Control legislature didn't vote on any of these proposals now come January Democrats will control the governor's mansion and its general assembly for the 1st time since 1993 Brecht a booker n.p.r. News former Brazilian President Lula to solve them has left prison after serving nearly 2 years for money laundering and corruption and P.R.'s Philip Reeves has more the supporters of Lula as he's universally known here have always argued he was the victim of a plot to stop him securing a 3rd term in last year's elections which were won by Shi'a Bilson out of from the far right places other corruption allegations but this isn't deterring his supporters in Brazil and throughout Latin America from celebrating the return to the landscape of one of the left's major figures N.P.R.'s Philip Reeves reporting you're listening to n.p.r. News. Methodists are moving closer to a major division over the status of people in the church a group of conservative congregations is indorsing a plan to split into 2 or 3 new churches with separate policies details from N.P.R.'s Tom Gjelten the Wesley and Covenant Association representing conservative Methodist congregations and Doris the plan for quote m. a Couple separation of the United Methodist Church that action came after 5 Methodist bishops representing the western branch of the church said this week they give safe harbor to l g b t Q clergy in defiance of official church policy the world wide Methodist church earlier this year voted to strengthen bans on same sex weddings and the ordination of quote self of vowed practicing homosexuals those bands will be revisited in another conference in May But this week's actions by conservatives and progressives suggest a Methodist split is likely inevitable Tom Gjelten n.p.r. News and Hong Kong several pro-democracy lawmakers are facing obstruction charges stemming from a raucous debate last May over a controversial extradition bill the legislation would have allowed prosecutors to try suspects in mainland China sparking months of unrest the bill was eventually withdrawn but the pro-democracy demonstrations continue on Kong protest organizers are planning another weekend of rallies they're also calling for a general strike on Monday well Street stocks closed higher today the Dow gained 6 points the Nasdaq added 40 I'm she Stevens n.p.r. News in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include f j c a foundation of donor advised funds working to maximize the Empacher of charitable giving and to create customized philanthropic solutions learn more at f j c dot org and the ne ek c. Foundation. This is Cap Radio 90.9 Sacramento and 91.3 Stockton the desk your n.p.r. Station. 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This is Fresh Air I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross the harsh debate over the impeachment inquiry into President Trump is just one reminder of the sharp polarization in American politics today we'll be talking about another time of deep division when the nation's founders had to confront the issue of slavery slavery was the bedrock of the economy in the south and was headed toward extinction in the north when delegates met in Philadelphia to craft the Constitution that included a requirement to return fugitive slaves to their owners how to deal with runaway slaves remained a contentious issue for decades and was one of the disputes that led to the Civil War We're going to listen to Terry's interview with Andrew Delbanco about his book The War Before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War It's now out in paperback Delbanco is the Alexander Hamilton professor of American studies at Columbia University he spoke to Terry last November when the book was published in hardback and Banco welcome to Fresh Air So slavery is not mentioned in the Constitution by name but it's referred to twice 1st in Article 4 Section 2 Clause 3 tell us what that clause is about. So it's a clause in the Constitution and makes it clear that if a slave or indeed an indentured servant flees from. The service or labor that person owes to his quote unquote owner. Flees to a state to another state the law requires that he be returned to that owner it was a an element of the Constitution without which I think it's really hard to imagine that the Constitution could have been formulated that the country could have been formed because in a sense this was really were really 2 countries that were putting themselves together into one and they had to decide what to do about this border problem so I think of the fugitive slave clause as a kind of extradition treaty that people in those states where slavery was clearly a fundamental part of the economy and culture could be secure in the knowledge that there they would lose their property by that property taking up and moving to another state it sounds all very abstract and impersonal and legal a stick but I think we have to face the fact that without that clause it's very unlikely that the country would have been formed in the 1st place it's really interesting though the word slave is not mentioned is like no person held to service or labor in one state well it's referring to indentured servants and slaves and it's sounds like a contractual agreement no person held a service or labor they're talking about slavery in this why don't they come out and say slavery right well that's a question that has been gauged Americans for centuries in fact Abraham Lincoln believed that it was because. He described slavery as as a cancer that would eventually be cut out and that the authors of the Constitution didn't want to acknowledge its presence as a formative element in the nation and many of his fellow Republican. Looked at it the same way James Madison one of the authors of the Constitution. Asserted that it would have been would be wrong to place the concept of property in men in the Constitution and yet they had to acknowledge the reality that slavery not only existed but was a fundamental to the culture and economy of several of the colonies that were signing on to this deal to make a new nation so they had to find a way to finesse the matter as it were and they didn't use the word the word is used sometimes in the debates it's not that they pretended that slavery didn't exist but they didn't want that conception in the Constitution itself and the word enters into the language just a few years later in 793 and a new law signed by President George Washington what was that law right well it became very clear very quickly that this so-called fugitive slave clause was on in forcible for one thing it never said who was in charge of enforcement was it a local matter if if a slave owner in Georgia made a claim. Against someone in Massachusetts that he or she was employing someone who owed labor to him who was in charge of adjudicating that dispute was a local law enforcement maybe the federal government but the federal government at the in the early years of our country was extremely weak maybe hard for Americans to wrap their minds around that today since we think of the federal government as this via phone but the federal government really had no means to enforce such a clause so there's a sense in which it's in there in the Constitution as a kind of aspiration that is on the part of slave owners and an embarrassment of something that northerners were willing to put up with but the real issue of whether it could whether you. Put teeth into that clause and make it real was postponed as so much else about the fate of slavery was postponed so again getting back to the Constitution the word slave was not mentioned in the clause basically said that runaway slaves had to be returned but there's another clause the 3 fifths clause as it's known that's also in the Constitution and that also applies to slavery. And for people not familiar with that class please describe it well it states that for purposes of representation it is apportionment of Representatives in Congress that is in the lower house of Congress the House of Representatives. 3 fifths of all other persons that is 3 fifths of all nonwhite males though it doesn't use that language would be counted in order to calculate how many representatives a given slave state would be able to send to Washington it's often fought that I mean it's an offensive concept that you count 3 fifths of a person in any context it's often thought that this somehow meant that and slave black people were regarded as only worth 3 fifths of a white person and that's not exactly true in fact the reality is that the slave states would have preferred to count all their slaves as whole persons for the purpose of apportionment because I would have given them more representatives and more political power in Washington so the 3 fifths clause was one of those compromises in the Constitution that slavery made made necessary they made another compromise as actually a 3rd place in the Constitution and that is they they stipulated that Congress could make no law to terminate or regulate the importation of such persons as a given state might wish to import for 20 years after the signing that is they postponed the possibility. He of terminating the international slave trade for 20 years which was again a compromise the Deep South states thought the government had no business interfering with their right to import as many slaves as they wanted whenever they wanted but northern states thought it should be terminated right away. So you quote Lincoln of course in the Gettysburg Address 1963 referring to a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal he said that even Lincoln realized that that was not strictly true and 5 years earlier he was more candid What did he say anything 58. Well Lincoln was a great man and I think a man with a very strong moral center but he was also a politician and when he was speaking at Gettysburg he wanted to articulate what he thought was the core commitment of the American nation and that was to liberty and equality so that's what he stressed. But 5 years earlier in the political context in which he was operating in which the debate was raging over what the fate of slavery would be specifically in the western territories he was as I say in the book more candid and said look we paraphrasing now and it's always kind of a sin to paraphrase Lincoln he said we got the most we could get at the time of the founding of the nation we compromised on the issue of slavery we had to if we hadn't done that there would have been no nation and when one has to try to remember that the very idea that these 13 former British colonies could come to an agreement to form themselves into a single software and nation was sort of improbable and to many people preposterous that's why we have books called things like Miracle at Philadelphia the idea of putting this nation together was miraculous So I think it was saying look they they postponed this question of whether this would be a nation tolerated human bondage and it was always his view that they had to use his words put slavery in the path of ultimate extinction that history that time itself that the progressive movement of history would eventually make slavery dissolve and go away and that was actually not a crazy idea at the time of the founding of the nation. As great an historian as as the great African-American intellectual w.e.b. Dubois said that in his view virtually all the delegates at the Constitutional Convention believed that by scheduling an end to the slave trade they were scheduling an end to slavery. We now know when retrospect they couldn't see the future any more than we can they could not anticipate the industrial revolution the arrival of better agricultural techniques and the increasing central already of crops like cotton and tobacco to the economy not only of the south but of the whole nation they couldn't imagine the growth in the population of slaves that would take place over the 1st half of the 19th century let's take a short break here and then we'll talk more about your book which is called the War Before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War My guest is Andrew Delbanco the author of that book he's also a professor of American studies at Columbia University We'll be right back this is Fresh Air. Hearing fresh air on cab radio 90.9 Sacramento and 90.5 Taino your n.p.r. Station we get support from u.c. Davis health where doctors partner with their patients discover your healthy at any of their 17 neighborhood clinics throughout the Sacramento region learn more at Choose Health dot u.c. Davis dot edu. This is Fresh Air and on this day when this country seems so divided we're looking at one of the great historical divisions in our country the division over slavery my guest Andrew Delbanco is the author of the new book The War Before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War He's also a professor of American studies at Columbia University. So many of the Founding Fathers which founding fathers actually owned slaves themselves. You know there were 55 signers to the Constitution and right now I can't give you the number but something like half or 2 thirds were slave owners at one time or another in their lives we want to remember that at the time of the signing of the Constitution slavery was not us exclusively Southern phenomenon it existed in the northern states New York did not abolish slavery until the 18th twenties you know final complete way. So there was a sense in which it was a national phenomenon though anybody with their eyes open and with some sense of anticipating how things would go could see that because for reasons of climate and temperament. Other factors too slavery was a much larger factor in the why for the South and it was in the north. Thomas Jefferson himself had to own slaves and you reprint an ad that he put in a newspaper offering a reward for one of his life one of his runaway slaves. So if he had this ideal How do you justify having slaves. Well this is a very deep and difficult question and it's not as if the scholars will ever agree about it I mean you can find in Jefferson the most soaring beautiful language about the dignity of human life and especially the quality of Liberty you find him saying with one point God's justice does not sleep for ever you find him predicting the spirit of the Master is abating the spirit of slaves rising from the dust and yet you can quote from the same man the most unbearable language about the inferiority of black people preposterous assertions that black people prefer sexual relations with animals and with human human beings and vice versa things that I find very painful to read to my students and at the end of the day we just have to acknowledge that Jefferson was a divided and contradictory and inconsistent man as I suspect we all are on a number of fundamental issues part of him wanted slavery to go away he pushed hard for gradual abolition in Virginia and failed and at the same time you know a man like Jefferson his livelihood his social status everything about him was tied up in his identity as a slave owner and of course then there's his relationship with Sally Hemings one of his slaves who he apparently had a relationship with and children with as well. That seems to be the case the d.n.a. Evidence suggests that did he think of her as a piece of property to be exploited for pleasure or did he love her and think of her as a human being to me old protection who can say I mean there are hints in his writings of how he thought about black people but no one will ever be in the room with Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings to make a to make a considered judgment about that so. It's an open question to which I think we'll never have a final answer before we really leave the subject of the Constitution. I'm just wondering how you deal with the fact that our liberty is based on the Constitution it's considered one of the the greatest documents in human history at the same time it's clearly a flawed document because it allows for slavery in 3 separate causes and in that sense it's a very compromised document it insists on the equality of men and it leaves out women it allows slavery it's certainly you know eliminates. The recognition of slaves as actual people. How do you deal with the imperfections and contradictions of the Constitution while still. Believing in its beauty and its importance and its insistence on equality Well one way to answer that question is to give you Lincoln's answer which was that. The fountain head of everything about America was not in his mind in the Constitution that we had great reverence for it and he certainly felt constrained by when he became president it was in the Declaration of Independence which is where we find the statement about human equality and the universal right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness so I just misquoted the Constitution I guess as many Well as you know yeah I mean exactly I mean you can't you could make the case that those principles are in the Constitution too but they're but they're suppressed and implicit whereas in the in the declaration they're right out there and so you know I think the way of Lincoln thought about our history and it's a pretty good way of thinking about it from my point of view is that. America has to be about. Moving toward a more complete harmony with the principles of the Declaration of Independence the Constitution is a is an instrument that describes how the government will work and our power will be distributed in the different branches of the government and of course the bill of rights that were attached to the constitution stipulates certain protections that individuals must enjoy against the government you've got to remember that this is a document written shortly after a revolution against a power that most Americans are regarded as tyrannical but people were very nervous about centralized government power but the Declaration for Lincoln guess I would say for me is really the statement of what America aspires to be and the conflict or tension between those 2 documents explains a lot about what happens over the ensuing 75 years or a century. So we were talking about the clause in the Constitution that says that you know without using the word slave it says that any person basically who is a runaway slave or an indentured servant needs to be returned that law didn't have enough teeth so a federal federal law was passed giving that some more teeth and then in reaction to that a series of personal liberty laws were passed in the north what were those laws what were the goals of those laws. Well the Northern states recognize that giving a sort of free rein to slave catchers came up from the south and simply seized the person off the street. Was a problematic situation not only for people who may once have been in slaved but also for free black people of whom there was a growing population in the north who could be kidnapped on the pretext that they had once belonged to someone in the south so laws were passed to build in protections for such people opportunity for trial by jury various cumbersome legal requirements requiring signed affidavits presented to a Judge Judy Kaye did in a hearing in order to try to slow down that process the whole question of how much antipathy there was toast slavery in the north itself is a complicated one some Northerners were in no doubt and we know opposed to slavery on moral grounds because it shocked their sensibility that one human being could on another. But some Northerners didn't like slavery because they didn't like black people and they didn't like the idea that Southern slave owners could bring black people into the north and more bring them into the territories that would eventually become States and thereby from their point of view pollute the neighborhood with people who were unwelcome in their mind so that even the the anti-slavery impulse was a complicated one and that's one of the stories I try to tell in this book Columbia University American Studies professor Andrew Delbanco speaking with Terry Gross after a break he'll talk about why the Supreme Court overturned state laws designed to protect fugitive slaves and how the capture of fugitive slaves on the streets of northern cities hardened opposition to slavery in the north also Justin Chang reviews No a bomb box new film marriage story starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson I'm Dave Davies and this is Fresh Air Here's music from blood on the fields an extended composition written by Wynton Marsalis I got to got to put on. 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This is Fresh Air I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross we're listening to the interview Terry recorded last year with Andrew Delbanco author of the book the war before the war fugitive slaves in the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War It's about how fugitive slave laws which enabled slave owners and their proxies to capture slaves who to scrape to the north helped lead to the Civil War The book is now out in paperback When we left off they were talking about the personal liberty laws passed by several northern states in the 18th thirty's and forty's to protect slaves who described the south Pennsylvania's law the nation's strictest was overturned by the u.s. Supreme Court Terry asked Delbanco to describe the basis of the court's decision. Pennsylvania had the strictest personal liberty law and that was challenged in the Supreme Court in a decision called print versus Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania's law was overturned on what grounds. Well justice justice story said that given that she was just as right he was a b.s. Of the Supreme Court making 42 his ruling essentially said that any state law that interferes with the principle of the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution was unconstitutional that the Constitution took precedence and like it or not and story said many times privately that he didn't like it he he hated slavery it personally but there it was in the Constitution guaranteeing the right of slave owners to recover their slaves so state laws the tried to undermine that were to his mind unconstitutional and yet he also said in that decision that state authorities. Could not be compelled to participate in the rendition of slaves that would that was a call that the states could make for themselves so it was a kind of double edged decision on the one hand it struck down all these personal liberty laws that had grown up over the 1st. 40 years of the one of the 1900 century on the other hand it seemed to say well you know if it's a slave owner wants to recover his slave from Pennsylvania or New Jersey or Massachusetts Good luck to him you know we're not we we're not under obligation to help him at least that's the way the decision was interpreted in some northern states so as was the case with many other elements in the story an effort to solve the problem actually caused a greater problem and caused more animosity between the sections so it divided the country even more. That's my impression that you know the authors of the Constitution were right to realize that stitching together these 2 countries as it were one based on slavery and one increasingly based on free labor that that stitching was going to have a lot of stress on it and that one of the big stresses was this traffic of enslaved human beings from one to the other wasn't the only stress by any means I mean in some ways the question of whether slavery would be permitted in the territories was a more fundamental question for a longer time but the fugitive slave problem continually pushed against the proposition that this was one country. So. By mid century for various reasons the Congress faced a critical moment when it had to decide whether it could compromise on the on the major issues and at the center of that compromise which has come down to us as the compromise of $850.00 it placed a new really severe law that was intended to regulate the fugitive slave traffic once and for all it didn't work and that's the Fugitive Slave Act That's the Fugitive Slave Act acting 50 so what about acts a. Well it said a lot of things it said. Anyone who interfered with the capture of a slave was guilty of a federal crime. It said that citizens in the north were obliged to assist in the capture of fugitive slaves it for the 1st time ever put the federal government behind that fugitive slave clause in new and aggressive way it denied the right to a trial by jury to any accused fugitive. It denied the right to the accused to testify. Which is not all that unusual in the context of American legal practice at the time but in this particular context the. Spectacle of a person in chains in the court room not allowed to say anything for him or herself and just being argued over as if this were another kind of animate property like a horse or a cow was pretty offensive to a lot of people in the north but the main impact of that law again it's not so much something I think we can measure by numbers because in fact the numbers of slaves who were sent back under the Fugitive Slave Law was not extraordinarily high in the tiny compared to the millions who remained in slaves in the south but what it did do is it brought with sudden clarity to people in the north that slavery was not a southern problem slavery was an American problem. And in cities like Boston and Syracuse. And others. You literally had citizens watching a black person seized on the street dragged into a into jail in chains and once the hearing ran its course taken off to the pier put on a boat and sent back to undoubtedly worse conditions than those from which he or she had fled in the 1st place because they were going back to a very angry master. Having that happen in your own neighborhood in front of your eyes and being told that if you try to do anything about it you're committing a federal crime was a whole new experience so that's why in this book I try to show how the fugitive slave law of 850 turns slavery from an abstraction into an actuality in the minds of many people who would prefer not to think about it before and I think that connects to some of our own experience in our own time. Well where to begin I mean you know we we don't think very hard about where the products come from that we consume every day. New Englanders didn't think about where the sugar came from that they put into their tea. Or pastry. Sugar that was harvested by slaves right Ralph Waldo Emerson said at one point No one tastes blood in the treats. Blood in the treats. New Englanders didn't think about the fact that they might have had personal investments in the State Street Bank or some other bank that was making indispensable loans to plantation owners. They didn't think very hard about the fact that the industrial revolution that started pick up steam in Massachusetts in the 18 twenties and 18th thirty's where textile mills were at the center of that activity that those textile mills were were weaving slave grown cotton into cloth I didn't think about the clothes they were wearing on their own backs. People I think you know how many of us are really willing to think hard about where the comforts and pleasures and conveniences of life that we take for granted where they actually come from what kind of laborers are producing these things for us under what conditions so again I I think it's easy to sit in judgment on people in the past and say well they should have thought about it they should have realized that slavery was as much their problem as it was that of the slave owners but I'm not sure we're in a position to make that moral judgement in any case what the Fugitive Slave Law did Emerson said it again he said it was like a sheet of lightning at midnight another phrase of his that I like very much it was a university to the people. It taught. The fact that there was an intricate web of connection between the slave owners of the South and the industrialists and indeed the citizens of the north those who were talking about the Fugitive Slave Act in terms of how it further divided the country and helped lead to the Civil War But let's talk about what it meant what the Fugitive Slave Act meant for slaves and for people living in the north who were either emancipated slaves or who never were slaves were born in freedom and expected and wanted to stay living a life of a free person how were their lives affected by the Fugitive Slave Act Most people in the north Well again I am wary of facile analogies but you know we think of the Jews of Europe. From one minute to the next one minute they were assimilated citizens in Germany or France and then virtually the next minute they were terrified for their lives and frightened by every knock on the door every sound of footsteps on the stairs. And they had good reason to be terrified I think because unless unless they showed papers saying that they were emancipated. They could be taken to the south and given to anyone who claimed that they had previously owned this person right I mean. The Southerners would have said no no there were constraints around that and we were only coming after the people that we have legitimate property rights toward But that's not how it felt to black people in the north and and many there were many black people in the north who had been living in the north for 101520 years who might indeed have fled from slavery when they were teenagers or or you are young young adults and the Fugitive Slave Law didn't give them a pass to give them a break so the the anxiety in the black community was extremely high and it you know it altered the whole tone of life in a city like Boston which prided itself on being the city of liberty and the city that had risen up against the tyranny of the British and now is being told by its own central government that it had to participate in the process of sending people back into a life of servitude. My guest is Andrew Delbanco author of the war before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War We'll talk more after a break this is Fresh Air. Hearing fresh air on tap point 9 Sacramento and 91.3 stop the middle your n.p.r. Station. Will get support from family promise of Sacramento helping homeless families regain independence through life skills education job searches budget to systems and more family homelessness knows no season sac Family Promise dot org. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Progressive Insurance committed to protecting cars and drivers whether on the open road or having a driveway moment while listening to n.p.r. Learn more at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive and from Whole Foods Market offering colors and flavors of the season with seasonal produce holiday desserts and Chef created menus Whole Foods Market color the classics This is Fresh Air Let's get back to my interview with historian Andrew Delbanco author of the war before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War when we left off we were talking about the Fugitive Slave Act of 850 which allowed slave catchers to a duck freed or escaped slaves and returned them to the south. So Congress repealed the fugitive slave law in June of 1964 Congress by that time was the north there wasn't a Southern vote to object to the real deal and then the war ended about a year later. So let's jump ahead I mean you're a professor of American studies so you don't just study the Civil War or the history of slavery you're looking at the history of our country. And. A lot of people have written about this and spoken about this but for you how do you see the long standing consequences of slavery for African-Americans in the United States. Well let me let me try it this way we often speak these days about people of color or minorities. And there are good reasons to group people into those categories under certain circumstances. But I don't think we want to obscure the fact that there is one group of Americans who immigrated here in voluntarily. And who were treated for almost 250 years as a species of animate property no different from a horse or a cow. Now you know it's been a long time since the Civil War It's been a long time since the amendments following the Civil War guaranteed citizenship to former slaves attempted to guarantee the right to vote to former slaves but in the long arc of history 150 years give or take a few is not a very long time for people who have been subjected to that kind of not just physical but psychological and moral brutality to just sort of shake it off and say well you know here I am and no problem that's not the way history works we could cite many other milestones in our history in the 150 years sense to suggest that black people haven't exactly been invited to participate in American society with full equality any time that I can remember we've made I mean I do believe it's wrong to tell the American story without acknowledging the progress that has been made in this country and I have a certain faith in the younger people that. Old deep seated racial attitudes are don't make much sense to a lot of young people I know and I'm not just talking about New York City but I get around the country a certain amount and you have to pretend that black people are not still dealing with the legacy of slavery is preposterous this is a question I know you can't answer but I'm going to ask you about it anyway Ok the divisions in our country seem so strong right now that some people actually worried that there's going to be an actual fight you know expressed through just like fighting in the streets between people from different political sides or something more extreme than even that how serious a word you think that is well you know I can't answer the question but I can say that I knew writing right but but I can say that writing this book was sort of a double edged experience for me on the one hand you look at what happened in the 850 s. The complete breakdown of the federal government the session of almost half the country from the other. And the war that ensued took almost a 1000000 lives and you say geez you know that makes what's happening today look like peanuts. And that's that's one approach which I'm trying to cling to that you know this something like this couldn't happen again. But the other way to think about the story of this book is that. Institutions that seem durable and seemed unlikely to fail turned out to be extremely fragile. And that public language on both sides I mean radical abolitionists were extremely belligerent and extremely insulting and offensive to the ears of many slave owners and we have to remember that. There were undoubtedly many decent slave owners who felt that you know they were living a moral life and they had inherited their slaves and didn't deserve the kind of vitriol and acrimony that was coming at them and and on the other side the language of the slave owners toward toward the aggressive anti slavery forces in the north that the anger just started to feed on itself and the viciousness of the politics sort of becomes an engine of its of its own perpetuation and and and some of that feels like what's going on right now that we have at our peril forgotten you know civility and a modicum of respect for the other side even if we think that the issues that divide us are so fundamental that we could never come to an agreement about them. That some measure of respect for the other side is critically important for a society that. Wants to sustain itself and not become an authoritarian society so. It's a worrisome time and you know historians don't have any better insight into what's going to happen tomorrow than anybody else does I think it's a fallacy to believe that but by looking at the past one is reminded that things that we take for granted as stable can suddenly go up in smoke so we want to be really careful about that I think. I want to thank you so much for joining us my pleasure thank you very much. Andrew Delbanco is the Alexander Hamilton professor of American studies at Columbia University he spoke to Terry Gross last year about his book The War Before the war fugitive slaves and the struggle for America's soul from the revolution to the Civil War It's now out in paperback Coming up Justin Chang reviews No a bomb box new film marriage story starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johanson This is Fresh Air. 6 stories 6 people in one South Sacramento neighborhood. Listen now to making matter of you a new podcast from the view from here and kept radio people here strive they love they live they laugh they cry and here untold stories of people solving problems in their community I'm always excited when I can help our young people along with the we don't know available and cab radio dot org view. Science Friday coming up at 9 immediately following fresh air here on listener supported cap Radio 90.9 Sacramento and 90.50 Reno your n.p.r. Station I'm Martin Jenkins thank you so much for spending part of your Friday with us. Fresh air continues on listener supported cap radio This is Fresh Air It's been 14 years since the release of the squid in the whale No a bomb box drama about 2 brothers dealing with their parents' divorce his new movie marriage story is also about a couple who decide to call it quits played by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson The cast also includes Laura Dern Alan alder and Ray Liotta the film opened this week with a limited theatrical run before it begins streaming December 6th on Netflix film critic Justin Chang has this review. In no A-Bomb box devastating new movie marriage story Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play Charlie and Nicole Barber an artist couple who live in Brooklyn with their 8 year old son Henry Nicole is an actress who works with Charlie a director at his guard Theatre Company the opening sequence which Charlie in the Cole narrate in voiceover is a series of flashbacks to some of their happiest moments as a family their monopoly games and home cooked meals afternoon outings and bedtime rituals but no one knows the whole truth of a marriage except the 2 people who are in it and in the next scene Charlie and the Cole are sitting down with a mediator who is guiding them through the early steps of their separation Bomba has always delighted in skewering the lives of artists and intellectuals whose ambitions are often at odds with their pursuit of happiness and his pictures have always walked a thin line between scalding humor and piercing emotion but he has never reconciled those impulses as powerfully as he does in marriage story which is fully alive to the messiness of an impossible yet all too recognizable situation the movie also offers a blistering look inside the American divorce industry a system that proceeds to bleed Charley in the cold dry emotionally and financially Nicole has landed the lead in a t.v. Pilot in Los Angeles and heads out there with Henry for a spell that Charlie assumes will be temporary although as we'll soon see he has a habit of assuming too much I'm like her diehard New Yorker husband Nicole grew up in l.a. And now that she's back she wants to stay she realizes this in a conversation with her divorce attorney Nora played by a brilliantly a survey Laura Dern by only. One of them. And here and out of obviously one of the show get picked up. Feels like home. Is home. It's the only home I've ever known without Charlie they want to stay here. Charlie isn't going to want that. He hates the way we're interested in what you want him to. Be doing is an act of hope. And or stand there. Yet when Charlie flies out to meet Nicole she serves him with divorce papers this throws him off guard and forces him to find an l.a. Based attorney even as he tries to keep up with work on his latest play in New York what he thought would be a smooth amicable parting soon erupts into a bitter bi coastal custody battle the most affordable lawyer Charlie can find is a guy named Burt wonderfully played by Alan Alda who sympathetically lays out all the difficulties that lie ahead when we go to court no no we don't want to go to court in California or a disaster and that's just how we have to think about it. I'm assured these are my glasses are you living while you're out here and I'll tell him no oh tell isn't look good the cord injury said we were going to go to court no course of course we have to prepare to go to court hoping we don't go to court Ok if you get a place in l.a. Marriage story gets the performative nature of divorce the way both parties wind up exaggerating their virtues and each other's faults it gets how divorce can not only end a marriage but poison it forcing Charlie and Nicole to scan their entire marital history looking for anything they can use as dirt against each other most of all the movie understands the heartbreaking toll of all this on young Henry who becomes both a prize and a bit of an abstraction their fight over him seems to be more for their benefit than for his bum back guided us through the emotional wreckage of a broken family 14 years ago in The Squid and the Whale which was inspired by his teenage memories of his parents' divorce the door. Has noted that marriage story was informed by many people's experience of divorce including his own in the end charlie and Nicole are 2 distinctly drawn to be confused for anyone except themselves driver and Johansen are super Herb nailing the little every day moments as well as the long drawn out conversations including one ferocious no holds barred argument that's likely to end up an actor's audition handbooks you believe in the relationship these 2 shared and you can see their lingering love for each other even as their life together is ending the audience is likely to come out of marriage story arguing over where it's sympathies lie and it's a sign of the movie's integrity that the answer isn't clear some may take issue with Nicole's aggressive legal tactics though others may see them as an act of defiance against a partner who rarely considered her needs or wishes Charlie does get more screen time and his character does ultimately leave the deeper impression but that may be because he's the one who has more growing to do. Maybe no one outside of marriage can know the truth of it but back brings the audience awfully close just in Chang is a film critic for the l.a. Times on Monday's show our guest will be Judd Apatow who's edited a new book about his friend and mentor of the late comedian Garry Shandling after his death Apatow helped go through Shandling's House part of what he found was 30 years worth of journal entries revealing the insecurities and emotional suffering that channeling turned into comedy I hope you can join us. Freshers executive producer is Danny Miller our technical director an engineer is Audry Bentham with additional engineering support from George Zimmerman and Julian Hertzfeld our associate producer for digital media is Molly c Venusberg. To Rex the show for Terry Gross I'm Dave you. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Indeed with it skills test built for employers who want to see a deeper sense of the person behind the resume learn more it indeed dot com slash n.p.r. . And from lifelong reminding consumers that only one in 5 victims of identity theft discovered their theft through a bank or credit card company learn more at Life Lock dot com. Most of us think the human mind is unique. But Laurie Santos has spent enough time around monkeys to know that we are wrong this kind of sad to admit that you're getting ripped off by monkeys but it happens when you think using monkeys and their antics to understand the human mind this week on Hidden Brain from n.p.r. Sunday morning at 10 here on listener supported cap radio said to end next this evening for Science Friday followed at 11 o'clock by news from the b.b.c. . From Sacramento State this is Capital Public Radio 90.9 k. X j z f m and h d s and prevent 091.30 pm and h.d. Stock the Midwest 090.5 k. K.t.o. 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They allege it theft involves scientific ideas designs the vises data and methods that may lead to profitable new treatments or diagnostic tools according to The New York Times is Gina Kolata reporting on dozens of institutions who are investigating researchers She'll join us then a trip to a Kadian National Park where researchers are working to tease out the effects of climate change on Fall leaves colors an important piece of the puzzle maybe in your grandma's photo album they'd like to see a plus 100 years ago this week Einstein became an overnight celebrity We'll talk about the eclipse that changed the world after this. 10 Stevens Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan will be a key figure for Republicans in the new public house impeachment hearings next week as N.P.R.'s Claudio Salis reports the Trump ally has been assigned to serve on the House Intelligence Committee House minority leader Kevin McCarthy selected Jordan to join the intelligence panel to battle a quote sham process the move comes days before Democrats are set to launch a series of open hearings in a new public phase of the impeachment inquiry House investigators are examining claims President Trump pressured the Ukrainian president for a probe of his political opponent in exchange for u.s. Military aid McCarthy said another Republican member of the Intelligence Committee Rick Crawford of Arkansas would step down from his seat for Jordan Jordan is a top public supporter of Trump and has led g.o.p. Questioning in closed door impeachment hearings cloudy Salissa n.p.r. News Washington House impeachment investigators are released. More transcripts of witness testimony this time from former White House adviser Fiona Hill and Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vandeman a National Security Council expert on Ukraine Hill and venom in both describe White House meetings before and after a July phone call in which President Trump allegedly offered to stop withholding u.s. Military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens President Trump is urging black voters to support his re-election bid saying he's done more for them in 3 years than Democrats have done in decades Trump launched his so-called Black Voices for Trump campaign in Atlanta the support we're getting from the African-American community has been overwhelming and I want to thank each and every one of you for your courage and tenacity and devotion as one crowd chanted blacks were trapped inside the convention center where Trump spoke Friday scores protested outside the venue shouting impeach and remove.