Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The Republican Party 20150404

In her current book, to make men free a history of the Republican Party which was , published late last year, this was her second book to be named as an editors choice selection of the New York Times book review. Professor richardson writes widely for popular publication. She is committed to presenting historical scholarship or four audiences on the economys wall. She is now the editor of and founder of a new web magazine called we are history. She is at work on an intellectual history of american politics and aggressive treatment of the reconstruction era. Heather richardson. Prof. Richardson thank you very much. It is a real pleasure to be here. And not just because i am coming from boston. [laughter] can everybody hear me in the back . Are we ok . Terrific. What i want to talk about today is not just the Republican Party but why we might care about the Republican Party even if we are not into politics. We turn it on . Prof. Richardson that is why asked you if you could hear back there. Are we good . You can care about this material even if you do not care about the republican or democratic parties because what i want to argue today is that the main theme of the Republican Party is the main theme of American History and it is a theme which we are grappling with today and have been since the very founding of america. These are our two founding documents the declaration of independence and the constitution. And they are very different documents. Our students tend to put together, but they are very different documents. The declaration of independence was a treaty explaining to the world why america had a duty to break off from the king of england. And the declaration of independence promises every american man, and of course there are going to be copy ads to that caveats to that. It was a great principle in which you can get people to rally behind what looks to be a losing war. It is not an idea on which you can found a nation. What founded the nation was the constitution which came many years later. By the time the Founding Fathers wrote the constitution, they had a very different set of concerns at hand. And what they are worried about then was the stability of the new nation they were trying to create. The constitution, rather than guaranteeing equality of opportunity, protects property. What i would like to set up is this fundamental tension in america between the idea of equality of opportunity and protection of property has been the driving force behind our politics since the very beginning of the founding of the new republic. Not the magazine. [laughter] what happened was that during the revolution, one of the reasons that americans complained about the rule of Great Britain was that it was against the law to move across the appalachian mountains. One of the first thing that happens during the revolution is that daniel boone sneaks across the appellations to see what is on the side. And what he discovers is the great land of kentucky. Immediately after the revolution, land speculators produced a document called the present state of kentucky, which is designed to get people to go by land over across the mountains. That is why we know daniel boone is because of the present state of kentucky. It has a whole section on him. If anyone is interested, it is now on google books, easy to find online. But daniel boone comes back to virginia and he, because kentucky is to the west of virginia, and he comes back and tells everybody and virginia what a phenomenal place virginia is. And in the present state of kentucky says that kentucky is such a rich land that you actually have to farm for 10 years before you can weaken the land enough to grow a normal amount of crops. This is the best possible kind of land for this new nation to have and it is one of the First American documents after the nation have been founded that talks about what the west is going to mean. What is the west . Well, one of the things the west is is a very rich land that is going to give every man that equality of opportunity that is promised in the declaration of independence. So there is a land rush immediately after the founding of the constitution into that new state of kentucky. Led by people like daniel boone. Here is a much later picture but it is a great picture. A very famous picture. Imagining what it was like when daniel boone who did not look anything at all like this to people out west. Daniel boone himself was quite an neerdowell. His wife gave up on him and went back to her father. [laughter] but this is important for american culture, the whole daniel boone story, but also for our political story because this first land rush into kentucky suggests that every man has equality of opportunity. As long as you can get to that new western land, this new american land, you are going to be able to rise because after all, the land is so strong and so good you are going to have to farm it for 10 years before it before it is weak enough. I am not making that up, by the way. And there are animals everywhere roaming around, begging to be killed and fish everywhere. [laughter] i mean, this is just this incredible land. But the problem is that all these people who rush into kentucky are not equal. And it becomes very clear that some people are going to do much better in kentucky than others. One of the people who was convinced by daniel boone to go west into kentucky is his distant relative, a man named Abraham Lincoln. Not our Abraham Lincoln but Abraham Lincolns grandfather was actually a distant relative of daniel boone and a speculation was that he lived on the road the daniel boone took when he came back out of kentucky to find his wife who it who had gone up to her father. And then he stopped for a night at lincolns house. That is all anecdotal. It is not a stretch to say that Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather, heard about this fabulous land in kentucky from daniel boone. In any case, he is one of the people who starts going on this land rush to kentucky. He gets to kentucky, and he does extremely well in kentucky. He gets thousands of acres of land. He gets plenty of land for farming, and he and his three sons are out in their field one day getting ready to prepare the sod when the people who actually live on the land, the indians who own it, decide they do not want them there and they kill Abraham Lincoln. The grandfather. This is of interest to americas political story because kentucky is governed by virginias land laws. And virginias law start with primogeniture. So our Abraham Lincolns uncle mordecai, the oldest son, gets everything. Uncle mordecai becomes a breeder of race horses. He does extremely well in kentucky. He becomes a leader in the state of kentucky but his two younger brothers, josiah and thomas , thomas being our Abraham Lincolns father never even , learn to read. They become day laborers because they do not get anything when their father is killed. So it becomes clear that there is a real problem in kentucky. And the same people who wrote some of the same people who wrote the declaration of independence and the constitution decide that they need to fix the potential problem in kentucky. One is primogeniture. But the other is slaveholding. And their problem with slaveholding in kentucky is not that they care about slavery one way or another, except for the fact that what it does is it allows a certain class of men to amass a fortune because they are amassing wealth based on the labor of other people, to amass a fortune and then to take over kentuckys political system. So they are concerned about that. In part because of what happens to men like Thomas Lincoln Abraham Lincolns father. And that is that Thomas Lincoln after his father is killed by indians becomes a day laborer and slowly works his way up and does pretty well for a guy under these conditions. His family ends up with household goods. He ends up with minor positions of authority in his community. But when the slaveholders start to feel that their lands are crowded, that their lands are getting crowded in kentucky, they begin to take over more and more of the land of the poor men like Thomas Lincoln. The problem is that very few people have deeds to their land in kentucky. And the only way you can protect your deed is to argue for your deed in court and the courts are back in virginia. So, the only guys who can afford to protect their lands are the guys who have money. What happens is people like Thomas Lincoln get forced out of kentucky. That is why the lincolns leave kentucky and they go to indiana, not to illinois. That is going to be later. Indiana. This is a really important move for americas political system because indiana is protected by congress, the articles of confederation, actually. In 1787 under the northwest ordinance when the Founding Fathers first understood that they had a problem with kentucky. And they do it reacting to kentucky. And the northwest ordinance we tend to think of as prohibiting slavery which is one of the last things that ordinance does also the second thing it does is it prohibits primogeniture in these lands. It becomes the five states of the northwest in america. The reason for that is that they are determined that they are not going to end up with a system, an oligarchical system were a where a few wealthy men can take over the government, get, buy up the court system and pass laws that will only protect them, that will in fact leave people like Thomas Lincoln out in the cold. So Abraham Lincolns father moved to indiana. He does not do well in indiana. It is where lincolns mother dies. And later on he moves to illinois. He never really gets his feet under him again. But among the people who have moved into this Northwest Territory there is the idea that government should not be dominated by a few wealthy people. They hold very strongly to the northwest ordinance, which is after all based on the law that was written by Thomas Jefferson who is the same person who wrote or cribbed the declaration of independence. His name is associated with both of those laws. You see this very strongly in the lincolndouglas debates where he talks about it a lot. Lincoln and people like him believe that the government should not be controlled by a few wealthy men. And they are fairly confident that this has been taken care of with the northwest ordinance. And later on in 1820 they are going to fight over the missouri compromise which is going to divide the land acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. It is going to divide that between the Southern Area in which slavery can be permitted and the Northern Area which it in which it cannot be permitted. That is a line that runs under the state of missouri, making missouri the only slave state north of that line during the civil war. So, they are ok up to the up through the missouri compromise. And there is going to continue to be trouble in america throughout the 1820s about the spread of slavery, but it is not going to be that much of a political story until after 1848 with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which is going to expand america for the entire rest of the left. When i start teaching this stuff and teaching about the missouri compromise, somehow people had always said it in such a way that i felt the missouri compromise line ran all the way to california. And it does not. The missouri compromise line covered very relatively little land compared to the treaty of waterloo pay hidalgo Guadelupe Hidalgo in the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. It sparks the wars with geronimo. It is a really cool story. Are you with me so far on this . Because we have not even gotten to the Republican Party yet. [laughter] but we are getting there. I got plenty of time left. So. But what happened is that this treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is going to break the concept that the american system has been set up in such a way that every individual can rise. And what happens is in 1854, the game changes and it changes with the passes with the kansas nebraska act, which is my favorite law in American History. Because with the kansas nebraska act, the south reneged on the promise of the missouri compromise of 1820, which is not a constitutional amendment, only a law. So they are overriding that law. There are lots of twists and turns to that. But in the northerners eyes, this was a sacred law, th spread that slavery would not spread into the west. Because if slavery could spread into the west, rich men, slaveowners could take over the government. It was a matter of time if they took over the west before they took over the entire government because once you start taking over the western states, which the party does in the 1880s, you are going to shift the balance of the Electoral College and shift the balance of congress. Both in the house of representatives which is less important because of the populous states are on the east coast but in the senate. If you can start taking those western states and making them dominated by slaveowners, it is only a question of time until slaveowners with their all look their oligarchical system is going to control the government. Have i soldier on that so far . Sold you on that so far . What they are really fighting about is government. Who has a say in American Government and what does the American Government do . Does it promote equality or protect property . And what you are going to see in the middle of the 19 century is republicans like Abraham Lincoln standing very strongly on the idea, and this by the way is the brady portrait the first taken when he came to new york to give the speech at cooper union in 1859. You get people like Abraham Lincoln standing on the declaration of independence and the idea that the government has a duty to make sure that every man has an equal opportunity to rise. And that the government does not get taken over by the wealthy. On the other hand, you have powerful slaveowners because slaves are property, they must be protected under the constitution. So their right to carry slaves into the west is protected by the american constitution. It is a fundamental contradiction between the declaration of independence, which is not foundational to our system of laws, it is only our aspirations. And the constitution, which is our fundamental law. And this is the fight we are going to play out during the civil war. So, what happens is the Republican Party forms and starts to form in 1854. The rumor is that it starts in wisconsin. That is a publicity scheme by rippon, wisconsin. It starts in a number of places but there are movements , against the kansas nebraska act all over the north. But the most interesting piece of that story is here in washington, because there were three brothers who represented three different states in congress. And they came together at a boarding house here in washington. The morning after the passage of the kansas nebraska act. They came together with their friends. Regardless of what party they were from, about 30 of them met in the rooms of Edward Dickinson from massachusetts here in washington. He is interesting because his daughter is emily dickinson, who is not yet a recluse. She visits her father in washington. She is not there during this time. The picture that room, the two men from massachusetts, because that boarding house has the best food in washington, not kidding. They all go into this meeting from all these different parties and they come out saying, we must organize a new party to stand against the slave power that is taking over our government and turning it into an oligarchy. They suggest they could take the name republican after jefferson and the declaration of independence. And that is, i think, the most important foundational moment for the Republican Party. It takes a long time to get people to sign up. In 1854, 1855 people get elected on antinebraska tickets. Theyre people who do not like the law. They do not yet have a common theme. But its that 1854 meeting in washington that gets the ball rolling because all 30 of these guys go home for summer recess and with a party in their states. And they are all connected both by blood and by friendship. That party is organized against the kansas nebraska act but it is Abraham Lincolns party come in that it is Abraham Lincoln who articulates a forwardlooking vision for the party in a way that nobody who simply stands against the kansas nebraska act can. He thinks a lot. He does not actually join the party in 1854, but he is so incensed by the passage of the kansas nebraska act, he sits up all night and rails about how terrible this is, how this is the end of American Government. This is something we must all stand against. He flirts with the party but mostly he thinks. Then in 1854, im sorry, 1858, a southern senator, James Henry Hammond, gives a speech on the floor of congress in which he articulates the idea that in fact the American Government is designed to protect the very wealthy. Its the called the cotton is king speech. But it ought to be called the mud speech because in that speech, he argues that a good society operates in such a way that the vast majority of people are on the bottom. They are literally the mud sill, a piece of wood driven into the ground to support a building in the dirt in days before concrete. They are the mud sills. They are dumb. They are happy just to work. They do not want much. They like to sing and dance. They need to be told how to behave. And on that mud sill rests the cream of society. They are the makers. They are the doers. They are the people who understand how society should work. They are educated. They have connections in foreign countries. They are the ones moving Society Forward. And hammond says, i can prove it. We are the wealthiest people in the country. We are some of the wealthiest people in the world. We have rembrandt hanging on our wall. We are educated. Our sons are educated. We are what america stands for. We are the ones who are going to move Society Forward on this system of the world in which all the poor people work for us and we direct their labor. It is hard work directing their labor, but we are willing to suck has ourselves to do it. Its an astonishing speech. That, too, is available on google books if you search James Henry Hammond. There is a book of his speeches on google books. You cannot get in full text anywhere else except the congressional record. Its in full text in that speech. The response to that, Abraham Lincoln gives a very powerful speech in 1859. In that he says, no, that is not what america stands for. And he says, you know, he doesnt actually articulate this in his speech but he will in other places hes a mud fill. He grew up in indiana in a home that literally only had three walls. It was open on the fourth side. That is where they put the fire because they did not have the time to make the fourth wall. He grew up working in fields. He did not get an education. Was it true that he was in fact somebody who should be directed by people like James Henry Hammond who had a very nasty way with his slaves, male and female, as well as his nieces. And who was willing to stand on the floor of congress and say, i did not actually read this bill . I do not know what was in it. But i know i should vote with my friends. Which he said in his speech. I paraphrase, by the way. Is it true that he should be below that sort of a man . No. He says america is about free man has the right to the fruits of his own labor and everybody should have a quality of opportunity. That is what america is about. And that is americas definition of free labor. As you know, in 1860, he is nominated to become president and he wins the election. When that happens, the republicans do very well in that election, but they probably could not have done a lot in congress because they did not have control the democrats were still powerful. They still had a lot of committees. They still had a powerful minority in the north. They would have been able to stop the republicans from doing much they wanted to do. But, of course, the democrats left. They picked up their bags and they took their marbles and they went home. And when they did that, they forced the Republican Party to redefine the American Government in a way that has shaped our modern world today. The republicans when they were elected, were brandnew. They were not a decadeold yet. All they know is they did not like the slave powers. That is all they knew. And that they suddenly were in power. The first thing they have to do, of course, is to fight the war. And they have no money to do it. So, over the course of the next four years, they are going to field an army that eventually incorporates more than one million men and the navy and supply all those men. They are going to fight this war in both the south and the west. They are going to manage to keep the union intact. This is no small feat. But they are going to do more than that. I love this image because the republicans very deliberately continued construction on the Capital Building during the war, even though they had no money, because they recognize that they were building a nation. And the construction of the capital goes on during the war. It never stops until by the time of the troop review in 1865, th e dome is almost done. In addition to fighting the war, again, no small feat, in addition to fighting the war the republicans during the civil war changed the American Government. They do it in such a way that the government begins to try and encourage every man to be able to rise. In 1862, they passed the homestead act to put men onto farms with the idea that farming is the primary position in the economy, that if you can get people onto the ground and they can start producing crops, they are going to produce a surplus. That is going to enable them to accumulate capital, which the republicans actually call preexerted labor. And they are going to be able to recycle that back into society by hiring farmhands who will then be able to buy their own property. And this cycle as one newspaper reporter says should continue until every pauper is equipped with a coach and four. In 1862, they pass the homestead act. They also pass the landgrant college act which is the foundation of all of our state universities except the university of north carolina. Ive heard that when it off a one an awful lot. It was established before the landgrant college at. Act. With the idea that people would use their labor more efficiently if they could be educated about how to do it. They also pass the department of agriculture. Again, with the idea that the more people know about good seats, seeds the better they will be able to produce and the faster they will be able to rise. Not just that. The republicans during the civil war encourage immigrants to come to america. They find ways to find immigrants to come to america. Because they are desperate to get people into the field so they will produce more crops. And they pass the Union Pacific railroad act and revise it in 1864 in order to give people both onto the field and west but also into the mines, both in california, of course, but also nevada which opens up in 1862 and in montana which opens up in 1864 with a gold strike. They want to get people out there producing because they need the money. That those people are going to produce. They need that production. They also need the taxes that they are going to impose on those people to pay for the war, because that is the piece of piece people tend to forget about the republicans during the civil war is they invent our First National taxation. We do not have taxation in america at the National Level until 1861. The previous wars are paid for differently. If anybody cares, i can tell you how. They not only create what are called manufacturing taxes which you can consider sales taxes. They are not, but close enough. They also impose an income tax. And they create what is going to become the irs. Because, for a number of reasons, but because they have to pay for the war. Theyre desperate to get money to pay for the war. And because they believe that paying taxes into the union is going to give everybody a stake in what happens to that union government. They also do it because of the at the beginning of the war bankerse are noare are not as enthusiastic about the war as the treasury needs them to be. For our purposes beginning in 1862, the treasury begins to turn away from bankers and put the foundation of the American Financial system onto individuals and on to taxation rather than onto the Previous Bank loans that had managed to keep the country afloat before the civil war. During the war, the republicans throw their weight behind the idea that every man should have an opportunity to rise. And the government has a duty to make that happen, and must happen. And it is all great. We can all go home now, right . What happens in march of 1865, it is clear that people in the south are starving to death. White people as well as black people are literally starving to death. Sometimes americans forget just how bad off the south is at the end of the war, people are starving and people with ptsd are trying to get home and there are gangs in the cells and if and the south roaming around. And if you hire somebody to kill people in texas it costs three dollars. When the confederacy collapses it takes with it police force. The south is devastated and congress is very aware of that. Not only because they worry worry about the africanamericans but because these are family members starving down there. In march of 1865 congress creates the bureau of refugees and friedman and abandoned land. It became known as the freedmans bureau. It is only supposed to last one year after the war ends but as you know congress adjourned for the summer one hour before Abraham Lincoln takes his second inaugural. And they all go home because and the war is not over by the way, it will not end until the summer of 1965. He is the last one to put his arms down. He is a cherokee. They go home. And in mid april, Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. And that puts johnson in charge of reconstructing the union. Until december of 1865. Now, he could have recalled congress, but he did not want any part of that because he is an old democrat that it hears to the idea that what the government should do is protect property. He is terrified of republicans because they are enormously popular. If they bring their system of homesteads and education to the south, democrats will never be elected again. And there goes his political career. Andrew johnson attacks the republican idea of using the government to promote equality of opportunity by insisting and this is crucially important that what the republicans are really doing is not creating equality of opportunity for all men we will not talk about women at all today although i can if you want to what they are really doing is redistributing wealth to keep themselves in power. Exactly what James Henry Hammond said would happen when he said his speech, the cotten is king speech that you cannot let the poor people have power because if they did, they will redistribute wealth. That is precisely what Andrew Johnson says is happening with the bureau. He says this is an attempt by republicans to redistribute tax dollars to africanamericans. That should sound fairly familiar. [laughter] and let me tell you how it plays out. This is the first crack in the republican idea that the government should be used to promote equality of opportunity but it is not the last. One of the big things that happens here is in the realm of womens history but there is not enough time to go into that. By 1871, southern democrats have been complaining bitterly about the 13th amendment, 14th amendment, 14th amendment 15th amendment. The military reconstruction act. They keep saying that the republicans are using the government to funnel white tax dollars to lazy africanamericans. And in and they paid no attention to this because they say they are just racist pigs. But in 1871 in South Carolina, there is a movement that reorganizes opposition to republicans under a taxpayer protest. And this is a very famous image from the South Carolina taxpayers protest in which south carolinians famous for their opposition to africanamerican political voices organized to say that what is going on in South Carolina is that black people that can now vote are putting in place legislatures who are stealing tax dollars from white people to redistribute them to black people. And they are doing it with things like roads and hospitals and schools. And all those things that are being voted for by africanamericans are, in fact, being paid for by white carolinians. They also change the basis of taxes and put it off the professionals onto land. But this obviously makes it into popular culture. A very famous image but most people dont know what it says. I cannot read it with these glasses on, but i believe it says, you are aping the lowest whites. If you cannot behavior cells, behavior yourselves, you need to sit in the back. If you look at the image you will notice that although it is famous for its caricature of africanamericans are in fact poor whites being caricatured as well. How does this play out and why does the north start to listen . Northerners have their own problems. Northerners are very worried about the rise of labor and the rise of labor industries, the rise of a Labor Movement that is organizing and beginning to suggest that it in fact is not happy with the way the legislation of the civil war played out. That is, real wages took a hit during the war and they are not making up ground. In 1866 they organized a labor union, and then the knights of labor in 1871. And in the wake of the francoprussian war, the parents the paris commune. What exley happens in paris is beyond me. But what happens in america is that americans look at this and they believe may have seen a world where laborers have taken over the government and are killing the upper classes. They are bombing buildings and taking to the streets and throwing bottles full of this stuff called petroleum and setting it on fire and blowing up buildings with it, it does not get worse than that. That is 1871 in march through may and in october, october 8, chicago burns. The rumors in the papers incorrectly, are that this is laborers trying to this i am sorry, trying to destroy chicago the same way they destroyed paris. That anarchy, socialism, and communism, coming from the communards, not bolsheviks who are not born yet, are trying to destroy america. How does this play out in the north . Im sorry, i think i cut some words out of that. In october of 1871, the savior, the same year, the New York Times breaks the story that tweed of tammany hall is a democrat is doing the exact same thing in new york city. He is using tax dollars collected from wealthy people, in this case republicans, and using them to Fund Government contracts that are keeping immigrants and democrats in jobs so they will vote the democratic ticket. He is corrupting the American Government. And that is what the world corruption originally meant, the corruption of the body politic by inserting in it self interest, a personal selfinterest that was bad for the government at large. Why does this matter . In matters because it matters because Andrew Johnson finally goes away and grant is elected. But grant is brilliant, a Brilliant Writer and he did something else, he won the civil war. [laughter] Charles Sumner believed he should be in charge of the party and he hated grant. He used to poke fun at the backwards bumpkin. Charles sumner wants to take over the party from grant and he uses the language of Andrew Johnson, the southern democrat the people who are afraid of tammany hall to attack grants southern government. He says that grant is corrupt. He is only supporting africanamerican rights because he is trying to keep himself in power with black votes, and he will be using tax dollars to provide goodies for those black people so they will continue to vote for him. They become instrumental in developing this idea of the republican government that helps African Americans is corrupt. I put this other picture here because i love the juxtaposition of him and this other guy that is important American History, you can tell he is fond of him. That is joseph pulitzer. Which is how all of this hits the newspapers and gets absorbed as dramatically as it does. As grant is forced away from those men, he needs to make up the difference somewhere. The man known as the handsomest man, Russell Conklin runs the state of new york. Interesting man, conklin. I can tell you stories. But conklin is important because he runs new york and everybody forgets how important new york is. New york has, by later on in the 1870s, it will have 36 electoral votes which we will call it 35 for now. Look at how few everybody else had has to new york. If you are going to hold the white house you have to hold new york and wall street. After 1872, grant is the leader of the Republican Party and he swings to wall street. By the 1880s, the Republican Party is firmly in the hands of property people, men in this era. This is the point of view by the 1880s, even staunchly Republican Newspapers are complaining that the trusts wealthy man men own congress. The senators are named by what they represent. We have rockefeller playing with the white house as a toy. And the Capital Building shooting oil there. An interesting image, isnt it . By the 1880s, the Republican Party believes that it alone stands between america and the apocalypse until we have the election, the illegal election , by the way. Benjamin harrison lost the popular vote. The is one of three american president s that loses the popular vote but takes the white house due to the corrupt b argin. The difference between the parties is the difference between the light and darkness if good or bad, and the businessmen are good. By 1892, we have this very famous image of the single man in front of carnegies homestead plant. It shows how much the balance has been thrown off between equality of opportunity and property and that is what the image was set up to show. It hits a lot of republicans that things have gone too far. By the turn of the century, we see the rise of the progressive republicans who say this is not our government. In this period, what becomes known as the progressive era under Teddy Roosevelt, peoples people like bob will follow it and roosevelt switch the meaning of the word liberal. Liberal had previously called for a small government to protect the rights of individuals and now it called for a strong government that would rein in the rockefellers and the carnegies to enable individuals to rise. The meaning of liberal switches in this era. But that does not relieve the wealthy people who are standing on the constitution until we have this quotation, which i have never been able to resist, about how everybody in america is a communist except him, basically, including a man that goes on to be a supporter of adolf hitler. So the bar is really, really low here. [laughter] four communism. For communism. By the 1920s, these people have taken over the American Government and in the 1920s, the landslide election is an important one in American History because it is the one where the idea of government promoting equality of opportunity loses. The people who still believe that go into the arts a lot and they go into the Progressive Party which is in tatters at at that point. But basically in the 1920s people who believed the government should be promoting big business hold all of the cards. And we know where that goes in october of 1929 but we have quotations from that era like this. That injecting government into the economy will poison the country. And that the idea that government should do things to promote equality of opportunity was the same philosophy which poisoned the fumes of the Witches Cauldron which boiled in russia. Democrats are the party of the mob. We know where that goes. We get the depression. And from that, the cycle starts again. We get the rise of another guy who did a few useful things in the world and it always infuriates me that people think of him as elmer fud because Dwight Eisenhower is one of the brightest men who has ever sat in the white house. I have read all of his stuff, he really is brilliant. But he saw the world in the same way that lincoln and roosevelt did, that the governments job is to promote equality of opportunity and the way to do that was to give access to equal opportunity. He does things of course like backs the highway act of 1956, which is the largest Public Works Program in American History. And he is determined to stop the government from pouring money into useless armaments and instead to develop the infrastructure of the economy to make it easier for people to rise not only in america but also across the world. It does not always work out, as we know, but is driving principle is that it has to be possible for every man to rise because if it is not those people who are economically and religiously dispossessed are prime fodder for dictators who, with the advent of the Nuclear Weapon can literally destroy the world, which it seems to me is prescient. Eisenhower, again, is opposed from within his own party by people who insist that the government doing anything other than protecting property are communists. This is a Young William f buckley junior, mccarthy of course, and Barry Goldwater who carries the idea on. And nobody pays attention to them until eisenhower since the sends the troops to little rock. When he does that for the First Time Since reconstruction we have once again the language emerging that the American Government is using white tax dollars to help lazy africanamericans. That scene that theme will continue through the 1960s when the kennedy brothers integrate use the trips to integrate the university of mississippi. 1970, we have the rise of the southern strategy in the Republican Party. People think that Stone Mountain is from the reconstruction area. In fact, it is dedicated in 1970. Here is another image from that era. This is taken in 1972. This is from a private collection, it has not published. It says this is klan country love it or leave it, fight communism and integration. This theme of africanamerican activism and helping them being communism has carried to the present. We have reagans welfare queen. And we have the rising stratification of wealth, the same way we did in the 1890s and the 1920s, the very top of the 1 in American History. You have all seen the numbers so i will not belabor them. We nowhere that went into thousand eight. It is hard to find this image now but i like it. [laughter] but these themes have continued. Also images from the present obama is socialism. One of the things that got me writing this book, i thought, he is a communist . He and castro, who knew . Socialism is evil, which white slavery. Free market not freeloaders. Just say no to socialism. Taxed enough already. Yes we can take all of your money. As you know our tax burden has not gone down since the reagan years, just who has paid it. And to wrap up, i was a few minutes late because i was sitting across the street and i was responding to my twitter feed on a piece from yesterday and this is the twitter description from a man who took exception to the idea that there was a theme going on in republican history this is how he described himself and to me it looked very much like benjamin harrison. Left out loud. And your expectation to agree as to disagree. Hell no. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. Period. And he is a big supporter of the right. So what i would like to suggest is that the true Republican Party was one that believed in the declaration of independence and the idea that every man should have an opportunity and woman by now should have an equal opportunity to rise in american society. But that adherence to the declaration of independence is not the only theme that runs through american life. The other is the protection of property that is guaranteed by the constitution and we have not worked out the tension between the declaration of independence protecting the rights of every man to equality of opportunity and the constitutions protection of property. We swing between those polls back and forth in part now because of a theme set up by the Republican Party in its early years that it activists government that enables people to rise is in fact because of the peculiarities of reconstruction seen as socialism. Good enough . [applause] host thank you, so much, heather. That was great. I am sure there are lots of questions and comments. As always, if you could please wait for the microphone and state your name and affiliation if you like. Start over here. James i am james banner professor. Dr. Richardson a pleasure. James you have offered a wonderful narrative of American History. It seems to me overlaid with the history of the Republican Party. One half is missing. It is known as the other party. Couldnt you tell the same story in democratic hues . Finding within the Democratic Party, the same bifurcation of impulses for the very reason that you assert, mainly that it is the binary tension within American History. And does it really affect a single party only . Dr. Richardson no, i dont think it does. People say to me, why dont you talk about the democrats . And i said because i study the republicans. [laughter] especially as people have said why dont you write a history of the Democratic Party . I have said no so many times, i statistic, maybe i should. I think the democrats have a different trajectory than the republicans do. They are much older and they rose at a very different time and they rose with a different set of imperatives. So my two impressions is that they are not yin and yang. They occasionally brush up against each other but they have different languages and imperatives in them. And one of the places i could not go into it all here, and i couldnt go into the book because there wasnt space for it. The original manuscript was over 1000 pages long. The democrats, since the civil war have had a terrible problem, and that is that they have been successfully painted as antiamerican. That goes to the civil war were when they were antiamerican they tried to destroy the country. It comes up again and again and again. In 1878, the house and senate goes democratic and they move their people into congress and they say, we should never have seceded. We will run things from congress. This is great. [laughter] they literally say that. We just lost the civil war, how did this happen . Cleveland was portrayed as a confederate, woodrow wilson, whose father was a confederate. That goes on right through jimmy carter, southerner. That theme of having to prove that they are not antiamerican is something that the republicans, they have in their back pocket that we have won the civil war. That is something the democrats have never been able to overcome. I think the trajectory from earlier, they are formed around jackson and the impulses of the 1830s, that is an issue and of course the civil war. And you guys are the enemy thing. Those things have been hugely important. And then Foreign Affairs. They have dealt with the Foreign Affairs things and republicans have been on a different wavelength. I do not think i will read a write a book on it. Stephen one correction and to 2 comments. You confused harrisons election with the one of 1876. Dr. Richardson hayes too. Believe me. Stephen they both want a they both won with a popular majority. Despite not winning dr. Richardson they won the electoral in the Electoral College. Stephen hayes was given up by the democrats in a bargain to end troops in the south. Dr. Richardson that is not right, actually. Believe me, i get bored. So i look stuff up. They do not take troops out of the south, there are no troops in the south, that is played out through congress. What happens in 77 this is more than you want to know but if you do want to know i have Great Stories about it. They take troops out of the very theory that the even has, they have to fight the lakota. That is what a few troops are still in the house, i mean, like one guy in a tent. I am exaggerating, but there are very few people left. Stephen this is a peripheral thing about the point. [laughter] dr. Richardson it just kisses me off because it is in all the books pisses me off because it is in all the books and it is wrong. Stephen if you compare the electoral maps of 1904 and 2008, it is a virtual absolute flip. Two parties have traded constituencies and the democrats complain about how difficult it is to get white workingmen to vote for them these days. And my other comment is that the republicans always have an elitist group. The union league was not exactly in favor of equal opportunity and yet was one of lincolns greatest supporters. And there were always businessman that recognized that a mal distribution of property distribution of income ultimately threaten property. And saw the best way of protecting prosperity allowing the prosperity of the many. Henry ford wanted his workers to afford his cars. There was always this constituency of businessman, largely men of course, wanted a who wanted a more equal distribution of income as the best way of protecting their own property. Dr. Richardson right. And that is certainly Teddy Roosevelt. And fdr for that matter. The difference between 1904 and 2008, there is a major realignment in the 1960s. And that makes a big difference. You are absolutely right. Not all richmond were rich men were republicans, either. Vanderbilt is a democrat. William responding to your remarks about Andrew Johnson and your picture of him as defending the entrance of the wealthy, while i am no Andrew Johnson expert, my understanding was first, of course he was the only southern senator who stayed in the senate. He was from east tennessee which was the loyal part of tennessee. And from what i have read about him, he had a visceral dislike of the wealthy landowners and slaveowners. Granted, he was a rabid racist. So, you know, our are both of these pictures right . Dr. Richardson i am sorry if i miss spoke and said he was in favor of the wealthy, you are absolutely right, in his proclamation for amnesty, the one group he excludes his people worth more than 20,000. But what he is interested in is the Democratic Party and the base is wealthy foreigners wealthy southerners. But not only. He is on the side of the common white man is who he is on the side of. In order to resuscitate the Democratic Party, he has got to resuscitate the world as it looks in 1860. And that is what he does. Fairly successfully, but congress refuses to accept what he has done and they throw out them, he loves the rich guys big him for pardons and he lets their daughters of pardons as it were. Have pardons as it were. There might be a personal dislike on his part but politics makes strange bedfellows and that is a place where they are definitely in bed together. William you make him sound like ben tillman of South Carolina. Pitchfork dr. Coxrichardson tillman as other stuff going on but he is much later, he is doing his thing in the 90s. Johnson is an active politician before the war. There are a couple of generations and the country changes a lot. Aaron erin jones from the center. You were talking about eisenhower and segueing to today. It seems like up to now there has been a fracture in the Republican Party. What we see right now is the tea party, the same thing was going on in the 50s with the John Birch Society and William F Buckley was instrumental in getting the Birch Society ostracized. I wonder if you can speak to that. I think the republicans, in the last week, have been shown as the ones Holding Everything up. But with 50 republicans you had 200 other republicans who said yes to dhs funding but they are being all painted with the same broad brush. I am wondering if you can speak to where we are now with the Republican Party and whether or not this tension within the Republican Party as anything about going back to lincoln and first principles. Dr. Coxrichardson that is an interesting question because the reason this matters well, historians think it matters because we think it is cool is because what does it mean now. Why does this matter in our lives . The Republican Party is in dire straits. My dear, so is the Democratic Party. It is an exciting time to be mind you, so is the Democratic Party. It is an exciting time to be a political historian. The Republican Party has been terribly split since the 1960s and it split after little rock and for a number of complicated reasons i deal with in the book, those people who believed there is a seminal book written in 1951 by William F Buckley junior. Does anybody know what . Everybody should know it, it is a bad book. He needed an editor really badly. It is an interesting book because that book said there are two commandments in american political life and they are christianity and the superstition of Academic Freedom is the subtitle. The idea of Academic Freedom that everybody should be able to think and argue and Work Together between choosing between different arguments and moving towards a solution that is good for society is wrong because people have chosen the new deal. And later on he will be upset that they have chosen eisenhowers new way, that is when he gets really angry in 1955 with the establishment of the national review. In that bookie the key book he argues that the American Government must accept two fundamental principles, as she christianity and free market capitalism. That the government cannot get involved. Those are not negotiable. They are like the 10 commitments. Those are not negotiable. The other wing of the party, the rockefeller wing which became the eisenhower wing, believed that there were fundamental levels of equality and were willing to negotiate with democrats. Eisenhower basically like the new deal and he was going to make it run more smoothly. To people on the other side , on the buckley side, which became the mccarthy side and went to goldwater to reagan to george w. Bush not age w bush not george h. W. Bush. There was a street lineage. Straight lineage. That link of the party wing of the party cannot compromise principle, that is not negotiable. There is a right, and there is a wrong. Democrats are a mob. Like harrison said. The other part of the party is willing to give and take. They have a set of principles but they understand there is wheeling and dealing to go on different kinds of ideas that have to be on the table to move the country forward. Those two things are incompatible. And that wing has gotten to be too powerful. I think it is hanging itself in terms of if you watch political discussions way too closely which i do, hours every day i am reading chat rooms and twitter and everything to see which way the wind is blowing. It is very different than it was even five years ago. The wing is so far out there there is a Real Movement to bring back the progressive Republican Party of Nelson Rockefeller or eisenhower or roosevelt. I actually, every other day, think that is going to happen. And we will see but if i were putting my money on the party right now i would put it on that wing and not the other way. Kent thank you for a terrific presentation. And the wonderful illustrations that went with it. I am kent hughes. On the freeloading question, i wonder if in fact work has become a part of civic culture. On the republican side you have a line from Milton Friedman to nixons attempt to put that into legislative form. To senator roth it was a strong advocate and with some success the earned income thats credit. Tax credit. You have an anonymous amount of redistribution through the tax code but it is not controversial because it is linked to the tax linked to work. Dr. Coxrichardson that is partly rhetorical. Nixon was so good, especially when buchanan was writing for him, was so good at creating strongmen. They say we should create handouts. They say we should do this. The government for those things. But we are hardworking americans. He managed the government should pay for those things. But we are hardworking americans. With the other part of the tax code no one talks about his tax expenditures. Almost no americans understand it is out there but it is i am drawing a blank. It is essentially the middleclass welfare state. And the fact you can call that tax relief sells it and you dont of the present any kind of bills about it. It has decimated the tax code. If people understood what was going on it would be horrified. There is a young guy writing now, a good piece in al jazeera. His name is sean something. That is very useful. [laughter] dr. Coxrichardson it is a very important study on tax expenditure and he is the only person i have seen mention it in popular print. I think you are absolutely right, the tax code and the way it is portrayed as tax breaks to hardworking americans versus welfare payments to lazy ones is central both in language and in the way the economy goes. Let me play contrarian. Let me put my head on the right. You are presenting a strawman of the Republican Party. We believe in our heart of hearts that what we are doing today is promoting Economic Opportunity. It is just not your definition of it. And besides, pointing to reconstruction and the freeloader program and the graphics that you put up, there was in fact considerable corruption during the reconstruction era. Convict lease system. It lines the pockets of all sorts of people. Railroads, there is a lot of money passing hands here. Raising the question about taxes is not illegitimate then and is not illegitimate now. Second, the contrarian had of the left. Why are you being so mean to the republicans when the democrats seem indistinguishable. . This is the occupy wall street version. The democrats stand no more for Economic Opportunity than the republicans. They helped contribute to the economic crisis that did a considerable amount to decimate the people you want to help. So why single out the republicans . Neither Political Party actually is advancing Economic Opportunity. The democrats, like the republicans, are the party of other wealthy. Dr. Coxrichardson i may not get every piece of this so stop me. [laughter] dr. Coxrichardson i will start by saying you did not defined by what you meant about the Republican Party currently promoting equality of opportunity. Im going to ask that it is an Entrepreneurial Society way it is now . You might say that. Dr. Coxrichardson you have to find it defined it there it course it is rhetoric. Dr. Coxrichardson people have said that to me and i have a hard time with that. If you look at who can get education, where you have to work to survive, where you put your kids in daycare, the actual terms of living make it very difficult for people who are not born into money to advance, to rise up. The statistics bear that out. We are looking at again this is a different question but that is a problem. I believe that the National Debt, not that a National Debt is a problem, but the National Debt and the state thats not being paid in kansas and wisconsin and now arizona, those are a problem and they have to be dealt with. To go back to the Republican Party helping people right now. What i hear more often is actually not that. You hear that these people deserve what they got to which my answer is, i actually believe in a society that is motivated by profit motive. Because what you usually hear when people complain about my work is, you just want collectivism. I dont want collectivism, i dont think it works well. America has this genius of promoting dramatic innovation. And still have a safety net. And a lot of countries do not seem to manage to hit that sweet spot and right now we have not either. But right now with wealth continuing to stratify, you have the problem of people making a lot of money and not pulling weight in society and there are many reasons i think that is a bad idea. I dont hear that as much as i hear that republicans really stand for liberty, what is missing is economic liberty and freedom. That seems to me to be very slippery. You start to talk about liberty, all the coins started liberty but it meant something very different when the country was putting roots down than it did to the austrians in the 1940s. I do not subscribe to the idea that liberty means libertarianism. I think that libertarianism is the direction a lot of those arguments go and that is a deadly dangerous idea, point to me one Libertarian Society that has ever worked. I think i am all over the map as the question was. Am i halfway through it yet . The occupy people want to know. [laughter] dr. Coxrichardson again, i do not write about the democrats and i have my issues as well. But the problem but both of the parties come from different places but what has made it hard to figure out nowadays is two things things and they come from , the same position. One, in 1968, there was a redefinition of the emerging republican majority. Their famous book. They slice and dice the electorate. You no longer have it themes or ideas, you had to get the lefthanded typists from duluth. And you had to have the miners from one county in arizona. Instead of politics being about ideas or where the country will go, it was how many votes can we get onto the ticket. Once we started doing that we lost the political narrative and we lost the political narrative and it has become very easy to destroy the other idea that all you are interested in is the righthanded typists from duluth and it is the same. Fundamentally, they are not the exact same, but at least one party has a hard time articulating why it is different. We are quickly running out of time so lets take a couple of questions up here and give heather a chance to respond. Why dont we work our way down the table here . Stanley what happened to the Republican Party of 1872 when you had a group that split off nominated horace greeley, who was then nominated by the democrats. What was going on there . Dr. Coxrichardson 1872 is such an important here, such a great year. What happens in 72 is quite literally a fight between Charles Sumner and grant. Charles sumner wants control of the Republican Party and he thinks he should, he is educated and all of those things. He thinks grant is a backwards bumpkin and read thinks he is, i dont know, elected. [laughter] dr. Coxrichardson and he cuts sumner out of a lot of things. When he does that sumner declares war on him. You have to integrate the south back into the union and they have admitted most if not all of these states and the omnibus bill to prove that the republicans are not trying to control everything forever. One of these states in terrible trouble in 1870 is missouri because missouri is a union state but it is decimated by the war, a guerrilla war there. Missouri is under the drake constitution which permits no civic identity for anyone who has ever sympathized with the confederacy which means anyone who is democrats cannot be a lawyer, teacher, minister. Once all of the Southern States are back in the union, the people in missouri, the democrats who cannot vote, are pissed off. And they say this is not the society we fought for and that carl shirts comes from. He looks at the government that is keeping the democrats out and supporting grant and he goes to war with both grant and the Republican Party. And that is this internecine fight in missouri becoming a national flight, and incidentally this is where we get the idea that jesse james is in important guy. Jesse james is a murderer and a thug. He says he cannot get a break and he is being persecuted by the republican government. Those guys turn on grant and Horace Greeleys nomination in 72 by the liberal republicans is important. Liberal because they think government should be kept small. Because it is a newspaper war. Sumner and pulitzer take over the newspapers and says that grant is corrupt. That is why we need to take back the government. The newspapers are trying to destroy grant and they call them corrupt. Studies say every government has its issues. Lets take a couple more questions. The couple here. Bob in many ways eisenhower sounds more like a democrat and i am wondering to what extent he chose to become a republican. Out of expediency or could he have run as a democrat . And the democrat reactions. The gentleman over there. And in the gentleman over there. Dr. Coxrichardson his is a contest . I also have something to ask about eisenhower so maybe i can add. I agree with you that eisenhower is very admirable and much smarter than he let on to be in a lot of historians say he pretended to be bumbling but was kind of a ruse. Did he think of himself as progressive . Did you see himself in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt because of course in your book you cited modern republicanism. Use the term moderate. That is not the term in the Democratic Party vocabulary. How did eisenhower see himself in relationship to Theodore Roosevelt . Was he carrying on that tradition consciously or not . The gentleman in the red sweater. I have two questions and that is how does the u. S. Constitution protect property specifically. And secondly, i see you go lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, to eisenhower see it that you go what happens to Ronald Reagan . Dr. Coxrichardson he has a chapter. [laughter] you have three people there that are important but actually there is a fourth person that is actually more important than eisenhower certainly and i do not see him and i wonder was that a conscious decision or that sort of happened . Did you introduce yourself . Mike mike anderson, i am a retired professor. Fourth both at george mason in Northern Community college. Wonderful, thank you. Dr. Coxrichardson doesnt somebody want to talk about daniel boone to see if i can pull them altogether . [laughter] dr. Coxrichardson eisenhower was asked to run by both the democratic and republican parties. I think eisenhower, many historians say he was only posing when he said he did not want to be president but i think you did not want to be president. His private writings say that is not where he wants to go. Where he wants to go is into columbia, the presidency of columbia, which seems weird except that he had worked so closely with his mentor who had taught him all about the importance of a brain trust, if you will. Academics, businessmen, coming together and plotting new courses and new ideas for the new century. And he believed that the advent of the Nuclear Weapon created a new century that had to be answered. And that is a new problem that had to be answered. And that is the way he was most like Teddy Roosevelt, because Teddy Roosevelt of the idea of the wisconsin plan, the idea that what you have to do is bring bright guys together and figure out how to attack a new world. Attack is the wrong word, how to negotiate a new world. He becomes a republican by heritage. His uncle is Abraham Lincoln eisenhower. You cannot come from kansas and texas, or kansas and not be a republican. There is that in the fact he is also terrified of robert taft. Robert taft is an isolationist. He is actually very much a part of the intractable group i was talking about known as the taft republicans. Taft is adamant that the government must not get involved in what he calls stomach diplomacy overseas. Eisenhower thinks that if we do actively promote equality around the world, to undercut dictatorial governments, there is going to be a nuclear war and the earth will be destroyed. He believes this profoundly. It keeps him up at night. He gets very upset, you can see it in his speeches like the militaryindustrial complex speech of 61 or the speech to the press that i had a peer. Up here. He keeps saying to people like taft and mccarthy, cut it out. This is not a game, people are going to die. I have seen them die and you havent endless much stockier and this must stop here. He said we cannot have this happen again in human society. He becomes a republican i think because of that. He does not trust the democrats either, but basically he has no choice but to be republican although the Democrats Ask him to run. Good enough on the eisenhower points . I am like a goldfish, every trip around the bowl is new. Reagan. He is in there but is not in the tradition i consider the heart of the republican parties. Is time for choosing speech came in response to the goldwater candidacy. He was a democrat in his early years but he switches to becoming a fervently anticommunist republican which is a really interesting thing because in california after world war ii, because of the unique demographic conditions, the reason Orange County becomes so important is that you can stand against the welfare system that is helping africanamericans integrate in little rock or promoting systems in the south, racial equality in the south, and still get enormous amounts of government money by calling it anticommunism. You are essentially having a california welfare system for white people. That is where we get the militaryindustrial complex that drives eisenhower insane. Not literally, it makes them very unhappy. [laughter] so reagan is very important in the selling of this idea that the government must do nothing except from a big business christianity, and at that point promote a strong military. Interestingly enough i got into an argument with somebody when i said that, the book confidence of a conservative, written by William F Buckley juniors brotherinlaw, that that document looked very much like the speech. And that is not rhetoric. Some review said richardson says this is the book about how they turn the clock back to the days before lincoln and implies i made that up. Before that is a direct quote, the line before that is a direct quote. That speech i am sorry, that pamphlet, conscience of a conservative, goes back to the idea that government should do absolutely nothing. Except promote christianity and the military. That is the platform on which Barry Goldwater runs in 64 and loses everywhere except arizona a right to work state, the only one in the country i think at the time and the deep south. And his most vocal supporter is Ronald Reagan. In his it time for choosing speech, he goes on to the he goes on tv and reporters say that isnt it astonishing that the same stuff sounds vicious and horrible but when it comes out over the new republic sounds great coming from him. So reagan was a great salesman. A great salmon. And a very interesting man. He is in the book but in a very different column than the drivers like lincoln, roosevelt and eisenhower. I think were out of time. Youll have to chat after the session. The book is to make men free. I think we are all indebted for a most learned afternoon. [applause] youre watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspanhistory. Up American History tv, university of virginia history professors Gary Gallagher and peter onuf discuss Thomas Jeffersons views on federalism and the union of the states. They debate jeffersons provocative belief in the separation of races. President lincolns preservation of the union during the civil war. And how jefferson would view todays federal government. This session from the Miller Center at the university of virginia is about two hours. Anyone who hopes to understand the 19th century in the United States has to come to terms with the importance of union. As a deeply important concept and highly charged word in the political vocabulary. It is a word thats gone from our political vocabulary now. It literally Means Nothing to most americans now. They were union. If it isnt associated with la