assassinated a few years ago february 21st 1965. he said down for an interview in 1963 at the university of california vertically. -- berkeley. it will show that at 7:00. next section one of the 14th amendment is known for granting citizenship to former slaves. another clause and that amendment attempted to bar from public office anyone who'd aided the republic confederate cause. what level of participation by former confederates would cause section 3 to apply. this talk is one hour 10 minutes.

>> we are pleased to introduce taja-nia henderson, a writer in the wartime study. she is an associate professor. she teaches courses on procedure, property and punishment, and american law and history. publications include work on the viability of the 13th amendment for civil rights legislation, and the slaveholding american south, and remedying discrimination against persons accused of crimes. a graduate of dartmouth college and new york university, her current research centers on the use of disqualifications from public office holding as punishment for former confederates and their support during the american civil war. please welcome taja-nia henderson. [applause]

>> thank you very much. thank you to jay barksdale and the new york public library for providing a space for a writer and researcher to use the library selections and also to have a quiet, serious place of contemplation. tthank you for attending. i know the weather is not the best. i appreciate you being here. i have been for two years now knee-deep in congressional petitions. when i say knee-deep, i mean literally. there are three foot stacks of documents lined around the walls in my office. as a result, i am looking forward to some mental conversations. it is a pleasure to be here. i look forward to your questions

and hope we can have a robust exchange today. in 1869, in alabama, a challenge of earlier state supreme court rulings on the grounds that the judges who had issued the earlier ruling had no lawful authority to serve on the bench. according to the plaintiffs, since the judges had no lawful authority they could not bind the litigants to their rulings. the 14th amendment specifically sections three require the justices to either abdicate the bench entirely or obtain relief from congress from constitutionally imposed civil disabilities associated with their participation in or support of the confederate states of america. having done neither, the rulings

word novel and void. they rejected the plaintiff argument out of hand, concluding that so long as the judges were permitted to hold their offices and to discharge the duties of a judge, their judgments were valid. the question lurking in the court holding here was arguably a broad one, that is did the 14th amendment say what it appeared to? what were the social, legal, and political effects of those words? my research concerns these questions. during my remark i would like to offer my spot -- thoughts on two arguments.

the first is, in the six years that the prospect of disqualification from public office for supporters of the former confederate states was part of the american political imagination, the people and not the congress, and not the court responded to the repercussions of war and regime change by improvising a set of standards rules, and other principles to govern implementation of the amendment. those efforts a popular constitutionalism, are on display among other ways in the personal petitions seeking relief from section three disabilities that flooded congress in the wake of its ratification. the second argument is that in their presentation for release disqualified southerners cast their rebellion, in other words their treason as patriotism.

in doing so they narrated a southern nationalism, one that conceded that are it -- federal service while arguing that such service or support was an expression of the allegiance to the loftiest ideals. the restrictions imposed by the 14th amendment constituted an infringement of the political and civil rights of white men. its reach was not limited to those residing in the south. petitions for release came from california to the state of new york and everywhere in between. the crisis that emerged in the wake of the amendment ratification was a national crisis, and american crisis. not merely a regional one, attracting attention commentary, and often rebuke from all corners of the nation.

much of this rebuke not surprisingly stemmed in large part from southern democratic supporters from the proposal of the introduction of june 1866, the republicans understood section three to be a necessary compromise in the quest to deal fairly and justly with those who had waged war against the nation. after having taken a note to protect it especially. democrats understood section three as a bar to citizenship and full political participation , including both public office holding and the right to vote. especially disconcerting for southern democrats is that the impact of the amendment seem to rest squarely on the shoulders of white men. assad is a naked ploy to install

an entrenched republican controlled governments in each of the former confederate states , and they were completed that the radical republicans intended to trade the vote of white men for the votes of the formerly enslaved. with all of this, southern democrats deprived both the illegitimate the end the unlawfulness of the 14th amendment as well as other of congress congressional pronouncements dating from the era. contemporaneous accounts of southern newspapers confirmed this perception. editorials lamented the radical republicans legislative policies would not stand for an hour if the supreme court dared assert its prerogative. as it turned out the newspaper was precedent in respect to this

, the supreme court would never assert its prerogative. the decade between the emergence of radical reconstruction and the triumph of redemption and white supremacist rule under president pays -- president hayes was marked by legislation designed to protect the civil and political rights of formerly enslaved persons in the south. the 13th amendment ratified in late 1865, barred slavery and involuntary servitude from our shores. the amendment was quickly followed by the civil rights act of 1866 which declared in no uncertain terms that people born in the united states and not subject to any foreign power for citizens. without respect to their race, their color, or any previous condition of slavery or servitude.

the civil rights act of 1866 also proclaimed any citizen had the same rights of white citizens to make an enforced contract, to sue and be sued, to give evidence in court and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, and told real and personal property. additionally the civil rights act of 1866 guaranteed to all citizens the full in the benefit under the laws and proceedings for security of person and property. and like punishment and pain. those denied these rights were deemed guilty of a federal crime.

sorry. i'm having technical difficulties. the friedmans euro bill were similarly brought. and they provided for the distribution of confiscated or abandon confederate land to former slaves, as well as the creation of a regionwide system of public schools. the bills provided that the rights enumerated therein include the right to hold property and give evidence, and the right to bear arms could be enforced in specially constituted military tribunals which were believed at the time to be preferable to local civil court which were determined to

have been hostile to enforcing the rights of the formerly enslaved with wrist act to these matters. congress faced testimony of friedman being divested of their hunting rifles and of people being ousted from their land. each of these measures was met with cap dating for rum -- each of these measures was met with cascading -- they granted citizen rights to millions of former slaves and forbade the state from infringing those rights. section three of the amendment simultaneously imposed unprecedented limitation on the citizen ship of white southerners. the work of interpreting and challenging the amendment began

with the amendment text. usually as a law professor we are accustomed to -- i think it is the first page in the set of slides you have with you. section three of the amendment purported to disqualify any person who prior to the war had held an office of public trust and had taken a nose to hold the constitution. for those persons who have me either participated in the rebellion or given aid or support to rebellion, the amendment acted to automatically disqualify them from public office holding. there was to be no room for discretion.

once disqualified, and affected person could secret free via a single avenue of relief. the last line of the section provided that disqualification could be removed by a two thirds vote of each house of congress. since congressional action can only be effected through legislation the section appeared to mandate the enactment of private bills of relief along the same lines of our earliest claims for military or money claims against the guide their meant government. thousands and thousands petitioned congress in what could be called a clarion call to expand and secure white civil rights. these petitions submitted to the

adjudicated three separate congressional committees formed the basis for hundreds of bills of relief, covering thousands of former confederates. section three outpaced section one and section two as a source of public consternation. this probably should not surprise us given that by operation of the provision, an entire generation of southern political leadership was barred from reconstituting itself leaving its leadership gap in the southern politics. i mentioned to you before that as predicted by the augustine telegraph, the supreme court never spoke about the validity of section three. we have nothe absence of meaningful

oversight fostered a constitutional vacuum that the people, civil and military as well as regular citizens filled with their own understandings and misunderstandings about how these innovations ought to function. the improvisation of standards rules, and principles to govern the implementation of the mandate in section three fell to the people. in theory, implementation should have been a straightforward process involving a direct petition to congress for a congressional representative, or a congressional committee followed by where appropriate congressional fact-finding during reconstruction. congress is engaged in several

fact-finding missions. they are investigating racial atrocities elections, and impropriety. they are investigating what is happening with the friedmans bureau, and the rise of the ku klux klan. congress is engaged and active in fact-finding. one would think once a petition comes in that congress could engage in that fine -- fact-finding. most requests for relief were prescreened before they ever reached congress. before they ever ripened into a real petition. this prescreening process involved the local republican committee function air convincing those officials that the applicant for relief was in fact presently loyal and ready to uphold and defend reconstruction and the other laws of the federal government.

as observed in other contexts like the folks who their rise about constitutionalism, they had a pivotal role in the limitation of the can's too short order flowing from the proposal of the amendment in 1866 through the passage of the amnesty act which was undue all of their work in 1872. once prescreened, these petitions for relief were then sent to a seated member of congress who was tended to the petition a note regarding their recommendation. for example one february 11 1870 tom is james robertson presented the petition of 46 separate people seeking removal of section three political disabilities.

the petitions were referred to the reviewing committees and in all but a few of the thousands of petitions we have reviewed, the sponsoring member recommended relief being granted. in jurisdictions where congressional delegations are barred from defeats where they were barge, the petitions were prescreened by local party officials and provisional governors who then appended a gubernatorial recommendation to the petition. i have included an example of one of these petitions which we will talk about that include an endorsement from provisional governor from georgia, the important gubernatorial recommendations cannot be overstated here. once in committee, the petitions were reviewed together with any supporting documentation

associated with the petitioner. on rare occasions the document included opposition, or were monstrous cysts. -- remonstrsists. ballot box impropriety also racially motivated atrocity. for at least our purposes, judicial pronouncements on the effectiveness or validity or mandate of section three were inconsistent lethargic, or nonexistent. to date, i have it in a fight only a handful of cases in either state or federal court where they are considering whether section three is a valid exercise of congressional lordy. in 1869 the north carolina supreme court considered whether section three acted to

disqualify from public office all those who had previously taken an old and supported the confederacy whether the mandate only cover those holding legislative or judicial offices. this was a distinction. the thinking was if the mandate did not cover executive office is in the mandate does not cover law enforcement. if means sheriffs, constables, local mayors for example. here'sthese are members of the executive branch. in this particular dispute a sheriff contended the provision did not preempt the state's own statute qualifying him to continue to serve as the chair. worthy support for the confederacy had been undisputed, he had served as a share before the war, during the war, and after the war. in his official capacity of

sheriff he the organized donation drives in support of confederate troops. he had also won an election. after winning his election and believing the state law entitled him to his seat, the writ of mandamus was designed to force the county commissioner to install him in the seat of sheriffs. the county commissioners disputed his eligibility because of the operation of section three. after a lower court issued the desired risk and more stood prepared to take his position the north carolina supreme court held that -- the appellant in this case presented no challenge to the validity of the amendment and therefore the court had no

jurisdiction to consider whether his writ had been properly issued. the second case involved a similar question to the one related to the alabama trust this dude i mentioned at the outset. in a case heard in the federal court in virginia, the court considered whether all public acts of disqualify officeholders were nullified or whether only certain acts of those officeholders fell within the mandate of section three. the dispute was over the validity of a writ of habeas corpus which would have released a prisoner which was deemed to be a dangerous prisoner into the public. the federal court in virginia concluded that section three prohibition of public office holding was in fact in operative . it was ineffectual. so long as congress failed to legislate the matter.

the amendment, the clause had no self important or self effectuating power. the exercise of any public office by a disqualified person was valid and enforceable. the third case number showing you how inconsistent and difficult it was to figure out at the time what section three means, it involves judicial interpretation of section three concerning a double jeopardy challenge that was brought by confederate president jefferson davis. davis had challenged not whether section three applied to him or even whether he had in fact engaged in insurrection. those were facts that were known to the court. his challenge was on a very narrow ration of whether the disqualification of section three was in fact punishment.

if his crime was treason, and section three was punishment, ben davis argued that he could not then later be tried for treason. that this was in effect a double jeopardy. that any attempt to try him for treason should be nullified in his indictment should be quashed . the argument reached the supreme court and was certified by justice chase in order to review the validity of his indictment, the judges failed to agree on section three. they failed to agree on the effect of the section three disqualification, and regional decision before president johnson issued his proclamation announcing amnesty for treason for geoff davis, among others. at the time of his indictment,

and review of his indictment of supreme court we have no judicial pronouncement about what this section of the constitution means. there was no standards in place. more than 16,000 petitions for release flood the capital. the volume of the petitions that came render real-time implementation onerous. for example, in 1871, a bill for the relief of 4000 people was presented and actually voted on in congress. this tsunami of petitions precipitated the creation of a special senate committee on the removal of political disability in an attempt to relieve the overwhelmed and presumably out of their death judiciary committee. this theme of clemency unfolding was nowhere -- was noteworthy

because it turned constitutional clemency on its head. before section three authorize congress to adjudicate disabilities, the constitution and that of several of the states had firmly and exclusively ensconced the pardon power with the executive, not the legislature. article two of the constitution empowered the president alone with the pardon power. alexander hamilton had advocated for this power, writing as a general rule of thumb one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government than a body of men. this was true even in cases of treason were hamilton argued that substantive and procedural concerns militated in favor of investing the executive

of the power of reprieve. even as late as 1862, as the war was underway, congress had enacted legislation reinforcing this constitutional structure and authorizing the president of the united states to extend amnesty to persons who have participated in rebellion. this procedure written into section three for the removal of political disabilities marked a significant and mysterious departure in the adjudication of claims of amnesty under our constitutional system. subsequent legislation purporting to relieve all the select few persons reinforced the singularity of the provisions. there was no judicial pronouncement about the mandate about what the mandate

meant or how it should be applied. this was part of a constitutional amendment. one might expect there to be an on high determination of what the amendment means. the vacuum that i have described to you lead to significant mass confusion. petitioner's entreaties invent a widespread belief that the process for the removal of disabilities included not only the right to hold public office that the right to vote, even though there is nothing in section three about a ban on the right to vote. and then on the adderall collection franchise had in fact been included in the original house version of the amendment but had been rejected.

it was struck from the draft that would ultimately be adopted. despite its own mission from the june 1866 version that would become the ratified amendment the specter of disenfranchisement loomed large over seven is petition for release. the petitions reflect a belief that the provisions bar on office holding extended far broader than its text. it technically required only those who had violated an oath of office taken to uphold the constitution of the united states, only those folks were eligible for the section three disqualification individuals -- disqualification. this construction was either

mistrusted or misconstrued by hundreds of petitioners. for example, two years after ratification in 1870, george price wrote he held no legislative executive or judicial office previous to the war had engaged in the rebellion in the ranks of the confederate army. he had been elected and desire to take his seat. he had been blocked. the provisional government of

georgia along with several other leading republicans affixed their support for his petition on to the petition itself before sending it along to congress. his petition was among the 46 petitions i mentioned presented by senator roberts from south carolina in february of 1870. this confusion extended even to those who may not have held such lofty positions. malcolm walling's berg was another such supplicant. his petition is included in your packet. he had worked as an assistant to the mail carrier of the united states senate. informal positions that did not

require an oath of office. for his labor at the senate he earned two dollars per day and an extra allowance of $200 per year. he had traveled south, and in his words, which you can see there in the package he had embarked his fortunes with the confederacy. he had not serve as a soldier. he is not served as an officer. he had in a way cap to what he knew and he worked as a clerk for the confederate post office. for this man who had no oath required, and for others, this prospect of a private bill of relief regarding their civil and political rights helped expand

substantial import. many petitions assumed an identical form. in what appears to have been in many cases identical handwriting. these petitions, they consisted of only two things. the petitioner was at the time laboring under political disability. and requesting relief, the second being a statement of loyalty and support for the active reconstruction. whether longer, more detailed communication regarding the history of private office, the prior oath taking of these individual petitioners was admitted to the state republican committee is difficult to know because none of the information actually reach the congressional committee that reviewed their petition.

this sort of widespread confusion over the scope of the amendment prohibition was fueled by public officials interpretation of the text. in 1867 opinion attorney general stanton declared the prohibition applied only to state-level offices and not local offices. your sheriffs would be free. in the wake of a public reprimand stanton backpedaled issuing a hastily at drafted second opinion saying all of the executives or judicial officers of any state who took it and oath were subject to disqualification. he included county officers. if they were required to take as

part of their official oath the oath to support the constitution of the united states. the potential implications for widespread confusion on the unfortunate or meaning of the section three cannot be understated especially since the reconstructive state looked to the 14th amendment as a model for the newly ratified reconstruction constitution. virginia's 1867 constitutional convention incorporated almost identical language in its provisions. the petition as supporting material submitted to both the house reconstruction committee and the senate select committee on political disabilities reflected uncertainty that surrounded used in the review in

the petitions as well. itwas an oath required, there is a lot oath taking happening at the time. which oath was required? was it the ironclad oath the test oath, some other section three oath? what would we use? some have turned this the era of the oath because of the proliferation of posts in the federal government and state government. could've petitioner who has publicly criticized reconstruction be relieved from political disability? what about a petitioner that written editorials in newspapers about reconstruction as unconstitutional and illegal? the petition a day have conceded authority of the federal government in order to be

relieved? was cooperation evidence required? was hearsay evidence acceptable? these questions and other similar questions about the minimum standards for review permeate the petition files and also appear again and again in the congressional debate over contentious positions that made it to the floor. they were very common. many of georgia's petitions of reform include no information about the veteran service. one may wonder having received a boilerplate petition, how would either a congressman or a congressional committee know that the person who has prepared this petition has not been involved in any of the

anti-reconstruction acts anti-reconstruction conduct that the process was designed to weed out? how would they know that individuals who prepared bowler plate petitions were even affected by section three? should there be some prescreening before the prescreened to note whether people were even to be infected by section three mandate? in the absence of any evidentiary rules, indie standards of proof, and in receipt of thousands of boilerplate petitions devoid of any detailed information legislators frequently debated the sufficiency of evidence in contested petitions for relief. this is a process that for lawyers is interesting because it raises questions about fact-finding and the appropriate

limitations of congressional power in such circumstances. in virginia, in georgia, north carolina in other jurisdictions, the state republican central committee's spearheaded the investigation. those investigations were not always reported to congress, only recommendations are reported to congress, leaving a gap between who knew and who had been involved in want. -- in what. does the constitution require more? does the constitution speak to the possibility that congress can delegate its authority to local clinical parties? to be sure? while the removal of the political disabilities imposed pursuant to section three confess be characterized as perfunctory, we cannot get deeper than that working without the boilerplate petitions, but

not all were resolved favorably. several were the subject of citizen remonstrance who protested the petitions for relief. judges more than other civil servants bore an inordinate share of the criticism over their attempts to have their rights stored. in virginia, the superintendent of the state penitentiary sent multiple mrs missives noting how the state democratic judges persistently sentenced black defendants for hard time in the state prison over minor infractions. in early 1869, the superintendent reported negroes or center for stealing one single bushel of corn from a cornfield valued at one dollar

in open violation of the law which requires that one should steal up to $20 before he can enter this institution. according to wardwell, the state judges openly flouted these laws . he maintains that the responsible parties in congress need only read the indictment describing the offenses against certain defendants to know that an american traitor with a heart black with perjury and hands red with blood should never be trusted on the judge's bench in a state like virginia. as an aside, wardwell was a new england quaker and had himself spent more than two years as a political prisoner in one of the

deadliest confederate prisons after refusing to take a nose of field to to the confederate cause. it was reward well that that i first became interested in the section three experiment. my dissertations expanded examine the state penitentiary in 1800. as i tracked the penitentiary over the next 90 years i noticed that he had set these colorful missives to congress, guys what are you doing? you're not paying attention. they are sending these freed men to our gates and him only stolen things or been accused of things that would be minor that would not give rise to a felony charge , and yet they are being incarcerated anyway. i would argue that petitions for the removal of the 14th amendment disability reveal much about the local politics of

reconciliation and the search for memory and meaning and loyalty, amid what can only be described as the devastation of the region. some of these tales painted tableau of war war scarred town's, and then and women who fought to maintain families despite significant hardships. others however thought to recast their support of the confederacy in the rhetoric of necessity. george and ja howard recounted that he had been forced into the war for a time. that he had sought an accepted public office under confederate rule in order to avoid military service against the united states government.

these claims were believable primarily because there was a confederate draft, and people were constricted into confederate service who were constricted nonconsensual lien. -- nonconsensually. supplicants thought to frame a narrative of emotions justifying their participation in antiunion campaigns and excusing what could be arguably seen as a momentary lapse in prounion nationalist sentiment. by 1869, only a year after the amendment was ratified, congress appeared to have tired of this experiment. more than 16,000 partitions have been reviewed. countless unidentifiable other petitions had been made at the local level.

either quashed by the party or the provisional government in a sense, the radical republicans were hanged by their own rope. that year, 1869, a bill was introduced to permanently remove all section three disabilities. the bill languished that was not the last word on the subject because in 1872, the experiment reached its [inaudible] the return to southern democratic party control left little of the mandate. congress enacted legislation the amnesty legislation, purporting to resend all section three disabilities for everyone affected by the mandate with the exception of 500 in numerator confederate officeholders.

in a demonstration of their waning power in the branch, republicans in congress argued that there were no more men more undeserving of amnesty than the men who had been touched by the legislation. amnesty was debated at the same time as an amendment to the bill that would have hard discrimination on the basis of race. and would have barred discrimination on the basis of previous condition of servitude. this was legislation introduced by senator sumner, who pair the antidiscrimination bill with the amnesty bill with this interesting attempt to couple the granting of rights for the formerly enslaved. for his colleagues who argued that the issue should be entirely separate, he reported you must be just to the colored race before you are generous to the former rebels.

despite his impassioned pleas and over 24 hours of debate congress punted on civil rights for the formerly enslaved and amnesty was passed with a super majority vote 10 both houses. the civil rights amendment that had been his baby would go on to become the civil rights act of 1875, which was struck down by the supreme court in the civil rights cases. the implementation of this disqualification and the mandate of section three had substantially eroded public confidence in the north and south, and by now also west said by the time of the enactment of the amnesty bill, democrats regained control in 4 state governments part of the confederacy and were on their way to regaining the entire region. at the same time, the republican

party saw its influence in the region dissipate, the import of section three dwindled almost to nothing as a trickle of petitions were still being heard. most of those people who were excluded from the amnesty bill would go on to hold public office and democratic control that state and local governments, and in other words as the disqualification itself noncompliance with the amnesty bill by the people frustrated the purpose and the intent of the congressional experiment. interestingly enough, the arguments of those who claimed that congress could not by legislation aggregate the constitution were unpersuasive. this is an area in which among law professors we have seen significant scholarly inquiry especially following the enactment of the defense of marriage act and the ongoing debate about gun control.

what does congress have the power to legislate? my students are tracking public debate over this aspect of amnesty and i hope to better be able to articulate public response to this seemingly expansion of congressional authority. while the enduring significance of section three may be unquantifiable, it may even turn out to be one of those forgotten sections of the constitution. we can however look to its failed implementation and the implementation of other efforts to quantify or a judge loyal -- loyalty as a cautionary tale. the first governance ordered issued by the coalition for provisional authority in iraq in 2003 was a deep pacification mandate that disqualified from public office holdings in the member of the past party, the

party of saddam hussein in the wake of this propagation the parties did not die, it did not disappear. it went underground and violence surge. a development that has remained constant in the decade or more sense. this outcome ought not to have been a surprise given similar observable trends in the 1870's in the 1880's here in this country, and the modest sentiment that close to 50,000 black americans were killed by clan related or otherwise a premises violence in this country. -- white supremacist violence in this country.

the question is an interesting one to consider. thank you so much and i look forward to your thoughts. [applause] >> yes. [inaudible question] >> were there any particularly heinous crimes during the war that were prosecuted? the answer is, yes. there were some, there are prosecutions in virginia related to conduct that happened at the virginia penitentiary. there are prosecutions related to some of the treatment, some military prosecutions related to the treatment of union prisoners of war. you don't see that, those

prosecutions featuring much in these conversations. those aren't necessarily being investigated at the same time by the same p that are investigating whether certain individual should have their section three disabilities removed. we do see that. >> yes? the question is, to be devils advocate, weren't there lots of people who had to express loyalty to the confederacy because of the job or position they held? could those folks be considered opportunistic? the second part, maybe they were the best qualified for those jobs and perhaps they should not have been replaced with presumably unqualified people. i don't think that is to play devil's advocate. that is a statement of fact. there were people who had to express loyalty to the confederacy. people were shot down in the street for not confessing or

proclaiming their loyalty. the expressions of loyalty were necessary. we see these continuing enforcement of this loyalty to the confederacy that happens even long after the war. i agree with you. that is true. in terms of maybe these folks for the most qualified, i don't think that we should presume that the expectation in congress was that these people would be replaced with unqualified officeholders. but rather the resumption was they would be replaced by republican officeholders. people who had held offices and other places. you have a large number of people who were traveling south serving in military governments in this, provisional governments. people are moving south as representatives. the notion that the replacements would be unqualified i think is a presumption that is false. i do agree with you though that this is the sort of -- we think

about the crux of the southern debate over this issue. when we see southern public opinion in the newspaper is, for example, because we scour newspapers when you see southern opinion in newspapers people say im the best person -- i am the the best person for this job. i have held it for 25 years. who can do this job better than me? even if we as historians and after-the-fact observer should not presume that they were replaced by unqualified republicans, there was definitely believe that am how these local governments would collapse if these people were not able to serve, and maybe in a sense they were right. after four years, five years --

congress abandons the experiment and determines that it is better to let the southern local governments reconstitute themselves however they need to do so without federal interference. yes? [inaudible question] chimpanzees, dolphins. wales. there's been a lot of litigation about the rights of w hales. i think those cases have been fought hard by my own friends and have not done well. they have not been receptive to enforcing any notion of civil rights or even animal rights on the nonhuman animals. [inaudible question] as far as the corporation goes, the courts have been incredibly receptive for the rights of

corporations to match the rights of humans. with animals, not human animals, we have drawn a distinction. with respect to the question, it was a comment about the efforts of govern -- governor cuomo to reintegrate in a way that is fair and safe, people who have been a convicted of crimes, this is an enduring problem. i think places like new york city, large urban areas, los angeles, these cities are taking the brunt of this reintegration project. they are hard-pressed to know what to do. luckily there are enough people who are interested in the issue and are committed to actually using evidence to push policy and not simply allowing our inflamed passions or our sort of biases express or implicit to

guide policymaking. folks are working with local governments, they are working with community-based organizations, state governments, the federal government is interested. eric holder has been talking about people once they are released from prison. we are on an upswing in terms of brainstorming ways to keep communities safe, but also to keep people integrated in our society to maintain their status as citizens once they have been released. whether we will be able to maintain that, i don't know for sure. [inaudible question] yes. it is always a moneymaking opportunity. prisons have always been a money making opportunity. from the first in this country prisoners were put to work. the work they were doing led to

coin in the coffers of the state legislature. this idea that prisons are now for-profit institutions is not a new one. this is intimate to the prison project in the united date. -- united states. yes? the reconstruction governments are always accused of being corrupt. it is not to say that they are corrupt. i have not yet uncovered bribery. that is probably because i am not looking and a record source that would record bribery. any allegations or evidence of bribery would be clear, would be expunged from the record that is sent to congress. this is an interesting question. i don't think it is a stretch to presume even having not seen evidence of bribery that there may be some inconsistencies in how these petitions are reviewed. this is why i focus on the lack of standards.

when there are no standards, when discretion rules, there is always the opportunity for several people to get favorite other people don't get. i would not be surprised in the least to learn in some of these jurisdictions, georgia, for example, or north carolina, or even california, where people are petitioning, that there is not something that is happening where certain people are held out as fully reconstructed. they talk about the reconstructed rebels. people are deemed to have been reconstructed and others are not. and they have been engaged in the exact same conduct and behavior. the question is, have any governors from the southern states given me any support in my research? the answer is no, but i don't take it personally. i think that is because i have not asked.

i imagine if i asked, there would be no problem to me coming in and researching in the state archives and legislative archives. i'm traveling to tennessee and kentucky in a couple of months to do that in the kentucky state legislature and also the tennessee state archives. i am hopeful. my dissertation research took me throughout the set and i was greeted with nothing but generosity. i have no doubt the same will be true with this project. people are sensitive about the war than other topics. i get that. i think it will be fine. yes. >> [inaudible] >> yes, ma'am. am i working on a book, yes. >> can you reveal [inaudible] >> the question is can i reveal

what the project will look like. whatever the publisher wanted to look like. that is not decided. not yet decided. thank you for the question. sir. >> [inaudible] >> the question is, to what extent did the double jeopardy argument resonate with congress? i think it resonated with southern democrats more than the radical republicans. to the extent southern democrats recognized that this penalty i'm sorry, this sanction was a penalty for participating in the rebellion, they understood it to be a punishment. if it was, then they believed those same individuals it should not be called for treason or

military atrocities, or other charges, the killing of soldiers outside of the p a w context. so it does resonate. it does not get traction. this is why i am interested in the question of congressional authority and what could be argued as overreaching because if you have an enactment that works, a penalty in the lives of certain classes then one could argue that tha if you have punished them once, you can't do it again. the radical republicans tend to be dismissive of that argument and maintained that whatever punishment meet the former confederates was well deserved.

yes. yes sir. i'm sorry. in case there are other people. go ahead. the question is if abraham lincoln had not been assassinated, woodcreek construction have gone differently -- would reconstruction have gone differently? isis backed that reconstruction would have gone differently if for no other reason -- isis backed -- i suspect that reconstruction would have gone differently. i'm not confident that lincoln would have battled with congress in the same way. johnson vetoes the first reconstruction act, he vetoes the second freemans bureau act. some of them survive, some of

them are overruled. you have this lingering, it is not lingering. it is a rabid mistrust between the executive and the legislature, which i'm not sure which have existed had johnson not been in the office. whether it was lincoln or someone else, i don't know for sure. i suspect that same level of distrust and rancor would not have existed. it was pretty tense. we sort of think our congress is against our president. this is a congress who sort of called the president to the carpet regularly and said he does not know what he is doing. we have to override him. any other questions? go ahead. >> i understand law school is

now 50% young women. [inaudible] >> are women going to take over the country and the question was answered by the lady in the back. thank you so much, everyone. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the civil war tears every saturday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 eastern time. to watch more of our programming anytime, visit our website c-span.org. you are watching american history tv, all weekend on c-span3. >> sunday, former via chief of disguise recounts the story of two spies husband and wife. they infiltrated the cia and

gathered top-secret information through the use of sex in the 1970's. one popular swingers club frequented by the spy couple counted at least 10 staffers and a u.s. senator as members. that is sunday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv. >> each week, we take you to museums and historic places to learn what our packs reveal about american history. the national museum of african american history and culture is under construction on the national mall and will open in 2016. the museum has hosted several events called save our african-american treasures. people can talk about how to preserve artifacts. we talked to staff at the event in washington, d.c. >> i'm the director of education at the museum. today we are here with our

program where we invite the public to bring three objects and we have reviewers who look at them, i know the history the materials, and tell the public how to preserve them. >> today i have some things that my mother kept in brooklyn, new york. >> this amounts to a visual social history of black life in brooklyn, new york three and post world war ii. the variety of scenes his mother took. kids on street corners posing in a playground, or trips to the beach. going to coney island. young couples who are courting. there is a range of activities

and scenes that really constitute this social history of brooklyn and the black experience in a time of immense change around world war ii, and the gender changes as well as economic and social changes. >> he collected souvenirs, baseballs. it is hard to read. whether it was the last game souvenirs come out of all valve games. the negro leagues were famous for the players signing autographs with fans, just as they do today. balls go into the stands. so you've got a baseball signed by the beer players -- the premier players of the negro league. >> we want people to preserve their personal culture that they might not think are important

but tell the story of our history. >> you can watch this and other programs anytime by visiting c-span.org/history. >> you are watching american history tv on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on a spoke -- on facebook. >> today, in our discussion of minority groups, we have with us two guests. one is minister malcolm x shabaz, one of the top leaders of the nation of islam or the so-called black muslims, and we also have mr. herman blake, one of teaching assistants in th