william blair talks about how the 14th amendment was used after the civil war to punish former rebels for secession. he talks about how different voting laws, to and exclusion from public office. all of which he argues. nhis was presented by pampli historical park. it is just under an hour. >> we are very privileged to have bill blair with us today. is a professor of middle american history at penn state university, which has one of the best faculties in the country dealing with the civil war era. a number of his colleagues are well-known known, and he is right at the top of that list as a teacher at penn state. he received all of his degrees, his bachelor, master, and phd at penn state. i first met him 28 years ago

when he was a newspaper editor, i believe. after having a career in the newspapers and journalism he decided he wanted to devote his life to studying and teaching history. we are all the better for it. he is the author of many, many books. "with malice toward some," his newest book publishing 2014. "virginia's private war," a wonderful book. ," publishedhe dead by the university of north carolina press. and he was the founding editor of one of the best journals that deal with our period of history, the civil war era. bill's topic is punishment for the rebels, a new twist on the 14th amendment. please welcome bill blair.

[applause] thank you. thank you for that very kind and generous introduction. this is my first time here. wowed already. i told my table mates i did drink some coffee so i could stay awake. hopefully i will fulfill that promise. take you back 150 years. one of the things i do as a historian is take people back into a particular time. this time is when the victors held the defeated south in a very hard to grasp. it was a moment when even former confederates feel the worst.

that was that some of them could be charged with treason and executed. northerners,any they had after all waged war against united states, the filling even the narrow definition of the crime in the constitution. herecan read newspapers in there was ang on lot of indication that l anderners were mad as hel looking to make the rebels pay. and they wanted to make secession never, ever a choice again. then came the revelations about the conditions of prisoners in sparkedville, which congressional debate, especially in january and february of 1865 about whether there should be retribution visited upon the confederates.

off with a president in u.s. history by a sympathizer, john wilkes booth, but all of these things together, 700,000 dead into the mix, and you have the possibility of a perfect storm of vengeance. more than a few northerners at the time appeared to be ready to overlook lincoln's counsel in his -- and instead, actively pursue malice toward some. but it did not happen, did it? for treason, although there are more indictments then you know of. the commander of andersonville prison was tried by a military commission and did hang for war crimes. but those were war crimes, not treason.

and then there was the hanging of the lincoln conspirators. the one with the dress, the first woman hanged by the federal government in history. yet that country backed away from more extensive bloodletting, raising the question in our minds, did the confederates get off scott free? they really did not. they did receive some punishment. and a good portion of the remedy came in at face we might not suspect. have missedcholars this, the 14th amendment of the u.s. constitution. before i go further i want to put you back in the place of these men and women who had lost children, parents, friends. pretend you are one of those northerners that were mad about the situation, i want to ask you, what would you want to do to the rebels?

what choices do you have for punishing? we do not have to guess because there are many letters to andrew johnson in the national archives. while many people are saying, do not hang, there were people saying quite the reverse. obviously, execution is something you could ask for, that is obvious. but how would you do it? ,anging was a method of choice but a simple hanging might not be enough. what you like to send a statement and make a spectacle of it? , so secessione does not happen again? would you make a medical doctor hang with the rope that was used on john brown? not know how you would find that rope, but it was a suggestion that was made. what would you like the six

people from lancaster county do, the scent andrew johnson a petition, to recommend they be hanged at 92 feet high? any guesses? than could hang in higher a biblical figure. we are not even getting to the good stuff yet. what else could you do? how about banish some of the leaders, why not? the senator from massachusetts believed that they should. maybe 500, he reckoned. how he would determine who goes in his days, i do not know, and i never got that far. what else could you do? how about confiscate their property? yes, starting with slaves. and make sure they do not receive reimbursement for their

investment, or have their currency honored. what else could you do? how about deny them political power? you could prevent them from certainor from holding elected offices, absolutely. and now for the last one, this is my favorite, not because i wanted it to happen, but because i think it is creative -- how about, shave them? before i get further, i have to give you context. this is a northern commentary on jefferson davis, captured may 10 in georgia. as he was running away, they by federalsed troops. either he or his wife through on an overcoat, so he was caught with a piece of her clothing on him. he was not dressed like this,

not enough -- not long after the event, they show him in petticoats. it shows him with a bonnet and a hatbox. this is one of my avis, frank leslie, he looks kind of attractive, doesn't it? the dress has gotten more is a little more effeminate. the commentary was to say the confederate experiment was on masculine, led by people who were effete and not very manly. and he said he wanted to take jefferson davis "in his crinoline and boots and paid him up and travel through the whole country," and he underlined this .art "entertain as a show

would say i am, i saw a would-be president in my life. in this part, the national debt could be paid." what do you think? in theirebels noses sin and balance the budget. [laughter] we will find the best articulation of how the united states punish the rebels in the 14th amendment, which is little understood. howitt channeled the cries for vengeance and met the rituals of a democratic legal culture. confederates lost property, that was not caused by the 14th amendment, but slaves were not returned to masters. the loss amounted to 3 billion dollars in 1860.

that is to an half times the total investment in railroads in the country at that time. another untold amount of money went down the drain and confiscated goods under the banner of military necessities. much seized during the war was "lost" by the confederacy. and, in this amendment, there were attempts to curb the political power of former rebels . all of it was sanctioned in the 14th amendment by the u.s. constitution. thisr the first part of talk, what i would like to do is understand why the rebels did not hang for treason and why we go to the 14th amendment for punishment. some may say lincoln stopped at killing with his cry for mercy in his second inaugural. others might point to the parole.

they were given out to soldiers in the army that they were not to be harmed or prosecuted as long as they obey the law of the united states. mercy is thesay hallmark of a government. i think this has some impact, otherthink two ingredients are necessary to understand the country came to a and did decide not to conduct trials and executions. one of these reasons was the lack of a coherent political will to press long enough and hard enough to do it. and here may be found in the rituals and peculiarities of our all legal system, which shows you how profoundly important was the rule of law to 19th century americans. in this particular case, reason emotion. motion --

go back 150 years, fighting at stop the momentum was moving toward trying the rebels. they were ignoring some of lincoln's cries, with malice towards none. 1866.arch in 1865 and east tennessee was a strike-torn region. in this moment they have 2000 cases on the docket for treason. in maryland, military authorities in general want to had joinednyone who the rebel army. they hoped to do treason against the state of maryland, not the nation. which was something totally appropriate at the time. hanged forson was treason, but it was treason against the state of virginia, not against the national government.

we can talk about that if you like in the q&a. more than 4000 names of marylanders were submitted, but national pardons of former confederates had muddied the waters, and they were not sure about the jurisdiction and the power to move forward trials. but the greatest attention came in mid-june of 1865 a few months after -- and in norfolk, 37 formerhey had public officials and military officers tried for treason. and you know many of the people on the list, baked included of his sons, two he greeted the news with consternation.

he filed for a pardon. some say it was lost or stolen, the secretary of state ended up with it as a souvenir and gave it to a friend. it was not found until the 20th century in the archives. lee did not receive his pardon until 1975. the paroles created very little obstacles for trying these men for treason. this was a shock to me. legal experts easily set it aside. in attorney general said so the opinion get to the president . ,e and other legal experts grants and other generals had acted as military officers. the terms encompassed on the military actions had not secured the parolees from civil prosecution.

military actions and they argued lasted only during the war. ceased -- that ceased once hostilities ceased. compelling, only a president could issue a pardon. pardon power cannot be delegated. and where is a paper trail that says what lincoln believes and thought -- believed and thought should happen in this case? it does not exist, there is none. the door was open to ignore the paroles. except to grant stepped in. in to ask ifen they would be upheld. grant confronted johnson over the issue. surprised to find out, wanted to push for prosecution. lee, i am not so sure about.

but he was fighting the general over this particular matter. grant finally looked at him and said, if you do this, i resign. you just cannot have the top generals here in the nation resign mike that. johnson, understandably, caved. perhaps you can say that gesture by grant ended the trying of key military figures, but that does not mean politicians are off the hook. grant also was not squeamish about prosecuting political figures, and wanted to have harder treatment there. he presided over the arrest of key politicians, including the former governors of virginia and north carolina. the latter of which spend 47 days in prison without facing any charges. grant, politicians that were brought on and conducted the

why did no politicians swing from the gallows, either at the standard or the biblical height? this brings me to the lack of political will, and what seems obvious but often appears were more that unions precisely reunion, served as a goal of the war from the people in the loyal states. because of this, once you have reunion, you take away most of the democrats from the list of vengeance.ing they may have harbored grudges against the former enemy, but they needed them to win elections. that much was clear from the result of the 1864 election. a good deal of the republican party held the sentiment. you have to remember that the republican party was about 10 years old, it was a very young party holding together a strange

conglomeration of people from wall street financiers to social revolutionaries known as abolitionists. the one thing holding us together was abolition, or more precisely, restricting slavery from going into the territories. that goal had been achieved, slavery was gone. what is going to hold this party together? a lot of people started to worry about, do we need to reach out to the south, the southern whites, and see if there is some political rapprochement that can be achieved here? the two groups that surprise me the most when i did research for my book, i expected vengeance to be the strongest among radicals, republicans, and african-americans. but it was not so. for african, it is incredibly hard to find expressions of vengeance and articles,

newspapers, or private correspondences that survive. once in a while, such as in a july 4 celebration in pennsylvania in 1865, one could find a black soldier shouting his desire to see jefferson davis dingle at the end of a rope. but in this account, the other colored troops not to the orator down. his other comrades knock him down. i think black people did not mind the former confederates and did not mind a victory by the union. and, like the individual who is quickly hushed by his compatriots, more than a few would probably not have worked all that hard to stop at the hanging of a few former planters. but outspoken hatred of former rebels? that just did not take black people where they needed to go. it risked giving white people

just one more thing around which to unite. more surprising to me was the an group i expected to mount effort to extract the highest level of punishment against the rebels, and those are the radical republicans. you can see i put two categories up of people that wanted to punish them, and the ones that wanted to reconcile. it was always a shock to me. there were republicans like john julianne on the left and jacob howard of michigan. rabid punishers, they advocated for a time and time again. side, henry ward beecher and gerrit smith. and they were was the billy graham of his era.

kansas,ran guns to her's bibles. he was running guns to kansas and now he is preaching and his rebels,mercy for the forgiveness, and pardon. the other guy is garrett smith. he provided some of the funding for a guy named john brown. he is one of the financiers. it turns out there is a whole group of them that argued for mercy. many of the abolitionists efforts to improve society, such as the battle to end capital punishment, which was more successful than than it is today. beecher's of the death penalty tosted for only two reasons, refund the prisoner and the turn

to crime. he said hanging never reforms anyone. take a step of moderation in the direction of humanity because it will be understood to the advantage of free governments all over the world. that example, that example of america, an example for republican governance that factored into his thinking. european powers and writers were flooding the state department with loads and loads of letters come -- letters, saying, do not kill them. show the republican governments are better than monarchies. think greater sustained political pressure might not have overcome the real obstacles within our civil legal system for punishing treason. recognition of that fact came in 1865 when the senate demanded

answers for why a civil trial of jefferson davis was not moving forward. general -- by the way, i missed a slide. i thought this was funny, horace the editor of the tribune, a famous abolitionist, said lincoln was too slow on theition, he is one of first people that stepped up and contributed to the bail bonds of jefferson davis. this became a very famous cartoon, showing horace greeley holding open the door to davis' cell. davis does not look too manly, does he? jefferson davis hung from a sour apple tree. that line comes from john

brown's body. it is awhat is -- what reference to. the legal system itself was conspiring against allowing treason cases to move forward because the country had made a decision. after the hangings of the lincoln conspirators, those were done with military permissions. them were repulsed by that. hanged,use they were but because it was a military trial. and people thought that is not what we should be doing, the war is over, we should let civil civility operate at this time. trials would have .robably put davis away you could take the jurors, you had much more freedom and lower

standards of evidence. jefferson davis probably could've been hanged that military condition. the attorney general of the united states says, where do you hold a trial in civil court when you have a crime? where the crime is committed, right? so the jury of peers comes from where? case.nd, virginia in this and that was the ruling by the attorney general we have to create a jury of his peers. not just richmond proper, but within the state of virginia. what is your guests? -- guess? people knew at the time paneling a jury would be a problem. john c. underwood, who presided over the indictments with lee was asked to testify.

he told the congress there was no chance at lior davis would be convicted in a court trial held in virginia. candded this, unless you pack the jury. asked him if he could do such a thing, he said it might be difficult, but it could be done. i could pack a jury to convict him. i know very honest, ardent union men in virginia. and here are some of those ardent men. it is a panel assembled from which you would then choose the jury of 12. he was starting to assemble this jury. do you notice anything? out of the 24, half were african-american. said, apack a jury he congressional committee. just think of that. here is a city federal court

judge under oath testifying to a congressional committee that he could tamper with the legal system and disobey the law and get a conviction. you cannot make this up, can you? the government backed away from prosecuting davis and any of his compatriots, securing a conviction seemed too risky area in early 1869, the government dropped the case and walked away. and that basically ended the matter. however the rebels really punished? this is a good time to return to the 14th amendment. these resolutions -- it has five sections to it i will show you some of them. all five.em, not five just says you have the power to do it. these were adopted by congress in june 18, 1866.

1866 they put out the 14th amendment. because of the way things were stalled over the punishment of rebels and former confederates. becauseters got worse 10 of the former confederate states rejected the 14th amendment and did not let it pass. sooner or later, the federal government said, no, we will occupy the south. part of your bargain for coming back to the union will be to enact then act -- 14th amendment. it is the most famous amendment in our constitution, the most litigated for personal rights and liberties. if he were here he could tell you, this is a major shift in constitutional powers, going from negative liberty, saying government do not do something, to now positive liberty, saying, government protect us.

ie second is most famous, will not spend as much time here. somewhat known to people in the room. basically this sets up the notion of birthright citizenship. we have not heard anything about that, haply? -- have we? [laughter] if you were born in the country, you are a citizen. why do you need this? first of all, go back and really read the constitution. although it says how you can become a citizen, if you are not in the united states you can become a naturalized citizen. there is nothing that says what it takes to become one and there is nothing that says what are your rights if you are one. the bill of rights does some of that, but this is starting to specify how you become a citizen because of your birthright, you are born here. ed that also because in 1857 there was a very famous court

case, dred scott decision. a slave was taken to free territory. it was well-established in international law from 1770's case in england called the somerset case that if you took a slave to live in free territory, that slave was free. evolutionists thought they would casethey made it a test and they lost. the supreme court justice was a former slave owner. he came up with a famous decision that said anyone who is a sub sahara african descendent is not a citizen. not a citizen. this is helping clear up a few things. if you look at the last sentence in particular, it talks about how there is the quality of the law. you were supposed to be equal before the law and the federal

government will have the right to make sure you are equal. whether they use it or not is a different story. it does put up the production. this is the one we spend a lot of it -- a little bit more time on. it is a wonderful example of power politics at work. i am curious, has anyone in the room ever read this? you historians put your hands down. tough to unpack and i will not read it word for word. necessary tois summarize. by the second sentence it says that in any election, and they are specifying which elections, federal and they also get the state, judicial offices of state or members of the legislation -- legislature. male inhabitant

that is 21 and a citizen, and by the way, who is a citizen? anyone born here. african-american? yes. do, whitee going to south, is reduced representation in congress to correspond with every person you deny that vote. you get the picture? they have already said who is a citizen of the number one. section two, they get to this. it's incredible how this is working. let me try to get you a sense of it. -- anddo this thing frankly, why did they do this? this was the very first thing on the minds of people when they created the 14th amendment. this is how you will try to keep power proportioned in the country. and what happened was people woke up after appomattox and

realized there was a court with the 3/5 compromise. you can count slaves as 3/5 of a person for representation. what happens when slavery ends? how you count that person? -- how do you count that person? as a full person. what does that do for southern representation? it is going up, absolutely. white southerners can now count on black people as a whole person for representation, but if the south did not do this and this was invoked, they would see their representation in congress go from 83 to 47. 83 to 47. significant, right? let's look at this further. why does the labor specify the whole number of persons? in the second line, counting the whole number of persons in each state.

why doesn't that say citizens there, or voters there? language matters, and how it is put together does matter. youou use the term "voter," will reduce the number of representatives in new england. votersengland only male voted, but they were losing migration into roads and there was a female majority in new england. seats if going to lose they count citizens -- excuse me, voters. why not citizens? is there anybody who comes into the country who might not be a citizen? who you would like to count if you are the north? we are talking about it all the time today. how about immigrants.

they are not citizens, right? north, youare the would sure not my counting them for your representation mainly because about 80% of them are going into the north, not into the south. that is where more manufacturing jobs are in more opportunity. yeah, that is stevens -- said we willens call them not citizens, but persons. here is the result of all of this. the potential impact of section 2. youens, it is remarkable, can watch these guys calculate this, figuring it out, trying to debate what we can do, what will be the effectively use this word verses that word. if you start with the fact that, ok, there is no black suffrage in the south, you will lose 36 seats.

immigrantsg to count because we get more immigrants. hence, we will gain 15 to 20 seats. total impact, 50-55 seats go to the north. at of a congress that is a total of 238 seats. i am not good at math but that is a good percentage. that is to my students, power politics, isn't it? that would've been the impact of section 2 if suddenly in 1868 the north did not force black suffrage by other means upon the south. here is section three. this was the one that was the most detested by many in the south. --y figured from section 2 they didn't like it but they thought the north is doing its thing, flexing its muscles, we

will fight back. they did not expect this and were actually apoplectic about it. this is what caused virginia to vote against the 14th amendment. no person -- you cannot be a senator, representative, president, vice president, virtually hold any public office if you were a officeholder before the war in an fight against it. you fought against it after taking an oath to protect it. , trying tongress limit with the president can do, only the congress made -- made by a vote of two thirds remove this. all right. this really struck many in the south hard. the richmond dispatch strongly objected to excluding an entire

class of seven men from civic life as one of the reasons not to ratify the 14th amendment the first time around. "-- paper said, quote excuse me. not like to be the man and go for the people and asked that the old soldiers to vote to disqualify their old commanders, or to ask the civilians to disqualify our old judges and justices." section 4. you did note you'd be doing this much work tonight, did you? [laughter] this one you would think would have absolutely no problem. it is common sense. but it basically says we will not -- you will recognize the

validity of the public debt of the united states. ok. what is the big deal? think of if you are the south. you are going to be paying taxes to pay off the war debt that you -- you get it. it was a debt amassed fighting you. now you will be taxed to recognize that. there were a lot of people in the south that did not want to pay this anymore. there were northern democrats that were not sure they wanted to pay the debt. they said to heck with the debt. why don't we produce it, abolish it, not even honor it? there was huge debate at the time. the amended says no, we will recognize the public debt. neither the united states or any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred -- in other words, we will not pay for what you did to fight us. we are not going to do that.

we will not allow you to cash in your bonds, recover your currency, recognize that. we will taxi for that. -- tax you for that. see what i mean by punishment? yet here the rebels did put up a fight. president johnson, who was on board with this section, made it clear the u.s. are not recognized confederate war debt. georgia balked, and they knuckled down only after receiving a strongly worded telegram from the president. mississippi refused to repudiate its war debt. south carolina's legislature met in september 1865 and adjourned without complying. legislaturena's took a similar course until johnson finally felt obliged to have another intervention. in other words there was great resistance to this particular approach by the federal government.

so, again, i turned and make the case there is a lot in this amendment. much of it a dead letter by 1868, frankly. we remember the first section, but the next three sections there is a lot of punishment for the rebels in these particular sections. i do have an old terrier motive for taking us through this exercise. i think we tend to think of the civil war tied into a nice, neat bow. yes, i think the war ended with the surrenders of the confederate armies. no question to me, but that is not resolving all the questions that were opened about this -- by this war. reconstruction remains an enigma to most americans. it does for my students. it is a hard thing to teach and commemorate. we just fit how many years celebrating the one of your 50th

anniversary of the civil war -- 150th anniversary of the civil war enemy fell off a ledge. there ar historians trying to get to mitigat -- commemorations for the national park service. but it is a tougher sell. i mean that literally. the washington post ended its and all of arts, sudden we woke up and said we're not going to do this anymore. they said it is because he could i get sponsors to back an expiration of the problems that face america after the conflict. that is a shame. the civil war certainly saved the nation, the reconstruction made the nation. have beeny not i made odious as someone it, but the leaders did suffer economic and clinical consequences, even if they escape the hangman's

noose. the punishment left its footprints all over the cornerstone amendments of the constitution of the united states. thank you. [applause] yes, sir? it talks about no claim for losses. i think it was 1863 or 1864 when the slaves are emancipated in the military district of columbia. that?ey legally deal with -- how did they legally deal with that? they paid out millions of dollars. [indiscernible] dealegally, how can they with that? >> the question is basically how

can you compensate for slaves emancipated by washington, d.c. in 1862, but not going to do it after the war? the answer is it is after the war. meeting lincoln was dangling the carrot during the war. he was using it as part of the inducement to come back. if you come back now, you can still keep your slaves. for a while. it was 1863 with the emancipation proclamation that he ended that and put that aside. 1862 he the summer of is getting similar offers to the border states to see if there to be federal compensation if you start to give up slavery. get 1863, you1 to are in a different political universe. the that mean legally there is some inconsistency?

as advocate, maybe not. washington, d.c. is under complete control of the congress and they are the ones that did that legislation. it is treated differently than the individual states. does that make it legally right? maybe not. yes, sir. >> a couple of comments. that was justss, a raw compromise. the north wanted the slaves not to be counted, the south one of them to be counted. the compromise was to give the constitution and they came across 3/5. i noticed you did not address the term in section 1, subject to the jurisdiction of. someone born in the united states and subject to the

jurisdiction thereof. that is a big phrase they put in there. directeddirectly -- definitely at the slaves. they are subject to jurisdiction. we have got some things going on like birth tourism. people coming over to have a baby in this country because they are starting to open up. that has been interpreted, like much of the constitution has a much more liberal "interpretation" over the years. you did not really address that. phrase -- that key they were under u.s. dominion and trying to prevent some of the things you are saying. people would fly in and try to have babies here and so on. it was not really the major thing on their minds at the time.

i can't pretend it was. the other part of that sentence that is more interesting is how it ends. in the state wherein they reside. that is the part we always neglect. we don't think of state sovereignty. what that's that particular clause when you get to the slaughterhouse cases later, that will be used by a federal judge to say the men that says there is dual nationality, dual citizenship. the u.s. citizen of your stay in of your nation. -- state and your nation. that is one thing they were throwing in as well. i don't know how you want to do this. after reconstruction i know there are several ex-confederate officers of the game are presented as an even senators. how are they able to overcome section 3? mr. blair: virtually all of that

went away on christmas day of 1868. johnson made his favorite christmas pardon. the way they wanted set a pardon everybody. and said iwand pardon everybody. they did not even make it an issue after that point. -- disabilities up to 1898, to the spanish-american war. some people were still covered. i might add jefferson davis was definitely still covered when an attempt was made to make a blanket amnesty in 1876, the one exception of givers and davis is the holding that killed the deal completely. thing,on the two thirds even before the 14th amendment became the law of the land congress was putting through bills removing the disabilities

from shall we say cooperative confederates like former confederate governor joe brown who joined the republican party. it was also kind of a carrot being used from the very first. mr. blair: thank you. >> section 2 says that it indicated immigrants, former slaves, black people living in the country. why does it exclude indians? -- blair: indians were never the question is why are indians excluded? they were not recognized as citizens of the united states. they were considered a separate category of people. just the way they thought about it at the time. you could become a citizen if you were an indian, usually if you got the -- adopted civilized

dress and would leave your native look behind. there were people in wisconsin that became adept at using that. but for the u.s. government, they did not recognize indians who kept their native ways as citizens. it is just the way they were. >> [indiscernible] what does that mean? i was at the find? the third line from the bottom. engaged inhall have the direction against the same. they are trying to make it consistent with what the language of treason is in the

u.s. constitution. treason is the only crime defined by the constitution. not here but earlier. it basically says you cannot be considered to commit treason until you actually wage war against the united states. plotting is not enough. i can't even get to the point, theoretically, or i'm even talking about putting troops in the field or trying to get people together to join me. until a way to that war, until i started doing something you don't have treason. that would count. selling something to the confederate army would count. that is aiding and abetting. pretty broad. you had to have two witnesses according to the constitution. you could not do it by hearsay. you had to have two people see it, know it and corroborate it.

it was done deliberately because of british traditions and how easy it was to have treason convictions. very broad. it is more limited than the british tradition, but what is aiding and abetting? and engaged in with me get to be engaged in some way to fight and supplying would be doing that. >> aiding and abetting during the war, stanton and lincoln loved to use that to incarcerate in various prisons. giving aid was discouraging investment, things like that. it was a pretty broad thing. -- and all it took in terms of having witnesses was a couple of the enemies that your next-door neighbors. they took that is capable witnesses. mr. blair: in 1861 -- you maybe laugh that she made me laugh. i can't member goodies from kentucky are not. a guy what it is so butter and

he got arrested for treason. they walked away from it you can imagine getting hanged for selling butter. >> they rested in a physical minister in alexandria, virginia and hauled him out what his feet because he would not say prayer for president lincoln. he did not refuse, he just did not. mr. blair: thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. providence college history professor patrick breen

discusses nat turner's life and the rebellions he led, and compares it to historical per trails in literature. -- per trails -- portrayals in literature. he spoke of the virginia historical society. this is about an hour. on august 21, 1831, seven men launched what would become known as the nat turner revolt. the rebels swept the southampton county, for treating slaves and killing -- recruiting slaves and killing every five dozen white men, women and children, more than killed ever in any sleep result in united states -- slave revolt in united states. examining the terrible choices faced by