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Why do you all know who Lizzie Borden is and raise your hand if you ever heard of the jean harris murder trial before this class . The deepest cause where well find the true meaning of the revolution was in the transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. So well talk about both of the sides of the story here, right, the tools, the techniques of slave owner power and well talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures in history on cspan3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv and lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Next a discussion about the u. S. Constitution and secession. Well hear about the 67 constitutional amendments considered by congress that sought to address the secession issue. This was hosted by the grant Historic Site in st. Louis. So to introduce dr. Dwight pitcaithley, he earned his ph. D. From Texas Tech University and he worked for the National Park service for 30 years. For the last ten years of his career, he was the chief historian of the entire National Park service. So hes kind of a rock star for us. People who love history and the park service. So since he retired, dr. Pitcaithley teaches at new mexico state history and he teaches Civil War History and he had a book that came out this week. The u. S. Constitution and secession. So it is my distinct pleasure and honor to introduce you to dr. Dwight pitcaithley. Nick promised that he wasnt going to include the rock star part. But best laid plans. Thank you for coming tonight. Thanks to nick for that wonderful introduction. Thanks to the grant site for hosting 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 to talk about and we hope that during my time i have been provocative enough that we can have a conversation that goes on for another 30 or 45 minutes. Robert penn warren who many of you know threetime Pulitzer Prize winner wrote that the centennial of the war that the civil war is the only felt history. History lives in the imagination. Thats true if your ancestry goes back that far or not and mine does not. Thanks to ken burns, its a part of us, its a part of our dna. We think about it a lot. Every year when i teach the civil war course, i ask my students in a word or a phrase tell me what caused the civil war, what caused the secession. Everybody has an answer. Its not the same answer, but they all have an answer. Its 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, well, i think it was really the ultimate clash between an agricultural south and an industrial north. Everybodys got an answer. If youre like me, when i started this research about ten years ago i had read a lot of the secondary work but most about the war itself, not about that period that we call secession winter from lincolns election to the firing on fort sumter. There are sort dots along the way. South carolina secedes in december, followed by six other deep south states. Lincoln is nationed on 4th. Ft. Sumter is fired on in april. And lincoln calls out 75,000 troops and four more states secede and the war is on. Well, theres bless you. Theres a lot going on in there that those sort of dots dont connect. So i took it upon myself when i retired, Everybody Needs a project in retirement to satisfy myself. I didnt have a book in mind, but i wanted to satisfy myself which caused secession, what was this all about . I wanted to dig as deep as i can into the records and it turns out much to my surprise the period of secession winter is incredibly well documented, incredibly well documented. And my research because i wanted 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 that by ministers that were published over secession winter. Other people take different tacks, internal workings of the parties and i wanted to find out what the elected officials were saying because they had their finger on the trigger. They were the ones to whom the various states delegated the responsibility to solve the problem. The problem being of course lincolns election as president , the first republican elected. And it turns out that as i said theres no shortage. Congress met over that period, the second session of the 36th congress. Met from december 3rd of 1860 about a month after lincolns election to march 4th Inauguration Day. Published in resulting about 2,000 pages of day by day, line by line arguments from these men. Its online thanks to your tax dollars and congress has the proceedings of all the first 100 years. It was called the congressional globe, you go in day by day and fine out what they were arguing. A word of warning. These are facsimile pages, three columns per page. About 10point type. So bring your reading glasses when you so thats congress. Those the elected officials in washington. Second large gathering was the proceedings of the Secession Conventions. 11 states called conventions, elected delegates to the conventions. They met, they argued, they kept careful records, proposed solutions which ill talk about later and 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 they claim in the introduction of their 1912 version they didnt have enough money until 1912 to publish it. I dont argue with that. Virginia deliberated the longest and produced in today the way its packaged for the centennial four volumes. 3,000 pages of virginias deliberations, that started in january and didnt end until after ft. Sumter. A third range of information is from the state legislatures tennessee and kentucky. Tennessee did ultimately succeed. It led the state legislate it let the state legislature decide that weighty measure and kentucky never thought of calling a Secession Convention. There was a lot of discussion between the governor and the house of representatives and the senate in kentucky and they left their printed version almost immediately. Finally, theres the record of the washington peace 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, they met at the Willard Hotel if youre familiar with washington. I think the room they or the hall that they gathered in is not there, but Willard Hotel is there. Its where lincoln spent the night before he moved into the white house. Or about the week before he moved into the white house. When you aggregate all those pages, all that information, you end up with about 8,000 pages of printed, published information over secession winter. Within that information this was all new to me. I had no idea that i was going to enter this world. Sort of again, its satisfying myself but i sort of got sucked into it. The more i got into it, the more i wanted to get into because i didnt have to deal with handwriting. Historians often to do with handwriting. Some people have good penmanship and some dont. It can make you crazy. I have done research on that side as well, this was all published. All i had to do was read the printed word. Within the 8,000 pages there are three sort of subsets of information that bear directly on why what the south was thinking when it was thinking of secession and the first is the speeches of the secession commissioners. When the first tier of states 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 thing and very powerful book on the secession commissioners. There were about 56 of them. I think he gathered found about 40 speeches and letters to the elected officials in those states that he captured in apostles of disunion. University of virginia press. Another zeroing in part of this are the four declarations of secession, when South Carolina, texas, kentucky decided to secede they thought we need to create a committee that specifically develops a justification or an explanation to the people of those states and to the rest of the country and really to the world because the world was watching, about why those states seceded. Modeled on the declaration of independence. Theres an introduction paragraph or two. In South Carolinas case it goes on a page or two. But an introduction and then a list of grievances. This is why were leaving. This is what youre wrong and were leaving. Those you can find on the web, graciously published as i think the second or the third chapter in this book, four of them verbatim. The third category of information is sort of the newest and the most revealing in many ways. If you remember your high school history, you might remember a man named john crittenton. Senator from kentucky. He offered the kentucky the crittenton resolutions on december 18th of 1860 in the senate as a means of solving the problems. Its in the form of a constitutional amendment. Would have been the first 13th amendment and it had six parts. Six subsets, six articles within it. The first person, however, to propose a constitutional amendment to solve the problem was president James Buchanan who was in the cat bird seat for the four years. Didnt leave the white house of course until march 4th of 1861. And in his last address to congress which was on december 3rd, the opening of the second session of the 36th congress and at the end of it offers a constitutional amendment to solve it. Many people at that point mostly southern democrats believe the constitution was broken. You couldnt solve the problem with a law by congress, you had to amend the constitution. And James Buchanans address and proposal opened the floodgates. As i went through this material, this is all in hindsight, right, very clear looking back when i was moving into it the first time i didnt know what id get into but 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. They some were proposed in Secession Conventions. The washington piece conference proposed six by different people and an early draft of the collected works and finally a final draft of that. President buchanan as i said proposed one. Jefferson davis proposed one. William seward proposed one. And Andrew Johnson and Stephen Douglas proposed one. Three governors chimed in. Governors, congress, Secession Conventions and the washington peace convention. My book is built around these amendments because as i learned no one else had gathered them or analyzed them. What do they mean . I mentioned that James Buchanans had three subsets. Crittentons had six. Most had more than one. Very few were one paragraph long. Jefferson davis was one paragraph. Most had subsets. When you add up the articles, there are about 350 different topics that are embodied in those 67 amendments. So one of the first things i had to do was to sort of categorize them and i created a chart, lifting the proposers down the left side and if you have read extensively in the decade of the 1850s from the compromise of 1850 to the civil war, these amendments track the difficulties that the country was trying to deal with. The largest number of articles within these amendments dealt with slavery in the territories. Not surprising because that was the election around which the election of 1860 turned. What do we do with slavery . There were slaves there and have them there as long as they want. Should the federal government to which the republican was in position. Remember the Republican Party didnt come into being until 1856 after the kansas nebraska act. In opposition to the core purpose was to the end of the territories and opposition to slavery around there was a southern wing and a northern wing. They couldnt decide on what the policy should be. Stephen douglas was the leader of the northern faction. He said let the people decide. Let the people of those territories, popular sovereignty. Let them decide what to do. Southerners said that the government should protect the slavery because its federal land and slavery is property and property is protected until the fifth amendment. They should be protected there as throughout the territorial period. So slavery in the territories was the first or the highest number of issues in the 67 amendments. Fugitive slaves was not surprisingly the second most popular. There werent many fugitive slaves but it was a passion natural issue. The south was very passionate about having the yankees return the slaves to them when they escaped northward. The third most popular was articles protecting slavery in the district of columbia. For obvious reasons. 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 of slave owners to take their slaves, these are not runaway slaves, but take the slaves into northern or free states and territories on a temporary basis. Southerners, plantation owners often went to philadelphia and new york to do business. And when they traveled there, they would take the slaves with them. New york, in 1841, after deciding to allow a leeway period up to 1841, that slave owners could come into the state with their slaves for a period of nine months. And then if they left before the ninemonth period, then slavery is not a problem in 1841, the legislature decided. If were a free state, were a free state. We should prohibit slaves from coming into our state at all. Ten years later in 1852, a family from virginia went to new york city, didnt fully understand the law. The slaves were taken from them. The 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, which is exactly what henry wise, the governor of virginia wanted to happen so he could send it to the supreme court. Where roger b. Taney sat on the dred scott case. And historians now are pretty certain if the lemon slave case had gone to roger b. Taney, he would have voted favor of virginia against new york and slave owners could take their slaves into free states for as long as they wanted as long as they could call themselves sojourning. Five of these, interestingly enough, would have created a process for secession. As you know, the United States constitution then and now doesnt provide for secession. There is no back door. If youre in, youre in. There is no way of getting out. Five of these amendments proposed a logical process for getting out. Two would or two proposed reorganizing the executive branch to give southern interests a better chance of seceding. One of those was an executive department. That is there would be a northern president and southern president and a western president. All in the oval office at the same time. Theres the kicker. Each one armed with veto power. So you can imagine how well that would have worked. It didnt go anywhere. Nevertheless, that was a proposal by landingham, if you know that name. Two were purposefully designed to prohibit protective tariffs. As you know, the tariff issue is really big in the 30s and 40s. Not so much in the 50s and 60s. But two virginians proposed in their amendments against the protective tariffs. Two articles out of around 350. So i think we can say that tariff had nothing to do or very little to do, next to nothing to do with the secession interests. Importantly, when you look at all of these, 90 , 90 of the 67 amendments were very carefully and purposefully designed to protect slavery in various ways around the country in the federal constitution. And the other 10 had to do with secession issues yeah, secession issues and reorganizing the oval office. An interesting subset is about 10 or 11 that proposed nationalizing slavery. Up to this time, slavery was protected under state law. Nobody really argued that. There are some minor arguments. Everyone assumed that if a state wanted slavery, it could do that. If they wanted to opt out, abolish slavery, they could do that as well. But this subset of ten said, we should nationalize slavery. Slavery should be protected at the national level. And the poster child for that was none other than mississippi senator Jefferson Davis who, two days before christmas 1860, 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 pieces of property so recognized. Just before christmas of 1860, Jefferson Davis was very well into trade state authority for the protection of slavery for federal authority for the 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 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 and it was approved by the senate the morning of Inauguration Day in the early hours of march 4th, 1861, the Senate Passed it. The house passed it a couple days earlier. It simply said congress has no authority to interfere with or abolish slavery in the states. Making a very clean distinction between states and territories. If youre familiar with lincolns first inaugural, he mentions that, as hes getting warmed up, he says a constitutional amendment passed the senate this morning. I have not seen it. I know of it. And i approve of it and wouldnt mind if it were 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 and, of course, on december 18th, 1865, we have another 13th amendment that does exactly the opposite. It abolishes slavery throughout the United States. So let me conclude make some concluding remarks here. And then we can talk about what you want to talk about. Three conclusions after going through these 8,000 pages, many of the pages two or three or four times because some of the verbiage at the time was fairly complicated. The first, i think its fairly easy to say, having looked at all the evidence and the constitutional amendments, that the south seceded to protect slavery. Thats as clear as it 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. Its good for us. Its the appropriate way of balancing things. I think you could even elaborate that a little more to say the south seceded to 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 was sort of what i had to hunt down a little bit. I wanted to find out who the antagonist was. Who was the bad guy . Who were they reeling against . In the declaration of independence, of course, its king george. He has done this, and this, and this, and this. Well, what were the Southern States railing against . It turns out that they werent railing against congress. They werent railing against the federal government as James Buchanan and your man john barrett, who is your representative in 1860, said federal government hasnt done anything. The bad guys, 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 as 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 they believed it. I think the third conclusion is that, and we hear a lot in any popular discussion you have about with my students or others that the south must have seceded to protect something called states rights. In looking at these amendments, it turns out that southerners like robert tombs and Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson and others were willing and proposed trading state authority for the protection of slavery for federal authority for slavery. The issue wasnt about states rights. It is 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 the answers for your questions. So im going to stop at that point and open the floor. Ranger dave has a microphone. He will be selecting the questionnaires. All i have to do is think up some creative answer. Well, first, thank you for your 30 years of service. I had missed that. I didnt read the blurb in a while when i signed up for the tickets. Thank you. I have a perspective from having fallen madly in love of descendents of dred and harriet scott, who have founded and served us so beautifully with the dred scott heritage foundation. My perspective is hearing stories about how dred and harriet were vilified and the tragedy of their children having to spend, in one case, 90 years in seclusion, i think she died during the second world war. The desecration threats against where dred was buried and then his having to be moved out to cavalry and in an unmarked grave. And its just, you know, when lynn jackson was 5, they finally did a marker. So shes the great granddaughter. So the desecration was, supposedly, as i understood it, that the civil war was his fault, dred scotts fault for pursuing freedom. So in your opening remarks, i notice that your students, i assume at texas tech new mexico state. Oh, now, new mexico state. They didnt mention dred scott or Harriet Beecher stowe who was playfully blamed for starting the war. Lincoln. Thats what i was going to say, lincoln and so forth. The little lady that start this had great war. So i was just curious about if that had struck you and what you thought when it did. I think boy, a couple 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. Its sort of a useless exercise. Im not sure that roger b. Taney cares what i think about his decision at this point, but there are a number of ways to look at that. The chief person if you want to blame somebody, you might blame eli whitney. Right . In 1793, which created the cotton gin. People were making money before that. That just exploded it. Slavery was incredibly, incredibly profitable. I think my students, and if i were teaching at texas tech, maybe a texas school, one of the seceded states. Although, its west texas and lubbock wasnt around until the late has anybody been to lubbock . [ laughter ] it may get a different answer if i were teaching in hattiesburg, mississippi. I should tell that you after i had my students do that list of what caused the secession, then i have them vote. One student, one vote. I write all of their topics on the board. States rights wins nine times out of ten. Nine times. Its very powerful. That lost cause interpretation of the war has whether we understand it or not, because talking about protecting states rights is just easier than talking about protecting slavery. And if you have an ancestor in it, you really want that guy to have fought for Something Like states rights, not bondage. Incidentally, states rights is not recognized in the constitution. Did you know that . States dont have rights. People have rights. States have power. People have rights, states dont have rights. Although that phrase has been used from the beginning. John c. Calhoun popularized it. But thats a side note. Thank you for that. Thank you. Id like to know your thoughts about whether its profitability and economics, or White Supremacy, or both that are at the core of those 90 amendments, proposed amendments that focus on slavery, which, as you say, is the main cause. Right. But the crux of saying that its slavery stems from, is it economics and profitability or White Supremacy or both . All of the above. Yeah. You cant youd be perfectly if you were asked what civil war is about and you said economics, youd be absolutely right. But its economics of slavery. Right . Its the 4 billion that were invested in slaves, not the products of slave, but slaves themselves. 4 billion in 1860. 4 million slaves. The figures move a little bit. But its 3. 5 to 4 billion. Thats an investment. And you cannot discount that. At the same time woven in here is and certainly in these arguments and in some of the amendments is the issue of White Supremacy. In the Northern States, there are, what in 1860, there were 18 Northern States. Free blacks could vote without restriction in five of them. They can vote with restrictions in another three. Which means that in ten states, Northern States, free states, they couldnt vote at all. But i think in another subset of the amendments, i think ten, prevented black people from voting or Holding Public office anywhere. There is your White Supremacy thing coming in. We dont care what massachusetts allows, or new york, or vermont, wherever those states were. They were mostly new england states, those five. We dont want them voting at all, or holding office. So, the White Supremacy thing seeps into it everywhere, and the economic issue, and the basic southern way of life which is build on both of those things. I wouldnt try to separate those in any way. Theyre both very compelling reasons that pop up in here. Let me make one final comment on White Supremacy. When virginia secedes finally, actually, theyre busy working on approving articles of this 13th amendment they were putting together on april 12th, the day the firing started at ft. Sumner. They get a telegram from the governor of South Carolina saying we started bombarding the fort. Its going to close. Its going to fall at any minute and they stop work and stop talking, Start Talking about secession. Up until that time, they were interested in compromise. But turned just like that. Alexander stevens, Vice President of the con fed residency, hears that virginia has finally seceded four days after ft. Sumner. He takes the train and gets to richmond and gives this long speech on the floor of the convention and saying that a number of other things, its a long speech, but he says our constitution, the new constitution, the confederate constitution, is built on the idea of the supremacy of the white man and inferiority of the black man. He doubles down on it and says i repeat, our way of life, our government is built upon black inferiority. So its pretty visceral as you can get. In here, its actually startling. I lived in new mexico. We have an interesting relation with a number of races. To see it as viscerially expressed as it was by Alexander Stevens and a host of others. I have a question. When they talk about the superiority and inferiority, what kind of reasoning . Like we had the bell curve, the size of the head, all these kind of things come up before im sorry, have come up since then. So was it just because i say or what did they oh, no. Thank you. Thats a great question. Slavery didnt have to be defended until it was attacked. Sort of an interesting equation here. It wasnt really attacked until around 1830, with that boston guy, William Lloyd garrison publishing the liberator newspaper. Small voice, big voice in some ways, really irritated the southerners. Because of his constant attacks on slavery and slave owners, they had to develop a defense of slavery. And sort of a Cottage Industry in a way developed throughout the south. Again, there are no shortages of books, some of them quite thick, defending slavery. The title of the book defending slavery, that would break it down. And they mostly broke it down into three sections. Natural history. Theyre just not like us. Theyre different. Their brains are smaller and so forth. They bring in a lot of pseudoscientific arguments of this point. Culturally, slavery had been around for a long time. A lot of countries acknowledged it. Most of that was not racially based slavery. Greece and rome was not racially based. Russias system was not racially based. Certainly slavery in africa was not race based. But here in the United States, we developed quite a i wouldnt call it sophisticated but it was certainly 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 because from a number of perspectives, but the one that really caught my eye is if these if black people are so different from us and some of the the arguments that theyre different, theyre different species actually, they would argue. What does that do to the creation story . What went when did it go wrong . We have one creation story all come from the garden of eden. But then theres this offshoot. So some theologians say obviously there were two creation stories. Were not sure where that other one took place. There had to be two. Because white people came from this branch and black people, not being like white people, they had to come from another branch somewhere. But they would elaborate quite a bit on that. And if i im sort of interested in that theological part of the White Supremacy. I got into this late in the manuscript. I expanded it quite a bit before i sent it to the press. But theres more to be done there. Again, there is no shortage of this stuff. I was totally oblivious to. So, its a threelegged stool basically that they argue that black people are inferior. Did that yeah, what about the supremacy wasnt just blacks only. Obviously, that was the reason for the slavery. But it was other any other i mean, white was white. If you werent white. So, any other kind of nationality in the states would not be . They didnt make that argument. Is it the American Party . We need a historian in the room. Around 1850s where antiimmigrants no nothings. No nothings and all of that were against all sorts of other people. But the work that ive seen on defining slavery kept it simple white and black. Smart remark but were women know nothings . Nick . Is the question did women participate in the no Nothing Party . Yes . I think it was partly a tongue in cheek question, but yeah. Did missouri consider secession at all . Yes thank you. We never met before this day, right . I didnt pay you 5 to ask this question. I love talking about missouri. Missouri was the only state that called a Secession Convention and then decided not to secede by one vote. A farmer on the missouri river, upriver from st. Louis, george bast, voted for secession. Everybody else voted against it. So nearly a unanimous vote. But the more important, far more important point here is they developed a proceedings that is, i dont know, 350 pages or so. They published in 1861 or 62. The arguments in missouri are the same as the arguments everywhere else in the other states. They just reasoned secession wasnt the answer. In fact, the speech by john barrett that i include here, i include three speeches at the end to give a sense of the arguments, theyre representative speeches. One from illinois from a republican, one from john barrett, democrat from missouri, and one from a wonderful character, a really character characters, lewis t. Wigfall from texas who was a senator from texas. So they were representative speeches. Barrett starts his speech, this is in the floor of the house of representatives in washington, by talking about red mouthed abolitionists and demagogues and petty foggers, all aimed at northern antislavery people. Really gets wrapped up. You know exactly where this is going, right . He is going to argue for secession immediately. He gets about four fifths through it and says but secession is not the answer. We agree with everything you said. All the horrible things you say about northerners, but secession is not the answer. And apparently people believed him. That was in washington. Wasnt a member of the Secession Convention, and then the Secession Convention voted no to the secede. [ inaudible question ] the question is why wasnt it the answer . Because they felt that slavery was protected sufficiently in the constitution as it was. The four slave states that didnt secede felt the same way. Missouri, kentucky, maryland and delaware. Not much of a slave state, but a slave state nonetheless, they felt, were protected just fine. In fact, there is an interesting book by a woman who looked at kentucky and the Confederate Movement there. Kentucky never considered seceding figuring that slavery was protected in the United States constitution. What happens at the end of the war . Slavery is abolished. And the title of the book, i think, is Something Like when kentucky turned confederate. And its 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. And after the war do you know the story about buchanan saying im sorry, taney saying to buchanan, dont say anything when youre campaigning for president about slavery, because im going to take care of the issue . Because he knew youre talking about buchanans inauguration, right . Oh. When buchanan was inaugurated buchanan was inaugurated march 4th of 1857, right . The dred scott decision came out two days later on march 6th. Who swears in buchanan . Chief justice of the supreme court, roger b. Taney. And theyre seen whispering on the podium. And republican wags have said ever since that taney was telling buchanan, dont worry about slavery. Ive got it covered. There is some truth to that. Buchanan tried to influence. He wrote letters to two justices getting them to make sure that they were going to vote against dred scott in the election. So there was some collusion there. I dont know that exact quote. But that sounds like the conversation that they might have had during buchanans inauguration. Im not good on dates. So, help me. How does the missouri deciding not to secede fit in with the missouri compromise . Was it missouri and maine . That was 1820. So this was a long time before . A long time before. The tradeoff was congress, as it turns out, wanted in the senate to make sure there was a Northern State and a Southern State and that balance never got out of whack. So in 1820, 1819 really when missouri petitioned to become a state, it would have upset the apple cart and part of the missouri compromise is well let missouri come in as a slave state. Maine will come in as a free state. But Congress Also drew the 36 30 line, the bottom of your state, right . Southern end. And there shall be no slavery north of there. And it lasted for 34 years until the kansas nebraska act, which brought the genie out of the bottle yet again. Yeah. The feeling of the inferiority of the black race was just not as southern feeling. It was also a northern feeling. Many of grants generals were had that feeling. But in the north they werent it wasnt a threat. It wasnt 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, right . I didnt give you 5 to ask that . And when i teach my course, right at the beginning, i make it very clear that there is as much racism in the north as there was in the south. Fewer, no slaves, obviously in, 1860 or between 1830 and 1860, but a lot of free blacks and as i mentioned earlier, only five states allowed those free blacks to vote without restrictions. So that gives you some indication. No shortage of racism in the north. I think its 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, which then he can be deputized to help a marshal capture a runaway slave. It wasnt the north that seceded. It was the south that seceded and built the issue the organizational aspects of slavery for labor based on White Supremacy. North didnt have the labor force. But they certainly had no shortage of racism. No question about that. Good point. You said that five states passed the corwin amendment. Is that correct . What if they didnt fire on ft. Sumner, is there a chance that could have passed . I mean its hard to make assumptions. Were they Southern States . There was northern and Southern States. Ohio, where corwin was from i dont remember if it was the first state but one of those states. I think two northern and three southern if i remember that. Its in a footnote. One of the interesting things that i do play around with in the book is what if the south hadnt seceded . When does slavery end . And i got it took a war to create the 13th amendment, 14th amendment and the 15th amendment. Those are products of the war. What if there had been no war . When would slavery, which was the chart was going up this way, still making lots of money. No signs of weakening. Moving south and west. Everybody was making money including the mill workers in lowell, 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 hadnt developed the thinking much and my sort of answer off the top of my head was maybe during the 1920s and 30s with the onset of mechanized cotton picking. But im rethinking that. I think i was probably too hasty with the through line of White Supremacy weve seen and continue to see in this country, i think one could make an argument that it could still be with us. Different form. Slavery was very malleable. It could be Different Things at different times. I think theres a pretty good argument to be made it could be with us in different ways without a war. Its all counter factual, of course. But when i started finding the white supremacist language there, it made me think about what if the south had not seceded . What if they argued for the ratification of the corwin 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. If you know texas and i35 corridor to the east was settled 600,000 people. Almost none to the west. The territory at that time the only the territory that was discussed, quite frankly, when they talked about the western territories was new mexico. The mexican session was split into two territories at the 37th parallel, just above 36 30. Utah to the north, new mexico to the south. New mexico in 1860 ran from texas to california. Arizona wasnt hived off until 1863. In 1859, the new Mexico Territorial Legislature developed one of the most sophisticated slave codes in the nation. Allowing slave owners to come in. There were only about 24 slaves in the whole territory, mostly brought in by military people, but technically, officially, new mexico in 1860 was a slave territory. So, slavery legally existed from virginia to california in 1860. What if they backed off the passion, pushed for the ratification of the corwin amendment, pushed slavery west, into west texas and then into new mexico . I think youve got a different political landscape. The question is would lou wallace have stopped it. For famous for the movie rights. I dont know. What happened he was the governor of the territories. Exactly right. New mexico went for the slave code because the representative of congress at the time, motero, believed that the winds were blowing that way, toward the south. Or with the south, i should say. He convinced the Territorial Legislature to enact this slave code. Miguel otero went to congress, being hispanic, from new mexico, but he fell in love with a Southern Belle from South Carolina, and her family was very involved in politics. I think she had three brothers who were very involved in politics, and they turned his head. They turned his head and he became their advocate and he just misjudged. But without a war, its different. Its a different ball game. Yes . Two questions. One is the theology question that you brought up, did northern theologians counter it or was it just the southern ones . I cant answer that. The material ive looked at was focused on defending slavery. Not the other side. So i dont know. I dont know if its there or not. Question, is there anything as were nearing the end you havent said that you thought you would want to share with us . Oh, good question. I think ive covered most of what i wanted to talk about. One of the things was the through line of White Supremacy that just struck me in reading this stuff. One of the things in my notes that i was going to suggest is that in 1860, slavery was the most obvious manifestation of White Supremacy. You could deal with slavery through the 13th amendment. Couldnt do anything with White Supremacy. 100 years later, segregation was the most obvious manifestation of White Supremacy. You could legislate against segregation, cant legislate against White Supremacy. And its bubbled up again in recent times, in violent ways. I think this is the last question. Weve heard nothing from you about other pressures, Like International pressures against the United States regarding the slave trade. Uhhuh. Dont you think that a lot of that was really important . It didnt factor in to im looking at secession itself. It comes to play mostly in jefferson, much more so in Jefferson Davis than in Alexander Stevens. He wanted and expected the support of both france sbeng land during the war, because of the large amount of cotton that was going to england but a number to france as well. Davis was a far better politician than stevens. He never mentions slavery as a reason for secession. There was good quotes on his White Supremacy early. Alexander stevens was sort of the joe biden can i say that of the administration. He would say anything. In his speech to the Secession Convention, he said its about slavery, White Supremacy. Thats why we left. Were 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 didnt come in on the side of the confederacy, and part of that was the slavery issue. England realized it would abolish slavery in the 30s, i think, throughout the empire. If it was about slavery, they werent going to get involved. Also, there was an incredible giving up of slaves that the french and the british did. Lost an incredible amount of money earlier. And during the civil war because cotton was no longer being sent to britain and made for the cotton mills. So, what happened in britain was that incredible numbers of people pushed against slavery, despite the fact that they were now out of work. So there was an in 1812, around 1812 when Spencer Percival was the prime minister, he was an incredibly hardlined abolitionist. He actually didnt allow american ships into port if they had any slaves on their ships at all. So there were powerful business reasons to get rid of slavery. But do you have any issues with that . I dont have any issues with it. Its something i just didnt look into. I think i understand that at the same time about the beginning of the civil war that cotton was becoming grown much more in india, part of the british empire, and that helped supply some of that need. I dont ive told you exactly everything i know about that. But ive read thats the case, and so it alleviated that need a little bit. But, you know, youve got the wilbur forest issue in england against slavery. And the general culture, i think, tone in england was for freedom, against slavery. So they didnt come in on the side of the confederacy. Thats the best i can do. And there was a comment from some generals in the confederacy to say, why the hell did we expect england was going to come in on our side. Right. They lost a huge amount of money. You know, 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 understanding that some money was made in england by supplying arms and munitions, under the table, to the confederacy, through gun runners and that sort of thing . I have no idea how much. It would have been illegal. The International Slave trade was illegal in the United States after 1808, but it continued an illegal fashion. I think ranger dave had just pulled the plug. Yes. Will you be available for more questions . I will. And autographs. We do have copies of his book in our gift shop. If youre interested in that, please come see us in the lobby. Otherwise, thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv. Airing week days. Tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern a look at africanamericans and world war i. We visit the smithsonian to speak with a military history guest curator. 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