beginning of the trump administration. william barr is now at kirkland, and served as u.s. attorney general for george h.w. bush. process confirmation for william barr live tuesday at on c-span 3.tern the xt on the civil war, war before the war. fugitives and the slaves. thoughts and his writings on slavery and the slave act gal galvanized people.

[cannabisescopy right national cable satellite corp 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> he has won several teaching awards. we're delighted even though he's critic.s a social in fact, "time" magazine has america's best social critic. obama awarded nt him, and he had several books of reading, the death of say tin, the real american dream and the puritan ordeal and the book which is the title of his presentation this morning war before the war, slaves.es,

andrew? [applause] >> good morning. moderator is not here but that's not a problem because people have been trying years with no for success. if you have any doubt, you can my wife on that subject. here.lighted to be i want to thank harold holzer nd all the organizers of the forum for this opportunity to speak to you this morning. unlike some of the other my book exists in a kind of twilight zone at the moment. dayss published only a few ago. hasn't been reviewed yet to this kind ofit has limbo existence, but i hope after my remarks this morning, of you may be interested in having a look at it. that he story i tell in book is not primarily about abraham lincoln.

play a very important part in it and given that this is a lincoln forum i'm emphasize his part in it this morning. try to tell is really about an untold number of mostly nameless men and women, and women rican men enslaved in the american south, tried to fleeies, from servitude to what they freedom in the north. story.n old and long it starts with the seizure of the first involuntary immigrants. talking a lot about immigrants these days in our politics. e want to remember that african-americans were involuntary immigrants, who, seized on the west coast of africa going all the way back to the 16th the first ship loads didn't arrive on our early 17th the

century. heir captors already knew that they wouldn't want to be enslaved. other they created among things, neck halters for these people to wear with spikes on hem so if they attempted to escape inland through the underbrush they would be snagged they wouldrbrush and be unable to make an escape. his history of trying to prevent slave escapes is a very long one. south carolina passed its first prevent runaways as early 1683. a hundred years later, georgia stablished a nightly slave patrol in its main port city hat came to be known as the savannah watch. in the waning rules of british colonial officials savored draining the wetlands in order quote from an i desserting slaves and

beasts. it's sad to say a landmark in united states he constitution. it's not something we generally want to celebrate about the something n but it's that i think if we want to be ruthful about our history, we to remember about the constitution. when delegates from the 13 former british colonies, actually only 12, because, as always, the folks from rhode island didn't feel like showing up. hen delegates from 12 states came to philadelphia, we could say that they were representing a diverse group of former colonies but in reality they are already representing become what it already was, two countries. is, in the southern states, bedrock of the economy and the culture. in the northern states, and this that t necessarily mean

the folks in the north were more moral and more farsighted, but of economy and climate and also moral reasons, was clearly on the road to extension in the northern states. so it's quite understandable, if we try, and this is a hard thing to put ourselves into the position of the slave holders southern states. they were nervous about the question of what would it mean countries became one country under a common constitution? the would it mean about security of their human property? decided human property to get up and take itself from a slave state to a free state, would be their recourse? so it became clear right away of what i call an intranational expedition treaty be part of the

constitution. senator who has studied this stuff, in the middle of the 19th century put it, right to recover slaves is not only authorized by the constitution, it is a right would have h there been no constitution. of them had scruples about it. certainly thomas jefferson hoped away.uld go he made the famous remark, the abating the master is the spirit of the slave, is rising from the dust, and an more telling sentence, he said when i reflect that god's sleep forever i tremble for my country. jefferson was a slave owner and thomas jefferson posted advertisements in the

newspapers seeking the return of slaves who ran away him. still, there was an undercurrent hat got louder and louder as time went by that slavery was actually a good thing. owners for white slave but for black slaves. clear on n was very that matter as he was on many thers and put it succinctly better than anything else. he said, as you will remember, a goodness of slavery was strikingly peculiar kind of goodness, because it is the only no man ever ich seeks the good for himself. show me the s, person who volunteers to be a your and i'll listen to rguments about the virtue of slavery. and even the southern slave wners, you can hear them, i have a background as an english professor so i like to pay close words, they the

sort of give themselves away with the words. charles pick ney, one of from south s carolina, after they wrote this into the constitution, we have recover our ght to slaves in whatever part of america they may take refuge, right we had not before. think about that word refuge. was so great and the slaves were happy and they were care rovisioned and taken of, why then were white slave wners worried about their seeking refuge? the confession of the truth is itself.n the word now, this treaty that i keep on talking about came to be known fugitive slave clause of the constitution. article 4 section 3 clause 2. i'm going to read it to you. it's somewhat legalistic language, but worth listening to. service or ld to

labor in one state under the escaping into another, shall in consequence of law or regulation therein, such service from or labor, but shall be delivered claim of the party to whom uch service or labor may be due. shall be delivered up, not be discharged. now, when i read papers by my students i know there are many they rs in the room and use passive verb constructions, don't we cross it out and say the passive. we prefer active verbs, right? authors of the constitution use passive verbs in this clause. discharged. be delivered up. which begged the question, and knew it, exactly who was going to do the delivering up? to enforce this

clause? was it going to be local police authorities in the state where fugitive had arrived? was it going to be state authority? anothert in some way or going to be federal authority? we want to remember how weak the was in these ment nation.ecades of the the problem that the founders it, d was, as madison put the laws of the several states were uncharitable to one another. in one state, the law said slavery was legal. in another state they said it illegal. so how were you going to moderate this problem? that illustrates the problem, a man named pierce delegate o was also a from south carolina, one of the of the fugitives slave clause, new testament great they had ennsylvania, passed a law as early as 1780

brought into ve the state of pennsylvania for a period greater than six months automatically emancipated. and when the representatives pennsylvania abolition society showed up at pierce butler's door and said, listen, slave here, his name is ben, i believe, an by the freeof pennsylvania he's a man. pierce butler is said to have citizen of i'm a south carolina. what have the laws of to do with me?t that crystallizes, i think, the that the founders faced. now, from time to time, and i'm leap over half a history, for the next 50 to 60 years congress tried to problem. toughen the fugitive slave clause and all the while as you now the border between the slave states and the free states was getting longer and longer the ore porous because

nation was expanding westward. now it wasn't just a question of virginia, now it was a question of kentucky and for example. finally, in 1850, in the wake of mexican war, when sectional tension was reaching the boiling one more ress tried time to put some teeth into what a toothless g as clause in the constitution. or was the famous, notorious compromise of 1850. a new center of which was fugitive slave law, passed by 1850.ngress in august of fhilmar.y president an ay not think of it as amendment but as an amplification. when that bill was introduced in congress, the senator who introduced it, james mason of law,inia, described it as a

and i quote, "to provide for the execution of the third clause of the second section, fourth article, of the united tion of the states." now, it has one of the worst and richly deserved, in my view, reputations of any piece of in our history, and that's saying something, right? [laughter] pretty stiff competition for bad laws passed by congress. citizen called it, and i quote, i like this list of the most kiss graceful, atrocious, unjust, de heathenist, diabolical, man degrading, woman pleasing heaven perpetrated.ver okay? [applause] nd believe it or not a lot of people thought the list was too were and the adjectives

too mild. now, it deserves that description. merciless law. it denied to the accused basic right most enshrined in the anglo american of l tradition, the right habeas corpus. that is, right in open court to of one's e legality detention. right.ves had no such it forbade them to testify in their own defense. it ruled out trial by jury. it didn't -- it wasn't interested in the reasons a person might have fled from slavery. might have been from repeated none of tal beatings, that evidence was admissible in court. as a matter of fact, it wasn't happening in court because one of the things the law did was to enlarge a new category called federal commissioners who had to return ty fugitives to slavery without resembling dueto

process. it also made it a federal crime first time, for any or harbor aid or abet a fugitive slave. t's very hard to imagine nybody arguing that this was a morally defensible law. ralph waldo emerson, arguably other ding intellectual north, put it rather succinctly, on all not ready to go back this law. now, i sometimes say to my students, i'm in the confusion business. i'm in the business of trying to omplicate clear versus evil narratives. party of good guys and party of bad guys. i think i contest, would like to believe, at least not openly, publicly, no one

slavery was athat heinous evil. to what policies were to e pursued to manage this problem of two different countries trying to be one, that's a more complicated question. and one of the most confusing aspects of this history, and you an probably anticipate where i'm going with this, is that braham lincoln, however reluctantly, supported that law. more than once. most famously probably in a friend, i 1855 to his hate to see the poor creatures to ed down and returned heir stripes but i bite my lip and keep quiet. and in that same letter he great body of the northern people do crucify in order to s aintain their loyalty to the

constitution and the union. now, ed ayers, i don't know if ed said he room but last night african-american history and american history, the all is said and done, same history. [applause] >> and i think that's deeply true. but it's also true, i think, that african-americans that history very differently, from the way white experienced it. while white people to use lincoln's phrase, were or suppressing their feelings the lives of black devastated by ng this law. lives, living ir in the north, infused with the terror of being seized and on the sometimes pre-text that they had once in the to someone south. d spoke about kidnapping of

free blacks in the civil war. that was already happening the e the civil war and fugitive slave law made it easier in some respects. the fugitive slave law made live americans have to urtively in dread of every footsteps on the stairs. a memoir was written in the after the law passed, heart dare not go out on street. certainly not by daylight. we understand how and why a great man and a great abraham lincoln, was able to reconcile his personal slavery, and he did willingness tois accept the fugitive slave indition principle as stated the constitution and restated in 1850?w of

while, as is often the case, lincoln answers such questions himself. he gave this answer in his last douglas.ith steven why do i yield support to a fugitive slave law? because i do not understand that the constitution, which can be es that right, supported without it. in other words, the law of 1850, at least so claimed, those who pushed it forward and nsisted on insisted on it, law of 1850 was necessary for the union to be preserved. we want to remember that in 1850, there was a significant ossibility insisted on it, law of 1850 was necessary for the union to be preserved. we want to remember that in cre than it did.lier and lincoln's devotion to the once his friend became

vice president of the onfederacy and the two of them were in congress together on the same side of the issue, that is, stevens t, alexander wrote famously, mr. lincoln's rose to to the union the sublimity of religious mysticism. now, if we're going -- and i take that statement seriously, i a lot of truth in it, if we're going to understand of reverence an for the union, we ought, i moment or two to what he understood the union to be. my sense is, that he always regarded the union as an unfinished project. project in evolution, in development. remember, the words of the preamble, we, the people, in more perfect a union, not a perfect union, but en route to s

perfecting itself, a goal it realize but never we should all hope that it never to realize.y for lincoln, i think the destiny in time, on was that closer come into congruence, with it's principle of universal human equality hich he said again and again, was the source of every thought he had ever had. now, the problem that americans mid-19th century faced is that these two documents were in with each other, because the constitution did not ive the federal government and lincoln respected this even early into his presidency, did government federal

the constitutional authority to interfere with the laws of the states, including the laws supporting slavery. favorite of mine, herman melville, wrote a great book you called ve heard of, "moby dick," had a similar lincoln, and at this point in the 19th century, this ty cries out against vast enormity, that is, slavery, knows a prudent remedy. meant some way of estroying slavery without destroying the union itself. now, lincoln had a theory about the constitution, which he of his ith many republican allies, as to why "slavery" doesn't appear in the constitution. you will note in the fugitive word is use the

persons. no persons owing service or labor. slavery doesn't appear in the constitution. and lincoln explained this saying, and i quote his own words, that the hid slavery away in he constitution, just as an fflicted man hides away a cancer, which he does not cut out at once lest he bleed to promise never the less, that the cutting may begin of a given time. dr. martin w long, luther king asked in the middle of the 20th century? would that given time come? was ompromise of 1850 another effort to postpone that cutting would begin. and although lincoln played no ole in the adoption of the

compromise, he did repeatedly reluctant support of it. frederick douglas which you will hear about tomorrow, from david blake, civil war said of mr. lincoln, "i was going to say i take second place to no one in for lincoln but in this room i probably ought not but what i will say is that i think we do no service great men of our history don't ngage -- and recognize the complexity of their lives. the moral complexity of their lives. just as we all are morally complicated. douglasis why frederick after the civil war said of to oln, "he was willing pursue recapture and send back the fugitive slave to his and to suppress a slave

rising for liberty." that's what it took to preserve the union. i think that's actually an overstatement. mr. lincoln certainly took no active role in suppressing a for liberty but he did give his support to this law. now, ed spoke last night also, rich ecture that had many themes in it, about we need to remember, when we think about knew what was e going to happen. what's we don't know going to happen. so here we come to the vexing story of this fugitive slave law. have a late colleague at columbia coined the term the law of unintended consequences. of ver there was a law unintended consequences it was the fugitive slave law of 1850. himself, who hated the law, and loathed the people who it, it ed it, said of

did a great service to the moment.avery it was a gift to the anti-slavery movement. that?did he mean by emerson again, he said the law lightning at t of midnight. what did it illuminate? illuminated the fact that people in the north could no was r pretend that slavery a southern problem. t illuminated the fact that slavery was an american problem very mr. lincoln knew well. i'll remind you, in the great ublime second inaugural address, he speaks not of but of slavery, american slavery. implicated in eyeballs. to its the banks were ping the plantations. everybody that walk down the on et with cotton clothing

their back was wearing the product of slave labor. put sugar in their not emerson said, we do taste the blood in the sweets. the mill owners who were in the vanguard of the industrial cottonion, were spinning into cloth for domestic and consumption. so the north was up to its its lls in slavery, but eyes were closed according to emerson, until the passage of if you were ause walking down the street in boston you could see a neighbor ho may have lived in your city years, chained, arried off to the jailhouse, put on a pier and sent off to a very undoubtedly very angry master, and if you did anything to interfere with it committing a federal

crime. now, i said i'm in the confusion business. if we judge those including law,ln, who supported this by the christian standard that we wouldreat others as be treated, that law and supported it, test.the but if we judge them by the law, that s of the the law woke up anti-slavery eeling in the north, radicalized the north, in many since we have the advantage of hindsight, bought 10-year truce period, during which time the consolidate e to its industrial strength, deep in its connections to the western country so that when the compromise finally collapsed, and i won't go into it collapsed,

the north was in a position to win that war. how, and ed pointed his out, it wasn't until 1864, that the outcome of the war was clear. think about how it would have if there had been a cecessation in 1860? have ot clear what would happened but it's unclear if there would have been a will to south in 1850 and the myself broken off and created a slave-based empire that spread caribbean, intoe cuba, so in a paradoxical and kind of way, g this compromise, which was at the expense of black people as compromises have been in be a story, turned out to ignificant step toward their ultimate emancipation.

you can wrestle with those kinds of questions. i'm not here to answer them. say that these are the kinds of questions that abraham y swirl around lincoln. why he's the reasons endured with such fascination. he was also a representative man that he was struggling with difficult moral problems. goods you reconcile two in this case? the good of the abolition of fervently ich he wished and prayed for, and the ood of the preservation of the nion which he believe would ultimately be the instrument of the abolition of slavery. have problems like that in our lives, where we're torn commitmentsvaluable and we can't reconcile them. because he re

he did, he was surrounded by people on his left going much too slowly and people on the right who said you have a secret plan the property from the slave owners, and, you know, middle, it in the was a very lonely place. there a resolution to this story? the truth of the matter is, of course, as we know, there is. they didn't know it in 1850. he didn't know it in 1855 when josh la that letter to speed. he didn't want it to come. talking now what i'm about. i'm talking about the war. his -- well, the cessation came upon his election and the firing on fort sumter and there was a moment when the nation held its breath wondering

if there would be a military response. as you know, when mr. lincoln 75,000 volunteers, four more states joined the was on.acy and the war he didn't want it. it.did everything to resist but it came and one of the it, this is d was kind of maybe an odd way to put fugitive slavehe problem. you all know, probably, i'll briefly, the story f general benjamin butler, put in charge of fortress monroe in hampton roads, virginia. 1861, just a month into the conflict, and three slaves show saying, we want in. they are building fortifications they are going to attack you from there, we don't want to work for them.

to work for you and we believe in hat you compensation. so general butler let them in, didn't really know what to do. butler was no abolitionist. he had voted repeatedly for davis at the democratic convention. but he was a military man. prevail over the enemy. so these three slaves show up day, maybe two days of r, a guy under a flag truce shows up and says i understand you have three slaves employer, o my colonel nowry, and he would like them back and general butler says, you know, i don't think so. of the representative colonel -- these guys knew each other. chat.had some friendly and he said die understand you to say you're not going to honor sleigh law of 1850 and general butler said, well, yesterday, know,

state of virginia, the commonwealth of virginia, declared itself a foreign country. and the fugitive sleiave law ha to do with a foreign country so get out of my fort. and that paraphrase, was the opening wedge and butler was very proud of it. he wanted to get credit for that. the one that decided fugitive slaves could be treated contraband of war. that is, an asset to the enemy relieve the d to enemy of and deploy for ourselves. so the war, the logic of the war created hundreds of thousands of fugitive slaves. alluding to ed's talk. he reminded us last night that just ve slaves were not fugitive slaves but also free lacks were seized by lee's advancing army en route to gettysburg and in his wonderful book to air raising

read he describes how, on the lee's from gettysburg army treated with unimaginable rutality, the fugitive slaves who were desperately trying to find some place after safety armies, so thetwo war created hundreds of fugitive slaves and it became pretty clear pretty and ly that it was morally also practically unthinkable, would bee human beings returned into slavery, to their owners. as we watch lincoln take stock of what the war is doing, it's dramatic great stories in our history, in all history, how his thinking advances to places where it hadn't been before. of the quiet past, he said, famously in a message to inadequate to the stormy present. gettysburg, as we

all know, he spoke of the new freedom. i'm struck by lincoln's language so much e war because is the language of jess station. coming to term. the arrival. the postponed day of the cutting has finally arrived. it's the war that brought it light. he had said, you will remember when he back in 1854, was objecting to the kansas-nebraska act, that compromisee missouri by allowing slavery to exist north of the compromise line, he said, let us wash our republican not the he spirit if blood of the revolution. to be washed had

in the blood of the civil war. douglas is fascinating in his relationship to lincoln. developed, i think, a deep mutual respect despite the fact criticallas was highly of him during his presidency from time to time. man who had said he was willing to pursue the fugitive and all of that said in eulogyta he delivered about lincoln in 1876, and i the whole passage, is great mission was to accomplish two things. this country from dismemberment and ruin, and second, to free his country from great crime of slavery. provided the opportunity to do both. douglas again. one or the other or both, e must have the earnest

sympathy and the powerful ooperation of his loyal fellow countrymen. we put this point in, he out in get too far front of the people. and there was a lot of indifference, even pro slavery sentiment in the north. primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain utterly fruitless. and i'm words, interpreting douglas, if lincoln ad been closer to the abolitionist position, he wouldn't have gotten the job done. had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of union, he would have inevitably driven from him a class of the american people and rendered resistance rebellion impossible. viewed from the genuine ground, mr. lincoln

and d tardy, cold, dull, indifferent. but measuring by the sentiment sentiment he , a was bound as a statesman to zealous, e was swift, radical, and determined. hat determination was at its most vivid during the war. also mentioned his unhappiness with general meade the battle of gettysburg. he wrote a letter to him saying idea what you lee's y not pursuing troops into virginia. and then he decided against it, was too exhausted to do that but the point is he mercilessly at war because he recognized it as the instrument to achieve these two ends. union servation of the

and the abolition of slavery. i'll close with his own words can do better. you will remember in the second writes, if where he drawn by the blood lash for 250 years, of the unrequited toil of the bondsman, f every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be drawn by another, drawn by the sword, said, still it must be he's quoting here psalms chapter judgments of the lord true and righteous altogether. this was a tragic history, but one and thank god we had an abraham lincoln in the white house. [applause]

of appy to take a couple questions or comments. yes. ere northerners actually prosecuted under the fugitive slave act? prosecuted andre indicted, there was one in ohio was convicted, but in new england, all the cases, none of came to fruition. so, in fact, in that sense, it's the d question, because threat of the fugitive slave law to the security of the northern citizens was larger than,

reality.y, than in >> hi. so i have a question, from a teacher's perspective. earlier you talked about the descendants of slavery and the positive be. year ght have seen last there was a viral facebook post where a fourth grade teacher had asked their students to name the bad causes of slavery, and that ended up resulting in a t teacher being fired and lot of controversy at the high saying evel of parents they don't want their children taught the opposite side. you believe that students should learn why people in the south defended slavery or do you only focus on ld why the abolitionist movement was so important? well, you ask a very deep and hot button current question. should think any teacher

encourage students to consider the good of slavery, because no good of slavery. issues, there ain is no gray area, but that's not the same thing as saying that challenge ould not their students to try to nderstand how people who were decent in their private lives, that they were doing right by these human beings, whom they may have whom they regarded as unequipped to survive in the the paternalistic owner, ion of the slave how such people could have being ood themselves as in the right. that's a different question from wrong. it was right or a deeply now, this is difficult problem and it's a problem at every level of 12, college,hrough

raduate is a really hard thing to do. i likecollege, graduate school, to try to think one self into the position of to believe that one of e self the things educators can do is to help young people develop that ability, which we would us all think would help today in to believe that dealin disagreements and problems today. we seem to be doing now is screaming at one another. you're a pro-life person, from the pro-choice point of view, you're a -- it's inconceivable that you could versa.that way and vice there should be the possibility of a civil conversation and the to persuade the other side of the merit of your position. say that for me to because i've got a job from i can't be fired. o, you know, but i do, i mean,

you know, everything that john . calhoun stood for is repugnant to me, but john c. extremely an intelligent man who saw ahead of many others, the growing power and the diminishing power of the south, and the threat to what he considered by which he ts meant the rights of the white south, the rs in the threat to those rights from the federal government, and one of that we've discovered in our own time is that people who are worried about the way the federal may be exercising its power at the present time, find c. calhoun a useful theorist to deal with that problem. you know, we have to embrace all of our history and not, you know, erase the stuff we don't like and highlight the stuff we do like. not history. that's something quite different. i don't know what to call it but it's not something i like.

i don't know if that's an adequate answer but thanks for the question. you.ank >> thank you. >> yes. who were the federal commissioners who employed them, who paid them. justices of the peace, local you know, local officials, and paid from the federal treasury. you know, they could sit -- it wouldn't have to be a courtroom. look at the paper presented by the slave holder. was, is issue at stake this person actually the person described in this document? the only evidence that would have conceivably been acceptable o liberate such a person would have been a legally persuasive ocument that that person had emancipation papers, had been legally freed in the state from which he had fled so from the of view of anti-slavery awyers in the north, this was

giving altogether too much power even icers that were not officers of the court. bright m sorry, the light is making it hard to see you. i have two little kwibquibbles and a question. >> and i would expect nothing rest. classmate i can challenge. you maybe aren't aware that our chief here is from rhode island and he always shows up. [laughter] >> good to know. >> good to know. your new moderator. the second one is interesting i'm interested in, i'm sorry only been out a few days, i haven't had a chance to go over it. >> seize the chance. look forward to it. but having the author here, at lincoln neversaid did anything to aid with the slave law and wie do

know in his early career there case, and so i'm only asking you that, only making quibble. it's not a quibble but to say you are here in the lincoln i'm asking you a hot button question, which is, there re those who believe that lincoln was born with anti-slavery in his blood and challenging re that. there are others among us, yself, who believe that actually looking at his evolution on those views, is and i a great lesson, don't know whether you deal with this early contradiction within do later, , and you you gave us a wonderful narrative on that and i wondered about the early conversion process, if you could comment on that. a great question. katherine is referring to an where lincoln was on the side of the plaintiff trying fugitive slave, and

your teacher, david donald, says biography, david uts maybe a little succinctly, his business was law, not justice. so i think, that's one way to comment on the question that commitment to law to a commitment of justice, the war did, in his view, was liberate him as the commander in chief rather than the chief executive officer of the federal to take actions outside of the context of war, he would have regarded as unconstitutional. that's one point. but the larger question is about evolution. my colleague wrote a wonderful ook called "the fiery trial," subtitle of which is "abraham slavery," d american because he wants to put the same emphasis on the americanism of that book i did and

is all about lincoln's evolution. 'm not sure i can divide phases of ife into when he was less concerned with the moral problem of slavery. the moment that the light bulb went off. e speaks about having seen slaves on a river raft tied together like fish and that with him for his whole life but sometimes as we ll know, we can have a formative memory and we can't come to terms with its significance until later on find ourselves in a different context. i mean, lincoln developed in the that we all hoped that we will develop. more deeply engaged in this impossible political question, he thought about it deeply and came eventually to a position that i think we approve. >> thank you. >> thank you, katherine. appreciate it. > one more question and then

we'll take a break. >> thank you for a very preamble on the of itution social darwinism that was preamble on the institution of slavery. i would love to hear your comment about the impact on peo on slavery at that time. interpret your that there were ideas in the air that some were suited for slavery and other people were suited for freedom. darwinismll it social which really doesn't fully evelop until later in the 19th century that. idea goes all the way back to aristotle. he said some people are born to slaves, suited be slaves and suited to be citizens although he didn't think of slavery as based on race. idea was certainly in the air, not just in the south. plenty of people in the north believed it.

that black people were not capable of being fully free beings. lincoln, i think, really had no of ence with that point view. he recognized how far the nation from embracing the alternative, the declaration really meant what it said when men are created equal. but that he had to contend with of what we would now call race prejudice, certainly no doubt about it, and i don't to end on a down note, but we're still contending with it. thank you very much. [applause] >> that was terrific. think everyone has indicated how much we enjoyed that about ation, but a word rhode island. [laughter] > it's very true, we did not

send a delegation to the constitutional convention in 1787. and it's true that we were the last to ratify the constitution, so much so, that the father, george washington, avoided rhode island in his nationwide tour, but rhode insisted before they ratified that it have the bill of rights. that is what happened. we got finally the bill of amendments,first 10 which we still value today. the would have sent delegation to philadelphia. let's take five minutes. thank you very much, professor -- > learn more about the people and events that shaped the civil war and reconstruction. every saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern. on american history tv. 3.e on c-span

james town, virginia, was the english colonial settled. it marked the arrival of the first african-american slaves assembly rst general which established the beginning of a representative government. next, the rediscovery foundation james horn discusses the two events f these for american democracy 400 years later. the virginia museum of history hosted this hour long program. _-_- >> dr. james horn is president, he original site of the first permanent english colony in america. previously, jim served as vice president -- he was the saunders