Schwartz, for his generosity and making this event and many of our programs possible. [applause] i would also like to recognize and thank one of our trustees who has joined us today, david light david light. David blight. Laura to recognize washington and Mercedes Franklin , who are cochairs of our frankly Frederick Douglas counsel. Members who all have joined us today. I want to recognize a longstanding and special friend of New York Historical who has joined us this morning. Enke for everything that you and your family have done for this institution. Thank you. Will lastngs program about an hour and a half and it will include austin and answer session. You should have received a note card and a pencil as you entered this morning. If not, my colleagues are going up and down the aisles no cards and pencils. The notecards will be collected later on in the program. Signingll be a book following the program this morning. It will take place right outside these central doors in the smith gallery. Copies of the books are available for purchase at our museum store, which is located to our left. We are really, truly delighted to welcome our guest speakers. , professor of American History and director of the center for the study of slavery resistance and the abolition at yale university. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including annotated editions of douglasss autobiographies. He won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. Andon the lincoln prize franklin prize. In 2001, he was awarded the frank Frederick Douglass prize. Specializes in 19th century africanAmerican History , jacksonian era, civil war and reconstruction. She is a member of several Advisory Boards come the study of africanamerican life, the Abraham Lincoln association, the Abraham Lincoln institute, the Ulysses S Grant association and the Scholars Advisory Group of president lincolns cottage. She is the author and editor of several books. Is moderator this morning jonathan simpson, director of the Public Policy institute and hunter college. He served as chairman of the bicentennial foundation and cochair at the lincoln bicentennial commission, appointed by president bill clinton. He is the author of numerous books. , monument man, the art and life of chester finch. He served as chief historian through 2009 and 2010 in new york. His honors include the National Humanities medal, presented to him in 2008 by president george w. Bush. As i yield the floor to our thaters, i ask as always anything that makes noise, like a cell phone is switched off. Thank you. [applause] you. Ank it is wonderful to be at the historical society, particularly for the bill clinton lecture. I am honored to be one of the participants in that annual event, and it is a pleasure to welcome my friends edna and david. It has changed how we think about the 1860s and 1870s. 167 years and 11 days ago, the mostincoln signed consequential executive order in American History. The emancipation proclamation. A milestone to be sure. A great achievement to be sure. If my name realized, ever goes into history, it will be for this act. We later learned, that is why aunt anyway first, 1863, he refused to sign the document set before him because it contained what we would later see as a title. Be engrossedhat it. Further, while people in churches waited anxiously, wondering what was going on, why has the midnight hour not yielded freedom . Put his pen he down. His hand, numbed by hours of new years day handshaking downstairs in the public rooms of the white house while secretary of state seward found him. He wondered whether this meant he was changing. He acknowledged it was only because his hand was still paralyzed that he was afraid he would sign it shakily. He said, i want people to look at this document in 100 years and see firm handwriting and see that he did not hesitate. The document is so faded that no one can really tell, the official document. We want to talk about things that led up to it and things that occurred afterwards, when one of the great characters who anded a role, that edna david have helped us recognize, particularly with davids autobiography. Imagesng you with dual of extraordinary people. Here they are in the 1840s. People have a tendency to think of lincoln as a bearded. Tatesman they were remarkable. I want to start with the origins. Douglas once said that lincoln never treated him as an inferior and he believed that even though he came from a slave state, it was because they both rose from. Umble origins and worked hard douglas called lincoln the king of American Health made men. About the different origins that you think may have contributed to the relationship that they ultimately developed. Edna we can start with slavery. Was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of maryland. He did not know his mother very well. His mother died when he was about six or seven years old and he lived with his grandmother before that. By the time he learned his beenr was dead, she had dead for some time. They were not able to establish a relationship with her. His earliest years, up until he was 20 those years were shaped by his experience in slavery. Was atery went, douglas her off then the average enslaved person for a few years. He had the opportunity to experience freedom in baltimore, in a setting that was different than a plantation setting. He had the opportunity to learn, read and write during that period, so he had very humble beginnings. Tu to talklieve it about his humble beginnings. David keep going. This is good. Well, first of all, louise, thank you. All of you crazy people who came out this early on a saturday. Honor to be on anything with edna. We go back many years ago, sitting on the front lawn of cedar hill. Do you know how daunting it is to sit across from harold with that stack of note cards . Had 112 noteys cards. Harold most of them are blank. I just use them to intimidate you. [laughter] david harold knows everything about lincoln. He even knows fax that do not exist about lincoln. Sorry. They do both have humble origins. That is one of the interesting ways to think about their leader evolving relationship. Mutual respect that they did have, even from the very first meeting is due to that. Thelas later called lincoln plebeian. And not really nailed it there. Douglas youth is privileged to a degree. He spent nine of his 20 years as a slave in baltimore. Without baltimore, he would have never escaped without that. There were 17,000 free blacks in baltimore in 1838, when he escaped. And he learns from them. He attends church. Anna murray, his first wife, who was free. She worked as a domestic and a white persons home. He also experienced just about every kind of savagery that slavery could force upon a upon people. Brutal treatment. He was not beaten himself, so far as we can tell, until he was a teenager. He knew slavery inside and out. He knew mental humiliation, psychic traumas and physical cool traumas physical traumas. In that maritime city on the ocean one of the greatest ports in america at the time. It was his place where he gained literacy. Again and again he gained literacy, which was his most prized possessions. Both of them lincoln, we know about about lincolns reading from various works. He read as a young man. He cherished this book called the colombian orator. The school meter that douglas discovered among his white playmates when he was 11 and begged, bartered and finally got his own copy when he was 12 years old. An amazing book published in 1797, which was a huge it was a collection of oratory over the ages, but most importantly, the introduction to it was a manual on oratory, how to position your body, your soldier shoulders, how to modulate your voice. It is a guide to oratory. I do not know that douglas ever read aristotle. That book was among the when he was as teenager. So it is interesting. They both had read that and used that, and other kinds of moralistic torture. There are other things that we could say harold . That we could say. Weold we will skip to win get closer to the ultimate moment. Showst set of images lincoln and douglas in the 1850s. Speaking of parallel oratory, i found using edna and david as my guides, it is easy to find these wonderful parallels. Lincoln says in 1858. A house divided against both cannot stand. Douglas said that liberty and slavery cannot develop in the u. S. With peaceful relation. I do not know if lincoln knew about douglas at this point. Probably. Douglas says it is pretty settled that one or the other of these number freedom or slavery, must go to the wall. The south must give up slavery or the north must give up liberty. Lincoln said it would be one or the other, meaning the opponents of slavery will arrest further spread of it or its advocates will push it. And then, in the Lincoln Douglas , thees, Stephen Douglas sitting democratic senator running for a third term and allowed lincoln to try to challenge him, it gave lincoln a reputation. Byphen douglas, who scholarly conjecture dropped the second s in his name because he did not want it to be like Frederick Douglass. He invoked loved douglas would have to claim that. Douglas becomes a subject in these debates. Lets talk about that. Edna they are debating throughout seven cities where they had not done joint speeches before. Over thetrying to win crowd, so they are giving their perspective on slavery, its connection and development of the country, and where the country is going. Someone who was prosouth, if not proslavery. Ery much antiblack he made a point, consistently to say things that would get his audience to come to his sidebyside negative things about black people. To talk about douglas in relation to an alleged relationship with lincoln the two had not met at the time. To suggest that they were friends, he brought those things up to get the audience to see lincoln as someone who was problack. Wask of illinois because it a free state. We assume that there is a kind of if not a tolerance of black people there was not. You have a lot of people in Southern Illinois coming from the south and even people coming from the north are not necessarily problack. Inwas very effective invoking the name of Frederick Douglass, whenever he talked about lincoln being a black republican or someone supportive of the rights of africanamericans. Lincoln countered by saying that he was not interested in promoting the rights of africanamericans. He just believed that they were entitled to whatever they had earned through their labor. David there is a reason they call the southern half of illinois little egypt. At one point during the debates in illinois, douglas came up with the story of, i saw lincoln riding around in a carriage with fred douglass. He would make up these stories. In 1864, during lincolns Second Campaign jumping ahead but on this subsite subject. One of the antilincolns with as shows a carriage white driver, driving a black couple. This is like the height of humiliation for white supremacists. Douglass was in the carriage. Name being raised in these debates. They are almost confronting each other. David that is a debate we would have liked to have had. Could douglass vote . To be no clue he voted for . David yes. He could vote. He owned quite a bit of property in new york state. Ferociously to eliminate the law and it lost. Yes, he could vote. The truth is, we are not sure 1850s, he rode a roller coaster in terms of the party. He tended to support the republicans, whoever they wear. In off years, he would hide in. He radical Abolition Party it got plenty of votes in the garrett that plenty of votes. Not knowing what to do politically with his vote, with his support. My guess is that he voted for 1860 with both eyes open. Harold the referendum that took place that same year that lincoln won 50 or so of the vote. The black and franchise resolution went down 41. David a lot of people voted for lincoln that voted not to eliminate that bill. Harold lets talk about both men more seriously. ,oth were Newspaper Publishers even during the campaign of 1860. We can secretly owned a german newspaper published out of springfield, which did you know that . Go back and look at lincoln and the power of the press. You were busy with this. This. N rescued david was it a good investment . Harold it depends on his goals. You guys can talk about Frederick Douglass. That a publisher has relocated to springfield to start restart his german language paper, except his creditors seized the printing. Ress lincoln learned about it. It will cost 500 to get it out. Lincoln goes to the state committee and says, you should do this. They say, this guy is no good. He is a bit of a charlatan. Lincoln gives him the 500. He says keep this paper going until december 1860. That is the end of the election period. Say nothing against the principles of the state republican or National Republican platform. If you comply in 1860, you can have the Printing Press and everything. Friendsonths, lincolns david did he read german . Harold he did not. The only word that he knew was schnider. That means taylor. He knew that. The paper was constantly being springfield and later credited with giving lincoln a german immigrant boost in the election of 1860 in illinois. Lincoln mayection, be the publisher consult. 1500 a year. One more anecdote. He asked the state legislature to buy up all the back copies of publisherso that the could have a little bit of a stipend to buy strudel in vienna. Wine in vienna. Harold the paper dies. We have this contract. Own lawyer. His that is really a side story, to say the least. Because they bought up all the back copies, not one copy of the paper exist. They are all gone. Somewhere in illinois, there has to be a copy, in case any of you have relatives, it would be a valuable relic. Talk about this series of newspapers that had such consequence. Three before the war is over. The first one is the northstar. The paper is very important. People read during those days. A was important that it was way to get word out to the public. Fromd significant support white readers. They were supporting him quite well. Look atorials, if you the papers now, they are absolutely extraordinary. You know exactly what is happening at any given moment in the history of the country, especially during the early war years. I love to look at those primary sources, whenever i am writing about douglass, i use his exact words as much as possible. He was an exceptional writer. Those newspapers chronicle what is happening. They are a representation of what he is feeling at the time. I do not know that lincoln is actually reading anything that Frederick Douglass is writing, but there are people who know lincoln who are beating and are letting him know what douglass is saying. He is certainly having influence over the rest of the population. David i agree. They cannot admit that he reads abolitionist papers when they are published by people of color. Douglassaper was lifeblood. Many different ways and maybe different times, the first 12 monthly the last four years of its existence. Paper with money donated to him by his british abolitionist friends. That is how he bought his first Printing Press. It was used. That paper would not have survived without the editorial and of his english friend her fundraising to keep it alive, paper, Douglas Douglas mastered about every type of writing. Pages of autobiography, thousands of speeches. Speechajor douglas exists in a text. He will write it first. Short form political editorial is where he really found a declarative voice. 1840s to the 1850s, you can monitor the entire american crisis over slavery from a radical abolitionist perspective through douglas. Name the moment, the teacher to slave act, dred scott, on and on. The fugitive slave act. But when did this or 60. 59, he converts probably due to cost reasons or labor. It is a family production. His three sons taught him. A he names it for himself at certain point, which is probably good marketing. David also vanity. This guy is nothing if not vain. Is the story true that notists, especially those terribly far from rochester, one of the sidetrips was to go to rochester to find out whether a man of color could actually be running a newspaper . David i dont doubt that it happened. Aroundere gawkers douglas especially after the war. He had a horrible problem with what we call celebrity and they called fame, being recognizable. Of who a number showed up on his doorstep Megumi Yokota his doorstep. If i am wrong, but the kind of first confrontation, to lincolnsaction first inaugural. Been widely quoted. In hisobama quoted it victory speech in 2008. Douglass does not like that. Tell everybody why. Go ahead. Ok. I like doing mop up. By the time lincoln is inaugurated, seven states have already seceded from the union. And tryhas to come in to heal things quickly. He thinks he will be able to make a dent with this address. He takes a very conciliatory approach, trying to reassure them that he has no intention to touch slavery at all. That is the first thing he is saying. He is talking about i think the thing that really bothered douglas the most was the whole issue of the fugitive slave act. You have seven states who have seceded from the union, so lincoln is saying, we are not going to interfere with your domestic institutions. And if you want to continue recovering your runaways, we will enforce that law as long as it does not infringe on the rights of free black people. We know that there were times when free blacks were caught up andhe fugitive slave act were put into slavery. I think that is what douglas is concerned about, here is the president who has the opportunity to do something about slavery because you have these seven states that are supposedly out of the union. It is a matter of opportunity that lincoln does not avail himself of. Let me just read a little bit from douglass monthly. We thought we had the nerve and decisions of Oliver Cromwell , but merely a continuation of buchanans, and he bends the need to slavery bends the knee to slavery like his predecessors. Too tough . Has comen lincoln through his old hometown, he says, now he knows what a fugitive slave feels like. He calls lincoln. Stories about him hiding in a train. Douglas thought that was pretty cool. In rochester, douglas did go out and see lincoln at the whistle stop, commented on the historic w eight. Douglass, way too much olive branch and filler. This is obviously april of 1861. The secession winter has been a horrible time for everybody. Where is this going . Nobody knows. It goes on for months. Believes not without good reason that the republicans will probably engineer some compromise with the south. But he was not part of any Republican Network at that point. He is not inside of any network of communication. Lincolnscontact in circle. He does not know what lincoln is going to do. He expects compromise. The first inaugural for quite obvious reasons. Lincoln the healer. 1861, douglas wanted allout war against slavery. The war begins and the ,bolitionists are impatient create ifpowers to interruption of. He workforce, the confederacy there is another moment of combat and conflict where lincoln rejects early initiatives toward emancipation. General fremont and general douglas as you quote saying you have crippled fremont in the face of his enemies. As we move toward d. C. Emancipation in 1862 and how the pressure is building. That is pressure. Slavery,a war against a sanctioned war against slavery and therefore the south. Of firing of fremont in fall 61, he hated it. Hetever fremont really was, seemed to be an abolitionist general. Douglas thought, that is pretty good. Mostbothered douglas the is the policy, the stated policy tothe federal government, return fugitive slaves. They called it technically denial of asylum. If a fugitive slave entered union lines, they were supposed to be returned if possible if the owner was loyal to the union. How was some captain to wasrmine if a slaveholder loyal to the union. Called lincolnss the most powerful slave catcher in america. Lincolnste that approach to slavery was an assortment of floated ideas and incoherent policies. Edna did i say that . It is good. Harold we all like having our stuff read back to us. Edna what is happening during that time is lincolns trying to find a way to get the union back together. I do believe, in the early months, the preservation of the union is driving everything. The preservation of the union drives everything throughout the war. He struggling to find the best d. Proach to get to that en missteps, orsome at least a moves a little bit more slowly than he needed to. Obstructionist at times. Congress is doing certain things and lincoln is not always supporting that as fully as he could. With the first and second confiscation act, there is not a lot happening that i see that is towardmoving the country doing something about slavery. Point inested at that doing something about slavery. Interested in making sure that the union does not selfdestruct. I dont know if we can blame him for that. Moved morehe had swiftly, emancipation would not have occurred when it did. There might have been some compromise with the confederacy. We dont know. But certainly, he was very cautious and he did or did not do some things that could cause us to question. Theld do you think some of is allesentation 1862lated toward the congressional and gubernatorial elections . It will be the first Congressional Elections ever held during a rebellion. It is going to be hard to lose the senate because all the prodemocratic states in the south have left the senate. But i think a lot this is motivated by his political concern. He will be helpless. Antislavery will be unsuccessful unless he maintains his majority. But that may be part of it i think you has not gotten there yet. He is interested at that time. The confederacy has an advantage in the enslaved labor force. Then he moves. Once he does decide to move, i believe he recognized how important that decision was. I would like to think that the shaking hands came not just ause he was shaking hands because it dawned on him at that moment how momentous that was. Not necessarily mean he was changing his mind. It did mean that he recognized how extraordinary that particular moment was. Different job descriptions. Cant even know yet how lincolns antislavery bones may have been stirring in him. He does not know yet. He does not know whether to trust him. Rhetorically,try, the only power he has, his voice and his pen, to move this war towards an armageddon that destroys slavery. And it is not happening, except finally in the spring of 1862, lincolns article of war, suggestion congress, then the signing of the second confiscation act. What do you trust . Then there is the war. Losing battles. Bets are off. About it for a moment. In rochester, new york. He is on the road speaking constantly. Hee not getting paid is trying to shape policy with his voice. Policymakers he does not know if he can trust these republicans and he still does not know until september 22. Even then he is not sure. Harold to advance the story a bit, summer of 1862, as we know know, heouglas did not reads it to his cabinet on july 22, 1862. Even the abolitionists say, you cannot do this. You will lose the election. Seward says it will be seen as a sot shriek on the retreat, lincoln tabled it. A, for two months, there was document being worked on by lincoln, being edited. Douglas may know that toward the aftern Early September labor day. Next two months, lincoln makes some extraordinary Public Relations decisions that we now look back at with some horror. Towrites his famous letter horace greeley, the editor of the new york tribune, saying my paramount object is to save the union. What i forbear about slavery, i do to save the union. August, around the same time, probably the cruelest and sst ale advised of lincoln Public Relations. I think he is doing it because he has an election coming up, he is petrified he will lose the weight voting public. He is scared, even in august. He hosts a group of free africanamericans at the white house. One of the great good newsbadges stories in American History. A group of africanamericans has never been welcomed to the white house before. Lincoln emerges with an Associated Press stenographer by his side and proceeds to lecture his visitors. And say, basically, you are the reason we have a war. Separated, he says, and he has got a colonization plan, a Central America plan. Dont say anything now, go back to your homes and your churches, let me know what you think. Douglas writes one of the toughest editorial attacks lincoln has ever endured. Every man who has a brain in his head, even mr. Lincoln, must know that in many places, distinct races live peaceably together. Yet he says to the colored people, i dont like you. It is not slaves causing the war , it is slavery. I brought a note card. He likens to a horsegic thief pleading that the existence of the horse is the apology for his theft or a that thean contending money is the sole cause of the. Bbery lincoln used the same metaphor, about the highwaymen. It was lincolns worst racial moment, as you just said. I am glad you laid that out. But is it presumption, is it real, that is always the question. Have invited them the stenographer to make sure that the American People recognized what was about to come. But that does not mean that he did not believe what he was saying. I suspect he did. Period,that after this colonization does occur. People do go to cow island. How ironic. The federal Government Funds the first edna exactly. It was about preparing americans for emancipation, and there was no colonization. I think it is a twoprong thing. He is preparing america for what he is about to do but he is also preparing africanamericans for what he calls voluntary deportation. Bux one more thing to add, it is the colonization issue, which means removal from the country, which drove douglas nuts. Nothing animated his anger like that issue. Montgomery blair was designated to try to recruit douglas to be in effect the colonizations are for the federal government. One of the most biting, angry letters that he ever wrote was a long letter to montgomery blair, telling him where he could but the offer because, to douglas, freedomnt so black is may be possible because of this war and you are just going to remove it . No. Where douglas did not care what lincoln thought. He was reacting to the reality. Were we do know that there black men and women their fortune lay somewhere outside. But they did not call that colonization. They called that immigration. There were immigrant societies headed by black people. Said,se instances, they no one is telling us, we are deciding that we want to leave. One of the problems with having a monthly newspaper, by the time he issues his contemplation his condemnation, the emancipation comes out, the preliminary. Douglas, first is exuberant, then he thinks about it. That thereally upset is 100 days notice between the preliminary and the final. Lincoln extends one more olive branch. Down your arms, we join the union. Edict,will reverse this i will not sign it. Douglas says it made freedom future and conditional, not present at absolute. That keep in mind, preliminary proclamation has a clause in it about colonization. Final one does not. Allocated too be colonization in the preliminary. Douglas has gone back and forth on this, and why not . It is a fraud moment for an africanamerican leader. Where do you go, would you support . Do you keep the pressure on . Douglass begins publicly saying that he does not believe lincoln will move back. How is he convinced because he has not yet met him . Think that is a rhetorical position at that point. He has an obligation of hope. Douglasslways approach. This preliminary proclamation was extraordinary. He needs to say that. And then he probably put his head on the pillow at night, thinking, i hope it is true. That is my feeling. Comes, thejanuary 1 hand trembles for many reasons. Ignature is affixed then, the reckoning. I like to say that there are two documents at this moment. The new yorkin historical society. Copy of the emancipation proclamation, which was not a bestseller in this day. They were more copies around because he did not sell out in philadelphia. Recruitmentomes the ceo. And he gives up his newspaper, right . David later that year. Harold black recruitment begins in march of 1863. Africanamerican recruits have not paid the same rate as white soldiers. They have to pay for their own uniform whereas white soldiers have a bonus. It is not exactly the most equitable situation. Douglas comes to washington and there is the first meeting. Bys is a 20th century mural an africanamerican artist named William Edward scott. It is really all we have. It is wonderful. It is a monumental meeting. Douglas is escorted past a of people. Im sure they are all white, waiting on the fairway to see Abraham Lincoln, as he office unobstructed. Wordear muttering of the n because a person of color is going ahead of the white people. Humiliations the before the recognition. He comes into the office and there is lincoln. He is introduced. He says, i know who you are, mr. Douglas. And what happens next . It has to be one of the great scenes that no dramatist has tried to recreate. David there is a screenwriter working on it right now, i hope. Harold what happens at the meeting . Edna we need to put it in context. Is still seething from the fact that he never got his conditions, with the black soldiers, but he continues to work on behalf of these soldiers. He is telling lincoln, these people are putting their lives on the line and they are getting seven dollars a month instead of white menteam that are getting. Lincolns response is, we are doing the best we can. Much, feel lucky that we are allowing black men to serve. There are so many people in the country who dont like them. He was right, lots of americans did not want black people serving. Lincoln tells him, be patient, they will eventually get the same pay. For right now, there is not much we can do about it. David that is the first time foot in washington, d. C. , for one thing. He gets his line to protest discrimination. The africanamerican troops, including his own son. David is is already been city, ato new york horrible wound, and almost died. Not an easy meeting. Douglas came away basically Good Exchange a of ideas, which means they did not agree. Awed by think he was lincoln. I felt big there. The kid would say that. But lincoln, according to douglas, was not condescending, did not just hurry him out of the office. It was respectful. But lincoln did say, basically, you ought to be grateful. Harold he said, he was the first great man i talked to in the u. S. Freely who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself. That is a remarkable thing to say. Harold it is also rhetorically useful. David it is also rhetorically useful. Harold he wrote it later. He walked away from there, he had just met the president. The war is in a horrible situation. It is still in a horrible state and no one knows where this is going. Harold it is only halfway. David yes. There is such a big context. The emancipation proclamation authorizes the recruiting of black soldiers. It did not call for colonization. Oforder to the recruitment black soldiers. Douglas, after the proclamation, goes back to rochester and did what he always did, he went to his desk and he wrote a new speech. Peoples is one of those who did not know what he thought until he went to his desk to write it down. He is on the road only three weeks after the proclamation, giving that speech all across the north. In that speech, he says, this proclamation frees all of us. It frees confederate soldiers, it frees slaveholders, the white union soldiers, black people, Abraham Lincoln, it frees all of us. , brave brilliant statement, a proclamation that is still very new and no one knows quite where this is going. And then it is fascinating when you put those two up together because the proclamation is meant to be kind of boring even though it is terribly important. The radical manifesto. I wanted to see the headlines. The actual document is arousing. Edna that is the point, fight for your freedom. He is not so terribly interested in recruiting black men to save the union. He understands, once black men don the union flew and shoulder a gun, they have the right to ask. As a ship. He is already looking beyond just the end of slavery. Withouthe says freedom will not be worth what freedom will be worth if we fight. I want to just talk about the last two meetings. They are important. They are postemancipation. Lincoln is concerned he is going to lose the 1864 election, a period when he is really down, making his cabinet sign documents about cooperating with the democratic eventual winner, telling the editor of the New York Times to go ahead and negotiate with Jefferson Davis if you can find him. He also developed a backup plan about enforcing emancipation. They are all great photos. Whent think douglass he meets lincoln the second time, august of 1854, lincoln rightfully believes there is a good chance he is not going to get reelected. The war weariness. Stalemate in virginia. Harold it is only a week from sherman taking over. David that makes all the difference. 60,000 casualties in the summer of 64 alone. The north is sick of the war. Calls douglas to the white house, looks him in the eye, and asks him to be the chief agent of a scheme to funnel as many slaves as possible out of the upper south before election day. Harold inauguration day. David i thought it was before november. Right. Anyway, i may lose this election, so help me with this scheme, some Legal Definition of freedom before mcclellan and the democrats engineering negotiated peace or whatever they are going to do. Reverse emancipation. Imagine this. I dont know exactly what douglas thought, of course, but i know its reaction was Something Like, sure. Supposed to how my do this . Warlincoln had was, the department will help you. He goes back to rochester, only about 10 days, and he starts firing off letters to agents, friends, we are going to do this, i think. Then comes the fall of atlanta, may be the biggest turning point in the war in terms of morale. Farragut had just taken mobile bay and the Largest Naval batter of the war. He writes a plan, a long plan to lincoln about these plans. He is going to hire uniformed africanamerican bounty hunters. He has been asked to enact john browns socalled e iranian passageway subterranean passageway, by lincoln. Edna douglass is really criticizing lincoln in this period, so is lincoln not sort of bringing him in to give him something to do other than criticize him. He is saying, i may lose this thing. He is telling douglas to just shut up, get on with the business you are interested in and stop criticizing me so much. Think it is a moment where lincoln imagines himself a liberator and wants to execute the documents and see as many people liberated as possible. People,l status of free what it is going to be after he democrat becomes president , i dont think we can calculate. Add that should just that Election Campaign by the democrats was the most racist in the campaign in history until the next one. The democrats practiced classic wedge politics. Painted the they republicans as the party of emancipation. They were now. Douglass dearly wanted to go campaign for lincoln but they would not let him. This museum has an incredible collection of decay theages, campaign in new york. David they called Lincoln Abraham africanus i. They did not question his birth certificate though. [laughter] so far as i know. Harold try and find it, by the way. 1865,meeting, march 4 of i dont know if this is exactly 1865. For lincoln, this is february 5. Inuguration day, douglas is an integrated crowd. Lots of troops in the crowd. Lincoln givesere, his speech. Douglas remembers it as the speech where lincoln said, if every drop of blood drawn with a lash has to be repaid. He says it is the greatest sentence ever. Then they come to the white house for the post inaugural reception. I hope the anonymouss green play anonymous screenplay writer is including this scene. David his name is kevin wilmont. He is working as we speak. Welcomedis not exactly in the white house. Edna he is trying to get in, and he is in the company of a woman. David it is a woman from philadelphia named elga. Dorsey or Something Like that. David it is. You got it. Edna he wants to get in. The guards are not allowing him to get in. He gets the message to lincoln that he is outside. Himoln tells them to let in. He meets lincoln, lincoln greets him very cordially. Harold he cuts the line one more time. Lincoln is at the head of a receiving line. Theoln talks to him outside line of procession. David he had to walk over a plank to get in the side door. Edna they were trying to usher him out. Lincoln does ask him, what did address . Of the what hencere about feels. And rightly so. Everybody talks about the gettysburg address. It is that second inaugural address that is truly extraordinary. Harold the one moment i would like to go back to, before douglas issues that complement for the ages, lincoln is on the receiving line and he sees douglass being ushered and by dubious guards and others, and he says, to an allwhite crowd, there is my friend, douglass. Douglass, there is no ones opinion i respect more than yours. Enough about you, what did you think about my speech . But still. David we do have another witness of what he said. s is not just douglass telling. Here, it is. Right in the east room where that happens. It is. Again, it shows us. They started at very different places. Nowhis time, they were basically speaking from the same script. They did not start with the same script at all. By now, they are talking about emancipation as the regeneration of a new united states. Nation, a new constitution. They are basically on the same script. If lincoln lives, who knows where this script goes. Douglas, asti spielberg movie suggests, in the gallery of the house of representatives when they voted on the 13th amendment . David no, his son was. Whoas his son charles writes a letter to his father. Father, this was your day. I wish you had been here. Harold was douglass also kept in the background of that campaign . David he was not inside the Republican Party machinations at all. 13 the memo was easy to support. 14th and 15th, not and easy. Not as easy. Harold congressional comp rise compromise was made up of a lot of lame ducks. Many of them were limit work democrats leaving office. David easy to vote. Harold if there is a federal job on the other end. sna in terms of douglass perspective on the 13th amendment, it seems that when garrison is attempting to abandon the abolitionist societies,tislavery douglass is saying that even with the passage of the 13th amendment, we still dont have full citizenship. It seems that by the time the 13th amendment was ratified, douglass was out there pushing for full fit for full citizenship. David he argued, slavery never died honestly. He means it died in war, not because we voted on it. Harold i think we have about 15 minutes for some of these good questions. As he became a more prominent speaker, did Frederick Douglass ever worry about being returned to the south under the fugitive slave law . David yes. Was ane years, he fugitive slave. And his friends worried about it maybe more than he did. Edna he leaves the country at one point because he has been implicated. David he does not come back from england until his british friends purchase his freedom and give him the papers. It is because he can be arrested and hanged as an accomplice to john browns rate, which he was. Andld both Douglass Lincoln were fervent readers of robert burns. Mademade parents what burns attractive to both of them . Loved theglass english romantic poets. I think he loved the language, for one thing. Douglass was a lover of language. But he probably loved the romance of it. Julia griffiths named one of the poems she read to him when he was ill. Loved romantic poetry. Attracted always was to burns as this poor boy symbol britishracy in the lore, or scottish. It is a good thing burns never took that job he was offered on a slave plantation in jamaica. It would have ruined the whole thing. Believe thedouglass confederacy was capable of being reintegrated into the union as fervently as lincoln did . Edna hardly. Douglass understood that even though the confederacy had lost, there would be a struggle. As long as you allowed the same people who took their states into secession, if you allow them to stay in power, it should not be difficult to bring them back and without expecting problems. He certainly recognized there would be problems for africanamericans, and he was right. Lincoln recognized there could be some problems and he was willing to step in to make sure things did not get too bad. Douglass really understood what it meant. He was way ahead of lincoln in terms of recognizing what the problems would be. David douglass wanted healing but never without the justice to go with it. He said, the confederacy preferred to be a large part of nothing that a small part of something. He never trusted slaveholders, even after slavery ended. Im going to ask a question based on an image. Douglass in arick eulogy said that Abraham Lincoln was the black mans president , at the unveiling of this now politically incorrect statue in washington, funded entirely by free people of color, by the way. At the dedication, Frederick Douglass said that lincoln was the white mans president , that africanamericans were his stepchildren. It is an interesting evolution. I do you account for it . Was douglas in terms of questioning lincoln, this is the 11th anniversary of the assassination. Edna a lot of water had run under that bridge since those dates. I think that douglas really was optimistic in 1865 that things will change. By the time he is doing that speech, he realizes it is going to be much tougher than that. Because black people have lost ground. There is the passage of the 13th amendment, anti14th and 15th, but by this period, their rights are being eroded. It is about reminding the white men present who were very prominent people in the country. David the whole government was there. Edna reminding them that a promise was made in issuing the emancipation proclamation. Because that is how black people saw it. A promise of much more than just freedom. This manss is saying, who you hold up in great regard is given us this promise. Harold and what pressure gets. This is the year what prescience. This is the year that reconstruction will end. April 1876. Is douglass is the orator of the day. Grant. Court and unveils this print cord and pulls the unveils this statue. It is a warning to grand, the losingent, that they are reconstruction. It is the second greatest speech of douglasss life. Fourth of july speech is number one. But this speech is a brilliant piece of rhetoric. It is really two speeches. In the first part, he says, my americans, you are Abraham Lincolns children and we, black people, are stepchildren. But then there is a pause, and he says, under his rule, emancipation came as Abraham Lincoln designed it and probably could have. Saying,t speech, he is it was against us. The second half, he is saying, you know, that freedom had to come the way he brought it. Both are true. It is a deadly honest speech. He could have done the throwaway, lincoln is a good man, united states, but he did not. I looked in vain to find out what grants response to that speech was. Grant may have taken a nap or something. Harold it is remarkable that he said not a word that day. We have time for one more question from the audience. That i will go back to our final standoff. sd lincoln and douglass religious beliefs play a significant role on shaping their views on slavery and abolition . David yes, in both cases. Both serious readers and serious users of biblical story and metaphor. It is one of the central themes of my book on douglass. Douglass was so steeped in the old testament, in particular. Douglasss faith is less my concern, his actual faith. But his use of biblical stories, symbols, metaphor, and especially the hebrew prophets, is all over his rhetoric. He is hardly alone in this. He saw america as a place with some kind of destiny and some kind of trajectory of history somehow designed by the divine. It is never easy to exactly see it, but it was there. He quoted al qaeda more times than he could almost imagine. Armageddon ofn of some kind. He believes the temple in jerusalem, meaning this case, the united states, had to be destroyed in order to be reinvented. He knew what story to put this in. He just wanted it to happen that way. Case, there is no question that his religion uttered all over his worldview, all over his rhetoric. Lincoln, look at the second inaugural. Harold and the house divided. He quotes scripture throughout his presidency and becomes more of a religious fatalist as the war goes on and i think is increasingly unwilling to accept sole responsibility for the carnage. Quick end with three quotes if i may. One is from Frederick Douglass. I think david has already paraphrased it. 1876, though the union was more to him than our freedom and our future, under his wise and beneficent rule, we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood. That lincoln, in december of 1862, between the preliminary and final emancipation, in a state of the Union Message where he talked about colonization, he still said, in giving freedom to the slave, we give freedom to the free, honor to the like of what we preserve. Last,l mainly lose the best hope of earth. My final quote is of edna. It is something we have not discussed in full detail, as we have discussed two great men. Us, in her book about lincoln and the emancipation, lincolns decre promised freedom. Africanamericans defined what that meant. This has been a wonderful discussion. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] davidwant to thank blight, edna greene medfor, harold holzer, for another great program. We thank you for coming. Edna, we know you travel here, so thank you. Thank you all for coming. If you want to learn more, find out more, please go into our museum store where the authors books will be on sale. Thank you for coming on this warm saturday morning. Thank you. [applause] from George Washington to george w. Bush, every sunday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern we feature the presidency, a weekly series exploring the president , their politics, policies and legacy. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan three. You are watching American History tv, covering history cspan tile. With eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures and College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend on cspan three. Announcer each week, american artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums, and Historic Sites around the country. Up next, we visit the International Spy museum to tour spy museum in washington, d. C. To tour their exhibit on cold war berlin. Our guide is lead curator alexis albion who explains how the city came to be divided after world war ii and shows us artifacts used by the east germans to spy on visitors and control their own citizens. Alexis hello. Im dr. Alexis albion and am a curator historian at the International Spy museum in washington, d. C. We have the largest collection of espionage and intelligence related artifacts in tor