assigned. to watch the rest of this program visit our website booktv.org search for isabel wilkerson early title of her book cast using the search box at the top of the page. >> good evening and a warm welcome to another biography event. i hope everyone is staying safe, wearing masks and reading many biographies. my name is kai byrd and i'm the director of the leavy center for biography, a wholly unique institution hosted by the graduate center of the city of the university of new york. and founded by shelby white in 2007. which i think you first steadfast report supports her

vision that is made this program possible. please note that our next event is coming up in two days. on this thursday october 15 where victor of ascii and i interview larry tie. timely new important biography of joseph mccarthy. tonight we are here however to celebrate the publication of a team. abraham lincoln in his time. a new biography of lincoln by david reynolds. abe is just out. this is his book launch. in the book has received start early reviews in publishers weekly and elsewhere. we encourage everyone to look it up on amazon or preferably your own local independent bookstore. david reynolds is a distinguished professor at the graduate center. he is the author of walt whitman's america a cultural

biography. winner of the ben croft. his other books include beneath the american resins outs john brown abolitionist. and mightier than the sword uncle tom's cabin in the battle for america. he is a regular book reviewer for the new york review of books, the near times book review and the wall street journal. david will be in conversation with james oakes, one of the leading historians of the 19th century america. james is pioneering works include the ruling race covid 1982. slavery and freedom and interpretation of the old south, the radical and the republican frederick douglass abraham lincoln and the triumph of antislavery policy. in his latest book, freedom

national, the destruction of slavery in the united states, 1861 to 1865. they will have a conversation for about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. and then take questions for ten or 15 minutes. please click on the question box below to typing your questions. jim will be sure to get to as many of you as he can. we will try to ended this program after about one hour eastern time. again thanks to the leon leavy foundation for funding us in all of her other events. jim oakesent out turn the conversation over to you. thank you. >> thank you thank you for asking me to it this, really appreciate it. i am happy to do this because firs of all congratulations on your bk. it is a terrific book. congratulations on the revie on your book. they have been terrific also. >> thank you.

david is onef my favorite cultural historians. most favorite books, you're good. were okay? looks like i lost. >> no no you're fine. david isne of my favorite historians of the civil war era and my favorite cultural historian. he brings- that's because he brings the study o cultural history certain vires that aren't always present amongst historians. first is a genuinely awesomely site full history from high to low and everything in between. he bris to bear in shows to great effect. one the effects of that knowledge, that knowledge of

erican cultural history is the david has been sensitive to the conflicts, the contradiction within american culture. he does not find a cultura attribute said this is what it'sike. there are racist there antiracist. there are a gala teang their anti- gala tearing. all the way through there are religious conservatives and relious radicals. he brings that sensibility there also. it goes to great effect in all of h work including his latest bk. and associated with that as a kind of democratic that worries out high culture versus low culture. doesn't care too much about that distinguied not that there isn't such a thing. it shape the kind of books he lis : : :

>> when we switch, i think we can look at lincolnor silar reasons and praise him for being attuned to all aspects of ameran culture. from shakespeare to humor to the religious sensibilities of the agent alike. i think that all of those virtues show u in this book. i ink begin by asking you simple question. what is the difference between cultural biography of lincoln in

the kind of biographies b others. david: that is a gat question. there was a mvelous biography of linln it was superb. what they do it's generally, they follo hisife, sometim his political contacts, there is a biographyut. but the staard one volume, michael did such a wonderful job with the david donald classic single biography. and donald says in his preface, this is a biography from lincoln's point of view because he did it really have too much connection to the society and culture of hisra.

he was self educated. the ultimate self-made man. o'donnell even says that he entered the presidency the least epared o any president and we've ever had. in the sense i thinking really the opposite pointf view. i'm thinking from other point of view erson's said that of all of the great heroes in history, lincoln stands alone for embring entire realm of experience from the very and you mentioned this just now, from the veryighest to the lowest into the very others believed in him. emerson had a way of writing that. anytime t same way about shakespeare as well. he said shakespeare uses all the scrapsf old placeousy dramas dramas. and then he transforms tm into something new. in lincoln early onith popular humor sometimes rather dirty

hur or whatever but he also memorized very long poems by shakespeare, by burns. and he didn't do this to impress people at cocktail parties. and listen to listolymer something like that. did it just because these passages meant something to him. and once he read a pasge a couple of times and in a memorized right is right in the middle of his presidency, he would break out with a long poem. it could be by claudius or one of the great shakespearean tragedies that kind of thing. and even on april 9th, 1865. wimbley was surrendering to grantn the mathematics and lincoln was both going from virginia to washington. he had been visiting grant and everybody around him was chairing, this is great.

and i guess today we would've said, mission accomplished with a big banner or something but lincoln said i would ratheralk about shakespeare. and i would rather talk about longllow. and we would say what he would spend seral hours discussing poetry fm shakespeare longllow and others. and on the 750,000 americans, whdied in the civil war. that's where his mind was. it wasn't mission accomplished work on the greatest or whatever like that. i'm the leader here. he was thinking about those who have died. it's quite moving. i think that isart of where s democracy comes from. his ability to identify with people of all classes in all backgrounds.

jame ts book really helps us understand lincoln in the context of the culture and ao sometimehow he thinks about things, such as middle-class marriage or was in some way differt. it's really interesting section on this. let me ask a few questionsut the general theme. we start with the simpler one. why abe. wh "abe". i know abram lincoln. david: that is areat question as well. becae ashley did not like the name abe. an yet he said he would not have gotten elected witut the ime of honest "abe" o he knew in 1960s, he became beloved among e people as abe. so kinda feeds into my whole

idea about the way h identifie with african-americans in the way they saw him and left him. so the people around him new that he only wanted to becom lincoln, not even mr. president or abraham or anythingike that. he just looked at "abe" lincoln. is a tossup yes "abe". that's his identification with the common person back then. honest abe james: or father abraham. david: yes, that was ather one. father abraham. the were a lot of nicknames for him. james: so one of the things that runs all the way throu the book i hadn't thought too much about, is the cultural distance.

between the puritans and the valiers. and you develed this in terms of his own perception of himself as well as the culture at large as well a the way people at the time understood h. in this in terms of different ways of lookingt it. can you tell us a about that. david: a lot of peopleack them really thought the civil war was abt the age old difference between the new england puritan that new england early on had been settled by the puritans escaping persecution in england. and on one hand in the cavaliers to the supporters of loyalty and when cromwell and others to

power, cromwell was a puritan read they were fing to america and they settled in the south. charles sumner and a lot of other people are saying it was basically fight between new england which included anti- slavery standpoint by the way. and the cavalier which believe in kind of a hierarchy and institutions. including the institution of slavery. and lincoln was aware of the puritans and the cavalier but someone of the time said the great thing about president lincoln as he combines the puritans and the cavalier. i kinda explain in my book because his earliest ancestry on this father's side came over in 1837 was a puritan. and most of his descendents puritans they cam became baptist

eventually quite a bit on that side he goes back to puritan, new england. and his mother side, there was illegitimacy the background. he was not really sure who his grandfather was. but he consented to his virginia planter, a man of sort of the struck receipts of the south back in the day. so in a way, he associated with the sense of honor this kind of southern sense of honor. so we had both a puritan in the cavalier running through him. even though he did not want to identify with either side. because a lot of people they would say more of a puritan background or cavalier background. he chose to empathize his quaker background and it turns out that only one of his great-grandmother's was quicker. but the flowers. but all of his biographers said

that he had a quaker background of rated quakers were accepted by both the puritans and the cavaliers. they were kind of a buffer. you think that cavaliers would take them because they were entitled slavery. but no, the key were also pacifists. there were some conscientious if they didn't want to go to battle over opinions over slavery even though they morally opposed to slavery. they were sort of beloved in the north early on. then they had been persecuted and hanged in the early new england but by this time he has settled in the middle of the atlantic states in pennsylvania. innovative a buffer between the puritans and the cavaliers. i explored my ♪ ♪ lincoln kind of emphasizes that aspect in the background. james: and people at the time, i'm surprised lawsuit lawsuit and it should not be surprised.

there is a wonderful book written years ago about puritans and cavaliers. but i'm surprised again how any people at the time actually de dead. but i think that just the new england it is understood themselves to be puritans. they had a very, will they didn't like the cavalier. they were actually stereotypes. it's how each section stereotypes the other. david: will i think that stereotypes do really . easily even in our culture, a mushroom and become character shares. these were definitely caricatures but by the time of the 19th century when all of this being talked about, both sections were to be dismissed in a stereotype like puritan and

cavalier. but, an image overwhelmed a lot of people read they really begin to believe it. and a lot of people were saying that the division between the north of the south can never be repaired. because it will be nothing but hate for ever between the puritans and the cavalier. as kind of a ridiculous point of view but was widely accepted. james: in the cavaliers saw and identified themselves as the cavalier. david: also busybodies. they're trying to divide. moralistic. prudish. it is to hang quakers and burn witches and hang them and so forth. also very materialistic. slowly people.

james: in puritans, versus cavalier, aristocratic antidemocratic prey to. david: that's right. and making other people labor for them and idols. and the cavaliers were the brenda's and drinking their meant tulips while they enslaved people working. james: so that theme runs all the way through the book. and i actually just this afternoon i picked up the book. the differences between the puritans and the cavalier. and is still there. david: it is to some degree yes. james: so let me ask you about

this thing that shows up. it doesn't run all of the way through but once it shows up it is there. it has to do with niagara falls. i remember when i was a kid, niagara falls was larger in the culture and it does now. people went on their honeymoon's there. things like that but in the middle of the 19th century, niagara falls was a huge deal. and a lot of people use it metaphorically. including lincoln himself. but there's an incident in 1958 and also happens it niagara falls becomes a metaphor the people of the time used. so let's talk about this, how does like it or maybe you could expand on what niagara falls at in the american culture.

david: is a great tourist attraction. and lincoln with their on the way home from washington. he had been serving in congress. and he stopped over at niagara falls and of the great lakes to chicago and he lived in illinois. he stopped over at niagara falls and he was stoned by the spectacle rated part of my book is influenced by school of thought meaning that the affect the nature and things nonhuman things, have on people. and today but right now, very much experiencing post- human existence because we are speaking way we do. because there's this thing covid-19. there's something out there in california people are dealing with this thing. and also fire and all of their times, it is a hurricane or

something. i lived in california for a while and once mother would be an earthquake. lincoln was immersed in the very beginning and thing ascendant nature. a one room log cabin. he totally lived off of the forest and was surrounded from the very beginning. it is kind of a savage nature. when they seized niagara falls 1948, he was overwhelmed by the sheer energy and power of it. if it makes me think in kind of a post- human way, this spectacle has been here ever since adam. it is been here since ancient rome. all human beings, this is been a constant throughout history. so in a way, is extending backwards in time but thinking of this thing in front of him, niagara falls. in dissing how immense it was. it and made it think of all of

the people coming to see it. it was a real, nowadays not sure is that much of a tourist attraction but back then it was huge. in all these channels and rivers he was thinking about that ran into it. then they were channeled. part of my book is also about how he channeled so any rivers and streams of culture. missing he became niagara buddy became a channeling focus. eight or ten years later, 1958, 1959. a tight rope walker came, he was front and he put on a spectacle crossing niagara falls. any times on his tight rope. and he would push a wheelbarrow across in the carry a man on his back across niagara falls. we do flips. he would walk across a 4-foot skills. was incredible. but lincoln said, sometimes he

compared himself with him. right in the middle. why . good because he was living in such a divided time that he knew the worst thing he can do is to for both gasoline and the flames of division to step off that tight rope and people would come and say what can to make this more anti- slavery were from the very beginning and he said look if i were blonde and caring the entire nations futury wheelbarrow, we could be yelling, lean left our lead writer lean this way. her jump up and jump down. so you would allow me to keep right in the middle here. because this the best way to do this and preserve the union. it in one reason why he didn't make it more of an antislavery war was because he said that if they lose kentucky, we will lose everything. there were border states still had enslaved people. and yet they were loyal to the north. and he said if you lose some of

the states, avoid lose the war. so he had to stay in his tight rope to keep the states in the union. james: and sometimes the tight rope seems to be between his deep moral convictions the slavery was wrong and the need to build and then hold onto altogether a political coalition that had a lot of people didn't share. sometimes it is between morality and strategy. so what exactly. he was very morally opposed to slavery. he once said, i hate slavery is much as any abolitionists. i hate it. i am morally opposed to slavery

but, he sometimes, particularly early on said things that today sound quite conservative. and he was struggling to get ahead politically. and strategizing. fittingly illinois. and even during his presidency sometimes, and to behave a little bit more conservatively than he actually felt morally inwardly. james: best as of now in a way they talk about lincoln mostly there's no question that he himself have always hated it. just as he said before. i've always hated it. and grow up and being part of it culture. he has no reason not to take

medicine for it. but we tend nowadays, people have a difficult time separating the pressing of the left and the separating of the right for it in the middle of the 19th century, one of the things that the lincoln and the republicans were actively trying to do, is about slavery, the issue of slavery. we see that now. and douglas kept on wanting to talk about recent lincoln wanted to talk about slavery. historians trip over themselves on this. in one of the things that you do kind of give them do so few people do this is to place this in the context of our culture.

why did you talk about that a little bit. in particular, the kind of significance of it. it. david: well, early on i mentioned that he's had said a couple of conservative things almost racist things. this was in the debates with stephen douglas. but douglas kept on a thoroughgoing of racist targeted he said the stephen douglas did more harm to african-american people than just about anybody. he kept on for all of these debates, he kept on forcing the issue. and lincoln finally speaking in illinois have the time, and his law that went into effect in 1953, that frederick douglass called the worst black law of any state in the union. the so-called negro exclusion back which the fingerprint

african-american could you can enter for more than ten days of the time. he would be kicked out of the state. any can cherry pick certain things there. but then later on during the presidency he really gains quite deep respect and affection, he lived in a neighborhood that in illinois that was full of african-americans he became friendly to them. and he kept responding with several of them wealthy was in the white house. then while he was in the white house, frederick douglass who was at 31 thought he was quite conservative on slavery, and him a couple of times in the white house. and was astounded. this was the least private prejudice to white person think of ever met. and he is older and african-american feminists, that was true with him too. he said before i die, to be the

sky. this president, abraham weekend. it was delightful person and he felt close to him. martin delaney who was, we would call him beyond black lives matter. he was a black nationalist. very militant. he became the end of the war, will lincoln appointed him the highest appointed army officer. i didn't get to serve much because the war was almost over. but when he rather close to lincoln and then lincoln died. he described for like to have a day. he was just totally devastated . he proposed a monument to lincoln there was an african-american woman who meet kneeling. not even the monument of lincoln himself but a woman was in tears coming in her eyes. any to tear being paid for by a

penny from each of the 4 million enslaved people. so in a personal level, it was very close. he also grew to respect african-americans in civil war. when it fought. if you've seen the movie, glory, give a sense of how it was. but there were any other battles. they had more devotion, even more energy and self-sacrifice in white people did. so keep really admired that. but, he also relied to a great degree of petroleum, another popular humorist, who is fighting the war and race on the cultural front. and he impersonated the copperheads were the opponents in the conservative democrats back when the democrats were mainly conservative. so he impersonated them.

today, it's hard for us to read the scammer because it's full of the end board. ballou is doing when he is that word company used to over and over again, was just miming or impersonating these racist copperheads. people would laugh about this. a lot of people, several people said that he was just as great of a force as chairman or grant in defeating slavery because he was so popular. in lincoln we carried his jacket, the nasty papers, the sketches. and he would pull them out and read them. and he once said, i would give it my presidency if i could just write like this guy. it shows how deep his hatred of racism was. he really made these copperheads look disgusting and ugly. it's almost as though saturday night live hits, against lover.

a political figure. they were accepted as the huge cultural force. and i think today was so dispersed in the culture that it's hard to have a one kind of a single humerus for something to have the force that this real bestseller back then. so is more dispersed today. james: mep think of something that had opened it to me for most of the time when lincoln uses the n-word. he tends to use it in a way that is. call by putting it in the mouth of his opponents. so makes me wonder when the stuff was started in the writings. 1850s maybe.

you undermine the racist argument by karen could sizing it and sounds in a way lik - . h are you can get away with that today. cultures are very different right now. see what is a different culture. david: when i 31 encountered this, this person frankly is very disgusting. and so offensive that i can't read it. and then suddenly, this guys being funny. and then i thought yes, he is disgusting, appalling. and i suddenly realized he was criticizing lincoln left and right but what happened is that david ross that was his real name, he just had a nickname. he admit lincoln back in the 50s.

animals think that lincoln is sort of as you say use of that word, impersonating stephen douglas during the debate. might've actually influenced him in the way because he had never, i mean walk and never written that way before. ... ... i wouldn't by surprised he heard lincoln impersonating and maybe -- he was like two years later and that he comes out with the first sketch and the first sketch, one over first ones is petroleum visits lincoln in the white house. that direct connection from the

very beginning. but, yeah, it could be a case where i think that lincoln, who had a sense of humor anyway and used his humor against douglass might have prompted something. >> there is a minor strain in antislavery political culture that does that. a famous exchange than he senate floor between william seward, the leading republican of the day, and stephen douglass in which arch you -- they were both angling for the presidency in 1860, and seward says to douglass, the -- the idea he could possibly be elected president on the ground that no one could be elected president who selles the word negro with two gs. belittling him. nevertheless we're casting lincoln as he is especially in late 1860s, increasingly

appalled by the explosion of demagogic racism and for him he is in illinois facing someone whom the most influence sal racist demagogue. unlike what we sake about lincoln's views of slavery which is hostile from the beginning. he does grow -- >> i think he do grow. >> on the issue of race. when he was in the legislature in the 1830's he introduced a suffrage bill which would give the right to vote for all white men and exclude black men, but as you note in your book, he -- the end of his life, the very last speech he gives, he is the first president to publicly endorse giving blacks the right to vote. >> and he --

>> grown dramatically. >> grown a lot, and sadly of course, john wilkes booth was in the audience and he says that means -- he used the n-words -- i don't prefer to use it -- citizenship and citizenship, i'm going to put this man through, and -- >> that's he last -- >> three days later he killed him. books was a white supremacy from maryland and so forth. he slowly -- i think he did progress. i think he agreed with you. and certain others that he does progress, and by 1864 he is already sending letters -- a letter in which he says i think we should have at least limited suffrage for african-americans. back then african-american males because women did not get the vote until 1920. but still he was really the first -- the first one publicly to actually couple out -- the

first president,. >> the other thing -- it's an important subject in today's times, despite some of the -- those remarks you mentioned, the one in charleston where he says i do not now nor and never have supported blacks serving on juries. that's the worst statement he ever made. despite that, most of what lincoln had to say about race, especially in the 1850s when we becomes an -- [inaudible] -- and [loss of audio] -- most of what he had to say about race was egalitarian, right from the beginning this the peoria speech.

the negro is a man, all men are created equal and he says that over and over again. in the rights of the bridge he earn from the sweat of her brow the black woman is my equal and steven douglas is equal. he says those things over and over again. whereas you have to -- when people talk about him as a racist the pick this one or two quit addition -- quotations out after that are clearly driven by the incredibly dem gongic racism thrown at himly stephen douglas. >> and i put him in this culture in the 1850s because the rep that harriet beecher stowe's uncle tom's cab minimum made such an impact it was a fairly simple thing. showed that enslaved people were human beings, with real feelings, with family feelings, with religious feelings, with a sense of humor, love of music, and i mean today to us that

sounds very old fashioned, something to think but that, but enslaved people were being treated as things, as property, as animals. legally they were property. they weren't really human beings, and all of this was supported by the pseudo science, thing know graphic sued dough science which some of which said that african people were of a different species, and -- poly genesis, some of that going on, and it was all kind of pseudo scientifically and even religiously supported by supposedly the curse of ham in the bible and all of that stuff, and lincoln cuts right through that in peoria speech and says, these- -- these are humans. enslaved people are fellow human beings. and even to say that -- he

doesn't go on and on but says that's my fundamental point of view, and in a sense he doesn't -- even though he progresses, he doesn't really move beyond that basic fundamental understanding to the humidity of enslaved people and black people. >> ask you before we see if there are any questions, has your view of lincoln changed over the years? does it change as you were writing this book? >> it did change a lot because i had read the wonderful biographies by other people because they are what i called standard biographies, they follow his life and facts and all very interesting and important. i really thought that in a way he was like a star in the heavens, what whitman wrote a

poem saying that lib lynn will always be the western star in the landscape and that's the way i viewed him, distanced and kind of doing his own thing. and i was surprised and thrilled by the fact that he was so incredibly involved in his culture, and what i try to do in my book is weave it like a tapestry. i try not to get too lost in the cultural digression. i like to bring it back to lincoln because he is truly at the center of my book and that was a wonderful surprise for me, really was. >> i had a similar sense that when i first started thinking about lincoln i had this -- he was out there but i couldn't place him, and my interest was in his relationship with -- [inaudible] -- and the more i credit him the more it seemed to me he was imbedded in what

turned out to be a much deeper, richer culture, antislavery, politics and antislavery, than ever -- >> and if i can give people a hint you in your forthcoming back you anchor him very deeply in that antislavery constitutional point of view in a wonderful way. >> so, i could go on. i have -- let me just ask one last question before we good to questions. about lincoln's private life. you have an -- i think a very sensible, sensitive, even-handed view of lincoln's marriage, to mary todd lincoln. but you also have a very interesting way of him saying this is a very -- [inaudible] --

very different from the typical kind of marriage. what ways was it different or representative of his marriage? >> right. well, it was different in the sense that american culture back then was quite patriarchal and when woman the married they were given up property and there was a thing in way which women gave up thunder independent identity and woman were absorbed into their husbands and that's part of the reason where i seneca falls convention happens in 1848 to protest the exclusion of women and so forth. mary todd lincoln was in a sense domestic. she called herself very domestic and the took care of the kids and all of that, but she was very independent minded, and she was not afraid of expressing her

political opinion, and as parents they were kind of unusual because they didn't really -- back then people in general punished their kids a lot but they gave their kids quite a lot of latitude. certain limits to be sure, but lincoln would be in his law office and his boys would come in and upset the ink stands and scatter the ashes and break the pens and his law partner said, if his kids -- he used the s word -- shit. shat in his hat, lincoln would rub it on his boots and approve of it. would love it. and he did admitted he -- he said, there's time enough for. the to get pokey and old and everything. let them have fun. let them enjoy themselves, and one of the oldest one who used to be a tankster turned out to be a stuffy man, quite pokey to

two others unfortunately died. willie died while lincoln was in the white house, and tad died at age 18 but that was very mismischeffous and used to come in during cabinet meetings and climb on lincoln's shoulders. another very unconventional thing was the fact that during the law years, when they lived in springfield, lincoln was away from almost half of the year because he was on the law circuit. back then in the little towns did not have lawyers so lincoln and a bunch of other lawyers had to go to these little towns, about the size of connecticut, the circuit, and so he was gone 120 days a year. that was unconventional. they had big spaces in their togetherness and in a way developed a sense of independence on the part of mary todd lincoln, and even on the

part of abe lincoln. so, quite unusual in many respects. >> right. so there are some questions. some of them i think you or i could answer very quickly and i'll just run through those before we get to the ones that take a little time. one is, this comes up -- there is any evidence that lincoln in october 1864 was willing to let the winner of the november 8 election appoint -- my sense is there's no evidence whatsoever. >> none -- >> no ron he would have made the nomination until december, so i don't -- my sense is it never came up. >> no, no didn't come up. i will say he had written in august before that september 8th. he had written a note saying -- kind of looks like i'm going to lose, and a wrote to his cabinet and sealed it in an envelope and

appears -- because at that time the war was going very badly, and i just want to have a fair election and also a smooth transition of power to my successor. he assumed he was going to lose. but we really don't know pout the supreme court thing. >> right. another one, did he keep diary of any kind? no, unfortunately he didn't keep a diary. even the diligent researchers of michael burlingame have not found anything. he finds every source. >> he does. >> here's one, there are some more in depth one later but what's your pin of daniel daniel day-lewis material -- >> the first time in my life i began to believe in guns because when i heard later that he was going to quit acting and retire, i am going to get the nearest --

going to boy a gun and say you're not allowed to retire. sorry. no, i was stunned. loved it. the film takes a little latitude here and there. we all know that. but i think he did a really great job. >> i have the same sense. he never would have imagined someone other could play lincoln. >> i don't really believe in guns but -- >> here's one. how would you describe lincoln's leadership style? that's a big question that a lot of people wonder about. >> his leadership style was relaxed, casual, but at the same time very -- could be very, very firm, extremely firm. at the beginning of the war, just before the war broke out, six or seven people around him said we have to strike a

compromise here. let them take fort pickens and take this fort and that. he said, no. if they fire on fort sumpter, it's war. it's war. and they fired on fort sumpter and he called up 75,000 troops. it was war. and he kept another good thing pout him was that he managed to negotiate with people on kind of a friendly level, even people like mcclellan who was very, very ineffective on the battlefield. he managed to finesse that relationship enough so he could work his way through his generals and he finally fires mcclellan and hires burnside. doesn't work out. hires hooker. he opportunity work out. then he lights upon grant, and grant is just a bull dog. so he allowed himself to sort through very wisely his generals

and to think pout -- about strategies of war and realized war could no longer be fought with what he called squirt guns full of rose water. sadly it had to be a hard war, and grant and sherman were the two people and-he ended up with them and they indeed and a uother generals under them, finish off the civil war. so i think he did a great job. he also fin necessaried his cabinet pretty well, too. doris kearns good win's note. >> two things that strike me, that struck me again as i was reading your book, is that he came into his relationship with other people -- [loss of audio] -- without much -- without putting his ego on the line. it was -- mcclellan was

horrible to him but he didn't care if mcclellan was nasty and said awful things about him behind his back. so -- >> and even his cabinet, salmon chase felt superior to him and one at the beginning of the war said you're going to hire salmon chase as the secretary of the treasury? listen, president lincoln, he feels so much more superior to you help says, oh, really? that's exactly the kind of person i want around me. he didn't want personal loyalty. he wanted loyalty to -- salmon chase was incredibly progressive and -- >> and disloyal. >> and disloyal as well. because he tried to supplant lincoln, and yet lincoln didn't hold hard feelings and he is the one who ultimately ends up on

the supreme court help knows that salmon chase tried to replace him in 1860. he knows all of that put he didn't hold any sense of personal disloyalty or -- >> as long as chase was doing a good job, which he was. >> yeah, yeah. >> and a very difficult circumstances, lincoln didn't care about the ego stuff. >> absolutely. >> the other thing he didn't bring -- let get in the way is ideology, and you do a nice job of showing how when the radical republicans were sort of demanding that he only hire antislavery generals, he would say, look, no. i hire generals -- i wanted a general is someone who will fight and win battles and if they fight and win bottle is don't care if it's a democrat or a copperhead, and if a radical general, like, let's say, fremont, can't do it, i'll fire

him. >> exactly. and i mean, even grant had said before, i'm not a lincoln man. in the douglas-lincoln debat and yet grant was like his favorite general. he got the job done. and same as sherman. sherman was frankly quite racist and believed -- he thought that frankly african-americans were better off as enslaved people. so, yet sherman -- whatever. he was a wonderful general in the georgia and the and the carolinas. >> a couple of really remarkable notes he writes he writes that amazing note when he hires -- says i have heard in ways that -- >> you want to be a -- >> lead me to believe are accurate that you called for a

dictator. well, kind of -- only generals who win battles can be dictators. i'll risk -- you win battles and i'll risk the dictatorship. >> and yet he hires hooker, i want to be a dictator. >> right. and the one he writes to grant after vicksburg. when he says i wasn't sure you could do this and i didn't believe in the strategy. i just want to go on record saying i was wrong and you were right. >> the says i was wrong, i was wrong, sorry issue was wrong. he really didn't let ego get in his way. >> or ideology. crucial to understanding his capacity as a leader. so, let's take one last question because this is a big one and people like us always get this question. how would reconstruction have been had lincoln lived?how would

it have been different? >> now we get into counterfactual history. my belief and jim i don't now if you agree -- he would have healthed it much better than andrew johnson did and i believe he would have wanted to support the freedman's bureau and the idea of 40 acres and a mule he was such a believer in free labor. i think he would have tried to encourage the advance of formerly enslaved people. both politically and economically, and i think when push came to shove and you had rue sir generals of the white supremacist groups he would have put his foot down firmly. i really believe that. what's your feeling jim? >> its it all counterfactual like you said but there would

have been less drama between the white house and the president because whatever lincoln's racial views he was not hard core racist the way andrew johnson was or as you said -- i don't know about the 40 ache ancestor' a mule. he never expressed in favor of land distribution and it was outside the main stream republican politics. even that sherman order that everybody talks about, read the order carefully, it's very clear this is a contingent grant of land. he can't actually give the land outright fee simple. >> right. >> but i doubt if he would have done what johnson did and just the per rem torry. >> yet he signed the homestead

act which wasn't exactly a giveaway of land but lamb giveaway of land to speaker pricing people who went to the western territories and settled. that was taken over by railroads and that went to hell later on but still he had the concept i think -- you're right, probably 40 acres and a mule was a little too much and that was a metaphor of his years where he advanced of the forming of enslaved people. >> whether it's in the long run or would have change very much, it's hard to say because john franklin once wrote in a book on -- just in passing he said sooner or later the federal government was going to leave the south and control in the south would go back to white electoral majorities and there quantity -- so whether it would have turned out all that different in the end is hard to

say because eventually he would have not been president and may have been president from 1868 to 1872 but might have stayed more or less the same until then with less drama and no impeachment or -- but whether it would have changed things is hard to say. >> i think the best that could have happened is he would have set a good example but this resurgence, the ultimate redemption of the southerners and all of that and the disengagement of the federal government, that would have happened, and maybe jim crow would have been a few years shorter or something. i'm not sure. >> let me give you an alternative scenario. given his common touch, given his long standing belief that there was a majority in the

south that was hostile to the slave-holding class, it is not hard for me to imagine that the republican party would have had an easier time with him as president, building that biracial coalition that the republicans were trying to build. and may have. >> may have made a difference. certainly in the longer run back then, maybe not in the ultimate long run. >> right. >> the early 20th century and birth of a nation. >> it's been great, we have reached the end of our time, and i want to thank you again for schooling me to do this. >> d -- asking me to do this. >> thank you and my bikes on amazon -- my book is on amazon. >> it's terrific. indication between on this wonderful achievement. >> thank you so much, jim, it's again great. >> thanks a lot, david.

good night. >> good night. tonight on booktv in prime time, chef alice waters and identified labor research actor offers thoughts then food system in the united states. former appellate just doug lace ginsburg examines the constitution through the eyes of judges, legal scholars and historian. former president barack obama reflects on his life and political career. both in markets institute director sally hubboard look at the history of monopolies and american industry and david rose believes beliefs in cultures essential shall to a thriving civil society, all tonight on booktv. find more schedule information at booktv.org or consult your program guide. >> the american enterprise institute here in washington hosted a virtual event with former second lady lynne cheney who discussed four of the first

presidents who haled from virginia. >> i am not opposed to taking down the confederate soldiers the confederate liters. they were traitors to thedown, union and i think to take those statues down is fine. but i do -- i'm appalled actually when statues of washington fall or when the d.c. government has a commission that suggests if we aren't to explain the washington mopment and the everjefferson memorial better than maybe way should be moved to some other place. they can't do this because those statues and monuments are on private land, but i'm appalled at this, and the hook is usually they were slaveholder. they new slave-holding was

wrong, they -- jefferson i think called it's stain on virginia, and others of them spoke of out as a moral sin, and jefferson called it's sin against god. so they were fully aware of the dilemma in which they lived, the contradictions in which they existed. but they found themselves unable to -- the circumstances were not such they could achieve the full emancipation that justice demand. that at any time stop them once they understood what a unique place they were in, what unique time they were in. they were all educated in the enlightenment, in and the ideas of free tom and liberty and justice and equality were central to that the scottish enlightenment -- was educated

himself but the other three went to fine schools and learn this. so they were perfectly ready to start a new nation based on the very highest principles, and that's what they did, and you write it is a contradiction, but i sure am glad they did it. .... >> thirty-one another discussion on business and capitalism. that is followed by alter prize-winning journalist nicholas kristof and sheryl wudunn on issues facing the working-class rural america and later to talk on civic engagement . they will begin now under