Transcripts For CSPAN2 Heather Cox Richardson How The South Won The Civil War 20240712

Cox richardson about her new book, how the south won the civil war, the continuing fight for the soul of america. And im a professor of history at yale university. And i will have a discussion with heather about her book and this is brought to you by the Community Outreach for over 150 years and thats some real history there. Now, on to heathers book. Her book has gotten a lot of critical praise. For example, tthe Washington Post writes, Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College describes goldwaters crusade in her masterful book. Perhaps the most important Political Coalition of the 20th century and Publishers Weekly says, though richardson underemphasizes the prevalence of racism, sexism and unequality of other parts of the country during the civil war she marshals more for the books title. Conservatives will cry foul, but critics will be persuaded. And first, i want to invite those of you out in the world listening to share your questions for heather, you can do that, typing in the a and q box at the bottom of the screen and well take as many in the second half of the program which in whole is going to last about an hour. Now its my great pressure to introduce heather cox richard zoran, professor at Boston College and writer of the popular newsletter, letters from an american. Welcome, heath heather. Thank you, joanne. I was trying to unmute myself. I want to start by thanking the Brooklyn Historical society for doing this and also to say to people watching that im incredibly excited about this. This is the first time that joanne and i have been able to do our own history thing together and i have asked her to open this way up beyond my book and not only to talk about her new book as well, but also to talk about how the past speaks to the current moment and whats going on in american politics today. Well certainly talk about my book and i will talk about her book, but well also talk about the present moment. The fact that were limited to an hour, thank you for giving it a shot, joanne. Im excited to be here, too, so this is going to be fun. Let me start with, in a sense, its an obvious question, but probably one a lot of people are wondering about right now. Even in just the two little bits i read, words like provocative, timely, so i want to start by asking, how is it that you came to write this book . Given how timely it is . You never know. And with the zeitgeist, where i came to end up on that, what happened was when i was writing my last book, the history of the Republican Party. When i read goldbergs conscience of a conservative i was gobsmacked because he talks how its run by a few really good people and the government cant get involved in things because its going to be unconstitutional and destroy certain peoples liberty and they use that word a lot and they were very, very, very similar. And while i was writing that book. I was also, you know, teaching. And i was teaching the trail of tears. The 1830 movement of pushing out of the native americans out of southeast into oklahoma so steeped that particular week in congressional conversations why it was a good thing for the indians to lose their land and forced on this deadly march so many of people died. Why this happened to be why the congress had to do this and good for the indians. It happened to be the same week that some Football Player, i dont know which one it is, some Football Player was caught dragging his girlfriend out of an elevator by her hair and i dont remember the characters at all. The things, the language was the exact same. The same excuse for this man dragging his girlfriend out of the elevator by her hair. She wasnt listening to him. It was for the good. All of those things, it was the same thing i was reading in congress about why the indians deserved to be pushed into oklahoma. And this all said to me that there was something about the day, now, that echoed other power struggles in the past. And what i wanted to get to as what created those power struggles and how did we end up in the moment today that sounded so much like the confederates had sounded, like the elite confederates had sounded in the 1860s and that of course reinforced to my mind, what i decided it had to do with language. The book is how language crease power structures and societies that permit certain people to take power. That to me, one of the reasons i was so excited about this, that to me speaks very much to what you did in the field of blood talking about the importance of emotion and the coming of the civil war, and you focused more on the earlier part than i did, really had to do with emotion. So how did you end up writing that book . Well, youre right that in a sense although the book is about physical violence in the u. S. Congress and the logic of it and the impact of it, are what struck me, when i began that book was, i knew it was going to be about congress, and violence and i didnt know how much violence there was, but the language that people were throwing around and the response to the language isnt just in the historical record. You could see how, in the case of my books, southerners were really strategically and deliberately using language to intimidate or silence or manipulate people who disagreed with them and the way that works, it works really well and in part, thats because it relied on emotion and it so often works. Fear or humiliation are things that if youre in congress and youre performing before a national audience, if you want to, you can manipulate that to really shape what someone is able to do. So, kind of along the same lines of what youre talking about, but i was rah he will interested in doing in my book was looking at the real dynamics of what was going on in congress and how that was shaping politics overall. You used the word bullying, again and again and again, its bullying behavior and what im arguing is the way that bullying takes shape, at least, not even initially, but always takes shape is through language, you know, the way you put things, the way you say things. We talk now days a lot about gaslighting, what youre doing is shaping through the use of language to bully them. And it is astonishing to me the parallels between the past 1850s, not all the past because we dont always do, but 1850s and where we are right now. Sure, i think about that all the time even in the realm of bullying. And the reason why its effective in politics is because you dont have to exert force. You have to make clear that you could exert force if you want to. Its about the threat, right . If youre a bully, youre suggesting you could do really ugly things. If you wanted to, but you dont have to do them, you just have to be sure that the person being bullied, understands that and will respond to that, its a brilliant way to manipulate people and when it works, it really works. I need you to do me a favor now. Oh, the threat that, you know, ill do that, but i need you to do me a favor though. Yes. And its like i couldnt do this to you, or i could do something to you. Right. Or we could get along. Yeah, yeah, as long as you do what i want you to do. Yes, yes. Now, whats an example in your book, you talk in one of the things that i think we both share in our books is this fascination with language and the power of language and the ways in which we dont we take it for granted, but its a force of shaping politics, what is an instance in your book of a moment when it really struck you that language in and of itself was having a shaping influence . Well, the there are two places it really shows up. Its kind of everywhere when you think about it and when people study it, its very hard to say this matters. Because you cant, you cant quantify it, we all know it matters, somebody said to me once, in one of my earlier books, you never quantified how this was important. I understand that. This would of been in the 80s or 90s, can you stand me right there and tell me rush lame beau doesnt matter . Of course he matters, but we cant measure it. Does that mean we shouldnt study it . You know . So the places that jumped out at me, in 1954, and the 1954 professor because so much happened in 1954. In 1954 right after joe mccarthy goes, crashes and burns in the mccarthy hearings because people once and for all they see him, they dont just hear him, its not just the language that prettyies up, people look at him and say hes a thug, hes a bully and we dont want to have any part of him. And they have a book with mccarthy, he might have been rough around the edges, but the conservative movement and capitalize because Movement Conservativism and the new deal, we see that play out now. They write this book and say we conservatives have to stand against what they call liberalism. By liberalism, they meant everybody else, the democrats, the eisenhower republicans. This is in a time in 1954 eisenhower republicanism looks good. We have the highways and jobs, not everyone, it hit people of color, it didnt do that for people of color, but people who i grew up with, werent skilled workers. But the g. I. Bill as i grew up, the printers and anything else they couldnt do without an education, and wasnt attainment in the depression. And there was a book, we conservatives are standing against you liberals, thats basically everybody else and they do Something Interesting in the book, thats the first time theyve capitalized being he conservative and liberal and people just talk generally about were all liberal and thats, you know, you know, a literary critic says you cant talk about liberalism because everybody is a liberal in these days and its the promoting infrastructure like the interstate highways. We all agree with that. Democrats and republicans have different ideas which part of that is more important. Everybody thought of themselves as liberal and they capitalize it and say these guys are essentially like the communist party in china. Theyre a party, theyre taking over america and that powerful construction and at the time it was this the book itself was not terribly wellreceived. Really, mccarthy is a good guy . It does get a lot of attention, but of course, by now, the idea of being a liberal, you know, remember in like the 80s, people used to call you the lword. Dont call him the lword and now its this epithet and you can see being constructed. That was one moment and in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich, they were in charge of, i dont want to use indoctrinating, but a word like that, they were the coaches for the new republicans, the newly elected republicans to kind of socialize them into the Republican Party and what they do, is they actually circulate a document with all the words that they should use when they talk about democrats. And those are words like traitor, and lazy, and special interest, and angry, and all of these really negative words and then they have a list of words they should talk when they talk about republicans and republican policies and they were patriots, fiscally responsible, family, happy, you know, its all of this good stuff and you could literally see the Republican Party under Newt Gingrich, when they write out the traditional republicans that they label rhinos, even though its the other way around, Newt Gingrich and the Movement Conservatives are republicans in name only. Very powerful language. You could literally see them using language to divide the country in two and to label half of it as negative and half of it as positive. So, it really, thats, those were the two touchstones for me, but im trying to remember. Theres you talked about a similar touchstone, i think, in field of blood didnt you . Certainly, what youre describing is what i talked about, too, and the scenario you describes with ache laj, the people creating a you in leave by creating this. Yeah. So, its fascinating. So just capitalizing those words helps to suggest theres a it there and conservatives and liberalism is not just words, theyre capitalized and the power of that is in a way, whoever is reading it doesnt necessarily have awareness of the power. That they become a it just lie looking at it. And that comes back to politics, if youre affected by that, still, then youre basically finding a way not just to create a us and a them, but to plug people into assumptions and emotions that are going to play well for you. Right . Because words are like a direct drill, they can be, right into emotions, responses, right into things that you arent necessarily going to process, right . And so, one example. Actually, in my first book, and its, you know, its which is called affairs of honor by the way, i loved it. Affairs of honor, National Politics in the new republic. One of the factors of democracy and one of the abilities of democracy is one of the important languages, democracy is about power and persuasion, by definition its more vulnerable and powerful. And all of that back to the republic, theyre playing a kind of games with words. And even in the first 10 years of the government. Theres the federalist, and the Federalist Party in the 1790s, is in a sense more elitist and more big money driven and discome fitted by discomfitted. And if anyone uses the word aristocrat, youre done because that plugs into so many other thin things. In late 20th and 20 to century the word was taxes. Another great moment where holt said people were not that concerned about taxes by the 1980s but if you talk about taxes it conjured up this idea that somehow the taxes of hardworking white people are going to go into the pockets of lazy people of color and feminists. We even have a conversation i was the political operatives lee atwater who talks about it and he says by 1968 you cant use racial epitaph although he uses the racial epitaph in this quotation. Says you cant go out and say vote for me or youll have to deal with this. He says, so we generalize it. We Start Talking about busing. People knew which were talking about peggy said you could take one more step back and you Start Talking about taxes and people are like i care about taxes, when you talk about taxes it is not, you write it down on paper study it in congress, it is not carrying the package of this long history of American Fear of an underclass redistributing wealth. But the reality is by 1980 when americans here republican politicians swearing they will never raise taxes and the democrats want to take money from the makers and give it to the takers it is absolutely coded racial language. All you have to do and even now to some degree all you have to do to make sure we dont have social welfare legislation is to say, do you want your taxes raised . There you go. And had a 50 years of American History is right on the table with that three letter word. And deploying it is the key to a certain kind of politics. Its so effective because we see the all the time now. Someone will Say Something and youll see in social media will say dont wiggle. Other people say no, its not. The person is just referring to x, y and z. It probably estimates have coded message but the fact that can be argument about that shows the power of that kind of attack. And diversion because you can say i dont know what i meant. I remember when people started using what we knew as the okay symbol as a white power symbol. I remember the first time i read that thinking no, ive been doing that my whole life. By the time you started seeing get in all these places you are like oh, my god, youre right, that is a dog whistle. Its a time of ambiguity where if you said it was a white power symbol, especially older people look to june when two people are social justice warriors, and it was way to deploy that symbol in such a way that it was a doubly powerful. Only were you calling your people to you but anybody who called you out on it then had on if all people say no, youre being paranoid which is one of the weight language works. Thats why we keep talking about gas lighting. Thats exactly out gas lighting works. Just that you were saying, the weird ambiguity about this amino care something more, in that early time it seems no, it seems something more. Buy some logic come to some people youve declared your loyalty. He planted yourself from where just by asking a question which is a fair question but which flies right into the us in the demonstration, thats shaping politics. It was striking what is working on my book the degree to which people at the time understood this kind of power. In the late 1850s when were moving up towards the civil war, i found a lot of members of congress and others outside of congress saying to each other over and over again we have to control our words, which is a striking thing to hear if youre talking about people in a crisis and worried about the beginning is going to collapse and theyre saying watch your words. Thats like testimony to have power and emotional power on a high level and on a popular level was well, theres a southerner in that late three te refers to words being spoken in congress as missiles. He says to her northerner dont send missiles at us. We will have bloodshed. Hold off on the missiles. I think the power of that, its so easy to not acknowledge it. In the 19th century they studied rhetoric. People like Joshua Chamberlain from the famous professor of rhetoric, they literally studied how to use words to mobilize populations. We let that go in early 20th century and ive got on the back of the shelves the whole series of books on famous orations in history. You could take his home and study them. The fact we permitted that to be, the study of it to be forgot but also for it to be deployed by people are acting in such a way that most americans are not aware of it is really deeply automatic. I saw today there is a new ad out from the Trump Campaign that is really, really misleading. It has chopped all kind of stuff up that is not historically accurate it makes people sound like they are saying things that they are not saying. I will give a great example from a book you and i both know were somebody use the quotation and it is entirely accurate except he took up the word not, which is, well, hes like its true. Except for the little word not which kind of mattered. One of the things i focus on is the difference between image and reality and how people can tell if somebody is being manipulative or not. One of the things i layout in chennai is what you get this us versus them, my work is all based in this time of logic theoretically based on eric hoffer wrote his book called true believers and he was interested in how you take a body of people, and aching feet when and what is what about the rise of hitler and mussolini suppercaseletter and how they managed to rise. Who cares . Every generation has hitlers and mussolini. What you care about why in certain errors certain people will listen to them because they are always there but how the rise at certain times. What he argued was once youve done the us and them thing, that is absolutely done by language, then you have two weaponized it. I went from that and came up with the 1850s these four stitches of how you would go from its in my interest to create an us and them, to have that turns into first a societal view of yeah, we have enough of them and us is better than the others to religion, society come all those things. And then them, well, they probably shouldnt vote and once they cant vote, they really shouldnt have any power and pretty soon youre at it point what if the people are defined as the others are still trying to find society can you start kalinga. Thats a debate that you dont always get to but its a four stage process and the question of how do you know when youre being manipulated . And how do you stop the process . It is one that speaks directly to this moment and i wonder, i know you have ideas about that and i think thats probably an important place to go. How do people know that they are being manipulated . Its a really good question. Its probably the most consistent question my students ask me when were studying political history. My classes mostly look at the late 18th and early 19th century, even looking at those who are supposedly great men who say reliable things but inevitably if your talk about politics and words, the students get to where they get confused and they basically say outright what you just said which is how do i know what to believe . When do these people mean what they are saying and when are they saying things just to have an impact . How can budget when they are being politicians or when theyre being sincere . How can i judge. Its that fuzziness that is the engine of it so to speak. In part by answer always has to do with being aware of details surrounding context, not letting yourself respond in a way you expect to respond. If someone says something and you get swept up and your response. But rather if you are able to sit back and think about whos thinking, who do they think that speaking to . What outcomes did he want are not what . Come you focus on the details and which in essence is what it sees as a historian teaching history major. Thinking about evidence, think about evidence what is and what it means and what the circumstances are that might shape its meaning. Its a tricky question. I cant say i sit here all the time youre so its a something and myself that is totally sometimes you can tell and sometimes you cant but you have to think about it before assuming something i think particularly now when technology, technology always shapes democracy in unpredictable ways and right now one of the things it is doing is making get even harder than normal to decide what the facts are. Even as i sit are saying we need to sit back and consider circumstances, sometimes its hard to even know what the circumstances are. Its confusing. I guess i would say that confusion is truth and reality is ultimately part of what creates a particular kind of moment in politics. I tell my students kind of certainly we always do the who, what, why, when, where and all that but always talk about two things and one is step back for a second. Like do you really think that your neighbors are keeping babies in the basement . Step back for a second. Do you really think that this would happen . So much of what we hear is at least in the 50s and 60s but in the present moment so much you you are like oh, my god, theyre going to do did you say, really . I know a lot of people like that and ive met a lot of people in my life and to my knowledge none of them ever, you know, keep people in barrels in the basement. Thats not normal behavior. The other thing i always, always talk about and its funny im telling you that because of this pandemic i am sitting on property that belong once upon a time to the woman who told me this. She is long gone. She was born in 1896 and when ii was young and very and ideology, i cared about how people think about stuff and i would come to house and i would say well, the republicans, the republicans believe this and they believe this. She would say have there, who is getting that money and who is giving the money . No, no, they care about this. Heather, who is getting the money. She would say follow the money, follow the money. Thats the other thing that we see all the time is people send stuff to you and say, is this real . This is terrifying. Is this real . Think about who is making the money from that. You can see this thing of us versus them. I get this all the time, i get emails saying you only say the things you did because you are so highly paid. Like, seriously . Like i have no complaints. I make a very good living for the idea the son of sean hannity is telling the truth to them and i am not because i am so wellpaid . Its like how much is on the internet . I promise you as a College Professor not giving sean hannity a run for his money. You might want to sit there and say, plus i still do my day job, you might want to sit there and say who is making the money from this particular video and whos going to stand to gain that only from the propaganda that also from the legislation that is being put in place . I considered tell you im doing fabulous things for the farmers in iowa, but you might want to look at what im doing and not what am saying. Because i could see anything. I can tell you it is snowing outside. That doesnt make it snowing outside. Thats one of the important things that both the 1850s and in the present bring ready to the table is if youre not going to be swept up in this emotional language, how do you step out of it . That i think both of those eras talk about really examining whos talking and why, what emotions its trading in you. Does it make you feel angry and afraid or miserable are just make you feel hey, i can do something, im in color. Thats an important distinction. Also is a believable . Is the really going to be sharia law in oklahoma . I was a waitress in oklahoma. I dont think i ever anybody talk about sharia law. I dont think everything anybody who would have thought of sharia law. That was one of the ones who made the rounds and you thought, really, really . Sharia law in oklahoma . If it happened i would go see i it. And so often in one way or another a way to plug into the rally is to ask that kind of question, is to ask well, just recently someone on twitter was proclaiming about all people who are like this or all like that, they are evil and out for no good and theyre only out for money and blah, blah, blah. My response was, so am i evil . Do you really we engage all the time. No, you are not. Okay. So who are you talking about . Who fits into that and why are you saying that . Whats interesting about what you just said is on the one hand, its a way to decode and process something but you can also see how it might feed into conspiracy theories, right, and thats one of the big sort of detracting problems of this kind of moment that we are in now at the 1850s were, at the late 1790s were when there was a component did people really feel something fundamental american needs to be decided. They need to understand how why things are working the way to do and they are almost prone to come up with a conspiracy to explained. I have never quite understood that because im not a conspiracy person. Im a very kind of lets just keep asking questions until we get to the base of things. One of the things that astonish me, if you want to understand conspiracy and understand how things work that ive or around you. If you want to really get into something, go ahead and look at the history of the post office which is this entangled complicated fascinating human story. Why are you manufacturing something with her so much real stuff thats opacity . I was talking yesterday about right after the iraq war and a group of neocons organized for the project of the american century, and remember hearing about that in the 1990s and thinking that tinfoil hat stuff. Its on the internet signed by them, by bill kristol and don juan sill of people who went on to get us involved in the war in iraq. I thought why on earth are people inventing conspiracy theories about what happened when you literally can sit there and say heres a group of people who launched his argument that after the cold war america needed to reassert its world power and it needed to do so begin in iraq . That i also heard about Donald Rumsfeld after 9 11 saying did we get enough to hit Saddam Hussein . Once i i did the research you. He said it. It was never contested. I wonder that conspiracy theorists because like if you want to get really involved in stuff come look at the levers of power a look at how things change, its all right there. You dont have to invent something happening in a basement of a pizza parlor or the idea that somehow somebody planted a birth certificate in hawaii, or that anthony found cheap is somehow started Something Back with aids and has now been uncovered by failed medical researcher. There is plenty that is right for the even get into. Theres an element of it that goes beyond simply one to feel like you know something nobody else does. Its also partly assign people feeling not empowered. And what to say they know more than experts. Some of the experts are cheating and they semino more just by the own sense. Thats really deeply problematic because as i said yesterday, experts can be really prettily. We tend to be, i think you and i are fairly approachable but certainly i and after you that experience of asking what seemem like a Pretty Simple question to an expert and they treated you like you were the stupidest, dumbest, like you were not even really an extension of life. Its always mortifying. Some of it can be difficult by the dont think ive ever met a real expert who wants to deeply and profoundly in love with the topic and in love with the truth so you dont have to be the friend of the idea that somehow some researcher, some real researcher who is holding down to 30,000 or 40,000 thousand bucks a year tops is working 80 hour weeks because somehow shes on the payroll of big pharma is just nuts. If you want to look at whos on the payroll of big pharma you could see that but the idea that some of this for researcher at university of nebraska is part of some conspiracy is just again a real divorced from reality. Right. Its a satisfying divorce because its plugging right into what it validates your assumption and plugs or did your emotions and creates a neat story. Very often can spears create a clear story. Your to find the facts can figure them out and understand how they fit together or dont fit together which is sometimes not that difficult to do but its not as satisfying. Also the people who you talk about, including us, who are experts on the topic and passionate about it and want to talk to people about it and want to engage about it, what they are doing as experts is something that conspiracy theories dont plug into. And that is history isnt about clear stories. Its the struggle that creates whats happening. The struggles are always more interesting than the storylines that we create because they are neat and tidy and wraps things up in a bubble. The struggle and fight and complexity and ambiguities, thats part of the fascinating part about history is finding them and immersing yourself in the event trying to look through the eyes of someone at that time to see how they are making sense of that. That some of what i love to do about history is i did when i studied how does that make sense . Two guys are met at each other and they come to field and one shoots at the other and then everything is solved. Really . Like, hundreds of people thought that was logical. Okay, let me figure out the logic of it because it was logical because theyre risking their lives without logic. So let me figure out, and, of course, its next up with things like reputation and political power and all these things get mixed in and makes perfect sense but its far more interesting than blood, it would mean and nasty and a hated each other so they killed each other and what a rough time that was. That doesnt tell you anything about the time. Is also fascinates me because one of the things we do in history is people say either everything in the past is great for everything in the past is bad. Human beings are mixed at her history is mixed and one of the things about the polarizing language and want to emphasize polarizing language that is designed to create and sustain a power structure. One of the problems with that very clear narrative language is it takes wit and be good to what human beings are. That has a negative side. One of the things that i find so powerful about American History is that your heroes come from nowhere. Like nobody wakes up one morning and since im going to be a real jerk today. Im going to go out and kill a bunch of people. They put their feet on the floor and said im going to go out and protect my family. Nobody ever sees himself as the villain. Unless they are i guess is always a caveat for the most part the kind of regular people you talk about like a french guy goes into washing, hes a nice guy. At the end of bookies caring again. He didnt wake up and say im going to be a warrior today. He woke up and said im going to go about my day, and gradually he got radicalized. Wonder the things that fascinates me about that is the opposite is also true. People put their feet on the grant and a second widow said im going to go out and be a hero today. They go out and say im going to go fishing today because ive got to put food on the table, or as you and i know so well im going to go to work today because its my job to go to work, here are my favorite, theres a great book by teresa kaminsky called angels of the underground that i would love because its about the women during world war ii around an event in the philippines. You read them in their sort of open life and like she did this and she did that and she did that come at hate to give away the sport of one of them becomes a hero because she goes to get enrolled by the japanese which is going to leak out what else to be encamped, incarcerated. She goes activity again but ele goes to get signed up where theyre supposed to be signed up. Just before the japanese come to that she has a panic attack and she cant be there. Her friends are like just data ten minutes. Write your name and go home. She says i cant, i cant, to go home. Because she has a panic attack she gets put in such a position that she is the only person who has not been rounded up and he is terrified so shes in her apartment for weeks without being discovered as she watches the movements of the occupiers the whole time. When she emerges shares information that nobody else does but she did not wake of the morning of enrolled as a im going to be hero and refuse to be enrolled. Im going to spy on the japanese. She said im going to go with anyone else, go to dinner and have been. People are like where are our heroes . They are us. You might be putting your feet on the ground today thinking that you are just going to go downtown, and when the push comes to shove and jeff to make a decision between doing whats right and doing whats wrong, if you choose what to write, thats the first step to being a hero. Thats the piece that if you like has gotten lost in these sweeping narratives where you either good or you are bad. No, you are both. The trick is to keep choosing to be good. Right. When you look over the broad sweep of america, there is a tendency often about some people to try and find the golden period, good. Back when it was all happy and they got bad after. Of course there is no golden moment. August 13, 1950. For ten minutes in the morning right. But that moment doesnt exist. There are always compromises being made. There are always people making good choices and bad choices. The struggle of any country but certainly the american story is about some people having ideals and ambitions and hoping to make the right choice. Of the people being motivated by Different Things. Some people unable to proceed possibilities. Possibility. Of the people able to. When they banged up against each other and choices are made and the story moves on, there is a moment in American History where you dont have the struggle and the ugliness and ideals all bound up together in one big messy blob. Part of the challenge of being a historian is acknowledging that, allowing yourself to believe in the things that feel believable without keeping something as perfect or golden or better. The way you do that, you erase the human struggle from history, and that is what history is. Talk about the future. People making choices about where we go from here. Right, and how we past the moment that we are currently in. Right. Now, i see, im glancing at the corner of my screen. I see that a lot of people have been asking a question and a general kind of a way, which is, and, of course, this makes it because we keep talking about history and the link to the president theyre asking how the civil war except laid foundation for ideological shifts that we see today. Lets begin there. How do we see, particularly this applies to your book. I have a book, thats right. This conversation is so good. And your book Center Making that pattern clear over time, how does the first period in your book layout by pattison what cs later and in particular comes today . Thats a quick question im i will be as brief as i can, what do think its a fascinating pattern. What i would point to is less the civil war then it is reconstruction. What happens in the civil war, i argue about but also believe, is that there are two important things that come out of the civil war years under what is in a Republican Party, the brandnew Republican Party, and on the one hand, you couldve ca push for the inclusion of africanamerican men in the declaration of independence come in the idea that they should have called of opportunity. Not outcome but opportunity. You get the push during the civil war. You also get during the civil war with the Republican Party, you get a rejection of the idea that a few wealthy men should run the country. You get the idea the government itself should be the government of the people, by the people and for the people. That place out of ways we tend to forget today. It plays out obviously inclusion of africanamerican men in that definition of body politic but its the homestead act which offers free land. Its of course American Indian land, the land to farmers to grow crops and to make money and to be upwardly mobile. Because the establishment of Public University and we can establishment the department of agriculture which is designed to get really good seats and regular forms. We get the Union Pacific railroad act and the Northern Pacific which is designed to get people out to the Western Plains into the western minds so they can join the upward mobile society that would get her First National money so people can do business over state lines which is a great joanna did a great piece on fuel of blood when your guys try to get across the country and is money did the work. You also get for the first time in American History national taxes, national taxation. So you get the idea that people are investing in the government and that, in turn is doing something for the people. The people own the government. The government then takes care of the people are investing it and thats everybody. Its not just people buying bonds. Its anybody paying an income tax. What happens after the war is these things all clustered together and during the construction in the summer of 1866 what happens is southern democrats who loathe the idea of black participate in society, mind you they dont want slavery back. Slavery has completely disintegrated during the war and they might want it back but its clear its long gone, but you could never untangle everything that happened during the civil war. But they dont want black rights. What happened during the summer of 65, is africanamericans tried into the free Lieber Society and work for their survival. They get cheated. The former employers cheated. They rape the women. They attacked the men and untie of the men. Because of the black codes at the southern constitutional conventions right in the summer of 65, they cant sue. They have no rights at all. So under the circumstances africanamericans go to Army Officers who are empowered under the department of an established in the army called bureau of refugees freedom and abandoned land. They say help us out. We worked hard and after three months of work they say we didnt earn anything. The Freedmens Bureau officers who Army Officers because thats the area of the government that the Congress Just put it in, the officers of the bureau of refugees, white, refugees freed and abandoned like in the sum of 65 becomes known as the Freedmens Bureau. They decide in favor africanamericans but 70 , 68 of the time. Its that. 7 democrats start to say we didnt care about sleep after all. What we really care about is this giant federal government that is telling us how to treat our people. This is going to change over the next three to four years and republicans in congress tried to guarantee that africanamerican men have the ability to protect their own rights through new civil rights legislation and by establishing federal courts are they can testify under the Freedmens Bureau. Andrew johnson stepped in and said no, you cant do that. What you are doing is you are first of all giving africanamerican men writes that noah american man has because White American men are not labeled by name in any legislation because its all written for them. He says youre giving rights to black man that youre not getting to whiteman. By denise is something huge and he says what youre doing is creating this giant federal government, giant federal government that is designed to give rights to black people that white men dont have. The only way to pay for those rights is by tax levies, tax dollars. What youre doing is you are redistributing wealth from hardworking white people are lazy, impoverished africanamericans. That language right there is in mosquitoes of the bills in 1866. By 1871, seven democrats want to get rid of black rights based on racial issues suddenly say, by the way, what we are worried about is you poor people, that people used to work the fields are now suddenly saying how our tax dollars are supposed to be spent. Its right there we get that use of the word socialism, all the paper stock all the time of socialism in the south about how socialism has taken over america because state legislatures and the federal government are creating bureaus and programs have to be paid for by tax levies and those things will benefit africanamericans. Because africanamericans are impoverished after the war, thats going to come through taxes on white people. Even today you hear people screaming constantly come on the massachusetts statehouse two days ago there was somebody saying the whole idea of closing down society so we didnt have to die from a pandemic was because democrats want to turn it into the socialists dates of america. What they are saying is any legislation that helps achieve equality of opportunity across society is a redistribution of wealth because its going to take tax dollars. It has nothing to do with 20th century socialism. It is just here right here from this era of reconstruction and it comes right out of the civil war. I keep saying to my various articles about when reconstruction ended it you can make a really good case for the fact reconstruction still hasnt ended because we are having the exact same conversation today that they had in the 1870s. So the civil war, by definition, shuffles the relationship between government and the people, and doing so scrambles that we. Thats right. What youre describing is an ongoing battle for whom the week is, who was included, whos excluded from it, and those are obviously highly significant questions. At some periods they are more pressing any immediate than others but where in one right now the people know thats part of whats going on here and thats part of why its so personal. People are so engaged in that kind of a way. Its so cool because this is exactly what happened after world war ii. It was clear who the we was picked it was the gis from all walks of life, from the mexicanamericans who were some of the first to say wait a minute, we should have the voter under dr. Garcia. Africanamericans and women, my mother was a whack. If our government, we just literally saved democracy. Its our government, somehow that we is a very small group of people who believe that they should control the wealth and power in society but the good of the rest of us and that to me century much like what slaveholders were saying, and im not comfortable with that. Right, precisely. Im going to switch because we were asked a question which talks in a sense more about us as historians more than does not periods and is an important point to talk about. The question is basically given what we are doing right here in speaking to each other in speaking with this great group of people in the public, why are historians at the current moment so eager to be out and put public intellectuals . What is it at this current moment that is inspiring some historians to step more aggressively forward to the public than moments when they might have done that in the past . Im not sure i can answer that because it has not been my experience, there are many people of our generation doing it. The twitter historians but little you could count is on a maximum of two Mccain Institute junk historians have always been involved in the public sphere because they are involved in the academy. I sound like eric hoffer. Joanne and i have both been public intellectuals for most of our careers. Its just nobody has paid any attention. I did not wake up one day and publicly on the ground and say im going to write these letters. I was making my house and i got stung by a Yellow Jacket and im allergic to them. I have to observe and it didnt have my epipen so i had to observe reactions and a jump start writing about. The next i knew everybody was asking questions. That was born and it was funny to me once when a road article, i dont have time to write articles for newspaper in london but a road in the car he went out to right and a written for many years so whats it is great, they discovered you. Ive been around. Its just where were at a momen we recognize we have for too long and attention to a narrative that was not really in reality. What historians have is, and many of our children and family members would probably say it too much of, it is reality. Saying wait a minute, thats not what happened in 1954, or thats not to Grover Cleveland was. I think people love to hear our real story, how did we get are and how can we get out of it. Right. I think thats the thing that historians bring to that conversation that other commentators dont necessarily. I often joke that have a double brain at this particular moment. Part of my brain is look at whats happening in thinking broad patterns. Thinking about what has happened and why it happened and being aa historian. Some part of me is making imagination. The other part of me is basically going i have a sense of urgency and Something Like a historian. I do think its a different sense of urgency to this moment, and to write both of us have been engaged in talking to the public for ever. Theres an urgency to this moment that is different or feels different to me so that thursday mornings i do an online kind of webinar right talk about looking at the past and talk about how you can use those to figure out the present. That was born because i was driving myself crazy i to think of something i could write or do that would get people to ask Smart Questions about the present. That was your one thing i coulk of. I make historian. Lo and behold this moment has taught us things that president s, about technology. I do think the moment has added urgency to the equation of things that helps set how historians think jenna and then how public mind the storage think. I think it is come to the fore for me lately how shallow some much reporting is. Reporters are different than you and and i are but i find it frustrating when you get an article and it says, and im making this up, joe smith, director of the office of something youve never heard of, wrote a document that pertains to something youve never heard of, and some congressperson, some important congressperson said im going to cut his mother off at the knees. You are like what on earth just happened . A lot of what i do is literally say here are the players, heres a larger story of why this play matters, and heres how it might come out. People complain sometimes i dont go into a lot of stuff and its like if you literally took the column, the posts i write and you took out my explanations as to each person is, i bet theres probably 50200 words and every one of those post that is just who the players are. If you went and took out who the play, what the play is, the actual analysis comes down to being probably less than half of what i write every night but at least like theres a big whistleblower thing now with a guy, rick wright. The first homicide outlasted unlike i remember this. I remember this. I remember that name. I remember theres a a whistleblower complaint and a member he was somebody important, but so many of the articles just said he did this and this. Wait a minute, there was a back story. I wrote about the back story. I think thats about why we are important because right now because we can say heres the context and heres why it matters, and really theres not room in most newspapers to do that. Washington post does it very well but the are post too long because they do for every single story and your like ive got a job. I cant a thousand stories everyday. To do a great job but really nobody can read that much stuff on each particular thing. The study of history is about context. We are prime to get sort of thing right at the moment. We have the stories. People are sending me wonderful, wonderful stuff about mathematical models and they are really, really interesting but its hard to make a mathematical model come alive. We have stories to make it come alive. Well, right. We have the humanity, and what can touch you more at a moment of change the feels unsettling, people who can connect the command of the path of the community of the press and try to make sense of it in a way that is here and comes from your own attempt to figure it out. If all of that stuff makes perfect sense to me, im going to flip things. This is a question and its turning things on its head kind of question which i think we should address. Weve talked about a particular youve talked about conservatives doing things with language the shape liberals. Is there some kind of liberal counter language . Is this have on both sides . And if it is are there similarities, differences . How is the reverse working . This is a huge question but its a fabulous question. Theres a whole book to be written here. This is a great question because i think joanne said something early that is important and thats this is what the new book is about, that one of the things that is really been powerful in america really sense 1980s is the degree to which the Movement Conservative language has dominated everything. Even the democrats got swept up, new democrats got swept into the idea of Market Forces controlling things, and we ended up with the nation that was in such a place that it really was shaped along a certain kind of ideological view. Even if you are speaking up against that, saying no, there are mass destruction weapons in iraq, you are still reinforcing the space that that rhetoric had cost. One of the projects that im engaged in an people say to him and what can i do one of the things im engaged in and really for my study of history is to develop a different language, to say we are in us versus them and my us includes people want equality of opportunity, people want to use government not the money at the top but put money at the bottom and to make sure it rises. Make sure people can work and work a job and ask make enough money to support a family. Thats my us, and my us looks very much like the as of the 1950s, of the eisenhower years. Except i would hope that my us is a great deal more inclusive. I think you get into big argument valid isobutyl up to, but theres no doubt that the 1950s were not exactly a great time for people of color are women, or whomever. If i am right that language controls politics, and power, and if joe in joanne is right that it can controls in by tapping different Human Emotion and american value, the way you change issue by changing the language. When you use the word patriot and you dont mean somebody screaming at some essays at the statehouse, but you mean the guy who gets in his truck and goes off to work to support his family, that change the association of words and the change in our National Narrative is what changes history. Its what i say to people speak up. Say what you believe in. Say what things matter because thats what is going to change history and change the moment we are in that makes you feel good about being an american not feeling like a means hating and killing and destroying and dominating but rather building up and working together and creating a society where everybody has equality of opportunity. So is there another narrative . Theres not been really since fdr and and i would argue his s important but is not one for today because it was really male centered and really kind of racist and sexist. But we have the space to build our own new narrative, and this is to be the great excitement of this moment. We are in in a crisis that we t to decide what comes next. We get to put our feet on the floor in the morning and say, im going to make the next right choice. And while it sucks, i sorted would rather be sitting on hammock in reading a book, its a really exciting time. Its really exciting time to get to choose the future. Its also a moment when we are being called upon to think about processes, right, to appreciate processes of government and appreciate how the constitution on a basic basic level structures. What does it mean to have separate branches of government . What are checks and balances . What are the Different Things a citizen has met over time . How is our politics work . What is the process itself . I think some of what we are experiencing right now is people who are not plugged into that, and as a historian what i am experiencing is the to step forward. Like, the process matters. How matter speakeasy cant trust the elections, just a simple process which isnt to say there will always be 100 honest or, you know, what happened smoothly, but basically if americans cant step back its a weekly in the process of elections can we believe in oversight and if anything goes wrong theres a way to fix it, well then what process comes in its place . We have talked about this before but when i talk about the founding and its very tempting when you talk about the founding you talk about ideology and great thoughts et cetera, et cetera, et cetera and thats one conversation. But he asked him at the time what the most valuable contribution was come some of them even sets of outright if they would tell you the process that they created. Madison said that. Jefferson said that. They were all kinds of crises. We cant imagine what you will be in the future but we set in motion a process with the constitution come with the convention itself which is people in a room debating, narrowly debating in a way we wish. There are things that i wish they wouldve done things carefully. But at least you can refer back to that and have platform so that you can find a way out that as part of a shared agreement on how this nation works. I feel like we have sort of lost the process and be lost, we are so used to things being unprecedented and unprecedented i spoke to many ways that white now were losing that touchstone and its a really important one. Thats exactly what happened in the 1850s and out in the last half three years that we destroying the process. Once you have destroyed the process, the pieces are there for anyone to pick up. This is the ultimate outcome in the 1850s of course was that when the people who didnt like the process didnt get their way, basically said we are done, we are taking our marbles and go no. Its from watching the process is being destroyed rattus today, what is the outcome of that. I talk about this all the time, if you dont have that group of bureaucrats, the people who are loyal to the government or to the state not to an individual, then you become a group of advanced oligarchs. You are beholden to whomever holds the reins of power engine no means of reclaiming that because at the very least even if you replace that person with your person, you still have a disinterested process in place. That the other thing we need to do is protect elections but also protect nonpartisan civil servants, the ones who are loyal to the state. Dedicated to the state and the process. I think on that note we hold ourselves around the pathways that certainly lead to progress. I think along the lines of what you are saying its tempting to experience this moment and think either everything is going to be fine, or were done. And to think part of this time of what youre saying is we still matter as the public. This is the moment of extreme contingency. So what we do matters. So its a moment a possibility, a moment of contingency and thats a positive and encouraging message to pull out of this moment. Amen, and thats what a look at it. But its also the most realize that democracy is not a spectator sport. This has been so exciting to see so many people get involved in the process that you and i have love in her own private ways for many decades. Its also a moment to recognize really that democracy is about us and we need to step up to the plate and discipled what to do with it. What we are okay with and what were not okay with. So for all of the terror of this moment it is also one of extraordinary possibility. Absolutely. I think maybe it makes sense to and there. I want to thank evelyn out there who is in watching and engaging in this conversation for coming. Look towards Brooklyn Historical society for more programs that amanda virtual universe. Who knows what will happen in this virtual space. At any rate thank you all for coming. I have had great fun today. And thank you, joanne. This has been great and hope we do many of these in the future, thanks to the Brooklyn Historical society and thank you to everybody to have patience with what was that probably what you expected the seem to me to be a much more fun thing to do. If you want to follow along with the actual book, i do give it on facebook series on it. Im on the sixth week and that will be archived on youtube. A suit is against the time to label the videos. If you felt like you didnt get enough youre on that particular thing, it is available elsewhere as well. So thanks very much, joanne. It was totally fun. I will add my last commercial advertisement. Those of you who are interested in my conversations about looking at history and blanket to the present, every thursday morning at 10 00, and they are live at and archived at nchd. Net backslash conversations. I cant believe you remembered to that. Thank you, guys. Thanks, everyone. Weeknights this month were featuring booktv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Enjoy booktv on cspan2. Booktv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors of the weekend. Binge watch programs with the late author christopher hitchens. Watch booktv this weekend on cspan2. Starting now our summer series that features programs from our archives with wellknown authors. Next come historian Joanne Freeman talks about her life in writing. She appeared on our monthly callin program in depth in september 2019. Host Joanne Freeman you will hate this opening question. Trace the ark of our nations history from 17831861, the palooka history of our nation. Guest wow. I wont use the word hate. Thats a little daunting. Trace the ark. Im going to do a historian thing and speak generally. I guess i would take a look at american politics from the beginning straight to come we can even go past the civil war, youre talking about paradoxes and conflict and