Programs dale gregory really is a delight to welcome you to our Robert H Smith auditorium read the next program, the second founding of the civil war and reconstruction relayed the constitution is a part of our bernard and Eileen Schwartz s english speaker series, the height of our Public Programs and as always wed like to thank mister swartz for all the support which has enabledus to produce such a wide array of wonderful programs the white we give him a hand . And of course our board of trustees who has been active and helpful in bringing this institution to the level it is today. We have a trustee who is with us in the audience and all of our Chairmans Council members are with us for their great work and support. The next program is going to last one hour and include a question and answer session read the q a conducted questions and notecards and you should have received something from one of our volunteers had no notecards and pencils and i will be going through as soon as im done ill go through and i will collect oncards as well and i will handout to anyone who did not receive one on the way in. Also, tonight after the onstage talk, the speakers will be signing books for us in our ny history store on our 17 seven side of the building and available for purchase, we hope you will thjoin us for that so tonight we are thrilled to welcome back to our state eric foreigner, he is Professor Emeritus of his three Party University and has served as president of three major historical associations. The organization of american historians, American Historical Association and the society of american historians and hes the author of numerous books on the history of Race Relations in america and as that awarded the pulitzer prize, and cross price and in 2015 the American History book prize right here at New York Historical for his book way to freedom his newest book which was released a couple weeks ago is the second founding of the civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution. And our moderator this evening, its a great pleasure to welcome back minnie sisson bob, American History chair at the university of connecticut and militant blessing or fellow at the radcliffe institute. Shes the author of numerous books on slavery and the Abolitionist Movement and bring her most recent the slaves cause the history of abolition for the National Book award for nonfiction and winner of the Frederick Douglass prize. She has also written for numerous publications including the New York Times, huffington post, boston globe and washington post. Before we begin as always id like to say if you can silence any cell phones you might have, anything that makes a noise and i also realize i forgot to mention the name of our trustees, so thank you to our trustees are all the work that they dofor us. And now please join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] thank you alex for that very nice introduction. And id like to welcome all of you to our public program. On the second founding, how tthe civil war and reconstruction remade the constitution. And so of course eric holder is a preeminent american historian and youve already heard all the accolades he has one but i thought i would also introduce him today with a contemporary description of the radical republic congressman, patty s stevens of pennsylvania during reconstruction and i just gave came across it, the instruction is very appropriate. And the observer said quote, at over 70 years of age he was not attended with any perceptible abatement of the intellectual cassidy or fire of youth. So i heard it was an appropriate introduction this is in fact a historical quote and can be verified. So let me begin with a question that i think most authors get rid you eric have written already what is commonly called the bible of reconstruction this is one reconstruction. So what motivated you to write this book on the reconstruction constitutional amendment . Before answering that i just should say im happy to be here back at the Historical Society and particularly to have her as the interrogator today area she didnt quite mention it but i supervised her doctoral dissertation at columbia a few years ago now and she did get her phd there. And this is her chance to get back at me because i was on her orals exam so now she has a chance to ask me questions. Why did i write this book . Youre right, of course ive written a lot about reconstruction. Im not a lost dollar , im not a legal historian, im not a lawyer althoughsome of my best friends are. I often write books because i get slightly annoyed about the way scholarship is developing. Without going into earlier books, and in this case over the years i became convinced d a of our Supreme Courts doesnt fully understand the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and has even in our own time in the late 19th century, they really a serrated them but even in our own time they have not used these amendments in the way they were intended, to really try to combat Racial Injustice in this society so why not just tell the Supreme Court they are all wrong and maybe one or two will listen . But in that way its sort of revisionist but also there is a debate among historians about it which i felt was going in a somewhat uninteresting direction about well, where these Court Decisions based on racism, on federalism, on both and theres a certain narrowness. Without denigrating legal scholarship at all its important but theres a narrative of vision where the evidence is always either speeches in congress for maybe editorials in the new york tribune, Court Decisions but be vast debate in reconstruction about rights, citizenship. I hope elizabeth in the book saying that was a moment in her memoirs when all these issues were debated upanddown society in the pulpits, every fireside. Every fireside. Youve got to bring ordinary americans into this debate, particularly africanamericans as voice is almost never heard in the Supreme Courts of rulings or in a lot of the literature so i felt it was sort of a gap out there that i would try to fill, i guess. In the book you talk about the reconstruction amendments as the Lasting Legacy of reconstruction. But we dont course reconstruction was that period after the war when an attempt was made to establish an interracial democracy in this country and it was overthrown with a combination of racial terror, legal and political apathy inand reactio. And so i was just wondering how you saw this concept that this was the Lasting Legacy when that period itself proved to be relatively shortlived . We often say with certainly a good argument can be madereconstruction failed. But theres perfectly good evidence to say that but if we start with that premise and then work backwards, then what happens is historians work backwards. Why did it fail to what was the problem, maybe they messed up on this thing but we dont actually see that it didnt all fail and the fact that these amendments were added to the constitution and remained in the constitution until today, theyre still there even though president from as indicated like to get at least the first sentence of the 14th amendment area is a sign that that impulse towards an interracial democracy didnt totally fail and many other things. Obviously reconstruction is about many things other than constitutional issues although most of those things discuss in constitutional terms at one point or another. But many other things, the establishment of black educational institutions read they survived, they didnt all fail. We still have black colleges today which were founded in reconstruction read the black Church Becomes a Major Institution in reconstruction at the center of those communities. And it has wep the voice said in black reconstruction, the very idea of racial democracy survives even though the implementation of it didnt to inspire subsequent struggles. Thats why the Civil Rights Era was sometimes called the second reconstruction because the issues on the agenda right after the civil war came back but i think the constitutional amendments are important, even though they were nullified in many ways around the turnofthecentury. The fact that they were there and usable was really determine the legal strategy of the civil rights revolution. I agree, i guess i always like to say reconstruction was overthrown because there was a real attempting to overthrow it ofcourse. So you also visualize this period as the second founding, thats the title of the book. That has to do with these constitutionalamendments. As a way in which black citizenship is actually a capstone of this new founding moment. And im going to just go back and look at those three specific amendments. You discussed in the book of course. And i was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about something that has garnered a lot of attention recently and that is the criminal exception in the 13th amendment. Can you tell us a little bit about how this exception became part of the amendments . And its tragic if unforeseen consequences. Let me just take out my constitution here and 13th amendment. Just what is she talking about . Neither slavery nor servitude except as a punishment for crime shall exist in the United States. Involuntary servitude can continue for people convicted of a crime, where did that come from . I wondered about that. The first thing is theres a lot of literature on the 13th amendment and nobody has written about this. Theres books on the 13th amendment that dont even mention it but thats not surprising. It wasnt mentioned in congress. The press debate about the 13th amendment said virtually nothing about the dangers involved in allowing servitude for those who were being convicted of a crime read so where did it come from western mark the language as was widely declared came from the northwest ordinance written by Thomas Jefferson and it had migrated there from jeffersons Land Ordinance of 1784 which wasnt an active would have barred slavery in all us territories at that time so where did jefferson, why does jefferson put it in their . I called up a couple of my good friends who were jefferson scholars, peter who went to graduate school with me and alan taylor and i said why did jefferson put that in and they both gave the same answer read i havent the slightest idea. And we dont actually know but the real point is it had become boilerplate language. The thing people have never mentioned is every Northern State that barred slavery included that phrase. So it was familiar language that will not proviso banning slavery in territories acquired from mexico and the mexican war included that criminal exemption. This has become kind of again, got a lot of attention because there was this documentary 13 a few years ago red had a slightly conspiratorial edge that this was put in there in order to anticipate mass incarceration. No, there were hardly any prisoners back then read there were hardly any prisoners read this was not supposed to be the basis of the giant system that it did create this unfortunate loophole which later after the end of reconstruction, Southern State created this giant coptic labor system as you know where people, mostly black, not all but mostly were convicted of stealing a chicken and they are sentenced to eight years in the penitentiary and then they are leased out to work on a plantation or a r railroad or a mine and it became a horrifying system. One of the books about this is called worse than slavery because the conditions were so horrible and the courts always said this is allowable because the 13th amendment allows that criminal exemption so one of the points where we are thinking about is a lot of people talk about original meaning, original intent. A conservative view of how to interpret the constitution w but here you have an unintended consequence tiread nobody anticipated what would happen and has undermined some of the purposes of the 13th amendment area. One of the reading portions and valuable contributions of this book to look at this exception as something that wascustomary, no one thought about. There was no conspiracy to undermine freedom but that Southern States and southern politicians on that new poll and they thought it important to get that history right because we live in a time where conspiracy theories are right and so its probably good cyto have our facts straight. So you of course argue in this book and have argued earlier to that the 14th amendment is themost consequential. Reconstruction amendment and i would like you to talkmore about that. Especially given the fact as you mentioned earlier from and some others want to revoke its provision of national birthright. At one point i want to make to start with is that professor sinha here, i quote you where she says abolitionists hitched their star or whatever to black citizenship. That was a crucial question coming out of the civil war. Slaves of course were not citizens, what about free africanamericans . White people born in the country were deemed to be citizens before the civil war. There was little question about that t. What their rights as citizens were was unclear but what about free africanamericans and it was very murky. Some states like massachusetts recognize africanamericans as citizens of the state. Many states did not. The federal government usually didnt, sometimes it did but then the dred scott decision in 1857 that citizenship is for white people, no black person can be a citizen of the United States. Tiit was the law of the land when the civil war took place but with the freeing of 4 million slaves, the service of black soldiers in the civil war that question is on the agenda and the first sentence of the 14th amendment says yes, anybody born in the United States is a citizen. With no racial qualification whatsoever. In fact no qualification. Any religion, any race, any background and relevant today has nothing to do with the status of your parents. Because the debate today, and undocumented immigrants woman who gives birth to a child in the United States, what is the status of that child . Its clear, there born in the United States, they are a citizen. The fact that their mother th they have committed a crime of some kind is irrelevant read the mother can make a bank robber, that would mean a child cant be a citizen but the 14th amendment goes beyond that. First of all its the longest minute ever added to the constitution. Its got all source of convoluted provisions and some of them of no particular relevance today like the confederate debt cant be paid they put in, we talk about reparations today read they put in the 14th amendment theres never going to be any payment to the owners because they were demanding reparations or the loss of their property but no, no one is going to get paid for the loss of their property in slaves. In other provisions you know about but the first section is the key of course which first creates this birthright citizenship and then says that states cannot deny, cannot deprive any citizen of the privileges or immunities of citizens whatever those are. It doesnt tell you and then at no person, thats more than a citizen. At anybody, not just citizens, noncitizens have to be accorded the equal protection of the law. At isa bit of the 14th amendment , equal protection and the notion of equality is so deeply ingrained in the United States, at least in our ideology that we may not realize there was no such thing before the civil war. There were no laws establishing quality among different kinds ofcitizens. The common law was based on inequality, employer employee, malefemale, all inequality to read the word people is not in the original constitution except for talking about what happens if two candidates get an equal number of electoral votes tso this notion of equal protection, its not racial. This applies to everybody and the fact that the language is nonracial as allowed in the 20th century expansion of equality to all sorts of groups, most recently famously gay marriage. At 14th amendment decision, equal protection. That straight people have a legal right to marry ocean day people. Obviously that wasnt on the mind of the people who wrote the 14th amendment but its a logical use of the 14th amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburg used it to attack laws discriminating on the basis of gender. Equal Protection Area so thats why i call it the second founding because you have a new constitution after these three amendments. It not and in a way i say that because one of the reasons i wrote this book is that even though those amendments are so important, most people dont know much about them. If you ask a man or woman in the street what are the key documents of American History , theyll say the bill of rights or the emancipation proclamation. Theyre not going to mention the 13th, 14th or 15th amendment and the people who wrote them, john bingham is hardly a household name. And in his hometown in ohio there is no statute of john bingham or any recognition and yet he was more responsible than almost anyone or rewriting the constitution of the United States. And hes the one who gave the first 10 amendments, the bill of rights. You should know this guy. And youre right, in a way h, i think this new legacy of the 14th amendment and the ways in which its been used in expand rights for a lot of people has really vindicated the version that this was a Sleeping Giant in the constitution. The irony is at least i argue is that it has an honestly expanded the rights of every american and yetlywhen it comes to race ,racial equality , really in methe last two generations since nixon began filling the Supreme Courts conservatives and adopting his southernstrategy , the court has whittled away at the use of the 14th amendment. Theyre more attuned to what they call reverse discrimination. A possible, what people somehow losing something in africanamericans are given protection. And so theres this vast expansion narrowing at the same time and it comes to what was really on the mind of the people who were debating this in congress in 1866. I guess to follow up a little bit of that, there is a villain in this history of the reconstruction. Its the Supreme Courts. You talked about and there are a lot ofvillains in the reconstruction story. Johnson, being impeached by one vote. But can you talk a little bit more about the Supreme Courts rule in whipping down and eviscerating the reconstruction amendments . Another thing i wanted to do with this book was to comment away alludes to the present because all these issues, citizenship and the right to vote, terrorism, these are issuesof our moment, theyre not just 150 years old. So im alluding to the present, stim not writing a commentary on today but one of the things i want people to think about, what happens to your rights whenyou have a conservative Supreme Courts . What can happen to them and what happened to the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments aystarting in reconstruction with the slaughterhouse decision and going all the way to the early 20th century as a warning that rights in theconstitution are not self enforcing. And that if you have a hostile Supreme Court, they can do tremendous damage to the expansion of liberty. Why did the Supreme Court do that . I would say among historians the most common explanation is the simple explanation that public opinion, the Supreme Court followed public opinion. Public opinion in the north was shifting away from the egalitarianism of reconstruction , etc. But one of the things that surprised me is i dont think thats true. Many of these decisions were vigorously denounced by Republican Leaders , by the republican press. We historians have an unfortunate tendency that we like to cite people who are like us. Educated and articulate, you know what i mean . So you get quotes from the chicago tribune, the socalled liberal republicans who wash their hands of reconstruction and they didnt like any of these measures. They thought the court was doing the right thing but if you go to mainstream Republican Newspapers which may not have been attended by college educatedpeople they were all aghast at some of these decisions. F the most radical of them died early in reconstruction and John Marshall harlan the only one who ever owned a slave becomes the great dissenter on these things but most of them are just you know, these are not issues of great importance to them fundamentally. They are much more interested in the rights of corporations which they started using the 14th amendment to defend the much more interested in maintaining the balance between the states and the federal government and the federal system so, you know i think they are going down the wrong path but another point i think i make that is very important as there were other jurisprudence being proposed at that very time and its not like the Supreme Court chose the only available path. There were otheros people puttig forth, black and white, very strong critiques of Supreme Court jurisprudence which was not listened to but that or those ideas are still out there and if we get a better Supreme Court one of these days what i would like to see them do if any of the justices [laughter] what i would like to see them do is, you know, have the gumption to say weve been pretty much wrong for the last 75 years. Lets start again. They dont tend to do that but that would be intellectually honest. Theres this whole question of legal precedent and jurisprudence and people that are strictly adhered to and this reform parameters of what they adhere to president until they dont like precedent and then they dont adhere to it. As many of the Supreme Courts decisions lately have had nothing to do with president s. Holder versus Shelby County where they eviscerated the Voting Rights act of 1965 that threw over all sorts of precedents but so, you know, i dont believe when they said we have to go with president bird they dont like the precedent face find other ways to get around it. Living up to the historic role in creating these laws whats interesting and you mention this is how they use the due process clause which is designed to protect the rights of free people to protect railroad corporations and government regulations c so yea, go ahead. Roscoe, one of our new york major new york politicians and u. S. Senator and he was on the joint committee on reconstruction we drafted the 14th a moment and a railroad case in the 1880s, this had to do with whether the counties have a right to tax railroads and they said no, no, we are the corporate person and we have the same rights under due process et cetera in the 14th amendment protects us but roscoe said to the court, look, ive got the journal of the joint committee right here and i was on that committee and if you read this journal you will see that corporations were intended to be protected by the 14th a moment and the justices said thats pretty good evidence and well, roscoe dies and he dies because he fell into a snowdrift in the blizzard of 88. [laughter] he did but later on the journal was published by kendrick in 1914 and theres not a word about corporations in it, not a single word. We have seen political leaders make things up all the time and this is the Great American tradition. [laughter]th i guess this is the way we get corporations of people. And yeah, of course, the notion of corporate person obviously h has a long history n law but the constitutional lays asian of that which has built even more lately with the Citizens United now have freedom of speech and the idea that corporations have the same basic Civil Liberties as normal human beings is certainly not what was intended by the people who put the 14th a moment together. No, certainly not. Another thing about the 14th a moment which is interesting is that it introduces the world mail into the u. S. Constitution and of course, the 15th of moment and franchises [inaudible] and this leads to the Womens Movement which some abolitionists, feminists supporting the 14th of 15th amendment and others in Katie Stanton opposed it. You have this moment of progressive constitutionalism where rights expand and sometimes they are constructed for others and i was wondering whether that would make you reevaluate this constitutional moment. Yeah, well, it is very important that the rights of women were given no considerations in the 13th amendment liberated slave women as well as slave men and i had no gender distinction but yes, in the 14th amendment section twoti you have the word male wih a gender distinction put into the constitution for the first time. The original constitution does not say freedom of speech is only men or anything like that but that is in this convoluted clause about a compromise about what happens in the Southern States dont give black men the right to vote. Its, gated but the basis or bottom line is if they dont they will lose some of their congressman as a result. In other words, mississippi lets say 50 black, 50 white if they did not give the black men the vote to bruise vote they would lose 50 of their representative in congress but if they deny any group of men or male citizens the right to vote, in other words, they can deny women the right to vote with no political penalty. The fact is no state allowed women to vote at that moment but still, the stanton and anthony were outraged at putting that because that seemed to put in the constitution the notion of the political inferiority of women and then the 15th amendment, as you say, lead to even more vitriolic debates splitting the movement. Some of them said the 15th of moment is a step forward and black menwa are now getting the right to vote and out we got to fight for an amendment to giving women the right to vote but others refused to support it on the grounds that it was creating another barrier in the 15th amendment says i no citizen of that United States can be denied the right to vote because of race. It does not say anything about women or men because of race. Africanamerican people can no longer be denied the right to vote but other limitations are not barred including, of course, sex. States continue to deny women the right to vote as they did without any penalty or without the 15th of moment having any applications to that. Now, that language, you know, they did debate this strongly in the general consensus of her publicans was we will never get a woman suffrage amendment hitified and we have this opening to give black men the right to vote but if we add lets say sex, you cannot deny person the right to vote because of race or sex, the moment will never be passed. Probably that was true but on the other hand the radicals brand name was standing up for principal soob even Wendell Phillips, youas know this wrotea letter to members of congress saying for the first time in my life i urge you to be politicians, not idealists but if Wendell Phillips is not an idealist what is his job . This is what he was thats his entire life. Suddenly im no longer an idealist but im going for what is practical well, they would never have gotten anything accomplished that had been their attitude. You know, its conjugated thing. The best epitaph on this was by lucy stone at one of these where she said both are right, both are right. [laughter] and unfortunately, that does not gives an answer to what ought to be done. The other thought you mentioned earlier about restricting representation in congress if you deny the right to male citizens that was never triggered. Never enforced. In my book theres little cartoon which shows early 20th century which Shows Congress asleep and second because they are ande why is congress not one African American men did lose the right to vote in the south and Southern State should have lost a lot of their congressional, by the way, thats supposed to be automatic but it didnt happen. In fact, today as you know there are Voter Suppression laws and and i believe that texas should lose a member of congress because of the second section i will start a movement to bribe texas of one of their congressman because they had these Voter Suppression laws which have limited the number of people voting and if you get up to they have a lot of congressman, 30 or something so all you need to do is get up to 3 denied the right to vote and they should lose one of their 30 congressman. Y lets get bernie on the case here. Absolutely. We wish him a speedy recovery. A lot r of centers in texas they are called centers and they believe the tenth amendment and they believe in the right of the state to secede from the movement. Maybe we should call it the [inaudible]. If you denied the right to vote to someone you should suffer [inaudible] it should be enforced. Absolutely. There are a lot of regular historians and some of whom are also law professors, dare i say, who argue that reconstruction would have succeeded only through prolonged military occupation and through martial law in the south. This argument i think goes against the argument that you are making about evaluating this expansion in rights and in the constitution. What you make of it . Is not 100 different from what i argue. Im arguing that these rights have to be enforced by somebody now all three of those amendments say Congress Shall have the power they do not expect the suffering court to do a lot with these moments and thought it was congress job and they did pass those enforcement acts and the ku klux klan act of 1831, they passed a civil rights act, switch the court again striking down so but yes, there needed to be enforcement and as this wave of terrorism ku klux klan and similar groups sweeps over the south, at first, you know, president grant did send troops to South Carolina to clash the clampett could do that if youre willing to use harsh measures. As time goes on that becomes less politically viable it seems so im not interested in, imaginary scenarios, yeah, lets imagine by the way, thats George Julian said with the reconstruction said reduce them to military rule for like 30 years and then we can remake the society and they were not ready for 30 years of military r occupation of the south. But you know, a scenario of what wouldve happened if more troops were sent or i dont know, it is certainly the way the court operated in the way the fact that the Democratic Party comes back and becomes a powerful nationally means federal enforcement becomes harder and harder and once the democrats win control of the house of representatives in 1874 you have a time of 25 years, almost up to 1896, where no Party Controls both the presidency and the two houses of congress at the same time, except for a very brief period of time. Its like today, divided government and import impossible to get anything accomplished with one could say yeah, there shouldve been more enforcement and i agree but another way the non legalists say there shouldve been land distribution and that is what stevens said big take away the land of the planter class and distribute it in 40acre plots to the former slaves and then you will begin to create the Economic Foundation for these rights. Theres a lot of whatifs but we are having trouble figuring out exactly what did happen to try to work out a scenario. Yes, that is one of those known what the people argue about the maybe we shouldnt be talking about and talk about what is actually happening. And youre really longer productive academic career, the one thing ive noticed is you have always unearthed some new piece of evidence and its never just the same story and you have discovered this fascinating organization of black lawyers in baltimore, the brotherhood of liberty, is a book they published in 1889 justice and jurisprudence. Tell us about how you found this book and why you chose to end your book with a discussion from this group and [inaudible] yes, well, i found that or i heard in the way that you and i and others do research and was reading, someone published, a professor at howard years ago published an article about it and i happened to stumble upon it. I dont claim great insight into finding it but i got fascinated and then i tried to find the book in the book is in the Columbia Law Library and the paperback addiction of it reprint of it was put out 20 years ago but why am i interested in it . There is an argument that people like me who say the Supreme Court should be thinking about these amendments in other ways and we are imposing modern views on the past. Th we are taking our its the same thing they say about should jefferson have freed slaves. You cant take modern views of put it back there even though there are people who did breed their slaves when jefferson was around. It wasnt such an unusual idea but their view of the 14th and 15th amendment and the 13th as barring discrimination in the labor market, barring an opening up all kinds of public accommodations to africanamericans that the rights of citizens are really expansive and robust and should be enforced that is 1880s and that is not today. When i i state that is the way e Supreme Court ought to be thinking i am drawing on what people at the time were sane, not just throwing my current views backer 100 some odd yearso say how come they werent thinking like i am today . No, there were people there with what i think much better understanding of the views of the moments that the Supreme Court had. It just happens that they did not have power but the question of interpretation is fundamentally one of power. Who has the power to determine what that language means and unfortunately people like the brother of liberty put forward there are long books, 600 page critique but they did not have the power to see it enforced but it is still out there and it can llbe rediscovered and maybe onef these days it will be. So, i think my time here is up it seems. We do have a number of questions and posed by our audience. The first one is quite interesting. For better or for worse do you foresee a third founding . [laughter] the reverend William Barber who is fighting a very good battle in North Carolina against a completely retrograde State Government there am except for the governor now, but in generay published a book called the third reconstruction, not third founding exactly but we need a third reconstruction and the first one was after the civil war, second one was a Civil Rights Era and a third one but more focused on economic and inequality than constitutional rights. What is interesting is the civil rights revolution did not need or require or implement any significant change in the constitution. Unlike in south africa when apartheid ended they had to write a whole new constitution and they had an apartheid constitution and chucked it out. We did not check out our constitution. It was there and we finally got it enforced to some degree. As a result of many people in the streets demanding that. Do we need a new rebounding of the constitution or do we need a more vigorous robust understanding of what is latent in the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment . S which people like the brotherhood of liberty or John Marshall harlan put forward back then and whether you might call that a third founding if we completely reinterpret what these mean but i think we should do more with what weve got the new founding. Absolutely. At the very least it force a fourth reconstruction of the moment is about time. Heres another interesting question. You have written multiple books and devoted your career to the study of reconstruction. How has your understanding and analysis of reconstruction changed or evolved over your distinguished career from c the first to the present work . Well, sadly, even after i published my book in 1988 or something scholars found new things about reconstruction but no book of history is the final word. We know that. The fate of all historians is to be superseded eventually. Sright . So, i think that what interests me and the work of younger scholars such as professors and i and many others is the way in which the cast of characters of reconstruction has expanded and the women and the gender and what was the impact of the end of slavery on women, white and black, north and south and i did not do much of that admittedly in my book in the literature on that was pretty thin when i was writing that and that was burgeoning. Not to mention but shes writing a book called the greater reconstruction or atat least thats the theme and i dont know if that is a title but heople have expanded the parameters of reconstruction and include the west and native americans and what was happening in chinese and the whole if you are thinking of an interracial democracy and the fate of the former slave is crucial but there are many groups whose citizenship status is being bdebated at the same time. Thats a fruitful addition and some people are expanding reconstruction and time forward and did not really end in 1877 . Thats what my book ends but some people say i should go to 1890 or 1900 or some other date but because these issues did not go away and history never just ends in one moment but so theres been a lot of new work which i think is good. I would say im patting myself on the back too much but i think my book is not the last word but still the latest word for those who want a narrative history of the whole time. People have pieced togetherop nw elements new insights but have not merge them into a coherent new vision of what happened altogether in reconstruction so somebody will do that soon, i am sure, but the overall conceptualization basically i think still holds even though theres been a lot of work on specific elements of reconstruction. I dont think there is an alternative synthesis to that book. Heres another interesting question. Given the economic disparities next between northern and Southern States is it fair to say that reconstruction never really ended . I do say reconstruction never really ended e somewhere in my book and that the issues of reconstruction are still society,our citizenship, Voting Rights, things like that. Im not sure if your question writers talk about economic disparities today or just generally historically but certainly sadly if you look at, its correct, if you look at the industries of social and economic progress, whether it is healthcare or education levels or Life Expectancy the former slave states are still at the bottom of the list. That is true in many countries and that is true throughout the western hemisphere slavery, it casts a very long shadow on to the present and somehow it wore up societies in ways that they still cant fully escape from. I remember when i taught as a visiting professor at the university of South Carolina and they use to say welcome a softer line problems but thank god for mississippi. [laughter] we are number 49 but so yeah, in a way if reconstruction the element of reconstruction meant reuniting the nation once the civil war was over that has never quite happened either, at least on the basis of regionally equality so its an interesting question. The subtitle of your book was unfinished revolution. Absolutely. This question follows up on that quite nicely. Do you think schools, libraries and i other institutions have responsibility to remove or change dedications to confederate leaders . For example, sports teams, building names, et cetera. Yeah, well, this is a big debate of course. Before i came here tonight i stopped over at the New York Museum of Natural History where some of you know there have that controversial statue, not a confederate, theater roosevelt and an african, native american and then instead of taking it down they set up a whole thing indoors where people can comment and have a whole range of comments on this and wanted to see how that worked. Yet, i think were never quite reckons with the reality of the old confederacy. This wasas, despite what many people still think it was a rebellion in theis name of creating a slaveowning republic. Thats what it was but that is what they said it was. They werent trying to beat around the bush. They absolutely said were trying to protectct slavery here folks and thats right were going to war. You know, so, im sympathetic to people who dont like in mississippi where johnny reb and their mascot and the guy who leads cheers is no longer johnny reb in a confederate uniform and i think hes now a brown bear or something but. [laughter] yeah, certainly, you know, im not taking saint take down every statute of a confederate but thats an important part of the history of these regions but right now the presentation of history is totally onedimensional. Where are the statues of the black leaders of reconstruction . They are part of southern history so again, if interpretation is a matter of power soio is deciding who gets the statue and this is a statement of power, not just of history. Why are there no statues of white southerners who supported the union and plenty of them too. James long street, Major General could not get a statue at gettysburg until very recently because why . Not because of bad general but because after the civil war he supported black rights. He joined the Republic Party and that made him persona non grata and we dont want to have a statute of long street even though he was lees right hand man at gettysburg so i think there needs to be a reckoning, im not saying we should punish anybody. You know, theres no one alive who owned a slave back then but we never went through what south africa did, a truth and Reconciliation Commission where people confronted headon the reality of the history of this era. You know, debating about statues and mascots and team names and all of that would be salutary, i think. Now there is an installation by [inaudible] right here in the city right . A new monument. I did just see that today. I went to the times square with a very impressive and i recommended 47th street, the statue of the man on the young black guy on horseback which is a commentary on all the statutes in richmond, virginia on monument avenue of all the confederate generals. Eventually it will be moved. Yes, moved to richmond. Here is another question. I think we do have time. Simultaneous two reconstruction efforts the u. S. Government was actively pursuing u westward expansion of the country and resettling people and directing resources to territories west of the mississippi. Did this blunt reconstruction . I dont know if it blunted the potential but it is true that a lot of investment money, if you want to look at it that way, that might have gone into help rebuilding the south went into the west and mining and lumber arena and other Railroad Construction and you know, capitalists dont want to events in a place for the government isnt secure and where people are riding around massacring other people, you know, in the west things we talked about the wild west but it was not nearly as wild as some given reconstruction given the terrorism going on but you know some people say there should have been a at Marshall Plan and if you really wanted to boost up the south, blackandwhite, but the northerners had paid a lot of money for the civil war and more that interested in digging into their pockets and pouring more money into the south. Yet, westward expansion is going on in this part of the greater reconstruction and it is diverting resources maybe that might have been directed to the south but after reconstruction he did not get a giant flow of money into the south and what you did was buy up southern railroads andin southern factors until the south became what woodward said, a colonial economy. The south was absorbed into the National Economy as a second rate region and that lasted a long time and in the 30s Franklin D Roosevelt said the south is the number one economic problem of the nation. Africanamericans who were at the bottom of the poorest part of the nation suffered the most, of course, from this but a lot of white people also suffered economically whereas the welltodo plantation merchant elite which had helped to overthrow reconstruction did pretty well for themselves but most southerners did not. So they were colonial but local elites were the one who made the decision, i think, to [inaudible] while they enjoyed power spirit right, because to really develop the south you wouldve had to crack the jim crow system and you wouldve had to allow African Americans reelect Economic Opportunities and you wouldve had to have education for them and for poor whites and they did not want to pay the bill for the planters do not want to pay the bill for actual modernization of their society. Okay. Heres a question john from todays or yesterdays headlines. Yesterdays New York Times editorial had heading was why term tweeted about the civil w war. How would you compare the nations Political Climate at a time of the civil war compared to todays Political Climate . [laughter] first of all, let me say i do not follow the tweets of the president. In fact, im not even on twitter so i dont follow your tweets. And i have no interest in what the president says actually because [laughter] no, really. Its ridiculous. [applause] i dont spend all my time agonizing over it but to invoke the civil war, the president is throwing i think at a wall and seeing what will stick because hes in a rather precarious position right now. Is it a civil war or is it treason and whatever other is it a coup detat by the deep state and lots throughout all these accusations and see if any of them gain popular support. We are not on the eve of the civil war. We have a deeply divided political system but we have had that many times in our history. Go back to the 1790s. Look at what they said about george washington. Hes a out he is about as upstanding as you can get and his enemies called him a british agent and they were right about jefferson but whatever, [inaudible] so but, we are not in the civil war but were in a divisive moment and of course, its been encouraged rapidly from the powers that be but i tend to be an optimist and i feel you know, the one law of all of history, the one thing that is true at all times in history ises this too will pass. Right . [laughter] thats how i maintain my optimism at the moment. Does trump remind you of Andrew Johnson . I used to think Andrew Johnson was worse president we had. [laughter] hes getting a run for his money right now. Obviously, Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached by the house and the senate fell one board short of convicting him although thats misleading because his basically his lawyers the Republican Party controlled the senate and they could easily have removed him and they were fed up with Andrew Johnson for a thousand good reasons but they were onnervous about the impeachment processe and basically his lawyer, william edwards, another important new yorker promised, look, i promise you if you dont convict him he will behave himself from now on. He will not try to obstruct reconstruction and not violate the law and will not encourage violence and hes only got about eight more months in office anyway and by the way, thats what happened. Johnson shut up after being acquitted and reconstruction went forward without his obstructionism that have been acute up to that point. They could have removed him and probably if he had started obstructing reconstruction they would have impeached him again and then gotten rid of him. Its not like today and whether impeachment is a good thing is thats a political question we all can debate but you know, my only fear is that it makes it impossible to getno anything ele accomplished, not that much was being a composed anyway but you know, there are other pressing issues facing this country and yet if everybody is talking impeachment all the time we wont be somehow thinking about all these other things. Okay, i think im getting a signal here that our time is up. I have one more question. Im so glad because this is quite a good question. The union paid so dearly for the civil war. Why did they allow it to be undone by the redemption . Very good question. 750,000 deaths, right . Most of them Union Although confederacy also lost a large number of deaths. Many other disastrous things and you know, i think there are two things. One is a certain exhaustion sets in after a while and a desire for normalcy. You dont want once the war is over it you dont want the crisis to continue. You might almost say the white south outlasted the north in terms of just being willing to resist, resist, resist and northerners finally, many lost the will to oppose that. But also a civil war is different than other wars because the purpose of a civil war is to bring the country back together so it was whatever the reconstruction policy and whatever the specifics of the constitutional moment long term aim was to have the south back in as a functioning equal part of the society. They tried to put, you know, fences around what the south could do and they put it in the constitution and passed laws like for example, does a case in ssmississippi right now that whn mississippi was readmitted they passed laws say mississippi can never, you know, reduce the educational system they just established and reconstruction. While, people are suing to mississippi same as being violent because education is so horrible in mississippi that they are violating that lot requiring an adequate education for everybody but its difficult to enforce it now. They tried to make sure that these governments would act properly but in the end, the mechanisms for absolutely ensuring it were difficult. You cannot have a longterma military occupation of the south. That is not in concert with the notion of a democratic society. And, it will take mississippi sometime. They ratified the 13th of himent abolishing slavery in 1995 spirit yeah, they finally got around to it. Exactly. And the reason they didnt edify it in 1865, legislators said was because the they were afraid that congress would quote, legislate on the negro question and that is to say, the abolitionist slavery Gave Congress the power to protect tthe rights of these people, which it did and they did legislate on the negro question very quickly but they were already thinking about how are we going to maintain control here even though slavery has been abolished and they did not want to open the door to my you know, we will not ratified this a moment unless Congress Absolutely says they will never do anything against us again which they werent willing to quite say mac right, right. Thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. Thank you. [applause] a tremendous thank you to professor eric boehner and at such a pleasure to have you both on a stage but we welcome you back again and we loved having you all of us here with us as well and we do hope you will join us for the book signing taking place in our museum store honors street side. Thank you for joining us this evening, take care. [applause] [inaudible conversations] the House Small Business Committee met today. They were looking into the Paycheck Protection Program and other measures intended to provide Economic Relief to small businesses. You can watch this hearing tonight starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Labor Department Released the latest on clement figures today. For the week ending on april 18, more than 4. 4 million americans filed for unemployment benefits. It is the fifth straight week that job losses were measured in the millions. March 15 through april 18, 26. 5 million have likely been laid off or reload. Erasing all the jobs creating following the 2008 financial crisis. While numbers of congress are in their districts due to the pandemic we have a special edition of book tv airing during the week. Friday, portions of our programs on books about pandemics from authors john barry, sonya shaw, ollie kohn and jerry brown. Books on the economy with authors peter wallace, henry paulson, aaron glantz, Marianne Cooper and others. Later, authors ronald kessler, bob woodward, Victor Davis Hanson and steven moore discuss their books about president trump. Enjoy book tv now and over the weekend on cspan2. Cspan has aroundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. It is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Watch ondemand anytime, unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. It is nice to have everyone here this evening and i look forward to our conversation. To my far right here is and i will hopefully get permission to call you sam. Yes, my name is sam paid s. C