coverage. we will return to this program momentarilyug following a pro forma session in the senate. we are lied to the senate floor here on c-span2

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the parliamentarian will read a communication to the senate. the parliamentarian: washington, d.c., august 24, 2021. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable chris murphy, a senator from the state of connecticut, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 9:00 a.m. on friday, august 27, 2021. t ca, literally designed it on the ca, ship where he had these polls pretty wish i had a picture of it, would lift it up and they had these >> back to our booktv programming and progress.

>> youer know, it was really a clever invention. he had a model of it, it is now in the smithsonian. it was a beautiful looking crown. it wasut not built on the model stage as far as i know. and the dual challenge was lincoln had issues with depression and he had several courtships, one of his sweethearts died, and rutledge. madly in love with her and he gets very depressed and he needs mary todd, who is very intelligent, politically savvy and corrupt without whole culture in louisville.

lincoln was very awkward socially unless he was giving a speech. things did not go well at first with mary todd and then they broke it off and he was horribly depressed and has fred took away his razor, he wouldn't come out of his house, and there was a challenge and 19th century duels were kind of complex affairs and that is what happened. so he didn't fight and that is a good thing. because i cannot imagine what this country would be like without lincoln. it's a good question mel, thank you, david. >> here's an interesting one. if you could pick one thing this, what would it be. >> for me it would be health care. because one of the things they

discovered that writingca this book is that there are massive inequities in terms of health care coverage between communities of color than the rest of the country. it is unequal and on equally divided. i live in the county where we have a plethora of really good hospitals, but if you go to the southside of chicago, we are struggling to keep hospitals open. so click okay, how do we have a plan so that w everybody gets really decent basic health care. i don't know if that is a national health care system or medicare for all, but we need to come up with something. the covid-19 crisis exposed these inequities. and it's horrible because some don't have access to health care or they didn't go to the hospital because they could not pay for it. so this is part of my social infrastructure argument and i

think that lincoln would have embraced it. even going as far as invoking equal treatment clause saying hey, at least in this country we should treat everybody with fairness and equality. and of course, they have not been, but i think about something that we need to talk about when it comes to infrastructure. >> another individual like to know, line item details and financing out of infrastructure bells. >> you know, i don't think that he would have that specifically because he was kind of a big picture thinker. but of course when you look at history, all this displacement of native americans, murdering them and putting them on

reservations, there are a lot of bad things that happened due to an expansionist economic policy, but how can you see that. and i don't know what he would've thought. the question during his time wasn't government waste but government spending enough money on things that matter for the greatest number of people and that is a tough one and am really i'm really going to pass on that for now but i think he would've looked at it eventually. and he was very open to new ideas. >> can you tell us how it impacted the lincoln policies? >> he was the first president

that welcomed douglas into the whiteas house. douglas was a very accomplished thinker, speaker, abolitionist that wrote a lot of biographies, he's amazing, issuing slavery and economic activity, there is no better person if you want to understand where we are at today and also really good on him right now is an article in douglas was very critical even though we talked on what would the a fairly regular basis. many thought they didn't do enough, the emancipation proclamation. it was an incomplete fighting of

the union side. that's about as one interpretation in all the pieces , including funding infrastructure for every community, but actually, he was at the columbia exposition in chicago, as a matter of fact. >> we could have done more than advancing the quality and ending slavery and i don't think too many well disagree and that's the great civil rights legislation of the 60s. i think they would agree to more

work needs to be done. >> i don't think he would hesitate, and this is wired. so morris has been telling his invention since the 1840s. and he was really struggling and this is a global communications, instead of pony express, you are sending messages and lincoln just love the idea there was

such a thing to wholeheartedly embrace that includes travel globally at the speed of light, i think you would've loved the idea. >> keep them coming. >> if any of these ideas would apply, a great back story. signed in 1862, establishing land grant colleges grant colleges of the big universities that we know today that was the concept of the landgrab.

it wasn't a direct subsidy like we know today. and it was for doing something big, the federal government didn't have the income from one thing and they were talking about how they should be doinghe this first. and that includes stability to raise the capital. the transcontinental railroad, education, so lincoln was so focusedd on education because of his shortfalls in that area. the rest was self learned. and it was a great thing that he was a reader of history and all sorts of subject that i never knew that he read.

that includes expanding the education system, the extensions of that, going into historic we black colleges that came into play out of that, native americans having colleges came out of out in the back story is also very interesting. also originally proposing to the land grant university. and this whole industrial university, which is teaching our culture and what they call, pretty much passing it on to

those that actually tried to get through and then it became lincoln very well of the white house, he was a famous abolitionist. ironically were stephen douglas got his start, he is kind of a father of what we call the engineering schools in the state college system some things like that. >> what do you believe president lincoln would have achieved if he would not have been able to serve out the term? >> the low hanging fruit is he would've completed reconstruction.

and of course, that led to the jim crow era and some really awful times in our history. so lincoln would've witnessed the passage and he would've taken it a step further and ensure that there was political equality and voting rights. we generally credit him for being the great inspiration of the civil rights laws of the 60s, i think that he would have been able to see that through and add to it as well. he is definitely the soul of all of those laws. >> how do you interpret the

canal system and the rail system in the stages of development? >> that is a really fascinating reston and it didn't take long to determine the history because what needed to happen for railroads to take off his they had to cut a lot of trees. and with that came improvement from the steam engine and a lot of this is centered in chicago. it was one of chicago's biggest industries. and they had to build this out of wood and his son became