lincoln had it worst.r your feeling is going on wrong in america, would you want to trade places with what abraham lincoln knowed to do. >> with frederick douglass you realize you can be angry at america in a positive way, you can have a decent, make a difference, follow your beliefs, sometimes we want things immediately done our way, sometimes you have to just bore in for the long haul the way that douglass did his life, fighting and learning and getting to point where black men in america were able to vote with 15 amendment. >> they would rejoice at times and mourn. at some things seeing here, he recognized that duty of a patriot and way he sees it one who will hold his nation accountable. >> more on president and freedom fighter in just a moment. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire ♪ when you have nau

amram lincoln. abraham lincoln it was born in 18 oh nine, under john brown and abraham lincoln was born in kentucky and indiana that he moves to illinois and he inherited this white slavery ant was shared many working-class whites who expected to make a living by the sweat of the drop in part because simply harder than they could make a decent living when you had to compete with the slave labor they can always undercut your wage. there's a general feeling that slavery many community a bad place to live. and then abraham moved to illinois as a sad and abraham lincoln himself had this inherited, this kind of moderate into the display rating his case epiphany came as he explains on a trip to the north, anyone down the mississippi to wear for the first time, he saw slave auction. and again, lincoln was familiar with slaves working on the docks and he had seen slaves working and doing this and that in the other thing and doing the kind of stuff that whites did as well and so, they don't have many freedom

incensed by lincoln's unresponsiveness to this request, nasby leaves in a huff saying lincoln, gorilla, ape, i am done with you. petroleum nasby announces his misery when lincoln wins the 1864 election and becomes apoplectic. in reporting lincoln's assassination locke asks nasby for his regret that the president and his cabinet had not been killed in 1862 before the damage to southern slavery had been done. now, everything of course that came out of nasby's mouth was exactly the opposite of what david ross locke actually felt. locke and lincoln admired each other immensely. david ross locke actually felt. locke and lincoln admired each other immensely. they met a couple times in the 1850s when locke was in illinois reporting the lincoln/douglas debates. they had a friendly meeting in quincy, illinois in 1858. the two joked and talked politics. later locke voices that the president who had written him from the white house, why don't you come to washington and see me? is there no place you want? come on and i'll give you any place that you ask for that you're capable of fitting and fit t

lincoln will arrive back to d.c. and on the following day on june 26th, there will be another meeting between pope and stanton. it will meet in private chambers in the war department. stanton will finally reveal to pope that there's been a fiasco in the valley between jackson and fremont. and stanton concedes in this meeting that lincoln and himself are to blame for all that is developed and come across from this fallout of this most recent campaign in the shen do away valley. stanton says we made mistakes in the following ways. we placed them in command of these armies. we shouldn't have done that. we also shouldn't have tried to regulate their movements from washington, d.c. after these commands were defeated, stanton and lincoln finally give in to what the treasury has been arguing about for weeks. and what they have been arguing, that these two armies in the valley and urban mcdowell's army need to be united commander. and the port republican, they give in. the genesis for llincoln's trip to west point and callin

lincoln says no. again pope is reluctant from man so ambitious, why is he turning this down over and over and over again? but popes stuck with his new role and he will begin to deal with the army of virginia and getting it ready for the next campaign. part of dealing with the army of virginia is dealing with the consequences and follow from the most recent campaigns they've experienced against jackson. i am having a problem here with our slide advancer. well, we'll just keep looking at pictures of those three guys. [laughter] i've always admired stanton's facial hair so -- [laughter] as he gets the army of virginia together, what he realizes is the things he talked about our holding true, there army of virginia is in the lowest possible sense, their supply situation is disastrous, hardly any calvary to rely on, most of the calvary men have no forces so he sets upon the task of getting them ready as bestie can for a campaign and part of that is to issue these orders become so famous. the most of which

lincoln.n one thinks of the most despised american president, one usually does not think of lincoln. but presidents like johnson, lincoln is usually in contention for spot number one or two. luckily i read the description again before preparing my remarks today. and ii realized that i was supposed to talk about lincoln. arguably, onein of the most beloved american presidents not just in the united states but around the globe. now, this of course was not the case when lincoln was elected president h in 1860. he remains the only president in american history whose election causedri nearly half of the stas in the republic to cecede and cause a bloody war that claimed nearly 100,000 american lives. abraham lincoln was not an abolitionist. that isse a person who believedn the immediate abolition of black slavery before thedi war. and i should say before i continue that the slide that i'm showing right now is from south carolina that announces that the union has been dissolved. south carolina, of co

and abraham lincoln? southerners did make a lot of fun of lincoln for being a person who chopped wood. it did to the northern masses. i would say it's far more policy. in here i'll take the opportunity to address one of the questions about race. was lincoln hated because the criticism of them was racist? : : : so i think that connection between racism resettlement and policies takes us to the lincoln administration and reconstruction and gets redirected in the 20 century when it comes to people like johnson and nixon. >> i would say i'm going to offer a third option. jefferson not necessary policy that politics put himself forward as embodying his sword of small d democratic politics so he was needed in a sense for that combo. >> interesting. as is always the case there's so much more to say which is why we keep saying it. i want to thank our panelists for joining this roundtable. obviously we would much rather have done these things in person and we look forward to doing them again in person but it was a

at some point following his escort service to washington, dc of president lincoln, pope would offer lincoln his services as an aide to the president. but on june 14 of 1861, instead he would be appointed brigadier general of volunteers with a date of rank effective to may 17 of that year and he would be immediately ordered to the state of illinois to recruit volunteers for the burgeoning war effort. upon making his way out to illinois, he wouldn't linger long in that duty of recruitment. in the department of the west under the command of major general john fremont, pope assumed command with operational control along a portion of the mississippi river thereof. and it's during this time that yet again, we begin to see pope's desire for promotion and glory. and he'll enter a new phase, a new trait that will once again raise its head in the coming years of this war, the utilization of politics to get what he desires. it's at this moment that pope, detesting fremont, will utilize political connections behind fremont's back to get him removed from command. the ultimate goal, we do away with fremo

throughout the 18 fifties lincoln a moderate politician this is the young lincoln lawyer he was antislavery politician and then to the platform of the non- expansion of slavery the constitution the defensive position since the federal government has a target to end slavery. and competing loyalties in the constitution and as early as the 1930s and expresses that is any abolitionist. so the balancing act was expressed in qualified support from 1850 lincoln argued for actions must accompany the constitutionally mandated rendition and during the lincoln douglas debates 1858 which catapulted him to national fame that was the long-held belief to hold it to equal citizenship and in here to colonization of the blacks back to africa so after the secession on his election lincoln was willing to compromise on abolition in the south but not on the non- extension platform of the republican party. healing the election as a victory and certainly more southerners viewed him as a step better than an abolitionist and an abolitionist in disguise. one of the most ardent critics argued for the first time in his

but mary todd lincoln, julia grant was not a big fan of mary todd lincoln. and mrs. grant says they've got to go see their children in new jersey, which they did. and president lincoln is assassinated that night. grant is bereft with guilty and he thinks if i had been there, i would have been able to save president lincoln. he was also a target, grant was, of john wilks booth. >> and after lincoln is assassinated, grant stands at the time as the most popular figure, right? by far. and johnson despised that. he despised that grant has that power and grew to really, really hate him, johnson did, to the point where he was trying to figure out how to get him out of the way. he wanted to send him to mexico, he wanted to do these other things and grant stood up to him and said no. and, you know, he said if it's a military order, i will go. but i'm not going if this is just you sending me. >> yeah. grant, of course, known as the brilliant northern union general. but you writing a book that because of the approach that he took to southern soldiers to the confederates, i don'

todd lincoln and mrs. grant says they have got to go see their children in new jersey, which they did and president lincoln was assassinated that night. grant is bereft with guilt and he thinks if i had been there married would have been able to save president lincoln. he was also a target, grant was of john wilkes-booth. >> after he was assassinated grant stands at the time of the most popular figure. >> by far. johnson despise that. he despised the grant had that power and grew to really hate him. johnson did to the point where he was just trying to figure out how to get them out of the way want to send them to mexico and do all these things in grant stood up to him and said no. he said if it's a military worker i will go but i'm not going if this is just you sending me. >> grant us known as the northern union general but you write in your book that because the approach that he took to southern soldiers to the confederates i don't want to see the people in the south admired him as much as those in the no

lincoln said, the world will little note or long remember what we say here.cting praise. those are rare traits in modern day leaders, we're not likely to remember what any modern political leaders said 158 years after they said it lincoln described our nation as conceived in liberty and dedicated to the equality in mankind, yet engaged in a civil war -- test whether a nation so conceived could last, here we are, battered at times, bruised at times, unhappy with another another at time, but we're still here, and we're style the united states of america. less than two years after delivering the gettysburg address, lincoln would give his own life for this country, president lincoln was wrong about one thing, despite the passage of time, no one has forget know what he said. the question is what have we didn't about it? he asked that the dead not die in vein. he asked that this nation under good to have a new birth, he asked that we tend to the unfinished work of buying a nation rooted in liberty and exquality, he asked we forever be a government of the people and

lincoln is assassinated and johnson aides erasing lincoln's vision day by day. and grant can see that happening before him. he eventually is drafted to run for president, winds in a landslide. what he gets done, he pushes through the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. he fights the kkk with federal troops. he keeps the country together with peace after the war. and to be able to dig in and tell that story, it's the contested election of 1876. >> i get the sense that you feel like grant was one of the most underappreciated presidents. >> -- his ranking in those historian rankings has gone up 13 spots in recent years. that's before my book. >> [laughs] >> eisenhower went up five spots. i think in this day in age, when we are in such a partisan divide, and everything that we talk about with race -- looking back at all that he did to hold the country together, and a really pivotal time -- it gives him another look. >> -- >> one of the most brilliant generals. -- overshadowed as president. >> yes, in part because he wrote his memoirs about his time in eloq

you have to remember that when lincoln became president, he had on certain public office for ten years. country style address and his mannerisms and his self-education, all that meant that lincoln was looked upon with some degree of on intention from the eastern leaks in the country perhaps not much was expected from the presidency. however today there is little dispute and i would look at this as a debate not a science and there are no laws, no findings, no discoveries and instead of people making an argument that it may or may not be persuasive to you and i think that's important to know when you think about the presidential greatness because five different ways of measuring presidential greatness and what we will see is in these polls and these academic studies while hundreds of historians and political scientists and others, that lincoln was the greatest president. today we may have some concerns of some of the things that he did with the constitution and he suspended the right - any forcibly close newspapers that were printing material critical of the union effort and is that many

abraham lincoln is elected and in 30 years of democrat rule in d.c., rose despises lincoln she refersto him as the bean pole. was certainly unhappy about lincoln's election. not only did abraham lincoln's election cause or lead to the breakup of the union and the deep south states succeed after he wins, but the election divided rose's family. her niece, eddie cuts and her husband steven douglas befriended lincoln even though prior to lincoln's election douglas was one of his rivals. her son-in-law is treadwell moore becomes a captain in the u.s. army. it's interesting more asked rose to help them. he wanted to be sent to ohio to raise a regiment. he asked rose to use her influence and she didn't. she wrote to the secretary of treasury and more was able to do as he hoped. now rose was recruited as a spy in the spring of 1861 by captain thomas jordan. he was a west point is a quartermaster in the u.s. army and he was planning to leave the army inside with the confederates. he acts upon general beauregard staff. he wanted to create a spy ring. he recruited rose to do that. then taught he

the lincoln book, i was always looking forward lincoln recollections. may not have noticed this but i did because i looked at so many. every lincoln's birthday starting about 1880, every regional local newspaper in february would run a sunday supplement that week about abraham lincoln. they would have no trouble getting stories about the greatness or whatever. they would always send it to the local veterans home and they would say all right, who has met abraham lincoln? they would all raise their hand. she would write down their stories, some were in kansas and montana, using wants to get rid of what i really liked, a new york soldier, a heavy regiment from artillery regiment that normally residency transport infantry for the most part in the civil war, he said he is a sentry at city.and one day on his way up, he stopped and had a couple of pleasant words. that was it, i think more profound than that but it was such a great moment doing my due diligence, i went to the civil war and i found him. the ninth new york heavy artillery and said great, one more

so lincoln and douglas. moment we are living through. >> i think so. what douglas went through, what lincoln fought through. more lincoln about lincoln especially than anybody else in history but what i wanted to do is focus on how they intersected, where we were as a country then, never perfect, always trying to be, fought a war in order to get there and i just think some of the race problems that we have today is because people have no idea how far we've come and what was going on in the rest of the world where there was slavery on every single continent on the planet. we didn't invent it, nor did we have the market cornered on it. nor did we make excuses for. i also think you can learn to other things from these guys. they were self-made men. nobody gave them anything. if you look at lincoln, light years better than frederick douglass but as bad as anybody could have it. abject poverty, illiterate parents, one year collective live school, self-taught lawyer, one term congressman, then ends up getting this

had a fault what you see in greater detail here, this is the lincoln catapult picture book with the congress and capitol institutions decided to do to facilitate this ceremony, joint ceremony of high honor was to create a replica, second catapult that could be used when multiple caskets are needed to side-by-side you have to lincoln catapult during the course of laying in-state rotated the caskets of the world war ii and korean war unknown so during the ceremony, both aggressive on the lincoln catapult as part of this great tribute. they were then carried great honor somber spirit to the national cemetery further along the plaza where we were showing you a moment ago. after the conclusion of the vietnam war, congress passed in 1973 public law 93 -- 43 which authorized the selection of interment of an unknown soldier from vietnam war. there was some skepticism and unknown, that there would be unknowns as we had advanced identifying technology which was introduced by the first world war but they had been made more reliable and reliably to identify remains whether there would be an unk

and it's really lincoln that we -- that created this. i think at that point, it's not in my book, but it needs to be mentioned. >> do you want to say one -- give us one more burst of learning from your book, because there's so much in it. why don't you -- >> well, i think on the slavery thing, this is the central issue that's obsessing us now. we have to understand two things. one -- or more than two things. one, they all thought that slavery was on its last legs. now, maybe people in south carolina and georgia didn't think that but many virginians did and certainly the northerners did, that slavery was dying. and in virginia they thought so too. washington had more slaves than he knew what to do is, and tobacco is no longer being grown, they exhaust the soil, they're turning to wheat. wheat does not require great labor. they're renting out their slaves. people like washington are renting out their slaves in norfolk and richmond. and the idea of renting out the slaves, that's one step towards wage labor. so slavery is somehow on its last

to me, and i spent all my time reading lincoln -- while lincoln argues in his first inaugural address, when he talks about secession, he only grants with the idea of it having to be an agreement among states, to deny that any particular state may unilaterally leave the union. and even if you were to believe at the state by state level, they still didn't have a right to succeed. and lincoln understood it as the source. true sovereignty line with the people, not with any government. the government is one of borrowed powers. they borrow their authority. so lincoln was trying to reinforce the condition among the american people that the american people would be the true masters of their government and not the other way around. he saw secession as anarchy. and he meant it. that you can't participate in elections -- you've ruined all events if you participate in an election and the viability of the public depends on being good losers. all of the democrats or those who voted for them were good losers in 1860. and secession was exhibit a in terms of resistance. so my sense of lincoln's unders

ages, lincoln's -- and most recently, lincoln and the american founding. he is a frequent guest on constitution center podcast and programs -- and we always learn from your wonderful -- and emily, it's wonderful to welcome you to our table of learning. emily peers is assistant professor at claremont mckenna college, where he she teaches -- her coming book is -- constructing constitutional union in early american history with a release in november. and emily, it just looks fascinating. so, welcome to all of our great panelists. gordon, congratulations on the book. i regretted, as i do many things, on kindle. so, i have it right here. the first chapter about the imperial debate starts in 1765, or so. and, of course, it looks back earlier and talks about the central declaration -- inseparably essential to the freedom of the people and the undoubted rights of englishman that no taxes should be incurred on them, but with their own consent -- what was the imperial debate? >> well, i don't want to tell you the whole debate, but it starts over the issue of represe

>> lucas, you've written so powerfully about lincoln, our founders lincoln quoted james lakin for the proposition that secession was also unconstitutional because we the people as a whole having made that union need the consent of we the people as a whole to alter it. is it fair to say that wilson deserves credit for redefining ntsovereignty and placing it in we the people of the united states and how would you rate is contribution to american constitutional history? >> i agree that james madison wilson was the legal mind at the constitutional convention. my thing with lincoln of course whether it's a gloss on wilson or others as you said in all my time reading lincoln that he ever read the fellows papers, i didn't think he did but what lincoln argues in his first inaugural address when he talks about secession the only granted, only grants the idea of it having to be an agreement among the states to deny any particular state to unilaterally leave the union. he grants that in order to show that they would lead in the compact states on a state-by-state level still didn't have the right