cspan shop .org is c-span's online store, the collection of cspan products proud to see what is new in your purchase will support our nonprofit operations and you'll still have time to order the congressional directory predict information from members of congress and the biden administration going cspan shop .org. hello everyone, and while. including tour visitors infuses interviewers from cspan freedom jim kelly director of the center of global security net analysis and support of the universityda were proud because sponsored with his webinar with "lincolnomics" in our partners, gilder lehrman institute of american history and this event is part of our centennial series celebrating 100 years of purpose driven education. this particular, since we are

currently offering a course in financial history, and in conjunction with the museum of american finance and during the presentation, please enter your questions byth typing them in te q&a section near the bottom of your zoom screen and we will be addressing as many questions as possible after the presentation and lastly, as a participant in today's webinar, you will be entered into a raffle to win a free e-book of "lincolnomics" and winners willom be notified t the end of the week. now i would like to turn it over to david president of this and is our speaker. >> thank you. and this is the third of time that i've had the pleasure to introduce john buried in the first time i introduced him he had written ten books which i thought was pretty impressive and while the second time he was

up toas 16 and now we are up to9 books it is so congratulations on that john wasik in his book is particular timely because part ofcu it is discussing about infrastructure and as you know congress is currently debating infrastructure bill and john, several times throughout the book what would lincoln do. now his prolific writings often includes over 1000 columns and articles in places like the new york times, the wall street bloomberg but most importantly of course are all magazine financial history an article based on the book will be out in the spring issue sometime next month and he has appeared on many media outlets from nbc to mcr, cnn, cnbc, msnbc, and cbs. now he is a native of illinois

and during his childhood he visited many lincoln tourist destination continued on doing that as around the country, therefore when you read the book, there are several tendencies and one of them is his review the notes want you to miss other lincoln tourist destinations. john is admin a very difficult, almost 13 months for this country so please telldi us, wht would lincoln do predict. john: thank you so much for that generous and shown is always a pleasure to speak at the museum of american finance and thank you so much to our great sponsors from the school of business and cfa society of new york and allty of you for attending this zoom session and what i hope will be a revealing new look and a lincoln and infrastructure. the story starts in 1828.

a young man is taking a flat boat transporting goods, hogs, agriculture produce from southern indiana on the ohio river down the mississippi to new orleans. anyway he discovers two things. he sees that people who were enslavede do not have the same economic opportunity to advance their own station and its immoral and he also sees the importance of transporting goods to market and having access to those markets matter where you live to offer wherever you are in the country, if you do not have to go through this labyrinth of what was in the

interstate system on the nations large rivers to get there. as young man was abraham lincoln is another trip to springfield illinois 1928 is really important year though because that is when the erie canal opened. that means new york city which became a course one of the greatest force in the world, access to the markets west and into the great lakes at the time that chicago was not even the city, he was a zombie trading post. her inaccessible because the only wayy of getting down to the mississippi river was an port called mud lake which even in 18 or 1673, two explorers, on the market said there should be a canal here because it connect the chicago river to lake michigan in the erie canal in

new york city and you can get to new orleans because they didn't get to the illinois river the mississippi and then onto to the carson city. so there was one a first impressions that young abraham lincoln had as a nation was drawing in 1830s and it was really a time we don't really study a lot. because we mostly skip from the revolution to the w civil war there is a lot of history in between and one of the reasons that i wrote the book was because i wanted to know editor country developed and what did weow need to do to get to wheree are today. and eventually, what we need to do to get into the future into the more equitable. so what was really important about that one trip, is a very huckleberry trip from lincoln and it had changed his worldview and thinking in a changed the way that he said things in

public. and one of his first really campaign when he ran for the general assembly, in springfield illinois now, still young man in his 20s, he felt it running to stores tried surveying, swimming would doing anything to make ends meet and he has some debts and a department in the store hade left in my right hand of a half-dozen he did all of this will be very curious about the world reading about the market in economics and things that would transform not only his life but the life of all rural american or even people sit in the cities. so he compose something very interesting the first thing that he said was that we needed to build a canal from the springfield all the way to that your own life river which would've facilitated a great new part a great new access to the markets in new orleans and from

south n and also create a canal that would later be called the michigan canaler which would connect chicago to the illinois river predict the 96 miles and the third thing which actually was pooh-poohed at that time because everybody thought it was to be way too expensive, was a major railroad connecting the whole state to the rest of the eastern markets at the time that railroad was going to be faulty illinois central so work with a fellow named stephen douglas is right rival throughout life in politics to get this done in the online legislature passed the massive infrastructure plan and then promptly wentuc bust. i was undercapitalized and they can now had to take some time because they didn't have the money to hire irish laborers to get paid almost nothing today goodbyeig hand but that was something that had to be done in

order to open up chicago the great lakes and the rest of illinois to a global market rated lincoln's office early in campaign for its i was fairly successful convincing people that this should be done. and he wanted to put rural farmers and anybody who was living near the city or saltwater an equal footing with everybody else and how do you do this will you create transportation routes and you build the infrastructure to get people there. so lincoln was fairly successful as a young simple man but what was moree important, is that he introduce this concept based on henry clay's american system that if you built infrastructure, it would create economic progress and this was fundamental to the wig view of the world and the united states and henry clay was awake, abraham lincoln was nearly wig

they were very much into building infrastructure and tariffs to pay for them, eternal tariffs and they did this in a time when i'm they called it the era of good feelings. so never quite sure what they called it that the biggest thing at the time was the canal spilling them all over the country to connect these major river systems which were interstates then and of course, railroads took off in the following decade, the 1840s and then what became this huge interstate system really took h off because the canals group and what it happened when lincoln first proposed is little canal. anna springfield was setting new than anyplace where canal was at a conjunction where another river system and this is

illinois, then latin development would take off and this is very little nobody actually was an urban planner and he planned town at the intersection of this canal called here on is in lake huron. that of course it was never built. as all the plans and doing the research is something that i've never known about lincoln. and then of course he moved on to become a lawyer made will be more money and it was a very successful lawyer and he kind of dropped out of politics until 1854 now in the interim, america's growing at a rapid pace and the i am illinois michigan canal opens up 1948 read and happens, it creates this major city of the other end because chicago. remember chicago was a dumpy little swampy area on lake michigan and when becomes this major shipping port and it

becomes the busiest port in the country when the canal finished for at least another decade printed by 1900, population growth is so explosive that it becomes the fastest growing city in the world at the turn-of-the-century. and there that was facilitated by the citedat lincoln champion along with stephen douglas and even more importantly, the illinois central railroad which really was built to supplement what was going up and down the canals becomes the longest railroad in the world by 1850. and eventually goes from the northwest tip of illinois all the way to new orleans but not until after the civil war and becomes a major transit route. during the civil war and so keep those two things in mind. these are two ms developments in the history of the country, the midwest, and links the eastern

markets to the western markets to theke southern part of his globalization in a very small sense but in a very growing sense printed now what happens when the civil war comes long will we know what lincoln says, we knew about the speech and we know about the lincoln douglas debates but it started to go into some of the material have a something very interesting that he said. literally the first with 1858 illinois he was running for senator at the time against douglas. douglas had controlled the illinois democratic party at that time, senators were not directly elected. there elected by state legislatures so he became the senator. so what happened was that lincoln and talking about slavery made another argument. this was during the first debate pretty he w said, every man hasa

right to earn his own bread and a b and i'm paraphrasing, to be on equal footing with everyone. so this is lincoln's view of economic progress that you have a right to offer your labor for pay and that you have the opportunity to ascend the economic letter uses words, economic letter, honey move up and howw you avoid being this is all your life and doomed to farming and honeydew that. so this is part of the american system in the american the wind kind of grown-up to learn in our history. l but there is more to it than that for years something even more exciting. so this is another sign the holy concerns really during the sort of la: exile but this strange forut politics which was lasting roughly from the time he leaves

the general assembly to roughly 1854. when douglas passed the note nebraska act allowing for expansion in the slavery the north of the territories lincoln comes to this realization that what is really important here other than you know, ending slavery is that we still need to pay attention to infrastructure income 8047 is a long-term in the house of representatives, he actually gives a a very long speech in one of his long eespeeches ever read on infrastructure, wise and itt important to him for the canals in the railroads and what is it mean to the help in the future of the nation. lincoln thought it was the central in effect, he was disparagingly, president polk at the time for fighting the mexican war and not collecting this national issue. keep in mind, that up until lincoln's - that many of the founding fathers and they thought that federal funding was

sunconstitutional and said in n annual message, that even before the canal era, like the idea, we should be building roads and canals and things like that but is not t in the constitution. so that was used as an argument against the infrastructure for decades. decades before the civil war read so lincoln selected in 1860 and there's the southern states and lincoln has to go into washington by the secret route because the plotted attempts for assassination because there in the civil war starts. now prosecuting the civil war, lincoln's record is very well known but what he had invented in some of his very basic messages work very foundational ideas on racing to the

"lincolnomics" progress what any favorable for sale the transcontinental railroad became a very popular idea in 1940. and fremont who ran for president against buchanan, camping on that and he was one of the first republicans in the republican party doesn't come along to the mid- 19th century, 8050s in the new republican parties of courses against slavery and for the transcontinental railroad in lincoln is havingra represented the illinois central, as a lawyer in the importance of it. so he favors that and in one of his annual messages which was then the state of the union speeches, is just a whole bunch of other things. and is the first president to do a telegraph message, transcontinental party gets message from san francisco and he loves telegraphs as we know from this during the war, is a longtime the h telegraph room

getting dispatches from the various battles in the first years of the war very badly. and of course, lincoln is shuffling the general and try get his troops were the need to be. and most of them are the better generals it turns out are the railroad engineers who became generals. and they later become active in the transcontinental railroad so here's what's even remarkable, the height of the civil war, scotto full bloodshed, 700,000 people lose their lives. and the majority of lose them in the camps to various diseases, diphtheria and pneumonia and of course there is no cure for them and they have no idea what is going on because these diseases doesn't come along until like 20 or 30 years later. so lincoln is an early advocate of medical research. he establishes the pathology

institute and have the papers where hee talks about using disinfectants and some of the union camps and he doesn't even know about terms. ages hears about it if i saw the letter in i the archives and sad this looks like a really good idea so these are innovator in chief and u.s. to do new things he wants to see you ways of communicating and of ftransporting goods of getting s to where we need to be. in one of the biggest sort of fatal slips that he signed into law are three very fundamental laws of the homestead act which allows people physically free land and the act which has land grant colleges and of course the pacific railway acts which finance the transcontinental railroad. in the following year, there was 62 in the following year, he also passes it national banking

act and this is for the first time, establishes the greenbacks the green dollar is our national currency and establishes also income tax to pay for the war and during the war the union economy actually the gdp increases. a small tax of 3 percent. over $800 payment, contacts with the first income tax repealed 81873 mini games became spec 1913 but it was the first way of national government financing its expenses on that level. so that was very important development so all of this happens during the civil war. then there's the horrible gettysburg's in pittsburgh and also in 1863, and the wars over and lincoln loses his life in 1865. f arts theater. but his legacy lives on and

here's the most amazing part of the story is that lincoln's view of economic progress that is building infrastructure and raising elbows, really comes out of a part of his psyche. in 1847, he had actually invented it about, boat there's actually designed to lift it up if itt was in shallow waters any patented it before he left washington in 1848 and he traveled on the illinois michigan canal t so lincoln is e only president who is a patented inventor and so he always had this in the back of his mind being the innovator t in chief f how we do things better and how do we use technology anatomy really do the things were really good at. to make this a better country for everyone. so those of the principal things i discovered. but again, the legacy lives on

and he inspires a whole new generation of progressive politicians and thinkers flight of frank lloyd wright james adams, reforms in the lincoln highway which is the first nationalal east-west route goes from times square all the way to san francisco which was named after him and inspired by him. in fact i was born just after the lincoln highway. in the hospital where i was born no longer exists but it was all the crossroads american of course lincoln all my state. so we have all of this inspiration and then he goes even further, the roads in this country were really terrible going from one part of the country to another especially from the midwest to the west. in 1919, and carl named dwight eisenhower's to the convoy to explore the state of the roads along the lincoln highway from

one coast to the other any comes from the real undeniable conclusion that it's awful. some of the routes were just kind of like pioneer charles out of iowa and go through the mountains and the deserts and then from that time on, that people were saying how do we pay for this natalie do this. the first idea for the lincoln highwayco was 1913 in the first concept of financing was it should be privately financed. an entrepreneur who is really part of the year of the packard fortunes and yes we can leave money and henry ford says to him look, you're not going to do this with private money and i'm not going to contribute to. you're going to need federal funding to do this. so they don't raise enough money, they get some subscribers including woodrow wilson and i

think he gave $5 or something. oops just terribly in the 500 under financing really doesn't have until eisenhower becomes president in 1976 interstate highway act and christ the largt network of highways on the planet, 40000 miles plus and inflation-adjusted for today's dollars and it would've been released 600 billion-dollar project. now we face the least $6 trillion and of course there's the proposal for the 2 trillion-dollar american jobs plan abs president biden. we are looking at that now predict so a lot of my stories, just like my fifth book of infrastructure in history and finance and telling stories about the people behind these ideas. the principle here is very powerful, that you do need to make these investments. this is how we link our cities

and our towns l in our farm fies from coast to coast. there's a lot of things we need to do. and i would be happy to take questions on this will leave you with us one thing. but we are very good at, that lincoln really personified, was this idea than innovation would not only lift our economic station, entrepreneurship and invention and discovery, new technologies but also lift our spirits that this is aspirational, we still truly believe that this new invention are this new idea is going to change the world and that's what i think makes this as americans that is part of the path forward and i think one reason cigarettes books is i have to ndtell you, one last sort of an adult about it is that i really backwards, i started out with

covid-19 era. the pandemic right now and why it ended lost two friends to know lots of people who lost friends in my condolences if you knew somebody who perished in this thing but it reveals something us that we do need to create better infrastructure and social infrastructure matter educational infrastructure. health infrastructure as well as the physical infrastructure and better roads bridges and tunnels and railroads. all these things thatt come undr that huge category of infrastructure and i can't say enough that this is what we do. and also builds our spirit in our confidence and gives us something to hope for. it's aspirational and with that, i would loveit to take your questions and there's a whole bunch of stories in the book and

it was living in the land of lincoln. people asked me how long did this take you to write it in a stable all my life. this is an ongoing story and know all of you will contribute to this effort to realize what we need to do nothing or back to jim now. >> will thank you very much printed. .jim: go ahead and enter your on oiquestions in the q&a box and will keep going on that basis. the main source of income was a tariff and to think lincoln would be in favor of higher tariffs say in china. john: will i think that the whole tariff formula proved to be not enough to do what we needed to doo in terms of infrastructure. this thefr whole argument during the 19th century tariffs is

fun some infrastructure but it was not enough. it's a good way to finance these things printed i believe that to the historians and the financial analysts. i think that we do need is a broad-based sustainable way of financing this whether it is public-private or through bonds or t carbon taxes and there's so many proposals on the table but we need to get the discussion going because obviously, if you look the nation as our house, see if you don't invest your house, the need to paint it and replace the heating and air conditioning and all these things just wear out. if you don't do that, then you're looking at problems brightest of the house is our nation and does need to be fixed and upgraded it and find a new technology need to address climate change, all these things that we do need and that is the

current argument, how tome refinances natalie do it. jim: you mentioned in the bucket, and one of the things, you mentioned that in order if you can expand on it. the only president and effectively lesser-known story is a dual challenge believe it or not like it had most people are not aware of those two facts. john: there to really good stories and the most and both have been a different terms but the inventor story was that lincoln to get to washington, and take this god awful route to the great lakes, through theth erie canal down the hudson river and sometimes he took the overland route and often when he was on aan boat in the great lakes, i would get stuck. and they would have to pry the

boat loose with physical labor. so he came up with this idea literally designed it on the ship where he had these polls in which he had a picture of it. he lifted up and he had his inflatable buoys that would float the boat up higher and it was really a clever invention he made a bottle of it and he had a friend constructed for it is now the smithsonian and it was a beautiful looking craft. not built as far as i know. it been the model stage nobody is that can aid in the railroad era was probably not that much need for it. in the dual i challenge was like and if had some issues with depression. any had several courtships and one of the sweethearts died, and in springfield and madly in love with her and she dies. and he gets very depressed hand there is mary ellen's, and mary

todd it was very sprightly the intelligent, paula and her politically south entrance abby henry clay grew up without whole culture in the louisville, kentucky in severalis kentuckias and lincoln it was very awkward socially for some reason read as he was giving a speech. and things did not go well at first with mary and they broke it off. aims horribly depressed his friend joshua took away his razor and he was just terrible and somebody is salt salmon there was a dual challenge. and fortunately, in 19 century duals were kind of complex affairs, he did apologize and melt that's what happen, sweet didn't fight the doing of the good thing. if you would benefit if we would lost lincoln, can imagine with this country would be like.

that's a good question thank you david it pretty. >> is an interesting one, if you can pick one thing to spend infrastructure on today, what would it be. sue and that's an easy one for me, would be healthcare and because one of the things they discovered in sort of writing this book backwards is that there are massive inequities in terms of healthcare coverage between communities of color and the rest ofeq the country ratedt is very and evenly divided and i live in the county north of the city where we have a plethora of really good hospitals but if you go south side of chicago it is not the case, there struggling to keep hospitals open for you so i would spend the money and silicon we have a broad-based plan for everybody to get really decent basic healthcare. and i don't know that's a national healthcare system or medicare for all but we to come up with something. is a covid-19 crisis really

exposed a lot of these inequities and it was just horrible because some people do not have access to healthcare or they didn't go to the hospital because they were afraid they cannot pay for it. soid this is part of my social infrastructure argued that the publican would've embraced because even go as far as the 14th amendment which in the cause to say hey it's really the very least we should treat everybody fairly and equally. and of course they have not been but i think that something that we need to talk about when we talk about infrastructure. >> leo schmidt would like to know would lincoln be in favor of a line item detailed in order to do the financing out of the infrastructure bill. john: i don't think that he would have looked at that specifically because it was kind

of the big picture thinker. sound transcontinental railroad, how big of a project was that and of course may look at history. and displacement of native americans and murdering them putting them on reservations, there are a lot of bad things that happened because of expansionist economic policies no doubt about it but how can you see that and i don't know what he would've thought to be honest with you. the question during his time was not necessarily government ways, it was government spending of money on the things that matter the most to the greatest number ofof people so that is a tough n and going to really pass on that but i think he would've looked at eventually. he's very open-minded to new ideas. >> and john abraham lincoln and

please tell us about the reform and how the relation ship impacted the policies. john: in modern times of i think they would've been in front of me so lincoln was the first president who welcomed douglas into the white house and douglas was very accomplished thinker speaker abolitionist. he wrote two autobiographies neary them, and he is amazing and he just opens up the whole issue of slavery and economic equality, we need to deal argued there is probably no better person and if you want to understand it where we are at today. read frederick douglass. there is a biography out on him now but douglas was very critical of lincoln in the early years even though they talked

and would consider to be a fairly regular basis. he was in the white house and lincoln welcomed him and douglas did not think lincoln did enough to end slavery. and it did not end in totality and it was incomplete declaration of mostly freed slaves to fight for the union side so that is one interpretation. and all the pieces the needed to follow equal education, and funding infrastructure for every community, now we can later but actually douglas innf the 80s, and pretty much was advocating for equal rights in news that the 8093 world plumbing expedition in chicago and i think that in the end, lincoln had done more than any other president to advance the issue

of equality in ending slavery and think too many historians are going to disagree with that enough course and inspired the and 14th and 15th amendment and of course great civil rights legislation in the 60s. i think involvement would agree that there's more work that needs to be done. >> ears of the hunt question for you, how would lincoln it advance both the broadband is the new canal system. john: well i don't think he would hesitate in doing a david and this is why read so when he received the first telegraph as president, samaras has been peddling his inventions since the 1840s. he was really struggling to convince people i can you know, as a global communication folks,

instead of like honey express and putting something on the pack and that slow routes, sending messages at the speed of light. this a quantum leap lincoln just love the idea and there's always be in the telegraph room of the white house. in receiving sending messages and it was something that i think he would've wholeheartedly embrace broadband everywhere so we can all be hubcaps in the same network and system and travel globally the speed of light writer think he would've loved the idea. >> are good questions coming in and wondering what lincoln's actions on education word if any of his ideas would apply today to help equality. summa will here's a great back story so the moron which he signed in 1862, establishes land

grant colleges, the state universities that we know today in the first iteration took really would set aside 30000 acres 90 do anything they wanted in the katella, the department and they could produce income from it. as a concept, it wasn't a subsidy as we know today read as a possible means of 19th century for doing something good. give. since the government really didn't have the income form thing and of course the work the states rights and arguments that say should be doing this first. well they said the ability to have the capitol. but a lot of foreign investments when into these transcontinental railroad and illinois central education pretty lincoln i discovered was so focused on education because of his own shortfalls in that area, he only got about a year of formal education and the rest was self

lord brady learned the law on its own and he became a lawyer and he studied is a great reader of all source of history and he also reviewed clip seems into math and all sorts of subjects that i never knew that he read. he would've embraced the idea of expanding the educational system tomorrow is just one of many, there were several other sort of extensions of that that when into the 20th century that established universities historical black colleges came out of that. native american colleges came out of that and subsequent iterations which i think he would've loved. throw back story is even more interesting than that, the vermont senator justin who had his name attached to an originally proposed land-grant universities and really inspired by by charter who knew lincoln as a young man in a proposed

this whole idea of the land-grant called the university we should be teaching two basic things agriculture what they called the mechanical art which became engineering so you this idea for decades that pretty much passed it on to actually try to get it passed 1968 in buchanan veto data became law and had moderately compelling it was very well aware after any had them as it is near the white house during civil war general was very famous abolitionist and ironically in the same town were stephen douglas got a start, jacksonville, illinois, zoe's and the father of moral act and what we call the state college system to the engineering schools and things like that. >> when the what if question for you when you bleed present lincoln would've achieved if he had been able to surmount his

second term. >> i think that is one of the most essential questions they asked today. his low hanging fruit for me is that he would completed the reconstruction and he lived even longer, he would not have abandoned it in 1870s rated and of course that led to the horrible jim coparent lynchings and some really awful times in our history. so lincoln would've followed through and witnessed the passage of the 13th and 14 to 15 amendment eight would've taken it to suffer there, he would've ensured that he would political equality and complete ervoting rights. we generally credit him for being an inspiration of the great programs of the civil rights of the 60s. so i think he would've been able to see that through and add to

it. he was definitely the sole of all those laws. >> i am curious, can you explain or interpret the transition between the canal system and rail systems, how long did that take and what were the stages of development. john: is a fascinating question jim and it didn't really take long in terms of the history because what needed to happen for roads to take off, as they headed mass-produce rail and cut a lot of trees to build they had to create the technology to extend the rail over long distances and with that came steam engine and braking systems and a lot of this business was

centered in chicago and the car running and hunt an ironic active histories that the moment our company was one of chicago's biggest industries. from this inception they literally had to build all these cars on the wooden lincoln traveled with the pullman cars and his son robert lincoln, who became a lawyer, was part of this home and company for a while is a horrible moment strike there so that was an important part read so with every one of the stories, these incremental advances in history, how do you build a better rail this would be durable in all conditions and a honey make betr steel and better iron and a lot of this happened in the steel mills of chicago in pittsburgh and cleveland where you had all of these things that really contributed to the advancement of one technology. so we go from o the canal area which basically 1830s and 1840s, the rep is take off

because they can mass-produce railroad cars, engines, and ties and spikes and with the golden spike is driven into the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, a lot of interesting things happen, they had a reinvent how they built bridges and most bridges were made out of wood rated in fact there's one great story that i had, lincoln was funny company and build a bridge across the mississippi river in rock island illinois and roland of course would get across the river read at the time, right at the end of the steamboat area so the whole steamboat industry that they one they had right to this river in the middle of the upstart technology like the railroads to get across their river so an incident where the steamboat either crash or loss control and hit this bridge.

the river for the bridge was made of wood and it burned to the ground. so they an underinsured their ship and they still the bridge company read in the bring out lincoln as an attorney to represent the bridge company the maces really interesting argument point is that when the case needs with a hung jury but eventually he makes this really compelling statement of this is just not a bridge, commerce or trade or anything. this is a public amenity. this links chicago, the rest of the country across the mississippi. they belonged to the public. there is not stopping congress are stopping people from discovering land in theheme wese need it so that was a really important case. i run a whole chapter on it was fascinated about how lincoln constructed this argument about

the public good of infrastructure. >> hr 40 is possibly in front of congress in the reparation for the slaves, who would lincoln think about that sue and i think he would think about it logically and it is a complex subject and i have really think that we need to address the inequities and all of our systems and education and healthcare and in the fact that there's an environmental justice issue that a lot of toxic plants and refineries that were built in communities of color read there's a wholend raft of things that are think the lincoln would've fundamentally dressed pretty is it really spoke to his sense of fairness and the idea that equality is to eventually based on your ability to take

advantage of an opportunity is somehow your held back for whatever reason rated should be addressed. they would've discussed it. think that he would've talked to frederick douglass about an heavy lifting would'vee talked about booker t. washington and the people who work talking about today. anything he would've taken a hard look at how to do this. >> a specific question. however the canals financed publicly and privately and also the railroads. can you explain how that whole process was financed rated. john: this is one of the interesting stories of american finance is that when for example, the stateie of illinois financed illinois michigan canal, they were horribly

inadequate to pay for this so what they did is they said okay, point to work contracts to private contractors who can hire their workers to build small sections of the canal. entertaining, probably not a good idea read in today's age, hire one contractor and you put the contract out for bid near the best of better visa job and they would send notices out you say would they promise these poor irish guys like go to be a navigator in the canal that's what they call them, navigators and they were digging this thing by hand. so at first it was this really undercapitalized project and then they got foreign financing so a lot of harmony came into

building these canals and then into the railroad. that of course the land-grant system was basically, you get the land and you find the money to build it so there's some money raised with transcontinental railroad and again mostly bonds there was a lot of foreign investment. >> john, with 19 books now to your credit, what is number 2040 to be about. john: will david i hope it's going to be about bringing the environment to every neighborhood in the country, climate changes rx potential threats. assorted white-collar reverse, will how do we enjoy nature superman in theer middle of the city. and what is that mean. how we produce our own energy and clean our air and water and stuff like that how you localize it read one of the things that i really discussed the book is

thatt? climate change affects everything rated certainly affects our way of looking at infrastructure we have to build bridges higher designer water system. everything rated so this book would look at will have to be like shrink this question down to break it down a little bit. what is mean for my neighborhood. so that hopefully will be my next book and i would call it the natural neighborhood. >> would lincoln have embraces public partner partnership something of the pandemic and the cooperation of the federal government and the pharmaceutical companies. is therein any analogies back in that era of the public private

partnerships pretty. john: i think so, when a lot of these projects were done, what really provided in undergirding of the financial structure was the fact that they were able to solicit eastern and european investors. so the most the federal government could do because most of the land that had been appropriated for native americans, and they could say look, will give you land the maybe the states can help a little bit with putting some bonds but it will be enough is never enough. going to have to find the rest of the money to do this and that certainly the story with all of the s railroads. they t came after the transcontinental railroads and the local systems. there was sites during this ritually the journalist named

henry bullard has started covering the civil war created the first newspaper syndicate and became a private but eventually bit got so much information on some of these railroad projects we are blessed to become an investor in financed the famous house in manhattan, that was henry villard. kristi also a lot of that fortunate rootstock splashed newman up and down. when he eventually financed thomas edison and so that is another great story but would go back to german investors because that's where he was originally from and he would say hello, and strong coming financing in kansas city. you know you might want to take another look at the paper and the statements read and i can help you with this. he made huge fees and any go stark and became filthy rich. but the house is still there is

history is just probably is interesting is anybody else from that era. >> a final question before we close. so many lincoln tourist destinations, which is your favorite. john: that's a tough one, is like taking your favorite child. that is not fair, come on. you know, the thing that really strikes me this is not something most people even associate with lincoln is a place called lincoln landing, a point illinois lincoln section one of the scenes were lincoln came through their, after his only term in congress is really what spurred my imagination in thinking that how did lincoln see the future of the country. he helped get this canal built,

he created a great city it all the towns along it pretty think about all of the towns along the erie canal new york city in new orleans and all the things that happened after it. but he had this vision and sometimes places have this power to really instill his vision a try to get into lincoln's head and all of us have tried and we don't completely understand him and we never will but it's important to see what he saw in the field maybe it when he felt and did no to aspire to a better country was still a worthy goal in a moral principle that we can't abandoned. >> will john on behalf of the school the cfa, it is wonderful to get have you back to her audience thank you for tuning and we have rate programs coming up with several including peter

cohen and doctor henry. it's on behalf of all of us again john, thank you very much. >> think it is been such a pleasure and i just hope and pray that we will get back to a healthy country again and i'll be back in new york city with my friends and i miss you all terribly read i wish everybody the best. ... ... the tools they need to e ready for anything.

middle and high school students let your voice be heard with c-span student cam competition. to be part of the conversation by creating a documentary that answers the question how does the federal government impact your life. your five to six minute video will explore federal policy. student can competition as $100,000 in total cash prizes and a shot at the grand prize of $5,000. entries for the competition will begin to be received wednesday september 8. for competition rules, tips and more information on how to get started, visit the website and student cam.org