these active director of the east tennessee historical society. taking it to the next level of a development of a new museum. in 1994, he was named director of the georgia historical society. in 2006, he was elected president of the society. he understands the pressure in the role the door to play in the process. when we understand the story of our unique democratic institutions and traditions, how they were created, and the sacrifices that have an made to expand our liberties, we understand america. that is why we must teach our history, the survival of the republic depends on it. we should take an honest on breaking -- it is about

understanding and wide. based on the documentary evidence available to us. >> a real pleasure to see everyone today. we have a panel of very staying with] distinguish servers. >> welcome everybody, i'm glad you are here today.

even though the two can be seen as one continuous event, linked beyond common goals. the surrender of confederate armies make peace. i brought this, this was in my hometown newspaper in savanna last week. surrender and peace at appomattox.

that is a big part of how we understood this, that the war came to an end at appomattox. having surrendered confederate soldiers reification of the nation would have been quickly achieved if a vengeful north had not saw the reason to punish the white south by imposing on it tyrannical and alien state governments run by northern carpetbaggers and scalawags and ignorant and incompetent former slaves. as the myth goes, the white south through the heroic efforts of the ku klux klan rose up and threw off corrupt republican rule, deeming their states and saving white civilization. the so-called dunning school of interpretation was made popular by "birth of a nation."

to give respect ability to jim crow. its successes and failures, how it in the reunion of the 19 century came to restore our understanding of the civil war. gentlemen, thank you for being here. and welcome.

what it would mean for former slaves ration relations, for the balance of power politically between the democratic and republican party. the period we refer to in reconstruction is a period in which there's a natural conversation as well as considerable conflict and violence trying to answer the questions of what are the long term consequences of the civil war going to actually be.

what happens as we get into reconstruction. more about reconstruction and what it meant. >> let me just build on some of the things. one of the things that we have to think about and be clear about when it comes to reconstruction historians like to call this period the civil war reconstruction the second american revolution and it might even be more accurate to call it the american civil war revolution. it will be something new remade by this experience. and where we see that most fundamentally is in the question of slavery. in 1860, the slave population in

the american south is $3 billion. that is an incredible amount of money. they are richer than the north at the start of the civil war. one of the things that happens is frankly a con if is -- built into its frame work from 1789 all the way up until 1860 the united states is a pro slavery country. you know for 50 of the first 72 years of the republic, there's a slave-holding president. that's all going to change and it's going to change through military and

others you will be able to understand why they have the perspective, a reconstruction, a classic that was published in 1935. they arrived at the ports of charleston and annapolis from africa. the same perspective i approach history from. from north carolina in 1851 we had the domestic slave trade. so our journey has been from west africa into north carolina

and finally into tennessee where i live today. and that's a very short period of time. the ghost of these grandfathers and grandmothers provide firsthand knowledge for us of the civil war and reconstruction. that's why we -- during the great depression small land holders, this is the civil war reconstruction and laborers, this huge family the cotton family moved from said county to memphis. and at the time my mother's sister was just three-months old. she told me just the other day. and she still resides there. and before i was born in the 1940s my post slavery family

endured go -- two generations of reconstruction. widespread economic repression. most of all, most all of my family except the 1851 generation of mary and henry houston

they made the decision with the

letters and writings of abraham lincoln, that's what he's talking about when he's talking about slavely has to go. it was a threat to free labor and lincoln and others make a decision this country's going to be based on capitalism. those as i see it were the real reconstruction issues. >> to summarize very broadly and i think this is important because one of the questions i'm going to ask you towards the end is how is this a success? how was it a failure. in what way. we have an agenda that is set that is going to help remake the south by bringing to it true democracy. we're going to end slavery and create now a government system where the union is going to be held together forever. we're going to as you mentioned we're going to deal with this issue about states rights which

has been left over from the constitutional convention. so picking up on that then let's talk a little bit about what -- i mentioned at the beginning we've already discussed very briefly. all the scholarship for the past 15 years about reconstruction and what it was but the public still has a negative image. where does that come from and why do you think that, that continues to persist?

violence. i think that has something to do with why this perception of reconstruction is so persistent. i'd adjust one other thing. you said something, luke, about how complicated this period is. i start my students and try to put this in latin. the idea is that history is complicated. and one reason for this negative understanding of reconstruction is there were ugly aspects to it. in the north there was a

dimension of force for federal activism motivated by the highest principles and genuine commitment to social justice, there was a lot of self-interest. a lot of partisan scheming and manipulation. so it's not fair to say that it was all noble or all self-interested. it was both. so there is a grain of truth to this negative idea of reconstruction. folks say all the time we just want the facts. not all the interpretation it's wrapped in. the problem is they don't seem to understand just how complex it is. they understand the world we live in today is complex but they want to see something very simple and we just want a straightforward answer to something when we all know that if i were to ask you what's going on in this room right now, everybody in the audience would have a different understanding and interpretation. there's four guys talking,

that's a fact. but we would all have different interpretations of it. i think this is something that's a real challenge for us as historians as far as helping people understand the purpose of history. let's talk a little bit about tennessee itself. this is what the study is about. did it have a different story than the rest of the south? >> the story i think was very different. right now, as i mentioned, i'm work onning a book and i'm a student right now as you know when you're working on a book. you're learning all kinds of things i think i'm going toward

the argument that one of the reasons there's such a negative interpretation of reconstruction which some historians start in 1865 and end in 1877. others say it went until 1890. in my new book, i'm going to say it goes on to 1896. so there's a dispute about what's the period that is covered in reconstruction and my argument is from what i've learned, the family i mentioned and so on reconstruction for african-americans never ended. and it is as important today as it was 150 years ago because many of the issues listed have never been concluded in american history and in american life but one of the reasons that people don't like reconstruction today

is because we continue to base reconstruction on that argument of race relations as people say today in certain cities you know we got to improve race relations. race relations is no problem. it was no problem during slavery. just as the con fed rats said. it wasn't race relations. it was race. once slavery was now based on race as i see it by after the revolutionary war and after the indentured servitude and con convict contracts ended and slavery was now purely based on race and that was what was upset by the civil war and resented most. the civil war and its aftermath completely restructured southern

society. despite the fact that there was share cropping and apprenticeships and near slavery conditions still experienced by many former slaves. but it was completely reconstructed. and then with the 14th amendment which we argue in the supreme court as we speak today. you know, that argument is based on the 14th amendment. the most radical part of the constitution that rewrote the whole 1787 constitution. and of course based on that, people began to resent the fact you upset the whole society. not just in the south. new studies now there's reconstruction in the north. but reconstructing all of american society and american society is still being reconstructed because it never was completely reconstructed by 1877 or 18890 or 1896.

and it's not about race relations now. it wasn't about race relations then. it was about one word. and that was it was about race. and people don't like to talk about that today. in spite of all the things that are going on people sort of say, no that's not the problem. bad relations. no. but it's not about relationships. it's about once that word became the basis of how reconstruction would go, then of course it has been a complex issue reconstruction. remember that northerners also were against slavery. not all of them. lincoln convinced most of them to come on into the room. but remember there were many who were not for it. there were northern missionaries who were saying we want to help

keep these people down here. we don't want them to cross and come up here and compete with us. socially and economically. what race meant in america in the 18th century, the 20th century, and now here we are short time later in the 21st century. what did race mean and how did it play a role in how americans north and south viewed these changes. these were revolutionary changes. this was a radical change in the constitution. that radical change in the constitution made a proposed radical change in american society. and we've got to put all of that together to finally try to understand what really happened

and why some of us don't like reconstruction. but frederick douglas said when he was asked the same question before his death in 1885, incidentally, he spoke here in knoxville, he spoke in chattanooga, nashville memphis. he toured this state during reconstruction three times. and douglas said the past is not dead. the evil that men do while they live continues long after they are dead he said.

we would rather forget the bad part of history and only remember the parts that we can glorify and celebrate. it's a complex one that has been missing and that one word is how did race play into historical events. >> it was revolutionary in a sense. particularly that you've got an example, unique in the world, where there's a slave population that is freed and within just a couple of years, they are voting, many of them are holding office. this was extraordinary revolutionary experiment really in america. and greg downs has written quite a bit about the role of the military in reconstruction and one of the things he points out

is that reasonableness or unreasonableness sender was not the end -- surrender was not the end of the war but the turning point in the war. there was considerable geurilla and par amilitary organizations going on after the war. para so just because they were silent doesn't mean they were subdued or had changed their thinking overnight about issues of race. let's talk about tennessee. we've got some interesting characters in tennessee and we had lunch together earlier and were talking about that. in particular parson branlow. we have a president of the united states during the first of reconstruction from

tennessee, specifically from east tennessee. tennessee's story is not the same as the rest of the con fed rat federate south. let's talk about that. >> i'll share a couple of things quickly. i think this is a part of east tennessee's history that most folks in the audience are very familiar with but one that generally i think we tend to forget and that is how staunchly unionist the south was. about 70% of voters in eastern tennessee vote against secession. i don't know if that's an expression of commitment to the union rather than -- east tennessee had a pretty serious inferiority complex and really quite a rivalry with the rest of

the state. andrew johnson was a united states senator when the war began. served as military governor of tennessee and then became vice president and president shortly after the war is over and then parson brownlow who spent part of his youth in tennessee and lands in knoxville and becomes a leading unionist there as well. and in march of 1865 sworn in as governor of tennessee.

so you have a political situation and immediate aftermath of the war and which for all practical purposes only the state's unionists have any political voice. the sort of combination of andrew johnson of the white house and parson brownlow in the governor's mansion really will guarantee that for a brief period of time. so you have a situation which the vast majority of the state's electorate is franchised. they worked very quickly to try to cooperate with the federal policy that's being fashioned by the republican majority in congress in washington d.c. the center piece of that is professor levitt has suggested is the 14th amendment passed by congress in 1866 and the republican majority there says every state that participated in rebellion must ratify it if they

wish to be enfolded again in involvement of national government. tennessee is the first state to ratify the 14th amendment. and in so doing that, tennessee actually is able to escape from implications of something that happened in march of 1867 called the first reconstruction act. so the first reconstruction act is the piece of legislation that effectively establishes military rule for the defeated con fed acy. so of the 11 states tennessee is the one that is not confederacy. so of the 11 states, tennessee is the one that is not included. the second thing is the story plays out faster here because

brownlow and republican majority actually is brought back for purposes by about 1869. so certainly by 1870 you have a conservative majority that's regained control of the state and any kind of potential for dramatic change in race relations, the window for that probably closed as early as 1870. one of the things that we move quickly though in tennessee is african-american voting. why would brownlow -- his writing reveals he's a pretty racist guy. very harsh feelings about african-americans before the civil war. so why is he advocating african-american voting rights? >> if you think about it if 30% of the adult white male population is unionist that's the core of any support for his government, the only way for him to get control is to sort of indefinitely disqualify the vast

majority of the white male population and the views of an awful lot of native tennesseans, that that renders state government illegitimate. so if you're going to bring more of that white male population back into the electorate you're going to lose control unless you put it in the hands of tennessee's black male population. so that's ultimately what it

and we look at his speech. he is calling for equal rights

and sufferage that is the right to vote. march 5th tennessee becomes the first state to actually other than maryland and missouri to actually abolish slavery and they abolished it on march 5th. just months after all of that activity by african-americans. and then the next month april 5th, when they are closing in on richmond including 25,000 troops and the 25th army corps under grant, they pass of course, the 14th amendment ratification by the general

assembly. blacks have had two state colored men's conventions of their own. both of them held here in nashville. and when we look at the minutes and we look at the objectives that they established, one of them was sufferage. and so brownlow is also reacting, i think, off of not only what northern radical republicans want him to do and the republican party in the state of tennessee and to keep it in power as long as they possibly can. we recognize that's one of his reasons for doing that. but behind the scenes

african-americans are in the front of that sentence. they're taking the action. they are the actors. and they're saying we want the right to vote. we served in this military help helped save the union, helped restore the union save democracy. now we want to vote and so brownlow had a lot of support for black sufferage within tennessee and that support was from not only the unionists but also from black tennesseans. >> i think one important thing to adhere in the midst of this is we sort of think about reconstruction and tennessee's a great place to think about this. we think about it in terms of what wasn't accomplished or what wasn't done. one of the things we need to also bear in mind is the incredible incredible violent resistance to the idea of the kinds of things he's talking

about here. enfranchisement. the ku klux klan organized in 1867 with nathan bedford forrest as its grand wizard. one thing that happens in tennessee because it goes through the process of reunion quite quickly is that there's really no federal force from the outside to protect the vote for african-americans. and so governor brownlow is in a position where he creates something called the state guard. but it's very clear that violence by whites mostly ex-confederates, who are absolutely opposed to the asked of african-american sufferage is going to permeate this entire period. so in 1867 when you have an opportunity for african-americans to vote for the first time in tennessee, you see violence at the polls. '68 maybe the worst year for

election violence in the united states possibly american history. your going to see a clear linkage throughout the rest of the south between voting for african-americans and violent white counterrevolutionaries. let's come back around to this. what is the legacy of reconstruction? what were the successes? were there any? we talked about the failures. what's really tragic is it didn't go far enough. it were there any successes that came out of reconstruction and why did it come to an end in the way that it did? >> i think it's actually important to say that for

myself, i don't see it as a

failure. because it'd abolished slavery in december 1865, it nullified three sections of the 1787 constitution. those you read now are still there but they're null by that act of december the 18th 1865 by those states. incidentally, the last state that existed then to ratify the 13th amendment was mississippi.

they believe it was still on because they had not ratified it that amendment, until just recently. january -- look in the federal register. finally, january 2013. mississippi has ratified the 13th amendment to the constitution 150 years later almost.

and so americans looked at all of these people coming in they were coming in from germany, some going to be talking irish, i'm going to be talking about germans, jews all these people are coming in in 1840s and 50s and then there's really a proliferation in the 1890s i think most of you would agree, how do they figure in to how america is going to be remade. and what they think blacks ought to play in society. lincoln's hardest problem was the riots in new york against the draft. and those riots was because he had passed the emancipation proclomation and they were saying i'm not going to fight

for a slave who's going to take my job. and so that whole component i believe working on immigration from europe in the 1830s 40s, and 50s, especially in tennessee and in a site like memphis.

those folks that come out, there are some other dynamics that are going on and those are going to affect how reconstruction ends the first reconstruction and then of course how reconstruction continues up until today. >> and then the other part of the reunion story is the increasingly as we go into the late 19th century, bringing the nation back together again we stop talking about what caused all of this. we stop talking about slavery as being the cause of the civil war and we begin to focus on what the two sides have in common which