many of these eventss are open to the public. look for them to air in the future on booktv on c-span2. >> booktv is on location on the campus of ucla. we are talking to professors who are also authors. joan waugh is co-author of this book, "the american war: a history of the civil war era". joan waugh, 1850, give us a snapshot of the united states. >> guest: 1850 was the first year of the decade that brought on the secession crisis and brought on the civil war. 1850 was the year california came into the union.

1850 was also the year that a compromise was forged, the last great compromise, they didn't know it then, but we know it now, that saved the union. it was a compromise forged by the north and south that involved a number of major changes to the way territories good to come to the united states involving passage of the fugitive slave act and other compromises that neither side was happy about, but it did preserve the union for the tumultuous decade to come. >> host: what was the compromise? >> guest: the compromise of 1850. the compromise, you mean the

specifics, included introducing the idea of organizing territory that came into the united states from the mexican war under the doctrine of popular sovereignty. that just meant people of this or that territory when they were ready to come into the union could decide for themselves if they would be a free or slave state. the first territory that would come in that way would be the kansas territory in 1854. is led to what was called in history the little civil war in kansas. >> host: 1850, that compromise preserved the union. >> i can say it preserved the union. there were other compromises that preserved the union. the compromise of 18204 example.

the compromise made between the founding fathers when they came to write the u.s. constitution, all these compromises over slavery were integral to keeping america together, the northern and southern sections. it was something northerners who were anti-slavery didn't like, that southerners who were proslavery didn't like but in order for the country to maintain its stability, its integrity, that compromise had to be made. in the 1850s all the compromises that were made including the one in 1850 didn't work anymore. a political party disappeared, the whig party, and the

republican party was born in the wake of the controversy over the compromise of 1850 and the kansas nebraska controversy. all these things lead one after another. it was quite a decade. >> host: some would say this delayed the inevitable rather than saved the union. >> guest: we would say that if we are looking back at people who live in the 21st century. we don't know. one of the things historians have an obligation to do is to teach our students to take the past on its own terms. they didn't know what was going to happen in 1850. they didn't know what was going to happen in 1860 at the beginning of the war. we already know, so we put in the past what we think should have happened or probability but we shouldn't do that. we should just try and understand the past on its own terms.

>> host: one of the things you write in "the american war: a history of the civil war era," the south had wielded disproportionate influence in national government. >> host: i think that is true. >> guest: if you look at the first presidents, excepting atoms. most of them in the 18th and 19th century, most of them, washington being the principal one, jefferson, madison, monroe and so on were slaveholders. and it was the executive branch's wields disproportionate power and for most of the time, the whigs did not win the presidential election. the second major party. it was the southerners who held the power often in the senate and that started to change in the 1850s for a variety of reasons and the southerners felt threatened by that. >> host: looking back to the

1850s, was buried point in that decade you can say we could have prevented the civil war. >> i think there were several points that which the civil war could have been prevented. one of the points certainly was with the issuance of the dred scott decision in 1857 in which the supreme court went beyond what it needed to do and declared blacks were never citizens and could never be citizens and the united states government, the federal government had no right to stop slavery from going into any territory. that is really, i think, one decision that might have at least arrested the civil war, given people more time.

i do think politicians in the 1850s and 1860s in washington didn't realize how angry the electorate was over this issue, especially misjudged the fire reading sentiment in the south. when they did realize it, it was too late. >> host: economically and populationwise, the north and the south, what were they like? >> guest: in the 50s you had the spectacle of well integrated successful economy. you had the cotton economy fueling the rise of manufacturing and many other great aspects of a surging economy at this point. the growth was phenomenal. the very success that was

present in the economic system which works well together, you have to remember northerners benefited from the slave economy. northern banks and investment companies benefited from the slave economy, part of the national economic structure as well. but the very success of it, the spread of the southern plantation system. the desire of both sections to expand in the western territories dropped free labor versus slave labor to a friction point and that is the remarkable story in and of itself, how it became such an issue for slaveholders, that they felt it

wasn't really about being able to establish cotton plantations in kansas which was not going to happen or the nebraska territory, it was about the security of this amazingly successful plantation system for states where it already existed. >> host: joan waugh, you alluded to this. often we look at history through the eyes of the elites, what about most citizens in this country. where they aware of the issues being faced? >> guest: you are speaking of people in the 19th century. they were. we know this because we studied the elections, we studied the way politicians appeal to their electorate and people were aware but they were also not expecting to fight the civil war. they didn't know that. they knew something was wrong and something had to be fixed.

here is what they did no. they knew about compromise. they knew there were these groups in the north and south we could describe as radical, southern fire eaters who pushed for secession before it became embraced by a majority of southerners and abolitionists in the north. i believe most people were pretty much living their lives the way americans have always lived. they were interested in the economy. they were interested in making sure their children had a better life than they did, education, they were interested in other political issues such as the tariff, the scandals that were plaguing the buchanan administration from 1856-1860. there were a lot of things going on. >> host: james buchanan is often at the bottom of list ranking

the presidents. >> guest: i believe you can -- you can't imagine a more prepared man to be president and james buchanan. in 1856, he had been a politician, a minister of broad, he was well-known and well-respected. he brought to the office the hope with his election that he could calm things down. nothing was called down. the way he conducted his administration was to alienate everybody. he certainly did that and brought the country to a greater intensity of dislike for each other instead of pacifying.

>> host: abraham lincoln had been president a month or so before south carolina seceded. prior to that during the buchanan administration they had to be grinding toward that. >> guest: the you can administration was in power until march 4th. they had to deal with the secession of the first seven southern states in the lower south and had to figure out what would be the position that you would take. the position during what was called the secession winter is we could do everything we can to encourage the upper southern states, virginia, north carolina, tennessee, for

example, to stay in the united states. how do we do that? by encouraging the union assessment which was very strong. there were a number of compromises put forward at this time. among them was the first 13th amendment. do you know about that amendment? you don't. that was the amendment that had the support of southern unionists and many northern politicians including men that would be considered abolitionist politicians but who believed as most northerners did that there was nothing that the north could do to stop slavery in the south because it was constitutionally protected. they wanted to prevent extension in the western territories. this amendment, the first 13th amendment was floated, it gradually became coalescing around this amendment which would guarantee in perpetuity

slavery's existence in the states where it existed. it would be the 13th amendment, you could never abolish slavery. abraham lincoln supported it. james buchanan signed off on it. congress passed it. i believe three states began the process, but by that time fort sumter happens. the story of the 13th amendment is a story that should remind us not to assume things about the past that is more our particular interests and beliefs. there you had it. there were a lot of people willing to stop a war they did not want, they knew would bring great destruction and sadness and tragedy to this country. they almost did it but they didn't. >> host: you referenced southern unionists. what percentage supported

staying in the union and vice versa? >> guest: in the south the upper southern states at the beginning of the secession crisis wanted to stay in the union of slavery could be preserved in some way, if they could be guaranteed the safety of this institution which was the seedbed of their economic prosperity. virginia turned down secession. other states did too. they didn't want to do it unless they were forced. that is why fort sumter was so important. the whole issue for them is there would be no coercion to keep the original southern states that formed the new nation of the confederate states of america, to threaten them. with fort sumter that was all gone. >> host: who are the fire eaters as you reference them in south carolina that made fort sumter happen, made south carolina

happened? >> guest: the fire eaters in south carolina, i am blanking on the names of course. >> host: why south carolina? >> guest: south carolina was a unique state in the union, from the beginning it had a black majority. from the beginning, south carolina politicians and their leaders, their business leaders, were absolutely, you could call them frantic and fanatic about preserving the safety of slavery. whenever any threat was issued, this came up in the 1790s and would come up in congressional debates in the 1820s, it would come up in the mexican war debates, it would come up in the

compromise of 1850 controversy. they were always the ones that provided the seedbed of secession. we associate the theory of secession in its fullest depiction going forward with south carolina politician john c calhoun and he certainly was the leader and, i think, the inspiration for many other southern fire eaters who saw secession as the only logical way to preserve what they were increasingly coming to call their country. what you have here by the eve of the civil war, how the confederate states of america viewed itself was two nationstates in the 19th century each of whom had a legitimate reason to exist. that was the way you have to

understand the buildup to secession, the drumbeat for secession by these men who were prepared for it when it did come and were able to get that large section of the southern population that we call conditional unionists, only interested in staying in the union if their way of life could be preserved and that meant preserving slavery, they convinced them this was the way to go. >> host: asked what point did senator calhoun and senator jefferson davis leave washington to return to their southern roots? >> guest: calhoun left washington via his early death. he died not long after the great debates he participated in to save the union although he was opposed to the compromise of

1850 but jefferson davis was the last southern senator to leave washington dc. he was not a fire eater. most of the men who would assume the high positions in the new confederate government, montgomery and ed richmond, their capital throughout the war, richmond, virginia, were moderates, where men who had a lot of seasoning and experience in national government in one way or another. they were the ones who were the spokesman for the confederate people and the confederate nation both at home and abroad. of the 19 did jefferson davis have any relationship with abraham lincoln? >> guest: davis did not have -- there has been a lot written about lincoln. right now i cannot recall if

they had ever met. i doubt it. i doubt they had ever met. jefferson davis's vice president, alexander stevens of georgia who was not a fire eater either had a friendship with abraham lincoln when lincoln served as a congressman from 1846-1848 and they were friends and lincoln wrote a letter to him. alexander stevens wrote a letter to abraham lincoln while lincoln was waiting to come to washington after he was elected to be president, wondering if there was anything they could do, if he had any suggestions and lincoln wrote back to him, i would really like to be able to work this out, he said, but we

don't seem able to agree on the extension of slavery. he said in his letter that is the rub. you want to extend slavery and make slavery national while we want to restrict it. >> host: is your book written for a general audience or scholarly audience? >> guest: we wrote this book for students that we have been teaching, gary gallagher has been teaching for 30 years and i have been teaching for 20 years. he is teaching at uva and i'm teaching at ucla. we thought a lot about the fact that there was no short, succinct and yet provocative textbook on the civil war that would combine the chronological, political, economic, the progress of the battles, but

also have thematic chapters on emancipation, soldiers, women, reconstruction, a chapter on memory. we wanted to cover it all, the causes of the war, the progress of the war, reconstruction which some people might call the consequences of the war and memory. how the civil war has been remembered, all in 276 pages, 12 chapters, 20 pages each, more or less, and we were very very pleased with the result of this book and think it does give our students, we know this since we assigned it a couple times already, the basis in which students and many readers who aren't going to invest their time right away in a 500 page to

800 page, one volume work of the civil war but to read a shorter book. a book that will excite them, get them where they need to go, helped along by our suggestions. >> host: what do you teach at ucla? >> i teach the 19th century, civil war, reconstruction and that period called the gilded age. >> host: at what point in your life did that become your interest or your vocation? >> guest: at what point in my life was it not? that is a very anti-intellectual thing for you to say. is there some kind of law, i am teasing you a bit because i'm asked that all the time, people from los angeles should only be interested in los angeles's history, it has been suggested

to me your students don't care about the civil war, aren't they interested in surfing? other baseless allegations made against people who live in los angeles. but i always was fascinated with history. as a little girl i read a series of biographies written for children and the one on clara barton was my favorite but i went on and read a lot of history and biography and became fascinated. my favorite century has always been the 19th century and united states history and it has propelled me through good luck and good fortune into a job at ucla teaching my wonderful undergraduate students every year about it. that is this incredible period. using the past to try to

understand the present, we know we can't predict the future. >> host: "the american war: a history of the civil war era" is the name of the book. ucla professor joan waugh is the co-author. >> guest: thank you very much. >> booktv is on facebook. like us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, behind the scenes pictures and videos, author information and to talk directly with others, facebook.com/booktv. >> does anyone else have an experience you want to share? >> tyrone asked about medication again. conversation turns to drugs and alcohol when tyrone instead talks about getting arrested for smoking a blunt. everyone has something to say about drugs. may i say something minor? asked many during a pause in the discussion. sure. i don't mean to take up everyone's valuable time, i know

i don't deserve it, thank you for letting me speak. you are fine, just talk. thank you, thank you. it is just that i struggle with alcohol for so long, almost 40 years now and been sober since getting locked up. i felt so badly i can stay clean when i get out. you seem to be more comfortable now, continue talking. he tells us about being whipped against the wall when he was a 7-year-old when he didn't do a good enough job cleaning up the mess from his father after partying the night before. one morning manny drink a glass of leftover orange juice not really noticing it was mixed with vodka. when his hung over father found out he whipped manny until blood seeped through his shirt. but manny says it doesn't hurt because he was tipsy from the alcohol so he drank as much alcohol he could get his hands on. thank you for letting me share this, manny. i know i am not with you.

i wrote these words and still getting a little tearful. manny, says jamil leaning forward to see them clearly, you are worth it. you got mad courage. just hang on and keep going one day at a time. that is all you got to do. jamal looks like he is about to cry. no one but a psychotic patient ever offered him kind words. and one and tyrone looked uncomfortable with his expression of emotions the campbell nods in agreement. got to take it one day at a time. think of all those days you survived already. i glanced at cynthia to see if she appreciates what is going on in front of us. her eyes are wide and wet with amazing. we are witnessing a pivotal moment for manny, a collective responsibility to care for someone else. no one wanted to end. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> booktv tapes hundreds of other programs throughout the country all year long. here is a look at some of the events we will be covering this week. monday we are in washington dc to hear hillary clinton give her account of the 2016 presidential election.

we will be at the baltimore book festival held at the city after arbor to hear from michael eric dyson, laura jacobs, andrea ritchie, devon ellen and other authors. that is a look at some of the events booktv will be covering this week. many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the future on booktv on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] >> can you hear me? i am hearing echoes. all good? we just found out michael is supposed to do a power point presentation. it will take half an hour to find the power point presentation. thank you for being here. thank you to the library of congress and david rubenstein, chairman of the festival and we will have a little chat here, a