anybody, not just fbi but the anybody who did the truth is immediately attacked if they don't want the truth out. >> to watch the rest, visit our website, booktv.org. click on the "afterwards" tab or search for peter start using the box at the top of the page. >> good evening. a warm welcome to another biography of it. i hope everyone staying safe and wearing masks and reading many biographies i am the director of the lions center for biography, a unique institution hosted by the graduate center of the city university of new york. founded by shelby white and though the foundation in 2007. i want to thank shelley for her steadfast for the biography over

all these years. it's her vision that's made this program possible. please note our next event is coming up in two days on this thursday, october 15. victor and i will interview larry taft. his timely and important biography of joseph. publication of the abraham lincoln's time, i knew biography of lincoln david reynolds. he is just out, his book launch and the has received early reviews and published weekly and elsewhere. we encourage everyone to look it up on amazon preferably your own independent bookstore. david reynolds is a extinguished

professor graduate center, the other of walt whitman america, cultural biography, his other books include the american renaissance, john brown abolitionist and mightier than the sword and the battle for america. a regular reviewer for the new york times book review and "wall street journal". david will be in conversation with james, one of the leading historians of 19th century america. james is pioneering works include 1982 grade, slavery and freedom and interpretation of the south. the radical and republican, frederick douglas, abraham lincoln and triumph of antislavery. his latest book, freedom

national the destruction of slavery in the united states, 1861 -- 1865. our conversation for about 45 minutes and then take questions for ten or 15 minutes. please click on the question box below and type in your questio questions. jim will be sure to get to as many of you as he can. will try to end this program after about one hour, 7:00 p.m. eastern time thank you to the foundation for funding all our events. turn over to you now. >> thank you for asking me to do this. i really appreciate. i'm happy to do this because first of all, congratulations on your book.

your work has been terrific. >> one of my favorite historia historians, looks like i am -- >> your good. >> okay. looks like i lost -- >> no, you're fine. >> one of my favorite stories of the civil war era, he brings to this cultural history, this virtue that aren't always present. first is a genuinely encyclopedia from high to low and everything in between which shows greater variance. one of the effects of this

knowledge of american cultural history, it's always been in his productions, he doesn't find a particular cultural way to say this is what american culture is like. their racist and anti- racist. all the way through, there religious conservatives and radicals brings back instabilities as well. there effects in all of his wo work. a kind of democratic sensibility and worrying about high culture versus low culture and doesn't care too much about that distinction. i think it shapes the kind of

subject he writes about in this american democracy, genuine literary, and enormously popular book. finally aid, which i think it was similar reasons. praising him for being attuned to all aspects of american culture experience. >> , religious sensibly and the like. all of those virtues show up in this book so let me begin by asking you a simple question, what is the difference between

cultural biography of lincoln and david donald michael. >> that is a great question. what they do generally is they follow his life, sometimes political context, as a political biography, excellent. but there is a standard one volume, he does such a wonderful job but there's a david donald classic single volume biography and donald since in his purpose, this is a biography from lincoln's view because he didn't have too much connection to

society and culture of his era. he was self educated, the ultimate self made man and donald even says he entered the presidency least prepared of any president we've ever had. in a sense, i guess i'm taking the opposite view, the amazonian view, of all great heroes in history, lincoln stands alone what embracing the entire realm of experience from the, you mentioned this now, from the very highest to the lowest until the big dogs believe in him. emerson certainly was like that. emerson felt the same way about shakespeare, too. shakespeare uses all the scraps the slaves and transforms them into something new. lincoln early on a popular.

>> , perhaps rather humorous or whatever but also memorized very long poems of shakespeare and he didn't do this to impress peop people. he did it just because the passages meant something to him and he read a passage a couple times, he had it memorized so in the middle of his presidency, one of the great shakespearean tragedies and that kind of thing, even april 9, 18651 leak was surrendering and he was on a boat going from virginia to

washington, he'd been visiting grants and everybody around him was cheering, it's great. i guess today we would have said mission accomplished with a big banner or something but lincoln said i'd rather talk about shakespeare, longfellow. he sent spent several hours discussing poetry from shakespeare and longfellow and others about death. in his mind, the 750,000 americans who died in civil war. as were his mind was. mission accomplished or on the greatest or whatever, i am the leader here. he is thinking about those who died. it's quite moving and i think that's part of what his democracy comes from, his ability to identify people of all classes and backgrounds.

>> was really interesting lincoln in the context in this and also who's middle class and married and things like that. let's start with the simpler ones. >> is a great question, to because he didn't like the name ava, he didn't like when people called him a vignette, i would not have been elected without the image of honest abe or uncle abe.

he knew his beloved among the people as abe so it's evening the whole idea in the book about the way he identified with average americans the way they saw him and loved him. the people around him new he only wanted to be called lincoln. mr. president abraham or anything, he signed his name abe lincoln as if -- he signed his name abe lincoln. that's his identification. >> honest abe will father abraham. >> father abraham was another one, a lot of nicknames for him. >> all the way through the book,

the cultural distance between puritans and the cavalier and you develop this idea. the culture at large as well as the time. can you tell us about that? >> a lot of people that thought the civil war was about the age-old difference between new england puritans, early on to stop by the generation of puritans escaping persecution in england on one hand and cavaliers who were supporters of

realty in england and when cromwell and others and powers, he was a puritan, they were fleeing from america and settled in the south. everyone were saying it's basically a fight between new england which included antislavery view, by the way and the cavalier which was kind of a hierarchy and institutions including the institution of slavery. lincoln was aware of puritans and cavalier but someone at the time said the great thing about president lincoln's he combines the puritan and cavalier and i tried to explain that in my book because on his father's side, samuel lincoln came over in 1637 and was a puritan and most of

his descendents were puritans became active eventually but he kind of went back to england and on the other side, there was illegitimacy in the background. he wasn't really sure his grandfather was the he was sort of convinced he was a virginia planter, a man of aristocracies of the south. in a way, he associated a sense of honor, a sudden sense of honor so he had both puritan and cavalier running through him even though he didn't want to identify with either side, a lot of people were saying i'm more of a puritan or cavalier. he chose to empathize quaker background. it turns out only one of his great grandmothers was quaker

but all biographies said he had a quaker background. lakers were accepted by both puritans and cavaliers, kind of a buffer. you'd think cavaliers would hate them because they were antislavery but no, the quakers were passive, and the civil war, they were conscientious but didn't want to do battle over opinions over slavery. in the quakers were okay with the south but also beloved in the north early on they were persecuted and hanged in early new england but by this time settling in the middle atlantic states in pennsylvania, they were kind of a buffer between puritan kelly and i explored my book have lincoln kind of emphasizes that in his background. >> and people at the time, we

shouldn't be surprised because there's a wonderful book written years ago, cavalier and i was surprised how many people at the time did but it's not just the new england understood, they h had, they didn't like the cavalier, they were not only on, talk about how they stereotype the other. >> i think stereotypes can pretty easily, even in our culture as back then, mushroom and become caricatures. he was definitely caricatures. by the 19th century when all of this was we talked about,

both sections were probably locked to be dismissed in a stereotype like puritan and cavalier but the image overwhelmed a lot of people began to believe it and a lot of people said the division between north and south and never be repaired because they will be nothing but hate forever between the puritans and cavaliers. this kind of a ridiculous view but widely accepted. >> the cavaliers saw that they identified themselves as cavalier. also busybodies. >> moralistic, they used to hang quakers in bern which is in hang which is also very materialistic

kind of lowly. >> right. with the cavalier, aristocratic, antidemocratic. >> that's right. i don't and making other people labor for them and the cavaliers were drinking and enslaved people were working. >> right. that's all the way through the book. i asked about this, it's framed is the difference between puritans and cavaliers still

there it is to some degree, he is. >> let me ask you another thing, it's not all the way through but once it shows up, it has to do with niagara falls. i remember when i was a kid, the niagara falls was a little in the culture, people went on their honeymoon in niagara falls and things like that. but niagara falls was a huge deal and a lot of people use it metaphorically including himself. there's an incident in 1858 that also happens at niagara falls, a metaphor, let's talk about this, maybe you could expand on what

niagara falls meant in the american culture, what it meant. >> it was a great tourist attraction in women but the the way home from washington, been serving in congress and stopped over niagara falls and went to the great lakes in chicago, he lived in illinois. he stopped over niagara falls, he was stunned by the spectacle. part of my book is influenced by a school of thought called post- humanism, the effect that nature and things, nonhuman things have on people and today, even right now we are experiencing post- human existence because we are speaking the way we do because of a thing, covid. there's something out there in california some people are dealing with a thing called fire. other times it's a hurricane or

something, i used to live in california and there would be an earthquake. something outside in lincoln was immersed from the beginning in nature, he was the log cabin and on the front tier, he totally lived off the forest and was surrounded in the beginning, savage nature. when he sees niagara falls in 1848, is overwhelmed by the sheer energy and power but it makes him think in a post- human way, this spectacle has been here ever since adam, if we believe in chatham. it's been here since ancient rome. all the civilization, all human beings, constant throughout history. in a way, was extending backward in time, thinking of this thing in front of him, that are false.

just seeing how it meant it was and it made him think of all the people coming to buick. at that time, as you mentioned, i'm not sure if it's a tourist attraction nowadays but it was in all these channels, rivers you thinking about that ran into it and with channel. part of it was channeled some of these rivers and streams of culture and i'm not saying he became niagara but he became a channeling focus. the -- ten years later in 1858 and 59, a tightrope walker was french and he put on a spectacle crossing niagara falls many times on a tight rope. he would push a wheelbarrow across, he would carry a man on his back across the niagara falls, he does do flips.

she walked across on stilts, incredible. but lincoln said, several times he compared himself right in the middle. why? he was living in such a divided time that the worst thing he could do was for more gasoline on the flame of division. step off the tightrope and people would say why can't you make this most concisely report from the very beginning of he said look, if i were staring the entire nation's future in my wheelbarrow, would you be feeling, clean left, lean right? lean this way about, jumped down no, you'd allow me to keep right in the middle. this is the best way to preserve the union. one reason i didn't make it more antislavery work, he said if we lose kentucky, we lose everything.

water states still had enslaved people and yet they were oil to the north. if we lose these days, we lose the war. he had to stay on the tightrope and stay in the union. >> sometimes the tightrope is to be between deep moral convicti conviction, slavery was wrong and the need to build and then hold onto, hold together a political coalition that had a lot of people who didn't share in the antislavery. morality and -- >> he was very morally opposed to slavery. he did say i hate slavery as much as any abolitionist, doesn't matter. i hate.

i am morally opposed to slavery but sometimes early on, it sounds quite conservative and backward but he was struggling to get ahead politically and strategizing particularly illinois early on and so forth. he had to behave a little more conservatively and felt morally in a morally. >> as of now in the way people talk about lincoln mostly, there's no question i don't think in slavery just before you said this, he grew up in part of

the. he has no reason to doubt that. it's a different thing. nowadays, people have a difficult time separating slavery from the rest but in the middle of the 19th century, lincoln and republicans were actively trying to was say issuing slavery into that. and one of the things you do and can do place units about race in the context of the culture.

so why don't you talk about that a little bit and in particular, the kind of, the significant in this character. >> earlier, i mentioned you said conservative names almost races things in his debates with douglas but douglas was a thoroughgoing racist. frederick douglass and stephen douglas did more harm than just about anybody. they kept on more for all these debates and forcing the issue and lincoln said, he was speaking in illinois which at the time had a law that went into effect in 1853 that frederick douglass called the worst black box in the union,

the group exclusion act which we you were a free african-american, you couldn't enter within ten days or you would be find and kicked out of the state. a terrible environment. you can cherry pick certain things but later on during his presidency, he tastes like deep respect and affection. he lived in a neighborhood in illinois. he had several of them in the white house and while he was in the white house, frederick douglass, he first thought he was quite conservative slavery, but him a couple times and he came out of this thing from this is the least prejudice white person i think i've ever met. an older african-american, she

came and said before i die, i want to meet this president, abraham lincoln. she let the whites fall, she felt very close to him. martin delaney, would call him beyond black lives matter, like a black nationalist. his very militant. at the end of the work, lincoln appointed him the highest appointed army officer, he didn't get to serve very much because the war was almost over but he became close to lincoln and when died, he cried for half a day he proposed a monument and african-american woman kneeling. not even a monument, a woman with tears coming out of her

eyes each tear paid by a penny from the enslaved 4 million enslaved people. on a personal level, he was very close. he also grew to respect african-americans in the civil war the way they fought. if you've seen the movie glory, you have a sense in the battle in which they fought for the same devotion, sometimes even more energy and self-sacrifice than white people he really admired that. but he also relied to a great degree, a popular humerus fighting the war on raised on the cultural front and nasty impersonated the copperhead, the opponents, the conservative democrats. back then the democrats were mainly conservative.

so nasty impersonated them. today it is hard for us to read this humor because it is full of the n-word but all he was doing when he used that word, he is over and over, describing or impersonating these racist copperheads. people would laugh about this and a lot of people, several people said nasty just a great as force sherman will grant feeding slavery because he is so popular. lincoln was carry his jacket of the nasty pages papers, sketches and would pull them out and read them and who once said i give up my presidency if i could just write like this guy. so it shows how deep his hatred of racism was because nasty makes these copperheads look very ugly and disgusting. almost as though saturday night

live skits against whoever political figure were accepted as a huge cultural force. today we are so dispersed but it's hard to have as the force, a real best seller. little more dispersed but same idea. >> made me think of something, it seems to me that most of the time when lincoln used the n-word, he was doing what you're describing is nasty, using in a way that's in the now and maybe i wonder when writing this stuff, lincoln was doing the

already by the late 1850s. food you have the racist argument by caricaturing and is in a way that's almost millbro millbrook. [laughter] i'm not sure you get away with that today. the culture is very different now. >> yes. when i first encountered nasty in the newspapers, person is very disgusting, since i can't read this in the this guy being little. he is disgusting, appalling and they suddenly realized, he was criticizing lincoln left and right so what happened, real name was david he met lincoln in

the 50s. i almost made lincoln in his, as you a satirical use of that word, impersonating stephen douglas, might have influenced nasty in that sense because he had never written, he had never written that way before. he had a long interview with lincoln and overheard several debates and would follow around. he was a reporter and met him in his hotel room and were discussing stephen douglas at great length tested stephen douglas. i would be surprised that he heard lincoln and maybe, it was like two years later he comes out with the first nasty. one of the first ones, and the

white house. but yes, it could be a case that i think lincoln, who had a sense of humor anyway is humor against douglas, it might have prompted. >> 's political culture, the senate floor williams, leading to the holding of the day and everyone knew stephen douglas in the presidency. the idea that he could be elected president on the grounds that could be elected president, he grew with tuesday. nevertheless, with lincoln is

present in the late 1850s, increasingly appalled by the explosion of democratic racism in particular for him because he was facing someone who's the most influential but unlike what we can say about slavery, he does throw. >> he was in the legislature in the 1830s, he introduced the shepherdsville yet in your book, at the end of his life, he's the first president to publicly

endorse the right to vote. >> he's grown a lot and sadly of course, john wilkes booth was in the audience and that means, citizenship and it is and should put this man through. three days later he killed him. booth was a white supremacist. but yes, slowly i think he did progress. i agree with you in that sense and others but he does progress. by 1864, is sending a letter 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

to vote until 1920 but still, it was the first one publicly to address, the first president to do that. >> a big change. the other thing to stick with this important subject, despite some of the remarks you mentioned where he said i do not know, the worst, he ever made but despite that, most of what lincoln had to say about race is mostly in the 1850s back -- [inaudible] right from the beginning.

all men are created equal. he says that over and over aga again. the rights she earns from this one of her brow, she is my equal. he says those things over and over again. whereas when people talk about him as being racist, they take one or two things out that are clearly driven by incredibly demagogue racism. >> i put him in this culture because the reason in this it made such an impact, it's a simple thing. it showed that enslaved people were human beings. with real feelings, religious

feelings. a sense of humor, a love of music. today, to us, that sounds very old-fashioned. enslaved people are being treated as things, property. legally they are property. they weren't really human beings. all of this was supported by neuroscience of that era which some of which african people were of a different species. there was some of that going on. it was all kind of pseudoscientific and even religiously supported by supposedly the curse of ham in the bible and all of that. lincoln cut right through that. these are humans. enslaved people are fellow human

beings. even to say he doesn't go on and on about it but he says that's my fundamental view. in a sense, even though he progresses, he doesn't really move beyond that basic fundamental understanding of humanity of enslaved people. of black people. >> before we go, as it changed over the years since writing this book? >> it did change a lot because i had read a wonderful biography by other people but because they are what i call standard biographies following his life back to all these interesting and important areas, i really

thought in a way he was like the star in the heavens, what women wrote a poem that lincoln will always be the western star in the landscape. that is the way i view some distance and doing his own thi thing. i was surprised and thrilled by the fact that he was so incredibly involved is culture. when i tried to do in my book i try not to get too lost in the cultural digressions. i like to bring it back to lincoln. he is really at the center of my book. that was a wonderful surprise for me. it really was. >> i had a similar instance. thinking about lincoln, i have this, like you said he was out there but i couldn't place him my interest was in the

antislavery. the more i studied him, the more it seemed it was a much richer culture into a slavery culture. >> if i could give people i and, you and your book, you anchor him very deeply in the antislavery constitutional you in a wonderful way. >> let me guess one last question. about lincoln. you have this sense of rule, sensitive evenhanded view of lincoln. in his marriage, mary todd.

you have an interesting way of saying this in the book, it was very different from other marriages. in what ways is it different? >> ... >> mary todd lincoln was domestic and called herself very domestic but she is very

independent-minded and she was not afraid of expressing her political acumen and so they really gave their kids a lot of latitude there were certain limits to be sure but lincoln would be in his law office and the voice would come in and to scatter the ashes on his law partner said if his kids would go in his hat he would rub it on his boots and approve of it. and that there is time enough to get pokey. let them have fun let them

enjoy themselves. the prankster turned out to be a rather stuffy man to others unfortunately died while lincoln was in the white house and thad died in 18 but used to be very mischievous during the cabinet meeting but another very unconventional thing but lincoln was away for almost half the year because he was on the circuit and just about the size of connecticut. and then to be big spaces and their togetherness and that is

independence on the part of mary todd lincoln and. so that is unusual in many respects. >> and then this comes up. that there is no evidence whatsoever and there is no reason he would have made the nomination until december so my guess is he never came up. >> but i will say that he had written in august so he wrote

a note to his cabinet and sealed in an envelope it appears that was going very badly and i just want to have a fair election but a smooth transition to my successor so now we really don't know about the supreme court. >> did he keep a diary of any kind? unfortunately no even the diligent researchers what is your opinion of daniel day-lewi day-lewis? >> it's the first time in my life i began to believe in

guns because when i heard later that he would quit acting and retire that i will go by again and say you're not allowed to retire i was stunned, i loved it it takes some latitude here and there i think he did a really great job. >> and never would have imagine imagined. >> don't worry don't really believe in guns. [laughter] >> how do you describe lincoln's leadership style? >> his leadership style is relaxed and casual but at the

same time it could be very firm. at the beginning of the war just before the war broke out six or seven people said we have to strike a compromise and they said no they fire on fort sumter it is war and he called up 75000 troops and it was war and another good thing about him is that he managed to negotiate with those on a friendly level to be ineffective on the battlefield and then to work his way through the generals and fires them but then he comes upon

grant he allowed him to sort through very wisely his generals and to think of those strategies of war and then realize it could no longer be fought with what he calls squirt guns full of rosewater sadly it had to be a hard for and grant and sherman and then he finally ends up with them and then a few other generals so i think he did a great job and also picked his cabinet pretty well. >> the two things that strike me when i was reading your book coming into his relationship without putting

his ego on the line and he didn't care as long as he would fight. and someone at the beginning said he will hire him as your secretary of treasury? listen he feels so much more secure you cannot believe and he says really? is exactly the kind of person i want around me. he didn't want personal loyalty. >> and disloyal as well but

yet lincoln didn't hold hard feelings and ultimately he ends up on the supreme court. so even after he fires chase and he knows that he tried to replace him in 1860. he knows all of that but he doesn't hold any sense of personal disloyalty. >> as long history is was doing a good job and he was under very difficult circumstances lincoln and didn't care about the ego stuff and also it didn't get in the way of ideology and he did a nice job of showing when the radical republicans were demanding he only hire antislavery generals he said no i hire generals someone will fight and win battles that i don't care if it's a democrat or a copperhead but

if a radical general like fremont can do it, then i will fire him. >> exactly. even grant said before i'm not a lincoln man in the lincoln douglas debates. and grant was his favorite general he got the job done. the same with sherman frankly he was racist and he thought frankly african-americans were better off as enslaved people. but yet sherman whatever. he was a wonderful general and georgia. >> there are a couple of remarkable notes when he says

i have heard in ways that lead me to believe that are accurate that you call for a dictator but only generals who win battles and i win the dictatorship. >> and then he hires want to be the dictator. >> but then he says i wasn't sure you can do this for in the strategy want to go on the record to say sorry i was wrong and then it's crucial to understanding. >> so let's take from us question.

so how word reconstruction been different you know if you agree with me or not but he certainly would have handled it better than andrew johnson did. much better and i believe he would have wanted to support the idea of 40 acres and a mule. he was a believer in free labor trying to encourage the formally enslaved people politically and economically and i think when push came to shove with the resurgence of the white supremacist groups

he would've put his foot down fairly firmly at that point i firmly believe that what is your feeling about that? >> as you say it is counterfactual obviously there would have been a lot less drama between the white house and the president whatever lincoln's views it was a hard-core race like it is with johnson i don't know if 40 acres and a mule he never talked about land distribution it was a little bit outside of the mainstream party politics even sherman ordered talk about it carefully it was very clear that it was contingent he cannot actually give the land outright. but i doubt if you would've done like johnson did just all

the people to have land. >> and he signed the homestead act which wasn't exactly the giveaway but almost to enterprising people from the western territories of course that was taken over by the railroads but later he had the concept probably 40 acres and a mule is too much and that is a metaphor i was using for the advance for the enslaved people. >> whether it is in the long run it would of changed because john hope franklin with his book said sooner or later the federal government would leave the south and control would come back to the

majority go so whether it would've turned out it will be hard to say. and then less drama and no impeachment for weather would have change things spent the best that could have happened is if he would have set a good example. but this resurgence in the ultimate redemption of the southerners and the disengagement of the federal government i think that would have happened may be jim crow would have been a few years shorter, i'm not sure. >> i'll give you an alternative scenario with his

long-standing belief that there was a majority in the south hostile to the slaveholders class it's not hard to imagine the public and party would've had an easier time building a biracial coalition that may have made a difference certainly in the longer run back then maybe not in the ultimate long run of the early 20th century and the birth of the nation and all that. >> this is great but we have reached the end of our time want to thank you again for asking me to do this. >> i hope all the viewers, my book is on amazon.

>> is terrific congratulations. >> thank you so much it has been great. >> good night >> it only been governor five months we just one a huge overwhelming upset victory the biggest in the country, and

then i had my first legislative session after putting together a government overwhelmingly democratic monopoly state. we cut taxes for the first time, balance the budget, got rid of a five.1 billion-dollar deficit in the first 90 days and 60 days later i'm hit with the news that came out of the blue. so my first trade mission to asia i wasn't feeling that well. just some aches and pains but i didn't think it was anything serious and went to the doctor and they told me i had an agreement one - - an aggressive cancer all over my body almost an 18 month battle 24 hour a day chemotherapy dealing with that while being governor and a brand-new governor in a very tough state

with a lot of things going on. talk about this experience in my book. i got to meet so many people and tell the stories about the people i met that were going through that but my first worry is how do i tell my family it is father's day weekend i got the diagnosis on friday how i tell my wife and my daughters and my dad was 80 at the time he was coming over for father's day dinner at the governor's mansion he took it harder than anybody. it doesn't matter how old you get it was one - - i'm still his little boy and he cried the whole time. but then i had to announce it to the whole state of maryland i tried to be transparent and share it with them. 6million people just put their trust in me. i had to explain to them they

would continue to try to keep working and i worked from the hospital bed and i came out of it thank god stronger than ever. >> welcome to our distinguish forum united states of america. [applause] this preserves unbroken beginning with theodore roel