let me summarize it. may 24th, 18 1, ben butler, the massachusetts politician, he was not an abolitionist. he was not anti-slavery. before this point, early on, ben butler had vowed to stifle any attempt of blacks in the south to start an insurrection. he was no friend of blacks and yet he's now stationed at fortress monroe and he needs manpower. he needs workers. so he admits into union lines three slaves. who had escaped from the rebel army and as laborers. and the owner goes to -- sends an agent to ben butler to reof the slaves under the fugitive slave law. butler's brilliant response, hey, virginia's a foreign country. fugitive slave law has no legal

implication to a foreign country. it's a foreign insurrection of our country, i'm not giving them back. you are no longer in the united states. that leads the congress, u.s. congress to pass the first confiscation act. which we now know is really that begins and immediately begins to accelerate the engines of emancipation. until last year, the significance of the first confiscation act was down played by historians. there's a truly, i think, dazzling book by adam goodhart called "1861." the high point, climax is the importance of the first confiscation act. what does it say? as i mentioned, it enables union officers to confiscate slaves who have reached union lines. now, their legal status is vague and in limbo. doesn't legally or technically free them but it means they're no longer slaves.

and that confiscation act immediately is sent through the grapevine telegraph and almost from that day, i mean, african-americans are making a beeline for union lines buzz they know they're going to be protected. transformation is truly extraordinary in the wake of this first confiscation act. and then in august of 1861, still very early. only four months into the war, john c. fremont passes the face's first emancipation proclamation in missouri. freeing all slaves. i mean, missouri is rife with guerilla warfare. i mean, missouri is suffering guerilla warfare from the mid 1850s through at least the end of the war. john c. free momont in attempt control it just emancipates slaves. after northerners hear of his emancipation proclamation they're torched by parades and

celebrations in most of the major cities of the north. until 12 days later, lincoln resipds it. why does lincoln rescind it? because he's worried about the border states. he's worried that kentucky, in particular, will secede, maryland might secede, and we know the border states start seceding, the war's over. another important catalyst in your road is the first six months, so the union is desperate for a victory. the first major union victories are ft. donaldson and shiloh. shiloh is an immensely bloody battle. the fifth bloodiest battle in the civil war. to give you some sense of the x extent of the bloodshed, shiloh at that time was the bloodiest battle in the western world.

bloodier than every one of napoleon's battles, bloodier than the battle at crimea. americans were shocked. grant emerges who is willing to fight and stay the course so to speak. these victories inspire, both inspire union generals to send notes to the president and the congress saying, our job is going to be much easier by emancipati emancipation. we can use blacks. which is the next point. generals across the board acknowledge that emancipation, as a military policy, makes great sense. and generals like u.s. grant, he was no abolitionist. he was not even an anti-slavery person before the war.

but he understood as a general that emancipation was crucial. the blacks are not only crucial source of manpower, but they know the landscape. of the south better than just about anyone. and the second confiscation act in july of 1862 is a kind of prelude to lincoln's emancipation proclamation. it frees all slaves within union lines. so it turns the confiscated slaves into freed slaves, makes them forever free, and it also urges the president to pass an emancipation proclamation to give this act teeth. so technically the difference between the second confiscation act and lincoln's emancipation proclamation is the second confiscation act frees all slaves already in union lines. the emancipation proclamation frees all slaves of rebel masters. now, if you're a slave and

you're working on your plantation, that doesn't carry a lot of weight. but it does further, to flee to union lines. by -- to the point about the class division of the confederacy, in early 1862 the confederacy passes the second confiscation act. i'm sorry, the second conscription act. which specifically says that if you own 20 slaves or more, you're exempt from the draft. and among the non slave owning whites, they start spreading this mantra that it's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, because if you're wealthy, meaning you owe 20 slaves or more, you don't have to fight. into 1863, as i said, lincoln

continues to champion colonization. he finally abandons it after this plan to send some blacks to an island off the coast of haiti, the english translation was it's called cal island, in mi mid 1863. it was a disaster. most of them died. the ones who came back were sick. he eventually abandoned it. so as the war and the devastating effect of the war turns lincoln into someone who understands that to preserve the union, to win the war, it has to be a social revolution. here's in 1862 where he invites to the white house and publicly urmgs them to emigrate. at the time there were a few blacks who themselves still championed immigration but it

was a vocal minority. william johnson, the black man whose article you read, that was a black emigration magazine. here's lincoln. you and we are different races. broader differences than exist between almost any other two races. your very presence in the country is the cause of the war. which is a weird inversion. even though men on both sides do not care for you one way or another, it's better we both be separated. now, douglass' response to this is just, actually douglass responds to this and says that linkcoln is a retiveesta americancist. some scholars have argued lincoln gives this public address to blacks at the white houscausehe wants to pave e wa for his emcipation proclamation.

he's written it. he is waiting for a victory in order to make it public. he is -- lincoln is truly brilliant in engaging public opinion. he never wants to be more than a step ahead of it. and he's also uncertain about when and even if in mid '62 he should follow the lead of the congress and issue an emancipation proclamation. and you read a few pieces about lincoln's religious views. here's his response to horace greeley's "the prayer of twenty millions." greeley the editor of "the new york tribune" is saying 20 millio of nthners which is essente northern population are praying for an end to slavery, please issue emancipation proclamation. and lincoln responds, my

paramount object is to save the union. it's nther to save nor destroy slavery. what i do about slavery in the colored race, i do because i believe it helps to save the union. now, again, many scholars have said he's doing this because he wants to pave the way for his emancipation proclamation. this was truly lincoln's chief aim. his chief aim was always to preserve the union. and here in terms of whether or not he should issue emancipation proclamation which would make the social revolution much more explicit, unlike frederick douglass, unlike the aboliti abolitionists, unlike most northerners and southerners, lincoln does not believe he knows god's will. in fact, you could say that lincoln is a calvinist. for lincoln, god is inscrutable and to presume to know god's will is huburous.

he's uncertain. you read the preliminary emancipation proclamation. how he made that public is ultimately lincoln understood that the closest that you can come of understanding god's will is to look for signs. that's a classic calvinist understanding. it's huberuos to presume to know god's will but we can look for signs of what god wants. and he knew that there is going to be a major battle between lee and mcclellan which mcclellccbe the battle of antedum. with the news of lee's invasion in the upcoming showdown, lincoln actually tells his cabinet that he has entered into a covenant with god. and in this covenant with god,

basically says if union achieves a victory, i will take that as a sign that god wants me to make public this emancipation proclamati proclamation. this is from gideon wells, the secretary of the navy. and mcclellan declared a tenuous victory, truly tenuous victory and next day makes public the emancipation proclamation to go into effect january s1st. we'll talk about the difference between the preliminary and nine ne final next week. it's the final emancipation proclamation that calls for arming northern blacks as soldiers. there were southern blacks who formed regiments in the fall of '62. frederick douglass on the

preliminary emancipation. lincoln did not free the slaves. this is crucial, i think, to understand. because most americans still believe that lincoln freed the slaves. now, douglass loved the emancipation proclamation. frederick douglass said the emancipation proclamation should be accorded the same sort of reverence that the declaration of independence has. it's one of the -- the two are the twin birthdays of liberty. but lincoln does not free the slaves. it's absurd to think that one man can free 4 million. and furthermore, evens greater than the president than any one person had won the proclamation fight. slaves as much as any other single factor freed themselves because they fled their masters for union lines. and now it's much more feasible to do so. before the civil war, before ft.

sumter, most slaves had to go through thousands of miles of slave territory to reach freedom. to reach protection. now you go t10 miles, 30 miles. republicans in congress had been working to dethrone slavery. first confiscation act, second confiscation act were crucial. union soldiers were killing traders. in other words, military victors. and fact they're protecting blacks. abolitionists, the war with ft. sumter. the abolitionists reunite in one major voice. the garisonians, if you remember, had been essentially pacifistses disunionists. believed violence was wrong. right after, they totally endorse the union efforts. again, the abolitionists are speaking as a united front. and douglass and most other

opponents of slavery also saw emancipation as part of this great providential way of progress. sorry for going over with you. next week. how do you approach book interviewss differently than nes reporter interviews? >> book interviews as gathering history. think of interviewing when i'm working for the news side as gathering contemporary information. >> how difficult is to remain impartial in reporting and not get caught up in the hype of one campaign or another? >> i'm going to try to as best as i can give people as full an understanding of what is happening in this campaign. it not that difficult to put your biases to the side. has social media changed your line of wor i terms of

reporting andgours information? >> twitte in particul noa primary news sour for ybody whocovers politics and pays attention to tics. >> sunday night purdue university students interview the "washington post's" dan balz on newspaper business, covering presidential elections, what's newsworthy and rise of social media. sunday at 8:00 on c-span. you're watching american history tv on c-span3. every weekend, we visit historic sites, museums and college classrooms as leading professors and historians reveal america's past. watch our series on the 150th anniversary of the civil war with debates and interviews about the people and e events that shaped an era. every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern and sunday mornings at 11:00. here on american history tv. on c-span3. this year, c-span's local

content vehicles are traveling the country exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to wichita, kansas. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. >> welcome to old cowtown museum, wichita, kansas. >> we are a living history museum that represents the history of wichita and sedgwick county from 1865 through 1880. a 15-year time span. we have three different distinkt types of economic activity that change and enhance the town. first five years, buffalo hunting, trading with the native americans and also freighting down into oklahoma. the second five years has to do with the cowboys and the cattle coming to wichita. the railroad coming to riwichit

and all of the fallout that comes from that. then thirdly, we have our farmers. farmers and industry. the cattle leave 1876. after that point we're looking to see what we can do to create a business out of agricultural interests and also the growing industry that we've got here. the first place i want to show you have the munger house. it is the only remaining original structure from the 1865 to 1870 time. and it was a very important building in our history in that it is a residence, but it's also the headquarters of the wichita town and land company that came down here to create, shall we say, the city of wichita. what was going on at the time is that we had a small military outpost camp that was stationed here. we had buffalo hunters and small trading post. we have freighting into

oklahoma. we got a lot of economic activity going on, but we'd like to capitalize on it. and so some gentlemen from topeka decide that they would form a company to come down and create a town. and so mr. munger was the most skilled person of that group. he came down here and built this log cabin pretty much by himself. the building served as a hotel as well as a land office. i often tell folks that we start out as basically a 16 building down with anywhere from 40 to 70 residences. so there really weren't that many folks. people coming through, military coming through, freighters going back and forth from oklahoma. there's not really a real stable population of much more than that 50 to 60 people who are here. so, and munger was one of them. that was what he was hoping to do is recruit people to stay and live here and start their businesses and that type of thing. we, of course, are in the midst of the victorian time.

queen victoria over in england is setting the fashion as to how people should live properly. and despite the fact that we are here in the midwest, people have the east and west coast that victorian is the way you should be, and the way that y should act. and so as ironic as it may seem, a lot of the fashions the ladies in our 1870s time period were actually based on what you would have seen back in philadelphia. we've got a number of photographs of some of our early settlers in their victorian finest, their frock coats, and the ladies with their polonaise dresses and if you cut out the tall prairie grasses and put them in philadelphia, they would be just in fashion. that was keeping up in what the style was. what we are in right now is our exhibit of the wichita eagle newspaper. the "wichita eagle" was created and run by one of our town

founders, marshal murdoch. now, he wasn't exactly here whenever the town began, but mr. murdoch was essential in the development and expansion of our town. he was the creator of the "wichita city eagle." and newspapers of that time, especially his newspaper, is not necessarily a news-dispensing newspaper. it's more of a convention in visitors bureau type paper. whenever he was done with his newspaper run for his subscribers, he would make quite a few extra copies, and what he would do is, he would send them to places in philadelphia and new york and all over the united states, so people in their reading rooms where other folks were reading newspapers from other parts of the country could read all about wichita and see what kind of a grand and glorious place it would be. mr. murdoch was a very interesting character. he was a gentleman who was recruited by the city fathers because of his newspaper

ability. in our time, we would have called it booster newspapers, so he's basically promoting the town. he is a very, very, very well-known throughout the midwest and also throughout the country for his style of journalism. and also for his promotion and no holds barred, no hesitation about promoting the virtues of the town. he wants to sell this town as hard as he can, because whenever you get enough people in the town, the town is, of course, sure to survive. at least that's what their goal was. now, mr. murdoch was not the kind of person that would tell you any lies, but he also would kind of maybe leave a little bit out, shall we say. rather than saying that sometime in the middle of the spring your streets can become open sewers, he might say, well, we have a very nice, strong south wind that keeps the air fresh and clean. so he does lie? not necessarily. but he certainly paints wichita in a good light. so -- what we are attempting to

create is an economic engine that will basically keep our town together. we have lots of ambitious people who have come from all corners of the united states to live their lives, and they would like, of course, to invest in something that's going to prosper. one of the things that they looked at was the cattle trade was a vehicle to get them established, get the economic engine going. most folks realized that the cattle trade was going to be a short-term type of a situation. and it does only last for four years here in wichita. wichita acquiring the cattle trade presented it with a certain amount of problems. on one hand, you have the people who are attempting to create a midwest victorian town that replicates that on the east coast. but at the same time, you've got to have that economic engine that runs. now, you've got to remember that cowboys are basically high schoolers on spring break. and boys staying at home for the first time in their lives, and

they're out looking for fun and excitement. unfortunately, they have spent the last three months staring at cattle seven days a week and by the time they get to wichita, they want to cut loose. so they're looking for drinking, dancing, gambling and, of course, the ladies of the evening to spend their time with. wichita is divided by the arkansas river and on the western side was a small undeveloped region called delano. now, that region was monitored by the county, but not terribly well-enforced. so because of that, a lot of the drinking, dancing, gambling houses occurred over in that part of the city. and, of course, the folks here on the east side kind of felt like, well, none of that is going on here, so we can preserve our families, and you can have is your business over there, and support the cowboys. and everything will get along fine. by 1876, the farmers and the cowboys are not getting along. the farmers are upset at the preferential treatment, the high

prices being charged. different things that are going on. and so they went to topeka. they had the quarantine line move to the western edge of sedgwick county. and what that was, was a line north and south that said no texas cattle could be on the eastern side, and they had to all move toward dodge city. now, whenever they are gone, there is quite a vacuum, but by then we've got enough economic activity going on with farming industries as well as businesses such as grain elevators and flour mills and biscuit factories and things like that that really propel us into the future. the folks who came out here were entrepreneurs. and people who are willing to take great risk to get the cattle here. we, number one, became the county seat by, shall we say, running roughshod over some of our neighbors. we floated our own bonds so we could create our own railroad, because the santa fe was heading west, and they by passed us. so we had to create our own railroad to meet up with them.

once that happened, then we embraced the cattle trade that was coming through. so there's a lot of men who were basically putting their whole fortunes on the line, creating a future. a lot of that activity still happens here in wichita. if you look at all the flight industrieses that have happened, we were known as the air capital, and a lot of those industries became, because gentlemen had ideas of things to try. we also are the home of the first pizza hut, again, frank carney, someone taking a risk and starting something. and so that entrepreneurial spirit really has been the reason why wichita began and what keeps it going. >> we welcome you to the missouri governor's mansion! >> the first governor was begretss brown, and here we have a photograph of he, his wife and his child. what is interesting is the fact that his grand daughter,

margaret weise brown wrote the book "goodnight moon" which is a favorite of school children not only here in missouri but all over the united states. >> july 7th and 8th, book tv and american history tv explore the heritage and literary culture of missouri's state capital, jefferson city. with c-span's local content vehicles and american history tv inside the governor's mansion. >> there was a governor steward, a bachelor governor that the story says he rode his horse up the steps of the mansion, into the dining room and proceeded to feed his horse oats out of the plate warmer as part of the side board. now, the comment was that he probably should not be feeding his horse in the governor's mansion, and his comment to them was, i have had to feed more people in this home with probably less manners than my horse has. >> watch for book tv and american history tv in jefferson city, missouri july 7th and 8th on c-span 2 and 3.

how do you approach book interviews differently than news reporting interviews? >> i think of the book interviews as gathering history. i think of interviewing when i'm working for the news side as gathering contemporary information. >> how difficult is it to remain impaushl in your reporting and not get caught up in the hype of one campaign or another? >> i'm going to try to as best as i can give people as full an understanding of what is happening in this campaign. it's not that difficult to put your biases to the side. >> how has social media changed your line of work in terms of reporting and getting your news information? >> twitter in particular is now a primary news source for anybody who covers politics and anybody who pays attention to politics. twitter didn't exist four years ago, for all practical purposes. >> sunday night, purdue university students interview

dan balz on the newspaper business covering presidential elections, what's news worthy and the rise of social media, sunday at 8:00 on c-span. this weekend on "afterwards," fast and furious is detailed. >> this is something swept under the rug and not only kept from the american people but the mexican people as well. there are hundreds of faceletses, innocent mexican citizens who have been murdered as a result of this. but the only thing that we knew outside of the government program was that guns from american gun dealers were going into mexico and causing all these problems with the cartel when really, the government was sanctioning these sales and sending them into mexico. >> she's interviewed by national journal white house correspondent major garrett. sunday night at 9:00, part of book tv, this weekend on c-span 2. this week on "the civil war," the final session from a conference organized by the