We are here to clan war. Ulysses s grant and the battle to save reconstruction with mr. Border with he a prolific author he has written nine nonfiction books and is built on and furthers and continues the research and writing did about the radical reform. Republicans in power. I told congress at war how reformers fought the civil war. Lincoln ended slavery, remade america. That was published just three years ago in 2020. Its a narrative that continues in klan war and his earlier works include, and im sort of going to enlist a couple of these in reverse sequencing back in time time bound china, the underground railroad and for the soul of america there was great debate. Henry clay, Stephen Douglass and the compromise that preserved the the First Congress how james George Washington and a group of extraordinary women invented the government and washington the making of the american capitol and there were several earlier than that. Mr. Burdick is, a native of new york city, he is an independent writer, historian and journalist. His most recent has been on 19th century American History. He served on and chaired the awards committee of the Frederick Douglass book prize. Given by the Gilder Lehrman center for the study of slavery, resistance and abolition at yale university. Hes a member, the Advisory Council of scholars for the u. S. Capital historical society. His articles, book reviews, op eds appear regularly in National Magazine and in newspapers from the new york times, wall street journal to the l. A. Times. In earlier years, as a journalist he reported extensively politics, Economic Issues and culture from asia, the middle east, europe and africa, and worked for a time even at the united nations. Hes a genuine new yorker who did his undergraduate and graduate degrees at city college of new york, a Columbia University, and he has lived and worked actually all around world. He and his wife, jean, currently reside on capitol hill in washington, d. C. Mrs. Bordewich is a playwright, an adviser to national and international philanthropies on democratic governments. Shes with us today. And you also meet and visit with her at that signing tent after our hour or 50 minutes here is over. So i think, for starters fergus, how about opening this with a reading from the very beginning of your book . Its right at the start. His preface. Its your opening narrative about mr. Outlaw in Alamance County north, which is situated right between durham and greensboro. Sure. First, thanks for your kind introduction, mary, and thank you all being here today. Especially maybe not quite the crack of, but close enough. And on a sunday. Uh, so yes, this section im going to read and i dont know, five, 6 minutes. Uh opens the book and its kind of selfexplanatory. Um. Graham, North Carolina uh, about 11 p. M. On february 26th, 1870. The nighttime sign once was broken by wild hollering, the pounding of horses moving through the drizzly mist. The writers wore white gown and masks, and they surrounded small frame house where wyatt lived with his small children and elderly mother. 20 men burst into the house. His family name was old and familiar one in Alamance County. They had great torches. Jemima wyatts mother told state officials. First, they came in through the cover off of me. Then they said to me, where is wyatt . One says, say, say, say. There were two who had swords and. There were pistols. One said, cut head off and another said, our brains out. They went out of the room as they passed. One says to the other, let us set the house. And as they went around to the room and heard the little child cry, thats the baby. Oh, daddy. Oh, daddy. I ran and opened door. And there were all around him, all around my son. He putting on his pants and i run back and got a stick and laid away hard as i could. They on me. They did three of them. And stamped me and i rose three times and they knocked me down after they stamped, said, you, you strike a white man. And they stamped me three times in my breast and on my head and my arms. And then i hollered for murder. And they went off with him. They hollered like geese. And then they went hard as thunder riding white. Outlaw was about 50 years old, a light skinned man of mixed a mulatto in the parlance of the time with a black wavy hair and beard, an earnest and a notably bold gaze. He had escaped slavery in 1864, made way to union lines and enlisted in the cavalry, and served with it through the civil war. And for a after. When came home, he opened a woodworking shop where he repaired wagons and made coffins. And he managed to sort of informal tavern white and black workingmen gathered. He was counted among. Grahams small black middle class and quickly gained a reputation among freed people as a man knew things who could speak with who could persuade a natural leader. In 1866 he had represented Alamance County at a statewide convention. He was local leader of the union league, the organizing arm of the republican, a founder of grahams First Ame Church and elected town commissioner. And he helped an armed patrol of blacks and whites to protect against the rising threat of ku klux klan. When called for retaliation. He earned restraint, urging blacks to be as industrious as possible. Give no cause for complaint and trust in the law. Outlaws captors dragged, pushed and beat him half dressed and barefoot. A half mile down main street to the courthouse, the center of town. They strung him up with a bed cord from the branch. An elm tree that reached toward the hotel and a courthouse from which. For the past year, the republicans had governed graham if outlaw had any final words, no one recorded them. One of the klansmen slashed his mouth with a knife. A last bit of pointed savagery toward a man who had too often spoken out. Too often spoken out for the rights that black men had been told the national government. And by north embattled republican governor were now theirs. His body dangled in front of the courthouse the middle of the next day when it was finally cut down by the sheriff. A former member of the klan, the coroner ruled outlaw had died at the hands of persons unknown. Not long afterward, a black man named puryear claimed to know who the murderers were. A few days later, he was found floating, dead in a pond. In the months that followed, without outlaws leadership, the union league fell apart and frightened republicans fled down. White outlaw was but one victim, a grimly one of a movement that was sweeping the former confederate states. Its targets were freed. People and their white, by their words or actions however tacit, sought to transform them. The south from a region where power had been organized to protect economic engine of slavery, and now the debasement former slaves into a democracy where white and black, rich and poor, had a place in the dynamic arena. Politics with the confederacys defeat in 1865, there was reason for hope. The south seemed poised for a racial revolution that would transform former slaves into free actors and National Life and overthrow the white oligarchies that had ruled the slave states since the founding of the republic. It goes on for another 350 pages, but. So, fergus, you the point right after this lynching story that northern republicans at the time believe that the civil war was over and the south had acquiesced reconstruction had put laws and constitutional amendments in place that established new structures and processes to replace antebellum ones. And that reconstruction was accomplished. Reconstruction was irreversible. And conversely, many us those of us educated in the 20th century who studied under sort of the school of American History, generations of faculty having and products of that who taught us in school that the lost cause ideology that dominated jim crow thinking decades informed that reconstruction was a complete failure and that africanamericans had little success. But you call reconstruction a great period of American History and its aspirations and its muscular. And your two books on reconstruction want enrich our understanding of this time. So what was reconstructions arc . What were its impacts . How did reconstruction evolve . Why do we need to think about it . Sure. Yeah. Mary, as you said, i mean, most of us, at least those of us who are approximately in my age group, certainly were educated with this to believe that reconstruction was it was a dreadful failure. It wrong headed from the beginning. It was poorly carried out by corrupt people, white and black by socalled. I dont like these terms. But you know what they are scalawag turncoat traitorous southern whites and corrupt northern all of them corrupt and africanamericans were totally unready to participate in politics. Much less perhaps even even for freedom. Okay. And i mean, that was established way of presenting reconstruction about 100 years. Give or take. And it was established also within academia. The Dunning School as you mentioned, that name, by the way, was a Columbia University in new york. This isnt just a product of of of lost cause southern. It was accepted throughout the country the lost cause became kind a national myth. Okay embedded in the textbooks. Embedded in. But up to the 1960s. And it lingers some places even today. Okay. Im going to ask you for the sake of brevity. Just try to erase this for a moment. Thats a thats a tall order. I realize. But the story of reconstruction is really quite different over last generation or so. A new generation of historians, two generations, perhaps you know, rethinking re researching and re addressing reconstruction and scraping away the crust of, lost cause ideology that, by the way, is the real revision ism. Thats what revised the truth. Okay. There are those in our society who want to use revisionism as a kind of almost a swear word about by trying to tell us that what we learned wasnt really so the revered, the lost cause story is the revision. We are going back to the roots, to this to the truth of what actually happened, which was extremely bold, politically bold, and particularly on the part of africanamerican. And one of the most striking aspect of the period, and certainly it comes through great deal in what i write in this book is the alacrity the speed with which africanamerican two embraced not just freedom, the the the the opportunities democracy in political Public Participation and in a rush to become school. I mean, its not true that everything well enslaved person was not educated some not many but everybody aspired to it. And you read about the freedom schools established by the freedmens bureau, various churches and some other entities and people of formerly enslaved people young and old i mean all old people, middle aged people, kids flock. They pack in to become educated because. They understand the literacy is the root. To to to opportunity. And in addition, they flocked where possible. And this is quite over the south to to learn about the practice democracy and government. The agency for that is most frequently an Organization Called the union league which wyatt. By the way thats just a family. Nobody accused him of being an outlaw. The North Carolina family name he an organizer of the union league. The union league did many things among others was to educate people in the practice of government and the union league expanded dramatically. And it is, dare i say, to use the simplest word, a purely racist idea, that africanamericans werent either interested, ready or capable to participate. They were in did they werent did. The facts are irrefutable. Across the south. I mean, theres in here of people walking and and defying all kinds of threats, the threats of the klan and, other threats as well, to vote. I mean, the determination to vote in which i should say parenthetically began in Southern States before the 15th amendment, because states had the authority to to set voting laws before the 15th amendment, presumably guaranteed it. Those guarantees withdrawn later. But in practice. But at any rate. So you had africanamericans voting in most of the Southern States, virtually all of them before the 15th amendment beginning, mostly in 1868. Okay. So people are flocking to the polls. 400,000 black voters elected Ulysses Grant in 1868. Without that vote, he would not have become president and innumerable people, local offices, people, black, many of them formerly enslaved as well as white republicans. And you have a biracial, a very frail by Political Party developing the Republican Party which was the circle. So speak so to speak Progressive Party looking party of the time this the democrats in south were purely reactionary purely reactionary embraced violence. The ku klux klan was basically the paramilitary arm of the southern democratic. Sad to say, abetted politically by northern democrats, who welcomed . The alliance with southern democrats. The parties, in other words, are very roughly in opposite positions where one might say they are today. I just keep going on here. Well, as you can see, lets lets just say that what were reconstructions positive accomplishments. Okay. Well, one simply youre a lot okay. Ill try. Well, one ive already talked about empowering people to vote formerly enslaved people and creating a two party system. Bear mind that in most, not all southerners poor white people were also restricted. Many Southern States had restrictions, so reconstruction was also a liberation for. A lot of working class, poor people. Im generally saying here it varies from place to place. Theres that, too. It becomes a medium of education for people who, as a matter of policy were pretty much denied education forever. Africanamericans and poor white people who often had no opportunity to become. Reconstruction governments. Established Public School systems. They invest public works in a part of the country where there werent many public works. Railroad building and other other other kinds of investing on a northern model. Essentially. And this, of course, is outrages the oligarchy types of the south whose own power is at stake here in their control of the political systems in Southern States is at stake. So both politically, economically and in the power of the vote, african were making powerful progress during time. Very powerful progress. Its dramatic. Its dramatic. I mean, there were there were some things that should have happened that didnt land, was not widely distributed to africanamericans. It should have been radicals in Congress LikeThaddeus Stevens of pennsylvania and others, been wade of ohio in the senate, wanted to see plantation belonging to where confederates broken up and handed to freed people. This should have been done. It would created an economic base for freed people that did occur. Why . Because americans in the end, northerners valued property above. Above economic rights. The economic rights of of of poor people. All right. So given this platform of progress, tell us the klan story. Its context. We here in tennessee because olasky, were keenly interested in this how it spread and then because thats the first word of the title of your book. Lets talk about the klan. Sure. Okay. The klan, as im going to guess, most of you probably know, was founded in the small city, large town of pulaski, but 80 miles south of where we are. Very nice looking little town today. Not too prosperous, but not but kind. A nice looking place. It was there in 1866 by a small group of men, all of them college educated, by the way. All of them a newspaper editor, a couple lawyers and such who were more bored young guys. They were Confederate Army veterans who didnt know what to do in town, where nothing was happening was pretty chaotic. Half of it had been burned during the war, and they hit upon the idea of this was essentially kind of a wacky mens fraternity. Thats how it began. It was not as a terrorist organization. Okay. They they invented costumes. They invented this crazy name, as you may know, there was a fraternitys the founding of fraternities was a popular phenomenon in america the time and there were found it in tennessee and elsewhere at the time and of the early klan are klan member himself by the way who celebrated the klan. So they were just fishing, trying to come up with an interesting name. And they picked this because it sounded. It did. And he said if wed named it swastikas, which was another candidate or there was a fraternity called costume because he said, we name it, that it might have caught on. But there was something that in the ring of the kkk that did kind of catch on. But any rate. Mostly they performed sort of funky antics around town. But in their category of antics was one particular thing which had was seen as having potential. They scared black people. They dress up. Then they didnt set out to physically harm people initially. But it was kind of a jokey thing in their minds to scare black people. Within about six months, a group of higher confederate officers here in nashville got together. They what was happening down there in giles county, which is already spreading little bit and saw they saw the terrorists and right from the beginning with that meeting in nashville here, it was organized as a terrorist organization. It was the first terrorist organization, American History, that what it existed for. Thats what it was founded to do Everything Else is rubbish or anything else. You might have heard from las cosas and so on. Its rubbish. Its not because white womanhood was being threatened by by freed black people. I mean, you. Nonsense. It wasnt happening, was it. Were. Were black people asserting themselves . Yes, they were. Were black people. Charlie. Local powers. Yes, they were. Were they running for office . Yes, they were. Or they refusing to get out of the way of people on sidewalks . Yes, they were. Thats those were the outrages that what prompted people join the klan. Foremost among, that voting. It was founded to destroy embryonic Republican Party, biracial at that point and to suppress the black vote. Thats why it came to exist. To drive blacks, if possible out of politics and white, who dared align themselves blacks. That was its reason. And early said it repeatedly. Its not arguable. Its thoroughly documented. When when men on often often giving having to give sworn testimony after theyd been arrested say well, why you join it . Was it . Well well, we had. We had to shoot republicans. Well, i was to put down the blacks. Used other words, obviously but this is all on record. Its the book is full, full of this kind of testimony and so on. So the klan kind of had it metastasize beyond tennessee. Exactly. Okay. So it started out here in tennessee nathan bedford. Forrest was not founder, but he was recruited on as a figurehead in a kind of traveling organize there a kind of a kind of reactionary Johnny Appleseed going on undercover, working for a an insurance company, traveling around the south, apparently setting up dens, local clans, because wherever hes been suddenly dens, spring up and violence begins. Okay. But he was no, he was more a figurehead actually. There were various other officers here in the Tennessee Group tried at the beginning to remain the kind hierarchy of the klan. But the klan ultimately and rapidly became very decentralized. It spread very rapidly across virtually all the former confederate plus into kentucky, which wasnt confederate state and missouri, which was only a quasi confederate state anyway. And it because it served the purpose which the founders here in tennessee made clear. I mean, their documentation abundant. They created a concept tution which laid out exactly what a klan was supposed to be and do which basically involved destroying the Republican Party and and suppressing black aspirations. So it was it was a threat to human beings, to africanamericans and white supporters. And it was a threat to all the legal emplacements that had been achieved through reconstruction, which then switches to this other key word in your title, ulysses s grant. So what was grants in preserving reconstruction and further building it . And in also fighting the klan directly . Yeah. I mean, grant its not accidental that. Grant is in the title of the book, you grant, as you all know from some of you presumably know your your lost cause slanted history teaching would presume that grant wasnt grant a failure wasnt he one of the he used to be rated sometimes the worst or among the president s. Well come on wasnt isnt is not true. No, its not true. Grant was an extremely interesting man. And time is finite morning. So i would love talk about grants day, but i wont. Okay. You know him also as a federal commander here in tennessee, won several very victories here here in tennessee very present in the western theater of the war before he goes east in 64. And we tend to know him as a civil war hero more than we know as president , even though he served two terms. Sure. Well, grant, i want to say two things. Im going to tell you a little bit about him. A, as an individual and then something about his his presidency. Why his presidency is Something Different from what most of us received in our earlier education. I mean grant in the in his character hes very remarkable. Hes extremely modest. Very modest. His his his west point. Very welleducated guy. His would later say hes was an idiot, isnt stupidity, you know, and its not a not true at all. So very well educated west point was one of the best offered one of the best educations in the United States in his day. So west, a veteran of the Mexican American war, leaves the army for a while before. The civil war rejoins and moves very up the ranks because he keeps. Very successful general but very modest. As i said unlike some of his colleagues who if they if american generals those days could have won a chest full of medals, others would have. He never would have if he kind of dirty tunic or tunic anyway. So. But his modesty comes through. His father was an abolitionist. Family was originally from connecticut, though. He was raised in ohio. He was an abolitionist, prewar. He was not very political before. The war. Hes transformed by the war viscerally. He he viscerally he detest slavery. But like antebellum americans, especially in the border states where he lives in missouri. He can live it. He can live with it. However, when hes married, his inlaws, he marries into a slave owning family, the inlaws, the dents give him a slave as a wedding present and grant who is clearly is not happy about it. On the other hand, he cant afford to without this gentlemens labor. Initially, he remains enslaved to grant for about a year and then grant freezes him as soon as he can. He frees him he could have sold him. I mean, thats the moral choice that grant faced. He couldnt and wouldnt do it. He gave the man his freedom it would have on the market if you cared to look at it that way. The man was probably worth like 1,000, which could have used. He didnt take the money. It tells you something about where he was then, just before the war. During the war. He welcomes fugitive slaves into his lines. Unlike many other Union Officers who were deeply racist and sent back. And he also was an early advocate for employing troops in his armies. Unlike some other Union Officers. William tecumseh sherman, great general deeply racist. Wouldnt have them. Grant grant welcomes them and and he witnesses the bravery of black troops during the war. After the war, general of the armies he andrew johnson. Your your maybe not entirely illustrious tennessee. Whose record during reconstruction is it makes you cry frankly you. So much opportunity was lost because johnson didnt really support. And and reconstruction makes a very rocky patchwork progress under Johnson Grant is elected in 1868 he is he is by far the most popular republican and what has happened grant politically it is is that hes radicalized. The word radical in this context by the way is not todays radical ism. It specifically refers to two things. One staunch support for civil rights for formerly people complete complete rights and federal support for them and second, for a vigorous reconstruction policy. And that debt limit the power of former confederates. Okay. Thats the radicalism. The time. Okay. A lot of these terms have changed over the last 250 years. We could have an interesting talk about that, but maybe we will get into it. So there actually a piece of legislation passed by Congress Called the ku klux act. So clearly congress felt, it was imperative to address this particular evil straight up. Tell us about that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, the book toggles back and forth between events in the Southern States, klan activity and struggles to deal with klan activity. What i formerly enslaved people are doing in the south and events in congress. I mean, congress is also a battleground here. Republicans controlled and during the the key period here, controlled for a few years by republican radicals with a very very tough commitment to reconstruction and and cracking down the klan, which is which is. Has spread everywhere, uninhibited lee because it has largely coopted local authorities around the south or terrified authorities to the point where klansmen being prosecuted, no matter what their acts of terror and those acts of terror, by the way, are anything today youve ever read. Ices or al qaida or hamas committing here in the united, homegrown regular americans . And these arent just local louts and thugs. These are some of the finest people in their communities, sad to say. Okay. So are congress. Passes three. What are called enforcement acts to try to enforce the the freedoms of underlined by the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment is kind of the key piece of National Legislation here. And for the first time, empowering federal government to rights in states. You think states rights is all over. But the civil war wasnt, it was a constant, constant political battle over what what the federal government do or not do. And on balance Public Opinion tended to lean towards states rights over over national rights. So theres a very, very tough political battle. This the ku klux klan act is extremely strong. It defines everything that the klan is doing, including wearing of costumes and terrifying people on public roads and many other things, is specified in the legisla lation as illegal with extremely strong punishments ranging up to. I mean, this may not sound tough, but it was for the time 5,000. And as a lot of money in 1870 and the five or more years in prison, federal prison. Okay. Grant also pursues a prong policy to deal with the klan is he dispatches troops into the south, particularly into areas of intense the most intense klan activity. I write particularly a lot about south carolina. In that context, it was the it was the, dare i say, the showcase for crushing the klan and the troops he dispatched, among others, were the seventh cavalry. Youve heard of them . Yes. Thats the same seventh cavalry. That was at that was slaughtered at the battle of the little bighorn in 1870. The same people, same guys, but it was custer in the leading them. No, he wasnt interested. He was a conservative. Thats to say. Far right wing red emma of the time. He didnt support, reconsider. He didnt want any part of it. He was racing in kentucky instead of. But the officers. Grants in and were excellent. Excellent. They penetrated the klan with spies. Very interesting story. Not enough time to tell it all here. Were very informed about who who was who. Within the klan. The other prong of grants war against the klan was the one. The department of justice was just established in part. In part. Specifically cope with disorders in the south. Not the only reason, but it was significant. And grant had a first rate attorney general amos ackerman, a georgian republican who was personally totally committed. He went south. He supervised the prosecutions, the arrests and prosecutions of klansmen, thousands of klansmen were arrested. The klan caved, basically they were very brave. They were very when they were attacking lynching, shooting, raping, innocent, helpless men, women and yes, children. To say i mean, some of this is pretty ugly. What the klan was doing. They were very brave, faced, faced with the carbines of seventh cavalry. They werent they were cowards, basically. They were cowards. You know, they were they were were tough, you know. Know they were tough. I when they had helpless victims, they not tough when they faced men with guns. I lots more questions but we have 10 minutes and that microphone right there on and i would love it for you all to pose your questions they can be broad, they can be national, they can be tennessee. But if you would kindly walk up to that to ask them that was told to me to tell you. So im requesting it. And if you dont do that. S. C. Over here will come and beat you up or something something. Anyone. Please yeah. Please dont be shy. No, not that. Okay. Im curious about how you, as someone from, say, yankee in the north, how did you become so interested and passionate about this topic . Okay. Ill try to be briefer than ive been. Well, look, i. Ive written a lot of history. I. Two ways to answer. One, this fold naturally out of what ive been writing about in a bunch of books nearly all my books about American History of one way or another. Dont with aspects of sometimes the politics slavery as it affected the founding or the creation of. The national government. The book about congress during the civil war deals in large part with how congress was dealing with with the problem of slavery. And so forth. I will say also in a more personal way, when i was a lot, i did a civil rights work in the south. I had some encounters with the klan of the of the 1960s. There were three clans, by the way, not connected . I a lot of time gaps between them. So i had my own my own my own experience from years ago. And so its always been very, very prominent on my mental and moral map. Hello there. I am a senior in college right now. I actually found it really interesting to hear on what a previous have been taught. When we are talking about the era of reconstruction and think that you talked about, you really hit the nail on head regarding one very specific pertinent criticism about the failure to really create an economic base for. Black americans specifically. And so while i do appreciate it hearing some of the more positive iterations of how people feel regarding the era of reconstruction i almost wonder if that specific is just its such a vast, really important criticism in that like even today were seeing the consequence of that continue to unfold. And i think that it really ties into the conversation on reparations as well going beyond just reconciling, but really going to the extent an economic base for black could be created and of conversations about what that would look like. So i guess im just wondering how how do you hold those things . How do you managed to or both of those perspectives at the same time . And how do you encourage people still view the era reconstruction in a positive light when we consider the fact that the consequences have been. Intense even today. All of the above is true. I dont want to be glib. I. Yeah, youre right. Youre right. It it matters. It was the great shortcoming of the reconstruction project. This is why i underscored it when i was speaking. But, you know, history isnt just one thing at any given time at all. Its a lot of things in history as full of contradictions and part of being mature as a society i think, and being politically mature is facing up to contradictions in people, in individuals. Yes. Grant owned a slave at one point. I in San Francisco for a while. They put people pulled his statue down. The guy, if you like, freed more through his military action than any other figure in American History. Okay. Im just pointing that out as a contradiction, that thats my only point. And i think what we need is to be informed. We need to have a full the full panorama of facts about reconstruction. Its not a matter of making a moral judgment, but about a move. Which one does i mean, do i make a judgment about the failure, distribute land . Yes, i do. Yes, i do. Its really regrettable, but its not enough to just have a moral of view about it. If follow me. Im not im not saying you do im saying one encounters this. You know, i we need to see everything and so much of the truth of reconstruction needs to be restored not just to consciousness. Were still working on that. You know, its not the time to start ignoring it again again. And i might add, i think its imperative for us to understand that we need to view this period, a cautionary tale that set in place and systems that were making progress can be completely taken away. Unless we are incredibly proactive. And i think thats an enormous lesson from this time period. I absolutely agree with you. And i think if theres one takeaway from this, this story from our present time, its that i agree with you. Other questions, please please. I was raised in the north and i did get a kind of at of education. But ive lived here in the south for decades and grants are an umbrella often i think was one of his biggest failures that required all leave from the departments that he oversaw here in 24 hours. And that was a very vigorous outi read our group here at national can you comment on actually whether he was totally respon in support for issuing this order. Theres a story about his father having been in the cotton business trying to make money and so forth and dealing jewish traders. Can you comment on his involved. Sure, sure. I youre quite right. I mean, it was a shameful. Grant himself was ashamed of it. Happily, it was counter mended very quickly by lincoln within within days. Lincoln was appalled by it. Grant himself was the kind of man who was able to be appalled by it, too. He immediately kind understood what was wrong with that, and he was concerned later president. I mean, the word reparations is not what i want to use in this context, but to to repair his own shame and whatever damage might have been done. He appointed to his office as president than anybody else had up to that point, including the first jewish governor of a western territory and so on. He was a man with a moral sense who could understand when he had done something wrong and i mean, thats my thats my answer to it. His father his father in business with merchants in paducah, i believe, happened to be jewish. And did absolutely the wrong thing. I mean, it is also somewhat pointed, his father, frankly, but but it pointed at the wrong people otherwise. But he he knew it. I mean, he knew it. Its hes not a with an unblemished life but he tried to make amends amends. Other questions. Time for at least one man go. Talked about some of the successes during reconstruction but ultimately reconstruction ended before the attacks pushed along a lot of the long term objectives and so what do you think were the factors that led to its ultimate downfall. Yeah. Yeah. Happy to. Have that question. S. C. Over here was making menacing gestures. So i think thats the last question. Am my right. Okay. I read a about that in the book. Now naturally, the real of reconstruction came because northern voters lost interest in the south. They lost interest in black. They lost interest in in in paying for reconsider action in 1874. The republicans lost control of the house of representatives. As you as you know, money bills originate in the house representatives from 1874 on. There was no more money to support federal troops in the south much less increasing the number they should have been increased. Theres notion that the south was under military occupation. Its just its part of the myth. There were million federal troops at the time the war ended in july 1865. By 1870, there were 12,000 federal troops. So when youve heard that that the south is crushed by military occupation, its just made up. Its not so. And of these 12,000, they were mostly in population centers. And what was necessary was troops, not fewer. When troops were used. It worked. Okay. But congress wouldnt pay for it anymore. The voters were voting republican out of office. There was sick of the south. Grants wing of the Republican Party have been severely undercut by a a faction known then not accurately in todays as the liberal republicans. They were not actually they were actually more conservative republicans. I wanted to try to explain that. But at any rate, they were they did their best to subvert grant and the radicals. And to some extent they succeeded. It was very expensive to carry out reconstruction in the south to prosecute. It cost a fortune to prosecute and so on. Northerners didnt want to pay for