times" said that the battle of bull run had been a union success. then raymond understands that the tide turns and the south won the battle. they can't find anybody to transmit the message. nobody is around in such chaos, so the straggled back to washington along with a defeated army of the poet o'tome -- potomac and files the story this altarageie loss and the telegraph operator says this that doesn't sound like a very positive story. it took "the new york times" days to -- while other newspapers in new york were saying, this happened. ... that was a lesson raymond learned

such as a very complex confusing time. it's not helpful >> how could they. >> there are some miraculous there were some miraculous conversions. right after fort sumter every paper in the new york city flew an american flag. james gordon bennett's new york herald noticeably did not which instigated a mob together outside of the office of the new york herald yelling, chanting and screaming and then people

observed this young boy an employee of the newspaper racing out the door. 10 minutes later he came back with the flag under his arm. miraculously about two minutes later a flag is unfurled from the window and the crowd was rather disappointed that they couldn't burn down the paper anticipated. there were opportunities to strike back or to argue back. the house of representatives held a major hearing about telegraph suppression here in washington in late teenage -- late 1861. they got very sidetracked by his side story. you wouldn't believe this about a congressional committee i know. they got sidetracked by a report that the president first annual message or state of the union message as we call it today had been leaked to the new york herald maybe by the first lady of the united states, maybe in return for money.

that was a pretty tough story. it never quite surfaced it. they spoke around it that it was diverting enough that the major issue of the hearing was whether the telegraphic censorship was abusive or in fact absurd. it never quite got heard in the legislation was ever passed. after the new york world were shut down in 1864 horace greeley our friend the crusader organized a committee of fellow editors about 15 of them. henry raymond of course would not join. he's an organization man and issues of bill of rights that even the bill of rights saying the government has no row right to oversee what we do. what they said in this manifesto as they called it that newspapers are not allowed to support the enemy and not allowed to criticize the

emancipation proclamation and not allowed to discourage the draft or enlistment. so the newspapers themselves were surprisingly not very critical of especially among republicans a.k.a. liberal actors when their democratic rivals were being shut down and put out of business. >> certainly the civil war dominates the news. what else was in the newspapers during these four years? once again we are coming from a climate where as we talked about earlier the people really are listening to the voice of the newspaper of their choice democratic or republican. they are really relying god -- i bet if you will make daily lives. what else is in the pages of the newspapers besides what was going on in the war? >> that's a great question because the war dominates historians -- but of course

every newspaper has to have local news, crime news in new york, financial news and new york editors prided themselves as did before the blockade southern atlantic coast and newspapers prided themselves in getting access to for news quickly because they had harbors that were sheathed ships with four news. fact even during the civil war it was so intense that when a ship approached newspapers would send chips out of their own so they could meet the ships so they could get the news before the ships. that is how intense the competition was but i would say if there was one subject that almost equaled the war and intensity of coverage it was politics politics, politics. local, state and national politics.

it was not just an election every november 4. there were elections all the time. there were october state elections in september state elections and there were november elections. there were winter elections and they kept people perpetually interested in casting ballots making their voices heard in listing two rallies and reading what politicians were saying at campaign appearances around the vicinity and around the country. >> i have to guess that lincoln would have been a heck of an editor that he could get the gettysburg address on the back of an envelope so let's start there. in the 1864 election he had his hands full because greeley and raymond were trying to jostle him off the top of the ticket. >> it was a very tough year. raymond is chairman of the republican national committee

because the republicans decided to adopt a more universal name for the party not to seem as partisan, just a pro union war. and lincoln is nominated early although horace greeley has done everything he can to deny him renomination. greeley suggests and promotes a series of alternatives, ulysses s. grant and other generals john charles fremont supports a fremont third-party candidate. greeley encourages treasury secretary salmon chase to run against his boss comes down to washington, visits chasen says if i can make a perfect candidate it would be you. this props up chase and causes his ruling eventually. lincoln gets the nomination. it's a story about somebody gets the nomination and jim but it's

not over as far as greeley is concerned. greeley continues to promote third-party alternatives and then in the summer when things are looking really desperate for republicans greeley does the most extraordinary thing i think he ever did as a newspaper/politicians/zealot. he decides after years of advocating freedom that the time had come because the country was so fleeting and bankrupt as he put it in a letter to lincoln that it was time to make peace with the confederacy. he let them go or to woo them back by canceling the emancipation proclamation or at least putting it back on the table. there are peace delegates in niagara falls. he ought to invite them to washington and find a way to end

the bloodshed even if it means there is no emancipation. we will collect convention of the states to try to figure this thing out which we know we can speak in soft voices without guns. lincoln is appalled obviously but he is so brilliant politically. whether he would have been brilliant as an editor i suspect you are right. he said the greeley had a lot these guys to come to washington. i'm paraphrasing. why do you go to niagara falls and engage them in peace talks and to get a feel or for peace let me know. greeley claims he doesn't want to do it himself and gets even more puffed up and he goes up to canada, niagara falls canada but as he gets there and is prepared to start the peace talks he gets a surprise. he gets a visit from president lincoln assistant private

secretary john hay and has continued to read newspaper articles himself up through the war. hey brings greeley a paper from lincoln. here are the terms i will accept. the rebellion is to end. the union is to be recognized and emancipation is to be upheld. greeley has no choice but to show the delegate this letter. the delicate says this is an outrage how dare you come up. waste. the peace talks collapse. greeley goes back to new york and abject humiliation ended in real theory. he is decided he is going to get lincoln no matter what. he decides let's publish all the correspondence. so lincoln sends a quick letter to henry raymond the editor of the time since as greeley wants to publish these letters. i will accept that but here's what i'm crossing out and he

uses red ink to cross things out. switch to henry raymond for a moment. all of a sudden henry raymond the chairman of the rnc, goes off the reservation and writes a letter to lincoln saying everyone says you can't win. maybe you should put emancipation back on the table. so now the two most important republican editors in the country are telling him to abdicate the emancipation cancel freedom or a least make a negotiating chip. lincoln has always been able to control raymond center personal persuasion and by force of personality. he never tries with greeley or he knows it doesn't work from his congressional days days. he calls raymond to washington with the entire national committee, put his big hand on raymond's shoulder. i imagine raymond is about 5 feet 1 inches. the hand crashes down on the shoulder and he says you know i think it's better that we lose

an favor freedom then that we win and cancel. as he later put it if i should cancel freedom after african-americans have fought for their own freedom i should be in time and eternity. raymond gets very excited. he is energized and he goes back to new york and that one little moment of raymond's feeling it was over never happens again. and a few days later william t. sherman occupies atlanta. suddenly even without public opinion polls or daily briefings on where we are with elections everyone feels that the wind as that they're back and he will succeed. everything turns and there's great enthusiasm. horace greeley two or three weeks after sherman takes

atlanta and completely changes the momentum of the campaign he sent a letter to a republican governor in the country saying don't you think it's time that we have a new national convention and choose a different nominee than president lincoln? so that was the final interchange, interplay between horace greeley and abraham lincoln. after that lincoln completely wrote him off. as he said to members of his cabinet he is like an old shoe they can't be repaired and they said what you mean by back? he said you know when we lived on the frontier we would have shoes that were song to the soul and when they wore out our mothers would move them a little bit and then sell them again and make new holes and then maybe move them forward the third time but when they rotted at the bottom and there was no place to put the threads that bind them to you we finally discarded

them. that was what greeley was to me an old shoe they can't be repaired. he never spoke to him again and never handled his pager request again. raymond was a very happy man after that. [laughter] p. got to choose all the new york federal appointments or many of them after lincoln won re-election. >> we have microphones on either side of the rim and if you do have a question i would ask you to go to one of the microphones. in the meantime we are going to keep talking. what was its biggest strength, abraham lincoln? is understanding of the pressure of politics? >> i can answer the question because there was no difference between the press and politics. he understood became involved both in the knew how to play politics in terms of and i hate the expression.

my wife and i always talk about it. we hate the expression of retail politics. he could make a heck of a speech speech. his appearance moved people. he could walk among people and excite them but behind-the-scenes pulling the strings of newspaper editors offering them influence advertising jobs a say in policy was very powerful. when that didn't work he had one other way of approaching newspapers and that is to go above editors heads with masterful what we call public letters. there are at least five of them during his administration and standout in history as extraordinary moments in american press history because lincoln writes a letter to an

editor or to a colleague that gets printed in papers around the country and it's almost like fireside chats became in fdr's time or the magnetism of president kennedy's first news conference which of course i was too young to remember myself but i heard about. and all those ways politicians and press puppeteer he was both. >> let's go to our first audience question. he could tell us your name and then fire away. >> cambodian retired army. could you go into a little bit more detail about the impact of the first battle of bull run and lincoln in the press? >> of course. aside from being a comeuppance for union military aspirations and pride or american military aspirations and pride was a

wake-up call to journalists both in terms of being under fire and journalists who have never been under fire although there were others to convert the crimean and mexican war but this was different. one journalist was so famished that he began eating berries off of a tree during a skirmish and shot with scattered around the area and all the berries came pounding down around him. he realized i was a slightly different experience than he had been used to but it was also an experience of awareness of the limits of freedom of the press. william howard russell of the "washington times" was probably the greatest perpetrator or both of that occurrence. russell who was the most famous war correspondent in the world was sent here by the "london times" to cover the american -- and grandly went out to bull run

rented a handsome carriage and when he came back wrote about complete disorganization of the union army cowardice by some of the troops in very bad decisions by officers. he was so hounded by the war department and so abandoned by lincoln who had met him a few weeks before bull run and said mr. russell i'm so glad to meet you. i reckon the "london times" is as powerful as anything on earth except maybe the mississippi river. now he conspired with the war department in denying him access in order to get rid of him as london correspondence, convinced i think that russell was pro-south or at least pro-recognition of the confederacy by england. the sole bull run again changes everything. raymond comes back to washington

and their censorship of the telegraph office in winfield scott who has imposed telegraph censorship hardens it so it's the beginning of a free reporting of the world and the end of the free reporting of the war and it all happens so close to washington. >> thank you. >> hello john from the lincoln group of d.c.. we'll be having an election on eighth anniversary of lincoln's re-election. my question is about the election. in 1864 that election near what was done to suppress the and the press during that election near? >> good question john. what i find amazing about the suppression issue in 1864 is not that there were incidents of shutdowns which there were but how lincoln moves away from that

as the campaign progresses and even though the new york world is shut down in 1864, for a reason that ironically enough had nothing to do with politics it had to do with the world publishing a bogus presidential proclamation on enlistment and the draft which the administration was furious about because they were working on such a proclamation. in fact it was a complete invention of another journalist who was hoping the stock market would plummet as a result of this news that he would buy and then the market would recover and he could retire from the newspaper business completely. after the new york world cleared of wrongdoing at least in perpetrating the bogus proclamation at editor typical of the editor goes on and

absolutely decimate abraham lincoln throughout the 1864 campaign triggers and lincoln the only probably angry letter to an attitude that he wrote in his entire political life. the new york world kept repeating the calumny that two years earlier when lincoln visited the antietam battlefield he strolled along the debt and wounded and asked his aid to sing a song is a sign of complete disrespect and contempt for the sacrifice of the troops. lincoln called laman anant dictated a letter and wrote a letter out as laman to sign it and send it to the papers and said no take it back. let's not send it because people are not convinced that i have enough character not to have done that, then i don't deserve their support. and he let the world get away with murder. lincoln believed i think

sincerely that newspapers across the line and gave in very loose term aid and comfort to the enemy were deserving of close watching and perhaps he tolerated and operates at many times he believed also there was something sacred about elections, that free elections. why allow an election in the middle of the civil war and once he committed to that election he committed to freedom of the press. i think that famous speech he made from the balcony of the white house saying if we did not have a free election we might as well have said they were both have beaten us advance. think he applied to that as free press in the campaign as well. >> thank you.

>> mr. holzer at the lincoln question for you. one dozen every day have the chance to be in the room with the world's authority on lincoln. what do you know about lincoln's relationship with his father and his step mother. he survived -- they survived them at least his stepmother did but they didn't have seemed to have much to do with him. >> in those days when she left home he left home. we shouldn't judge him too harshly for distancing himself from his roots when he became an adult. of course he an extremely complicated relationship with his father who did nothing to encourage his aspirations to learn and who in fact discourage

them. a little sympathy for thomas lincoln who could barely read himself. farmers try to have lots of children in those days because they needed their sons to help them on the farm. thomas had one son, abraham and i guess when abram said he was not interested in helping it was an great to thomas lincoln and i imagine thomas was as disappointed in his son for not caring about supporting him as lincoln was disappointed in his father for not understanding his quest for learning and advancement. did he hit him? did he beat him? some attested to the fact that he used corporal punishment which would not have made him that an usually they're pretty suspect when lincoln got a head taller than his father that stopped but no great love.

we know that because when his father was dying in the 18 50's his step-mother son wrote to lincoln and said you must come father stating. lincoln wrote a letter saying i think it will cause more pain and comfort if i were to come now so clearly there was a great rift that was on he laval even at the time of thomases death. briefly about his stepmother i think the two most important and most fortunate relationships lincoln had in his life and the two luckiest days of his life were when his stepmother arrives at their log cabin and when he met mary todd. you didn't ask about her but someone always does. this woman comes with furniture

and looks into their lives and finds these ragged wild children who had been abandoned, young children abandoned in the cabin while thomas went off to the big cities to see if he could find another wife. she brought brothers and sisters in books and fancy furniture and instantly took to this unusual young man. loved him as much as or more than her own son protected nurtured and encouraged him. one of my sources that link and read newspapers an early age so i'm grateful to that. lincoln absolutely adored her and they met very touchingly for the last time after lincoln was finished composing his first inaugural address.

he paid a visit to his mother to say goodbye to his stepmother so he did could go back when his father was out of the picture. she held onto him and said i know they're going to kill you. they separated and hugged and embrace that but she had a premonition and they said that when the cousins arrived at the cabin in april 1865 to tell her that he had died that she was not surprised. she had shed your tears at his -- for alumni. he did try to help her during his presidency. there is this letter that his cousin writes just what lincoln needed in the midst of the civil war. he gets a letter saying that $50 you send for mother has been misspent and misappropriated so i imagine he sent money to her repeatedly and probably was never convinced that it was put to good use.

but great love. >> thank you. mary encouraged and elevated him just as his stepmother had encouraged him and made him believe in himself and shared with him a love of base pairing -- newspapers. their love was founded on newspapers. they had their terrible seberson on what is called the fatal first of january 1841 when lincoln broke off their engagement. that was a relationship based on physical attraction and love of poetry. they got married for a much more important reason, newspapers. mary and abraham had been busy writing these caustic anonymous letters to the springfield paper torturing and teasing and

irish-american officeholder named john shields and shields demanded stormed into the office and demanded to know who is the author of these letters? one of them recently have been written by young mary todd said the editor called lincoln and said what we do hear? link instead tell them that i'm the author. very heroic. mary was very impressed. shields was not impressed and challenged lincoln to a dual. they went out to an island technically part of missouri were doing was legal called bloody island. they were going to have a tool. lincoln is the person who was challenged in the choice of weapon so he chose broadswords. he had longer arms so that dual was aborted. lincoln returned in one piece to springfield and a few weeks later abraham and mary were married. all things leaked to the press.

>> good evening carol. my question is lincoln's wiliness in the election of 1864 dangling possible cabinet positions, greeley as postmaster general and minister to france. would he like to speak to those? >> sure. i didn't go though much of the postmaster general shepperd really because i really don't think there's any evidence that could have happened that could've been in the same room even after niagara falls. for the flirtation with james gordon bennett lincoln had made an effort to neutralize james gordon bennett in 1860. he had an emissary from alibi politics visit him in new york

and that said i don't think he is a bad guy but i think he had terrible people around him. the first time there is a fugitive slave that he has to catch you will be all over him and he will be erratic when i woke before him and in 1864 lincoln wants to neutralize bennett the most powerful and widely read newspaper in the country not just in new york but again that national edition. another thing worth mentioning mentioning -- mentioning they were printed everywhere. so yes i think he did dangle what we were called ambassadorship to france to bennett in total secrecy. what's strange is that some historians contend over the years that the new york herald supported abraham lincoln. it is not supportive family can. the editorial through

practically election day 1864 are anti-lincoln but also a little bit anti-mcclellan. it's a bad choice. it's a terrible choice we have and that was enough for lincoln because astonishingly enough after the election he officially invites this character who we won't even abide to the white house. he never wants passed into the white house. he is such a social pariah that is not welcome in any dignified circle especially the most important house the united states. he goes off from his job and bennett very grandly says i can't accept it at my age. it would be too much for me and i could be of much more use here. probably lincoln would have loved getting into europe so he could proceed with reconstruction but it was the deal of the center for support.

it just wasn't the vitriol for a while and increase the criticism of george mcclellan. lincoln barely one in new york the second time around. >> another question i uyghur. sprey john was a group of d.c.. he described a lot of editors being in politics. did this extend to the southern states that seceded so there was maybe congressman and the tsa who were also editors and who else besides lincoln was really good at playing the press as well as jefferson davis for example? >> definitely not. [laughter] he didn't like it as much as lincoln. he didn't come from a background that included composing articles for journalists. robert barnwell became a

political leader. he was a common thing north as well as south. obviously my book doesn't focus too much on a confederate because i try to keep the spotlight on lincoln. such a gigantic story. i would like to do work on the civil war. my friend mark neely has done some very good work on censorship and suppression in the confederacy which was even more rampant than it was in the union but they ideas between editors and politicians was a national on that original phenomenon. >> in the congress of the united states av 10 15 or 20 editors? >> sure and if you aren't a member you are an official of the body. john wayne for ney one of my favorite characters i wrote about in the book who was a philadelphia editor gets bored with philadelphia so he moved to washington and starts a sunday

paper called the sunday chroniclend he expanded into daily paper called the washington daily chronicle which becomes lincoln's favorite paper paper. i think it's no one post on the cover of the book and a photographer gallery. forney loses the job in the transition to the lincoln administration so forney and lincoln meet. no one knows exactly what was said or what they offered each other but a few days later lincoln is calling him a new senator of illinois who has replaced the late steve douglas and says this guy forney ought to be secretary of the senate which was a very high-paying patronage job and which keeps forney in the legislative hall. lincoln really strong-armed orville browning. senator browning writes in his diary on this forney is but i guess i'm going to support them

because the president wants him. forney becomes secretary of the senate and is really tight with lincoln for the remainder of the civil war. >> thank you. this is our final question over here. >> this highly partisan press talking about before the censorship of the civil war the highly partisan press, how good or bad was it on conveying the news? if you read a newspaper every day did you know what was going on or were you just filled with partisan pictures? >> a visitor from europe commented that he read a report from the same event in the democratic in a wet paper and it was impossible to know which description to believe because they were totally different. so the idea of news reporting some but the audience didn't seem to mind. they relished the partisan

filter for which even ordinary news was pushed. so the answer is if you are democrat and you read a story about how foolish the republicans have been at the rally and how they embarrass themselves like as you would accept that as gospel news. >> hello. my name is very my simpered. i'm an amateur but i'm a grateful amateur though. the question i wanted to ask you was about the larger question about lincoln and popular opinion. you have described him making an effort to manipulate public opinion but what i've read i also get the sense that he was molded by public opinion and pushed along his journey by public opinion. there's a description in the book i think of him reading these papers and receiving hundreds of letters. what is your sense of that question?

>> my view has always been one of the most disingenuous thing is abraham lincoln has ever said has been adopted by so many generations and historians unconvincingly at least to me that i claimed not to have controlled events but the events that controlled me. lincoln like to convey the impression that he was being pushed along by popular opinion while at the same time doing more to influence public opinion than any president before him and many afterwards. and you see the true admission in the lincoln-douglass debate when he says he will mold public opinion is more important than he who enacts a statute. i think lincoln really believe that and believe that the public opinion came first in the statues will come later. i think it was an active molder

and certainly tester of public opinion. >> thank you. harold holzer thank you so much for insight and your wonderful book. you'll be signing copies right outside right after the program. thank you all for coming tonight and for bringing such terrific questions. it's been a real pleasure to spend time with you. [applause] gerald horne author of "the counter-revolution of 1776" and "race to revolution" is next on booktv.

>> thank you very much for the invitation from echelon. it's great to be back to my home in southern california in los angeles. thank you to kpfa and casey lh to helping to bring you all out here this evening and i'm going to speak about these two books but i also feel compelled to make an apology to begin with. when the former west german leader went to poland for decades ago he was overcome with grief about what the germans had done to poland during world war ii. he said he fell down on his knees and apologize but of course you cannot feel compelled to apologize to the indigenous people who've who formerly occupied southern california and were ousted. i feel compelled to apologize to

the people of african dissent who were murdered and enslaved. all the people who were subjected to atrocities and deprivation and at the end of the day there are those who still believe that the process which led to the genocide and enslavement was a step forward to humanity because they created the united states of america. it's not surprising that given that so many people feel that it was justifiable and worthwhile to have a genocide and enslavement to create this alleged great country it's not surprising that therefore we have a great deal of reactionary sentiment in this body politic which was just expressed. i am apologizing on behalf of other black scholar that i think could've written a book like

this decades ago. i'm apologizing on behalf of radical scholars who should have done the work decades ago and i hope hope except my apology on behalf of the many millions gone who had suffered not the least because of the atrocities committed by the united states of america. so having said that let me move on to first of all talk about this book. this is a book that seeks to tell a news story about the origins of the united states of america. it seeks to culture the creativeness of the united states of america and its creation. it tends to argue that the creation of united states of america was not a great leap forward for humanity. it was certainly a great leap forward for white supremacy there's no doubt about that. i cannot deny that there were

countless europeans in particular who benefited from the creation of united states of america but given the fact that after the creation of united states of america in 1776 moving into the slave trade ousting their sensible colonial process speaking of great britain as a result of forming united states is ousted and moves into abolition of slavery where the united states is a suppose of paragon of liberty and democracy moves into the leadership of the african slave trade and this book on cuba one of the reasons you have so many people in cuba because of a manic energy of u.s. slave dealers. as i suggest another book that's back on the shelf on the slave

trade of brazil one of the many reasons why you have so many people in brazil more than any other country outside of nigeria's because of the manic energy of these u.s. slave traders in the 1830s and 1840s in particular that ascended upon africom manacled and handcuffed every african inside and drove them across the atlantic to brazil. now the short thesis of this book is that the rebels who formed the united states of america leading to the decoration of independence on july 4, 1776 that they rebelled against british rule because they felt and suspected that britain was moving towards the abolition of slavery which would have jeopardized the fortunes of the murderer's row of founding fathers including george

washington, thomas jefferson patrick henry and madison. a footnote to come i'm sure you know that after the formation of united states of america that disproportion of the u.s. senators were slaveholders. the short thesis of this book is that june 1772 you had a case in london england which involved an effort to send and enslaved african man back to north america after he had escaped to freedom and the judge ruled which is represented of course in the movie, bell. anybody see belle? lord mansfield the judge in the case rules that slavery would not obtain in england.

the way the law works of courses even though the case did not speak specifically and pointedly to the colonies it did not take an oracle to suspect that case with former president that bin would be applied to the north american colonies thereby jeopardizing the fortunes. as i will suggest momentarily and explained at length in this book there was good reason for the so-called rebels to believe that somerset's case would be used as a precedent in north america thereby jeopardizing many fortunes based on african slave trade. rather than wait for the other shoe to fall they revolted against the british rule pursuant to the decoration of independence july 4, 1776. that's the short thesis of this book. a longer explanation would go

back to another revolution, the so-called laurie's revolution in england in 1688. that is to say in 1688 the rising merchant class rose up against the monarchy and clip the wings of the king and among other things what this led to was the erosion of a monopoly of the royal african company which they are too poor have been in charge of the african slave trade. what ensues as i talk about in the early chapters of this book is what i call free trade of africans. that is to say there is a deregulation of the african slave trade. that is to say that merchants are allowed to enter the african slave trade which they do in profusion and as was their wand they dissent upon west africa