made. >> i love american history tv. >> i had no idea they did history. that is probably something i would really enjoy. american history tv gives you that perspective. >> i'm a c-span fan. a panel of historians and authors looks at the 150th anniversary of reconstruction and examines the challenges paste -- faced in the post-civil war era of rebuilding the union. they talk about the role of the freedmen's bureau, carpetbaggers, and the importance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. the new york historical society hosted this event. we join this discussion in progress. and if i may add, what followed slavery would be black codes. and so every southern state

passes these laws, trying to impose what looks like quasi-slavery on the newly emancipated. >> these were governments johnson had created. >> absolutely. you had incidents of african-americans not being able to purchase land, when they would have been able to do that, because you had black soldiers who may have had a little bit of money. you had people trying to limited resources, they were not allowed to either purchase the land or rent the land. you have black people being denied the right to serve on juries. certainly cannot vote, but the most heinous problem during this period was the apprenticeship laws. a lot of us think that black men were rounded up and jailed, if they did not have visible means of support. if they do not have employment. the real tragedy, i think, of this early period, starting

right after the war into 1866 and 1867 was the apprenticeship of african-american children. children being returned to former owners and forced to labor for them because the parents were deemed indigent. people who have fought for their freedom now losing their children to the very people who had held them enslaved. and then of course you have southerners who had returned, ex-confederates, returning to congress after having been responsible for a four-year war. so what really brings this new form of reconstruction and the whole congressional reconstruction is the outrage that this war has been fought. and although the union supposedly won, you had former confederates actually being able to regain power, not just in their state but at the federal level, as well.

>> and you talk about the black codes. talk about the freeman's bureau, what it was designed to do, and how tragically introduced nothing more than resistance in a way, irrational resistance. >> it was established by the federal government in 1865. and it was meant not just to help african-americans make that transition from slavery to freedom, but to help whites who have been displaced by the war, as well. i think we sometimes forget that. we think these bureau was just about helping black people. actually, it was helping people in general who need the assistance after the war. what it is supposed to do after, is make sure they are not starving to death, that they have labor contracts that are introduced.

that would have been a grand idea, if the freedmen's bureau agents had been a little bit more sympathetic to the needs and the ideas of the newly freed people. too frequently what happened was, those contracts were enforced to the benefit of the former slaveholders. and other ex-confederates, who are trying to reestablish a form of slavery, quasi-slavery in the south. one of the most important things it does do is to help establish goals, because remember, enslaved people are not able to learn to read and write. they're denied that right to do so. there is a real need to educate them. how are we going to be able to sign a contract if we do not know how to read and write? the bureau was very important in

that regard, but there is so much resistance in the south to the freedmen's bureau. black schools and churches are burned. they are black institutions, so important. they try to destroy those churches, as well. so there is a real push back there. the bureau court, what happens is in many instances, the judges who are brought to these courts are not the ones that african-americans would have seen there. sometimes, african-americans are suggesting they be allowed deserved. in many instances, they're not. so the bureau does not accomplish what it could have, had people not meddled with them. >> johnson vetoed every bill. >> as the title of the freedman's bureau, it was the bureau of free man refugees and

abandoned lands. and the original measure that set up the bureau anticipated, and a very vague sort of way, that the bureau would not distribute free of charge, but settle african-american families on land which had fallen into the hands of the government during the abandoned land: southerners had fled. you know, one of the early things that andy johnson did, remember that congress is not in session, so he has a free hand to deal with this through most of 1865. and one of the things he does is order all of this land restored to the former owners. and that, from the very beginning, undercuts the african-americans -- they wanted the famous phrase 40 acres and a

mule. and the bureau supposed to do that. agents were not really interested in that, there were some that were. the head of the zero down in south carolina was a radical and wanted to get blacks on to the land. some of them have been settled on the land by general sherman. but that have been returned. >> i want to get into sherman, who is no friend of black people. >> in january. >> gave people land in the carolinas. the land is settled, maybe planting is done? >> by the summer, there are thousands of black families. >> and presumably, beginning to farm. it is taken away. >> they are allowed to stay for the growing season. and in december, the same army that had settled them on the land now has to even them, if -- evict them, if they will not sign these labor contracts.

and you are mentioning, to work for the former owners, who are now being restored. so this generated a tremendous sense of betrayal as you know, , among the freed slaves in the coastal areas of south carolina and georgia. but even in many other places, in virginia and louisiana, there was land on which african-americans have been settled not by sherman, but by the bureau. again, that is taken away under johnson's orders. one of the things he does the does not get enough attention, it really undercuts the idea of an economically radical reconstruction right in the beginning. >> why are the courts never involved in any of these appeals, or if it is, tell us. >> first of all, the supreme court had been completely discredited in the eyes of the northerners by the dred scott decision.

nobody said let us go to the supreme court. nobody care what they said. >> an extraordinary thing that that was the attitude. >> the justice was gone by the time, justice chase was the head. they said we are not taking this with a 10-foot pole. you know, the supreme court had tried to settle the supreme court issue of slavery with dred scott. it was a total, abysmal failure. this was a legal question. >> the court cannot handle it. they are not an equal branch of government. >> nobody said what the supreme court said at this point. they had totally destroyed their reputation. >> in the aftermath of an all-out civil war, they have played no part. you had three institutions now come the presidency, congressman military.

and there is the supreme court, who even knows who is on it? but it revived during the reconstruction, and had a major role in eroding, if not ruining, the achievements of reconstruction. and it will be the court appointed entirely by lincoln and gregory but that is another story. >> nobody has written more brilliantly about race, reunion, and memory than you. that is my editorial. >> that is something here. [laughter] >> just talk for a minute about, euphemistically known as carpetbaggers, scalawags, and how these romanticized, mythical, absurd images were created and sustained. he know it was "gone with the wind." but before that. >> carpetbaggers, as we know, are those who are northerners who go south. mostly white, some of them black. who go for various reasons, sometimes political reasons, and they do get elected in some places.

sometimes for economic reasons. the south was a new west for a while, the south was a vacuum in some ways. go south, young man. but the reputation of the carpetbaggers, it was ultimately spun, even before reconstruction, it was the hordes of yankees that came south to exploit the situation economically, politically, racially. the truth is that carpetbaggers didn't get elected in some southern states, never really controlled in a confederate state legislature. they certainly did not take over the southern economy, by any means. the scalawag phenomenon is an ex-confederate often who joins the republican party. there are fascinating cases in various states. and they, too, were never a huge

or strong group of people. but they became perfect scapegoats for those looking for targets to blame for the chaos in the violence. and the economic depression that hit the country and the south in the 1870's. and that term, carpetbaggers, it had been applied all throughout our history. it is an overblown, cultural creation, and away. an image created largely in the popular -- i did a brilliant dissertation on this -- short stories and all kinds of things. it becomes this deeply mythic image of reconstruction. and of course, no one remembers "gone with the wind." always overweight, yankee carpetbaggers come south to just take everything. do not leave something laying around because there is a yankee who will steal it. it is part of that old reputation about reconstruction. they never really controlled

reconstruction. and in some states, they were a genuine aid to the revival of the economy. but anyway, that is a quick riff. >> just one little thing to add, david is quite right, the image arises during the construction is greeted by democrats who oppose reconstruction. and then becomes written into the history of the culture, and the ways you describe. but one of the things for the tremendous emphasis is that the other side of that is the d emphasis on the actual role of black people during reconstruction. part of the reconstruction

method is that african-americans were just kind of inert, manipulated by others. the carpetbaggers come down -- that african-americans are not capable of grading their own political aims, organizations, using the vote intelligently, etc. so if things went wrong, in an odd sort of way, it was not the blacks' fault. the carpetbaggers manipulative them. they are the ones to blame for reconstruction. part of the white carpetbaggers and the scalawags are blamed. and the vast majority of republicans in the south, who were black people, they're kind of seen as just manipulative by others. this is something that, and older days, was a way for black people interpreting in many points of history, that they were the victims of others. not actors of their own on the stage. >> by the way, the scalawags were also people who were in the union during the war.

tremendous hitter division came out -- tremendous bitter division came out in upstate georgia, upstate alabama. where there was a lot of union. this is about memories of who was on whose site. if you're a white southerner voting for republicans in 1868, you better find protection. by 1969. >> the argument, too, this is a period of negro rule. there are so many african-americans in the state legislature, and the reality is they are not dominating anything during this period. they are in the house of the south carolina governor, but they are not in charge anywhere. collectively with the so-called carpetbaggers and black republicans in the south, they are working together to actually improve the south. because what we do see is that you have the introduction of the

public school system that is state-funded. the south did not have that. where you have this alliance between these three groups of people, they are reforming the tax laws and so forth. they are doing a lot of things that are bringing the south into a more modern era. so they are not doing the kind of damage that historians -- we are responsible, collectively, as historians for this image. because it was, i believe, at columbia with william dunning that we have this image of negro rule. or these black republicans taking over. and the reality is something quite different. it does not mean that there was not corruption. there was corruption throughout the country during this period. but it's early was that the fault of anyone group of people. >> it takes a lot of new york character to fight corruption.

sort of what new york democrats did. [laughter] we are number one! there are fascinating actors in this period who we have forgotten. hiram was supposed to horrify the white south, but he takes jefferson davis' seat from the city. talk about him, he does not get enough information. >> it is possible for him to be elected to the u.s. senate because you have a time when a lot of the southerners have lost the right to vote. for a period of time. and it is a real irony that he is facing the seat of the former

presidency of they confederacy. i don't think he actually served. there was a lot of resistance to him. he may have served, just a very short period of time. >> what they call the unexpired term, only a few months. >> they never let him actually have it. >> however, i will not disagree with that, but on one point, the number of whites who lost the right to vote is grossly exaggerated. by the time hiram rebels was elected, there was no disenfranchisement in mississippi of white voters. there was a little bit at the beginning of radical reconstruction, that fades away. >> who appoints rebels to the legislature? >> elected by the legislature, not by popular vote. >> unexpired term? >> unexpired, yeah, but obviously jefferson davis has not been in congress.

[laughter] but that term continues. there is an open seat for a few months, so to speak. and so rebels, the first african-american senator is in there. >> politics is really fun. >> it is lively. in>> it is lively. >> before we get to the amendments, which i think we should -- >> by the way, let me just point out. how many african-americans are in the u.s. senate right now? two. thank you. cory booker and scott. there were two black senators during reconstruction, rebels and bruce. i think there have been nine african-american senators the most in the last few years. and there are several, obama -- this underscores what a radical moment in american history.

you know, we know that obama is the only black president -- one out of 44. but the percentage of blacks in the senate is much worse, there have been thousands -- maybe 2000 and the senate at one time or the other -- and maybe nine of those have been african-american. so the effect that african-americans, whether it is not negro rule as you said, before elected to the senate, two state legislatures, local offices like school boards, things like that. it was a remarkable moment in american democracy, basically. >> six or seven in the house? >> more than that.

16 in the house of representatives. >> is is a good segue. i have a question. there was one person who thought that rebels was a crucial figure, frederick douglass. when a lithographers of the day issued a portrait of hiram rebels, frederick douglass said hang this picture on your wall. he became an advocate for the idea that african-american family should have rebels' picture in their home. he never said that about abraham lincoln. where was he, was he doing during reconstruction? >> a lot of time, wishing he was in the senate. [laughter] he understood symbols. frederick douglass was urged by some people, it was a bad idea, to move south. and that moment, that 3-5 year period where it was possible for blacks to get elected, the late 1860's in mississippi. he did not do it. for a variety of reasons. after the war, frederick douglass became a radical republican. he agreed with virtually every aspect of the radical republican plan and regime. he was only modestly in favor of

the 14th amendment at first, because it had compromises. same with the 15th amendment, and yet he celebrate of them, once they were passed. frederick douglass, at this time, from the end of the war into the 1870's is the kind of a man without a portfolio. he did not have a newspaper anymore, and totally actually created another one in

washington in 1870. he had no paid job, his only employment, as it have been for so long, was as a paid orator. he traveled constantly. i mean, constantly -- months at a time -- lecturing and speaking. about the great issues of the time. but frederick douglass had a certain kind of personal crisis for a while after the war, the famous and wonderful line of his autobiography when he talks about 1865-1866 when the occupation is gone. the famous line from "othello." by cause has been won. he learned quickly and have not. but what he does learn is that, as an extraordinary loyal

republican inside and out for the rest of his life for there are lots of reasons for that. and he was a huge supporter of grant. not always in favor of everything grant did. but grant was where the power was, and grant did appoint him to a commission -- his first federal appointment was to the santo domingo commission, when grant was trying to in effect annexed what is today the dominican republic. frederick douglass was part of that commission that went to santo domingo and try to arrange the u.s. annexation. and i should say also that frederick douglass was part of the bitter debate among the old abolitionists, charles sumner on one side and frederick douglass and a host of others on one side. frederick douglass became one of those former abolitionists in the 1860's and 1870's who came to believe, not without reason, that the united states is just experienced the abolition revolution. that emancipation had transformed the u.s. into a wholly new republic, and that they ought to export it. and a number of former abolitionists who had been the bitterest critics were now advocating that the u.s. take the new regimes, ideas, racial equality to the caribbean, south america. he became, not unlike others, kind of an american imperialism.

eventually, he will be the u.s. minister to haiti. although that ran amok on him. but it is fascinating just how much many abolitionists came to see, not hard to understand, they believed they had experienced a genuine transformation of the meaning of the united states. >> i am always struck by the fact that african-americans have to have their citizenship insured by the amendment, when all the people we are talking about were born in america. his are not people who are born on the african continent. they were born here, whose ancestors were buried here, who helped to build this country. this had to occur. the 15th amendment, of course, a couple of years later, granted them the right to rope -- to african-american minutes. the 14th amendment, if i'm not

mistaken, had talked about the right to vote. but it was more of a -- >> what it said was that which is why sumner and frederick douglass did not like it, that states could deny people the right to vote. men, the women did not like it either because it introduced the word male into the constitution for the first time, that states could take away the right to vote for men but they would lose some representation in congress. it did not give anyone the right to vote. instead if you do not give the right of people to vote, you will lose some political power. >> a microphone has been placed in the two aisles. you will have a nice, long answer period. my follow-up before we get to the questions, the 13th amendment passes in 1865. how on earth did they pass the 14th and 15th amendments, what was a legislative body like? i mean mississippi or alabama

ratified the 13th amendment three years ago. they do not deal with it until then. >> first of all, andrew johnson was responsible for the final ratification of the 13th amendment. andrew johnson said states cannot come back in unless they ratified the 13th amendment. mississippi did not care about, do not want to ratify, and they did not. but you only need three quarters of the state. the 14th of momentum of the south is not represented in congress in 1866, when the amendment passes to the congress by a two thirds vote. the reconstruction act of 1867 requires the states to ratify the 14th amendment to ratify the 14th amendment, the southern states, if they want to get back in. so the 15th amendment, it is ratified by congress and states where black people are voting. there were new votes to ratify the 15th amendment, and they are states where you have radical reconstruction governments voting on it in the south. so they are all past in very unusual and unique moments in

our history. the 14th amended could not be ratified today. that is a commentary on how far we have -- >> especially with the time constraints that we now impose. >> that is a crass way of putting it but if you really want to change the constitution, have a civil war. get rid of 11 states. [laughter] then you can get a lot done. not a good idea. >> it certainly helped abraham lincoln when in 1864. we a lot of people with questions. identify your self. aaron: i've heard recently the 14th amendment described as the peace treaty of the war. appomattox was in military construct. i'm glad you brought up bingham. the cause takes bingham's instruction and bastardize it by

the state and government. i am always wondering how to reframe clause to, and the challenges with segregation, how much would have been forestalled, had congress has the power or the desire to deal with the proportionality question and the power given to it? >> you know, the 14th amendment -- it was a series of compromises. bingham started it. but it was hammered out by a series of 8 to 7 votes. it was not as the radicals, it was conservative elements there are radical elements in it. it is not give blackman the right to vote. the radicals wanted it, they could not get through it.

the second clause about registration is a giant myth. it has never been enforced, even in the days when black men were denied the vote throughout the south. the south never lost representation. because of that, they should have. but congress never enforced it. so the 14th amendment is difficult to analyze. segregation was not on the minds of congress at that time. we look back and from our era, brown and everything, when they were debating and arguing brown before the supreme court, the supreme court said you guys go back and find out what the original purpose was for

segregation. they all hired historians do this. >> did years later, there are new ideas. how does the race of historians impact use of historical events. in other words, will the next generation of black historians view reconstruction differently? >> and should the next generation of historians of every race and background will view reconstruction differently. that is what historians do. they try to view things differently than their

predecessors. edna: i don't know that my perspective on any aspect of history is different from any of my colleagues, except that i probably pay a lot more attention to what is happening to african-americans than to any other group of people. but we have people here on the stage who have spoken very eloquently about what is happening during reconstruction and other areas of history as well -- other eras of history as well and have gotten it right. >> stamp, just before his book -- franklin had punished a book. black and white scholars have been writing about this since and don't all agree with each other, but i don't think there is any scholar today of any race who would go back and resurrect that sort of thing. >> you never know what is coming out of u.t.

[laughter] >> a very quick anecdote. one of my dear friends and mentors was nathan huggins, a great african-american historian. he loved to tell the story of being a 19-year-old or one-year-old undergraduate at stanford -- 420-year-old -- 19-year-old or 20-year-old undergraduate at stanford and was learning for the first time in his life about slavery. a book called "peculiar institution" came out. nathan loved to tell that story. ta-nehisi coates, whom i have gotten to know pretty well, would be the first to tell you that his own sense of american history came from reading a lot of historians on his own, basically self-taught. edna: not totally. we taught him.

[laughter] >> i know. at howard. blew that. half of the book is about the mecca. edna: he was a history student. >> what grade did you get him? -- give him? edna: i was only his advisor, not his professor. >> i think we better move on. i had eric holder in my class. i gave him a b. back then, a b was a respectable grade. >> i am a docent here. you talked about the effect of slavery economically and sociologically. the slaves were the heart and soul of the economy before the civil war. they are free now after the civil war. how does the southern economy reboot itself without the slave labor?

>> that is a big problem. and of course, the southern economy goes downhill for everybody, black and white, with the exception of those -- the 1% -- for the whole rest of the 19th century. the economic province of the south was very dire. the end of slavery wiped out an enormous amount of wealth. the slaves themselves represented wealth. the banks of the south were all destroyed. the new credit system, the new banking system put into place by the north during the civil war was completely biased against the south. there was a world oversupply of cotton because, you know, the british had started cotton growing in egypt and many other places during the war to get around the loss of cotton in the south. when the south comes back, there is a giant blood of cotton and the -- giant glut of cotton and the price keeps falling. any political party was going to face a dire economic situation for the next 1/3 of the 19th century. what they needed was some kind of marshall plan or something, but that was not happening in

the 19th century. the challenges facing reconstruction -- and then the challenges facing the post-reconstruction were immense, and they were not solved by the 1930's. president roosevelt is saying the south is the economic problem of the united states, and it was a vast landscape of poverty for everybody, almost, black or white. there were might -- more white sharecroppers in black. poor whites suffered enormously too. it is not a very -- whether there could have been a better economic policy to get the south out of this, nobody knows. that is sort of an underlying problem which confronted reconstruction and every government that came after. edna: we cannot consider just economic issues, because it is the economic problem combined with a lack of social justice, combined with the violence

there. and so, those things are what really do in african-americans, especially the newly emancipated. even if there had been away -- a way to get economic independence, there still would have been a great deal of violence there, because southerners would have exempted to keep people of color -- have attempted to keep people of color in that situation one way or another. >> we have not talked enough about violence. i hope we get a question. >> i am a writer. thank you for this beautiful presentation. it was mentioned that frederick douglass wanted to help export american values of emancipation to the caribbean. given that, certainly the british colonies, slavery had been abolished as early as not -- 1834 through intimidation -- indemnification, what were they trying to export and to what area? these places were, frankly, ahead of us. >> what they were trying to export was, they thought, racial equality, republicanism, representative government, anti-monarchial is him -- and

time in our field -- anti-monarchialism. the economic situation of jamaica was not any prettier. but it was really a kind of political liberalism, 19th-century-style. the old sense of the word "liberalism." if you create the proper, legitimate political institutions and you have equality before the law and widespread suffrage, out of that will evolve human inequality. votes will rise. social peace and so forth. they really believed it. and they saw themselves as the profits -- prophets of this. there is a bitter to make -- bitter debate among the old

abolitionists about how and where to do it, but the caribbean was the first and caribbean was the first and principal object. they were not afraid to think about it a lot of other places. there aren't a lot of republics at that point in history, in the world. america was now the new, shining model on the hill, but only because of emancipation, not because of the founding -- this is why so many of us now call this the second american revolution and the second founding, because they really believe that -- believed that. they had experienced a second founding of the united states in a way. imperialism always has its problems, wherever you try to do it, given that it is extraordinarily righteous in

some way. they found that out in a hurry. >> i really want to get to all of these folks. let's stop with the group that is lining up. i don't know if we will get to everyone. your next. -- you're next. >> i am wondering if you can go back to the role of the supreme court at the end of reconstruction and the destruction of the province of reconstruction as the result of its actions. >> that's a long story. the supreme court, little by little -- it was not just moment -- one moment. you can run through these cases, slaughterhouse, cruickshank, the civil rights cases of 1883, which invalidated the civil rights law of 1875, the last reconstruction measure, and onto

plessy v ferguson, williams the mississippi -- williams v mississippi. little by little, the supreme court whittled away at the right that were being supposedly protected of african-americans. or is a phrase out there, the supreme court -- there is a phrase out there, the supreme court follows the electorate returns. the supreme court was reflecting a general retreat in society from these high ideals of equality and democracy. but it definitely played a disreputable role in this. the supreme court builds on precedent. that's our legal system.

the ev ferguson was rejected by the court in brown -- plessy versus ferguson was rejected by the court in brown. i wrote an article in a livejournal -- a law journal about this. >> with the court was also doing in this speaker -- wasperiod -- this period was showing us they and a lot of american society was not comfortable with this extraordinary extension of federal power. most of it puts things back at the state level. that has a tremendous legacy. one eye open about the society we live in. we live in a state's right country, in case you haven't noticed. [laughter] >> and it stems from this period. they were never comfortable with the perception of federal power, and that's -- this perception of federal -- this profession -- procession of federal power, and

that's what we're still fighting. >> i had a question about the role the capital labor played in reconstruction. we have been talking about ta-nehisi coates so much. maybe we can use the boys -- use dubois to fill this in. >> he has not read that now? ta-nehisi, get busy. [laughter] >> let's get the question. >> the question is, one of the ways you have talked about, and someone asked here, what did slavery do? it provided a great deal of labor. in the post-civil war period, you have the problem presenting again, what is the relationship it provided a great deal of

between capital and labor in the south? as far as i know and have read, one of the ways in which it evolved was through sharecropping. greater and greater capital risk is essentially pushed toward the employee. sharecroppers have to, for example, pay for a lot of things, tools, etc. so, the question is, what exactly is the role between people who were slaves who are now laborers and capital as it was presented in the south? >> slavery plus risk and responsibility. it's bad. edna: it's absolutely awful. what happens is -- it is interesting. when we talk about the jacksonian era and the change in how labor is affected as industrialization takes hold -- before the civil war, we see that people are losing the ability to control their labor. you see the same thing happening during this period, but, of course, enslaved people never had any control anyway, so this is just an extension of that. things could have been different, perhaps, but you have

to start with the idea that people are worthy of compensation for their labor. and if you have a group of people who are believing that folk are still enslaved, then they are not going to want to pay. the argument is they did not have money to pay, that they had to believe -- behave in the way they did because african were not willing to work without coercion. we know that because african americans were not willing to work without coercion. we know that is not true. at bottom, people understood that they needed to take care of their families, but they had no means to control any other the

terms and conditions of their labor during this period. >> i am a lawyer and law professor. i want to see if we can vindicate hillary clinton a little bit and maybe abraham lincoln, too, with the same question. reconstruction was largely not successful, although well-intentioned. could lincoln, with his temperament, stature, have put it on a more successful flight path -- glide path? >> i avoided the what if question. the direct what if questions. we all said that we recognized lincoln's extraordinary political pull. we acknowledged the diminished skill set that occupied the white house afterwards. i've heard today also of a reminder that lincoln believed in executive reconstruction, to the extent he would have imposed it and then opportunistic and -- and been opportunistic about extending rights. he has to been -- he had to have

been more successful than what replaced him. >> he also knew how to work with congress, which andrew johnson did not. the way davisville -- that's the only significant bill that he vetoed. he disagreed with congress now and then, but they normally worked out their differences. >> he did not even really sign of veto -- a veto. eric: lincoln was deeply rooted in the republican party, unlike johnson. the mass of the republican party wanted protection of the basic rights of african-americans. lincoln would have gone along with that. you probably would have had taken -- had a reconstruction with the civil rights act of

1866, probably the 14th amendment -- i don't think there's any reason to think lincoln would not have supported the 14th amendment. was it johnson's failure, or was it the white south's violence against reconstruction? i don't think lincoln's presence would have stopped the ku klux klan from rising. what would lincoln have done then? maybe this problem was insoluble even for a man of lincoln's sagacity. we don't know. the further you go down the road of counterfactual, the more totally speculative it is. i can imagine what lincoln might have done in 1865, but when you get to 1868, you are so far beyond. so many other factors are at play. >> i usually stop speculating. edna: is reconstruction of total failure? there are things that occur that are wonderful. it is just that it doesn't

continue. had it continued, had it been broader, we would not be sitting here talking about it. >> absolutely. it's not a total failure. things come out of reconstruction which survive long after the reconstruction period. the school system, the independent black churches. reconstruction gives a space for the black community in freedom to develop in the south. and one can imagine much harsher outcomes, even than what actually happened after reconstruction. >> and another question that is unanswerable is, when lincoln had used federal enforcement powers -- clearly more than johnson. would he have used more than grant? we don't know. we don't know. >> you have been very patient. >> before i ask my quick question, i would like to make a suggestion. if we start to run out of time, could we at least hear all the questions? >> we are going to hear all the questions. >> my name is alice.

i'm former u.s. department of state foreign service. i was born in louisiana, but raised in berkeley, oakland. my quick comment prefacing my question, i will not be called african-american. my passport says american. i will not be called a hyphenated person. as a preface to the question, the little children who were made to the apprentices -- were they citizens at the time, and when did they start being called citizens? was that a kindness on the part of some former slaveholders? edna: heavens no. >> there were some good

slaveholders. edna: they are citizens because they were born in the united states. they considered citizens at the time? no. some of these children had actually never left a plantation. some had. landowners and other people who can do so will go to the court and will indicate that this parent or parents are indigent and they cannot take care of their child, so let their child come live with me. i will train that child, if it's a boy, in how to farm or to do some kind of trade, if it's a girl, then generally it is house -- is housewifery. >> so, the court made the decision. edna: the courts had no ability to say no. someone could take your child back to your plantation -- their shop, or whatever, and the child would have to serve. the court condoned that.

sometimes the parents were given a small amount of money, but the parents had no say in it. >> yes? >> good morning. first of all, this has been totally fascinating and i want to thank you all. i'm going to ask a difficult question, which i know there is a wrong asked long answer -- there is a long answer to. what is your opinion about reparations? [laughter] >> during reconstruction, the word "reparations" was not in use, but the demand for 40 acres and a mule was couched in a way tot could the analogous reparations. we have worked this land, we have created the wealth in this society. we deserve payment of some kind

for that. that is something along the lines of what reparations is. in the 1890's, there was a black woman who was -- had a campaign for federal pensions for former slaves. i don't know if you want to call them reparations or not, but some kind of payment to reflect the unpaid labor that they had done. marcus garvey -- reparations has popped up throughout our history. it is not something that was just invented the other day. i don't have a dog in that fight, so to speak, but i believe what we need is social policy that addresses the lingering consequences of, not only slavery, but jim crow, segregation, inequality, racism. if you call that reparations, i don't care what you call it, but we need policies of a society to

try to address these inequalities. what label you put on that is up to you. edna: usually, the argument is that reparations should not be paid because there is no one alive today who was a slaveholder, but the issue is not even about what happened during slavery, as you indicate. the issue is about what happened after slavery as well. there was an oppression of people of color sanctioned by our federal government, and there is still fallout to that. there are still the issues of voter suppression today. all of these things, we are still experiencing. and so, it does not have to be a monetary kind of thing, but there's -- there can be some other way to address these issues. as a nation, we have not addressed them yet. we want to deny that any of these things still occur, that we are in a post-racial society, when, in reality, we certainly are not. >> one of the best arguments about reparations, and you both

brought it up, comes out of a court decision like shall be the -- like shelby v. holden. john roberts wrote the opinion. over 30 republican-controlled legislatures in this country passed, as fast as they could, voter id laws. that is just about voting. that's not about writing checks. it's not about the economy. as long as this happens in this country, we have to forever talk about what we have redressed or not redressed. in some ways, at the heart of this was a reparations regime. they did not call it that. they were trying to redress slavery. within the confines of what they

understood how to do. yes, it failed in some ways and succeeded in others. in a sense, we will always have this debate, especially when we can't even keep the new reconstruction laws we pass in -- we passed in the 1960's. >> the particular value of the renewed reparations movement, to me, is that it makes -- keeps the issue in our consciousness and in the political vocabulary and invites, quote, a compromise that would go back to the inalienable rights that are questioned by modern court decisions and by legislatures. i think having it in the atmosphere is not a bad thing, as one would think -- as unlikely as it is for there to be economic reparations. >> hi, i'm a lawyer here in

manhattan. my question goes to a comment you made about march 4, 1869. reconstruction covered three presidential terms. the program today has really focused on the first, and i'm not denying the importance of it. i would ask that you would give some evaluation of the performance of the grant administration. in some ways, he was the most pro-civil rights president we had until the 1960's. >> grant -- once grant comes in, then the republican party is in control of both the congress and the white house for the first time. grant tries to enforce the laws

for a while. he endorses the amendments and the legislation. when the klan arises, even in 1871, he sends troops and marshals in to alabama and carolina to round up klansmen. like the supreme court, the president is at the mercy of public sentiment. after the economic collapse of 1873, the whole focus of politics shifts away from the southern issue, so to speak. 1875. john lynch, a black congressman from mississippi, when there is tremendous violence in the elections going on, he goes to grant and says, "look, you have to send troops to mississippi. otherwise, we are going to lose mississippi." greg says, i could do that, but if i do, -- grant says, "i could

do that, but if i do that, i would lose ohio." the president is hamstrung. the retreat from reconstruction is going on under grant. >> who does crackdown against the klan. >> it is not grant's own personal fall, so to speak. it was something happening in the society altogether. >> you are right. we did not concentrate on the grant years. it needs to be said. maybe you know this. there has never been another time in american history with as much political violence, social and political violence as occurred on the ground in the south, primarily in the south, from roughly 1868, in spurts, usually in election years, right on through the end of reconstruction. today, if we had one person murdered in a voting poll --

we would all be watching cnn. it might shut down the election, at least in that poll. there were hundreds of people murdered trying to vote in 1868, 1870, 1872, and so forth. one quick note, it wasn't just grant. congress set up this ku klux klan hearing process. there had never been congressional hearings like this in american history. they conducted them in seven states, thousands of testimonies about klan violence in the late 1860's. and in a sense, those documents, which are huge -- and they are all online now -- were a discussion of some kind of reparation. the purpose was to say who to prosecute, who to adjudicate, and could people be paid for their suffering. there was this attempt to do that. the culture and the political

time -- people weren't really sure how to. but the violence of reconstruction, you cannot overestimate. >> we have time for one more quick question. >> my name is roy. i teach political science at rutgers. could you talk about the role, if any, of former confederates in the american military after the civil war? >> that's a good one. lee becomes the president of a college and speaks about reconciliation without equality. long street becomes a republican. >> you are not really recruiting that many people. are you asking whether former confederates went into the united states army? not at this point, i wouldn't think, but certainly by the time of the spanish-american war. >> they certainly went into west point after reconstruction.

southerners come back to west point. >> as the sons of confederate veterans. >> it's a fascinating history about when they finally do start coming back. eventually, they start naming halls for robert e. lee. >> including in brooklyn. >> now they are having a vigorous debate at west point about whether to rename the lee barracks. >> just like at the end -- at yale. >> just like everywhere else. i vote for renaming the lee barracks. >> we have robert e. lee road.

>> i did not know that. >> brooklyn. >> where is the city council? [laughter] >> let's rename it hiram rebels road. [applause] >> i'm going to end with a quote from the person i quoted at the beginning. when hillary clinton got to speak for herself on this subject, she made a very good statement, and this is what i think we can all end by agreeing on. "too many injustices continue today. attempts to suppress voting rights go back to racist efforts during reconstruction. in fighting for voting rights and equality today, we are continuing a long struggle that still has to be fought and won in our own generation. the fight continues. we thank you for advancing the discussion. [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]

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