lincoln's beliefs. >> our panel today is what would lincoln do, how lincoln gets used and abused in today's washington. to do that, we put together a group that is extremely expert in both history and policy. i'll will briefly introduce them and i'll describe how the panel came together and we'll get to it. to my right is james swanson. he's been a senior scholar at the heritage foundation. next is craig simons. he is a professor of history from the u.s. naval academy,

author of a book called "lincoln and his admirals." to his right is richard norton smith, who might be the dean to have presidential historians. he's headed several presidential libraries. he's here today to represent a kind of overarching perspective. michael lynd, he's going to give us that special mix of history and policy expertise that we're looking for. what we wanted to do in this panel is try to -- a semester course. several of the questions from this course called

"understanding lincoln." i'll begin with a couple of questions from our k-12 educators. before i ask the first question, though, let me say a few words of thanks. first of all, lance warren is the producer of the course. he's done a marvelous job of putting it together. at the new america foundation, becky schafer has been very helpful. at dicken son college, we have a student interning who has been working hard to promote in on social media. thanks to all of them. of course, thanks to the first

congregational united church christ for letting us use this venue. i thoug he said, bill moyers refcalled shut down secession by any other means. he wants to know how the panel feels about how comparison or how the panel thinks lincoln might have felt about that comparison? it's become a common occurrence

in this debate. >> as the head of the republican party, lincoln would have been in a position to prevent a shutdown. i'm not sure today's republican party would be so willing to follow his advice. the parallel with secession seems, to me, a bit extreme. to me, it is more like nullification. it is an act that abrigates the contract. secession would have profoundly altered the nation of the union,

but it would not have necessarily ended the union. by the way, it's revealing that lincoln had a portrait of jackson, a good democrat, on the walls of his office. >> are you suggesting that lincoln would have asked, what would jackson do? >> i am. >> i want everybody to weigh in on this. craig, would you mind responding to that? would you agree with richard this is a hyperbole? >> i think what's happened in the middle of the 19th century and in our own time as well, is an attempt by individuals who believe our country is frighteningly on the wrong track and using what amounts to a form of blackmail to make that

happen. lincoln confronted that, of course. it didn't begin with secession. i'm -- i anticipated this question would have come up. what he said, and i actually wrote it down because i wanted to say it right, in referring to those southerners who wanted to create this situation. this is lincoln. you will destroy the government unless you construe the constitution as you please. you will rule or ruin. you will destroy the union and then you say the great crime of having destroyed it is on us.

a highway man holds a pistol to my ear and says, stand and deliver or you will be a murder murderer. the government can be compelled to go in a direction outside the channels of established democratic procedures by a fierce minority. i think there are some connections here. >> james, do you see it that way? >> i think what moyer said is the silliest thing i have ever heard. it's just politics. maybe it's a particularly extreme form of politics at the moment. we've had many shutdowns before. we've had many disagreements in the past. one problem with american politics is we don't learn the

lessons from the jackson and lincoln era, those lessons are politics are rough, tough, they're defamatory. we need to have a new civility in politics and compromise for the sake of promise is historical. politicians today are so thin skinned. they're like little school children. you have to have less respect than we do for the 19th century guys because they could take it. that's how american politics is. that's how lincoln was. once lincoln thought he was right, as in fighting the civil war, he said let it be started by war, then it will be tried by war. the results of free elections for the presidency must be

respected. lincoln was rigorous and ruthless. they sent 750,000 men to die. i think lincoln might have chuckled we're so hot and bothered about this current, temporary, crisis. >> that's a hard act to follow, but do you want to comment on that comparison? do you want to comment on what james just said? >> strictly speaking, nothing but another civil war is equivalent to the original civil war. >> right. >> but i think the discussion of nullification of earlier suggests this is one of a series of maneuvers by which white southerns have tried to compensate for the fact since

the 1830s, they've been a minority in the electorate. we have the conservative coalition in the 1950s. we have the solid south within the democratic party. the party of lincoln has now been captured by its base, largely of which is democrats. half of the members of the tea party are from the south. it's disproportionately from the south. this is the latest incarnation of a particular brand of southern conservativism that's existed throughout our history. >> would you call it populist? >> i would call it conservative.

those-- if you look at the tea parties makeup, the tea party is driving this crisis, they're more likely to be college educated and wealthier than the average american. it's a southern and western elite which is using the instruments within its power to if not get their way, to prevent losing as long as possible. >> let me turn to the attention to the president for a minute and his response to this challenge, however grave it may or may not be. a leading historian of the united states based out of princeton university, he's been arguing the president has been underreacting to this crisis.

he actually compares obama to james buchanan and says his response in this crisis is more reminiscent of buchanan than lincoln. i wanted to see how you responded to his argument. does anybody want to volunteer to take that? >> one of the characteristicis s that made lincoln a great leader is patience. one of the things that gave lincoln leverage in dealing with his political foes and allies is

he could wait and see how things were tilting and moving before he left. that's not really a bad thing to be patient. it's hard to do. we are not a patient society by instinct. it was easier to do perhaps in the 1860s than it is in the 21st century, but that's not to say patience was what characterized buchanan. buchanan was inaction. that's a slightly different thing than waiting to see how things work out. i dispute the connection he is making. i think there's a certain strength to patience and leadership. >> also, you know, i've said many times if lincoln is the president against whom all others are measured, as i think he is, no small -- one element

of that is his political genius. there's no one that's been more skilled in that. the remarkable thing is that he didn't have public opinion polls. he didn't have all the devices that we take for granted, that we're inundated with. and he had instinct. he had what he called his public opinion baths where literally the general public would come in -- most of them wanted something, usually a job -- and the people around him said he was wasting his time and indeed endangering his health. lincoln had been a disappointing job seeker himself. after his one term in congress, he had done what lots of one term congress people do.

this case was a commissioner with the land office. didn't get it. he had -- that's the other thing. this whole question of what would lincoln do it seems to me is almost impossible to answer, but you can begin by saying, what did lincoln do? what does it tell us about his character, his skill set, his capacity for growth, to learn from mistakes? in other words, what about lincoln makes him so influential to modern presidents? why is he the patron saint of m embattled presidents. >> buchanan said secession was

unconstitutional, but he didn't have the power to coerce the southerners back into the union. >> the 14th amendment is what he wants to use to nullify the debt ceiling. that's an intriguing and innovative thought. >> but not lincolnian? >> in today's world where reactions are instantaneous, the uncertainty explains why the president has shied away from it. to me, that's not buchanan. that's exercising judgment. >> michael and then james. >> president lincoln was a lawyer and a student of constitutional law. he had a very broad construction of the powers of presidency,

which permitted him to create the emancipation proclamation. president obama is a lawyer and a student of constitutional law. the repayments of debts clause in the 14th amendment as generalized to u.s. debts in general does not give the president authority to prevent congress from defaulting on national debt. you could make a constitutional argument possibly that the debt ceiling as a statute impinges on the constitutional authority of the congress, but it's very difficult to infer a power of the executive branch to do this. the constitution does not prevent the government from doing stupid things.

>> james, did you want to follow? >> richard, i like your point. one thing about lincoln that we can distinguish him from the president today is lincoln believed above all in mental clarity, verbal clarity, speaking exactly what he meant. today our leaders write almost none of them. the fundamental link between mind, hand, and deed has been broken forever. it's been corrupted. what's the core of this? lincoln believed in simplicity. this special interest of slavery was the core cause of the war. lincoln might say today that somehow the current crisis could be attributed to the dispute of the affordable care act.

what would lincoln say about a law that an administration defined as vital and then there's dozens of exceptions to the law and then said, let's delay part of it for a year. vastly important social legislation is passed by consensus. the civil rights laws without the republicans they wouldn't have passed them. lincoln was a master of doing that sort of thing. so lincoln might say, i question the wisdom of attempting to pass a piece of legislation with only the support of half the country. he might say this lack of clarity and precision is the very cause of the trouble that's

happening now. >> and yet he based his entire presidency and the war that followed on 40% of the popular vote, which he interpreted as a mandate -- >> well, that was to preserve the very union itself against armed rebellion. >> since james just brought lincoln out against the affordable care act -- >> no, i didn't. i said lincoln would question the wisdom of trying to pass nationwide social legislation with such a narrow majority support. >> i'll stand corrected. are we all just sort of invoking

historic historical analogies to support what we believe? do you have warnings for people who try to do this? is there anything you can add to the would-be policy maker who wants to draw analogys. >> there's a fine line. the historian is not only free to use his imagination, but it seems to me if it cares about literary quality, he's bound to employ his imagination to allow his reader to revisit an era that is otherwise impossible of access. that said, he's also bound by

fact and to project -- imagine 150 years from now people were to ask the question, what would barack obama do? what would john boehner do? what would his senate counterparts do? when they manifest, we don't know from day-to-day what they're going to do. it's asking an awful lot of posterity. >> i would think lincoln would say, don't copy me. don't try to be like me. think like me. lincoln loved henry clay. lincoln wouldn't say, whatever henry clay would have done, i'll try to do. lincoln would say identify my core principals. liberty for all, absolutely equal rights for all under the law.

those were among his core principals and so lincoln would say use my methods of analysis and sober thought. more than any other american politician, he disenthralled himself from anger. he could rise above it all. he doesn't do things maliciously. he be like him that way. use his methods and adhere to his core principals. one of his core principals, that he believed in internal improvements, lincoln believed in sober spending. i think lincoln would be appalled at the democrats today and the republicans today at how much money the government spends. >> i think it's fair to say he never uttered the word

trillions. michael, can you take this question? >> lincoln as a wartime president presided over massive spending. mary todd lincoln said he planned to visit europe and he wanted to take alaska, where former union soldiers would be digging up gold to pay the national debt. it depends on how remote the figure is. the controversies we're seeing now, the constitutional question of whether you have a broad or narrow interpretation of the constitution, states rights,

nullification of laws, they are living controversies now and they were living controversies before the civil war. while i think the civil war is not a good anology -- simply to erase the fact that lincoln was a hamiltonian, guided by the nationalists and to reduce him only to freedom is to engage in what henry lewis gates calls the santa clausfication of martin

luther king. some of these issues are dead issues the way temperance was a issue during lincoln's time and it's not in ours. this is part of a controversial that existed in his day and continues in ours. >> you're talking about the abuse of making reference to these historical legacy. the democratic party celebrates jefferson jackson day. jackson wanted to defend the union during the nullification crisis but largely he felt it was a personal affront to his authority and was the one in charge of the great trail of

tears. yet, there they are. the republican party holds the lincoln day dinner. lincoln and his views would not be compatible of what the modern republican party advocates. >> in his famous essay, david donald pointed out the communists had lincoln dinners. >> let me ask a follow-up question for one of the course participants and then we can start to set up the microphone for some audience questions. this is from a teacher. it's called swanson middle school. i don't think it's named after you. >> it's my charter school.

>> in what area of politics is lincoln's legacy most erroneously invoked? what is the most agreejous abuse of his legacy in the modern era? >> we don't understand how the use the war powers. lincoln is used by some to attack our policies on the war in iraq. lincoln would have never done these things. how about 14,000 people arrested without proper warrant during the civil war? how about a couple of newspapers being shut down? how about suspension of the writ of habeas corpus? lincoln believed the laws were not silent, but they spoke

differently. my ultimate oath is to preserve this union. he didn't do it to become a dictator. he held the elections of 1862. he didn't dream of suspending. he thought he'd lose 1864. he would rather lose than retain power by illegal means. i'm convinced that his example is one that we should follow today when necessary, but it's wrong to think lincoln was this wonderful, innocent, grandfather who was not absolutely ruthless and decisive when necessary to achieve his objectives. so lincoln was a warrior. he was a warrior president who exercised his extraordinary powers. >> okay, mike? >> i would agree on the war

powers question from a slightly different angle. from the point view of the union, it was the war of a rebelli rebellion. it was not a war between the states. this was essentially a giant riot. realistically they had to make some concessions. they followed some international law standards governing belligeren belligerents. all presidents beginning with wilson and roosevelt who tried to draw parallels to sue pressing an armed insurrection on u.s. soil, which is largely a law enforcement police measure, just go wrong. it's fundamentally different from waging war against other nation states or empires or alliances. and it also tends to equate the

two sides with pure good and pure evil in a way that, i think, leads to a misunderstanding of lincoln's vision of the reunification of the u.s. under the rule of law. >> you're right about that, but lincoln recognized these were our countrymen. i think if it was a foreign power, lincoln would have been much more ruthless. >> he was opposed to the mexican war. he was more cautious about foreign interventions. >> he commissioned francis lieber to draft a code of combat, which became the basis of the geneva conventions.

the bush administration was saying several aspects of the conventions didn't apply to foreign nationals. >> there's several things about the civil war that make it interesting to a latter day audience. one of them is it sits on a pivot point where weapons, mines which are anonymous and kill people randomly, one of the reasons this lieber code necessary was not only lincoln struggling what it was to be commander-in-chief, but also how to deal with the technology of war? the entire explanation of what the commander-and-chief of the

army and the navy. lincoln was willing to use those powers vigorously to fight the war. i believe that falls within my power during a time of war. that's an elastic constitution that we're observing there. >> it does raise a different question that rick has asked. he's a participant from sandy, utah. he wants to know if lincoln has set a bad example by his use of war powers. the fact that lincoln acted independently without congressional approval, it appears to have justified many independent actions since then.

do we really want modern presidencies do utilize this president to simply act and ask for forgiveness later? go ahead, richard. >> before you begin, if you have a question, i think what we need you to do is line up behind the microphone and then we'll start to turn to some audience questions. >> this is another way in which posterity warps what went before. it seems to me profoundly unfair to blame lincoln for the use or abuse that later presidents have made. exploiting his unique status. there's no doubt that lincoln redefined the war presidency. there are those out there, maybe

here, who, for example, flocked to the madison standard as a constitutional president. -- went to jail for criticizing the president. it was a war fought in effect within constitutional restraints and with a lack of imagination. they burned the city to the ground. if you want to follow the madison approach, that's fine. lincoln won an extraordinary struggle that was not only military. it was a struggle to redefine the meaning of the united states and above all the meaning of the word freedom. freedom encourages the very kind of debate questioning not only

by scholars, but by pundits and others, who believe had their been a war powers act in 1861, constitution would have been in better hands. >> let's turn to an audience question. >> my name is chris nelson. i do a daily newsletter trying to explain our country to asian clients, primarily. about a month ago i wrote a piece saying, you know, this fight that we've got goes back to the founding of the republic. you really saw it during the jackson presidency and you saw it especially in 1860. i didn't talk about secession. i talked about nullification and can you allow a minority to stop

democracy from working? i think that's the key thing that we still haven't quite bridged yet. if you look at lincoln's speeches, he's talking about what it takes to have a democracy survive. at what point does compromise kick in or can a minority say, no, we're not going to play. lucy and the football. that struck me then and it strikes me now that's the real crisis that we're all facing. we have a solid small minority that seems to reenforce its beliefs but not listening to anybody else's. >> can you put it in question -- >> if the tea party minority is able to stop the government from

working, isn't that the strongest parallel? >> lincoln lines are encouraged. >> it's one of my favorites. >> they have to be real quotes. >> this is real. lincoln told this story. this is quoting lincoln now. it said an eastern monarch once charged as wise men to invent him a sentence and which should be true and appropriate at all times and they presented him with the words, this too shall pass. democracy is not being destroyed. we've had disputes like this for over 250 years on the con ttine.

this too shall pass away. we're not having the crisis that some say we're having. i'm convinced of it. >> i know some people might disagree or might want to follow up, but let me put that point james just made in a different light. how do you think lincoln would react to the reports that people at tea parties have been waved confederate flags? or that there are -- i know this seems different, but how would he react that there's u.s. army bases named after confederate generals? would he be afraid that he perhaps lost the war's legacy over the years? >> who? >> lincoln.

>> why don't you start? >> i think he would have followed james' suggestion here. the story that many people remember of course is when the war ended, lincoln made a point of -- when the bands asked him what to play, he said dixie. i think it was his effort to say this is part of the legacy and heritage of that. i do not think that he would have gotten excited and wanted to change the name of ft. hood. in general, i don't think he would have been excited about it. >> i think you're right, craig. we shouldn't be banning symbols. interesting twist on the confederate flag. it did become a different kind

of symbol starting in the 1950s when southern states adopted the confederate flag into the state flag. this was done in the 1960s in opposition to the civil rights movement. let's say it represented slavery and oppression for four years. can i please ban another flag? let's ban the american flag. that was the flag of slavery. that was the flag of outrage. one of the secret six put up bail money for jefferson davis to free him. abolitionists said, how dare

you? he was the head of the slavery's empire. he said it's the great northern crime and great southern crime. >> richard? >> lincoln was generous. he won. beyond that, lincoln could also afford to relegate such symbols to history. he thought history moving forward was on his side. and remember he had not done the war personalized -- the war. he's not demonized the enemy.

he never forgot that someday peace would return, hopefully on terms agreeable to him, and overtime, perhaps longer than his lifetime, there would be in some ways infinitely larger task of reenforcing the nation hood. >> let's do our best to keep everything concise and we'll try to get through as many as we can. go ahead. >> i'm enjoying this very much. i had not thought of this question until today prompted by this discussion. since the defining issue was keeping the union together during that time, were there other states' rights issues separate and apart from the

union -- secession and union and federalism that lincoln at that time had to deal with? states rights versus federal is alive and well today. we have states refusing to enforce certain federal immigration laws. were there other states' rights issues that lincoln had to deal with separate apart from slavery at the time? >> good question. >> lincoln had a long career before he became president. he was a fairly conventional member of the whig party, most of whom migrated to the republican party. the whigs were the more nationalistic parties of the day. they believed in a broad

construction of the authority of the federal government. fairly flexible interpretation of federal powers. they believed in federal support for infrastructure, paid for by federal taxes as tariffs on imported goods. they're opponents, even when they favored infrastructure and business, wanted that done by state capitols rather than the federal government. the obama administration supports a national infrastructure bank, which is not supported by the states' rights conservatives. there's always been contentions between the nationalists and the states' rights politicians.

>> the south unintentionally did the nationalists a favor because by leaving congress -- for example, it became possible for the republicans to pass a homestead act, a tra transcontinental railroad. all of which have been blocked by southern votes. >> let's go to the next audience question. >> i work at a civil war antique store in gettysburg, pennsylvania. one of my favorite finds is an 1880s whistle-blower revealing -- can you think of a

similar incident where our opinion of lincoln has changed dramatically? >> phony lincoln quotes. >> i have a great one. at the republican national convention, said the democrats don't understand lincoln. you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. it went on and on and on. this was a fabricated quote made up by a reverend in a 1916 probusiness pamphlet. there's a real problem as my colleagues have discovered. >> you find a lot of them on the internet, by the way.

>> which lincoln did not invent. >> what would lincoln have done with the internet? it's surprising to people how quickly profound interpretations of lincoln's historical significance changed. just within a few years after his death. if you look at the first lincoln memorial in the city, it's the emancipation statue over in lincoln park, which says that lincoln's primary historical significance is the man who end ended slavery. by the time the other lincoln memorial was dedicated, that school of thought was shut down as north and south reluctantly realigned. lincoln's significance,

lincoln's meaning, was transformed in the process. >> a hideous perversion, blacks were forced to sit in segregated areas at the dedication of the lincoln memorial. >> next audience question. >> how do you think president lincoln would try to prevent the debt can from being kicked down the road continually? if it collapses, could lead to marshal law. >> do you think beckett's charge would have been successful if the confederates had automatic

weapons? [ laughter ] the economy of the planet is more sophisticated now. lincoln was adjusting as needed. in addition to his patience, a key element of his leadership was pragpragmatism. what needs doing? he didn't come to the office saying, we need an income tax in this country, but he saw the expense of the war, saw no other way in which that war could be financed, talked with secretary chase about what could be done and they came up with the income tax. in the same way, he would have addressed the problems in a same way. what's the best way? reduce spending and raise taxes. those seem to be the practical way. yes, if pickett had automatic weapons, he would have broken through. i'm speculating there.

>> i can speculate on the two things that i think lincoln would say if he could view them today. one that would outrage him and one that would sadden him. i think he would have been outraged to see how long liberty took to take effect in america after his death. >> he put andrew johnson on the ticket. >> did i say andrew? i meant to say lyndon johnson. lincoln would have looked around the world and he would be very sad to see slavery exists and how women are treated around the world. hundreds of thousands of people are enslaved every year. lincoln would think, i did it for this? the world hasn't been emancipated. he would be very disappointed to see how people are treated in other parts of the world.

the go lincoln would have been stunned to see the size of the federal behemoth. today, the president of the united states has 3,000 personal employees. a congressman might have one assistant. today an army of 25,000 serves the members of the congress and the senate. the agencies, the millions of federal employees. no one in the 19th century could have imagined what it would mean today or what it would evolve into today. >> he would have seen all modern democracies have extensive welfare states. lincoln being someone who was in favor of progress of

institutions and technology would not have wanted to replace the modern europe, north america, and japan with an old standard. >> how about a private sector world today? i am certain that the framers would have been disgusted and appalled at the size of the federal behemoth today. >> the main size the transfer payments for the elderly and social security. the social insurance sector in every modern industrial society -- when farmers were replaced by urban wage earners, it happened no matter where, the founders had no problem with social insurance. one of the first programs were the merchant hospitals, the

marine hospitals. the federal government taxed people who are not rooted on a farm. ro the first congress of the united states, they created the first federal safety net system. all sailors were obliged to pay a tax. granted, at that point, nine out of ten people were farmers and they didn't need it. if 80% of people are wage ea earners in the civil sector, they're closer to workers creating federal hospitals. >> they'll give you all that entitlement stop. >> we'll have to l-- let's do o

more question. >> my question kind of ties in with what you've been talking about a little bit.

advances of an english lord in . he was a supporter of national support for scientific inquiry and investigation. is that responsive to your question? i hope? >> lincoln loves science and technology. >> he was a gadget man from the beginning. >> his lectures on discoveries and inventions, he loved testing new wepz and playing with them. he was a big support in the idea of advancement in science and the arts. >> right. the only president ever to hold a patent, by the way. >> so i've been told, you know, you have to close every good panel with a question from an elementary schoolteacher so i have one here from jim my beck who teaches at three rivers union school, three rivers, california. it's a broad one but i think it's important. she wants to know, what should every second grader know about abraham lincoln. if you're going to reduce this down, not to policy makers but to kids, what would you tell second graders about lincoln?

richard? >> that it is possible in this life, in this country, in this democratic system, with all its flaws, for anyone to overcome the limitations of their birth and that social mobility, however defined, exists here more than anywhere else. >> now, you don't have to feel like you need to top it, but do other people here want to add to that? >> richard is exactly right. that's a great lincoln example. i think lincoln would say this -- young lawyers often write to him, what do i do to become a zi? city? do i move to the big city? he said, work where you are now.

get the books and work hard. lincoln would kind of scoff at this idea of the digital divide or you need your laptops, your ipads. lincoln did it with a book of kirkham's grammar, the bible, the constitution and declaration. lincoln would say to young kids, work harder than you could dream of working. don't rely on others to educate you. go to school, of course, do the work. educate yourself. read relentlessly. strive. achieve. don't expect others to do it for you. lincoln was a graduate of the first grade, and look what he made of himself through his readings and his clear thought. he would say, work as hard as you can, kids, and don't expect to get it through the computers or through passive stuff. work and read and think. that's what he would say. >> craig? >> i want to tell just a short story, if i may. one of the prizes i won a couple of years ago for a book i did on lincoln, they presented me with a life mask of lincoln, a full life mask, which if you don't

know is created from wax placed on the subject's face and then a mold made. i thought, this is so beautiful. i really want to share this. and i mentioned it to an elementary schoolteacher of my akwainlts. i ended up going to two or three different elementary schools to show this off and talk just a little bit about lincoln. and i said some of the things that richard and james have just mentioned, the importance -- he saved democracy in a way, unified the country. it struck at slavery, all the great accomplishments he made. but i wanted to tell a little bit about his life as well growing up poor, and i said one of the things that happened when he was quite young -- and they say you can feel it on this life mask -- is when he was 10 years old he was kicked in the head by a mule, and if you feel right here on the side of the eye

socket bone, you can feel where that was. then i went on to talk about lincoln as a great president and so on. well, of course, the teacher made everybody write dr. symonds in the big block print thanking him for coming. tell him what you learned. every single one said, i learned that abraham was kicked in the head by a mule. so that's the legacy. >> michael will? >> when i was in the second grade i was taught that lincoln when he was operating a store marched five or maybe it was ten miles through the snow to return a nickel to someone, which at the time i thought was extraordinarily foolish because surely the snow would melt and the customer would come back. i never was able to track this down. maybe it happened. my advice to second grade teachers is, don't teach that story. >> i want to thank the panelists. they really are an all-star crew. i want to thank everyone for coming. i want to say, if you're

interested in this topic or if what we're doing in the course is interesting to you, the participateants in the course, the ones i've been reading questions from, they've created a new web site called lincolns writings, which is a multimedia edition of 150 of lincoln's most teachable documents. it's got a whole variety of multimedia tools that the teachers have built that's available free on the internet. we're going to have clips from this panel as well. we're looking forward to doing that for classrooms across the country. and i bet that will kill this story about lincoln walking ten miles through the snow. so thank you all for coming and thanks to the panelists. [ applause ] american history tv will be in pennsylvania this coming tuesday in gettysburg to cover the kmemtive ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. speakers include jakz mes mcphearson and sally jewel, you can watch the show on thanks

giving day at 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. history on c-span3 on american history tv. >> there are some serious scholars in women's studies. most departments include the fair share of nonideological academics who offer straight forward courses, sometimes wonderful courses in women's psychology, women's history, women in literature. but i had logically fervent statistically challenged hard-liners set the tone in most women's studies department. all that i've ever seen. and if there's a department that defies this stereotype, let me know. i would love to visit them. and by the way, conservative women, moderate women, libertarian women, traditionally religious women, left out. >> her critiques of late 20th century feminism have led krit toikz label her as abt anti-feminist. sunday, december 1st, your questions for kristina hoff

sommers live for three hours. and looking ahead to the new year, join radio talk show host mark levin january 5th. the first sunday of every month on c-span2. >> think of the information that fab has on over a billion people. they know your political preference, sexual preference, who your friends are, what you like, what your dog's name, is all these sorts of things. in fact, one security analyst said if the government had asked you directly for that sort of information, it would have taken money, it would have taken lawyers and might have even taken guns to get you to cough up the information. we routinely do so on social networks. we also don't think the fact that or google searches are tracked. and so i also write mystery books. so my google searches, if the fbi chose to look at them, would be very incriminating. i'm looking at, you know,

different rape rape drudate rapy mysteries. so people think they're engaged in secret activity not knowing as if there was another eyeball on the other end keeping track of the things that you do. >> i know who you are and i saw what you did author lary andrews monday on "the communicateors" on c-span2. this is c-span3 politics with policy affairs programming throughout the week. people are telling the american history story on tv. can you join in the conversation on social media sites. >> tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. eastern, c-span continues season two of the new series first ladies. this week highlightinging the life of lady bird johnson. it's the first of its kind

project for television. and now from our 1999 american president's life portrait series, we feature president lyndon johnson. this program is about 3 1/2 hours. >> we have suffered a loss that cannot be waived. for me, it is a deep, personal tragedy. i know that the royal shares, the sorrow that mrs. kennedy and her family bear. i will do my best that, is all i can do. i ask for your help.