tillerson on u.s./russia relations. >> we currently assess the state of u.s./russia relations. i assess the view that the current state of u.s./russia relations is at a low point. there is a low level of trust between our two countries. the world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. >> c-span programs are available at c-span.org on our home page and by searching the video like library. the messages behind the holocaust museum and the national september 11th memorial and museum. that begins at 8:00 p.m. here on c-span 3. author and historian harold holzer. he describes president lincoln's efforts to court the german

american vote. this talk was part of the annual lincoln forum symposium. it's about an hour. here at the lincoln forum, we've spent some time talking about immigration at our sessions this week. it's instructive that our student essay contest this year was about immigration, and let's face it. it's a fraught issue. it's a provocative issue, it's an unresolved issue then and now. but i want to focus on then. and see if we can get some insight into lincoln and his times and this, as guy said, this hot topic. let me start with december 6, 1864. that's just a month after his reelection as president. and it's the day that abraham

lincoln sent his fourth and as fate would have it, his final annual message to congress. the equivalent, as you know of today's state of the union messages, except by the tradition of the lincoln era, they are not orated in person. they were sent via white house staff and read by a clerk. maybe with feeling. probably not. certainly not the way lincoln himself would have read it. so we can only imagine how the document was received by a body that would ultimately just take a reading copy and study it more closely. i would think that one passage, particularly, caught the listener's attention that day. and keep in mind as we set the stage, not only had lincoln recently been reelected, but the civil war had been raging for three and a half years by this time. and hundreds of thousands of people lay dead.

i don't now if the calculus had been kept up to date, but certainly, every home had already been touched in some way by death. and yet, that day the president insisted this. while it is melancholy to reflect that the war has filled so many graves, it is some relief to know that we have more men now than we had when the war began. that we are gaining strength and may, if need be, maintain this contest indefinitely. so american manpower, lincoln was saying, to a dubious congress and a battered people, was inexhaustible. that's word he used. inexhaustible. now he also said, it's not material to know how this increase has been produced. which is an odd statement. getting past it, as i'm sure the members of congress did, they

knew exactly how it had been produced. one word. immigration. the total number of new foreign arrivals to the union actually had fallen to fewer than 100,000 in each of the first two years of the civil war. but it had rebounded to 176,000 in 1863 and 193,000 the year that they were discussing that day in congress, 1864. the highest totals in a generation. so who were they? well, the overwhelming majority came from edge langland and ger and ireland and scandinavia. most were in fact young menace linco -- men, as lincoln was alluding to. between the ages of 18 and 40.

they were opening up in the industries. and here pay for laborers was up to four times higher than in europe. commander in chief, one in ten immigrants, one in ten, joined the union military as soon as they arrived. by lincoln's optimistic calculation, the result, with black enlistment factored in and even with the ted and wounded, captured missing subtracted was a net gain for the union, for the country, at large and a quarter more million immigrants would arrive in lincoln's final year, 1865. let's get one thing straight. lincoln did not favor what we would call open borders. in fact, in that same annual message, it's extraordinary, he

expressed concern about our border. he thought it was too porous. the polar opposite of the sensitive entry point today, with canada. he said i have no doubt in the power of the executive to exclude enemies of concern about our border. he thought it was too porous. the human race from asylum in the united states. but he would remain equally vigilant, he said that day, to frauds against immigrants while on their way and on their arrival in the ports. once here, he wants them to have a free choice of avocation and place of reside. no registry -- place of settlement. no registry. no limits to employment. while he had spent the previous year and a half worrying that some arrivals were avoiding military service in their own country and were poised to avoid military service in our country, he was so eager to replenish the population, that he was now willing to guarantee that he

would not impose, as he put it, the draft, on any new arrivals, at least not until they renounced their allegiance to their homeland and became full-fledged americans. as lincoln made clear in his previous annual message in 1863, just a couple weeks after returning from gettysburg, he believed america needed to encourage immigration. he called it the source of national wealth and strength. congress liked the idea, but believe it or not, they moved slowly in those days. [ laughter ] some impetus was provided when the republican national convention of the following spring passed a platform plank calling for "a liberal and just policy to foster immigration," and then, in 1864, congress

this is before that state of the union i opened with. congress actually passed immigration reform which not only created the first federal immigration office, believe it or not, not until 1864 and again, encouraged foreign arrivals. here is one that's hard to imagine. the bill of 1864 offered to pay for the transit of skilled workers to the united states. now, that was too much even for the pro-lincoln new york times, which was staunchly pro-lincoln. they editorialized that it would lower the quality of the population migrating. but lincoln ignored the editorial. he was firm on this. and here he was now, five months later, sending his message to congress, boasting about the positive impact of immigration. so, are there lessons for our times? i am going to avoid that

delicate subject as assiduously as other peoplers have done this week. but what i want to look into is not only how lincoln and the nation got to this point, but how lincoln developed from his youth, how did he get to his position on immigration from the beginning? his record on immigration often gets lost in his focus and our understandable focus on lincoln and slavery. interestingly, while he can be said to have evolved slowly on national authority over slavery, especially where it existed, and on equal rights, he was consistently enlightened about immigration, just not always publicly. and that's one of the points i want to write -- to talk about today. like some politicians then and now, i know it's hard to believe this about politicians,

sometimes he had one public position and one private position. so let's go to the beginning, not the very beginning. consider his origins. lincoln was not born in a metropolis teeming with foreigners from whom he'd get first-hand experience. he neither observed or reacted to ethnic diversity. his parents and grandparents were much more concerned about original americans, native americans. on his one visit to a cosmopolitan city, new orleans, young lincoln no doubt heard french and spanish spoken for the first time in his life but what he remembered were the haunting cries of suffering that rose from the slave markets there. expressions that transcended the barriers of language. others were taking note of america's growing ethnic diversity, and there was a liberalization of immigration laws even then. it had gone from two years, five years, 14 years, now it was back

to five year. open residency, five years to citizenship, very simple. tocqueville did not believe we could create a multi ethnic country. until men have changed their nature, he observed on his trip to america, i shall refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together 40 different nations. but from the more multicultural east coast, herman melville countered that the noble mode in which america had been settled meant that in due time prejudice would be forever extinguished. as we know, the future lay somewhere in between the tocqueville cynicism and melville's rosy optimism. so lincoln, still oblivious, he settles in the rural village of new salem, no more diverse than kentucky or indiana. the occasional irishman, we know from recollections that william

herndon collected, wandered into town. roughnecks could be expected to mock their boroughs or about their weakness for drink or their allegiance to the pope. we have to remember that the pope of the 1830's, 1840's was not as beloved as pope francis. it was more of a dig. but lincoln never joined the taunts. herndon, in fact, expressed himself as being astonished that young lincoln had no prejudices against any class, preferring the germans, but tolerating as i never could, even the irish. [ laughter ] now, in that phrase, "even the irish," lies a clue to at least some of the prejudice against immigrants in the 19th century. leaving religious prejudice

aside, immigration, like so much of american life and so many issues then, came down to political power. herndon was a fully committed whig. most irish-americans were not. that lincoln tolerated them at all was something of a miracle as far as herndon was concern because lincoln knew that irish immigrants once they obtained citizenship and voting rights were never going to vote for him or his party. his mixed messages on immigration, which i will get to, were always political, and never moral. the so-called german element -- largely liberal, mostly refugees from and even veterans of the failed democratic revolutions of europe in the 1840's -- enrolled overwhelmingly in the whig party, later the republican

party, once they gained american citizenship. while the irish, as i said, identified just as passionately with the democrats. and it's true, lincoln never entirely lost his lifelong suspicion that irishmen always rigged elections to elect democrats. celtic gentleman with black carpet sacks in their hands, he once called them, hinting that in those carpet sacks was money to bribe election poll watchers or voters to vote more than once. just a few weeks before the 1858 election to the senate, lincoln is 50 years old, almost by then, he came to an illinois port town and said he just had seen a dozen hibernians on a dock and he complained those irishmen were imported expressly to vote me down. now, lincoln's paranoia was par

for the day. rival democrats just as often claimed that there was fraud being practiced by germans who always cast their ballots against them. lynn can came of age politically amidst both rising immigration -- again, you know, there's a try februaifecta maki america more diverse in the 1840s. the famine in ireland. the revolutions in germany. in those regions. even the mexican secession creates a mexican population in the southwest. it also made for a toxic brew among those who had come here earlier and believed that america was their exclusive birthright. now, lincoln joined the whigs, as we know, for its policy of encouraging upward mobility, but even the whig party had a big anti-immigrant streak. in big cities the whigs made

life unbearable for catholic newcomers competing for jobs. to his credit, as much as lincoln supported whig policies on economic development, he refused to endorse or echo the anti-catholicism growing within his own party. in fact, early in his career, he openly rejected it. he was just 35 years old. he was already set up for a future run for congress. that is when he and the rest of springfield learned that philadelphia, the cradle of liberty, had been rocked by anti-immigrant rioting, parked, by the way, when catholic residents simply asked if they could use their own bibles in local schools. local whigs had incited the violence. appalled anded admittedly --

lincoln attended a meeting that rallied people from isolation to gatherings where public speeches and exchanges of ideas were held. this one was called to support the immigrants of philadelphia and to make sure that local whigs didn't think it was a whig conspiracy to put them down. that day. this is 1844, lincoln did nothing less than chart a road map to citizenship. he said that in admitting the foreigner to the right of citizenship, he should be put to some reasonable test of his fidelity to our country and its institutions, should dwell among us for a reasonable amount of time to become generally acquainted with the nature of those institutions, and then, consistent with these requisites, naturalization laws should be so framed as to render citizenship as convenient,

cheap, and expeditious as possible. an historic promise of refuge, asylum in america, lincoln declared that day, remained sacred and invieoble. now, lincoln was preaching to the converted that day. the opposition democratic newspaper wrote that lincoln's words failed to defend the whigs in a manner satisfactory to those who heard him speak. in fact, as much as he protested that year and in the next 10 or 15 years, lincoln never quite escaped the rumor that he did not oppose nativism enough. why is that? lincoln was never anti-catholic. but, the hard truth is, that he never discouraged alliances with anti-catholics in order to broaden his own circle of

support, support that would give him the power to do noble things. in other words, i guess you could say he sometimes kept bad company. now, cozying up to nativists carried risks in the wake of the biggest outbreak of xenophobia in national history. with immigration surging, a new self described american party rose up to demand immigration restrictions. the no nothings. lincoln abhorred their point of view. but shrewdly, perhaps less than 100% honorably but shrewdly refused to block the coalition. in 1848 it was general zachary taylor. after the convention that nominated the old general, congressman lincoln boasted that

all the odds and ends were now with the whigs, including the native americans, by which he did not mean indians, he meant the know nothings. he believed a broad tent would produce an overwhelming triumph for the whigs, and he was right, even if the occupants of the tent were bigots. later congressman lincoln continued to criticize the know nothings privately but he refused to cast them out, particularly from the even bigger tent he began building in the 1850s in response to the threat of the extension of slavery. at virtually the same time that one of his great allies was calling nativism the indelible shame of our politics, lincoln was admitting that most know nothings were my old political and personal friends, and that he hoped their organization

would die out without the painful necessity of taking an open stand against them. it didn't die out, and he didn't take an open stand against them -- for a while. now, with the 1856 elections looming, the first that would offer a republican candidate for president, lincoln told local abolitionists -- whose support he wanted for the fremont ticket -- know nothingism has not entirely tumbled to pieces, nay, it is even a little encouraged. until we can get the elements of this organization -- he meant not destroy but bringing them into the republican fold -- until we can get them there, is not sufficient material to successfully combat the nebraska democracy. . you all know what the nebraska democracy is, the opponents of

the kansas/nebraska act that would allow popular sentiment to spread slavery if a majority of voters approved it. in lincoln's view, the anti-slavery forces needed all the sporters they could attract even if it meant including know nothings. i fear an open push, he said, and prevent our ever getting them. lincoln did not want bigots excluded from the new party. i have no objection to fuse with anybody, he told owen lovejoy, provide idea can fuse on ground which i think is right. even though he thought little better of the know nothings than i do of the slavery extensionists. now i think you can make or at least consider the argument that by this time, 1856, maybe lincoln should have known better.

in 1855, in a legislative contest for the united states senate, abe ram lincoln had entered the ballot as the overwhelming favorite to gain a senate seat. he had it sewn up. but in ballot after ballot, he did not quite get the majority. and then, the know nothing element abandoned him. and someone else was elected. trumble. that is what stimulated the long letter to joshua speed that is quoted so often. and we don't have speed's letter to lincoln. we can conjecture, did he say -- why in the world are you consorting with those people? they did you win and they are doing in the american ethos. that is why lincoln writes, i am

by no means a know nothing. and you probably know the rest, our progress into degeneracy appears to be pretty rapid. we began by saying all men are equal. now we say all but negroes may be. when the know nothings get control, we will say except negroes, foreigners, and catholics. then he talks about a base alloy of despotism taken prur in places that make no pretense of bigotry in places like russia. did he protest too much? mind, as often as we quote this letter, it was completely unknown in the 1850s and the 1860s. it was not made public until william herndon wrote his biography of lincoln and published it in 1872, years

after lincoln's death. let's understand the letter for what it is, the reassurance to a personal friend -- his best friend -- not a public declaration of distaste for the know nothings. in fact, it wasn't until 1876 that the letter was published in "catholic monthly," an important publication at the time and only then the editor wrote that the words deserved to be inscribed in letters of gold, implying, where were they before? well, a few months after he wrote the letter privately, know nothing me fatastasized so dramatically the party was able to field its own candidate for the presidency, willard fillmore, who went on to run one of the most successful third-party

candidacies in history, reese evening in appalling 23 per -- receiving an appalling 23% of the vote with a platform dedicated to excluding foreigners. that must have rattled lincoln. he was a savy vote counter, if there ever was one. two years later, he gives the house divided speech and becomes the nominee of the republican party, which is a new kind of thing, the one and only party candidate for the senate to challenge two-term incumbent steven douglas. the seven debates that are so famous -- justly so -- would barely touch on this subject. one or two passing references, and usually it was douglas teasing lincoln about being abandoned by the know nothings at the 1855 legislative contest. but a month before the debates got underway, lincoln delivered a response to douglas in chicago. it was such an important occasion that when douglas agree to the debates, he excluded cook county because he thought this was already a debate.

it was just a week after independence day. that must've been rattling around in lincoln's mind, because he began by talking about the iron man who had established the country, but he had his eye on foreign men, too, because many foreigners were in the audience, because by now republicans had been flooding into illinois, changing the demographics, making it one of those toss-up states that we hear so much about today. aside from the men defended by blood by our ancestors, he said among half -- at least half among the audience are not. they've come from europe, themselves, their ancestors have come hither and settled here. if they look back through our history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find none, but when they look through that old declaration, they find we hold these truths to be self-evident,

all men are created equal, and then they feel they have a right to claim -- to claim that as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the declaration, and so they are. that was the electric cord, he said. now, lincoln lost the 1858 senate race anyway, but just a few months later began casting his eyes on a bigger prize, and where reaching foreign voters was concerned, finally and literally, he put his money where his mouth was. it's quite a story. i talked about it in opening my book on lincoln in the press. i'd like to go over it now because i find it one of the most astonishing springfield,

illinois stories among those to ever come down to us. remember, lincoln had been cultivating newspaper editors wherever they traveled. he would engage them. they were reluctant at first. he won them over. he was a charmer. he found every republican editor he could find to get them on his side, and these included the editors of german language weeklies wherever he went in illinois, indiana, ohio, wisconsin. he met them and corresponded with them because he knew the german vote was going to be so important in the west in the presidential election. it might even tip the balance to the republicans in the swing states like indiana and illinois, which had gone for buchanan in 1856, may be a big german vote as population increased and voter eligibility increased could flip them in 1860. so in an episode long overlooked

by history, abraham lincoln decides it's not enough to cultivate german newspaper editors, he decided to become a german newspaper editor. [ laughter ] . well, how did he do that? he had a partner, a young german immigrant, a doctor by training, an american citizen for just four years, but already very active in illinois republican politics. he had a newspaper in alton, illinois, and was just about as unwelcome there as elijah lovejoy had been. he seemed shocked that he had no advertisers or readers there. so he decided to move his operations to the state capital to become a statewide german language republican newspaper. as he gets to springfield, something interesting happens. people in illinois get wind of a bill that is being considered in the legislature of perhaps the most progressive state in the

country, massachusetts. there, they are considering a law that would prohibit foreign-born citizens -- people who have already become citizens -- from casting their votes in national elections and state elections for two years more. a two-year waiting period. well, republicans knew what that was. that was democrats in the state legislature trying to prevent people from voting in the presidential election. nationwide. they were starting a movement. he and his friends were outraged. horace greeley in new york warned this would threaten the republican victory. it was voter suppression, and republicans won't win if this bill is passed. so he did what everybody did. as i said earlier, he held a public meeting so that everybody could come out and yell and shout and denounce. and he invited this famous republican in his new home town, abraham lincoln, to attend. abraham lincoln did not attend.

he was still being very careful about those know nothings, or former know nothings, with nowhere to go. and this was 1859. he wasn't yet ready to appear at a public meeting. this is an important thing, maybe a disappoints thing. lincoln finally wrote a letter to be published in the german press. lincoln figured it would be read only by germans. i'm just calculating that. he wrote, understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of man, i am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them. i have some little notoriety for supervising with the strife of the negro. this is a milestone.

this is the speed letter all over again. but perhaps a little toned down. you don't hear about the base alloy of hypocrisy or despotism in russia, but at last made public. a big milestone for lincoln. it took him 50 years, but a big milestone for lincoln, and it created a sensation. perhaps to lincoln's chagrin. perhaps he was okay with it. it was published in the english language presses as well. he is held as the gallant champion of the state and he begins meeting with lincoln and plotting about republican voting strengths. but he had a problem. he wants to start this german paper. but as soon as he got to springfield, his creditors had seized his printing press and his types. you know, we don't do hot type

any more. but racks of german type, seized them. put them in hock. how am i going to start a pro-lincoln paper without a printing press? very wise. lincoln set i know what i am going to do. i am going to go to the republican state committee and say what do you need? he says i need $500. a lot of money in 1859. i will go to the republican state committee. i will get to the money for you. remember, parties and newspapers are cogs in the same political machine. they're not separate. they're fully integrated, operating for one common cause. the republican committee chair says to lincoln, are you kidding? he is a leech. quote, unquote. i'm not going to give you a penny. i've been bailing you out of things for the last couple of years. i am doing my own version of the conversation here, but the quote a leech, is real. i've seen the letter.

lincoln decides to invest himself. he's at his law office when a fee for $500 arrives in the office. as william herndon comes in and says, did we get our fee from so and so today? lincoln says billy, we just bought a newspaper. i know all of you lawyers will be disappointed that lincoln wrote his own contract and represented himself. it's an extraordinary contract. both copies survive. in it, lincoln said -- here is $500. what i require to you is that you are loyal to the state and national republican platforms. if you divert from them in any way, i will take everything back. if you remain loyal until the

end of december 1860, get it, after the election for president, you can have it all. you can have the press, the name, the type. it's not to be made public, but it's all yours. that was the whole deal. that's how important this instrument of public opinion was to lincoln. by the way, politicians were openly owners of newspapers in those days and newspapermen like hour -- horace greeley in new york ran for office. this was a well kept secret. no one knew about it except to people. it's rather odd. but lincoln was so proud of the result, he began mailing it to other politicians saying here's this wonderful newspaper. you should subscribe. but i can't find any evidence that he ever identified himself with it. and here's the real rub there,

is not one copy of this newspaper. and i mean not one copy that anyone has ever found. there have been alerts written in springfield and in washington. if any of you have one, see me later about the collection. but, they are -- just vanished. they did their work. the english language paper in springfield said a lot of the victory we have just got in 1860 were due to the german republicans of the city. isn't it extraordinary? abraham lincoln for a year published a newspaper he could not even read. by the way, he had taken german lessons for a while in springfield because he wanted to speak directly to his constituency. but according to one survivor of the class, lincoln told jokes

throughout the class and nobody learn mid german and the class disbanded. all we know is that in chicago, he met george snyder one day and said, i know what your name means, snyder means taylor, right? and snyder says do you know german? lincoln said i know taylor. that's about it. about a month after the election, lincoln signed the contract over, signed it over, and by that time, he had also gone to the republican convention, supported lincoln for the nomination for president, which most german editors did not. they supported edward bates because bates hailed from st. louis, the most german-american city. and now all germans lined up for what happened in the 19th century when you won an election, jobs. federal jobs. and newspaper editors were the

most honored for jobs. including german editors. they were named the teutonic expectant's as they lined up for their loaves and fishes, and lincoln was really generous. he gave them plum diplomatic appointments to ecuador and zurich, german editors. and they had supported bates. and then kustoff koerner, famous german editor, writes a letter to lincoln and says why have you ignored this man who was for you before any of these guys? lincoln sheepishly writes a letter to the secretary of state and says, you know, i'm coming to washington and i represent illinois and i hate to give jobs to illinoiss but i have to take care of canisius. i would like to make him consul to vienna.

$1500 a year. ultimately, he rewarded his copublisher as well. and he did more. here is an astonishing thing. without leaving very big fingerprints, lincoln asked the state legislature when it got back into session in january of 1861 to please pass a resolution to buy up all the back copies of the newspaper. this may be why there are no copies around. please buy them and make use of them. and they pass a resolution. the republicans had taken control of the legislature and it produced $504 for canisius to take with him the to buy strudel in vienna. maybe they had a bonfire. he continues to appoint germans, and of course, on february 11

goes off to washington and gets another precious opportunity to speak directly to an immigrant population. he gets to cincinnati, to appear before a german-american industrial association. he gets an ear-splitting ovation. he is introduced as a model self-made man. he says workingmen are the best in the world, not only nativeborn, but foreigners from other countries. here he is really rating his statement to the newspapers from 1859, a couple of years later. but in person. this is important. then he not only reiterated his statement for the homestead law. he says if foreigners desire to make this land their land of adoption, it is not in my heart to throw ought in their way or

prevent them from coming to the united states. esteemed foreigners know -- better than other people -- he got a laugh with this -- or any worse. it is not my nature when i see a people broke down by the weight of their shackles to make their life more better by heaping upon them greater burdens. rather what i do all in my power to raise the yoke. but lincoln also expected the foreign born to live up to the responsibilities of american life as well. and the union itself was threatened and raven and consumed by war, the foreign born were expected to serve and defend the union that they had made their second home. in fact, the union army came soon to speak with a foreign accent. fully a quarter of the 2 million men who took up arms for the union were born outside this country. a half-million hyphenated americans. to encourage enlistment, lincoln

hit upon an ingenious organizing device that his counterpart, jefferson davis, did not adopt, and that is giving important military commissions to foreign-born officers who would be able to recruit and form ethnically-based payment companies. for example, lincoln's old friend carl shirts, who he -- first appointed to the embassy of spain came back and organized a german unit. shirts went on to fight without distinction at chancellorsville, gettysburg. finished the war behind a desk at a depot for new recruits but he served a purpose. even if badly trained german troops fled so quickly from one battle that they were nicknamed the flying dutchman, there were there for a purpose. by war's end, 145 separate units

exclusively comprised of germans saw active service for the union including that of the enormously popular von sigel who remained a hugely potent symbol to the union and a poster boy for recruitment. he was so unlucky that the troops who followed him would say i fought with siegal. even if they fought without success. it didn't matter. now opposition to black freedom as an important cause of the war notwithstanding, 150,000 irishmen also went on to serve in the union army. they formed legendary companies of their own, the irish brigade, the fighting 69th, but they always complained that the germans got favored treatment. i'll give you one very odd example. many of them groused that when

brigadier general james shields who had been borne in county tyrone failed to win expeditious promotion, i mean, we must admit he did very little in combat to earn it but beneath did von sigel, but there you go. but his fans were aware of his long relationship with abraham lincoln, which was not always hunky-dory. shields is the man who had one complained bitterly that someone eertsz abraham lincoln or mary todd was writing vicious, mocking him in local newspapers, really rough stuff. what did shields do? he challenged abraham lincoln to a duel. once lincoln very gentlemanly like said it's my responsibility. it was probably mary who wrote or at least cowrote it. but lincoln took responsibility. they went out to an island of

the mississippi river called bloody island because it was the place where dueling was legal. technically, missouri. and they went there for a duel and lincoln with a choice of weapons chose broad swords and began slicing off tree limbs with his long arms and shields ultimately said, maybe we should make up, or something of that nature. [ laughter ] the irish who fought with him did not know that. i always say the bottom line there is had that duel proceeded, lincoln may today by a rap musical instoeead of a spielberg movie. the irish mob was unwilling to fight to free slaves who might compete with them for jobs. they burned and pillage their and lynched their way through the streets of man hat man july of 1863.

even in the horror of that, lincoln did not say much about the draft riots except a message to his son to please come out of new york city and come home. he joked, he was reminded -- even that could remind him of a funny story and ethnic humor was always part of his repertoire. he told the cabinet that general hugh kilpatrick was going to new york to put down the riot, but i promise, his name has nothing to do with it. think about it. kill patrick. lincoln was a punster, don't blame me. he also asked the irish archbishop john j. hughes who tried to stem the draft riots to recruit catholic clergy for the military and later gave him a diplomatic post. you all know of lincoln's heroism.

and it took political heroism to counter & ulysses s. grant's military order banning jews as a class. remember, jews were not only jews, they were foreign-born. german, austrian. banning jews as a class from the western military theater. lincoln quietly overturn the order. it was not a great press opportunity. he didn't want to embarrass grant, who was a victorious general. let's remember that the person who codified the laws of war, francis lieber, to whom he turned for precedent-setting rules, who helped make black freedom possible with those rules, was also born in germany. i am not going to argue that lincoln was perfect from the outset on the immigration issue. once during the lincoln/douglas debates, he called mexicans

mongrels. although it can be argued that he was repeating something douglas had said, introducing the slur. lincoln certainly expressed little sympathy for asians. seeing the chinese chiefly as a labor force to build the new transcontinental railroad, not as full future participants in the american dream. as for latin america, early in the war, the only thought lincoln gave to that region was the idea of setting aside land there as a new land for freed african-americans, rather than a source of population for america. yes, he told ethnic jokes. mimicry of dialect never embarrassed or inhibited him. and true, immigration was never abraham lincoln's top priority. slavery in rebellion captured

nearly all of his attention, even though i seldom mention those issues today. and equally true, the rising politician was not willing to discourage bigots from supporting him, and never encouraged irish voters to the polls to oppose him. but publicly, and this is important, he never once addressed immigration as a novice or a president without emphasized moral right over political exspeed jens. i expect wikileaks might have found some of the notes he wrote to lovejoy and others disturbing, but i think the record is pretty good. considering the time he lived in. all lincoln really ever expected and ultimately inspired in return for entre to and citizenship in america was national service and hard work,

the same sacrifices he demanded of the native born and of himself. the result was nothing more, as i said at the beginning, then the replenishment of a population ravaged by war, whose victims, lincoln knew, included the foreign-born. speaking of which, just a few months before that final annual message, the u.s. army began burying the first union casualties in the new national cemetery taking shape at robert e. lee's one-time mansion at arlington. among the first martyrs interned there were soldiers who had been born in germany and ireland, not to mention england, france, russia, mexico and persia, in the first group buried at arlington. by then, lincoln had gone so far

as to conclude that a higher power had governed this transformative change in american society. remember, lincoln would say only a few weeks later that if god willed that the war continue until only a drop of blood paid by a lash from those drawn by a sword, the lord are true and righteous altogether. here he was saying in that final message that god had governed something else. this is astonishing and seldom discussed. he said i regard our immigrants as one of the principal replenishing streams which are him appointed by providence to repair the ravages of war. and its wastes of national strength and health. appointed by providence. think of it. malice toward none on immigration. ordained by god to heal and replenish a nation ravaged by war. it's a pretty breathtaking claim

and if it sounds very little like the modern dialogue on immigration that's because it is. so let me end where i began, with that presidential message, the last lincoln ever gave to congress. remember that i said it was carried by a clerk to the capital. in fact, the clerk that had the honor of bringing the message to capitol hill was john george nicollet, who served at his side in washington for four years. well, you can guess the rest. he had been born in bavaria, sailing to the u.s. with his parents at the age of 6. always, even though he had come at such a young age, speaking with a slight german accent that made many visitors to the white house rather fearful of him even though he was a skinny little guy. now he was entrusted to carry the message of the president of

the united states to congress as an american. not only was lincoln's ascent -- to paraphrase lincoln -- altogether fitting and proper, keeping open the gate of diversity had become a crucial part -- with god's help -- of finishing america's unfished work. lincoln believed that what made us americans was not place of birth but love of liberty, and what made america america was not restriction on opportunity, but rather than building a wall, raising the yoke. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you. do we have time for a couple of questions? i don't know where the microphone is. do you? there it is. camouflaged >> as a prospective candidate nor the presidency, what do you think lincoln would have said publicly or privately about a proposal to register all muslims? this is what president-elect trump said yesterday he wants to do and to register them and more. >> so, i'll be glad to see you

outside. but i don't want to use my time at our own healing place, the lincoln forum, to talk modern politics. so i respectfully punt that one. with respect, i hope you don't mind. [ applause ] >> you mentioned voter suppression. i wonder if there was -- >> voter suppression in 1864 or before? >> 1864 and before and eternally. it has always been there, as well as voter imitation and voter fraud. it's still unclear how people prove their citizenship to register to vote. you said both sides said the other side is cheating, they're having the irish vote or the

germans vote, how widespread was it? was it a real factor? you mentioned there were these irishmen on be pier coming to vote. were there voter rolls? was this widespread? and also, if you were an immigrant and not yet a citizen and you served and enlisted in the union army, did they waive the five-year requirement for you to become a citizen or did you still have to wait even if you were wounded? >> wow, that's a lot of questions. we discussed how registration was accomplished in the 1840's, 1850's, 1860's. you know, now, as -- or then, as now, voter rules are generally made by the states and localities. there was no such thing as a student i.d. or drivers license

or an nra card that qualifies you to vote in states where i.d.s are required today. but there was a requirement for citizenship documents, which would come after five years. lincoln was a poll watcher. there are poll books in that exist in his handwriting where he not only carefully checked people in and off the voter rolls but also memorized so much of the data that for example on one of those excursions to meet anded or, in this case, his private secretary, he didn't want to waste any time with him he knew the voting data and how it had changed between 1852 with and 1856 in stood card's district better than stood card did. he knew that stuff cold. that said, the idea that dead people are voting, noncitizens are voting, has been awash in

the land for generations, for 150 years. lincoln worried about irishmen voting twice or voting without citizenship or residency. douglas worried about germans. there is really no evidence that there was any widespread fraud, any systemic fraud, just as today these accounts are apocryphal and am proven. it was a good thing to rouse your troops, for all the wrong reasons. i don't know the answer for voting rights for enrollees, particularly the wounded. i suspect it was a five-year rule, period, and that remained in effect even for those who had volunteered for service. >> thanks. >> yes, sir? >> harold, i don't believe all

immigration was appointed by providence as the union was sending recruiters to ireland to bring them to the united states, welcome to america, here's your uniform and this happened enough that the confederate government complained to the british government through their envoy in washington. was lincoln a party to this policy? >> sure. he needed soldiers. i didn't say he believed immigration was appointed by providence. i reported he said it at the state of the union. [ laughter ] he's a good divinity to have on your side in a bloody war where there are hundreds of thousands of casualties. i should say -- i have maligned and criticized and noted that jefferson davis did not see the efficacy of forming ethnic companies and creating ethnic heroes to stimulate german and

irish recruitment, but there were -- i didn't mention it -- but there were german regiments and irish regiments as well. ethnic companies, even if they were not supported by the top-down. it is a very complex record, and is ever thus. >> just curious when did the first lincoln immigrant arrive? his ancestor? >> in the 1600s. but again, his family were immigrants. but they preceded the declaration. they were the iron people, i guess. thank you all you iron people for enduring. thank you. wednesday marks the t242nd

anniversary of the shot heard round the world which triggered the start of the revolutionary war in 1775. join us for the opening of the museum of the american revolution in philadelphia. joe biden and david mcculloch are expected to speak starting at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by our cable or satellite provider. in case you missed it on c-span, cia director mike pompeo on national security and