Transcripts For CSPAN3 New York City During The Civil War 20170701

Work and support. Lets give them all i hand. Program will last an hour and include a question and answer session. The q and a will be conducted with written questions on note cards. You should have received a note card in pencil as you enter the auditorium, but well also have Staff Members circulating through. Just raise your hands if you want a card. They will be collecting them a little later in the program. There will also be a formal book signing with the speakers and copies of the book will be in store which is on the 77th street side of the building. We are honored to welcome back mr. Schechter, the author of several books on American History including a quote the the civil wark draft rights in the fight to reconstruct america. Severaln advisor in exhibitions here and as a fellow of the new york academy of history and a contributor to the encyclopedia of new york city. We are also so pleased to back to new york historical. He has been riding about the culture and history of new york city for a quarter of the century. His history of Greenwich Village was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews best books of the year. His most recent book, the city and sedition, the history of a city during the civil war has been awarded an award for best Nonfiction Book of 2016 among others. Our moderator is richard burr kaiser. Richard ise taking the place of the scheduled moderator. Of 11 booksthor and ng James Madison rediscovering george washington. He was awarded the humanities medal by president. Eorge w. Bush if you have a cell phone, please turn it off for the duration of the program and please join me in welcoming our guests. Thank you. [applause] i know it is a long walk. Well, look, thank you all for coming. I am not herald holes unfortunately. He knows the civil war personally. He was a good friend of the civil war. He could not be with us tonight. In for him. Y to sub we are very lucky to have these two authors. Book. D johns i expect we will have a great time tonight. I want to start off as devils advocate. Waryork has these old civil monuments. On foratest statue is the night street, general sherman, he is marching through georgia, led by victory. There is an almost equally fine statue in Madison Square park. His firstcked off president ial campaign at cooper union and after he was murdered, he was warned by kirklands greatest poet brooklyns greatest poet, what women. And on a personal note inas married on union e12 their lovely library. So, what is the problem question mark this is the unified city of the union, right . That is what is so shocking about the behavior of new yorkers before and during the outbreak of the war. Here in the city, during the limits of the socalled loyal hotbed as a john puts it, a city of sedition. And it is a complex history here it you go back to the revolution and think about new yorks geography is destiny. John adams says new york is the nexus of the northern and southern colony. Physically, it was great for shipping, for commerce. Culturally, it becomes torn between its ties to the south and its loyalty think that had a lot to do that. I go on about this at some length in my book. The size of the International Cotton trade, the explosion of its, new york at its peak, new york was 40 of what new york was shipping out was one commodity, cotton. Thats enormous. And tobacco, then sugar. So, new york has long ties to the south. William curlin Bryant William Cullen Bryant said new york was more of a southern city. And banking, merchandising. They were selling everything. The spread of slavery through the south was funded by new york banks, supplied by new york merchants. So, it was a very long and close relationship. A lot of people in new york, not just the bankers and the shipping magnates, but anyone working on the docks, in the hotels, where 100,000 new yorkers he or would come, there york80,000 people in new and 100,000 southerners in 1860. Thats a lot of folks. Anyone working in a restaurant, a hotel, a gambling house had reason to feel prosouth, proslavery and antiabolition. Richard so they are here for business and tourism . John yes. Richard four votes . What was the political complexion of the city . Barnet one indicator, the lameduck mayor, fernando word, his message to the city council this was secession winter was that new york city should take it upon itself to secede from the union. He said, you know, weve got good economic relationships with all of the state. We can become a kind of dutyfree point dutyfree port. We will break off and eventually the northwest will break off, too, and we will all trade amongst ourselves. There is going to be a republican john it is an idea we might want to dust off. [laughter] richard ok, but how seriously was he taken . John he was not at the time. John except in his brothers newspaper. He thought it was a great idea. But Horace Greeley and everyone else lambasted it. A little bitounds like Norman Mailer and jimmy braswell. John norman knows his history. As i say, we might want to look at it again. Barnet lincoln brushed it off. He said im not too worried about the doorstep of the nation. But there is a serious side to it which is words have consequences and the fact is, would was marginalized for what he said, especially when the war really wrote out. Really broke out. Especially when he jumped on the bandwagon. , thereing that winter was kind of the bombshell question here to what degree were new york merchants calling for useful secession, let the south go, lets work this out to what degree were they and horace creeley Horace Greeley, the very flipflopped editor of the new york tribune, to what degree do they encourage this . Might they not have seceded without this urge from these merchants . Lincoln carries the states twice, but how well does he do in new york . John terribly. Richard tammany already exists . John new york was largely a democrat city. Days, the democrats were the conservatives and the very new Republican Party were what we would call the liberal party now. New yorkers voted against him in 1860 new yorkers and brooklynites, still being a still being separate entities a margin of two to one. Although Horace Greeley and seward and a few other very influential republicans in new york made big strides to get him into the white house and keep them in the white house, the majority never voted for him. Richard of new york city. John of new york city. He won new york state in 18 succeed four by 1 . That is when he was running against george mcclellan, who was a great hero to an awful lot of people. Theres an interesting back story, too, if we go back to 1856. The first time the republicans ran a candidate, john fremont, lost as a candidate but the republicans gained control in new york state of the governors mansion. Its interesting to look at the rhetoric of someone like fernando would when he is talking about new york seceding from the union. He is also setting up a kind of dynamic, kind of a microcosm. New york reflects tensions going on nationally. Upstate, downstate. He is saying i am in favor of municipal rights. He is standing up for the city against the republicans. So, there is this kind of analogy almost between national and local politics. So, what we see as we go through the war and this will play i am later when we are talking about violence, there is tension sparked by republicans upstate making laws for the city putting in a new metropolitan Police Department and a board that controls it, putting in sabbath laws that close the saloons on sunday, all of these irritants that will make the tammany loyalists its not albany anymore. Barnet exactly. For sumter falls. What is the Immediate Reaction in new york city to that . Out they rush had argued against it and feared it coming and said they would not fight for the union. They instantly went out and signed up in droves, and new yorkers of all types. And all classes. I do take a slightly cynical view of that especially because im a new yorker. People thought there was going to be a threemonth war. We would march down south, kick butt, come back with laurels on your bayonets. By were going to be backed september. For working new yorkers, it was a paycheck. There had been a lot of unemployment in new york. The idea of getting paid not was, but regularly, exciting to them, and a big incitement to sign up. Once they start seeing that, seeing the elephant, as it was called at antietam and first bull run, that volunteerism goes through the floor and they stop signing up, which leads to the draft. Richard what is the ethnic makeup of the city . John it is more than barnet if you look at the city in 1860, you have about 800,000 people total and the largest ethnic opponent are irish and irishamerican who make up a quarter, about 200,000. Germans barnet they are probably the second largest. And free africanamericans are probably 12,500 people, a bit of its depth a bit of a dip from its highs in the 1840s. I think its important when youre looking at this response to for sumter to look at the motivations of the irish who built a lot of these regiments and created this irish legion, the irish brigade. Theres a whole kind of story there. The british are perceived they are the paternal the paternal entities of the of the irish,s they need the south. The irish feel that they want to participate to protect this union. The united states, this great, young democracy. Richard the enemy barnet yes, exactly. John also, this was sort of tothejob training to join fight in the civil war so they would have some experience when they would go back and kick the british out. War, first bull run happens and a lot of nothing happens for a while and people slowly began to realize this is going to be a long war. And as we all know, lincoln goes through many generals before he find some good ones. When does when is the draft instituted . The draft comes in two stages. There is a militia draft in 1862 and in march of 1863, there is a federal conscription. The first draft we ever had . Right. If you think about the american revolution, we had a draft, but it was at the state level. The governors were in control. And thats it with american ideology, british ideology. Army not have a standing controlled by a central power. So, this is a huge watershed in 17 63. F they created a bureaucracy and suddenly this bureaucracy can reach into every household and chapman directly to a National Army. That in itself was a cause of outrage. But the fact that you could also pay 300 or higher as substitute and get out of the draft was an extreme irritant. Richard why was that written into the law . Barnet from the Government Point of view, they were doing everyone a favor. If you did not have the 300, the 300 clause, the called it youcommutation clause, could bid on substitutes in and open market and the rich could pay 1800. So 300, how welloff do have to be to have 300 . Working in au are dock or a factory, you are making maybe one dollar a day. Youre looking at almost a years salary. Is prohibitive for an individual. What people did is, they pooled their money to create draft insurance, their factory bodies. If one of them drafted they would pay for it. Eventually, cities and towns move on and collectively the city would hire substitutes and pay off the money for the poor men who could not afford it. James monroe wanted a draft in the war of 1812. But congress would not pass it. This was not the same. Now were there any new york units during the war that distinguish themselves in ways that made them noteworthy here that were celebrated here that they came local heroes . John sure, sure. Thomas corcoran and the irish were hugely famous and fitted here. They were one of the only units at the first battle of bull run that actually stood their ground. Was captured for a long time and they shut the city down and had a parade for him when they brought him back. So, he was a big deal. And philip kearny, the one armed double was almost impossibly dashing. He was like a fictional character. And they loved him. He did not last very long. Was outrageously brave and kept going out in front of his men and went to far out in front of his men and got killed. But he was very famous. And the richard seventh regiment . The seventh. Although the seventh did not do much of anything. They were great and Everybody Loves them. They can go on and do things on the battlefield. But they never saw battle. Barnet we should also mention the 69th, the fighting irish. Volunteers. They were irish nationalists. They started the unit. They really suspected the army was using them as cannon fodder because they were put in front of the worst battles. They suffered tremendous casualties. But if you are a good unit am a that is what you do with them. The is what you do with irish in those days. Everybody was can fodder. Barnet that was the point. It was a doomed charge, right . Everybody was cannon fodder. Barnet so, that was the perception. Importantut that was to get out there because now we are going to get to the draft riot. It is theemory of irish draft riots, but there were also these very gallant irish units fighting at the same time. So we should not be painting with two broad and ethnic brush here. So, what brings tensions to the point where people take to the streets over this . Barnet i think when they finally start doing the draft, that is the last straw. Not just for the irish. For white workingmen, which was most of the workingmen, in new york city by that point, by the summer of 1863. Orir wages had stayed steady real wages had stayed steady or gone down, but inflation had doubled the cost of everything, the price of everything. They were not happy about the emancipation proclamation. Warhifted the point of the they had been told they were going to fight originally to preserve the union. Now they were fighting to preserve the union and free the slaves, which was something very few of them had any interest in fighting and dying for, and then the draft comes along and if they do not have a years wages set aside to buy their substitute, they are going to go and i think that was the final spark. It is a draft riot, but it was an somebodies but i think it is yours, where you could really look it is in somebodys book, i think it is yours, where you could really look citywide, the draft was the immediate cause, but references have been building up in this class for several years. Richard did they think of the republicans who were in the city john oh, yeah. They were curiously not targeting black females for the forced for the first day or two. They were looking for edwin booth, because he was a celebrity spokesman for lincoln and the war effort. And they probably would have done some nasty things to him. Republicans were a small, elite minority who had gotten them into this mess and they were very unhappy. At richard tonet right, and the one they thought got them into this mess were the free africanamericans. So, what happened, the riots broke out. They started a political rally. People marched uptown and targeted the draft office, smashed into it, burned it into the ground. But as the day went on, as they rated armies and tried to gather weapons and attacked the mayors house and all of these political targets, the whole thing degenerated into a racial pogrom. Richard where did blacks lived in . What was interesting, they really did not have a black ghetto at the time, partly because of all 30. Blacks and whites lived together in the worst slums on earth. That may blacks defenseless in the sense that they could not rally together and fight back. The, blacks were hunted down wherever they lived. An example is where the Brooklyn Bridge is today. There is a huge access ramp. That ramp is wiped out. He it contains lactic mutual aid sir but black mutual aid societies, churches. Distribution points for abolitionist literature. These became targets of the rioters. They targeted an orphanage, too . Barnet yes. It was actually a biracial effort started by quaker women in the 1830s and 1840s. They hired a black doctor. The first accredited black position in america who had to be educated in scotland cause of racism at home. It was a joint effort that was an uplift to black children, bringing them out of the slums, and so it became a point of thattment for poor whites blacks are getting some sort of preferential treatment. And they burned it to the ground. But again, the interesting point you were making before. You look at the ethnic group in the story. Theres always a complicated picture. The young man who eventually rescued the children once they came out in the street were young irish streetcar drivers who knew the neighborhood and said, come with us. We will take you to the safety of the police recent. So, the riot is how many days . The first troops there were no troops in town. They had all been shipped south. They are trying to get back to help out the the first ones show up wednesday night. Thursday, they are marching up the avenue with howitzers blazing, and friday morning, it is pretty much richard i was always struck by the howitzers. John yeah. Richard we have seen riots in our lifetime, but this is a whole quantum different. John still the deadliest in American History. Richard i have seen wildly divergent figures about how many were killed. What is your best estimate . Around 500ould say seems reasonable if you read anecdotal accounts of soldiers and people in the streets. And probably most of those 500 were the rioters themselves, since, as you point out, you had platoons of soldiers firing live rounds into crowds, clearing artillery. Et, using a canister that would explode. Yet, instead of cannonball. Knock down the wall. Kill a lot of people. And you know, some of it, the estimates were outlandish. 1200 killed. There was a lot of political maneuvering and propaganda going on. The actual coroner death toll was Something Like 105, maybe 119 depending on who you counted. Think that is probably low. Walts brother was in washington at this point and his brother wrote him and said, it was many more in 119. Trust me, walks. Walt. trust me, newspaper said 175 blacks killed alone, and that involved people driven off drops into the rivers and round, black by who had been lynched lampposts across the city and their bodies were mutilated and set on fire. Its an incredibly horrific, horrific event. I mentioned, 12,500 people in the free black community. Of 5000 men, women, and children were burned out of their homes and became refugees as a result of this week of mob rule. So, where do they go . They went to new jersey in brooklyn, there was a free black community. Some of the houses have been restored, and there is a center there now. That was a place where blacks could go. There were black men with shotguns on the perimeter protecting them. Some families moved to new england. The black population of new york city continued to decline until about 1870, when you started to have black Voting Rights and so on. What does the city think about after order is restored . John the democrats blame it on the republicans, the republicans limit on the democrats feared one of the impacts is that the city is basically, not officially, but basically put under martial law. Many troops common. That has many troops come in. That has an impact. Many people blame the irish. The irish were many were upset about that. I think it is unfair to say it was an irish right appeared there were an awful lot of irish people working. The percentage of white workers who revolted who were irish was high, that it was not an irish revolt. It was political. We are fighting an irish on irish civil war. There cracking each others heads they are cracking each others heads. You mentioned the troops coming from gettysburg to restore order. It looks like, even then, it looks like a turning point. Does that have an effect on the citys mood . Won for change . Neverthe great metropolis speaks with one voice. If you speak with maria dailey, sherote a wonderful diary was convinced the north was never going to beat the south, and there were plenty of people who thought that. Other people thought great, we won a few. Very soon it was apparent this would drag out a very long time. There were ways in which if you had money in new york, the war was a very distant rumble of thunder off somewhere hundreds of miles away. Gettysburg was the nearest battlefield, 200 miles away. Something that if it did not come into your home, you did not think about it all that much. There was a lot of were profiteering going on in new york to in new york. The room where gold was traded in new york richard and currently they had better intelligence than the staffs of the union and confederacy. John the price of gold would go up in one direction and then go down. There were tremendous amounts of speculation. Lincoln said he wished he could assassinate or execute all the speculators. It had a big effect on the greenback. Richard when you have two sources of money, there will be arbitrage. John also there are people representing the confederacy buying it up to affect the price of gold. Richard to what extent were there spies and agents of the confederacy . Barnet that was the question. A lot of people thought the riots were part of a concerted Southern Military strategy. It seemed to them more than coincidence, but rather conspiracy. The timing of the riots was so close to the battle of gettysburg. Scenario was that there were actually copperheads, socalled copperheads, the snakes in the grass, traders to traitorsh informing to the north informing the confederacy. Had picketts charge broken through cemetery ridge, this Southern Army wouldve come a in harrisburg, baltimore, washington. Perhaps new york harbor, you see the whole thing unfolding. Certainly the new york times, the tribune said undoubtedly there were knights of the golden circle, a group that envisioned southern slavery extending beyond the epicenter of havana, embracing not just the southeast that the entire caribbean and south america. They were working behind the scenes. The evidence, when you sift through it, is very thin. It seems clear the draft riots were kind of an organic perfect storm of resentment that had been building for maybe half a century. This was were saying not so much an irish riot but a working mans right, the largest in our history geared if you look at the 50 years leading up to the civil war, you can see that. The working mans position is being steadily downgraded by this revolution in technology and a market economy. You have railroad, paved roads, canals, telegraphs, all of this is coming in between 1810 and 1816. Richard a lot of jobs, but are they lower paying . Barnet exactly. Cog in a is a machine. Have to live near a factory for steady work. One of the things we see in the riot is the burning of the Grain Elevators in brooklyn. It was a kind of lashing out against automation. Thrownrain elevators had grain shoveling men out of work. So that i think kind of encapsulates the problem of here is this discriminatory law that sort of passed into this one building resentment. That, waterfront work was what was called casual labor. Most times you did not work five days a work a week. You might get three days a week. That one dollar a day you are sixng, you were not making dollars that week, you are making three dollars. Factor, ande other i think it is clear this is why they were targeting the free blacks in new york, they were told over and over again by the Democratic Leaders in the city and the credit newspapers and the democratic newspapers, that if those 4 million enslaved people in the south were freed, they were going to come to the north and take away those mens jobs. Richard because they would work for less. John they would work for less. Are reasons that was ridiculous to have said, but a lot of people lead it. Yout. Believed if richard you told me you had a favorite character. John dan sickles. Yet almost nothing to do with it. Richard do we need Technical Assistance . John i am good. He is one of the great scalawags of the century. Competitionlot of for great scalawags, especially in new york city. Man. A tammany hall he is a party boy. Tammany gets elected to congress. He catches his wife with a lover, who is the son his name is Philip Barton key. Street,s them in the comes up here for mistrial, the biggest murder trial of the 19th century, a big scandal. He is acquitted. A lot of people say it was because they used a then novel defense, temporary insanity. But i dont think that was necessary. History was 12 married men. Jury was 12 married men. [laughter] john he was a general in the war. Dan comes within a hair of winning or losing the battle of gettysburg for the union, depending on what side youre on. Reform theenerals line behind him. They are instantly engulfed by rebels and there is hectic slaughter. A cannonball shatters his right leg. The amputated. Those days when the amputated your like on the battlefield, they threw it in a pile and dealt with it later. He would not let that happen. He had it boxed up and sent to the National Army museum. It. Ould visit [laughter] said he thought there was more fond of the leg he did not have been what he did have. Dan practically gets us into war with spain during the grant administration. He is an amazing character. Why that movie has not been made, i dont know. [laughter] reactd how does new york to appomattox, and how does it react to fords theatre . But start with appomattox. Barnet i think new yorks response to the end of the war is muted, innocence, because as we said, it was the city that never voted for lincoln. As his funeral train passes to the city, is a question, you talk about this in the book, what was bringing all of these people to the street if it was not genuine sorrow. It might have simply been rubbernecking. I think what is important about new yorks reaction in the , you know, wehat talked about the draft riots being part of the response not just to the draft but the emancipation proclamation. What i would suggest is that emancipation proclamation is really the opening salvo of what we call reconstruction. The draft riots are perhaps the first battle of that reconstruction era. I think what we will see after downar, as the war winds and in the subsequent years is that the Democratic Party, which had been on the ropes during the war, starts to bounce back, and a lot of that is due to boss tweed in the 1960s. Richard it is also fighting reconstruction. Barnet right. The draft riots are just the beginning of the phenomenon of reactionary racial violence. They are really of a piece with what we see after the war with the ku klux klan. The fact we see lynchings in new york city and 1863. You look at those prints and a look about what the photographic all the way into the 1930s of lynchings in the south. There is a story there that i think is very littleknown, the Democratic Party in new york under tweet and others tweed and others, becomes the engine for the Democratic Party nationally. Win go so far as to almost the white house by 1876. And of course, there is a deal that is cut in a disputed election. Richard and that is the end of reconstruction. Barnet the deal is, you take the last troops out of the south and we give you the white house. That forknow president s have been killed. Most of us remember kennedy. But lincoln was the first one. This had never happened. Richard so surely this had to have been an extraordinary psychic event for much of the country. Including new york, because new york is part of the country. Would beont think impossible to judge appeared all of new york came out for the funeral. Walt whitman was quite moved. He had become a fan of lincoln. It has been said that there is an extent to which it was a hit drome of hippo sorrow. That it was somewhat false. Im going to sound cynical. Yorkers outt new for anything. You could parade a dog down the street and a lot of people would watch. I think there was a certain amount of caulking of gawking. The majority of people have not rooted for him, they were happy the war was over, but they were not happy because they thought he had dragged him into the war. Im sure there was some grief and actual shock and real sorrow, of course there was, but i think there was also an edge of new yorkers being new yorkers. The Africanamerican Community attempted to be part of the funeral parade and were excluded by the city council. Eased the War Department , and they were able to have some people at the tail end of the parade. They were experiencing genuine shock and grief. We have not talked for much about the ultraloyal new ,orkers, Frederick Law Olmsted George Templeton strong. York. As a segment of new richard was the Circle Society on it . Now for some questions. Some of my greats brothers, born in ireland, disappeared after being enlisted or grafted into the union army. Was this common . John it happened a lot. There were a lot of guys who were bounty jumpers. You got paid a bounty for signing up. You would sign up, get your , go to instantly go awol another recruitment office, sign up again is in a different name or you let your mustache grow a little. There were guys jumping around doing that a lot. But also during the war, and at certain points, there was a lot of shrinkage on the line. There is a very good book that came out two years ago, right not even signing the signing, the announcement of the emancipation proclamation, a lot of people from the north, not just soldiers and officers resigning her commission because they were not going to fight to free slaves. There were not just new yorkers. Throughout the union. Richard in spirit next question. Was there any punishment for the right . No,et the short answer is there was not any punishment for the riot. , and appointed the judges the whole power structure was under tammany control. They were not going to prosecute their own constituents. They had these show trials were people got a slap on the wrist and very little. Richard did the draft work . Was it worth it . Barnet it was successful in the sense that its main purpose was to spur voluntarism. It accomplished that because people would rather collect 300 by signing up then be drafted. Richard there was a differential there. Barnet right. With all of these municipalities floating millions of dollars in bonds to pay off the commutation draggedy few men were into the army against their will. Internationalny i dont understand this question. Was there any international equivalent to the new york draft riots . I dont see why there would be. And 1941. 48 richard is there a particular reason why the riots followed gettysburg . I think we discussed this. Barnet the theory was lee was supposed to break through the there would be a fire in the rear that helped the attack. I have not found any hard evidence. Mirror how do the riots contemporary political tests contemporary protests such as the l. A. Riots . I think we raised the question of scale. A multiplier for the population. John i think if you look at the casualty figures in l. A. , for example, i think 21 people were killed. Probably a more comparable riot, if you want to call it a riot, was tulsa in 1921. There may have been more People Killed there. We will never know. There was so much destruction of property. Fire consumed evidence. Probably tulsa. John and there were the riots leading up to and during world war ii, as well. I hadnt thought about it until now, there is something about we toto war, that can lead Domestic Violence and the mystic uprising against the war or whatever. War, world the civil war i and world war ii, and then in vietnam. Richard the first casualties of the war 1812 were in a baltimore riot. John diego appeared richard the movie gangs of new york portrays new york as a very violent city. How accurate was that portrayal . Why did the violence update . Abate . Barnet i would say new york was a very violent place in the 19th century. If you look at the course of the whole century, you see the draft riots were just the worst explosion of many. 1834, there was a weeklong antiabolition riot. Stormedriot where the the nest of the aristocracy, kind of a classbased riot. These gangs were used by politicians like fernando would as a political arm. They would use them to intimidate opposition at election time. There was always something going on. Abate . It part of it is your answer to why new york reacted to the draft riot . The elites became very defensive. He talked about the dangerous classes and closed ranks. What you see in the last quarter of the 19th century is that those troops that were pulled out of the south are now brought into armories across the north to put down strikes by workers. Hand ofit is a heavy the militia being used more often. Part of it is that there is some improvement of the abysmal social conditions, new sanitation laws, tenant laws, the health code. That takes us into a progressive , a of the early 20th century more systematic, kind of meritbased government for jobs and so on. Richard did the confederates experience similar problems with the drafting soldiers . John they actually instituted the draft first. I dont know of any big riots they had, but it was a problem. Richard i have a fun fact. Union units from every seceded states except south carolina. The other 10 states had seceded, each of them had at least one unit in the union army. There was not the moonlight and magnolias. There was a lot of dissent in the south. Are excepted from the confederate draft if you were a foreman on an estate with more than 20 slaves. How is that for classes from a nation class discrimination . Richard threats that were plaguing new york, how did they reverberate outside of manhattan . Were smaller disturbances around new york. Ost cases richard worked there some in brooklyn . John brooklyn, new jersey, long island. Further out in boston. Richard vermont in the marble quarries. Pennsylvania in the coalfields. Anywhere you have a concentration of working people felt threatened by the draft and where there were democratic orders that would going and rep. Them appeared. I think the two draft officials that were killed were in indiana. There were problems in chicago. Specialttan, you had a condition of a tiny island with half a million poor people packed onto it. Richard can you please discuss president lincolns response to the riots . Net reagans response he hadresponse appeals coming at him from different sides. The Union Leaders went down to the headquarters of the union and and telegraphed lincoln said, impose martial law. They wanted a reconstruction of new york city. Deny saw new york city as a of corruption. , they said they would settle it, we know how to talk to people. Lincoln also said famously, i am sitting on two volcanoes i have a war to fight, there is a potential conspiracy to start a riot in chicago. And i have new york, it has already exploded. If i dig it deeper and have a federal investigation that you want, i will scrape some loose dirt from the crater and it will erect again. Those were his kind words. Kind of words. It was that he could not do more. It wouldve been more satisfying in a moral sense, to hold people to account. N the other hand richard he was an excellent politician. Barnet he had his eye on the game. Richard how did you look officials react to the riots . The republicans blamed the democrats, the democrats blamed the republicans. The democratic governor used it say to abraham , in new lets suspend york city lets suspend the draft for a while because we are challenging the legality of the draft in the courts. Please lets wait until those cases moves through the court system and do you do anything about bringing the draft back online in new york city. Of course, he could not suspend the draft in new york and continue everywhere else, so he told the governor now. Governor no. At the same time, he basically put the city under martial law just to see what would happen. I think because tammany, and , crankedof politicians up this whole democracy that was to buy men out of serving peered between tammany and the troops in town, there was no further riot. Richard the troops keep the lid on and tammany lowers the temperature. John right. Richard the draft riots stuck to see more, as i recall. Barnet he addressed the rioters as my friend. Let me address your grievances. I think theionally, response was also conditioned by what happened in for wagner in south carolina. In southagner carolina. Many of you have probably seen the movie glory. These black soldiers were martyred in these attacks. New would have relatives in york city attacked by mobs while they were scaling the wall of a fork in getting shot down. Two things i think really shocked the conscience of the nation. If the riots had any redeeming effect, it was to wake people up to look at it differently. Affected the socioeconomics of new york longterm. I think we look at this before. I think they promoted segregation that had existed before by driving blacks and their institutions into physical periphery. Which at that time was what . For example, the colored orphan asylum moved from fifth avenue to harlem, and eventually further into riverdale. People moved up to brooklyn. In some ways, you could say it is the start of a catalyzing izing process. They start withdrawing. Most of the white folks in new york are happy to have them do that, so they reinforce that as time goes on to drop them farther and farther out. We have one more question. In the years leading up to the civil war, was there any outcry economic tiesrks to the south, and therefore slavery . I think the answer is no. There was from a handful of idealists. I do think you have to be careful in overplaying how much Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher and the other abolitionists in town they were very influential, but they were a minority. I dont think outside of them there was much outcry about new yorks association with the south. Ok, thank you gentlemen. [applause] that was great. We thank you so much, john and rick. It was a terrific evening. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Please stay for the book signing. The gentleman will be signing on is west side, and our museum on the 77th street side. We look forward to seeing you again. Thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] interested in American History tv . Visit cspan. Org history. You can view our schedule, preview upcoming programs come and watch college lectures, museum tours, archival films, and more. American history tv at cspan. Org history. Thencer this weekend on presidency, the archaeological record of George Washingtons virginia birthplace and the speculation that the National Park service site is not the birthplace at all. The preview here is a preview. Why do we need to get these answers . Because 2032 is 20 minutes away. Is going to happen soon. When it does come the world is going to turn to this place. Im not joking. Youre going to have 50 senators out there, the president of the united states, all sort of people. The birth of george washington. When you live around it and see it on a daytoday basis and write about it all the time, it after lysed it is naturalized. Is just a thing. But that is not what it is when it comes to being national. The country will turn its eyes to this landscape, and there will be a major celebration. The river is going to be full of boats. There are going to be you coming down from mount vernon. The president ial helicopter. The secret service blocking the roads. Gas stations are going to run out of gas. That is all going to happen. Announcer you can watch the entire program on George Washingtons birthplace on the presidency, sunday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern. This is American History tv on america on cspan three. Warren burger was u. S. Supreme court chief justice. University lawrk Professor John sexton talks about his legacy. Anderved as nyus president law school dean. Stephen was hosted in Supreme Court chamber the event was hosted in the Supreme Court chamber. Gregory good evening. Welcome to our 42nd annual lecture. Before we do anything else, i will ask everyone to take out their phones and turn them off. Even on silent mode, they will interfere with the sound system here in the court. I am greg joseph, president of the society. Welcome. We are delighted to have you here today. We are on it we are honored to have resident emeritus of nyu john sexton, whose topic tonight is warren burger, the founder of our society