was an attack on one block. the block captain, mayor, and heads of the city department officiated. it was good to know officials met business. it was good to know what could be done and soon, throughout the 27 blocks, the walls came tumbling down. and then after the tearing down, the rebuilding. the repairing. >> the director of the virginia center for civil war studies talks about abraham lincoln's image has been a doctorate internationally for different purposes since his death. he describes the malleability of

his image for different causes. this lincoln group of d.c. talk is about 45 minutes. >> our first speaker today is paul quickly. the director of the virginia center of civil war studies at virginia tech university. he holds degrees from lancaster university and the university of north carolina and chapel hill. his first book, shifting ground nationalism and the american south was published in 2011 and one both a british and american

historical award. he is currently working on a book on preston brooks which exacerbated the tensions that led to the outbreak of the war. he has distinguished himself among a younger generation of historians who are bringing new perspectives to the civil war. his particular contribution is to highlight the dimensions of the war and today he will talk about abraham aiken. [applause] mr. quigley: thank you very much and thank you to the audience for coming out today or this program. one solution for the speakers would've been to ask for the

remaining speakers to speak for twice as long but we will all be happier with shorter talks and a free afternoon. it is especially nice to be with you all this morning. this is an entirely new building but even just and having the same space is very inspiring and makes it a real treat to be able to spend the morning here discussing president lincoln. i have been especially mindful of the importance of location ever since i moved two years ago from united kingdom to virginia, the epicenter of civil war history, it has been a real treat to be able to visit the archives, battlefields and other sites without getting on a plane

and i recently discovered that my daily walk to work takes me over some ground that was probably traversed by union soldiers near 1864 as they were withdrawing back to west virginia. as you might imagine, being here and in virginia gives me a much closer connection to civil war history that i had when i was teaching in edinburgh. even in edinburgh, there is one very visible reminder of civil war history and it is a statue of abraham lincoln. i will blow up these images later so you can actually see them. there is a statue in the city center of lincoln and it was really nice when teaching civil war history in scotland to be able to go on a field trip that we could walk to so i would take my students to visit the statue of lincoln and talk about him

and the civil war. that is not the only lincoln system. the middle one is in manchester which is my hometown is john mentioned it is not quite a foreign invasion but it is still quite a striking visible presence for a foreign leader and a leader from a different century. when people hear about these statues the question they usually ask is, why do these statues exist 3000 miles away from here after all, lincoln never stepped foot in any of the cities never visited united kingdom are traveled to any overseas country and even his name wasn't really known overseas to the last few years of his life. yet these statues are physical proof that even if lincoln himself didn't travel overseas

the idea and the image of lincoln certainly has. what i want to do this morning's answer that basic question of why. in order to answer that question i will tell you a little bit of the specifics. i also need to tell you that the wider context of why he was -- i think to understand why the statues are there we need to understand why people have been interested in lincoln and why they were interested in the civil war and why they have continued to be interested in the civil war ever since then. the first thing to note is that the civil war mattered greatly to people around the world as it was happening. trade, migration, political ideologyology, human interests the global history of slavery

and emancipation, these are reasons why people sought an investment in american events. and because they felt an interest in the civil war, they felt an interest in the leader of the union effort. lincoln was beginning to acquire something of a global reputation. it was after his death and i think in the u.s., his reputation evolved quite radically after his death. his international reputation certainly did. and it was after the assassination that lincoln really began to acquire legendary status around the world. it is a convenient way to gauge his reputation around the world after his death. in 1866, the u.s. state department published letters of condolences that had been sent from around the world. they published it.

the volume is easily available online for those who are interested in reading more. and read transcriptions of individual letters. it's a very, very interesting volume indeed. there are over 1,000 documents in there. and come from austria. the large majority were either from latin america or europe. those were two big places sending letters in 1865, but also letters from hawaii morocco, egypt, liberia, india

japan, china. this really is a global undertaking. the country with the greatest volume of letters was great britain. if you include the brit itch empire as a whole, they sent 437 documents, which is almost 40% of the total. wherever they came from, the letters tended to be written by political leaders. presidents, heads of states. also from local political officials, town managers and that kind of thing. but there are lots and lots of letters from ordinary people as well, groups of people who got together. they referred to themselves as the citizens of this town, residents of this city sometimes used phrases like the working men wherever. they came from trade organizations, religious groups,

fraternal orders and anti-slavery societies as well not surprisingly. what did the letters say? first and foremost, the one common theme that runs through them all is that they were all expressions of sympathy, of condolence for mary lincoln and u.s. government and the american people as a whole. that's the primary content of these letters. they tended to be declarations of shock, indignation, anger. many asked the question how could anyone commit such an act. the letters reveal the emerging status of lincoln as a global icon. and i think it reflected the unprecedented nature of lincoln's reputation as it evolved after 1865. the letters involved many of the same images of lincoln that we're familiar with today lincoln, the self-made man lincoln the republican, usually the small r version of that word, committed to equality of all people, committed to economic opportunity for the masses and this lincoln was particularly admired by the many people around the world seeking

to overthrow monarchy and inequality. and there was the great amains pation for ending slavery in the united states and reinvigorating freedom around the world. but what really stands out from these letters is they all tended to reflect local concerns. there are those common themes, you see lots of variety, lots of local concerns in the letters, from latin america places like chile and argentina, you see the phrase the great republican. and that was partly because he was -- a strong case to be made, but also because in those places, that's what they cared about in their own time in place and establishing a republic and lincoln was he an inspiration. the anti-sliverry organizations, the working man's society talked about lincoln's promotion of working class interests. and this is really important point. something that underlines everything that i'm saying today, the point that people vice president memberalized lincoln and this isn't going to come as a surprise, they have emphasized those aspects of the lincoln legend that mesh with their own agendas. and this isn't to say we shouldn't take these images of

lincoln seriously. but still, i think it means that we should interpret these images within the local contexts from which they emerged. there is a fantastic volume ofes as that i recommend to you all if -- called the "global lincoln." and it's a collection

collection which provides a sense of just how widely the lincoln legend traveled from latin america to europe, asia, africa. and what is abundantly clear and what is amazing about the volume is lincoln's image. the same thing that emerged from the letters in 1865 and 1866. in spain, lincoln's image evolved over the decade and in the late 19th century and tended to be known as the great emancipator. this is the time that following the civil war, that the aboggs nifts in spain. by the 20th century, lincoln changes slightly in spain becoming a conservative figure and conservative work ethic that fits well with what franco is trying to do. he has been a symbol for independence movements around the globe. india, one example. the irish leader, famously had a portrait of lincoln on his wall and a lincoln bust on his desk and he called him, the support of lincoln, as he was trying to argue for the unity of ireland. lincoln was ven rated on his war trime leadership. and this was especially true during the two world wars, in

great britain and dividend lloyd

george and churchill tried to learn from lincoln about how to act as a statesman during wartime. so the specific bonds that lincoln has taken and the three statues that i mentioned provide some great examples of that. and the first one was in edinburgh. the widow of a man who was scottish but fell to the union in the civil war visited the u.s. consular and her husband died and looking for helping in securing a pension for his union war service. the consul were taken by this woman's story and disturbed upon hearing that the man had been buried in an unmarked grave. so they decided that they wanted to build some monument and then it expanded out to include scottish-american soldiers in general who fought for the union during the civil war. he took it on as a personal project the next time he

returned to the u.s. as a visit he continued to raise money. he decided, i think it was his decision but i'm not sure why he decided the statue, instead of representing the soldiers themselves, the statue should be of abraham lincoln. lincoln even by then, in the 1890's was the recognizable gentleman and it would make sense that he would lincoln as the embodyyment. he raised the month and it came from americans rather than scots. he commissioned the statue from a sculp tore and it was unveiled on august 23, 1893. quite an impressive crowd to witness it by all accounts, even though it was limited somewhat by the weather and having lived there, i can sympathesize with the accounts of the weather that

day. even though it is late august, the rain was falling and the wind was blowing and the umbrellas were no maff match. but a sizeable crowd came out and took part in the commemoration ceremony. and here's the statue. as you can see, hopefully you can see, it is very strikingly a statue of abera lincoln as the great emancipator and similar to the memorial right here in washington, d.c., that presents lincoln standing towel, reaching out in gratitude for the gift of freedom.

this made a wonderful teaching tool when i took my students to visit this statue. it opened up all kinds of conversations about lincoln and race, drawing on the recent scholarship on lincoln's attitudes towards race and the emancipation decision and so on and so forth. this became a great teaching tool for me. interestingly, though, race and emancipation were not central themes at the unveiling ceremony. the two main speakers, both presented the monument as a concrete friendship. this was the context for them. this was the important lesson of the statue for them. bruce, the consul talked about how much he admired history and spreading liberty around the world and saw the united states as playing an important part in that history in the 19th century. so this wasn't only a monument to the men who fought, even though that's where the idea began. it was a i'dening love and friendship between great britain and the united states of america. so the context is and although-american relations, not only in political sense but racial sense, a phrase that both speakers used was the angelo -saxon race and that was the

ideology in 1898. this was the narrative that both are placing on this lincoln statue. and not a narrative he would have placed himself, but in the 1890's, this is where he is. the manchester statue came out of that as the relations, the origins are a bit more complicated and intertwined and the manchester and london statues emerge out of the same story. and it began with with enwith an organization in 1909, the committee for the kell bration of the 100th anniversary of peace among english-speaking people. so the idea is that they are going to celebrate the end of the war of 1812, the last time that britains and americans had fought against each other in a major war. and in the early 1910's, there were branches working together on both sides of the atlantic trying to figure out how to do this and how to commemorate this peace among english-speaking

people. a british delegation visited the united states. they visited chicago. and what did they see in chicago, but the statue of lincoln. many of you have seen this statue. well, they were quite taken by this statue and they decided this was the linchingon they wanted to bring to london. and by 1914, they established that they would commemorate the anniversary with three things, a statue of lincoln in london. a statue of queen victoria in washington, d.c., and statue of the history and parkman. the other two make a lot of sense. i'm not sure where the idea of the statue for parkman came from. everything was settled. and three statues would embody the peace between english-speaking people across the atlantic. but you will notice the significance of that date, 1914, other things were happening in europe, the beginning of the first world war and the committee was distracted.

they never got around to

beginning to raise money for these statues, so the project stalled for a couple of years. in the meantime, there was a new development, william howard taft older half brother charles taft had been involved in commissioning the lincoln statue that now stands in cincinnati, the one created by george bernard. some of you may have seen this. and charles taft, who had bank rolled the undertaking liked the statue so much that he decided he wanted to pay for a replica to be made and he wanted this to be the lincoln to travel across the atlantic and be there. he offered to do this and pay for the replica. the bernard statue and this sounded good for the british committee, their plans for the replica had stalled. this was a an essentially solution for this and said we'll

take the bernard replica. the firestorm began. a few people didn't like it or it was being put in cincinnati and didn't like the fact that it was going to be a replica sent to london and another replica being sent to paris. the most prominent critic was none other than robert lincoln who had a major stake in how his father was being presented to the world. wrote to another former president, william howard taft and asked his brother to talk it out of this plan. lincoln described the berne northward statue and was did he familiar tower. i don't think iowa be quite that extreme, but i understand the critics and if you have a close look at this statue, you will see that lincoln isn't presented

in a particularly dignified light. this is the gift of most of the criticisms. his skin is wrinkled, his clothes are wrinkled, over-sized hands and feet and clutching his stomach. so this later became known as the stomach ache statue. "london times dubbed it the tramp with collik." . we use is as a hobo. he doesn't look very presidential here. this resulted in a big debate, a big debate in british press and american press and behind the scenes at quite high levels ininvolving woodrow wilson. and the outcome in late 1819 after the war had finished is that the committee decided they

wanted to reverse the original plan and the carnegie endowment agreed to pay for it and everything was set. one question remained, what to do about this replica of the bernard statue. charles taft still wanted to pay for it and send it some where even if the londonners didn't want it. they looked around for suitable venues. the lord mayor of manchester expressed we would love to have it. that was it and that was the solution and ended up going to manchester instead.

the statue was unveiled on september 15, 1919 at platt field which is outside manchester city center. the ceremony was underwheel ming and didn't get much press. william howard taft dedicated the one in cincinnati but neither he nor his brother charles. bernard didn't show up. the u.s. ambassador did show up after hemming and hawing for a while. the highest ranking british official, and no national representation. they got the statue and the local newspaper nicely observed, london in possessing the statue

will have lincoln the president. manchester has lincoln the man. and it was especially appropriate that this kind of scruffy lincoln would end up in manchester because of its identity as a working class city. i spent some time in pittsburgh as an undergraduate, and kind of similar in their vibe. and it was also appropriate given that same correspondent in the winter of 1862 and 1863 and lincoln and the self-described working man of manchester. this wasn't present at the original location, but the statue was moved to a city center location, which you can see here and on the base of the statue, you might be able to make out some words and those words are excerpt from that correspondence between lincoln and the working men of manchester. and this emerged from a letter that the manchester working men wrote to lincoln in the winter and wrote him praising his leadership in the union war and his decision to issue the emancipation proclamation.

and they connected the freedom of american slaves with their own struggles across britain and lincoln wrote back and agreed with them, we are fighting for similar things, universal human equality. and there it still stands and go and visit that if any of you happen to be in manchester. it isn't a big tourist destination. not that many people know about that, i don't think, but those who do, seem to enjoy the connection of civil war history and the connection with the united states. it still has its critics. one review on tripadvisor.com and two stars out of five.

lincoln had enormous hands and untiedy hair. maybe the artist was having a bad day. not often that i get to use tripadvisor.com as a lecturer as a civil war historian. back to london, it was july 1920, the year after the manchester dedication that they finally unveiled the statue in london. and this was a much grander affair. presenting the statue was u.s. secretary of state. there was a lot more press coverage than there was in manchester and the british prime minister david lloyd george gave a speech accepting the gift on behalf of the american people. a different speech from a different lincoln event. [laughter] . >> david lloyd george gave a

great speech. he was a fan of lincoln. i want to quote from what he said, because i think it captures so well the power of the lincoln image in britain. i doubt any statesman sunk into the hearts as abraham lincoln did. i'm not sure you in america realize the expense that he is also our possession and our pride. his courage, patience, humanity, his trust in the people, his belief in democracy and may i add some of the phrases that he gave expressions, will stand out as beacons to guide troubled nations, resolute in war, he was moderate in victory. misrepresented, misunderstood, he was patience to the last. for the people believed in him

all the time and they still believe in him. in life, he was a great american. he is no longer so. he is one of those great figures that there are very few in history that lose their nationality in death. they are no longer called greek, hebrew, american, they belong to mankind. and lloyd george's idea that lincoln was a truly global icon, has continued through the decades since 1920. in 1936, on a visit to springfield, the japanese prime minister said linchingon doesn't belong to this country alone, he

belongs to the world. the -- a mayor and 1981, castro claimed lincoln belongs to us. that repeated word belongs indicates how often people have tried to claim lincoln for their own causes. and throughout the 20th century, it's still going on in our own time. there is a convenient way to take the temperature of lincoln's reputation around the globe during the runup of the 150th anniversary of the assassination, somebody at the lincoln presidential library and museum had a wonderful idea, they decided they were going to contact the modern-day counterpart of people who wrote the letters back in 1865 and ask them for an update, what does lincoln mean to you. wonderful idea. i wish i had come up with it myself. and you can see these results

on-line quite easily as well for those interested in seeing more. they received fewer letters this time around, 140 are available online. but they still come from all around the world, israel, italy, jordan, lots from great britain and you see some of the same themes that you would expect in 2015 as in 1865. one slight variation is that the gettysburg address has become much more widely recognized than it was in 1865. lots and lots of these letter writers mention the gettysburg address, focusing on government of the people, by the people for the people.

but the thing that has changed the most is that people less interested in expressing sympathy and expressing outrage, surprise, indignation. and this is only to be expected of course. no one today is shocked to hear of lincoln's assassination. that jumped in the 1865 letters. just how much of a shock and surprise this was. now that isn't the case. the writers in 1865 put pen to paper voluntarily to give expression to emotions they were feeling, where as in 2015, these letter writers are writing because they have been invited to do so and been contacted and

asked. so that changes the tone and the style of the letters as well. but what you see is that many of them decide that the way to handle this is to draw connections between lincoln and their own time and place. so, for example, the mayor associated lincoln with her own region's history. the u.s. ambassador to beirut wrote that the lebanese people identified with the suffering of the civil war and the damage done by political assassinations, something they have had to deal with multiple times. a local official from ireland spoke of the influence that robert burns had on linchingon. two leaders from england wondered whether a local bond had influenced lincoln's fight against slavery and made a point that several letter writers made that slavery, even though the form that it took in the united states in the 19th century still like this and still a problem to tackle today. and one of my favorite example greece's ambassador to the united states expressed in his words, how well versed he was in the teachings of euclid. people are trying to make their connection with their own circumstances. lincoln continues to be many

things to many people. you can trace the different themes rising and falling over the decades. for example, the anglo-saxon ideology isn't present anymore, but many of those other themes are. and lincoln is endeered as a icon. around the world, still reckoning with the ideal of human quality and the realities of endemocratic inequality and struggling with the problems of nationalism, the centralization of political power, the tensions between morality and political pragmatism and when to use force, the question of whether war can ever be righteous. and whether his clothes have wrinkles in them or not or how dignified his posture, lincoln left an unperiled words and

deeds with the capacity to guide us through the world's greatest challenges. he isn't the same linchingon to everyone but he continues to be important around the world. thank you. [applause] did i leave time for questions? i would love to hear your questions, comments. audience member: one question to

get you started. i, a while back lived in scotland for three months and i don't remember seeing the statue. >> it is in the old carlton burial grounds. on princess street and head east out of the central shopping district, you will come to it and it's on the right. there is one of those old forbidding stone door ways that you have to get to to get into the grave yard. you may have noticed in the image i showed, the lincoln statue is right next to the commemoration of david thume. it is quite a place for this kind of thing. audience member: in the modern-day writeups of lincoln's influence, was there any noticeable backtracking from the u.k.'s stance during the civil war, which was in some places very pro confederate? paul: that was something that

they forgot or neglected to mention and weren't aware of. one thing that did jump out at me, that even though some of the letters were thoughtful and represented real undering of lincoln and who he was, many of them didn't know that much about lincoln. and it got the impression they wouldn't have been the details of britain's take on the civil war. it's something they just didn't mention. they even in 1865, there was a quick about-turn in britain in which that generation fairly quickly forgot attraction towards the confederacy. audience member: i confess that i was a little surprised to find it that someone who taught university in a different country would choose to focus on the american civil war.

so, whether from a personal standpoint or at a higher level, could you simply comment or explain how this came to be. paul: for me, the personal story is quite a straightforward one. i took american history classes as a university student and fell in love with the subject slavery and the antebellum south. and there are a number of universities where they have special lifts in civil war history. and very popular among the students. the three really popular areas of american history that british students tend to go for is slavery, civil war and civil rights.

they are very interested in race in american history. audience member: do you fear that lincoln is venerated -- is there anyone in england that would be comparable to lincoln with that type of status? paul: that's a good question. i don't think anybody comparable in terms of the extent of his status and reputation or anything like that, but certainly figures throughout british history. one from lincoln's own time is john bright who was a politician . he was commemorated. but no one, i don't think, with the stature of lincoln. audience member: what would you say is the most egregious use of lincoln internationally?

paul: that's a very good question. and i didn't come across in the research for this lecture anything that i would call egregious. there were some occasions that i felt they didn't have much knowledge of lincoln, but to be honest, i didn't come across any instance where i felt that lincoln was being grossly misused. i'm sure there are examples, but i haven't come across them. audience member: did anyone call on lincoln in the scottish debates? paul: i can't think of examples off the top of my head, but i wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the better campaigners, the one trying to keep the u.k. whole, i wouldn't be surprised if they enlisted lincoln because they were treated well. one who was promoting the unity of the island of ireland in the early or middle part of the 20th century.

it would make sense. i didn't notice any during the time of the debates, but it would certainly make sense. audience member: you didn't cover it in your remarks today but could you share with us, what was going on with the english government during the civil war and the debate over recognition of the confederacy and how much sympathy there was for the union at the time. i know that one of president lincoln's motivations for the emancipation proclamation was to cut off that avenue and move the war, other than the union, keeping the union together, but to a higher level of ending slavery. paul: during the civil war opinion in great britain was mixed and evolved over time as well. but at the beginning of the war, one of the important

considerations was the cotton trade, which britain relied upon the american south and its links with the south. that was an important consideration. british people in general gravitated towards the status quo because a country with the standing of great britain has investment in maintaining stability and international relations. that was another consideration and in terms of the official government response to the civil war, it was to wait and see, especially during the first couple of years of the war, to wait and see who won and let that determine who great britain supported and whether they recognized the confederacy or not. the most important consideration was self-interests. great britain evaluated its own interests how they were affected by the civil war and that included consideration of the cotton trade and included very

portrayed that great britain enjoyed with the union states, financial connections and so on. also involved the threat from the union and from the secretary of state that if britain did recognize the confederacy, then the union would declare war on britain. it didn't seem to be a realistic prospect fighting the confederacy and britain at the same time. but it was just enough of a threat to give them some pause to step back and to continue to wait and see. [applause] thank you all very much for your questions. >> "the civil war" airs here

every saturday. to watch more of our civil war programming any time visit our website. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend. >> american history tv is joining our comcast cable partners to showcase the history of fort lauderdale florida. we continue now with our look at the history of fort lauderdale. this is american history tv. >> welcome to the museum, this is the former trainer holding which was one of 200 buildings that was part of the naval air station in fort lauderdale and