Transcripts For CSPAN3 Conversation With Lincoln Scholar Harold Holzer 20170817

I am peter carmichael. I am a professor of history here. I am also the director of the Civil War Institute. Its my pleasure this evening to welcome harold holzer. He is the director of Hunter Colleges roosevelt house Public Policy institute. You dont have an acronym for that, do you . Before coming to the roosevelt house he previously served an Senior Vice President for Public Affairs at the metropolitan museum of art. For the previous ten years he coedited or, excuse me, cochaired the u. S. Abraham lincoln bicentennial and appointed by president clinton and i should add president bush awarded harold the National Humanities medal in 2008. Harold has authored or coauthored or edited 52 books. Thats what youre up to now. I know you think ive read 52 books in my life. His latest major book is lincoln and the power of the press were the war for Public Opinion. It has won the lincoln prize as we know sponsored by Gettysburg College. Just this week i saw it was announced that harold has been awarded the empire state archives and history award. This is harolds significant contributions to the profession and he joins an impressive list of recipients. This event is going to be held on september 6 and at the cooper union in new york city. Are you going to speak for [ applause ] sorry. I was going to ask you. Are you going to talk about your career . Get two and a half hours in like lincoln did . Im really worried because cooper union holds 950 people. There will be buses to take this group out. But lincoln couldnt fill the hall. What am i going to do . And youre also who is going to help you fill the hall. Stephen lang, been there in times. Hes going to be my interlocker fresh out of making avatar 2 and 3. What is your favorite stephen lang performance . Putting you on the spot. I mean, as many problems i have with the interpretation, script interpretation, i think gods and generals is my favorite. Im surprised. Why . What about death of a salesman. I didnt see it. I saw a few good men when it was on broadway. Death of a salesman with dustin hoffman. Oh, the tv show. I thought we were just doing film. A few good men he played the nicholson part before nicholson. Nicholson on broadway. Harold and i have had some email correspondence about this evening, not that he needed the questions before hand but we have a framework. So we are back and forth. The last email i received from harold, at the very end you wrote, nothing taboo i dont think. Right. So i checked with Legal Counsel here at Gettysburg College and that gives me just enough to knock down the door and i can ask anything i want. Ill check with Hunter College before it airs on cspan. Lets go to queens, queens, new york, where youre from, and tell us a little bit about your very important assignment that you received was it in 3rd grade . 4th grade . 5th grade. Tell the audience. I should say really that i really feel very honored and grateful to you. Honored to be here. I was here when you introduced the series, i was in the audience when Jim Mcpherson was in the chair. And, so, its it was very moving to be occupying that symbolic space, which gives me a little time to think about my childhood in queens. So i went to sort of a progressive Elementary School in that it was occupying a middle school as we would call it, a rather sophisticated library for a kids school. And our teacher came in one day with a hat full of folded up pieces of paper, each of which contained the name of a famous person, all male as i figured out when everyone stood online. I stood online to pick the name that changed my life. Our assignment was choose a name, go up to the middle school library, get a book from i think 973. 1 we had open stacks that were biography. Nobody will know what that means in three weeks or years. So i picked lincoln. My best friend, who was my best friend because his father owned a delicatessen, a good friend to have, picked genghis khan and he became a rock and roll promoter. So these accidents can have insidious or enormously positively consequential impact. So i went up to the library and i picked Richard Nelson currents the lincoln nobody knows as my book. I read it. I dont remember what i wrote. It was two sides of a piece of loose leaf paper. But at that moment the thing that converged was it was the moment of the civil war centennial. And kids, particularly boys, particularly white male people, kids were enthralled by this battle, battle recreations. I still remember speaking about the unresolved issues that weve heard about at our conference, i remember when president kennedy did something that most people have forgotten. He learned, in the days that he took over the civil war centennial observation that the initial event in charleston was going to be headquartered at a segregated hotel. And one member of the commission was africanamerican. She was told you wont be staying here. Well find you a hotel somewhere else in charleston. And kennedy put a stop to it. Made everybody go to a naval base nearby. I remember being pretty moved by that as an 11yearold. That was the start and then i got out of queens. You left queens where did you do your undergrad . Queens. Queens college. But i spent a lot of time in the city. So at queens did you continue history major, i assume . I was not a history major. Im not going to say who the professor was but there was a major reconstruction scholar at queens college, part of the city of university at new york, and i went to him there are moments that are positive and moments that are negative and can be fatal in terms of sustaining or building interest or destroying it. And i had a long talk with him about my interest and he was very negative. And so i simply turned my attention to the great issue of emancipation and whether it was s dictated by Foreign Policy more than a sense of Racial Injustice or military strategy and i did that as my senior essay for my english class. And i aced it. But i stayed away from the history department, American History. Did you ever see him again when you were a professional . No. Too bad. He faded into deserved obscurity. No, i dont know. He did fine. He did fine. He just wasnt a mentor. Didnt want to be a mentor. Okay. You graduate and its into the world of politics . First newspapers. Newspapers . Yeah. I really i did not want to go to graduate school and i didnt. I got a fabulous offer to be a cub reporter on a weekly newspaper in manhattan called the manhattan tribune published by a white publisher and published by an africanamerican publisher. The head of the congress of racial equality. And a peace corps veteran. And the idea was to cover the west side of manhattan. Thats the center of liberal ferment in new york state and the country, really. And harlem. And we covered both areas. And our slogan was black and white and read all over. Remember the old joke about whats black and white and read all over . Newspapers . That was our slogan. It with us sort of a false narrative as weve been hearing because it wasnt read by anybody in particular. But it was a great gig. It failed miserably. I got my girlfriend, fiancee, future wife to work with me on it and we were overwhelmed. We met all these famous editors. One quit, one was fired. And we looked around and we were the only two working on the paper. So we put it out for an extra two years, just the two of us. And i got up to 115 a week and the publisher said he actually had been a reporter on a newspaper in new york city where his wife was the inquiring photographer. Does anybody remember inquiring photographers . She was the inquirer photographer and the daughter of the owner of the newspaper which made her an interesting person. So the two left standing. We were the last and were still standing. I wanted to talk about your partner in crime, of sorts, edith, right . Shes a very big part of your work. And in fact the acknowledgments of lincoln, its a lovely i love the tribute. You two are side by side in the library of congress. Thats a new phenomenon. Since edith retired, at the age of 41, im making that up. Thats the age we give. Shes able to spend a lot of time on the road with me doing research and it was been fun. Easy. Easier. People are interested in the process of researching and going into the archives. How does it work . You guys sit down there . Library of congress. Until recently i havent asked in the last year. Im one of the few people that get access to the original lincoln papers. They dont like to let people look at the lincoln papers because theyre on microfilm. Theyre online. Guess what. I hate to break this to people who are totally dependent on online resources. Theyre not all. Its not all there. The endorsements, the things that lincoln clipped out, the things that people sent him are not included in the transcribed or photographed versions. So weve found a lot of great things. The last year and a half, interrupted a few times, has been in quest of Daniel Chester french, which is my current project. The sculptor of the lincoln memorial, trying to breathe some life into this very professional buttoned up artist. Youll see the result in about a year and a few months, i hope. So lets turn to some of your early scholarship. Your portal into the field, iconography, looking at prints, paintings, sculpture. And jill, did you mind . There she is. There we go. And as thats coming on the screen, which i hope it will soon, i should just mention that some of the early work you did you did it with some coauthors. We have one of them here. Right. Gabor and harold did two books the confederate images as well as the lincoln image. Two and a half. We did a book called changing the lincoln image. We were the only people who decided since we were going to be revised we might as well revise the book ourselves. And then we did the confederate image. And we spent a lot of time, gabor and liz. Liz is also here. And both of them were introduced to the public with exhibitions of graphic arts here at Gettysburg College. So there was a show of lincoln prints that gabor organized and a confederate image in a terrible heat wave where the air conditioning went out in the art museum. And our third collaborator was not too happy to see, i guess, the Ripple Effect of the humidity of the pictures that he loaned to the exhibition. Thats one of my memories. We had a great collaboration. I enjoyed it. Can i tell you a quick story before we do the serious stuff . No, please. This was the day before emails. Really the days before computers. Our third author mark neely worked for the Lincoln Museum and he had an assistant who had a computer. We actually had a computer but gabor and i didnt have computers. We had typewriters. And i lived in new york. Mark lived in fort wayne, indiana, and gabor lived in gettysburg. We had few personal meetings. We spent most of our time editing our work on the phone. And they were marathon sessions. In one of the most famous sessions we started on sunday morning goingover over two chapters. 9 00, 10 00, 11 00, noon, we worked through lunch and im arguing with mark and mark is arguing with me. And suddenly we hear a little boys voice saying hello . Who is on this phone . Gabor had put the phone down four hours before and his son, who is now a tonywinning set designer, had wanted to make a phone call. And he found these two clowns on the phone arguing. And then gabor got on the phone pretending that nothing had happened. That was one of our adventures. Well, you know, what the three of you did was something people werent thinking about in terms of legitimate evidence. Always with literary documents. You turn to visual evidence or visual culture. And again i think were all interested in how you interrogate that kind of evidence. And so we have a very famous painting that is in the confederate image book. It was one of our choices. By william washington, a painting that william deheartburn washington. I love his middle name. Very nice. This painting was in the confederate capital in 1864. There was a coffer underneath. There were long lines. People gave of their poverty generously. I think thats the line. It was. Allegedly. If you throw confederate currency in 1864, thats not much of a donation. You can maybe buy a cube of sugar. Watches, wedding rings. The thing that interested us and what set us off on the quest of understanding the basically commercial nature of some of these tributes, i mean, here, this is an expression of the manifestation of lost cause theology almost. The matron of the plantation, ms. Willoughby newton. I know that because i worked with a man named willoughby newton. When this book came out he said, thank you for honoring my grandmother. I had no idea. I should have. Any way, shes assuring people that the old order will be sustained even in turmoil. That she will maintain the homestead, the plantation with the help of grateful and eternally loyal slaves. And that also the other reassuring message was that a gallant Southern Confederate military officer killed far from home would receive a loving burial and thats the idea that the colonel is being buried here. So it was an act of passion by the artist. But why gabor, mark and i wondered was the print version of it which many more people saw than ever saw the painting which is in the museum of the confederacy under john coskis tutelage or guardianship. Why was it published in new york . And therein offered a not pleasant but revelatory clue about the nature of civil war memory, that in many ways it was commercialized. That white publishers could not wait for this war to be over so they could reenter a market that had been denied to them. And they were without fear of being accused of disloyalty, willing to mass produce images like that. It became a household item in southern homes for generations in a print made in new york city. We can talk about the loyalty of new york city, but thats another issue. What im interested in and in your book with gabor and mark neely, you do a good job of revealing what that painting meant to individuals at the time. But what im curious about and what the three of you somewhat avoided, how did these paintings, these illustrations, theyre agents unto themselves. Meaning they shape and direct peoples behavior. Its not a reflection of but it has we argued in all of our books that they shape reputations more than reflect them. So tell us how Something Like this and were going to use it as a transition to talk about some other confederate monuments in their place within the confederate landscape today. This painting, what is the message that is bringing white southerners together to act politically for the confederate cause . How do you look at Something Like that and make that translation to on the ground Political Action . I think whats unique about this image and one of the reasons it endured for as long as it did and we found evidence in the research that we did in richmond that reproductions of this image decorated the homes of scv people, udc people, descendants through the 70s and 80s, 1970s and 80s when we were investigating it. I think this particular image, it was a bit of an anomaly for that reason, is a nonaggressive image. Its not an image of robert e. Lee at war. Its not an upsetting image of robert e. Lee surrendering. Its not Jefferson Davis in hoop skirts to be sure. Its a white matron successfully Holding Things together and acting as if this yankee invasion and incursion and threat to their quote way of life unquote is not as sankified as what you see here. It may be out there, it may be raging beyond those hills but this woman is able to assume the role of a clergyman. But the heavens are parted and of course it is blessing not just her but this sacred act of this man giving his life for the confederate cause. With cannot overlook the slaves on the margins here. The audience may have difficulty seeing them. On the margins and doing assumably grateful to be christianized. Theyre happily digging the grave of this officer who died in the effort to keep them subjugated. This idea, which again youve stressed have been overlooked, not taken seriously. You certainly have done that. Lets take a look at this and your thoughts. This is the lee monument in new orleans. Im sure all of you are familiar, the fact that this monument i dont know if theyre doing beauregard as well. Im curious about your take. I dont think this is an easy one. Its not. This issue. And ive been trying to like think back to take a little more global view of this. So i live in a city in which a very famous statue of king george iii was taken down in november of one year and its bronze melted into ammunition to fight the british during the revolution. It wasnt a great statue from the engravings that weve seen. But im also a person who worked for 23 years for an art museum. And we lived through the destruction of the buddhas by the taliban and more recently the destruction of the monuments at mosul by isis. So art is not always supposed to please everyone. Its supposed to be disturbing. Its supposed to be provocative. Its supposed to signal and manifest Public Opinion at a moment when such things are sub so died and terribly expensive. Im not sure the right thing to do is to remove them. On the other hand, the monument in new orleans that celebrated the destruction of an integrated government by violence seems so illconceived that it deserved to be taken down years before. And i make the point if its really great art, whatever the subject, do we really want to render it to oblivion. I think were going took looking at that in a few years in the fan district in richmond. Youve got awfully good sculpture there and authur ashe remedial work of art is the least Effective Work of art in my opinion. Where do you draw the line. Its tough. Heres one thats a really unsettling one in a way. So in the 1870s, the africanamerican communities around the country contributed money to build a monument to lincoln as an emancipator. Thomas ball did the sculpture. Its in a park in washington. I was unveiled by ulysses s. Grant and dedicated by Frederic Douglas on april 15th, 1876, the 11th anniversary of lincolns death. And probably one of the greatest speeches ever given about Abraham Lincoln. The most brilliant summary of lincolns vision and his limitations that anyone has ever rendered. But douglas also said build high his statues. This is a statue of lincoln lifting a half naked person of color with chains broken around him. And is it a rising slave or is it a kneeling slave and thats something that the african Afternoon Community grapples with. This is in the symbolic shadow of Frederic Douglass home. There are many demands floating about to do something with that piece. When lincoln was inaugurated and talk about the sin of slavery was second inauguration, he looked at a statue of George Washington in the plaza of the u. S. Capital for both of his inaugurations. Even that was taken away. People thought it lose crows was washington was bare chested. They called him georgie in the bath. You can still see it. These things do change. I dont like destruction particularly. I like context. Gary gallagher and joan wall took edith and me to see a monument in santa fe, a white victory over a native american tribe. And it sits in a plaza where American Indian merchants come and sell their wares. And it has a phrase on it, this is the place where the noble white settlers defeated the savage indians. So the communitys response was to take out the word savage. They just scratched it out. Context means a lot. There is a way to contextualize works of art that people may find disturbing. Im going to press a little more on this. This is really more than works of art. Its about people understanding the interconnectedness of the past. I see a monument like this that is not a monument to the civil war. Its a monument to the age of jim crow and segregation. Thats the context in which that monument was created. Why is it that when we remove that, how do we get people to understand the great arc of progress . How do they understand that from slavery through the war to segregation to civil rights, when we start removing these pieces, and again, let me be clear, i can understand why somebody would be deeply offended by the monument of robert e. Lee. As i have said before, i dont think thats reason enough to remove these from the commemorative landscape. Because in the end, i worry that well reach a point where no one is going to know this was a war for yeanian and a war that led to emancipation, but against what . Why not instead of remove that, put way sides, way sides that speak to the era of jim crowe, and segregation, that show pictures of lynching, that show, again, like i said before, the connections. Its called, you know, remixing the past. I fear as historians, were im not sure if anyone would listen to us anyways, right, but were these pieces are slipping away from us. And theyre slipping away without a real serious conversation about what the long term impact its going to have for how people historicize the past. Thats deeply troubling to me as a historian. Again, recognizing myself, just because, again, someone is offended, i respect it, i understand why they would want that removed from their community. But theres a bigger issue here i think. Thats why i thought contextualization might be an answer. Obviously, contextualization, that is a caption, a label, a plaque doesnt have the same emotional power as a monument on high. And pedestals say a lot about where you are raising a hero, quote unquote to be. But im not just an iconoclast by nature. The metropolitan museum is filled with these gargoyles, spectacular collection of french gargoyles. And i once asked me director how we came upon we didnt say where did the m. E. T. Get these things . How did france let them go. Iconoclasts chopped off the heads of notre dame at the cathedral and dumped them in the sand, and they were recovered later and sold as junk to museums that wanted them. Descruatory in a way. I take the art point, the historical point. I dont think we should erase the past. I think we should contextualize it. And we should preserve really good works of art. Even lennon did not take down the statues of the czars in st. Petersburg, although he threatened to a lot, as did stalin. They never did. Shift gears roughly. Good. This is a tough discussion. But we it would i think were going to be engaged in this discussion for a long time. I hope so. We havent even spoken about a more obvious choice for deheroization. And again, a real contrast between forest and r. E. Lee. Lets talk about your work as a public intellectual. I think want of the things that stands occupant, your writing is very accessible. You have always been a public speaker who is engaging, but you also push people to think. One realm that you entered into as a public intellectual is your role with the movie lincoln. How you got into the process and i would like to know about your final thoughts about the movie. It was a very happy accident, my association with the movie. Doris Kerns Goodwin on whose book the movie was in part based organized a meeting of lincoln historians with Steven Spielberg and tony kushner, the play write of angels in america, who had been assigned the screenplay. We would meet and to have a script conference. I thought we were going to hollywood. It turned out we were going 20 blocks south of my office. It wasnt as exciting for me as it was for others to meet on central park south. Anyway, gabor was there. We had a wonderful meeting. And tony kushner was fascinating to watch because he takes out an ink well and uses an Old Fashioned fountain pen that sucks up ink from the ink well. He was spilling things all over the place. It was charming. Spielberg was wearing his baseball hat. I was asked to be the script consultant. This was years later. They went through script after script and actor after actor, liam neeson and others. And holly hunter was going to be i got to do a couple of stage readings with lien neeson and holly hunter as they were warming up to play lincoln and mary. I had a great time. They were not thrilled with the outcome. But anyway, then i was asked, will i be the script consultant and actually read the script. Tony liked me. We dont live far from each other in town. We had meetings. And i got an early copy of the script. Each page was stamped with my name on it so i couldnt xerox it. Very tight security, you know. No leaks. No leaks. So i then then we had a series of meetings, and we discussed issues and concerns that i had. You know, but anyone who has ever done this and you know, ive heard from other historians who have been historical consultants, its not a really rewarding project unless you like to meet movie stars and playwrites, which i happen to like very much. But if you want the gratification that comes with their recognizing your brilliant suggestions, thats the business to be in. Some obvious things like wilmington, delaware, should be wilmington, north carolina. You know, long before the shooting. My big issue, and im not supposed to say this out of school, not that i was paid for this honor, by the way, but in fact, ill tell you about the other story. I was my contract quote unquote was that while i wouldnt be paid i would be brought to richmond, get a suite at the Jefferson Hotel and be on set for several days. So keep that in mind. My big suggestion im saying this because tony has spoken publicly about this in a column in the new york times. I said tony, the one real problem with the script and unfortunately its the climatic moment, youve got the Congress Voting in delegations. I think you have confused congress with National Political conventions. People dont sit in state delegations. Are you sure, he said . I said well i worked for the first one called, a. B. Actually the second. Lincoln was a oneterm freshman. He sat all the way by the back window. He didnt sit with the illinois delegation. You dont say how does connecticut vote . You dont say how does illinois vote . You do a roll call. He literally sunk out of my leather couch and on to the floor. Thats how dramatically he took the news of this problem. So weeks go by. I got two pieces of information. One is that Daniel Day Lewis does not want me on the set or anyone on the set. He didnt like visitors. Hes the star. Hes the boss. I mean hes a wonderful guy. I met him later and he just doesnt like people on the set. Even spielberg couldnt wear his baseball hat and he had to wear a tie because daniel likes to be in the moment. And the moment happened to be 1865, not 2013. Then the second thing is i got a call from tony kushner one day in whispered tones, steven doesnt like your idea. I said what idea . He said the idea you had about the voting tan congress. I said it wasnt my idea, it was the way it actually happened. I didnt think of it. The Founding Fathers thought of this idea. Well, he doesnt like it. Its not dramatic. I said, youre going to live and die by the consequences. I said threateningly. And it happened this he had his connecticut vote 21. This congressman from connecticut who was running for reelection made a big deal of it, went on the today show demanded that every print be confiscated, no Connecticut High School accept the free dvds that spielberg offered every school in america because of this against the state of connecticut. And to this day tony kushner thinks he lost the oscar for best screenplay because maureen dowd and the times made such a big to do about the error that was so maybe not so easily, but was avoidable. When tony kushner won the award of the civil war roundtable, his first line was, thank you for not giving this to argo, which won the oscar. Which was also historically inaccurate. Do you remember the movie argo . There was no chase down the runway in the real story. Nobody cares. They care about those lincoln details. So i think but i loved the movie. I didnt answer the original question. I thought Daniel Day Lewis was astonishing. Brilliant. My fear is now when people think of lincoln, theyre going to think of daniel daylewis. Its like patton. You dont think of patton. You think george k. Scott, right . Lincoln would probably be happy. Daniel daylewis is a great looking guy. Thats an uptick in the image making process. I dont know. We were going to talk about that image, lincoln as a towering presence. Well get to that in a minute here. Were fine on time. One of the things i thought was brilliant about the movie is it showed lincoln and how he was at his best in that bare knuckle political fight. Typical americans, they dont like to see lincoln in that light. They see him as a statesman. Dont like to see the making of the sausage. Classic. Right. Just want to see the results. I thought this book, lincoln and the power of the press. We see a man and lincoln who uses the press in some ways that i would like for you to talk to the audience about, in light of the fact that you are an avowed lincoln man and this is an area in which lincoln doesnt look so good some of the time. Right . Well, he looks more complicated than we have thought. I mean the only book that had been written about this was a 1951 book called lincoln and the press. I would have loved to have used that title but i thought it was a bit much. And we have heard of the press suppression cases during the civil war that are sort of the signature cases, the big ones. But i found about 300 cases and i didnt really do a catalog resume, a complete inventory or audit, as i could have if a spent another five years doing this. 300 cases that i found of the military, the state department, the post Office Department or is interior Department Closing down newspapers, confiscating printing presses, arresting newspaper editors, reporters, publishers, detaining them without charge, imprisoning them without trial, not just the chicago times, not just the new york world, baltimore, a lot of border state activity. Francis scott keys grandson in baltimore. I see john mars sitting here, ulysses s. Grant, proudly closed down a missouri newspaper and wrote to general fremont saying bringing back the printing press. He was very excited about it. How is it defensible . How is it defensible . Lincolns defense was simple and elemental which is he believed the constitution gave him the authority to suspend the habeas corpus and to maintain order in cases of rebellion. He said i now declare this to be called the war power. Guess whos got it. I do. And i can close down newspapers. And as he put it in one of these great, you know, similes, you would never you would never kill a patient this was actually sort of a very poignant thing to do in civil war when amputations were so rampant. You would never kill a patient to save a leg. But you would take a leg to save the patient. He was taking the leg of freedom of expression and redefining the thin line between dissent and treason in order to save the body politic. That was his argument. He was willing to live and die by it. He was willing to say people always turn to Andrew Jackson when theyre doing these precarious things. He turned to Andrew Jackson as an example. He closed down newspapers in new orleans but then he reopened them. I intend to stop using this Excessive Authority when the normal state of relationship between the Southern States and the federal government is restored. So i dont see any great im still a lincoln man. I think he was awfully tough. In other ways of press manipulation, it is eerie to see how he, for example, was a pretty good purveyor of fake news when he wanted to be. He had that emancipation proclamation written, waiting a military victory for its announcement. A vow, a personal vow made with god to issue the proclamation as soon as he was free to do so by union battlefield success so it wouldnt look like the last shriek on the retreat. But he repeatedly told people that wasnt the case. He told Horace Greeley in a letter, although he hinted at what he was going to do, if i could free some and leave others alone, i would do that to save the union. The line that never gets quoted to greeley, he says, when shown to be errs i shall adopt new views so fast that they shall appear to be true views. Theres a pragmatism there. In todays political world, we see that as hypocrisy or lack of principle. Even after that, this is august. Later in august, well, of course, theres probably i think his worst moment as president is when he lectures the dep portation of free americans and see says go back, because youre the cause of the war. And douglas says slaves are not the cause of the war, slavery is the cause of the world. He does it to set up a strawman. I feel no missionary zeal for the africanamerican. Hes so worried about acceptance of the proclamation. But the one that no one ever talks about is the delegation of religious leaders from chicago that come and say, mr. President , were begging you to do something to free the slaves when you have the power and the moment. And this is even closer to lees invasion of maryland. And lincoln says, what good would a proclamation from me do . It would be like the popes bull against the comment. I think some of you may have heard that line. So this pope, i think pope vi i actually decided to find out what he meant by that. He issued a papal order, i think it was halleys comet was not to appear on the day the astronomers billed. Of course, they all ducked. The ministers go back to chicago and write an article about lincolns lecture to them, that hes impotent, he has no power, no authority. Hes not a leader of Public Opinion. Guess what date the article appears . September 23rd, which is the same date that the proclamation is printed in the papers. Hes made total fools of them. Well they should have rushed to they should have gotten their news out. Fake news has to be published right away or its not good. Hes a manipulator. Brilliant at it. Lets talk about political satire. This is tough stuff. It is tough. Has there ever been a president who has been treated more unfairly by the press than Abraham Lincoln . [ laughter ] you know, lincoln could take it, though, right . He could take it. Of course. He never tweeted about anything. Right . He manned up. This was the only issue that ever got him riled up. Could you describe this for everyone . Yes. And by the way, all political cartoons that are separate sheet meant for display, not caricatures in the press. Thats a different bird, but these things that were meant for display are all commercial enterprises. So big firms would issue prolincoln cartoons and antilincoln cartoons. It was about making money and finding constituents. This is an exception. This new york world, the same democratic newspaper that lincoln had shut down earlier in the 1864, the same newspaper whose editor he had almost sent to ft. Lafayette but general dicks thought it was so crazy he didnt let him go. Kept him in his office. The same newspaper ordered this print made, along with other prints. And of course this is a as Lincoln Counseling quote, soliciting the soldiers . Its about the rumor, the charge that lincoln had asked Ward Hill Lamon to sing comic songs while touring the battle of antietam. And with mcclelland. Offering aid to colors. Shuttering at this hideous request. Shuddering at this hideous request. So lincoln this was a big thing in the campaign. It was repeated by democratic newspapers. Lincoln is boorish, vulgar, tasteless. Insulted the troops. Lincoln wrote a letter to the editor protesting this image and this story saying i never visited first of all, i never asked for a comic song to be sung anywhere near there and second i never walked on a foot of that battlefield on which graves hadnt already been rained on more than once. Something like that. But then he said to lamon, you sign this letter. And he signed it and lincoln didnt send it. Its one of the famous expressions of anger he wrote and didnt send, which was another interesting aspect of his leadership. Were going to skip over the next image. Thats the one thats the one i was talking about. Thats the curier andives showing mcclellan as a villain conspiring with davis and lincoln killing davis. Thats not lincoln and mcclelland, it could be. Theres a podcast called back story. I got this idea from back story. Its about the physicality of being the president. And that presence that some president s exude and some dont. And others do not. But of course obviously exert power. We have lbj. With abe fortis but the way who he later put on the supreme court. They called that the treatment. He would spit lbj would spitd on people while he was lording over them. And more recently, we have President Trump pushing to the front at nato. When we go to get ice cream, im going to push my way to the front as well. Let me warn you the president of montenegro is on to you now. Once burned. That sets us up for your interpretation of the presidency. This is such a you know, Alexander Gardner arrives on the scene at probably more like Harpers Ferry than the antietam. I have had trouble with the antietam designation. Lincoln has this wonderful battlefield conference with mcclellan who sets up the first set of photographs. In his tent with an American Flag draped over the table. Mcclellan, fascinating, his forehead is white and his cheeks are ruddy. Hes been wearing a cap. Even though hes been out in the sun, in the september sunshine, hes got the white brow. And they are looking facetoface. Mcclellan should have said, im done with the press, clear the room. But gardner convinced everyone to take this picture as well. As you see, lincoln is monumental. He makes mac look like a little napoleon. The thing that is amazing, and thats the tent where they had their initial meeting. Mcclellan has a perfectly good headquarters there. You see the house in the background . Which is not really noticed in most pictures. They could have easily had their conference indoors but it wasnt as photogenic. Here is lincoln, by the way, slouching. You can see him bending at the knee. He does not stand very straight. But he is a totem and mcclellan is forced to lift his eyes upward at his leader, like it or not. As this picture was influential in a way. So we have time quickly for one more . Again, the body of lincoln, as Richard Whiteman fox so successfully argued in his book a few years ago. This is lincoln putting himself in danger. In the surrendered city of richmond on april 4, 1865. Being greeted by people, africanamerican people whose freedom was actually commenced when the union army entered the city. Because this is before the 11th amendment becomes official but by terms of the emancipation when the troops occupied confederate territory, they are liberated. Here is lincoln with his son clinging to his side on his sons birthday, as it happened. This is, you know, there is no emancipation moment in lincoln iconography. I wrote about this, with astonishme astonishment. Because the thomas ball statue, which was not dedicated until the centennial year of the country, 1876, is an emancipation moment. Lincoln is not writing a document as he is in the famous painting by francis carpenter. He is lifting the representative enslaved person from his knees. Liberating thereby an entire race symbolically. Obviously no such moment happened. It was tough to enforce the emancipation, as we know. But this was a reality. This happened. This was how it happened, were still not sure. I think going back, and i said so in my book, that it was a journalist on the scene who went up to the people of color who were working on the docks and said, do you know who that is . How would they know . They are denied the opportunity to read, read newspapers, see pictures. The people for whom they worked didnt have pictures of lincoln in their homes. They knew about lincoln, though. Thats your moses. Thats mr. Lincoln. And the word spread and lincoln was surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people. By the time he finished at wetzels headquarters, there were thousands of people. I would like to think that he realized this may have been the most important day of his life. It is the day he understood the destruction of the war. End of the war. And the changed relationship that africanamericans would emerge from the war with. A true revolution. 1859, raid of federal troops, suppressing that rebellion on the side of slave holders and this, no one could have ever possibly conceived that. Harold, thank you so much. You have been a very good friend to me over the years. And let me say it edith, youve been wonderful to me and my wife when we first came here at cwi. And we are so thankful. Not just for your friendship, but your fantastic scholar. Youve always been accessible and engaging to people. We are so thankful for what youve done for cwi and history. Thank you so much. [ cheers and applause ] so im sorry. This is my fault. We are going longer than what i imagined. But if you have questions for harold and have you books for harold to sign, im sure he can do both at the same time. And harold will be just off to the left. For the rest of you, you will have to go out the doors right there. Cheryl, which doors . Go out the main entrance and turn left. Again, my apologies for going a little long this evening. Harold, youll be around a little bit tomorrow . Yes. Harold will be around a little bit tomorrow as well if you have questions. Thank you so much. See you over at the ice cream social. American history tv is in primetime all week here on cspan3 with recent civil war conferences. Tonight, programs from day two of the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute conference include a look at president James Buchanan and southern secession. American history tv primetime begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Coming up this weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on reel america, the 1944 u. S. Office of war film, why we fight. The battle of china. Three facts must never be forgotten. Schiena is history. China is land. China is people. On sunday at 11 30 a. M. Eastern, political economy professor and author Robert Wright on Alexander Hamiltons views of the national debt. Hamilton advised the creation of an energetic efficient government. One that did one thing well for as little money as possible. That one thing was to protect americans lives, liberty, and property from tyrants born. Then at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, new jersey residents and activists discuss the 1967 newark rebellion. There were 268 reports of sniper fire. Zero snipers were ever found. Zero. No evidence of any snipers. No gun shells other than the police gun shells. No footprints, no fingerprints. Nothing was found. And yet 26 people were killed. One policeman, one fireman, the rest citizens, all by the three Police Forces that were operating. American history tv. All weekend, every weekend. Only on cspan3. President Abraham Lincoln delivered what has since become one of the most noted speeches in American History. The gettysburg address. Miami University Professor Martin Johnson talks about president lincolns planning for and writing of the