gold strike in georgia in 1828. some slave owners mined gold with slave labor. but most of the slaves work in agriculture, most of them work in crops, plantations that raise crops like sugar and tobacco and so on. most of them work on cotton. well, the bell has just sounded. so let's finish up for today. i'll see everybody on wednesday for the discussion of the richard john monogram. thank you for coming. lukt temperatures in history airs sundays at 1:00 p.m. we feature chas room lectures on different topics across the country. to keep up with american history tv during the week, follow us on twitter. we're at

twitter.com/cspanhistory. in may of 2011, historian richard norton smith led a 10-day bus tour from asheville, north carolina to austin, texas, the group stopped at several presidential and historic sites along the route. one of the stops was the andrew johnson homestead in greenville, tennessee, a site owned and operated by the national park service. johnson served as vice president under president lincoln. and succeeded him when lincoln was assassinated. here's park guide daniel luther portraying president johnson and telling the story how andrew johnson met abraham lincoln. >> in 1847, i went into the 30th congress for my third term representing the people of the first district, and while i was there, i met an extremely tall raw-boned young man representing the prairie state of illinois. and his name was abraham lincoln. and we fell into conversation and i introduced myself and told

him that i was from northeast tennessee and he replied that he had relatives in northeast tennessee and perhaps i knew some of them. he identified his great uncle isaac as having owned a farm. up on the watogga. at which his father thomas lincoln had worked as something of a hired hand in the 1790s. and he also identified another great uncle, a gentleman named mordecai, who lived in the town of greenville. to which i replied greenville is my hometown. and your great uncle mordecai performed the wedding ceremony for me and my wife, elisa, in 1827. as well as mordecai and i served on the town council together in 1829, and i reassured mr. lincoln that he was in good hands in terms of politics that his great uncle had gained a great many more votes than i had. but like many young men who came into congress at the time, we went in there with goals. and each of us had a cherished

goal that we wanted to achieve in that congress. mine was the introduction of the homestead bill. for mr. lincoln, it was the introduction of legislation which would have provided for compensated emancipation of slaves in the district of columbia. and like other young men who go into congress we found out it's not so easy to get your cherished goals accomplished so we left that session of congress without those bills passed. i would serve two more terms. mr. lincoln, that would be his only term in the house of representatives. at the beginning of the fourth term, i bought the house that you have just seen. but it is irony, those of us who lived through our late unhappy struggle, often felt that we were caught up in the hands of fate. and as fate would have it, each of us, abraham lincoln and myself, were 15 years in the future able to help the other achieve that earlier cherished goal. for my part, abraham lincoln

signed the homestead bill into law in 1862. in 1864, i helped mr. lincoln gain at least one state into the column of abolition, emancipation, that is the state of tennessee that you're visiting today. you heard some of these words earlier, so i'm going to give you just a short excerpt. in october of 1864, word got out that i, as military governor, was about to issue a proclamation of emancipation for the slaves in tennessee. and this created a large gathering at the state capital and i stepped out to address them. and used some of the following words: colored people of nashville, you have all heard of the president's proclamation by which he proclaims that a large portion of the slaves in the states still in rebellion have been declared henceforth and forever free. for reasons which seemed wise to the president, this proclamation

did not apply to you. or to your native state. consequently, many of you were left in bondage, the fetters still galled your limbs. gradually, this iniquity is has been passing away. but the time has come for the last vestiges to be removed, therefore i, without reference to the president or any other person, have a proclamation to make, and standing here on the steps of the capitol, with the past history of the state to witness, its present condition to guide, its future to encourage me, i andrew johnson, do hereby proclaim freedom, full broad and unconditional to every man in tennessee. those were words some four months later we backed them up with action. the convention i called to recreate a loyal state

government to the union, also enacted an amendment to the tennessee state constitution, - government to the union, also enacted an amendment to the tennessee state constitution, ending forever slavery in this state, which became part of our constitution with a popular vote of the people on february 22, 1865. shortly after that, i went back to washington to take the seat as vice president. the second highest office in the gift of a free people. five weeks later, the war was over. and one of its final casualties our martyred president. and with his death, the burden he had borne for four years fell upon my shoulders. sorrowful times, discouraging times, yet as i spoke to the gathering of the cabinet that came to my rooms at the kirkwood hotel the morning of april 15th, i told them that i had hope, i had hope that our government,

having emerged from its present trials, would settle on policies more consonant with the great principles of free government than it had heretofore. and i believed this nation would come together and would move forward and i had good strong reason for my hope. i had faith in the union. i had faith, abiding faith, in the constitution. and above all else, i had faith in the people. thank you for your kind attention. >> sir. >> there's a bit of a controversy among us, 150 years later, over you and the part you played in the decision, in the trial of the lincoln conspirators. in particular the decision, the unprecedented decision on the part of the federal government to execute a woman.

could you tell us how that came about? >> yes, sir. i will tell you -- and i'm aware of the controversy, and i'm aware there are a number of different sides to it -- that in my view, mrs. serat was guilty. i believed she was the person who kept the nest that hatched the egg. however, the controversy arises over this. having been convicted by military tribunal and sentenced to death by that same tribunal, five of the nine judges on the tribunal recommended clemency for mrs. serat. in other words, that her death sentence be commuted to life in prison. i was unaware of that commutation recommendation. i was freshly into my office, i was allowing myself to be guided by the cabinet and the other officers who had been present. and when judge advocate holt brought me the papers, including

the death warrant, i signed them. two years later, 1867, this is when the secession -- sorry, the impeachment crisis was emerging, the newspapers began printing the awareness that a recommendation of clemency had been made. and that i had ignored it. and i sent to the war department requesting to see those documents. and when i did see them, it appeared to me that the clemency recommendation, which was right there, had been torn out and reattached. and i thought only two men could have done such a thing. one of them, joseph holt, judge advocate general who had been responsible for the trial but the other was his superior, edwin stanton. so perhaps i will leave it this way. the next day after i saw those documents from the war department, i sent a short note to secretary stanton which read, dear sir, public considerations of high character constrain me to inform you that your resignation as secretary of war will be accepted.

may i tell you what he said in response? dear sir, public considerations of a high character constrain me to inform you that i will not resign the office until congress comes back into session. knowing at the time he believed that he was already protected by the tenure of office law. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. indeed. all right. >> for more information about the andrew johnson national historic site, visit their website at nps.gov/anjo. and to learn more about tours with historian and author richard norton smith, go to presidentsandpatriots.com. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> all weekend long american history tv joins our comcast of

central arkansas cable partners in little rock to showcase its history and literary culture. founded in 1836, little rock has a population of about 200,000 people, and gets its name from a rock formation on the banks of the arkansas river. you're watching american history tv on c-span3. >> the collection consists of about 100,000 to 140,000 items. we don't quite have a final number yet. we are still going through everything that came to us from washington, d.c. we have lots of gifts, things that the american people thought that bill clinton would like to own. we have videotapes, dvds, portraits of them done by

adults, by children. we have portraits on notebook paper, portraits on oil, beautiful things. we have a lot of t-shirts and baseball caps in our collection, probably about 45% of our collection, almost, is baseball caps and t-shirts. these were given to president clinton as -- if he visited some place and he wanted to give them a memento of their town and their organization or something like that. sometimes they have causes on them, too. we have some masked items and t-shirt and things like that that related to a specific event. but the collection represents what was important to the american people during the presidency of bill clinton, what they thought was important to send to the president during the presidency. i think that's one of the most interesting things about our chekz. those things are all here. along with the head of state gifts. those were items given to the president in the official capacity, gifts given to the head of one government by the head of another government.

these are some of the head of state gifts that we have in our collection that i thought you might be interested in seeing. this first one here, we call it the horse clock. it's a lovely piece. it has malachite on the bottom and silver and gold and the horse is silver. it's a gift from prince aziz given to the president in 1998. this piece right here is a nativity scene that was given to president clinton by yasser e arafat on his visit to the united states in 1997, i think it was. >> what's it made out of? >> mother-of-pearl. mother-of-pearl, different colors. on the cart here, we have a few other things. great hat. i do like this hat because it says on the front, bill clinton,

washington, d.c., 52nd presidential inaugural. this looks like a regular old hat. but then, it pops open. and we have a little city scene of washington, d.c. inside the hat. this was given by a donor. it's an american citizen who lives in virginia. a nice little piece. we have these great tennis shoes. that a man in california made, painted for the president. the presidential seal on the side of bill clinton. i have to show you the back. the back says numero uno. and the 42nd president, right here. 42nd president.

nice piece. not something you see every day. this is an interesting piece. this is actually a campaign piece given to president clinton by a donor from england, actually. i don't know how they got it or why they have it, but you can plug this into your outlet in your car and it lights up. it's a brake light that says vote for clinton. i like that, too. it's a great box. it says for the dresser direct of a play that holds a world stage. it's actually a paperweight. this is giant, made out of ceramic, i think. >> what goes through your mind? >> these have been here. as we find them -- we found a lot of these when they were doing the inventory. usually call someone over and

say look what we found today. we are keeping a file of the really cool things that we find so we can find them back more easily. so when people like you want to see them, we have a file of things that are great. this is another one we like a lot. do you recognize it? mr. rogers trolley. the wooden model of the trolley. and on the top, for the clinton family with love, from your friends in the neighborhood, fred rogers, 1993. i've seen a photo of him giving this to president clinton and president clinton has his head thrown back and mr. rogers is sitting next to him on a park bench. this is from dade county, florida. it's one of the infamous machines that were controversial during the 2000 election.

the instructions we looked at before, they're a little confusing. but you slide the ballot in and then you use the stylist to punch a pole into the -- into the ballot. the stylus is quite small. but this is one of the -- so what it would produce, everyone knows that's a chad. we actually have a bag of the chads that came out of the machine. one of our staff members spent hours collecting all those from the bottom of the voting machine, put them all in baggies. so our next piece is a music stand from the jazz band, the dance band. bill clinton played in the stardusters band in the 1960s when he was in high school. this might or might not be from this time period. we're not certain. it was found in the basement of

hot springs until 1969. someone kept it until a few years ago when they donated it. they said they thought we might like to have it. it's a great piece. it's made out of masonite. >> what do you find to be the best part and maybe even worst part about your job? >> i think the best part is you never know what you're going to see. you never know what you're going to find. when opening up all these boxes, it's like christmas every day. you never know exactly what you're going to find. i -- that's definitely the best part. the worst part, i can't think of anything off the top of my head. it's all fun. we get to take care of great things. some of our stuff looks really new. sometimes people say, well, why do you wear gloves when you carry that brand new thing around that just looks like you bought it yesterday? but we're preserving it for the future so we don't want to leave our hand oils on it now so in a

couple hundred years it's damaged. we take care of it from the start. >> all weekend long, american history tv is featuring little rock, arkansas. learn more about little rock and find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next online at c-span.org/localcontent. you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. so here we are at marble house. it is the summer home, the summer cottage of williams and alva vanderbilt. it was built between 1889 and 1892. this was the first real mansion on bell view avenue in new port, rhode island. and it was built by richard morris hunt, the architect, the same architect who built the breakers several years later. he was the most prestigious well recognized, well respected

architect, really, in the world. he had studied at pose air in paris, the first american to do was much sought after. this house was built really by alva vanderbilt with richard hunt. it was a 39th birthday president from her husband william, to they provided trauma care, personnel and strategic actions, she lived in paris, right during the civil war. she came from mobile, alabama. and living in paris she became quite the francophile and well-informed about french art and architecture. she had a hand in what this building was going to look like and how it would be decorated. it is very much in the french style, designed to be a facsimile of this building. we will see that many of

remembrances come into play. we are in the gold room of the marble house. this is the room for entertaining. this is the ballroom if you will. everything is guilded. the most important part of this room is the major restoration effort that the preservation society undertook to replace the upholstery on the fabric and the furniture and to replace these curtains. the interesting story about this fabric is that it was made in france with the same loom with the same design which was used to create the textiles. it is an extraordinary stroke of

luck that we were able to use exactly the same weaving techniques to create what had been here in the 1890s when the room was first pulled together by alva vanderbilt. the thing i think that is extraordinary about these curtains is the stonework along the edges, not real diamonds but look like diamonds. this is velvet on velvet, burned into place. beautiful. beautiful. very big effort on the part of the preservation society to undertake this restoration project. i'm telling you this because we are an organization that is designed to create an atmosphere that gives you the visitor a chance to understand what life was like in the 1890s in guilded age america but our joss also includes that of restoring our buildings, taking care of them, preserving them and then

restoring the collections within the buildings. so we are trying to bring back all of the newport houses to their former glory so that americans and visitors from around the world really get a sense of what this era of american history, a very important part of our country and its changes, what it was all about. we are in the gothic room of marble house and there are lots of interesting stories about this particular room. the first is that alva vanderbilt's daughter was consuelo and she went on, as she grew up to be engaged and married to the duke of marlboro. it is said that he proposed to

her in this room. it was a dollar bride that she brought to the table so that the duke could use the money to restore his property in england castle. in the same turn, consuelo gained a title and she and the duke of marlboro were married for a good long period of time about you in the end, their marriage was annulled, even after children. she did a very good job as the dutchess. however, it was never meant to be. consuelo vanderbilt desperately

wanted to marry another young man, warren, rutherford. her mother, however wanted her daughter to be married into royalty. through a lot of makin nations, she made sure that the duke of marlboro and her daughter, consuelo, would be matched up. alva was a very interesting character. as i mentioned before, she grew up in the south during the civil war her family moved to france to get away from all of the warfare in the south. so she grew up with sentiment for france and married william vanderbilt. he was one of the richest men in the world. she did very well for herself. she forces her daughter to mary the duke of marlboro and later, when the divorce proceedings were going forward. alva stepped forward and said i am responsible for the marriage of my daughter. please, judge, please, let this marriage come to an end.

alva vanderbilt divorced william soon after finishing this house and went on to become one of the country's foremost sufferests. she fought for women to vote. she would gather thousands of women together and there would be speeches and she spent a lot of her money on the cause. working with other women to get the right for women to vote. women got the right to vote in 1920. and we celebrated the 90th anniversary of that just last year. so very interesting characters. alva herself and consuelo. i mentioned before that alva was an experienced, thoughtful architect as well as collector. this particular room, she working with decorators was able to bring in hundreds of pieces

of objects which for the preservation society were sold to john and mabel ringling. they were renaissance and gothic in nature. thus, the gothic room. the america's cup races are coming up. the trials next summer in newport and in other sailing capitals around the work. very sad for newporters and actually the united states. the america's cup was lost in 1983 and the cup was handed from the american team to the australians right here. so next summer in june, the trials women come back to newport. it will be the first time in 20 plus jeers. we are very excited that newport will gain it's reputation for being the best sight in the world. one of the people who made that

reputation occur was harold vanderbilt, having been a skipper of an american cup yacht, having won over the years. he is the son of alva and william k. vanderbilt. this is consuelo's bedroom. here is this young woman who is crazy about another man, not the duke of marlboro. her mother has just what many believe has faked a heart attack. her mother's friend has said consuelo, you need to do something to help get your mother back in good health. the only thing that is going to get her back into good health is agreeing to marry the duke of marlboro. her friends cannot get in to see her.

there are all of her letters that she writes to friends outside are not getting delivered. her father is traveling, so she has no one to talk to. her brothers are too young to appreciate or understand what it is like to be forced into a marriage. so i think that this bedroom must have been a place where she did a lot of soul-searching and a lot of misery-keeping, if you will, trying to reconcile in her mind what her mother wanted for her and for the family and what she wanted. as we know from history, she agreed the duke of marlboro would be a good husband. so she went on to accept his marriage proposal but a very, very interesting life she led. part of it was lived out in this room. this was the site of all of those women's rallies that alva herself organized.