book 30 years ago by a school teacher from north carolina that had pictures up and said that abraham lincoln was a son of john abrahams and cherokee, north carolina, after he got his mother pregnant because he objected and sent him away in a wagon with another man. is there any truth to that? >> i don't think so. there are all kind of stories and questions about abraham lincoln's birthright. the biggest stretch i've ever heard has him the son of calhoun because nancy once worked in a tavern where calhoun may have gone during the time he was riding the legal circuit, but that's a real stretch. i think lincoln was the son of thomas and nancy. >> emory thomas, congratulations again on winning this year's person of the year. >> thank you so much. >> for lee winsthe audience at the library of virginia. we thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> and we want to remind you in case you missed any of the program today, the interviews, the nominations by the historians. we'll show it all to you again this evening at 6:00 p.m. ea candidates with the audience making the final decision. a similar event

. >> host: what's the message. >> guest: most people assume that people expect that abraham lincoln did everything right and wants to correct obama's efforts and he would say that lincoln made mistakes and sent down a slippery slope. >> host: where did you get the idea? >> guest: the idea was funny. we were driving in a car and i said, literally, what happen if abraham lincoln showed up on the white house line and if he could get five minutes with barack obama, what would he say and how much would be pay to hear that conversation. >> host: where is this book available and how are you doing saleswise? >> guest: we're i giving away cops here, and the book is available at what would lincoln

it's true, i am an assistant editor with the papers of abraham lincoln. as john mentioned, it has given me an extraordinary opportunity to look at documents that i normally would never have seen that includes the documents i am largely going to be talking about today. you see all sorts of interesting things in the holdings of the national archives. so i heartily encourage you to go visit and dig through the records for yourself. the letters i am going to be talking about today were sent to gideon wells or president lincoln himself. in the 19th century, the president was viewed as your go-go guy for, if you have a question, a problem, fought getting your pay, you write to the president and hopefully he will respond. well, what happens is, he will forward it or one of his secretaries will forward it to where it needs to go. i have had a chance to see the letters of resignation that are handed in, including franklin buchanon who discovers when maryland does not secede, he writes another letter to the president saying, can you cancel my previous resignation.

named abraham lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> a guy from my home state, a guy witheard. >> abraham lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> and what lincoln said was that through our government we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. that's the definition of a smart government. >> lincoln understood it. >> abraham lincoln understood it. >> lincoln understood that. you understand it. >> bill: no, i don't. here now to advance the tore juliet huddy. all right. abraham lincoln obviously, i think the best president we have ever had. >> you wrote a book, i believe on mr. lincoln. >> bill: killing lincoln. >> best seller. >> bill: thank you for the plug. >> you are welcome. >> bill: the president is trying to get either in lincoln's corner or get lincoln in his corner how do you see it. >> he is trying to to get the country in his corner by referencing republic presidents. he he brings up lincoln a total of 2009 a total of 80 times. you only saw a small portion. >> bill: in various speeches. >> public speeches. >> 80 times since 2009. >> public events. who kn

abraham lincoln was a colonizationist. this is a part of lincoln's legacy in history that has caused quite a bit of controversy, but it's also very reflective of what existed for an anti-slavery northern moderate at that time in history. colonization movement was the belief that after emancipation, the freed slaves, the freed african-americans should be resettled abroad in another location. liberia was the most famous of these locations and the oldest. it was established in the 1820s, attained its independence in the 1840s, as a location where freed slaves colonized themselves and set up their own government. but lincoln was interested in colonization somewhat closer to the united states. he investigated central america as his primary space where he was hoping to obtain land. in 1862 lincoln actually held a meeting at the white house with five free african-americans from the district of columbia to pitch this proposal, this colonization proposal to them. he obtained $600,000 in funding from congress to subsidize and support

named abraham lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> a guy from my home state, a guy with lincoln. >> abraham lincoln. >> and what lincoln said was that through our government we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. that's the definition of a smart government. >> lincoln understood it. >> abraham lincoln understood it. >> lincoln understood that. you understand it. >> bill: no, i don't. here now to advance the tore juliet huddy. all right. abraham lincoln obviously, i think the best president we have ever had. >> you wrote a book, i believe on mr. lincoln. >> bill: killing lincoln. >> best seller. >> bill: thank you for the plug. >> you are welcome. >> bill: the president is trying to get either in lincoln's corner or get lincoln in his corner how do you see it. >> he is trying to to get the country in his corner by referencing republic presidents. he he brings up lincoln a total of 2009 a total of 80 times. you only saw a small portion. >> bill: in various speeches. >> public speeches. >> 80 times since 2009. >> public events. who knows what he said

now i would look to tell you a little bit about the work that david does with papers of abraham lincoln. david and editors are doing an incredibly labor intensive, but extraordinarily important job with the papers of abraham linco lincoln. editors are traveling looking for any letters or documents sent to or by abraham lincoln. there are many editors working at the national archives every day, 40 hours a week going through millions of documents, every piece of paper that was generated by the federal government, or sent to the federal government, from the civil war years, held at the archives will be looked at by one of the editors. they are daily finding new insights about our nation's 16th president. this work is important and shedding new light on someone we thought we knew a lot about and did. we are learning more every day. david is part of that project. that project is a boon to historians like myself. today we will get to see a little bit of what david has stumbled upon looking at miscellaneous letters received by the secretary of the navy during the civil war the would you please

president obama and abraham lincoln. that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. hor of the book killing lincoln i know something about the first republican president and the current president barack obama knows something about mr. lincoln as well. he often sites old abe in his speeches. here is an example yesterday in ohio. >> i believe that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. i agree that everybody has personal responsibility for their own lives. everybody has got to work hard. nothing is ever handed to us. but i also agree with our first republican president, a guy named abraham lincoln, who said that through government, we should be able to do together what we can't do as well on our own. >> bill: interesting sound bite. number one, mr. obama is responding to criticism from this program and other places that he is a social justice guy who wants government to somewhat control individual outcomes. the president denies that but there is no question that his administration has embraced the entitlement culture spending trill

president obama and abraham lincoln. that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. hor of the book killing lincoln i know something about the first republican president and the current president barack obama knows something about mr. lincoln as well. he often sites old abe in his speeches. here is an example yesterday in ohio. >> i believe that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. i agree that everybody has personal responsibility for their own lives. everybody has got to work hard. nothing is ever handed to us. but i also agree with our first republican president, a guy named abraham lincoln, who said that through government, we should be able to do together what we can't do as well on our own. >> bill: interesting sound bite. number one, mr. obama is responding to criticism from this program and other places that he is a social justice guy who wants government to somewhat control individual outcomes. the president denies that but there is no question that his administration has embraced the entitlement culture spending trill

for my part, abraham lincoln signed the homestead bill into law in 1862. in 1864, i helped mr. lincoln gain at least one state into the column of abolition, emancipation, and that is the state of tennessee that you're visiting today. you heard some of these words earlier, so i'm going to give you just a short excerpt. in october of 1864, word got out that i as military governor was about to issue a proclamation of emancipation for the slaves in tennessee, and this created a large gathering at the state capital, and i stepped out to address them, and used some of the following words. colored people of nashville, you have all heard of the president's proclamation by which he proclaims that a large portion of the slaves in the states still in rebellion have been declared henceforth and forever free. for reasons which seemed wise to the president, this proclamation did not apply to you or to your native state. consequently, many of you were left in bondage. the fetters still galled your limbs. gradually this inequity has been passing away, but the time has come for the last vestige

>> wheatland, yes. >> abraham lincoln never looked up. never looked out the window, stayed focused on the future. next question. >> i hope this is more a what -- not a what if, but a what would've -- would have the war ended in 1861 had the union crushed the south? >> that's a good question. we can have quick answers to that. would the union have prevailed quickly in 1861 had the outcome been different at manassas? why don't we start with tom and work our way down. >> i don't think so. and i'm not a military historian. i'll turn this over to those on the panel who are. but i don't think so. i don't think so. and i think that's -- yeah. >> i'm inclined to disagree because i don't think either side was prepared to win regardless of how the fight at first manassas came out. i do think it's possible that the war would've ended in 1862 had first manassas been a union victory because craig heard me say this a few days ago. the union managed to get past that humiliation because it had 80 plus years of history. shared associations, a tradition, p

but i'm sure it wasn't abraham lincoln. there are some other myths in connection with the writing of "the star spangled banner," key's poem that was quickly turned into a song. and became a patriotic air. big event always have a lot of mythology. i think for the war of 1812, probably the most myths surrounded battle of new orleans. i think you could do a whole program on the top ten myths of the battle of new orleans, and you could spend 45 minutes or an hour on that. yes, sir? >> i'll try to make it short. but when i was in school locally, the only thing that i retained about the war of 1812 was the battle of lake erie, as though it had begun and ended right there. >> where did you go to school? >> in highland park, right here in this area. my canadian friends had a little different version of it, though. but the point is that i did not realize until i read a book fairly recently that the battle of lake erie was more than an exchange of gunfire, and one side won and one side lost. it was a determining factor that led to pr

and his name was abraham lincoln. and we fell into conversation and i introduced myself and told him that i was from northeast tennessee and he replied that he had relatives in northeast tennessee and perhaps i knew some of them. he identified his great uncle isaac as having owned a farm. at which his father thomas lincoln has something of a hired hand in the 1790s. and he also identified another great uncle, a gentleman named mortgage i kye, who lived in the town of greenville. to which i replied greenville is my hometown. and your great uncle mordecai performed the wedding ceremony for me and my wife in 1827. as well as mordecai and i served on the town council together in 1829, and i reassured mr. lincoln that he was in good hands in terms of politics that his great uncle had gained a great many more votes than i had. but like many young men who came into congress at the time, we went in there with goals. and each of us had a cherished goal that we wanted to achieve in that congress. mine was the introduction of th

chase, who finds it sometimes reluctant to praise abraham lincoln writes to his daughter saying, if lincoln had not come down, the merrimac would probably still be as great a terror as previously. lincoln's presence and his forceful insistence that something be done actually garnered results. but the ghost of the merrimac comes back to haunt the union after the end of the war. again, we think merrimac is blown up, end of story. that's not really the end of the story, because one of the other things i've run across in my wandering through the national archives, the federal government has three contracts after the war with salvage firms to do something about the wreck of the merrimac, which is sort of blocking the elizabeth river's shipping channel. apparently two of the contracts fall through, for whatever reason, and the third contract, which is apparently executed and finished by may 18, 1871, the salvage outfit is not terribly happy. they basically don't make any money at all. they bring up about 30 tons of wrought iron which largely gets sold for souvenirs, but again, they weren't terrib

most of all, the capacity for growth, this new wonderful book on, abraham lincoln by eric thunder, describes the growth of lincoln. through the years. the sameten about washington and roosevelt. now he is commanding a global power. a completely different undertaking at least in many of its parts. he also built the broad base of very able leaders. of putting republicans into the major positions, early in the war, secretary of war, secretary of the navy, working across party lines in that, in that regard. also, doing the other great -- combining great strengths of leadership that washington had done but in a different key. in another era. in a different framework. and now the question is -- what next? we can see that people took inspiration from lincoln, for that same period of about 60 years that had worked for washington. and then there is a wonderful book by -- bill luktenberg on long shadow of fdr running to at least ronald reagan. reagan turning against the new deal. embracing that style of leadership. on the explicit example of franklin roosevelt. and now what today? what for us? and we

i think abraham lincoln was right down the middle. but all of them governed from the center. they really governed. and they tried to govern in ways that would engage a great diversity in their country. lincoln was very different from washington in the sense that he was born into a democracy. he became a party man. washington hated parties. he believed in a nation. washington's thinking was not precisely national, even as it became continental. he centered, i think, more on this great republic than on an idea of nationalism. but these men shared those same ways of having a set of values without an ideology, of having a large purpose without fixed and structured plans of the sort that became too rigid and constrained, of working closely with the people but reserving their own leadership, and most of all, it was the capacity for growth. this new wonderful book on abraham lincoln describes the growth of lincoln through the years. the same thing could be written about washington. and then about franklin roosevelt. he's commanding a global power, a completely different undertaking a

mack's plan go sailing down the chesapeake with all those soldiers to be put into place, however, abraham lincoln had one or two shots in his qui quiver to fire. in january of 1862, president lincoln issued general war order number one which mandated offensive action by all elements of the u.s. army and the u.s. navy by the end of february. he followed this up with a special war order number one requiring mcclellan to take the army of the potomac from washington, at least parts of it, and attack the clear manassas and centreville of all those confederate forces, again, by the end of february. mcclellan responded by ordering his western field commanders, general hallic at that point, subordinates people like general grant to follow up on the successes in early february at ft.s henry and donaldson, move into eastern tennessee, move into the upper mississippi. he ordered segments of the army of potomac to move out to manassas, they would do so in early march. but in every case he urged caution, in other words, well to put it in modern army jargon, the current strategy goes like this, don't do nothin

abraham lincoln won an election in richmond, virginia? this tells us that perhaps richmond isn't what some people think it is. and it reminds us that the person of the year for 1861 or 1862 is not a popularity contest any more than "time" magazine's person of the year is a measure of popularity. it is a measure of importance and a means of learning about the year. our panelists will try to convince you, the audience and the voters, that their nominees deserve to be recognized for their importance. without further ado, let's get on to our first nominee and first speaker. bob krick, for him and others you will find a biography in your programs, so i will not give long introductions. for the benefit of our live television audience, however, let me say a few things about robert k. krick. he's best known as the proud father of bob l.krick. bob the elder was for more than 30 years chief historian at the fredericksburg and spotsylvania park and in that capacity was extremely active as a researcher, a writer, a speaker and especially as one of th

. >> let's talk about abraham lincoln. >> yes. best president ever. >> and your book is number one, for 30 weeks. >> is this about bill o'reilly or abraham lincoln. >> i wrote the book because i wanted to show america what true leadership is. because we need true leadership. this isn't a party thing for me. i'm an independent. i selected abraham lincoln, i'm a history major, because i admire the man and i know the pain he went through to lead the country out of the division it was in and to win the civil war. and i wanted to write it in a way that was accessible, that the people would read it. it's not 1800 pages and you go, oh, my god. it's 300 pages. when you get through with it, you'll know abraham lincoln and the brutal things he went through. >> what will we know about him? >> he was a man of courage, an honest man, that he had a horrible life, that he was -- his children died, his wife was insane. but he -- through it all, he alone kept it together. he kept it together. that's true leadership. >> because he understood the es

>> abraham lincoln. >> lincoln navigator. it is a luxurious four-wheel ride and at $57,000 you can't afford not to ride it. >> lincoln. >> full name please. >> abraham lincoln. >> close. andrew lincoln. he is the lead in "the walking dead" on amc. >> what would i pay for yours thoughts? remember the phrase a penny for your thoughts. >> i would say a nickel. the nickel is the new penny. >> the correct answer is sex. you would pay sex for your thoughts. what is the above the head -- what is said above the head of lincoln on the penny? >> have i no idea. it is my first time in america. >> correct, i have no idea, this is my first time in america. a lot of people are confused by that phrase and why it would be on the penny. you nailed it. finish this sentence, find a penny, pick it up, all the day you will have -- >> good luck? >> syphllus. they are riddled with disease. >> what is on the back of the penny? >> the back. >> lincoln's butt. >> should america keep the penny? >> the penny? >> yes. >> why, why not? >> don't do that in

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well, that sounds like a direct slap by the obama administration by abraham lincoln, does it not? is the problem. lincoln never said any such thing. the quote is from a guy named william betterkerr a presbyterian minister. that quote is all over the net attributed to president lincoln. joining us from washington matthew, the editor and chief of free beacon.com, a conservative web site. all right, now, i think the nit is a -- net is a growing problem in the sense that it is an easy vehicle to put out false information and a lot of this is personal. because i'm attacked every day by left wing web sites, every day. and 95% of it is false. if i make a joke, it's reported seriously. if i have a sentence, it's -- the sentence is twisted around. and a lot of people believe this stuff and it's led to death threats against me. it's led to all kinds of defamation in books and other ancillary things. i'm saying to myself, you know what? there is just no control over the net at all. and now we're going to get into a presidential election and it's going to have a big influence. and you say? >>