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We have been a wonderful family owned Bay Area Institution for over 40 years. Thank you to our patrons we want to keep the doors open for another 40 years and serve you. His newest book the First CongressFergus Bordewich tells the story of the most momentous and most Productive Congress in American History. When the members of the First Congress met in new york in 1789 the new nation was still fragile. Torn by sectional differences. Hobbled by competing currencies, crushed by debt and just stitched together only tentatively by the constitution. The constitution provided a set of principles but it offered few instructions about how the system should best operate. Leaving it to congress and the president to create the machinery of government. Had congress failed, United States as we know it may not exist. Abraham lincoln led the nation but Congress Actually directed the civil war. This fine history written by an amazing storyteller offers a riveting history in the book argues that convincingly that congress in the end got it right. Fergus bordewich is the author of seven nonfiction books, is also published and illustrated a Childrens BookPeach Blossom spring and wrote the script for pbs documentary about thomas jefferson. Is also edited and illustrated book of eyewitness accounts of the 1989 tiananmen massacre. He is a frequent book reviewer for the wall street journal and other publications. He was born in new york city and will growing up he often traveled to indian reservations around United States with his mother who served as the executive director of the association of American Indian affairs. Then the only independent Advocacy Organization for native americans this early experience help to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American History. The settlement of the continents and issues of race and political power. Today he lives in San Francisco with his lovely wife, who is also here joining us. It is my greatest pleasure to welcome to our book passage stage, a master storyteller Fergus Bordewich. [applause] thanks. Hows that sound . Thank you to book passage for having me here. I had my commendation to the store for sustaining a thousand writers every year, poor desperate hungry writers who are gasping for an ear also for sustaining the writing life and keeping books available to people in an independent venue so you dont have to go to that place online that we all know about. Im going to be speaking tonight about my most recent Book Congress at war and i appreciate the shout out from my last book which was the First Congress which came out three years ago and in some respects i wouldnt call it a prelude but it led to this book. This is, as you can obviously tell, a political history. Personally i find politics fascinating dynamic and dramatic. Im interested in writing the kind of books i like to read and thats to say its no excuse for a book about politics being boring. You might read it and differ you might not think of accomplished it but ive striven in all the books ive done to make two challenging political material accessible. I think what i would like to do, this by the way is right now this minute is the first step in the launch of my book. This is the first event this is the first talk, thank you. Im not entirely sure sure what youre getting at here but i will do my best. I go from here until tomorrow to washington and speaking at the National Archives library of congress and washington after this. I want to read very short section from the book to create a mood. This is washington in early 1861. Then i will take off from that and talk to you more generally about the book. A pole hung over washington that january. Rain turned pennsylvania avenue into a muddy trust. Even in the best neighborhoods yards steak from privies, the rooming houses where most members of congress lived in the halls of the capital itself smelled of wet wool and clothing, cigars, and charcoal that struggled to warm the under heated chambers of congress. Slavery pervaded the city like the stink of horse manure that everywhere but domes the streets. Although free blacks now outnumbered slaves in the Capital Investors in human flesh had merely to cross the Potomac River to the markets of alexandria to shop the 3100 enslaved men women and children who were still inextricably woven into the fabric of Washington LifeHolding Doors driving carriages cleaning the mud from boots hawking oysters tending tables, suckling white babies waiting on tables touting trunks reminded whites at every turn that the institution that was for sharing the nation was alive and thriving in its capital. There was this tentative only semi urban quality to much. That ended the National Really just a field where sheep and crowds grazed rose the ugly stop of the aborted Washington Monument like a finger lopped off the first joint banded for lack of financing. Little had changed since 1849 with the visiting Charles Dickens sarcastically described its nondescriptive dwellings into wide streets that petered out in empty fields as the city of magnificent distances. Nothing more aptly epitomize the unfinished city than the capital itself surrounded by a astrewn around the building like a symbolic fragment of a nation and pieces washingtonians felt the probable sense of doom the city, Jefferson Davis his wife irina felt as her husbands last days in the senate slipped away was like some kind of mausoleum with no one visiting, no dinners or parties, just a sullen gloom and pending overall things. On january 27 ohio representative claimant to landing him wrote to his wife, i am able to do no good here so i sit and obliged to sit quiet and sorrowful condemned as one who watches over the couch a beloved mother slowly dying with consumption to see my country perished by inches. Americans who had taken their nations immortality for granted knew that things would never be the same again. The empty seats in the house and senate they spoke of revolution in terms of more graphic than any of the stormy words that had been spoken during the months passed. With the departure of the southerners gloom shaded inexorably into fear that events were spinning out of control and that the worst had really come to pass. Worrying rumors flew through the air that the defenseless capital would be attacked by a virginia mob that a coup dctat would come any day and unexplained fires around the city were part of a terrorist plot. The landing him mored his wife that an uprising was so likely he might have to send her to safety someone loans. Others dispatch their wives and children to philadelphia or new york for safety. Of the nations entire army 16,367 men few were stationed east of the Mississippi River and most of them were in the seceding states. Even the armies gentlemen in chief Winfield Scott who loathed president buchanan made his headquarters in new york city. Scott quickly recognized the gravity of the danger to the capital, however, although washington boasts several Militia Companies they were more social clubs than military units in many of the members were sympathetic to confederacy. The National Rifle in particular had quietly been supplied with arms and you tillery like abits commander openly admitted he intended to prevent Union Volunteers from reaching the capital. Government spies also reported a plot informed provisional government. Three companies of light artillery were ordered back on the frontier and another contingent from west point but would take weeks for them to arrive. Where would the crisis and under citizens asking each other representative john mclaren of illinois worried not only will state secede from the union but counties from states and cities and towns from both and this is the work of disintegration and dissolution will go on and on until the whole Frame Society and government will be engulfed in one bottomless boneless chaos ruin. The panic wasnt limited to washington, with Coastal Shipping shrink by half, shipyards and ironworks on ab new york city commercial froze hundreds were collapsed entirely from the self suddenly disintegrated. And most people give up all hope of saving the government to anticipate general bankruptcy revolution, mob law chaos and ruin. President one president you can add remains supine. It in the echoing halls of congress too angry or too ashamed to speak this is what it felt like on the cusp of the war when we think about the civil war most writing frankly is about what happened on the battlefield and politically about Abraham Lincoln its easy to understand more books have been written than any other Single Person its not hard to understand but there is more happening politically and most of what is happening on capitol Hill Politics led to the war the state of the Union War Effort to our revolutionary conclusion but the story that happened is epic of anything that took place between the opposing armies and its also a human story about men very few of whom to save the worst crisis in the countrys history a radical republican from indiana and elbert riddle wrote mr. Lincoln is cabinet in the 37th congress to do anything or everything and to fight the greatest civil war of history it came upon them as the utter surprise in Congress Face the multitude of existential challenges with the war of unimaginable magnitude so could the republicans who were managed to govern with the sanctity of southern property that would bring the estates more quickly to their knees but when the constitution survived the constitutional civil rights in the name of National Security how will the war be paid for . What a break the northern economy . What should americans do about slavery . And those you are willing to tolerate as contained in the south and the democrats had already broken into should africanamericans be recruited to serve in the army when white soldiers fight alongside them assuming that the north triumphed should the Southern States be broken up there was no consensus on any of these and suspicion from the executive in particular with states rights in the north as well as the south deep racism many unionists especially the border states like kentucky maryland and delaware regarded any type of tampering with slavery is basic property rights. Representative critchfield for one approached slavery unionist to declare if you take from us today the right to hold slaves how long will it be before you take from us other Constitutional Rights . And with the majorities of both houses of congress. And the absence open the gates to the era of legislative sexism to change American Society beyond recognition. And then to reinvent the nation Financial System and enact forwardlooking legislation that was lost for decades by southern intransigence. In the course of doing that congress laid the foundation for the strong activist Central Government they came into being. And to permanently alter the relationship with the federal government and to enshrine civil rights as part of the federal government. And with the urgency with astonishing productivity the most effective in American History john sherman a republican from general Tecumseh Sherman to be a monument that are so farreaching and their effects congress to raise hundreds of thousands of troops, more than 1 million to the union when volunteers ran out. And then with a more those generals against the south and that recruitment and then to provide financing with the First National currency and long before lincoln emancipated the slaves Congress Demanded it and enacted incremental during abolitionism from a french belief of public policy. The homestead act so the Pacific Railway act to linking the heartland of california by rail the largest most expensive Infrastructure Project undertaking in the United States at that time. So to lay the groundwork for public and state universities nationwide and also the last three i mentioned are not commonly recognizeds but happily the widespread monitoring of the dissidents created a precedent of private communications and unpatriotic political activity that has become a feature of presentday life. Not least, congress began a racial and economic revolution to overthrow the economy and transform 4 million slaves into property into soldiers and free men and women cultivating culminating in the 13th amendment as Frederick Douglass said the angel of liberty has one year of the nation and the demon of slavery for the other they both shouted into the ears of congress. In this book, i treat congressional politics as an art with the endless seeking of compromise and the transmutation of ideas into policy but generally to keep the story within historical present that i want you to feel the anxiety uncertainty and the fear and despair as well as the patriotic fervor and sometimes irrational confidence that would characterize when nobody knew what the outcome would be the Union Victory was never ordained in 1864. This isnt the book of politics in the abstract i would like to say to the men and women who practice it and to capture their sound of their voices and their passion that still stir our concern and emotions. Most members were personal politicians and lawyers and farmers and journalist and opinionated and brilliantly eloquent and combative the house of representatives later wrote there is no place to save your reputation previously acquired no place was so little consideration with the failure of beginners. What he gains here but sheer force of his own character and if he loses and falls back to expect no mercy and manners were only notionally better in the senate. And when you read the debates that members that were writing about their fellow members. Three of them were republicans of these outspoken radicals representative Thaddeus Stevens of pennsylvania as well as the master a parliamentary strategy and the de facto majority leader in the house then wade of ohio was a driving force in the senate against the confederacy joining the joint committee on the conduct of the war that oversaw the Union War Effort but the main the conservative from maine was more than any other man responsible for the legislation to enable the north to win the case of war. Im not sure how the time will work out but i want to give you a snapshot of these three guys. I love them. I love writing about these men. And i think one or two lines so first i will read about then wade chairman of joint committee on the conduct of the war northeastern ohio and then has remained restrained until now with the debate the whole angular man with high cheekbones and a sharp eye with bulldog obduracy. In which the merciless i of a gladiator. His style of speech was offhand and profane. And with his iron gray hair his voice rose to a war on to a roar he which of of the coat sleeves yank off the collar and hold his arms high as he brought his arms down. The egalitarian was uncompromising no black or white or created by one god all entitled to the same privileges. That is ben wade. Talks about Thaddeus Stevens and as chairman respectively of the Senate Finance committee through the house ways and Means Committee the responsibility for creating Financial Security commensurate with the governments need fell to stevens both men understood better than the secretary of the treasury that is strong and trusting relationship between the treasury and money men was imperative with the combined energies they had much in common they were skillful tacticians and warriors by training singleminded in the Union Straight from the same new england soil. He made his career in pennsylvania born in vermont. Both could be harsh calling sometimes referred to stevens chairman to the committee of means and ways. [laughter] while the other had no tolerance for borders. This was reserved to the point of ics although not gregarious was the most flamboyant man in the house and was better with a sarcastic blasting wit. But stevens was notorious is one of the leading abolitionist and counted himself as a pragmatist but yet could be unexpectedly touched and brought with a small in slave child who played on the carpet and chattered for an hou hours essendon wrote afterwards to his friend the talk by one of the fellow creatures the fresh malediction that hold such the atrocity these are the men driving the war effort. The fourth figure to whom i have great length in the book is ohio representative the northern democrat with southern sympathies and as the physician has also used coming close to treason and although the racial beliefs in particular are repugnant, very repugnant to present day values nonetheless one of the most provocative dissenters in American History selfdescribed martyr to the determination to threaten the war effort. And they would have surrendered by the way. He was a man of private honor and public values. So far i havent mentioned Abraham Lincoln. Where is lincoln . Largely off stage presence and abundance of excellent books of his presidency and many many others. But by most historians in a more skillful political manner with a contemporaries but in 1861 he was no more prepared for war that were most americans and considerably less so than some numbers or many members of Congress Actually and for much of the war tyranny was a work in progress. Although he governed more than any other predecessor he depended on the republicans in congress who often read him more often and followed him and vigorously insisted the power to shift resided on capitol hill are not in the white house. So toward the conclusion, i have a strong suspicion that one or several of you may wonder does this book have anything to say about Todays Congress or politics . Just a wild guess. [laughter] the answer is yes and no. This is a book of history and the civil war, the time span is primarily 1861 through 65. Is not about the present day United States although it often says history is about the time in which it is written. I do think truth, i have written this elsewhere it is distorted by our desire to relive the past based on present concern by changing moral values and to figure out what they meant even when we hear the little words. So we have to be very cautious about trying to draw conclusions to the present from the past but that said, nonetheless after all they may have something to tell us how the government consumption at its best in challenging times has opportunities to make it stronger which it did. The arguments made by men of the wartime Congress Many were issues that they wrestled with with the racial divide or civil rights freedom of speech is in wartime and the presidency and war powers. All of this bluntly and most profoundly that is completely absent from politics today. Men were trained to commit to persuade it was a spoken art when using the word oratory it is not windbag re. And persuasive what they had to say but the book is also tacitly with Representative Government with that strange and disturbing moment we are living in the authoritarian style not just here but elsewhere. And according to some polls less than 10 percent of americans profess confidence in congress and one third say they dont think its important to live in a democracy. The disdain for congress flourishes the presidency has always been the main engine of government to deliberately circumscribed by the constitution 19th century americans including those of the civil war by contrast believe the real seat of power lay in congress not in the white house. During the civil war democrats in congress repeatedly attacked Abraham Lincoln to investigate generals because as beleaguered as he felt lincoln never claimed congress would challenge his actions declined to answer the legislative request for information. To recognize congress as the primary repository and never intended from authority. So to us congress may see quarrelsome and inefficient but if you think about it with a cadre of 325 representatives and understood as others did and with those heroic patients in republican politics is always messy the founders knew it and with that frustrating turbulence into government. And that incessant i word not the quiet in the republic especially except under a tyranny so i have brought it in on time. Thank you. [applause] we have more time for questions. There were 3100 slaves in washington dc so how did you determine that fact . It is public record. They were taxed. Emancipation came in 62. How long were you immersed in your research for this book . This particular book about two years. That builds on the things i have written as well. Some of these issues ive been thinking about these for years actually and i pillage the congressional globe which is the forerunner of the congressional record and its all mine everything is online. And i got into reading debates and i realized how little the debates had been exploited. So a lot of rich material comes in here. You do most of your Research Online . No. The congressional globe is online which is a great resource and hundreds of thousands of pages and its pretty brutal to read an eightpoint type than to sit in the Library Reading this and then to do some research and as a great selection wonderful stuff. And Thaddeus Stevens through lancaster pennsylvania to the Historical Society just flung their doors open i spent days and days and various other places. It was interesting you seem to imply that it was the war that cleaned out the congress that allowed for her that decisionmaking would it have happened without that . But the southerners left on one hand. And Andrew Johnson he was the only one that remained thats a large part what he was picked so they were union us. So the first and only time in American History congress was dominated to be deeply influenced and later dominated from new englanders. And those elsewhere were actually from new england and fertilized by the intensely small d democratic atmosphere of new england. The heartland of abolitionism. So the balance of congress was extremely different than it had been before with the homestead act or the Transcontinental Railroad i will not digress but for years and years. But very few expected the war to what it became. Almost no one. There were a few. So the fact that it metastasized this for yearlong at least 750,850,000 lives every Single Family was taught on touched far beyond any other in history and that determination of the republicans in congress to stay in and fight it is politically heroic so raising the money and those that had to be borrowed to fight every inch of the way and then i dont tend to glaze over but with the subject of finance it doesnt have natural narrative figure but it was very intense i have rambled a little bit and my answer to you. [laughter] how close were the key votes on these issues . You think something has passed or not if it was passed by one vote door overwhelmingly . As you can assume thousands of votes. And very different bills proposed by different members both in the house and in the senate. They may be voted on separately and little by little those dealmakers began to set the pieces together what can be passed and what cant. There would be a multitude of votes. So a lot of stuff got canned with one vote. On really important issues it took a long time to pass the 13h amendment it was very very close. They took very few liberties historically. But it really does show you how hard members, it emphasizes lincoln. He was not the only one working on this. It was very hard to approach those last few votes and it took a long time before congress could sustain habeas corpus. Big battle. And on Civil Liberties and rights. It was defeated several times before it passed. And that the majorities could be crafted. And varied a lot. By and large the republican majority was so large it got what it wanted thats the bottom line. And in no small part it was one of the very few points in history and with the huge new deal majorities and with the republican majorities and with the National Legislatures had big majorities. So. [inaudible] you can get this 10000. [laughter] that is a brilliant question. Yes. Yes it was a dire issue. And to write out the constitution . It is a complicated question what exactly will we call a quorum . If we call it this we cannot get it if we call this we can get it but this is not kosher. So in short its a very interesting debate and very compact in the book the finite amount of patience essentially the house can change its rules the senates rules have been much more rigid and essentially they agree not to discuss it. Very pragmatic and they could change the rules three years into the war to operate without a quorum. And do they get reelected . States elections had those rendered very differently and to talk about massachusetts and talk about Lower Manhattan and the irish neighborhood there is much more mobility than there is today that the election of senators and in those days senators were selected by legislators and there were exceptions so the turnover was quite substantial so the longestserving senator in the war had six terms i believe two or three terms is not typical but it happens. In the house thats very common for Party Leaders to dump someone who has lost confidence or not representing their district and that lincoln did a terrible job to select the generals to go far longer than it should have. Pull sides believe there would be no war or short war to believe that either side is bluffing there were some exceptions. And that is why i read you that opening description a moment of trauma people cant believe this is happening nobody knew where it would go and they were convinced to some of Jefferson Davis to be dressed in a womans garments and then hightailing it to georgia and was delusional it was touch and go the number of times with the most violent Antiwar Movement in the war on in the war and shooting offices and officers and murdering recruiters. And indiana and ohio in particular to fight off federal troops in the north. And so imagine the anxiety. Very similar in the south. But with my young experience by a large but regardless of my opinion of current things happening in washington with their behavior with one issue or another that these are those that we differ from. That those are pretty similar from the First Congress that we wrote a book about. Very interesting and very similar and the challenges of course how they cope during the civil war era and that were susceptible to demagogy. With the radicals in congress with a sympathetic to lincolns idea . Or did they think . The radicals pushed very hard on that. That was hotly debated. Hotly debated. Include Thaddeus Stevens whom i admired but wade was disgusted and in fact i want you to feel about contemporaries. And that was intense and really intense has a hopeless weakling it was very common and shocking 150 years later. With the most towering president of all. So the radicals many wanted someone else and there were attempts in 1864 but it was touch and go. And with the lbj to make things happen who stands out in your mind . Thaddeus stevens absolutely in the house. Remarkable parliamentarian. And then to be eminently quotable but to be regarded as the best lawyer and the chairman of the ways and Means Committee and was responsible for anything that involved money and even though he was are radical no one is more radical than stevens and then to create the majorities and weighed i artie talked about the joint committee. To hold 260 generals and officers to be interviewed and they pushed very hard and sometimes successfully to get rid of the deadwood in the officer corps. And the blood of many many men are on him. And Zachariah Chandler another figure of veteran of the underground railroad and james ashley was too ill he would have and a very dramatic looking guy and looks like beethoven. [laughter] and young and masterful parliamentarian as well. The Charles Sumner maybe the biggest Single Member of the wartime congress with the gray antislave larry or raider lawn orator with gray hair everybody love to hear them on the stop but nobody paid attention to him on capitol hill. But there were some eastern tennessee and to have deeply racist. And there might have been one from louisiana which did have a unionist element. I wouldnt swear to that. There was the virginian. It is a handful they were allowed to remain but the union armies marched to the enclave to reestablish governments to the union and there is a lot of controversy if they had any business or not. Very controversial. One more question. You started the talk giving a picture so can you describe that a little more . It was washington dc with the blacks doing the cleaning and the boots it just seems alexandria down the road reoccurred by slavery they are beautiful pictures but i cannot put it together. For ginny is a slave state. And then what to do where it is legal in areas that are loyal to the union. Northern virginia was occupied. And there was quiet problem because as soon as they saw the blue uniforms they were off. For 500,000 or 700,000 and to the human army. But historically washington dc had allowed slavery from the beginning. And then we have to bring this to a conclusion. And then to steadily decline and in 1862 the federal government enacted policy and then to end slavery and it existed there was such a policy and to purchase the freedom with appropriate money from the federal government it was proposed nonstarter. They like slavery they believe in slavery they were rooted in slavery. Read what they said about it. But in washington such a policy was enacted for 3100 people the maximum payment was 300 apiece. Fairly modest and that slavery was still committed 62. We are done. [applause] this is a great book. And with that complimentary gift wrapping. And thank you all for coming tonight. [inaudible conversations]