>> if everyone could please take their seats.

welcome back. i am the chairperson of the board of the abraham lincoln >> if everyone could please take their seats. welcome back. i am the chairperson of thenc board of the abraham lincoln institute. the curator of the abraham lincoln papers at the library of congress. cocoasident of the united states traveled by train from washington dc to gettysburg todr visit the battlefield andspeaki dedicate hallowed ground. ience speaking before an audiene that included veterans, the president addressed the nation thenheeed faced and the need to preserve a government of the people. the year was 1938 not 1863. 7 5 yethe veterans were 75 years older. the president was fdr not herald abraham lincoln.

the new york herald tribune reprinted that theooseve speechr the headline roosevelt's gettysburg address. the chicago tribune proclaimed roosevelt wears lincoln armor. it is -- it's seldom helps to wonder how a statement of one generation would surmount the crisis of another. a statesman deals with difficulties with things that must be done from day to day. not often can he frame conchass patterns for the lifar-off futue fdr talacknowledged in his remarks. the fullness of the stature of lincoln's nature icand the fundamental conflictt invite us to turn to him forit help. it is such invocations of thee civil war past and a new deal era context that nina silver examines in her new book. professor silver

new character to the civil war memory and explores how americans reinterpreted the civil war to meet their own needs during the great depressionon since completing her training as a historian at uc berkeley, professor silver has returned to the fertile field of civil war studies to uncover new perspectives withil war which to engage civil war history. she has documented the gender dimensions of the war and daughters of the union. in the romance ofin t reunion, e traced the ships and normed -- northern sentiment toward the south during the. of reconciliation. and of the casualties of d ofoft reunion. in she has further understandingns,

of the civil war era through her distinguished teaching career at boston university and her contributions to public history projects. ion untribu can testify to her o inspire and inform. having long benefited from the insights of contained in her academic interview in which she was asked if she collected historical artifacts. as a result for the first time learned of the existence of civil war nurse barbie. . [laughter] did you know that barbie was a nurse at gettysburg? although given herness for acces attributes, perky personality, and fondness for accessories, that barbie did not serve on the staff. she is still waiting for the barbie dream ambulance. if you understood all of thosee

war is notrly this over for you either. [laughter] here to share us how new deal era americans reshaped the legacy of abraham lincoln, please welcome nina silver. [applause] >> thank you. barbie met lincoln in that book. at least there was a picture. thank you for that kind

introduction. i am honored to be here in this setting. stage never been on the at ford's theater before. somei am deeply grateful to john white and the lincoln institute for the kind invitation to be here. can tell you a little bit more about me. i am a scholar who o studies the history of the american civil war. i also study how we usepresconcd sometimes heavily we misuse the history of the ipulcivil war. i am interested in how people have appropriated the ody war.wh have a reinterpreted it over time area often they do that in a way so that it speaks to their present-day concerns. they manipulate the history to speak to the present. rock the past few years knows a something about how the civil war continuessin to get the appropriated and reinterpreted in the present day. in every recent clash andar hisy encounter over confederate monuments, civil war history rei continues to be retold with present-day concerns in mind. something similar happened in the 1930's. 't hoit wasn't so much monuments because people weren't holding monuments in the 1930's. the adthee 30's were a decade e crisis end of people that some people thought had a lot of

similarities to the 18th these. no historical figure came in for more reimagining or reinterpreting during the 1930's than abraham lincoln. be prepared, this is not going to be me talking about lincoln in the 19th century that it is going to be me talking about how lincoln was imagined in the 20th century. during the depression decade, lincoln was everywhere. rmovies were made about him including one by dw griffith as well as the two better known lincoln movies, young mr. nrylincoln in 1939 with henry fonda. a lincoln in illinois with raymond massey. in the 1935 film the littlest

rebel, lincoln meets with the petite confederate sympathizer played by shirley stemple.ym she met lincoln also. the the two of them shared an ae and then lincoln frees her father who was falsely confused with a confederate spy in prison. plays.ere two populare ineatete cohe was a very popular stable n the theater. in one of these, he was reincarnated as a kentucky college professor who helps to resolve a labor dispute. dispute.[laughter] i have readf lincoln screenplays and scripts and that is one of the stranger interpretations of lincoln that i have come across. he was also frequently in th' thick of 1930's politicss often scrutinized and celebrated.

his power went beyond political symbolism. he also struck a deep emotional cord with american in these years. carl sandburg wrote a well known multivolume biography of the president over the 1920's and 1930's. he probably did more than anyone to give lincoln and emotional. the son of swedish immigrant parents who had settled on the illinois prairie, and berg seemed attached to the notion thatviab working people will and perhaps immigrants saw something in lincoln that made democracy viable and accessible. sandburg used thethe documentary style that became popular in the 30's and was similar to the style that was thatemployed by writers onlyers sandburg applied this to lincoln. surrounding him in a collage of

historical details and allowing him to emerge seamlessly with the thoughts ssand dealings of ordinaryly americans. that connection to ordinary people very muchh suited the mentality of the 30's because it was a momentery when people tended to blame elite bankers andwhen politicians. they said those were the ones responsible for creating the current economic crisis. they tended to believe ore wisdf wanted to believe that the wisdom of the plane people whate help american democracy survive. sandburg's work was on the mind of literary critic when he remarked that americans have developed a passionate addiction to lincoln. pasin 1942, after having writtn lincoln columns and completing portraits, the painter marston hardlyrdly stronger language whn

he whe said i am simply dead in love with that man. am before the depression, lincn did not radiate that kind of attachment or passion. kindthere were not these kind of declarations of heartfelt love for abraham lincoln. some wise, he didn't even radiate the same amount of power that he would come to have in the 1930's. it's not the people were talking about him. itr didn't seem to possess strength in the same way that he would come to have in thehe 30's. abas had been true for decades, lincoln stood as a figure of moderation and reconciliation. forhe was described by william howard taft as reflecting the brotherly love between north and south. in 1930 with economic by collae looming, president hoover hailed lincoln not as a great greatattor but ahe moderator. blessings of restraint on each subsequent generation.

dw griffith used lincoln as a a talkingfor his first film. griffith was another one w who said he was very much influenced by carl sandburg andn wanted to incorporate his. work in what he was doing. heus even tried to hireed carl s sandburg to be a consultant on his film but it turned out the sandburg was too expensive. i think he found someone else. nonetheless, griffiths lincoln has nothing of then sandburg lincoln about it. sahe is a bland and monotonous figure in the film. he is your standard issue person. as one reviewer explained, lincoln made a notable attempt to be fair to the two has of our nation. like a lot of the abrahamperson. lincoln's who were betrayed in this earlier.

or before class and had been writing, lincoln was also a crude frontiersman. as of f nain one scene, the pret flops down on thebrah white houe floor to take ais e nap. it was a very bland, neutral, and fatigue lincoln who was portrayed. si think that image of lincoln in this. reflected the reluctance on the part of many white americans to invest the president with substantialtral, power. lprecisely because lincoln in these years had to be safe. he had to be moderate and someone who could heal the onest of sectional division. in this way, lincoln was beingg part thatto play a he had been playing had since te end of the 19thheal century when civil war washehe

often told as a tale of for journal division that gateway reunification. warthat was an idea that was mn vividly imagined in the t idea f white soldiers from opposing sides shaking hands across a bloody chasm orthe across the stone wall at gettysburg angle. abthe idea of reconciliation seemed to be about to more or less equal sections coming together. not really about a nation and oi about lincoln and posing power on its subjects. especially those who came fromly a rebellious section of the country. had lincoln been imagined as her really was, as a figuree of of

federal authority forced seceded states into the political submissions, he would have complicated that feel good narrative.tion eatto keep things balanced, lincoln took a backseat to the emotional bonding of north and south. this is the kind of image of lincoln that you get in dw griffiths earlier motion picture birth of a nation. grthere are a lot of things that are odd about that film but there are things odd about the way lincoln is portrayed in that film. i would describe the lincoln in -- nation asaked ear oddly androgynous. t ofngs he is weepy, he wears a, he serves as both father and mother figure to the american people. in the end, it is not lincoln who helps to give film.n in the but the consolidated power of

white men north and south especially the ku klux klan. this image of a relatively weak presidency may also be oney the reason why the story i lincoln's youth, his frontier upbringing and awkward but romantic encounters and mediocre performance, these stories became so captivating in the early 20th century because here was territory that can be mined for engaging human without having to venture into the messy business of lincoln as a figure of power who actually enacted measures that did not meet with universal acclaim. minedin the 30's, lincoln looke different area and he is not a bland rigor of s moderation.

he seems to foreshadow a more powerful nationstate that was ex blessings of freedom to a a americans.up of with his image being pre consciously reworked by writers and politicians, lincoln became a forerunner for thest groundbreaking work atof fdr's new deal. in 1934, carl sandburg helped usher in this new lincoln when he compared fdr's national recovery program and its for industrial workers to ue flincoln's role r init emancipation. both presidents usedial their position to proclaim a new status for an oppressed people. sandburg, fdrrom too also made alinc link in for initiating social reform to expand executive power. lincoln did not simply heal the rift but transcended new sectionalism and brought new

meeting -- meaning to assure a government the promotion ofof life liberty and happiness ofrtd all the people. fdr style lincoln as a 19thth century version of himself. no reconciler, lincoln became aligned with the centralizing and reforming efforts of new deal liberalism. ler recoas sandburg also had su, the new dealhe c lincoln was alo more of a great emancipator been a great moderator. it is true academics and popularizers had calledrator. attention to this aspect of lincoln's presidency but the work of freeing the slaves came even more to the forefront during the 1930's and the new deal. his writers and artists anddeal. politicians imagined lincoln not unlike the way fdr imagined himself as someone who f channeled a new politicaldr ihif

energy to make people's livesn'' better. lincoln they said strengthen the hand of the federal government in order to attend to people's distress. a dia distress that was once mad by 19 century slavery but could just as easily be marked by a 20th century economic crisis. bordinaryy a people often useis language in letters that they wrote to roosevelt. abraham lincoln freed the slaves. and now you are about to free the child and wage slaves. roothis was language that was d frequently. people wrote lots of fdr and members of the administration. often made thesese comparisons. they used the language of

slavery. they would draw out the idea that someone like roosevelt was needed to freee the slaves. it wasn't quite so simple to talk about both presidents freeing the slaves since one president, lincoln, and had directed his actions toward enslaved black men and women. roosevelt and his supporters were more reluctant about being associated with a racially defined agenda. as a democratic president ofnt o the early 20th century who needed the support of powerful white southernerser - and his pr -- party, roosevelt preferred keeping racial issues on the back issue burner and showed lie interest in upsetting the racial status quo in the jim crow south. feeling the political pressuree of whitepo southerners, roosevet refused to give his support toto the federal antilynching law emerged by some members ofaw congress. he also referred to think about lincoln in a race neutral way.

as someone who practiced umana broad-based humanitarianism that helped all people. lincoln, fdr insisted, was an emancipator not of slaves alone but of those of heavy heart everywhere. i am pretty sure this is not have people in the 1860's would have interpreted the emancipation. t of everywhehe[laughter] they workeo redefine slavery as a condition that affected white people as much as black. sometimes in fact whites seemed to suffer more from slavery than theican-americans. mainly about the economic constn devastation and constraint that largely affected wage workers, the majority of whom were white area despite thet fact that all

of our people are free and have the rightase, to live enforce te theycont please, there are manyo contend that our toilers live virt in virtual economic slavery. ry.the assumptions here thatevel everyone could live and work where they please, somethinghing that was not available to african-americans, suggestedthig that they were not really ininking about african-americans in this definition of virtual economic v slavery. according to a representative of pennsylvania, lincoln's would hatred of precious human beingsa would have seamlesslyml extended into his distaste for the new slavery that place placed men in economic peonage. this quality made lincoln a newm dealer of the late 1850's and early 1860's. in the 1930's, people fortteseed more comfortable e anseeing linn free white people and not

black. in roosevelt's phrase, he lturfe to those of heavy heartly in th everywhere. souls s heavy hearts seemed to rest, mainly in the souls of white men. in a popular 1936 play, a reincarnated lincoln comes to kentucky to help white coal miners fight their own brand of slavery. in a raid acrossstriking minerd across the stage and hold a sign that reads free the whites. an objective that very much appeals to lincoln. when lincoln appears in the shirley temple film, his task has nothing to do with freeing black slaves. freeinstead, he is there to grat shirley temple's request for freedom for to imprisoned white men.

one, her confederate father. f johnthe other, a kindly union officer. if you know the premise of john ford's young mr. lincoln, you might recall that henry fonda's lincoln hashara virtually no contact with black characters. involhis real work involves heg two white brothers who had been falsely accused of murder and in the most dramatic moment of the film, the two brothers faced the wrath of an angry lynch mob then lincoln turns back of the mob and after that, melds a successful defense of the two brothers so that heitnf. again liberates white men from confinement. andyet, in a very halting and hesitant sort of way, some new dealers acknowledged the possibility that race played a part in keeping people down in both the 1930's and 1860's. lincoln's attention to racial emancipation did merit some attention and consideration. when the african-american

singer marian anderson was banned from performing in the daughters of the americanrom d dha revolution concert hall herell s washington, many figures and fdr's fdr's administration, including eleanor roosevelt, helped to arrange anderson's new opens new air concert in ft of the lincoln memorial. tthey also lauded lincoln's role in striking the chains of slavery from marian anderson's ancestors. i think the timing of this concert is particularly important. it is april, 1939. it is a moment of growing

awareness of nazism abroad. after comparing jewish singers being banned from a nazi stage and anderson being shunned from the dar hall, one person pointed out the crucial difference between hitler's germany and roosevelt america. in washington, we have ahingm le for abraham lincoln. in this more explicithis as an acknowledgment of lincoln'sthose role as an emancipated, rac including his work in freeing those of an oppressed race. lincoln was poised to take a new role as the 1940's began. he appeared with increasing frequency in hollywood movies and broadway plays. hehe figured as the centralin a subject in aaron copland's 1941 lincoln portrait, celebrating american spirit in the aftermath of pearl harbor. he featured greater prominence in fdr's speeches. not surprising because

roosevelt hired lincolnause r dramatist robert sherwood as ooe speechwriter. looking back, it was the civil war, not the revolution that was used most often in world war ii propaganda. thit was the image of lincoln, not that of washington or jefferson that flashed ritualistically on the silver screen. the powerful associations tedthatfigh throughout the 1930's hadhelp connected lincoln to fighting slavery helped turn him into the type of symbol that warren remembered. it suggested that lincoln had come to embody a certain typeoud of moral energy that could galvanize americans in a new global conflict. ldi should say at that moment,

americans needed that kind of motivation. as late as 1940-1941, there were many who remainedly deeplyy cynical about the of world war i, deeply cynical about engaging in any further foreigngn in this context, timely reminders about lincoln and his commitment to emancipation recall a moment when a true moral purpose guidedurpo americans were objectives. i'm just going to say that i am borrowing from another scholar. litthere is a literary scholaro develops some of this point. i am borrowing from a literaryol scholar who talks about the way lincoln is used n in tin the lep to world war ii. he suggests that in recalling abraham lincoln'sn' moral purpoe slaves, americans might findt an model of

inspiration for fighting hitler's. writers and artists repeatedly and explicitly referred to lincoln in his slavery as a metaphor for understanding the fight against taylor andasci fascism. the office of war information produces a poster aperthat proclaims this world cannot exist half slave and half free. the republican newspaper william white agrees that our great round earth had become aro veritable neighborhood that cannot live have slave and half free. as a figure who had a history of fighting slavery that could underscore the moral urgency americans needed in the new global conflict. robert sherwood held up lincoln as a way to urge americans to get off the sidelines when certain principles were at

stake. in lincoln's commitment to ending slavery, sherwood recognized the 16th president as a supreme non-isolationist in his essential faith. this made him an ideal figure convincing americans that despite their skepticism tha abt foreign intervention, they should get this themselves -- commit themselves a new two this foreign entanglement. this presented african-american artists with new opportunities. an-a wartime propaganda, the more he gavee african-americans chance to remind their fellow americans that slavery was a spy historically specific spirits

and experience that continued to impact black life in the united states. black journalists saw a chance to urge the roosevelt decision to deliver a consistent antislavery message, the message that recognized oppression based on race, both abroad and at home. as one writer put it, if racne w roosevelt cared about fighting slavery, he would stand by the reconstructiontion a amendmentsd make sure therls negros were nt returned to chattel slavery. ndfailing to do so would be no different than enacting laws similar to hitler's declarations eating. -- and edicts. as always, i would dids, its bet to romanticize this. the movies in the late did 1930s 40's seemed to acknowledge that some way or other americans were undertaking the fight against t slavery. i would like to my talk by

revisiting old familiar film, perhaps one of the most iconic gnomes in hollywood this perspective in mind. not thinit is not usually what k about as a civil war movie. the film i have in mind is casablanca. it appeared at the end of 1982 was directed by a hungarian immigrant. atream g steady stream of movi g moviemaking. he made two extremelyun unmemorable civil war films thea santa fe trail and virginia city santa fe trail was a poorly named movie if there ever was one since nothing to do with santa fe for a trail.

it did show a historic jed stewart played by erroll flynn and george custer played by ronald reagan. they joined forces outfit pursa fanatical john brown. raymond massey traded in his lincoln outfit for a john brown outfit. it also celebrates the coming together of whitete soldiers across sectional lines common cause. in this case it was union and confederate soldiers who united in the west late in the war in order to fight some bandits. the details should not be explored to deeply. casablanca is also a film about the asian. not about unifying nazis and allies it is about skeptic bring together the different skeptical way and victor laszlo

played by paulul on ride, the unity that is achieved when rick discards his cynicism and understands the need to take a standppressis a against nazi op. before this happens there is a suggestion of the civil war's relevance to current events. rick reunited with elsa reminds her about the last time they saw each other in paris. he>> remember every detail he says. the germans wore gray. you wore blue. the color scheme is important. it does not directly say the confederates were not for the cause of freedom. it is more subtle than that.

the central theme was not a simple divide between you and slavery, but this evolution from indifference to commitment. it is the process by which rick dedicates himself to the anti-nazi cause. his journey is meant to reflect a larger american journey, how it became necessary to break with the isolationism of the interwar j need to fight this new war.ept e one critical step in that journey involves giving the new war a strong moral overlay to make clear the new fight was about principle, not about material gains. as i suggested, no figuream lin. better symbolized moral conviction in wartime that than abraham lincoln. not to worry. i am not going to convince you abraham lincoln shows up in casablanca. his spirit is there.not. nothing illustrates this so clearly as the moment whenck's t rick's competitor asks if thew k

cafe american and sam are for sale. how does rick respond? in tin the language of abraham lincoln, i don't buy or sell human beings. this line, perhaps more tha' any other reveals the ethical underpinning that signals rick'ssansfor transformation, hs willingness to take a moral stand. acci think it is no accident tt he uses the same kind ofg used anti-slavery language being used by the office of war information and robert sherwoodv the lincoln playwright. it is very likely that the author of humphrey bogart's anti-slavery pronouncement was howard koch, a casablanca screenwriter. even though lincolnn hi rit himf does not flash ritualistically

across the screen, casablanca embodies the lincoln like moral urgency that was being used to get americans behind this new effort. this lincoln was once again, or at least in spirit, being reimagined and reinterpreted. in some ways, this may be apire lincoln that inspired ad stronger and more passionate addiction. ddiction. have an impressive career in world war ii. and even after in the cold war that followed. this was a lincoln who fought

slavery at home but who could inspire a fight against slavery, however that slavery might be defined on a global scale. thank you. [applause] >> love your imagery. imagery and messages are everything. you mentioned some of the writers as america is dealing with its own sense of identity, what it is, who it is, where it is going in that time of where you are looking at who lincoln is, and they are erecting the confederate monuments that we are dealing with right now. there is this dichotomy, thisme tug-of-war in socialwh consciousness. i am wondering where this wave has gone, where it was at the time, where it seems to be in the late 1900s, late 1800s to early 1900s. ealooking now at the impact whee

international influence andt ha impact where it had to decide itself even more. eemsit seems coming to grip witr one place in your domestic identity, you are dealing with what is happening overseas. yyou feel you want to be insulr but how can you? there is so much going on. >> use the microphone. [inaudible] >> there are not a lot of monuments that are being' built in the 1930's. a lot of the monuments were earlier, so 1910, in the 1920's. ins the 1930's, there is aa competing narrative. think gone with the wind. let's celebrate the south andbrt it's lost cause. what is very interesting to me

about the 1930's is it is a moment when you can see two ways of thinking about the civil war, a perl lincoln pointh of view more clearly in contention with one another. eingthere are clear lines being differences ine how people are talking about the civil war. that is a very interesting thing that is going on in the 1930's andand 1940's. int abthe point about the international situation is definitely true because trying to understand ford franklin roosevelt tonew understand how e u.s. fit into this whole new world dynamic and trying to actually establish american prestige in the fight against nazism, it almost necessitated this idea that you had to address the problem of slavery, the problem of racial

oppression within the u.s., and certainly african americans making that point very clearly. velt i think one way that roosevelt and others tried to address that idea is by making lincoln into such an important symbol, suggesting there is a history of racial oppression in the u.s., but then there is lincoln. we have a shrine for abraham lincoln. there is a possibility of racial combating that racial oppression in american history. >> think you for being here. in your talk, i heard father, healer, shrine. for a time i have thought about lincoln being assassinated on good friday. my question is, does the attention to lincoln becomeoln t nearly religious, and what would lincoln think about that? [laughter] >> thank you for

reminding me. in the 1930's, i don't feel it has a strong religious overlay. there is a way in which the movie young mr. andlincoln ends on a supernatul -- so i think it is possible lincoln has always had those associations. i don't find the particular in the that emerge tha 1930's to be stronglyy religious. i would almost say overly secularized is the kind of lincoln you get in the 1930's and 40's because he is put in concert with current events. that might be different from the lincoln that emerges in the 1880's and 1890's.

0'i think because lincoln is so often discussed in the same breath as current news items, it has a way of secularizing him. i don't feel the religious part comes out quite as strongly. >> thank you very much. to in 19>> i loved hearing you o robert penn warren. i got to interview him in 1977 as an undergraduate. you mentioned offer kazen and aaron copland. why don't you mention richard hofstadter, who was a follower of joseph stalin. he is very influential and i lincoln studies becausenf of tht dreadful chapter he wrote on lincoln. did you know in 1946 10 novels

had gone out of print because the stalinist literary community had disapproved of it. where is stalin in the 1930's and 40's?put >> i'm not sure whe to put him, i guess. is>> he is there, definitely. stalin did not want philip randolph marching on washington in 1931. he is there. >> ok. i will think about that. thank you. >> i am curious, when did lincoln groups start to perform, when did they start to grow, lincoln's name

begin to the use in many different places? >> my impression is you can find clubs with his name, schools and towns. that is all happeningr thn. immediately after the sments an assassination. d statues are later.numents and e thmaybe the 1880's and 1890's. the lincoln memorial is 1922.d there is a kind of, i guess i should say my remarksnot are not meant to say that he is being ignored prior to the 1930's. he is being recognized, honored, celebrated. i think there is a kind of 193 switch in the 1930's in terms of less talk about lincoln

moderating and healing, and more a figure of power, a figure who actually f represents the most consolidated power of the american government. i don't think you had that image earlier of lincoln, but i do think you have that in the 1930's. yes?i dohad >> there is an evenl subtle reference to lincoln in casablanca. rific you recall rick ran gunsd fought in the spanish war. that was the lincoln brigade. [inaudible] >> microphone. you are not at the microphone. >> he ran guns. >> i thought of the lincoln thot brigade. lincolyou would wonder if that s

almost subliminal. if tpeople would have known that reference at the time. >> i will go back and look at that. thank you. >> to questions, if i can remember them both. did any of the southernrn s segregationist democrat politicians say you are using lincoln as a symbol, and after the war, this is going to cause us a lot of trouble us now becal these black soldiers are going to come home? what about us now? the southern voters were solidly for fdr. he was a god in georgia and alabama. n gedo you think he overestimatd that the south would turn against him if he took even the smallest steps to im to improvel

rights? >> i am going to have toas ver remember. i think roosevelt was very conscious of not alienating the southern wing of the democratic party. i think that did inform his decision about the anti-lynching bill coming through congress. i think southern democrats, there was a lot of tension in that relationship. roo thiin 1938, roosevelt goess campaign to encourage more liberal white politicians in the south. people like margaret mitchell come down like the wrath of god on fdr. they say this is just like reconstruction all over againit when the federalh government tried to interfere with everything. it was a very tense relationship.

it was not like anything fdr did was great. there i think there was that pr. the question about southern democrats and theplic use of lincoln is complicated. i think it was not so easy to simply dismissmiss lincoln in te 1930's. you cannot say he was awerely pt and all this. there were certainly people who did that. i think if anything, whatnot tal southern democrats tried to do is just not talk about lincoln. forinte example, one thing i fod interesting was douglas freeman, the biographers a lo of robert . lee. spends a lot of timee leading a up to world war ii and during world war iind plantrying to tun robert e lee into a relevant figure for americans in the second world war. he talks about his military strategy and other ideas and plans he has. douglas freeman at onee point writes this essay, he

aknowledges that lee is an important symbol. but so is abraham lincoln. the power of abraham lincoln was so much that even somebody like douglas freeman had to acknowledge that at this moment, the historical figure who seems most relevant to what we're doing is abraham lincoln. >> fdr being overlyme i if you look at his results, it was the same in those states. people might vote for segregationist congressman and governors, but they adored fdr. > i think you are right about that absolutely. one more? yes, i do have one more. >> this was a wonderful talk. i always thought fdr embraced lincoln. more than did he connect the two?

i always felt that jefferson was more in the forefront than lincoln. efin important.on was definitely the fdr spoke at the dedication of the jefferson memorial in the 1930's. 's.1943. thank you. it is not as if jefferson was t being overlooked. he does take opportunities to infuse jefferson in things he talks about. momentso think about. when he connects the two. si don't think so. to current events kind of rance elevated him foroo roosevelt. and for many other people. not just in the new dealcultur administration. when i think about popular j culture, jefferson isef not y there. ouwhen you think about, is it is washington?es to hingit has the big scene.

there is a way in which the lincoln rose above jefferson for that moment. thank you. [applause]