increase, a btu tax turned into a $35 million gas tax and a $265 million tax increase. i rely more on the individual. i carry a card in my pocket called the 10th amendment. where possible, i want to give power back to the states end back to the people. >> follow us on social media on c-span history for more this day in history clips and posts. >> author john turner talked about his book, "they knew they were pilgrims: plymouth colony and the contest for american liberty." he discusses the colony's views on religious and political liberty, as well as the residents' practice of enslaving native americans that they fought with. museums on the green hosted this event and provided the video. mark: this is the 400th anniversary of the mayflower voyage to plymouth.

person,ou were here in you would be seeing a gala celebration going on daily and weekly in plymouth. us due to forces bigger than , that hasn't happened. things have been kicked to the curb. on the other hand, it allows us to have our guest tonight, who is coming from northern virginia. john turner is a professor of religious studies at george mason university. he has written a book about the pilgrims. he wrote an earlier book about brigham young. professor turner, as much as i would like to welcome you in person to cape cod, i am glad zoom allows us to do this remotely. , welcomeurther ado john turner. professor turner: i like the virtual applause, thank you for reading so many books. that is a wonderful thing.

the pilgrims were originally heading for northern virginia before they went off course. inappropriate for me to be speaking you from here. as mark said, i would love to have a chance to answer questions from you, or discussed things, and it tends like we are going to use the chat feature for that. so punch questions in any time. that is my favorite part of any book event. athought i would start with full month -- a falmouth connected plymouth story. a story about one of the founders of the settlement that , a guy namedth isaac robinson. he was the son of john robinson, englishor of the

separatists in the dutch city of leiden who became known as pilgrims. john robinson never made it to new england. he died in 1625. his son came to plymouth colony about six years later, first falmouth, then scituate and then barnstable. he is renowned for something he said in 1659. at that point, plymouth leaders were beside themselves about the becauseof quakers missionaries had first appeared in the colony two years earlier. they had quickly gained some converts and sympathizers, especially in the town of sandwich. the authorities tried all sorts of measures to stamp out what they understood as rank heresy.

they arrested, whipped, imprisoned and find quakers -- and fined quakers. they banished missionaries. they found they couldn't actually legally banish them and hope they would go away. they had to actually escort them to rhode island to get them to leave. at least for a while. they even authorized constables in sandwich to erect cages for the public display and humiliation of quakers. minister,to a boston the governor of plymouth colony had the idea of having the so when heads shaved, they forcibly removed their hats, they would be doubly humiliated. but with isaac robinson's support, magistrates try to

different idea. robinson anded several other men to attend thenr meetings, and try to convince them of the error of their ways. unfortunately, the plan backfired. robinson went to quaker meetings, listened to them, i'm sure he knew something about their teachings already, and he then wrote a letter to colonial leaders, telling them that there treatment of the quakers was cruel and unwarranted. for that, robinson lost his right to vote at meetings of the colony's general court. manifestbeled a opposer of the laws of this government. and that is at least one of the leave that caused him to

the town of barnstable, and become one of the first settlers at the town which became the town of falmouth. i have noticed a good number of historians have written about this episode and have suggested through attending quaker meetings, robinson became a quaker, which actually isn't. and barnstable document he remained a member of the church there. he just thought that quakers deserved liberty of conscience. thoserobinson was one of rare 17th-century englishmen, concerned not just with his own liberty, but with the liberty of others. with himto begin partly because he is a local falmouth story, but also because

his life connects to the theme of liberty that is at the heart of my book, and what i will talk about this evening. so what do we make of the pilgrims and the colonies they founded, after 400 years? since the early 19th century, when americans first began to lionize the pilgrims, many americans have credited the pilgrims with bringing religious and political liberty to the shores of the new world. they weren't like the nasty, intolerant puritans around massachusetts. hangedere the folks who quakers and killed suspected witches,-- suspected and they weren't like the

greedy, gold-hungry settlers down here in virginia. maybe they didn't have the best fashion sense, but the pilgrims were solid men and women who came to new england for religious liberty, they signed the mayflower compact and had a big feast with the locals. it is really easy to poke holes in that story, big holes. as soon as some americans started telling this version of the pilgrims' story, other americans responded that it was bunk. englanders, such as a 19th century new england minister, the idea that the pilgrims came for liberty was a sick joke. for the minister, the proof of this was that the descendents of sonpilgrims had sold the

of philip into slavery. of someone with whom the pilgrims had formed an hisance in 1621, ultimately son and the descendents of the pilgrims went to war against each other. and at the conclusion of the work, philip's son was captured and ultimately sold as a slave. say, thehesitate to minister wrote, that through the prayers, teachings and examples hashose pretended pious been the foundation of all the slavery and degradation in the american colonies toward colored people. for him, the pilgrims were the progenitors of slavery, not liberty. and their piety, their renowned

piety, was pretended, not genuine. so four hundred years after the mayflower and the establishment -- and the establishment of the colony, what do we make of the pilgrims story? should we celebrate it, as white americans did in 1820 and 1920? as onewe mourn it, early, sorry chapter in a longer history of conquest and colonization? in partestions matter, because of the close connection between how we understand our society today, and how we understand its origins, our sins of the present and our sense of the past are always connect -- t andense of the presen

our sense of the past are always connected. if we understand the united states as a bulwark of liberty, we look for the connection to that liberty in our earliest history. if we understand the united states as stained by racism and white supremacy, we look for their antecedents in our history, for celebration or mourning. or maybe the pilgrims have gotten more than their fair share of attention. they are almost certainly the most-studied group of ,olonists in american history or this single-most studied group of any americans. at the same time, many historians have dismissed plymouth colony as an insignificant backwater and pilgrims got more attention than they deserve. inon't know if folks up

falmouth and plymouth tend to feel that way. more thanps have had their fill of pilgrims. so why another book about pilgrims and plymouth colony? the pilgrims were central to the early english settlement of the united states and established a frame of government that lasted for seven decades, no small accomplishment. colony'sher end of the a war began in plymouth colony. merit ofe, the examining plymouth's history doesn't ultimately hinge on its grand significance or lack thereof, rather it is a human the firsttween

thanksgiving in philip's war. anee plymouth colony as ideal lens for examining context about liberty and its meaning in the 17th century. so how do the mayflower passengers think about liberty? up for good idea to back a minute and remember who these people were. historians have convincingly demonstrated, the majority of mayflower passengers were members or sympathizers with the english separatist congregation in leiden. for this group, christian liberty, for the liberty of the gospel as they called it, was paramount, something that at least often was first and foremost. ed this idea -- and this idea

flowed right out of the new .estament christ made us free, wrote the apostle paul, and to not entangled again with the guilt. the general idea was important associatedants who the yoke of bondage with the catholic church. separatists had particular thoughts about this. the separatists had entirely rejected the church of england as corrupt. they objected to prayer books, the book of common prayer, the sign of the cross, elaborate burials, church weddings. they objected to an awful lot of things. for them, [indiscernible]

weren't authorized by the bible and smacked of catholicism. separatists concluded the church of england was so corrupt as to be beyond reformation. better to start over, leave it behind. and compared to most other puritans, the separatists did not want a new national church that would encompass everyone. covenanted instead congregations of true christians with the authority to elect their own leaders and discipline their own members, to govern their own affairs. the pilgrims thought about liberty, they thought about it first and foremost in the church context. the religion should have liberty and have the obligation churchesm their own

based on these principles. libertyal of christian remained central to english english, with most settlers in the plymouth colonies for seven decades and beyond. but it was always tested. various english you came to the colony didn't understand this principle the same way. puritans, allther understood it differently. essential ritual was another christian's yoke of bondage. for instance, separatists objected to making the sign of youcross, and decades later had baptists who opposed baptism.

you had quakers who got rid of baptism entirely. and there was others in the colony who wanted nothing to do with any of its churches and simply wanted the liberty to be left alone. was one aspect of oferty that was central, central importance to the pilgrims. and to the other english settlers in the colony. the second form of liberty was political liberty. and here, it is important to mention the mayflower compact. the compact use to understood as a cornerstone of american political thought. "thel webster commented, principles of american inublicanism were worked out the cabin of the mayflower."

that was basically poppycock. the framers of the u.s. constitution were indebted to orn locke, not john robinson the mayflower passengers. but the basic idea of the mayflower compact represented an important english political that the validity of rests on thelaws consent of the body politic. compact, theower male passengers on the mayflower agreed to form a body politic and set up a system in which there would be annual elections for governor, and laws would be voted on by the members of that body politic. -- and then flower

mayflower compact remains striking because at least nearly all adult male passengers signed it. certainly, one reason for the and one reason for having so many people sign it was to stamp out rebelliousness, and try to get everybody to go along with the colonies' leadership. but there are other ways to do that, such as by hanging or shooting people. compact does the represent an ideal of participation and consent. but again, just like christian liberty, political liberty was always contested. you know, whose consent mattered?

women had no political franchise, nor did servants, let alone natives. passed, a smaller and smaller percentage of free the right to held vote in colony affairs. the big decisions in plymouth collie were made by a relatively wealthy, select few. certainly, it wasn't what we would consider a democracy. at the same time, the ideals of the mayflower compact remained important, and not forgotten. when with voting rights gathered to revise the colonies' laws, which they did on several occasions, they read the compact allowed. and when settlers protested against what they understood as unlawful taxes, they hearkened back to this principle of

consent, that taxes were invalid unless the people, the people's representatives, had given their consent to them. so plymouth colony was very much a story of liberty, religious and political, but not in the simple way this story is to be told. from the very start, english settlers engaged in a long contest over the meaning of liberty. when we discuss liberty in colonial america, it is essential to discuss its opposite. and the most stark opposite was slavery. whenever english settlers in plymouth colony or elsewhere ort their religious

political liberty was being trampled upon, they complained that others were making them as andes, that language rhetoric of slavery had a real visceral power. and one reason for that was because of the widespread nature of slavery around the transatlantic english world. and one of the things that surprised me when researching this book was how relatively widespread and common slavery colony.in even plymouth before i did the research for this book, i knew that some natives had been enslaved after king philip's war in new england, but i had no idea how common and widespread native

slavery became. even before the mayflower andsing, english traders ship captains were kidnapping and enslaving natives along the coast of new england. other native peoples of new england experienced enslavement. then, during and after king philip's war, native slavery became extremely widespread. and 1676, plymouth colony's military and political leaders exported hundreds of captured wampanoags and other natives, sending them in bondage to the caribbean, and across the ocean to places like spain and

tangiers. in the wake of the war, many hundreds more wampanoags were reduced to various forms of servitude, sometimes bound as servants for a set number of years, sometimes slaves for life. andpressure of land sales the loss of other forms of subsistence also forced many wampanoags to indenture themselves or their children to english families. remember, the pilgrims wanted to free themselves from what they understood as the yoke of bondage. their descendents imposed other yokes of bondage on the natives of new england. what about african slaves? governor of

plymouth colony, josiah winslow, son of mayflower passenger edward winslow, informed the few slaves it had who were readers. that says a lot of the way how winslow understood of the people, that some people could be greeters. as it turns out, his statement wasn't accurate. more than a few african slaves in plymouth colony. that was another surprise for me in my research. best, therehat, at was maybe a handful of african slaves in the colony. the overall figure remains it isn, but it turns out

not insignificant. i will give you examples. willet, who thomas belonged to the pilgrim congregation in leiden but came later than the mayflower, had inht slaves when he died 1674. baptistexample, minister john miles, founder of substantial also a slaveholder. one of john miles' slaves, his name is unknown, was among the first english casualties of king philip's war. he owned fived, african slaves.

i thought i might, if i can, of hisu a picture inventory. how thisn example of element of plymouth history is not easy to track down. this is an inventory of john miles estate -- john miles' estate. and mycan see my screen pointer, it goes through all his possessions, and it says he has colt of threee years old, three hogs and two pigs. i had to look up the colonial-era difference between hogs and pigs, seems it has mostly to do with size. that is not my specialty. yearlings and then, peter,

a negro league, and mary his negro, maryer, a his wife, their two children, and adam, a negro, valued together at $72. they were his most valuable possession. that peteructed marry, and one of the children sold to pay his debts. and then he bequeathed to his grandson samuel a negress forever. i will give you one more example. 1673, and i'm giving you this because it gets us a little closer to falmouth, in 1673, scituate's walter bricks purchased a girl named margaret

from a boston mariner. it was clarified that margaret would serve briggs and his heirs during their natural life, so for her lifespan. it turned out she was inherited, and passed around, ultimately owned by five different members of the riggs family over the next 20 years. 1693 will, a man named cornelius briggs who lived in barnstable, specified margaret would receive her liberty after another 13 years of service, which, if that had come to pass, would have made 33 years. deathcornelius briggs' the next year, she was sold to another scituate settler for 11

pounds. at the very least, the example of margaret illustrates that african slavery extended across the colony from what is now eastern rhode island, to barnstable on the cape. so within the history of plymouth colony, there is this mixture of liberty and slavery. being constantly contested, with some forms of slavery being contested, the enslavement of natives was more controversial, with other forms of slavery rarely being contested or even mentioned. that, webster believed arose wiseyflower constitutions of government full

of liberty which we ourselves live and breathe. william aphis, who i mentioned, bringersims not as the of liberty, but the bringers of slavery. in reality, liberty and slavery ineloped in tandem, not only colonies such as virginia, where we are used two it being art of the story, but even it far tinier plymouth colony. theseparatists among pilgrims secured the christian liberty they had been denied in england and established a colony with significant measures of liberty of conscience and political liberty, at least for some men. at the same time, the pilgrims and their descendents dispossessed the wampanoags of their land. when some wampanoags fought back, many were killed and many others were enslaved.

so liberty was always a contest. meaningtes over its remained, and remain unresolved. pretty-day americans much all claim to cherish liberty, but also disagree vigorously about its meeting -- about its meaning. so perhaps we have something in common the pilgrims and the other english settlers of the colony. questionsve to have from you. you are welcome to also raise objections or make comments. anything is welcome. i would love the chance to chat with you. mark: dr. turner, that was awesome. you started by saying the pilgrims were "the progenitors of slavery," you used that

phrase and that became a kind of theme. this, are going through comers, ifl first you will, versus their descendents, because we have these two touchstone points that they land on plymouth rock and then we fast-forward to philip's war. in between, do you differentiate between passengers on the mayflower and second generation? professor turner: to some extent, although in terms of the issue of slavery, edward winslow had leasede susanna one native slave in the 16 40's.

hope who a boy named was probably a pequot captive, whom they sold to the caribbean. i wouldn't make a strict distinction between the pilgrims and their descendents. the pilgrims were very critical englishact that some ship captains kidnapped and enslaved wampanoags, in part because it created a lot of trouble for them, or at least some trouble, when they first reached cape cod. so there were critical of that sort of kidnapping and slave trading. and it certainly doesn't seem to have occurred to the early settlers of the colony that in any way it would be just to enslave natives, even if they

were captured in a just war. that idea doesn't really develop strongly in new england until the english fight the pequots in the 16 30's. whichets a precedent, then is clearly established by the time of king philip's war. thanks, mark. that's a good question. i have got one in the chat from dave. thank you for the question. explain the difference between puritans and pilgrims. i understand that relationship is to understand pilgrims as a subset of puritans. common in american history to make a strict

distinction between the pilgrims of --ony and the puritans pilgrims of plymouth colony and the puritans of massachusetts bay. but these two groups were out of the same religious impulse, of being dissatisfied with the church of england. puritan begins as a derogatory term. it is a pejorative for these people who want to create a pure church. the separatists all sort of begin as puritans of one sort or another, but they are so convinced that the church of england is corrupt that they withdraw from. pilgrims androups, separatists and other puritans actually have a lot in common, but the puritans don't like separatists because they give other puritans a bad name for

being extremists. winthrop and his group reach massachusetts bay, they find it rather easy to get and morehe pilgrims, or less see each other as kindred spirits. this, but argue about i think the pilgrim church in plymouth actually serves as something of a model for the churches. asre is never quite successful of a church establishment in plymouth colony. for the most part, there is a little bit more room for dissent, or just remaining aloof from churches. the storyted with

about quakers in plymouth colony not getting persecuted, but one reason plymouth cracked down on quakers was because the folks in hardn cap giving them a time for not being vigorous enough i guess -- vigorous enough against dissenters. i took your question as an opportunity to go on for a bit, but i basically understand pilgrims as a more radical subgroup of puritans. thanks, timothy, is if i have any comments of the history of our understanding of the prevalence of slavery in new england. mean't know if by that you what other historians have said about it.

thats been well known there was slavery in new england, of both native and african kinds. i would say that more recently, historians have really taken this subject more seriously. and there have been a couple andt books on african native slavery in new england published recently. those were very helpful to me. a historian named wendy warren estimates there were maybe 1000 african slaves across new england by the year 1700. my hunch is that that is probably an underestimate. both boston and newport, rhode island work significant ports

for slavery. there is actually even one slave , the history is a little murky, a ship named the elizabeth in the early 16 80's 1680's. it put into a western new england town, it might have been bristol commanding general, this is a subject getting more attention. one thing that has tended to make it tricky, especially in terms of native slavery, is that colonial records never really referred to native slaves as slaves. they are referred to as servants, or sometimes as the injun of such and such a settlor.

and that language has obscured the fact that large numbers of men, women and children were held in bondage. the other think that has been tricky in terms of studying slavery is that native slavery wasn't exactly like chattel slavery much of the time. so not all natives who were held in bondage were necessarily held wasn'te, and it necessarily an inheritable condition. you know, their children would not necessarily also be slaves. and as americans, we are very used to thinking of slavery as african, african-american slavery, lifelong and inheritable. in reality, it was murkier, often, in terms of native slavery in new england.

given the fact of all the racial issues we are it makesing right now, a book about the 17th century current and very topical. youmentioned liberty and mentioned the pilgrims, the puritans. they ablegards, were sayin their own mind's eye, that slavery goes back to biblical times, it goes back to the egyptian times? were they able to reconcile that in their own minds? professor turner: absolutely. there was really easy to justify the enslavement of captives in particular, based on biblical precedent. i can't point you to the chapter and verse, mark.

ashould be able to, since i'm professor of religious studies, like you said, but that was routine in the old testament. and in terms of the enslavement my own opinion, and historians argue about this, i think the english for the most part excepted and were familiar with african slavery, even before they reached north america. they were familiar with that through spain, they were familiar with it because caribbean traders would bring slaves to england on occasion. so i think when the first shipload of african slaves were brought to virginia, the

settlers did not stop and debate the morality of slavery. they accepted it as an established part of their world. for anyonevery rare in 17th century or early 18th century new england question the morality of african slavery. there is a famous case around the year 1700 in which a slave hadd adam, possibly who once been owned by john miles, sued his master for his freedom. apparently, his master had promised him freedom after an additional seven years of work. namedboston merchant samuel sewall took up adam's

cause and wrote an eloquent thehlet arguing against morality of slavery, arguing it was unchristian based on the biblical command to level 1's neighbor. dash -- loveill call command to one's neighbor. willhat was unusual, so wasn't out like -- samuel sewall was an outlier. slaves get converted to religious thinking? slaves orf african african-americans, i did find a record of a negro joining the congregation in plymouth in the early 1700s, so a little left of the end of the plymouth colony period.

was.don't know how, that in terms of the conversion of to wampanoags, that seems have been something that most of the mayflower passengers and other early colonists had devoted much thought to. you can certainly find it in literature that published promoting colony. and edward winslow, mayflower passenger and one of the more influential early colonists, he did genuinely care about the conversion of natives. he wrote about some religious dialogues that he had with in fairly intimate conversations, but i think winslow was an outlier. for the most part, settlers were simply trying to survive.

by the 16e that, 60's, 16 70's, very large begans of wampanoags aligning themselves with christianity. i like to be a little careful in i thinkabout this, there were multiple reasons for that. i think the records show that some genuinely accepted the religious principles of boston christianity. others definitely saw it as an important way to forge bonds were nowenglish, who numerous and more threatening. i said a lot in response to your question, philip, but i hope that is useful. ark: just because you are professor of religious studies, i would never figure that you chapter and verse

from the bible, the koran, the torah. how is your book being received in plymouth? are people happy with it, thumbs up, thumbs down? did you get a lot of assistance from them in researching this, was there pushback, how do they like it? i don't thinker: you really get pushback from doing research on the pilgrims. i've done a couple books on the latter-day saints, or mormons, and that is really something more controversial to write about because it is really sacred history for millions of people. the major stakeholders in the , plymouth hall,

they areand pawtucket, open to the complexity of the and have story cooperative relationships with people who understand it in many different ways. i had a virtual book launch event at pilgrim hall, which would have been a lot more fun had it not been a virtual event, because on that occasion, the technology failed. this was just a couple weeks into the pandemic. everat wasn't my best time , but i had a great time doing the research for this book. i spent a lot of time at pilgrim hall. there are a lot of papers pertaining to plymouth at the massachusetts historical society up in boston, some

correspondence of later plymouth colony figures that was fun to read. plymouth gets a lot of attention from the mayflower and the thanksgiving story. as i've suggested, it doesn't get as much attention for the intervening decades. and i found tons of what i theght were great stories, controversy surrounding the quakers i found fascinating. i didn't know a great deal about the early quakers, and just how aggressive they were with their message and how obnoxious they sometimes were. i could partly understand why people took umbrage. i found fascinating things about the 17th century i didn't understand. on occasion, speaking of liberty, there were men who work

vital or vagrants or low-level sentenced too were servitude and lost their actual liberty for a number of years. there is a law of history of ourts lost because focus on certain parts of the plymouth colony story. mark: i'm glad you mentioned that. for history majors, i think there is a tendency for people to think that the pilgrims landed in 1620 and we fast-forward to lexington and concord, nothing happened for the next hundred 50 years, -- 150 years, so i'm glad you mentioned that. i thought it was fascinating when he talked about the enslavement of the wampanoags. i have spoken to a woman of wampanoag dissent, this was a

couple of years ago, and i "mayflower," book, and she said it was her second-most hated book. she didn't say what are most take it book was, but she called it her second most-hated book. ended found it telling that and found that pilgrim hall is trying to show the complexities of the two societies. how wampanoagsg -- whereaved, were you were you able to find your research and what were you able to locate? professor turner: well, the colonies' records, which were transcribed in the 19th century, give you the basics of that story. they document the immediate enslavement and export of

captives during and after the war. and then, there are ongoing court cases involving native servants. it took me a wild to realize a lot of the servants could be more fairly categorized as slaves. also, one story i found when a females about , and i forgeter if it is saconet, i'm not a local. and anyway, i found her just remarkable, and someone who deserves a lot more attention. she was clearly the leader of her community as of the early 16

ins, and is really caught the middle during king philip's war. doesn't want to fight the english, because she thinks that is going to be bad for her people. but also, it is getting this constant pressure to sell her land and i think on some occasions, is simply swindled out of her land. remarkably, she is still on the peopleerthe 16 have lost most of their land but she is still there, she is able for her son to petition -- able through her son to petition the colonial governments for dress for redress.ss --

of the little compton historical society introduced me to a part of the story i didn't know, one of her sons had become a slave by the 1690's.-- by the go beyondlowed me to hundreds of wampanoags being enslaved and tracked the experience of one family, going from a position of political leadership and prominence, to being reduced to slavery. mark: i think it is pronounced acanid, but i am not from rhode island either. professor turner: thanks. mark: thank you very much, for joining us tonight. i would much rather have had you come to keep god, but doing this you being safe in northern virginia, hopefully this went better than pilgrim hall went.

forsh you great good luck this book, thank you everyone else for joining us tonight. luck and thank you so much. good night, everybody. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] presidentialtv campaign as aired in the 1952 contest between republican dwight eisenhower and democrat adlai stevenson. sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. eastern, american history tv and c-span's washington journal will be live to look at the history of these ads, beginning with the 1950 two election and into the 21st century. here is a look at some famous campaign ads. 8:30 a.m. eastern sunday morning for the full program. [baby talking] 5, 4, 3, 2, 7, 6,

one, zero. [explosion] to make are the stakes, a world in which all of god's children can live, or to go into the dark. we must either love each other, or we must die. >> vote for president johnson on november 3. it is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the united states. dissent is a necessary ingredient of change, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies a resort to violence. let us recognize that the first civil right of every american is to be free from domestic violence. i pledge to you, we shall have order in the united states. ♪ >> eight is morning again in america, and under the

leadership of president reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. why would we ever want to return to where we were, four short years ago? ♪ calleds born in a town hope, arkansas, three months after my father died. i remember the old, two-story house i lived in with my grandparents. they had limited income. it was in 1963 that i went to washington and met president kennedy. i thought i could really do public service because i cared so much about people. it is exhilarating to me to think the president could change people's lives for the better and bring hope back to the american dream. >> join us live sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. eastern for the full program. >> sunday on american artifacts, we visit arlington national cemetery to see objects in a

memorabilia box laid in a cemetery cornerstone in 1915. 105 years later, in april this year, the box was removed and open to discover what was inside. here's a preview. throughout they, process of caitlin opening the box, i thought my chest was going to explode because i didn't know what the contents would be, what that would look like. off thatlin said come caitlin said, -- like caitlin said, water damage could have ruined everything in the box. when caitlin finished cutting the lid and peeled back the lid, what struck me was the care they took to put these items in.

just about everything was wrapped in tissue paper or wax paper, the flag was rolled up and wrapped and tied carefully, everything looked like it went in yesterday, so that was really what struck me. and i couldn't wait to get in and unwrap each an historian,r it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 1915u can see more of the memorabilia box on american artifacts at 10 p.m. eastern time. >> during the battle of gettysburg's second day, union commander george meade called for reinforcements to beat back an assault on his left flank, leaving only a single brigade to defend his right flank on culp's hill. author dan welch describes how that brigade under general george sears greene repulsed multiple confederate attacks over the course of the evening of july 2, holding the union right despite being outnumbered