Publishing in august 2017, and he also he and his son, lee, are editing an autobiography written by his father and lees grandfather. With that, i would like to introduce mr. Robert k. Sutton. [ applause ]. Goblod morning. Good morning. I cant tell you how excited i am to be here. This is i mean, im sitting here with goose bumps while im hearing the names of the victims of kwantrels raid because i just wrote about many of them, and you actually hear their names in this setting. Its really quite moving. Before i get going here, my wife and my son came with me. Theyre in the back row. And two of my oldest, oldest, oldest friends from california. And im going to tell you, we were all like 5 years old when we got acquainted sit ong the second row, nick and harry so, this is a really special day for me. One of the things that interested me in this topic was that my great i have to say sometimes you have trouble keeping track of the great great great greats, but any great great great grandmother, my great great grandfather, and my great grandfather immigrated to kansas in 1855. And my great great great grandmother lived to be 89 here in kansas, and my great grandfather was in the kansas cavalry and fought in the civil war. So i have a special attachment to kansas. So with that, let me get going here. On may 24th, an africanamerican man by the name of Anthony Burns was arrested on his way home from work. He worked in a Mens Clothing store in boston. Hed not murdered anyone. Hed not assaulted anyone. Hed not embezzled money from his company. Hed not robbed anyone at gunpoint. And he had not run a stoplight. He was arrested for theft but not theft as we think of it today. He had stolen himself. This was 1854, and he was a fugitive slave if from virginia. His owner had tracked him down to boston. He was captured, he was thrown into jail, because in 1854 a fugitive slave either leaving or being taken away from his plantation was a serious crime. The reaction of the citizens of boston was instantaneous and violent. Two days after he was arrested, 7,000 bostonians broke into the jail to try to release him and in the melee one u. S. Marshal was killed and a number were injured. On may 27, three days after burns was arrested, he was brought before the federal magistrate by his owner for what amounted to a hearing. It really wasnt a hearing because it really wasnt much anybody could do under the fugitive slave law to return a slave to slavery, and so the magistrate made the determination that he was a slave and ordered him returned to slavery. So on june 2nd, if youre keeping track of all of this, june 2nd, just a few days later, 2,000 soldiers, u. S. Soldiers, and marines escorted Anthony Burns to Boston Harbor to a ship to return him to slavery. 50,000 bostonians turned out. There wasnt much they could do because they werent going to take on the army. But they were, as you might imagine, very, very upset about the whole thing. The cost to the federal government to return one slave to bondage was somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 in 1854 money. To add insult to injury, on may 30th, while all this was going on with Anthony Burns, president Franklin Pierce signed the kansas nebraska act, which i bet 99. 9 of you know what happened. The people of kansas and nebraska had the opportunity to decide whether or not they wanted slavery, and that was through popular sovereignty so, that was the kansas nebraska act. So theres a possibility that at least one, maybe two slave states would be added to the union. Now, boston was really a hotbed of antislavery activity at the time, but for most part the conservative businessmen sort of were on the sidelines during this whole debate over slavery. But whith the capture of anthon burns, one particular bostonian businessman by the name of Amos Adams Lawrence does that name sound familiar . He was so upset by the whole affair that he wrote a letter to his uncle and in the letter he said we went to bed oldfashioned, conservative, Compromise Union wigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. And from that moment on, adams put all of thiz much of his energy and his money into ending slavery. Now, he came from a very wealthy family. His father and his uncle were both very successful textile merchants in boston. So they made a lot of money. But they were also very generous with their money. His uncle, amos uncle, abbott lawrence, gave 50,000 to harvard to establish a science and engineering school. At that time a it was the largest donation of anybody to any school in the country. And his father, whose name was also amos, retired early and spent the rest of his life in philanthropy so, they were a very generous family, and that sort of was something that amos the son took over. At one point in his diary he wrote that he hoped he could make enough money from his businesses that he could continue to support all the programs that were important to him. Well, with his newfound starkmad abolitionism, youre kind of wondering where that comes from, right, he quickly had an opportunity to put his money where his mouth was, because a gentleman in massachusetts by the name of eli thayer, who was a member of the massachusetts legislature, had just created the immigrant aid company, and the purpose was to have interest in kansas in Antislavery Movement in kansas but mostly it was to make it as easy as possible for people from new england to migrate to kansas. Well, th well, thayer was a really good idea person, not so much a Good Business person, and the company was sort of teetering when a mutual acquaintance introduced thayer and lawrence. So they connected in a partnership in which thayer had the good ideas, lawrence had the money, and it all of a sudden was very successful. Lawrence realized that what was really important at this early stage was to have was to get people to kansas as quickly as possible. So he underwrote a survey party to go to kansas. And then he made a commitment to invest as much money as was necessary to make the trip to kansas as easy as possible and then to make it as easy as possible for the people who got there to make a living. So he sent a scouting party, and the scouting party reported back and very wiquickly the first immigrant party went to kansas, arrived here august 1, 1854. No n if youre looking into the time line, the thing with Anthony Burns was may, he was returned to slavery in june, so in a very short time, actually less than two months, they had the first immigrant party going to kansas. Well, a number of immigrant parties followed this first one. They decided when the second one arrived, they decided to name their town and they were thinking of all kinds of names, boston, wakarusa, because that was a nearby river, they decided to name it lawrence after Amos Lawrence, because everybody knew how much money hed put into it. One of the local residents had a cute quote. He said, the name sounded good and it didnt have a bad odor anywhere in the union so, they decided to stick with the name lawrence. Very early, almost as soon as the town was founded, there were three newspapers. And from the herald of freedom, which lasted long thaern any of the first three, which is by the way online if youre interested in looking at it i did you can really get a sense of how quickly lawrence developed. It had a number of ads in the paper. There were talked about businesses being established. And it actually developed so quickly that it almost was filled up before they knew what to do with all the people that came. Well, as you remember from the kansas nebraska act, it was up to the people of kansas whether they wanted to have slifry or n not. The pro slavery side from missouri was almost certain that the state would be a slave state. Why not . I mean, missouris right next door. The strongest slavery plantations were right next door. So they assumed it was going to become a slave state so, they were kind of alarmed when they saw all of these antislavery people coming into kansas. Now, the pro slavery people of missouri actually wanted to make the state a slave state, but they didnt even mind playing dirty. In fact, they were looking forward to playing dirty. And so the first territorial governor by the name of anthony rueter, one of his first jobs was to take a census of the territory, and the purpose of that was to elect a Territorial Legislature shortly thereafter. And so when they had the territorial election, people from missouri, hordes of people from missouri, flooded across the border either scared away or so intimidated most of the native kansans that they won the election. Do to give you a sense of how overwhelming this was, according to the 1855 kren cus, there were 2,378 males were eligible to vote in kansas, and the vote was held shortly thereafter. But 6,307 voted. Now, obviously they probably missed a few, you know, you cant catch everybody, but not 4,000. And to give you a little bit more specifics here, lawrence, according to the census, had 369 males eligible to vote but 1,034 voted. Well, so, you know, we talk about youve heard all kinds of things, you dont have to be eve toon savvy with the news to realize theres all kinds of talk about, you know, fraudulent elections, rigged elections, you know, voter suppression, blah, blah well, this is the real thing. I mean, theres no doubt about this one. So what happened was the Territorial Legislature was made up of missourians. They had no intention of ever, ever living in kansas. They lived in fact, they m e moved the First Capital to shawney mission, already right on the missouri border so, they could come across to do their business. The first thing they did was to pass one of the harshest slave qods in American History. To give you an example, if anyone tried to incite a slave rebellion, that was punishable by death. Well, the kansas nebraska act clearly stated that the Territorial Legislature would be elected by the residents of the territory, so the election of missourians was clearly illegal. But president Franklin Pierce, who was a northerner, decided to side with the south and with the proslavery side, and he declared that the proslavery legislation was legal so, the power of the federal government was behind this illegal but legal pro shall have slavery legislature. Now, the free state kansans, thats what they started calling themselves youve seen free state all over the place here free state kansans, they decided that they just werent going to sit around and let all this happen. And so they created their own government. They elected a legislature. They elected a governor. And this also was illegal. So we have two illegal Territorial Legislatures. One is backed by the federal government. The other one is not backed by the federal government but theyre both illegal. Well, president Franklin Pierce, as i said, sided with the proslavery legislature. And he decided that the free state e llegislature was not on illegal but treasonous, so he had all the leader offense this Free State Party arrested and thrown in jail for treason. Now, the leader of the party, the Free State Party, had been the main businessman in kansas for the immigrant aid company. His name was Charles Robinson. That name might be familiar to a lot of you. But he was the leader of the free state movement. So Charles Robinson and i think six other kansans were arrested for treason. Now, this is kind of interesting, too. The grand jury that indicted robinson and the others, they also indicted the Free State Hotel and the newspapers. Now, how in the world could you say that a newspaper and a hotel is treason . Well, they did. And this becomes significant a little later on. Well, to the proslavery folks in missouri, lawrence was sort of like a scab that needed to be picked. Lawrence became the center of attack for these missourians. In 1855, the missourians lined up on the outskirts of lawrence ready to attack, but they quickly realized that the people of lawrence were well trained and well armed, and so the missourians backed off, and the wakarusa war was a war that i wish all wars were, no bloods d bloodshed. Actually, a free state man was killed on his way to lawrence, he became a martyr, but the chapter of that book that chapter in my book i call the almost bloodless wakarusa war. Anyway, they backed off. Whats an interesting thing i think about the climate in kansas at this time, especially the free state side of kansas, was the role of women. There were two free state women, Margaret Wood and lois brown, who joined their husbands in defying the proslavery forces. And in the wakarusa war, they took a wagon through the missouri proslavery lines to a cache of weapons and ammunition outside of lawrence. They loaded it in the wagon, came back through town, and so they provided all these goodies for their husbands, antislave i husbands. But whats interesting is that these two women and a number of other women were equal partners to their husbands in the Antislavery Movement, something very unusual at the time. And one woman who i really sort of got attached to through this whole thing is sara robinson, the wife of Charles Robinson, in 1856, she wrote a book that was called ill get it here in a minute kansas, its interior and exterior life, wrote in 1856. She beautifully chronicled the life in kansas, and it became very influential in the east. People in the east read it, recognized what was going on with the folks especially in lawrence and kansas. And she had a very Important Role in the early history of kansas. And also her husband, Charles Robinson, was being held for treason, she traveled to the east. She met a number of people along the way, including Abraham Lincoln in illinois. She went to boston. She worked with Amos Lawrence so get her husband and the rest of these captives released. So she had a very Important Role. Now, the people of lawrence recognized that they were targets and that they had to defend themselves. So they were very successful working with Amos Lawrence, horace greeley, and others in the east in acquiring the finest weapons of the day called sharps rifles. And they shipped them to kansas in kind of interesting ways. They called them bibles. They called them books. They would take them all apart and put them back together when they got to kansas. Another person who helped raise money for this was the reverend Henry Ward Beecher from new york. And he was in fact, a lot of these were called beechers bibles, the weapons called beechers bibles. And someone asked him why he did this as a christian minister, why did he raise the money for these bibles. He said, you know, one sharps rifle had more power with the proslavery folks than 100 bibles. And he said you might as well read bibles to buffaloes as try to convince these folks that theyre wrong. So it was kind of a fun story. But while the while Charles Robinson and some of the others were being held in prison, the proslavery missourians again attacked lawrence. This time they had the federal government behind them, the army behind them. And it was called the sack of lawrence. And the Free State Hotel was blown up and burned. We actually stayed overnight at the ellsworth hotel, which is i think the third iteration of the Free State Hotel, last night. So the Free State Hotel was burned, the newspapers were they were not burned but they scattered ruined the presses, threw all the type in the river and scattered it around. A number of houses were burned. So even though the folks in lawrence were armed to the teeth with the finest weapons available, Amos Lawrence and Charles Robinson really warned the people of kansas to not become violent. They felt it was important for them not to become violent. But one recent arrival in kansas, a gentleman by the name of john brown, decided that the generally passive approach of the antislavery folks was not working too well. He wases no a resident of lawrence. He lived a number of miles south of lawrence. He, his sons and others murdered five proslavery settlers in 1856 which touched off attacks and counterattacks for smoefrls in what was called bleeding kansas. Pro and antislave i militias attacked each other in open warfare. One free state militia called the lawrence stubs, i that name, isnt that great, lawrence stubs, attacked proslavery strongholds in and around lawrence. And they, the stubs, reacquired a cannon that had been confiscated from them in the sack of lawrence, but they only had a handful of cannonballs. So the cannoneer in charge of the cannon got the people of lawrence to go out and collect all new type from the heralthef freedom that was scatter around and mold the type into cannonballs. So the next time around they said here is the next edition of the herald freedom. I loved that. Thats one of my favorite things from the whole story. Well, the violence nearly stopped in 1856 when a new governor by the name of john geary became the territorial governor. Now, he made it very clear that he was not going to take side, he was not going to be pro slave, he was not going to be free state, and so he made it very clear, burr he also put his money where his mouth was. So the missourians were all ready to attack lawrence yet again, for the third time. They got word to geary. He sent the army down overnight and they stopped the third what would have been the third attack on lawrence. But also as the soldiers were marching back to lee compton, which was the territorial capital, the lawrence stubs were come back from an attack on a proslavery stronghold. He arrested them as well. So he made it very clear that he wasnt going to side with either the proslavery or antislave i sides. In 18 a 57, things began to change because there was a new election for a Territorial Legislature, and this time the missourians didnt cross the border and the abolitionists finally won an election fair and square. The new free state Territorial Legislature tore down then built up new laws for kansas. The first thing they did was to rescind all of the proslavery laws. But before they became the state the Territorial Legislature, the proslavery legislature called for a Constitutional Convention and wrote a constitution called the lee compton constitution. Now, this gets really, really confusing, so im going to try to i should have a blackboard to write the whole thing here, but the Free State Legislature had written a constitution in 1856, and they sent it to congress, a constitution for the state of kansas. It didnt pass congress, really didnt have much of a chance of passing. So the lee compton constitution was the second constitution. It was prepared by the proslavery side. It was sent to congress. They had a vote in kansas, but the antislave i folks boycotted the election, so it won but just by a tiny fraction of residents in kansas. Now, the new president at the time James Buchanan wanted kansas to be admitted as a slave state, so he did everything he could to get the lee compton constitution through congress. Congress refused to pass it, sent it back to kansas for another vote. The kansans voted that one down so, now the proslavery folks are sort of out of the picture in kansas. Now, the new legislature actually the new Territorial Legislature actually wrote two new constitutions. So are you keeping track . Three. One, two, three, four actually had a chance of passing because the Constitutional Convention for the fourth one actually had a very balanced membership on the committee to write the constitution. It went to congress, but again it had really no chance of passing because congress was so horribly divided. How about the term dysfunctional . They really couldnt pass any significant legislation. But as soon as the south seceded and the legislators, the Congress People from the north excuse me, from the south left with their states who seceded, now there was enough votes for kansas to be admitted and so kansas was admitted to the union on the eve of the civil war. Now, when the civil war started, there was there really was no state in the country that probably was more prepared for civil war than kansas, because theyd been through all this bleeding kansas. And whats interesting is that kansas provided more soldiers per capita and had more casualties per capita than any other northern state. And it was, you know, just a really i mean, they were just admitted. They decided to play their part. Now, whats interesting about lawrence i think, one of the things i find really fascinating sshs n , is not only was it a stronghold of the free party and the abolitionists in kansas but it also was very, very welcoming to africanamericans. So before the civil war, funl t fugitives primarily from missouri would come to lawrence. They knew they had a chance to be rescued if they could find their way to lawrence. But a lot of free africanamericans also came to lawrence. And whats interesting is that there are some of the folks in lawrence who had a real they were really conflicted with this issue of fugitive slaves because a they knew slavery was wrong, they knew they needed to do something to try to end slavery, they were very conflicted because they enthusiastic that they were braebing the law, they knew they would be thrown in jail if they were caught trying to harbor a fugitive slave. One person in particular, the minister of the congregational church, his name was richard cordley, he wrote two histories actually of lawrence. They ore wonderful, wonderful histories. But he wrote in one of his books that he was when he was a student at andover seminary in the east, the fugitive slave law was passed and he said that when he saw it he decided it was the sum of all villainies, and he decided if he ever had a chance to do anything about it he would do whatever he could to help slaves if they escaped. But when hes confronted with the chance to actually put his money where his mouth was, he said its really easy to talk bravely from a thousand miles away, but its very difficult to actually make a decision about this when you have the opportunity. But one of his parishioners came to him and asked if he and his wife they didnt have any children would keep an escaped slave woman by the name of lizzie in their house. He said when the opportunity presented himself, he said there was only one thing to do, so he and his wife kept lizzie in their house for a period of time until she was able they were actually able to sneak her out of the state into canada. So some of the people were conflicted, but some of them had no problem at all trying to help slaves escape. So one of my favorite people in this story was a man by the name of dr. John doy. He listed his profession as a hydropathic doctor. I think if you translate that it probably means quack. But anyway, one of the things one of the things that he did, he was a close associate of john brown, and he actually would go into missouri to help not only try to help slaves escape, but he would go in and try to steal them from their owners in missouri. He wrote an autobiograpautobiogh is kind of fun. You can get it online. Theres a youtube of him that you can pull up very easily. If i can do it, you can do it. In 1859, this is really kind of interesting, the people of lawrence asked him if he would help 12 free blacks leave lawrence and go to canada. Now, he had helped i dont know how many dozen slaves escape, fugitive slaves escape, but now hes being asked to take free africanamericans out of lawrence. He agrees to do it. He gets a few miles out of town and hes arrested by missourians. Now, this is kind of like im sure youve heard about al capone, you know, did all these horrible things but he was arrested for income tax evasion. Well, john doy had helped slaves escape, but when hes trying to help free blacks and the reason that theyre doing this is that slave catchers would come into lawrence and try to kidnap either free blacks or slaves. So he gets 12 miles out of town. Hes arrested. He is taken to missouri. Hes tried. He is convicted. I dont know the whole story. Hes convicted to five years of hard labor. Well, in one of the really interesting stories, ten men from lawrence went to where he was being held. They broke him out of jail. They took him back to lawrence. And theres a wonderful picture. Theyre called the immortal ten. They take him back to lawrence where hes a hero. Well, what happened during the civil war was that kansas, there were there were guerrillas in kansas called the jayhawkers. Now, if youve never heard the word jayhawk or jayhawkers, there is something wrong here. But the jayhawkers were guerrillas on the union side. The union army tried to control them, without much luck. But they tried to control them. But on the other side, on the confederate side, guerrillas were actually not only legal but encouraged by the federal government. In 1862, the confederate government passed the partisan ranger act of 1862, and what it said was that guerrillas not only would be legal but they could be paid by the government, they could have their officers and so forth. So one young man by the name of William Clark quantrill became a guerrilla leader. And, you know, i have a little problem calling hall of fame guerrilla. I mean, to me hes really a thug. And by the time he finished, he had some of the nastiest people you could ever imagine in his guerrilla band. Bloody Bill Anderson was part of his band. Toward the end, people who were around him said that every time he was beginning to think of killing people he literally started foaming at the mouth. Cole younger was part of the game. Frank james and later his kid brother jesse james were part of this whole thing. Everything came to a head, a tragic head, in august 1863, and you know all about that because youve heard the names of the people that were killed in quantrills raid on there were about 400 ger ril las that took part in the raid. They were directed to kill every man and every boy tall enough to hold a gun. And as you know, about 200 were killed. And there are some that were not even sure about. So 200 more or less were killed. Quantrills raid i think was the most grewsome act of barbarism in the entire civil war and many historians would agree that. And the descriptions of some of the killings just make you sick when you read them so, im not going to read those. But actually there were also a number of remarkable escapes. So one africanamerican man, he knew he was probably a target so he took off and started running. Ran for four miles to the wakarusa river, climbed up in a tree, thought he was safe, only to realize a couple hours late theyre when quantrills army left they literally marched under the tree that he was in. He thought he was safe. Another story that i think is really interesting is the night before the raid, a gentleman by the name of mr. Winchill, we dont know his first name, that worked for the Union Pacific railroad, with uz in town to talk about a new railroad that was going to come to lawrence. So when the raid happened he ran into the house of the episcopal minister, who happened to be away. The ministers wife helped him shave off his beard, put dresses on him, wrapped him in blankets, put him in a chair with medicine bottles all around so when quantrills men came in they said, please dont bother poor to aunt bessie. We dont know how much longer shes going to be with us. A and he was safe. Targets of quantrill were politicians and minister. So the minister of the methodist church, reverend fisher, was in his house. The guerrillas, quantrills men knew they were in his house. And so they decided they were going to whatever they were going to do, they were going to kill him. They couldnt find him so, they set the house on fire. Well, reverend fishers wife helped him crawl out of the cellar, the basement. She covered him with rugs and furniture while the house was burning, and he was saved. So there are some remarkable saves as well. Now, before quantrills raid, this is kind of hard to do to transition because it makes sense but it doesnt a few months before quantrills raid, the legislature in kansas made the decision that the university of kansas would be in lawrence. Part of the deal was that they had to come up with 15,000 to the state legislature for that to happen. In order to get the university in the town, Josiah Miller, who had been oeditor of one of the first newspapers in town, in and out of lawrence, Josiah Miller bribed the state legislators, gave them each 5, to vote for lawrence. When the vote came, he realized hed missed two. He snuck over he didnt have enough to give them each 5 but he gave them 4, and they voted for lawrence to have the state university. Well, of course, with quantrills raid, coming up with 15,000 was big deal because every penny they had, every ounce of energy they had was going towards rebuild their town. So they didnt have that. So Charles Robinson contacted our friend Amos Lawrence and asked him if he would contribute 15,000 so that they could have the university. He had already contributed gosh, i couldnt keep track. Im not good at math, but everything i was able to add up, it looks like he gave about 50,000 to lawrence and to kansas, and theres in 1850 money. But he gave them  voter fraud just does not work. This past week we came to realize that hatred, bigotry, racism faced by the people of lawrence over 150 years ago has reared its ugly face in charlottesville, virginia. I think the people refuse to tolerate bigotry and racism in the 1850s and 1860s and were willing to go to Great Lengths to eradicate that. People were willing to give their lives to eradicate hatred and bigotry in the 1850s. But i think the most important lesson from this story is that Many Americans were so passionate about ending slavery, people like Amos Lawrence poured a fortune of his own money toward ensuring that kansas will become a free state. Other abolitionists were willing to immigrate to an unfamiliar area of the country without any assurances of Financial Success to make kansas a free state. And finally, americans in the north were willing to fight a civil war to preserve the union and to End Institution of slavery. Maybe we can learn from their example and recognize that eradicating evil benefits all. Thank you. [ applause ] im very happy to take questions. I have a question. Yes, maam. You mentioned that guerillas bandied together not by the north but by the south. [ inaudible question ] he actually was a captain in the Confederate Army theoretically and he was able to have he was upset. He thought he was so cool. He traveled to richmond and demanded that he be made a colonel. They began to find out how blood thirsty he was and they didnt give him the title, but he could have had the title of colonel. So just to keep it straight, the confederate recognized, and in some ways i look at it as domestic terrorism. Its sanctioned by the government. Theyre paid by the government. Theyre recognized by the government. On the north they tried to control the jay hawkers. Had some success. But they were not encouraged to go on their own as guerillas. They tried to control with varying degrees of success, mostly unsuccess. Yes . Let me catch this young lady here in the front. Ill try to repeat the question. I would like to know if in your studies if you came across the name of james monroe. I dont recall that name. But if you look at the index in my book, there are about 1,000 not 1,000. A lot of names that i might have come across that i dont recall. Sorry. [ inaudible question ] yeah. Okay. Im sorry, yes, i did remember that. The middle name, i kdidnt catc it. Was the first colored regiment . Yes, first colored captain. I do remember that. Im sorry. I cant remember names. Sorry. Did you hear that . The leader of the first kansas infantry regiment colored at ft. Scott was her great uncle. Correct . Wonderful. Yes, sir . Im particularly interested in your perspective as a historian sort of unrelated but related to your election today. With regard to the confederate monument. Im sorry to laugh, but we were just talking before. I said i bet the first question, yes, it took three. So particularly is it your viewpoint that we should leave those up as a reminder of our pastor should they be removed . And if they should be removed, what is the criteria for deciding what of our monuments and statues should be removed . Thats a good question. Its supposed yes or no, though. To me its a complicated issue and ive been thinking about it actually for quite a while. I have been thinking of it in the context of the confederate flag. So the confederate battle flag, the st. Andrews cross, the battle flags, to me it has no place at all in our country. I dont care what anybody says. And the reason is because it essentially disappeared from the public entirely. Until a civil rights movement. And the confederate battle flag became the symbol of the anticivil rights movement. So it should be done away with and thats my feeling about that. But about confederate monuments, my personal view is that they should not be taken down. Theyre part of our culture. Like it or not, theyre part of our culture. What i would like to see is what richmond actually proposed early on. Now i think theyve sort of changed the view of this. But to leave the monuments in place and put interpretive markers there to interpret what happened. We did that in the park service. There was a monument in Harpers Ferry. The first man killed in a raid, the daughters of the confederacy put a monument up for heyward shepard. He was a nice guy, essentially an uncle tom, right . And so the park didnt know what to do with it. So for a while they built a wooden box to put over the monument. So the sons and daughters of the confederates were upset because they put the wooden box around it. The naacp were upset because they didnt throw it in the river. They put an interpretive marker and that seems to work well. I think for the most part thats what i would do with confederate monuments. There are exceptions and i think the exceptions are very important. So i just saw the other day that lexington kentucky has confederate monuments but they are on the site of a former slave market. And they did it for a reason. Theres good reason why they did it. Not good reason, but the reason they did that. So i think they should be removed. I think they should be taken away from a slave mark because that is now i think sacred ground that does not deserve to have a confederate monument. Then there are some particularly in my mind egregious individuals that should not have monuments and i would just as soon see them gone completely. Like Nathan Bedford forest. He murdered hundreds of africanamerican soldiers who had surrendered at ft. Pillow and then he became the Founding Member of the ku klux klan. In my mind you take away all nathan bed ford forest monument and thats fine. Whats also interesting is that robert e. Lee said he didnt want any monuments. He didnt think it was appropriate to build monuments after the civil war. So thats what he said. Its complicated. But thats kind of my but ive got to tell you my views are sort of evolving. I hope others are too. So thats my take on that. Yes . You didnt mention john brown much. What did he do specifically to help kansas in is. He didnt do much to help kansas to be honest. I didnt think so. By killing the pro slavery people, he started bleeding kansas. That was the trigger that started bleeding kansas. He came back later and actually worked with my buddy john doy, dr. John doy, doctor in quotes, to go steal slaves in missouri. In my mind he was more of a detriment than he was a help. But whats interesting is he had an interesting relationship with Amos Lawrence. He had sold wool to Amos Lawrence years before, i dont s remember exactly when, but years before kansas. When he went to kansas, he went to see his buddy Amos Lawrence who wrote a letter introduction to him. Then he came back again not long before he went to Harpers Ferry and asked lawrence to help him with his project and lawrence refused. He said ive given a lot of money to kansas and to this issue already, which he had. But when john brown asked him if he would take care of his family if anything happened to him, lawrence agreed to do that. And he did. He actually took care of his family. And he wrote a letter to the governor of virginia hoping that they would give him a fair trial which they did. That was theres more connections. But it doesnt really theres not a whole lot that fits with the story because he triggered things but then kind of left. The good people of kansas claim that the civil war started there and i think they kind of look at mr. Brown as a hero. Ive always kind of disagreed with that just a little bit. You know what . Theres so much debate over john brown, was he completely insane or was he just a zealot who got i dont know. Ive tried to stay out of that debate. Was he insane or was he a zealot . I dont know. I have no idea. Anyone else . Yes, sir. [ inaudible question ] yeah. Part of the deal with the partisan ranger act was that they were supposed to that they were requested by the confederate commanders to join up. That was supposed to be their role. They could call on them. And so theoretically what they were supposed to do was to be scouts, cover retreats and that sort of thing. They were supposed to be available when called upon. Sometimes they were in quantrills. I think twice when called upon. But bloody Bill Anderson, he kind of went his own way. He i mean, i read about him and i just go my goodness gracious. In my book i have a picture of him. He looks like a swash buckling hero. I have another picture and hes dead. Anything else . Yes, maam . [ inaudible question ] i could go on forever about quantrill. He was a school teacher. He was a school teacher. Apparently a real smart guy. Whats interesting is later, after hes dead, there are all kinds of things. People said he was a real scoundrel. Some said as a boy he was such a nasty boy he would pull the wins off flies. People that actually knew him said no, he was very studiuos. When he was a teenager he actually taught school and went to indiana and illinois to teach school. His father died when he was young so he was sort of the bread winner for the family. He was from ohio originally. He went back to his home in ohio and then went to kansas with a group of folks from his town. They settled there. The folks in this group from the town is called dover canal. Noticed things were missing. They caught him red handed stealing things. They told him to leave and he did leave. He taught school in kansas also. Then he went west. Went to pikes peak. He actually came back to lawrence. He lived in lawrence for a while under the name of William Clark, i think. I cant remember names, but William Clark. And thats when he really turned into what he became later. He became a horse thief. You realize you can make a lot of money stealing horses. He also was a slave stealer. What he would do is he would go to missouri and steal slaves and come back and then take the slaves back to missouri to get the reward for capturing the slaves. At one point he and five quakers went on a mission to try to capture slaves at a big plantation. They went there. He said when they arrived, he said im going to go scout out the situation so we can go do our deal tonight. So what he did was he went and found the son of the slave owner, said this is whats going to happen tonight. These five quakers are going to attack, why dont you get someone to counter attack. They did, so he stayed out of the picture. They shot they killed one quaker. Two of them escaped back to lawrence. Two of them were injured. He went out with the son of the slave owner, shot the two quakers who had left, and that really was sort of the turning point in his life. He then joined the Confederate Army. So you get a sense of he wasnt a really nice guy. He really wasnt. After the raid in lawrence, he and his band went down to i think to texas, arkansas area. The army, the Confederate Army was getting kind of disgusted with these guerillas. Quantrill was sort of voted out as a leader. Eventually he took his band to kentucky. He called himself William Clark. He had them dressed in union uniforms. Said they were part of the fifth missouri cavalry. Eventually she was shot. Whats interesting he was shot after the war was over. He was shot in the back. He lingered for a couple of days. He became a the report is that he became a very devout catholic just before he died. He was buried. And then it really gets bizarre. He was buried in lexington kentucky but a friend of his took some of the bones to dover where he was from. Someone kept his head. Then about 15 years ago the sons of confederate veterans actually took some of the bones and buried them in missouri. If you want to try to find everything that belongs to William Clark quantrill, be my best. But he was really a pretty, as far as i can tell, pretty nasty person. Anything else . Thank you. [ applause ] tonight on American History tv you can watch this program and more during our special look at the American West and cowboy culture. It starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern right over on cspan3. American history tv is in primetime all week every week for the rest of the year. Youre watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule. And to keep up with the latest history news. Our cspan cities tour takes American History on the road to feature history of cities across america. Heres a recent program. In the years before the