Welcome to book prints, a new Program Sponsored by ambassadors of American History. Im the president of the institute. We are preventing important books in American History which leaves the 18thcentury volumes behind me our current important books by the major prizewinning historians in our country. Also, william roka works on the health and education program. We present each of these historians and guide questions and answer sessions toward the end. Please go to our website, Gilder Lehrman. Com. Good afternoon. On june 14th, welcome, everyone. Todays guest will be professor elizabeth baron. For you guys who are not familiar with the Gilder Lehrman institute, we are so glad you could join us and to tell you a little bit about the Gilder Lehrman instituted is a Nonprofit Organization dedicated to k12 history, education, our mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American History through educational programs. We also provide direct access to unique primary source materials through Gilder Lehrmans amazing collection. If youre interested in finding out anymore about the amazing programs in the collection please go to Gilder Lehrman. Org. My name is william roka and im your host, im usually working on the Hamilton Education program. If you want to find out more about Hamilton Education program go to the website. All right, for you guys out there in our audience, you can notice your screens are off and your microphones are on so that is normal. For you guys. The question, i know we will have a great conversation today and we will generate a lot of Great Questions so if you look at the bottom of your screen you will see this. There are questions there and when you submit your question if you could also just leave a note of where you are from because we like to know where everybody is from. Allison will be gathering questions in a second half of the program. Weve got a big audience of several hundred so please knows we are not going to be able to get to all questions but we will try our best to ask as many questions as possible. All right. Procedure today, professor elizabeth varon, professor of American History at the university of virginia who served on executive council of the john third center of American History. Shes a specialist in the civil war era in 19thcentury south. She has also authored several books before the one were talking about today, some of her previous books include the needs to be counted, white women and politics in antebellum virginia, southern you 80, lee yankee spy, elizabeth than lou, a union agent in the heart of the confederacy and petunia the coming of the American Civil War 17891859. Appomattox, victory, defeat and freedom at the end of the civil war. Today we will speak about her newest book on the civil war. This is an amazing book. Ive had a chance to read it. I want to stop it is great to have you on the program. Thanks so much. The whole history of this for seems an incredibly daunting task. The theme of deliverance as in the title armies of deliverance but this deliverance seems to touch on so many things related to the civil war from the diplomatic to emancipation to military, to tackle a whole narrative history of the civil war and absolutely. I am a historian of american politics and my scholarship is focused on the American South and my home state of virginia. I was commissioned to write a single volume history of the civil war. I knew that involved a learning curve for me and i was eager to answer for myself and my readers some key questions historians have debated. The ones that answered me most, i was interested to learn about the motivation of Union Soldiers, how they sustain their morale and why men and women in nearly days with this short and sweet war and swift victory is not all that tricky but understanding what kept men in the ranks in a combat, these are complex questions and i want to glean insight into those motivations and the question of lincolns leadership and had how he built a coalition to win the civil war. And another rate across a broad political spectrum on who the abolitionist and radical republicans who took aim at slavery on the other end of that spectrum were conservative democrats who were very staunchly antiabolition and the middle of that were figures like abraham lincoln, who were uneasy who talks about abolition. Lincoln had to manage a divided homefront, learning about how he built a coalition and how he sustained a coalition. I was interested in the third major question on the demise of slavery and the emancipation policy and how it took shape and the degree to which emancipation gained political traction and how it gained political traction. Over the course of my research i discovered northerners coalesce around the theme of deliverance, the belief that Union Victory would uplift southern white and black alike by delivering them, they are frozen to delete slaveholding oligarchs under there is some as northerners saw it. Delivered to them the blessings of free society, the way Union Soldiers do that. The purpose is not to conquer the south or subjugate the south, the southern masses from their own. Leaders i argue over the course of the book that this theme of deliverance was so politically powerful it drew followers like a magnet to the union cause and allowed lincoln to forge a coalition and grow the coalition over the course of the war which included republicans of all political stripes, democrats in the opposition party, loyal residents of the slaveholding border states, anticonfederate southerners, deliverance rhetoric is the key to all this and i make the case that deliverance rhetoric proved very persistent over the course of the war. I try to explain how it is unions persisted in believing they could save the southern masses even in the face of massive evidence the confederates did not want to be saved. I also tried to address the issue of the rhetoric and to note that while it was instrumental in Union Victories by serving coalition building, deliverance rhetoric ultimately failed to persuade to accept black freedom on the norths terms and deliverance also ways to resolve debate among northerners about what victory would mean in the shape freedom would take. One additional point about my aim and purpose, thinking of the teacher as i wrote this book in the sense that it would appeal to a broad readership scholars in general readers but also be suitable for use as a textbook in College Classrooms and high school. I had to deal with that, students to take away two important themes from this book and learn and understand two things americans sometimes struggle with. Racism was an american problem, not only a southern problem. It was suffused in the Nineteenth Century in the north and the south and this meant the americans were waging the freedom struggle on two friends. A literal war about the horrors of slavery in the south and White Supremacy but also a battle in the north, persistent discrimination in the north where they were free but relegated to a secondclass status. I emphasize that to understand the consequences and causes of the civil war you have to grapple with the depth and breadth of american racism but i want my student readers to understand something else, that the union and the confederacy were starkly different political systems representing starkly different ideologies, starkly different destinies for america and it was these differences that Frederick Douglass had in mind when he said in 1878 there is a right side and wrong side, the war was as douglas described in a war of ideas between the old and the new. Between slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization, the illusion of Northern Society was perfect, he was a guard of a movement to reform Northern Society. That was new, that Union Ideology with its emphasis on free labor as opposed to slave labor, with its emphasis on moral reform. Union ideology created a framework in which change and progress were possible. Not inevitable, not easy, not even likely but possible and activists like douglas pushed open the door in the face of great adversity, pushed open the door to change. Douglas also knew that confederates were the about enemies of change and progress intent on pulling the door shut and locking it. It is important to understand all this because i want to be mindful to guard against falling into false equivalency between the union and the confederacy. We are reminded all the time by events in charlottesville and their aftermath. Looking in some way that the incredible challenge the confiscated coalition in the norse from democrats, radical republicans, abolitionists dealing with the slaveholding states that remained in the union. Talk about them and their views on emancipation, the confiscation act to the emancipation of washington dc, and how that played into the political dynamic going on in the north. The standard way that we account for emergence of that, on the northern side is to emphasize lincolns pragmatism as a politician. There was this unwieldy political entity concerning the slaveholding border states. The Union Soldiers since the war identify themselves as abolitionists, they were committed to the project of saving the union but not to end slavery. We know that lincoln experiments with various policies and emancipation to lure slaveholders back into the union with the promise that if they voluntarily free their slaves he will compensate them for their losses. The freed people make a series of appeals, considered part of a long tradition of antislavery gradualism and the standard narrative is one in which lincoln comes around when he comes around most especially against slavery by the enslaved, the exodus the war itself and this activism and resistance by the enslaved is eroding the institution, taken upon solutions that are being rebuffed and comes around driven by a certain pragmatic belief that the right move for saving abolition, abolition means the end of saving the union and he makes arguments again pragmatic, is it a military necessity to bring along hesitancy and resistant northerners and as a means to a end littered by pragmatism because emancipation is a military necessity to take resources from our enemies. And the value of that particular narrative, i emphasize lincolns idealism as he comes around as it were, and evolution in lincolns thinking and change but when he comes to embrace emancipation he and his allies in the context of the times you, emancipation will benefit all americans and it will benefit southerners and white southerners by opening the way to begin the blessings of free society, education, freespeech, flowing into Southern Society, removing contention between the north and south, displace the belief that has dominated Southern Society and to benefit southern whites and people from all the slaveholding border states and even a few with southerners from Confederate States are willing to support him. Emancipation will have broad benefits and giving freedom to the slaves and we as a freedom to the others. To recognize that lincoln is making this argument, northerners and southerners, white and black, is in a sense disappointing because one of the things it signals is the argument for a mental patient, benefits to whites which simply they should have focused on a portion of this. Their right to freedom and citizenship. It is white centered in lincolns version of that. In the context of what had come before the argument that emancipation will have broad aspect is quite radical because it is a refutation of a 0sum game about Race Relations and arguing defenders of slavery had made since colonial period with gains for africanamericans who come at the expense of whites in lincoln and his allies rejected that. It is a big break with the past to reject this. It has to be noted and emphasized that lincoln has in a sense been following the lead of the true antislavery vanguard, and those enslaved people who have taken matters into their own hands, to flee from slavery and eventually joined the union. Also very much in depth to figures like Frederick Douglas and other abolitionists who were building a case for abolition. If he didnt embrace it he embraced it in a way that was quite a thing from what had come before. Emancipation also seem to play domestically and internationally and the concept of deliverance you are talking about that lincoln had to keep an eye across the atlantic because cotton was part of that and the British Empire was dependent on cotton from the south and there was trying to prevent the south from presenting itself as a nation seeking selfdetermined donations, then there is the International Aspect of delivering the sentiment. s the emphasis in deliverance rhetoric for someone like lincoln, a central premise of it was the diluted mass theory this was a very widespread popular belief on the part of northerners the white southern masses had been seduced, duped, cajoled and limited pressures into supporting. And somehow with the union could break the spell secessionists cast over the southern masses they would welcome deliverance at the hands of the union army. Lincoln referred to the war as a rebellion and insurrection, he believed staunchly that secession was the work of a small group of secessionist conspirators and that it was not a legitimate movement that reflected the true will of the southern masses. We can talk about how they believe that in the face of so much evidence of confederate ideology. This all had implications in terms of geopolitics and diplomacy. Confederates were making a bid to persuade european powers that they were a legitimate state that should be recognized as such. Lincoln was trying to say that this is not a legitimate exercise in nationbuilding, this is a conspiracy by a small number of slaveholders riding roughshod over the rights of southern masses and have to restore this. Confederate hopes of foreign recognition i dashed in lincolns embrace of emancipation, his preliminary proclamation in antietam undermined the confederate bid for foreign acquisition by clearly identifying the union war with the emancipation policy. And then how did they react to these notions of deliverance, the words that were printed in the newspapers in the north what was there kind of ideology so to speak . At the heart of these ideological battles, we tend to imagine that people demonize each other, one side demonizes the other. Beyond the civil war, the premise of the union war was southerners in the accompaniment of northerners, the union would be restored and unionists tended to talk about brethren, prodigal sons, pupils who needed teaching and needed to sober up and madmen who should come to their senses and sinners who should repent, bringing them into the national fold. Confederate leaders were very attuned to this deliverance rhetoric and wanted at all costs to discredit it. From the start of the war, the focus of confederate ideology, the union is intent on a war deliverance is a keyword for unionists. On the confederate side the keywords are degradation, pollution, extermination. In the sense that confederate ideology is meant to preempt and discredit the southern masses that northerners are intent on subjugation of the south. This place is a corollary issue that is how much dissent white southern unit is him was there in the south and that is a tricky question to answer, but confederate propaganda was powerful and effective in unionism never materialized where lincoln others hoped it would, the true blue unionists were africanamericans from flight to smallscale resistance to enlistment in the army is absolutely decisive in Union Victory and with other points, it is a bit of a shorthand in the confederacy. With 200,000 africanamericans who serve in the union army nearly 80 were southerners so this comes back to the question, confederate ideology was a bid to argue about nationalism and debate and so on but was we had in reality was a divided south and lincoln was able to capitalize on some of those divisions. Looking at these different ideologies, you summarized the confederate viewpoint as they called it northern barbarity and sudden victimization. The north on the one hand trying to use deliverance as a way to eventually bring the south back into the fold, their wayward brothers so to speak, what is the impact at the end of the war with the start of reconstruction and what are some of the ways the Southern View almost negates or takes advantage of the north, trying to bring them back into the fold in a peaceful way and make them brothers once again . As i researched this book i hadnt started with a thesis in mind, i came to realize that what i was finding was in a sense the back story to a tale i told in my previous book, when lee surrendered to grant in appomattox, i made a case in that book. It was magnanimous to the defeated southerners, not to exonerate them but as a means of affecting reforms, there was a right side and wrong side in the war and southerners would respond to that immediacy with contrition and his leniency would change hearts and minds so in a sense what i described in this book is the sources of assumptions on grants parts. It is easy to ask was grant delusional . Why would he think he would get this repentance . Why would northerners believe they could change southern hearts and minds . Looking around the landscape they thought deliverance was working. Whatever they saw, evidence of desertion they saw as potential sign, there was dissent in the south and they saw a potential sign deliverance was working and the slaveholding border states state in the union and antislavery agendas in missouri and maryland. With the formation of the unionist state that they saw deliverance was working. A powerful year earning on the part of northerners to believe this and grant clung to this idea that he could change southern hearts and minds well into the first phases of reconstruction. Part of what i try to convey is the resonance of this deliverance rhetoric that you can punish the guilty elite and redeem the masses, this was an emotional resonance. Northerners new even if they wanted to they couldnt have subjugated a region the size of the confederacy and impose loyalty. They were hoping to change hearts and minds. They failed to do that. It turned out confederates were not about to repudiate their fallen leaders or a lost cause. We see defined in the postwar south, a rejection of the premises of the union war and two things that are very telling. The coalitions that came together to fight and win the war once that goal is achieved falls apart, arguments about the meaning of victory and freedom, to what extent africanamericans are going to be able to exercise fool rights and progress and inclusion in american society. Lincolns rhetoric hadnt resolved these questions and part of that coalition dramatized by Andrew Johnson, lincolns successor who was chosen to run in 1864 when trying to win reelection precisely because he was a southerner, who supported the union and painted emancipation as a military necessity during the war. At the end of the war johnson essentially reveals his notion of black freedom is a narrow one. Not only as a right to work for wages but political loyalty and it comes to light that he is seeking a new coalition of his own and abuses lincolns amnesty, key things that i try to underscore, we focus rightly on emancipation and signature policy he has a second signature policy, amnesty to defeated confederates, taking over future allegiance and your rights will be restored, to appeal to the confederacy. Johnson abuses the amnesty policy with massive pardons to the secessionist elite who look to punish and the result is the first days of reconstruction in which the white south imposes all kinds of forms of subordination that are meant to be as close to slavery as possible without defining the thirteenth amendment. I could talk to you the whole day but my last question in order to get to the audience question, my last question, because the audience has a lot of teachers viewing right now, can you talk a little bit about how teachers can help their students understand the incredibly complex subject of the civil war, the politics, the diplomacy, the warfare, emancipation and what were some of your favorite sources in doing research. Where do you turn to hear the voices from the people of that time. Those are wonderful questions. Let me say that first of all i feel biography is a wonderful way of getting a tricky and difficult political questions and therefore i would rather have students read deeply, Frederick Douglass, 15 short quotes from different people, representative lives with enough context to understand the complexity of you thought of the use figures is very important. In terms of sources, soldiers and letters, moving letters by Union Soldiers, lively letters by Union Soldiers, africanamerican soldiers, white soldiers, new englanders, people from border states. Often times the sophistication of their own thinking, with grammar and spelling and so on that seamless and polished, it provides for great insight and it is so important. And the sources are post factors sources. For me letters and diaries, we have a wonderful collection that is newly acquired soldiers letters and diaries weve gone through john now and those in the moment sources are so important because they are a bit of a control group that sort of enables you to see how arguments are being made in and sermons by politicians, by editors, landing and resounding in peoples daily lives. I find Union Soldiers professing and repeating aye mantra as though theyve been given a script from which to read this desire to save the south from southern leaders. Again, when i was looking for a broad spectrum, not all Union Soldiers signed onto the project and among those who supported emancipation theres a range making this case this is a battle on two fronts against discrimination and slavery and making the argument that it will not be complete unless americans deliver from institution of slavery, delivered from racism itself, black soldiers again to make a second distinction are less hopeful that any kind of quick conversion on the part of former confederates and much more focus on the broad complicity of white, northern and southern and in the systemf racism. We see in the soldiers letters and diaries this spectrum and gives us a chance to see how ideology again shapes, effects lived experience. I should mention, i am by training a historian of american women as well as southern history, and the voices of women, women as warriors in cases of people like Elizabeth Harriet tubman, reformers n case of people like harriet jacobs, women as key to the medical apparatus in both sections as in the case of someone like susie king taylor, women as political commentators. Women are absolutely integral to this story. One of the things i try to do in the book is rather than having women set aside in a separate sections and chapters to leave the voices of women throughout. Its a been really great speaking with you and this is an incredible book, thank you so much for writing it. I want to hand it over to allison with questions from the audience. Thank you. Id be delighted to answer them. Thank you so much for being with us here today. We have almost 100 questions in the q a service on your small handful but hopefully these will fulfill the most burning questions people have. Our first question is from isaac and isaac as a teacher at the International School in germany. He would like to know if the north was so intent on delivering the southcom why did so many northerners fall for a southern loss cause you of the war in the reconstruction years . How did the southern narrative gain such traction . Thats a very, very important question, and historians have offered up a series of answers that emphasizes a few things. To be sure that loss cause ideology does gain traction and it is, the best way to think of loss cause ideology, the confederacy is as a massive Misinformation Campaign, and northerners proved susceptible to that Misinformation Campaign again because of the persistence of racism in the north. They proved receptive to that Misinformation Campaign because in a in a very cynical way, white southerners caused chaos through violence and propaganda in the south and then suggests the only answer to the chaos is to go back to the way things were before. Its sort of selffulfilling prophecy that White Supremacy, while was a propaganda was literally meant to wear northerners out and it does. Suggest to them they can only have peace by abandoning the hope of deliverance. We can see this again, this cynicism of it is quite telling, but just to give one angle of away thinking about this, northerners dont sort of whats the way to put this . Dont give into loss cause ideology easily. They are are always tendered his, one cause ideology that emphasizes the union cause was righteous and only one of two parties should occupy the moral high ground here and that is northerners. A reconciliation list ideology that seeks to bitterness between the two sides by focusing on reconciliation. The message of loss cause ideology is that southerners come former confederates i should say will accept reconciliation only on their own terms, only if they can share the moral high ground. The difficulties are many. People will sometimes say to be, if the northerners wanted to win hearts and minds, why wasnt there a Marshall Plan of the north for the defeated south with the was a Marshall Plan. It was the Freedmens Bureau which gave more rations to poor white southerners vented to africanamericans. The Freedmens Bureau with more a sort of, you know, agency of subjugation and oppression and tyranny and so on. There was no link that loss cause types wouldnt go to to distort history. Part of their distortion was sweeping under the rug the evidence of dissent in the south. Sweeping under the rug southern unionism. Sweeping under the rug the contributions of southern blacks the Union Victory and opposition to slavery and so on. In order to create a fiction, and again a northerners and others who had hopes in change to come in the face of a Massive Campaign of propaganda and violence. I have been thinking about this a lot in part because of writing about james long street, a confederate general who almost alone among confederate generals accepted grants terms at appomattox and drew the conclusion that the confederacy did have to yield to the ideas of the victor, namely to the victorious union. Long street will go on to support the Republican Party and black voting and to be cast out of white Southern Society as prize for having made this surprising and almost singular sort of switch. Grant and others who extended leniency and clemency hope for was to change seven hearts and minds, and at the end of the day the long streets were very few and far between, and former confederates closed ranks again to discredit and print any appeal to the masses. Thank you. Our next question comes from lois. Lois is a teacher from oregon and lois wants to know if you can address what kind of agency formally enslaved persons had at appomattox and before president grant took office . We have to make a very, very important distinction as we think about postwar period make an reconstruction between the first phase while johnson is president , and the second phase congressional reconstruction. And a wealth of wonderful recent historical work has shown former slaves in the wake of confederate defeat, and lets keep in mind it was confederate defeat was the true dawn of freedom come potential donna freedom as lincoln issued his proclamation 191863 but his longest ever confederate armies in the field slavery was protected by them, the defeat of southern armies raises the hopes of real freedom among africanamericans and they define that freedom very broadly, not only freedom to work for wages some like johnson would have it but political voice, legal protections, the kind that would void the old dread scott decision that denied them citizenship, the right to form families and protect those families, the right to marriage, Economic Opportunity and so on. They begin instantly to move forward and to demand those rights to try to secure them. They are met from the very beginning of this president ial phase of reconstruction with white southern recalcitrance witches which is stoked by Andrew Johnson against former confederate, restores them to power. That is a series of laws are passed in the south under the jeffersonian regime, which shows the survival of the proslavery ideology in a World Without slavery, these are socalled black coats fadiman too fast and subordinates status on freed people. When we have congressional reconstruction we see real change for the first time because africanamericans have become voters and officeholders and they acquire in that when a congressional reconstruction some of those key rights, rights to self protection, minimal rights of the protection which had been denied them. They acquire a political voice, and as i have explained, tragically, that experiment in interracial democracy in the south in congressional reconstruction is under siege in the moment it begins. Even before it begins, if you will, in that confederate ideology and democratic party, southern democratic ideology was meant to provide the zerosum game thinking and proposed and in trying to get any gains would come at the expense of whites. Our next question comes from christopher from illinois. Christopher wants to know that the flossie of deliverance play a role in the loss cause narrative of the confederacy . Does this make reconstruction more difficult in terms of the south feeling they did not need saving . So a few things to say there, and i think you are, the questioner has alluded to these things. On the one hand, the philosophy of deliverance was a problematic because many southerners found it to be confederates founded to be constant. If you tell people youre going to save them for than such of an great risk of angering them, and many felt that this was part of a representative of a kind of northern condescension. It must be said that northerners felt southern slaveholding ideology was condescending towards them, so those charges ran in both directions. We can see again the problems of deliverance ideology. Deliverance ideology kept a white southern suffering at the center of northern politics. White northerners were so concerned about southern union, southern refugees, southern deserts and so on, victims of victimization and seven at the center of northern politics and this was probably johnson could come along and say in effect, johnson said the white southern masses who had suffered under the domination of elite slaveholders are not suffering under the domination of radical republicans, and johnson claimed he would fight radical republicans just that he had fought secessionists in the name of delivering the white southern masses. This is an ideology that had many potential uses and johnson put it to a retrograde and reactionary instance. Its a very good question and again all of this myth to underscore for us how Leadership Matters, how president ial Leadership Matters and lincolns two of deliverance was very different than johnsons. This question is from amelia occurrence of new york city. She asks how does deliverance rhetoric very between officers and illicit soldiers and between thats a great question. And again i look to some of the differences. I think i found it was ubiquitous among all those soldiers but with some important variations. For officers, the deliverance rhetoric tended more often to be class inflected by class, Class Association and so on. The image of a poor southern whites in the eyes of northerners was an image of people who were uneducated, ignorant, living in primitive circumstances and so on and you needed to be not only brought around to embrace free labor ideology but also uplifted socially. So this notion of a sort of project of social uplift you see articulate a little bit more explicitly among the more educated and wealthy officers. Again, the point i tried to make before, africanamericans believed in the power of free labor to regenerate the south. They hoped that some of the truly anticonfederate southern whites, the small number of truly anticonfederate southern whites like elizabeth, might be allies in the freedom struggle. But africanamerican soldiers were again much more focused on the idea that deliverance met natalie the end of slavery and the reunion of north and south, it meant the end of racism and they believed very, very strongly that you would not have National Security and peace unless you rewarded the truest of the south unionist that is to say, africanamericans themselves with the vote. Because without that tool, that vulnerability to exploitation would persist. You do see some variation if you think about the various social groups. Our next question comes from sherry. Sherry would like to know, did africanamericans serve voluntarily in the Confederate Army . No. Africanamericans did not serve in the Confederate Army. This is one of those myths that was generated by lost cause types to enshrine an idea of a faithful slave and a solid silver africanamericans were forced to do hard labor why confederate soldiers, labor of the kind they had always done, labor that was meant to serve the interests of southern slaveholders and of southern whites. So they were forced to clear roads, to build fortifications, to grow crops and so on. But they were not welcomed into the confederate military. There was a debate about the potential enlistment of black soldiers, and the very last stages of the war, and some terrific work from people like kevin levin and bruce levine showed fairly very clearly that was to preserve slavery by forcing some black man to bear arms in subordinate roles, no eye towards either potential equality or citizenship, to rescue slavery for the rest of Southern Society, that debate, that went nowhere because slaveholders turned out were not willing to give the slaves over to the army in the capacity to be used in that way. Very, very important to put that myth of black confederates to rest once and for all. Africanamerican men served in the union army. Our next question is from jennifer from washington, d. C. Jennifer asks, can you identify a turning point or something that triggered lincoln to move from trying to stop expansionist slavery to ending it . So i would say its there in a sense that traditional stories have it right. Lincoln said famously as he is offering again gradual compensated emancipation to these of border states slaveholders, and offer they never accept, the friction and abrasion of war as he puts it are ending slavery. That mass exodus of slaves to the union army. He can see the writing on the wall. So its accommodation of seeing the war the road slavery and though slaveholding border states unlikely to ban the union but also not accept his offer of gradual concent emancipation, a series of converging factors. He is also someone and this ultimately is so important to remember as we think about avoiding false equivalency. The unique gifts as a brand like a one of our greatest president s, a man of moral striving, a man of moral growth, a man who changes his views, adapts, listens, lawrence, admits when he is wrong as he famously did to grant after vicksburg, and sort of traveled a journey that scholars often think about this by saying it was a private lincoln, with evidence of that private lincoln always loathed slavery of some level. Theres pragmatic concerns and this delicate balancing act of keeping his coalition together. We eventually on the eve of his assassination in his second inaugural and in the last speech he gives, he is converging of that private and public lincoln as the key thing here is once he knows the north is going to win the war, having learned what is learned, he can speak in truly antislavery cadences that evoke the abolitionist in people like david walker and douglas. It cant be emphasized enough how much the performs of asking american troops was a factor in lincoln coming to defend emancipation the way that he does immoral terms. Our next question comes from joseph. Joseph would like to know, how do you address those who continue to fight for loss caused and states rights are just about the cause of the war . This is something that we as educators about the civil war deal with all the time, and we observe, for example, about states rights that states rights is not separate from the issue of slavery. Thats a false dichotomy that states rights secessionist most wanted to protect was a right to own slaves and they were very unabashed about that. We asked those who are for one reason or another deep in that loss caused sort of set of notions is we asked them to go and read the primary sources. Secessionists were absolutely unabashed intelligentsia why they seceded. The architects of secession seceded to protect and perpetuate slavery, and they tell us so in the document in which they explain their actions to the world. They tell us of their ordinances of secession, read the ordinance of secession of george or South Carolina. They are not subtle about it. They tell us no Uncertain Terms what secession was about. The question raises, exist at another level. Theres no dispute, no serious modern historian denies that the session was bit to protect and extend slavery. We also know as northerners of the time know that most white southerners did not own slaves. And again, lincoln, as he thought about Southern Society imagine those nonslaveholding white southerners most recent slaveholders who had kept for themselves the preponderance of wealth and power in the south. Northerners failed to record with the degree to which slaveholding ideology had sunk its hooks into Southern Society and coursed through the bloodstream the society. Its true only one in four white southern families own slaves but if we also get the number of white southerners who hope to own slaves, who worked with or for slaveowners, who had slaveowners in a families and so on. We see that a broad majority of a white southerners in seceded states believed to have a stake in slavery as a system of profit and social control. And white southern propagandist secessionist, propaganda that led them to believe that the north was a threat to their own wellbeing and then an end to t racial control was tragically very effective. We have time for one more question. But you mention the South Carolina secession broadside here our question actually has two copies of the and viewers can go to our website and view more information about those in what they say. Hours are broadsides and quite large but theyre very interesting to look at. Our final question today comes from kelly, kelly wants to know how many confederate soldiers defected or switched sides to fight for the north . So thats a good question. I have a figure you know, that i could quote right now. There are some books on galvanize yankees, people had been confederates who fought on the union said. I do know and emphasize in my book that there were, lets put it this way. One of the things that is emphasized in a wonderful book by a man named william freeling called the south versus the south, and the title tells you a good deal about the thesis of this book. He observes that 450,000 men and slave states fought for the union army in blue uniform. 150,000 of those 450,000 were africanamericans fought in the union army. The other 300,000 were border state whites in slaveholding states he chose the union army rather than the Confederate Army, and 100,000 whites in Confederate States chose the union army. So there is again under substantial divisions within Southern Society that should again lead us to think twice about equating the south with the confederacy northerners believed that those southerners who did switch sides, who had been in the Confederate Army didnt desert but then joined with the union army, that those, or endorsed the union war, those kind of southerners were symbolically very important to lincoln. I can give you one example of confederate name edward gant who was from arkansas who came to embrace the Republican Party atd the Lincoln Administration and emancipation and was also up as a sign and symbol that this was possible. The last thing i will say on this is, lincoln proposes plan in december 1862. Its nicknamed the 10 plan. The reason is this, lincoln was hoping that by offering amnesty to confederate he could get 10 of the confederate population to peel away from the confederacy, join the union, pledge allegiance to the union at that deficit could be a vanguard that might lead to those restored states back into union. The fact he chose the number 10 tells you something about the absence of support for the union in this Confederate States. And the fact that he had to adjust his expectations about the potential of people switching sides. There were pockets of unionism in the southcom particularly in the mountainous south, but in the sort of plantation areas of seceded states, true blue unionist among whites were few and far between, and somewhat beleaguered and yearning for deliverance to be sure, but having to wait a very long time for it. Professor, thank you so much for this absolutely fascinating conversation. Allison, thank you for corralling all those Great Questions. I i want to share my screen one more time and so i i can share with all you folks out there a whole bunch of important links. Is also going into the chat feature, so these are not clickable but go to the chat window to click on any of these listed here. Let me also say, friends, with 100 odd questions and the chance to enter only a few of them that will lead peoples and acid question im happy to answer them by email if it wants to reach out to me, im absolutely delighted to answer questions that are emailed. Fantastic. Thank you. Now, if youre interested in buying this book, armies of deliverance, please go to this link, book shop. Org. This is the Gilder Lehrman page on book shop. Org. The purchase of the book through the website will not only help support Gilder Lehrman, it will also help support independent bookstores. Once we end the webinar here, you will be sent to this link for a twominute survey. Please fill out the survey. We always like to know how we are doing and how we can improve. And if youre interested in learning about more about book friction go to Gilder Lehrman. Org at hope hope you be to join us next sunday at 2 p. M. Eastern time with professor ted witmer and his book lincoln on the verge and, of course, if youre interested in finding anything else out about Gilder Lehrman, our programs and the collection, please go to Gilder Lehrman. Org. We are going to shut off our screen and sat and we will leave this up here for a minute if you want to copy down these links but you will also be sent these links in a followup email that you should be getting tomorrow and the recording of the session will be on the book breaks website by the end end of the. So again a big thank you to the professor for the great conversation. Thank you, allison, a thank you to you, our audience out there, and hope to see you again next week. Have a great afternoon, everyone. Tonight a special edition of booktv with a focus on healthcare. Enjoy booktv on cspan2. During the summer months reach out to her elected officials with cspans congressional directory. It contains all the Contact Information you need to stay in touch with members of congress, federal agencies and state governors. Order your copy online today at cspanstore. Org. Next come hearing on efforts to assist renters impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The House Financial Services subcommittee on housing, heard the new executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center and officials from the Brookings Institution center on budget and policy priorities. This is just over two hours. Good morning. The meeting will come to order and without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. Without objection members of the full committee not on this