Can you waste your hand . E your hand . [applause] and thank you to all the other members tonight. I did want to name everyone but i thought the fact since the two of you have been getting since before we open was special, so thank you. At that conclusion, we invite you to the book signing which will be downstairs in the library. Joining us tonight is Sidney Blumenthal and jamie raskin to discuss mr. Blumenthals new book, the third volume in his series on the 16th president. Sidney blumenthal is the author of a selfmade man and wrestling with his angel, the first two volumes in his biography, the political life of Abraham Lincoln. He is the former assistant and andor to resident clinton Senior Advisor to former secretary of state hillary clinton. He has been a National Staff reporter for the Washington Post and washington editor and writer for the new yorker. His books includes the clinton wars and the permanent campaign. Raised in illinois, he lived in washington, d. C. Jamie raskin represents marylands eighth Congressional District in the house of representatives. [applause] the district includes part of montgomery and frederick counties. He was sworn into his second term at the start of the 116th congress on january 3 of this year. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was a professor of constitutional law at American University for 25 years. He and his wife have three children and live nearby. Lincoln had a fascinating rise from the second half of the 1850s, the years in which mr. Blumenthal featured in all the powers of earth. He was a successful lawyer who decided to return to politics with the passage of the kansas nebraska act. He was the rePublican Partys first president , ready to take the white house as at the nations most dangerous moment. There were rhetorical battles with Stephen Douglas, lincolns house divided speech, some of casesfaces most famous overlapping with lincoln and mary raising three boys. His project went from a trilogy wasnt a planned as a trilogy to a fivepart series, right around the time he was working on this volume, the result is a detailed and informative description of lincolns prepresident ial years and we have two people who know the juggle and struggle of politics to discuss it tonight. Please join me in welcoming Sidney Blumenthal encompassed in raskin. And congressman baskin. [applause] all right, well, i get to ask Sidney Blumenthal questions, which is awesome in itself that i get to pose the questions. I make no pretense of objectivity. Im a huge fan of this extraordinary series that Sidney Blumenthal is writing and i find it dazzling. I hope every american goes out and reads this book. Its remarkable. Let me start with this. You call one of your chapters about Stephen Douglas, who was lincolns lifelong nemesis in some sense, you give it the title, vaulting ambition. Thats a phrase lifted from macbeth. It over leaps itself. That phrase was invoked by senator Charles Sumner referring to douglas and you pick it up. I raise it because lincoln was a profoundly ambitious man in his own way. I wonder if you would be willing to define and characterize the ambition of Stephen Douglas, the ambition of Abraham Lincoln, and talk about the ways in which their ambitions were intertwined over the course of careers. Thank you, jamie. Its my great pleasure and honor to be here with my friend, jamie raskin, who represents the 8h Congressional District of maryland, and to be here in this special place in the room and i wish to thank the staff of the Lincoln Cottage for holding this event and inviting all of us here. Stephen a. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were locked in a rivalry since the 1830s. Douglas shot like a star into the firmament early on. He rose and rose and rose. Lincoln said of the little giant, i walk between his legs as if hes a colossus. And yet, lincolns law partner said lincolns ambition was like no cease,ngine that no stops. We are dealing with two extraordinarily ambitious people. Lincoln was envious of douglas. Douglas ran for president for the nomination of his party, the democratic party, in 1852, in his late 30s. And lincoln, at that time, was already obscure. He finished his one term in congress. He had no prospects. He would stare for long periods of time into space. He felt defeated. He said, what is there to do and what is to be done . How could ones life have any meaning . He saw his lifes meaning in terms of public purpose and in changing the country. So his private ambition was linked to a public ambition. And became more and more so over time as the crisis grew. The ordinary word people use is evolved. They say lincoln evolved. But there was something deeper going on. Lincoln was always, antislavery. He didnt think it was an issue that would grip the country until after the kansas nebraska act sponsored by douglas and one of the most interesting things in their relationship is that douglas, through his own ambition and douglas is a ferocious figure. Hes a formidable figure. Hes a man of great a compass mentor. He is a selfmade man himself. He comes from vermont to the frontier state of illinois. On his own, he becomes this fullblown character who becomes a judge on the state Supreme Court. Elected to congress, becomes a senator. Dominates his estate controls , it. And becomes a major figure on the national stage. Takes over from henry clay as he falters both physically and politically in passing the compromise of 1850. He makes a ton of money too. He controls the lobbies in washington and he owns real estate in chicago. He happens to sell lakefront property to the Illinois Central Railroad for a nifty profit after sponsoring the Illinois Central Railroad act. [laughter] douglas places the path for lincoln through his ambition. In his fears ambition, he knocks down all the barriers downe ambition, he knocks all the barriers and rips the country apart, a house divided. While his ambition is vaulting, he vaults lincoln out of his obscurity because of it. He catapults him. Lincoln, he is in a chrysalis , then suddenly, he emerges. How calculating was that on honest abes part . You report he would show up at douglas rallies. When they ended up doing the lincolndouglas debates in the senate race, that did lift lincoln out of obscurity to national fame, right . Jumping forward. 1854, lincoln is back into politics. Hes in the resistance. He says, we grabbed whatever we could that was nearby. And acts. And we ran toward the sound of the battle. And hes battling the extension of slavery in the territories. So by 1856, he founds the Illinois Republican party. His old party, the whig party, has fallen apart and lincoln and many others in the state have to put this Party Together from disparate pieces and hostile personalities. He uses that as his platform to run for the senate against douglas in 1858. In order to get douglas to debate him, lincoln stalked him. [laughter] he went from city to city. Everyone wants to see douglas, douglas is holding rallies of thousands of people in open fields and lincoln is standing in the front row and lincoln jumps on the train to follow douglas. He is going to go to the next stop, the next rally. Balconyanding under a and while douglas is speaking from a chicago hotel, and douglas intooads the famous debates. Lets talk about the Political Parties for a second. Lincoln was instrumental in the creation of the rePublican Party. He really put these pieces together, as you tell the story. Tell us first, why were they afraid to use the name republican in illinois . You say that was controversial in some places for a while. What made him such a diehard whig . And tell everybody why he hated the know nothings so much. So this is a period in which once slavery breaks out as an issue in the country, both parties fragment. There are two parties. The whig party and the democratic party. The whig party breaks apart into the northern and southern parts. But it breaks apart into more parts. And a lot of whigs in the north in the border states join another party. In a movement called the know Nothing Party or the american party. This is an antiimmigrant nativist party. This party is a reaction to the great wave of immigration of the irish and germans. They come for different reasons. The irish come because of the potato famine and the germans come because of the failed liberal revolutions of 1848. The germans are liberals they , are politically liberal. They come into the United States and the know Nothing Party has a platform. The platform is one plank. The plank is only nativeborn protestants, protestants, should hold Public Office in the United States. No catholics. And you have to be nativeborn. So it excluded all the immigrants from ever running for office in the United States. Lincoln was proimmigrant. Dip oln low the loathed nativism and the know nothings but he didnt denounce them publicly. Because they thought he would break up they would break up and he could coax whigs into a new formation. He bided his time. Lincoln is a patient politician who believes in cause and effect and he waits for the effect understanding the cause. , he does that with nativism. He thinks they will join a greater cause against slavery. At least some of them, if i just wait it out and i could create the party. He is pushed by the leading abolitionists in illinois and owen lovejoy, who is a minister whose brother was the first great martyr, an antislavery editor who was murdered in 1837 by a proslavery mob. Lovejoy says, we have to get this party going. Lincoln says, too soon. Cant organize this party. Too many of the people i work with are still with the know nothings. Just be patient. Be patient. So that is important in terms of thinking about lincoln all the way through his career, even through the emancipation proclamation, which is, lincoln is patient about when he steps politically because he wants to step on solid ground. Ground onto hold that a principled basis. And thats why the abolitionists distrusted him. In illinois, they understood him. The new england abolitionists. The new england abolitionists and new york abolitionists were always wary of lincoln, even through the 1864 election. But the illinois abolitionists who came to know him trusted him implicitly. They came to understand. They went to him initially because they understood they needed a skilled politician they could trust to form this. They understood they couldnt do this on their own. Quick break just from lincoln specifically. I want to ask you a question about judgment and decisionmaking. You did something that i have not seen in other lincoln biographies in this third volume. You devoted a lot of time the political repercussions and fallout. You also devoted i dont know if it was several chapters, but lots of lots of pages to john brown and then the hanging of john brown and what the political effects were. Talk about the decision you made to do that and how that relates to writing what you describe as a political biography, as opposed to just a biography. Lincoln does not enter this book until really almost 200 pages. [laughter] it is a long book, you have to bear with me. [laughter] its gripping along the way. But the story is the creation of the crisis in politics. What happens with Charles Sumner , who is the abolitionist senator from massachusetts who delivers a speech on the floor of the senate on may 19, 1826 called the crime against kansas. To sumner,according raped by the proslavery forces claiming it as a territory and as a state for slavery. Engaged in violence against the settlers there. Preston brooks of South Carolina, from an undistinguished congressman. Who was a scion of slave owning wealth who was encouraged to do this vile act by the leading powers of the south who control the congress, some of them are in a common mess known as the f street mouse. Mess. [laughter] that is their name. And there the chairman of all the committees and they run the congress and country. They are the collective Mitch Mcconnell of the day. [laughter] and that was Stephen Douglas crowd. And Stephen Douglas was desperate to win their approval in order to gain the nomination because they were the powers that be. And they never trusted douglas because he was always out for himself. They thought he was uncontrollable. What happens with Charles Sumner is, Preston Brooks enters the cane, hed with a bashes him on sumners head while hes seated at a wooden desk and almost kills him. Charles sumner falls on the floor of the senate. Blood flows through the senate. And whats important about this politically, sumner is the leading order against slavery in the United States senate and the congress. He represents the commonwealth of massachusetts. Standing against slavery. He represents the idea of the United States, as opposed to the southern idea of the nation. And he is almost killed. Sumner believed in a certain kind of politics. It is a moral politics, he believes in moral suasion. He believes in humiliating his enemies. And hes got to this position in massachusetts, elected to the senate. He is in politics, but not really of politics. Once he is bashed on the head and spent several years trying to recover by the way, Stephen Douglas watched the whole thing. Veryephen douglas, impassively but tentatively watched the near caning to almost death of Charles Sumner. Without moving a muscle to interfere. So, he was not disapproving. An extraordinary scene. Charles sumner is recovering. He travels around. No one knows how hurt he is. Medically, no one knows what brain trauma is. He travels around europe trying to recover. He finds his himself in the home of a french, liberal aristocrat who has written democracy in america in the jacksonian era. He has a chateau and in this chateau is a study. The study has two portraits, washington and hamilton and thousands of books. Sumner and tocqueville sit there. Hoped aboutsumner how slavery must inevitably ends. Tocqueville says, how . How will it happen . Sumner says, i dont know. But i know it must end. Tocqueville says, the man is a prophet. And then in my book, we move to lincoln. How does it begin to end . I call a chapter on lincoln, creation. Lincoln is on the train. Hes a lawyer. Hes just wrapped up 10 cases in decatur, illinois. He is going to bloomington to the First Convention of the illinois but Publican Party antidoes not know who is going to be there. Hes walking car to car while the train is moving, to see if there are any old whigs in these cars coming as delegates. Any old friends. He wants the widest coalition. Id do that. [laughter] old whigs. Arly for there are not many left. In illinois, the abolitionists, not necessarily new england, understood they needed somebody like lincoln, a person, even at that point, of great political experience. He had been the floor leader in the legislature, he was the leader of the whig party and put together this new party and no one knew what it would be. You raise a question about the word republican. It was too radical to use. Why . It was associated with radical abolitionists. Stephen douglas never referred to the rePublican Party, he would refer to the black rePublican Party and always call it the black rePublican Party. In the beginning, it was called the peoples party, not the rePublican Party, it took a long time for the republicans in illinois to fully accept the use of the word republican, not exactly like today. The radicalism of the origins of this party. Lincoln was sensitive to language and all of the nuances of language. He basically missed out on formal schooling, he was a passionate reader, shakespeare phonetic. Who has are somebody made your career on language and political language. Talk about the importance of language and speeches in the development of lincoln as a politician over the course of his career and how speeches were turning points for him. Crucial for the rise of Abraham Lincoln, which is what this book covers. And it was important for politicians of the time. We may forget that in the leading universities of the time , oratory was a major subject and it was considered part of being a public person, learning what oratory was. Lincoln never received almost any formal education, so he picked it up on his own. He would spend not simply ours, nuts sickly days, but weeks , hising on his own speeches. You can mark lincolns rise by these speeches from the 1854 to, against the can kansas nebraska act, in which he lays out the history lincoln knowlawyer and he wants to what the argument is of his opponent and he wants to knock it down and he wants to be thorough and he wants to be logical. And fairminded. He wants to be fairminded and he always appeals, including in some of his most famous speeches in the beginning, he makes an appeal to the facts and evidence as a lawyer as if to a jury. He regards douglas as an illogical liar. A demagogue. A demagogue, which he was. Capablery clever and one. Does the whole constitutional history of antislavery thought in his first ,peech, then speech by speech you can mark lincolns rise. That speech at the bloomington convention, probably lost because lincoln did not want it reported because it was too vertical, just like the name republican at the time. It was easier to lose speeches in those days. [laughter] there was no cspan. , housese divided speech divided against itself cannot know, half slave and half free. That reframed the understanding of what the country is going through. That was the acceptance speech of the Senate Running against douglas and all of lincolns advisors except for his law partner urged him not to give the speech, they told him it was too advanced to give that speech. But he had that sense of timing. It isgives that speech, the first speech of its kind, before William Seward gives a speech saying there is an irrepressible conflict in the country. , heoln says house divided speaks it before then. And that comes from the bible. It comes from two parts of the bible and lincoln adapts it. Lincoln does the bible, he knows shakespeare. He is reading all the newspapers. He and his partner probably have to best library in springfield. He gets journals from england. He leads John Stuart Mill reads John Stuart Mill, rocky is tribune, he is reading all sorts of things. A is even reading correspondent in london, karl marx. That is in your book. [laughter] he is a wide reader. Isre is the speech that he invited to deliver in february of 1862, a group of new york. Oubles notables and lays out the entire history and investigation he has done of and therers antislavery backgrounds in order to refute the dred scott decision delivered by the judge of maryland, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Who said that the black man had no rights that the white man is bound to respect. The speech is intended to systematically in detail refute that decision. These speeches are not only eloquent, they are deeply researched, they are his own investigation. They are deeply constitutional. Lincoln distills it all himself. Hes doing this process himself. I want to tell two little stories i get from your book to go to the very complicated question of what lincolns real feelings about slavery were. One is in the first volume of this series. I think you kick it off, dont know if its the first page. T is pretty close to it with lincoln saying, i myself was a slave. Telling a story which i will allow you to recount. And then in this book, there are a number of parts that moved me to tears but one of them was the story of lincoln being contacted by a free African American who got essentially kidnapped and tricked into slavery. Lincoln trying to raise money to purchase him out of slavery. And then ending up paying for most of it himself. Tell those two stories if you would. And expound a bit on what we reasonably can understand as his moral and political understanding of slavery and what had to happen. Lincoln said in one of his autobiographies written for the 1860 campaign, i am naturally antislavery. He meant he had been born into it. That his parents were opposed to slavery. They were very unusual people, especially for semiliterate, at best, poor whites from kentucky. They belonged to a small emancipationist, primitive baptist church. His father fled kentucky. Lincoln said, slave states are places for poor whites to flee from. He said, i used to be a slave. And then realizing the gravity of his statement which was quite shocking to people at the time. He said, he joked. But now they let me practice law. He really meant his father had rented him out as kind of an indentured servant until he was 21 years old and took his wages. His father was opposed to his education and it was his stepmother who would allow him to read on his own and lincoln regarded himself as a slave and as self emancipated. It has the profound effect on lincolns point of view and empathy and his understanding. Even beyond being opposed to slavery. If you read lincolns work s closely, they differ from the abolitionists pleading for sympathy. Abolitionists have different doctrines and policies. And much more religious. They want to make you as some said, they want to make you cry. Lincoln often takes the point of view of the slave himself. And sees it from that point of view. Its a very unusual, rhetorical feat and he does it quite naturally. People dont comment on it. Hes doing it. There were no other white politicians that writing about slavery from the perspective of the theft of labor and dignity. There were a lot of people making this argument. And lincoln was unusually eloquent and personal. Lets come to this other story. In springfield, illinois, theres a small free black community. And a woman that lincoln knows comes to his law office and her son named john shelby had gone down on a boat, down the mississippi to new orleans with some goods. And he lost his free papers to prove he was a free black. And they jailed him in new orleans. And he couldnt pay the fine which they knww. They said you cannot pay the fine, we will sell you into slavery. Lincoln. R came to lincoln went to the governor of illinois who he had put into office. And the governor said i cant do anything, its louisiana. Lincoln wrote the governor of louisiana. Cant do anything. But, lincoln had a wide circle of friends, including someone he served within the state legislature named abraham jonas. He was a prominent lawyer and lincolns also incidentally, best jewish friend. He had a brother who was a lawyer in new orleans. Jones said lets see what he can do. He said i think we can buy them out. Lincoln raised a subscription in the town of money, but only raised 16. 16. So he sold his own insurance policy to raise the rest of the money and bought john shelbys freedom. And this is, in effect, the first person he emancipated, buys his freedom. Its not publicized. No one knows about it. He does it in private. Its controversial to do such a thing. Lets talk about the Lincoln Douglas debates. In 1858. Who won those debates . We know douglas won the election, of course, in the state legislature when they were still choosing u. S. Senators. Did lincoln win the debates and why did he win those debates and did he win them right away or over the course of the debates . Lets start at the end and then we will go to the debates. The end is douglas wins because the senators are chosen by the state legislature. The state legislature, amazingly enough, was gerrymandered. Nothing like this occurs in our day. Not in north carolina, for example. [laughter] and douglas lost the popular vote to lincoln. Lincoln won the popular vote. But lincoln won the debates in the long run. Because he damaged douglas Going Forward as he sought the democratic president ial nomination in 1860. These are seven debates that take place. In the beginning, lincoln is not doing well. Hes on the defensive. And douglas is smearing him up one side and down the other. Lincoln is a traitor in the mexican war. Lincoln is a drunk. Of course, lincoln is a teetotaler. Talk about spotty. He calls him rancheros spotty, which is a name of the for a mexican terrorist. Because lincoln, when he had been a congressman, proposed something called the spot resolution. Demanding to know where the mexican war started and claimed it had been falsely started by the democratic president. That hasanything liek thake ever happened since. So heres what happened in the debates. The key moment comes in the town of freeport. Douglas is also attacking lincoln as being in favor of negro equality. But he doesnt use the word negro. Lincoln throws douglas on the defensive. Lincolns team says, youre getting beat up that late. Youve got to do something. Youve got to throw questions at douglas. He throws this question which is a complicated question involving douglass wellknown position called popular sovereignty. That anyone in the territory could be either, could vote either proslavery or make it a free state. And he didnt care. And that was democracy. Lincoln proposes the question, could you do this before the state constitution is created . Are you in favor of this . Douglas says, yes. Its a wellknown thing but lincoln is elevating it. What hes doing is hes getting douglas to alienate the southerners. Because they dont like the idea. It could be one thing or the other. They want one thing. They thought the Supreme Court had articulated that point in dred scott. Taking slaves into territories, then you have a right to it. They think you have a right everywhere. Justice tawney ruled congress could not make a law prohibiting slaves being brought into territories. Lincoln was saying theres going to be a second dred scott case in which they make slavery national and he cornered douglas on this. It really damaged douglas down the road, going into the contest for the democratic president ial nomination of 1860. So, that was politically damaging. What about the public philosophy that lincoln himself articulated over the course of the debates . Did that become a platform for his candidacy in 1860 . Douglas put lincoln on the defensive. Lincoln has one low point and then he soars, and reaches his high point. The low point involves accusing douglas of not only of negro equality, and also of the sexual mixing of the races. And lincoln says, im not for the social equality of the races. His buddy says im for the declaration of independence and guaranteeing rights to everybody. Thats his low point. From there, he soars. He embraces the declaration of independence even more and says douglas is blowing up the moral l likes among us. By proposing and speaking the way he is about the inferiority of one race or another, and douglas is a belligerent and brazen proponent of White Supremacy in these days and lincoln takes it on. And he invokes the revolution and the founders and the declaration, right . Yes, he does, and this is before the Cooper Union Speech where hes done this systematically and a detailed way. But lincoln makes an argument and then never forget that. And he builds on it. Hes is very lawyerly. And the seas of gettysburg address are planted in which hes beginning to articulate what the declaration of independence was all about and that is not to apply to everybody. Douglas says almost the words of gettysburg address in the debates. He says this country is based in a way he says, of the white man, for the white man, by the white man. [laughter] he says it just like that. So, lincoln is refuting him. I wanted to ask you to set the stage for what happened in the 1860 president ial election by talking about the unlikelyness of this candidate. It reminded me of barack obama. From illinois. Lincoln was an extremely unlikely candidate. He only served one term in the house of representatives and got beat up for his strong antiwar views of the mexicanamerican war. And otherwise in the state legislature, but hed been out of office for a long time. He was certainly not as famous as the luminaries from the east who were angling to run. Tell the story about how without much active campaigning at least in public view, he ended up becoming the nominee of this new party. The front runner is the senator and former governor of new york. He is the most prominent republican in the nation. And lincoln is not very well known. No one really in the east is familiar with him except for seeing him at cooper union in 1860. They read his debates with douglas in the newspapers. And they read the cooper union address. And the Illinois Team comes to the convention which takes place in chicago, which is a hilarious story in itself, of all the different candidates. Wanted the Republican Convention to be in their cities. New york, ohio, st. Louis. The illinois representative says in the meeting of the Republican National committee taking place in new york, says we dont have a candidate. So, why not a neutral city like chicago . [laughter] so, the convention is in chicago. A very apolitical place. The greatest Railway Depot in the country and the greatest booming economic city in the country. And lincolns Political Team is there. They thought to be a bunch of hicks. The most clever political operative you can put in a room, led by a judge, david davis. Lincoln appointed him later to the Supreme Court. Gets a room in the Tremont Hotel downtown. Puts a sign above it, illinois headquarters. And starts operating day and night. All night. Stuarts men come in and they start throwing cash around trying to buy delegations. There was not much campaignfinance law then. Unlike today, where it works great. Right. No one ever wrote any checks. So, they are making deals. People feel stewart is not a candidate they are sure about. They think he can lose. Hes been around a long time and he has a lot of enemies. People think hes corrupt. Even though hes the most notable man of his party and is better known. They think his operation from new york is corrupt. The albany lobby is corrupt. His chief Campaign Manager is corrupt. And they want somebody else who can also appeal to others in other states. In pennsylvania and indiana, they think stewart cant win. Hes also been stained by the john brown raid. John brown staged this raid at Harpers Ferry and had been executed. And stewart is painted as a radical. Theres a kind of witchhunt that takes place in washington after the john browns raid and theres a committee of the senate that investigates among those on the committee is Jefferson Davis from mississippi. He called stuart to see what he knew about this. I will say, even though it was a witchhunt, it was conducted more fairly than the benghazi committee. [laughter] there are a lot of people looking for another available man. Availability was then word they used for electability. And lincoln was the available man. He didnt have many burdens even though he had a long political history. His men, long into the night, are meeting with the men from pennsylvania and indiana. Lincoln is sending telegrams. Sending word back and forth. Lincoln sends him a telegram. Dont make any deals in my name. Cabinet jobs. Judge davis turns to the other men and says, lincoln aint here. [laughter] because stuart is handing out all kinds of promises. The illinois men deal. I dont know if any deals were really made but, in the end, somehow there were men from indiana and pennsylvania in lincolns cabinet. So, its a shocker. Oneoln is nominated and no really knows what he even looks like. Theres no picture. But he has these clever advisors that help him construct the public persona. Tell the story of the rail splitters. It to you. L leave first of all, let me pay tribute to jamie here. [applause] it is amazing to me that jamie does everything he does on behalf of the public and has time to read my book. The next one, youve got to make a little bit shorter. I love every page of it. Every page of it. Remind me the question. The rail splitter persona. Lincoln believes he has to have they have a convention to nominate him for the illinois delegation. The Illinois Party nominating him as their candidate for president. And lincoln is sitting on the stage and suddenly they bring in two old rails. And they say lincoln, the real splitter. One of his old cousins is there carrying one of the rails. They call him the rail splitter. Lincoln is trying to suppress his laughter. But, the people organizing this are old whigs and they remember the campaign of William Harris of 1840. And they wanted to think of a slogan and a persona for lincoln. So they made him the rail splitter and lincoln sort of starts laughing. Then people say to him were those the rails . Oh, yes. [laughter] the cousin then, after that convention, had a business of selling rails out of his barn for 2 apiece. Claiming, these were the rails. Im going to excuse myself. Youve done your country a great patriotic and Literary Service by writing this book. Congratulations. [applause] thank you, jamie. Thank you, congressman. Thank you, jamie. So, we are now ready to open it to questions. Yes, sir . Special. Ade him so . He traveled the world. What made people say wow . Lincoln comes from nothing, to start with. So lincoln is somebody whose father, as lincoln says, could blunderly sign his name with an x. He has no schooling. Hes desperate for knowledge. I dont know where it comes from. He doesnt know where it comes from. And he becomes this person. So thats one thing. Lincoln overcomes deep psychological problems. Hes a depressed person. Hes a person in springfield, in his early days, without a family. And hes alone. Hesels at one pinoint humiliated himself in front of the family by mishandling a relationship with a young woman named mary todd, who hes broken up with. His friends keep razors from him. They think he might be suicidal. People at the time called it melancholy. I dont know what we would call it today. It was undiagnosed. He confided in a local doctor named anson henry. Was he manicdepressive . We dont know. And he overcomes it and he becomes since you want three things. He becomes somebody who was incredibly self disciplined. Overcoming all of this. Just his personality. Hes amazingly self disciplined and focused, and determined, and patient. And, develops a broad and penetrating and acute sense of the world around him. Both of human nature of the people he meets and politics. His closest friends like being in his company. He was a jokester. He was the center of rooms or parties or political gatherings, telling stories. But people also felt he was distant. Even when they felt close to him. And lincoln is observing others. Hes withholding something. I think part of this comes from his own sense of inferiority. His self protectiveness. A sense that hes overcome depression. He still has depression. And somebody who, once he sets on the road and comes out of his private law practice in 1854. Never stop until his death. Just never stops on what he becomes and what he does. Never stops. What role did mary todd play in promoting lincoln . We in question are the room where the emancipation proclamation was written . The oral tradition going back over 100 years was that it was in this room. Anyone who studied lincoln would probably argue it happened throughout this entire house and his commute to work every day. Yes, the tradition is that its in this room. So, this is a unique place we are sitting in. Mary todd lincoln was the most distinguished and socially elevated family of springfield. Her sister was married to the son of the second territorial governor of illinois. They lived in the biggest mansion. What was called aristocracy hill. And marys sister would bring the sisters, one by one, to springfield so they could meet marriageable young men. Lincoln was not considered one of those, but mary was fixed on him. And thought he had a great deal of promise. Much of it described in volume one. And mary helps make lincoln. She defends him. She gives him a proper home. She gives him a family. And whenever his ambition falters, she will step in. Shes as ambitious as he is. She had known henry clay as a child. She had said as a child, her father was henry clays Business Partner and political ally. She had said as a child that she wanted to marry a president. And, by god, she was going to make Abraham Lincoln. She called the two of them, the lincoln party. Our lincoln party. So that was the beginning of the lincoln party, two people. Andot back into politics mary said, youre not running for the state legislature. And he had been elected, youre going to quit. Youre not going to serve. Its beneath you. You are running for the United States senate, and she made him quit. He ran for the senate in 1855, he lost in the legislature. Long story. He threw his votes to the antislavery democrat. In order to block stephen a. Douglass candidate. Thats a preliminary action helped create the coalition of the rePublican Party. Back to mary. When lincoln lost to trumbull, who was a distinguished figure, marys best friend was trumbulls wife. And she would never speak to her again, because trumbull had become senator and not her husband. So she was fiercely jealous of lincolns position, even more so than lincoln. [indiscernible] letters,ces communications, newspapers and so forth. Dialogue in the book . There is. We attened ded a book fair last week. He mentioned you. He wrote the book about lincolns early days. Yes, the novel. Not a biography. Lecturinga woman about her greatgrandfather. The editor of a South Carolina newspaper and she was doing a dialogue on him. In said everything i said the back book is based on facts. Hes a novelist. He takes poetic license. When you write, how do you unknowns . Se do you create dialogue . Do you reach conclusions and how do you handle what really happened when nobody really knows . I do not create dialogue. I dont make anything up. And, there is no fake news in these biographies. Im serious, too. I rely on as many sources as i can find, it is a matter at some point, when i cant get the exact learn exactly what i need to know, its more than a little frustrating especially having been a journalist not being able to call somebody up and ask them, but these witnesses are not available right now. So i have to enter lincoln to speak to them. There are lots of sources about lincoln and about the people around him. There are many books, there are many other historians who have written. And there were many oral histories that were created throughout lincolns, about lincoln throughout his life. Beginning with his law partner, herndon, who created something called herndon informants. And when lincoln died, herndon spoke to everyone who was still alive around springfield to get their accounts of whatever it is they remembered about lincoln. There were some historians that did not want to credit what was in those interviews. Because they depicted less than the idealistic icon of the martyred president. They depicted a young man on the front tier. But, its there. And there are accounts of witnesses all of the way through. Of lincolns inner circle and people who knew him and met him. To assess what you think is accurate in all of that. And rely on what lincoln would have called the facts and the evidence. We have time for one more. Thank you for your remarks and the book. I was struck by what you are talking about earlier, lincoln biding his time with when to create the rePublican Party and i think that is something you see throughout his career that he is very careful and calculated. You may be using political principledhieve ends. An opportunity with you here with a writer, historian, political observer and participant, i feel like we are in a similar moment in our countrys life where theres this big debate happening over impeachment of the president. Im curious if wearing all of these different hats, what your view is on that particular question. Does it affect the country of , the democratic party, but he spoke. Well, i wont speak for the congressman who speaks very well for himself and his positions, is well known. I am to become more of a contemporary figure now and not much but historian. I generally support what the congressman and others in the house are doing. I have written two pieces about impeachment. Spending time away from writing what i should be doing, volume four, and these two pieces are on a website called justsecurity. Org. They are called open memo one and open memo two. And they are historical in nature, and the first one i , i analyzed the clinton and nixon impeachments in light of what is discussed in terms of trump. I show that, i think, that i have some experience with it that the clinton impeachment has very little relevance politically to what is going on now, but the nixon impeachment does. And that if you look at the progress of what happened with nixon, the more that information was presented to the public, the more that the public moved in favor of impeaching nixon. And there is a direct correlation. So, it is not a surprise that donald trump is resisting all subpoenas right now and preventing witnesses from appearing before the house. In the second memo, i wrote about what happened in 1974 after the nixon impeachment because people generally talk only about the nixon impeachment and they forget that gerald ford pardoned nixon a month after he resigned from office. Nixon was never impeached, by the way. He there was a vote in the judiciary committee, but there was never a vote on the floor of the house. The republican senators went to him and he resigned because the evidence was conclusory and gerald ford pardoned him. People can have different views on whether he did the right thing or not, and those views have changed over time, but the political result was that it was catastrophic and the bottom dropped out and he never really recovered. What happened that fall is that in the midterm elections of 1974 was that the democrats had the greatest wave of victories in years and abroad and what was called the watergate class of politicians. Some of whom were still around. And, my view and that piece was at the ford a pardon, i guess it would be Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell forcing an acquittal if the house were to impeach trump on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors that had already been brought before the public and then an acquittal could be seen as the equivalent politically of a pardon and would bear down the party that rendered it and would hurt them, hurt the republicans in the elections of 2020 of holding the senate. That is the argument that i made in that article. You can read both articles at justsecurity. Org. They are very long and i got them off my chest. [laughter] but, the crisis continues. So, the crisis that lincoln faced was greater then the crisis we are facing now. But, we can always learn no matter what period we are in from lincoln. We should always remember that the questions of the house divided, of dysfunctional presidencies, of a reactionary Supreme Court, of a chaotic and divided and fragmented parties these are the issues that lincoln had to face and overcome. And those are the issues that i deal with in this volume. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you all for coming. I hope you can join us for the book signing downstairs. Several have asked if its possible to purchase the book and there will be an opportunity to do that. Thank you so much. [applause] history bookshelf features the countrys bestknown american him eric and history writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch a weekly series every saturday at 4 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. On lectures in history, Political Science professor teaches a class about the creation of lee of Torah College and he claims how it works. Whichsor curry talked took place on october 7 at the university of utah. Rhett this evening, it is a pleasure and honor to introduce a friend to the association, and a friend of mine, Margaret Leslie davis. She is an awardwinning author of books about the history of the west. A region that she lives in. Her books have been praised by
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