i gave my promise to the world and the world followed me here. you are watching the tv on c-span2 in primetime, television for serious readers. tonight, he looks back at some of the stops on the c-span cities to tour. cameron was without a doubt thet most talented political machine builder, the most talented politician of his generation. and if people talk about the age of andrew jackson that in many t ways we taught that the age of cameron and this is a man whose political skills were undeniable and who built a machine that

lasted far beyond any of those constructed by his contemporaries. he was a man who mastered his as mom and aunt when you think he was born in 1799 the last year of george washington, he died in 1989 and during that 90 year period, he rose to the top first of pennsylvania than americannpa political elite by mastering his moment and it's unfortunate that his name has become shorthand for corruption as for sharp dealing because in reality his story has so much to tell us about american politics in the first three quarters of the 19th century. i think one of the reasons he's languished historically is because this outside reputation he has for corruption. there is a great story that. every student has undoubtedly heard and it goes something like this. thaddeus stevens the congressman frocongressmanfrom pennsylvanian

abolitionist was meeting with president lincoln early in the first term and lincoln happened to ask what do you think about cameroofcameron as the secretarr and stephen sidwell, i don't think he would steal a red-hotnh stone and lincoln loved a good joke and particularly at his expense. he repeated the joke during a cabinet meeting and of course cameron was the gas because the whole thing is that it's totally corrupt so he ran into stevens after the meeting and said why would you say something like that? i didn't add the retraction so a few weeks later he's meeting with the president and before he gets up to leave he says i think the last time we met i said he wouldn't steal a red-hot stove, i take that back. but of course, that is just what makes him like that even more and again, cameron is corrupt so most say everything you need to

know he wouldn't steal a red-hot stove or maybe he would but when bu we think of scratching away at the reputation there is a lot of smoke and not a modifier. s the reputation for corruptionorn goes back to the 40s when he was selected by mark and endearing for the claims and s this year it wasn't unusual for the signing treaties for native americans. what would happen if it would w mandate and pay. typically what would happen is thifthe federal government would send commissioners out to meet

with the tribes to discuss who was actually eligible to receive money into the money to. he finds the gold that wasin supposed to claim hasn't been forwarded by the local army officer. as the camera does a cracker jack job but without any goalser he ends up the traders with whom they had negotiated a used them on the bank of middletown.

it is important to remember 1840 is a presidential election yearr so as we were moving through 1839 the drumbeat against martin van buren is getting wilder and more vicious and by showing him as corrupt they can tie him to the president and hopefully elect a wade and that is what happened. they charge him with being the great winnebago chief and thehis slander follows him throughout his political life and creates o narrative where he is hopelessly and irredeemably corrupt. he uses the government to make money come he's not above leasing poor defenseless native americans and this becomes a dominant narrative so when the political enemies charge him with bribery or corruption or spoils mentioned, it fixes the s existing narrative but in the individual cases but you find

that there is a lot of smoke but very little fire. most of the people who charge him with corruption do so for partisan reasons and in the warr department and the house both investigate the so-called winnebago for god and find there is absolutely no wrongdoing on cameron's part. first elected office is in the 1845 when he assumes the pennsylvania senate seat vacated by his friend and politicalhi future and james buchanan. buchanan is going to james k. polk cabinet as the secretary of state and cameron decides to take over his friend's political office that there is a really important step in between pet and 20s and cameron becoming a senator from pennsylvania and that is found in the bank of middletown. he takes the wealth here comes in the 1820s and 1830s and persons banking which provides a

really effective way of building his political prestige because by founding the bank of middletown, he had access to a ready source of credit as he could extend to politically influential people throughout the state, politicians, party leaders etc.. what that does is make him politically prominent even though he doesn't hold elected office. by the time we get to the 20s, cameramen is a well-known and well this good operative come he's james carville in the century so when he decides to replace james buchanan seems able to do that with almost 20 years of bridge building throughout the state and i want to emphasize the importance of state political power to the national identity. the most important political

figures in this area is in because they control or have at their disposal a group in their states and i think that is reflected in the political career. it's important to remember to become a senator does the idea you're going to represent the state interests in order to get elected you need the support of prominent party officials and cameramen did that through his cultivation through the media and the bank of middletown whert again he provided low-cost or no-cost credit to influential political leaders and legislators. so he rises to the radar by being the man who by 1860 is in

control of pennsylvania's republican party. it's important to point out he started politically as a democrat. he runs for the senate in 45 for the democrats actually getting intbut actuallygetting into pets increasingly the issue of slavery is tearing the political parties apart and one of the key things to understand about theal political career is that he always sees himself as a pennsylvanian first and a democrat or republican second. he believes he is in the senate to protect pennsylvania's industrial interest and to advocate for pennsylvania's p political rights and interests and he does that consistently throughout his career. it's frequent to point to the fact he migrates from democratic parties to the know nothing party to the republican party and evidence of his total lackan of principle but in reality he has a well-developed sense of principles that he's operating

under. he is a pennsylvanian first and when he sees the parties as protecting it those interests ad being in favor of those interests is willing to work with them that when h but when e parties operating against those principles, he opposes them into during the first four years in the senate from 45 to 49 from he's a democrat but he's one of the biggest pains in the neck to the democratic president james capel. he exceeds the nominees for various political offices. he runs one of the signature initiatives which is lowering the target' so in a lot of ways he's identifying as a democrat but it would be more accurate to call him a pennsylvanian rather than a democrat and he would make the argument if he were here. in the 1850s he uses his political connections to

reinforce his political machine and by that i mean a group of people willing to support them because of a personal attachment to him they see him forward and interests or their own livelihood so they are committed to voting for both principles and pragmatic reasons we've seen the collapse of the party and its replacement by theby republican party. he's got partisan political experience and is probably the most talented political operative in pennsylvania and if not, nationwide. he controls the republican party and the person who controls the republican party is in a really strong position because pennsylvania has the second-highest number of tollbooths in the united states.

so to be the guy that controls the state in an enviable position.an national co when they go to the national convention they are in a strong position not so much to get the nomination but to ensure we forget the nomination goes helpi big-time saying if we get the nomination and then when wele promise you a cabinet seat so that is exactly what happened. they threw the candidates support behind lincoln which he succeeds in doing.

they conspire to work against cameroon but ultimately succeeds and is taken into the cabinet where he has a rocky tenure. at relatively vague. he was a businessman with years of experience.

when they decide which seek cameron is going to get, the only seat is left is the secretary of war and he says to lincoln you should pick someone else there is a war coming. pick someone who wants to make e reputation. lincoln says i won't do for this office. he declines but the day before the occupation he meets with lincoln and says i won't pay for the secretary of war. they proved this as believe there is a war coming. if you look who he takeslly, hea initially is experienced when it comes to the military.

he oversaw military education. perhaps he understood. he asked him to go to washington and assess preparation. that being said they didn't have the best relationship.

in his dealings with cameron and he's difficult than he really likes watching him squirm and we see this in two instances. first is the period in november 1860 and the inauguration of march 1861 where he does everything in his power to renege on the agreement to take him into the cabinet and this has to do with the fact he is pressured by the political opponents and also to a lesserin extent people in new york who were opposed. he's quite rude in dealing with this important politician.

it is a shocking departure from the normal behavior with medical problems. the other incident in the relationship is dealing with firing simon cameron. he does it in a very aggressive way. he sends him a letter in janua january 1861 access i'm accepting your letter ofo resignation to leave the cab and pursue a diplomatic post but the problem was he hadn't resigned. he was knitting the resignation before he submitted it and the writing was on the wall she wanted him out of the cabinet that it was obnoxious and rude and in fact william seward, two other cabinet members who

infrequently so i two i sit you've got to write in another letter you're going to kill his political career so he ends up writing another letter of resignation. there is another instance in 1862 he comes to his defense and it's a very tepid defense mostly 18 about covering his administration's flank and less about coming to cameron's defense. these are uncharacteristic episodes in the political career. this is a man who would take an insult to the face and turn it around as a joke. in the second inaugural address

he had quite a bit of malice and becomes the focal point of a lot of the frustrations in the early part of the war it is astonishing to stand back and look on the eve of the american civil war. the army had only about 16,000 men and most of them were outclassed picking fights with native americans. when lincoln: the fire they called for 75,000 volunteers and it's going to require explosive growth overnight. you have a country that isis designed to equip, clothing and trained 16,000 troops and it's now being asked to do all of that, times five so faces unprecedented challenges

administratively but none of his predecessors have ever seen. in addition, he's cutting against the pervasive fear of standing armies they want totr keep them small because if they don't might be used to strip away their rights. he's now trying to grow the army by a factor of five overnight, he's got this bureaucracy that is divided into the state bureau is overseen by these enginesra generals most of whom are not talking to one another. most of the staff designed to go join the confederacy and most of the leading army officers, the core of the professional army does the same thing. so here you are facing these unprecedented challenges to grow the army by the factor of five needing to close, feed, train and equip these men and it's

just shocking. then you add to the fact cameron is not an administrator he is a politician. and the skills that got him into this position are not the skills that are going to help them succeed. that being said i want to point out i think historians have been unfair. when you look at the scope and the challenge he faced and when you look at his total lack of preparation, he actually dealt with them about as well as anyone could have expected. was he the greatest secretary of the war, no he wasn't, could have been worse absolutely. had he been secretary of war he think he would have preferred admirably in that job. the revolution is and dismissal from the cabinet. the story is repeated the lie that he was dismissed from the cabinet due to issues of corruption and they point to the

story in the fall of 61 where ar bunch of new zork bond traders come to the white house and say we are not going to sell any more federal bonds unless you dismiss them from the cabinet because of corruption and he's alleged to have said give me one instance and he's out of thehe n cabinet and the bond salesmen are never able to do that so lincoln doesn't fire cameron. historians point to this story as widespread proof of the corruption but also what a great guy and lincoln was. the reality is far less rosy. he turned to his secretary and says if i gave into them the ine next thing would be people coming for seward.

he defends cameron in thei and y of ensuring the integrity of his cabinet and ultimately he does fire cameron but again it had nothing to do with corruption but everything to do with the issue of slavery. here we need to take a look bact on the issue of slavery and the attitudes towards race. he is a conservative by which i mean he didn't like slavery but didn't believe the government have the power to interfere where it already existed. he'd be the slavery was sanctioned by the constitution of south carolina decided it wanted to be a slave state that was incredible but there was nothing pennsylvania could do. by the same token if pennsylvania decided it didn't want to be a slave state, it's right to not have slavery could be protected and one of the

things that irritates camero can and 1850s is what he sees as the slave states attack on the northern states rights to not be slave states. as a part of the compromise thep government has instituted a more aggressive fugitive slave law which mandates among other things the state officials even in the free states were required to help recapture escaped slaves so when they escape from maryland and got pennsylvania,ar pennsylvania state officials were required to spend pennsylvania tax money to try to recapture the slave and cameron sees this as hideous and suicide respect south carolina's constitutional right.na why isn't south carolina respecting pennsylvania's state rights to be a free state parks but again this is all predicated on the idea that they have a constitutional right to decide whether they want to be freeeenr states or slave state.

but the biggest state on the haphazard about race comes from hi his consistent advocacy of the army should and must african americanafrican-americans and hs making that point early in the war as early as april of 61 he says to the president this is going to be a long drawn out war and it's going to require us to make for not only on thete confederate army but also the confederate infrastructure and there is no bigger or more ports ansupportive infrastructure than slavery. let's enlist they are coming in by the dozens across the lines.d .. the war goes very poorly

for the union, cameron begins making the point even more aggressively and says let's enlist african americans, and it's clear that drumbeat is falling on deaf ears. so cameron begins taking his criticism public. throughout the autumn of 1861, he is seen in the company of army officers and politicians that are advocating these thin things. it is not until he publicly comes out in support of enlisting african-americans that lincoln decides he has to go into the heavens in early december shortly before president clinton submits the first annual report to congress he requests reports from the various cabinet parties.

he submits his report to the board department and includes the paragraph for the enlistment of african-americans but to force his hand he sends the draft to the press before giving it to the president. if you get to the president that is aghast at this recommendation hearing that it's going to cost him support in the border states and he orders the postmaster general to try to get all of the copies of the report back. blair isn't able to do that, the report ends up in the newspaper along with the amended report that he forced hi his camera ino issue and now the story is not only the secretary of war advocating the enlistment of african-americans, it is now president lincoln tries to squelch the recommendation by the cabinet officials and it really exposes the fault lines in lincoln's administration. and from that moment, cameron's time in the cabinet is limited. he's marginalized throughout the summer of 1861 and in january of 1862 lincoln moved him out of

the cabinet ceremoniously so cameron returns to the senate in 1867 and begins to serve the pickup is third in the longest stay from december of pennsylvania he's in the senate from 1867 to 1877 where he is a leading voice for pennsylvania centrist but also for some very progressive political positions including the enfranchisement of african-americans. he becomes a very aggressive voice for black rights in the united states believing that the war does not end at these questions and got grant elected in 1868 has a responsibility to continue the work done by the lincoln administration to redeem the states and to remove any sort of political disabilities that southern blacks are having. and in fact when the state level advocates.

vigorously to amend pennsylvania's state constitution, which has been amended in the 1830s to bar african-americans from voting. so again, we see these incredibly progressive stances on the issues of race. even after he retires in 1877 he lives another 12 years. he and hiand his advice and exps much sought after by democratic presidential candidates, republican presidential candidates, local political leaders in harrisburg, state political leaders comey is referred to.

from the new york senator to the victor the spoils and the idea was political leaders sought offense and reworded their political supporters for government jobs, patronage, the contracts, etc.. cameron is a young man when that system is just coming in to existence. he retired in the late 1870s in large part because of that spoils system coming to a close. increasingly the republican party and parts of the democratic party are committing themselves to civil service reform. the idea that we shouldn't hire people because they are cronies but we should hire people because they are competent and the jobs shouldn't depend on a republican being president or democrats being president. and in a lot of ways, we live in a post-civil service area when

you get government jobs or civil service jobs. cameron could see that in the 1870s and he was a man out of step where the politics was increasingly going. they built a political machine based on the attachment cemented by his access to state and federal patronage and it was clear that system was under assault for you begin to see an erosion of the political machines.

he controls pennsylvania for nearly 50 years after his death. one of the reasons i wrote the book is to remind people that there is more than just a story. this was a human being with nuance and ideas and he was sent this bill in that he was a person and his career has a lot to teach us about the way politics worked in the 1820s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. >> it was built in only 17 none of this action in world war ii by one week.

turned into a museum in 2004 it attracts over 1 million tourists annually. up next the continue the feature on the literary life as we talk with san diego professor about his book on mexican stereotypes and popular culture. >> in my book i told a story about connecticut. i received my phd from cornell university and i thought i had made it. i was looking through a book of cartoons and there was this cartoon in the book down i think a british magazine. it works