what i am doing is saying that secession might in the end have turned out to be a spectacular ascalculationut it was not historical overreaction to a nonexistent threat. when i say that, i sign -- i think white southern a sort -- historians appreciate that. i am saying, yes, they understood what the threat was. they made a calculation that slavery is safer if we needed to be. that turned out to be wrong. it wasn't hysterical. it wasn't a misjudgment. i find, a lot of my fellow historians, especially white southerners, appreciate that. i am not turning the south into a bunch of rabid nut cases. they are not making the civil war and accident like crazy politicians, that sort of thing. >> adding to what you discuss, would it be fair to say that, in the south, in the election of 1860, lincoln is viewed as definitely an abolitionist, and the radical republicans are saying, well, he is ok, but he's the best we got? i think radical republicans are all over the place about him. some of the most radical of the radicals, lovejoy. nobody is more radical than lovejoy. he loved lincoln. he defended linc