Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Civil War 20160618

This was somehow, this was leaked. It first appeared in a vulgar french issue. It was then translated into english. The letter was used to suggest that jefferson was against washington and was really turning his back on the revolutionary legacy. They also brought up his behavior as governor of virginia, that he had run away from the british. It is always a bizarre charge because the legislature, who were most critical of him ran far ahead of him in escaping richmond and then escaping charlottesville. What always impressed me about jefferson is he stayed long enough to monticello to actually watch this british lesions and loyalists start to come up the slope, which is not a very High Mountain and then finally, he left having sent his family off and to advance. This story was the one about which she was most sensitive for his entire political career. He was subsisting about it in the last week of his life, so another words, it hit a point. There were stories about jefferson having a black mistress. This is much more bleak than it would happen later than they certainly speculated. The most bizarre was the story of jeffersons death. It was one of his enslaved workers who dot, but its a jefferson had died, not by a federalist paper but by a republican paper. The point was, that when the federalist heard about it, they rejoiced. In other words, that is a bad Party Tensions have become. The republicans won the newspaper war because the majority of newspapers were republican and the republicans did much more to work with newspapers than their opponents. The election as you know was a tie. 73 votes for aaron burr and 73 votes for thomas jefferson. John adams would have won if the population in the south had not included a count of enslaved people as 3 5 of a person under the constitution. He would have won by two votes and that was compellingly put forward in a book by gary wills, the negro president. Far more important at the time was that adams party split down the middle which cost adamss election. The election was in deadlock. Six days, the delegates went through 36 different votes. We are talking in some of these primers, maybe a second or third round, 36 rounds of no one giving way. If you look to the secondary book, they both give different explanations as to how the tie was broken. A lot of textbooks say Alexander Hamilton himself broke the tie, that hamilton finally concluded that jeffersons bark was worse than his bite. Hes a jefferson is too ambitious not to retain he said jefferson was too ambitious not to retain some of his deeds. Hamilton had a particular quarrel with burr who ultimately killed him in a dual. Hamilton pulled him down in a very underhanded way, and rightfully so because as you know burr was a maverick. That is certainly true. Hamilton made it known that he supported jefferson. That actually did not help because very much at the time because hamilton himself was discredited. He wanted to split the party that caused the federalist to lose and he published an attack, and open attack on john adams on the character of mr. Adams in which also criticized himself. This did not help because of the party. The person who really broke the tie was a minor figure who held the entire electoral vote for delaware and it was he who changed his vote and essentially did not vote, did not switch to jefferson. He claimed for the rest of his life that an intermediary gained in agreement with jefferson that jefferson would retain certain officials in the government and that he would not overdo the assumption of debt. Certainly, jefferson denied it. On the other hand, not a foot supposedly this deal consisted of was ever changed. Essentially, it was carried, so with a change of the vote, the election was decided a week before the actual inauguration. Jefferson would call it the revolution of 1800, felt that changed the nature of politics. He typically claims that it was the unanimous choice of the people when in fact it had been a very close run thing. There is no doubt that the movement of popular opinion was moving toward the republicans and largely in the south. They won in the house votes and senate votes. The fact is, this election made the Republican Party the party of government for decades afterwards. The Federalist Party disappeared as a party. We have run out of time, but is there a moral to all of this . Jefferson and adams became friends later in life through correspondence. They left their Party Differences aside and it is one of the great correspondences in history. It ranges not just politics but sciences, gardening, agriculture and shows the incredible intellectual range that these two individuals had. But i think its also a lesson is that america is the product to totally opposed party visions. We all agreed to to the federalist and a jefferson in terms of democratizing government introducing. It really highlighted the sectional differences in the country. Jefferson was entirely successful in the south and in the west. The federalist hold within the north and especially in new england. It would be the federalists during the war of 1812 would talk about confession whereas during the alien and sedition acts, it was jefferson and madison that helped draft the kentucky and virginia result in really helped introduce the word nullification. You can see in anticipation of the civil war but by no means did this make the civil war inevitable. Thank you. [applause] mr. Oshaughnessy i am happy. If you have a question, wait for the microphone to come. Thank you. Thank you very much. Other than your own books, whose books would you recommend on this theory . Mr. Oshaughnessy there is a good book by larson on the election of 1800. I am afraid to tell you that identifying the secondary literature is very satisfying. The best book, if you really want to go into depth with this and be serious is a volume of essays called the election of 1800 which was produced during the election of 2000. It was actually held under a conference organized by monticello and the proceedings are edited by jan lewis and jim holmes. He was my predecessor at monticello. There is a brilliant new book on the election of 1826 and there is brilliant essays written by him on the election of 1800. There is a history of the party system that is only one chapter on 1800 and has less detail than what i gave you this evening. If you want to know something about the delegates and how it all works, it is a good sort of textbook summary of the buildup of Party Differences, but it is not really a story of the election of 1800. There are books being written on it in genealogy and blood types and a lot of people do not realize this did come up at the election. People didnt know about it. Can you speak on that . Mr. Oshaughnessy it suddenly was referred to in this election, but very bleakly. It came up later. In many ways audley through jefferson. Jefferson, before the election of 1800 has started to work with a real moderator who is often described in the textbooks as a scottish alcoholic, which i think probably, obviously, he had a way with words and was a good political communicator but marvelous in terms of negative advertising. He and jefferson fell out after this election and calendar was the first to talk or he openly about hemmings. It was the subject of a cartoon and was used by jeffersons opponent. How complete is the archival record of that election and how much of it has been pieced together by academic supposition with filling in the blanks . Mr. Oshaughnessy i think the archival records are good. Suddenly, most of the negative advertising is conducted to the newspapers and most of the newspapers have been saved. Congress is one of the great repositories of american newspapers, it is actually not the library of congress. It was started by an editor that had been active during the American Revolution and began a paper called the massachusetts spy. He kept collections of what was going on in continued the collection. The institution in massachusetts still continues and has most of the newspapers. You know, jefferson was very careful with what he wrote about. He was always aware his correspondence would be used for his biography and it would affect his legacy. He never wrote to madison. He was aware his letters would be open and read. The postmaster, whoever, people would read these things and reseal them. Some feel madison has never got his full due. It was madison leading the opposition. While jefferson was Vice President , he spent very little time in washington other than going into vote. It was madison that took the lead. Madison very much played a secondary role, highly supportive as with monroe, both very good proteges. Yes. I should probably wait for the microphone people. Yes. Did the republicans really consider repealing some of hamiltons economic programs and the election of 1800 . Mr. Oshaughnessy jefferson let the alien sedition act expire. He could not do anything about the National Bank charter, which should not come up until madison who did let the bank lapse for a period. He never tried to dismantle hamiltons financial system. Political crossdressing, a phrase that goes on the great deal. Jefferson is quoted saying, we are all republicans, which is regarded as a great overture of his former opponents. The real truth is, he regarded them as an aberration. He thought he created the one Party Government which really did represent the interests of the american people. He never intended to create the opposition. He thought to his dying day that he created the one party that could embrace and represent america. He did retain a lot of federalists components and did not try to dismantle hamiltons financial system. It was the dividing line in american policy, the issue of banks. These have been the same issues that divided britain which had gone to this much earlier in the mid18th century. The National Debt was a huge issue for britain and one of the reasons they taxed america. I think i read that the party, jeffersons party was referred to as the democraticrepublicans area did is that correct . Mr. Oshaughnessy jackson simply called it the Democratic Party. What happens when the party is successful is the party eventually splits. What i think is amusing is the modernday Republican Party, modernday democrats actually both have the same roots, and obviously the Republican Party was refounded in wisconsin just before the civil war, but certainly it saw some of its antecedents in jefferson in its earlier period. Eventually jefferson sent roosevelt on behalf of the democrats which was bizarre here was big government, the republicans at lincoln and the democrats needed someone. Jefferson was put on the nickel in the Jefferson Memorial is built in washington. I am going to take the prerogative of the last question which is to ask you something that we are not supposed to ask you historian which is a counterfactual. If our good friend, the delegate from delaware does not vote, what happens . Play this out . Are we still waiting on the final resolution of this voting . Mr. Oshaughnessy that could be the real crisis. I mentioned at the beginning of the talk, and i should have repeated it. James monroe honored the ordered the virginia militia to stand guard as did Thomas Mckean in pennsylvania. The talk is that the selection was stolen. Burr himself was somewhat elusive. He does not seem to discourage the possibility that he might be president. Of course, he was not a particular friend of jefferson. On the 36th vote, burr did say he had no interest in it should go to jefferson. I think that was the most political reply. He was 14 years younger than jefferson, 44 at the time of the election so he could look to think that there may be another opportunity. Thank you. [applause] mr. Oshaughnessy thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] known as the center of the Country Music industry, the cspan cities tour explores the history in that are in the culture of Tennessee State capital, nashville. On book tv, david ewing talks about his book the history of the ryman auditorium. How it became a place for civil rights events and political rallies. The Civil Rights Movement was very important in nashville, tennessee. A few blocks from here, students all did the lunch counter sit ins. They got arrested here, they system of what was going on in nashville, tennessee. On American History tv, visit. Hem at taj hermitage learn about the properties history and how it grew from a twostory cabin into a president ial residence. And, tour the dylan National Exhibit at the Country Music hall of fame. They talk about the relationship between bob dylan and johnny cash, the political clash between the genres and how with the help of the musicians known as the nashville cats, music bridged political differences. Their french and had with changing perceptions of rollille, bringing rock n people here appear the establishment of nashville as the social establishment in nashville didnt really accept Country Music could ever a lot of people that want to pretend that the grand ole opry wasnt here, that what they saw was a real people in overalls but you can imagine at the height of 60s counterculture when there is divisions between sort of longhaired hippie culture if you will that was coming at the time and more conservative element watch the cspan city tour throughout the day on cspan2 book tv and sunday afternoon on American History tv on cspan3. That 50 is not 15. New 30, 50 is the new it looks good. People ought not be talking about being over 50 as a period of decline. Of aarp talks ceo about the challenges Older Americans face and what they are doing to assist them to she is also the author of the book the disrupt aging. The Fastest Growing age segment is people over 85. When these programs were put in place, Life Expectancy was 67. Not only are there more people in the system but they are living longer and so we have to be able to look at these programs and making meaningful adjustments thats going to be allow people to live with dignity, a much longer. Then of time. A much longer. Time. D of to our lifeeturn conference i Gettysburg College. Build your front panel of historians on the origins of the lost cause. Panelists include peter carmichael, and keith an end. Ohannen. [no audio] the federal court of appeals for the digital of columbia upheld the rules for treating the internet like a utility, requiring providers to treat all traffic equally. Monday, on the communicators, would ll and that matt wood are on either side of this decision. Has for thethe fcc first time gone further than that and said the skin that thern naked the governed network that opens the door for a bunch of additional regulation that was never really part of the Net Neutrality debate. We think of this as the fcc , treatingto that broadband like a Communication Service and an infrastructure and a Transmission System and making a distinction between the carriage and the content on the internet. Watch the communicators on monday night on cspan2. Joint American History tv on july 1 as we mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Smithsonian National air and space museum in washington. We will show toys of the museums oneofakind aviation and space artifacts including the spirit of st. Louis and the apollo lunar module. We will also take calls and tweets with the museums directors and curators. The coverage of the museums 40th anniversary ceremony, live at 6 00 eastern on july 1, on cspan3. With the political primary season over, wrote to the white house takes you to this summers political conventions. Watch the Republican National convention on july 18 with live coverage from cleveland. We will go into the convention of matter what happens and i think we are going to go in so strong and watch the democratic National Convention starting july 25 with coverage from philadelphia. Lets go forward lets win the nomination and in july lets return as a unified party. And then we take our fight for social, economic, racial, and Environmental Justice to philadelphia, pennsylvania. Every minute of the republican and Democratic Party National Conventions on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. We return to the live event at Gettysburg College in pennsylvania, a conference on reconstruction and the legacy of the civil war. We will air all of todays events on saturday, june 25 on cspan3. Civil Warburg College institute organized this event. This is live coverage on American History tv. Peter i am peter carmichael, a professor of history. I am also the director of the institute. It is my pleasure to be moderator and panelist for this session. Joining me to my right is the chief professor of history at he started off as a volunteer. Teenager, during that time he also did Extensive Research in georgia archives. Another simply not person who knows about georgia during the civil war. Started under Gary Gallagher who moved on to the university of west virginia. To the right is katie. An assistant professor. I meant to say associate professor. She is a student of Gary Gallagher at the university of virginia, where she completed her dissertation. You have a book called natures civil war and it is published by the university of North Carolina press. If any of you have any interest experience of a civil war soldier, you must read her book. It is a book that harkens back to the scholarship of wiley. Scholarship of bill wiley. Soldiers through are able tond preserve their own lives often good judgment of military authorities. Outline behind us. It is an outline you are going to see on a few occasions. We are going to try to be fairly structured so we can hit the big talking point. We will then turn it over to all of you so you can ask us any questions you might have. I am a moderator and panelist. Maybe in next to chair over by katie so then i can ask the question. I promised katie i would reserve the hardest questions for myself. The first thing is to begin with what do we mean by it is crucial we dont equate with falsehood. ,e should understand that myth myth is the way of perceiving , and it provides a vehicle for spiritual and moral meaning. One thing that wouldnt be very satisfying is if we were to line up all the tenants of a lost cause and knock them all down. Certainly there are lots of exaggerations but there are not but thenels of truth, real task at hand is how did white southerners and why did white southerners come to embrace what for many of us ridiculous, but put them in a fantasy world. We know many of these former confederates were andaordinarily smart intelligent individuals. The term lost cause was not created by historians. Became more popular after 1865. It didnt happen like this. You didnt get a bunch of former confederates saying we need to come up with a way to explain why we lost this war. Lets get the tenants of a lost cause. Of course it happened in a much more spontaneous way. General orders number nine, general orders number nine as. Any of you know it was an address that did not compose. It was and it rest that wanted to staff officers, charles marshall. He wrote the draft. Come in and make some corrections. I have put in bold a few sections. Rest assured we are going to come back to general orders number nine. In this document you can see essence of the lost of theterpretation lost cause interpretation. The very first paragraph is crucial. Compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. This speaks to the issue of honor. How soldiers were going to. Espond to this defeat our Previous Panel spoke to the issue of subjugation. Time and time again you will find it in the letters of the confederate soldiers. Fearful that would mean a debasement of them as men. They want to restore the reputations of their men, they want their men to be able to go home and say to their family members that they did what . Honorably toved the very end. And that capitulation was forced upon them because further resistance would have been pointless. Number nine, when i would consider to be one of the most important lost cause documents of the war. A fair amount of credit, probably too much credit for popularizing the lost cause idea. It is important to remember southern women played a vital advancing the lost cause ideas and they did that through commemorative activities, ecially when it came to many claimed that this act of creating cemeteries just for act. That was a political we cant be political, that is impossible. We should give credit to those southern women in the first years after the war. They did good work in advancing that lost cause message. Book on the ladies memorial association. The popularization of the lost you asall this strikes odd that i keep saying lost cause, why did the defeated confederates employ this language . Is makes no sense yet come no sense. It is a really strange way of saying we have been subjugated. Of a losty the use cause was a foil. Last but not really lost. The language of the lost cause, it helps them deal with the burden of defeat. You are going to see my ineptitude with technology. For the whole world to cspan for the whole world for cspan to see. There we go. We have to ask ourselves why was a lost cause was necessary. I see all of you out there and im not trying to shame my audience. Do this with my students, when they have their pens out there. Even if you are really not doing it, just go through the motions. Steve woodward is a must. Among his many writings he wrote about the burden of southern history. And then he identified the exceptionalism of that history for white southerners. And they had the burden of holding in place. They had the burden of the session. Burden that sacrificed so many lives. They had the burden of military occupation. They had to explain to the entire world that that is crucial and something i dont think we heard a lot of around here. Reconstruction is not something that should be studied in isolation. White southerners were speaking to the world. World in speaking to a which they wanted to have membership of. Gone to theirad to defend an institution that most of the world has forced to turn its back upon. A lost they turn to cause he echoed they had to make it sacred. Had to make it sacred. I impress upon all of you, as of thesee as many ideas are, we need to position ourselves from the perspective of those former confederates. Imagine the bloodletting that nation endured, and then coming out of that knowing that who is going to write the history of this war . It is going to be the victors of course. Said, we will start to work our way through our outline. As a moderator i think i put too much time in it. Ill give my panelists an opportunity to speak. We will have some giveandtake as we work our way through this. The first question. Either one of you, go right ahead. I would say that slavery permeated every aspect of society in the old south. Talkf the things i like to about is that figure that is ofown out where one quarter the white population in the old south was slaveholding. But the civil war does not mean that the rest of the three quarters of the population was not invested. For instance, those who wanted to move up economically in society would aspire to slave owning, because most of the wealth of southerners before the civil war was held in slaves or in land, especially in cotton land. In addition i would speak to the idea of slave rebellion. Whites in the south and the north lived in fear of a reversal of the social order in which blacks were subjugated. Slavee specter of rebellion was something that every southerner would fear. Ofcurrent home state virginia, those of you i know in the audience who know about nat turners rebellion, in the period of 1830s. There was this idea that even if you were not a slave owner yourself, if suddenly the enslaved population rose up and perpetratedreversal in the brutal institution of slavery, this meant that possible violence could be done. To say everyone was invested in the social order of subjugating blacks and slavery in the south. The people who popularized the maintenance of the lost cause was a mexican confederate general. We will talk about him more in a few minutes. Just a few months before his beforereminisced his death, his reminiscence is published. Warainly recounts his career. Per trail of slavery that he gives the reader is very typical of what you see in countless lost cause books. Slaves are devoted and loyal to their masters. In thete and black races south know each other and understand each other. Only during reconstruction when northerners come down to manipulate and take advantage of free people that the problems arise. Gordon also points to how almost had existed in every state at the time. The constitution was ratified and its tos appearance in the north occurred because not of antislavery sentiment. She claims that the end of slavery came about not because being perceived as immoral, it had more to do with industrialization and a climate that would allow for plantation slavery. Let me add one other element. We heard a lot about the power of race creating a bond that transcended class. At times we over emphasized that power and race. It often reduces or whites. That they hadd white skin, but the real differences between them, class and social differences, to think that all these men simply lined up and followed an elite class to their death just because they had white skin is a gross simplification. Is there isly miss a firm belief, those of the educated and a leeds, that within the south slavery created whiteem that protected workers, not just raised them up from anected them Economic System that was brutal and unforgiving teleworkers across the globe. The global perspective is essential here, especially in the 1840s and 1850s. It is a place in which industrialization is ripping to shred out of the working english class. Southerners and northerners were already seen in the united this cherished ideology in which all men rises up by their bootstraps. For allnt the reality white men. The intellectual class of the south pointed to the north, they pointed to europe and said they have no protection as workers, whether they get too old or injured they get kicked to the curb. In the south our laboring class gave cradle to grave protection. That is a selfserving very idealistic extraordinarily paternalistic view. But it was their view. That view was a Firm Commitment to hierarchy. You heard a lot about mastery, you believe in hierarchy and believe that all men are not created equal, regardless of their skin color. Utopian view, it is a utopian view in which stratification is absolutely essential. The south wants to be a part of the world of nations, they want to be recognized as a prosperous and advanced civilization. Weve got the answer and it is slavery. That will allow list to avoid all the chaos that was a wrapped in in england and places in the united states. Go right ahead. , i think his reminiscence illustrates the main tenants of the lost cause. He deviates and starts off in his explanation. This is his reminiscent about why the civil war took place. Its fair to safe there hadnt been slavery there wouldnt have been a war. In shifting he gets to this point that confederate leaders made after the war. Davis and Alexander Stevenson in their writing. Says it is really the heart of the conflict. Resting with different constitutions and representations, power relationships to be between the federal and state government. It would restrict the spread of slavery. When southerners acted to protect their interests, the session was constitutional legal action they were taking. Then i will be speaking more be speakingi will about one of the chief architects of the lost cause idea. He has a great quotes about the cause of the civil war from the memoirs. He says, during the war slavery was used as a catchword to arouse the passions of a fanatical mob. War was the in estimable right of selfgovernment against domination of a fanatical faction. If you look at their writings in you would notice a distinct switch from an deficits from slavery to an emphasis on states rights and selfgovernment. Documents weerous can look to compare. You can compare this to the stevens postwar writings in 1865. He completely reverses his position. It takes two volumes. I do what he said with the cornerstone of the confederacy. The cornerstone of the confederacy speech should reveal to us that it was a very fine line that the slaveholders had to walk to be able to gain the support of farmers and slaveholders. You see the very heated racial language, you see them very clear. When it came to the moment to go to war, that racial rhetoric gets downplayed tremendously. We should remind ourselves again, it is so crucial, im drawing from a very famous southerner. He says they were not political marshmallows. They were sponges that can be used by the slaveholding class. If in fact these men were driven by racial ideology that they got to see their own interests, then you have a hard time explaining to confederacy. Which then leads us to our next question. How does a southern homefront respond to military . Gordon talked about the selfsacrifice of white women on the southern homefront in anding their men off to war enduring enormous hardships and shortages. He talks about the loyalty slaves during the four years of really hedon is really talks and heres much about reunion. He has kind things to say about most Union Generals, including a grant for his magna mid to the. Magnanimity there were a couple of Union Generals that gordon is not kind to in his writing. Whathat is because of gordon witnessed in the valley in 1864 and devastation wrought gordonarmies and what describes as the indescribable suffering of women and children. Much of what we would say from the early perspective is somewhat similar to gordon. Was disgusted by the invasion of the home front. What the union had done as atrocities. Hunter andted on what hunter had perpetrated against the women of the valley. He has some choice quotes about this. Burned, helpless women and children left without shelter. They are standing up for the enslaved, that hunter had so viciously perpetrated these attacks, and this is not to make little. The devastation was something that was very impassioned by and motivated his ire during the war and after the war. His famous order to burn chambersburg, he wrote that he did not regret that at all. He felt this was retribution that was deserved because of what the union had done in the valley. Was an igniting piece emotionally in his lost cause. Here re is a tension that you have pointed to. You cant deny the fact that there was a hard one strategy waged against the south. You cant deny the fact that there was tremendous unity across class boundaries. How do you bring this complexity without reaffirming a lost cause perspective . It . Do you teach i dont really see attention. Going back to what you started with, we need to understand the lost cause had purpose, that it came to a place of up it came from a place of authenticity. Is an example of the emotional toll that war exacts. In this case im not talking this is what enemies look like. Malignant and cowardly fanatics than a Better Qualified pond armed soldiers. Hes not just making that up. That is what he said when he that is what he has seen when he marched through the valley. It provides the education you need to understand. Pointing out something to reiterate, kernels of reality in it. I know the movie has been released yet. Usually hollywood screws that up. 24th of june. I dont agree with all findings. That is why historians have jobs. We have interpretive differences. We have to keep proving our cases. I heard from him and some of the clips, we see a confederacy that is badly and division results in poor white or former slaves or runaway slaves coming together as a band of brothers. Im curious about your thoughts about this. The same time, you also have to ask the question, which deserters, how are they are going to operate for so long. 80 of the military age population is in the army. Case, what does that say about the majority of people in jones county . That level of investment is mindboggling. For which you lose is that mobilion