stephen engle, the author of a great book about lincoln and the nation's governors. jonathan white, author of "midnight in america." and soon to be with us, a book, "our little monitor." and of course, catherine clinton , no stranger to us, author of many books. and, and author of a great ongraphy -- as well as edward's stand-in, called "stand on edward stanton, called "stanton." he told me, and i hope i am not revealing any confidence, he has a glint in his eye. good luck with that. i am sure we will hear about secretary of the treasury salmon chase from professor clinton. let me start with this. john barr, one of our members, wrote a great book but it is a door stopper, it is huge. lincoln."led "loathing he said in his introduction that william f. buckley, jr. once said americans shall not remember why lincoln was loved until we come to understand why he was hated. both emotions were shown after his assassination in 1865. even those who as william , petersen said, even those who commemorated or tried to memorialize his death with a -- bunting secretly harbored a wish for his demise. i think what we have is a thought on when this dislike of lincoln began. and i think it is true, even before he was elected president, and deep and throughout his administration. certainly, lincoln's political outlook, in contrast to slaveholders contributed to this, his reliance on thomas jefferson's declaration of independence, which he think -- thought superseded the constitution -- or should at least be read together. ,nd his acts as president clearly the republicans supported him, antiwar democrats called copperheads despised him, especially since they believed, as did the southerners because , he subverted the constitution. especially in the suspension of writ of habeas corpus in the north. that is a general overview, which i think we all get and understand, even if we do not accept this dislike of our 16th president. what about particular enemies within and without his administration? what i have asked our panelist to do is to give a two or three minute overview of what they would like to discuss to get us going, especially for our questions and discussion among the panelists about what they think is important to know about lincoln's specific enemies. we will start with stephen. stephen: in regards to the governors i studied, there are two categories -- i do not know if they would be called enemies. or perhaps just oppositionists. early in the war, john andrew whothe radical republicans were representatives of the various states, probably had come to regard lincoln in a frustrating way because the war as it turns out early on is a conciliatory war to maintain the border states within the union and john andrew and israel washburn becomes fairly exercised about the slow progression of the war, especially during the fall of 1861. these governors began to find ways to move the administration along to advance the war quickly in order to end it quickly to maintain the volunteer spirit that they were struggling with back at home. early in the war, i would say the radical governors were oppositionists to lincoln's mentality about how to fight the war. in fact, andrew and washburn would be among the leading advocates for raising black troops. and they would write the salmon -- samuel cameron privately. of course, in the fall of 1861, this is a radical idea. but one in which they believed if the union had embraced this early on, it would have shortened the war. and the frustrations among the populace, it even though a fairly overwhelmingly conservative population perhaps , a shorter war would come about. as the war progresses, and they achieve some modest victories, with the confiscation acts, and ultimately emancipation in 1863, then you find there is another opposition rank among the conservatives. and the people who lead that cadre of enemies would be horatio seymour, who was elected in 1862. and who, in fact, would believe that lincoln is moving the war too quickly because he is a tool of the radicals and it is not until seymour becomes governor, recognizing the war has changed very quickly in two years. seymour comes to resent lincoln for expanding the war too quickly. he believes that lincoln has been moved and prodded by these radical political leaders to advance the war and to establish a the revolutionary nature of emancipation and national conscription and black troops. for most conservatives, this was a radically different war in 1863 than it was in 1861. especially in reaching out to the citizenry to mobilize and meet the demands necessary for this rather new war that the governors -- there would be no border state governors elected. there were no elections in 1862 for those states. but in the states that had large populations to draw from -- new york in particular -- how would they be able to sell the war to a fairly conservative population that opposed emancipation and conscription, and a number of other acts? in the ways in which we see how states and governors react to the progression of the war, early on there is a frustration it is not moving fast enough. by 1863 there is a frustration it is moving way too quickly for those who share the burden and labor of filling the ranks as these conscription acts move forward into the states. so -- frank: jonathan white, you did write a book, a very good book, on abraham lincoln and treason, so i suppose it would be appropriate for you to discuss why this caused so many people to turn against lincoln. jonathan: steve lays out the brand a narrative of the opposition to lincoln during the war very well. i hope you will forgive me for .eing anachronistic as i was thinking about this i thought, if lincoln was on twitter, who would have trolled him? [laughter] there are some obvious candidates. you would have people like john merryman. steve mentioned some of these governors, andrew on the republican side or seymour on the democratic side is opposition. the millennials have a good term for this -- "frenemies." >> i am not on twitter though. >> you should get on their -- there. frenemy is someone you associate with even though you , have an enmity towards them. there are hundreds of thousands of ordinary democrats in the civilian population and the army who oppose lincoln. for the very same reasons steve was describing. they see his policies on civil liberties and habeas corpus, on confiscation and emancipation, they see his support for a 13th amendment in 1864. that pushes them to turn against lincoln. whereas they may have been moderate supporters of the war early on. they see the changing nature of the war and they begin to see lincoln in a much darker light. during part of the discussion, that is what i will want to talk about. some of the civilians who opposed to lincoln and some of the soldiers who are often seen as overwhelmingly supportive of lincoln. in my research, i found many soldiers who came to loathe lincoln, with great hatred. frank: thank you, jonathan. catherine clinton, i think it is appropriate for you to discuss the man about whom lincoln said to john --, his assistant secretary, when he was to relieve general rosecrans -- i suppose he will, like the bluebottle fly, lay his eggs in every rotten spot he can find. [laughter] catherine: on the matter of spreading manure everywhere, i i think salmon chase and his daughter were quite active in washington at the time. -- a freneim as an my, lincoln certainly believed in keeping his friends close and enemies closer. we can see it really paid off, especially after his untimely death. on this manner -- matter, being invited to talk about lincoln's enemies -- what have i ever done? some have suggested to me, since i worked on mrs. lincoln, that would be a start. i certainly hope -- i certainly hope someone read my book and disagree. i was working on lincoln in new yorks, think to harold's kind invitation. i found this backbiting, and snarling among republicans. therefore, when i was first looking at the enmity between chase and lincoln, i found it of a deep, intense sense ambition, self-righteousness in salmon chase that led to his belief that he would make a better president. he had to assert himself that lincoln would see that with his every act. he also challenged lincoln. it was also, as you study this come you get a deeper appreciation of lincoln who , understood quite well the motivating force with chase. also lincoln kindly recognized , his wife's enmity with kate chase. she made a marriage to finance her butler's financial run for president, then found herself short-circuited. her charm spread around washington. it was so great, when lincoln finally did except one of chase's many resignations, chase's reaction was great shock -- how could lincoln ever live without him? lincoln had great plans for him. by cementing his role on the supreme court, he did not know what lay ahead. i know link it was not -- i know -- was was not precedent predictcient enough to the exact timing of his death. but he did appoint him to the court later that year. whatever he knew about his ambition, he knew about his self-righteousness and therefore chase did inadvertently make himself an ally of lincoln because what he was busy trying to cut lincoln down to size, he contributed later to lincoln's immortality. frank: thank you, catherine. walter, the thing that has impressed me for many years is the plurality of lincoln's reelection in 1864. 2 million, 200 thousand for him. he won the electoral votes in all but two states, new jersey, the home of his democratic opponent. and i think, kentucky, the place of his birth. that is a great victory in the midst of war, where elections were allowed to be held, to lincoln's credit, but i have often wondered, what is making up this 1.8 million people who voted against him? they certainly were not friends of lincoln and his administration. walter: to measure the closeness of that election, we need to look -- i did not bring the numbers with me -- at lincoln's own handwritten document in which he will predict the electoral vote. this occurs in october. he thinks he is going to lose new york and pennsylvania. those are the two most popular states with the most electoral votes. he thinks he is going to win by four or five electoral votes, as narrow a margin as one can imagine. i think that was a very good prediction. when you look at how did he win new york? i mentioned it last night i , think defending benjamin butler to new york city to keep democrats. butler sent a note, i think i have done a good job of discouraging the democrats of coming to the polls today. [laughter] i think that jonathan in his great book about the election talks about this. it would've been what we talk about today in the third world as a free and fair election. there might have been even more votes against -- jonathan is nodding. there might have been even more votes against abraham lincoln in 1864. i think we should get to lincoln's enemies south of the mason-dixon line. and the attitude of jefferson davis and others toward lincoln. by the end of the war, they view him as a pirate operating outside the laws of war. i think we should talk about that at some point. >> let me follow-up up with walter. what a lot of people do not realize is that in early september of 1864, some new york journalists were very fearful of what might happen in the election. they decided to write every governor a private letter to gain their sense of what their state's results might be. they would ask three questions do you think lincoln could carry , the state, was there a substitute, and with the national union party when? -- win? the interesting thing is, the response among most governors, the election is a foregone conclusion. it is too late to pull lincoln out of the race. that would be a national political calamity. , the fallout would make the union look vulnerable. but there were a number of governors, andrew included, who would recommend chase as a possibility. and those who would not even recommend someone said lincoln was unfit but to pull out of the race would lose the credibility of the political process. there were very real questions about the opposition within the public sector. for three new york journalists, very highbrow journal is who , sent a series of letters to every governor to gauge the on the ground sense, would lincoln states, was a great indicator of how this election was to be. those letters go out about the time that sherman is in atlanta and atlanta falls. if you read the news of the day, i think these responses were influenced to a large degree by what was happening militarily. it was not about lincoln, but about moving the contest forward. they thought they were winning in the field. to create a political liability would probably backfire and land the democrats to victory. catherine: do you think if the pomeroy circular would have been at a different point in time, the proposition lincoln was weakening the war effort and the party -- that the party leaders were pushing chase and chase no, yes -- it is interesting, we look at contingency theory and political contingency theory that chase overplayed his hand. >> i said this yesterday to follow up. because of the way things turned out, we forget just how unbelievably chaotic and how much opposition there was. for me the miracle is that these , elections are taking place every year and this incredible election takes place in a year with overwhelming opposition bubbling up from a variety of places for a variety of reasons. there is a lot to be said for the miracle of this election. frank: much of that opposition was not just based on failures in the battlefield but the ongoing struggle we have had since our founding of national security versus civil liberties. walter, picking up on that, what did edwin stanton do to help the opposition as far as enforcement of the draft and filling up what many opponents called bastilles of the north? lincoln'santon, under supervision, creates a system of provost marshals in every congressional district and they are given broad authority to not just enlist men for the draft but arrest of those opposing the draft, and these are energetic men and they take that to heart. hundreds of folks are arrested for interfering with the draft and as frank's question suggests, this is almost -- if a democratic strategist were writing for stanton what not to do in order to help democrats get votes in the fall of 1863 and 1864, it would be a perfect script. it gives the democrats a great argument that the constitution, as it was, a key element is lincoln and stanton are throwing editors and others into prison for opposing the draft. frank: let's segue and then we will get the catherine on specific issues regarding the secretary of the treasury. but jonathan, what about the law of war and the issues that confronted lincoln and the decisions he made? jonathan: on this issue of military and the civilians mark , neely's pulitzer prize-winning book, "the state of liberty," shows most of the civilians arrested were people doing things to either materially hurt the union war effort or help the confederate war effort. his argument is that these are people who would've been arrested anyway. the reality is, the arrests that got the attention of the american people and continue to get our attention today are of the great political leaders. there was a congressman from maryland named henry may who was arrested and a judge named richard carmichael. it advances the narrative that lincoln is using claims of necessity to go against the constitution and do what ever he wants to do. from the democratic perspective, they argue this is simply to silence their opposition. he is using the laws of war to silence his political opponents. from lincoln's perspective, he is doing what he needs to do to help win the war. lincoln writes very famously in june of i could have arrested 1863, robert e. lee and other great confederate leaders -- he does not call them "great" -- in the beginning of the war in 1861. and if i had done that you would , have raised the hell of free speech and free press and habeas corpus and constitutional rights. he suggests one day people would look back and suggested he should have arrested more people. i don't know how persuasive that is, if we would think that today. frank: today, it is called preventive detention. [laughter] and how we would feel about that in our culture. just as a teacher teaching civil war each semester and even in the summer school, , for those of you who have not been to san antonio in the summer -- we have devoted -- we teach the script furloughing the soldiers, going back, when a wider margin for lincoln. i have been to the lincoln forum and read recent books contradicting the loyal soldier. i wonder if panelists who have done other research my comment? >> i published a book three years ago and in that book, i wanted to look at how did union soldiers view emancipation and lincoln. the general argument that existed for 150 years, 80% of the soldiers voted for lincoln in that shows they supported him 1864, and emancipation. i wanted to get behind that 80% number and see what it really meant. i found that many soldiers chose not to vote in the election, even though it was quite easy to vote. you had to walk down your company street to the polling street in your regiment. you did not have to go to the next town over, like if you were a farmer back at home. why did these men choose not to vote? and what i argue in the book is that there were a lot of democrats in the army who just did not come around to support emancipation and they did not come around to support lincoln's war policies. they had enlisted in 1861 or 1862 because they believed in fighting for the union. but then in 1862 and 1863, lincoln's war policies change -- changes, but their views do not change. i have chapters in the book on desertions and resignations. i have chapters on soldiers who were court-martialed for opposing emancipation. and then i have a chapter on the election itself, showing how these soldiers behaved, how the high command behaved and how , lincoln treated the soldiers. i argue the lincoln administration, the republicans in higher positions in the union army worked diligently to silence these soldiers were opposed emancipation. to get them to not talk with their comrades about their views. in many cases -- this gets to walter's point earlier about voter turnout -- in a lot of cases these guys chose not to , vote in 1864. about 21% of the soldiers who voted in 1864 voted against lincoln. another 20% or more chose not to vote. i think a lot of them were intimidated or felt like they did not have a good choice in the election. they could vote for the democrats who are calling the war a failure. they don't want to do that. they could vote for the republicans who are calling for a new 13th amendment. they don't want to do that. so they choose to stay home. ,or stay home at their dog tent. they're in mind in the election of 1864, there are number of states who required people to vote in person. my sense is that the regiments that get to go home are the regiments thought to vote for lincoln. there are enough comments in the democratic newspapers that it cannot be nearly -- >> and private letters. i found letters where the republican colonel would call the men out in safe all those who intend to vote for lincoln, take one step forward. if they were from the state that did not permit soldiers to vote in the field, those were the guys they got to go home. i found some democrats writing their letters home. they said, i stepped forward and i will vote like a republican -- or i will tell them i will, because i want to go home. there are all sorts of different sorts of intimidation going on. frank: we know this was the first time soldiers were allowed to vote in any election. the first time. you are right, walter, some states like indiana did not permit soldiers and it was not a secret ballot. when you got to the box, you took a ballot that everyone could see, what slate you are using to vote. >> i love telling this to my students. it blows their minds how different it was. in those days the parties , printed their own ballots. you would go to your party operatives to pick up your ballot and each party would use distinctive colors. you might get a red ballot or yellow ballot, and everyone knows. you then walked through a crowd of people who are going to see you carrying your distinctively colored ballot and then you drop it into the ballot box, which, by the way, is glass. everyone knows how you are voting. politicians today would kill for that information. [laughter] frank: catherine, can you say a word about the cabinet crisis in december 1862 and how lincoln, through brilliant political maneuvering, turned it in his favor? [laughter] catherine: well, let me see. if i search my memory bank, i would like walter to take over. walter: there is a huge outcry. republican senators are up in arms, the caucus meets and you would think a failure on the battlefield would lead to the resignation of the secretary of war. instead, he pointed out sewer, -- pointed at seward, who led lincoln to a soft war policy. "remove him" -- that was the headline of a newspaper in boston. republican senators tell lincoln in these meetings that they want seward's head. lincoln is reluctant to remove him. he knows seward is an ambitious guy and he knows seward is doing good work on foreign policy. he then engineers chase as well, tenders resignation, almost grabs the resignation from chase, and says this is what i need. he has letters from both seward and chase. lincoln writes a wonderful letter to both, i do not want your resignations. seward graciously, and chase less graciously, continue working. it is a great example of lincoln's masterful dealings with the senators, his cabinet members. you could name a lot of the folks in this picture who you might say are frenemies. lincoln is managing to keep all of them marching forward for the union. catherine: balancing the egos, too. by pitting them against each other, chase is out there with his daughter working overtime to engineer things and lincoln, always aware of the egos involved -- i am really struck by the way lincoln was charmed by kate chase and use that to his advantage and by showing up at her wedding. mrs. lincoln refused to go. she was always want to be aware of dress and presentation and was probably not willing to be outdone by a bride. therefore, lincoln saw that this recognition of chase and his daughter in making a presidential visit to the wedding and staying for two hours so that there would be -- i could see the smoke coming out of the white house waiting for him. >> it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall to hear what she had to say. catherine: she did warn him about the politicians and she was so right in so many cases about people she thought were taking advantage of his good nature. he was willing to be taken advantage of. lincoln was for the union and for moving forward. he was always for conciliation. the notion that he was a flip-flopper is quite offensive. he was willing to let his ego go in order to assuage those who found themselves in positions of pettiness. he was very willing to be empathetic. of course, we are looking for empathy and our leaders. that is how he managed crisis after crisis with a particular group. he was willing to put chase in a position of lasting power to be on the supreme court. frank: but it took three resignations to get chase out. you are right about the ego, catherine, very right. it takes a lincoln to appoint this man chase to keep him in the cabinet as long as he did. but then to choose him as a successor as chief justice of the united states, that takes a great deal of leadership and self-confidence. catherine: to have his third resignation accepted. of all things, he knew his abolitionist heart was what he was looking for. someone who would be an ally in the upcoming battles. he knew having him on the court would make a difference. he was proposing a 13th amendment before the end of the war, having a constitutional force on the court was very important. frank: he knew the civil rights legislation and the 13th amendment would be in good hands with chase, and he was able to put aside the bickering and appoint him, which is an amazing feat, i think. this cabinet crisis, i hate to keep coming back -- that is wrong, i love to keep coming back. [laughter] this so besmirched lincoln. this is salmon chase, and we will get to the content of what happened. if there was any worse hell he had been in for two days, he would like to know it. this is lincoln. chase was conspiring with radical republicans to get rid of seward. when the radical republicans came to lincoln to complain about seward, lincoln was apoplectic, and what did he do as the president? he tells the radical republicans, come back the next day, come back the next day. he tells seward about this and they knew what was going on, they had an idea chase was in league with some of the radicals in congress. they convened the next day and lincoln has the whole cabinet there, including chase, the perpetrator, but not seward. seward offers to leave the cabinet and lincoln would not have any of it. the radical republicans are there, all of the cabinet members, including chase, and lincoln confronts them, just like the illinois lawyer he was. chase believed their voice was not heard. lincoln went around to each cabinet member and ask them, what was the frequency of cabinet meetings? frequent. did you express your views? yes. he gets to chase, and chase said the same thing. [laughter] all over for chase. the radical republicans left shaking their head and with less credibility for the secretary of the treasury. >> one of the senators asked another, how could chase have said that? the other side, he lied. [laughter] frank: that is exactly right. catherine: lincoln knew that people whisper in parlors, people may spread these rumors, but the exposure -- he got people on the record and chase was forced to tell the truth in a group. that was a great humiliation because he was a politician who wanted to advance his own cause. seward was someone he saw as blocking his pathway. it was a bold move, which lincoln, by shining the light -- if you have bacteria, you can kill it with the light. >> that could be the title of your book, walter. [laughter] frank: john, we have been talking about arrests, preventive detention, and there were many, right? mark neely scoured the national archives, the number of citizens who were detained, 14,000. >> that is when he stopped counting. frank: later counts put it closer to 30,000. 28,000, i think. these are people, because of a suspension of habeas corpus, do not get their detention checked by a magistrate. because of lincoln and congresses nationwide suspension of the precious writ. what factor did this play in the lincoln administration and those who were opposed to him, the copperheads or the antiwar democrats? jonathan: it is something that informs lincoln's enemies during the war and since the war. look at the anti-lincoln tradition today and lincoln is depicted as a tyrant. this is the one issue people really cling to despite mark neely's work showing how a lot of these guys would have been arrested anyway, men and women. for democrats, during the civil war, they see these arrests as politically motivated. from lincoln's perspective, these arrests are being done to try to preserve the union and the reality is lincoln did not want people arrested and tried for giving speeches against the administration. those kinds of arrest did happen. i love to show my students anti-lincoln cartoons. most of my students, if they think about lincoln at all, they think about that man -- the marble man in the lincoln memorial. they do not think him as a person. they certainly don't think about him as someone who could have been hated in his lifetime. they can't imagine that in august of 1864, he thought he would lose reelection. he was our greatest president. of course, he would be reelected. but when you look at these anti-lincoln cartoons, you see the hatred and the vitriolic directed toward lincoln. a lot of them depict him as a tyrant. the fuel for the fire is often habeas corpus, civil liberty, u.s. constitution and laws. to be honest, they had a fair argument to make. the suspension of habeas corpus, that clause is an article one. most americans presume that is a congressional power. lincoln made the argument that the constitution was silent as to put can do suspension and as to where it can be done. it shall not be suspended unless and when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety shall require it. i have a case of rebellion and public safety requires it. therefore, i can do it. democrats were not buying it. the chief justice was not buying it. that becomes one of the first big issues that democrats cling to and it is an issue throughout the war. it is not a winning issue for them. at the end of the day, when lincoln runs for reelection, the democrats have this as a major part of their platform. lincoln's reelected and from his view, he had these policies that were controversial. people reelected him and that was a statement of their acceptance of what he had done. frank: if you have questions yourselves, please come up to the mic. i am not sure how many here, john, understand the problem with clement vallandigham, who is running for governor of ohio. very outspoken critic of the lincoln administration the department commander in ohio -- i have to disclose this, ambrose burnside from rhode island. if you did not have nathanael greene as george washington's general, you would be stuck with ambrose burnside. burnside issues this general order prohibiting anti-administration speech, clearly a first amendment issue. vallandigham is making all of these speeches about not answering the call of the draft. that is what precipitates his arrest. he is sentenced to imprisonment for the duration of the war at hard labor and lincoln is embarrassed by this and he discusses it with the cabinet. he felt he had to support his general and administration. he banishes vallanigham to the confederacy, they do not want him either. he winds up in ontario. this is not the end of it because there is an outrage by many in the country, and john mentioned this, a group in albany who peppered lincoln with questions. another way of brilliance, lincoln writes a letter and responds to corning that he expects to be published everywhere. and it is. the republican party reprinted thousands of this corning letter where lincoln gives his defense for suspending the writ of habeas corpus and arresting vallandigham. >> the one thing i spent a lot of time doing, if his speeches were being widely reported around the country, then maybe burnside had some reason for arresting him. i could not find any reporting of his speeches outside of tiny papers in rural ohio. he was not -- at that point, he was not yet in a formal campaign for governor and he was not a member of congress. he was in a political wilderness and he was not getting any national attention. >> he was trying to win the democratic nomination and he was not their first choice. he thought, maybe if i become a martyr, that is how i could win the nomination. burnside sent about a dozen detectives, some military officers, some civilians to watch his speeches and write down everything he said and bring them back. that is how we got the evidence. frank: walter, why are you apologizing to me? i am not ambrose burnside. do i look like ambrose burnside? [laughter] i agree with you. and lincoln agreed with you, too, because he was regretful that this happened over this incendiary speech. but he twists it against vallandigham fighting against the draft. he makes this compelling emotional argument that is compelling. >> absolutely. the corning letter -- it is interesting, lincoln is not out there every day on twitter. the corning letter is one of the few lengthy public statements by lincoln during the war. he takes time -- frank: he turns it to a political issue. why are you opposing the administration? you should be supporting the war effort. he takes them to task and it is a bit risqué. and then we will take some questions. the other long talk that is made public, and people underrate this, it is one of the most important state documents, a special message to congress on july 4, 1861, defending why he did all of these things he did after the firing on fort sumter, including suspend the writ of habeas corpus, declaring a blockade, increasing the size of the regular army and navy without congressional approval on any of them. he thought, throughout the war, he never violated the constitution. maybe stretched it a little bit. but no violation. >> and walter's opening remarks, you said jefferson davis and confederate leaders accused lincoln of violating international law. and that we should get to that. and so i asked that we get to that. the only international law issue that comes to my mind is blockading the southern courts, which the supreme court upheld. what other issues are there? >> they are all looking at me. two come to mind immediately. the southerners viewed the enlistment of blacks as a violation of the laws of war because they viewed these people as slaves. the confederates did. the other way in which the confederates viewed lincoln and stanton as having violated the laws of war, the raid on richmond, this failed confederate raid and these papers are captured, we are going to take richmond. those are printed in richmond papers throughout the south and the southern leaders say, look, this has crossed between legitimate warfare to piracy. lincoln and the other leaders, they are right to think that he did so after conversations with lincoln. they view this as lincoln has pulled off the gloves. i am an agnostic on whether the confederates had any role in the assassination. if they did, they did because they believed lincoln had broken the laws of war. frank: there is a back story to vallanigham, too. when lincoln was assassinated, one of the greatest mourners was vallanigham. are we right, john, on that story? jonathan: i know he did begin to change his views on race and go from being an ardent racist to moving away from those views. frank: that is true. it is very ironic. before we take jim's question, i cannot resist to tell you, he was an excellent trial lawyer and he was a criminal trial lawyer. postwar, he is trying someone charged with murder, with homicide, and he has the weapon in evidence and he is playing with it and he is showing the jury. he proceeds to discharge, killing him. jim? >> in all fairness, maybe you sound like burnside. [laughter] frank: for just telling that back story? >> when i first saw the title of this panel, one of the first names that jumped into my mind was a guy who i thought was one of the most consequential enemies of lincoln, and i have not heard his name mentioned. you have come close a few times when you mentioned the radical republicans. benjamin wade, his role as the heart and soul of the joint committee on the conduct of the war was constantly undermining lincoln's role as commander-in-chief by constantly undermining or attacking all the generals who lost all those early battles. as he witnessed the battle of bull run, he created the joint committee. i thought he was the most destructive, the most important role lincoln was playing was as commander-in-chief. frank: i think the panel would agree and that is why catherine mentioned the pomeroy circular. it was a pro salmon chase bid for the presidency. wade was instrumental in publishing this publication which was damning to lincoln. >> wade is one of the last holdouts. they issue this manifesto where they were furious with lincoln after vetoing the wade davis bill. because of his reputation, if andrew johnson would have been impeached, he would have become president. people had those sort of things in mind. frank: thank you very much. yes, please. >> my husband is from rhode island. we have a sign by ambrose burnside hanging in our house. frank: he was very popular in rhode island. he became governor and then a united states senator. >> my question is, i have been reading the book on lincoln and the press, i am only a third of the way through. one of the things absolutely clear, the papers -- >> not neutral. >> they were not impartial. there were democratic papers and republican papers. i assume at the time of the war, it was the same thing. how much did the democratic papers influence the election? or try to influence the election? frank: good question. >> there was vehement democratic press against lincoln and the way the war was going on and these papers were being circulated in the camps, which i think is often forgotten, the influence of the press and how it was being used, especially in 1862 and 1863. as the copperhead movement rises, you see these newspapers were designed, a lot of the articles and editorials were designed to confront soldiers. they were very effective vehicles for telling people what they needed to believe in the ranks. this is what your citizens leave at home. in some cases, try to circulate opposition newspapers among the soldiers or restrict the circulation of other newspapers as much as they could. they are very, very important in shaping how people thought about politics, intensive -- emancipation, what is going on in washington. catherine: i think the republican newspapers -- one has an idea that you will read the democrats -- the republican papers, i was having my students read republican papers and they could not believe that the editors were in any way supporters of lincoln. therefore, you really do show how his frenemies were trying to undermine him. the language was worse than the things i was reading in the south. they were openly racist, frightened the new yorkers. >> in connecticut, barnum ran an advertisement because so many secessionists had been locked up, he could not find any to be in the act for the circus. they were all in jail. governors had to get involved. frank: we just have a couple of minutes left. >> lincoln needed chase as an anchor, a bridge to the radicals. when lincoln sent over people to suggest ideas, the union was unable to pay its soldiers and suppliers, and he sent people to suggest ideas on how to solve this problem. chase kept saying, that is unconstitutional. lincoln said, i have the constitution right here and you do not need to worry about that. we need to look at chase's financial incompetence. a lot of things that need to be looked at if you are going to look at chase. frank: i am sure walter will look at it in his new biography. thank you. >> i cannot believe we have made it this far without maccallum's name coming up. up.clellan's name coming frank: i think that is the reason because it is mcclelland. [laughter] >> do we have any record of how he responded, reacted to losing to lincoln? i wanted to comment, professor engle, you always read how the soldiers really loved mcclelland. frank: the last question first. the soldier votes did not really make a numerical difference in electing lincoln. connecticut and new york, i think, were the two states where the count of the soldier ballots led the state to go for abraham lincoln. that is counting the votes. as far as mcclellan's -- the soldiers' love of mcclellan, little mac, and why they did not stick with him, anyone want to comment? >> to the other part of the question about his reaction, i think he felt relieved, which is maybe unusual. he said the people have voted with their eyes wide open, he wrote that to his wife, and he got out of the country for a while. which was kind of overdue. frank: he disagreed with the peace platform of the democratic party. that did not help either. yes? >> this is for catherine and it has to do with lincoln's emotional intelligence. if it were not for mary lincoln, lincoln never would have been president. he would have ended up as a territorial governor of washington. catherine: he would have accepted that appointment had she be willing to go. >> in all seriousness, we do not underestimate her contribution to his legacy and presidency. this is a pointed question. did life with her prepare him for salmon chase? [laughter] catherine: mary always had strong opinions and her opinions were not always based on the same moral values her husband had. he could see quite clearly that coming from the kentucky bluegrass family and being raised among ambassadors and senators and politicians that she had a remarkable memory. she kept grudges from sitting in the illinois balcony counting the votes, watching her husband lose the election, to when he was appointing his cabinet, writing dictatorship letters back to everyone. i think he listened to her but he was aware that she could have manifest all the pettiness, which he did not. she was a sounding board of what the social people might think. he knew that she had his best interest at heart and she was someone who was always advocating on his behalf. many of the things she advocated in the white house was keeping him in a straightforward way because he got lost in the war, got lost in grief. people making demands for something that i think she was quite stringent about. she found the society that she was thrown into a great trial. >> i neglected to answer the second part of the previous question. catherine: go ahead. >> a lot of these soldiers still loved mcclelland but they said he did not like the company he kept. they worried that if he died in office, a copperhead would rise to the presidency. frank: lois? >> with all due respect -- frank: speak into the microphone. >> talking about lincoln's e.q., did he think of his enemies with disdain? did he leave that to mary? how did he feel about those guys who were against him? catherine: i think he was good at putting letters in drawers. that was a great lesson. david donald always said, write it all out. do not push send. today we are in a twittering world. revenge is best served cold. frank: let me read this quote attributed to lincoln about concerns in missouri, a civil war within a civil war. there was general schofield who took a very strident view of those in disagreement with the administration policies. they want schofield out. he says, in a time of war, blood grows hot and blood spills, confidence dies. each man feels an attempt to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. revenge and retaliation follow. every foul bird comes abroad and every dirty reptile rises up. lincoln refused to dismiss general schofield. this is a view of the contentiousness that he was mired in. last question. >> when succession happened, -- secession happened, people in the armies and civil servants -- during the civil war, this was done in a very courteous way. people were allowed to make their decisions and if they were in pennsylvania, they were allowed to go to the south. it was very gentlemanly. my question is, robert e. lee made the decision to go with virginia. lincoln knew how important lee was. what would have happened if lincoln had said, you are under house arrest, you just committed treason? lee would never have gotten to the top. -- to the south. frank: was not going to happen. anyone want to comment on that? even though lincoln thought lee was a traitor. >> they offered him the army of the potomac. catherine: mercy was something he always thought about. redemption. when his favorite brother-in-law was going to join the confederacy, lincoln had a vision of reunion. he said there could not be a secession, a separation. taking the position you cannot dissolve it, that was his decision, just like his mercy against soldiers who fell asleep. each of us comes to saying what we think might have been the reason. the actual legal interpretation, perhaps it is shrewdness. >> the moment -- we think of the civil war as having been declared, the firing on fort sumter. lincoln did not go to congress and ask for a declaration of war. i think lincoln would have been on very shaky ground in arresting robert e. lee when he resigned his army commission. frank: one more comment from each before we hear from our administrator. stephen, you have one sentence. steve: are we still on topic? we need to think of the american civil war in the context of a whole. it is hard to divide politics and military. the war is just politics by another means. the nature of how this plays out, his hand is visible in everything. i think the evolution of how we think -- how we think about the evolution of this war is so important in how we remember it. trying not to always think about how to divorce politics and military but to think of them together at the national and the state level. from the ground up point of view. that is very instructive in how we see the relationships formed. frank: thank you. jonathan? jonathan: i thought of the wisconsin address that lincoln gave in 1859 when i was asked to be on this panel. when i think about lincoln and his talk about friendship and enemies, i help to think about the end of the first inaugural address. he wanted the nation to be a community of friends, to avoid being enemies and to maintain a national friendship. frank: catherine? catherine: the idea that it is a never-ending war. as we continue to discuss questions of memorialization, of monuments, of how we will think about this, i want everyone to keep in mind what would mr. lincoln think about our current debates and battles. he would want us to hear the other side and to enjoy turkey together at thanksgiving. frank: thank you very much. walter? walter: we are not enemies. we must be friends. [applause] frank: excellent. let me close in the same spirit and which are great panelists have allocuted right now. our friend asked, why does lincoln loom so large overall cultural landscape? great authors by barry schwartz and others have answered that abraham lincoln is much more than a symbol, more than an idea. abraham lincoln is a living force who has always been a lamp illuminating the ideals of the american people as well as a mirror reflecting their interest. with that, we will conclude this. thank you so much for your attendance. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> just did an american history tv? visit our website --c-span.org. you can preview upcoming programs and watch lectures, museum tours, archival films and more. american history tv at c-span.org/history. >> this coming monday professor a classe carson teaches on martin luther king jr.'s early years at ebenezer cap district in atlantic where mlk and his father were both pastors. here is a preview. >> so, let's just look at these documents. one of the things we find is how was he born? birtf the things that the certificateh indicates is that there was a midwife and a doctor. and the doctor also lived on auburn avenue. so, what does that tell us about martin luther king, that this neighborhood was diverse? a doctor could live on this neighborhood but there was also working class people living here. but also the factor was a midwife at the birth, which indicates that we're still, his family was somewhat privileged, at least the was a doctor also attending. but we can see from that but martin luther king's early upbringing was kind of a mixture guess what i would call the striding for -- striving for middle-class status and the people who were predominate in this neighborhood, that is working-class families. so, we can also see from this document that at that time his father is a preacher. where? right here. there's another person in his household, and who is that? that time of his birth, you have both his grandparents who are still alive. and his grandfather is also a minister of. ebenezer church so, a lot of these things we can find the birth certificate, looking at the autobiography of religious development, looking king, we can see that these were the forces that shaped him. watch the entire lecture with professor clayborne carson on the dart martin luther king jr.'s early years this coming monday at 8 p.m. eastern here on american history tv. week "reel america" brings you archival films. that provide context for today's public affairs issues. 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