[inaudible conversations] >> and this is booktv's live coverage of the 17th annual national book festival. that was david mccullough, the pulitzer prize-winning historian. speaking a little bit later in the day, you'll have a chance to talk with him live.te he will be on our set here at the convention center. now, in just a minute we're going to go into the history and biography room here at the national book festival. you can see that we'll hear from sidney blumenthal whose most

recent book is about abraham lincoln and his final years. margot lee shetterly who wrote the book "hidden figures" on which the movie is based, you'll hear from her as well. and some of the other authors that we will be taping oran showing you live are throughout the day. if you want the full schedule of our live coverage today, go to booktv.org. we've got the schedule. it's over on the right-hand side of the page. you can read up and down, youtv can see everything that we're covering live today, plus if you're on twitter, follow us @booktv is our twitter handle. we'll be sending out schedule updates, behind the scenes pictures, video, etc. we're also on facebook at booktv and instagram, book underscore tv. i know that's a lot of information to throw at you. right now we're going to go into the history and biography room, and this is where you'll hear from sidney blumenthal talking about his most recent book in just a minute. it's about abraham lincoln and his final years, it's called

"wrestling with his angel." this is booktv's live coverage of the 17th annual national book festival. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning.

i'm the editor of "the washington post" sunday outlook section which is our home for ideas, essays and arguments ands personal narratives and also, thankfully, home for our nonfiction book coverage. .. the post is very happy to be a sponsor of the national book festival for many years. before we get started couple of quick orders of business.i want to remind everyone that you can donate to help support the festival which is a really cool event. all of the information is in the program. after sidney blumenthal finishes there will be q&a, time permitting. in addition he will be doing a so in my decade and a half of living in washington, a lot has changed. but one thing that hasn't

changed is that the city is very much a place of cast and sex. sometimes these groups, the journalists and the politicians and operatives and the policy scholars and of the lobbyist and the diplomats and the advocates, sometimes they have symbiotic relationships and sometimes parasitic ones, and sometimes they don't interact at all. but rarely does somebody passed between them and almost never with the facility and the adaptability and the skill of sidney blumenthal. sydney start his career as a journalist at the new republic and the "washington post." he worked two of my alma mater as well, and then he covered washington for the new yorker, which is generally regarded as the summit of analytical and narrative political coverage, that post, coverage in d.c. in his work as a journalist,

before he was an early detection system for a problem we all know very well. he coined the term the permanent campaign. then sydney went into the administration and to serve as president clinton's concierge for his second term where histhn portfolio was over every political issue in the whitest it afterward he he returned to . journalism where he worked at salon and also wrote books about the clinton and bush administration's.alon andd now sydney has gotten into probably his most ambitious project yet, giving abram lincoln the robert carorlay h treatment. i can't think of an american political figure more relevant to contemporary debates. the first of the four volumes of the series, a self-made man,e started the course at the beginning and i remember reading the coverage of it when it first came out. the word magisterial appeared frequently. c

we gave it a nice review also. now sydney has just dropped "wrestling with his angel", which is a battle against stephen douglas and the rise of a new political party, the republicans. he could not have picked a better moment for a book about political realignment. and so now please help me invited up here to talk about it, sidney blumenthal. [applause] >> great to beer. thank you, adam, for this very kind remarks. i am honored to be here at the library of congress national book festival.l.book last night in the first event i had a conversation with david mccullough i just finished up

extra and said we really need lincoln now.llough and he said we need them all.het [laughing] the library of congress building, one of the most magnificent buildings in the country, did not used to be such a distinguished address. it used to be the location of a row of porting houses facing the capital, inhabited by congressman. and one of those was abraham lincoln. he lived on that site in the fourth went in. he was a stall the wig. that was the party of lincoln. and he lived in a boarding hous whigs but is also known as abolition house because it was the center of anti-slavery

operations in the district of columbia pic and also want to say i'm very happy to be here speaking to those of you who are fellow washingtonians. so the "washington post" and talking about the national book festival said it's a chance to hear people imitate charles dickens and take selfies. i do know that dickens tookdickn selfies, but i will do my poor imitation of dickens, talking about this second of four volumes, about the political life of abraham lincoln. this volume i've entitled "wrestling with his angel." i've taken it from the story of jacob, from the bible, of jacob wrestling through a long night with an angel, or himself. and emerging at don as somebody else having resolved himself and

is sending a new identity. he takes a new name, the navy takes is israel. and something like that happens with lincoln, but it happened in his wilderness years, years lasting from 1849-1856. and he assumed a new identity. so let me pretend to be dickens for a minute. the more time i have spent with abraham lincoln, the more i come to understand that his words and actions were a careful result on his intense self-discipline. the silences that his law partner william henry herndon and his friends described of his melancholy were also a mask forl his concentration, intellectual absorption and focus. his depression and his other

feelings deepened his self awareness and spurred his self education which informed his acute understanding of human nature and politics. even when his life seem to have been reduced to insignificance, he was scanning the horizons and interpreting science. the young lincoln in his first formal speech at the springfield in 1838 saw portions of a crisis to come. at what point then, he said, as he approached the danger be expected? i am, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. they cannot come from abroad.it if destruction be our lot weon must ourselves be its author and finisher. now, wrestling with his angel describes lincoln's dark knight

at the soul, linking come to his revelation of of the house div" from which he emerged as the recognizable lincoln of history. he would be that man until his assassination. after abraham lincoln's one term in the congress and his return, to his spare law office in springfield, he stared into the distance for long traits of time. his partner recalled them breaking one of his prolonged silences with a cry of anguish, the political world was dead,de herndon wrote. things were stagnant and i'll hope for progress in the light of freedom seemed to be crushed out. lincoln was speculating with me about the deadness of things. and the despair which arose out of it, and deeply regretted that his human strength and power were limited by its nature to rouse and stir up the world. he said, clinically,

despairingly, sadly, how hard, how hard it is to die and leave one's country. no better than if one had never lived for it. the world is dead to hope. death to its own death struggle. made known by a universal cry, what is to be done? is anything to be done? who can do anything, and how is it to be done? did you ever think of these things? almost as since abraham lincoln came back to springfield, hisab wife, mary todd lincoln, turned him right around and sent him oh a mission to her hometown of lexington, kentucky, to serve as cocounsel to recover the todd family fortune, which wasfo considerable. lincoln found himself thrust into the vortex of his native

states politics, turned into mortal kombat between anti-slavery and proslavery forces. the lawsuit and the politics were intertwined. so bear with me and follow these threads, if you will, for nearly a decade mary todd's father, senator henry clays business partner, and political ally, had tried to rest the todd estate from a man known as robert wickliffe, also called the old e duke. he had married polly todd, ad ad todd cousin who held the estate but passed away. wickliffe was also the leader of the virulently proslavery movement in kentucky. john todd, running for the state senate against that movement,

the less labor -- a slaveholding something was demonized with the worst word that could ever be used against anyone in politics, abolitionist. in the middle of the campaign, in july, 1849 he died of cholera. lincoln arrived to pursue the families case in october, just in time to observe the proslavery movement triumphantly, rewrites the estate constitution to eliminate a kentucky law prohibiting the slave tradeew within its borders. lincoln lost the case, and the todd family lost the estate to wickliffe. at the same moment that the political legacy of henry clay, lincoln's early -- mary's beloved father, were destroyed. if those events were not

sufficiently in bitterly, there was another factor. it was a profound but concealed factor. from memoirs, journals and pamphlets of the time, a mystery underlying the todd ayres versus wickliffe case emerges. it was a todd family secret. there was a living air. he was polly todd grandson, the only child of her son who had died at a relatively young age. but this error was not a person under law -- heir. he was, in fact, a slave you can he been emancipated and shippede to liberia. in 1878, this former this former slave, the invisible man of the story, and he had a name, alfred francis russell, was elected

vice president of liberia. edit 1883 he became president. so that made him mary todd's second relation to become a president. back in illinois from kentucky, lincoln spoke with john todd stewart, his first law partner and early political mentor, a conservative old whig. the time with cindy, which we must be democrats or abolitionists, said stewart.s stewart would eventually join the democrats. when that time comes, my mind is made up, lincoln replied. the slavery question cannot be compromised. lincoln expressed to many of his friends his anger at the risings slave power he had observed in kentucky. he was livid that an anti-slavery whig lawyer he knew

there, samuel miller, had been driven out of the state for his views. and president lincoln would appoint him to the supreme court. lincoln described privately young thoughtless and giddy headed kentucky slaveholders with slave charging behind them, the most glittering ostentatious osd displaying properly in thehe world, human property. lincoln would get excited on the questions said one of his friends, and believe that the tendency of the times was to make slavery universal. he told another friend, in the figures will be ready to accept the institution in illinois, and the whole country will adopt it. the todd case with its hidden history left lincoln smoldering in private until he emerged five years later, but the time for

lincoln to step forward had not come, not yet. a great revolution was required to bring abraham lincoln out of eae wilderness. lincoln's orbit in these years revolved around the eighth judicial district of central illinois. they after day with judge david davis and our coterie, i shall never forget the first time i saw mr. lincoln, recalled a criminal attorney who became one of lincoln's closest colleagues and friends and would be instrumental in his political campaigns, sweat came to the town of danville were lincoln was trying cases. this is his account. when i called it the hotel it was after dark and i was told lincoln was upstairs in the judge is true. the region where i had been brought up the judge of the court was usually a myth of marlis gravity, so that he could not be approached with some

degree of deference. i was not a little abashed, therefore, after i declined the unvented staircase to find myself so near the presence and dignity of judge davis in his room i was told i could find mr. lincoln. t response to my timid knock, two voices responded almost simultaneously, come in. imagine my surprise when the door opened to find two men undressed. i rather dressed for bed, engaged in a lively battle with pillows. tossing them at each others heads. one, a low heavyset man who leaned against the foot of the bed and puffed like a lizard answered to the description of judge davis. the other was a man of tremendous stature, compared to davis he looked as if he were eight feet tall.

he was encased in anncased i indescribable long garment which reached to his heels from beneath which protruded two of the largest feet i had after that time been in the habit of the scene.that t this immense shirt, for sure to most of income looked as if it' been literally carved out of the original boat a flat of which was made and the pieces joined together without reference to management or capacity. the only thing that kept it from slipping off, the tall and angular frame it covered was the single button at the throat. and i confessed to a secession of shutters when i thought what might happen should that button by any mischance lose its hold. i cannot describe my sensations at this apparition with modestot announcement. my name is lincoln, strode across the room to shake my

trembling hand. i will not say he reminded me of satan, but he was certainly the ungodly is a figure i had ever seen.een. [laughing] who was this lincoln? this lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he was, as he insisted, naturally anti-slavery. his deepening understanding of slavery in its full complexity as immoral, political, and constitutional dilemma began in his childhood among the primitive baptist anti-slaverya dissidents in backwoods kentucky and indiana whose churches, his semi literate parents attended. as a boy he wrote -- he rode down the mississippi river too new orleans turkey was the original huck finn.ri

when he discovered that new orleans was an open air emporium of slaves on auction, on display, and it shocked him. as a congressman in a single term here in washington, he lived in a boarding house, abolition house. he experienced the invasion of slave catchers coming to seize one of the waiters as a fugitive slave. undoubtedly, he knew the secret of the house where he lived. that it was a station in the underground railroad. he denounced the mexican war as fraudulently started and voted numerous times against the expansion of slavery in the new western territories that had been gained in that war. with a quiet assistance of thess leading abolitionists in the congress, he drafted a bill fora emancipation in the district of columbia. something he would make good on even before the emancipation

proclamation was issued. and it is why we in the district today have emancipation day.emai but that first bill of lincoln's never received even a single hearing in the house of representatives, and then he came home to an obscurity that seems as though it would nevermm end. at the lowest moment of political despair and retreat in american politics to that time, marked by widespread loss of faith in democracy itself, lincoln emerged with his cause.e suddenly in 1854, the once and future rivals of lincoln combined to blow to smithereens the cornerstone of political peace. senator stephen a douglas illinois, lincoln's eternal rival from the beginning of his political career, seeking a transforming gesture that would carry him to the democratic

presidential nomination in the white house join with secretary before, the dick cheney of hisce day, jefferson davis of mississippi, heir to slave welding health and the de facto acting president of the unitedng states, operating behind the weakling franklin pierce in their collaboration on the kansas-nebraska act. that act repealed the missouris compromise that had forbidden slavery north of the line to the country that prohibited it in the north, except for missouri. but now its repeal made possible the extension of slavery to the west. it made possible the nationalization of slavery, lincoln's nightmare. and in a stroke, the entire old

political order crack apart. we were thunderstruck and stunned and would wield and utter confusion, said lincoln, describing the atmosphere of the early resistance. but we rose, each fighting, grasping whatever he could reach, aside, a pitchfork, a chopping ax or a butchers cleaver. we struck in the direction of the south. into brief autobiography lincoln depicted himself in his wilderness years as strangely content any kind of internal exile, becoming nearly kind indifferent of politics, immersed in his legal practice. as he was contemplating his race for the presidency, he told the "chicago tribune" in 1854 his profession had almost superseded the father politics in his mind. when the repeal of the missouri compromise aroused him, as he had never been before. it was about this decisive

juncture in lincoln's career that herndon, his law partner, wrote of lincoln's ambition. that man who thinks lincoln, he sat down and gather his ropess around him waiting for the people to call in has a very erroneous knowledge of lincoln. he was always calculating and always planning ahead. his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest. now, lincoln clung to the whole of the sinking whig parties longer than somebody else a new at a new coalition against the extension of slavery, the nationalization of slavery must be organized. in this time a party chaos, lincoln cast himself into the whirlwind. he sequestered himself in the law library of the state capitol in springfield. and drafted a speech against te

kansas-nebraska act, stepping onto the podium to speak in the illinois hall of representatives on october 4, 1854, he never again left the stage of history. lincoln, the defender of the declaration of independence and its presets to all men are critic equal, invoked the blood of the revolution, the american revolution. lincoln, the shakespearean pointed to the more wrong ofhe l slavery and alluded to his favorite play, macbeth, and the scene where macbeth tries to wash out the spot of his guilt. lincoln said, like the bloody hand you may wash it, and wash it and wash it. the red witness of guilt still sticks and stairs horribly at you. he was referring to slavery. now, in this chaotic time, many movements swirled across the landscape. i can slavery, against

immigrants, and against liquor. but the nativists and temperance movements compound the development of the anti-slavery war. meanwhile, anti-slavery democrats and anti-slavery whigs with long grudge still regarded each other with mutual suspicion.antisl some people in the abolitionist movement in illinois understood, had the political sense that they needed a more proficient and gifted political figure. to draw the elements together, and that brought them to abraham lincoln. that brought them in fact, to the very platform where he was speaking in the illinois hall of representatives against the kansas-nebraska act. and when he finished, the small group of radical abolitionists asked him to join a meeting they were holding that night for a group they called the republican party. it was a radical group.

and lincoln dodged them. he had a lock case in a distant county. he would not attend this radical group, the republican party. for years lincoln turn over inin his mind the minutes of slavery to democracy. in 1855 he envisioned the prospect of what was to come. i think that there is no peaceful extinction of slaveryf and prospect for us, he wrote his cocounsel, george robertson, kentucky judge. the significant of henry clay and other good and great men in 1849 to affect anything in favo8 of gradual emancipation in kentucky, together with 1000 other signs extinguishes that help utterly. yet another complicating factor entered into the equation. between 1845-1854, 3 million

immigrants arrived in the united states, the first great wave of immigration about 40% were for, irish catholics fling the potato famine. another 40% were germans fleeing the crushing liberal democratic revolution in germany of 1848. conservative protestants viewed the irish especially as a sourca of crime, corruption, and poverty. both the irish and germans were beer guarantors -- drinkers. condemn them a as a drunken lazo and simple. a new party arose in this type of party disintegration. it was a mass political party. it was an anti-immigrant party, and the party was known as the

know nothing party. it took that name because members were told that when you're asked if he remembers they were to reply, i know nothing. it sprang from a small nativists sect in newark city called the order of the star-spangled banner. within months after the 1852 election, it attracted estimated membership of more than 1 million. its program had one plank in one plank only. only nativeborn protestants would be allowed to hold public office in the united states. and it had a slogan, americans only shall govern america. .. as the crisis deepens, lincoln wandered how he could be effective writing slavery while maintaining his identity in the crumbling whig party.

on august 24 he wrote to his longtime intimate friend joshua who she had shared a room with. her now was with his family could they agreed on many things and disagreed and others includ i am not a no nothing. that is certain, lincoln wrote. how could i be? how could anyone who an horsee the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? our progress appears to me to be pretty rapid. as a nation we began as a nation declaring all men are created equal. we now pracally read it all men are created equal except negroes.

when the no nothings get control all men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and catholics. when it comes to this i prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty.re to rush that, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. even then lincoln had a way with words. state by state the new republican party was being organized and in illinois, a group of anti-slavery newspaper editors invited lincoln to them them as a leader to organize them as a convention of the new party. lincoln was absent at time, recalled herndon and believe i knew what his feelings and judgment on the vital questions of the hour were, i took the liberty to sign his name to the

call. john todd stuart, lincoln's first law partner, conservative whig rushed into the office trying to remove lincoln's endorsement. stuart excitedly asked herndon if lincoln signed the abolitionist call in the newspaper. i answered in the negative, adding, that i had signed his name. to the question, did lincoln authorize you to sign it, and i returned an emfat tick -- emfattic, no. claimed startled and indignant stewart, you have ruined abraham lincoln. i thought i understood lincoln thoroughly, herndon said, in order to vindicate myself i immediately sat down after stewart rushed out of the office to write lincoln in the county and attending court.

how much stir it was creating in the ranks of his conservative friends. if approved or disapproved my course i asked him to write or telegraph me at once. in a brief time came his answer. all right, go ahead. we'll meet you, radicals and all. at that meeting on february 22nd, 1856, george schneider, editor of the german language newspaper propose ad plank denouncing the no-nothings. the nativists present strongly opposed it. the conference threatened totheo collapse. snyder announced he would submit his resolution to lincoln and abide by his decision. gentlemen, declared, lincoln, the resolution introduced by mr. schneider is nothing new. it is already contained in the declaration of independence and

you can not form a new party on other principles. this declaration of mr. lincoln, schneider recalled, saved resolution and in fact helped to establish the new party on the most liberal democratic basis. lincoln's judgment made possible the creation of the illinois republican party which became the instrument that would inin four years, carry him to the republican nomination for president. but he could not foresee thattf distant future, nor could he predict the shocking 10 daysfu that shook the world, that would soon polarize and clarify the coming conflict. on may 19th, 1856 senator charles sumner of massachusetts, delivered his speech on the attack on democracy. the crime against kansas. then being taken over by the slave power. on may 21, two days later, an

army of nearly 1000 proslavery missourians under red banner inscribed, southern rights, rampaged into the free state town of lawrence, kansas, and ransacked it. the next day, in the united states senate, while sumner sat writing at his desk, congressman preston brooks of south carolina approached him as he was sittina and battered him relentlessly on his head with a gold handled cain nearly killing him in retribution for his speech. bloodstreamed across the floor of the senate. two days later on may 24th along pobwame creek in kansas, radical abolitionist john brown and his followers hacked five proslavery men to death in the middle of the night.

five days later on may 29th, abraham lincoln stood on the platform of the new party he founded in illinois, the republicans, within assuming two years his identity after republican party, lincoln sounded his note of destiny. of lincoln's language was not only drenched in shakespeare but also drawn from what passages of the king james bible. from the gospel of mark, if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom can not stand. and if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. from the gospel of luke, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. and a divided household falls. on june 16th, 1858 declaring his candidacy for the u.s. senate, against stephen @.

douglas, lincoln explained, if we could first know where we are and whether we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. now recall, just a few years later, he was despairing. he wondered what is to be done. he thought the political world was dead.. he had not thought through the crisis. this is upon him. what lincoln said, i believe this government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. i do not expect the union to be dissolved. i do not expect the house to fall, but i do expect it will cease to be divided. it will become all one thing, oe all the other. by now, lincoln's sense of historical time and political timing had become acute. two weeks after his defeat to douglas, he wrote to a friend, the fight must go on.

the cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at end of one or 100 defeats. in 1860 beginning his campaign for the republican presidential nomination in his speech at the cooper union in new york city, lincoln concluded, neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. let us have faith that right makes might. in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. lincoln's political education was long but many of the moments of lincoln's awakening from his period of political slumber were not publicly known until years after his death. at about the time he was thinking this through, this

problem of, in early 1855 traveling the county court circuit, staying overnight in a boarding house, his discussionor with a former judge and former lawyer lyle dickey, another conservative old whig went on deep into the night. judge dickey contended slavery was an institution which the constitution recognized which could not be disturbed. lincoln argued ultimately slavery must many extinct, recalled another illinois lawyer who was present. 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 nightshirt on the edge of the bed arguing the point with me. at least we went to sleep. early in the morning i woke up, lincoln was sitting up in thet bed, lincoln told dick sir, iup tell you this nation can not exist half slave and half-free.

lincoln, replied, dickey, go to sleep. a little later, but in this period, 1857, a free black woman, known as polly, appeared at the office of lincoln and herndon with a tale of whoa. her young son hired himself out in a steamboat in the mississippi, something lincoln had done year earlser, when he reached new orleans, without papers showing he was freed, he was jailed and sold into slavery. lincoln appealed to the governor of louisiana who rejected his request. so, lincoln drew up a subscription list and herndon raised money from lincoln's's friend in springfield. lincoln drew from his account of the lincoln marine life insurance company, what he had.

and they located an agent in new orleans to purchase the young man's liberty and soon his prison door swung open and he was returned to springfield to his mother. lincoln had bought a slave in order to free him. it was abraham lincoln's first act of a emancipation. thank you. [applause] i think we have five minutes. i think i can take a couple questions if anyone has a question about lincoln. >> i say this with humility, as

you know there are more books written about lincoln than anyone else.>> what led you to believe you could add to this and what you just said, what has not been known previously by other authors? >> thank you for that question. when i fell down this rabbit hole of abraham lincoln, i had no idea when or how i would emerge. i'm still down this rabbit hole writing. but i thought that, what i had to offer was my own experience. as a journalist, as a somebody who, who understood who grew up in illinois, involved in illinois politics. and as somebody who worked in the white house. and participated in and observed a presidency first-hand. and so i thought that my skills, might be brought to bear to provide some original insight and interpretation on lincoln.

and i hope i have done so. in the first two volumes and in the next two to come. particularly about the house divided, country torn apart and the emergence of lincoln's political leadership. how he dealt with that.ge and how he developed his argument and his word and where he took it from, because he was only one person. and how he managed to develop and find the means that eventually, would save thetry an emancipation. >> what was the whigs party, what were their views on immigration? >> well, there were no laws on

immigration in the united states at the time. the question was, what were the views on immigration? there were no laws againstthe qu immigration. of the people came into the country. it was, but, there was a lot of prejudice against this new wave of immigration of the irish and germans particularly.ns and this movement developed against it. lincoln, as i noted, be a bored the no-nothing movement but he only did so in private and he operated behind the scenes believing it had to be undone b political means through the operation of his friend and lincoln did work behind theon scenes to undermine the no-nothing movement. engaged even in, methods that were familiar with today in places like chicago where he destroyed the no-nothing party.

entirely without any prints. , using his friends. but he did so with a belief that he needed to draw them and get them to participate in this anti-slavery coalition thathe became the republican party.y and until he, as he told owen lovejoy, one of the leading radical abolitionists, who came to lincoln and wanted his leadership. the time has not yet come in the mid-18 '50s. lincoln waited for the right time. wr the ri that is one thing about lincoln. he would take a step depending on the timing. and some people would criticize him for being passive and vacillating and compromising. but he said i never took a step back, once i took a step forward. in order to take a step forward, he wanted to have the greatest

possible political support for what he was doing. and that was part of his political genius. one more question. >> thank you very much, for such a wonderful synopsys of your story. could listen to you for hours. >> thank you. >> it was enthralling. i'm sure the audience agrees with me. it was outstanding. >> thank you. >> my question isn't about lincoln but it is about your perspective on the waves of history going forward and back and forward and back. i'm sure you have seen that with your research and studies and there are many of us today who admire the intellect of hinge con and kennedy and other notable presidents. w we're struggling with the eventn in our present condition and i was wondering if you might have a chance to put some of that inn perspective so that we could

leave this festival with hopee and perhaps -- [laughter] [applause] >> thank you for that. let me refer to abraham lincoln. in that speech at springfield lyceum in 1828, called, perpetuation of our political institutions in which lincoln warns of our own self-destruction from within. he says, there is a flaw in our system and this is what lincoln says.aw he says, there may be a man who. emerges seeking, and these are lincoln's words, not mine, celebrity and fame. and distinction beyond what is normal in politics. and he may seek to trample down what exists in order to achieve

distinction for himself. when that happens, said lincolnl the people must unite together and then lincoln's words, act intelligently.y. in order to oppose him. now lincoln may have had in min steven a. douglas his great rival but he was warning against the danger of demagogic and how it might upset the american democracy and lincoln's words echo through the ages. thank you very much.oln's wo [applause]

[inaudible conversations]. >> this is booktv live coverages of the 17th national annual book festival in washington, d.c. it is held at the convention center the last several years. in this segment, we want to know what you're reading. we show you what authors are writing. for those of you in the east and central time zones, 748-8201. if you live in mountain and pacific time zones.

go ahead and dial in and we'll take calls what some of our viewers are reading coming up in about 15 minutes. margo lee shutterly, author of ""hidden figures"." turned into the movie. after hexer j.d. vance, hillbilly he will lagy. later, david mccullough and tom friedman will do call-ins. you have a chance to hear from those two authors. michael lewis, his latest project. he has written "the big short," "moneyball." go to our website at booktv for the schedule. the schedule is over on the right-hand side of the page. you can click on it, look at it, print it out, do whateveu