he said, well, boys, your troubles are over. mine have just begun. a few weeks later south carolina seceded over the election of abraham lincoln. we know how that's going to come out too but we're still going to end up talking about it. so we elected him today, the least we can do is secede next time so we'll see you next time. you're watching american history tv, every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past, c-span3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider.

>> historian susan schulten, the 1860 transition between james buchanan and abraham lincoln is described by various historians as contentious, rough, dangerous and even the worst in history. what made it so? >> i think on the face of it what you have to recognize is this is by far the most consequential election and transition in american history. the central issue, of course, is that several southern states did not recognize the election of abraham lincoln has legitimate. they considered him a sectional

president for the fact that by and large his support came from non-slave states, and so no sooner had he been elected then south carolina makes good on its promise to proceed toward seceding from the union on the grounds that the election did not represent its interests. >> well, let's set the stage for the transition between the two men with the incumbent. james buchanan announced at his swearing in he would be a one-term president. we do a regular presidential leadership survey and james buchanan always falls at the bottom of the list as the worst leader of american presidential history. how would you characterize his leadership skills, and how he conducted his administration, and how he left the country as it moved toward the 1860 election? >> yes, and it does seem to be the way historians assess him in large part, of course, because the next thing we know is the civil war. and so it feels a little bit like a categorical characterization of him.

but you're right that his administration came under a lot of criticism. he was fairly openly sympathetic to the pro-slavery interests of the south. he championed the dread scott decision which many americans felt like was a complete abdication of leadership and a betrayal of interests that drove the republican party around the abolition of slavery in the west. and i think he really earns that number one spot in terms of how he conducts the transition. and that is a way in which he openly rejects secession. he believes in the union. but he also consistently says, over and over and publicly that he has no power to prevent the southern states from leaving and so he sets up this real problem that secession is wrong, but i'm not going to do anything about it. >> so in your analysis of it it's less ineptitude on his part or rather it's more ineptitude or interpretation of his powers

as president than it is a sympathy towards the south, and on wanting to undo what the voters had actually chosen in 1860. >> i think that's fair. he doesn't believe the election is illegitimate. he is frustrated by the republican party, and he openly blames the republican party for the crisis. in other words, the first public statement he makes after the election is his address to congress in early december and the entire country is riveted on that, and in that address he's very caustic. he blames northern republicans, abolitionists for the fact that southern states are thinking about seceding. and so that feels like an abdication of responsibility. it feels like he is making the crisis worse, rather than toning it down. >> how are we to interpret the fact that his party, the democrats, actually nominated two candidates in 1860? >> well, that sort of seals the deal. when the democrats meet in charleston in a sweltering heat of the summer of 1860, the convention falls apart, and of

course it falls apart on the issue of slavery. northern democrats and southern democrats can't see eye to eye. they're both sympathetic to slavery in terms of the wings of the party, but they cannot -- southern democrats are not satisfied that steven douglas, the northern nominee, is enough pro-slavery and so they walk out of that convention. so anyone who's paying attention to party politics in the summer of 1860 can see that the election of antibiotic hall of fame -- abraham lincoln and the republicans has gotten a tremendous boost of likelihood. >> the republicans, the second time they advanced a presidential candidate to the election. how united were they as a party going into the election? >> that's a terrific question because i think it's crucial for viewers to understand as you just reminded them, that this is only the second time the republican party has mounted a presidential ticket, we're talking about a party that's five years old, and going from losing its first effort in 1856 to winning in its second.

many people know that lincoln was not the favorite candidate at the republican convention in chicago, he was known as the dark horse. and he has a strategy that i really quite like. he's everyone's second favorite and he also crucially doesn't alienate anyone and so the leaders, the presumed leaders, one by one, are unacceptable to other wings. so, for instance, you have border states or what i might call more conservative republicans who find someone like seward who's fairly openly aggressively anti-slavery unacceptable. but lincoln is the one who can bring all of them together. and you also hint at something. after that election forefront in lincoln's mind is not just staffing his cabinet and dealing with the crisis, but unifying this new party, and that is no mean feat. >> so was the election really only fought on that single issue, the preservation of the union and the future of slavery? >> yeah, i think it really does come down to that. there are, of course, other

issues that are evergreen in the american politics in the 19th century but that is the key and the key element of it, of course, is not just slavery, but slavery in the territories, as a referendum on that issue. >> so let's look at the results on election day because, again, there were four candidates, and we should remind people that at that time only white males had the opportunity to vote in the united states. he won the election with a clear majority in the electoral college, 180 electoral votes and carried 18 states. what are the things to know behind those numbers? >> the thing that my students always find the most remarkable that he wins 40% of the popular vote. >> only 40%. >> yes, that's a statistic that deep southern democrats tout as an absolute definitive judgment on the illegitimacy of the election. >> did southern voters take part, or did they sit it out because they saw it as a

sectional election? >> well, that's an interesting question because most southern states do participate in the typical way. and in the deepest states, the deepest southern states, the states that are most dependent on slavery, the southern democrat, the most ardent pro-slavery party or choice in that election wins so you can see some contours that have everything to do with slavery, but also the pattern of secession that will occur after the election. >> if the fact that he only received 40% of the popular vote is interesting to your students, how about this? the fact that if you tallied all other three candidates together they didn't equal lincoln's numbers, so why is that also important in him setting the stage for having a mandate? >> that's a wonderful observation, because we do a lot with the data in the 1860 election with my students and they say the problem was that it was a fourway election, the problem was that the democrats split. that's just part of the problem. the fact is that this is a

fragmented election, but even as you said, if the constitutional union, northern and southern democrats banded together, lincoln still would have prevailed. i think the key there is to understand that the electoral strength is moving in a certain direction. it has to do with population trends in this country. >> right now, as we are wondering what will happen with the senate majority in the outcome of the 2020 election, how did congress fare for abraham lincoln in 1860? >> he does well, the republicans do well. again, it's very, very sectional but it gives him strong -- what i would call mandate. the other thing to consider about congress is that after south carolina secedes, after the troubles that push the other deep south states to leave, one by one those representatives in congress leave. and so you've got an election where the republicans do well, and then over secession winter that's compounded by the fact

that deep southern pro-secession, pro-slavery representatives are leaving the capital. so what that makes possible is a republican agenda that might not otherwise have been possible. so, for instance, lincoln doesn't face the kind of scrutiny and opposition and delay in his cabinet that he might if there was a full democratic strength opposition party and also toward the end of buchanan's administration it makes it possible to bring in kansas as a free state and a whole host of new territories, including the territory of colorado. . so the country is simultaneously shrinking and also growing. it's remarkable. >> would you spend a minute talking about the journalism of the time and how they supported the candidates or the causes? it was an age of highly partisan media, and a time when people read only what they're interested in, what their interests were, which again has parallels to what we're seeing today in the country. >> yeah, that's a wonderful

observation when you say partisan media, you mean it quite literally, that most newspapers were party organs and so you have all through the secession winter, and the before elections -- sorry, lincoln's inauguration, you see all kinds of intention, what is lincoln saying this week? why isn't he saying something on "x"? what is buchanan saying? and all that, all of it is filtered through your political identity, i cannot stress that enough. that in some ways it's so resonant with what we're seeing today that from november to march people saw events through the lens of their own party. >> i wanted to clarify one thing about the process. we're still in an era when the inaugurations happen in march. did the new congress also elected in november start in march or did they begin their session in january? >> they actually don't come back into session until july. it creates an enormous problem.

so as you said, this is before the 20th amendment, so we still have presidents inaugurated in march and i want to impress that on your listeners, because think about what an interminable period that secession winter was from the first tuesday in december until the first week of march. seemingly endless period where the country is on a knife's edge. and when lincoln is inaugurated, congress is not in session and won't be back in session until july. and that creates all kinds of problems because lincoln has to face some of the first crises around fort sumter. he raises a militia without the permission of congress. that becomes an area in which he's scrutinized, in part, because congress isn't in session. >> so you told us that james buchanan made a speech to the nation shortly after the election. what happened with him, did he stay in washington for the rest of the time, of the transition, and was he vocal during much of

that time? >> he does stay in washington and, of course, buchanan scholars have pointed out that all he he really wants to do is go back to pennsylvania. he's one of the oldest presidents at that time and very much looking to step away. but he is there for the crisis. and as i said, he's sending mixed messages, he is on the one side saying that secession is absolutely illegal, and on the other side not doing anything. and there's some real consequences to that, not least of which is that in that long interago numb before lincoln is inaugurated and someone who takes a stronger federal stand southern states are taking control of federal forts and garrisons and federal property. that make them stronger than it otherwise might have been. so buchanan's inaction, as you might put it, has consequences. >> why would a sitting president

not use federal troops to defend federal garrisons? >> well, i think the real question is whether he's violating state rights. and whether he a a a a

interviewing of people in springfield. what was -- what was he trying to do with the cabinet that he was assembling and how was it viewed by partisans on both sides of this issue? >> i think he's trying to create balance. the republican party is a fragile coalition as you implied earlier. it's got ardent anti-slavery elements. it's got former wigs who are perhaps a little more tentative about really augmenting a quasi-abolitionist position and those folks don't always get along together, right, the convention in chicago showed off

some of those divisions and so lincoln is very, i think, carefully reaching out to certain types of people. including preston blare, a more conservative republican from missouri, a border state, a slave state, as well as william seward from new york who i think represents a little bit more of the ardent anti-slavery wing. although in the senate seward is very much trying to create compromise. so it's complicated. it's also a cabinet that has gone down in history by civil war scholars as choosing one of the more unfortunate individuals simon cameron who was known for being an open grifter when it came to corruption and fraud but he was someone to placate interests of pennsylvania. >> well, lincoln was, in springfield, illinois, did he use any allies in washington, in the capital, to help advance his issues or even to reach out to the buchanan administration?

>> great question. and it's not just in washington, but around the country. so he -- his fellow senator limon trumable, a close colleague, someone who vested him years earlier but now he's a kind of key emissary. and he uses individuals like trumble to kind of telegraph messages, i don't mean that literally, but through emissaries into washington. because in washington, from the moment of the election, until i would say mid-february, there is a frantic, frantic effort to stave off secession, to end the crisis, and to reach some kind of compromise. the other thing that i think is fascinating, and my students absolutely love this, is that in this time, december and january, lincoln is also writing to his former colleagues from congress, john gilmer in north carolina, alexander stevens in georgia who becomes the vice president of the confederacy.

these are men he trusts, and in the case of alexander stevens this is a man who openly criticizes disunion. stevens says to his fellow southerners, this is not the way to get what we want. we are safer in the union than out of the union. so in my mind lincoln is reaching out very strategically. it doesn't work out, obviously north carolina and georgia join the confederacy. but he is putting out those feelers to try to push things in a certain direction. >> here, as you're talking, another interesting contrast between the incumbent and the incoming presidents because james buchanan was perhaps the most experienced politician of the era. he had held almost every post you can think of before ascending to the presidency. abraham lincoln, one failed senate campaign and one term in congress. so what do you make of the difference in political skills between the two, without the requisite experience behind it?

>> you know, i was reflecting on that this morning. i thought to myself, man, abraham lincoln would have a tough time today in the experience realm, right, he wouldn't fare very well as one term congressman who considers himself a failure and goes back to practicing law in springfield. that's a tough one because lincoln's estimation, of course, grows in hindsight, one thing that we fail to appreciate was how much criticism lincoln received during the war throughout the war, from different camps obviously hated in many parts of the south, but also deeply resented by democrats in the north for provoking a war that was unnecessary, if you will, for ignoring overtures to peace so we consider lincoln a masterful politician, right, he remains the one that people -- not just historians, but leadership types, all communication scholars, everyone takes from

lincoln what they will. but much of that, of course, is because we know the outcome of the story. >> in setting the stage for his administration, lincoln decided to embark on a 13-day train trip from springfield, illinois to washington. tell our listeners a bit about that story. because it brought out crowds at nearly every stop and he interacted with the public along the way. how important was that in setting the tone for his presidency? >> that's a good question because it's a kind of symbolic move. you raise a good point. it's a long, long train ride, a winding from illinois through the what we would now call the upper midwest, toward the atlantic and then down into washington. not a lot of consequential speeches happened along the way. those speeches are scrutinized and because of the telegraph can be printed or reported upon, people are paying close attention to where he is. but it's more of a kind of -- i would say a symbolic tour where

he is sort of doubling down on the meaning of the union, on the fact that this country is more than just an amalgamation of states. it has a higher purpose. that, of course, is an element of lincoln's thinking that is front and central -- front and center in the inauguration, that this country has a purpose, right, it is more than just a nation as such or a union as such. >> while he was working on themes he was also bringing out crowds as large as 50,000 people at some of the stops. and much less populated country. it had to also build excitement for -- among his supporters, which would be useful in dealing with congress and his own goals going forward. >> absolutely, yeah, and then famously -- i forget which -- it's not philadelphia, where he visits independence hall, but some place along the way there's a young girl who meets him and writes him a letter suggesting that he might look good with a beard. and that's the beginning of

that. >> and shows he takes advice, right. >> that's right, he's open to suggestions, as he always says. >> it's been well documented that on the last leg of that trip that abraham lincoln survived an assassination plot. who was behind that, and second question is, did president buchanan respond in any way to that attempt? >> my -- i have limited knowledge in that area. i don't have any record of buchanan responding. it was a pingerton agent who brought the information to lincoln and his people that there was a heightened risk, particularly in baltimore and this is something that's really interesting because after the inauguration, after the crisis at fort sumter, lincoln needs to call up those troops, the militia and the ones who march through baltimore are assaulted, and i want you to think about that for a second. maryland is a state that remains in the union, despite the fact that it's a slave state. but the sympathies in maryland

in the early months of the war were openly hostile to the union, and openly pro-confederate and you see that in the way they treat the union soldiers. so there's been a lot of debate about how substantial those threats against lincoln's life were. but later behavior shows us that it was not a peaceful thing to be marching through baltimore on the way to the capital. of course, the upshot is that lincoln endures all kinds of grief as a kind of coward who is slinks into washington because he's trying to get round those assassination threats. >> let's move to inauguration day. what do we know about president buchanan's outreach to his successor. was he cordial or welcoming to the new president? >> to my mind it was a perfe perfectly cordial handoff. buchanan was frustrated with lincoln because he had reached out during that presidential-elect period and

lincoln had not much interest and not much to gain by responding to those overtures. >> we found a clip in our video archives of the actor sam waterston reading the last paragraph of abraham lincoln's first inaugural address. there's always so much attention on the second. but let's listen to the themes that he struck as he closed his inaugural address in 1861 and have you come back and talk about, again, setting the tone, even though we know about the consequences of what would happen next. let's listen. >> i am loathe to close. we are not enemies but friends. we must not be enemies. though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

the mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell. the chorus of the union when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. >> susan schulten, what was he saying there and how was it received? >> oh, that speech is just so rich. you could spend weeks on it with students because there's so many dimensions. the first thing i want to go back to is what you remarked on earlier, how deeply polarized the country had become by march 4th, 1861. and so for northerners that speech is seen in one way as an

overture, as an olive branch, as essentially saying the ball's in your court, southerners and secessionists, we are not provoking, and yet by southerners it was seen pretty clearly as an assertion of federal power. so that's one thing to keep in mind. the most important thing i think about that speech is that lincoln holds his ground and asserts the primacy of the union. he says secession is anarchy. it is impossible. and what he means there is that states cannot opt out of the union. the union is something larger than the states. it's older than the constitution. it's older than the declaration. in other words, there's a spirit that animates the union and so secession does not make any sense. states don't exist outside of the union. so there's a new kind of constitutional ideal for what the nation will be in terms of its organic pull.

and lincoln is committed to that. of course, he's willing to fight and expend a lot of lives in service to that. but he also makes clear, susan, that there are many things on which he will compromise. he is even willing to consider a constitutional amendment to protect slavery where it exists. but he will not compromise on the extension of slavery into the territories. and so the upshot of that speech really is to southern secessionists you are complaining because you lost an election, but nothing else has happened. >> and as we know one month later on april 12th, 1861 the civil war got under way. as we close here, i guess some perspective about this, we're looking at two difficult presidential transitions. consequential as you said in this case because it almost was the end of the union. but are there any specific

lessons for what the country is going through today? >> that one's tough and i want to be modest and a little bit humble here that we occupy a radically different world 150 years later in terms of the speed of information, in terms of the size of the country. i hope that 1860 is not 2020, and i think that the kind of divisions that the country was facing in 1860 were ones where ideology was layered on top of geography. in other words the -- which is not to say the war was inevitable but which was to say that the fissures were much clearer than they are today. >> historian susan schulten chairs the history department, latest book called the history of america in 100 maps, thank you for spending time with us and giving us some perspective on presidential transitions of the past. >> thank you, susan. >> and our next half hour we continue our look at contentious presidential transitions with the 1932 election, when

incumbent republican herbert hoover lost to franklin delano roosevelt. >> industrial enterprise lie on every side. farmers find no market and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. more important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's billets has failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetent. >> historian eric rauchway, we are talking about historic difficult transitions between

presidents of opposing parties and you literally wrote a book about one of those, winter war, hoover roosevelt and the first clash over the new deal. set the stage for us about the state of the country during which this first transition into fdr's presidency took place? >> during the election years, 1932, the great depression reached its depths, so you had unemployment that was approaching, if not quite reaching one in four workers were without jobs, many more people were underemployed. you had, as roosevelt said there, in the clip that you just used, a situation where crisis for agricultural commodities had dropped so low it was often not worth it even for farmers to harvest them and send them to market and so farmers were going out of business and losing their farms, the mortgages, you had people who were literally going hungry in many parts of the country, and food that wasn't worth it to sell in other parts

of the country, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the economy had essentially and visibly broken. and therefore not only had capitalism commerce reached a situation of crisis, so indeed had democracy, people began to lose faith that their government would do for them what they needed doing and that was the atmosphere as the nation approached the election in november of 1932. >> and what was happening internationally? >> well, internationally the situation was much the same, the great depression, of course, was a global event. it afflicted europe particularly badly, and germany had, of course, slid into depression a bit earlier than many other countries and in response, of course, you saw the rise of the nazi party to power, adolf hitler gained enough votes in the election -- it was 1932 that very shortly in january of 1933 he would be able to broker a deal that would make him chancellor, imperial japan was of course on the march abroad and was about to leave the

league of nations over the episode in manchuria and therefore the international order was falling apart. >> you said people were losing faith in the democratic process. what was the situation like on election election day? what percentage of eligibles actually voted and what were the results like? >> i don't know off the top of my head what voter turnout was on election day. >> was it a resounding defeat for hoover's policies and a resounding plus for the new direction? that's really the point of the question. >> the election of 1932 was definitely an ideological one where roosevelt promised a new deal and under that heading promised all manner of things. most notably a massive public works program for his agriculture, old age pensions and unemployment insurance. not only a recovery program from the depression but also rebalancing of the economy to make it more equitable. hoover took that program assening socialistic.

he said he smelled on it. the fumes that recently boiled on you the in russia. he was fairly clear about his position and said he would oppose any such measures were he elected. and hoover lost in a landslide. he only lost majority in six of the eight states and roosevelt went on to a resounding victory. >> today we're accustomed to twitter and insults about candidates being transmitted globally during the campaign. what was the tenor like between the two men in the 1932 election? >> hoover really didn't shy away from explaining he thought roosevelt was absolutely unsuited to be president because he belonged, hoover said, to the radical left wing of the democratic party as it then stood. that roosevelt's policies or proposed policies were socialistic in nature, that they would bankrupt the country, they would crack the timbers of the constitution. that's a direct quote from

herbert hoover, they would negate the ideals that the united states was founded on. hoover was clear that he thought roosevelt was absolutely unfit to be president and the new deal would run against everything that had made america great to that point. roosevelt himself, you know, singled out hoover's administration for criticism, but mostly it was fairly, you know, without vitriol because the facts were very much against hoover at that point in 193 2 with unemployment so high and -- four full years of his administration. >> i would like to have our audience hear the two men in their own words. we're going to listen to herbert hoover on november 4th. it's really one of his closing pitches to the american public. november 4, 1932, four days before the election. let's listen to what he had to say about the state of the economy. >> my fellow citizens from the

congressional elections of the 1930s, the strategy of the democratic party has been an effort to implant the unthinking minds through distribute misrepresentation the colossal falsehood that the republican party is responsible for this worldwide catastrophe. since coming this state by the democratic national committee says this depression was man made. i agree with that. but they say the man who made it was myself personally. [ laughter ] i had let this country off easier than russia or eastern europe or south america. [ applause ] >> what do you hear there in that pitch to voters? >> well, i hear the kind of

thing hoover generally said throughout the campaign, which was that the american people should be thankful for the presence in washington of republican the administration had fought for if he didn't always achieve a balanced budget or to implore people publicly, though it did so on a small scale and mostly used the tariff as a tool to influence the economy and, of course, as he said there, i have let people off a lot easier than they have been in western europe and in russia, right? so, he pitched himself as the champion of free market capitalism and less intervention government and, of course, represented the democrats as being the opposite of that. >> let's move into the transition period. this is the day after winning the election by a resounding vote from the public, november 9, 1932. franklin roosevelt speaking to the american public. >> i'm glad of this opportunity to extend my deep appreciation to the elector rat of this country, which gave me yesterday

such a great vote of confidence. it is a vote that had more than mere party significance. it transcended party lines and became a national expression of liberal thought. it means i am sure that the masses of the people of the nation firmly believe there is great possibility in an orderly recovery through a welcome cede and actively directed plan of action. such a plan has been presented to you and you have expressed approval of it. >> it would, of course, take by law four months of plan of action. what happened immediately after the election between the two men? how did the stage get set for such a difficult four months between them? >> hoover conceded the election, you know, on election day. he really had no choice given the resounding nature of the vote and the way it was reported in the press and it was clear he lost the election.

he never conceded the substance of the argument. he continued to believe that the new deal, as roosevelt framed it during the campaign and began to work towards it after the election, represented a fundamental threat toward the american way of life so he devoted himself to preventing roosevelt from being able to enact it. now, as you correctly say, this was the last time the president would be inaugurated on march 4th, so there was a long wait before roosevelt would be able to take the oath of office for the first time. and during that time, there would be the lame duck congress as it was then called, the congress that was going would continue to meet. roosevelt worked with democratic party leaders and had his aides work with democratic party leaders to try to enact early new deal measures during this period. most notably a farm relief bill in december of 1932 that closely resembled the agricultural act,

and hoover worked to defeat anything like that between the period of the election and the inauguration. hoover, as i say, was opposed to principle to new deal style legislation. he was quite determined that he was not going to cooperate with any efforts to enact it so long as he retained the power of the presidency. so, he lobbied against it. he threatened to veto it. he made it clear that nothing would get through the congress. as he told one of his aides, i don't want congress to do anything. i think anything they do will be bad legislation from our point of view. so he tried to make sure that nothing would get through the congress. >> the first meeting between the two men happened on november 22nd. are there any important things to tell about that conversation, what happened, what the dynamics were between the two of them? >> well, this is a case where we only have a few direct sources about what happened during that conversation because there were only four people present. there was hoover and then secretary of the treasury, ogden

mills. there was -- who roosevelt took along precisely because he wasn't an economist or businessman and didn't know anything about the economy and roosevelt didn't want to signal any particular thing about what his cabinet might be or who might be in it or give anything away as far as his relationship to economic policies. so, we have mully's remarks and we have some of the things that roosevelt had for notes and we also had hoover's own sort of testimony as to what happened there. it seems that hoover tried to use this meeting as a way to demonstrate his mastery of particularly international economic diplomacy and to tell roosevelt that he could not carry forward with anything like the new deal, that really he had to go forward with hoover's program for international economic relief. and he tried to get roosevelt to agree to and to go in with him on establishing a program for going forward. >> and what was the outcome of

that? >> roosevelt understood, i think, in retrospect we could say correctly, that it would be disadvantageous for him to go in with hoover on continuing hoover's policies because he promised very different policies in the election campaign. so, he politely declined. and there was -- there was a feeling in the hoover people's part that that was ungracious of roosevelt not to accept the republican proposal. >> how is this playing out in the press at the time? >> well, i think people didn't really know what to expect from this kind of situation. as you know, it's kind of anomalous in world history and anomalous in world affairs to be this long hangover of the outgoing administration where it has lots that it could do but no real sort of instruction from the voters to do it. it doesn't seem particularly small democratic and indeed, that's why earlier that year the congress had proposed to the states the 20th amendment that

was going to drastically shorten this period of time to what we have today, where the president is inaugurated on january 20th, which is still a long time when you compare it to most democracies in the world. i think, of course, because of the nature of the crisis, which had begun to accelerate late in the summer of 1932 and get worse, i think people hoped and certainly reporters reflected that hope that there would be some kind of policy coming out of this period to address the depression more aggressively, more in keeping with the kind of thing that roosevelt had promised. but that would have entailed, you know, hoover sort of giving up on his principles, dh he wasn't going to do. >> in december and january, did the two men make any other attempts to reconcile or at least attempt to work together? >> there was a lot of back and forth and most of it was not particularly conciliatory, to borrow your word there. eventually, they began to --

hoover decided he was going to publish some of their snippier exchanges in the press and that certainly spoiled things, i think, going forward. maybe most notably in february, because again the inauguration isn't going to be until march, roosevelt was the subject or the object, rather, of an assassination attempt in florida. he was narrowly missed by the bullets from an assassin's pistol. and the person near him, mayor of chicago was fatally shot. and hoover wrote roosevelt a long letter to address the circumstances as they then were. hoover spent a long time drafting this letter. we know that because of the archival record we have. hoover tended to draft his letters in pencil and write them in longhand and edit them and so he carefully drafted this letter to roosevelt which congratulated him on escaping death and then

went on for many pages to blame roosevelt for the current state of the economy and to say that you and you alone, that is roosevelt and roosevelt alone, could address the ongoing bank panics and other evidence of the depression by renouncing his plans for the new deal. >> before we leave that story, is the perpetrator of the assassination attempt important to know in the scheme of how people were responding to the tension in the country? >> the would-be assassin or apparently would-be assassin of franklin roosevelt was a fellow named zagara, who is an italian-american. i don't know that we could say his motive bore directly on the situation. that's not really clear. he seems to have been mentally unwell and to have had some hallucinations. he was an italian-american worker. he had been a registered republican. there are some people who to this day believe he wasn't actually trying to shoot

roosevelt. his intended victim was, in fact, the mayor of chicago and that was related to internal affairs of the city of chicago. so, i'm not sure it's entirely relevant to the story. >> one detail i read in one site about that nine-page letter to fdr is that it was actually translated with a misspelled name of roosevelt. is that correct? >> i think, to be honest, i think that's an uncharitable thing to give to hoofr. i think if you look at the archival, again, evidence, it may have been written in haste. i'm not really sure it was misspelled. >> no intended snub there, as the story unfolds. sorry, go ahead. >> i was going to say, there were many petty exchanges between the two men, but i'm not sure that's one of them. >> this standoff between the two of them really continued until the inauguration itself. what was the day before the inauguration like? >> well, you have to remember that by this time, the

depression had deepened into a financial panic so people were worried that banks -- even banks that probably were sound were going to close their doors and were rushing to withdrawal their money from the banks. many states had already closed the banks and tried to prevent this hemorrhaging of funds. there was a widespread call for a federal bank holiday. that is to say, bank closure, so there could be an auditing of the books in an attempt to stop the panic. banks were collapsing and the federal reserve itselfsyv was o the brink of collapse because people were also taking their paper money to the federal reserve and withdrawing gold and exchange as you could do. there was a massive withdrawal from private banks and also from the federal reserve system. the whole financial system was on the brink of some kind of catastrophe. as i say, there was an outcry even among very conservative people, federal reserve bankers and lawyers for the president, still herbert hoover, to close the banks. herbert refused to do that beyond the principle that it was

in the nature of capitalism that you kept the banks open so that the bad ones could go under. this was a regrettable but necessary process. so, hoover refused repeatedly right through to the inauguration to allow the banks to be closed. even when the federal reserve ensured that he was delivered an order to do so in the wee hours of the morning on inauguration day. hoover knew by this point that franklin roosevelt was going to close the banks immediately upon taking office, that he was going to take the nation off the gold standard to prevent that aspect of of the panic and allow him to influence a policy of -- he could have preempted hoover by placing his own restrictions on banking activity but as a matter of principle he refused to do this. there was a nature of increasing desperation in the nation and hoover himself was increasingly frustrated and upset with the

inability to get what he wanted out of the last days of his presidency as he told an aide at the end of business that day, we have reached the end of our strength. >> so, the inauguration itself, herbert hoover did attend the inauguration. what was the dynamic like between the two men on that ceremonial day? >> well, there's a -- there are famous illustrations and photographs of the discomfort between the two of them, or at least the discomfort on herbert hoover's face, as appears evident. he wasn't somebody who was visibly warm generally, so i don't want to read too much into his demeanor on the day of inauguration, but he really looks miserable to be there in his accompanying franklin roosevelt to the inauguration. and he appears to have exited as soon as it was good to do so. roosevelt was a very charismatic fellow, outgoing fellow and somebody that is very good at

conveying a spirit of confidence and cheer. famously, of course, expansive smile. that was all on display on inauguration day. roosevelt had a very sort of confident speaking voice, as we heard in the clip that you played. that was certainly evident also in the inaugural address where, of course, he said, you know, specifically addressing the nature of the bank panic and the financial pank, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. we can move forward in removing the mummy changers from the temple, as he said, with our civilization if we can only sort of get this panic behind us. >> herbert hoover lived until 1964. how did he look back on this period of time? >> hoover really never stopp stopped -- franklin roosevelt, i think-u it's fair to say. for a time after 1932 and 1933, he expected to be the nominee of the republican party in 1936. that didn't happen.

he was widely regarded as a failure. he did begin to write, though, immediately after the first year of the new deal, explaining why, again, the new deal ran counter to the basic principles of american civilization and that the way forward for the republican party was to make clear that the new deal was antithetical for which the republicans stood. being an anti-new deal party was going to be the way forward for the republicans. and he at first didn't gain a lot of traction with his fellow republicans who tried to accommodate themselves in one way or another to the new deal. and so he felt kind of like an unheard profit for many years. by the time you got into the '50s and early '60s, there began to be a group of republicans like barry goldwater, like richard nixon, who really regarded hoover's anti-new dealism as the essence of what the republican party should

become. by the time he died, when goldwater was campaigning -- >> so if we look at this, to note one year later the 20th amendment was ratified shortening the inauguration and setting the date at january 20th, something the administration urged the states to ratify, but if we look at this as having any parallels with what the country is going through right now, where would you see them? >> well, the time is short, 1932, 1933. on the other hand, things move a lot quicker and the president is a more powerful institution than it is, largely because of roosevelt's presidency between the new deal and the war. the current occupant of the white house could do a lot more in a short time than herbert hoover could have done in 1932-1933. we are, of course, in the middle of a great crisis.

and it seems like it is the management of that crisis or of the mismanagement of that crisis that led to the defeat of the incumbent, which is an unusual thing in american history. but we have a long time to go yet until a new policy of managing the pandemic can be implemented by an incoming administration. and it looks like the outgoing administration has no intention of making way for that shift in crisis management and, indeed, quite the opposite. rather like herbert hoover, they oppose it on principle and appear to be persuaded they will continue on their course as vigorously as they have to this point. >> when you looked at the impact of the standoff, which as you described it was both ideological and personality driven. they were both very different kinds of people. it was emotional and personal as well as ideological. when you look back at that period of time in your research, what were your conclusions about how things might have been different if the two had actually found a way to work

together? >> well, when we look at the data on the recovery from the great depression, it begins immediately upon roosevelt taking office in march of 1933. and generally economic historians don't think that's a coincidence. they think that's because of roosevelt's spurring inflationary expectations. that is to say, creating amongst americans the idea that prices are going to go up. that, of course, creates an incentive for people who have money to spend it because it's going to fall in value. of course, once they begin spending money, then people begin to have jobs to produce things, which is what turns things around. you can see production indices rising immediately in march of 1933. that's what was the thing that spurred the recovery, then we can say that could have happened quite a bit earlier had hoover gone along in some way or other with roosevelt's program, with the farm bill to boost farm prices, for example, or the policy of inflating the currency. any of those things really could

have spurred that recovery earlier. if that recovery had begun earlier, that's a lot more people who wouldn't have lost their savings, their jobs or in a time of starvation, even their lives. >> so, another question about transitions then and transitions now as we close out here. so, in addition to the 20th amendment passing, by 1964 the presidential transitions act, the legislation was passed to put some more order and to begin to pay for this through the federal government. and i'm wondering if you look with in long lens of history about the changes that were necessary to make transitions between presidencies work more smoothly, especially ideological changes or party changes, are there any changes that could be made to our system as it's structured now that would facilitate a change in power and make it work better for the nation? >> well, apparently the thing that needs to happen is to clarify that these changes are in the hands of a nonpolitical

civil service, which is a cause associated with franklin roosevelt's distant cousin theodore, which we still really don't really quite have, apparently, in the federal government. at least not the highest levels. there's a stipulation, as i'm sure you know, in that transition act that funds be allocated to the president-elect as soon as the head of the general services administration ascertains who that is. and there's no real stipulation about how that ascertainment needs to be made or what are the objective criteria for it. so, i think there need to be some clearer and less political ways to make those ascertainments so a smooth transition is going forward. >> dr. eric rouchway wrote the book on the transition between herbert hoover and fdr it's called "winter war: hoover, roosevelt and the clash over the new deal." thank you for giving us historical context to historical transitions as the country works

its way through this one. i appreciate your time. >> thank you very much. all q&a programs are available on our website or as a podcast at c-span.org. weeknights this month, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight the 400th anniversary of the mayflower, which traveled from plymouth, england, to america in 1620. to mark the 400th anniversary, the heritage foundation hosted a discussion about the mayflower compact. the document signed by the mayflower passengers upon their arrival in north america. scholars discuss its role as a political agreement and as an inspiration for a later document and arguments for religious

liberty. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. in the 2000 presidential election, texas governor george w. bush defeated vice president al gore in one of the most highly contested races in u.s. history. the outcome was not decided until december 12th, five years after voters went to the polls when the u.s. supreme court stopped the florida recount. this ultimately awarded the states electoral votes and presidency to governor bush. next, american history tv looks back 20 years to the 2000 election and the landmark bush v. gore decision with journalist e.j. dionne and bill kristol, co-out-e author of "bush v. gore". >> i say to president-elect bush that what remains