off who lincoln was as such a brilliant leader. this center is what that is all about. >> for more information about the ford's theater education and leadership center, visit their website at ford's theatre.org. next, abraham lincoln bicentennial foundation chairman discusses abraham lincoln and the freedom of the press during the civil war. as part of his talk, mr. holzer examines the reasoning of imprisoning of newspaper editors. it was co-hosted by the historical society of the courts of the state of new york. and new york state archives partnership trust. it's an hour and a half. >> thank you, judge. i have a feeling if i say thank

you, judge, i'll get a you're welcome from 2/3 of the audience. it's daunting. but i've never spoken to a crowd of so many attorneys in my life. there's several i want to acknowledge, my daughter meg who is an attorney is here today. my cousin new york state inspector general ellen biben is here today. my old friend judge gene nardelli is here today. and it's wonderful to see all of you. one other person i want to mention because the subject for this evening is freedom of the press as you know. there is someone in this room who is actually a living hero of the fight for freedom of the press. formally of the "new york times." i just want to introduce and i know you'll all know her and the case judith miller.

i want to start with the end of the war, not the beginning. with lincoln's second inaugural address which is most famous as you all know for its closing words calling for malice toward none and charity for all. the speech was only about nine minutes long, but i would venture to say it ended so memorably that people had probably forgotten the beginning of the speech. and at the beginning of that address, lincoln launched into a recollection of his first inaugural appearance. and not without a little malice of his own, at least toward some. this is what he said. while the inaugural address was being delivered four years ago, devoted altogether to saving the union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war. both parties dep -- the other

would accept war rather than let it perish. and the war came. in a way that recollection sets the stage for tonight's discussion because it sheds light on lincoln's thinking both at the beginning of the conflict and as he looked toward its conclusion. and in his mind, washington in 1861 was literally crawling with what he called insurgent agents. committed to destroying the union. his responsibility then and his justification later was that anything he did to help the nation survive was justified. and sometimes that determination took extraordinary form. i know chief judge kay and chief judge lipman will be amused by this story, but when judge tawny challenged lincoln's suspension

of the writ in maryland early in the war, the president simply ignored him. but, barely resisted, supposedly an inclination to have the chief arrested for interfering. during the war, the court did not again attempt to judge lincoln on the matter of arbitrary arrest much less press suppression. but that's not the story for tonight although clearly lincoln's use of the war power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus is relevant. while the provision was made for a dangerous emergency, that is the part of the constitution that says it may be suspended, it cannot believe that the framers intended that the danger should run its course until congress could be called together the very assembling of which might be prevented by the rebellion itself. a specific topic for tonight, of course, is the less ambiguous

guarantee in the first amendment. congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. again, lincoln determined that in a case of rebellion, especially while congress was in recess, contingency trumped even the bill of rights. now, he did call congress back into session, but not for four months. and not before the executive branch did a bridge freedom of the press and the sum of maintained without constitutional authority. let's look frankly at the record. and in preparing for this talk and in preparing for a book i'm doing on lincoln in the press, i must say i've been staggered by the numbers that i've been dealing with. as many as 300 separate recorded incidents that included the following. banning papers from the u.s. mails, interrupting the flow of telegraphic news, arresting and

imprisoning editors, and reporters, closing and ransacking newspaper offices, seizing and destroying equipment, and suspending publication. and many of these actions occurred where the union was in control and where the court still functioned. as far north as maine. can't get much farther north than maine. in areas loyal to the confederacy or teetering between northern and southern control or occupied by the union army or by war -- or supervised by war governors or military governors, we can add the following to the litany. participating in or failing to prevent mob attacks against newspaper offices. official sensorship of battlefield reports and interference with embedded war correspondents. the banishment of some, the humiliating punishment of others. if anything, i think historians have not made a full audit.

they've focused on two or three landmark cases which are often viewed as mistakes later corrected. most scholars have assessed the curtailment of oppressed liberty during the civil war as surprisingly infrequent and usually justified. i'm going to suggest the effort was far more widespread than we've understood. though it did remain always supremely disorganized and ad hoc. and you'll decide on the justification yourself. i'm also going to propose that the repression was actually supported, not only by most of the union public, the loyal union public although in a constitutional issue that doesn't matter so much, but also by many newspaper editors, as well. i've been surprised by that. and finally, i will argue that when lincoln had a chance to apply total press censorship, he didn't. so let me first offer some -- i

guess evidence of the non-legal variety because it's important to understand the conditions under which the press and the president operated requires a big leap of historical understanding. you have to imagine yourself in the 19th century when the press culture was totally different than what it is today. in the lincoln era, newspapers did more than report. they openly represented one political view or the other, they were affiliated directly with the republican or democratic party. they published openly partisan news. they were not newspapers exactly, they were propaganda sheets. within this culture, violence and suppression against the press became tragically common place. in 1837, for example, a mob in the town of alton, illinois, tossed a printing press into the mississippi river. and when the editor tried to save his property, they killed him. the murder roused a young

illinois politician named abraham lincoln to speak out against what he called mobocratic spirit. the partisan fighting became the political religion over of the nation. and the fight over slavery and sectionalism only heated up this boiling caldron. by the 1850s, most american cities had two newspapers. one republican, one democratic. each publishing increasingly inflammatory warnings about abolitionist plots on one hand and on the other southern schemes to separate and divide the union and make slavery perpetual. lincoln was immersed in this world. he was one of many politicians who not only befriended sympathetic editors, he hung out at newspaper offices, had his speeches typeset by the local loyal press, he ghost wrote editorials for the local press,

and he regarded opposition ones as he put it once as villainous reporters. party malice, he said, and not public good possesses them entirely. so malice toward none was a long time coming. and lincoln was not alone in this view, democratic politicians felt the same way about republican editors. now, importantly, press loyalties were fueled not only by party discipline, but by expectations of reward. it wasn't just political advertising, which was certainly part of it. once in office, politicians routinely repaid loyal editors with coveted jobs. even honest abe doled out postmasterships, port commissionerships and other patronage plums to 30 or 40 to his favorite journalists once he was elected president. the intertwining of press and politics was a tradition, not an exception. even more alien to our modern

concept of the press, 19th century politicians not only defriended and rewarded publishes, they often were publishers and publishers were politician. three members of lincoln's first cabinet had been newspaper publishers. the speaker of the house owned a paper in indiana. here in new york, in albany, publisher weed was also the boss of the republican party. the tribune doubled as a one-time republican congressman and aspired to the senate. and the "new york times" was founded by the speaker of our state assembly. think about that for a minute. when i suggested at a recent book party at the "new york times" no less that this was a bit like shelly silver owning today's "new york times," our host arthur sulsberger jr. shouted out, the party's over.

it's alien to our culture today. the most anti-lincoln, most racist paper in new york was "the daily news," no relation to today's "daily news." if lincoln became president it warned in one particularly vile article in 1860, we shall find negros swarming everywhere. typical racist rant everywhere. who was the editor? the brother of the mayor of new york city. think about that. that's as if margery tiven who is bloomberg's sister and serves as the commissioner for protocol instead had beaten out jill abrahamson for editor at the "new york times." it's totally alien to the relationship between the public and the press today. in fact, when lincoln sought reelection in 1864, his campaign manager was the publisher of the "new york times," henry raymond.

and before that sounds unshl, the publisher of the democratic paper the new york world was the campaign -- was the national chairman for lincoln's opponent for the presidency. press, competition, and outspokenness only intensified exponentially with secession and war. before his inaugural, lincoln told a group of senators and congressmen freedom of the press was necessary to a free government, but he changed his mind. he changed his mind in 1861. a period of trauma, a challenge to the very survival of free government, when traditional opponents became enemies and criticism was seen by many as sedition. lincoln concluded he must save the whole constitution even if it meant temporarily sacrificing specific guarantees. -- institutions to feel the effect was the press.

as for bull run, the administration turned particular attention to criticism that he and his cabinet ministers thought had fueled the defeat and now threatened to encourage border states like kentucky, missouri, and maryland to leave the union and join the confederacy. the union banned the use of the mails and commercial export with all of the rebellious states. the new rules applied to manufacturers and exporters of all sorts of products including newspapers. one called the christian observer who had a tenuous relationship with the episcopal church and its religious affiliation did nothing to mask the pro-secession and pro-slavery bias. a month after bull run, the paper ran a story claiming to

contain an authentic letter from a virginian who charged forces on the march there had been guilty of gross, brutal, fiendish, demonic outrage meant to ravage the country, pillage the houses and burn them, outrage the women and shoot down children for amusement. the paper wasn't about to encourage its home state of pennsylvania to join the confederacy, but it did have readers in maryland, which remain the only -- on august 22nd, a month after bull run, federal forces invaded the offices of the christian observer where they clearly encountered less resistance than they had at bull run and confiscated. after appealing to lincoln that he was an old man that promoted harmony, the editor fled to richmond and reestablished his paper as an open pro-slavery sheet in the capital of the

confederacy. the editor written to lincoln, freedom of the press i have always believed was one of the great works of national safety. but lincoln, although his hand is not directly on this. these things are done by a variety of departments as i'll get to in a minute, adopted the argument that the national safety requires journalists, journals like the "christian observer" to be shut am time, a grand jury in new york's southern district sent a presentment to the court asking whether certain newspapers he here -- and i quote in the frequent practice of encouraging the rebels now in arms against the federal government had overstepped freedom of the press and now deserve what they call the employment of force to overcome them. the foreman identified the alleged sinners by name, the journal of commerce, the day book, the free man's journal, the brookman's eagle. the daily news had recently

editorialized that the national government attempted, every citizen was absolved by his sovereign, and by that he did not mean the president, from the obligation to obey. deciding that the federal presentment has the enforcement of an indictment, the postmaster general banned all five newspapers from the mails. when "the daily news" tried to subvert the order by selling copies on board a train, the government placed agents on board trains to confiscate them. this was serious business. its subscribers cut off, the news shut down. and its editor, the aforementioned brother of the mayor turned to novel writing. facing similar ruin, the brooklyn eagle reformed its editorial policy and suddenly for obvious commercial reasons became major supporters of the union. unwilling to do either, the freeman's journal soldiered on,

and was arrested this time on the orders of the secretary of state and in prison for 11 weeks in a prison in the new york harbor. however extreme these actions sound to us today, keep in mind they chilled very few observers at the time. a grand jury in new jersey thinking this was a swell idea promptly identified five of their own newspapers to be shut down. mobs attack pro-secession newspapers in decidedly nonsouthern venues such as bridgeport, connecticut, and dayton, ohio. they torched a paper in bangor. ugly incidents, but directed at what people of the day clearly regarded not as loyal opposition, but as fifth column anti-unionism. the war department -- a third agency involved then contributed an order declaring tighter control of the telegraph office. because intelligence was being given directly or indirectly to the enemy through the use of this new technology.

keep in mind as we talk about the different press culture, very, very contentious press culture, there was also this new technology which had the same threatening impact on people as julian assange had in the 21st century. so the war department placed 154 newspapers on an informal but chilling watch list. as early as april, telegraph wires had fallen completely under military control. but at the same time, only one or two censors worked the telegraph office. so it was a warning, but it was never completely enforced. and newspapers in the field, journalists in the field always had the option of getting onboard a train with a dispatch or sending a horseback rider as a runner. correspondents did that and by

and large the press did remain remarkably free to cover the war, perhaps more so than they are in iraq or afghanistan. descriptions and depictions of casualties, for example, were never forbidden, only the encouragement to rebel and join the insurrection. if other newspapers felt a bond with their repressed brethren, they seldom expressed solidarity. in fact, the republican press endorsed the crackdown. democrats remained completely silent or most perhaps fearful of objecting out loud. just weeks after vowing it would not applaud the administration, the "new york times" branded the journal of commerce guilty of exciting a riot in our streets and apologizing for the mob. no right of the press, the times insisted, should shield it from the penalty of a crime against society. this was the "times" speaking. the "chicago tribune" questioned

the concept of what they called absolute freedom of the press because in society, speech is always limited by prevailing conditions. until the war is over, we must be content to accept whatever the altered conditions of the times and the country may demand as a requisite for national salvation. calling "the daily news" even a democratic party, the "new york world" at the time declared every newspaper that approved of secession should be regarded as the accomplices of treason. this by and large they were. "the times'" henry raymond was surprised only that had the administration has so long forborne to defend itself against the secession papers published in loyal states. in states where no such loyalty reigned, lincoln got 53% of the vote.

the see presentation was even more draconian. rejecting what he called extreme tenderness of the citizens' liberty that would relieve more of the guilty than the innocent, lincoln had even ordered the military even before bull run to arrest and detain without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law. such individuals as might be deemed dangerous to the public safety. that sounds like chillingly ambiguous and threatening phraseology. but it certainly included the press. when the baltimore exchange editorialized the war of the south is the war of the people but the war of the north was the water of a party carried out by political schemers, military authorities shut down the paper and arrested the editor whose name was francis scott key howard. not by accident. the irony here he was the grandson of the author of the national anthem thrown into ft. lafayette prison.

was he guilty anything more than expressing himself? well, his surviving files included secret resolutions pledging to support the confederacy and the rebellion. marshall suppressed four of the city's other pro-secession journals. asked to justify this by congress, lincoln said are all the laws but one to go unexecuted? and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? accusing rebels of what he called an insidious debatching of the public mind. he said that he could but perform this duty or surrender the entire existence of government. i purposely dwelled on these examples from 1861. probably because they're less known than the later incidents but also because they definitely set precedence for what

followed. th a greater repression. had the editors risen to protest, it might have been a slightly different story. i'm not meaning to ascribe blame if it's warranted to the victims. i do urge everyone, though, to keep the context in mind. to look at this phenomenon through the extraordinary moment of revolution and danger that perhaps mitigated it. not through the dubious lens of hindsight. and at the time the other branches of government didn't interfere, when congress came back into session, it ratified suspension of the great writ. the supreme court remained silenced -- silent. in 1862, the house judiciary committee began an inquiry into whether the suppression of the telegraph had been used to restrain what it caused whole system political criticism. they heard from many witnesses including journalists who testified.

but the committee ultimately concluded that legitimate political, personal, and news if inhibited still free government -- government free from interference may not always be consistent within the necessities of the government in time of war. this was ambiguous enough to encourage the house to drop the entire matter. the telegraph censors, as small a number as they were were left in charge under the state department or the war department without much further oversight. by 1862 that year the administration had added to the list of forbidden coverage anything meant to discourage volunteering. anything meant to discourage people from allowing themselves to be drafted. or allowing the draft to go forward as we know they didn't always, including in new york city. then there came a new issue

adherence to the emancipation proclamation. the new york evening express repudiated it saying we do not know what liberty is allowed to discuss the proclamation. we may be locked up for all this free speech and free discussion, but we lend no thanks to negro equality. this prompted one correspondent to ask the secretary of state how is rebellion to be crushed while such insulting traitorous papers are allowed to be freely circulated among the people? tens of thousands in new york now stand ready to enter the printing establishment of several such papers and break the heads of the editor. and are only restrained by its unlawfulness and are waiting for a weak and puckish government to do it. no action was taken, but it's fascinating to read the letters that came in supporting the notion of further crackdown. the next year, 1863, the to hea

where a union general, not the most effective generals in history arrested a former congressman and newspaper owner, of course. for speaking out against the draft and had him imprisoned and tried by a military commission. he was found guilty but at lincoln's request was not imprisoned, he was banished to the confederacy. local newspapers that protested like the columbus, ohio, crisis aptly name as it turned out paid a heavy price. first the mob tried to burn down the office. the editor laid a proposal for governor of ohio. a general banned the newspaper from the mail. the landingham actually ran for governor as a democrat, was absolutely devastated in the election. but the crisis continued its own campaign for free speech. what is called free speech ultimately this editor too was

arrested for conspiracy against the union. he apparently died a broken man before he could be brought to his trial. he was not the only editor outweighed by the case. new york democrats held a very famous mass meeting in albany and condemned the president. on the battlefield or the news room. lincoln rejected the idea of a government as he called it restrained by the same constitution law of arresting their progress. their sympathizers all departments of the government and nearly all communities of the people, undercover of liberty of speech, liberty of the press and habeas corpus, they hope to keep afoot a most efficient core of informers, suppliers, haters, andaiders an.

to lincoln these were informers. in rebuttal called the doctrine a monstrous heresy. and quite as certainly tending to the establishment of decem r december -- lincoln responded no further. a democratic paper also rebuked against the case, the general surprised nearly everybody by recording troops in chicago to shut down the chicago times and imprison wilber story who is happy to be arrested because it was good publicity. for the repeated expression of disloyalty and incendiary statements. now this act of see presentation, lincoln may have privately relished. the chicago times had been flaying him for years and publicly, however,