traditional lecture format. and those who have heard our next guest is on one of his many tv appearances or the lectures at c-span has brought in over the years will know would i treat he was. and that guess is historian, h.w. brands. that's the book you see peeking over my book. the zealot and the emancipator. john brown, abraham lincoln and the struggle for american freedom. anyone who's observed the controversies this past year over lincoln's statues have celebrated his role as an emancipator or seeing the new and current tv series, the good lord bird which dramatizes john brown as a zealous or a freedom fighter. knows that this is a piece of history that could not be more current and relevant. and professor brands has responded as he always does with a book of great insight and high drama. the work of deep research, sound analysis and good old-fashioned narrative for trauma and momentum. a few people do it better. so now to use a quote from publishers weekly, let me bring you on the insightful and entertaining chairman in history at the university of texas and austin, h.w. brands. so bill, over to you. >> thank you harold for that very kind introduction and thank you for the lincoln forum for the opportunity to address you. and i'm especially drawn to the foreign aspect of this because i hope we can have a lively conversation toward the end of my panel. so, i'm going to explain why i wrote a book about john brown and abraham lincoln and part of the short answer is that i couldn't write a book simply about abraham lincoln. it's well known to this audience, there's lots of books about abraham lincoln. so i needed to bring somebody else into the story. and this actually reflects some of my experience and writing biographies. iran several biographies and i discovered in writing biography that cry as one might, biographer cannot help but give the impression that his or her subject is the center of the universe. and as important as a veteran who would be. they are not at the center of the universe. so i wanted to try something that would dissenter some of the. and look at lincoln from another perspective. but also pair lincoln with somebody else. and john brown was a mere contemporary of lincoln, but he was also very useful to me because i wanted to pose a question to my readers. a question that i posed to my students. i teach at the university of texas and i make a point of teaching introductory classes to students who are 18, 19 years old. who are on the cusp of becoming citizens of this republic. and it's a question that well, i thought of it as a timeless question and it is certainly important for citizenship. but he goes beyond this. and the heart of the question is, what does a good person do in the face of evil? now, you can interpret that anywhere you want. the way i chose to interpret this is, well, and the context of the mid 19th century, what does a person convinced of the wrong ms., the evil, the bad policy aspects of slavery, what's does that person do about it? what do you do? if you are convinced as john brown does, as abraham lincoln because. if you are convinced that slavery is wrong, john brown would've emphasized the evil aspect, the sinful aspect of it. but abraham lincoln conceded nothing to john brown. and his conviction that slavery was wrong, lincoln would handed bring in other aspects as well as bad policy. it's bad for white people as well as black people. it's bad for -- its friends the future of democracy. it is wrong. so, the question is though, what do you do about it? and so i wanted to look at two people who agreed that this thing was wrong. that took diametrically opposite about what to do about it. and so, i look at john brown, i look at abraham lincoln, primarily through the lens of their attitudes towards slavery and more importantly, their actions towards slavery. and they were both born in the first decade of the 19th century, and this is important for his story because american attitudes towards slavery were changing during this time. i think it's fair to say that at the time of the founding of this republic and 1776, nearly everybody who thought about the question at all thought that slavery was at best, a necessary evil. almost nobody at that time taught slavery was a good thing, other things being equal. they thought it fell in the category of necessary evils like war and almost nobody thinks that war is a good thing. but on the other hand, there aren't very many people who are seeing countries like the united states should forswear war under any circumstances. so it falls in the category of we don't like it, but sometimes in this world, you get wrapped up in the stuff. and attitudes toward slavery in the 17 seventies, eighties and nineties fell largely in this category. and so you would find people like thomas jefferson, george washington, who were slave holders but also opposed to slavery in principle. and thomas jefferson. his whole life tried to figure out how to end slavery. because he concluded the summaries delegate for the republic, it corrupts their children, it corrupts democracy. and it might very well bring down americas experiment and self government. now, an obvious sort of response to this and sort of the 21st century obvious response to thomas jefferson as well is, okay, think slavery is wrong. why don't you start by freeing your slaves? well, i would posed the question to people today comfortably, if you think war is wrong, why don't you simply not wage war? because today, people can't figure out sort of how to deal with their world, most people without war. there are some committed pacifist out there, but they are a very small minority. anyway, i should add, this is actually crucial to the position that jefferson took, that washington took. they thought that slavery was on its way out. that it was a dine institution. they lived a long enough to see that slavery was being ended in the northern states, so that by a beginning of the 19th century, the northern states had all consigned slavery to the past. where was on its way out. and this, not because northerners were grabbed by a fifth of morality, but because their economies had evolved in a way that rendered slavery on profitable, unnecessary. and so, if you have this sort of formula of necessary vote, and it's no longer necessary, and you can focus on the evil. and jefferson, thought washington thought, this slavery was following the same category in the south. what they notice that slavery for example, i'm sorry, that tobacco cultivation, which in the south was done by slaves and was actually was done by slaves in connecticut as well. it was an exhausting resort. and they figure that ok, it's time has come and gone and soon enough, southern states will come to the conclusion that the northern states were already -- that slavery solid way out of some other disease will to send slavery. with jefferson didn't see, what washington d.c., with most of the people accountancy was the invention of the cotton machine. and secondly, the consequent, enormous growth in the cultivation. which made slavery very profitable in the states where new land can be found. and so slavery spread. and it had this sort of black flow influence on profitability, slavery in places like virginia. so, slavery was never particularly profitable in virginia. in other states of the eastern seaboard, maybe south carolina, but in virginia. slavery wasn't particularly profitable on its own merits. in virginia by the beginning of the 19th century, what made slavery profitable in places like virginia was, that is going to seem paradoxical, was the ending of the international slave trade to the united states. the cutting off of imports because that raised the value of slaves few block important, things value goes up. and then, virginia could export slaves to the new gulf coast states in places like texas. and so this made slavery really profitable. and what this meant was, that four people -- by the time jefferson died, he realized, i was wrong about this. and a new generation of statesman, of political leaders came along, henry clay, henry clay was in many ways thomas jefferson's air. he was at kentucky he. was a slave holder and he was also against slavery. so now, back to that question, why didn't jefferson just emancipate slaves? why didn't play? clay did emancipate slaves after his death, but why not in his life? and the answer they would've given was that if thomas jefferson freed the slaves, if jarrett henry clay freed his slaves, that would have an effect on the lives of those slaves, which is no small thing. but it would lose them any political leverage they would have over persuading their fellow slave holder deters in virginia or into kentucky to free their slaves. because they would simply have become another abolitionists. but for a slave holder to argue against his own material interest and say, let's and slavery, that would give that person much more credibility. anyway, this didn't work. and so, by the 18 thirties, by the 18 thirties, it became clear that slavery was in it for the long haul. and it caused people who were opposed to slavery to fall into a couple of different camps. and in one camp was john brown. john brown was born in new england. but his family moved to ohio when he was a young boy. and he grew up in the southern part of ohio, near kentucky, slaves and kentucky. where he had contact with slaves on a regular basis. people who own slaves and kentucky would bring them across the border and people would come from a high would go into kentucky. so john brown was sort of used to this as a kid, except he didn't understand what it quite meant until one day, he recalled this in his later life. he was about nine years old and he remembered he was playing one day with a boy. who happen to be a black boy. and john brown didn't realize or didn't sink in that this boy was a slave until after they had been playing together, essentially as equals, that then this white man came along and started yelling at the boy and beating him over the head. just abusing him. and it dawned on john brown, wait we'll wait a minute, this black boy is in a very different position than i am because nobody could ever do that to me and get away with it. obviously the sky could do with this black boy. so at that point, john brown realized, there is something really wrong with slavery. but he didn't know what to do about it. and this again is my fundamental question. once you agree that slavery is wrong, what do you do about it? john brown didn't know what to do about slavery for many years. he was kind of mildly opposed to slavery, as many people were mildly opposed to slavery. that it wasn't until the 18 thirties that his opposition to slavery sort of galvanized in the form that made him the john brown that became known history. now, i have to say something here and that is that john brown is not a successful than. he was not successful as a farmer, he was not successful as a sheep herder or a cattle herder, he was not successful as a business venture, and it's a hypothetical but i think is probably really reasonable to say that if john brown had been more successful at something else, he might never have become the person that history knows him. as this is not unusual. people often find they're calling by the process of elimination. but the critical moment and john brown's evolution on slavery came in 1830, seven when, elijah abolitionist added era was murdered by a pro slavery mob. in 1830, seven this is several years into the birth of the poll throttled abolitionist movement in the north. there had been, i will call them emancipation us earlier, quaker's in the 18th century. there have been people who thought that slavery was wrong, and wanted to and, it when new york and its slavery it did so in a faced manner and this was common. one of the reasons this was common was that the people that were emancipating slaves had to get around a fundamental problem and a source of opposition to the ending of slavery. that is that slaves were a valuable form of property. and if some person had just invested 1000 dollars in a slave and was told the next day we are freeing the. sleeve that person would have economic complaint. leave behind the moral question but there would be a economic incentive to say we are not doing. that so typically the emancipation took a faced. form after ten, years slave children who become adults are free. anyone born after certain time are free. it would give people a time -- the abolitionist took the view that slavery is so wrong and evil that it must be ended immediately. and essentially at all costs. now what it all costs really mean? for many abolitionists, william lloyd garrison was probably one of the best known of the published abolitionists it meant that opposition to slavery overrode and attachment to the idea of the rule of law. william lloyd garrison famously burned a copy of the constitution saying that this is what i think of the constitution because the constitution allows slavery. so abolitionists, the real hard-core abolitionists took the idea that opposition to slavery justifies almost anything. but a few of them were willing to go as far as a john brown. john brown himself was unwilling to go as far as he did until the events of the 18 fifties shocked him into action. the 18 fifties was the decade of truth for the american republic. and for dealing with the dual problems that persisted since the writing of the constitution. so the constitution was not revered in those days the way that it often is today. in part because people were still living who knew the people who wrote the thing. it is hard to think of your next door neighbor as a demigod, they are politicians and they are trying to solve the problems that they can solve. but there were two fundamental flaws with the constitution and one was how do you square the existence of states within a federal republic? where does the balance lie between the authority of the states and the authority of the national government? this one was deliberately fledged by the framers of the constitution because they knew if they wrote it down very clearly, the federal government always takes precedence over the states, then the small states would have said forget. it we're not going to do this because under the existing government, the states were sovereign and all of the states were equal. in this new government, the small states would be more equal than the small states. by virtue of their representation in the house of representatives and the electoral college. so if they had said quite clearly the federal government -- government is always supreme they wouldn't have gotten any signatures. there would have been and no improvement over the articles of the confederation so they left this one deliberately vague. those in the constitution understood that we won't answer this question. we would just hope that when the question is answered that they would be in a position to answer the question in a way we can in the moment. so there is that problem. the other problem is the existence of slavery in a republic. a republican political system is based on the principle that people are. equal thomas jefferson of course stated very clearly that all men are created equal. exactly what he was talking about what he was trying to say has been the source of debate ever since. but it was very clear in the context of the republic one person one vote. votes and so on. that is an issue that involves overtime. when you have a class of states that were so clearly an equal from everyone else you are asking for trouble. again, the framers of the constitution you that they were asking for trouble except for that reason i explained earlier, in 1787 they pretty much all that that slavery was going to die under its own weight in ten or 15 years. they also knew that if they spelled it at exactly in the constitution, if they could not come up with the fudge, the three hits compromise and all of that stuff, then the large slave holding states in the south would not sign and they would not get the constitution. so in that case as in the case of the federal government versus the states government they kick the can down the road. this constitution is not perfect. but it's the best we can do under the circumstances tillis take it out there and let the next generation, the generation after that fix it. well there is this iou. hanging over the country until the 18 fifties and it becomes very clear that the deaths are going to have to be paid. the flaws will have to be remedied by would means or another. so kicking off the deck it was the compromise of 1850 which outraged elements on both sides. the south was really upset that california was admitted as a free state. this delivered a senate into the hands of the free states. i won't call them the anti slavery forces because not everyone in the north was particularly opposed to slavery. a small minority made it overriding issue and -- much more than they do today. so the south lost its control of the senate. it lost its veto in the senate because there were more northern states, more northern senators than there were southern senators but the north was outraged because the quid pro quo that the south -- it made more necessary than ever the work of people like harriet tubman of which we just heard because before 1850, before the fugitive sleeve act it was often sufficient. if someone fled slavery, it was often sufficient to cross the ohio river and then you can kind of melt into the population. the way that frederick douglass melted into the population of philadelphia when he got away from america. but this fugitive slave act meant you had to get all the way to canada because the fugitive sleeve act required northern sheriffs and private individuals to assist in the return of fugitive slaves. four northerners who oppose slavery to say i have to help in the capture a fugitive slaves. this is a clear violation of their conscious. north and south -- there were large elements of north and south that low the compromise of 1850 and began to point fingers more seriously at either side. the kansas nebraska act of 1975, the work primarily of stephen douglas, this was one that blew the tops of the heads of many northerners. especially those opposed to slavery. the crux of the kansas nebraska act was to repeal that portion of the act of 1920 that had barred slavery from the northern part of the louisiana purchase. that was 18. 20 this is 1854. it fell in the category of what jurors call settled. it has been around for a long. time northerners. those opposed to slavery. they propose that that was the permanent. deal there hope was still that if the growth of slavery could be contained, then slavery eventually would fall under its own weight. but the kansas nebraska act says we are taking that off of slavery. this was compounded three years later when the -- decision said that part of the missouri compromise had been unconstitutional from the beginning. after the kansas nebraska act it was possible for people like abraham lincoln who returned to politics, largely because of the kansas nebraska act. it was possible for him to say ok, congress made a bad decision in repealing that ban on slavery in the northern part of the western territories. but if congress made a bad decision in 1854 it could make a good decision in 1856 and restore the man. the decision said congress cannot do. that the basis of the decision was that sleeves were property. just as congress could not tell a guy in missouri who wanted to take his force into kansas, property is property, and you can take a property across state lines he couldn't tell a slave owner in missouri that he couldn't take a sleeve across state lines into -- what the act did on the ground though was to give both sides, pro slavery, anti slavery, an opportunity to basically flex their muscles ahead of some sort of military conflict. because the principle on which kansas territory was open to supplement with what's stephen douglas called property, it sounds innocuous on its, face settlers from any state in the union can go to kansas and they can take their property with, them whether the property happens to be horses or slaves. when kansas territory gets a population luncheon of to warrant a state constitution than those people and siding in the territory can write a constitution and at that point they can decide for slavery or against leverage. it's up to them. this is a democracy. people decide on the government that they want. who can argue with? that lincoln argued with that because it overturned this basic principle that had been around for a long time. john brown decided to argue it in a another way. so once kansas was opened then settlers came into the territory from the south, they had an advantage because kansas was right next to, missouri missouri was a slave, state they could pour across the line but senators -- john brand was living at this point in upstate new york so he decides to go to kansas territory. actually, four of his adult sons proceed him into kansas because they decided that here is the time to make our stand for three of them. they will be part of the migration from the north to get arkansas, and to settle the territory in greater numbers than the settlers from the south. so when the time comes to write the constitution freedom will win. and they write letters home to dad and say dear, father come to kansas, this is where the battle over slavery is being fought. john brown says i am coming. john brown sort of found his calling in kansas because he discovered that he had a kind of personal magnetism. people were drawn to john brown. they were drawn to john brown in a way that some of them didn't particularly like. they were drawn to commit actions of violence that they almost certainly would not have done without the leadership of john brown. so what did john brown? do first of all he watched. when the pro slavery immigrants took kansas, they stuffed ballot boxes and the elected a bogus territorial legislation. but then billions of pro-slavery militias descended on the northern colonized community of lawrence kansas and the basically destroyed the town. the people living in lawrence to put up a fight. john brown was incensed to this. he could hardly decide whether he was more incensed at the pro-slavery a polygamists. or more incensed at the anti slavery forces for not standing up for themselves. so john brown decided to send a massage to the pro slavery side. one dark night he sent a -- lead a small band of his followers including a couple of his sons. they descended on a small hamlet on kansas territory and they drive five pro slavery men, left the corpse is in pieces lying on the ground. the purpose of this was to send a message to others who are thinking about coming to kansas for similar purposes that this could happen to them. now i always love to import terminology from the president. i will just say that if this happens today, without blinking and i people would describe him as a terrorist. this was an act of political violence -- so this is john brown. he has decided that slavery is so evil that it can justify even murder. so john brown discovers that doesn't exactly steve kansas. the battle goes. on john brown was frustrated because he did not get the kind of response he wants. i should add something here. john brown became semi fema sister salt of this. he was also wanted for murder in kansas territory. so you might think that john brown is going to be arrested in tried or something like that. but in fact this was in the days before photography or at least before convenient photography. so there were no photographs of john brown circulating. i should also add there was no federal law enforcement agency. nothing like the fbi to chase john brown around. they were written descriptions of john brown, but the federal government because it is the feds that govern kansas territory, they have to rely on local law enforcement to apprehend him, all the local sheriffs in various parts of the country had to go on was a written description of john brown. oh and john brown could throw his hair out, cut his, beard changes name so he could very easily blend into the population. there's something else going on here as well and it gets back to the question of the states versus the national government. there were a lot of people in the north including northern sheriffs who had really resented the fact that they had been required to do what they consider to be the dirty work of sleeve owners who could very easily turn a blind eye to john brown. the herd he's in his county. we will be someone else's problem. he circulated in the north among the abolitionist community as far east as boston. he mostly was raising money. he was racing money for his new project which was a attack on purpose for virginia. why? because there is the federal arsenal there. john brown's idea was to seize the weapons in the arsenal and distribute them amongst sleeves in the vicinity. the slaves would use these weapons to rise up against their masters. killing the masters of necessary to achieve their freedom. this would so shape the institution of slavery that slaves would lose their value and eventually the slave owners would have to concede, we have to give up this institution. so this is john brown. he is trying to start a war to free the slaves. it turns out to be a fiasco. without getting into the details, he is captured, he's arrested, he's tried, he is hung. in going to the galas he slips and up to his jail or where he profit sized that the evils of the country will be purged only by blood. this sent shockwaves. as you can imagine from the south. his attack was on virginia. he was convicted of treason and virginia as well as murder and some people that were killed. so southerners began to think oh my gosh, if people like john brown are running a riyadh we are not safe in the union. what made it worse was that people in the north, those in northern abolitionists healed john as a martyr upon his prosecution. not only do we have this murder, we have people in the north are canonizing this terrorist. this murderer. it wasn't outlandish for southern sleeve owners to think if they remained in the union. first of all the institution of slavery would be in jeopardy. possibly their own lives would be integrity. if there are more men like john brown who are given guns to slips who would kill them in their beds. so this is the situation in the south. but it is not the entire situation. in fact, abraham lincoln is watching all of this and he shakes his head. he shudders when he hears of john brown because abraham lincoln look at slavery and said this is evil, this must be undone. it must be undone lawfully. it must be undone under the constitution. lyndon as i say consider nothing to john brown. he believes that in the short run actions of people like john brown would make the situation worse. i should point out that -- not a single. slight in fact, john brown was far less successful than inherit tubman in freeing slaves. no slaves take up his offer to rise up against their masters because they realize that this is probably a suicide mission. so lincoln things first of all that james brown is bad for slaves in the short run and long run because they would cause southerners basically to circle wagons and to resist any idea, any arguments that it might be in their own self interest twos and slavery. this was lincoln's hope. this is what's lincoln held out. lincoln believe that slavery would and one southern slave holders concluded that it was no longer in their interest to maintain slavery. now you might think, many people at the time thought oh this is a long shot, but lincoln could point to the states of the north who at one time i lead slavery and they changed their minds. lincoln believe that economies modernized and what they needed was a flexible workforce. slavery is not flexible at all. anyway, this is something that he has to believe because lincoln puts great faith, he has reverence for the constitution and he knew that the constitutionally guaranteed slavery. lincoln's interpretation of the constitution, 70 years by this time of interpretation of the constitution had concluded that the states could have slavery as long as they wanted. lincoln's position basically was that congress cannot tell the states that they cannot have slavery. and that if georgia, south carolina, mississippi wants to have slavery until the kingdom comes, those states can have slavery until the kingdom comes or until the constitution was amended. that was his idea. he did have to have unanimity among the sleeve states where he needed to have support. so that's why he contended. for this another thing about this that lincoln is trying to revive his political career. and he can read the democratic charts. he can read the census returns and he realizes that the arithmetic in the democratic coalition that -- he joins as a charter member of the republican party. if they can nominate a moderate candidate. a candidate who does not scare people, then they will win. there are just that many more electoral votes in the north. republicans don't have to get any outdoor votes in the. south republican candidate doesn't have to get any votes from the south. so lincoln is trying to sort of tamp dion any idea that republicans are extremists. this guy john brown, he's often called -- after fighting cancer's territory where he played a starting role. that brown was not a republican. and that he lincoln was not a abolitionist. he put as much distance as he could between himself and john. as i say for that reason that he felt that rounds work was not only morally problematic to put it mildly, murdering people, in cold blood, it was also politically counterproductive. he's a moderate. he's opposed to slavery. but that means that slavery should not go to the western territories. he campaigns against stephen douglas for ascendancy in 90 58. he loses the election. he doesn't expect to win. douglas was the lion of the senate but when lincoln did was to make a name for himself nationally. lincoln was running for president in 1858 when he was running for the senate. and in fact, his name spread around the country and he was seen by the republicans, by the professional republicans to be the safe king, he got the nomination in 1860. and lincoln was. right the vote from the electoral college meant that he would, when and he did, he won the presidency. and at that point, the plot thickens. we know the story, so lincoln gets elected and south carolina leads a parade of southern states out of the union. we think we know what was going on. for the most, part the general perception is true. the south is concerned about the future of slavery, therefore southern states decide to leave and yes that is part of the story. two flaws of the constitution. what's the boundary between state and federal governments? this remained unclear. states would assert their rights and the federal government would declare that rates. i should add that daniel webster subscribe to this at an early stage of his career that the states informed the national government and therefore the states could opt out of the national government. so every southern states that succeeded did so claiming that it was their right as the state to do so. and south carolina had just about left the union in 1833, 1832 and 1833 of tax issue. they did not like a tariff. they claimed the right to do so. so they left the union on the issue of states rights. now the states right that was of greatest importance to them as most of the ordinances of the secession indicated was slavery. but there was something weird about this. because the president of the united states has just been elected and what he is saying is that south carolina, virginia, you can keep slavery as long as you want. the constitution guarantees. that leave the union and the constitution doesn't guarantee you anything at all. if you think about the way things turn out. if sleeve owners in the south wanted to preserve slavery and they succeeded for that purpose, they sure did a terrible job because within two years of secession, two and a half years of secession slavery was on its way out. by 1865 it was gone. if the slither states or that sleeve states did not succeed they could have sly re-until 1870 or 1880 until basically they wanted to give it up. lincoln has to decide what to do about this. he makes a very clear that the south will not be able to succeed. he also made very clear that his complaint with the south has nothing to do with slavery. it has everything to do with states rights. in particular, he rejects the southern contention that the states have the right to leave the union. lincoln makes very clear that this war is not about slavery. he has to make this point. first of all, he said all along that the federal government does not have control over slavery in the states. they can keep states as long -- sleeves as long as they want. not all the sleeve states succeeded. maryland didn't succeed. kentucky, delaware did not succeed. if lincoln declared war on slavery than he would be declaring war on those border states that were absolutely crucial slip strategically. the united states government would have had to evacuate washington and they would be on the run. so lincoln has to say that this war is about states rights. the war is about the union. more than eight year into the war, the abolitionist editor said mr. lincoln, you have got to realize that this is a war caused by slavery. you realize that slavery was at the bottom of the dispute but lincoln said that my war is not about slavery, if i can save the union by sleep freeing all the slaves i will do that. if i could save the union by freeing the slaves, i would do that. -- my job is to save the union. eventually lincoln was persuaded that saving the ling union required's saving the sleeves of the rebel holders. they argued very strongly that sleeve labour was the major more resource of the south. take that resource away, promise freedom to the slaves, anti southern slaves to flee the plantations and come to the union side and all of a sudden things change in the balance. he issues the emancipation proclamation. but he says is that what we need to do is amend the constitutional. so as the last act of his life, he gets a 13th amendment through congress and it is fairly smooth sailing to ratification. i'm going to stop there because it is time for questions. >> thank you. bill that was wonderful. that was a wonderful talk. we've got a lot of great questions that came in during your remarks and the first one has to do with john brown's family. were there strong anti slavery sentiments among other members of his family, his father? john brown's family, john brown was quite a family man. he had 20 children. mary two wives. and the children, the children, they did quite know what to make of their father. they all grew up opposed to slavery. given john brown's powerful personality, it could hardly be otherwise. and of course, they lived in an abolitionist community, and this is what they heard. and being northerners, of course, they had no material interest and slavery. so with that kind of in education, they were all opposed to slavery. but somewhere more opposed to slavery than others. so we had, i can't remember exactly how many male children, but not all of them join him basically on the battlefront. so the older foisted. he had a daughter, he had several daughters. and one of his daughters married a guy who was initially kind of taken by john brown and joined john brown in kansas. but then when the son-in-law sees the length to which john brown is going to go, he basically says ok, enough. he says, i have to go back and ten to my family. and he goes back to the extended family where he was living and he doesn't come back. john brown implores him to come back and he doesn't come back. he made of excuses. john brown sons had a really sort of ambivalent relationship with their father. they couldn't decide whether he was the most impressive person that they had ever met for this kind of emotionally morally abuse of sun. one of his son said that his father sort of looked like a bird of prey and he thought that this bird of prey was going to come down and get them if they didn't do what he wanted them to do. so, but interesting we enough, john brown was very tender toward the younger children. the boys especially, he expected them to take up arms and join his anti slavery army. but the -- and he was as tender as could be toward his wives. even while, there is no contradiction but they were the ones, especially his second wife, who had to attend the homestead while he was off waging war against slavery. and his family at home lived on the kindness of abolitionist strangers. so there was a subscription taken up to support john brown's family so he could go go off and wages flight and there was interesting dynamic around the philanthropic on travelers who are funding john brown because he impressed them enormously because he had the courage of their connections. he would actually do what they wanted to do, they imitate thought they want to do but couldn't bring themselves to do. but it's important that they knew the story of this guy who would committed murder in kansas but they conspicuously the asked john brown to do that? and he made a point of not saying it so he had this air of mystery around him and they, in fact, when john brown was arrested harpers ferry and he just was interrogated and some of his personal possessions were seized, and it was published that he had a bunch of letters that had been taken. so these people who have been writing him letters, they fled the country. saying, we have to get out of here. because we might be rounded up and hauled to virginia and tried for treason in virginia to. >> right, how about his parents? do we know how his parents thought about slavery? >> as far as i can tell, his parents were opposed to slavery, but they were of an older generation where the issue of slavery seem to be much less immediate and that sort of the story of john brown. and why the 18 fifties is this time where everything comes to a head. because it looks like finally, the decision is going to have to be made. things are going in the wrong this direction on the point of the opponents of slavery. in the days of john brown's parents, slavery, the general issue of slavery. things seem to be going in the wrong direction so there isn't done much known about his parents beyond that. >> now one of my favorite historical documentaries is the american experienced one about john brown. and one of the issues in that film has to do with whether or not he was crazy and we got a question from mel which asks, you called brown isolate in the title of his book, did he become a mad man? >> if i'm mad man, somebody means that he lost touch with reality and he couldn't tell what was actually going on in the world, he couldn't tell reality from his imagination, no. john brown never fell into that category. now, john brown did fall into, call it the trans of the person who realizes he's going to be a murder. and this is something that i'm really intrigued when i try to get inside john brown's head, and i can read his letters from jail in virginia and you can read his statements and comments of people who talk to him at the time. there when john brown entered his ferry on the night of the raid, he was fully convinced that he was more valuable to the freedom movement alive than dead. but between the time that he is captured, and the time that he is executed, he realized that he is of greater value to the movement dead, found alive. and so he makes very clear that he will not cooperate with any effort to free him from jail. and some of the people who had road with him in kansas were thinking seriously of going to harpers ferry, charleston worries where he was jailed. and springing him. they thought, how hard can this be? it's just a country jail. in fact, they would've been pretty hard because the government of virginia, and the government of the united states just surrounded the place with militia and eventually federal soldiers. but he didn't want anything of it because he realized that he was going to his maker and he was going to his maker, suffering what amounted to his mind, martyrdom for this chest cause. and this was what's so moved people like henry throw and ralph emerson that this guy would give his life for a cause that at least so far they had been writing for and speaking for. so this was the power of john brown's example. and it's a powerful statement. he can make a more powerful statement than that. and this is of course the reason that john brown has resonated throughout history down to now. >> yeah, i think of the line from the medieval poem, that calls him meteor of war. and that union soldiers who were marching off to fight to the tune of john brown's body that's an inspiring song for them. >> so if you want to ask yourself, what was john brown's contribution to history? you have to be prepared to answer a corollary question. the question is a bigger question link john brown. do you think that the civil war or something very much like it was necessary to end slavery in the american south? and if your answer is yes, then, like metal, full you'll say john brown is the meteor that signals that the war is about to start. the opening shot of the civil war. and if you believe that, then you will say that okay, john brown was simply joining the battle ahead of when the battle formally started. and you are going to applaud john brown. minnesota goes into battle and gives his life. on the other hand, if you think, as lincoln thought, that a war was not necessary, then you take a rather different view of john brown because john brown was cold blooded murder and she was someone who tried to start a war. private citizen who tried to start a war. and if john brown's actions contributed to that war, then there's additional blood that john brown has on his hands. lincoln himself couldn't quite decide. i say before the war, lincoln was convinced that slavery would end without a war. by the end of the war, and lincoln's second inaugural or address, he's talking about hail a maybe cots will that every drop of blood drawn by this relievers a lash shall be paid for with a drop of blood drawn by the sort. lincoln's taking the position and he's sort of form an invasion of perspective, he has to take this position. otherwise, my god, i'm responsible more than anybody else for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. and nobody could bear that. lincoln became much more religiously inclined, at least he talks and thinks about religion more during the war. it's almost like he has no choice. but, i'm just going to put one thing to the listeners. and that is that slavery was very common in the world in 1800. i socially every country in the world allowed slavery in 1800. in 1900, almost no countries in the world a lot slavery. there are a couple around. but it was only in the united states that the ending of slavery required his great civil war. partial exceptions for haiti which actually started its revolution earlier. get the point. and so, there doesn't seem to be anything in sort of the history of the world, of freedom evolving attitudes. that says, you have to have a civil war to do it. and so if the civil war could have been avoided. but as i say, it puts john, brown had a very different life. >> that's great. we've gotten a lot of questions about ethan hawk and the good lord bird. now, i haven't seen the film, have you? and if you have, can you speak to how it depicts him? >> i have not seen it, partly because i don't have showtime. but also, because i make a point of not mixing my fiction with my fact. and when i am writing about the subject, i avoid reading any fictional accounts of the subject. so i didn't read the series when it came out. precisely because, i know mcbride to get author, and he can spend a convincing story. and i could just imagine that i would read something about sean brown in their, and it would stick in my head and i would think, i read that in some biography of john brown. so i make a point of not doing this. i've read reviews and i gather that john brown appears on the series to have one or two screws mildly loose. he doesn't seem like somebody who is all there. again, i get this only from reviews. but that's all i can say about the depiction. but i will reiterate what i said before. that john brown certainly could tell reality from illusion. so, if anybody makes a claim, i'm not saying that to serious ties, that john brown was as crazy. then i think the wrong. i should, the republicans, like abraham lincoln, they were the first to say john brown was this crazy dude. because they don't want to be blamed for john brown. he was always called a black republican. and a black republican represented both the black hard to scrap to these republicans and the fact that they seem to be, they favored rights for the black people in america. and, so lincoln would not go anywhere near and appalachian but let alone, any violent abolitionist. >> yeah, i think of the lincoln in the cooper union address when he's addressing side centers and he says, you tried to make his out to be john brown's, that's not who we are as a party. >> right. so there's a great irony here. and that is that john brown tries to start a war to freed the slaves and fails. he doesn't start the war, he didn't freed the slaves. and lincoln tries to avoid the war, and when he does go to war, it's not freed slaves, if the sea of the union. but lincoln's war is the much bigger war and it does and by city freeing the slaves. so, if there's a lesson here is the history is full of ironies and where you start is not necessarily where you end up. >> yeah, that's right. and connected to that one thing i just thought of. when lincoln meets with fredericton glisten 1864, can you talk about that for a second? >> from my library purposes, fredericton glaze had not existed, i would have had to invent him. because i tell the stories of abraham lincoln but the two never meant. so i needed somebody not only who had met both, who tied those stories together, but also because i can tell the story of john brown, i could get inside turnaround spirited. he writes his letters and i -- but i need to know what they look like to people on the outside. and it would be great if i had the same person looking, because i'm doing in fact, this comparison. and fredericton glistening john brown, he met john brown in the 18 forties. and so he sort of knew what john brown was up to and the kind of thing is john brown hope to accomplish. he eventually met abraham lincoln, and, well there is a striking moment in the story. where john brown tries to top fredericton louis to join the raid on harpers ferry. and frederick douglass is, no. basically what he says i'm a writer, not a fighter. but he knew that john brown's rate, his vision was going to fail, because fredericton glass has been a slave. and he knew that slaves were going to weigh their chances on coming out of this life and they would realize, not very good. and so, fredericton glaze was last out there on the subject of abolition. then john brown, but he was farther outer than abraham lincoln. and so, fredericton goes tries to slow john brown down, he tries to speed abraham lincoln up. until during the first part of the war, frederik dog was in his newspaper name the douglas journal, he his berating abraham lincoln from being so slow. this is a war by slavery, we have to declare war in the flavors. we have to do this. and you just think that mike is going so slow until finally, the emancipation proclamation. and then he finally says, okay, lincoln, you finally got right on this. and lincoln brings douglas into the white house. he considers him a confidant, invites look into the reception of his second or nakuro and douglas, again, as i say from a literary standpoint, i needed some of that douglas. douglas as the last word in my book. because you talked about the significance of both john brown and abraham lincoln. he concludes that they were both necessary in their own individual ways to the cause of emancipation. >> thank you so much bell. we are out of time. that was a wonderful talk. i know our audience really appreciate it. you can get his book, the zealot and the emancipator at gettysburg museum store .com and bill has press signed these book plate so please order from there and you can get your own copy signed by bill. thank you again. this has been a wonderful talk. >> thank. you love the opportunity. >> thursday morning a look at the reliability of the u.s. electric grid. watch live coverage of the senate energy and natural resources committee beginning at ten eastern on c-span 3, or live on c-span.org. or listen on the free c-span radio app. weeknights this month we are featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. march is women's history month, and on thursday night we will show you programs from our history bookshelf series. to begin, sheila tate, press secretary for first lady, nancy reagan from 1981 to 1995 recalls the personal and public life of nancy reagan as described in her book, leading in. read eight intimate portrait of nancy reagan. watch thursday beginning at 8 pm eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. >> abraham lincoln won the 1860 presidential election over three challengers with less than 3% of the popular vote, and without a single electoral vote from the single slave state. his transition to the presidency was beset by protests over the elections legitimacy, -- next ted when we're author of lincoln of the verge talks about this tumultuous period of u.s. history with herald of the lincoln forum which hosted the conversation and provided the video. >> i have the honor now of introducing our first guest. ted whitmer. he has worked at the intersection of presidential politics and history for many years, making him perfectly positioned to contemplate the idea of presidential transitions, a subject on which we are all focused in