Pitcaithley promised he was going to include it is my distinct pleasure and honor to introduce you to doctor dwight pitcaithley. applause nic promised he was not going to include the rock star part. But the best laid plans. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you to nick for that wonderful introduction. Thank you for the site for posting this event. Im going to talk for about 25 or 30 minutes and then ill turn it over to you so you can talk about whatever you want and talk about whatever you want and hope that during my time i will have been provocative enough that we can have a conversation that goes on for another 30 or 45 minutes robert warren, many of you know, threetime pulitzer prize, who wrote that the civil war is our only felt history. History lived in the national imagination. I think that is true whether youre ancestry goes back that far or not, my mostly does not. We sort of the civil war thanks to ken burns maybe is a part of us. It is a part of our dna. We think about it a lack. Every year when i teach the civil war course, for the first day i give the students an exam and i asked them in a word or phrase, to tell me what caused the civil war. What caused secession. Everybody has an answer. Its not the same answer. They all have an answer it is states rights. No. Its slavery. No its the tariff. No. General economic issues. I think its cultural differences between north and south. Somebody else will say, i think it was the ultimate clash between agricultural south and an industrial north. Everybody has got an answer. If you are like me, when i started this research about ten years ago, i had sort of a vague i had read a lot of the secondary work, but most of it about the war itself, not that period that we call secession winter, from the lincolns election to the firing of fort summer. South carolina succeeds in december, followed by six other deep south states. Lincoln is inaugurated on march 4th. Some tourists fired on april. Lincoln calls out 75,000 troops and for more states to secede and the war is on. Bless you. There is a lot going on in there that where the dots do not connect. I took it upon myself when i retired, Everybody Needs a project during retirement, to satisfy myself i did not have a book in mind but i want it to satisfy myself as to what caused secession . I wanted to dig as deep as i could into the records, and it turns out, much to my surprise, the period of secession winter is incredibly well documented. Incredibly well documented. My research i want to do this. I want to keep it to the elected officials. What did they say . What were they arguing . Other historians have used newspaper editorials. They have used sermons by ministers that were published over secession winter. Other people take different tax, internal workings of the parties and that sort of thing. I want to know what the elected officials were saying. They were the ones who had their fingers on the trigger. They were the ones to whom the states delegated the responsibility to solve the problem. The problem being lincolns election as president. First republican elected. It turns out that there is more shortage. Congressman over that period. The second section of the 36 congressman from december 3rd of 1860 about a month after lincolns election to march 4th, inauguration day. Resulting in about 2000 pages of day by day, hour by hour, line by line arguments from these men. It is online. Thanks to your tax dollars and the library of congress. All congress is for the first 100 years, this happens to be the congressional globe. We call it the congressional record. At the time it was globe. You can go day by day and find out what they were arguing. Award of mourning. These are fast simply pages. Three columns per page about ten point type. When youre reading glasses. That is congress the elected officials in washington second large gatherings for the proceedings of Secession Conventions of elected democratic process. They met, they argued, they kept careful records, they proposed solutions which i talk about later. Except for texas, published those almost immediately. Except for texas, all of these proceedings were published in 1861 or 1862. Texas waited until 1912. Virginia laughs they claim in the introduction of their 1912 version that they did not have enough money to publish it. I dont argue with that. Virginia deliberated the longest and produced and today the way it has been packaged for the centennial four volumes, 3000 pages of virginians deliberations that started in january and did not end until after fort summer. A third range of information is from the state legislatures tennessee and kentucky. Tennessee did ultimately secede but never called a Succession Convention. It let the state legislature decide that weighty measure. Kentucky never thought about calling a secession. Convention but it considered itself an honest broker so there was a lot of discussion between the governor in the house of representatives and the senate in kentucky. They left their printed version almost immediately. Finally, there is the record of the washington piece convention. In early january, virginia, the legislature called for a National Convention to find out what to do, now that lincoln had been elected president. 21 states had representatives, about 131 men. They met at lords hotel, if you are familiar with washington. The hotel is still there. The room that they gathered in is not there, but the hotel is there. It is where lincoln spent the night before he moved into the white house. About a week before he moved in. When you aggregate all those pages, all that information, you end up with about 8000 pages of printed published information over secession winter. Within that information this is all new to me. I had no idea was going to enter this world. It is just me satisfying myself, but i got sucked into it the more i got into it, the more i wanted to get into it, because i did not have to deal with hand writing. Historians often have to deal with handwriting. Some have good penmanship and some dont. It can make you crazy. I have done research on that side as well. This is all published. All i had to do was read the printed word. Within those 8000 pages, there are three subsets of information that bear directly on with the south was thinking when it was thinking about secession. The first are the letters and the speeches of the secession commissioners. When the first tier of states decided to leave they authorized or commissioned appointed commissioners to go from that state to the other slave states to convince them to secede as well. Charles dew has written a very good book on the commissioners. I think he gathered about 40 speeches and letters to the elected officials in those states that he captured in a little book called apostles of this union. University of virginia. Press another zeroing in part of this are the fort declarations of secession when south carolina, georgia, mississippi and texas decided to secede. They thought this is important enough that we need to create a committee that specifically develops a justification. Or an explanation more than that, to the people of those states and to the rest of the country and really the world. The world was watching. About why those states needed declaration secession model on the declaration of independence. Theres an introduction very paragraph or two in the case of south carolina. And then a list of grievances. This is why we are leaving. This is what is wrong. And we are leaving. Those you can find on the web. Kansas graciously published them in the second or third chapter of this book. Four of them verbatim. The third category of information is sort of the newest and most revealing in many ways. If you remember your high school history, you might remember a senator from kentucky called crittenden. He offered resolutions on december 18th of 1860 in the senate as a means of solving the problem. It wouldve helped determine the 13th amendment. It had six articles within it. The first person to propose a constitutional amendment to solve the problem was James Buchanan who was in the cap buried for four years. Did not leave the white house until 1861. In his last address to congress on december 3rd, gives a long speech and offers a constitutional amendment to solve it at the end of it. Many people at that point, mostly southern democrats, believed the constitution was broken. You could not solve the problem with a law by congress. You had to amend the constitution. James buchanans address and proposal opened the floodgates. As i went through this material this is all in hindsight right, it was very clear looking back. When i moved into it the first time i did not know what i was going into. I kept running into constitutional amendments, proposed constitutional amendments, to solve the problem. It turns out i found 67 of these. All designed to solve the problem. They were proposed in congress. Some were proposed in Succession Conventions. The washington peace conference proposed six. By different people. An early draft of the collected works and finally a final draft of that. President buchanan proposed one. Jefferson davis proposed one. William stewart proposed one. Andrew johnson and Stephen Douglas both proposed at least one. Three governors chimed in. They came from state legislators, congress, Secession Conventions and the Washington Post convention. My book is built around these amendments. As i learned, no one else had gathered them or analyzed them. What do they mean . I mentioned that James Buchanans had three subsets. Clintons had six. Most had more than one. Very few are more than one paragraph long. Jefferson davis was one paragraph. Most had subsets. When you add up those subsets, those articles, there are about 350 different topics that are embodied in those 67 amendments. One of the first things i had to do was to sort of categorize. Create a charge listing the topics along the top and the proposal was then the left side. If you have read extensively in the decade of the 18 fifties. From the compromise of the 1850 to the civil war, these amendments tracked the difficulties that the country was trying to deal with. The largest largest number of articles dealt with slavery in the territories. Not surprising. Because that was the election around which the election of 1860 turned. It is what do we do with slavery in the territories . Our southerners allowed to take their slaves there and have them as long as they want . Should the federal government prohibit slavery in the territories . That was the republicans position. The Republican Party did not come into being until 1856 after the kansas nebraska act. In opposition to its core purpose. An opposition to an extension of slavery into the territories. This issue cracked the Democratic Party in 1860. There was a southern wing and northern wing. They could not decide what the policy should be. Steven douglas was the leader of the northern faction and said let the people decide. Let the people of those territories decide. Popular sovereignty. Southerners said the government should protect slavery in the territories because it is federal land and slavery is property and property is protected under the fifth amendment. They should be protected there throughout the territorial period. So slavery in the territories was the first or the highest number of issues in these 67 amendments. Fugitive slaves was the second most, not surprisingly. There werent that many but it was a passionate issue. The south were very passionate about having those yankees having them returned their slaves to them. Especially when they skipped northward. Southern senators and representatives went to washington for the session, they would take slaves with them to take care of them while they were there. They wanted to make sure that no one prevented them from doing that. The fourth category dealt with the transit of slaves. Essentially the dred scott issue if you remember that story. They wanted to protect the right of slave owners to take their slaves, not runaway slaves, into northern free states and territories on a sojourning basis. On a temporary basis. Southerners, big plantation owners, often went to philadelphia and new york to do business. When they traveled their they would take their slaves with them. New york in 1841 decided that after allowing a leeway period up to 1841, that slaveowners could come into new york with her slaves for a period of nine months. If they left before the nine month period, and slavery was not a problem. In 1841 the legislature decided it for free state we are a free state. We should prohibit slaves from coming into our state at all. About ten years later in 1852, a family from virginia went to new york city, they did not fully understand the law and their slaves were taken from them. The sleeve slaves immediately went to canada. Virginia appealed the case and went through the new York Supreme Court and the court of appeals where virginia lost both times. That is exactly what henry wise, the governor of virginia, wanted to happen so you could send it to the Supreme Court where roger tawney set. Their stories are pretty sure that if the slave case had gone to roger be tawny he wouldve voted in favor of virginia against new york. Slave owners would have been able to take their slaves to free states for as long as they wanted. Five of these interestingly enough would have created a process for secession. As you know the United States constitution does not provide for secession as of now. If you are in you are in. There is no backdoor. There is no way of getting out. Five of these amendments proposed a fairly logical process for getting out. Two, two proposed reorganizing the executive branch to give southern interests a better chance of succeeding. One of those by a northern democrat proposed a triumvirate executive department. That is there would be in northern president and his southern president and a western president. All in the oval office at the same time. There is the kicker. Each one armed with veto power. You can imagine how well that would have worked. It did not go anywhere. But nevertheless that was a proposal by climate van landing him if you know that name. Two were purposely designed to prevent protective tariffs. The tariff issue was big in the thirties and forties. Not so much in the fifties and sixties. To virginians proposed articles in their amendment against the protective tariffs. Two articles out of 350. I think we can say that the tariff had very little to do, next to nothing to do, with the secession interests. Importantly when you look at all of these. 90 of the 67 amendments were very carefully and purposefully designed to protect slavery in various ways around the country in the federal constitution. The other 10 had to do with secession issues yes succession issues and reorganizing the oval office. An interesting subset is about ten or 11 the proposed nationalizing slavery. Up this time, slavery was protected under state law. Nobody really argued that. There were some minor arguments. Everybody assumed that if the state want to slavery it could do that. If they wanted to opt out and abolish slavery they could do that as well. This subset of ten said we should nationalize slavery. Slavery should be protected at the national level. The poster child for that was mississippi senator Jefferson Davis. Two days before christmas of 1860, he proposed an amendment that said it shall be declared by amendment of the constitution that property and slaves, recognized as such by the local laws of any of the states of the union, shall stand on the same footing in all constitutional and federal relations as any other species of property, so recognized. Just before christmas of 1860, Jefferson Davis was very willing to trade state authority for the protection of slavery for federal authority and protection of slavery. We dont know about these because none of them passed. Right . Thats not quite true, one did pass. The socalled corwin amendment. Thomas corwin was the head chair of the house committee, Ad Hoc House Committee that was set up to solve the problem. It had been earlier proposed by 26 members of congress and Secession Conventions and the other gatherings that i mentioned 26 proposals that would have protected slavery in the states where it existed. The corwin amendment as it eventually came out, it was approved by the senate the morning of inauguration day, the early hours of march 4th 1861, the Senate Passed it, the house passed it a few days earlier. Its simply said that congress has no authority to interfere with or abolish slavery in the states. Making a clean distinction between states and territories. If you are familiar with lincolns first inaugural he mentions that as he is getting warmed up. He says a constitutional amendment passed this morning. I have not seen it. I know of it and proof of it and would not mind if it was made perpetual. So much in 1861 for lincoln as an abolitionist. He was willing to allow slavery in the. Federal constitution. Protected in the federal constitution in the 15 states where it already existed. It was ratified by five states before the war sort of rolled over it and it was lost. Of course in december 1865 we have another 13th amendment that does exactly the opposite. It abolishes slavery throughout the United States. Let me conclude, make some concluding remarks here, and we can talk about what you want to talk about. Three conclusions after going through these 8000 pages. Many of these pages two, or three or four times. Because many of the verbiage at the time was fairly complicated. The first i think is it is very easy to say, having looked at all the evidence and constitutional amendments is that the south succeeded to protect slavery. It is as clear as they can get. A subset of that or i should say, the United States brand of slavery was undergirded by the notion of White Supremacy. Black people were inferior. Slavery is good for them. It is good for us. It is the appropriate way of balancing things so i think you could elaborate that a little more to say that the south succeeded to protect protect the institution of slavery and the notion of White Supremacy. The amount of verbiage that i found documents both of those. The second point is what i had to hunt down a little bit. I had to find out who the antagonist was. When the south developed their declarations of the secession. Who were they railing against . The declaration of independence, it is king george. He has done this and this and this. It turns out they were not railing against congress. They were not reeling against the federal government. James buchanan and your man john barrett, who is one of your representatives in 1860, said the federal government has not done anything to you. The antagonist was the north. The northern people. The Northern States. Abolitionists in general. And as they got wound up, the Republican Party. Those black republicans they liked to say, and eventually lincoln. By 1860, the south believed that the north was filled with abolitionists of the john brown stripe, that the Republican Party was an Abolitionist Party and that Abraham Lincoln was the leading abolitionist in the country. None of that was true, but people believed it. I think the third conclusion is that and we hear it a lot in any popular discussion that you have with my students or others that they the south must have succeeded to protect something called statesrights. And looking at these amendments, it turns out that southerners like robert tunes, Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson and others were perfectly willing and proposed trading state authority for the protection of slavery, for federal authority for slavery. The issue was not about states rights. It was about property rights. I think the 67 amendments, all of which we published in the book, make that point very clear. Ive got a couple of other points to make here, but i think i may weave them into my answers for your questions. Im going to stop at that point. And i will open the floor. Ranger dave has a microphone and he will be selecting the questionnaires. All i have to do is think up some creative answer. First, thank you for your 30 years of service. I had missed that. I had not read the blur in a while when i sent signed up for the tickets. I have a perspective from having fallen madly in love with the descendants of Harriet Scott who have founded and served us so beautifully with the dred scott heritage foundation. My perspective is hearing stories about how dread and harriet were vilified in the tragedy of their children having to spend in one case, 90 years and seclusion i think she died during the second world war. The desecration threats against where dread was buried and and having to be moved out to calgary in an unmarked grave. When lynn jackson was five, they finally did a more clear. He is the and then so, the desecration as i understood it was about the fact that the civil war was his fault, for suing for pursuing for freedom. So in your opening remarks, i noticed that youre students i assume it is texas tech. New mexico state. Oh, new mexico state. They did not mention dred scott or harriet beach or stow who was blamed for starting the war. Lincoln, lincoln. Yes, that is right. The little lady that started this. So, i was just curious about how it struck you and what you thought. I think, a couple of answers to that if you want to place blame, there are a lot of people to blame. I encourage my students not to look for blame. It is sort of useless. It is an useless exercise. Im not sure that anybody cares what i think of his decision at this point. There are a number of ways to look at that. The chief person, if you want to blame somebody, you might blame eli with me, right . In 19 and 1793, which created the cotton gin, which people were making money before that, that just exploded it. If you hear it elsewhere, slavery was incredibly, incredibly profitable. I think my students, if i were teaching at texas tech, maybe a texas school, one of the seeded states, although it is west texas and love book was not around till has anybody been to le book . And i get a different answer if i was teaching in mississippi. I should tell you, i did not tell you, after i had my students do that list of what caused the secession, i had them vote. One student, one vote. I write all of their topics on the boards. Statesrights winds nine times out of ten. Very powerful. That lost cause interpretation of the war. Whether we understand it or not. Because talking about protect protecting states rights is easier than talking about protecting slavery. You have an ancestor and you want that guy to have fought for Something Like statesrights and not bondage. Incidently, states rights is not recognize in the constitution. States do not have. Rights people have rights. States have power. Federal government has power. The way it is written. The way the constitution is written. People have rights, states dont have rights. The phrase has been used probably from the beginning. Certainly, certainly John C Calhoun popularized it in the 1830s. That was a side note. Thank you for that question. Thank you. I would like to know your thoughts about whether it is profitability and economics or White Supremacy, or both that are at the core of those 90 amendments proposed amendments, that focus on slavery, which is you say, is the main cause, but the crux of saying that it is slavery stems from, is it economics and profitability, or is it White Supremacy . All of the above. Yutaka you would be perfect if you would ask with the civil war was about and you would say economics, you would be absolutely right. But it is economics and slavery. It is the four billion dollars that were invested in slaves. Not a product, slaves themselves. Four billion dollars in 1860. 4 million slaves, four billion. The figures move a little bit, but it is three and a half to four billion dollars. That is an investment. You cannot discount that. At the same time, woven in here, is, and certainly in these arguments and in some of the healthy amendments is the issue of White Supremacy. In the Northern States there are, in 1860, there are 18 Northern States. Free blacks could vote without restriction in five of them. They could vote with restrictions in another three, which means that intense states, Northern States, free states, they could not vote at all. But i think another subset of the amendments about ten, prevented black people from voting or Holding Public office. Anywhere. There is the White Supremacy. We dont care what massachusetts allows or new york, or vermont, or whatever the states for. They were mostly new england states, those five. We do not want them folding voting at all. Or holding office. So the White Supremacy think sort of seeps into it everywhere and the economic issue, and basically, the southern way of life which is built on both of those things. I would not try to separate those in any way. They are both very compelling reasons that popup. Let me make one final comment on White Supremacy. When virginia succeeds finally, after firing on fort summer, they are busy, it is interesting in these four volumes, they are busy working on approving articles of the 13th amendment they were putting together on april 12th. The day the firing started at fort center fort some tour. The said we started bombarding the fort. It will close and fall any minute and they mediately started stop talking about secession. But it turned just like that. Alexander stevens, the Vice President of the confederacy here is that virginia has finally succeeded for days after. He takes to train, gets to richmond and gives this long speech on the floor of the convention and saying that its a long speech, but he said our constitution, the new constitution is built on the idea of the supremacy of the white man. And the inferiority of the black man. He doubles down on it and says i repeat, our way of life is built upon black inferiority. It is as visible visceral as you can get. The speech as i quoted, that part of it. It is actually startling. I live in new mexico. We have an interesting relation with the number of races. To see it as viscerally expressed as it was by Alexander Stevens and a host of others. I have a question. When they talk about superiority and inferiority. What kind of reasoning . We had the bell curve, the size of the head, all these kinds of things that have come up before, a sorry have come up since then. Was it just because i say . Oh no. Thank you, that is a great question. Slavery did not have to be defended until it was attacked. Its sort of an interesting equation. It was not really attacked until around 1830. With that austin guy, lloyd garrison publishing the liberator newspaper. Big voice in some ways, really irritated the southerners. And, because of his constant attacks on slavery and slaveowners, they had to develop a defense of slavery. It is sort of a Cottage Industry in a way that develop throughout the south. There are no shortages of what some of them defending slavery. The title of the book, defending slavery, that would break it down. A mostly broke it down into three sections natural history. Their brains are smaller. And so forth. They bring in a lot of pseudoscientific arguments at at this point. Culturally, slavery had been around for a long time. A lot of countries acknowledged it. Most of it was not racially based slavery. Greece and rome was not racially based. Russias surface system and slavery in africa was not race based. Here in the United States we developed quite a robust argument about that. Finally, the kicker is, it was ordained by god that these are inferior people. So the theological part of this is fascinating. It is fascinating because the one that really caught my eye is, if black people are so different from us, and some of the arguments that they are different, they are different species, they would argue. What does that do to the creation story . When did it go wrong . We have one creation story, all come from the garden of eaten, and then there is this offshoot. So some theologian said, there were two creation stories. We are not sure where the other one took place but there had to be too because white people came from this branch and black people had to come from another branch. But they would elaborate quite a bit on that. Im sort of interested in that theological part of the White Supremacy. I got into this rather late in the manuscript. I expanded it quite a bit before i sent it to the press. But there is more to be done there. Again, there is no shortage of this stuff. I was totally oblivious. It is a three legged stool basically that they argued that black people are inferior. What about the supremacy . Supremacy was not just blacks only. That was obviously reason for the slavery. But i mean white was white. If you are not white, any other kind of nationality in the states. When that the . They did not make that argument. Now the american party, we need a historian in the room, by the 18 fifties were anti immigrants. No nothings were against all sorts of those other people. But the work that ive seen defining slavery kept it simple, white and black. Were women know nothings . Im. Nick . It is the question if women participated in the no Nothing Party . Yes. Or partly it was a tongue in cheek question. Yes . Didnt missouri consider succession at all . Yes. Thank you. We never met before this day. I did not pay you five dollars to ask this question. I love talking about missouri because missouri was the only state that called a Succession Convention and then decided not to secede by one vote. A farmer on the missouri river, a guy named george bast voted for secession. Everyone else voted against it. Nearly unanimous vote. But the far more important top here is they develop a proceeding that is 350 pages or so. They published it in 1861 or 1862. The arguments in missouri are the same as the arguments everywhere else in the other states. They just reasoned secession was not the answer. In fact the speech by john barron that i included i included three speeches at the end just to give a sense of the arguments. One from illinois from the republican. One from john bare it, a democrat from missouri. And one from a wonderful character, lewis wigfal who was a senator from texas. Barrett starts his speech by talking about red mouths abolitionists, patty foggers and demagogues. Aimed at northern anti slavery people. You know where this is going. Hes going to argue for secession immediately. He gets about 80 through it and says but secession is not the answer. We agree with everything you said. All those horrible things you say about northerners but secession is not the answer. Apparently people believed him, although that was in washington and he was not member of the Secession Convention and then the Secession Convention distorted decided not to secede with only one dissenting vote. He thought as well as Alexander Stevens and many other people as to why it was not the answer is because they felt that slavery was protected sufficiently in the constitution as it was. The slave states that did not succeed felt the same way. Missouri, kentucky, maryland and delaware. Not much of a slave state but a slave state nonetheless. They felt it was protected just fine. In fact there is an interesting book by woman who looked at kentucky and the Confederate Movement there. Kentucky never considered succeeding figuring slavery was protected in the constitution. What happened at the end of the war . Slavery is abolished. The title of the book i think is Something Like, when kentucky turned confederate. It is after the war. They felt they were sold a bill of goods. They were promised protections by slavery and of course the war changed everything. Do you know the story about buchanan saying im sorry tawny saying to buchanan do not say anything when youre campaigning about slavery. Youre talking about buchanans inauguration. They were seen when buchanan was inaugurated. Buchanan was inaugurated on march 4th of 1857 right . The dred scott decision came out two days later on march 6th. Who swears an buchanan . Chief justice Supreme Court, roger b tawny. They are seen whispering on the podium. Republican wags have said every sense that tawny was telling you can and do not worry about slavery, i have it covered. There is some truth to that because buchanan tried to influence by writing letters to justice is making sure they were going to vote against dred scott in the election. There was some collusion. That sounds like the conversation they might have had during his inauguration. Im not good with dates. How this missouri not deciding to secede deciding not to secede fit in with the compromise . That was 1820. A long time before the tradeoff congress as it turned out wanted in the senate to make sure that there was a Northern State and a Southern State and that balance never got out of whack. So in 1820, 1819 really when misery petition to became a state. Missouri will come in as a slave state and maine will come in as a free state sam but they drew the 30 36 line and there shall be no slavery north of there and it lasted 34 years until the kansas nebraska act which brought out the genie of the bottle yet again. The feeling of the inferiority of the black race was just not a southern failing. It was also in northern feeling. Many of grants generals had that feeling. But in the north, it was not a threat. It was not a threat to the way of life as it was in the south. So i think it was more of a defense in the south, a needed defense. Yeah. We never met either. I did not give you five dollars to ask that. When i teach my course, right at the beginning i make it begin clear that there was as much racism in the north than there was in the south. No slaves obviously between 1830 and 1860. But a lot of free blacks only five states allowed those free blacks to vote without restrictions. That gives you some indication. No shortage of racism in the north. I think it is emerson who writes in 1850 that he never thought much about slavery at all. Its just not on his frame of reference until the fugitive slave act of 1850 and he could be deputized to help martial capture a runaway slave. It was not the north that succeeded, it was the south that succeeded. They also built the issue, the organisms organizational aspects of slavery based on White Supremacy. North did not have the labor force but had no shortage of racism. No question about that. Good point. You said that five states passed the amendment. Is that correct . What if they had not fired on fort some peter, is there a chance that could have passed . It is hard to make assumptions. With the Southern States or Northern States . Northern and Southern States. Ohio, i dont remember if it was the first state but it was one of those states. I think two northern and three southern if i remember that. It is in a footnote. One of the interesting things that i do play around with in the book is what if the south had not succeeded . When the slavery and . If the warhead if the south had succeeded. It took the 13th amendment, 14th and 15th amendment. What if there had been no war . The chart was going this way. Still making lots of money with no signs of weakening. Still moving south and west. Lots of people were making money including mill workers in massachusetts and New Hampshire and new jersey. When would it have ended . Would it have ended . I was asked this at a conference a couple of years ago when i had not developed this thinking much. My sort of answer off the top of my head was maybe during the 19 twenties and thirties with the onset of mechanized cotton picking. But i am rethinking that. And i think i was probably too hasty. With the through line of White Supremacy that we have seen and continue to see in this country, i think that one could make an argument that it could still be with us. Different form. Slavery was very valuable. It could be Different Things at different times. I think there is a pretty good argument that to be made that it could still be with us in different ways without a war. The south had options, it did not have to secede. I go through a few of those in the book. It is all counterfactual of course. But what i started finding in the white supremacist language, it made me think about what if the south had not succeeded. What if they had argued for the ratification of the carbon amendment which would have guaranteed slavery in the south . At the same time, slavery was moving westward. Only half of texas was settled by white people. Only half of it if you know texas, the i34 corridor was 600,000 people. Almost known to the west. The territory that was it discussed when they talk about the western territories was new mexico. Mexican session was split into territories at the 37th parallel. Just above 30 6 30. Arizona was not hived off until 1863. In 1859, the new Mexico Territorial Legislature developed one of the most sophisticated slave codes in the nation. Allowing slaveowners to come in. There were only about 24 slaves in the whole territory, most brought in by military people but technically, officially, new mexico in 1860 was a slave territory. Slavery legally existed from virginia to california in 1860. What if they had sort of backed off of the passion . Pushed for the wrath of vacation ratification of the corwin amendment and pushed slavery west into west texas and new mexico . I think you have a different Political Landscape for all of this . The question is would lou wallace have stopped it . The civil war general. More famous of the as the author of benhur. I dont think he got the movie rights, i think charlton hasnt got those. Its the counter factual, i do not know. I do not know. He was the governor of the territories. He was the governor of the territories. Exactly right. New mexico went for the slave code because the Representative Congress of the time believed that the winds were blowing that way. Towards the south. Or with the south i should say. He convinced the Territorial Legislature to an act this slave code. Miguel otero went to congress, the hispanic from new mexico, he felt its in love with a Southern Belle from south carolina. Her family was involved in south in politics. She had three brothers involved in politics. They turned his head and he became this advocate and just miss judged. But without a war, its different. Its a different ball game. Yes . Two questions. One is the theology question that you brought up that was used. How did northern feel lotions counter it . Or was it just the southern one . I can answer that. Material i have looked at was focused on defending slavery. Not the other side. So i dont know. I dont know if it is there or not. Then a question is, is there anything that you have not said that you would want to share with us . Good question. I think i have covered most of what i wanted to to talk about. One of the things was the true line of White Supremacy that just struck me in reading the stuff. One of the things in my notes that i was going to suggest is, in 1860, slavery was the most obvious manifestation of White Supremacy. You can deal with slavery through the 13th amendment. Could not do anything with White Supremacy. 100 years later segregation was the most obvious manifestation of White Supremacy. You could legislate against segregation, but not White Supremacy. In recent years, it has doubled up again in our own times in vital waves. I think this is the last question. We know nothing from you about all the pressures, International Pressures against the United States. Regarding the slave trade. Dont you think that a lot of that was really important . It did not factor in to look at secession itself. It comes to play mostly in Jefferson Davis, much more than aleksandr. Because of the large amount of cotton that was going mostly to england, that france as well. Jefferson davis was a far better politician than Alexander Stevens. Theres some really good quotes on the White Supremacy early in this period that i am looking at. Alexander stevens is sort of the joe biden of the can i say that . Of the administration. He would say anything. As i said, in his speech to the virginia secession commission, convention, its about White Supremacy, slavery. That is why we left. We are better for it. Our constitution is built on that. Jefferson davis was playing it a little more carefully and he was quite surprised. I think he was rather surprised when england did not come in on the side of the confederacy. Part of that was the slavery issue. England realized it would abolish slaverys in the thirties, i believe. If it was about slavery they would not get involved. Also, there was an incredible giving up of slaves of the french and the british. They lost an incredible amount of money. During the civil war. Cotton was no longer pay being sent to britain so what happened in britain was that incredible numbers of people pushed against slavery despite the fact that they were now out of work. There was in 1812, around 1812, the Prime Minister was incredibly hard lined abolitionist. He actually did not allow american ships into port if they had any slaves on their ships at all. There was there were powerful business reasons to get rid of slavery. Do you have any issues with that . I do not have any issues with it. I just did not look into it. I think i understand that at the same time, at the beginning of civil war, cotton was being grown much more in india, part of the british empire. That helped supplies some of that need. Ive tells you exactly everything i know about that. Ive read that that is the case and so it alleviated that need a little bit. Youve got the wilbur force issue in england against slavery. Generally, the cultural, i think, tone in england was for freedom against slavery, and so they did come in on the side of the confederacy. It is the best i can do. There was a comment about the confederacy to say, why the hell did we expect india would be coming on our side . They lost a huge amount of money, the business people, to end slavery. Why would we think that they would even bother to even think about coming on our side. Am i correct in stating that money was made in england by supplying arms and ammunition under the table to the confederacy . Gun runners and that sort of thing. I have no idea how much. It wouldve been illegal. The International Slave trade was illegal in the United States after 1808. But it still continued in an illegal fashion. I think ranger dave has just pulled the plug. Will you be available for more questions and autographs . We have copies of his books in the gift shopped. If you are interested come and see us in the lobby. Otherwise, thank you once again for being here. Thank you very much. applause next, on American History tv, historian Gary Gallagher talks about lincoln and allen guelzo and the project on the confederate general robert e. Lee. He spoke about lincolns intellect and emphasize the importance of religion in the everyday life of the civil war era. The university hosted this event. Allen is a professor at the Gettysburg College where he also served at the civil war he did his graduate work of history at the history of pennsylvania where he focus on the history of religion
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