many southerners characterize lincoln's vice president hannibal hamlin as a mulato. they joke around they would like to assassinate lincoln but that means a mul a ato is president. we don't want that. they hated it because he calls slavery evil. remember to southerners the very idea that one calls slavery evil is a threat to southern honor and southerners understand the laws depend on morality. higher law proliferates because northerners believe in slavery's evil. when lincoln brilliantly summarizes the central debate of the war, one side believes slavery is right, not to be extended. the other side believes it is evil. no one disagrees. they are just outraged that he would call slavery evil. they are outraged he says it's treason. he's thumbing his nose at the supreme court. particularly the dred scott decision. he says the candid citizen must confess if the policy of the government upon vital questions is to be fixed by the decisions of the supreme court the people may have ceased to be their own rulers. having resigned their government into the hands of that tribu

a virginia editor says -- many southerners characterize lincoln's vice president hannibal hamlin as a mulato. so some of them would joke around, we'd like to assassinate lincoln, but if we do that, he's in mulato's presence. but they hated it, they hated it because he calls slavery evil. and remember that southerners, the very idea that one calls slavery evil is a threat to southern honor. it's also -- southerners understand that the laws depend on morality to a certain degree. higher law proliferates because northerners believe in slavery's evil. so when lincoln i think brilliantly summarizes the central debate of the war. one side believes slavery is right and nought to be -- the other side believes it is evil. no one disagrees. they are just outraged that he would call slavery evil. they're also outraged lincoln says secession is treason. it's insurrection, a revolution, it's anarchy. and from the southern perspective he's thumbing his nose at the supreme court, particularly the dred scott decision. lincoln says in his address, the candid citizen must confess if the policy of the g

hannibal hamlin was a -- powerful towering figure in that period. and he would have interacted constantly with blaine. >> he was someone who stood against chinese exclusion. he was a republican who stood against blaine on the issue of chinese exclusion. >> elizabeth, i would like to have you -- since we are in a period of time that you hear people bring up the question of maybe it is time for a new party. that the two-party system is failing us. this was a period when we saw the evolution of political parties from the -- to the republicans take a minute or so and explain about the demise of the wigs. and the rise of the republicans. >> i think the demise of the wigs have very much associated with the person you were talking about in your program last week with henry clay. when henry clay died, that was very -- he was so closely linked to the wig party that the wig party really collapsed. it wasn't just about henry clay. it was also about the slavery issue and the anti-immigrant issue. a number of other issues that led to the development of this sort