Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV In Nashville TN 20160618

Welcome to nashville, tennessee located on the car lumbered in the river, 650,000, the second largest city in the state. National is known as the Country Music industry only get the nickname music city usa. With help of Comcast Cable partners we will travel the city and surrounding areas and talk with local authors about the history of national including stories of escaped slaves on their way to freedom. Wherever slavery existed the point in the 1850s what you see happening is slaves running away in groups. It presupposes an organization, not just family units but groups of people not necessarily related who may Work Together. We will learn how negative campaign ads can affect president ial races. One of the things people assume is a tax i made up. You go after somebody because you go after them. That is not quite right. You need to have a basis of evidence for the attack to work. There has never been anybody who attacked bill clinton for not being informed on Public Policy because he is. They might attack him for certain personal infidelities because those exist. We hear from historian david ewing about the history of the Ryman Auditorium and the impact on music and civil rights. Today we are at the historic Ryman Auditorium in downtown nashville, tennessee. The nickname of the Ryman Auditorium is the Mother Church of Country Music which definitely tells the history of what it is famous for. It was built by riverboat captain who converted under attend in downtown nashville in may 18, 65 and after his conversion believed traveling ministers should have a permanent home inside that was large enough to take a large crowds of a traveling minister to town so captain riley bilby Ryman Auditorium that opened in 1892 as a tabernacle so that is the church part of the ministry. The music part of it, the Country Music part deals with the grand old opry that came here after being in many different homes and stayed until 1974 where the new one was built but during the run of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s the most famous people in Country Music history debuted here including hank williams, george jones, dolly parton, all these grand names got their start in this wonderful building. The Ryman Auditorium almost didnt happen because of the 1884 president ial race, Grover Cleveland versus blaine. The democrats had lost six president ial races, not one since 1856. Tom ryman, riverboat captain, was a very bad gambler walking the streets of downtown nashville and got goaded on to start betting on the president ial election and the blaine people were all out thinking blaine was going to win. Ryman basically took all bets, people who thought blaine would win, i will bet 100 to you, 500 to you, and before captain ryman knew what he was doing he had bet his entire wealth on the outcomes of the 1884 president ial election. Thankfully for us in nashville Grover Cleveland won. If not captain ryman would have been penniless and broke and would not have built this grand building a few years later. During rymans life he envisioned this building as a hall for all types of religious denominations. It could be rendered for anybody so it did not have one particular slant for religion. It was available for everyone, the Largest Convention hall when it was built south of the ohio river so nashville got a lot of grief and people who came in, this was an incredible indoor place. In 1925 the grand old opry started in another building in the state capital but during that era we had fiddling contests at the Ryman Auditorium and one of the fiddlers who was later a member of the grand ole opry during that era, competed in a contest, the fiddling contest was an early version of Country Music. It was interesting that the ryman had been around 50 years when the grand all opry came calling in 1943 and the building had seen better days from a physical standpoint. He didnt have any airconditioning and didnt have any proper heating at the time so some newer buildings were being built nashville. The War Memorial Auditorium in the capital and other venues can have concerts so when the grand all opry moves from the War Memorial Auditorium to the ryman it was a perfect marriage. We needed weekly events for this building and the grand all opry saved this building in my opinion because if it werent for the weekly concert that happened every saturday night in this building, this building would not have had the revenue to support it and would have been torn down long ago but the opry coming and provided new energy to this building and provided a place where literally three or four or 5000 people a week got to hear the most popular and oldest Country Music show in the world. Interestingly enough there was a Teddy Roosevelt story related to the assassination attempt in 1912 related to the Ryman Auditorium. Teddy roosevelt was campaigning for president after he left office again, and assassin shoots him in the bullet enters his chest, this long speech of 50 pages, the bullet slowed down but still enters the chest and Teddy Roosevelt goes out and gives the speech anyway and one of the first things he says is i have just been shot, kind of show the audience, give the long speech and then goes to the hospital. The person who assassinated him tracked him down, stayed in a hotel a few blocks away from the ryman. In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt had been to chattanooga and was supposed to come to nashville but an antiTeddy Roosevelt group booked the ryman. Only 200 people showed up. This assassin was down the street thinking the president would be here and probably the reason Teddy Roosevelt did not come to nashville is another group booked the ryman. 200 people showed up including a congressman but that kept Teddy Roosevelt from nashville. When they caught the assassin in milwaukee after they shot him, the plans to shoot Teddy Roosevelt and follow him around in the back of the hotel stationary from nashville, tennessee and the ryman. The Ryman Auditorium played a key point, passing the 19th amendment that gave 27 million women the right to vote, tennessee was the last to ratify on august 18, 1920. Susan b anthony spoke in this building in 1897 when tennessee was celebrating, the exposition. That was the first time women were able to hear from this National Leader to get involved in the movement. 1914, tennessee had the first women suffrage parade in the south. And Susan B Anthony started. And many people in the conventions, and the fall of 1914 they wanted the right to vote, at 3 am when the women got the right to vote. Interestingly enough they have been a place because it is so large for political conventions of the state party, Democratic Party and Republican Party. In 1920 when it was time to select the delegates, the Democratic National convention. Two women delegates, it was historic, and the 19th amendment for women to get the right to vote. History was made here before the right to vote was granted. The Civil Rights Movement was important in nashville, tennessee, a few blocks from here Young Students from Tennessee State university all did the lunch counter, john lewis. They got arrested here, challenged the system of what is going on in nashville, tennessee in the conscience of the country. In 1962, Martin Luther king was here at the ryman to present an award. One of the students got a check to go to school from Martin Luther king and southern Leadership Conference with john lewis. Part of the history of the ryman, Martin Luther king was here as well. Jackie robinson a few years later on the Civil Rights Movement as well. Booker t. Washington came to the ryman and spoke three times sometimes for graduation, a crowd of about 5000 which was the capacity back then. And they came to the Ryman Auditorium. It was the most interesting place to hear a speech for music in america. Home of the grand all opry, museum, today it is a thriving concert venue, in the last 5 or 10 years people like diana ross, paul simon, aretha franklin, mumford and sons, the list goes on and on. Some people normally play arenas of 15,000 or 20,000 play the ryman because it is such an interesting Building People want to perform in. The acoustics in the ryman are the best in america. Most people think the mormon tabernacle in utah have better acoustics. The reason people like the Ryman Auditorium is it is unique, a small venue, not a bad seat in the place. The great thing about seeing a concert is, they get to see them in a much smaller space. When you go to a concert now most performers think their bands are fans. When you walk across the state to the ryman you pay homage to the building. Most people the first words out of your book is saying something about the building and how wonderful it is to be here. I talked to former face the nation host Bob Schieffer during the president ial debates in 2008 at belmont university, gaylord entertainment, a Hospitality Group has special performance of the grand all opry in this building and invited Bob Schieffer who has a country band to perform and brad paisley was in the opry that night, interestingly i talked about schieffer later on, moderating a president ial debate that cycle against president obama and john mccain. I ask were you more nervous moderating a president ial debate are playing at the ryman. That was an easy answer. I was so nervous at the ryman. This with my childhood dream to play the Ryman Auditorium and was exciting as i thought it would ever be. The legacy on a National Level is a venue that literally had speeches that were organized parties here. We had famous politicians even in the 20th century. Al gore senior and al gore junior. Another name a lot of people, speaker of the house, president roosevelts time, many debates before congress in the ryman. When joe burns died his funeral was in nashville and fdr came to that, the legacy of the ryman is tied with the legacy of the opry. Today the opry is heard on the internet and the grand all opry is the oldest radio show in the world and we are fortunate although the opry has a new home it comes back here in the winter for a few months and you can see the grand all opry where it was famous in the auditorium. You are watching tv on cspan2. This weekend we are in nashville. Next, tennessee and columnist kiel hunt tell us about the abrupt removal of ray branton in 1979. We hear the peoples wisdom. I ask for the prayers, took the oath of office. Place your left hand on the bible. Raise the right hand. I, Lamar Alexander. The title of the book is the coup, the day the democrats out to their governor and it is about the early swearingin of governor Lamar Alexander in january 1979. He had just been elected governor in the november election. By this time the fbi was deeply into their investigation of the Prior Administration of governor ray blanton. The priceless had to do with the Governors Office was releasing prisoners for all the wrong reasons. A process to go through, that was all being sidestepped. This came to be known in the news media as the clemency for cash scandal. Carl burmeister walked out of Tennessee State prison a free man, his 99 year sentence for firstdegree murder commuted by governor blanton. Normally no one would have noticed. But for 2 years, and more recently of bribery plagued the claim of executive clemency. They became interested in the blanton administration early. It is important to remember they were focused on the governors off is particularly the office of extraditions working on pardons but had this small crowd in the governor is up to no good. It wasnt just clemency for cash. It was liquor store licensing, highway construction and all this stuff. People went to prison. Governor blanton that was this nest of corruption in the Governors Office on the first floor and so on december 15, 1978, a month and a half after the election where blanton could have run for reelection, there was controversy at this point, he said i am not going to run again. On december 15th the fbi executed a sweep in which they arrested three people is one of them was in the state capital. On the ground floor. They came in and the rest of the governors chief Legal Counsel and he had money. He had cash marked by the fbi. They had gotten into several of these and had money that changed hands and the smart money was on this mans person. He was arrested at the same time the National Airport status tradition officer who reported Legal Counsel was stopped before getting on a plane to memphis and he had clemency documents. At the same time in memphis there was an arrest of the governors chief security detail, a lieutenant on the tennessee Highway Patrol and by this time the fbi knew this man, this lieutenant had become the man to see. If you had a friend or loved one in prison you were led to this man. Two of these three went to trial and so forth and the flash point in the middle of december, jump ahead another month to january 15th and governor blanton in his office in that building on the night of monday, january 15, 79, signed clemency documents for 53 people. Three were outright pardons and these were bad people. Convicted murderers. Any crime was bad but these were particularly bad. This set in motion this extraordinary three they period ended with the coup on wednesday evening. Right next door down the hill from our state capital is Tennessee Supreme Court building and in that Chamber Governor alexander, with two speakers of our state Legislature Standing with him took the oath of office for governor three days early, three days early, that is a kept secret from governor blanton because they didnt know what he would do. He could have called the Highway Patrol, mobilized the Tennessee National guard to make a ring around the capital to keep anybody else out, but he didnt know. What i call the coup happened successfully about 6 00 pm that night. During the day that preceded the coup at 6 00 pm the early swearingin, from all outward appearances, it had been a pretty normal day. We are standing on the legislative plasma downtown nashville, state capital in the background, downstairs from where we are standing are the legislative offices and Committee Hearing rooms of our state legislature and the legislature was not in session on this particular week, but the state building commission, the speaker of the house, Lieutenant Governor john wilder, speaker of the senate were members, attorney general William Leach had to interrupt that meeting to be able to inform wilder of what had been happening on the phone call alexander had received from the us attorney that night. One of the interesting aspects of the story is who initiated the coup that morning with a phone call to the republican governor. The federal government officer, there had to be jurisdictional boundaries that apply all the time. And personal persuasion of the us attorney, and we have to involve speakers of the statehouse, that is not how we do things in america. Always a peaceful transition of power after an election. That is what makes our country fairly unique in the world. Attorney general leach had to bring them out of their buildings because that was a routine activity and they did and that set in motion this five our period through the afternoon of phone calls and meetings and i was literally thinking what are all the things that can go wrong. The governor could. And was a democrat, he was loyal to me and not the guy he worked for through the rest of the afternoon. Jean roberts as head of the Highway Patrol, 50 loyal members of the Highway Patrol in case we need them. And who is literally in charge and had the issue of the law, who would attend and wanted to look as much like a real swearingin and joe henry come out of his hospital. And we will stand behind you a little earlier and you walk on that and see how it is, and you invite me and they say we are not going to do that which i understood so the way we worked it out in two hours was i literally wrote out a statement in a piece of paper which how read to them and said we together agreed to do this together which is how we eventually did that and that mustve been resolved by 4 00 or 4 30 and we i went home again, got money, the kids and off we went to the Supreme Court building. That was another distinction. If we were to do this where would we do it and who would we tell beforehand and how would people find out about it . Mc quarter and alexander didnt know each other until the day of the crisis but on that day, they had to get to know each other. To solve this problem with a few other people. And they did and they did and they told me in interviews later that they really developed a level of trust. They also tell me how that in turn affected a good way, a positive way, their ability to Work Together as republican governor and democrat speaker. The most important part of the story that we tell in the coup was not so much about the scandal and corruption and all that. It is important to understand why all this happened but how that crisis was resolved in an extraordinarily bipartisan way by Senior Leaders of different parts. They put that all aside. Took care of business and moved on. The coup, the book is not so much a story about bad guys doing wrong as it is about good guys doing right. When you think about Senior Leaders of local parties today, your mind is not linked to how they will work here. You are watching cspan2. We are in nashville tennessee with the help of our local cable partner comcast. University Professor John deere about his book in defense of negativity about the value of negative advertising. Bush and to caucus on crime. Bush supports the Death Penalty for firstdegree murderers. To caucus not only opposes the Death Penalty but allowed firstdegree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence he received twee 10 weekend passes from prison. He could have the young couple, stabbing a man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes, dukakis on crime. My book is in defense of negativity. I wrote it largely in response to what was unfolding in the late 1990s and the turnofthecentury where we had the sudden rise of attack politics and all this pandering of how horrible it was for democracy and i thought that is overstated, that is not quite right, attacks play Critical Role because people who are out of power need to attack those in power. Those attacks provide accountability, and say these attacks are bad struck me as a false assumption we needed to look at and figure out what was going on. Negativity in the broadest sense has been with american politics since its invention, so to speak. You take the constitutional convention. The constitution is, you know, recommended out of the convention, and the antifederalists go on a scathing attack. They dont like the document, they raise doubts about it, and the end result is the bill of rights. Which is actually a pretty good thing. Thats a classic example, but its always before part of the fabric of american politics. Thomas jefferson, andrew jackingson, Abraham Lincoln faced attacks. Theres nothing new about it. But within the current environment, that is the platform of television. When television came in the 1950s, though actually truman made a get out the vote appeal in 1948 via television, but very few people had televisions. In 52 was the first tv campaign, so to speak, eisenhower attacked stevenson. There have been, from the beginning basically, there was a steadystate period from 64 to about 84 where you had about 20, 30 of ads were negative. But then started in 88, which is a watershed election, i think, you start seeing a big increase. And it continues to increase to this day. 2012 was the most negative campaign in modern times, and i suspect 2016 will break that record. I cant be sure of that, but certainly the primaries have seen a huge increase in attack ads from previous primaries. And thats reason to think that its probably going to continue. You know, one of the things that people sometimes assume is that attacks are made up, that you decide to go after somebody because youve got a weaknesses, and youre just going to go after it no matter what. Thats not quite right. Youve got to have some basis of evidence for the attack to work. Theres never been anybody whos attacked bill clinton for not billion informed on Public Policy. Why . Because he is. But they might attack him for certain personal infidelities. Why . Because those exist. And so, you know, you go after those areas that are legitimate, and when you try to go after something that isnt, it tends to backfire. And so attacks work only because were all, you know, we have some set of flaws, and we have some set of weaknesses as candidates. Were not perfect. And we need to know that information to make an informed decision. And thats where negative ads come into play, because, you know, Hillary Clinton will tell you why shes a great candidate and why she should be president of the United States, but shes not going to tell you why she shouldnt be. That responsibility falls on the republican nominee to lay out the reasons why she wouldnt be a good president. And its that back and forth thats central to democratic politics. And you have to be careful about, you know, when you try to figure out the power of an ad, its hard to know exactly because so many Different Things are going on in campaigns, you cant say this moved Public Opinion five percentage points. Its hard to know. But it certainly, ads are the conversation where Lyndon Johnson raised serious doubts about Barry Goldwaters views on nuclear and atomic weapons. One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. These are the stakes to make a world in which all of gods children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die. Vote for president johnson on november 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. And, in fact, that ad which is still run today, one of the most famous attack ads of all time never mentioned Barry Goldwater by name. It was all implicit, because Barry Goldwater had made these louis statements about using tactical weapons, defoliating the forests of North Vietnam. Hed said these kind of things. But his name didnt need to be used, so so its a brilliant ad and still talked about today. In some sense, more than it was back in 1964. Another famous ad would be from 2004, the swift boat ad which was used to attack john kerry which, again, was not aired by george w. Bushs campaign, it was aired by a third party group. But it got a huge amount of attention. [laughter] they had personally raped, cut off the ears, cut off heads the accusations that john kerry made against the veterans who served in vietnam was just devastating. Randomly shot at civilians and it hurt me more than any physical wounds i had cut off blips, blown limbs, blownup bodies. That was part of the torture, to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes. John kerry gave the enemy for free what i and many of my comrades in North Vietnam in the prison camps took torture to avoid saying. That ad reached only one million americans, yet by september of 2004 over 80 of americans knew the term swift boat. And the reason they did is the news media gave it unbelievable amounts of attention. The swift boat ad, during the course of the 2004 campaign, received more attention from the press than did the iraq war. I mean, it was just a feeding frenzy of coverage on it. And led to that ad being a very powerful one that shaped the narrative of that campaign in a way that did not work to john kerrys advantage. We Pay Attention to them because they raise doubts, and theres a fear element to it. I mean, some people will argue the reason why negativity works is were kind of hard wired to notice a threat. And, therefore, when an attack ad comes on, you Pay Attention to it. So we Pay Attention to them, but its also a product of the news medias attention. The news media love attack ads. They give huge amount of attention to them because theyre more interesting than positive ads. A typical positive ad youll find out the candidate favors educated children, clean water and more jobs for people. Okay. Who isnt for that . Theyre pretty dull, on average. Occasionally, theres an exciting one. But the negative ads, they have some pop, crackle, they have conflict which is what journalists like to cover. And is so these ads have gotten into the consciousness partly because theyre, you know, theyre more powerful, and they get peoples attention. Thats the way the news works. I mean, first of all, the general purpose of the book is to try to just put up a yellow warning light saying, wait a second, theres a role here for attacks that we really absolutely have to have them. Because without them, the people in power can get away with a lot more stuff than they would otherwise. We need to realize that they play a role. What i think is going on now because the rise of super pacs between the news medias coverage of attack ads giving candidates more reasons to air them is i do think we have an excessive amount of negativity in the system which is having consequences. I think its making governing a little harder, i think its making polarization more of a problem for those once they get into office. I do think theres those kinds of concerns. But theres always this belief of overblowing these kinds of claims. And, yes, its true there may be a little bit too much negativity in the system, but we need that kind of negativity especially in a country thats right now polarized. And the polarization means we have differences on issues. And those differences have to be discussed. We dont necessarily agree on issues like, you know, the budget or what to do with Foreign Policy or what to do on abortion. Whatever those issues are. And so negativity provides us Important Information so we learn about the downsides of various kinds of policies. In april i launched, with glenn who is a professor at ucla, something called spot check. And what that is is an effort to get us data about the impact ads are having on the american public. When an ad is aired, journalists will start to speculate because thats all they can do about this ad being a good ad, a bad ad, and they have almost no data. Rather than doing these fact checks that are seat of the pants efforts, lets get some data if take advantage of current technology. So what the professor and i do is we take some ads, we show them to a thousand americans that are representative of the entire cup. They country. They get to see the ad, and we ask them a series of questions, and we can get it done within a couple of days where the ad is still fresh and part of the conversation. So were not talking about the past, were talking about the present. But more importantly what were doing is were actually running an experiment, and the experiment is as follows we show one group of people one ad, another group of people a second ad, a third group of people no ads, in fact, its an ad Peyton Manning and nationwide and then the fourth group where they see both ads. And the assignment of those groups are randomly determined so that we have an experiment. For those four conditions the only thing that varies are what ad you saw so that you can take a look at, lets say, a Hillary Clinton ad and compare its power to a trump ad or to no ad at all or to the interactive effect so that we can actually say is this ad judged by the public to be negative . Does it make them angry . Does it make them hopeful . Does it move their opinion about Hillary Clinton . We can do so in a systematic way with real data because the internet now is a powerful tool. Not everybody has access to the internet, but most people have access to it now, and we can weight the sample to make it representative of all americans, and we can provide a real reading of what americans think about these ads as opposed to guesswork. And we have the technology, and so the professor and i thought wed do this. Were doing it with a l. A. Times, and its a chance to move past speculation into some real evidence and, hopefully, its advancing the debate. I always remind audiences that if you go back and think about who was your most informative teacher, who was the person who affected you the most, was it that individual who told you your work was absolutely wonderful, or was it the person who challenged you, who said, you know, you have better abilities than what youre showing here. You need to work harder. You need to write more clearly, think more carefully. And challenge you. Not with giving you an a, but maybe saying this is not very good work, im giving you a c. Laying down the gauntlet and you responding. We always face that. Were better off when we have criticism, when we have vetting. We dont want it to be perm, but we want personal, but we want a chance to learn, and thats the mechanism by which we do. Sometimes its unpleasant, and some of the attacks are unpleasant. But its part of the process, and to do away with it, you know, rips away one of the foundations of democracy. Because we battled and, you know, men and women have died over the centuries for the right to be able to criticize government, to be able to go negative. And thats really what, you know i dont want people to necessarily buy all the aspects of the argument. Thatd be nice, but i dont really expect that. At least challenge them to think about and say, well, maybe theres a wit of a silver bit of a Silver Lining more than i thought. And if that happens, thats great. And now on booktv, a literary tour of nashville, tennessee, with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. Next, we speak with Vanderbilt University professor Richard Blackett about the history of the underground railroad. We had always known how the underground railroad operated, its basic mode of operation. What i would, what i attempted to do was kind of expand the range of operations. But we do know people, we know from William Stills records in philadelphia roughly how they operated, who he a paid to help people get out in boats, what ship captains he employed, how much he paid them, so you have a pretty good idea of the workings of the system. What i was athe tempting attempting to do was to look at the people who were the passengers of the underground railroad, so to speak. And how many and the vast area from which theyre drawn and what some of their aspirations were, why they decided to do it and what possible impact it had on the community that they were leafing. Leaving. It started, ive been working on this much larger project that looks at the ways communities on both sides of the slavery divide. That is in the south and in the free states. Looking at how they responded to the 1850 fugitive slave law which nationalized the recapture of slaves and created a huge political firestorm. So my interest is trying to understand that. And i soon came to realize that at the center of that, at the heart of that story of the slaves who run away. So my intent was to try to start looking by pairing free states and slave states particularly on the border, say maryland and pennsylvania, illinois and missouri. I would get a feel for the tensions that existed across that line, across that divide. What happens when slaves run away, and what happen when slave catchers or their masters appear in a free state and try to retake them. And what conflicts emerge. And what effect that has on the politics both of the state in which it is happening, the state from which they are fleeing and also, by extension, the national government. One of the things that we can trace in the period, in the decade of the 1850s is the slaves had always escaped. I mean, wherever slavery existed, slaves ran away. The point in the 1850s what we see happening was increasingly slaves were running away in groups. So it presupposes the kind of organization. Not only just family units, but groups of people who are not necessarily related, who may Work Together. So the problem now is that we see a different kind s in e context of the law, we see a different kind of response on the part of slaves to continue staying in slavery. And that creates additional problems is so those places that are most vulnerable. And here were talking about largely the border states. Folks way down in the deep south, they have a different et of problems, but set of problem, but they are not confronted by the same set of problems. But if youre a slave holder in texas, your slaves run away to mexico. So wherever theres a free territory, slaves run away. In the context of the law of 1850s, this complicates the whole effort to try and maintain the slave system. And the law would continue to cause friction and misunderstanding and disputes between the two sections of the society, the south and the north, up until the civil war. So by the time we get to the civil war, people are still saying, you know, the problem what is causing this problem to a considerable degree is the fact that you guys keep stealing our slaves, right . And particularly in that, theres another element to this in the 1850s. That is, increasingly those people who are opposed to slavery are going into the south trying to get slaves out. So its not just slaves on their own initiative run away, there are people who are going both whites and blacks who are going into the south to persuade, to aid slaves to run away. And if you can imagine, theres a in a society in which at this period in which theres a large amount of mobility within the society, in which people are trading, people are moving about selling things, people are selling bibles, people are selling stuff, this creates an incredible vulnerability as far as slaveholders are concerned because think cant control the movement of people. So in that sense then, the underground railroad and in the context of this new law becomes a much more interesting thing to explore. Theres a character in this little town called berlin on the Eastern Shore of maryland who was committed to getting rid of free blacks out of maryland. That was his aim. Because he thought that was the way to protect his slave property. This is now, the free black population in maryland is the largest black population anywhere in the country. So they have always been, theyve been causing headaches, their mere presence. So this character decides that the only way he can stop this by the end of the 1850s, hes getting considerably worried about in this. So he thought what he would do is move his slaves out of harms way. So he sends them from the Eastern Shore of maryland all the way to alabama and leases them in alabama. And that was his way to protecting his investment. What he does not realize is when many of the slaves if you look at his records, many of the slaves when they get to alabama, they run away anyway. There are Different Levels of effect. Theres the local effect in which people like this man attempts to send his slaves away from potential problems. There are people locally who are trying desperately to protect their investment and to protect their property. And, therefore, use the court as well as use intimidation to stop people from interfering with their property. So there is that level of political strife locally in the community, and we have multiple examples of what is happening here. People who, they threaten to tar and feather people, they threaten to lynch people. So theres that level of theres the level of the state, at the state level in which slaverholders are trying to protect their interests against what they see as ap assault on their property an assault on their property by passing laws that are much more stringent, by a whole number of means. And then its the national and then theres the National Level in which people see the continuing strife over this issue as a way of the north trying to destroy slavery. Now, its a bit of paranoia here, but if you have, if you have a group of abolitionists who are continually condemning slavery, who are continually supporting the fugitive slaves, who are refusing to allow slave catchers to come into the community where black people are storming into courthouses and taking slaves out and taking them away, the country seems to be coming apart at the seams over this issue. So when we get to the, when we get to the eve of the civil war and it appears that really theres going to be secession, this issue keeps cropping up as being one of the peeves of the slaveholders about the system. Heres the law, and you have systematically not enforced it. In addition to which you have passed laws in the northern states which make it increasingly difficult for people to reclaim their slaves. For instance, you cant use pennsylvania prisons, for instance, to hold a fugitive slave. So where do you keep people while theyre waiting to be transported back home . There are instances where, for instance, because the slaveholders couldnt hold their slaves temporarily in these prisons, theres one in harrisburg, pennsylvania, where the black community tried to burn the hotel down where the slaveholder was staying. So theres [laughter] as the kids would say, theres stuff happening. And its happening on all different sorts of level. In the north there are people depending if youre a democrat and, therefore, supportive of the slave system you are deeply concerned about all of these black people coming into, you know . But there are abolitionists who provide the means for the people to stay. They find them jobs, they find them temporary housing, they give them support to tide them over for a while, they give them money so so they can keep going north into safety. And many of them go to canada. And canada becomes a kind of ultimate haven and free place for many of these fugitive slaves. And there, of course, they do, they are received and they are allowed to stay, but their presence creates problems in canada as well. So its not that its a paradise north of the mason dixon line, north of the ohio river, but that free space becomes contested ground, and that is what makes it so interesting if youre interested in the political issues. Because people are struggling over what it means to have these people there. Theres an organization in philadelphia in the 1850s, early 1850s, called the Vigilance Committee that was led by a black man called William Still who interviewed every slave, fugitive slave that passed through his office. Now, not all fugitive slaves passed through his office, but those that did, he compiled this history of it. And later published in around, i think, 1872, called simply the underground railroad which is a startling and many times moving account of people seeking their freedom. Its also, he also provides insights into those people who went into the south to attempt to help people to the run away. In fact, the first, the first account that he has in this very voluminous book is of a white man who goes into alabama to try and bring out stills family and lands up face first in the ohio river dead, murdered. So people who did this, did this there was a price to pay for doing these sorts of things. So we do have accounts, we do have can narratives of people who escape. Frederick douglass would come to there are a host of them in which theyre given account of why they decided to leave and how they succeeded. And what were the impediments they encountered on the way. So you can piece together. But my interest is not so much in those people that we know already, but im interested more in those people who have escaped history. But who i can find in newspaper accounts and who i can identify. And so the aim of this study is to tell the story of those people. And then theres a second character that i ran into that really intrigued me, a man called James Cunningham who operated out of louisville, kentucky. And he worked, he was a musician, and he played on the river boats that are plowing the ohio. And the authorities knew that cunningham was up to something. Theyre trying to get him for years. And they couldnt, they could not find him. And they found evidence of escaped slaves from his house like clothes of slaves, like letters from slaves but never, they could never put their hands on old James Cunningham. He drove them nuts. And then he and his friends, he and his colleagues from across the ohio river in new albany, indiana, report years later, they report of going to a political meeting in pittsburgh where they met Frederick Douglass. And what they did was they took out a subscription to Frederick Douglass newspaper which is illegal in kentucky. But what they did is they had it mailed to new albany. And then cunninghams friends from new albany would row the paper across the river so they could be distributed in louisville. So by telling these stories, you begin to get a feel for the range of things that people did. And its my view that the only way you can understand how those who have left no records think about freedom, for instance, is what they do about getting freedom. So, so i look much of this is looking at what people did in order to acquire freedom. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. This weekend were visiting nashville, tennessee, to talk with local authors and tour the citys literary sites with the help of our local cable partner, comcast. Next, we hear from marc hetherington, Political Science professor at Vanderbilt University, about the level of polarization in american politics. Why is our congress so dysfunctional . I believe there are three principal reasons, madam speaker. The first is the harshness of our tone. Both parties are guilty of this, madam speaker, both parties. The name of the book is called why washington wont work, and my coauthor, tom rudolph and i, had a couple of reasons for writing it. The first is about real politics. In washington things simply arent getting done. Weve seen some of the least productive congresses that weve seen in the history of the country. And i think, you know, figuring out why that is is an extraordinarily important thing to do. And part of it was also academic, scholarly. Theres this debate, although it might seem crazy to people who arent scholars, but theres this debate about whether ordinary americans are actually polarized. When tom and i started to write the book, this book was very much about trust in government, it wasnt so much about polarization. And our first idea as it related to the writing of the book was, you know, that people say they dont trust government, and yet they want to do away with very, very little of it. In fact, they love most of government. They love the military, they like the programs that they benefit from like Social Security and medicare and things along those lines, the things that really government spends a lot of money on. And, you know, our book was very much supposed to be about that point, that people really have no idea what government is. They have a stereotypical picture in their mind of something, but its not actually what government does. As we started to explore this more, this is where we came to realize that this key change in american politics really wasnt trusts government at its root trusting government at its root. What was driving that was this negative set of feelings that people have about their opponents. This is relatively new. We started to see this really genuine almost hatred thats developed among republicans about the Democratic Party and about democrats about the Republican Party that really dates especially strongly to about 2004 around the kerry and bush election. And its only intensified with each succeeding election. 2008 maybe a little less so because of the economic collapse and everybody, you know, just trying to survive. You have neutral feelings about it, you give them 50. The feelings that republicans express about the Democratic Party these days is more negative than the feelings they express about athiests and the negative feelings that democrats express about the Republican Party these days is more negative than the feelings they express about clip fundamentalist which tends to be the group that democrats most dislike. Were talking about intense, intense negative feelings that started in the early 2000s and are worse today than theyve ever been. The thing that is important to keep in mind is that what the puck feels does affect the way that politicians behave. So, if you have republicans in the congress, as we had in 2009, 20 102011 and so forth, they dont have to worry too much about compromising because their reelection con sit tune sis, republicans and the electorate, are going to believe their side of things. The republican Representative Side of things, bus theyre constituents dislike democrats so much. So in the mass Public People say we want compromise, but what theyre really saying is they want if theyre republicans they want democrats to compromise with them. They dont cant to make any concessions and the same is true on the democratic side of things. They wont republicans to believe in the things they believe in already. Things that i think are really critical to understanding this polarization feeling, is the way our politicians have been behaving over the course of the last 15 or 20 years, they havent been compromising with each other very much anyway, and they increasingly disagree about everything itch think a big part is howl close the margin are in congress these days. So, every election, the Minority Party thinks, were close enough, we could be the majority. If we just wait until the next time. And then well get what we want. So theres no reason for them the compromise. But that sends a message to the people in the electorate that the other sides ideas arent worth anything, that theyre all bad, that theyre all worth absolutely nothing. So as a result, what we end up with is a lack of compromises at the representative level, which sends this message to ordinary people that the other sides ideas are worthless, and we get this sort of polarization. So what fuels that further, we now live in media bubbles where ordinary people, if theyre republicans they can follow their rightwing blogs and listen to bill oreilly and rush limbaugh, and i if your a democrat you can do in the same thing with msnbc and the proliferation of liberal blogs, and you dont really ever have to come into contact with argument that challenge your way of thinking about things. I think trust is central to this, and its been well known that trust in government has been dropping since then 1950s and 60s and heave been asking the same survey questions since then, and just to give you a sense of it, the century say question is, how much of the time do you trust the government do what is right, always, most of the time or only some of the team in in the 60,70 of people would say just about always or most of the time. These days its more like, 20. So, theres been a complete collapse. More consequential, what tom and i find is more consequential that than is the partisans of the party not in the white house, these folks are completely unwilling to trust government, especially these days. So, we found in a survey in 20 only two percent of republicans said they trusted the government in washington. Most of the time or just about always. In fact, zero people in the survey said just about always. Only two percent said most of the time. And these people are really important because these are the people who are willing maybe to give the governing partys ideas a shot. They say, ideologyie maybe im not with them or my party isnt with them, but maybe ill give it a shot. And now theres nobody on the other side who is willing to give the other ideas the ideas of the other party a shot. Now, that is important because think about if youre a republican represent give trying to decide whether you should compromise with the Majority Party. None of your republican constituents, the people who reelect you, support these programs so why in the world would you . This has changed. If you go back to the 1970s and the 1980s and 1990s. 30 or so percent of partisans of the other party trusted the government in washington to do what was right. Now its about five percent. This is the key change in american politics. Theres no pressure from the constituents of representatives to compromise. So, i mentioned these feelings thermometer scores from before. Theyre bounded between zero, absolute hatred, and 100, absolute love. When people used to talk about when we used to ask people in the 0s and 8s and 90s about the other side we got scores of 45 or 50, perfectly fine. And this is during periods when, like issue Richard Nixon was president. Democrats didnt like richmond nixon, and when jimmy carter was president and are republican didnt like jimmy carter. What we realized was the key change to politics over the course of the last 40 years was this increase in negative feelings towards opponents them story of Mitch Mcconnell drives home that the incentives for policymakers have changed. So mcconnell started in 2009 with barack obama as president as the minority leader with 41 seats in the senate. And he made a conscious decision, which he, im sure, regrets having broadcast said he was going to put a brake on policies that barack obama introduced, using the filibuster in relatively unprecedented ways. And all of that gridlocking did nothing to make the republicans less popular with republicans and in fact by 2015, Mitch Mcconnell was no longer the minority leader and was the majority leader with 54 seats. Now, if you are a party leader, next time your party is in the minority, what decisions do you make as far as cooperation and conciliation is concerned . Of course, i think you make the same decisions Mitch Mcconnell did, because the next election is always a chance that youre going to end up being in the Minority Party. The only hope i have thats actually driven by my experience with students here the change has to be generational, has to come from people who havent been typically getting involved in the political process, and changing things. Its going to have to come from a new set of leaders who havent been used by the other side in certain ways, that havent been abused by the other side in certain ways. So they dont feel that sort of sting, theyre going to do it to them because its been done in the past to their side. So, im hopeful because i teach these tremendous students, semester in and out and i see the potential for leadership, but the key is getting these young people involved in politics rather than involved in Investment Banking or law school or something different. To tell them their involvement in politics is worth doing. That they can change the world because its going to have to be them who ends up doing it. During booktvs recent visit to nashville, tennessee, we learn about the history of africanamerican representation in congress from tera blaine. Black face is black interest. The represent television of africanamericans in congress was First Published in 1993 by Harvard University press. It was enlarged in 1995, and i decided to write the book because in the late 1980s, i was in graduate school and argument were being made that black representation was in trouble. That as soon as the last white representatives of black majority districts retired or Left Congress, that the black members of congress would have nowhere else to expand, and the most important argument that was behind my decision to write the book was the argument that only blacks could represent black interests, and so in this book i tried to explore how well does the u. S. Congress represent africanamerican interests. I looked at the objective conditions that black people live in as far as the poverty rate, health conditions, just things you can measure, housing. So objective indicators of blacks in america. Then i looked at Public Opinion poll data about what blacks prefer. And last, i looked at the positions of Interest Group leaders, and so i used that to develop an indicator of black interest. The most expressive black leader during that era was william gray iii, from pennsylvania, and he was a baptist minister that decided to run for congress, and he was elected and he rose to the rank of chair of the budget committee, and that was a significant position for anyone, especially an africanamerican, and he needed substantial white support to be able to get elected to that position. Not only was he elected. He was seen as doing it in a very seen as doing a very effective job in that role, and so he was one of the people that just garnered lots of Media Attention during that era. Some of the others included mike appearsy, the first congressman elect since reconstruction, i believe, from mississippi. When i found when it came to roll call data and how people voted, based on the liberal policies that blacks preferred, hands down the democrats they were the only game in town. The major finding of the book that was so controversial and got me labeled as a conservative before i became one, was that it argued that political ports were more important than the race of the representative, and as long as blacks held the views they did, they best be represented by a democrat. Consequencely i questioned the majority black districts and argued if you continue to draw majority black districts, there were 65 block or greater, that you would elect more republicans, and so this 1992 majority black districts weredrop all across the country. More blacks were elected but the adjacent district turned republican and so the congress flipped, and so by 1994, you had a situation where the blacks that had been Committee Chairman, like ron dellums, people who are not familiar to this generation, they Left Congress because they had never been in the minority. For 40 years the democrats had been the Majority Party in congress, and then after those majority black districts were drawn, and the adjacent districts turned republican, the congress was lost, and so was the black influence. And the title of my book black faces, black interests the representation of black americans in congress captured a tradeoff between black representation and black interest in the sense that you could end up more black faces, which we did end up with more black people in congress, but less black representation because you did not have people in positions of power once those Committee Chairmanships were lost, to advance their version of the black agenda. And so i think that a lot of what has happened in subsequent years have not necessarily made black People Better off in some ways, i think its made them worse off. Think about the congressional black caucus, the power that they had before the republicans took over the congress, that was lost, and so if youre a Committee Chair you gate larger budget for yourself and your staff. People in the Majority Party get the best offices. They have everything set up for the majority. All of that was lost. And then at that year, the republicans, when they won, they had the contract with america, where there were certain policy positions they had advanced on immigration, welfare reform. I cant remember all the planks of their contract with america, but they implemented an agenda that was very different from what the democrats had done in previous years. It would put the American People warn it because the American People voted for this dramatic change, but i am among the people who believes that had the blacks not focused so much on majority black districts and joined them so large that maybe the congress would not have flipped then, but it was a change, and i would argue that some good came out of that change because the welfare reform, if you look at how it was structured, i think it benefited a lot of black people, and i can talk about clearly black people i know. Come from a large family in the south, and so there were many people that were on welfare. Young girls, like maybe they had a first child when they were 16 or 17. Well, the way the welfare reform was set up, you could only be on it a brief period of timeout. Had to go out and gate job. So these people today are working and have cars, and i think if they had been made more comfortable to continue to draw the welfare maybe they would have made a different choice. For a lot of people, the fact that welfare was limited to a fixed period of time caused them not to make it a lifestyle. And i would say thats a positive that came out of it. And looking back at that book, again, that was published in 19931995, i look at black interests and it seems to me that the presence that the blacks have had always favored the Democratic Party, that maybe thats not in their interests, and i can even say that years ago, before years ago as a teacher ive been teaching now for 26 years i have argued to my students that it made sense for blacks to be in both Political Parties because when you go into a closed door meeting and you close the door you want people at the table from different sides. What found thats most interesting, think, was with the white members i traveled around with. One of the things i noticed about them was that the racial composition of their staffs mirrored the district and each one of them had a black legislative assistant that had enormous power in those districts, and also noticed that with the constituenty service, there were lots of members of congress that were concerned about the people. They would have district offices that war accessible to those that were poor, and so they would have one in the community, or they might have a mobile unit that traveled around so they could do their casework, and i remember sitting in sessions with john lewis, and there would be all this people lined up to see the congressman, and a lot of the issues they came for, for help, were not issues that members of congress would normally be expected to deal with. Maybe someone was being evicted. Maybe they had some kind of problem that didnt involve the federal government but there were caseworkers there to help these individuals that had needs. One of the white representatives that i spent time with was lindsey barr. He represented a district in louisiana. New orleans. And with her she would have constituents that would call her up and ask her to get them out of jail, and she had enough influence in louisiana to pick up the phone and call a judge and someone could be released from jail. And her staffers followed her very closely because they had to prevent her from reaching into her purse and giving money to people that just asked for money to buy Something Like a birthday present for a child. And so i found the traveling around with members of congress fascinating because i was really impressed that even if a district did not have a representative of the same race, they would have those caseworkers. And i saw the same thing with allen wheat, a black representative from kansas city that represented an 80 white district. His staff was predominantly white, as you would think, and i dont remember how many blacks he had. If he had the or four they never were together in the same car because they didnt want to pull up at a function and a bunch of blacks jump out of the car. And so these are things that he had to think about, that a white person would have to think about in maybe a different kind of way. But they really, i think, did a good job of trying to have people on their staff that spoke the language of the people or were able to communicate with the people in their group. That was encouraged to some extent by what i saw. And that was one of the reasons the book concluded that political paster was more important Political Party was more important than the race of the representative. What saw was identitywhite democrats doing a better job than black democrats in serving constituency needs. People now see its more important to have people that support your agenda. So its more important to have democrats, if youre a democrat, or republicans if youre a republican, and so blacks today as far as i can see, are not saying, draw us majority black districts. Theyre realizing if a district is democratic, its going to be conducive so the election of a candidate that the race is going to be less important. And so i think that today, with districting, black voters are not wanting to be packed in oversized black districts; that they would rather be able to influence the adjacent district, that its not in their interest to have one district that might be 6070, 80 black and then the adjacent district, 90 white bus whites tend to be more conservative than blacks, and i youve have a district ajason majority black district its going to be more amenable to a conservative voter, and its more likely to represent to elect someone that maybe doesnt share your position. So i think thats been a shift that the Voting Rights activists for now have realized that it has not been in the interests of minorities to pack them in oversized minority districts. At the time i wrote black faces, black interest the majority africanamericans believed that whites did not support black candidates. Whites were too racist so support black candidate, and one of the arguments i made was that more black representatives could be elected in majority white areas, and i looked at what had already taken place but being discounted. Blacks were being elected with white votes, and the blacks that did choose to run for office, a lot of times they didnt get support, and now that we have elected our first black president in 2008, as well as blacks are getting elected and and for some time statewide all over the country, its clear that race itself, and racism, is not what holds black candidates back. Campaign finance, there may be other factors but its just not racism. So i would encourage the same encouragement i gave back in 1993 for more black candidates to run for office and to run in both Political Parties, and to not see or feel themselves hannity capped because of their handicapped because of their race. Think if they share the views hoff the voters, whether those views or conservative or whether theyre liberal, theyre going to get elected, and so its more about the persons positions, their character, what they represent, than their being disadvantaged because of the color of their skin. For more information on booktvs recent visit to nashville, and in the many other destinations on our cities tour, go to cspan. Org cities tour. Booktv tapes hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events well be covering this week. On monday, sin decade radio hose dana lash is at our studios in new york city for a taping off our weekly Author Interview program after words. She argues that the United States is dividing itself into two countries, coastal america and flyover america. Shell be in conversation with fox news contributor, guy benson. Tuesday, at baltimores President Library the nation magazines Michael Smith will discuss his life and political education as a young black man in america. Then on wednesday, at brookine black smith in brookine, massachusetts, Clara Bingham will recall the special and political upheaval that took place in the United States from 1969 to 1970. And on thursday, at the offices of first things journal in new york city, mary ebberstat will argue that people of faith are experiencing widespread discrimination because of their beliefs. Thats a look at some of the author programs booktv is covering this week. Many of these events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the near future on booktv on cspan2. This is the biggest embezzlement scam you have never heard of. In fact, the case is the Biggest Museum fraud in American History and it took place in a place known at dixon, illinois. Before cromwell was brought into the spotlight, dixon was most famous for being reagan ares childhood home. It was three fulltimell employees and rita was one. The majority of the employees were parttime and held other jobs. The mayor made 9,000 and he had a cadillac showroom or something. She started as a secretary to the mayor in 1974 right out of high school and was appointed to her Financial Post in 1983. A sweet deal for her. She was a horse lover and became what was one of the best horse quarter horse breeders in the country. Her equine business took up several months a year on threequarters going off to horse shows and the like. Certainly more than her paid four weeks of vacation allowed. But the small town controller had a luxury motorhome she traveled around in, all tricked out, and it was she was generally on call for her town duties, even if she was away. The folks of dixon figured that had a good deal. As rita dock her open pay every day she took a day off and was Still Available for wolk by phone or email. Thats rita. These are all her neighbors and friends. No one was quite sure how conwell forded the fancy motorhome and the swanky horse farm in addition pricey clothes, forks julie, and all this on 83,000 annual salary. Minus all the days that she was being unpaid for taking the day off. But everybody knew she sold lots of horses. They figured thats where her money came from, and the three homes she owned. Others assumed she had inherited money from somewhere despite the fact that the towns people knew her parents, who were local people and not at all wealthy. This is a perfect instance of people seeing what they wanted to. They believed she was trustworthy. She was one of them. And so they didnt question it. Therefore, it came as quite a shock that in 2011 Kathy Swanson discovered a strange bank account when she was covering at the office during one of conwells many absences, an account opened back in 1990. It was the city of diskon was the primary account holder and the secondary account holder, Rita Cromwell. She would draw if fake invoices on a type writer and miss spell things like tunnel and illinois. Draw up to the fake invoices and then transfer the money from to the legitimate city of dixon bank account and deposit into it the dummy account. Any odd at all would have uncovered the stam but no one ever checked. Why would they . This was rita. She worked for the town, for them, all these years. And so she got away with writing nearly 200 of these fake invoices for road repairs and other items in addition to checks of the city account to her account that were made out directly to treasurer. Even some of the checks we are made out toll facilities and spas and they escaped attention. Since no one was watching no one was noticing. So, started small but in the few years after opening the account, Rita Cromwell was making check tout fairly large amounts like 300,000, 500,000. Over the course of years, many years, all these 30 years, sit down Rita Cromwell sold 53 million stole 53 million from the town of dixon, illinois, right out of the pockets of their friends and neighbors. At the same time the city of dixon couldnt afford the most basic repairs and updates. I know, the police cars had all these old used radios. Streeted that bad through needed repair. A Water Treatment facility that didnt get built