of this place. and if you have driven along i-80, you notice it's very flat. as i was driving up here today, i remembered the opening pages of the young hero looking across his new home and thinking of nebraska. there is a lot of it. when congress adjourned on july 17th, 1862, in their inner most thoughts, many of the members must wondered if all their work had been in vain. george mclellan's campaign on the peninsula had fizzled tanned lizingly close to richmond and

soon troops would invade the north in kentucky and maryland and the european powers were on the verge of stepping into the dispute to force a mediation that would have recognized southern independence. the republican grip on congress was threatened and with it the fate of this huge and historic agenda. how the union was saved from that low point is another story told in my forth coming book. it's an astounding chain of events, but we haven't time for that now. i will give the final word to charles sumner and perhaps the greatest figure of that congress, speaking of misunderstood individuals.

our session has been busy. some understatedly to a friend after congress adjourned. he added with justified pride, i doubt if any legislative body ever acted on so many important questions. thank you very much. >> we do have time for questions. i would ask to you come up to this microphone. you have a question you would like to ask? anyone?

you can come up if you are ready to ask your question. >> i was wondering, several other offers wrote about the problem of counterfeiting operations during the civil war. i was wondering if during the end of the process where they were drafting the home sed act if they thought about the possibility of counterfeit operations being established in the midwest. if so, what were the plans in preventing such an event?

>> i found no record of that being a concern for the treasury department. particularly in 1862 was -- if you read the diary, it becomes clear that he was running an endless effort to fund the next day's operations or arguably the next week's operations. day after day, he comes into his office to find millions of dollars of unpaid bills on his desk and he explains about having no idea how to pay it. i think that would have been fine with him.

most of the republican party was strongly opposed to the idea of fiat money, greenback money to begin with. chase and lincoln for that matter were really driven to the wall by the fact that they had no alternative way of funding the war. it's literally mind boggling to me when i see what happened to the federal budget from 1860 to the end of season 62. the entire federal budget of 1860 was $80 million. in 1862, they were spending $50 million a week.

another way to put the government into terms that we can understand, the presidential staff, i'm not talking about the white house staff, the butler and the cooks and so forth, the president's executive staff when lincoln arrived in washington in 1861 was one. his budgeted staff was one secretary that was good enough for all the previous presidents. why wouldn't it be good enough for him. john who i quote head a place on the federal budget. his colleague had to be put on the interior department budget until lincoln could persuade the congress he need another person on the staff. he got a third by hiding him at the patent office.

the issue you are raising is real and the devaluation of money was a huge problem. the problem for the south where inflation by 1863 was running at the republic rates. it was an issue that didn't rise to the top of the area i can determine. what i like about the money, chase did not want to go to the money. he tried everything he could not to.

in 1860, they nominated abraham lincoln instead of himself to be president. as doris goodwin said in the team of rivals so nicely, a lot of people in the cap net felt that way. most of them got over it. chase never got over it. he was running for president constantly even as he was treasury secretary. it donned on him in january of 1862 after the currency law was passed that there would be millions of pieces of paper circulating across the united states into every home and every pocket and wallet and there ought to be a picture on there. so every denomination and every

greenback printed during the civil war had his picture on it. until he left the treasury secretary. any other questions? >> i'm very encouraged by the accomplishments and troubled by the prescription for their success. i was curious if there is anything we could do other than asking the friends to leave the chab for the session for prospect and success. >> hopefully we will not have such an extreme solution, but i think in the second of my points where i talked about a compelling agenda, this is where

i see a way forward. this is a 50-50 point in our country right now. the election after election being decided by a handful of votes and the election in 2000 of the loser winning in the popular vote. one of the explanations is that neither of the parties really has a vision for the majority of americans that they find compelling. they work on wedge issues and

they turn up the volume and the personal campaign and so on and so forth. north of them look at the person party. they don't have an agenda that they are galvanized. the democrats have a clearer agenda. where i think the gridlock will be broken is when one of the two parties becomes a majority party. not a majority party in 1860. abraham lincoln received a smaller percentage of the vote.

that was smaller than any president in american history. he used to say why they were not fired, i'm a minority president and he's a majority general. but by the end of that war, the republican party was definitely a majority party and was and they had articulated an agenda that americans were ready it get behind. >> you raised the spector of corruption and i wanted you to comment on an issue. it was legal to drib them until 1852. after which time it was legal to pay consulting fees to do things. that was interesting. in relation to the money you were talking about that came out after 1862, i know the stocks

and you mentioned that, if you could comment more. >> a huge amount was the question, what was the legal status of the money that the lpnw was throwing around in congress. it was offering land and they were going to. and that land was of questionable value. it was certainly scandalous. the reason we know so much about about the extend of the dribry

was in 1876, 14 years older, the whole thing blew over in a scandal called the biggest washington scandal and the late 19th century. the speaker of the house and the aforementioned cousin who lied his way saying he didn't get any money. the lpnw had been kind enough to future historians to keep records of all the bribing they had done. because they were throwing so much money around they were losing track of who they had bribe and how much they had promised here and there.

since this is a room full of scholars and i had store kbrans, i did find the smoking gun of the credit scandal in the course of my research for the book. there is a letter from james to thomas ewing and the ewing family papers. he said by the way at the last minute i had to had to promise the friend money so that he would keep his mouth shut. complicated deal. he then said i will pay him out of my share. blaine who claimed not to have been involved at all was up to his hips.

big problem for grant at the end of his second term. >> i was wondering what convinced the europeans to stop moving for a negotiated settlement. >> yes. the europeans were right at the door and ultimately what happened was three-fold. napoleon was trying to reestablish. he had troops in mexico a& the

confederacy was promising and we accounted do a lot of nice things and make beautiful music together in the southern half of north america. he didn't want to get in unless they could make it a joint project. you would probably know what the prospects have been for successful joint operations by france and england. that one was kind of starting out under a doomed, ill-fated start. the idea of a pan european invention was being knocked down by russia. they saw the united states as

its best friend in the world and they were the two rising new powers against the old powers of europe. they had europe bracketed on each side and they wanted to see the power of the united states sustained. then there was an ark of the war and 1862 kind of runs like this. it starts at a low point. lincoln on january 2nd and he talks to his friend about what they call the bare possibility of it being two nations. that's the mood on the first day. in february, with 12,000 men

they go into tennessee and strikes the fastest most efficient and most dramatic blow against the south of the bir war. he captures in the space of a week and the entire western line of the army is shattered. the mood goes up here and by the end of new orleans, that was the key to winning the war. to capture new orleans and at that point lincoln is having them write letters to the envoys, proposing the solution where the europeans withdraw

their recognition of rights from the south and bam, as i talked about that into the depths and sim pollized and where the union military leadership actually turns on each other. to lose a battle within earshot of the white house and the confederates invade 10 tucky and maryland and at that point both in paris and in england, the leaders above countries are talking about this is the time to intervene. fortunately europeans love their summer vacations. this is's we count of history where they went with this in october.

by october, the and they won the battle and the confederates have been pushed out of kentucky and maryland and lincoln had issued the preliminary e mans wagz proclamation and the face of the war changed. the anti-slavery movement in england particularly was a very important political force. the pro confederate forces could say slifry is not an issue. they put it front and center and england is intervening on behalf of the slave power against freedom. that was unsustainable. the political calculation is second and the third one which was more important than the history suggests is that

palmerston was a very old man by this time. he loved to fight wars and sent the british navy around the world to intervene all over the place. he was happy to intervene in little wars. he learned things about war and when he saw what happened first at shiloh where in two days, more americans were killed than in all the battles ever fought in north america prior to the weekend. then what happened at gains mill and incredible slaughter. the bloodiest single day in american history. he looked at that and basically said those people are crazy.

he walked into the cab ned and said the third years war was a joke compared to this. if we think we are going to sail over and break them up, we are nuts. and lincoln and his secretary of state were very keen to this. he sent a letter to the ambassador and said you lead them know, they are looking at a war of the world. not a world war. that had not been coined. one of the earliest uses was a war of the world if they try to get in the middle of this. so those were the three factors. >> thank you very much. >> thank you.

. >> these folks have a memento. they lost all respect. anyway, a little memento of you being here and we hope you will come back. >> awesome. i would love to. >> thank you. >> next, a look at the recent visit to oklahoma city, oklahoma. to learn about the rich history and literal culture. you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. >> we are at the african-american visit center. this was the first exhibit of the african-american experience. over 500 museums and historical

societies and when this exhibit opened, it was the first exhibit of the african-american experience. it covers everything from the preterritorial days to the present day accomplishments. my mother was the first african-american woman to be admitted to the school of law. when laws in oklahoma prohibited african-americans and whites from going to the same schools, sitting in the same classrooms, they were separate systems in oklahoma. she was the first person to try to break down those barriers and she did it by applying to the university school of law. she had to be rejected because the laws and the constitution prohibited african-americans from going to schools with whites, but set up a supreme court decision that in 1948 said basically that she had a right to get a legal education as soon as anybody else has a right to

get a legal education. it did not end separate but equal, but put the system on trial. he had a pretty good lawyer. he was there for the naacp with the defense fund. they had decided that nationally they were going to try to bring an end to segregated education. they were looking for cases to get them to the supreme court. my mom had graduated from college and she was the valedictorian and an honors student. they were discussing it and she agreed to be the plaintiff. they begin the legal process. that took from then until

january of 1948, two years to actually work itself through the legal process. they started at the county level and she lost there. it was appealed to the oklahoma supreme court where she lost there. then they appealed that to the united states supreme court. they ruled that she should have that opportunity. my mom was excite and she was at the supreme court when they had the arguments and she came back to oklahoma excite and figured she was getting ready to go to law school. the admission period would end and said oklahoma just opened the university school of law. within seven days they created a law school just for her. the school was located in the state capital building and they hired two part-time attorneys and a part-time dean that was to

be the separate but equal law school for her to attend. in the meantime, the naacp came up with another strategy. i have six other students to apply. one in emergencying and 1 in medicine and one in architecture and geology and several others. oklahoma knew the deal was up and they could not afford to have a deal separate education system. not only oklahoma, but every other university of higher education that knew they had the same problem. up until that problem, states had been using what they called the out of state tuition. this was a plan where if african-americans wanted to study a discipline that was not available in their state at the black colleges, they would offer to pay a stipend for them to go

out of state to go to school. they were using that for decades, but this supreme court decision said that was not good enough. they were in the stayed & they were in high eldication and that didn't end. she was admitted on a segregated basis. what they did in my mom's case is they had all of the students and the other students in the law school to come to the front of the class and they had theater seating and it was like sitting in the theater and you walk in and step up a row. so they put all the students down and at the top of the classroom in the very back, they put a single chair with a sign over it and a chain around it to represent a straight classroom. that was their representatn