jefferson davis's vice president, alexander stevens of georgia who was not a fire eater either had a friendship with abraham lincoln when lincoln served as a congressman from 1846-1848 and they were friends and lincoln wrote a letter to him. alexander stevens wrote a letter to abraham lincoln while lincoln was waiting to come to washington after he was elected to be president, wondering if there was anything they could do, if he had any suggestions and lincoln wrote back to him, i would really like to be able to work this out, he said, but we don't seem able to agree on the extension of slavery. he said in his letter that is the rub. you want to extend slavery and make slavery national while we want to restrict it. >> host: is your book written for a general audience or scholarly audience? >> guest: we wrote this book for students that we have been teaching, gary gallagher has been teaching for 30 years and i have been teaching for 20 years. he is teaching at uva and i'm teaching at ucla. we thought a lot about the fact that there was no short, succinct and yet provocative textbook o

alexander stevens challenged the american constitution which for him he stated he believed or considered slavery to be against the laws of nature. in this speech stevens says our government meaning the confederate government is founded on the opposite idea. our foundations, our cornerstone rests on the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man and slavery for the superior race is natural and normal condition. the vice president of the confederacy weeks after it was founded. but of course, i am sure many of the people who say they don't have a racist bone in her body but are waving these flags have not heard that speech, or try to say that doesn't represent the confederacy or doesn't present me. ultimately what i wanted to show with this book. it shows itself with the symbols as well, people have purposefully built these monuments, purposefully produced these ideas to manipulate us into believing they are not the problem and their policies are not the problem, but black people are the problem. people are the problem, people are inferior and that is why black people are ensl

and alexander stevens said, basically he challenged the american constitution which for him he stated sort of believed or considered slavery to be against the laws of nature. .. i'm sure many of the people who say they don't have a racist bone in their body, but are still waiting these flacks have not heard that speech or say that doesn't represent the confederacy or that doesn't represent me because-- and so ultimately what i want is to show with this book and i think it shows itself with these symbols as well is that people have purposefully build to these monuments. people have purposefully produce these ideas to manipulate us into believing that they are not the progress-- problem in their policies are not the problem, but that black people have the problem that people are the problem and that they are inferior and that's why black people are enslaved because they should be enslaved. they are impoverished because they don't want to work. they created these ideas because the alternative is for us to look out at racial inequality and say that's abnormal and save why is this-- and th

we talked about alexander stevens cornerstone speech before the war and jefferson davis before. they're saying slavery's right up the middle of it. retrospectively they changed their mind. they say not only is it not at the center of thing, it's really only incidental. that's the word jefferson davis said, it was incidental to this high constitutional principle. get yourself free of the taint of slavery. number two, why did the war end the way it is? because we never had a chance. because of overwhelming union man power and material resources, there is no loss of honor in losing a war for high constitutional principle that you never could have won. it was a gallon unit fight for the right reason but we couldn't win because there were so many yankees, grant wasn't a good general, he could just count. he knew he's not unlimited men and poor lee, we know this, lee only has 11 men at peters burg at the end, and they've only got 9 shoes among them, and six of them are left shoes. so, it's the situation is terrible. and grant has a million men. and yet it takes grant nine months to su

we talked about alexander stevens cornerstone speech before the war and jefferson davis before. they're saying slavery's right up the middle of it. retrospectively they changed their mind. they say not only is it not at the center of thing, it's really only incidental. that's the word jefferson davis said, it was incidental to this high constitutional principle. get yourself free of the taint of slavery. number two, why did the war end the way it is? because we never had a chance. because of overwhelming union man power and material resources, there is no loss of honor in losing a war for high constitutional principle that you never could have won. it was a gallon unit fight for the right reason but we couldn't win because there were so many yankees, grant wasn't a good general, he could just count. he knew he's not unlimited men and poor lee, we know this, lee only has 11 men at peters burg at the end, and they've only got 9 shoes among them, and six of them are left shoes. so, it's the situation is terrible. and grant has a million men. and yet it takes grant nine months to su

we talked about alexander stevens' cornerstone speech before the war, and we have talked about jefferson davis before. they're saying slavery's right up the middle of it. retrospectively they changed their minds as we know. they say not only is it not at the center of things it's really , only incidental. that is the word that jefferson davis said, it was incidental to this struggle for high constitutional principle. get yourself free of the taint of slavery. that is number one. number two, why did the war end the way it is? because we never had a chance. because of overwhelming union man power and material resources, there is no loss of honor in losing a war for high constitutional principle that you never could have won. it was a gallant fight for the right reason, but we couldn't -- never could have won because there was so many yankees, and they had so much fight. you know that grant. grant wasn't a good general, he could just count on some of them. he went to west point, he learned arithmetic, and he has got unlimited men. and poor lee, we know this, lee only has 11 men at petersbur

steiner alexander robbins steinman edna l. stevensartha jane stevens michael james stewart richard h. stewart, jr. sanford m. stoller douglas joel stone lonny jay stone jimmy nevill storey timothy stout thomas strada james j. straine, jr. edward w. straub george j. strauch, jr. edward t. strauss steven r. strauss larry strict land steven f. strobert walwyn wellington stuart, jr. benjamin suarez david scott suarez ramon suarez xavier suarez yoichi sugiyama william christopher sugra daniel suhr david marc sullins christopher p. sullivan patrick sullivan thomas g. sullivan hilario soriano sumaya, jr. james joseph suozzo >> and my husband daniel francis mcginley. a father to terrance, maddie, peter, ann and pat, father-in-law to sylvia. >> and my mother, susan marie klein, we love and miss you. colleen supinski robert sutcliffe seline sutter claudia suzette sutton john francis swaine kristine m. swearson brian david sweeney brian edward sweeney madeline amy sweeney kenneth j. swensen thomas swift derek ogilvie sword kevin thomas szocik gi

alexander hamilton screwed up america. brookings institution senior fellow thomas mann and political columnists e.j. dionne and norman orrin steven weigh in on the 45th president. best selling author doug staten looks at the vietnam war's tet to offensive. and former u.s. secret service agent dan bongino provides his thoughts on challenging impacting that agency in protecting the president. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. [inaudible[inaudible conversati] knox. [inaudible conversations] >> and you're watching c-span2's booktv. up next live from the brooklyn book festival is a discussion on the supreme court. >> ready? welcome. glad to see such a big crowd at the best law school in brooklyn. [applause] all right. [laughter] you know, an alum recently suggested that we should say we're the harvard law school of kings county -- [laughter] but i'm not sure that harvard's ready for the compliment. but one thing that is the case, and it's one reason why we're so proud for the 12th time, 12th anniversary of the brooklyn book festival to get an

alexander hamilton screwed up america. brookings institution senior fellow thomas mann and political columnists e.j. dionne and norman orrin steven weigh in on the 45th president. best selling author doug staten looks at the vietnam war's tet to offensive. and former u.s. secret service agent dan bongino provides his thoughts on challenging impacting that agency in protecting the president. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. [inaudible[inaudible conversati] knox. [inaudible conversations] >> and you're watching c-span2's booktv. up next live from the brooklyn book festival is a discussion on the supreme court. >> ready? welcome. glad to see such a big crowd at the best law school in brooklyn. [applause] all right. [laughter] you know, an alum recently suggested that we should say we're the harvard law school of kings county -- [laughter] bu