Now it is a great honor to introduce our guests. What an amazing panel. Americas most distinguished historians and scholars of congress to help us understand our current vexations. Edward ayres is president emeritus at the university of richmond. He is the author of many books on the civil war and reconstruction, including, i will highlight one of his many Award Winning books the thin light of freedom the civil war and emancipation in the part of america, which he discussed at the National Constitution center in 2017. His forthwomaning do ining book southern journey. Welcome, it is an honor to have you. My pleasure, thank you. And Joanne Freeman is 1954 graduate of Yale University and is a professor of American History and american studies at Yale University, where she specializes in the politics and political culture of the revolutionary and Early National period. She is a cohost with edward ayres of a Popular History podcast back story. She is the author of many books as well including past breakin breaking, and field of blood the road to the civil war. Its such an honor to have you with us. Thanks for having me. Norman ornstein studies politics and american elections. I love his book titles, because the next one we did at the constitution center, and it depressed us before we began the program. Its even worse than it looks, how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism and very relevant for tonight as well, the brookken branch, how congre is failing america and how to get it back on track. Hes a friend of the center and appears frequently on our programs. Norm, wonderful to have you back. Always a pleasure, jeff. Let us jump in to the history of the violence that consumed the nation in general and congress in particular in the years leading up to the civil war and joanne, well begin with you because your book field of blood describing it so vividly. The statistics are striking. You write that there were more than 70 violent incidents between congressmen in the house and Senate Chambers or on nearby streets or dueling grounds. You note it wasnt confined to congress. In july 1830 alone there were 109 riots nationwide. Is it true that there was more violence then in congress in particular and also in the nation in general than there is now . Why was it and give our audience a sense of how Violent Congress was. Sure. To answer your question first, this is an obvious thing to say, but congress is a representative institution. So it does reflect the ethos of the time and the fact of the matter is the first half of the 19th century and im sure ed will tell us the second half of the 19th century were very, very violent. Some of the violence you see in congress is representative of that moment. What i was interested in and what drew my attention was the amount of it and dynamic of it. You were discussing the years leading up to the civil war and it is worth noting that the violence, or at least the extreme violence begins in the 1830s. It is not a constant wave, it comes and goes, but its the 1830s, 1840s and 1830s that sees these incidents. If you track who is fighting who initially, you see one party fighting another and then over time you see north versus south and slavery is at the center of the fighting. What struck me as interesting most of all and what really shows violence as a tool in the Antebellum Congress is southerners knew that to a certain degree they had an advantage because they were more willing to engage in handtohand combat than some of the northerners. They used that advantage on the floor. They used it as a tool of debate and would deliberately intimidate and threaten northern congressmen. Some of them, it would silz themselv silence themselves or sit down and not stand up rather than risk the threat or being humiliated in front of the public by being threatened and having to back down before it. Violence is shocking all by itself, but what is particularly interesting is that it was a deliberate tool of debate. Over time, what happens is by the 1850s, some northerners decide it can be their tool, too. Thats such a powerful turn in the book when you describe how the decision of northerners to challenge southerners to duels actually decreased the violence and you quote from that remarkably moving letter which you say moved you to tears when representatives wade, chandler and cameron pledged to challenge future duellers to fight. You write when it became known some northern senators were to fight for we have this wonderful new exhibit. We have Thaddeus Stevenss cane, and i quote your book on how some people would run for congress during that period on the grounds that my left hook is better than the other guy. Ill beat him up because im tougher. You bring that to life so incredibly powerfully. Norman, it is often said or at least it has been said by norbert mccarthy from princeton, that we are more polarized today than at any time since the civil war. You are such an expert at party systems. Can you explain what it was about the Political Parties right before the civil war that led us to be so polarized then . So, you know, you go back through history and we see echoes of so many of the divisions that are familiar to people today. If you look to the period leading up to the civil war and the party system, it was very much in flux. We had a wig party that ultimately became basically or was transformed into the modern Republican Party. Along the way we had a Knownothing Party that was antiimmigration. The ire and the focus was on catholics, on some elements of northern europeans in part. We had a president elected on the know nothing ticket and ultimately it became the two parties we know today of at least that we think we know today, democrats and republicans. And we have that overarching issue of race and slavery. The parties struggling with that. For a while, the Democratic Party had a strong antislavery wing. We had others, copperheads, who viewed it in a different way. It shook down into a Republican Party with Abraham Lincoln, the president who became the force in the Republican Party, the force against slavery. Ed will talk about how things changed in the aftermath after the assassination of lincoln and what changed with the reconstruction period. All of those things, lifeanddeath issues to so many, really created a level of polarization in society. It broke down obviously along regional lines, and those regional divisions continued to persist, but not necessarily in the same way as the partys change. And the Democratic Party, which became a more dominant party many decades later, had a merger of southern and northern democrats. But the deep divisions that were there, the polarization of society and the parties, mccarthy is right, what were seeing now is something far more distinct than what we have seen since any period in 150 years. That is fascinating. You are teaching that the party system during the civil war period mirrored the polarization in society. Nicely very enforces joannes point that violence in congress mirrored the violence in society. Yes. Ed, your book the thin line of freedom argues powerfully at every step those who would advance freedom found themselves challenged and sometimes defeated as this history shows however black freedom advanced faster and further than its champions dreamed possible precisely because the opponents of freedom proved so powerful and aggressive. Tell us how it was that with each victory of the armies of the south provoked northern support for abolitionism and as norman invited, if you could take us through postcivil war period through reconstruction and tell us about how the party system realigned and the country became less polarized even as support for reconstruction was ultimately abandoned. As norman was saying, the polarization inside the north between the democrats and republicans during the civil war, its a fundamental fact that people tend to forget. People would say the democrats lost, they only had 47 of the vote. I think weve seen in our own time, the other half of the electorate doesnt go away when they lose. In 1864, 10,000 votes in different districts, see if that number sounds familiar, would have given the election to the democrats in 1864, after all the suffering of the civil war. We forget that had a couple battles gone differently, Abraham Lincoln might not have been reelected. That sub stratum, northern difference is there. The northern democrats were as racists as white southerners. They hated everything the republicans were doing. So the war ends. The white south says we lost. But meantime lincolns election, Andrew Johnson becomes president , he seems to cut some slack for the white south. They go great, lets push for everything we can get, lets put those codes in there to reinstitute as much slavery as possible before the republicans come back into congress. Right now theres a quiet the president is running everything. This sounds familiar, too, right . Lets do what we can with this president. When republicans come back in after riots in new orleans and memphis and widespread violence against black people across the south, republicans say we cannot have lost 350 men for this. We must restore the purpose of the war. The white south was running roughshod. The white south just keeps pushing and pushing and northern republicans say okay, it will take an amendment to the constitution that you have to support. You will have to allow black men to vote and to be delegates and rewrite the constitutions before you can come back in because you have shown us youre not sorry at all. You admit you were defeated but not that you were wrong. You had congressional permission to go out and talk to people across the south, and what they were looking for was rebelism. The spirit that even though they lost, they are still the rebels. The patterns we still see playing out today are there. Im not giving up my heritage, im holding on to this identity. As a result, you would not have had the 14th amendment if the republicans had not felt that if they did not revise the fundamental law of the land, the democrats of the north would join with the white southerners and took away what was lost in the civil war. Than the 15th amendment because, to really make sure we mean t you cant take away the vote. So reconstruction begins ending almost as soon as it begins. In virginia, it is over by 1870. Our dex book textbooks put the number 1877 in our head. But it starts in 1870, 1872, all the south is drenched in violence. The white south brings on the fundamental change in laws recognizing that if you were a native born american, you have fundamental rights. After reconstruction comes to an end, the United States settles into a pattern that will follow for a long time. Very closely contested elections with the south largely democratic, especially around the turnofthecentury, and north and the west republican. Those are the most contested, finely calibrated elections in American History. All during the period when people think nothing is happening, that its boring. In fact, a votes of a few thousand here and there could change the outcome. It is a fundamental restructuring. The commonality, polarization seems to find a way to happen whatever the situation. Winner take all, two parties, us and them, a shifting and polarizing impulse in american political culture. So interesting. Thank you for all that. What an important point that it was the fear of losing the gains of the civil war that led to the 14th amendment to want to embody in the constitution. We tell the story of the civil war exhibit about the debate, debate between Thaddeus Stevens and bingham saying, dont worry, and bingham saying no, we have to put it in the constitution. The warning that the losers may not go away fwrgracefully is prescient and sobering for today. Joanne, we have a bunch of questions from our friends. Howard green says, when northerners are willing to fight back and southerners stop challenging, is that like facing up to a bully . We also have a question about whether any members of congress were trying to reach across the aisle during this time, and a question about whether in the prewar era, were brawls most often over slavery or was slavery an unspoken catalyst . You can respond to any of those that strike you as provocative. Sure. The first question about the northerners and southerners, i would say the southerners dont stop fighting. They are just thrown off their feet in the sense, because the northerners have been caving in all along and suddenly northerners were fighting back. The word bullied thats asked in the question is right on target. That is the word people used at the time for the people provoking these fights. Bully brooks, preston brooks, who attacks charles sumner, thats his nickname. That was a word applied to these people throughout the period. There was a sense that these people before the second half of the 1850s, that the southerners were picking on people who could be bullied because they couldnt fight back in the same way. What happened is the northerners come, and the northern congressman campaigning on the idea that they would fight the slave power. There was a reality to that in congress. Congress that they meant it and they came with these weapons and literally made it clear. The document you mentioned, these three northerners explain they will now agree to duel from now on, and the part that really captured me is at the end, after describing this with all of this emotion, they say we are putting this down on paper so that future generations will understand how hard it was to fight slavery on the floor of congress. So they make clear precisely what im trying to describe in the book. It is bullying, but what happens when you are being bullied . I suppose there is a simple answer, but if you stand up to a bully, sometimes it is useful to do. I will also mention the aisle question, about whether people were reaching you can see the mere hint at a certain point that someone would reach across the aisle to someone else is sometimes meant by mockery or even theyll joke, but the joke will be, yeah, you do that and i think theres one congressman who says to another, you do that and you better tell your kids to put their sunday best on, because theyre never going to see you again. So there were some people trying. Strikingly to me, in the handful of years before the civil war, people were reaching across the aisle off the floor. They couldnt do it off the floor in the public eye with the press watching and so they removed themselves from congress or tried to do it in a separate space. But by that point, those are issues that could not be compromised. Compromise is only possible sometimes in private during the constitutional convention, you were able to forge those compromises. When everything is tweeted in realtime or when the press is watching, that is more difficult. Completely fascinating. A series of questions, Everyone Wants to talk about the present. Friends, we will, but we have to learn our history at the same time. Thats why im not jumping into your modern questions. Many of our friends are asking why isnt Congress Standing up to the president today. Bill asks, how could congress tolerate the refusal of president trumps to testify before committees. Should this behavior been punished with fines or imprisonment. We also have the question from ralph, how can congress regain its oversight of the executive branch and sarah cunningham, very first question, why is congress especially in the senate now so willing to bow to the executive. Any precedent for this combined partisanship . The process of answering those questions give us some historical context. During the civil war, it seemed, congress was more willing to stand up to the president. The Republican Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 over the republican president johnsons veto and indeed impeached him because of its distaste for his policies. Compare congresss willingness to stand up to the president then and now and why . Im going to digress a little bit, jeff, because i want to bring in a little more history. One thing i would say to set that context, theres a wonderful book called the First Congress. And the First Congress did not consistent of a lot of wonderful towering figures, other than a James Madison here or there. There were a lot of pretty mediocre people. But they all saw that they better establish this as an institution that meant something, that had respect. And they did some remarkable things, including the bill of rights, of course, because they had loyalty and if the constitution was going to work, they better get it going. To step back a little bit, the constitution was set up through those compromises to give an inordinate amount of power to the south. They knew it. It wasnt just the way that they set up apportionment, the three fifths compromise. The Electoral College, the nature of the house of representatives gave them a lot of clout and because of this, the termination to maintain slavery and in the aftermath reconstruction to make sure that they could recapture their power through Voter Suppression and the use of race. And i would remind people of one other thing, or something that most people dont realize. The house started with 65 members and it was capped in 1929 at 435. It actually didnt change in size after the 1910 census. That was because the southerners saw if they kept responding to the population by adding members, it was going to da lute their power and give more power actually to africanamericans who were emerging. They figured it out how to keep the size at 435 and use their power of redistricting and apportionment, use their ability to maintain control to basically keep blacks from having any role or significant role in the south a