Douglass, there is no man in the country whose opinion i value more than yours. And that lincoln second inauguration douglass sat near the president. How came to be on the side of the president is a story told in the color of abolition. Our featured book for todays program. Linda hirshman describes how the team of Douglas William garrison and Maria Weston Chapman successfully promoted the antislavery cause in the 1840s. By the early 1850s, however, douglass joined with those who actively engaged in politics to achieve abolition and rejected the nonpolitical means espoused by garrison and chapman. New york times review. William g. Thomas the third cause the color of abolition. A fresh, provocative and account of the abolition movement. And in the boston globe review, lydia molen declares hirshman the book is a wonderful cataloging of americans white and black, who devoted their lives to ending slavery. Then the hirshman is the author of reckoning the epic battle against sexual abuse and harassment of the new times bestselling sisters in how sandra day oconnor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to the supreme and changed the world. Margaret sullivan is the washington media columnist and of ghosting the news local, journalism and the crisis of american democracy and the forthcoming memoir newsroom confidential lessons and worries from an ink stained life. Now lets hear from linda hirshman. And margaret, thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much for coming to this session. Im very pleased be here with linda hirshman, who is a dear friend of mine and a brilliant author. And her book is, wonderful. And im looking forward to this conversation with her. So id like to start off with a sort of a general question and one that perhaps is given that our and our sponsors here are the National Archives. Tell us, if you would, how you came to research this book and how you came up with the one of the aspects that that gotten so much attention which is the role of the female protagonist who which really wasnt well known before how you know and how did how did organizations such as the archives and and libraries which are so play into that that discovery process. This is the first book that i have ever written, which is set entirely in the past. So i didnt have any living people to interview, which is a big answer. Having women is a big asset when youre writing a compelling story. So i knew it was going to be hard and. I did what i think a lot of us do. I started with the secondary literature, so i read what other people have written about the period, and then when they said something that interested me, i followed their trail back into the archives and i quickly learned that there was a staggering of archival material about the abolitionist period. Lets say from 1832, 1865, like in second inaugural. And its small period in a bunch of places, including here on the National Library of congress. But one of the books i was a letter, a slim volume about the western family of boston. The western family and one of the western sisters is Weston Chapman after she married chapman. And so i was alerted to. Maria Weston Chapmans seemingly Important Role in the Abolitionist Movement, and yet there was nothing about her. So the author of that book alerted me to the fact that the Boston Public Library had a collection of the western letters a huge collection of, the western letters. These women did nothing but write letters to one another. And the other people on abolition movement. So i knew that if i could go to boston and use their archival, i could find out who maria western catherine and try to figure out why shed been neglected. But of course, was the hour. And luckily for me the Boston Public Library, put all the letters online. So i had complete computer access to. All of this rich course among the many players in. What turned out to be my story. And since the pandemic confined me to my all i could spend all day, every day looking at these illegible and trying to figure out what they were actually saying to one another. This book is a tribute to the power of archives. There is no chance i would have understood what was going or how important she was without. Thats wonderful to hear. So tell me what your what your feeling, what your emotion was when. You realized that Maria Weston Chapman could be a major character in your book and that she really hadnt written about before. I mean, was a eureka moment and, was it did you see all of a sudden how this could this could play . And did it change your approach to the project . It was a eureka process, right . I pitched the book as being about garrison douglas, the Interracial Alliance. So im very interested in how people overcome the things that divide them and act collectively. So originally, Maria Weston Chapman was not a very important character in the book at all, but as i slowly realized how important she had been and how she was. She just brought it by proxy. I mean, she was just it just went off in an arc. And i have to give my editor at Houghton Mifflin harcourt now Mariner Books at harpercollins diane ermey a shout out because about halfway through the process i got back a version of the book for my editor and she said, you know, i think you should feel free to make more of maria. And of course, once unleashed, i have the woman who ran the bazaars right on . The daughter of a rock merchant. So i love the idea of this high society woman, the bazaar. So i could really run with it. I dont know if someone whos a professional historian would have so quickly realized that she was underserved, because this is not my specialty. My degree is in philosophy and. Im interested in collective action. Thats what brought the historical story. And so im not part of a club. So i was like, well, this is an important person. Theres no books about her. Why would that be . Maybe because for generations, most historian those were men, specifically white, and they didnt know her. And were very that you did the these. Ive always been fond of the subtitle of your book, which im going to recite for a moment, which is how a printer, a prophet, a contessa moved a nation. So tell us, tell us why you use those three nouns, and particularly i suppose the contessa, which is, which is a wonderful word and that kind a real draw to, you know, how can you not want to know about that exact. So my dads old portraits and i to sell books and and contessa was written i didnt make this up that she nicknamed the contessa because in that rather Modest Movement she was wealthy and she was beautiful and she was gorgeously dressed. So it was kind of understandable that those of snobbish bostonians would name her the contest that her called her lady macbeth. And thats also a novel title. And i wanted i wanted to the book to tell the reader, even at a casual, that the role of princeling and proxy, which is mostly spoken words and social power came together to make the Abolitionist Movement. So the subtitle conveys a lot of information as in a little book, right . It is a book and its a one. So you do as you have said and as we can tell from your past work, which has to do with women coming on to the Supreme Court, with with with gay rights and with these the Metoo Movement. You write social movements. What what is it that ties these movements together. What, what are the necessary sort of what is the necessary underpinning and what what are the whats foundation for social movements . How does it work . So i only write about america. I, which is a selfgovernance driven republic to this moment. This is selfgoverning republic that is are and are like a state of the enlightened west. So thats my specialty in those circumstances there are conditions that give rise to movements for social change and i specialize movements that try to make the world better for people who are less power. I was a youre an inside labor lawyer when i to was very interested in the distribution and the wider distribution of power wealth and meaning and opportunity. So i only write about those and what you look for is that there is a crack in the establishment. Theres a change in the media. Goes all the way back to the invention of movable type. And the faster information people all have enough maneuvering, enough security, material security and security. Theyre not threatened with the good life so that they can see the horizon. And usually theres charismatic leader who that the oppression is not a law of nature, but is a decision a political decision by other human beings when no circumstance are present, then this was ripe for social change and then i look at what works right . So theres conditions for it but it doesnt always take root. For example, occupy wall has been a very unsuccessful so far. So of poor social change. So looking at what works and i have over the years that ive looked at a lot of romans i think developed some ground rules for what works. Do you want to hear the grammar . I, i think im fascinated by this. And im you know, as im listening to you, im putting this in the context of of this moment in and american history, which i think your book is so timely, though. It is. It is a historical book. It is so timely because of the the civil rights reckoning that have been through and in the past a couple of years. So it. Well, one thing im wondering, listening to you talk about this is are you essentially optimistic about about social change . And yes, i would like to. So maybe we can come back to that. But, yes, what are the requirements what are the underpinnings for a successful for successful social movement . So they reverse engineer them right to . Get these roles i didnt make so i didnt come with this in mind. One is they have to take the moral high ground. Social movements that rely on relativism are rarely redistribute power. They might change the among the powerful, but they rarely redistribute it to the less powerful. So if you go all the way back to Martin Luther or karl marx, there is a very potent moral argument in favor of the change. And the second thing i look for now is that they they they have a revolution theres a change in the Media Technology and they explore the change in the Media Technology going all the way back to the invention of time. And they have regular meetings, right the churches talk their the potent how are regular and they get out do retail politics so there was no way that occupy wall street was going to succeed doing the hard work of retail politics. I call it walk and talk and the movement, the women and the men thought it was heavily run by maria and her women troops would knock on peoples doors and get the signatures on petitions to abolish the slave trade in the National Capital and. In that retail Political Movement would walk and walk the streets of all the cities of massachusetts and knock on the doors of the houses. During the day it was the women more prominent couldnt even vote, but they would get their signatures and because you dont have to have the right vote to petition the legislature and then those women would be converted to abolition, and then they could serve their families. So my rules are take them off the ground, have regular meetings, walk and talk to retail politics. Thats fascinating. Is retail politics now in the age of the internet, does actually not require shaking hands, but sending things out, twitter, i think that is not true. Okay. I think that the the the internet is the media technological change that is drive a lot of the currents are from moment. And i completely recognize respect that but i want to call attention to the difference between. 2018 when indivisible a bunch of Resistance Movement to the Trump Administration did retail politics in the living rooms of women all over this country. And 2020 when the democrats the white house but they seats in the house of representatives they did that in important ways shape the senate. So that they and then in one or 20 of course a pandemic the kind of retail politics that im talking about. So i think you have to have both the new Media Technology a huge role in terms of organizing, bringing people to street theater, which is another very important part, social change, gathering people on the street is very much tied to the Media Technology, but you dont get to come to the voting vote unless you knock on their doors. And the classic example of that is Stacey Abrams registering voters, black rural voters in georgia and flipping georgia. That is obvious. And i think both. Yep. Its got to be both. Well, thats a little bit refreshing in a way. I wouldnt like to think that that social media could take over for for face to face contact. And it is its a very different kind of thing. I want to mention to our audience, im very to submit or just to tell your questions to lynda, so feel free to submit them. I think in the chat or in whatever looks like the way to do questions here and will will integrate into the conversation. I can with lynda endlessly, but i would to ask your questions as well. So, so please feel free to submit those. So if you would talk little bit about how the timeliness of this book now, can you put it in the context of, the murder of george floyd, the reckonings that were seeing in, for example, newsrooms and other institutions like whats the relationship here, if there clearly is one . So i say this, i started out on this book years and years ago and. The question that i was interested in was you have an interracial a wire. Right. Ive always an interest of never wishing abolition is the single successful social moment in american history. So someone like me would naturally want to Say Something that. But theres not a tremendous amount of about it. So i thought what i could bring to the party is a current question, which is how do you have an alliance across racial divide are very important question and didnt think when i started out that it would be so relevant im actually not all that glad its that relevant because you may of the period that i wrote about in this new book ended in a civil war. So the the deep divide in american politics and the anger and hatred in american politics was not something i would have wished for i was hoping to tell a happy story about a black man in a white man worked together and abolish slavery. But here we are and and i would say that it is so relevant because after the i would say disappointing. Results of the 2020 election, i was disappointed with results were not glad that the democrats won white house. But i was i was surprised actually and disappointed that they didnt do better in the state legislature and so forth. So i want to say, the most Important Message that i can convey to the public from what ive done is that this is a marathon and, not a sprint. And abolitionists were faced with adversarial conditions that are much worse than what were at now for. A Million People were caught in the terrible system, enslavement in the slave states and the cotton, the single largest export that the American Republic had to send. And all of the financial in new york and boston were complete equally enmeshed in the financing, slavery and dependent on the cotton crops to make their fortunes. So it was and becomes the tuition a slave document, right . I mean, thats not an exaggeration. Constitution was written to preserve the power of the empire we were all slave states. So the situation for the 12 men in a basement of a black church in 1832 founding the first Antislavery Society was and terrible. So i want to say to people now its not as bad as it was then they thought they had a marathon and not a sprint it was 33 years from the founding of the first Antislavery Society to the signing of the emancipation proclamation in social time. Thats not a long time. So we need to take the lesson that you have to run a marathon and be committed deeply and in order be deeply committed for america you have to have what the movement had and is a clear understanding of the morality of your position. And in my opinion progressive politics now stands for the survival of the oldest modern self republic in history of the human species. Quote you have a higher purpose than that and. We have to remember that thats our purpose, not allow other kinds of side issues to get in the way and we need to use the moral power. What could be more honorable than helping people to govern themselves and its in danger. And thats our moral lesson. Just like the iniquity of enslavement and power violates both the christian religion and the of independence. Was their moral high ground. And we have to use the no technology in the Abolitionist Movement. It the invention of the term table movable press. Then later the steam driven movable press. There were more than dozen patterns taken out for improvements in printing during the ten years before the the founding of the Abolitionist Movement and the following ten years. So from 18, lets say 12 to 1840, to say in those period, there were dozens patents for improvements in printing. In our case, its the internet but its also the public funding and the philanthropy, the funding of local newspapers. So dont need to tell you this, but one of the really important that happened in the Abolitionist Movement is that there were little abolition of papers founded all over the north, especially after 1846, when the first telegraph applying was laid from washington to new york. So by the speed of the telegraph news could go to the hinterlands and people found an abolition of newspapers and like indiana that had never been there because of the new Media Technology it was usually worth waiting to take advantage of the new Media Technology we need to have regular meetings. I hope that the pandemic has retreated enough so that the institutions, progressive politics and, saving the American Republic can again start to have like monday nights at the gay and Lesbian Center in act up with apps truly critical and the abolitionist learned that lesson from the Christian Church and i and we have to have people who are willing to knock on doors to walk and talk and to keep going back the abolitionists going back they would sit they had speakers car they would spend this send a speaker to a town and he would stay there on from the revival religion. He would stay until the area was ever initialized. And then he say we need to have human beings talking to each other in person and at your door, just like the abolitionist did make sense. Here is a question. In the chat you said Maria Weston Chapman managed Frederick Douglass to speak in tours. How common was that role for a woman of that time period and how much money, how successful was she added . Did she merit raise a lot of money for the movement . So she both managed it and she raised a lot of money, but not from the speaking tours. So, you know, i got to give William Lloyd garrison a lot of credit. He understood that women were your best allies if you were going to make a Political Movement. And he reached out to them. He hurt that the black women of course had preceded him by pounding of black female Antislavery Society and he immediately asked his female acquaintances, Lydia Maria Child was already in the movement to found a female Antislavery Society, and he stood by the women when the other of abolition didnt want to have women speakers and stuff. Garrison was a faithful ally to women, so i give him a lot of credit. And for that reason there were a fair number of women in Abolitionist Movement. Every was one of their most successful and it was her presence on their delegation to the big meeting that broke up the antislavery moment because the york branch didnt want to have women are and managing it so. Maria was not the only one but she was the manager she didnt like to speak in public one of her public appearances have been marked. If you find that very traumatizing, even though she was incredibly but she was a fantastic manager and so soon as she came into the antislavery meeting, her first meeting, she was so gorgeously dressed, they thought she was a spy. So she came, she looked around, she saw they werent running it very well. And she was unbelievably shocked. It just took over and she running the tours, she often ran the liberator because William Lloyd garrison was often having some hypochondriacal or vacation. So a of what we attribute to garrison is actually western and writing the paper she ran the speakers doors she you know they were like you know its the west so these men of the left were a little shall, we say, disorganized and. She came in and organized them and figured out who would go where. And also she was this letter writer. So since there was no telephone, no email, all of the negotiate actions and stuff went through letters. So people quickly figured out if they wrote to maria something would happen and they wouldnt get a letter back. And theyre all in the Boston Public Library archives. So so she she took over because she was so competent. She also took over the antislavery bazaar. So thats where the money was okay, the money czars and she so much money, she paid the ante slavery societys debts. She and the Abolitionist Movement in boston to keep the lights on for years and. She was so smart about it. I being a merchants daughter i, loved this. She looked around and said, well, well make more money if we have richer customers. So she got all her acquaintances, europe and stuff. Remember, she was a very fancy lady to shop around for stuff for her to sell at the bazaars and that then attracted the rich women and men of boston and they would come and spend large amounts of money and she would give it to women like garrison to free the slaves. Pretty clever would you say that all three of the people you focus were charismatic in their way or . Not really. I mean, certainly we know Frederick Douglass was our William Garrison was also very charismatic. It sounds like youre saying that was Maria Weston Chapman. She was tremendous as a charismatic but she did a sort of behind the scenes. She wasnt a speaker and often are showed by her writing was extremely charismatic, like she was a very, very charismatic writer. And remember, print and letters really mattered in a time when there was no television stuff. So even though she wasnt charismatic speaker like Frederick Douglass was, she was charismatic. This pinch medium and. She was also extremely funny. She pointed, very, very limericks and stuff. So. But douglas was the speaker and he is known for his charismatic speakers speeches and theres nobody like her there wasnt there havent been anybody like him in the history of the america we talk full stop. It was the most important americans the 19th century. So but people dont know that winslow garrison was also a very charismatic writer. Very charismatic writer. And he deployed the Printing Press to three letters and he was also a pretty charismatic speaker and he gathered people are talking he gather people around him and they faithful to him and the abolition. Well we could never have gotten started if they hadnt had such warm friendships with William Lloyd garrison. They treated him like a father figure in the boston movement. I love it. So heres a question in the chat. Since many abolitionists initially advocated universal, did the Maria Weston Chapman papers reveal any interest by her in the Suffrage Movement . No. She was not, although she was a feminist. Okay, so heres a great feminist story about maria, two of the most effective speakers on, the abolitionist speaking tour were sarah and angelina kay, who had been the daughter of sugar planters and enslavers in charleston. The graham sisters left their slave family, moved to philadelphia, converted to quaker ism, and became two of the most effective speakers on the circuit. And the man, the conservative men and the Abolitionist Movement did not want to speak. They thought it was inappropriate for mixed audiences of men and women to listen to a womans voice. As it started to sound and so when grimsley sisters came to boston, Maria Weston Chapman organized, their speaking tour and all the weston sisters got together and guaranteed that they would have a huge audience in their speaking and then came because they wanted hear these famous speakers and it broke up the moment i mean the conservative power of antislavery would not tolerate. So maria after like a feminist and she wrote a wonderful hilarious poem if you want to read it, you can buy my book about how womens speaking was such a scandal. And she defied her minister. So she acted like a feminist. She did not indicate interest in the Suffrage Movement by the seneca falls convention, she had inherited her dead husbands fortune and moved their family to paris. So she really was gone and she. Does not have that crossover record that lucy stone and the others had over into feminism, slavery. Although she was a feminist. Do you, having written about these social movements, i started to ask this before, but i do want to come back to it. They have been ones you have written about, have been vastly successful. They have really changed society. Does that make you an optimist can you be do you feel optimistic about where we are now, knowing what you know about these movements in the past. I think were on the cusp in the midterm elections of 2022 and especially if the Supreme Court of the United States. And makes and makes it harder to vote or supports gerrymander electoral districts, the Supreme Court of the United States can still play a role. The election this november, this midterm year, and then the president ial election. 2024 represent a kind of Inflection Point in the survival of. The progressive selfgoverning republic that i have always been writing about. But i will say. There were Inflection Points in abolition margaret which looked so bleak. The war that the United States had with that the united state annexed the slave state of texas and then went to war with mexico and acquired a great deal more potential slave land, lets say, in 1846, looked terrible. It looked like a terrible moment. The passage of the fugitive slave act in 1850, which initiated a reign of terror in all the black communities of, the north, and so many black americans, slaves or freed blacks, had to flee to appear just like the russians are fleeing from russia. Now, americans had to flee to canada. So we have had points in the past which looked dire and yet taking america as america and not spread the forces of progressive politics were able to organize and to use those defeats in order to ultimately come to the election of abraham in 1860. So i have im holding my breath to see what happens in this election in the next election. But even if it is tantamount to the fugitive slave act of 1850, i still will be helpful because. I saw in abolition a movement surpassed many terrible setbacks. He pointed out fundamental of the American Republic, which is a kind of every individual is entitled to dignity from god as a as Thomas Jefferson said or from the manual, and also the principles of the declaration, independence. All right. Well, ill take that as a nod. Ill take as a modified form of optimism im searching for. So im sorry, doctor. Its im im im glad to hear that. You know, im very interested in the in the subject of of heroic people in in movements and in history. And at this moment. And i wonder and this is maybe a little unfair to spring this on, but i know that your mind is very and you can jump into any question are there modern versions or analog. Of the three people that you write about or any of them are there are there people whether in in the world or in the United States, who are charismatic figures who represent what a moral stance and who change the world, like who are who are the versions of these three people . Are there any there are sure of. Course there are. Of course there are. I would go back to books to sonia sotomayor, justice sotomayor, i regard her as a charismatic and heroic figure. And she was, of course, right when she said that a wise latina woman, in the fullness of her experience, might come to a different conclusion than a white man who had had a different experience of life. And when she her Supreme Court of the United States, even though, as with the current perspective, justice could change around jackson, she was going to claim a majority right . Sotomayor but she has used the media and the possibility to be the leader to be a charismatic of change in america. Her beautiful autobiography was an example of that. If you go and see her speak, shes a speaker that the abolitionists would have been proud to have, and theyre speaking for. Shes an incredibly charismatic speaker, and she takes the microphone and she walks the audience like oprah winfrey. And you cannot get near her. It is an Old Fashioned revival meeting. I have been watching her since i wrote about her and sisters in law and would regard her as fitting the question that you asked. I am very interested in three upcoming political characters. I can give a long description of, each of them, but i like the combination of john ossoff and reverend Raphael Warnock in georgia. I think that both georgia im about to buy theres a new book about georgia flipping out that just came out. Im about to buy it. Im interested in georgia. And i think that the warm up ossoff Interracial Alliance so and the way they managed to Work Together what it greater than the sum of its parts so im very interested in them and im very interested aoc i have that aoc alexandria ocasiocortez was a possible new Frederick Douglass since the first commercial for her primary campaign for congress in new york. I happened to cross your commercial on the internet, and i was like my antennae were up, you know, my cassandra were up and i was like, aha, thats someone to watch. And in the meanwhile has proved herself be quite astute in the way she expresses herself just similar to douglass, the battles she chooses, which are similar to garrison and her ability to either to disempower people, which is similar to real western champion. So she interests me greatly. And from the point from the prophet, from my prophet, i would give you my friend elie mystal, the justice correspondent for the nation, who has also just come allow me to retort, allow me to reach out. And i was blessed to meet elie in a social context years ago. And the first time i heard him speak, i was transvaal on the world stage. Right now theres a great of attention to Vladimir Zelensky as a kind. You know, some people have said that he has become a kind of moral leader to the fore. The world. How do you how do you see him in . You know, i know your specialty and what you write about as america but but id love to hear you riff on on him a little bit you know, does he have some of these characteristic sticks . Well, use the meat. And does he use . I think he does use the media revolution and technical ology in a very interesting way. So, you know, how does he fit in on ukraine in its modern incarnation not when it was still under the thumb of the russian linked previously but under zelensky and its a since the rebels a revolution whatever they call it theyre the. Is more like a state of the enlightened west and therefore it falls roughly into my wheelhouse. So if you would ask me about you know japan are some place that i know nothing about their culture would say i cant speak to it but ukraine resembles a, you know, a place where napoleon got to his troops and he but, you know, its like that. So this is to me and i say the founding. Volodymyr zelensky has many of the characteristics that would look okay hes educated he is a a lawyer whos educated as a lawyer so he understands the categories into a lot of important western social fits. He is and he is an actor and in the attention because domain which really started with Ronald Reagan he has an asset i actually dont do that i think an enormous value to have that kind of thespian skill at in a time of profound attention and hes also a moral hes taking a moral high ground in way that is is almost entirely horrible to watch them suffer since put such a moral frame around their struggle. So yes i would say he fits into my category he also fits my category and then at the end the day the Abolitionist Movement could not succeed without the union army. And so what. Well tie that back to to him what are you saying about that because of the the military aspect of this. Yeah, right. I mean, in my doesnt normally involve shooting it involves usually verbal wars and battles at the polling blessedly blessedly. But in america, as it happens, my most book ends in civil war, and it was the black soldiers that Abraham Lincoln made because his in combat in general could not be a shock or army. So he needed the black soldiers. And that is why he passed the emancipation proclamation and why dr. Frederick douglass in the first place. So at the end of the day, it was about who had the someone said to me about my what about the civil war that was sent to me about the civil war. The farmers go to war with the engineers sooner or later. The engineers are going to win. And what what zelensky needs now is the product of the engineers more and more effective arms. Is there often period of of backslide after a major social movement victory is that is that part of the sort of pattern and and know our do you see that in the different that youve written about its almost inevitable in the gay revolution the hawaii Supreme Court found a right marry and make hawaii state constitution equal rights amendment. And that was, you know, of course, broadcast all over the nation. The numbers of people supporting, any kind of rights or equal status for gay and lesbian people went way down. There was an immediate backlash in response to the hawaii Supreme Court, and it took a long time, the gay movement, to rebuild its support. So its not at all uncommon as soon as when the garrison started. Well, actually a little earlier, when nat turner had rebellion in virginia and garrison started the liberator at the same time, there was a backlash in virginia and they passed a hideous slave cult much worse than the hideous cause it had preceded it. And when got to be a handful of abolitionists paris john calhoun started talking seriously seceding so there is all almost a backlash. Yes, a backlash is a word we get from susan filoni, who wrote a famous book that was about the backlash to the feminism, which is the most potent and consistent of. All the backlashes i have seen has been to the feminist movement and my students to ask me about this, like, why is this so . Our professor hirshman and i said, you know, you cant move to the suburbs. Get away from here. Why . So the feminist movement threatens male patriarchy everywhere. And so the resistance to it is and that as well with the Metoo Movement. Yes, we see it now with the Metoo Movement. It was obvious to media as well. Cancel culture thing is actually a response to the Metoo Movement, right . Women were standing up and saying, actually dont want you to put your hands me. And the response to that was, are you trying to cancel me . So no, the phraseology as it will do in the hands of the right, has been applied to every Progressive Social change. Every request for Progressive Social change do not want to listen to the anger in the workplace. No slack. Im guessing they always felt that way about it. But when they saying they didnt like it, it generated in the the people that are in power use the phrase cancel culture to resist it but the origin of that are in a resistance to the Metoo Movement because you cant go to the suburbs and get away from your life if you want to put your hands on women and they say dont like it, youre going to resist. I think its useful its not a perfect analogy, but when i hear the words cancel culture, i like to just just to broaden the way i think about is to just substitute the word accountability and that puts a different spin on it that i think can be very very useful. You know, have people lost their jobs, have they lost some of their ability to do they were doing before . Yes, they have. Is that. Is that being cancelled in a negative way . Maybe its accountability which has a very which has a much more positive meaning know all enlightenment societies, have a concept of power right. I mean, we have a criminal Justice System thats nothing if not accountable for the illegal things that you do. We have a civil system. People pay fines, civil fines and Civil Penalties and damages for never getting drunk and driving your car into albert schweitzer. Right. I mean, right. That we always had accountability. And but whats interesting is that each time a deep old and fundamental concept like accountability is applied to people have formerly been immune from accountability for their acts. They find it horrifying and unfamiliar. So i think your phraseology is perfect because youre drawing on a fundamental concept in any civilized. Glad you like it. I have one more question and its a big before we wrap up, i hear a lot of people predict that because we have such a polarized and and hyper partisan situation in the United States that were on the brink of civil war. Our given your study of this time period in the color of abolition, are we on the brink of, a civil war, in your opinion if we are it will be more like the civil war in lebanon than, like the american civil war, because there no easy masondixon to divide the free soil of the north, which raised an army right and mass manufactured guns and the enslaved soil of the south dont have that. So it will be scatter. It will be polling places around the country. It will be School Boards around the country. So it will be if given the chance to violence. Well, its already triggered violence, right. We have an attack on the nations capital. Its really hard to be more of a civil war than that. So if see repetitions of the violent attacks, they will be scatter will not be concentrated and they will be somewhat less formal than the conscription of troops. The United States government and the government because i would say to america, its going to be informal, going to be scatter, its going to be more like guerrilla warfare. I would not be surprised if were violence, if thats really what youre asking, because guns are endemic and constant and widespread in american society. So everybodys armed and that is always a dangerous spectrum. And both sides disagree down to bed as did in the period that i am right in the back. Okay so they disagree where they get their information from that bedrock. Right right. You can have your own facts thats the deepest divide and they disagree about what it means to be fully human and are human. And they disagree how to live together in, political society. So those the wide and deep divides the nation is armed. Its and so i be at all surprised to see violence so we really do need some heroes, dont we . We need some heroes. We do. And we need people who willing to go to the polling places the same way that they abortion clinics in have hundreds of guides to let women who are seeking their or needed Health Care Get in to the clinic so thats the closest weve come to what im seeing now. And im half scholar. I think were going to need heroes. Okay, linda hirshman, thank you so much for this. Linda is to my to my audience. Linda is brilliant. Her book is brilliant. And i, i recommend it highly. I also want to tell the audience this discussion be posted for all time on the National Archives youtube channel. So you can find it there or send around to your friends and. Many thanks to the National Archives for hosting us here and to linda for the great answers. Thank you very much and thanks for those of you who came to watch and listen thank you, margaret, for a wonderful and the mccracken lead Search Library is proud to present today another installment of our local lore events with bob richard. Were all set. Were also very proud today. You may have seen all the fancier