we know how that's going to come out, too, but we'll still end u talking about it, so we elected him today the least we can do is secede next time. we'll see you next time. you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3. explore our nation's past, american history tv on c-span3, created by america's cable television companies and today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. ♪ ♪

>> shifterian susan schulten, the transition between james buchanon and abraham lincoln is described as contentious, tumultuous, rough, dangerous and even the worst in history. what made it so? >> well, 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 and the central issue, of course, is that several southern states did not recognize the election of abraham lincoln as legitimate. they considered help a sectional president for the fact that by and large his support came from non-slave states. no sooner had he been elected than south carolina makes good on its promise to from seed from

seceding from the union on the grounds that the election did not represent its interest. >> let's set the stage for the transition between the two men with the incumbent. james buchanon had announced at his swearing in that he would be a one-term president. we do a regular presidential leadership survey and james buchanon 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 it's the civil war, and so it feels like a categorical criticism of him. his administration came under a lot of criticism. he was sympathetic to the south. he championed the dread scott

decision which many americans felt like was a complete abdecation of leadership and the betrayal of interest that drove the republican party against 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 this 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 -- or rather, it's ineptitude or interpretation of his powers as president than it is a sympathy towards the south and 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 desire 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 that feels like an abdication of responsibility and it feels like he's making the crisis worse rather than toning it down. >> how are we to interpret the democrats 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 stephen douglas, the northern nominee is enough pro-slavery and so they walk out of that convention. anyone paying attention to party politics in the summer of 1860 can see that the election of abraham lincoln and the republicans has just gotten a tremendous boost of likelihood. >> what about the republicans that year? this was only the second time that they had advanced a presidential candidate to the election. how united were they as the 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 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 dark horse and he has a strategy that i really quite like. he's everyone's second favorite

and he crucially doesn't alienate anyone, and so the leaders or the presumed leaders, one by one are unacceptable to other wings. for instance, you have border states or conservative republicans like seward who are anti-slavery unacceptable and 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 american american politics in the 19th century and that is the key and the key element of it 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 have the opportunity to vote in the united states. >> he won the majority with 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 is he wins 40% of the popular vote. >> only 40%? >> yes, and 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 state, the deepest southern states, the states that are most

dependent on slavery, the southern democrat, the most ardent, pro-slavery party in that election wins so you can see some contours that have everything to do with slavery and 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 it was a four-way election and the problem was the democrats fit and that's just part of the problem. the problem is this is a fragmented election and if the constitutional union, northern and southern democrats banded together lincoln still would have prevailed and 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 and the outcome of the 2020 election, how did congress fare for abraham lingeron in 196037. he does well.the republicans do well. it's very sectional and it gives him what i would call a strong mandate. the other thing to consider about congress is after south carolina secedes, after the pushes the other deep south, one by one those representatives in congress leave so you have an election where the republicans do well and then overcessation winter that's compounded by the fact that deep southern pro-secession, pro-slavery representatives are leaving the capital and so what that makes possible is a republican agenda

that might not otherwise have been possible. 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 buchanon'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. and 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 have some parallels to what we're seeing today in the country. >> that's an interesting observation, when you say partisan media you mean it quite literally. most newspapers were party organs and you had it all through the cessation winter and

before elections and lincoln's inauguration and you see all kinds of attention. what is lincoln saying this week? why isn't he saying something on x and what is buchanon saying, and all of that, all of it is filtered through your political identity. i cannot stress that enough that it is resonating today from november to march, people, vents through the lens of his own party. >> i wanted to clarify one thing about the process because we for an areaa where the new elections start in march or did they begin their cessation in january? >> they don't come back into session until july. it creates an enormous problem. this is before the 20th amendment and we still have the presidents inaugurated in march and i want to impress that on your listeners because think

about what an interm inable period that cessation winter was from the first tuesday in december until the first week of march. seemingly, endless period when 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 ft. sumpter. 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. >> james buchanon made a speech until shortly after the election? did he stay in washington for the rest of the time of transition and was he vocal during much of that time? >> he does stay in buchanan, skylar pointed out, all he wants

to do is go back to pennsylvania. he is one of the oldest presidents at that time and he is looking to step away and he is there for the crisis and he is sending mixed messages. he is on the one side saying that cessation is absolutely illegal and on the other side not doing anything and there are some real consequences to that, not least of which is that in that long interegnum before lincoln is inaugurated and someone who takes a stronger federal stand, southern states are taking control of federal forts and garrisons, federal property. that means that the confederacy, when it go amalgamate and form and go to war is stronger than it otherwise might have been. so buchanon's action or 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 actually have the

power to do that and he does send the star of the west in early january to the -- off the coast of south carolina to reinforce that, but they are fired on by south carolinians and they retreat. now that action in early january is responsible for that second wave, if you will. so first you have south carolina, at christmas declaring itself out of the union and right after that little configuration, where the union, if you will, pulls back from using force. you have the rapid -- in rapid secession, deep southern states joining south carolina to form the confederacy. so mississippi, florida, georgia, alabama, texas and louisiana. >> we talked about what james buchanon did. abraham lincoln stayed in his home city of springfield, illinois. how visible was he during this period? >> he's visible locally for sure and he takes visitors. you can imagine the number of requests for patronage or

staffing or jobsary favors and things like that and a lot of well wishers, as well and the interesting thing is this is where lincoln is scrutinized. in other words, i would say that for a long time civil war scholars really looked at this period and thought why didn't lincoln do more? why didn't he reach out more? why didn't he placate the deep south more? and he's come to be described as deploying a kind of masterly inactivity. in other words, he's very careful about what he says he does speak and he doesn't speak about slavery and my record stands for itself and what that means on many issues he is open to hearing suggestions. he wants to halt the momentum of secession, but there is one issue on which he is absolutely inflexible and that is the founding principle of the party that elected him. congress has not just the right, but the obligation to forbid

slavery from spreading into the territories. >> all eyes were on his cabinet selections during that period of time and he did a lot of 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 pie 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 blair, a more con sifsh tiff republican from

missouri, a border state, a slave state as well as william seward from new york who represents a little bit more of the ardent anti-slavery wing being, although in the senate seward is very much trying to create compromise. it is also a cabinet that has gone down in history by civil war scholars as choosing one of the more unfortunate individuals si simon cameron who was an over grifter when it came to corruption and fraud, but was someone to placate interests of pennsylvania. >> 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 buchanon administration? >> great question. it's not just in washington, but around the country. his fellow senator, is a close colleague and someone who bested

him in the race for the senate several years earlier, but is now a kind of key emsear. to his point he uses individuals like tremble to telegraph messages. i don't mean that literally, but i mean through emissaries through washington, because in washington from the moment of the election until 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 stephens in georgia who becomes the vice president of the confederacy. these are men he trusts and in the case of alexander stephens, this is a man who openly criticizes this union. stephens 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 president because james buchanon was perhaps the most experienced politician of the era. he had almost every post you can think of before ascending to the presidency. abraham lincoln one failed senate campaign and one term in congress. 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 and abraham lincoln had the experience realm

and he wouldn't farewell as a one-term congressman who goes back to practicing law in springfield. that's a tough one because lingeron's estimation grows in hindsight. one thing we failed 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 and communication scholars and 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 and it's a long, long train ride winding from illinois to what we would now call the upper midwest toward the atlantic and then down into washington. not a lot of consequential speeches happened tloong the way. those speeches are skrut niced and because of the telegraph can be reprinted and pointed upon and people are paying attention to where he is and it's more of a symbolic tool 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 center in the inauguration, but this country has a purpose, right? it is more than just a nation as such or a union as such. >> working on teams, he was also bringing out crowds as large as 50,000 people at some of the stops and a much less populated country. so it had to also build excitement among his supporters which would be useful in dealing with congress and his own goals going forward. >> absolutely. yeah. famously, it's not philadelphia where he visits independence hall, but some place along the way there is 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? >> 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 buchanon respond in any way to that attempt? >> my -- i have limited knowledge in that area. i don't have record of buchanan responding and it was a pinkerton 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 sumpter, lincoln needs to call up those troops, the militia and the ones who marched 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 maryland in the early months of the war were openly hostile to the union and openly pro-confederate and you city 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 slinks into washington because he's trying to get around those assassination threats. >> so let's move to inauguration day. what do we know about president buchanan's outreach? was he cordial or welcoming to the new president? >> to my mind, it was a perfectly cordial handoff. i don't know the details of buchanan's betrayal that day. he was frustrated because he'd reached out during the presidential elect periods 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 to the second and let's listen to the themes as he closed his inaugural address in 1861 and have you come back and talk about setting the tone, even though we know about the consequences of what would happen next. let's listen. >> i'm to close. we are not enemies, but friends. we must not be enemies. though passion may have strai d strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to

every living heart and hearthstone, 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? >> that speech was so rich and you can spend weeks on it with students because there were so many dimensions. the first thing i want to go back to is what you remarked on earlier and how polarized country had become by march 4, 1861 and so for northerners, that speech is seen in one way as an overtoure, as an olive branch as essentially saying the ball is in your court, southerners and secessionives, we are not provoking and by

southerners it would seem pretty clearly as an assertion of federal power and that's one thing to keep in mind. and the most important thing, i think about that speech is that lincoln holds his ground and asserts the primeacy of the union and secession is anarchy and it is impossible and what he means there is 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 is a spirit that animates the union and so secession doesn't 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 hole 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 12, 1861, the civil war got under way. as we close here, i guess some perspective about this, we are looking at two difficult presidential transitions, consequential, as you said in this case because it was almost the end of the union, but are there any specific lessons for what the country 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 and 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, which is not to say the war was inevitable, but which was to say that the fissures were much clearer than i think they are today. >> historian susan schulten chairs the history department and the history of america in 100 maps and thank you for spending time with us and giving us perspective on presidential trancings of the past. >> thank you, susan. in our next half hour, we continue our look at contentious presidential transitions with the 1932 election when incumbent republican herbert hoover lost in a landslide to franklin delano roosevelt. we begin with his inaugural address, fdr's that is in 1933.

>> the industrial enterprise lies on every side, farmers find no market, and the savings of many years and thousands of families are gone. more important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence and an equally great number 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 good have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence. >> historian eric grouchway we are talking about historic difficult transitions with presidents of opposing parties and you wrote a book about those, winter war, the new 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 year of 1932, the great depression reached that. so you had unemployment that was approaching, if not quite reaching, one in four workers were without jobs. many more people rnd underemployed. you had, as roosevelt said in the clip that you just used a situation where prices for agricultural commodity his 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 and you had people who were literally going hungry in many parts of the country and felt it wasn't worth it to sell in other parts of the country and it wouldn't be an xj raising to say that it wasn't visibly broken and therefore not only had capitalism and commerce

reached a situation of crisis. so indeed had democrat see and 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 1913. >> and what was happening internationally? >> internationally the situation was much the same. the great depression was a global, vent and it afflicted europe particularly badly and germany had, of course, slid into depression earlier than many other countries and in response and you saw the rise of the nazi party to power and adolf had gained enough votes in the elections of 1932 and in january 1933 he would brokier a deal that would make him chancellor and imperial japan was on the march abroad and was about to leave the league of nations over the episode in manchuria and therefore the international order as then was, was fall apart. you said people were losing faith in the democracy, and the

democratic process. what was the situation like on election day and what percentage of eligibles voted and what were the results like. i don't know off the top of my head what voter turnout was on election day and was it a respoundi respour resounding defeat for hoover's policy and a new direction? that was the point of the question. right. >> roosevelt promised a new deal and under that heading promised all manner of things and most notably a massive public works program from the old age pensions and unemployment insurance and so not only a recovery program from the depression and also rebalancing the economy to make it more equitable and hoover attacks that program as being socialistic and he smelled on it the fumes that recently boiled over in russia, so he was fairly clear about his position and said that he would oppose any such measures were he re-elected and hoover lost in the

landslide. he only won majorities in the then six 48 states and roosevelt went on to a resounding victory. >> today ware 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 that 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 and they would bankrupt the country and they would crack the timbers of the constitution and they would negate the ideals on which the american civilization was founded and that sort of thing spoep hoover was very clear that he believed roosevelt was absolutely unfit to be president and that the new deal would run

against everything that had made america great to that point. roosevelt himself, singled out hoover's administration of criticism and mostly it was fairly, you know, without victory all because the facts were very much against hoover at that point in 1932 with unemployment so high and prices so low and a sustained economic crisis for almost the first full years of his administration. >> the two men in their own words, we will listen to herbert hoof or november 4th and it's one of his closing pitches to the american public and 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 election in 1930, down to the present moment and the democratic party has been an effort to implant in the

unthinking through deliberate misrepresentation that the republican party is responsible for this worldwide catastrophe. the democratic night said this depression was man made, and i agree with that. but they say the man who made it was myself personal le. [ laughter ] they expressed no gratitude that in this crisis, i have lifted this country off easier than western russia and south america. >> what do you hear there in that pitch to voters? >> i hear the things that hoover generally said throughout the campaign which was that the american people should be thankful for the presence in washington over a republican administration had fought for if it didn't also achieve a

balanced budget in order to employ people publicly though it did so on a small scale and mostly used the tariff as a tool to influence the economy and as he said there, i have let people off a lot easier than the western europe and russia, right? he pitched himself as the champion of free market capitalism and less interventionist government and represented the democrats as being the opposite of that. >> so let's move into the transition period and this is the day after winning the election by a resounding vote from the public, november 9, 1942 and franklin roosevelt speaking to the american public. >> i am glad for this opportunity to extend my dope appreciation to the electorate 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 that there is great and actual possibility in an orderly recovery, well conceived and actively directed plan of action. such a plan has been presented to you and you have expressed approval of it. >> but it would take approval by law for that plan of action to begin. 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 preceded the election, and the way it was reported and it was clearly lost the election and he continued to believe that the new deal as roosevelt had framed during the campaign and began to work towards it after

the election represented a fundamental threat toward the american way of life and so he devoted himself to preventing roosevelt from being able to enact it. 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 outgoing would continue to meet. roosevelt worked with the democratic party leaders and had his aides work with democratic party leaders to try to enact early new deal measures during this period and most notably, a farm relief bill in december 1932 that closely resembled the agricultural adjustment act once roosevelt came into office and hoover worked to defeat that from being enacted during the period between the election and the inauguration. hoover, as i say, was opposed to principle and the new deal style

legislation and he was quite determined that he was not going cooperate with any efforts to enact it so long as he retained the power of the press dnsy and he lobbied against it and threatened to veto it, and as he told one of his aides, i don't want the congress to do anything. i think anything they will do is go 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, where, what happened? what the dynamics were between the two of them? this is a case where there were two sources, and there was hoover and the secretary of the treasury ogden mills and roosevelt and one of his aides this was a political scientist who roosevelt took long because he wasn't an economist and wasn't a businessman and didn't know anything about the economy and he didn't want the signal

and any particular thing about what his cap net might be and 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 particular international diplomacy and to tell roosevelt that he could not carry forward with anything like the new deal, that 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 can say correctly that it would be disadvantageous to go in with hoover on continuing hoover's

policies because he had promised very different policies in the election campaign and so he politely declined and there was a feeling in the hoover people's part that that was ungracious of roosevelt not to accept the republican proposal? >> how was this playing out in the press at the time? >>. >> well, i think people didn't really know what to expect and it's anomalous in american history and it's anomalous in world affairs to be this long hangover of the outgoing administration where it has lots that it could do, but no real instructions from the viewers to do it. it doesn't seem particularly small and democratic and indeed, that's why earlier that year the congress had proposed to the states the 20th amendment that was going to draft beingly shorten th shorten this period of time when the president of inaugurated on january 20th which is still a long time when you compare it to

most democracies in the world. >> 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 in keeping with the kind of thing roosevelt had promised and that would have entailed hoover giving up on his principles which he wasn't going do. >> in december and january, did the two men make any other attempts to reconcile or attempt to work together? >>. >> the there was a lot of back and forth and most of it was not particularly conciliatory, to borrow your word there and eventually, they began to -- hoover decided he was going to publish some of the snippier exchanges in the press and that definitely 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 of an assassination attempt in florida. he was narrowly missed by the bullets of an assassin's pistol and the person near him, the mayor of chicago was fatally shot and hoover wrote roosevelt a long letter to address the succe circumstances as they then were and hoover drafted the letter because of the archival letter he had and hoover continued to draft his letters and to edit them many times when they were important, and to roosevelt who congratulated him, 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, and roosevelt and roosevelt alone can have

evidence of the depression by announcing plans for the new deal. >> before we leave that story, is the perpetrator of the a s s assassination attempt important to know in the scheme of how people were responding to the tension in the country? >> the would-be assassin and the apparent would-be assassin was a fellow named zangara, an italian-person and we don't know if his situation boarded on the situation. he seems to be mentally unwell and to have had hallucinations. he was an italian-american worker and he had been a registered republican. there are some people who to this day believe he wasn't actually trying to shoot roosevelt and that his intended victim was, in fact, the mayor of chicago and that was related to the internal affairs of the city of chicago and i'm not sure

entirely relevant to the story. in the nine-page letter to fdr that it was transmitted with the misspelled name of roosevelt. is that correct? >> to be honest, that's an uncharitable thing to do. i think if you look at the archival again, evidence that it may have been written in haste. i'm not really sure it was misspelled. >> so no intended up? there as the story unfolds. >> so many -- sorry, go ahead. >> i was going to say, there were many petty, changes between the two men, but i'm not really sure that's one of them. >> so 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 and so people were worried that banks, even banks that were probably sound were going close their doors and were rushing to withdraw their money from the

banks. many state his already closed the banks to try to prevent this hemorrhaging, and there was a call for a federal bank holiday and that was to say bank closure so there could be an auditing of the banks were collapsing and the federal reserve itself was on 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 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 panic, 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 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 journalists e.j. dionne and bill kristol, co-author of "bush v. gore: the court cases and the commentary." >> i say to president-elect bush that what remains a partisan rancor must now be put aside and god bless his spew stewardship of this country.