it's my pleasure today, this

afternoon to introduce the panelists for our conversation on abraham lincoln and race. and i'm going to start on my far right and i'm going to be which would be your far left. i'm going to be very, very brief in my introduction so we can get right to it. we have ron white. ron white, you heard last night, he spoke on his most recent book on joshua chamberlain. i am in all of dr. white's, but he told me at lunch today he's now working on john adams years in congress. did i get that right? john quincy and john quincy adams, thank you so much. there is a different set. believe it's just a slight white. next to ron is harold holzer. harold spoke to us last night on his new book on lincoln and immigration. he is the jonathan fenton director of the roosevelt house public policy institute at hunter college. this is, again a staggering

fact. i don't believe it's a typo. author, coeditor or editor of how many books? harold? a 55. 55. he's right. 55 books on lincoln and the civil war next to harold. there we have is elizabeth leonard. she is the gibson professor of history at colby college, or she's recently retired from colby. she is the author of a number of books, the most recent. you heard her speak about it last night. benjamin butler. i've been told by the folks at the bookstore that there is one copy left to ben butler. no copies left to ben butler. however, there are books, but there are two other books that she has published and which the one on the various. come on, elizabeth, help me out here. you received the lincoln prize for lincoln's forgotten at lincoln's frederick general joseph holt of kentucky. there we go. got the full title there. thank you, elizabeth. and next to elizabeth, we have jonathan white, professor of

american studies at christopher newport university. he is the author, editor of let's see if you get your number right. how many? 17. no. 16. by my account. we're going to go with the record. are you not counting my kids for 16? the most recent is a house bill by slaves, african-american visitors to the lincoln white house. cole won the lincoln prize in. 2023 and then scott hancock. my colleague here at gettysburg college, he is professor of history or i should say associate professor of history and africana studies. his work focuses on the african-american experience from the mid 16th hundreds to the civil war. his most recent publication is a chapter in the edited volume the civil war and the summer of 2020. scott is also doing two things that scott study well. more than two things. scott is taking a stand on the

issues of interpretation at gettysburg in a way that the experience of african-americans has been excluded. he was way out in the forefront even when i arrived here and certainly he and i had conversations. i wasn't fully aware of all the things that he did when he was out there making an important message to the public, engaging people, getting them to think about things that they often did not encounter, that so much has changed in the last 10 to 12 years. most recently, scott is working, and i don't know all the particulars, but on a grant that will hopefully lead to some kind of monument tation through the experience of african-americans here at gettysburg, specifically the experience of thousands of enslaved people. all right. so what we have for us today is a series of text and some visual culture which the panelists will reference, discuss, have a conversation about what i failed to do, and i apologize for it as i did not print this out for our

panelists. and as you can see, by the end of this session, they're all going to have stiff necks. and i'm sorry, we don't have the insurance to be able to cover you all for that, but i'll give you some advil. i got plenty of it after we're done. so. one of the things and again, this is even my fault. i didn't even think about it. i'm going to have to turn around and i won't have a microphone. oh, god, i'm so sorry, everyone. scott about to take your mic here. we're just going to get right to it, and we can like i say, we have a series of questions with the hope that we'll have 15 or 20 minutes for you to join the conversation. and take this right here. go to c-span. people. how are we doing here? can i do this? okay. yeah. all right. so the very first excerpt from a letter. thank you. i would love to have it. yes, that's perfect. get back to my. this is an excuse me. this is an excerpt from a letter written by abraham lincoln, of

course, to mary speed, september 27th, 1841. that's a letter that is often quoted, usually just a portion of it is that portion will be readily familiar to you when you see the entirety. i shouldn't say the entirety of the letter, but there is another substantial part of it that's often lopped off. this, again, will give us an opportunity for us as panelists. and again, i'm going to be the moderator here. so i should be on the sidelines. but to be discussing these issues of race and slavery. so here we go. by the way, a fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of condition upon human happiness. this boat that he is referring to is about to hit him. and josh, at a speed that they were taking ultimately down the mississippi river. am crect about that? lits there on the s.io first, right? do they make the turgo down the mississippi or they stop on the ohio? they're heading to kentucky and

to kentuck they're out. a gentlema had purchased 12 -- in different partsntuc and was taking them to a farm in the south. they were chained and six together. a small iron. clovisrounthe left wrist of each and this facete main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from the others, so tha-- we strung together precisely like so many fish upont lin in this condition, they were being separated forever from the scen of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and sters, and many of them from their wives and children. and going into perpetual slave or the lash of the master probably more ruthless and unrelenting than any othe and yid all these distressing circumstances, as we uld ink them,werehe

most cheerful and apparently happy creaon board. one here's a fence for which he had been sold with o fondness for his wife. play the fiddle almost uallandtherdanced, sung, cracked jokes and played various games with cards from day to day. how true is that? god tempers the wind to shore the mb. in other words, that he renders the worst of human cons tolerable. well, he permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable. now, the avatar panelist, whoever would like to get started, so i'll go ahead and start with this one. and i misspoke. they were heading from louisville to saint louis, but they were on the ohio river. when i teach about lincoln at christopher newport university, i often try to get my students to see lincoln as more than just a politician, but to try to understand him as a human being,

that he was a person who experienced life in ways that aren't always so different from how we experience life. he loved he lost his suffered with he suffered with melancholy what we were today called depression. he had breakups. he had rebounds. i mean, these are things that college students can can relate to. and so i often have my students read lincoln letters and documents and speeches. but before i give them the documents, i tell them about where lincoln is in his life at the point when he gives this whatever speech he's given. and that way, it's not just dry words on a page, but it's it it's something being communicated by a real person. and so i say that as background for thinking about this letter, because when we look at this letter, it almost seems bizarre or callous. and some historians have have used this to argue that it shows that lincoln was indifferent towards the plight of enslaved people early in his life. and my interpretation of this letter is a little bit different.

and when i look at this letter, i think about, well, what is going on in lincoln's life outside of this experience? and, well, it's 1841. and those of you who know the story of abraham lincoln and mary todd and their courtship, you know that it was a rocky one and they they courted and then they broke up and then they got involved in a potential duel after writing some scandalous newspaper editorial. i mean, there's all this craziness going on in lincoln's life and in other correspondence that he wrote at this time, he talked about how he was the most miserable man on the face of the earth, and that if everyone in the world felt the way he felt, there would be no happy person in the world. and my view of this letter is that lincoln is not actually thinking about the enslaved people at all. he's so preoccupied with the fact that his courtship to mary todd has just fallen apart and he's thinking, how can these people who have such a terrible plight in life be smiling and playing the fiddle?

and why aren't they miserable? like i'm miserable. i think he's completely self-abuse or thinking about himself. but this moment stayed with him for the rest of his life. and 13 years later, he wrote to marry speed's brother, joshua and said that sight. he said he sees something like he reminded joshua speed of this moment and he said, i see something like it every time i touch the ohio river. and he says it is a continual torment to me. and so i think that's really important because when we talk about lincoln, we talk, we all have experiences where we change our mind or we grow or we, we change our views of things. in 1841, he was totally preoccupied with himself in his own emotional problems. by 1855, he has a broader outlook, and now he's reflect on this moment in a different way. and he recognizes how evil it was. and i think that's a really important way to think about this letter. just so i'm going to make modify

the chronology a little bit because the break up is on january first. right. so this is november. it's the summer of 1841 that they go on this trip. so right after the breakup. well, six months. fatal. 1st of january first. i think it's more a reflection of experiences at farmington. lincoln goes for solace to mary speed's half brother's plantation in farmington, where he is given lavish attention by enslaved people. and i think he comes home and is a little bit riddled with guilt for having been served lemonade. he talks about the peaches that enslaved people bring him, and i'm afraid he thought i can get used to this or something equally heinous and this kind of trying to rationalize it by saying enslaved people may be more pleased than they really are or putting on a front or,

you know, showing or i just think there's a little of that. clearly, it is a year when he is painfully depressed. i'm not saying it's over by the summer by any means, because it's not over for another full year. right? right. until the courtship resumes. albeit over attacking irish people. so he's all over the place here. but i think the farmington experience has something to do with it. that's my totally amateurish psychological evaluation. everybody. so, so the non lincoln specialist, i can't delve into those important specifics that jonathan and harold have given us, but this letter with my students is fascinating. they are certainly taken by lincoln's disgust with the

institution slavery, but they're more focused on his character ization of those enslaved people. after they'd been sold. and it strikes me is it illustrates how lincoln was like so many white americans who were incapable of understanding. he didn't say people have what many basque and wearing those many mask was crucial to survival. and so that lincoln's racial ideas and that's what i'm interested in then his racial ideas here are very typical i think of probably most 19th century americans when it comes to who characterize the nature. and i put quotes around that the nature of enslaved people and i'm sorry, scott, go right now. continue. go right ahead. yes. so some of you might be wondering what the hell i'm

doing up here, because you've got four really well grounded, well-established lincoln scholars. i am not a lincoln scholar. and pete and i had this discussion when he asked me to be on this panel because i thought i'd kind of intimidated by being on this panel with these four people and don't want to be like, well, i'm the black guy with these white scholars, you know, so this isn't tokenism, but so what? because i cannot speak authoritatively about lincoln. what? i think i can speak authoritatively about is how race works and how race works, both in the 19th century as well as in 20th and in the 21st. and kind of what pete is saying. paul dunbar wrote a poem called the mask. the roots had a song called we wear the mask about how black folks have historically presented a an exterior to white viewers because they're conscious of the white gaze and how the white gaze will interpret and often misinterpret them. and i'm assuming because this is

supposed to be a conversation, right? so we can we can civilly disagree at points because that makes things more interesting. and i think like both of what jonathan herold said is certainly plausible. and i guess they're the lincoln experts. so another way to potentially read this is i'm thinking about not through lincoln's context, but through the context of how white americans then often saw black people. and so when i read this, i think this is and i particularly focus on the the penultimate sentence, the one who's a fence which had been sold was over fondness for his wife. it almost continually, etc., etc. i think that's a really typical way of white americans then and often sense to see black americans. so i think it may be these other things or it could just be lincoln was a guy who was raised in a really racist state and a really racist environment. so of course, this is how he saw black folks. and i wonder if maybe it's simpler. and i'm not saying it is. it could very well be more

complicated, like you are suggesting, or it could just simply be he doesn't really see them. and i'll read a lot later a letter from a different african-american woman, hannah johnson. later, where i think lincoln did not hear her. he could not or was not willing to hear her what she was saying. fantastic. all right. i have a question from just in general to throw out to the panel, because as i'm listening to this and i don't think of myself as a lincoln scholar, per se, until he's dead or you know, i'm like a lincoln in person. but while he's alive, i don't know quite as much about him as i know about, for example, benjamin butler. but i am wondering about issues of race and issues of slave thievery and whether for lincoln, it's the case that is it the case? i guess i'm wondering, does he think about race as is it the

same thing as slavery for him? is it separate? how does he think about the concept of race or does he think about the concept of race? and if he does, does he tag race only to african-american people, or does he think about the native americans? does he think about the chinese? i mean, how does he think about it? and that's a question that as we were putting this panel together, just kept coming back to me because i i guess my reference point, of course, being benjamin butler is, you know, i think about the contraband policy, which for him you could say that's really a step forward for him. for someone who wasn't an anti-slavery person prior to the war. and then he initiates this contraband policy and starts to think about slavery in a different way. but i'm not sure he makes a lot of steps forward at that point around issues of race, you know. so if so, it's a distinction. and i'm wondering how that works in the lincoln case, too. i would just say this is very early in the lincoln canon. he's 32 years old.

he hasn't encountered many people of color. he needs to be educated. and is there a distinct scene between his views on slavery and race at this point and even going forward? absolutely. he thinks then and into the 1850s as a slavery, principally, as a great moral and political hypocrisy that white people have perpetrated. does he think of the victims of this horror? not as much. so i do think you've raise an important distinction. he gets to it slowly and after a lot of suffering. we'll go to our next image. johnson was kind enough excuse me, our next image, political cartoon. jonathan, would you mind giving the background? sure. so this is a political cartoon that appeared in a democratic pamphlet or book in 1864. and it was this it was part of a

series of fictitious literature letters written by a synonymous person named jack downing. and jack downing was a pretend, was a fictional character who traveled from maine down to washington, d.c. to advise abraham lincoln, as he had been doing since 1830s with andrew jackson and denver crats. really loved these jack downing letters because they lampoon lincoln, and especially on matters of race. now this fat, this is really fast forwarding 20 some years from where we just were with the flap boat. so this is lincoln's inaugural journey. and what you see depicted here is lincoln on the back of the train as he's on his way from springfield to washington, d.c. and he's speaking to andeing greeted by african americans somewhere. don't think it specifies where d looking at this, i think it it captures for us the democratic view, the capital d.

democratic view of abraham lincoln during the civil war that he is going to fight for black equality, that he's going to fight for abolitionism, which, of course, he's not fighting for. at the very beginning of the war, or not, at least explicitly at the very beginning of the war. but democrats are at the very beginning of the war saying lincoln wants to free the slaves. lincoln wants to bring about black equality. and so they make this political cartoon to go after him for that. and and i think it's this and other images can be very helpful for kind of thinking about the context of the times that from lincoln's perspective and from my perspective, lincoln is pretty moderate in his approach to dealing with issues of slavery and race from the democratic perspective, he was a radical. he was an abolitionist. he wants to bring about black equality. and that gets captured in this because how on earth in 1861, in their minds could a president elect entertain black people like this on his way to the white house? harold uses the back of a train

right in the back of the train tracks the train. i think the rap on him is that he's liked by people of color. you know, how could we reelect the president who inspires affection in a an integrated crowd? right. yeah, i think that's and it's one of, what, four panel, they mess up, i think for panels, all and yeah i agree with you about jack downing i wish everybody could read that. they're pretty funny still. most of these dialects, you know, southern dialect, irish dialect, things are no longer as amusing as they were. but this stuff is really amazing. and it this is meant not to say people of color like abraham lincoln. this is meant to say we can get rid of him. now he's running for reelection and we don't want anybody who is well-liked by people of color. they might vote someday. we don't want that. that's what this is an

interesting question for me in dealing with any historical figure is what are the words that we take as most important and are they official words? are they proclamations? are they reports? i find one of the most intriguing experiences is when the governor of kentucky, thomas bramlett, is become outraged with lincoln because african-americans are leaving the agriculture of kentucky to join the union army. so he writes three letters to lincoln very, very upset, finally believing he's not getting any response. he and and senator archibald dixon and and ag hodges go to visit lincoln and they meet him on a saturday morning. it's the end of march 1864. and they have this converse sation. it's an impromptu conversation. it's not a prepared conversation. but when they leave ag hodges, the newspaper editor a couple of

weeks later, says this was a very important conversation. would you write back to us what you said? we didn't really take it all down. and lincoln says these words, i am naturally anti-slavery. if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. i cannot remember when i did not still think and feel. now lincoln doesn't use the word feel. he growing up in the second great awakening of kentucky and southern indiana, reacted much against feeling, enthusiasm. his parents involvement in a baptize as churches. he was a man of reason. but here in a very unusual time, he says, i cannot remember when i did not so think and feel, but he goes on to say, and yet i have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me the unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling twice again, he uses the word feeling, so he's caught in a dilemma. so to me, this really reflects

much of what he feels, whether he's acting upon it. that's a different question. but i think he does here reveal his feeling about this issue. and that's that's the same season that he wrote. this is also a public letter published not only by hodges, but by other newspaper men. and it's a defense of black recruitment, which, you know, some people looking back, you know, through what james mcpherson called the wrong end of a telescope, his story historically and his story arguably historiographical, they say, why didn't he do black recruitment earlier than march 1863? because of people like the governor of kentucky who say, we. well, it's not only the depletion of the agricultural workforce, it's the idea that black folk are serving in the military. and how can white loyalty be ensured in a state like kentucky if black people are fighting in the army?

he's still not there on race in 1864, but he's he's he's he's getting there. i think. yeah. it says he's oh i'm not going to do the dialect. he said he just come out to see and be seen. that's a reference to what lincoln used to say at many informal stops on his inaugural journey. he didn't want to speak, so he would say, i've just come to see and be seen and i have the better of it. because you have i can see you and you have to look at me and i'm so homely. that was the joke. just come out to be seen, be seen and i didn't intend to blab anything about public affairs. that's a reference to the one time he did speak. mic gave a major speech and said there's no real crisis. i don't know why anyone is getting agitated. so it's a real reference. the things that people are expected to remember three and a half years later want at a slight tweak to what ron said, there are a few instances is where lincoln uses these this

phrase think and feel or judgment and feeling. and the other ones that come to mind. in one case, it has to do with his love life early in the 1840, i believe, although i don't remember the specifics. but in another is that cooper union and i have it here, lincoln says human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot not be changed. there is a judge and feeling against slavery in this nation, which casts at least a million and a half votes. you cannot destroy that judgment and feeling that sentiment by breaking up the political organization that rallies around it. and in this case, he's making an argument to southerners not to try to silence republican politicians and or abolitionists in the in the south. and i think in these few moments where lincoln joins these two ideas of think and feel or judgment and feeling, as ron said, i mean, it's the whole person. it's your mind and your heart that are devoted to this idea or

this sentiment. and when lincoln says there's never been a time that i didn't think and feel that slavery was wrong, i believe him in that, lincoln said. in 1860 that who he was on slavery in 1860 was the same person he was in 1837, and he thought and felt something then and he did in 1860 as well. and by using those two words, he's really saying, i think this with my mind at reason that cold, calculating reason part of lincoln. but he also feels it in his heart. and i think it's important. i appreciate that you brought that up. i i'm sorry. i can't help myself really. lincoln felt that way consistently on slavery and race. i mean, i think that no race. well, i'll just say this. i think the one thing that my students struggle with when they encounter lincoln's writings and they look at his political behavior and i get it, they're in a stage in which they have a hard time recognizing that there

is a political side and one has to hide or maybe rework one's personal views. but what they struggle with, with lincoln is his utter inconsistent see in not only, in his words, but also in his actions, have a difficult time finding ways in which they see lincoln putting forth in a sincere which will require him to be consistent way. and he does not do that. and again, i'm not trying to track him down for falling short of a standard of perfect consistency. that would be unreasonable, but it's really hard to know what lincoln really felt about african-americans. we can look and we'll talk about this in just a moment, maybe at the next slide about lincoln's invitation of the black delegation and orchestrate a 60 to 60, which we'll talk about here in a moment and maybe we don't have to answer my question directly, but it's one that i

like for us all to come to. i'll say this. i think that one of the reasons why. certain political candidates are appealing to people today, because they see in that individual a straightforwardness, a speaking of the mind, a degree of consistency that they maybe don't find in others. who are we might consider to be a little bit more politically savvy or cagey? lincoln's cagey about race and slavery. i'll know what the man believes. i'm not sure there are times that i'll look at his peoria speech. i think he's almost an abolitionist. and then i read that same speech. i think, good god almighty, he's closer to being a democrat. and again, i think that's something we all can speak to right. but i think we all can appreciate why, particularly young people today, why they struggle with lincoln in that regard. they don't see him as a statesman and they have a hard time understanding it's democracy. it's an ugly thing that. right. you get in the gutters.

that's the nature of it. lincoln got. he understood it. and sometimes you get out of that gutter and you get clean and that would be a nice little transition to this. well, can i can i i'll just say just by transition, this is a moment he didn't clean with the emancipation proclamation. but jonathan, please. yes. so i think elizabeth made a very good point about drawing a distinction between race and slavery. you're right that lincoln's views on race i, i don't if i said it, i didn't mean to lincoln's views on race in 1837 are not the same as lincoln. in 1860, lincoln's views on slavery, i believe, are the same. i lincoln was anti-slavery. he took a stand when the illinois state legislature in 1837 is debating these resolutions to condemn abolitionism. lincoln is one of two people not to vote for them. that took courage in 1838, when the governor of illinois talked about moral evil. he wasn't taught in the free state of illinois.

he wasn't talking about slavery. he was talking about abolitionism. so for and by the way, dan stone, the other guy who voted with lincoln, was a lame duck. he was leaving to become a judge. so he had nothing to lose there. lincoln was going to stand for reelection at some point. so it took courage. ej in 1837, in the free state of illinois, to take a stand against slavery. and that's not to say lincoln was an abolitionist. he wasn't, but he believed early on that slavery was immoral and that stuck with him for his whole life. and i think that was a guiding principle for much of his political career. now, on the issue of race, lincoln is not a racial egalitarian in 1837. there's no doubt about that. in the 1830 and 1840s, lincoln publ basically mocked the idea of black men voting because martin van buren, a democrat, had shown support for it. in new york, black men could vote in new york if they had property and lincoln used that as an issue to go after the democrats. so on on issues like that, lincoln absolutely changes and i

actually i argue in my book that it's his personal interaction with african-americans during the civil war. at least three delegations of black men meet with lincoln at the white house and say, we should have the right to vote. we are loyal. by the way, a group of north carolinians comes to the white house and they say, we had the right to vote from 1776 till 1835. and that right was taken away from us. it should be given back. and and they persuade lincoln. so i don't disagree with you on the issue of race. lincoln's views change, but on slavery, i think as ron quoted, i think he always believed slavery was wrong. harold, would you like to give us some background for this illustration, please? i have to turn around first. yeah, this is probably the most famous depiction of the emancipation proclamation illustrated. it's by a new yorker named francis carpenter from auburn,

new york. and naturally it shows seward prominently because seward is from albany, new york. and the artist was a seward admirer. so this is supposed to be the moment, i think allan kelso disagrees with me about the moment. he thinks it's september 22nd, but it's to me, clearly, july 22nd, 1862. lincoln is proposing it's called the first reading of the emancipation before the cabinet. and i think it's seward heroically. but we think now retrospectively disappointingly suggesting it was too soon for the proclamation because the union had won so few victories. it would seem like a last shriek on the retreat. so what's notable here? there are no people of color in this. this this this depiction. this is an engraving of a painting that hangs in the in the u.s. capitol. it's a it's a white man's dream.

it's a, you know, kind of a paternalistic, great edict. carpenter was a believer here. it's in his letters that this was the greatest act of the 19th century, that lincoln had achieved almost godlike status by finally getting it done. why he chose this moment instead of september 22nd is kind of hard to decipher. i wanted to put the reason i suggested this illustrate to is not only because it's an all white image, by the way, there are images of lincoln symbolically issuing the proclamation in which he black men rise from their knees. they are almost universally condemned. today, the thomas bolster statue in washington is now protected by a link fence and continues to divide people and continues to divide black people. l.e. norton, the member of congress. the representative in congress from d.c., would like the statue

removed. edna medford would like it to stay, but a copy, a replica in boston was removed several years ago by the mayor as offensive to two people of color. anyway, very quickly, what i want to point out is a really interesting story about the props. you see some of the props. i'm going to pick this up. you see some of props on the floor there. newspaper was william whiting's books on the constitution and the law, but on the right and i'm sorry, it's not a better copy is a map of southern states in which there are dots to represent where slave populations exist. and there is one area in virginia that's just a kind of a little black blob of coloration. and lincoln in the artist present said, look at this map. do you see that spot? -- are as thick as blackberries,

they're offensive, right? by many standards. i want my army to go in there before the election and get as many people free as possible. and i'm just always moved. the fact that that carpenter was so astonished by lincoln's desire to move the military toward liberating african-americans that he included it as almost invisible. but i understand it a detail in the painting. what that means about lincoln race, i don't know. it means that he's moving toward using the war to end slavery. at last. i mean, all that in one thing and this is drawn from folks like jim oaks and others. lincoln is often criticized for moving too slowly on the issue of slavery and as i think most

of us know, he does that for political reasons and constitutional reasons. if he were to declare emancipation in april of 1861, he's going to lose the border states. he's going to lose the war before it even begins. so and for constitutional reasons, it's until he sees emancipation as a necessary free war measure to win the war and save the union that he believes he has the power as commander in chief to to issue an emancipation proclamation. that said lincoln is doing a lot before this moment to strike at slavery. and i think that's often forgotten as early as may of 1861. he tasks the interior department and the attorney general's office and the state department with destroying the transatlantic slave trade. and in march of 1862, he and congress pass a new article, war to prohibit soldiers from returning fugitive slaves. in april of 1862, he uses his power congress to abolish slavery in washington, d.c. in

the fall of 1861 and into the summer of 1862. before this moment, he's trying to figure out a way to get the border states to give up slavery through compensated emancipation. and and so he is he's doing what he believes the constitution permits him to do. and he has the political will behind him to enable him to do in the moments before this. and i think it's always important to remember those steps he's taking along the way. i think these are important, but i i'm wondering if we're talking about lincoln and race or lincoln and slavery, because these are clearly related. but not the same. right. i was going to ask i'm coming back to my friend benjamin butler and thinking about so the contraband policy for him to me is clearly about just undermining slavery, where he can as he as he thinks about it and responding to the immediate urgency of that.

but and i and then he really he isn't consistent even on that for a number of years. i mean, when he's in new orleans, he struggles lot with whether to emancipate the enslaved people or to even take them into his protection. he has a subordinate who's much more earnest about doing that. butler doesn't really want to because he's concerned. are they coming from loyalists, from unionist owners or are they coming from owners who are going to try to destroy the union or continue to try to destroy the union? so he isn't consistent even on the issue of freeing the enslaved of people. but if you track him through to 1864, and i think there is a moment in 1864 after chiefs inspire him when he is looking at the dead black soldiers who have been his command and seeing

what they have sacrificed for the cause of their own freedom without any hope, any sure hope that they would be successful and get that freedom. and they've sacrificed their lives. and he's riding across the field looking at all of the. and then he writes to i believe it's sarah, his wife, about that. what he has seen and what it meant to him. and i feel that that is a moment when he is transformed on the issue of race in the sense that he something that you know, it was gradually became quite clear to him that slavery itself was bad. but i i'm not really sure how much he was thinking about racial issues until or thinking about those black men, as in a different way than he had been thinking about them in the past. and as people who just and after that, it seems to me he becomes a very committed warrior on behalf of his black soldiers, but also then after the war on behalf of black civil, political

rights and so on, and i'm i'm trying to think where might we if. that's true. and i might be just making it out of my, you know, yearning to see it. but if it if it's same the same for lincoln, that he's anti-slavery but hasn't really come to grips with the issues of race in the same way. when do we see that moment and and not being the lincoln specialist here i am thinking certainly in that last speech in april of 1865 when he says we should give these men the vote, you know, that that's the place where you could say, well, i see it here. you know, i can't trace the i don't know where the evidence is right before that. but i see something has happened here. well, i wonder, can i point to a moment? the second inaugural is a moment. frederick douglass thinks that's the most sublime moment. so right. the great is right around the same time he's never heard words like this. and he doesn't mean with malice toward none, he means the sentence before every drop of blood drawn with the last, etc., etc. the judgments of the lord

are true and righteous all together. as ron, of course, has written about. i just want to read one little passage that i copy. the only thing i prepared here this is the last word of frederick douglass on abraham lincoln. he wrote many views. lincoln over the years, speeches different reminisces this. this one is 1888. it's late in the game and it's the paragraph of also penultimate paragraph because in the next paragraph he reiterates something he had said 12 years earlier that lincoln was predominantly the white man's president, not the black man's president changing something he had said 12 years before that. but here's what douglass says. and this is after 23 years after lincoln died. in all my interviews with mr. lincoln, i was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against colored race. he was the first great man that i talked with in the united states freely who in no single

instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color. with his met john brown, he's met a garrison. so think about that. going back to douglass. and i thought that all the more remarkable because he came from a state where there were black laws. i account partially for his kindness to me because of the similarity with which i had fought my way up. we both started at the lowest round of the ladder. i think that's a fascinating summary because you could i offer a slight so alternative reading of. sure and douglass's know you know criticizing lincoln heavily about the issue of black soldiers and other things in 1862 and then very after lincoln's assassination, 1865 gives a wonderful speech praising him. 1876 he gives a speech which many historians said, well, yeah, he criticizes somewhat. then he praises lincoln.

and if you read that 1870, 76 speech, which was, i think 25,000 people, senators are supreme court justices about that statue. grant is the lincoln park grant's there right? and when he spends before he gets to praising lincoln, he really takes him to task. you know, there are some serious side eye at lincoln in that speech. and you should read it online. and i remember when i was the first time i read historians talking about that, white historians talking about that, i thought, i don't think these people understand what black vernacular means and how the history of signifying and black discourse. yes, because and then in 1888, that eulogy. so what struck me in reading that eulogy is says this is a eulogy, right? a eulogy. you just praise. right. you just talk about all the good stuff. you're forgetting all the bad stuff when you give a eulogy. and in his eulogy, he says that

lincoln's death was too deep and fresh for he says, quote, just criticism or i'm biased eulogy. and then he goes on to praise him. so i think so. he's hearkening back to the 1876 speech. i think so. lincoln at his eulogy, you say there's a lot to criticize about lincoln, but this now is not the time or place that we're to do it. and so perhaps an alternative, i think a black reading of douglass's back and forth on lincoln is he understands his audience. he understand his white audience and what they to hear and what they need to hear. but he still takes the opportunity, especially in 1876, to slide in what he really thinks. and i'm not saying and i think douglass it's like i think many black americans and others had a very complex and nuanced understanding. lincoln they didn't see him as one thing or the other. they were comfortable holding these things.

tension, i think often many white americans are not comfortable holding these things in tension. but i think it's part of the black experience, right? you can't be black in america and not learn to hold these these different things, tension that often seem contradictory. and i think that comes out in douglass. so i read that one little comment in that eulogy is striking, whereas it seems to be ignored by many. this this is actually a chapter that douglass wrote for a book called reminiscences of lincoln distinguished men of his time. so it's 12 years after the eulogy. so i don't know. i'm just saying this is the final summation in the trial about whether lincoln is a racist or not. what i find in stark terms, yielding to you on this is that he says later in this chapter, yes, lincoln was guilty of the same prejudices that other white men had toward people of the colored race. and he's then but he does then say and he's not under an obligation to say this. and he's, you know, pretty distinguished man himself at this point.

and he says lincoln used that prejudice. wonderful early to get rid slavery by appealing to equally prejudiced people who were equally burdened with the prejudices that they couldn't overcome. i that's a really nuanced part of that chapter that almost no one looks at because he does go back and forth and he uses his greatest hits in this in this article, including he was primarily the white man's president. you know, back to lincoln. hard to jump in here. some wonderful comments just a football annotated footnote to jonathan's comment. jonathan rehearsed for us the various steps that lincoln took. and one of the people who was really pressing him was senator sumner of massachusetts. he was after lincoln again and again and again. why don't you move forward more quickly to emancipate the enslaved persons? and lincoln had this remarkable

comment. you and i are operating by a different clock a different clock. we have exactly the same purpose. now, young college students today are not at all tolerable of a different clock. the idea that you would understand the nature of the border states, you would understand the situation you're in, you can certainly criticize lincoln for being too slow. sumner was criticizing him for being too slow. he said, we're operating by a different clock. and i think if you trust that or not, lincoln as a leader, this is what leaders always have to do is to have a sense what is the time at gettysburg college to do this? what is the time to wait after i've been here as the president for a year to do that? lincoln, i think, had a great sense of timing about what he was going to do as president. you know, that different clock he says is six months, right. he says to sumner, i'm six months behind you, essentially. and to bring that back to

douglass and we do have different readings of that douglass speech from 1876. so douglass recounts all of his disappointment with lincoln during the war. in that speech. and douglass was an abolitionist. he wanted lincoln to strike against slavery from day one. and so douglass does recount all that. but this is what douglass says after saying that lincoln was the white man's president, he says he needed to save the country first. and he said to do one or the other or both. he must have the earnest sympathy and powerful cooperation of his fellow countrymen. without this primary, an essential condition to success, meaning that if the american people don't support the war, you're not going to save the union, and you're not going to end slavery. so without that anything, lincoln did, douglass said, would have been vain and utterly fruitless had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the american people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible.

and then a very famous line that i think all of us probably know viewed from the genuine abolition ground. mr. lincoln seemed tarty cold, dull and indifferent, but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult. he was swift zealous, radical and determined. and whenever i read that, i always think of the ken burns series with morgan freeman's voice reading that. so i'm sorry, i can't reproduce that for you, but when i hear that, i actually see douglass saying these were this is how i felt about lincoln. 1861, when i read his first inaugural address and was appalled by the fact that he said he would enforce the fugitive slave act until 1864, but now, all these years later, douglass is recognizing, i think, yeah, i was really disappointed that he didn't act on that other clock, that he wasn't faster. but if lincoln had done what douglass wanted when douglass wanted it, the war would not

have been won for the union. slavery might not have been abolished. and i see that is douglass acknowledging that lincoln's clock was the right one, but again, thinking about lincoln and race, not lincoln and slavery or lincoln and politics. that's why i show. that's why i read my yeah. my first part about lincoln douglass feeling that lincoln was entirely free of prejudice when relating to him. and i think douglass understood that. well, i don't you know, for me, there's no debate about whether lincoln was anti-slavery, was working to get rid of slavery, i think. yeah, i think. and maybe pete would i disagree. i think he from the get go that was a desire and when he saw opportunity to put that in a place it i don't think that means his views. i actually don't think lincoln changed that much on his issues of race. perhaps as much as you do. i think he did some i mean, lincoln has this wonderful i think lincoln was our greatest president and this wonderful ability to take in new

information, new circumstances and change. but when it came to black folks, i think he showed less of that than others situations. and again, that that passage by douglass reading that and that line you read john thank you. it's tremendous. he's talking to senators and a president and supreme court justices. yeah, of course he's going to say that stuff doesn't mean he didn't wasn't sincere about it. but i think he's just as equally sincere about the way he takes lincoln to task leading up to that. well, let me let me give an alternative reading of that. i very much appreciate, scott, what you're saying. i'm looking at the way someone delivers an address. what do you want to say at the end? what do you want to say? that is really the final thing you want to say. i mean, lincoln is a master of that, but douglass is also. so i think at the end he's going to say what he really wants to say to a 20 crowd of 25,000. obviously, white people. very, very possible. very, very possible that i think at the end, he says what he really wants to say.

and if you read douglass his words, this is the way he talks. he's terrific at starting out with problems. lincoln starts out that way. the second inaugural ends with what he really wants to say. it's the final paragraph. and douglass arrives for the reception and he's kept out the first time. and the second time he's pushed out the window. and then he comes in and he says, here comes my friend douglass. and so lincoln says, well, douglass as well as many other people that want to hear this. no, i want to hear what you have to say. when i finished my book on the second inaugural, my teacher, jim mcpherson, said, ryan, you have now offer your final paragraph or two is what you think about this. i said, no, i don't think i have to say anything more than what frederick douglass said. this was a sacred effort. so to me, that's a very telling comment that douglass makes that effort to come in and speak to

lincoln that evening. but there's an i know we need to move on to other stories. i don't know if any of you seen a movie called this society, the american society of magical --. it's on peacock. didn't get good reviews. i wonder who reviewed it. so the concept of the magical -- in american literature and film and other things is that black many black people are often portrayed as and often have the lived experience of you got to do everything not to make white people too uncomfortable because you make them too uncomfortable on issues of race or with black people, there is a often fatal and lethal cost to pay. yes, so again, this is, you know, food for thought, right? i'm not arguing that. my read of douglass is is. right. i mean, i think of it as but of course, you know. but i understand that there are there are other ways. and it may be that it's all of these things wrapped together. when i read douglass doing that, even at the end, i think douglass understands who he's got to keep happy. he understands that if he

doesn't keep powerful people happy, especially in 1876, because he knows what's going on in 1876, in the south, that there's a cost to pay and that cost will be paid most heavily by african-americans. no, i just don't think douglass ever goes along to get along. i think he will say exactly what he feels. it changes over time. but i take him at his word. and if we take lincoln as his word for a confessional that he writes to his best friend's half sister, why not take douglass at his end when he's emotionally fragile? but you take you all read out tough into lincoln all the time. read between the lines all the time. so why don't we do the same with that? he's absolutely right with lincoln, we say, oh, look, he knows the audience. he's playing the crowd. he's got a political endgame. and he's got to do what he's got to do to get there. but with douglass, we're like, he doesn't read the audience that way. it's whatever he says is whatever you mean. so i think that there's a striking difference. i wasn't again, i was not reading from the 1876 speech. i was reading from a chapter he

wrote as a gospel, but we're talking about christian scott point here. i mean, i think audience matters. i think this point and this is why this panel is so valuable as well, though we are focusing on lincoln race and slavery. we're coming to our attention here as ever, seeing how african-americans, they may about different clock if we're going to understand lincoln in his totality and how people saw him regardless of his intentions and outcomes, we have to account for people who shouldn't be referred to as what did lincoln say? a bunch of black bears, right? i mean, right there. that shows me that lincoln doesn't understand entirely, entirely that what's happening on the ground was that enslaved people were taking this great risk toward freedom. not saying he didn't deny that. i don't think he fully understood it. let's go real quickly to this piece. i want to leave time for the audience and just ask scott one question. sure. i just wanted to ask.

so you're i was trying to i was thinking that we could put some weight on lincoln in terms of transformation on that decision that at least black soldiers should get the right to vote. how do you read that? oh, i do. yeah, i think lincoln clearly showed the ability to change over time. i don't think he changed as much as perhaps others do. right. because part of what historians do is you. and so we look at a body of work and lincoln's of work, even on the issue of voting, he's saying, i think it was 1862, 1863, while the exceptional black men who show it ability to fight, not even just all black soldiers to be able to vote. by 1865, he seems to have expanded that to while black men can vote. so there's some change, but also thing okay so we got one statement in compares in to a lot of other statements where he's using the n-word. he didn't think black men should be on juries, you know, so we've got decades of stuff where lincoln's view of black people is pretty clearly racist.

like when somebody said whether lincoln is racist, there's whether he's racist, he's a white supremacist. so we're most white americans at the time. so it's no surprise that he was does that mean that he wasn't committed to ending slavery? no. does that mean that he wasn't committed to seeing black people with some citizenship rights? no. was he ahead of his time in certain ways? yes. was he behind his time in certain ways? well, if you talk to thaddeus stevens, you know, or douglass or harriet jacobs or a bunch of others. yeah, he was behind. so, you know, there there's a spectrum there. he knows if we had more of him after that speech, wish he had lived, don't know where he was going to go, wish he had lived, because i think it would have been fascinating to see. but then i wouldn't have had those two books sometimes. scott can lincoln be can lincoln be a white supremacist but not a racist? in 1918 65, terms i don't see

then or now how he could be both. but i thought about that question. i mean, i'm glad to be. i'm not sure what the answer is, but i think that might be a little distinction with the difference. eric foner once wrote, there's no way to answer the question was lincoln a racist? it's the wrong question, and it'll inevitably produce the wrong answer. it's much more nuanced. well, just quoting foner. yeah, i think it depends on how you define racist. if you're going to find it in a white post-civil, liberal civil rights definition of racist, that many white and middle upper class americans have, that's a pretty narrow definition. then it probably is a wrong question. but if you understand racist as someone who does not see a certain group of people as having the same quality or equalities or equalities as another group, well, i think that's racist and and i just to say, i think what the panel's a really nice job of is we've haven't really got fixated with that question.

i think what we've done instead is we're trying to explore and i understand think it's racial ideas or ideology and often we say racist and we lop off the word ideology. and i think that's often a mistake. scott we had another side to go to, but i think some of the points that you wanted to talk about are here, but i'm willing if you wanted to say something about this, which we then i think lead for question and answer period because we are again, can i just read one thing? absolutely. so i wanted to read this one letter by hannah johnson and who was a black woman who wrote to lincoln on july 31, 1863, or perhaps when he received it. she was the daughter of a slave man who she said escaped from louisiana. she said she had a poor education, never went to school, and i'll just read a few excerpts because i think in some ways she's speaking to lincoln's heart language because she said, i know that a colored man ought to run greater risk than a white. his pay is no greater obligation. so she hits on that. why should not our enemies be compelled to treat him the same

made to do it? she says the lincoln they saved mr. lincoln. we'll never let them sell our colored soldiers or slaves. if they do, he will get them back. quick he will retaliate and stop it. now, mr. lincoln, don't you think you ought to stop this thing and make them do the same by the colored men? kind of that clock idea? they and they being white southerners, they have lived their lives in idleness, all their lives on stolen labor. it must not be so. you must put the rebels to work in state prisons and making shoes things till end and says until basically her son fought for the 54th at fort wagner, survived was not taken prisoner. she says a just man must do hard things. some times that show him to be a great man, ought one man to own another law for or not. who made the law? she's asking the question. who made the law? surely the poor slave did not. so it is wicked and a horrible outrage. there's no sense in it because a man has lived by robbing all his life his father before him.

so you talk about the generations of theft. should he complain again? white southerners because the stolen things found on him are taken, robbing the colored people. the labor is but a small part of the robbery. their souls are almost taken. and she says to lincoln, you know all about this. so i'm reading that. and i think hannah johnson is critical race theory. before there was critical race. and the reason is because lincoln says in july four, 1861, a special congress session before congress. this is a people's contest on the side of union while you get 40 says to lift part of the goal and i think this is argues evidence that yes he wanted to get rid of slavery is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government who's leading is to elevate the condition of men to lift artificial weights from all soldiers shoulders to clear the paths of little pursuit for all to a for all, an unfettered start and a fair chance. the race of life.

and yet lincoln scholars and all this distance you're saying you're not lincoln scholar can correct me on this. but my understanding of lincoln is he believed strongly in this idea that the lost king, he didn't clergymen because he thought they were too irrational and emotional. i might probably say the same today and i say that as a as a practicing follower of jesus christ. and he believed in the law and lawyers because it was rational and stable and sure and provided security. and it's sometimes, i think lincoln's idea of the autonomous individual was that if you combined his equation was law plus hard work, plus merit plus individual responsibility, success in security. that was true for white folks. maybe for black folks. that equation led to maybe, maybe an uncertain hope because they didn't see the law the same way in. hannah johnson is asking that question. 1863, who made the law? we didn't make the law and the law doesn't work for us. and this system that we're

lincoln says of for all an unfettered start a fair chance in the race of life. that wasn't the case for black americans. so lincoln, i would argue that when his views on race, he couldn't see what hannah johnson was saying or was unwilling to. i actually don't think he's unwilling to. i think he couldn't see it because of racial ideologies of the time are so pervasive and so strong. and he had by them so thoroughly that even if johnson was standing in front of making this very crt argument, i think it just would not have made sense to him. can i ask you a question? so, lincoln never saw that letter. just for the record, the day before she wrote it, he did issue an order of retaliation, which is related to what she was asking for. so she didn't know that. and it led to the breakdown of the prisoner of prisoner of war exchange because confederates wouldn't recognize black soldiers soldiers. but what do you think he could have done politically with the political realities that he was

constrained by? what could he have done and gotten through congress? so we've gotten through state legislatures. i'm not arguing that lincoln have made other political military decisions, but in the understanding of, as a former colleague of mine said, lincoln was a friend to african-americans. i don't think he's a friend. friend doesn't tell you this is your fault. can you please move to another country? and i, i think he was an ally. i think he was a perhaps the best ally, but not a friend. so it's not so much about what could he have done, political, military. but our discussion, as i understood it, coming into this is so what were his what was lincoln's thinking on race? what was his relationship to race? and i use hannah johnson's an example, not because i mean, i kind of guess he probably had read the letter, but had he or had his like i said, if she had stood before him because he was so thoroughly invested, as were many white americans then and since which is what lerone bennett is addressing in many ways, we're so wedded to this

idea of the liberal autonomy as individual, unfettered by government. if you just do these certain things, you will succeed. that's not always true, right? particularly for certain groups of people. it hasn't worked that way because they weren't at the starting line. right. i would be like, if you were going to be a 400 meter race and you tell black folks, you got to start 200 miles or 200 meters back, maybe 200 miles. you got to start 200 meters back. and by the way, you're going to run it with like 20 pounds weights in your legs. and by the way, you're on the outside track and got to run this to the same finish line. we're not going to adjust the curve like we do, but lincoln didn't seem to see all those things. lincoln was not about equity, and most americans then, in a sense, are not about equity. maybe equality, but not equity. so, you know, what was lincoln's ability to understand race? i think really limited. and for a guy who was so intelligent and showed such great ability to take in new information, i ask the question,

why? why was he so reluctant or slow and what evidence is scott willing to correct? question so i think that's an important point. look, i think you nailed it. you nailed it in which lincoln had this great faith in what we call free labor ideology, that any person could hold himself by their bootstraps and he should have seen by the 1850s that that wasn't even possible for all white. and we see during the war. and that beautiful and brilliant letter to him, i don't care whether he read it or not, that letter gets right at nexus of problem of reconstruction. that white liberals, even former abolitionists, didn't get it. they didn't understand that you just just freeing a man and his family, not giving them land, not giving them capital, not ensuring that your former oppressors, that they are politically sidelined, not doing any of those things. there's your race you're talking about. that's all this again, this point about what lincoln understood black people know what he didn't he didn't understand the limitations of his own core philosophy of free

labor ideology. he was blind it. and of course, if you failed and you're a white person. we failed because why, well, you weren't moral enough. you didn't work hard enough, you weren't intelligent enough. and we see that's one of the fatal flaws of reconstruction, is the failure of these white northern liberals to understand what it was going to take for freedom to be real meaningful. all right. that's the nice thing about being a moderator. you get your little speech in at the end and. hour four. we have time for and comments which i just as people come up to the mikes. well think this panel here just a moment but this is why i love why we take these difficult controversial topics and here you have we could all agree to disagree or be civil about it. great job. all right. so trying to get into. trying to get into the foundations of lincoln's racial ideology, maybe limitations.

alexi, to talk of in his book, democracy in america had some things to say about race and about slavery. he sends a different energy north and south of the ohio river among even the white people. and he said the prejudice of seems strongest in the places that have never had slavery, which would mean the old northwest territories states, including illinois and indiana, where abraham lincoln was brought up and lived. so you just talk a little bit more about the atmosphere of indiana, illinois, where lincoln was brought up and lived that would have shaped his racial ideology. sure. in illinois, it was a free state that actually had unfree labor. in illinois, it was illegal for african-americans to serve on juries, to vote, to serve in the militia, to testify in court against white people. and in 1853, the state, a law that made it illegal for african-america to migrate into the state. other midwestern states had done

as well. and kate mason has written a very good book on that. and if if, if an african-american person moved into after law was enacted, they would get arrested and fined $50. and if they didn't have $50, they would be auctioned off to a local bidder who purchase their labor until it paid debt to society and that's the in which lincoln was speaking in the 1850s. it was in a white i mean, when we talk about white supremacy, that's white supremacy. and for lincoln to then give speeches where he argues that the principles of the declaration of independence applied, he says all people of all colors everywhere. i think i just have a hard time applying certain ideas from today to lincoln because was willing to speak to white male audiences that believe you know you look at what stephen douglass says and he says, we are this is a white man's country. this is for the white man only. and lincoln says no, the

principles of our nation apply to all people of all colors everywhere in face of the black laws. i don't know why scott and i disagree, but i have a hard time interpreting. lincoln's hold on your. i'm so sorry. thank you for that response. i've just been informed. i forgot that we have tours today and many of you need to get dinner. but before you depart, should note that all of our panels they're going to be back for the books are here. so you have an opportunity to get your book signed unless you want the biography of benjamin butler, that's the only one that's out of print now. but they'll be over there to sign books and to answer questions. i'm so sorry that we didn't have an opportunity to continue the conversation. thank you again. i so appreciate your contributions at the panel. thank you so much. have a wonderful evening. enjoy dinner and