dred did not live long after the decision was rendered. he died probably of tuberculosis a year after the case was decided. his wife lived until 1876 so she would have seen the civil war and freedom come along. a good share of their lives, the scotts lived here in st. louis. they died here. they are buried here. in many respects, we can say the scott family was st. louisians. their case started here and in many ways ended here, not with the decision in washington but with being set free. c-span examines the history of the civil rights movement.

the 1917 race riot in st. louis. fromn luther king's letter the birmingham jail. and more. at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. david goldfield is the author aflame."ok "america he talked with c-span about the role of immigration and religion in the run-up to the civil war. david goldfield, in your book, you say the civil war is america's greatest failure why? >> it was a failure because we went to war. political failure because the political process could not accommodate differing viewpoints on the major issues of the day. the major issues of the day were primarily slavery.

in thelarly slavery western territories. secondly, immigration. believe it or not, americans were fighting over immigration in the 1850's just as much as we are fighting over immigration now. the fight over immigration was about the influx of irish catholics. , thesefound in my book issues are linked. anti-catholic, particularly anti-irish catholic emigration, and anti-slavery. both of these issues came together in a new political party called the republican party. the republican party initially anti-party.as an

one of the important things i would like to tell my students, don't confuse anti-slavery with pro-black. the republican party advertised itself as the white man's party. they wanted to ban slavery from the territories primarily because they did not want black slaves competing with white labor. if that were the case, then of course free labor, slave labor, would push out the working man. you have to pay wages to the working man but not the slave. the republican party advertised itself as the white working man's party. it was popular in the midwest in the cities of the northeast as well. the second strain in the republican party was anti-catholic movement.

in the early 1850's, a new political party appeared cold -- called the no-nothing party. this was in response to the irish immigration. the irish immigrated before the american revolution, but accelerated as british policy was impoverishing and otherwise reducing the irish to peasants. future for themselves, many were dying by famine. they decided to emigrate to america. the land of the free. when they got to america, unfortunately, they found there was a great deal prejudice against them. why? because they were roman catholic. what does catholicism have to do with prejudice? according to some people, irish catholics owed their allegiance

to the pope in rome, not to the president of the united states. a democracy, individual voters have to have the freedom to make up their own minds on political issues. the feeling was they would look to their priests, archbishops, and ultimately be pope for marching orders. i want to say and who to vote for. on what to say and who to vote for. this was considered un-american. that is totally false, but sometimes people believe that regardless of facts. the know nothing party was dedicated to limiting immigration and limiting the civil rights of immigrants once they were in the u.s. they were called the know nothing party because it was a secret organization. if you approached one of them

is, they would have said, i don't know anything about that. hence they were called the know nothings. the formal name of the american party -- was the american party. they thought that they would be much stronger if they combined with the new party that i mentioned earlier, the republican party. these two strains, the anti-catholic anti-immigrant strain in the essay slavery then -- during -- and anti-slavery strain came together in the republican party. many of them looked on slavery as a mortal sin. slaveholders, in fact, as sinners. what this did was tended to polarize the political process. your enemy or opponent was no

longer merely misguided. your enemy was evil. if you believe that america was a godless land and the western territories were the providence of the lord, extending not across the land but across the globe, then these two evils had to be vanquished. when abraham858, lincoln, who was anti-slavery, when he ran against stephen douglas as a democrat in 1858 greatecipitated the lincoln-douglas debates, the republican party slogan, the slogan under which abraham lincoln ran his campaign was vanquished the twin despotisms, catholicism and slavery.

those two strains and republican party were essential for its success. in fact, in 1860, when abraham lincoln went to the white house and was elected resident, the 16th president of the united many of his votes came from protestant workingmen in the cities who could care less about the slavery issue, but they knew that the republican party, as the evangelical christian party, stood for the rights of protestants over the rights of roman catholics and wanted to restrict the rights of roman catholics. our system of government governs

best from the center, from moderation. if you look at all of the legislation we have had in our history, civil rights they have been results of compromise, of moderation. moderation was much less possible in an environment when your opponent was the devil and you were the saint. religion was brought into politics before the civil war. in fact, it was building to a climax he for the civil war as early as the 1830's. the evangelical movement, known as the great awakening, started to intrude in the process. i open my book with the disappearance of a nun. viewers may ask what in the world are disappearing none has to do with the civil war. the outcome of that disappearing un was the burning to the ground of a convent in

in 1854.etts and fomenting that argument was the father of. beecher stowe, who said that roman catholics were the that they had no place in america, that they were a foreign power and should be dealt with as such . that led to the burning of the convent. it was an early indication of the power and bigotry of northern evangelicals. so, we have great books written on the civil war where the north becomes the republic of virtue, and the self becomes the evil empire. and what my book does is changes equation and says they were both at fault, they were both wrong and precipitating the bloodiest war in american history, because what happened during the civil war? die, untold losses

of treasure and property, and the men who came home are often body, not tod and mention the millions of people home whoore and -- at mourn the loss of the people who lost their lives. historians say wait a minute, the war ended slavery. 4 million slaves were liberated. the war saved the union. i want readers of my book to ask two questions. one, could this conflict has been avoided? , could those great results of the civil war have been achieved by other means? in 1888, the great african-american leader frederick douglass gave a speech stating that the emancipation a fraud.ion was maybe this was an overstatement, but as he looked around and saw

the status of african-americans, particularly in the south, ticking the same cotton they had picked under slavery and living the same lines are very similar they had lived under slavery, he wondered what was gained by the emancipation proclamation and what was gained by that bloody war. the 150thmemorating anniversary of the civil war this year and for the next four years. it is important that we honor those who gave their lives for their respective causes, but it would have been a greater tribute to our nation had they lived. we go now to the mariners of the ussa tour monitor, the first ironclad warship commissioned by the u.s. navy.