[inaudible question] boston and charleston might be seen as opposite but we are talking about two of the oldest cities in america, visual cities, and sections in history. Why do we care about charleston in the year 1860 . Well, we know here why we care. This is my starting point for the book. Charleston was really the vanguard and it was written the last day of 1860s to a colleague, a fellow man of the church in the north, he shed light on this. People are living in these times and that matter actually helped me make up his mind because there has to be story there. Five phases of what might be thought of as madness, public issues. First is fear. The story begins in the fall of 1859, really. John brown, the militants, and the range there was tremendous alarm and the beginning of the broad scale uprising. The hometown paper said your negroes are constantly wanting to cut our throats. They are forming Vigilance Committee and calling for attention to the Abolition Party of the north. Lets look here at a political soil and creak and all kinds of moving here. The moral of the john brown episode is the secession radicals are concerned, mercury and others, is that the problem is we are in the one government with these people. We had a separate government of our own, post office, police, military, country would be under executive control. The south lost control of their own destiny or were to perish. The mercury wasnt about the mercury. There are men, women and there are the wrecks it was said. A law unto themselves. The best well known one was the one who had been agitating for secession for decades. By the 1860s, the role wasnt as well known, at times, he could see everyone. Blood thirsty, john brown and the defenders, and spineless, twofaced, sugar lipid politicians who vowed with the urgent and imperative actions. Five feet nine inches tall. Three inches shorter than his dad. Slight build. 130 pounds. Luxury mustache running the length of his teeth. Full head of slipped down neatly parted hair. Business attire was a full coat and white collar shirt coller shirt. The democrats wanted the little giant, steven douglas, the senator from illinois is there. That is the price the northern part of the democratic establishment doesnt want to pay that price. It is too high because lots of voters in the north may not vote for the party if that is the price. There is plenty of antislavery agitation going on in the north at the time. But it is the price. The radicals, secessionist, charleston radicals would actually prefer to see the party fracture at that point. They would prefer to see the republicans elected. So they walk out. Alabama is leading the southern delegation and leads a walkout in the hall. The man in charleston are sitting in the gallery applauding every bit of rejection that the southerners on the floor were planning that convention. They walked out and went over to the hill on broad street and threatened to leave and succeed conventions. In a way it was underplayed. That was like a first secession. It happened in charleston. And the radicals were overjoyed. The two sections of the union have nothing to arrest its fierce collisions. Every model, the worse it gets, the better it gets. They need more pile than you might think. Now we have the third phase which is really an edging. It is usually like that. It is not just the pages. You might think there is hope for the patient. It is summertime in charleston. It is really hot. It is always hot in charleston. The fish carcasses are rotting out there and the people are literally fainting from the heat. Anyone with money they are often at the they are often in switzerland and other places enjoying the cool lakes. Not a lot happening in charleston and the radicals are getting worried as they should be. I mistrust my own people more than i fear all the abolitionists. That is a u. S. Marshall for the district of charleston. A u. S. Marshall but he is worried and the merchants in charleston are not so excited about secession. How is it a Good Business proposition for the union to be divided . They dont own all the slaves. They get goods on consignment and there is no sense of Banking System but they are trading in notes and the banks can honor the Paper Currency and it feels like it is bad for business. What they really need is also, every revolutionary Movement Needs to manufacturing something someone the people can rally against. They had that person. Lincoln. He enters the picture in 1860 in chicago in may. Lots of favorites but lincoln is chosen as the moderator, really. But not the way it will be presented in charleston. Lincoln had never stepped food foot in charleston. He is a blank state. Time for fake news. A full grown abolitionist black as a charcoal, skounderly in aspects, after him what decent white man would be present . Well, he is a white man, of course, and he is disgusted by the northern abolitionists as well as he should be. He made a speech in february in brooklyn peeking directly to the people of the south explaining his position which was basically yes, you were want to be left alone, the idea of being slavery withers and dies eventually. That was his public position. I said that can never look upon my face again. On a mission to the south, disguises himself. He makes it to mobile, new orleans, and arrives in charleston. He is immediately slipped out. He gets his inaudible and yeah, charleston is on the watch. He was antislavery man who did coded messages. His brother was working on a bank in springfield. Even the paranoid have enemies. He writes to a friend in massachusetts, ouring countrymen in South Carolina, are distempered to a degree that makes them to a calm and partial observer objects of pity and they believe anything that flatters their delusion or their vanity. He worked with these people for two years. Some of them he grew to like better than others. It all starts after midnight wednesday november the 7th. The news is coming in from the ap from new york. People have been there for hours. No surprise, lincoln has been elected president. But charleston shouts at the top of its lungs, hurray for lincoln. Bring it on. They cant wait to confront andrew gordon. Federal District Court judge right there in the heart of the slave trade district opens up business that morning. Takes off his robe and declares the state of South Carolina and other federal officials, hamalton resign as well. They become on instant folk hero in the subject of painting posters addoring the streets. Charleston builds a succession poll where the Charleston Hotel used to be and honors it with singing the french revolution songs. Liberty, equality, interesting choice. The citizens knew about the stanz in colonial massachusetts with the blue tint on the pride of the hat which is the emblem of the revolution. They say the tea has been thrown overboard. The revolution of 1860 has been initiated. This is patriotism. South carolina is too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum. Four months later, fort sumpter, charleston harbor, the war came. When it was over, when it was over, win win, above and below on the right hand and left. Ruin, ruin everywhere and always. Harpers weekly, 1865 after the war. The boston advertiser war had desserted warehouses and weeded gardens and miles of grass grown streets and acres of bareness. Gener general sherman made a visit to charleston. Many were visiting at that time and came on the city of destination. They decided the rules were picturesque like ancient roam or actingle athens. As your people had for years been agitating the war and discord, and finally inaugurated the civil war, the judgment of the world will be that charleston deserved the fate that found them. That was shermans judgment on charleston. Why charleston is still a question. Of all places in the south why was it the day guard . Windup thing is i think it stood for the old south. It had been one of americas great trading pordz ports. Baltimore and new orleans were dealing more trade than charleston. Even in charleston, people were heading for places like cincinnati. It was lost in charleston but migrated to other parts. It was called the Little Antique commercial atropolis. Lets get it back was the message. The establishment of an independent southern republic, well the days of glory would return. It wasnt just feared driving the uprising. This was hope and even the child of france have invested. It might have made charleston great again. Happy to take your questions. [applause] what surprised you about inaudible . It gets at what i was thinking about. I think with the event and what we saw in the early part of the year, this would be a story driven by fear. Once i turned the corner and the collapse happened in april at the convention, it became much more a story of hope and enthusiasm and secession became almost like a party. A lot of alcohol was consumed that year. A lot of toasting and that surprised me. There are examples of that in the letters and diaries and it is everywhere. Enthusiasm is everywhere. I would say that is part of the mania. You can embrace that kind of thing. He said after lincolns election charleston was wild with delight. I find it fascinating the perils between todays politics and politics of then. When you use the statement of false news and you think of california today and the immigration issue and you wonder just, you know, you wonder about the madness of the era and decisions of people to succeed. J find that fascinating. I mean in the middle of the 1860s, the National Shooting the war. The intense partisanship of themeric america great. America the great. I dont know very much about that. It is just as much about feeling as the feeling. Whatever it is agitating the passion and you know that should not be taken for the feeling we are in fact on the brink of nuclear war. I think an important difference is we have intense sectional on flict can can be described in specific geographical terms. It is not quite the same or at all the same. I think it would be a practical proposition and it would be harder to see how the two side could be literally pitted against each other. Living in a media bubble and you could not the new york tribune is banned material in charleston. They had to struggle reporters in disguise to come here in 1860 as the movement heated up so news got out of charleston but the people in charleston didnt have a great idea of how others were describing in their city. I think todays media reinforces that trend because people live in media silos and there is a lot of, you know, preaching to the choir and not hearing the other side. So i think the partisanship we see now has coupled with that trend we see in media. One of the things you ruled that madness and frenzy was the in hp herit White Supremacy of the confederates and that seems to rear its ugly head again. There is that simularity again and i am wondering how you address that. I mean without any questions, i mean the term, art at that point, and White Supremacy, and this was a standard assumption, i think. Not only in the south and it was seen as this is what the bible says. So i think there was a pap palpable dimension to that. I am by no means an expert on the socalled nationalist or what is it called . The alt right . It is a debate how much of that is an ingredient in the socalled populism we see in politics and how much is agitated by grieveianance tha e thatvise that has to do with race. I dont see as an overriding factor as it was back then because the institution and slavery was, you know, the way of life in a place like charleston in 1860. It was understood for political reas reasons, economic reasons, i mean the secession felt that to give way to the north would be to lose the foundation of their society at that point. So i dont think the stakes in that sense are that different now. I think the political structure and economic structure and society is different now. You dont sound too convinced. I just wanted your opinion. That is okay. Yes, sir . There were certainly some people who were opposed to secession and wanted to find a way of accommodating with the union. What was life like for them both before and after the start of hostilities . I think beforehand, i mentioned pedigree. There was another undeveloped and that is christopher manenger. He was an orphan who came from, i think, germany, and was a gifted child. Brought up in the charleston working house and he was charlestons leading advocate and advocated for an agreement on lets try to work out a deal with the north. He was hoping to get everyone in the south onboard that. This is now early 1860s. And he was a member of the legislature and took it upon himself to go virginia and went to richmond with his daughter and talked for four hours to the Virginia Legislature and was basically begging them to join the southern conference, at least secession to not only in South Carolina if it came to secession, but everyone in the south and it failed. Virginia couldnt decide what to do. The radicals in charleston undermine him. So the moderate grounds such as the existed in charleston in 1860 essentially disappeared. It evaporated which was a deliberate strategy of the radicals to make it like an existential choice. You are either with us or with them. So you were basically just left with people like pedigru who was publ publically declared as such. I am not aware of the full length bioography of him has been written so somebody should do that. Biography. Anyone else . Thank you very much come coming. [applause] this is booktv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. At 7 00 p. M. , booktv attends the resent opening of the Writers Museum in chicago. And then the destruction of hillary clinton. On afterwards, joe Stuart Taylor examines Campus Sexual Assault policies. And peter andres recalls this moms transformation from a house wife to a political advocating. And we wrap up with pamala paula on who the books she has read over the years. Here is look at upcoming festivals happening around the country. 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