Im Heather Cox Richardson at boston collegage im thrilled to be here at the National Book festival this year although i, of course, am not in washington here on the coast of maine sitting in front of all of the books i use to write the books i write. And in the space where i produce things so im thrilled to be here talking about my new book, how the south won the civil war democracy and continuing fight for the control of america a name by the way i did not come up with but somebody listen to what i was trying to write about saying this was only possible title you can have and reason she said that was the book is really started really as an attempt to understand why today Republican Party is so clearly tie to the image of the american confederacy like how did the Confederate States of america which lost in civil war become such a private symbol for todays what today Major Political parties it is kind of a funny question to you think about it. And the more i got into figuring out why that was the case why republicans so were why republicans were interested for example in waiving confederate flags or protecting confederate statues. What i figured out was that american democracy has within it a fundamental contradiction that is just funders who came up with idea that, you know, all men are created equal. In fact, other human beings enslave african and Indigenous People and they considered considered women lesser to be altogether so inherent with equality there was the concept of american inequality. And that contradiction, that paradox has driven our politics ever since. What it did was it gave to a along wog to undermine democracy so they have been able since the beginning to convince voters white male voters those people who were created equal from the start, but any time that people of color or women began to approach equality there was a corollary to that american paradox what it would mean for women or people of color to get equality was inequality for those white men who had initially been the ones included in the idea that all men are created equal and with that corollary to that First American paradox we have within ourselves within this country, a fundamental weakness of american democracy. So the book really takes that centralized idea and plays it out through american history. How in the 1850s extreme wealthy enslave in the American South manage to use that corollary to the american paradox first to garner enough power to control the American South and then to take over the federal government. And seem like during the civil war that ideology of the south, the idea that really american democracy should be oligarchy based in hierarchy move to American West and in the American West, what the american who is moved there after the civil war discovered was that ideology fit very nicely in the west in that period because the west had an economy that was not unlike that of the American South. Based in the extract in extraction which called for a splal group of very wealthy men and a lot of workers who are fairly interchangeable, and that ideology got a second length in the American West and it first of all but then over time because of the familiarity of the political system it took over american politic and move from American West back across the american continent, the American Government took back over our society so that by 1819 so that by 1964, burly gold water who western cowboy is nominated for the Republican National convention that put him over the top in that convention in south carolina. The birthplace of the american confederacy. Like all of my books, this book began as what i thought was a very small idea. And that was the question again, trying to explain how todays Republican Party became so attached to the confederacy which is really counterintuitive if you think about. Confederates were people who tried to destroy america it was a rebellion against the United States government. So why is it 21st century American Political Party has so identified with that particular movement . One of the things that is fascinating about the material that i covered in this book is the way it looks at the American West. Many think American West and they think of it as land of freedom where anybody could become prosperous and control usually his destiny. Whats interesting to me about the material in this book was that it suggest that opposite was true that that image was a deliberate attempt to justify society that put a few white men on top e these, of course, symbolized by american cowboy guy who had his wife or women in the up stairs in saloon in west and who ran their lives in a way that they insist with independent but was really independent on federal assistance and way of life that deliberately denigrated people of color and being wives or being somehow read out acceptable american society. And in realizing that we were probably telling the story of the American West wrong in popular mythology really energizes to me to reexamine our history in part because we get new source but also in part because we change. We change people and we change as a country and the stories that we tell matter. For how we define ourselves and one of the things that really jump out me as this book developed was the idea that so often when people talk about the history of mexican americans or chinese minnesotas people or women, they somehow see that as being separate. Somehow a nation history. But, in fact, what you realize when you look at the larger picture of america and what happened in the American West and how that, that rebirth rejuvenation of a american hierarchy in American West after civil war really a few good white men should rule the country what you do when you recognize that that is rebuilt in the American West and that ideology has regain strength out there is a recognition that there is no separate, separation but there is no separation between indigenous history and american political history and womens history. But these are all important pieces of our National Story and that until we recognize that built into our story is this weakness that quality cannot depend on inequality that give to undermine democracy once you realize that you recognize that the acquisition of quality of all before the law equality for resources is not simply an issue of importance to community as all but to all of us to enable us to protect our democracy. So all of america defense of equality, the idea of hierarchy in which a few good, educated well connected, wealthy men should run the lives of everybody else never went away. That was a way that the world had been organized in the west for a very long time and remember the idea of the quality was really radical. The idea that every individual should have the right of selfdetermination is what makes america such a radical arrival on the International Scene instead of 1976 but that idea that some people should control everybody else has always been part of the american scene and question is how do those people who believe that manage to get voters who is believe in equality to sign on to their program in a way they do that is so leverage the language of this american paradox on corollary to the american paradox. But its important, i think, to remember that the reason that they have had the ability to leverage that language is because theres a group side to all of this as well that voters really do want to defend american equality. They do care about human selfdetermination they do care about the american dream. And that is a way makes it susceptible to their manipulation by people who are using them who are using them to reenforce their own power and thats going to be the challenge for america going forward. How do you keep that incredible power of the idea of human selfdetermination of the idea that people really should be able to have access to the resources and to be pee quality before the law that they need to make their dream come alive make themselveses the newest entrepreneurs. The have the ingenuity to do new and exciting thing hes at the same e not leaving them vulnerable to the idea that if they open up that Great American dream of color and women destroyed it for themselves. Those two things are not incompatible but our history and language that can be deployed for that history have made us vulnerability and important for us to rxz that. In early 19th century, slave own percent began to believe that they really were better than other people and you can see that both in the way they talk about their enslaved people. Who are really doing work, that is building their society. And the way they begin to denigrate those people and increasingly sort of turn them into another that is not on same plain as people they consider humans. If Real Construction of that dehumanization of enslave americans. In the early 1 9th century and they talk about themselves as somehow better and that idea that people who are Running Society are somehow better than the people who are actually doing the work. Begins to be in a sense of polar around which society. To minister begin to talk about how good enslavery are and novel begin to talk about these these patriot, gentle, giving patriarchs of societies in which they are, in fact, enslaving other human beings and gradually especially that theyre a large planters in the south begin to believe that they really are better than other penal by 1858, the famous speech given in congress by a man named james a senator from senator from south carolina. And he gives speech in which he says you know, really we in the south have figured out how the world should work that really, the world needs to be run by a few smart, well elgted people. You know the best people. We are really the ones who know how to plant crops and know how economy works you can see that because we look at how much money we have and rest of the world really is most people are hard works and loyal but they really dont want very much and they cant figure out how to make their lives work without us taking care of them. They are he says mud fill of society and what he means by that is literally pieces that are driven into the mud just to support building above it. The grand entrance above it and most people are down there in the mud, and were the ones that the pop who really understand what civilization is like so what needs to happen is those people at the bottom need to produce a lot. And that money we really need to go ahead and concentrate in the upper stories you will in this grand with building because were ones that understand what fine art is and hanging fine art on our wall so we understand good food and we have things by xoting stuff called olive oil and we understand education, and we read important books and we have important connections and we by concentrating the power of the economy and ourselves, are moving society forward. And very important that we never let people at the bottom have any kind of political clout because if we do theyre gong vote in favor of districting wealth they, in fact, have earned when that happens, we will not have money we need to keep moving that ball forward and you can see this dramatically in the court. Alexander steven going to be the Vice President of the confederacy, and the idea of succeeding from United States in the country and what he says is you know were going revise that stupid idea that was in the declaration of independence that all men are created equal, of course, theyre not created equal. What theyre going to create in a new society that does it right and proves that literally we should be on top of everybody else. And we should start this idea around the world and create this new world in which a very few of rues beginning to move the social ball forward and create this new prosperous world. Abraham lincoln listen this is and comes from the sale his father is barely making it by the time they move first from kentucky to indiana. They move there before they go to illinois father is barely making it. And he himself is worked as a day laborer. You know splitting logs and working in the fields. And he, obviously, is a gene use he says i should spend my life like this he says no and quite deliberately in 1859 he responds to james henrys speech with his own speech. Before the milwaukee fair and he says no theres some people who think the world works best if you put a few very wealthy people on top of it. But there are those of us who believe, but there are those of us who believe the way the world really should work is for the government to put its resources in a protection on the people at the bottom because to you give those people access to resources equality protection before the law theyre going to innovate theyre going come up with new idea and remember Abraham Lincoln is only president who has a patent invengted something himself and Constant Movement constant new idea really hard work people who are thinking of new things and what theyre going to do is theyre going find all sorts of new ways to do thaings theyre going create more value than they can possibly consume. And theyre going to create and support a class above them. The merchant, the small entrepreneurs who are gong to do the exact same thing and they in turn will support a very small group at the very top of industrialist and we dont need a lot of them but hire people at the bottom and this he says is the conflict of free labor and this is how he defines americans democracy and american equality. Because he said you know if you concentrate all the wealth at the top, those people are going to end new their own bubble those are my words not his. Theyre not going to innovate and get lazy they dont have to do anything because theyre talking wealth from other people. And society is going to stagnate because it is really want them to move forward put stuff at the bottom. And those two different ideas about what democracy means and what equality means are ones i think that you should see requested in america from before that period but also after that period including into the present. Lincoln articulation of the importance of supporting people at the bottom the people who were inventing people who are working hard the people who were changing, is to my mind really the heart of what american democracy should be about. And this one reason why it is exciting to be at a festival that talkses importance of American Ingenuity lincoln is talking about ingenuity of literally farms and small inventors one of the things that i was trying to highlight in this book, you know how the south won the civil war was the importance of ideas and importance of thinking in new ways and the ability of americans to take and old waif thinking and do something new and better and to think of things in are a new way and one of the thing thats exciting the library of Congress Also this particular festival is that the way that we communicate these new ideas and way we change the way we think is through books. And through writing, and to be part of that in this moment in america when we are seeing not like the 1850s did a world that looks like the time when the very enlarge slave holders convince a number of their own poor white voters that the only way for those people to stay in power was to keep people of color and women down to make sure they didnt participate in that equality. We are looking taking a moment with a great deal like that i think thats exactly why today Republican Party is so including the president is so defensive of confederate symbol. So were looking at a moment that looks very much like that at the 1850s but while in ways thats frightening it is also a time of great new ideas that sort of chaos that produces new ideas the sort of time that Abraham Lincoln was looking at in 1859 when he said no. That is not what american democracy is about. American democracy is about the hard workers people at the bottom. The people coming up with new ideas or new inventions and thinking of new ways to approach american democracy and to create a new government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people. And were in a moment just like that today and for all thats frightening also incredibly exciting time to be participating in american democracy. Well coming up next from the National Book festival is an author who is appeared here several times his name is eric phoner hes a professor at Princeton University a prolific author. His most recent intook called the second founding. Here he is discussing. Sponsored by wells fargo
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