that's my way of saying good afternoon. i'm lucas morel, professor of politics at washington and lee university. don't worry, i teach some lincoln along with washington and lee. i first met michael burlingame about 20 years ago in the holy land, springfield, illinois. what struck me then has remained true through all these years, and that is michael is the most generous scholar i have ever met. even though he's been doing the legwork, crisscrossing this country and digging into all these archives and nooks and niches, he still loves to share these findings before he publishes them. he's not worried about being scooped. the grand culmination of this work, of course, was his monumental and mammoth two-volume biography, "abraham lincoln: a life." what professor burlingame affectionately refers to as the green monster received the lincoln prize in 2010. along the way, he has published at least a dozen books at last count and earned many awards, including illinois's highest honor, the order of lincoln. after teaching at connecticut college for over 30 years and working on his biography, he joined the history department at the university of illinois-springfield, where he has served as the chancellor, distinguished chair in lincoln studies since 2009. please join me in welcoming the godfather of lincoln research, here to speak about the springfield dispatches of henry vil ard between lincoln's election and his inauguration, my good friend, professor michael burlingame. [ applause ] >> well, thank you for that very kind introduction, lucas. lucas is not only a distinguished professor of political science and author on lincoln, he's also my agent. [ laughter ] and i'd also like to takebooks count and earned many awards including illinois highest honored on are the order of lincoln. after teaching at college over 30 years and working on his biography he joined the history department at the university of illinois springfield where he has served as the chancellor testing was chair and lincoln studies since 2009. please join me in welcoming the godfather of lincoln research here to speak about the springfield dispatches of henry bullard between lincoln's election and his inauguration, good friend professor michael burlingame. >> thank you for that kind introduction lucas. lucas is not only a distinguished professor he is also my agent. i would also like to thank the professor for his kind remarks about my pinchhitting for him last year. i would like to also add a footnote, as he mentioned lincoln was fond of off colored stories and almost everybody that knew him well they said he was fond of off colored stories but they were reluctant to tell many of those because they didn't want to disperse the memory of their friend. i was very excited years ago to realize in the sandberg papers that the satellite campus of the university of illinois in that sandberg had discovered these off colored stories. i ransacked the papers at the university of illinois and found material for my book but none of those off colored stories. i was very disappointed. then i was doing research in chicago and a small collection and there they were the off colored stories. i was very excited and sandberg was a man of taste so he didn't include those stories in his six volume biography of lincoln. i have no taste whatsoever so i've included them in the green monster and they are not all lumped together in one spot so if you want to get them you have to read the whole thing. and by the way the professor is a very fond book and won a prize last year and it should have won the lincoln prize awarded by the soldiers foundation at gettysburg college. i think it was considered too short and therefore it was an eligible, which i think was unfortunate. i think his book last year was clearly the best book on lincoln that had been published. anyway before i go into the topic in the aftermath of lincoln's election i would like to bring you up to date on the latest in lincoln scholarship about a very specific subject and that is the authorship of the bixby letter. one of the most beloved of all of lincoln's documents is a letter of condolence that was sent to a widow named lydia bixby in boston in november 1864. it was signed by lincoln and it is widely admired. people will say the three pillars upon which lincoln literary reputation rests are the gettysburg address, the second inaugural address in the letter to the widow bigsby. it is to be sure a very beautiful letter and it goes like this. dear madam i have been shown in the files of the war department a statement of the general of massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. i feel any words of mine that should be temped to from the grief of a loss so overwhelming but i cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. i pray our heavenly father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and i leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and a solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. it is a beautiful letter for sure but it is not by abraham lincoln, it was written by john hay. i made this discovery based largely on help from librarians at brown university who did a good deal of research when i was teaching at connecticut college i was going through the john hay papers diligently and a helpful library and came with a scrapbook that he had compiled of his own writings and the library and said why are you interested in this and almost all of the documents that clip he clipped out of newspapers and pasted into this scrapbook and identified them with his own hand but publication it appeared in and what date it was almost all posts of worst of it wasn't of much interest but on the last two pages they were civil war era clippings. one of them way at the bottom of the second page was the bigsby letter clipped from a newspaper pasted into a scrapbook of his own writings. at that time some had maintained john hay was the author of that beloved document . i thought why would he do that if he didn't write it? so i did some research and it seemed they were a couple of things that didn't sound quite right to me that lincoln i don't think would have used certain terms beguile for example, to beguile you from the grief so overwhelming or assuage the anguish of your bereavement or cannot refrain from tendering to you. this is in pre-google days but there was a database of lincoln's collective works that have been created manually and so i consulted the person that owned that. i said does the world word beguile show up in any of his writings? they said no but i had to go through john hay's writings and there was no searchable database so i read everything i could lay my hands on published and unpublished letters and i discovered in one article written he uses the word beguile twice and in another article he uses the word beguile twice. then i found about two dozen other examples and also just before the bigsby letter he writes a general and congratulate him on his promotion thing i cannot refrain from tendering to you my congratulations upon your promotion. so i did a little research and john hay told at least three people he wrote the letter but he didn't want that fact revealed until john hay had died.'s private secretary and others said they gathered that john hay had written it. so i published an article and it seemed to many folks to be conclusive but not everybody agreed. on february 12 in springfield a high ranking member of the illinois judiciary and he said, you know i don't agree with you about the authorship of the bigsby letter and i said really how do you account for the fact that john hay clinton out of a newspaper and pasted it into two different scrapbooks of his own writings with his fingerprints all over it? it had his style all over it and other testimony that he wrote it. the judge said, all of those considerations are important to be sure but you're leaving out an even more important consideration and i said really what is that? he said faith. i said faith. >> he said yes i have faith he wrote it. i said oh no. i just hope i never wind up in his court. anyway the latest in lincoln scholarship is that a team of forensic analysts of disputed documents, a team in birmingham england is seven-member team devised a program to analyze the authorship of disputed documents of short documents, most of the computer programs that had been available until recently before these folks worked couldn't function on a very short document. they developed a new technique and so they ran 500 documents by lincoln and 500 documents by hey through their computer program and they concluded there is a 90% chance that hey wrote it john hay redditte and in light of the stylistic analysis and scrapbooks i think settles the question. some people think if you say john hay wrote the bigsby letter your disparaging lincoln but not at all. no man who wrote the gettysburg address ever has to worry that his literary reputation will be eclipsed. john hay did not write either of those documents. enough in the way of preliminaries. let me get to the topic at hand. henry villard is best known as a successful 19th-century railroad promoter and financier. responsible for the creation of the northern pacific railroad. he was born in germany and he was also in addition to being a financier one of the ablest and most conscientious reporters of the 1860s as a leading historian of civil war journalism observed. his most noteworthy reportage dates from late 1860s and early 1861 when he was embedded in springfield spring months following lincoln's election. during that time he wrote scores of dispatches for various newspapers and those dispatches constitute the most intensive journalistic coverage that lincoln ever experienced for henry villard filed stories almost daily to the new york herald , slightly less often to the cincinnati commercial and occasionally to the san francisco bulletin. many historians have consulted excerpts of the new york herald dispatches contained in a pamphlet like 1941 addition and i mean pamphlet like. i joke about long books like david's pamphlet on frederick douglass because by my standards it's a pamphlets. the green monster is 2000 pages. anyway so 1941 there is this little very little pamphlet called lincoln on the eve of 61 a journalists story and it is a few of the dispatches that appeared in the new york herald from springfield. it admits much valuable information about lincoln during the secession crisis that appears in the complete run of the herald but also in dozens of others published in the cincinnati commercial and san francisco bulletin. articles from those two larger papers were virtually unknown to historians. recognizing their addition of excerpts from the herald was inadequate henry villard sons intended to issue a complete version of the herald run but their plans fell through. henry villard dispatches are not only informative but highly readable . as one scholar said his work was marked by individuality and mental vigor. these dispatches constitute high-grade historians offering descriptions of lots of different things, lincoln's appearance, descriptions of his daily routine, descriptions of his visitors got descriptions of his views as well as information about the illinois capital. anyone interested in lincoln or the secession crisis or springfield will find those dispatches highly informative. now for some background on henry villard. he was born in germany in 1835. as an adolescent he immigrated to the united states he changed his name and worked at various jobs including journalists. he first encountered lincoln in 1858 when he covered the illinois senatorial campaign for a new york newspaper. villard tells you this and his two volume memoir . i went out and covered the lincoln douglas campaign but what he doesn't tell you is he trashed lincoln. that he wrote about three of the debates the first three for the new yorker which was a democratic newspaper. i read those and i was astounded to see how much he trashed lincoln and i include those as an appendix to the volume of dispatches from 1860- 61. and so as i say he trashes lincoln and the reason was because he believed that if the democratic party which was split at that time between the douglas wing and the presidents wing james buchanan and many people in the republican party sympathetic to the cause believed as long as douglas and buchanan were feuding as long as the democratic party was divided that it would open the doors to the republican candidate for president and they could win. let's keep supporting douglas. in fact they were prominent republicans back east who called upon the republicans of illinois not to nominate anyone for running against douglas in 19 50. among this people am a little embarrassed to say was a congressman from massachusetts who was the first member of congress to get a publicly and say illinois republicans don't run anyone against douglas. lincoln and the other illinois republicans said how could we not run against douglas? he doesn't believe in our principles and he opposed the buchanan support for a fraudulent constitution in kansas but he doesn't believe slavery is wrong, why should we give him a free pass if he doesn't accept the basic principle upon which our party is founded? lincoln then writes in a letter recently discovered by the people in charge of the papers of abraham lincoln, a project run out of springfield, they found a new letter written at the time in which he refers to sister burling game, normally we don't like to talk about that in the family. in 1858 campaign villard also bumps into lincoln and chats with him, he hears him speak and he has some rather positive things to say in his memoirs. for example october 1858 just before the election day he bumps into lincoln just outside of petersburg which is near new salem just north of springfield. here is what he says in his autobiography. lincoln and i met accidentally about 9:00 on a hot sultry evening at a flag railroad station about 20 miles west of springfield. i was on my return from a great meeting held at petersburg. he that is like and have been driven to the station in a buggy and left there alone. i was already there. the train we intended to take for springfield was about due after we had vainly waited half an hour for its arrival a thunderstorm compelled us to take refuge in an empty freight car. we spotted squatted down on the floor and started talking about all kinds of subjects. it was there he told me when he was clerking in a country store in salem his highest political ambition was to be a member of the state legislature. since then he said laughingly i have grown some but my friends got me into this business that is the senatorial race i did not consider myself qualified for the u.s. senate and it took me a long time to persuade myself i was. now to be sure he said i am convinced i am good enough for its but in spite of it all i say to myself every day, it is too big a thing for you you will never get it. my wife insists however i will be senator and president of the united states too. our talk continued until 10:30 when the belated train finally arrived. i cherish this accidental encounter as one of my most precious recollections since my companion of that night has become one of the greatest figures in history. that is high praise indeed but in 1858 villard described lincoln as far less positively in part because he joined douglas's campaign as a speaker and organizer. rules that villard did not reveal so he is not only giving speeches and organizing pro douglas clubs so. is a democratic activist villard spoke in several towns and cities . in early august and september he spent much time in quincy and gave speeches in joliet and elsewhere. this aspect of villard is news and i include these dispatches these letters to douglas in this volume. that is for an appendix. the heart of it is the dispatches written in 1860 and 1861. he had written somewhat for the new york herald about the pike's peak goldrush and the editor said you covered the lincoln douglas debates didn't you? he said yes i did. i want you to go out right after the election to springfield and covered lincoln day by day. he said sure. now when he was out there villard told lincoln of his assignment as villard noted in his memoirs the president-elect quote gave me a very friendly welcome and authorized me to come to him anytime for any information i needed. villard frequently availed himself of that generous offer . he explained how he gathered news from other sources. i was present almost daily for more or less time during his morning receptions. lincoln would hold open receptions at the governor's office in the old say capital. the governor was only there during the session of the legislature and it was not in session at that time. i remained a silent listener as i could get any time the hours when i needed information and these other people didn't. villard also derived information from other men and in all likelihood he enjoyed a close rapport with a young german immigrant like himself who was lincoln's private secretary. he was just three years older than villard. in the dispatches he talks about the mail lincoln is receiving and that was his responsibility so when he writes about when lincoln was receiving in the mail it is largely what nikolay had told him. another source of information and in addition to lincoln himself may well have been the president elects good friend and neighbor jesse to voice. during an 1890s visit villard told a reporter i used to live here you know based evidently on what villard wrote the visitor wrote the visitor was at one time on the staff of one of the local papers in the city and was a clerk in the auditors office when jesse duboise was the auditor. other possible sources included friends he had made during his 1858 in illinois and during the 1860 campaign. now the new york herald, cincinnati commercial and san francisco bulletin were the only out-of-town papers to assign a full-time correspondent to springfield during the period between lincoln's election and his departure for washington the following february. the-year-old was proud of its journalistic to to other the editors evidently disliked paying for villard's lengthy submissions. less than two weeks after he began filing reports an editorial informed readers we are receiving every day telegraphic dispatches and pretty expensive ones too from springfield. despite their cost villard said the hero publishes dispatches without change or omission. what are these reports telling us? in his early dispatches villard occasionally criticized lincoln . on november 19 he called the president-elect quote a man of good heart and good intentions who unfortunately was not firm. i doubt mr. lincoln's capacity for the task of bringing light and peace out of the chaos that will surround him, the time times demanded president like andrew jackson. very soon villard came to admire the president-elect , the following week villard praise lincoln saying , his sudden imminence has not effected him in any way that might estrange or lessen the respect of his old friends. he has remained the same frank openhearted good-natured well- meaning lane spoken and plain mannered western man that through his many qualities of the head and heart has endeared him both politically and privately to so many of the people of this state. there is not a shadow of presumption or glorious this perceptible in lincoln. he still communicates with everybody in his old familiar way. he still loves to tell funny stories and play old jokes on his acquaintances, nor is it likely the air of washington will make him abandon his customary ways. i predict he will horrify many of the fashionable's who will flock around him at the capital and by his persistency and frankness of thought and speech simplicity of manners and habits. in november that was in november, and december he concluded lincoln would be another andrew jackson after all. having closely observed him and well noted the impressions made upon him by the successive phases of the president i daresay there are qualities in old abe which draw forth and develop people to remind people of the characteristics of andrew jackson. villard explained why lincoln had become so much more like jackson in december than he had seemed to be in november. the determined infatuation and stubborn deafness to all moderate counsel with which the secession of this is being approached gradually produced less kind sentiments in lincoln. the openly purpose of southern leaders to try to disunion experiment at all hazards and the heedless endorsement of their seditious plans by the population of the gulf states which is the lower south florida georgia alabama mississippi louisiana and texas as well as south carolina, lucinda sympathetic ties. lincoln lost sympathy for them. the insulting tuned with which impossible concessions were demanded resulted in wounded pride and the spirit of hostility in lincoln. the cruel prescriptions and persecutions of all northern men without regard to political convictions throughout the continent and southern states called forth in lincoln feelings of indignation and desires of retaliation. in some as the disunion movement grows the firmness of the powers that are to be that is lincoln increases correspondingly. those that imagine the president-elect is at all scared will find themselves sadly disappointed after 4 march. they will be more apt to find a roaring lion rather than a frightened lamb in the white house. that is probably a reference to james buchanan who in his message to congress said there is no justification constitutionally or legally for the tap south to succeed and no power that we have as the federal government to do anything about it. its future occupant which is lincoln will show more pluck then they perhaps give him credit for. he has possessed a true kentucky grit and will not fail to demonstrate in a striking manner that quality. all there ready and anxious to protect the constitutional rights of all sections of the country he feels he is duty- bound to uphold the laws by all lawful means. knowing himself to be right consequences will have no terror for him and he will strictly fulfill his constitutional obligations and that the responsibility for whatever will arise from southern resistance rest where the public sense of justice will place what is on their shoulders. he goes on to say the above may be deemed strong language but your correspondent knows what he is writing about. he fully understands the meaning of every word he uses. being desirous of reflecting the views of the incoming administration to the best of his opportunities for information that is villard saying it is my duty to provide you readers with the views of the incoming administration as best i can. he would not employ other terms in the face of overwhelming evidence appearing to his senses in support of the fact the concessions are scouted scorned and peaceable secession is looked upon as impossible in the statehouse. the day south carolina seceded from the union december 20, 1860 villard reported lincoln did not experience any extraordinary shock or nerves of hearing of the attempted legalization of open rebellion. it certainly did not make him any more willing to listen to compromises, it is evidently no element of his moral composition. in january however when news arrived that the confederates had fired on a supply ship trying to reach for sumner lincoln was not calm and it was reported he greatly was exercised about it as many northerners. villard singled out for special praise lincoln's quote self- reliance , independence of thought and action and straightforwardness and purpose. even more villard lights the president's keen sense and conscientiousness of duty as the most distinctive elements of mr. lincoln's moral composition. villard boasted he did lincoln a service by scaring off would be office seekers who feeling to see their fearing to see their names in newspapers abandoned plans to visit the illinois capital to badger the president-elect. as villard route in 1860, although your correspondence has no desire to claim any undue importance yet he flatters himself he has rendered and is rendering preeminent services to the president-elect, the herald's faithful chronicles of whatever transpires in this region has saved many an hour of annoyance and perplexity to the president- elect. it is solely owing indeed to the untiring vigilance with which he which is villard watches and the mercilessness for which he brings to publicity the movements of place seekers and toughed hunters that abraham has not suffered any overwhelming attacks from the expectance among his supporters. no mere sufficient means of keeping the eager host at a safe distance could have been adopted and that which is now exercised to the benefits to the presidents benefits in the commons of the herald. the regular advertising of all political characters that venture hit the word in search of something in the way of presidential favor is a most powerful scourge. so villard claims he is serving doing him a favor. villard may have done an even greater service by indirectly publicizing lincoln's views on the secession crisis. formally the president-elect refused to comment on the seven southern states that have withdrawn from the union between december 20 and february 1. informally over the years lincoln had regularly used newspapers to voice his opinion, often in the form of anonymous articles from his own pen. he had journalists float trial balloons on his behalf. in the mid-19th century there was no such office as presidential press secretary but lincoln sought to influence public opinion through journalism written by his personal secretaries john hay and. each of those young men wrote anonymous or pseudonymous dispatches that resemble today's is defending the administration's actions. their contributions to the press reveal an aspect of lincoln's political savvy that has been insufficiently appreciated mainly his politically shrewd attempt to mold public opinion through favorable reporting and commentary in newspapers. during the fall and winter of 1860-61 both contributed anonymous articles to papers describing events and opinion in springfield. they continue to serve that function during the civil war. in 1859 lincoln bought a german language newspaper in springfield to promote the republican cause and with other party leaders planned to take over a st. louis newspaper which circulated widely in southern illinois. during the civil war he asked influential journalists to prepare public opinion for the announcement of actions that might not be immediately popular. he also urged to establish a morning chronicle in washington to support the administration. between the time of his election and departure for washington lincoln may have well been using villard to influence public opinion and give hints about his approach to the secession crisis. villard suspense they president- elect is seldomly quoted directly though his remarks are sometimes paraphrased. moreover the views of spring fielders in general and statehouse opinion in particular are often described. readers may inferred those views and opinions were shared by lincoln. most notably lincoln seemed to hint he generally took a hard line against the secessionist and he just might accept some compromise proposals for solving the crisis. for example on january 12, 1861 villard reported although the president-elect was entirely low that you see slavery spread over another inch of ground he would get sign a congressional enactment and bodying the restoration and extension to the coast of the missouri compromise line which is the 36 degrees 30 minute equator that bisected the territory west of the mississippi which had been declared will now be open at least the southern part of it to slavery expansion. that is provided he could be satisfied it was demanded by the bulk of the nation and the only means of saving the union. villard's close observation of lincoln forced three months for three months gave him insight into lincoln's family life as well as his public life. villard did not report much on that although he did in his memoirs. villard was not the only journalist lincoln used to influence public opinion. the good book could be written on that subject focusing more on reporters than on editors. in addition to villard the president cultivated the washington correspondent of the sacrament of daily union the first biography of which whom has just been published. lincoln's favorite journalist according to some accounts and david bartlett of springfield massachusetts republican and john forney as i mentioned. moreover his relationship with the influential editor cries out for more sophisticated treatment than it has so far received especially concerning the role of mrs. bennett who befriended the first lady. lincoln said our government rests in public opinion, whoever can change public opinion can change the government. to effect the public opinion lincoln use the press more skillfully than his it is commonly understood. i thank you for your attention. , it is time for question and answer. . yes. >> i have a technical question. i was just thinking about he used the press and the isn't a tape recording of douglas or lincoln's speeches to write them down so could you give me the technical parts of them handing a speech to the newspapers and are there newspapers lincoln wanted to have a relationship with and didn't have through persuade? >> the lincoln douglas debates were taken down by a court stenographer, one for the chicago press tribune and a couple of others for the chicago times which is douglas's paper. we have verbatim accounts of those encounters. yes. >> so like we will mention it later lou lehrman's speech at peoria book it lincoln -- >> yes. >> in that regard but with the douglas lincoln debates it was? >> it was stenographic reports. an argument has been made that the republican account of lincoln's words was that the editors spruce it up whenever lincoln made a faux pas grammatically or of the like to make it more smooth and articulate and more impressive. really if you want to know what lincoln really said take a look at the democratic newspaper the chicago times, i am serious. they didn't feel any compunction about making lincoln look like a jerk. they wanted him to look like a jerk. and vice a versa. the words of douglas will probably be more accurately reflected in the reports of the republican newspaper and vice versa. >> that notion is simply wrong because we have abundant evidence that stephen a douglas who was not particularly scrupulous about political campaigning higher a stenographer to deliberately mangold mangle lincoln's words. we have good testimony from lincoln's shorthand reporter who a congressman and he said this other shorthand reporter he knew personally first of all he was think incapable of keeping up with lincoln he just wasn't a good enough stenographer and he was deliberately hired by douglas to garble lincoln's words to make him look inarticulate. now there is some virtue in taking the democratic version of what lincoln said and comparing it to the republican version. if there is a passage which is longer in the democratic paper than the republican paper and it doesn't make lincoln look bad that is probably accurate and should be added. that is because the stenographer covering lincoln may have sneezed or his favor may have fallen off the table or the wind may have carried it away. so two very fine scholars they were awarded a very first lifetime achievement award a while back. they did that rather painstaking conflation of the two versions. thanks to their efforts we have i think the most accurate version we would have of what lincoln and douglas both said during those debates. another thing that should be done about the campaign would be to take all of lincoln's speeches which have been published but all of douglas's speeches which haven't been published. somehow but most haven't. when lincoln is responding to douglas in the 1858 debates he isn't responding strictly to what douglas says in the context of the debates he is also responding to speeches douglas gave elsewhere. douglas was an outrageous race baiter and it is worse outside the debate context than even in the debate context which was bad. we were talking earlier about statues and the controversy of whether they should be allowed to remain, one of the most peculiar examples of a statute that probably should be controversial is stephen a douglas in chicago. as you may know on the south side of chicago it is a black area and here is douglas this outrageous race baiter and yet his statue has not been efface or spray-painted, it hasn't been attacked and that is because it is atop a 60 foot filler, maybe we should do that with all of those other statues that are controversial. yes. >> you mentioned that covered the stephen douglas and lincoln debates and he was very anti- lincoln then your book talks about the time from the election to when lincoln leaves to washington. what did villard do after that? did he remain a journalist? he did some political coverage but mostly he achieved as a war correspondent reporting on military developments. the reports the herald and cincinnati commercial there would be stacked headlines and you wouldn't have a multi- headline:you have a series of one column headlines one on top of another and most of the military dispatches describing battles would have the very top headline out of eight or nine it would have the words important if true. i think we ought to revive that tradition. yes. jeffrey. >> lincoln wrote letters anonymously to newspapers some of those lost that we don't know about? >> identifying what i am sure are pieces lincoln wrote form newspapers anonymously. we know that because it is set lincoln wrote all of the time and it is interesting and i've tried to identify a lot of them and in the green monster i do often quote quite a bit from these pieces and i say in all likelihood so forth. i think now with the more sophisticated programs to identify authorship like the ones just used in this article that appeared last october through that technique we may be able to identify his anonymous and synonymous journalism in these pieces i think we could get insight that we otherwise couldn't get. thank you for your attention. >> weather is no break between our last wonderful speaker and the panel that we have, which is a tradition for the abraham lincoln institute, to have this round table as it were, all the speakers from these events, for those who didn't get a chance to ask a question earlier, or thought of something since then, this is the time to line up and ask that question. quite a diversity of topics today. we have got lincoln and the environment, humor, frederick douglass, henry villard, the new deal. were, remains america's man for all seasons, apparently. -- onet going to ask all question of all our panelists then we will open it up to the audience. how do we ask one question do such a diverse array of topics? if you could add a coda to your remarks today that would say a from so, why are people many walks of life insistent on having lincoln on their side? isting right with lincoln the old historian way of saying it. we had quite a diversity of topics today with lincoln and and the new fill in the blank the environment humor, henry villard the new deal lincoln as it were remains america's man for seasons and i will ask one question of all of our panelists and we will open it up to the audience. hide-a-way ask one question to such an array of topics. if you could add a to your remarks today that would say a bit more about why are people from so many walks of life insistent on having lincoln on their side? getting right with lincoln is the old historian way of saying it, what is it about lincoln's vision of america that are figures today entertain or invite this association with lincoln, what do you think that is? to make it relevant how does it help us today? >> is this mike working? >> yes. >> i think lincoln is that hero in american history and every faction side wants to claim him. civil rights folks, environmentalists, they all want to claim lincoln as their outline because he is the good man and we want the good guy on our team. >> yes well i think that is true. i think everybody does want to claim lincoln. i think there is an also an interesting way and i don't know if it is just lincoln but there is something so moldable plastic doesn't sound like a nice way to describe it lincoln heights like gumby right. he does have a quality of maybe it has to do with his being so very political so that he would say different things at different times so you could kind of look at lincoln and say here's the civil rights champion but also look at him and say here's the pragmatist. he has so many different political guises that maybe that is one thing that makes it impossible for people to use him towards different political agendas. >> first i would say not always actually i wrote a piece the global lincoln that richard edited. that was a conference in england at the bicentennial i was giving given the task of covering that foreign country called the american south. they gave me a chance to do research on all of the lincoln haters which was amazing frankly. i didn't do deep deep research but my god they were professional lincoln haters and four years. they were not only not getting right they were trying to show everything that was wrong. douglas did this frederick douglass did this 30 years after the war. he created at least three different lincoln's at different times. variations on the theme but he created the lincoln he needed for that political moment. i think that usually is the case, what is the politics when somehow either the healer or the emancipator or the wily politician take your pick is the most needed or useful? think of lincoln the healer which obama used. now we need even more healing so lincoln better be ready. >> perhaps is that okay can you hear me? perhaps i can build on what david just said. lincoln means something not just to the united states and not just a handy way of analyzing current problems in a given era but lincoln has been an international figure. even in his own lifetime he had a reputation as a progressive as an emancipator as a democrat and as an embodiment of the self-made man of the kind of man that didn't exist anywhere else outside the united states. america was of course in the early and mid 19th century seen as the salvation of the world in respect of opening opportunities to humankind. it's a coded way of telling the world he will be he will emancipate but he ends by saying i've described my political position none of this changes my personal position which is the ambition that all men everywhere should be free all men everywhere should be free. it was society where you were born didn't provide any obstacles to your social progress or political right. that vision continued to operate through beyond lincoln's death into the late 19th century and early 20th century. it comes to a swift conclusion here but there is the memorability of lincoln and the interpretation of lincoln. up until lincoln remained very much a figure who was admired by the political left and the left of center. when the author the was born his father in the early 20th century wanted to call him abraham lincoln. his father was a liberalist and his mother it was a staunch conservative said over my dead body. lincoln is then adopted across the political spectrum. in 1920-21 the statue of abraham lincoln is unveiled in outside london. the only foreign leader foreign statesman and that celebrated galaxy of british statesman and who was present? the u.s. secretary of state, the british prime minister great fan of but a welshman, an aspiring nation that wanted to believe lincoln was really one of them. they called lincoln a welsh president who descended from medieval welsh princes. in 1921 lincoln is adopted by the british as the democratic hero and the hero the war leader who had been the inspiration during the war in 1920s this builds on what nina was telling us earlier there was a cult of lincoln in the united kingdom. people regarded him as a figure to be admired. >> that's wonderful. i think as a footnote to that a similar phenomenon exists in this country that he has an appeal from left to right which is rooted not just in his policy statements his proclamations and speeches but for what he stood for. it was a man of real integrity who spoke to the of our nature. i think we hunger for that today. >> thank you. >> this theme is too important. you all i think have referenced the great moral compass and yet so many different sides can parse his words and tactics that somehow ignore the overall direction of his philosophy of his life that moral compass is it like the bible is that like the constitution? people can read what they want and ignore the overall direction? how do we this back according to the moral compass? , the malleability is what you have to start with, although there are core >> well you know i often think of it this way, if lincoln had lived here's the if question if lincoln listed the second term and well beyond he could not have avoided writing a memoir, everybody was writing a memoir, sherman wrote his early because they were all writing memoirs. he might have still been guarded as could be and yet if he had we'd be starting every conversation with what he said about himself and that memoir. in the lack of that and the lack of any kind of autobiographical writings to speak of except that 20 page thing in the election which didn't say much, the mailing ability is always what you have to start with. there are core elements to his ideas but it is the lincoln of apotheosis. is the lincoln of transcendence, if the lincoln of the ending which is always our beginning. of course that is what i did. douglas loved the lincoln of 6364 and 65 and he refurbished it as i said in three different ways the rest of his life because he needed lincoln so much. the reason frederick douglass needs lincoln is because i really believe this if lincoln didn't free the slaves the country didn't end of the country didn't where were they going to go? what were the options? especially in the jim crow era, there are so many elements of lincoln that become necessary for future political persuasions. differently dependie moment that they live in. >> who knows we never had that crisis so it's the only model we have. nina knows about moral compasses. >> in some ways that is a phrase moral compass but it then takes each generation to fill in what that phrase means so for lincoln we see what the moral compass means in terms of his positions on emancipation but i think i mean that's the thing that waits to get filled in each time somebody claims lincoln. i think it is easy to say i am following lincoln's moral compass but everyone will to find that differently depending on the moment they live in. >> you can see how he grew. a few days before he died he was making a speech about citizenship . he wasn't there 20 years before that. he grew during this 20 years in a variety of ways. some said that is what led donald smith to say that is his last speech. i think that moral growth is something we all like to admire. >> if i could add a footnote, those of you familiar with my writings know that i divide his political career into an early stage in a later stage in the early stage i've argued he was a logoed politician that specialize in ridicule and pouring sarcasm over democrats. figures 3 midlife crisis and when he comes out of it he's a changed man with not engaging in critical sarcasm with a high route appeal or to the moral sense of the public regarding slavery. i think i may have overdrawn that in my previous writings because in the first half of his life in addition to the sarcasm and political life in addition to the ridicule he is championing what he believes is an economic support for terrorist and internal improvements and banks in order to liberate people from what he experienced as they use mainly rural isolation which led to backwardness ignorance bigotry prejudice and the like. he managed to escape and he would like to make it possible for everybody to escape from rural isolation and poverty and backwardness. there is a subtext of liberating people from ignorance and backwardness and the second stages liberating slaves from slavery. >> just to add to that conforms with the way which is he lived at a time when it was possible to imagine a world in which wherever you were born did not matter, you were living in a society where social and economic progress was possible, this was not a world of big corporations, it was a world of expanding markets and it was a world of boundless opportunity. it was the only representative democracy in the world. those two refused, he didn't live long enough to see the growth of the big corporations. he didn't live long enough to see the aspirations of democratic aspirations would not be universalized. we do have to remember his moral compass was operating in a particular kind of society at a particular time. that's not to say there aren't permanent values but let's be aware it was possible for lincoln to have this optimistic view of the world given the nature of the economic and in which he was operating. >> ready for another question? >> did john wilkes booth escape the -- [ inaudible ] >> >> you want me to elaborate? >> we may have watched the history channel a couple of times and i'm sure it is a conspiracy theory but they were saying that it is a possibility and there is some proof potentially that john wilkes booth escaped from the barn. >> he was living in texas 20 years later or something. >> yes. guess. >> lincoln joined the texas rangers and caught it 20 years later. >> actually in the 1930s it was popular that the whole story that wilkes booth had escaped and there were several plays written on the scene of the 1930s that it was stanton who was really behind the assassination because there was i think an all out smearing of republicans so that was a very popular theme and he may have helped him escape. >> and a man named boyd? >> hair and freckles? >> don't know him. >> history channel yes. they said maybe he was shy yes. >> oh god it. >> we all begin with good stories so go for it. >> i would like to ask the panel over the last three years we have received a profusion of books grant upward how about lincoln's influence on ulysses grant his fellow ohio river valley native 13 years apart in age but each man greatly needed the other to accomplish their tasks. ranch is the only president who told harding tries hard to give black people civil rights. >> i wasn't a speaker earlier but i had a microphone. as i'm sure they have all experienced it doesn't matter what you're talking about usually get the $64,000 question what would lincoln have done about reconstruction? my go to answer and historians don't like to do this but political scientists don't mind doing it. i would go to grant. grant is the closest thing we have to some idea of what lincoln would have done as president in a federal constitutional system with regards to civil and political rights for blacks. >> could i add a footnote? this new biography makes a strong case for grant as the champion of black civil rights and there is a good argument to be made. he really did insist especially in the early stages that the 14th and 15th amendments be enforced rigorously and he hired an attorney general who oversaw that and the clan was broken. for various reasons it didn't persist through the grant administration but in the early stages he was really quite insistent that those be enforced rigorously. >> frederick douglass ran both elections vehemently supporting grant for reasons larger than just grant. guess i read the grant and you are right about the revival caught my god there are so many books now you can't keep up. they rivaled the lincoln books but slow down on frederick douglass. >> anyway. it is a mixed bag of course, he clearly went after the clan to destroy it and virtually did. then there is the louisiana problem and lucas makes a good point. if lincoln lives that problem has everything to do with the fact that lincoln doesn't have to live with reconstruction on his back. if he did we would be having a different conversation. he would be wearing that is part of his reputation and he doesn't have to. anyway. >> i am a middle school history teacher so i am thinking of my students when i asked this question. sense that he had this sense of humor. , the image ofits lincoln is shaped by statues and by great speeches. if you don't know anything about lincoln but what you see in the public arena, statues, and what he is most remembered by, the gettysburg address, the second inaugural, and his capacity for words, it is perhaps no surprise that you are unaware that there was this capacity for wit and humor. i'm a bit surprised that it has gone quite so blank in the united states, because there are still books that you can find of compilations of his wit. many of which are apocryphal, but they are still available in the bookstores. >> richard, can i ask you a question on this very subject? is there any evidence -- do you know any cases of lincoln never meeting his match? that is, somebody who, with a similar sense of humor took him on? do any stories exist of somebody who could match lincoln? thought, yound think you have got the stories. do we know that any or was he always in control of these situations? >> we don't know of any. we do know there were competitions, because he would be on the circuit and they would be sitting on the taverns around the fire swapping stories and lincoln would just be there until the very end. occasion -- >> writers get ready, because this could be cool. >> good question. >> on that last one, i would say there are no reality tv shows back in those days. and is kept i had coming up with me and i never found an answer, the 13th amendment was the fulfillment of the emancipation proclamation. there was a big fight in illinois for 30 years over the illinois basic law of the constitution. inre was a lot of debate washington about the emancipation proclamation and all this, and yet, they couldn't find anywhere anyone made any kind of reference to the fact that in 1847, at the illinois second constitutional debates, they put into the constitution of 1848 near slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in this state. phrasethe exact same jefferson had written in the 1780's and the exact same phrase the 13th amendment to the federal constitution and yet know where i can find somebody made a reference back to the illinois constitution. when lincoln was in springfield when they argued it. he had just gone to congress after it passed as the second illinois constitution of 1848. i don't understand this gap. no one picked up on it. i was wondering if you had come across anything about that. >> lucas should take this one, but they are drawing from the northwest ordinance. that is the link. that is the lineage. >> spec is back to 1787. this was 1848. less than 12 years before the debate came up again. >> wouldn't it carry more weight to take it from the northwest ordinance and the state constitution? that makes some sense. yeah. >> as you know, by reading those debates, in the 1847 illinois constitution convention, there was a great deal of talk about race. shocking, the degree of over racism that gets expressed in that debate. it wound up paving the way for a statute that for made black people from moving into illinois. >> perhaps my question would be professor,ward the but anyone else is welcome to respond. the late editor of the u.s. grant papers once said that carl sandburg made lincoln safe for democrats, capital d. african-americans were a significant element in the republican party in this period. is there any evidence of pushback from partisan republicans that the democrats were trying to steal their guy? >> yes. absolutely. republicanslot of who say explicitly -- one of the most interesting speeches i of theas by will hayes motion picture industry. as in the hays code. also a prominent republican politician who talks explicitly about this kind of democratic appropriation of lincoln. that they have totally misused lincoln. there were a lot of republicans who were right on that specific theme. partly, he is our president, a republican president. but really feeling that the himcrats had appropriated totally to their agenda. >> also, it is worth pointing out that the republican party in the 1930's was not necessarily any longer the party of lincoln, so to speak. one of my favorite newspaper headlines of all time was 1936, which is the year that african-americans for the first .ime could vote they were majority democrat. the headline was in the chicago defender, one of the most prominent black newspapers. it read, it him lincoln is not running in this election. >> he is not a candidate in this election. >> he is not running. >> don't be full. be fooled. >> if lincoln were alive, looking at a map of red and blue states, he would say mississippi, louisiana, alabama, how come they are republican states? they hated me down there. things change. >> i would like to pose a couple ideas and get the panel's thoughts on this. directed mostly on the topic of the views of using lincoln mostly during the 1930's to promote a wide variety of views. through the 1940's, there were still civil war veterans who were very young when they served and were very old by that point. there was still a direct living link to the time span in which lincoln lived and served. as that generation began to fade out, the new generations tried to map their spectrum of hopes, fears, beliefs, etc., ranging all the way from somatic elements in the young mr. lincoln film to the abraham lincoln brigade. right, left, across the spectrum. perhaps not in such a dissimilar ago, world warrs ii generation served. 70 years before the 1930's, it was the civil war era. that similar type of scenario exists now, where the younger veterans then are very old now and they are dying off. we are trying to map our own generation's hopes, aspirations, perhaps to legitimize those in the light of achievements of a couple generations past. i wanted to get your thoughts on the parallel, that thought, maybe about two generations that since those events may be the rational calculus changes about how people try to connect with those and legitimize their own positions and thoughts. true that there was a dwindling group of civil war veterans. -- atmber that i saw was one point, the federal government was trying to identify all the civil war veterans who were still living in 1938, which would have been the 75th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg and they counted about 8000 and got about 2000 at the 75th reunion. it is not a big number. one of the things that was interesting to me about studying the 1930's was precisely, it was this moment when you were losing contact with a generation of people who had been there, first-person participants. in a way, people become more anxious about, do we know what they thought? are we being true to their and honoring their vision? but they are also in a funny way less tethered to reality. idea that youe wild --agine these abraham lincoln is reincarnated as a kentucky college professor, there is a way in which it -- i don't want say it freed peoples imaginations, but maybe that is not a good example of imaginations being freed, but it seems to open up all kinds of ways of imagining the civil war era and imagining lincoln, because you did not feel quite as constricted by the presence of the first-hand participants. is that same thing happening now? i don't know. there is certainly the same demonstrate,people are we being true to a vision that i group of people had your no longer with us? a group of people had who are no longer with us. >> i like the question, because he gets to this almost impossible problem of what is a generation? generations are often defined by major events. we always understand a generation in our own family. that is obvious. but political historical generations are defined by an experience. vietnam generation, etc. on the other hand, what memory always is our the stories we believe in. the we as trying to figure get suchs that story traction with that one doesn't? why when we reach the centennial of the civil war was reconciliation everywhere in the air? the very moment the civil rights revolution was going on and emancipation was hardly a part of the celebration, at least officially. there is always this question. this incredible multiethnic, racial, diverse country we have, we want again have this fight over what is the national narrative? is there a national narrative? who gets to decide? our where do the stories of big divisive turning points going to fit in all of that? it is a fascinating problem with no simple answer. how did immigrants from every corner of the earth become civil war buffs? i had a korean-american kid from minneapolis in my office once at amherst college who walked in, he was a diehard civil war buff. how in the world? you were born in south korea. your parents are korea. you corrupgrew up here. why? he had the greatest answer. it just seemed so important. that's fine. that is all i needed to hear. [laughter] >> some stories are transcendent and important. and yet, we sometimes are downloaded -- dumbfounded the way they are remembered. no badly, and acrylate or whatever -- inaccurately or whatever. you asked the right question but it is not have simple answers. >> one more question. >> thank you very much for coming all of you. i have a question about, it relates to the question from a gal who said where did the wit of lincoln disappear, so to speak? when i think back, i think it was raymond massey who portrayed lincoln -- he was scary. terrifying and wooden. my question is that how do you feel that the current lincoln movie portrayed by, this spielberg film, did any of that seem consistent with your learning? you actually see the men. an. i love the film but i would be interested in your perception. >> nobody is going to touch lincoln for a long time. [laughter] >> daniel day-lewis can make you believe anything. >> i think there is one aspect of the film i found a little hard to take. i admired it in general. i was on a panel that was consulted by spielberg about the script. at one point, lincoln rises up. he spreads his arms and says to his cabinet "i'm the president of the united states and you will get me those votes." well, that is one person testified to the fact that lincoln said that, but most scholars who don't with that period or with lincoln in general find that not credible. >> the movie has him telling a dirty joke. my movie has stanton saying, god -- yeah. >> [indiscernible] >> that was accurate. [laughter] >> it just had four or five ending. that was my problem with it. endingsg made all those and decided to use them all. [laughter] >> in fact, wasn't the big ending -- after lincoln is dead, then the ending is a kind of reconciliation. it had an odd -- on the one hand, there is this horrible assassination. yet, there were still, as hollywood always does, how do we leave you with something hopeful and promising? doesn't it end on a moment somebody shaking hands or something is happening to suggest reconciliation? >> spielberg does not collect norman rockwell paintings for nothing. [laughter] but --t filmmaker, >> thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> we would like to conclude today's events with a formal presentation of a book award and the lifetime achievement award to lewis -- unfortunately -- amen. one of the great benefactors of lincoln studies in american history too. the book prize committee on which i had the privilege to sitting determined the best lincoln book was "lincoln and church hill: statesmen at war." a terrific book. the president of this organization and has been on the board for many years and recently stepped down had this to say about that book -- "the tok brings a laserlike focus bear on the two greatest english speaking statesman of the 19th and 20th centuries. churchill was the grandson of a duke. lincoln was born to rural poverty. churchill was a soldier in early maturity. lincoln, a self-taught lawyer who never served more than a few months in the militia. churchill was written off by some as a bounder and a prodigal. lincoln was notable for his humility and thrift. the dual examination is a compelling study beautifully written about the ideals and temperament of those two very different men. their restless intelligence. their wonderful stamina. their reliance in the face of defeat and disaster. their feel for the power of the english language. their mix of calmness and aggression. and, their commitment to free institutions. has also given us a well wrought primer on national leadership. now, i have the privilege of presenting the award to mr. lahrman in his home and he asked me to read a statement that he composed and would like to have delivered in person. distinguished members of the abraham lincoln institute, i'm deeply honored by the lifetime achievement award and i'm equally honored by the lincoln book of the year award, especially since i have such respect for the abraham lincoln institute. i regret only that i cannot be with you in person to express my profound gratitude. i have long admired the work that the abraham lincoln institute has thus far so nobly advanced. that is to say to promote scholarship on the life and legacy of mr. lincoln. having grown up near gettysburg, i early on learned deep respect and reverence for our fearless 16th president. encourageng led me to the study of his life and legacy, and to do what i could to help further the mission of the abraham lincoln institute. please accept my heartfelt thanks and my earnest best wishes for the continued vitality and success of the institute and all its worthy endeavors. i had the pleasure of presenting him with a certificate thetifying his book as winner of the book prize. he turned to his wife and says dear, hang this in a prominent spot. [laughter] >> i'm glad to have my talents as an author recognized but his talent as a philanthropist for this award, lifetime achievement for his many worthy endeavors in promoting the study of american history in general and for the study of abraham lincoln in particular. thank you very much and thank you all for coming. [applause] >> i would like to thank you all for coming today. it has been a wonderful day, in a where you are in your journey of linking about -- learning about lincoln. i have been particularly please to see so many young people. i think i counted seven or eight kids that looked 13 or younger and it is encouraging to think about the future. i what to reiterate my thanks to force theater for being incredible hosts and for c-span for covering this. please enjoy the rest of your day and evening. we look forward to seeing you again next year. [applause]

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