the assistant secretary frederick seward, the son of william seward, nearly.and to death by the handle of a gun and a knife on the way to william seward's bedroom. at the lincoln murder conspiracy had fruition, you could had a situation with no president, no vice president and no secretary of state or assistant secretary of state with constitutional authority to make the president pro tem the acting president or call a special election. not a wild conspiracy theory, that almost happened. the most interesting close calls before we go to questions and answers, a woman in her purse and how she saves the new deal. fdr is president-elect, arrives in miami abortion, norma hall which is vincent astor's private yacht and gives his first speech in miami, sitting on the back of a buick delivers the speech, and italian immigrant fires 5 shots in 15 seconds at him. the bullets would have hit fdr except the 100 pound woman standing next to the assailants, sign. 's 32 caliber, moved her purse from one arm to the other inspectors gun with enough force to be able to afford th

a very close friend, newspaper editor to william seward, he tells seward, he says, get the message through to the president, voters want peace. and they may reject lincoln just on the peace platform. mcclellan has a peaceful platform, lincoln doesn't have a peace platform. alexander mcclure, pennsylvania editor, politician, republican party leader, reflects on the election of 1864, 1876 he says at no time from january 1st, 1864 through september 3rd, 1864, was there a time that lincoln -- or that is correct excuse me, that mcclellan could not have defeated lincoln. january 1st to september 3rd, 1864, if the election had been held on any of those days mcclellan said we would have had president mcclellan. the 1860 rooeb victory as a predictor of the 1864 election. some of these things that we know i'm not going to go through all of them right now bau there was a manifesto where three diplomats said we need cuba because the west is getting closed off to us, we are going to get it one way or the other way, we are going to ask payne spain to sell it to us. republican party starts gather around

another conspiracy went to kill william seward who is secretary of state.he was in his meeting and stops him repeatedly so he almost die dies. so what happens there is no secretary of state? shockingly the president on - - the constitution is clear because then it is the assistant secretary that is the son of william seward who was nearly bludgeoned to death by the handle of the gun and the knife on the assassins way into his bedroom to stab him. so had the conspiracy come to fruition and with that assistant secretary of state with the constitutional authority to make the acting president. and those two interesting close calls. and then in the first of the new deal or as president-elect and in that private yacht the first as president-elect in miami and sitting on the dock of a buick to delivers a speech and the italian immigrant fires five shots and 15 seconds they would have had fdr but a 100-pound woman was standing right next to the assailant saw him pull out the 32 caliber moved her purse from one arm to another and messed his gun with enough force so

cites the support two of key governors, and invokes the support of her friend, secretary of state william seward. her letter clearly set odd the importance of the role the president had to play in this proclamation. the president must have been impressed with the preparation of her case, less than a week following her letter the presidents issued a proclamation that urged americans who observe the last thursday in november as a day of thanksgiving. hale was delighted her work to secure a top level endorsement nor national day of thanksgiving was complete, with lincoln's signature on an up ambiguous proclamation. another tangible step on the path towards bringing the nation together for another -- bringing in the nation together under lincoln's leadership. final live i would like to just comment briefly on the qualities these women had. americans, both men and women, faced daunting odd during the civil war years but women confronted the additional hurdle of overcoming century-old stereotypes. thousands upon thousands of women experienced the war personally or indirectly, during its four year dura

william seward proposed one. andrew johnson proposed one. stephen douglas proposed at least one. three governors chimed in. my book is built around these amendments because, as i learned, no one else had gathered them or analyze them. what do they mean? i mentioned that james buchanan 's had three subsets. crittenden's had six. was onen davis's paragraph. there were 15 different topics that are embodied in those 67 amendments. so one of the first things i had to do was categorize, create a chart listing the topics around the proposalsand down the left side. and if you have read extensively in the decade of the 1850's, the run-up to the war from 1850 to the civil war, these amendments tracked the difficulties this country was trying to deal with. the largest number of articles within these amendments dealt with slavery in the territories. not surprising, because that was the election around which the election of 1860 turned. what do we do with slavery in the territories? are southerners allowed to take their slaves there and have them there as long as they want? should the federal

the first person that gets this piece of paper to sign is william seward, secretary of state. he signs it, he passes it on to the department of treasury, who has also been on the joint committee on the war that we talked about this morning. he passes it on to edward stanton, secretary of war that we lesarned is in the hands of the radicals and he is on for ben wade. gideon wells gets it next. ed bates passes it to ed usher. usher gives it back to lincoln and they're living in suspense. is lincoln going to say you've got your names here, sort of like a contract, and i've got to tell you what you signed on for. he doesn't do that. it goes into his coat pocket, he holds onto it and then he starts his meeting. so this is called the blind memorandum because who is blind? the cabinet people signed a blank piece of paper, what they thought the message was inside, but he didn't tell us what it was. it starts like this. this morning was for some days past, it seems probable that this administration will not be re-elected. they never saw that. they never saw what they signed on for. fil

to washingtonent and landed on the desk of william seward. apparently thinking the document had been recorded, seward give it to a friend for a souvenir. and it was found in a bundle of oath, 105e's amnesty years later. anybody remember what happened during the ford administration? he got his pardon. from gerald ford. he pardoned everybody else. [laughter] come on, that was kind of funny, political joke there. no chevy chase fans here, or anything? [laughter] day, the opened a letter from general beauregard, who asked, what position should i take in relation to defeat? seeresponded, i am glad to no indication in your letter of an intention to leave the country. the south acquires the aid of her sons now more than any other period in her history. of abandoningghts her, unless compelled to do so. lee reviewed his own efforts to regain yes citizenship that regain u.s. citizenship and concluded with a passage that would be quoted i generations. "i need not tell you that true patriotism sometimes requires a man to act exactly contrary at that of a

william seward. >> super awesome senator, secretary of state, surprised he's not bitter that he lost.>> you reference the team of rivals. my favorite name in the entire book. >> hannibal hamlin. >> how the president hannibal hamlin? >> this name and the whole book, no question. you could not pick your vice president, it was picked for you at the convention was abraham lincoln as vice president in his first term as hannibal hamlin who i found out is who the avengers fight in the next avengers movie. hannibal hamlin from maine. if we have -- listen. you can't help but ask what happens if abraham lincoln dies. is president hannibal hamlin or seward whoever takes over, are they better? do they rise better to the occasion. do they give us something more inspiring? maybe maybe not. no way to know. anyone who tells you they know is a big fat liar but here's what i do now, the story of abraham lincoln, this kid who comes from nothing and teaches himself to read and write and rises to the highest office in the land is not just the story of our sixteenth president. that's the story of the ameri

william seward proposed one. and andrew johnson and stephen douglas proposed one. three governors chimed in. governors, congress, secession conventions and the washington peace convention. my book is built around these amendments because as i learned no one else had gathered them or analyzed them. what do they mean? i mentioned that james buchanan's had three subsets. crittenton's had six. most had more than one. very few were one paragraph long. jefferson davis' was one paragraph. most had subsets. when you add up the articles, there are about 350 different topics that are embodied in those 67 amendments. so one of the first things i had to do was to sort of categorize them and i created a chart, lifting the proposers down the left side and if you have read extensively in the decade of the 1850s from the compromise of 1850 to the civil war, these amendments track the difficulties that the country was trying to deal with. the largest number of articles within these amendments dealt with slavery in the territories. not surprising because that was the election around

. >> william seward. >> super awesome senator, secretary of state. >> you mentioned the team of rivalsso then you could not take your vice president it was picked for you at the convention and in the first term was hannibal hamlin that i found out who the avengers fight in the next movie. you cannot help but ask what happened if abraham lincoln dies. and then to give us something is more inspiring? maybe not. and that's a big fat liar. and then teaches himself to read and write with sticks in the dirt and rises to the highest office in the land is not just the story of the 16th president. that is the story of the american dream itself. i think beyond the emancipation proclamation and the permutations in just the right way and beyond all that. so to be on oh has the greatest part of the whole book. and this has great mustaches. we promise that. and part of the circle and the offshoot of it. that's the short answer and that just might kill you. >> essential figure and with that cat in the laser sharks. this is a second presidential conspiracy are there other presidents you are looking at

william henry seward was a fellow can and his closest ally in the white house, they cowrote the finalparagraph of the first inaugural better angels of our nature. he said this fascinating point and he said there's something very unusual about abraham lincoln. he actually appears to believe all the things he's saying and i love that quote. and another person who said something similar, fascinating figure on the other side, alexander stevens is the vice president of the confederacy. he is from georgia. he knows lincoln very well and they served in the house together in the 1840s and they correspond in a very meaningful way during this crisis of the south seceding and lincoln not yet president . he said their friends but there on opposite sides and he says the same thing. lincoln actually believes all that stuff he saying aboutthe declaration of independence . he really believes this and danger are, 90 two i think democracy will naturally settle on and their lives will be ameliorated forever and language, i love eleanor roosevelt eleanor and adlai stevenson in exciting years following th

chicago for the republican convention in may 1860, it was well agreed the fro frontrunner was william henry seward. he has a problem. well, he has several problems. one of them is he is prominent. he has said, there's a higher law than the constitution. there's an irrepressable conflict between slavery and freedom. southerners look at him as this radical, wild-eyed guy who they cannot support. so do a lot of republicans. there are plenty of conservative republicans, moderate republicans, they know he is too far out there. he has another problem. we talked before about his political manager. being involved in manipulating the new york legislature. the buchanan administration is known for corruption among other things. if republicans run seward and say, we oppose corruption, democrats are going to say you oppose corruption? you really think we're going to sell that one? another thing is, weed had a bright idea. get seward out of the line of fire and away from the issues. so seward went to europe for eight months and did the grand tour. everybody else is figuring out how they are going to be presiden