it. the notion of getting on the front page of new york times with anderson cooper to talk about your getting the number one video on youtube or twitter. these are breaking through. >> for more of this weekend schedule go to book tv data works. >> this year's festival is so exciting. i must tell you. this can be one of my favorites because i'm a big nonfiction fan. the types of authors that were going to have from david mccullough to jd van whose book is on every reading list say you can imagine in every book club, it's an exciting time. >> trying book tv for the national book festival, live from washington, d.c. saturday september 2 on c-span2. >> lenten administration

advisors have written a biography of abraham lincoln called wrestling with his angel. the talked about the book at the lip fest. this is 45 minutes. >> good afternoon everyone. welcome to the 33rd annual lip fest. i would like to thank all of the festival sponsors for keeping us going. today's program is being broadcast live on c-span twos, but tv. we will have time to take questions to the end of the program. when the time comes, please line up with microphone to your right sore home viewing audience can hear the question. was senator interviewer.

>> thank you. [applause]these mi hello.r thank you so much for coming out. this is a wonderful turnout for a wonderful book. b we are delighted to be here. i was in this cherry year ago talking about the first volume of cindy blumenthal's will be four volumes on lincoln. i'm excited about this one. i think this one is even more rich. so, wrestling with the angel. soon, it begins in march 1849,ic lincoln returns to springfield to practice law.

and then 1856 the know nothing party nominates filmore for president, national convention for the republican party, so we have that backdrop read the title, what's it about? >> wrestling with his angel is a title that i took from the story of jacob in the bible. the bible, jacob wrestles through a long night. possibly with himself. the bible says an angel. that the ends of the night and with the break of dawn he comes to the realization of who he is and he adopts a new name, israel. lincoln wrestles through a long night and his long dark night for lincoln, he enters it coming home to springfield after one term in congress.

he ends it by founding the illinois republican party and adopting his own new identity and emerging with his cause. against slavery. so this is the story of howco lincoln became the man that is recognizable to us today. if we met lincoln at the beginning of the story we would not recognize him as the lincoln of history. by the end, he is lincoln. the so interesting. i want to get into lincoln the man. but you do a wonderful job of setting the stage for all these, events, the politics, the history, the culture. ends its first talk about this fascinating 16th president. in recent years he used depicted as melancholy, was he depressed

people ask? think you have an interesting take on the. i'm wondering if you can read a bit about the? i love this passage. >> this is about lincoln is a younger man was depressed. he did suffer from depression all the way through. when he was younger he was suicidal and his friends kept razors from him at one point. now he has returned to springfield and is the former congressman. i'm going to read here. the more time ice the plant t tc lincoln the marsala history was often unintended. yet his thoughts and words were the careful result of his intense consciousness.dd,

and i should add, self-discipline. the audacity and silences that his law partner, william henry and others of his friends described as melancholy wear a mask for his concentration, intellectual absorption and focus. he made his depression as well as it every other people into instruments of self-discipline. in the wilderness of political despair for a destiny he cannotd foretell. insig even when his life seemed to be reduced to simple insignificance here skimming the horizons and quietly interpreting it sciencel his ambition was a little engine that new no rest.areer, in he was a professional partisan politician who early in his

career from candidates, his surrogate farther that he later shed tears over it. he did not arises recognizablyse lincoln until he lined that fierce ambition and the sharp political skills in the cause of american democracy is unique experiment that not might well beyond done from within. >> that's beautiful. he had a sort of interesting imagination and discipline that he constructed the coherence intellectual argument for a political coalition. that is one important part of this book. >> this is also a time a party

chaos. the party of lincoln is the whig party. he was the foreign leader in the state legislator in illinois at the age of 27.at he invented the conventionmselfo system to not get himself nominated for congress inn illinois.ig but so he is a stalwart way, but, his rival stephen douglas, the senator from illinois blows everything out with the passage of the nebraska act that eliminates repeals missouri compromise by which slavery was prohibited in the north. so, now the extension of slavery becomes an open question. 's question about the political balance of power and to what

people called the slave power. the way party cracks apart.whige after 1852 there's never another way presidential candidate. it disintegrates. the democratic party splits into antislavery and proslavery and other factions. there's also an anti- immigrantp movement that turns into ain party.gings they have one that onlyn hold pb nativeborn can hold office in the united states. so history repeats itself. [laughter] in the have a slogan. here's the slogan of the know nothings. americans only shall govern america. we could write a letter in 1850, i know i'm not a note nothing,

the declaration of independencet began by saying all men are created equal and then some say all men are created equal except the negroes and he said, if that is the case, i would emigrate to a country where they make no pretense of loving liberty, to russia for instance where destitute them is taken pure and there is no -- of hypocrisy. so lincoln had a way with words. >> but lincoln had to construct a coalition.

in this role went with everything falling apart and he had to construct an argument. the argument and there's a lot to say about lincoln in thee argument itself because she's a lawyer, he trains himself in logic, he is very cognizant of appealing to people in persuading and bringing them along and using plain language. lincoln also wants to construct an argument that appeals to different parts of these fragments floating across the landscape in order to bring them together in an anti- slavery coalition. he is waiting out the know nothings. he's waiting out the temperance movement and he's got to bring in anti- slavery democrats who hate antislavery weeks who have been running against each other forever. he has work cut out for him.

>> a great line from this book is, it connects with that, for him the court room and the campaign were transferable arenas. can you explain? >> in this time lincoln from 1849 to make 18551854, he is not running for public office. he says it's almost different which is not true. who is paying very close attention to the politics. but for lincoln, he's traveling to county courthouse and sometimes on his horse in central illinois. people line up as clients at the courthouse and he agrees to take their case and argue it before juries.that t

he has to persuade juries. that was lincoln's great strength. j to speak to juries of ordinary people in central illinois. to him, this was the law. this he's also a politician. he's thinking about it all the time.r every time he tries to win a case he further develops his mind and his ability to persuade. the other thing is doing well he's a lawyer and traveling isir developing -- he travels in a entourage of lawyers. they're all traveling aroundavea illinois together and they have a maestro, who lincoln later names to the supreme court. he is the richest man inth bloomington. he's awake, and they travel together and do the cases andes

the judges travel to. they all live in boarding houses in this network of lawyers in central illinois become his campaign and people may have thought this was a bunch of provincial lawyers but it when it came to it in 1860, they are played everyone and won the presidential nomination at the convention in chicago for lincoln. v they were very shrewd and experienced political people. lincoln even as he is practicing the law is developing his political net worth. the lines are invisible between the two. >> you read about one interesting case that i don't

know much about. i find it fascinating, the todd ayres case. that really help him focus can you talk more about that? >> it was a revelation to me too. i had read as much as a could. i decided to begin the book with this. i think this is a an offense in lincoln's thinking in life. he returns to springfield and his wife sends him to her hometown of lexington, kentucky. her father, who is henry clay's business partner and political ally has died of cholera. he has, for about a decade been contesting for the todd families

estate which is a large -- in the todd family wants the estate, except it's held by the political rival an enemy because he's married john's cousin. and polly has died in the estate.so t there engage is kind of is been going on for a decade but there's too -- to it, one is woodcliff is the leader of the proslavery group. he succeeds in creating a new state constitutional convention to make the kentucky constitution more proslavery.

there's been the non- impartation act in kentucky by which the slave trade within the state was prohibited. those the legacy of henry clayst who believed in gradual emancipation.tion so woodcliff is a powerful man. the state constitution is being rewritten. lincoln arrives as this is happening. he watches and loses the case.th . . he watches henry clay's legacy destroyed. john s. todd's personal financial and political legacy destroyed, and he observes slavery in kentucky up close. he'd seen it before as a boy. he's seen it in washington, dc where slavery was legal and he now sees the rise of what people call the slave power. this is a rising power in the country.

a very powerful right wing, if you will, and he is very embittered. there's a secret, another subtext. here's the secret. there was a todd family secret. it's in memoirs and pamphlets. i've read these pamphlets. i found these pamphlets. turns out -- just following me -- polly todd, who had died, who is whitcliff's former wife, his wife, had a son, and the son had died, and the son left a living heir. so, he is the rightful heir, except he is not legally a person. and the reason is that he is the son of the -- of polly todd's son, and the house maid, who is a slave.

and so this boy, who is a slave, was emancipated and sent to liberia, and here's the kicker in the story. he becomes the president of liberia. decades later -- that means that mary todd lincoln was related to two presidents. two kentuckians. so, this case is very important for lincoln, and he is simmering, angry in private, and he starts to -- he observes slavery as a social force, as an economic force, as a political force. he says it's most us a asu us a

ostentatious -- in the world and -- he is fuming, and this is in 1849. it's all private, it's all in private conversations with people that are not recorded and not known until literally decades later. almost all the conversations come out in an oral history that his law partner, herndon, conducted after lincoln's death with people who were still alive. so, people -- you know, couldn't really understand lincoln's evolution at the time because it was unknown except to some of his closest friends and associates. >> host: do you think that mary todd lincoln was aware of any of this? it was her family's money.

>> guest: i think she was aware of everything. she is a -- she was describe as a child as a volatile, firey whig, and very political. she is very devoted to the whig party, longer than lincoln. >> host: in your previous volume, you said that -- i think, without mary there might not be lincoln. so, got me thinking as i was reading, this book, she plays a somewhat less important role, prominent role. would there be a lincoln without steven a. douglas? well, let me address mary and then douglas. the answer is mary todd and steve steven a. douglas are completely indispensable figures

for the creation of abraham lincoln. there's no lincoln without these two people in illinois. mary doesn't play quite the same role as she did earlier in the first volume, but she plays a very important role here, and it's a little known incident in which lincoln runs for the senate in 1855, not 1858 against douglas. he runs for the senate in 1855. she pushes him to run. he was slated to run for the state legislature, and she -- he's elected again, and she -- he's been a congressman in the legislature, she thinks -- the senate seat opens up, and she thinks this is completely beneath him. his ambition is a little engine that knew no rest, and mary's

was real are knew no rest, and lincoln's friend describe a period of two days of yelling and shouting and lincoln hanging his head and at the end of which he drops his being elected to the state legislature and announces for the senate because his wife says, you're a senator. and it's really important the way he loses for the creation of the republican party, because -- brief story -- >> host: tell this. >> guest: the democrat who is now i. f. douglas is in second place. lincoln has the most votes but looks like he is just shy of a majority. and so the democrat starts bribing legislators. i know that's unknown in illinois. [laughter]

>> host: highly unusual. the person in third place is a man named trumbell and he is a democrat, too, but an antislavery democrat. so he hat the fewest votes, and lincoln realizes the other democrat, douglas' ally, is going to win if he allows him the time to bribe everybody. so he quickly throws all of his votes to the antislavery democrat and elects lyman trumbell as the senator from illinois. remember, the elects are held with the legislature, obviously. there's no -- that's who decides who is a senator. so, the result is that the antislavery democrats trust lincoln, who had been their rival as a whig, but now they trust him and that becomes a basis for a year later in the creation of the republican party. of bringing all these people

together. so, lincoln's done something very important in sacrificing himself in making something larger possible. and mary hates this, by the way. and her best friend was lyman trumbell's wife, and she never spoke to her again. she held it against her. douglas -- >> host: oh, douglas. >> guest: douglas, the little giant, the senator from illinois, is most powerful figure from illinois. he's on the national stage. he is young. he is already run for president in 1852. he is not even -- run when hi is 37 years old. 1852. a meteor. lincoln is envious of him. says his acolossus and i walk underneath his legs. he has been his rival for decades and has been attacking

him for decades. they have rival newspapers in springfield. editorials flying back and forth. and lincoln feels completely insignificant. douglas is everything and then douglas blows up the world because his ambition is thwarted. he has run for president, didn't get the nomination. he wants the nomination, in 1856. so he needs to do something enormous. he wants to build a transcontinental railroad across the united states, get credit for it. he also wants to make money off it, and he has bought land in dubuque, iowa, and he made a lot of money off the illinois stroll because the owned the lakefront in chicago and sold it to the ic as the right of way land after

he passed the illinois central railroad act. so, there's nothing new in politics. and he needs the south, and he also needs to open up this territory. he is the chairman of the committee on territories and what is in the ways these territories are not organized. kansas, nebraska. sponsors kansas-nebraska act and repeals the missouri compromise, withdraws a -- erases the line of slavery in north and throws it all open. whoever settles there can doo decide whether they're a free state or slave state. and you have bleeding kansas, and as a result of that, the issue of the extension of slavery in the country -- lincoln calls it the nationalization of slavery and

says pretty son we'll have it in illinois and then across the country. he has this cause and now has to develop his argument. >> host: referred to the newspapers, and there's so many newspapers and the time, harold holzer wrote a wonderful become about newspapers and lincoln, and lincoln wrote a platform at a meeting of the antislavery editors. can you talk below the role of the newspapers -- about the role of the newspapers at the time and lincoln? >> guest: well, lincoln had a close relationship with the media of his day. he played media politics. he was an avid reader of newspapers since he was a boy. partly how he self-educated himself, reading newspapers.

and then the telegraph came into existence. the internet of the day. so it made daily newspapers -- you could really follow the news every day. they were very current, and people kept up, and in the northern united states was the most literate area in the entire world, and had the greatest number of newspapers anywhere in the world. all the newspapers were partisan one way oar another. >> host: very. >> guest: very partisan. they were idiosyncratic, eccentric editors but partisan. lincoln was in this law office and is more or less the coeditor of the illinois newspaper in springfield and he anonymously writes hundreds of editorials. we don't know everything lincoln has written for the newspaper.

and he and herndon have the best library in central illinois, and lincoln is reading the "new york times," "the new york tribune," the "the richmond inquirer," "journals from london." so here is, the circumference of his life appears very small. his house, his law office, the state capitol. he travels around, but actually he is living in a much larger world in his head and is paying very close attention. so newspapers are very, very important, and the key meeting to found the republican party is called by newspaper editors in illinois. >> host: that's phenomenal. >> guest: they're all political. they're the only people -- it's antislavery newspaper editors from around illinois, call a meeting and invite lincoln as

the only noneditor to attend because they acknowledge that he should be their political leader. though they have this meeting in decatur on washington's birthday, february 22, 1856, which almost splits up when one of the editors, an important man named george snyder, who edits one over the most important papers in chicago, the german language newspaper. biggest german language newspaper in the united states and the proposes a planning against the know nothings, and they're nativists in the meeting, other editor, and the whole thing thens to disintegrate, and snyder says, let lincoln decide. and lincoln says, gentlemen, the

answer is in the declaration of independence. and you can't found a new party on any other principle. all men are created equal. so that settles it. they say -- lincoln says, it's all right. and they found the illinois republican party. without that it would november have existed. so -- it would not have existed. so newspaper editors and newspapers were very much intrinsic to the politic of the day. they were political players. >> host: just one of the personal things about lincoln, much is discussed recently about the death of willy, the wonderful george saunders novel, but we sometimes forget it was eddie two died during this period, and write about that.

can you tell us how that loss affected lincoln and -- >> guest: this is my thinking. lincoln in the early 1850s had a beloved son namedded edward, eddie, who died. a child, very young and mary was inconsolable and so lincoln was. lincoln suffered from depression. but here's what i take away from it. mary was so inconsolable she wouldn't eat, and lincoln said, -- he comforts her. he extends his sympathy. this is lincoln who is a depresssive overcoming his depresssive out of empathy for this wife. i think it's a really important episode in his emotional life. >> host: i agree. it's very -- we dish want to make sure there are time for

questions so sort of get to the periphery of the room and microphones, i think there's one. let me just ask questions and as you come up. so, you write, lincoln's political education was long but his moment of awakening was sudden. and i just wonder if you can just talk about that sudden awakening. you can either read from it or tell is, whichever you prefer. >> guest: well, if you can show me what i've read i'll try to remember it. >> host: i think this is here. >> guest: at the end. >> host: at the end, the last part. >> guest: the last part. it's about slumber. >> host: sorry.

you can find it. >> guest: i'll find it. i think i know. >> host: very last page. >> guest: this is a -- >> host: slightly funny story, actually. >> guest: yes. this is a story that is recounted by people who were caught years after lincoln had died. a lot about lincoln comes out long after he is gone, and some of the story -- there were a lot of people present. they're corroborating accounts of contemporaries. so in early 1855, traveling trae county court sticker, staying overnight in a boarding house, his discussion with a former judge and fellow lawyer, t line dickey, a conservative old whig, went on deep into the night.

now, another lawyer who was present recalled, judge dickey contended that slavery was an institution which the constitution recognized and the could not be disturbed. lincoln argued that ultimately slavery must become a extinct. after a while, said dickey, we went upstairs to bed. there were two beds in our room and i remember that lincoln sat up in his night shirt, on the edge of the bed, arguing the opinion with me. at last we went to sleep. early in the morning, woke up and there was lincoln, half sitting up in the bed. dickey, said lincoln, i tell you this nation cannot exist half slave and half free. oh, lincoln, replied dickey good, to sleep. apparently a true story. >> host: a great story.

the question over here. >> yes. about current republican president of the united states. with your political experience, after events of this week, how you see future of american president. >> small question. well, our current president -- did you know lincoln was republican? he has an interesting sense of history. so, i'm hesitant to get into great detail, and i could, about the current occupant of -- on

the one hand i feel like the main character in the british version of holiday publish "house of cards" who are says you might say that. couldn't possibly comment. lincoln was -- and i'll gave sense of how i feel, which is that lincoln was a shakes speedwayan. his favorite play was macbeth but i'm sure he saw king lear but in king lear a character says this is not the worst so long as you can say this is the worst. >> what was lincoln's relationship to his brother-in-law, the one that

turned out to be a particularly nasty jailer of union prisoners? did they have a falling out early? and was lincoln's animus towards senator shields, personal or political. >> two good questions. on the second one, mary todd's half brother was the head of the prison -- called libby prison in richmond, which u.s. soldiers were held under retched conditions. lincoln was very concerned with the treatment of u.s. soldiers, and he even met with some of the released prisoners and was very anxious to have them released because many of them died because of the conditions, and the todd family was split north and south, including her -- one

of her sisters whose -- >> host: elizabeth edwards. >> guest: no, emily helms, white house, whose husband was a confederate soldier and visited her in the white house, which is a point of controversy. james shields is somebody who was a senator from i believe three states: illinois, minnesota, and i'll forget one -- iowa. >> missouri. >> thank you. and he was an ally of steven a. doug loss and therefore a political antagonist to abraham lincoln when he was a whig, and lincoln engaged in writing under a pseudonym of a woman named

rebecca who was supposed an old country woman, satire about shields that were insulting, and as it turned out, mary todd participated in writing these insulting satires, and shields discovered that lincoln had done so and in order to -- lincoln feeling he was protecting mary todd, with whom he was reconciling after having broken up with her. shields challenges him to a duel and they good to an island in the mississippi, john harden, a state senator, and a cousin of mary todd, rided up at the key moment and says you're ridiculous and it's illegal and you have to stop the. lincoln is completely humiliated. the famous broad sword where

shields its relatively sport and lincoln is 6'4", and lincoln chooses as the weapons broad swords because he has long arms. and he practices by slashing prairie grass or whatever, and the duel is never fought, and whenever anyone brings it up, lincoln is very embarrassed at the entire episode, but it contributed to his marriage -- helped lead to his marriage to mary todd. dueling was illegal and it was considered -- well, it was point of southern honor. in the north it was considered something that belonged to a barbaric past. so, then he ran against shields in 575 for -- in '55 for the

senate. shield is knocked out by another democrat who is bribing the legislature. >> we have time for for more quick questions. >> i know during his time people were very critical of lincoln, and recently i read a book, six encounters with lincoln, that was pretty critical of him. how do you balance that when you write a book? is it hard to be critical of him because he has this mythic like following, people adore him. is it hard to write critical things about him? i think lincoln is criticizedded from all points of view, as he was in life. he was considered as from be on the one hand a tyrant, conducting the war, and on the other hand to be weak and vacillating. both, by different sides.

and i try and write it accurate a portrait as i understand it. i do go -- i try and -- this is the past, and it's history as i understand it, and i try and account for it by reading as much as i can and even finding a new sources that shed light on his understanding of his thought and the issues of the day, and we're all -- what frustrates my is, having been a journalist my whole life, is that i can't interview anybody about this. they are sadly unavailable. >> this question is sort of relate. theirs a tremendous amount of

lincoln in lit tour and would -- literature and if you could let us like and what you don't like in all this massive lincoln literature out there. >> well, the lincoln literature is -- has been the subject of entire books itself, some there's the lincoln historyogy, tells us a lot about the history of the country and what i will say is that i find many of the contemporary historians of lincoln to be among the best, right now. those writing right now are really fine historians, whether allen galto or harold holzer, among others, doris kearns-good win's book is good, too.

it's said there's nothing new to say about lincoln and i want to mike another point that every generation has something new to say about lincoln because we're all americans, and we're facing new circumstances, and we inevitably see the past through our own lens, and reinterpret it, and we learn different lessons from lincoln. and that accounts for the evolution of the histories and the biographies about lincoln as well. >> well, i think we're -- our time is up, but i just want to say thank you so much to sidney blumenthal, this wonderful book, and you can go right outside and buy it. it's worth every dime and i just want to say -- he was here last year -- >> worth a lincoln penny. >> it was here for the first volume and the second volume and

i'm really hoping you'll be here for the third volume next year. >> thank you, elizabeth. a pleasure to be with you, and here in chicago. [applause] >> once again, thank you to aberdeen for coming and watching at home. books are log sold right outside the auditorium. [inaudible conversations]in dal.

this is a an hour and a half.