israel. >> thanks very much. it was a real pleasure. >> booktv on c-span2, a good weekend with latest nonfiction books and authors. funding for booktv comes from these television companies who support c-span2 as a public service. >> at the outbreak of the civil war the united states capital come home of the house of representatives and the senate, was in the midst of an extensive renovation, and open circle of columns arose from the building i wouldn't the iconic dome. president abraham lincoln famously remarked that construction would continue even in wartime because if people see the capital going on it is a sign we intend the union shall go on. inside the capital the work of congress went on as well. you may think first of lincoln

and the famous generals when you consider the civil war but the wheels of government continued and members of the house and senate crafted legislation that would shape our nation for decades. senator thaddeus stevens of pennsylvania was one vilified as leader of the radicals but in this new biography with one of his dedication to freedom, for the enslaved and his vision of equal, civil and political rights for black americans. his drive helped push through the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. historian eric phone has praised this book saying last thaddeus stevens what about 19 centuries greatest proponents of racial justice gets the biography he deserves. bruce levine is a best-selling author of four books on the civil war era including the fall of the house of dixie, confederate emancipation which received that peter seaburg award for civil war scholarship as they one of the top ten works of nonfiction of its year by the

"washington post." he is a professor emeritus of history at the university of illinois. joining bruce levine in conversation today is historian and author manisha sinha who is the chair of american history at university of connecticut and the melon distinguished scholar in residence at the american society for the current academic year. she is the author of the counterrevolution of slavery and the slates cost, the history of abolition. now let's hear from bruce levine and manisha sinha. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you for the introduction, and thank you to all our audience out there for joining us. i am delighted to talk with distinguished civil war historian and author bruce levine on this latest biography of the great thaddeus stevens. i also would like to mention to the audience that we will have

ten minutes of question and answers from the audience after our conversation. so feel free to put down your questions in the chat and i should be able to read them out to bruce. it's wonderful, this unusually warm spring day to join you today bruce, to talk about one of my favorite american-statesman, and that is thaddeus stevens. as was mentioned earlier, for a long time we have not had a modern biography of thaddeus stevens. and could you reflect and just tell us why that is so and what drew you to write a biography of him? >> hi, minutia, and thank you for being here -- minutia -- for

that good starting question. beginning in the 1880s, the north again to retreat from the achievements of the civil war, begin to retreat from reconstruction, began to retreat from its promise of equality for african-americans. and as it did so it also turned its back not only on african-american population but upon those who had led or championed that population. and so people like thaddeus stevens who was closely identified with the most consistent struggle against white supremacy became easy and obvious targets for those anxious to vilify that passed and those achievements.

that attitude was prevalent not only among the more northern political elite, it also penetrated into academia. so scholars north as well as south accepted the view of stevens as an evil predatory individual motivated by the worst possible impulses, and that same point of view was taken up by hollywood which produced a series of films presenting thaddeus stevens thinly disguised as basically the same kind of creature. even john f. kennedy in the middle of the 1950s when he wrote or published his book "profiles in courage" vilifies stevens in line with what he was probably had been taught at

harvard. in that same line of interpretation. so it takes the civil rights movement in the united states to begin to compel the mainstream reconsideration both of the civil war and reconstruction, and people like stevens. and while there are a few biographies of stevens published following the civil rights movement, my opinion stevens had not even been received full recognition that he deserved. >> absolutely. i agree with you there. i think with the overthrow of reconstruction the sort of loss cause mythology of civil war and then a very sort of critical view of the experiment in

interracial democracy and citizenship to all the things that stephen stood up for became quite popular, even in academia. we are still living with the legacy of that, right? those symbols and statues and those questions are still very much alive for us it seems. >> absolutely, absolutely. >> so stevens is really a person who speaks as much to us today as he could have through his times. >> to pick up the last part of your question, which i inadvertently dropped, what drew me to stevens, i i came of agn the era of the 20th century civil rights movement and was attracted to it and participate in it. when i went to college and took what was then called the black history course, i among other

things read, for example, in w.e.b. du bois book entitled black reconstruction america, i first began to learn about thaddeus stevens and the radical republicans, and instantaneously they became heroes of mine. so the opportunity to learn more about stevens and how someone had come to be that individual and just exactly what role he had played in the unfolding of the events of the civil war and reconstruction was something to be cherished and welcomed, and that opportunity arose about five or six years ago. >> at such an interesting point how we are shaped by our upbringing and our experiences and your own experience with reading wb to voice black reconstruction, the way he refers to thaddeus stevens and charles sumner, the two spheres of american democracy, right?

and also being influenced by the civil rights movement. it's interesting i was told john f. kennedy, it's not clear how much of "profiles in courage" he wrote himself or how much of it was ghostwritten, but he seems to have changed his view about stevens and reconstruction when he had to deal with the desegregation at the university mississippi mississippi. >> somewhere i read the same thing. he begins using -- i want if they actually told us the truth at harvard? >> exactly. and harvard and many of the ivy leagues i think were like the school in columbia were feeding grounds, dominick sometimes by southern historians and their perspective of the war on reconstruction. so going on from there, bruce, i

want you to introduce stevens in your own words to our audience out there. maybe what our appetite for actually reading your book. you told us a bit about what attracted you to stevens, his commitment to equal rights, his commitment to black citizenship. i was just wondering if you would tell us a little bit more about his abolitionist convictions and his vision for the country? >> fine, thank you. thaddeus stevens became effectively and abolitionist decades before the civil war began, in the 1830s. but by the end of the 1830s he was in all report the specs effectively and abolitionist. he had been a delicate in that decade to a convention in his adopted state of pennsylvania charged with drawing up a new

state constitution. when that constitution bound up explicitly denying the franchise, denying the right to vote to black men, thaddeus stevens refused to sign the finished product, after having waged an unsuccessful fight to include black men in the franchise. that was an extremely radical point of view in the north. outside of a handful of new england states, black men did not vote or were in the process of being disenfranchised if they had been able to vote previously. so stevens was is already sg out the position well in advance of most white public opinion. he participates in the underground railroad in the 1840s and in the 1850s. there is archaeological that his

office and home was stationed in the underground railroad. he acted as a defense attorney in a case in the 1850s arising from the story of the escape of some slaves from maryland into pennsylvania where the claimed owner of the fugitives chased them down and sought to take them back, and the fugitives resisted arms in hand and killed the former owner. that went to trial and stevens was a key member of the defense team. and so it went stevens moved from one political party after another in the course of his life, and in the mid-1850s when the republican party was born, stevens joined it and was one of the individuals struggling to build it in

pennsylvania. when the war begins stevens is anxious to see this war, transfer into the instrument for the abolition of slavery. and in this respect it differs from abraham lincoln who as much as lincoln despise slavery and there's no doubt that he did, police no doubt in my mind, he did not see the war in that light. from the point of view of lincoln, the purpose of the union more effort was simply to bring the union act together again as expeditiously and as quickly as possible so that his political party could get back to its past to gradually and peacefully and eventually see slavery disintegrate in the states where it already existed. and from lincoln's point of view and in the advice of his more

conservative advisors, achieving that goal meant ruffling southern white feathers as little as possible. that in turn seemed to call, or so we thought, for interfering with slavery no more than was absolutely necessary. lincoln was slower to take up the cause of abolishing slavery during the war. thaddeus stevens vigorously disagreed with that point of view. he instead agreed with frederick douglass and other abolitionists that this war should be the instrument for the immediate and uncompensated emancipation of slaves and he was one of the very first republicans to say that. he was also one of the first republicans to call therefore for confiscating the slaves of the rebels, one of the first to call eventually for spreading

the abolition movement throughout the united states, for emancipating all slaves in the united states. that includes those who lived in the so-called loyal border states that remain within the union when the confederacy left. he was one of the very first to call for including black man into what were then still lily white union armies. he was one of the first to call for giving the emancipated slaves equal civil rights with whites. and in each case the argument he made was initially viewed with great skepticism by the majority of his party, and in each case both his words and the intrinsic logic of the situation helped to bring the majority of his party over to his point of view.

he was an extremely effective leader. and, of course, the struggle continues after the war. >> absolutely. i really liked the way in which you lay out stevens abolitionist convictions. to be an abolitionist, you know, they occupy a niche for me because i have studied the abolition movement so much, but tv and abolitionist was not just to oppose slavery but it was to champion lacked the quality. >> exactly. >> champion black citizenship, and stevens seemed to have done that consistently throughout his career, both in his objection to disenfranchising black man in pennsylvania. i also found a letter he had written to garrison, william lord garrison, the abolitionist published in boston decrying the

burning down of the hall by at the abolitionist model. you mention his involvement in the underground railroad and his defense of those who assisted the rebels in pennsylvania. so he is quite radical in his convictions, and in a sense these radical republicans were really abolitionists in national politics. people like stevens and charles sumner and a few others who are not so prominent perhaps as them during reconstruction, but what strikes one about stevens is what and adept parliamentarian he was, that with his abolitionist convictions and principles he has these amazing

political skills as you point out to move his party towards higher ground. so from the non-extension of slavery as most moderate republicans like lincoln stood on, you know, refused to compromise on that. lincoln refused to compromise on the non-extension of slavery simply to get back the southern secessionist states, but stevens is talked about abolition and rights from the start and how he manages to move his party from non-extension non-extension abolition two black rights is exactly what lincoln evolves too, right? at the end of his life he is endorsing those positions, the arming of black man, living black men voting rights. lincoln becomes an endorser of this thing so people like stevens and other radicals played an important part as you

point out in moving the pendulum. but tell us a bit about stevens the parliamentarian. just reading the congressional globe was looking at the ways in which he thought those reconstruction acts passed, and the way he rallies opposition against andrew johnson who seceded to lincoln and was argument one of the most racist and one of the worst presidents the united states has ever had. tell us a bit about his skill there. this is just before he dies, but really if you think of him as an architect of reconstruction, it is thaddeus stevens. so if you want to talk a a lie bit about his reconstruction career which i think was really the crowning achievement of his life. >> well, thank you. i would be happy to do that. he was just as you say, manisha,

a skillful armamentarium. and so he would frequently surprised his adversaries -- parliamentarian. i outmaneuvering them on the floor of the house of representatives, precisely because he knew the rules and knew how to use them. he's an extremely bright fellow. he had been an active politician for many years. he knew a way his way around the rules, and he knew how to use them. he was also, it's important to remember, a leader not only of his colleagues in the congress, he became that in large part because he became a leader of the party as a whole. ..

when johnson, having brought these states back into participation in the political life in the united states, southern -- newly elected southern legislators include hoards of confederate leaders and the legislators begin to pass the so-called black codes, which strip or deny african-americans of most of the rights that white americans took for granted in order to keep them in a position of subordination and to keep them as cheap malleable labor force. thaddeus stevens fights against that attempt, helps to lead his party in the struggle against the black codes, fights for, on the contrary, giving equal

political rights, i should say equal civil rights right away to african-americans, and before very long the right to vote and hold office as well. in trying to do all of that of course he collides with andrew johnson, and as andrew johnson tries to use his political power in the white house to foil the attempt to give african-americans their rights stevens becomes one of the active advocates of his impeachment, and pushes hard for the impeachment that does occur in the house of representatives, becomes one of the house's managers in the senate, in bringing johnson to trial, and they come within reach of removing johnson from office. it's only because a handful of

so-called moderate republicans refused to go along that johnson escapes condemnation and manages to serve out the rest of his term. nonetheless, stevens continues the struggle, pushes through legal provisions granting equal rights, equal civil rights, and then demands that voting rights as well be extended to african-american men. by the time he dies, though, that does not pass, doesn't even find its way into the 1864 republican platform, which stevens finds astounding, and which he denounces. but before very long the republican party after stevens' does change its point of view,

does change its position, introduces the 15th amendment whose purpose is to grant the right to vote to black people pao. so even in death stevens is pointing the way forward for his party. >> absolutely. i think you show beautifully in this book how stevens' commitment to black voting right, to black suffrage is way ahead of most members of his party, and his commitment to black civil rights, and what is so interesting is how he really, you know, creates the structure for reconstruction by refusing to seek those southern states that try to gain readmittance to the union with their black codes that was releasing back to a state of slavery as soon as possible and was approved by andrew johnson, who really

opposed the freedom's bureau act, the civil rights act, the most modest rights that were being given to formally enslaved people. and i just enjoyed the way stevens is able to push through those reconstruction acts that makes black male suffrage, you know, a condition for the readmission of southern states into the union. it really makes it the sort of lone star of reconstruction. and you're right, eventually they do succeed with black male citizenship, with political and civil rights, and passing those amazing amendments and laws that create national citizenship, national birthright, citizenship, and, you know, voting rights for black men. but there is something more interesting about stevens than

even those achievements, and that is his struggle to get land redistributed amongst african-americans. again, he is way ahead of many of his contemporaries, besides abolitionistses and african-americans it's a handful of radical republicans who are advocating for the redistribution of land to former slaves. and stevens says, you know, we can do two things at once, we can break up the power of these former slave holders and big plantation owners and create a black humanry in the south that would uphold democracy and would also act as payment for generations of unpaid labor. tell us a bit more about this radical stevens that makes him, you know, many people end up calling him the american robes

pierre, the great commoner, all these words for him, but that elicited the admiration of the most radical abolitionists of his time, his commit many not just to political and civil rights but also social justice. >> yes. of course he doesn't invent the idea, as you note, of redistributed the land. the enslaved population of the south is struggling to lay hands on that land themselves, the hand that they had worked, the land that they had made profitable, the land that had been purchased with profits made through their labor, and even during the war they begun to cultivate the land for their own benefit that had previously belonged to slave owners who fled before the advance of union

armies. so thaddeus stevens is taking his cue from the african-americans themselves, and he argues that not only is it essential to deprive the old elite of its control of such vast quantities of the most airable land in the south and undermine their political power in the south, but also as you say take that land and give it to those whose labor had made it profitable, and also what he says is not only will this make for a better society, because a society as he said made up simply of nabobs and seriffs can

never be a democratic society site and an institution. but since youth that was the doctrine that was taught to him, that the best citizens and the only reliable citizens are those who are economically independent, who do not have to work for others, because if they have to work for others, according to this venerable republican etiology, their work for others will make them vulnerable to the economic blackmail of others who will be able to use their subordinate economic position to compel them to vote as employers wish them to vote. and so as stevens becomes strongly attached to the idea of franchising southern black men he redoubles his efforts to make them economically independent,

and therefore, less vulnerable to that kind of pressure. now it's worth noting, to put it mildly, that while stevens has by that point proven himself time and time again to his republican colleagues in congress as someone whose ideas no matter how extreme they may seem at first prove themselves to be necessary to accomplish what the party as a whole wishes to accomplish, on his issue. most will not follow his lead. they draw the line. they will not tamper with the private property rights of land holders in times of peace. and so his goal of redistributing that land is foiled. >> absolutely. and i think you're right to point to his own republican convictions about political

virtue and economic independence, and not having these could he great inequalities in a democratic society. i think part of it comes probably from his own hard scrabble background in vermont and a lot of these abolitionists had that from new england. john brown, john sumner, thaddeus stevens. i appreciated the fact that you did not reduce stevens convictions as has been speculated by others and the movie lincoln, i'm sure people have seen to some imagined relationship he may or may not have with his housekeeper. we have no proof for that. but in fact you created this portrait of a very principled conviction about equality, and principled conviction about democracy, and republican governments and i think that's what makes your book so

valuable. i could talk to you end leslie about this book, because as i told you thaddeus stevens has to be one of my favorite american statesmen. but we do have questions coming in and we do not have that much time and we want to reserve some time for our audience to participate. the question that has come here is stevens somewhat controversial involvement with the no nothing party. before that of course the anti-mason party. and i should point out that is specially after the break up of the second party system there are many antislavery propositions who had no political home and flirted with no nothingism before they joined the republican party. i was wondering if you'd like to answer that question too. >> fine he first gets wrapped up with what looks in retrospect to most people, including many historians, as a kind of crank

outfit, the anti-mason party, a party dedicated to basically combating the order of masons, which order still exists today of course. and if you look at the masons today it seems impossible to understand how a political part of tee could come into being dedicated to fighting against this apparently inch offensive fraternal organization. and what i discovered upon closer look is that at the time stevens joined the anti-mason party, the masons were a kind of different organization. it was a secret organization whose members pledged secretly to support one another, above all others, in all walks of life, economic, political and so on. well, to people who firmly believed in political democracy,

and feared the undermining of that democracy by secret scripps and cabals, this could and appear a dangerous kind of organization. and stevens' home state of vermont was acutely aware of the need to combat secret organizations, and so were the baptists to which his family was also affiliated, an organization that had suffered religious and political persecution and had also feared secrecy in government. and so this odd-looking organization in fact attracted a large number of people who would eventually become republicans as well as radical republicans, because of their commitment to democracy. the no nothing party was a horse of a different color. just as you say. the no nothing party comes into

being in the early 1850's, no nothing party is not its official name the official name of course is the american party, and it is an anti-immigrant party. its goal is to deprive immigrants of the right to vote, or at least to make them wait 21 years after that he are naturalized before they can cast a vote. thaddeus stevens never became a loud, prominent advocate of deprivation of immigrant rights, but he did evidently join with them in order to boost his own political support. southern pennsylvania was a part of the country where nativeism was very strong, and stevens for a longtime seemed to see no problem with trying to

collaborate with nativists in order to advance his other agenda goals. it's not until about 1860 where stevens seems to have a change of heart. when the republican party in 1860 finally adds to its platform provisions opposing native vism and equal rights to immigrants, stevens says nothing in protest, even as he says i noticed that a large number of our immigrants are opposed to slavery, and so that fact that was especially true of scandinavians and german-speaking immigrants seems to play a role in his abandonment of nativeism. meanwhile stevens also champions the cause of chinese immigrants

in california who are being persecuted by the political establishment there and not only by the political establishment and that includes california republicans and stevens takes on one of the republicans on the floor of the house and denounces california for its mistreatment of those chinese immigrants. and so we see on this issue too, stevens' commitment to democracy expanding, strengthening, and coming to touch more and more issues, just as it had led him earlier to endorse women's suffrage. >> absolutely. i agree with you. i think his motivating political principle was antislavery. it was not nativeism. and you see that among others like henry wilson in malls mass where many antislavery politicians joined the no

nothing party and eventually quickly go to the republican party and have nothing to do with nativeism particularly because of the german immigrants, they are such an important part of the republican coalition. i find that a really convincing answer. there is another question here. we are running out of time. we have literally two. there are quite a few more questions here, but about whether stevens' continued attempt to impeach johnson was motivated by some vengeance. i think stevens actually perceived johnson to be a genuine threat to american democracy. if you read his personal core respond dance and what you've written about him to me that seems far more motivating than any kind of vengeance. >> i think stevens does not approach the subject of impeachment out of a spirit of personal revenge or even

personal punishment for andrew johnson. he says the purpose of impeachment is to deal with misconduct in office and to prevent future misconduct. he sees johnson accurately as the principle obstacle to the completion of what he regards as a necessary revolution in american life and it is on that basis and for that purpose that he seeks to remove johnson so that congress can do what needs to be done, rather than inflict some sort of punishment on an evil doer. >> absolutely. you know, i think stevens' perception of johnson as a traitor actually was quite accurate. it was precisely what johnson was doing, in terms of undoing reconstruction and that's why he adds to bigger article on impeachment, right?

that johnson is actually against reconstruction, and that was a trait tere us act. there was talk about stevens contact with african-american research at the time. charles sumner had contact with the black community because he was involved with abolition and struggles just like stevens. what was interesting about stevens was that, yes he had contacts with some prominent african-americans but he also had a lot of contact with southern white unionists who would plead to him, right? if you could elaborate on his contacts with black people, but also southern unionists. >> are the contacts that i came across with black leaders were mostly local for the purpose of

protecting free blacks in the north and those who had escaped from the south into the north. so he was actively involved, for example, in pennsylvania in keeping track of slave holders and informing african-americans of what those slave holders were doing, those slave chasers were doing, and advising the fugitives how to best protect themselves. during the civil war he became a recipient of many letters, just as you say. from loyal whaoeus in the confederacy, both during and after the kheufl war, especially after the civil war of course, when the correspondence was much more possible, advising him of what was taking place and of the persecution both of african-americans there and that small minority of loyal whites, which minority was not so small in certain pockets of the

south. and stevens was the recipient of an out sized number of letters precisely from that segment of the southern population. >> absolutely. and it really belies this notion that he was somehow just anti-southern. actually he always makes a difference and he says, you know, loyal white southerners and blacks versus the traitors, the slavers, and the confederates, and your answer there is really i think -- holds up really well. you know, we unfortunately do not have the time that we want, there are lots of questions here that i apologize to our audience that we could not get to. the fact that stevens' reputation has in fact, you know, been rescued in the post civil rights movement made sense because finally it's only with the civil rights movement that his vision, often interrational

democracy and equal black citizenship is eventually realized and it shows you how important his program of reconstruction was and how important his commitment to blacky quality is to tell the full story of american democracy. but thank you, bruce so much. if you'll hold up your book at this point i would really recommend this read to our audience, it's a brilliant book, a modern biography of the great thaddeus stevens long over do and one by one of our most perceptive civil war historians. >> thank you. >> on that note i'm afraid we do have to wrap-up our program. i which we had more time. certainly i would recommend that our audiences especially the questions that we could not answer, that you will go out and purchase a copy of bruce le

vins' -p wonderful biography of thaddeus stevens. >> thank you so much. thank you everyone. >> thank you for being with us, everyone.

>> we had a mission, matt and i and firstly that if you have been through this, if you've been in the military that you would say. they got it right, they told our story. we identify it. we've had trouble sometimes expression the story ourselves, but there it is. if you're like a lot of people, probably a lot of people listening right now who think they know what the military is about, or could care less, you will understand it for the first time in your life. i swear to god you will, and you will understand what it means to serve and you will understand what it means to put your life on the line for somebody else. and the next time that anybody listening, when you thank somebody for your service, you will know what you're thanking them for, which is huge. i think it's hugely important, for me this is the most

important book i've ever done by far, because you will understand at the end of this, which is what you want to do with every new book you read, you want to learn something new. you will learn what the military is all about from this book, i promise you. >> james patterson has appeared on book tv over ten times. >> now i have the great pleasure of introducing catherine stoner. kathryn stoner is the deputy director at the institute for international studies at stanford university and a senior fellow on the center of democracy, development and rule of law and the center on international security and cooperation at free man's bog le y institute. she teaches in the department of political science at stanford and in the program