of liberty, the political speeches and writings of abraham lincoln, lincoln's america, and lincoln's dream clashing political perspectives. do you write anything that doesn't have lincoln in the title? no. we appreciate that. and i will mention you, those of you who are here in attendance at the lincoln forum here in, gettysburg, that joseph fornieri is also a talented guitarist. and if you are lucky, you can sometimes catch an impromptu performance by professor fournier in the windham bar after the festivities have ended for the day. it's a rumor. now we've got evidence. you're not. you're very good. ronald white is well known to both lincoln forum attendees and those with his publications on and civil war era topics. he is the author of two new york times bestselling presidential biographies lincoln a biography fee and american ulysses a life of ulysses grant, among other works. he's also the author of several additional books on abraham lincoln, including lincoln's speech, the second inaugural, the president a portrait of lincoln through his words and lincoln in private, what his

why lincoln and why now?: why lincoln is something people who studied the 19th century grapple with. he seems to have his fingers on every part of the 19th century, at least in the united states and to some extent, around the world. i had written to previous books about the 19th century and each time lincoln was a minor character, which brought me more and more contact with this guy that i had been fascinated with ever since i was growing up in indiana where he spent the majority of his youth. i finally got to the point where i felt i might have something fresh and to say in spite of the thousands of books written. i got to the point where i felt like it fit the news i was covering as a journalist. this is a story about the past. i am not trying to do some analogy or metaphor about the present. lincoln was living in a republic, the basic rules of which we still have today, even some of the buildings were people govern are the same as they were in the 1800s. that would be really relevant and the more that i go

it the 150th of lincoln's election november six, 1860, and i wondered if i could follow lincoln through the months of november and december and january, then into february and, as i was studying him very closely, i realized the train journey in february was a great opportunity to write in a daily way, which is not how historian right historians think about years and decades and centuries. i was thinking i would try to follow lincoln on 13 days in a row and write different essay on each of those 13 days. so lincoln leaves springfield today and he goes to indianapolis, and here's what happened. it made sense in a newspaper kind of a way. and as i did it it was really exciting work. i a lot of different kinds of sources i quickly realized i had bitten off more than i could chew and. by the end of the 13 days of daily posts, we were using words like a post. this was kind of a bloggy exercise. it was only in the online york times, not in the paper. and i can talk about why in that era, the new york allowed this to even happen. it was kind of a miracle because history not really news but they

lincoln received david herbert, the great lincoln biographer, estimated lincoln received between two and 300 letters a day. we think our inboxes are full every day, right? lincoln's was very full and he had private secretary aides who worked under the rule refer as little to the president as possible. so they would always try screen the letters and send them to someone who could handle it first. oftentimes would then wind up back at the white house. and if it was a matter that lincoln needed to deal with, it was a pardon request, then that letter would eventually get to lincoln and he would deal with it. lincoln would often take the advice of his. he had people he trusted giving him advice. and so they might look into the content of a letter, figure out what the background was and then say to lincoln, we think this is what should happen, this case. and often he took their advice, although not always right. last question for this round. keep them coming. were any of the black soldiers who wrote to lincoln ever invited to the white house to discuss requests? that's a great question. i

lincoln. lincoln didn't know who she was. that letter is buried in the national archives. he didn't keep that one. the mother in law and the the wife were working together to try to get appleton released. even they actually hated one another at this point. eventually the federal government decided to move william seward decided to move appleton to fort warren because they believed it would be to get a conviction in a court than in a new york city court. and appleton, at this point didn't know why he was moved to fort warren on christmas day, 1861. appleton there with a lot of other political prisoners, members of the maryland state legislature, and all these political prisoners just hated william seward and the way they celebrated christmas in 1861 was they made up a doll that looked like seward and they put him on trial for treason against the united states for destroying the constitution. they put him on trial. they had judge and a jury and they found him guilty. then they executed the littl

that your lincoln would spielberg's lincoln? yes, i do. i mean, what happened? it was a long process. took almost, maybe almost ten years to make that movie because. i first approached me. we were at a he had asked me and a bunch of historians to get together because he was doing a documentary on the century that had just passed and and i was one of the people there. he found that i was writing about lincoln and he said he'd always wanted to make a movie about lincoln, but had to wait until he was mature enough to, be able to do it, to tackle it because he cared much about lincoln. so he asked me to come out to his house in long island. we talked it. i was only half done. i had i was it was 1999 and i didn't think it was until 2005. but he decided he wanted to get it and then he got an option. then it was on other movies and he keep calling me from whatever movie was on to say what, did lincoln do today? that was his relaxing. yeah, yeah, yeah, i can see that. and so then finally decided he wanted to get a scriptwriter start. so

lincoln through his words and lincoln in private, which won baroness lincoln award. his most recent book, which speak about this morning, is on fields the life and unlikely heroism of joshua lawrence chamberlain. please give join me in giving a lincoln forum forum welcome ron white. thank you, john, for your friendship and your leadership then harold for the invitation to be here and all of you already we've had wonderful conversations. we will certainly have more as the time goes forward. as i prepared biography of joshua lawrence chamberlain and i received a telephone call from, brunswick, maine the woman herself as a consultant charged with rewriting the script to for visitors to see the remarkable chamberlain. after we talked for a while i asked her at the end of the conversation well, who comes to the chamberlain home? well, she said about 60% are chamberlain fans. they just packed their way. she said the other 40% are people who have been wrangled by their friends or relative. so already a few of you have identified yourselves as part of the 40%. i suspect this

now, what about lincoln? as the 1850s unfolded and lincoln came to prominence. yes, he did not speak up for repeal of the illinois black laws to the frustration of many on the progressive side, the spectrum. but when he went toe to toe with stephen douglass in the 1858, lincoln douglass debates he did lincoln did voice some of the same principles that first civil rights movement espoused. now, douglass give you a little you know, the stephen douglass side in, 1850. douglass, he had defended the constitution's black exclusion on the floor of the united states, arguing that it was among the types of necessary for the quiet and peace of our. so he he he talked about it in the senate and defended those laws in in the lincoln-douglas debates in 1858. stephen douglass maintained the position that the united states was made by white men sorry made the white man for the benefit of the white man to be administered by white men in such manner as they should determine. that was douglass. he argued that the founders had intended that the declaration of independence was for

lincoln when lincoln died, there was obviously no tv or internet, but there was a telegraph and that's been called the first national funeral. so what is the important importance in our national memory of the way that lincoln's death was observed and commemorate it almost simultaneously? the country? anyone? well, so there's a couple of things i would keep in mind with that. and martha hodes makes this point very convincingly in. the book that lincoln's death was viewed very differently in the moment that it happened versus how we view it today. obviously, over time, lincoln has developed a legacy of great emancipator, one of the greatest american presidents savior of the union. but remember, there was a considerable amount of people in the country who did like lincoln, who had who had fought against the union, who had cheered that lincoln had been assassinated. so there was an outpouring of national. but i would say it was predominantly more in the north and west parts of the united states. so that's an instance where i think we today reflect upon lincoln as this great national hero.

this is also what lincoln says in peoria and and in the lincoln-douglas debates. he is is certainly prefer only morally opposed to enslavement. but he is his response to to douglas's invocation of popular sovereignty is also that this is in fact a national issue that should be decided by by the people by by by one nation. not not by local majorities. you referred now and in your remarks before the national majorities. and i wanted to delve into that a bit, because it's true that madison and lincoln were both focused on the the importance and the sovereignty of national majorities under our constitution. but it wasn't national majorities for their own sake so much in either case. right. madison, when he's urging the creation. of a new constitution that empowers national majorities, so much of it is for the of protecting individual liberty in the states to make sure that the states are the factions aren't oppressing individuals in the states. and the same with lincoln of choruses for his first inaugural he's calling for national democracy. one of the key examples he

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 on the verge again is title and for a wonderful, fascinating conversation. thank you very much. thank you, paul thank you all. of "the president travels by train: politics and pullmans. .. the president travels by training it is his first 29 books. came out the first edition in 1996. it is been updated several times in 2018 was rereleased by eco books and media i believe is the third or fourth edition of the book. bob himself as a journalist by trade. and 38 years worked for the huntington herald a dispatch in huntington west virginia where he currently lives. he has a ba and ma from marshall university. while he was in college he worked summers for the railroad. that actually is how i got to know, bob. i interned at the museum in baltimore, maryland. mutual interest and admiration got us together. i welcome bob and i will begin the presentation now. one other programming notes, so understand all presidents use trains to travel around and still do on some occasions. we picked seven presidents because of some specific issues they encountered or specific miles

lincoln's problems at the illinois central railroad during that period of time? >> i found it in a book called lincoln and the railroads 227 copies were ever printed. was by her have no idea it existed before he did research for this book. you can buy this book from other libraries. anyway i finally got a copy in the pages could not be cut apart. nobody had even read the book took the book home and copied every page in it. but my favorite story writing for a newspaper in new york city talks about a conversation he had with abraham lincoln on a boxcar. at 9:00 o'clock on a hot sultry evening that is where the train stops or someone is to be picked up or dropped off it's not a regular stop. they're getting to a station the train intended to take after waiting a half an hour for the train to come in at thunderstorm at the station. it was then in their when he was clerking the highest of the political ambition was to be a member of the state legislature. this of course he said with a laugh but my friends got me into this business being a railroad lawyer. i do not con

they hate mary lincoln.and it's one of those things where i can always tell if the exhibit team, the design museum was diverse or not, because if it's not, that's the kind of narrative you get when. and of course, the exhibit's field is overwhelmingly male and which is part of the challenge. right. but so you have these kind of headless women who gossiping about mary, and that was the original interpretation. and one of the ways in which we've actually that is to really start to center the women in their own stories. so instead of talking about all the ways that these women hated mary, really talking about what were these women doing at the time using their social and political capital at a time where they couldn't vote to try and change the conversation and to try and push the narrative or push the needle. and so we've that's area in which we've really focused on updating the interpreter option and making it more modern. so when little girls on school trips come to visit us, they can see that even in, you k

but even after lincoln's success, garibaldi coverage continued apace. still framed as a metaphor for the seeming calamity that befallen the white south on december the first, the agusta chronicle editorial page was filled with discussions. the crisis of lincoln's election and the debits and credits of secession. among the screeds advocating from the tyrannical government of the united states was a detailed description. italy's final unification and garibaldi's retirement. after presenting king emmanuel with his new kingdom. while the american people were receiving the returns of the late election, an impressive scene was present in the city of naples. the article, before extolling garibaldi's actions and the power of revolutionary engagement the great deliverer of italy had the paper admitted committed mistakes along the way. but those defects arose from the moral excellences of the man and did not detract from his greatness after all. the paper argued who was thiem's washington the last because the calmness of his countenance was sometimes disturbed an

and president lincoln. lincoln in seizing the golden to do justice to the downtrodden africans as proved himself be inde the man for the hour. all good men and states. well the prove his act and will join in the urn in earnest prayer. godspeed the day when the proclamation shall have its full accomplishment in the actual enjoyment of freedom by all the dusky bondsman of self. now, during the war, the globe also utilized the common 19th century perspective of reprinting entire transcripts from speeches of well-established political figures of all stripes and shades. of course, the tuesday, february 10th, 1863 edition included them reprinting the transcript of the actual proprietor of newspapers himsel george brown, when he was speaking to the toronto anti-slavery society or the anti-slavery society of canada, in which he stated that mr. chairman mr. chairman, i must apologize, but oain the meeting to so unreasonable a length. but i thought it was a duty we to ourselves and to our neighbor across. the line to