You may have noticed the protesters outside, the group complained that he publishes his direct is too quickly, we can keep up with them. He started with charles dickens, he wrote a hypnotic book about dickens and mesmerism. [laughter] thank you. You will wake up eventually when fred comes out. He wrote a biography of thomas carlyle. That was a finalist in the National Book critics circle. Mark twain, John Quincy Adams, abraham lincoln, and this great book he will be talking about theght, lincoln and abolitionists. Historians want to tell you about what happened in the world and why it is important. This is from the carlisle biography one of the most famous librarians in history , he used to go there a lot. He did not do well. The library and a librarian where generating small antagonisms toward each other. This culminated in the public criticism during parliamentary hearings. That is when libraries were really important. On the future of the museum in of9, he was one more example the anal librarian. He is a literary stylist. He is a defender of raiders. Howraphers will tell you and why they became great. Fred kaplan does all three. What is special is how he describes what might be called a pilgrimage of enlightenment of these great characters. If you are in a classical mood, odyssey of his characters in lincoln and the abolitionists, he has written a book that is basically a dialogue between lincoln and John Quincy Adams, a moral journey for each of them, a moral activist that John Quincy Adams is verse a moral is vs. Thatcredentialist is a ramekin. Book hallenge to the when you get to the page 276, read the house divided speech by lincoln. There, i made my defense of lincoln and we can go on. The book is critical of lincoln good book. It is critical of lincoln as it is critical of americas moral history. This book and his book of John Quincy Adams is really a book about Art Education as americans throughout our history. Into real citizenship. If you read his biography of John Quincy Adams, you will see what a great historian he is. Read his chapter about the amistad, it is a Brilliant Academy of history epito me of history. The really great thing is that he follows in the book with he follows the summation that John Quincy Adams makes in front of the court defending amistad slaves and their freedom the description of John Quincy Adams defense of a liberal education and his discourse on freedom and education. Puts, a moderate education for all citizens to be able to read all the historians of different countries. That is the core of an education for a citizen. As John Quincy Adams says in his discourse on education education is the business of life. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor for a librarian to introduce you to fred kaplan. [applause] fred good evening. It is a great honor for me to be beroduced by crosby and to introduced in a way that makes butot only feel honored confronting an existential sense of self. Is that really me talking now . Migrate thanks to the Kansas City Library. Thanks togreat the Kansas City Library and to everybody makes this possible. Library and the staff and the people the made arrangements for me to come here. Also, my thanks to you as supporters of the library for forg here tonight and also your continuing support of the which so richly deserves deservese oversight you so richly deserve. My subject tonight is related to the book i just published that crosby told you a little about. It is called lincoln and the abolitionists. Slavery ofams the civil war. It is a book that is an attempt to see our 16th president in a realistic and analytic life. It is an attempt to strip away some of the mythology that has been built up around him, especially the mythology that was created since his assassination. Particularly about his views on slavery and especially about race. With his book deals race related wartime decisions. S commander and chief i will touch on those in my talk today. In brief, to give you an overview, for most of his life, until almost is very end, lincoln believed that the longstanding slavery problem would best be solved by voluntary meditation emancipation and voluntary deportation. He feared that one of the legacies of emancipation if it of the freedforce slaves remaining in the country would be 100 years or more of volatile racism and raise conflict race conflict. As a minority president , lincoln found himself back into a corner. A corner from which he reluctantly took the union to what to say that war to save it. The south started the war to save slavery. Lincoln andthat the Republican Party would take a nation down the road was financial destination would be the illumination of slavery. Onw. Road would be a long e. For the south, it would be the debt by 1000 cuts. The first cut would be allowing slavery to exist outside of the states that already had it. This is what lincoln and the Republican Party campaigned on in 1960. Americans, lincoln believed the war would be short. He never imagined it would be as long as it turned out to be. He of to this house would relent or the armies would be quickly defeated. He was very slow to realize that no peace for solution or wartime compromise was possible. During the war, lincoln stumbled in his choice of strategies. Mostly because he misjudged the south. He believes compromise was possibl he believed, as was possible. He looked for a solution short of a work, he looked for a solution short of a war, he looked for a solution that would allow the south to keep slavery. He was convinced that slavery was not the rock over wish the nation would split. He believed the south would not succumb to the folly of secession. Toward the end of the war, lincoln had no overall plan for postwar reconstruction and national reunification. Thatnk it is fair to say whatever he might have attempted if he had lived was likely to have been no more cigna no more successful than what followed his death. Southern racism was too deeply entrenched to ever have acquiesced the civil rights for former slaves without bitter resistance. Lincoln himself had always a against civil rights for free black people already living in illinois. It was not one of his priorities. 6, 1836, he voted with a 3916 majority in the illinois legislator. Should beve franchise kept to or from contamination on the admission of colored voters. They were not granted the suffrage in illinois until 1885. Enliesies a story a story. Our sixth president , John Quincy Adams had been convinced that slavery if allowed to continue with destroying the union would destroy the union. The emancipation scheme that his contemporaries composed seemed impractical and in just. Theefused to support American Colonization Society. Abhoredms, lincoln slavery as moral crime. But lincoln put all of his house in the color is a hopes in the colonization of society. Adams could not believe that slaves could ever cooperate in emancipation. Actually, adams new the southern n line knew the souther better than lincoln. He observed it every day from 848. 1 the bettered that angels of our nature with her veil. Over time, slavery would be eliminated peacefully. Adams never believed that possible. There were no better angels. Philosophers these two president s almost our most literate and forwardlooking ones of the 19th century held similar views about how to guide america toward a prosperous future. To the whig party that existed from 1832 days and 1856. Adams aligned himself with that section of the National Republicans that morphed into the whig party. He kept his distance from whatever party he had an association with. At heart, he detested parties and Party Politics. Lincoln was always a party man. Whig and then one of the Republican Partys founding members. Adams mostly works from the outside. By personality, he was an outspoken radical. Inside, arom politician that meant his met his destiny when consensus became impossible. Trade, education, infrastructure, manufacturing and the proper balance between federal and state power, they were with the exception of how to deal with slavery, entirely anin agreement. Young novice congressman from illinois and the elderly one that was an expresident , one a self educated midwesterner, the other a harvard graduate, both brilliant masters of the english language voted in one anothers presence in the house of representatives. They voted against a war they hated, the mexican war. An institution that detested. Slavery. Lincoln was 39 years old, John Quincy Adams was 80. It is impossible to know in the three months in which they sent in the same hall whether or not they spoke to one another. Adams stood close by when lincoln and the other newly elected congressman were sworn in by the speaker of the house. Moments before, adams had been given the honor of swearing in the speaker. No one in that room could escape adams prescence and his voice. Luckily drove number 100 91, that earned him a seat at the far rear end of the chamber 191, that drew number earned him a seat at the far rear end of the chamber. Adams was right up front. He may have taken notice of the resolution lincoln introduced in late december of 1847. Lincoln called on the 30th enter a that james pohl series of questions about the origin of the ongoing mexican war. Believems and lincoln the United States had been the aggressor. The rules of the house require that resolutions be made over that means it can be called up on another date if someone chose to do so. No one did. The selfrighteous slave owner from tennessee. President polk who had moved up andletter of Party Politics was the lead of the democratic fory in 1894, he campaigned may or may not have been aware of lincolns resolution against what he believed was the illegal initiation of the war against mexico. On every vote of significance, adams and lincoln voted the same way, against popes mexican war. Polks mexican war. Lincoln believed that the constitution that protected slavery in the Southern States did not protected in the district of it in the protect district of columbia. Lincoln never became an antislavery activist. Except in regard to the district of columbia, even when a brutal civil war forced him to take action against slavery four lincoln and for the whig party and then the Republican Party that Meghan Mccain one of the founding members of lincoln became one of the founding members of abolitionists were a third rail of national politics. Envisioned a multiracial america has inevitable. Not because he wanted one but because he saw no alternative. Much before his death, he became deeply so pathetic of abolitionism. Lincoln rejected abolitionism. He believed it was not practical. It would advocate policies that would make matters worse. He did not believe that a multiracial america was feasible. Believing that slavery was a moral abomination, he helped for its eventual illumination elimination. He always worried that the attempt of the two races to occupy the same country would be to a long. Of racial conflict. A long period of racial conflict. He said that all blacks living in the United States should emigrate to a land of their own. Circumstances beyond lincolns control determined a series of momentous events for himself and the nation. They also determine the degree to which he could become an active agent of change. Two lincolns and t to credit, hemmense drove many moral lines he drew many moral lines in which he would take a risk. First was the nonextension of slavery into the territories. Abolitionists could think this to be contemptible. The renowned boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips called lincoln after he was elected the hell hound of illinois. Given what lincoln was and what he faced politically, not havesion was enough to nonextension was enough to have significant consequences. Faced with secession, he decided to resupply. There was reason to believe that confederacy would respond with force, initiating on conflict. And faced with the likelihood that the war would be prolonged, inruciatingly or even lost, 1863, lincoln decided on partial emancipation. When he finally found the right generals and gave up his efforts to drive the border states to he committednion, himself to black manpower to strengthen his army and we can the confederacy. Keep in mind, weaken the confederacy. This was not his choice. Addressavorite pr yet that Brought International attention, lincoln tried to reinstitute the missouri compromise leaving that it safeguarded the union. Characteristically, he looked for the middle ground, even if it meant a perpetuation of slavery for a long. Of time where it already existed a long. Period of time where it already existed. He knew that it would these truly difficult to persuade free blacks to emigrate, there were about 400,000 of them in the resettling 4 and million x slaves to africa exslaves to africa. He gave priority to the domestication of domestic peace. Slavery seemedof more tolerable to him. Was he being a practical politician . Sincere when he said that he liked the constitution as it was . What did he assume . That there was no point advocating what he really believed . At a minimum, the constitution should eliminate the three scripts provision. Also, in the best of all possible worlds, amended. Address started lincoln on the road to fulfillment of his highest political ambition, also to keep to his commitment to keep the union whole which led to what he later called the butchering business, the civil war. Then, of course, to an assassination that transformed father abraham into saint abraham. Hisdern ranking is modern ranking is the highest any notice as president has ever had United States president has oever had. He might stupidly desire a National Crisis by which history and mythmaking elevate him. We know that lincoln was to have toch it was unforeseen learn and experience between 1861 and 1865. Leads out of him during his white house years was fully drained. 1865, allater in the blood that had been shredded on the battlefield became a costly trend isnt transfusion. The union became robust again but it was still a white mans union. Here is some alternative history. In 1860 one accepted peaceful separation, the right of a minority to rebel against the majority, he himself recognizes in a speech he made to congress in 1848, the cost would have been a diminished country. Slavery would have no longer been an issue in the United States. Racism would. Those people in the north supported colonization and an all White America may have found colonization decidedly profitable. In the northern part of the newed states, that is the United States without that southern the states, it would have been no free blacks. The free blacks that remained would have been less than irritant because the 4 million would in the confederacy not have had the problem anymore. The union composed of only northern states would have moved gradually toward making glassful citizens. Makinghat havent blacks full citizens. How fast that would have ouldened to have what have varied by state. Ift would lincoln have done they let the south go . Would that not have been the case in 1851 . For people of the north . They had been able to see the carnage and cost of next four years . If lincoln had known what the price would have been paid . Would he have been able to accept separation with the confederacy paying for confiscated United States property . This counts as actual history, interesting but not worth much. Since the United States did not accept peaceful separation, about 700,000 deaths ensued. Of course, there was a huge benefit to the cost inherent in the realities and conflict measures of the civil war. Abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd garrison believed that if every dropyeted that blood if the south cannot revolutionize, that minority had not tried to form its own government would there have been a 13th, 14th and 15th amendment to the constitution . If so, when . From the abolitionist point of view, in 1861, it began the liberation of the United States from a constitutional noose that was joking it to death. Choking it to death. The union and confederate debt was the price to be paid for the sins of the past and what the founders have gotten in the constitution. The ongoing legal status of slavery for the abolitionists, though 700,000 bodies of the great what deliberate the nation from misery would liberate the nation from misery. From a practical point of view, was the south forced once the south post this on the north, ced this on the north, by choosing to prevent separation, the north made it that they would be one of three likely results. The north would lose the war and there would be no slavery in the diminished United States or the north would win the war a beal victory, slavery would abolished or, three, once the war started, the compromise would be affected. The sweat that lincoln proposed in the 1852 elementary emancipation declaration that would put the nation on this toward the slow road emancipation an. War,e third year of the lincoln hoped for the latter. This becamems four lincoln, it becamej becaeme an, this inevitable reality. Lincolns journey to the place seemed excruciatingly slow. He would not have arrived there if he had not been forced by circumstances to confront the byss. Ss oa and ligandca Republican Party had no desire partycolns republican had no desire. Ways,n had to find halting, difficult, as indirect as they were to take White America down the road of what became total war. To keep the union intact and eventually, inevitably as a consequence, total emancipation. Thate end, lincoln knew this accomplishment had left the country with a dangerous reality. The difficulty of reconciliation between north and south, between the antiblack racism of White America and its cohabitation with 4 million former slaves and 8 million bitterly resentful white southerners who would be exed to exist with the slaves whose freedom they deplored and liberation they detested. Southerners were expressed in a poem. 300,000 yankees in the southern dust. We got 300,000 before they conquered us, they died of southern fever and southern wish therehots, i was 3 million instead of what we got. I cant take up my musket and fight them now no more. Them, thatng to love is certain sure. And it want any part dont give a damn. Virtuallt, the reenslavement of most southern blacks, jim crow, the Civil Rights Movement and the still existing 21st century hangover of widespread racial prejudice. April of 1855, in for theater, lincoln should have known in april of 1865, in ford theater, lincoln should have known that he had not raised to slavery. Slavery. Knew that his he country had entered into a century or more of racial misery. The racism that he feared would dominate black and white relations, what americas unwillingness to share power with what it believed was an inferior race characterized the United States. Even if he had remained president until march of 1859, 1869, jim crow was still a reality and the north looks the other way. The ku klux klan would have raised their torches in the night. The march across the bridge this isve occurred, ferguson, dallas, most recently charlottesville would have still happened. The racist altright and nationalist movements would have risen. Pessimistic as he , leaving off the stuff would have been a heavy man, happiness was not in his nature. It wasnt in the historical reality either. This hard lesson in lincolns dilemma, the neonazis, the kkk and the antisemitic, militiarnment, armed groups, deplorable as they are with the tip of the iceberg. They are not a formidable problem. Groups, marketable hate they make in your face public appearances as they are entitled to do under the protection of the first amendment. The fundamental problem is racism. Kkk,bly the neonazi friends, especially widespread semiconscious and subconscious racism. Abilitysts with an ill an inability to face the , the past and present. Nature oftribal na humans. The history of hurting blacks contributes to the misery. Focusing on blacks are touching on indians, orientals, hispanics, jews, the racism that preceded and held in slavery has been a constant of White America the first settlements in the 17th century. Event indestructive our history the civil war was an expression of racism. The issue is complicated by the fact that slavery existed in many societies where racism was not a factor. Clearly, racism was not the cause of the civil war. Race prejudice was embedded in the nation from the start, north to south. Saintlys near reputation has been used as a modern security blanket. Conservatives and liberals claim to it. Ys claimlican parties that they are the party of lincoln ignores that the Party Platform was a White Supremacy platform. It affirmed that northerners and the republicans would not mesh with the souths sacred institution. Andoln signed onto it campaigned for it. He had no doubt that black people and white people were equal as human beings. ,e favored universal freedom however, he opposed civil rights for blacks until the civil war made it impossible in practice and principal. Until then, he favored colonization for all american blacks. Worrying that large numbers of blacks and whites could not live together harmoniously in a White America that is hostile to black citizenship. Doubt thatere was no if the union were to win, slavery would be abolished. It was not at all clear to lincoln and his contemporaries what would that happen to the 4 million freed slaves. In his presidency, he continued to help with many others that some way could be found to expatriate all blacks to a country of their own. In our later stage of what lincoln feared, i dont think he would have been surprised about the 150 152 years after his death have failed to provide a total corrective. His own calvinism kept him aware of a dark heart within the human breast. The trouble is not in our stars but ourselves. He was pessimistic enough to worry that tribalism and black prejudice and white pride would endlessly torment americas future. He granted that people can changed,elves can be he was aware that it would be a and the the climb, law courts can only do so much. Lincoln hoped that Public Opinion a change of heart would make eventual emancipation possible without a civil war. Obviously, he was wrong. He hoped that colonization would solve americas race problem. That was no longer possible. He hoped that over time it would be a change of heart and the white population, north and south. 2017, we face a similar reality. Buriedlementation of a arsenal of sensible antipoverty and Income Redistribution may help alter that reality. The core of race hatred remains and deeply individual socially darwinian. , evenndividuals temperate overcome it. Large groups usually do not. Achievementscolns were commenced. Immense. Two semper fi lincoln, he was the great emancipator to simplify lincoln, he was the great emancipator in a way. He freed only the slaves that were in rebellion. He freed no one, it was a proclamation forced on lincoln by military necessity, otherwise he would not have been in favor the emancipation declaration was a propaganda document to help the union war effort. Undoubtedly, it also meant that actual and metapatient, the end of slavery everywhere if and when the union won the war. Momentous,t was so it was really momentous about the emancipation proclamation. Of 1863, lincoln knew that this measure would have consequences that would create immense challenges in the future. Idealizedbing to an version of lincoln, perhaps we make the president after him be, than it ought to the burdens on president after him greater than it ought to be. To thecould measure up mythologized lincoln. He was a great president , despite limitations of vision and his conciliatory politics, despite his inability to embrace some forms of abolitionism, despite his vacation on beliefation, despite his that america should remain a and despitecountry his mistakes as commanderinchief, none of which are detailed in my book is attempt to bribe this out back into the union, counterproductive efforts to keep the border states from breaking away and most of all to allow slavery two of the slavery to exist for long time after for long after. They also do harm. The fascination with lincoln took on an apple five importance; americas other consciousness. The president most deeply reviled in his lifetime and most highly regarded after his death. Is as theincoln great metapater has flattened out our history somewhat, especially the history of slavery. It allowed Many Americans to take refuge under the rake Great Lincoln umbrella. Lincoln was just as much a cautious and prudent follower as a leader. Say ot unfair to although it sounds harsh that he valued white lives more than black lives. In the context that is not a harsh judgment, it is not to his discredit, he went stepbystep as far as he could go given who aswas and the circumstances he understood them. He knew the biblical injunction of bringing not peas but the sword. The sword was to be a killing blade only if killing was forced on him as a last resort. Place but not its on all issues and not always. Perhaps lincoln is not our best model for the solutions of the american race palm today. It is tempting to propose that the abolitionists are. A line that includes John Quincy Adams, elijah lovejoy, garrison, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, all of whom figure prominently in a book that i have written and all of whom i admire immensely. As it is clear, i do lincoln. Rather than the individuals themselves, it is the overall narrative that can best provide us with guidelines. Have anelines need to expanded cast of characters that include john adams, abigail adams, Thomas Jefferson and those of the next generation who struggled with the convocations of the institution they inherited, people like henry clay and rufus king and charles mercer. Also, david walker. Buchanan, our 15th president and lincolns first Vice President , the wonderful hannibal hamlin. And lincolns hand picked successor and therein lies a there enlies a story, the ultraracist andrew jackson. Him from not abstract a narrative that gives due attention to the complexities of the man and the situation. It is hard to deny on the evidence of history and experience that racism is an offshoot of tribalism, identity politics, us against them, in every area of human life. N individuals and groups the pervasive tribal nature of otherness is difficult ground on which to grow togetherness. The individual human heart, yours and mine beat with flawed arrhythmias. Be, they arewill the candy, totally eradicated. It is impossible for us to continuallyly and try. The book that ive written has proven somewhat controversial. It may be staring some thoughts in you and in a minute, we will get to the illegal portion of this presentation, your questions which i am looking forward to. Just as a very brief code in the last image of monopolizing this there are me say that many lincoln experts. Also, nonexperts. In aare so deeply invested certain image of lincoln that they distort the historical record and some of them even take umbrage and attempts to be accurate about lincoln, slavery and race. The lincoln industry which i am only a very tiny part of produces hundreds of books about lincoln each year. Many of them are quite worthwhile. Also, any of them had nothing new to tell us. A book that approaches lincoln with a new and different slant or analysis and the conflict of lincoln and race to touch on the third rail of modern american scholarship, there is a partyline. A very sensitive line. Headlinesduced some and reviews in my book and statements that claim that i take the position that lincoln was an accord racist. That is not let my book says. That is not what i claim. The word racist the in context the need to distort or even avoid the historical realities is very strong. As it lincoln is not great enough without the assistance that he is a perfect model of how modern liberals and others define themselves on the subject of race. This is relevant to our raise issues in 21st century america. Now lincolns death until in this regard, it continues. Thank you for us thank you for so attentively listening. [applause] fred those of you that need to take a break, a break that maybe due on to your happy beds, please do so, i wont feel in the least bit offended and those of you who have questions, kaman up. We are organizing it. My name is david shore and i had a question regarding the economic considerations of what slavery brought. In a broader question, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to have a major impact and witherican economy whitneys cotton gin and inventions and things like this, would that have brought about the rapid descent in the south of economic necessity of slavery or was there a moral imperative that war was inevitable . That is a wonderful question and it has its various levels of complication and interest. For a very long time, beginning 1770, 1780, 1790 and the late 18th century, into the early. Of the new republic, of the creation of the American Republic there was a lot of emphasis particularly among students of the economy of the United States and in particular the economy of slavery that gave a lot of credence to the position the hypothesis that impractical and counterproductive system of labor. There was great hope that southerners would grow to see that and would overtime anuntarily move from unproductive Economic System to a more productive economic labor, slavery free labor was almost enough in a marxists sense, a dialogue going on through the. No longer what they subscribe to buy historians now. There has been a terrific amount of really good work done on the subject. All of which leads to the conclusion among the experts on the subject, im not one of them that indeed, once you move carefully through the statistics , reached the conclusion that slavery was a very costeffective labor activity. The arguments and the statistics that underlie them seem fairly persuasive. There are a lot of reasons why southerners would not want to give up slavery. Separate from any economic so, slaveryns and is so deeply embedded in the social and psychological andciousness of the south its selfdefinition and the convocations of the interactions between the actual relatively small number of slaveowners and the nonslave owning southerners who had at least the distinction that many of them felt of even though that they were poor whites, is they werent as low as slaves. That is a brief way of putting are modern historians evaluating what is going on in the south and the various social economic strata, the governmental organization, all deletef sayings slaveowners of the south were able to bring the south into the civil war. Even when the economic wellbeing of an awful lot of not slaverys southerners were not concerned. That is an answer to part of your question but we need to go on to other questions and we can talk afterwards. Did make it had any significant oneonone interactions with individual black men and black women that may have had impacted his views throughout his lifetime . I am thinking in particular, Frederick Douglass and perhaps other black leaders of the time. s interaction with Frederick Douglass and a few other black leaders comes very late in his life and late in the war. The guy has artie been cast. Lincoln has interactions of a and withh black people virtual slaves and slaves failure in his life because slavery is semi legal in illinois. It is semi legal in indiana where he grows up. And it is labor even though theyre calling it Something Else and sprinkle, illinois. He becomes a lawyer and a legislature and he visits homes of friends and relatives where there are in fact intentions to serve and natural slaves, he does not seem to make much of an impression on him or bother him particularly, he accepts that bother, he accepts that world. , as a early in his life young man, not such a young man, but in his early adult life, shall we say, he actually visits a plantation in lexington, kentucky, owned by the family of his good springfield friend and stays for almost a month on a slave plantation. Ad rights i wonder writes wonderful letter to his sister, in which he describes some of his reactions to seeing, as he is taking a steamboat north on the ohio term river back to springfield, st. Louis and springfield, he describes his reaction to seeing a couple of slaves chained together, being shoveled on board the state the same steamship he is on and who obviously have been sold south. They are going to the mississippi and they are going to be shipped south to work in the cotton fields. There is a wonderful letter in which he tussles with the fact but is notst slavery with makingaged clear determinations in his own mind about what to do about slavery. And he goes through a very faceting contortion which in my book lincoln as a writer, and in my book i discussed which i recommend to you. There is a new book out, the author escapes me right now, but it is called the history of new york city in the civil war. It goes into pretty good detail how strong relationship new york city had with the south. New york ranks subsidized banks subsidized or wrote money for plantations in the south, and new york city loved the south. Southerners visited new york city, southern aristocracy had a strong relationship with new york city. The question is, with the most powerful financial city in america, basically barely almost on the other side, not quite, but there were people in new york city that wanted to sit need and join us wanted to secede and join the confederacy, although that would not have worked well. If you are linked in you have to look at the Financial Capital which was and is new york city looking proconfederate, and deeply involved in the slave system. What do you do with that . Well, i dont do anything. [laughter] fred kaplan obviously. This is a dilemma, this is part of the complication of the world lincoln lived in. Economic interdependency of the northern and southern parts of the american economy, up until the civil war, are just so tight, so inseparable. In between the south and the north in every sense, in every form. Material. Provides raw , prior to the increasing industrialization and the 1840s and 1850s, provides the financing for the cotton industry, which is the biggest, most profitable, most highly capitalized industry in the country. Provides therth capital and provides insurance. It provides shipping, it provides factories, it provides every element of the interworkings of the relationship between rock producing and getting the raw produce to market and getting it alsoformed into shirts and , and products for people to buy that cotton is the basis of, both in the north and in europe a great deal of it is going to. So yes. And this was again, your point is a very important one and revealing one. There is a great deal of discussion and work on this today. And you know, i mean, one of the major colleges at Yale University has now got a new name. It used to be called calhoun college, john calhoun. Brown university in rhode island , the southern, very favorite vacation and watering spot of the southern elite, when i got a little too hot down there in georgia when it got a little too hot in georgia, Brown University was created, named after a man who ran slave ships. Know. This is a big subject, and is an important one it is an important one, but we are all complicit. Even when we think you are not, and even when we are at our best. Even when we think we are not, and even when we are at our best. How much support did lincoln have with his cabinet . Was he acting alone . Fred kaplan he was not acting entirely alone. He had some support in the cabinet, and he had some opposition in the cabinet, because the cabinet was composed of sort of representatives from various places of the north and various views on how to deal with the confederacy from the very start through much of the war. However made the decision himself, and in that regard, you know, he did what president s supposedly always do. Only, that is not completely observed. He listened carefully to what other people had to say. He anguished over this decision. It took him quite a while to make it, and he went through various stages of creating this emancipation proclamation. He wanted to give the south and the states in rebellion, he wanted to give each and every state of the rebellion an opportunity to come home. He would make the terms as easy as possible, which not all of his cabinet members were enthusiastic about, but some were. He wanted to make the terms easiest as possible with one very important provision, no extension of slavery beyond the states that already had it. By the time you get to 1863 and in the new year, and through that year, there is no going back. Blood, there is no going back. Thank you for coming. My question is about the 13th , and there are 13 words in there that say the punishment. That is all i am going to say. That has been used to, and ther3 words in start the prison complex system, retribution for your crime. And i was a prison guard in the 1970s. And back then they taught you a trade. You could get your high school degree,associates college degree, so that when you got out, you could be productive to society. Now we just warehouse them in jail. My question is, what would be, do you think it is possible to repeal the 13th amendment . It has never been used for what it was composed for. Fred kaplan no, i dont think it is possible to repeal the 13th amendment. You could have anticipated that answer. The amendment our system is that we cant even, it is difficult to change our constitution. That is how the Founding Fathers have created that document. They didnt want the people messing around too much with that document. They wanted it to stay in place. They had reasons based on their own sense of what the country should be and who should lead the company the country, so we still have the Electoral College which seems undemocratic to many people today. But just try to see how far you to and you attempt there is an attempt on the way, but it is not likely we will see any changes in our constitution. On the midst that do come amendments that do come, come very slowly, and they are procedural. The topic you raise is a decimating one. I wish i knew more about it. It has to do with the relationship, emancipation, the 13th amendment, and the history of the prison system in the United States and how the prison used both as a way of controlling populations and as a way of reeducating populations. And of course we all know about from history and films and so on , how the way the prison system was used in the south for a long time, and the propagations of the penal system today. I hardly know anything more about it than you do, except to know it is a big subject. Sir. My question is, what kind of lincoln propose that would fit white southerners, and where and how did he propose the government would get these funds . Fred kaplan that of course is central to lincolns concern about how to end slavery short of a war. But once the war is started, hadnt got beyond the point of no return, how to bring the rebellious states back into the union. What he had in mind was, and what he became public about and be had and had lots of support and the American Colonization Society had been thatsing all along, was they compensated emancipation to slaveowners that would make it attractive to them to man u met their slaves. Woulde money for them come from the United States government which meant he would come from the taxpayer. Just as my eyes asian just wouldey for colonization come from taxpayers. This was the northern taxpayer. But the south would have none of this. Lincoln proposed in one of his annual messages early on in his presidency, second year or so, to congress, specific sons of he wanted them to pursue emancipation with and then thereafter voluntary colonization, the congress turned him down. There was no support for it. That wemind the obvious like to think that moral role in theay a political sphere. They only do so if other factors are evident as well. One is they have to have, the solution has to keep. It is rare that taxpayers will be influenced to say, lets use taxpayer money. Because it is morally right to do this. Serve. Last question. You can tell quickly reading the back cover of the book, you represent the narrative lincoln did all of this stuff because he felt a moral imperative. Question, with other things in history like civil rights and womens suffrage, if you think it is responsible for those, do you think it is because a moral imperative, or because it did pragmatic needs . Suited pragmatic needs at the time . Moral andn the practical synchronize with one another. And i think it is probably there to say, and this can be contested of course, it is those whoair to say agitated the moral imperative for abolition and emancipation in thean Important Role ability of lincoln and others who themselves are not toislavery activists eventually, when circumstances became right, when the south theded, to bring together moral imperative and the practical solution. The practical solution however in the case of slavery was admittedly painful. Humanly destructive solution, was it not . A lot of people died. A lot of people suffered, north and south. Thank you very much, fred kaplan. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] the book is for sale in the hall, and fred will be signing in the hall. Thank you all for being here. 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