>> , >> we are about to get started so if you would not mind taking your seats, please. as you will see in your program

wasnfortunately, stacy unable to be with us today. you are stuck with me again. chairperson of the board of the abraham looking institute. read our remarks slightly edited. as a board member of the abraham lincoln institute, i am delighted to share the news of the 2019 dissertation award. every year, the abraham lincoln institute in partnership with the abraham lincoln -- this award breaks new ground and lincoln scholarship. we look for dissertations that offer fresh approaches to lincoln's as you will see in your program was scheduled to give

remarks about and unfortunately stacy was unable to be with us today so you are stuck with me again. again i'm michelle krowl and what i am going to read are stacy's remarks slightly edited. as a board member of the abraham lincoln institute i am delighted to share the news of the 2019 dissertation award. each year the abraham lincoln institute in partnership with the abraham lincoln association in springfield illinois presents this award to a dissertation that makes new ground in lincoln scholarship. we look for dissertations that offer fresh interpretive approaches to lincoln's life career and legacy or legacy that examines new evidence or that reevaluates old themes in exciting new ways. four dissertations this year they drew extensive praise but our deliberations were brief and without contention because

one dissertation stood out for its unique focus, the winner of the 2019 dissertation award is doctor thomas mackey junior from western wish michigan university for his dissertation entitled a shrine for president lincoln an analysis of lincoln museums and historic sites 1865- 2016 2015. doctor mackey accepted the award at the abraham lincoln association annual symposium last month in springfield. in his acceptance speech he noted the idea for his research came from what he called his own checkered background in public history. he is currently an adjunct professor of history at indiana university east in richmond indiana but his dissertation is informed by 30 years in museum operations. he wrote his dissertation from

the vantage point of his experience as a tour guide and a director in a variety of history museums in michigan, new york, virginia, ohio and most notably as the director of the abraham lincoln library museum at lincoln memorial university in tennessee. mackey was joking by calling his experience of public history a checkered past but i think there does exist a divide between academic and public history which tends to undervalue public history. abraham lincoln is our most beloved president and millions of people each year are drawn to the various lincoln sites across the country just as they are drawn here to ford's theatre or the lincoln memorial. they flock because they want to learn about the man in his times a way you can't always

get from a book. they want to walk where he walked, see what he saw and draw inspiration from his life and legacy through those tangible experiences. 1935. the mission of the group is to study, to educate, and to engage new generations in understanding the life and significance of our 16th president. the education work of the lincoln group enjoyed a significant boost under the leadership of its most recent past president, dr. john t.elef. john died suddenly last august. he was a scholar and a dear friend to those who shared his enthusiasm for all things lincoln. john elef was born in washington, d.c. and grew up in illinois. he graduated phi beta kappa from depaul university, earned his ph.d. in political science from harvard university, and tot at barnard college and brandeis university. his career of government service ghan 1975 and ended with his retirement in 2010. he had served on the staff of

both the senate intelligence and judiciary committees, moved to the defense department, and retired after advising the fbi national security branch on intelligence matters. dr. elef was a frequent writer and lecturer on the life and times of abraham lincoln. he helped organize events including the commemoration of the ses question scentennials o the first and second lincoln inaugurals. he was on the boards of the abraham lincoln association and the lincoln forum, and he volunteered with the national park service as a speaker and guide here at ford's theatre. john was generous and kind and devoted his time to furthering our knowledge and insight into our favorite president. he spoke with the authority established by his years of study and his inherent intimacy with the subject derived from his illinois roots. one of his friends spoke for many, saying, i am a better person and lincoln scholar because of john elef.

the board of the lincoln group has decided to honor john's memory in a program that unites his passion for lincoln education and his love for ford's theatre. the board today is announcing the creation of the dr. john t. elef scholarship to support tuition for selected professional educators at the annual ford's theatre summer seminar. the scholarship will make the excellent programs here at ford's more accessible to teachers across the country. the lincoln group will make this scholarship a focus of its ongoing efforts to raise support and money for lincoln education. for this first year, four scholarships will be granted to teachers who will be selected by ford's theatre staff for the honor. i am pleased to acknowledge the work of our late colleague and congratulate the lincoln group of the district of columbia for its support of lincoln education programs here at ford's theatre by creating the john t. elef scholarship. thank you so much. [ applause ]

>> frederick douglass was a brilliant speaker, a gifted writer, a stunning persuader, and a man hard-driven throughout his life by the cause of black america. he preached fire and brimstone with a passion and righteousness of an old testament prophet, and he saw the civil war as both god's retribution on the wicked and the portal to a new awakening for his people. although i was somewhat acquainted with frederick douglass, i got to know him better while researching the great and nearly forgotten black nationalist martin delaney. but i never had a true sense of the many sides of the man until

i read david blight's exceptional new biography, "frederick douglass, prophet of freedom." dr. blight is the class of 1954 professor of american history and director of the center for the study of slavery, resistance, and abolition at yale university. he serves on the boards of various museums and historical societies, and in 2012 was elected to the american academy of arts and sciences. last month, he became the recipient of the 2019 guilder lairman lincoln prize. time is too short to recite the dozens of awards his books have won and the various honors he has received. i cannot tell you how pleased we are to have him as a guest speaker at this year's symposium. please join me in welcoming

dr. david w. blight. [ applause ] >> thank you, ron. and thank you to the leadership of the lincoln institute. i have numerous friends here, particularly the previous speakers. it's hard to follow richard, nina, whether it's about humor or the movies. i am going to talk on douglass' relationship with lincoln, less about the actual relationship than the meaning of the two lives for and against each other, especially in the great crisis of the election of 1864. if any of you are waiting with bated breath for me to perhaps have found the fourth time lincoln and douglass actually met, i'm afraid that invitation

to tea that douglass received from the president after the second inaugural but before what happened here didn't come off. but let me begin with this. a recommend nessence recorded by the wpa famous oral history narratives. in 1937, a former slave named cornelius garner was interviewed at the age of 91. he's asked if he had fought in the civil war by the interviewer. and garner replied to his black interviewer, did i fight in the war? well, if i hadn't, you wouldn't be sittin' there writin' today. he described the corner in his native interi native norfolk, virginia, where slave auctions used to be

conducted on new year's day. that day, new year's day, says garner, should be kept by all the colored people. that is the day of freedom. that is the day of freedom, and they ought to remember frederick douglass too, says garner. frederick douglass told abe lincoln, give the black man guns and let him fight. and abe lincoln say, if i give 'em gun, when it come to battle, he might run. frederick douglass say, try 'em, and you'll win the war. and abe said, all right. i'll try 'em. now, that's a lot of history carved into one little paragraph of a reminiscence in the mind of an old man, but it does begin to help us understand the nature of

the give and take, particularly in rhetoric or in words, between lincoln and frederick douglass, the other douglass. in addressing this relationship, we are of course talking about two towering personalities and two mythic figures as nina's previous talk certainly showed us. their relationship, i would say, is as much in language, particularly from douglass' side and what he had to say about lincoln than it was in the actual meetings, although the actual meetings are important. they are men of very different temperaments, of course, although not completely dissimilar backgrounds. both are raised in poverty, one a chattel slave, the other the son of an indiana dirt farmer. both seized on a similar array of books as they were coming of

age. we know more about the exact books, i think, that lincoln read and used in new salem and a little bit beyond than we do exactly which books douglass focused on, although we know for sure douglass did a great deal of reading of the king james version of the bible. and he particularly made tremendous use of that little book -- it's not little, actually -- the manual of oratory called the columbia orator, compiled by caleb bingham in 1797, and that elocution manual was one of the books lincoln mentioned that he, in particular, had also read in new salem. this was a book that consisted of many, many, many orations and speeches from classical antiquity but also from the enlightenment era. and particularly this book that douglass called his rich

treasure, when he first encountered when he was 12 years old among his white playmates in the streets of baltimore. it had a 20-page introduction that was indeed a manual on oratory. to douglass, he had no more precious possession as a slave than that little book. i keep calling it little. it's not that little. the oratorical introduction tells the reader how to position the arms, the shoulder, the neck, how to modulate your voice from lower tones to higher tones, how to reach crescendos, and it particularly taught the orator how to reach the moral heart of an argument if your audience. both of them somehow have been influenced by that little book. i'm going to run very quickly through those three very

important meetings that douglass has with lincoln, and then i want to focus, as i said, on the election year of 1864. i do this in part because it is so important to douglass, lincoln's re-election, but also because i know i've spoken before numerous lincoln groups before on those three meetings with douglass, and i don't want to repeat myself. you might all accuse me of just telling the same stories over and over, which none of us ever do at a lincoln gathering. [ laughter ] the first meeting, of course, is august 10th, 1863. one of the great things about speaking to any lincoln group is you all know so much, and i don't have to fill in all the details. that's also the scary part about speaking to a lincoln group, because somebody's going to catch me here, and you're going to email me, and i know you are because you do. you always do. and by the way, one of the risks

of actually having your book read fairly widely now, you get a lot of emails from people with opinions, who also scrutinize your footnotes. and a couple of you are in the audience. we've already talked, i know. and i've got a list of revisions to do for the paperback, yes. anyway, the first is august 10th, 1863, and it's a meeting of course that douglass sought out with lincoln. he had no invitation. douglass had never been in washington, d.c. it was his first-ever visit to washington. he was in the midst just then or actually had just stopped recruiting black soldiers for the union army, in his case for the famous 54th massachusetts regimen. he had stopped recruiting because of the brutal discriminations against black soldiers, particularly the unequal pay problem. he had recruited two of his own sons, of course, into that very

regiment. at that very moment, when he's meeting with lincoln in august of '63, his oldest son, louis, has just been moved north to new york from charleston harbor, where louis had been very badly wounded in the attack on battery wagner. and douglass was soon to be in new york city at his son's bedside for approximately two weeks. louis did recover but was never able to have children because of his wounds. at any rate, he went to protest the discriminations, and he had a very useful and important meeting, probably no more than 45 minutes with the president. he came away saying things like, well, the president didn't shift his views necessarily, and he reminded me how difficult his job is. but he came away awed by lincoln. i don't think there's any doubt about that. douglass came away saying in the

speeches he would give about this, quote, i felt big there. wow, that sounds like the teenager who just met his -- i don't know -- baseball hero or something. "i felt big there." the second meeting a year later, not quite to the day but almost, august of '64, of course, was this time at lincoln's invitation. the war has taken many, many turns that you all know about, but the worst of the turn is the lack of a turn. it's the stalemate in virginia and in georgia, and it's election year. more on the election in just a moment. but in mid-august of '64, lincoln invites douglass, the greatest spokesman of black people in the united states, to come to washington to try out a couple of ideas on him and to f he can, enlist douglass'

support, rhetorically at least through newspapers, although g douglass has stopped editing his famous newspaper after 16 years. this meeting was a bit longer, much more forthright, and abraham lincoln looked frederick douglass in the eye and asked him to be the principal agent of a scheme, what douglass would go back and start calling in letters a band of scouts that would try to funnel as many slaves out of the upper south behind union lines, into the north, into some level of legal freedom before election day in november because there was a good reason to believe lincoln would not be re-elected and might be defeated by mcclellan and the democrats. war weariness was horrific, as many of you know, by august of that summer. there was no certainty of lincoln's re-election. in fact, there was a great deal of uncertainty about it.

this scheme was lincoln's way apparently of saying to douglass, "all right. emancipation has become the great aim of this war. let's get as much of it done before i lose this election, if i lose this election." they exchanged ideas on other things. we could go into that later. now, it's worth pointing right here that one of the things that makes this relationship so interesting is because both of these men had this extraordinary, much written about capacity for intellectual and ideological growth -- both. and where they started in 1861 and where they come to by '63 and especially '64-'65 is the extraordinary part, of course, of the story. in the first year of the war, even year and a half of the war,

'61 into '62, at least through august of '62, douglass was one of the fiercest critics abraham lincoln had in the north among anti-slavery advocates. at one point when the lincoln administration started to try to recruit douglass to be their colonization czar, which means the person who would lead the schemes of the lincoln administration to remove black people from the united states, among other things douglass said is he called abraham lincoln an a tin rant colonizationist, full of the same hatred as all others. earlier on in the fall of 1861, when it appeared that the policy of the lincoln administration and the war was to return fugitive slaves who escaped into union lines, a policy that was not easy to sustain, douglass at one point called abraham lincoln the most powerful slave catcher in america.

he said even worse things. it was the preliminary emancipation proclamation and especially the final emancipation proclamation that changed douglass' tune decisively on lincoln. in the wake of the final proclamation, douglass did what he always did. he went back to -- after the incredible celebrations in boston that he attended on emancipation night, january 1st, 1863, he went back to rochester. he not only published that wonderful little editorial that he'd already written before he left rochester called "a day for poetry and song," meaning emancipation day, he went to his desk to write down his thoughts. i'm convinced about douglass of many things and other things i'll never quite figure out, like any biographer, because there were ways in which frederick douglass was not so

knowable, just like lincoln was not so knowable, even for a man who wrote 1,200 pages of autobiography, my god, is he hiding a lot. but nevertheless, he went to his desk, and he wrote a new speech. it was called "the proclamation and the knee grow arnegro army." he gave it dozens of times. it became the speech in which he worked up his ideas as a recruiter of of black troops. and in that speech he said maimomai famously, this proclamation frees us all. it frees the entire country, he said. it frees the white union soldier. it frees the white confederate soldier. it frees the black soldier. it frees black people. it frees white people. it frees us all. douglass understood the emancipation proclamation beyond its own text, as did many before

and after it was written. but that '64 meeting, of course, comes at an incredibly difficult, sensitive moment because of this election year. now, the third meeting, of course, is at the second inaugural, and i'm not even going to go into that. douglass was right out in the crowd, off to lincoln's left. here i am not going into it. he was right down there when lincoln gave the second inaugural. and after it was over, douglass tells us he had no invitation to go to the white house reception, but he simply walked over to pennsylvania avenue, over there, and just followed the presidential carriage back to the white house, insisting. he got in line, asked if he could come in. first they said no.

gave his card, said tell the president i'm here. didn't take long. somebody came back and said, come on in. they did have an encounter, i guess probably in the east room, where lincoln insisted douglass tell him what he thought of that speech. now, douglass thought a great -- it's the greatest speech ever given by an american president, and douglass, i think, had so long wished he had written that speech for lincoln. the great thing about it, of course, is that lincoln wrote it. lincoln wrote that third paragraph of the second inaugural. every drop of bloodshed by the lash shall be repaid by bloodshed by the sword. possibly lincoln's greatest anti-slavery statement of the meaning of the war. let's back up to that election year. now, a little background.

it's the first time a republic ever tried to hold a general election in the midst of a civil war. not an easy thing to do. lincoln, of course, won't be on the ballot in the south. we all know that. the 13th amendment abolishing slavery had passed the u.s. senate in the winter of '64 but not passed the house as it required two-thirds majority. the republican party by the spring and summer campaign, when it's not clear even that lincoln would get the re-nomination over the renewed efforts of some of the more radical republicans to bring back john c. fremont conceived as more radical. the 13th amendment was already -- the republican party was the party of the 13th amendment now, whether they wanted to be or not. they're the party of abolishing slavery. and what do the democrats do? exactly what political party dozen in all elections. they stamped the republicans right in their forehead --

emancipation, and worse. it became -- i always tell my students, the '64 campaign became the most racist election of american history until the next one because '68 was in many ways even worse, grant's first election. the democratic party employed utterly explicit uses of white supremacy everywhere, every day, in all kinds of media methods. they painted lincoln as abraham africanos i. they called him the widow maker. he this called him the n-word lover and worse. the republican party stood for nothing but, they said, a word that was literally coined and makes it into the american

dictionary that year. republicans were the party of racial mixing. if you elect these republicans again, it's just going to mix the races and destroy the gene pool and all the rest. now, i'm leaving out the worst. i mean the cartoons that were put out, the lith oh graphs that were put out about balls and clubs. there were none, but it doesn't matter. this is the way they were portrayed. now, the republicans -- and lincoln is going to get the re-nomination. it's a testy, testy process to say the least. frederick douglass thought a little while of supporting fremont. he backed away from that in june of '64. by the time that douglass visits lincoln at the white house,

august '64, the republicans are trying to kind of sidestep and do a dipsy-do on the emancipation issue. even lincoln proposed a letter that he asked douglass about face to face. should he publish this public letter, he asked douglass, saying, you know, i can't free the slaves until the people really want it. it was this namby-pamby idea that douglass took about one second to say, mr. president, don't publish that letter, whatever you do. anyway, worst of all, members of lincoln's cabinet, usher, the secretary of the interior, and especially seward, william h. seward, obviously secretary of state, started making statements about how, well, you know, emancipation is not the centerpiece of our war effort just yet. we're willing in the long run, said seward, to leave this to the adjudication of the courts.

now, what did that mean? nobody knew. there's an executive order saying all the slaves in the states of rebellion are forever free and must be freed by the army and navy and black soldiers are being recruited into the army and the navy. you're going to leave it to the courts? douglass was deeply disappointed and frightened by what he was hearing from official republicans very frequently. but he was once again, for the second time, awed by the fact that lincoln invited him this time and said, would you help me set up this scheme to free as many slaves as possible? now, douglass went home to rochester, new york. barely two weeks is all he had. he started recruiting people to help him, to be part of his band of scouts, agents who were supposed to do this. he started recruiting fellow recruiters of black soldiers to do this, friends in

abolitionism. he may have written to as many as 20 people to get this scheme going, but the truth is i don't think douglass had a clue how he was supposed to do this. all he was told was, the war department will help you. yeah? well, happily, he didn't have to worry about it after two weeks, and the reason of course was the fall of atlanta. it was battlefield victories, and not just the fall of atlanta in the first week of september wh. when sherman took atlanta, it's as everyone knows, one of the most important turning points of the war militarily, but also politically and what it did for northern morale. but in the sheridan successes in the shenandoah valley, and in the last week of august, don't forget, admiral farragut took mobile bay. the largest naval engagement of the entire civil war, a huge event when mobile fell to the

union navy. the scheme of freeing these slaves out of the upper south was basically just disbanded, and the election campaign was on. now, lincoln -- excuse me -- douglass wanted to campaign for lincoln, and the republican party wouldn't let him. they're out there trying to duck and dodge on the emancipation issue. the last thing they want is sending out frederick douglass to give his barn-burning speeches about abolitionism in all the wrong places. now, the truth is he will campaign for every republican president the rest of his life. they wouldn't let him take the stump in '64. he resented it. he was outraged. he was angry, but he had no choice. what he did do is he went to syracuse, new york, in october to a big black convention in the famous tradition of the black conventions. there were delegates from all

over the country including five southern states. and he gave a barn-burner of a speech about the right to vote, not just about completing the war for emancipation, but the sacred quality of the suffrage. and he declared that the war would never be over until every treasonous slaveholder was dead or in custody. it's the war propagandist once again in douglass, out there doing this now not entirely sure yet, as late as this date, how to trust that republican party. the election, of course, came, and on election night -- and by the way, i found a little source for this. i only have one source, but, by god, i went with it because these are some of those clippings you find and you think, thank you, god, thank you, god.

you know, a private collection that has everything to do with why i wrote this book. there's this little clipping, and everyone in this room who's a lincoln scholar knows that everybody who had ever met lincoln, seen lincoln, imagined they'd seen lincoln, had to have a reminiscence of imagining they had been with lincoln somewhere. the same thing went on with douglass by the 1880s and early 1990s. not on quite the scale. all kinds of reminiscences, the day i did this with douglass, the day i did that. there's a little reminiscence in a rochester newspaper in 1881, by the man who claimed to be the poll worker on the night of the election of 1864, and that he had put douglass' ballot in the ballot box, by god. i decided to believe him because the best part of the story is he lived right near douglass. he's a real person, and he and douglass, he says, were walking back into town. douglass lived about a mile from downtown. they were walking back into town

late at night about 10:00 to go to the telegraph office and learn all the national returns of the election night. and while they're coming back into the center of the city, says this man, four drunken white thugs come out of an alleyway, and they challenge douglass, called him the n-word over and over and over, and there was a little clash between them. but then this testifier says, but the drunken white thugs wanted nothing to do with douglass, and they scurried back into their holes, and douglass had a physical and a political triumph. now, i don't know if that really happened, but why not? screenwriters can have that one, you know. anyway, but here's the key, and i will end with this little two-part story. douglass then did what he had

done so many times in rochester. the sunday after the election, obviously lincoln was re-elected decisively, way over-decisively in the electoral college, but particularly decisively in the popular vote, particularly because of the soldier vote. douglass went to the local black church on the sunday after the election, spring street, african methodist episcopal church. he had spoken there countless times. he could have that pulpit anytime he wanted it. he had given many lecture series there. he'd do four-part lecture series on sunday afternoons all the time, in the 1850s, during the war years, he'd going to spring treat ame. he went to spring street ame the sunday after the election. how important was lincoln's re-election? douglass opened the speech by reading from genesis.

"and the dove came into him in the evening and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. so noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth." that was his text. douglass told the story to his well-churched, mostly black audience of noah's ark. noah sent the dove out. the dove returns, olive branch in the beak. something's growing out there. noah sent the dove out again, and the dove does not return. and in the story, the great old testament story, noah decides to take the tarp off the ark and, lo, the world had been renewed.

as a text, as a place to put his audience and the meaning of this election, which wasn't just about lincoln. it now means, yeah, this war now is going to be prosecuted to its ugly, horrific, bloody end, but it's going to mean black freedom. he went to the oldest rebirth story in western civilization. that's classic frederick douglass. when he needed a story -- and he does this dozens and dozens and dozens of times. when he needed a story or he needed a metaphor, he went to his king james. he went to the great stories of the old testament. variations on exodus or variations on many other stories. but he wasn't finished. in that same speech, he announced that the following sunday, he was going to go to baltimore for the first time ever since he escaped from

baltimore as a slave. in 1838. he actually had been through baltimore on the railroad getting to d.c., but he never got off. he said, i'm going to baltimore next week. i'm returning to my native soil of maryland. and he said the reason was because maryland had just held a referendum on november 1st to decide whether to become a free state in the midst of war. they had just held a referendum, and the vote had been -- this is almost hard to believe -- but it had been 30,174 to 29,799. it passed by like 300 votes out of 60-some thousand. narrowly, maryland had voted to be a free state. and douglass said, then i'm going home to the free state of maryland, and he did a week later. he returned to baltimore,

paparazzi in tow, the equivalent in the 19th century, and hence we have good press coverage of this one. he returned to the bethel ame church on dallas street in fells point. there's a fells point expert here today who is going to correct any part of this i get wrong. he returned to the bethel ame, one of the churches he had attended as a slave, as a teenage slave. and what happens? at the front entrance, he encounters his sister, whose name was eliza mitchell, an older sister, about three years older. he hadn't seen her since 1836. eliza had managed -- she has a fascinating long story. she had managed to purchase her own freedom. she'd also had some seven or eight children. she had named her daughter for her famous brother, by giving

her the middle name douglass. she remained illiterate, but she had somehow followed the fame of her brother. it's not absolutely clear douglass even recognized her at first, but whatever. he grabbed her by the arm, and he and eliza walked up the center aisle of the bethel ame church to an altar we're told was surrounded by american flags. and one of the local papers called him the illustrious exile. and he opened the speech again with noah's ark, but with a twist. he told of noah sending the dove out of the ark, and the dove comes back with the branch in the beak. noah sends the dove out again. the dove does not return. douglass says no ah takes the

tarp off the ark, and, lo, the world is renewed. but he said, today i am the sign. i am the dove, that i have returned to the free soil of maryland, i am the dove. now, that takes chutzpah to put yourself into the noah's ark story and get away with it. but it was his way of personalizing this great, great, ancient, old, deeply mythical story. it's classic douglass putting himself into the biblical tale, putting his people into the biblical tale, and putting his nation into the biblical story. let me end with this. if you go ahead a little to that spring of '65 when he will meet lincoln again at the second

inaugural, douglass said he had a new speech he was taking on the road this winter and spring. he called it "black freedom, the prerequisite of victory." and in this speech, he trotted out another biblical story, knowing his audience needed a story, a metaphor. back to the significance of storytelling, and douglass was a genius not only with words but with story. this was the parable of lazarus and the rich man from luke 16. douglass believed that with emancipation and the defeat of southern slave holders, americans witnessed what he called the fulfillment of the tale of a, quote, certain poor man who laid at the gate of a rich man. and the ancient story that has inspired a black spiritual and a famous modern folk song, rock my

soul in the bosom of abraham -- we could top and sing it but not yet. a rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, says douglass. a poor beggar. perfect. i don't even need the five minutes. a poor beggar named lazarus, full of sores from leprosy, laid at the rich man's gate, desiring to be fed crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. dogs licked the poor man's wounds. both men die. the beggar is carried by the angels into abraham's bosom while the rich man is buried and descends into hell. as he begins to burn, the tormented rich man sees lazarus

afar off. and this is the way douglass is telling this story although he's got it whatever accurate means to the bible here. far off resting in comfort and security in abraham's embrace. the poor man is in abraham's embrace. and he cries out -- the rich man -- father abraham, have mercy upon me and send me lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. as the rich man is slowly engulfed in flames, abraham -- or god in this case -- answers that the tables have turned, and it's too late. he scolds the rich man for never listening to moses and the prophets. in this case douglass brilliantly employed the parable and his auditors seemed to love it wherever he gave it. everybody is calling for lazarus

now at the north and the south, douglass announced in this speech. we all know who the rich man is in this country and who the poor man is, or has been. the slaves were the -- these are douglass' words -- lazaruss of the south, lying at the rich man's gates. but it has come to pass, says douglass, in his best king james paraphrases, that the poor man and the rich man are dead, for both have been in a dying condition for some time. eliciting great laughter and applause from audience after audience with this speech from january into april, '65, he concluded that the poor man is said to be very near in abraham's bosom, and the rich man is crying out, father abraham, send lazarus. by april in boston, douglass

confidently applied the story to lincoln and the end of the war. ri richmond had just fallen. the hauty slave holding -- those, quote, arrayed in purple and silk and satin with breasts sparkling with diamonds were defeated and pleading to have their lazaruses back. send lazarus back, cried the rump of jefferson davis' revolution, and robert e. lee's army. douglass provided the new answers, but father abraham says, if they hear not grant nor sherman, neither will they be persuaded, though i send lazarus unto them. with an arm gesture to the sky, douglass shouted the transformation.

"i say we are way up yonder now. no mistake." and with his audience shouting for approval and, quote, great merriment said a reporter, douglass had recrafted a piece of scripture to fit the moment of impending victory for the federal union and for black freedom. just how much the mortal father abraham's bosom or the united states could hold and comfort the freed people as they came back to life was now to be determined. and very soon, the mortal father abraham was gone. thank you. [ applause ] all right. questions? yes, sir. ron? >> david, given how strongly

douglass felt about the war and given the number of hits he took over his actions, how do you feel he justified to himself his refusal to actually take part in the war? >> uh-huh. thank you. oh, he had many justifications. actually, like any biographer -- i can't speak for all of us, but i think any biographer always wishes they could have their subject in a room, a seminar room for maybe four or five hours with no bathroom break. the doors are locked, and we get to have at 'em. and not at the top, but near the top of my list of questions i have for mr. douglass is, mr. d., what did you say to your two sons, louis and charles, when you recruited them into the

54th massachusetts at the age of 20 and 19? mr. douglass, what does a father say to his sons to send them into a war where they not only can die, but they can be enslaved? did they go for their reasons or yours? were they your surrogates? i'm going to really hammer him on this one. every time i've tried, he just slithers out somehow. douglass knew his skill, which was the word, spoken and written. he had a third son, of course, who went into the mississippi valley, frederick jr., his youngest -- in the middle. the middle son went to the mississippi valley and recruited black soldiers. he recruited a significant portion up north as well of the 55th massachusetts. the entire douglass family went to war. his daughter, rosetta married a black soldier, a former fugitive slave named nathan sprig. a terrible marriage. it was ultimately a really awful

marriage, and it kind of had a huge impact on rosetta's life. he got accused of not joining as a soldier, but he's in his mid-40s. but, look, douglass would say -- he said it many times. he said it in the wake of the john brown -- i've never been known as a warrior. i'm known as a man of words. i'm much better as an orator. i'm better at fleeing from slavery than going back to fight it, which of course indeesuced cartoon of him. i have it in the book, of him fleeing over lake ontario with his trunk on his shoulder, leaping over the river. you know, he's fleeing the john brown raid. i think the best answer is he knew his best skills, and they were not as a warrior. and after all, in what way would he have served? you're going to be a

non-commissioned something or other? he did serve, though. he recruited about 100 members of the 54th mass, and he recruited a lot of other people to be recruiters of black soldi soldiers. yes, sir? >> you just gave a lead-in to my question. >> oh, good. >> could you compare lincoln and douglass' view of the john brown raid? >> oh, in a few sentences? sure. well, ironically in the long term, not that far apart. that's what was so extraordinary to douglass when he's sitting there in august of '64 and lincoln is asking him to create a kind of a legal, above-ground john brown's raid into the upper south and funnel these slaves. you know, at one point in his autobiography, douglass had called the underground railroad

r an overground railroad. douglass was a very vehement supporter of john brown until -- and i have an entire chapter on this in my book, and i believe i located nine occasions in which douglass and john brown met over the ten years -- 11 years they knew each other. but where douglass parted ways with john brown is when he learned that the raid was going to be at harpers ferry, the largest arsenal in the united states. he still went down to -- as you know, went down to pennsylvania and met with john brown in a stone quarry for 48 hours near chamb chambersburg to try to talk brown out of it. what douglass was attracted to -- i'll get to lincoln in a second. what douglass was attracted to was john brown's long discussion, vague discussion -- sorry for the john brown

sainthood club. i turned in my key to that a few years ago. but douglass supported brown when the plan was what brown had once called the subterranean passageway, which was supposed to be this series of forts somehow manned by lots of men. it was going to be a kind of militarized underground railroad. douglass was so desperate by the late 1850s, he was willing to keep supporting it, and he raised money for it. but when he found out brown was going to attack the largest federal arsenal, he said, no, i'm out of here. lincoln's reaction to john brown was a typical republican anti-slavery reaction. lincoln's reaction to john brown was to condemn the acts, which he did, and argue that john brown deserved to be hanged. at the same time, lincoln and many of the republicans would then still focus the story back onto the issue of slavery, and

if we don't solve this problem, do something about this problem, we will have more violence and more john browns. that was the republican move, of course, that scared the you know what out of southerners. and they were already scared of lincoln and scared of the republican party. so in a sense they're not that far apart although there were no letters from abraham lincoln in john brown's trunk that they found in maryland, which there were from douglass, which is why a posse was out trying to capture him up in rochester. >> would you think it fair to say that both of them feared the effect of john brown's raid in getting the south to dig in its heels further and moving the south further towards secession? >> possibly lincoln feared that more than douglass did because douglass had long yearned for some kind of break, some kind of action, something that would

force a collision and a conflict between north and south that would lead to some kind of sanctioned violence. ironically, the war that actually comes, like it or not, was douglass' fondest dream. and when it did come, the war propagandist came out in him in some of the ugliest, most vehement ways you'll ever read war propaganda. i suspect lincoln had greater fear about that, that, oh, my god, how do you hold this thing together in the wake of john -- well, lincoln's first task was to get elected. i mean he goes to give the cooper union speech in the wake of john brown's raid. so lincoln has a whole different problem on his hands, as does the whole republican party in the wake of john brown. >> thank you. >> yes? last question. come on, you get one more.

go for it. here we go. all right. >> well traveled man, frederick douglass. >> yes, possibly more miles than anyone in the 19th century. >> did he have a greenbook? >> yes and no. it wasn't a greenbook. abolitionists from the 1840s on when he joins the garris ownian a tin rants stayed wherever they had friends. it wasn't unlike what we now know as the greenbook. they would stay in private homes. they would stay in taverns and hotels, wherever they found friendship. early on in his career, this was always a difficult issue. douglass and this itinerant group he traveled with, particularly in the 1840s, which was a series of from three to

five abolitionists, including abby kelly, who was the woman star of the abolition movement. in fact, douglass' first couple years out on the circuit, he was second fiddle to abby kelly, until he wasn't. they would stay with friends, but they would often go into towns and just leaflet the town and say, we'll speak today over here if someone will let us in. when he does these enormous speaking tours, say, after the war, year after year after year, thousands of miles at a time, 3,000 and 4,000 miles at a time, 35 and 40 lectures over a period of two months, three months, he had all kinds of lists of places, friends. if he went to bell oit, wisconsin, there was that family who would put you up. if you were in iowa city, there was that family who would put you up. but he stayed in a lot of taverns and hotels as well, which got him into all kinds of

jim crow situations. if you've read the book, you know this. douglass was jim crow-ed more times than he could ever count. and with time, he began to process it through humor. can i end on one quick story? ah, sure. [ laughter ] he got, again, jim crow-ed so many times. his earlier years, he's react with physical outrage, when he'd get thrown off trains or thrown out of hotels. later on, if he was stopped in a dining room of a hotel somewhere -- and this was in the north -- and he was told, you can't eat in the dining room, you must eat in the kitchen, he would often just stand up and as loudly in that booming bare i tone, as he could, where two you feed the dogs? i'll eat with the dogs. where are the dogs? and pretty soon, everybody in the dining hall is kind of coming to his aid. mr. proprietor, let the man eat

in the dining hall. no. i'll eat with the dogs. it's all right. give me the dogs. where are they? and pretty soon the whole place is -- well, at least the way he told it. the whole place was a chorus, let him eat here. let him eat here, you know. it didn't always work. it didn't work on steamers. you're on steamer out somewhere, there isn't anywhere else to go but down to the lower deck, you know. anyway, yeah, he had a kind of greenbook without it being green. so thank you. [ applause ] american history tv continues at 8:00 p.m. through the week. tuesday, the 1989 "exxon valdez"

oil spill in atlantic's prince william sound with 30th anniversary programs from the c-span archives. wednesday, a discussion on television's impact on race and politics in the 1990s. thursday, military historians talk about the battle of gaud canal, the first major world war ii allied defensive in the pacific. friday, on our american artifacts series, a tour of the baseball americana exhibit at the library of congress. next on the presidency of abraham lincoln, michael burlingame recounts the time between lincoln's first election and inauguration. he's the editor of 16th president in waiting, a collection of news reports about abraham lincoln from that time. mr. burlingame holds a distinguished chair in lincoln studies at the university of illinois-springfield. a panel discussion of all the conference speakers follows his remarks.