i am delighted to be with my friends and colleagues. there are no three people in the united states who are, who know more about this subject, have been more insightful about it, have produced more about it and articulate its lingering issues and controversies for the benefit of all of us, indeed, and watch on c-span and other venues. david particularly in his book "race in the union," has examined the postwar culture in america and eric has literally written the book "reconstruction." and his wonderful new book that takes a look at lincoln's evolution on this issue, where it took the country. let me start by observing something that you all know, which is we are living in or maybe living through is a better phrase an era in which raw emotions are being continually laid bare about the status of americans, race relations, refugee status. we all know recent examples. let me tell you about one that occurred some months ago, but may have slipped through the cracks as we focus on current events. in the summer, hillary clinton was appearing in iowa, defending her choice, interestingly, as abraham lincoln as her favorite president. they asked secretary clinton, who is your favorite president? she said, i'm sorry, bill. it's abraham lincoln. why, she was asked. she said because he was willing to reconcile and forgive. i don't know what reconstruction would have been like if he were alive, i think it would have been less rancorous and more tolerant. it would have been good if she had stopped there. but she said instead we had reconstruction. we had racism and jim crow. we had people in the south feeling defiant. i really do believe he could have put us on a different path. within hours, one blogger said, clinton, whether she knows it or not, is telling a racist vision of american history which held sway until recently that reconstruction was a mistake brought on by vengeful northern radicals, resulting in a savage and corrupt government which, in turn, left former confederates, as clinton put it, discouraged and defiant. a new york magazine blog said, did hillary clinton channel a dixie view of reconstruction? as they say in the news business, she walked it back, but it does linger. and i am going to start by asking all three of you, you and let's start with and i if we can. -- with edna, if we can. what is the evolution of historiography on reconstruction, and why is it still misunderstood at this point? is a very generic question, but let's start there. professor medford: i think we are very much influenced by the dunning school, the school that came out of columbia university. it's really great that eric has corrected all of that. dunning and his students argued that reconstruction was a tragic error because black people -- ignorant, uneducated black people -- dominated reconstruction politics in the south with the assistance of the carpetbaggers, men and women who had come from the north, and local republican scalawags, as they called it. and as a consequence, there were policies that were put in place that were detrimental to southern whites. and so, that is why it was a tragic era. it did take eric and other historians coming later to correct that, to indicate if it was a tragic era, it was tragic because of what had happened to african-americans, or what was not realized, a promise that was unfulfilled. i think in a lot of ways we still operate under that misconception of what reconstruction is, so as well educated as hillary clinton is, she even was caught up in that alternative fact. [laughter] professor medford: and so, we try -- those of us who are teaching in universities -- try to correct that, but i think students get so much of their history -- all of us get so much of our history from film, and we remember "gone with the wind" and "birth of a nation," and we still believe that there is some truth to that. director holzer: eric, what was the reconstruction -- what was the state of reconstruction study when you were a student? efforts your corrective of the years. professor foner: thank you for saying that. i am not the only one who tried to correct the old mythologies. you have to go back to w.e.b. dubois. and even earlier than that, there were others challenging what we call the dunning school. as edna said, the problem today is there is a vast gap, maybe bigger than any other period of american history about what scholars think about reconstruction. the old view is no longer live in universities, in textbooks, in scholarship in this era, but there is a gap between that and kind of a sentiment -- hillary clinton, i do not expect politicians to be experts on every aspect of historical interpretation, but she was just channeling what was, is still a sentiment that is out there. although my feeling is, lecturing a lot about reconstruction, the problem is not the survival of the dunning school, as we call it, but ignorance altogether. people do not know anything about reconstruction. it is overshadowed by the civil war. and also, as david blight pointed out in his great book some years ago, i think quoting howells, americans like a tragedy with a happy ending. reconstruction was a tragedy, although as edna said, not that it was attempted, but that it did not succeed. it does not have a happy ending. it is hard to assimilate reconstruction into the picture a lot of us want to have of american history of onward and upward, you know, rights expanding, freedom expanding, getting better and better. after reconstruction, things got worse for a long time. the main problem right now is lack of knowledge of reconstruction. our job as scholars is to spread as much information as we can. dir. holzer: david, you have to take some responsibility because hillary, after all, went to yale law school -- dir. blight: before my time. [laughter] dir. holzer: but you have written powerfully that reunion and reconciliation were more important to those shaping opinion in the 1960's and 1970's than equality and citizenship. expand on that. dir. blight: the stakes of reconstruction is this master narrative of american history. we do all wish we lived in a narrative of progress. the 19th century especially was supposed to be a century of progress, but it had this hideous, horrible civil war in the middle and the reconstruction period which became chaotic in many ways an incredibly violent in other ways. what is in that hillary clinton quote -- and i'm not blaming her for this. this is what other people do. the speed from 1865 into the jim crow era, and look what we had in the aftermath. we had jim crow. yeah, but we had this amazing experiment of reconstruction where the constitution was truly rewritten. second under the constitution. we live under the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments. we live under the constitution created in washington more than the one created in philadelphia. that's a huge achievement. that is what everyone has said now for half a century. but also reconstruction involves constitutional flux and chaos. it involves -- it is the worst domestic violence, mob violence of american history. we have a hard time incorporating that into broader narratives of what we would like american history to be, and it involves race. for years and years and years -- and i'm sure you two have done this -- and graduate oral exams with graduate students, you've got to give them the questions and i always say, so, why is reconstruction such a difficult period for historians? why is it so topsy-turvy and how we interpret it? generally the students take a few seconds, they take a gulp and they say, "race." i say, well, yeah. ok. [laughter] david: they say, it is america's first great racial reckoning. the war and emancipation forced the united states to define who black people were going to be as free, as citizens, were they going to have rights. it was not a white nation anymore. it was the first major racial reckoning, and we did some of it very well for the time. and it failed as well because of the political culture and the lack of a political will to sustain it. it's a difficult period to fit into the broader narrative of progress and ascension. we always want our history to be ascending. god, no matter what happens to us, we recycle that. even this recent election -- sorry. [laughter] david: i mean -- director holzer: well, let's start. david: i didn't mean to do that. [laughter] director holzer: let's talk about a different president we can discuss at the historical society more -- more easily. david: sorry. dir. holzer: it's all right. it's inevitable. so, lincoln's absence from reconstruction is one of the great what if's. we can go there if you would like. but let's start with lincoln's reconstruction plans as early as 1864 when he vetoes atop -- vetoes a top greek and action -- a top congressional reconstruction plan. andrew johnson, it ultimately leads to his impeachment. but judging what he said to wade davis and his own plans, where is lincoln taking the country as the war winds down in '64? edna: it's really debatable. just to look at the 10% plan, and it looks like he is willing to do, in fact, what hillary clinton suggested, that he is willing to forgive and forget and bring people back into the nation as quickly as he can. that is part of what the whole 13th amendment, was where he had to get this done before the next congress comes in. he could have waited. but if you look at what he was doing three days before he dies, and he is talking about voting rights for certain segments of the african-american population, it suggests that he is willing to move much more quickly. but if we look at lincoln long-term, if we look at what he had done throughout the war, and what he did before he became president, we would have to assume that he was going to follow a very cautious plan. and so, he might not have been willing to have black codes implemented, for instance, but he certainly would've been much more conciliatory to the south. i think that is the direction he was going in. that might not have voted boded well for african-americans. because we know the 14th and 15th commitments are passed because you have a president that is so weak -- 14th and 15th amendments are passed because you have a president that is so weak and congress is able to take over. i do not know that lincoln would have insisted on the 14th and 15th amendments so quickly. harold: just one point, the speech that edna was referring to, from a window in the white house, lincoln talks about limited black voting rights. it sounds like means testing in a way. the very intelligent and those who served in the army, but it is the first time any american president has talked about extending voting rights to people of color. and it is true several sources, including testimony at the johnson impeachment trial suggested that john wilkes booth was in the audience and did say that is the last speech he will ever make. i'm not sure he said the other thing that is attributed to him about negro equality without using a more unpleasant word then negro, but he did say that was the last speech he will ever make. eric, you have traced this -- book.olution, in the eric: my view is -- this is all counterfactual history. director holzer: right. professor foner: no, in terms of what would have happened if lincoln had lived. i resist the idea he had a plan of reconstruction, if by that you mean he figured out what he wanted to happen once the war was over. during the war, lincoln's view, plan for reconstruction was predicated on getting these two major objectives to read one was defeating the confederacy and the other is ending slavery. especially after the emancipation proclamation. once the war ends, those are not the issues anymore. it's impossible to know what lincoln would have done on the -- as david said -- what does the end of slavery actually mean in terms of the status of african-americans in society? lincoln was a mainstream republican. unlike andrew johnson, he represented the heart of the republican party. he had his finger on the pulse of northern public opinion and something like the civil rights act of 1866, which was passed with virtual unanimous support of republicans in congress, i cannot imagine lincoln vetoing that. he vetoed wade davis, but that was the end of the session. that was a strange thing. i think the civil rights act, lincoln would have gone along with that. when you get to the 15th, maybe not, but that is four years later. the thing about reconstruction, it was a totally dynamic situation. the situation was changing radically as time went on. you know, people who were totally opposed to black suffrage in 1865 endorsed it two years later. you can't freeze lincoln at the moment he is killed and say that is what lincoln would have done for the next four years of his presidency. everything was changing rapidly and one thing we know about lincoln is he was an open-minded guy and he had changed and he was willing to change, unlike andrew johnson who was totally inflexible and stuck in a mold and would never move away from it here it i don't find it difficult to imagine lincoln and congress working out a plan of reconstruction that would have looked very much like the civil rights act and 14th amendment. what would have been the reaction of the white south to that? who knows? you can speculate all you want, but you're moving further and further from actual history. especially after the emancipation proclamation. once the war ends, those are not the issues anymore. it's impossible to know what lincoln would have done on the -- as david said -- what does the end of slavery actually mean in terms of the status of african-americans in society? lincoln was a mainstream republican. unlike andrew johnson, he represented the heart of the republican party. he had his finger on the pulse of northern public opinion and something like the civil rights act of 1866, which was passed with virtual unanimous support of republicans in congress, i cannot imagine lincoln vetoing that. he vetoed wade davis, but that was the end of the session. that was a strange thing. i think the civil rights act, lincoln would have gone along with that. when you get to the 15th, maybe not, but that is four years later. the thing about reconstruction, it was a totally dynamic situation. the situation was changing radically as time went on. you know, people who were totally opposed to black suffrage in 1865 endorsed it two years later. you can't freeze lincoln at the moment he is killed and say that is what lincoln would have done for the next four years of his presidency. everything was changing rapidly and one thing we know about lincoln is he was an open-minded guy and he had changed and he was willing to change, unlike andrew johnson who was totally inflexible and stuck in a mold and would never move away from it here it i don't find it difficult to imagine lincoln and congress working out a plan of reconstruction that would have looked very much like the civil rights act and 14th amendment. what would have been the reaction of the white south to that? who knows? you can speculate all you want, but you're moving further and further from actual history. david: lincoln also would have been reacting to the murders, the riots in riots in new orleans. it was not just a andrew johnson's instruction. lincoln would have had to record those as well. and they were being flooded by letters from the south, the freedmen's bureau saying, you have to act. you have to do something. but my favorite answer is that lincoln would have written a memoir. [laughter] david: and everything we say about him would begin there. harold: there would be about 25,000 fewer books. >> he would have written it. and you would have been out of business. [laughter] eric: you believe people's memoirs? harold: some. parts of some. instead we have the reality of andrew johnson. but the record is filled -- not bulging with, but it includes comments from progressive republicans that say lincoln was a wonderful man, but maybe god's hand is in this because he would have been weak. he would have been too conciliatory, too forgiving. let's talk reality here. where was the tipping point between his anti-wealth position and his racism and why were lincoln they so wrong about him in the beginning --'s great -- lincoln's great mistake, his vice president. edna: i guess we have to look at why he chose him as vice president. he was in a situation with tennessee -- he has done a great deal to keep that part of tennessee loyal to the union, even though there is the other half that is not. in a sense, he is giving a gift to that group of tennesseans for what they have done for the nation. i don't know that at that point he was wrong. certainly this is an instance of a man who becomes president who is not prepared to be president. imagine that. [laughter] harold: pregnant pause for a reaction. ok. edna: i'm sure lincoln never expected he was going to -- even though he knew they all had dreams and all the rest. i'm sure when he chose that person as his vice president, he did not expect he would actually get the opportunity to be president. harold: right. it's even questionable whether he -- there is no smoking gun in history that suggests he affirmatively chose johnson the way that presidents today choose the candidates. but two of his secretaries took credit for carrying that message to the convention, and lincoln did not need a northerner on his ticket to balance him anymore. he need a southerner to balance the quintessential northerner. >> they should have vetted him more. harold: you know, they could. by the way, the vetting was available. you look at johnson, the only prominent southern senator who stays loyal to the union, but if you read his speeches, there are filled with racial invective. eric: oh, yeah. i'm for the union, i'm not for "n-word." he also said, i will be the moses of the colored people of tennessee and i will leave them into the promised land of freedom. you can find some racist comments in lincoln's as well. i think johnson at the moment is the worst president in american history. he could be superseded. as edna said, he was not cut out for the job, which is sort of the basic problem to begin with. some of the radicals did think that johnson's reputation, when lincoln was killed, he said over and over again, treason must be made odious. traitors must be punished. people thought he was going to spokesman. he had risen in tennessee as a spokesman of the poorer whites, many of whom resented these planters who were deeply -- resented these planters, and who were deeply racist. and there's the question harold raised, why did he change his mind very quickly? soon he is offering pardons to these rich guys and allowing them to get elected to office even though they have not been pardoned. nobody knows. johnson did not leave a memoir either. did not write letters, did not keep a diary, did not confide in people. what was going on in his mind, we do not know. my supposition based on the evidence i have seen is johnson was very alarmed by what we would call an upsurge of black activism in the south in 1865. i mean, it was chaotic, as david said. there were places, including tennessee, where former slaves were seizing land for themselves. there were places they were demonstrating and marching for the right to vote. there were places they were challenging discrimination on streetcars. and this kind of -- that was not what johnson had in mind. johnson that, yeah, they are free, absolutely. now they should go back to work on the plantations and not bother anybody and they will get paid wages or something, but they are not really part of the body politic. i think johnson came to realize or feel that only the planter class could keep blacks under control, so to speak, from his point of view. the poor whites could not do that, from eastern tennessee. but if you are going to say, look, you guys have to exert, put a racial order in place in the south again. you can't very well say, you can't hold office, you can't vote. i feel it was black activism that pushed johnson away from his hostility to this rich class and instead of aligning himself with them, which he had done by the end of 1865 when congress then mates, and many republicans are pretty alarmed that the kinds of things johnson has allowed to happen in the south. harold: david, before you answer, the man about whom you're writing the biography, frederick douglass, goes to the second inaugural goes to the address and tells lincoln it was a sacred effort. he also sees lincoln taps johnson who was apparently inebriated, he taps and he says that he sees from johnson a look of intense hatred. at least, that is how it seems. he knows something that lincoln did not know at that point. david: frederick douglass is our only source for that at that point, which is fine, but he is in 1882.t he could put a spend vast that, a spin on it "johnson hated me already." but one thing we have to say about andrew johnson, he had fundamental beliefs and values, and that was a problem. [laughter] david: one was white supremacy. it is rigid white supremacy. he did not want black people to have any political rights whatsoever. he had a vision for post-emancipation that was some kind of peasantry. but the second one we have not mentioned, states rights. he is a fundamental states rightist. you might say, wait a minute -- he was so against secession. but secession was political suicide. he was right about that. but other than that he in no way one of the power of federal government expanded. the reason he is so hostile to the freedmen's bureau, had so many more vetoes than the previous presidents put together was he thought this was an egregious overstepping of federal power and that is fundamental to his view of governing. and he is up against the republicans -- especially the radical republicans, this vision of government as an engine and they have been practicing this through the war years, government as an engine of social change, government as an engine of economic expansion, government as an engine of political and civil change. the conflict with johnson and congress is race, for sure. but also two fundamentally different visions of the constitution and federal power, and that gets him on a road to -- well, impeachment. eric: i totally agree with what david said. and despite our low view of andrew johnson, we hear andrew johnson in our politics today. read andrew johnson's veto of the civil rights act. it's not exactly the same wording, but it's basically this is reverse discrimination. congress is giving rights to black people which is discrimination against whites. they are taking the idea that expanding the rights of those who have not had them is taking something away from white people, is andrew johnson's idea. you heard that since the civil rights era. you heard this in our presidential campaign last year. absolutely.rights, these are state issues. this is the dilemma the republicans face. civil rights in the right to vote in all of these things were traditionally rights governed by the states. the federal government had nothing to do it that before the civil war and johnson is upholding that view of the constitution. yeah, if a state was to give black people the right to vote, they can do it, but it's not the federal government. they had to rewrite the constitution to give the federal government power to really protect the rights of all americans and johnson is bitterly opposed to that. and again, you hear that voice and some of our political debates right now. david: we have students read the johnson veto message to read you don't have to tell them. they say, that is what they say now. got it. eric: mm-hmm. edna: i agree. i don't know that it is as complicated as all that when it concerns johnson. if that is the position lincoln is taking, i would believe it is about states' rights. johnson is no lincoln. it comes down to race issues. this man might be willing to see freedom. he is not willing to see a quality. it is about that. that is the bottom line. david: but johnson, as a member -- eric: but johnson, as a member of congress, he voted against giving aid to the starving people of ireland. in the famine. know, he didn't think the government should do much of anything. harold: let's think about another character. i've always been fascinated with his journey, well, maybe his up and down journey. he agrees to a post appomattox surrender that retreats from federal policy on emancipation. william t. sherman agrees to a surrender that retreats from federal policy on emancipation. then he or around the same time agrees that land should be given, 40 acres and a mule should be given to free african-americans and then loses interest. in fact, doubles back away from that idea which he agreed to. typical journey or is sherman an anomaly? how do we judge his peculiar odyssey? >> sherman is a strange fellow as you know. >> he also used african-american troops to march through the carolinas and demonstrated a biracial union army. >> he didn't like it. >> he didn't like it but he used it. he was practical. >> sherman as you know lived in the south before the civil war and he understood as some northerners didn't the -- that this was going to be a gigantic war and it would not be very easy to defeat the confederacy. there were many people at the beginning, one battle and that'll be it. you know, you read what he said about the march. you've got to whip, get into the recesses of their mind and make them fear us and all this kind of thing. sherman was not a politician. i think, you know, unlike grant he didn't quite understand the importance of the civilian control of the military so to speak. he was pretty deeply racist. i think that's clear. you know, i don't think he actually had a heck of a lot to say about reconstruction later on. wasn't he fighting indians much of the time in the west? harold: well, the 40 acres and the mule thing. >> that was january, 1865. that was important and obviously because these black ministers he met with said, hey, we need land. it was also to get these blacks away from his army. he had thousands of black --. >> and the slaves following the army. no army wants that. >> sherman left that historic meeting, this is in savannah, one of the most extraordinary moments in the civil war. sherman and his general staff meet with 20 black ministers and pick their spokesman, harrison frazier and have this colloquy, -- list ofal lis tof questions. an amazing exchange. but sherman left the room early. we don't know for sure exactly how the 40 acres got into the field order but he left the room. this was worked out by his staff. it wasn't like sherman stood up and said, give them 40 acres and a mule. >> nonetheless, it was called sherman land. >> it was called sherman land until andrew johnson took it away. >> that's the important part of it. i think, more important, to me, than why sherman does it, he does do it, it becomes a field order, and the land is made available to some african-americans and then it's taken away. >> taken away. edna: because there is that land distribution during this period, that economic independence never occurs. and that's why reconstruction was a failure. >> but it also is interesting, we've talked about this, harold. what did lincoln say about sherman's order 40 acres and a mule? he didn't say anything. he let it go. he didn't say, hey. what a great idea. on the other hand -- he just let it happen. and that is lincoln. he was always willing to see without taking responsibility. ok. let's see what happens on this land. that is lincoln's flexibility which johnson of course lacked. >> and another means of winning -- lincoln's reconstruction ideas were about winning the war. >> right. >> and of course the hypocrisy of rescinding the order is evident in early american history when white settlers get free land and black settlers get free land and then have it taken away with no rights. that's one of those tragic stories of reconstruction, of course. the person who is getting an extraordinary amount of renewed attention and focus as a hero of reconstruction is ulysses s. grant, at least through the decisive giveaways of 1876. talk about grant's battles against the klan as the klan takes hold. tell us about grant's journey from a strict military man who believes in civilian oversight and is taking his orders from lincoln to a man who pursues racist and organized resistance and has a standing army in the south. an army of occupation. he is for an army of occupation. >> for a while. harold: for a while. >> at first. well it's true. grant's, i don't know if it's his finest moment. appamotox is his finest moment. >> yeah, he did all right there. david: but the decision to go after the klan particularly in south carolina, to mobilize the military, to move american troops back into the south as ulysses grant is a major step. to set up a system by which the perpetrators of klan violence would be prosecuted. the famous ku klux klan hearings which is one thing about reconstruction i suspect 99% of americans don't know anything about. the most amazing set of hearings the united states has ever conducted. in seven states with tribunals of congressmen. they collected 14 volumes of testimony about klan violence. this was all done under the grant administration. and in effect they did put klan out of business, at least in those regions during the middle of reconstruction. it revives in different forms and different names and different methods and again in the 20th century. may have had another little revival. who knows? so, yeah. i mean, grant did essentially agree with the reconstruction acts, the reconstruction plan. on the other hand, he hoped it would all work and just get it over with. "let us have peace" was grant's slogan of the 1868 election. and amazing how early you could even employ that phrase, let us have peace. always a good idea but there wasn't peace yet. the 1868 election when grant is elected is probably the most violent election americans have ever seen. they'll have a couple more coming in reconstruction that are just as bad. he gets elected amid tremendous political violence. edna: does it have something to do with the fact the republican party is attempting to maintain its presence in the south and the klan, of course, is really challenging that? by going against all of these black -- david: kill a black man you kill his vote. edna: so as leader of the republican party certainly he would have a reason to do that. >> absolutely. which is one reason lincoln is talking about the franchise in 65 because the republican party as he sees it can become competitive in the south with black voters. >> to go back to a point david made before, the laws that congress passed authorizing grant to use marshalls and troops to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, the enforcement acts of 1870 and 1871 were kind of the furthest edge of national power you could go to in this period. they made individual crimes like murder, federal crimes. even today there's a lot of debate about that. you know, congress, i mean the supreme court not long ago -- well, some years ago but in the early part of the century overturned the violence against women's act based on reconstruction decisions saying, no, no. that's a state problem. yeah, violence against women is terrible but it's not a federal problem. >> there is no f.b.i. yet. eric: here they're using federal power to go after individual criminals who are assaulting or murdering black people and there are a lot of people who thought that was too much. in a sense grant is trapped because northern public sentiment is moving away based on what grant said. he's defending the republican party but what is the republican party going to do when northern public opinion is no longer so willing to intervene in the south and is no longer willing and is beginning to think that reconstruction experiment maybe was a mistake. in 1875 when there is all this violence in mississippi, a black congressman from mississippi goes to grant and says if you don't send troops to mississippi we'll lose mississippi. and the republican party, and he says, grant says, yeah. i can send troops and keep mississippi but if i do that, i'll lose ohio. ohio is a lot more important to the republican party than mississippi. so in a sense, grant is trapped by the end of his presidency in that there is no longer public support for the kind of vigorous intervention which would have been required to put down the violence. >> that's interesting. sort of grant's lbj moment in the reverse. eric: exactly. >> keep the north. tore going to lose the south the right. david: we pass the civil rights act we'll lose the south. eric: right. david: anyway -- harold: so is frederick douglass active as an activist, as a spokesman for black rights during reconstruction? maybe a softball question but i think we should bring him into the story. and you mentioned, also, an african-american congressman. i think 15, 16 members of congress, members of color during that period? eric: we've been talking about national politics but what is really remarkable, what is going on at the local and state level, it is the first moment you might almost say of genuine democracy in american history. harold: you have these interracial governments, african-american -- on the state level as well? eric: yes. two in the senate. 16 in the house of representatives. black sheriffs and justices of the peace and members of legislatures and you have a lot of white people, also, in these governments obviously but this is actual democracy at work. in a society that had been a slave society until a few years earlier. it's an unbelievable transition. and it's not surprising. it generated a lot of resentment among people who were more devoted to the old order. >> reconstruction? >> yes, yes, and yes. >> a radical republican by any definition. he believed in an interventionist, activist government. david: he wanted suffrage immediately. he didn't want it limited. he gets into terrible battles of course with the leaders of the women's suffrage moment, lezz beth cady stanton in particular, because the 15th amendment ultimately is only for black males was a big fight for a while. they will later reconcile. douglass moves to washington in reconstruction. he moves there permanently in 1874 when his house was burned in rochester. but he's moved earlier really and he edited a newspaper in washington called "the new national era" for three years. his sons ran it. it ultimately failed after about three years but "the new national era" is a fascinating newspaper they kept alive as a sort of an african-american monitor of reconstruction issues. it's one of the best sources we have of those years. he became deeply disappointed in the 1870's. i mean disappointed is a tiny word. discouraged. angry. bitter. he gives a speech in 1875. now, this is after the panic of 1873 has hit. the depression has hit. the democrats have taken back control of congress, by 1874 the republican party is greatly changing. he's deeply worried. he gave a 4th of july speech in 1875. it's a fascinating speech. in it he says war brought peace and liberty. war brought rights and freedom to my people. but what will peace among the whites bring? and he spins out this metaphor of peace among the whites. by which he meant, what if reconstruction ends with some kind of white supremacist reconciliation of the country? which is, by and large, what happened. it's one of those -- douglass has many of these moments, these prescient metaphors or ways of saying what's happening to the country. he was deeply disappointed by the 1876 affair except -- compromise except hayes did become president and give him his first federal appointment as the marshal of the district of columbia. what's fascinating about douglass in these years among other things is that he's gone from being a complete political outsider, a radical outsider, to being a political insider in the republican party and he will be a kind of insider the rest of his life. and he pays a certain price for that. but anyway. yeah. he's deeply involved with the reconstruction. but he has no real power except language. and the power of words. that's his problem. edna: he's an example of how african-americans are defining freedom. it's not just release from the slavery. but it's about full equality as well. and so you have men and women like douglass pushing, pressing for that even during the war. they're talking about equality. they're talking about full citizenship. and so when they don't get it, they are terribly upset about it. especially since 200,000 black men served the union army during the war and they thought what they were fighting for was not just the freedom of enslaved people but for equality as well. and they didn't receive it or may have received it for a short period of time and then lost it. mr. holzer: isn't there an irony that there is a potential for african-americans to be elected in the south when some white voting is restricted and african-americans can register to vote but in new york where i presume douglass still holds residence, there is no chance of his ever standing for office. eric: blacks in the north are about 1% of the population at that time. this is way before the great migration and that sort of thing although there were certain wards where there were concentrations. you did get a few blacks elected to office in the north. mostly in massachusetts which was the most liberal of these states. but you're right. in fact, reconstruction is one of the -- i've been wanting to have a graduate student, since i'm retiring from teaching, why don't you do this, or you, have a graduate student do a study of what you might call black carpet baggers in reconstruction. african-americans who move to the south, putting aside the, you know, what the term carpet bagger came to mean. you know, this is one of those moments that were more opportunity for black people in the south than in the north and a bunch of the blacks who did get elected to office in the south were northerners who had come down to work at the freed men's bureau or with the churches or as teachers or just to get into office. so it's that migration, not a lot of people but a lot of them did get into political power so it's interesting. there wasn't a heck of a lot of opportunity obviously for ambitious people, ambitious in politics, in the northern states at this point. david: douglass gets almost every year elected as a delegate to the republican national convention. he would often be a speaker at it. in fact a typical scene at a republican convention in reconstruction for the rest of douglass's life, douglass would walk in the room, the big white mane of hair so visible, and the crowd would start shouting, "douglass, douglass, douglass." but he never ran for any office. there were people urging him in reconstruction to move to mississippi and run for the senate. douglass' attitude about that was, "hmmm. not very safe." edna: he's telling other people to stay put. david: that is true. very controversial. he urged people not to go west. anyway. another story. but he did many, many speaking tours especially after reconstruction. more than we ever knew before. harold: we have some interesting audience questions. i think i'll do a few of them now and hope for more. the first one is directed to you, david. david: oh, dear. harold: it says professor blight said there was a lack of public will to fulfill reconstruction. and our questioner would like you to elaborate on that a little bit. how do you measure or define public will? david: how do i know what the public will was? good question. what i meant, simply, is there was a political consensus during the first years of reconstruction forged in part by the opposition of andrew johnson. forged in part by the fact that you've got the most ex-confederates out of power and not even voting in the south. such that you could get the reconstruction acts and the first civil rights act and the 14th amendment and 15th amendment passed. that's reconstruction and how the southern states were actually readmitted to the union. but when the 11 confederate states are all back in the union, basically by 1870 to 1874, 1870 to 1872, a lot of northerners said, that's it. what more than can we do? thus far, no farther. they've given black men the right to vote. there is a civil rights act passed. they're back into the union. that's it. let us have done with reconstruction, which was the famous headline in "the nation" or whatever magazine it was in 1870. and after that, the 1870's is a very different time. it's a huge economic depression that hits in 1873. huge numbers of unemployment. especially in the north. the democrats revive as a party. did they ever. and they take back control of congress by 1874. the republican party is becoming more and more -- >> only the house. they didn't take the senate. david: that's true. they didn't take the senate yet. that comes much later. only the house. even that was astonishing. eric: that's important, yes. david: there were headlines in 1874. the republican party is wrecked or headlines like that. so by the 1870's, there's a lot of other crises on the minds of americans and the republican party is now talking about big business and tariffs and unemoyment and not the southern problem. so the lack of will becomes a transfer of interest. a transfer of attention from the south and reconstruction and the race problem as it's always called on to other kinds of matters. >> and in the end it's a failure of will to hold the great achievements of reconstruction by the mid and late 1870's. eric: there is also, what you call almost in a modern sense a propaganda machine coming from the south to the north. after 1868, which is a violent and deeply racist election, i mean, you know, the -- you think political discourse is at a low level today. look at the election of 1868 which was completely racist. the democratic camp. after that the democrats pulled back from that. they began a new campaign. no, we accept now. yeah. they've got the vote. fine. but reconstruction is corrupt. it's bad government. people. ignorant they try to say, this is just bad government in the south and that begins, that idea begins to take hold in the north. it is the beginning of the dunning school. later the professors put footnotes to the southern propaganda machine and even northerners, you know, as you said "the nation" or "new york tribune" or strong antislavery publications by the mid 1870's are saying, this is really a mistake. they are the natural leaders of society and should be in charge and the bottom rail can't be put on top right away. look, these white southerners they respect the rights of black people now so let's be finished with this reconstruction. i think it is fair to say public sentiment in the north really shifts away from reconstruction during the course of the 19 -- 1870's. not all at one moment but little by little it happens. harold: you mentioned the panic of 1873. the so-called infrastructure which creates employment is now no longer a priority or possibility. when there is a jobs panic the people at the lowest end of the economic ladder get dumped. it is almost a nonracial truth in this country. so now that you've attempted to explain your earlier comment and did a very good job, we don't often like to go into the 20th century though i did start with the 21st century. but this is an interesting question. is there any evidence you know of in the reconstruction of germany and japan after world war ii, america learned something from the reconstruction efforts of 1865-1876? >> no. the answer is no. reconstruction at that point as we heard was considered the lowest point in america. nobody was going to go back and say, hey let's look at what they did in reconstruction. reconstruction was considered the lowest point in the whole saga of american history. more interesting might be the fact that when the united states occupied haiti, in 1916-1936, 20 years of military occupation of haiti, they did look back at reconstruction. but what was the lesson they drew from reconstruction? it was a big mistake. it proved that black people don't know how to govern themselves. and, therefore, we're not going to let the haitans govern themselves. because reconstruction proved they can't do that. so, the so-called lesson of reconstruction was again just the failure of interracial democracy so to speak. david: there may be something to talk about though with occupation. military occupation. i mean, part of this is of necessity. you think with the occupation of germany, the occupation of japan, and the marshall plan, although i don't know the inside history of the marshall plan. but the people who conceived the marshall plan, were they reading about reconstruction? if they were, what were they reading? >> claude bowers. david: ew. i'm sure they were. we weren't at that seminar. major military occupations have occurred primarily in modern history of sheer necessity. there used to be conferences about this. comparing reconstruction with the occupation of germany. it would always kind of fizzle out. eric: then came back with iraq and analysis of that though i don't think general petraeus was reading about reconstruction that much. david: no. harold: ready for another question? david: sure. get us back in the 19th century. harold: he'll start with edna because of your recent book on lincoln and emancipation. obviously eric has covered this as well. from a high school teacher in our audience. it wasn't until i saw the film "lincoln" that i realized how far abraham lincoln strayed from his save the union philosophy in pushing for the 13th amendment. is that film portrayal accurate? edna: how far he strayed? harodl: i think progressed is probably what the questioner means or maybe strayed. i don't know. edna: yeah, i certainly -- i would agree that he put his full weight behind passage of the amendment by 1865 or at least after the summer of 1864. but it doesn't start with him. and i think that that's where it goes wrong. this is an abolitionist effort in the senate and it's passing the senate before it's passed in the house of representatives. what you saw in the movie was the second time it's going through the house of representatives. initially lincoln had not supported the constitutional amendment because he believed this was something for the states to do. that this -- these were laws that had been enacted by the states and this is where it should rest even though he had issued the emancipation proclamation. but we know that was the military measure. now, he was concerned about whether or not -- what was going to happen to those people who had been freed by the proclamation because there was a possibility that they could be returned to slavery. and at least, though, there was nothing that would present or prevent the south from reinstituting slavery again once the war was over. unless there was a constitutional amendment. but initially he didn't think that was a good idea for there to be that national effort that it should be stayed. harold: i'm going to jump in with one question that says due -- do you four people disagree about anything? [laughter] >> around the edges maybe. eric: good point. we disagree about the movie. harold: let me jump in with one comment about lincoln. there is a wonderful story that occurs in june, 1864. when lincoln gets a visit from someone who was at the republican nominating convention. lincoln supported a plank for the union party platform as the party was renamed for that election. a plank supporting what they called a constitutional amendment. nobody called it the 13th. a constitutional amendment to end slavery everywhere. the person came back and said, well, when the advocate presented the plank, he got enormous cheers. and lincoln stiffened up and said, well i hope he mentioned it was my idea. so, you know, he certainly regarded himself as early as june, 1864, as a father of the 13th amendment. >> right. but as you well know it was introduced in congress in december, 1863 by henry wilson. harold: he was denying paternity. eric: he was not -- he jumped on board and did a lot to get it passed but it wasn't his idea. at this point the movie which is truncated gives you the impression this was lincoln's idea the 13th amendment. actually it was the women's national loyal league, give them credit, the stantons and anthonys who launched a gigantic petition campaign in the to get a constitutional amendment passed -- >> it happened -- it had not happened for a decade. >> it was a lot easier to get individual states to abolish slavery. if watching the movie leaves a person to read a book about book, itespecially my will have done something useful. we may not enforce this anyway. i always tell my students, the 1964 election was the most racist white supremacist election in american history until the next one. they painted we can ask -- you name it. >> new york was the incubator for some of the most vicious, racist attacks. miscegenation. >> they would not let frederick douglass go out on the stump because they are trying to disassociate themselves from the 13th amendment, which they are responsible for. and yet lincoln does get reelected and it is a huge -- if he does not -- and he does not back off the 13th amendment. they tell him to, and he does not. the head of the republican national committee says, hey, lincoln, if you stick with emancipation, you are going to lose the election. >> greenlee said it as well. mr. blight: we will let them back in with slavery. lincoln seems to think about it but says no, absolutely not. in august, he thought he would lose. >> that is an interesting confluence of things. greeley comes back from niagara falls and says, you have to give up on emancipation. lincoln writes the blind memorandum and asks his cabinet to sign a pledge to collaborate with the inevitably incoming administration. and he sees frederick douglass at that same moment to talk about spreading the word, invites douglass to spread the word about emancipation while the time is right, and then comes raymond, the chairman of his own party and editor of the "new york times" and says, i think greeley may be right, you have to step back. that is when he wavers. the confluence of all of those things. he writes that strange letter to raymond almost as a pass to richmond. if you can find anyone who could produce jefferson davis to talk about ending the war was slavery intact, show me that man. and i will talk to him. but then he drops it in a couple of days. that was the one moment in lincoln's presidency, august 31, when he wavers. then on september 1, atlanta, so we don't have to worry about it anymore. >> you got lucky there. mr. holzer: mcclellan is nominated the day after, he was not as lucky. in our increasingly racialized society, do historians and students of color view reconstruction differently? >> differently from what? >> from each other or from you guys. do you encounter different perspectives or are all our students reading foner, blight, and medford? >> you probably have a lot more students of color than i do, but i find it reflecting the world that we live in today, certain cynicism. the idea that we have been putting forward, that reconstruction was a noble attempt which did not succeed, i think there is more of a sense among students that racism is permanent and therefore, nothing really happened and it is blah blah blah. there is a much more cynical view of all efforts to change race in this country today. >> not simply among black students, among students in general you are tuned to this kind of issue. professor greene medford: they see it as a simple answer, that racism is at the center of anything, so why would you expect anything to be different during reconstruction? when i found in my students is that they are very much interested in the accomplishments of reconstruction -- what are african-americans able to do despite all the challenges? yes, the economic dependency is not realized during this period, but they are forming churches, families and marriages are being recognized. they are establishing these societies, benevolence societies that they are becoming a part of. communities are being built, schools. there are some very positive things going on during reconstruction. my students are tired of hearing the negative. i remember years ago, being on my typical this happened, this happened, and it was all negative. one young woman said, stop. if it is that bad, why do i need to be sitting here? i thought, she is right, i got to start talking about the positive things that occurred, and there were lots of positive things. >> you were committing micro-aggression. professor greene medford: indeed. >> i don't want to keep agreeing, but -- [laughter] >> there is tremendous cynicism among young people right now, students, and not without reason. what i also found over recent years is there is tremendous interest in the civil rights era because it has this aura of triumph and a good ending, happy ending. and then the obama presidency, for god's sake. there was just a deep fascination with that and less with the 19th century, less with slavery. however, we have done something to make slavery and its aftermath interesting again. i don't know that we have done it, i guess the society has done it, in some ways. the problem is always getting the attention back onto subjects that don't have always progressive -- the civil rights movement did not exactly have -- the 1970's is not unlike the 1870's, if you want to get instrumental about analogies. there is a loss of will and a retreat from the civil rights movement. in the reagan era, it got to be a speedy retreat. who knows what retreat may happen now? professor greene medford: so did the second reconstruction fail? mr. blight: no, not yet. but it still could. >> here is a question on an issue we may have overlooked. as we know, lincoln replaced chief justice roger tawney in 1864, who finally died, although most people predicted he would never die. the author of the dred scott decision. replaced him with someone he was not terribly fond of, simon chase, someone he knew would advocate for federal oversight of black rights, basically. we have not really addressed the role of the supreme court and the reconstruction era, so that is the question at hand. >> remember that because of the dred scott decision, the reputation of the supreme court -- as long as tony was chief justice -- had fallen to its lowest point in history among northerners, republicans. during the secession crisis, nobody said, let's see if the supreme court can handle this. nobody thought they should have anything to do with it. lincoln defied orders, habeas corpus. he defied an order from tawney toward the beginning of the war. today, president really could not do that, but lincoln did it. what happens -- the supreme court is part of this retreat from reconstruction that we talked about in 1870's. i don't want to just go through slaughterhouse, cruickshank, reese. you can give the litany of cases in which little by letter, the supreme court whittles away at the civil rights legislation, enforcement legislation, the 14th amendment. should we blame these nine guys? should we say, they are just reflecting public sentiment? but the supreme court also creates public sentiment through its decisions. but i think the whole history of the supreme court between 1873, slaughterhouse, and 1900 or so, williams v. mississippi, is one long retreat. and a very disreputable part of the history of jurisprudence in the united states, of really undermining enforcement of the measures that have been passed during reconstruction. the thing that people don't quite realize so much is a lot of that stuff is still good law. those decisions have not been overturned. the court has moved around them in upholding more recent civil rights legislation, but a lot of those things are still on the books. since the supreme court goes by president -- precedent and established jurisprudence, they are still influencing. cruickshank's was cited -- the civil rights cases, one of the worst decisions in the era, was cited as a president by the supreme court in the 21st century. it is still out there doing mischief. mr. blight: at the core of this, which is sometimes hard to explain today, was this -- by the time you get to the famous u.s. v. stanley, civil rights cases that all but obliterated equal protection under the 14th amendment, all of those justices had been appointed by lincoln or grant. they were all republican. they had retreated into a kind of judicial conservatism in which they had been trained and grown up, and they were very political. some of these guys ran for president while on the supreme court. or try to. they kept trying. we don't at least have that today, so far as we know. but what they retreated into was states rights doctrine, that all of this experiment on the use of federal power to protect the rights of people, could -- could a murder case, an obvious murder case in louisiana, be appealed in federal court? supreme court said, no, that can only be adjudicated at the state level. >> you know who recently called for cruickshank to be directly overturned? clarence thomas, in an opinion he wrote. >> he knows african-american history. i don't agree with his interpretation, but he studies it more than other people on the court. but david is right. these decisions sort of tried to reinstate the old federal system from before the war in a very disastrous way. mr. blight: the constitutional conservatism of the first half of the 19th entry that even the judges who get on the court in the wake of a revolution by the civil war and reconstruction could not rid themselves of. that is what gets us from slaughterhouse to -- >> the one guy who resisted, harland, had, from a slaveowning family in kentucky. he kept saying, we are not even amendment, we are talking about the 13th, what it is to be a free person in america. if your rights can be taken away by individual violence, state action, if you can be degraded in public by being forced into some kind of separate car or refused entry to a business, you are not a free citizen anymore. that is what we should be talking about. we are talking about the end of slavery here. the rest of the court did not buy that at all. >> there is a great letter from frederick douglass the heartland right after the civil rights -- letter from frederick douglass to harland right after the civil rights cases. he was the lone dissenter. he said, you may feel lonely on the court, but you are not lonely among my people. they actually became friendly, quite friendly. harland attended douglass's funeral. mr. holzer: here is a question that may reflect something we did not get into enough detail. we have two questions about jim crow. one is how the term originated, what it refers to, and second was the manifestation -- second, was it a manifestation of reconstruction or a reaction to the second reconstruction? we have to position it in the iconography of the phrase and where it exists in the history of reconstruction. professor greene medford: supposedly -- and this is up for debate -- it comes from old minstrel shows. there was a song about jumping jim crow. but what it signifies is segregation, racial segregation. we know that whether the laws are in place or not, certainly this is happening in custom. interestingly enough, there was no need for that during slavery because you had, for instance, talking about public accommodations, you had enslaved people accompanying their owners in public accommodations all the time during slavery, because one knows one's place when one is enslaved. jim crow, segregation from the perspective of the southern white person, or the northern white person, because there is segregation in the north as well in certain instances -- the argument is, it is necessary to remind people what their status is in society. and of course, it just gets worse from reconstruction on. and it goes from being a state issue to a national issue when it is sanctioned by the supreme court in plessy v. ferguson, not overturned until the brown decision. those laws are out there shaping the experiences of african americans for a number of decades. professor foner: it is crucial to understand, too, that jim crow laws started in 1890, the late 19th century. the first disenchant server -- the first disenfranchisement act is in the -- the historic argument on which those are built is the version of reconstruction as a chaotic time. black people got too many rights to fast, society was out of control. and hence in the south that the democratic party would portray jim crow legislation as reform, a new social control. it was progressive, even. >> a way of preventing violence. >> southern progressives like the people around woodrow wilson were diehard segregationists, but they saw it as a reform. we need to know that. that was their vision of reform because it would reestablish a social order. sorry, that is what they believed. professor greene medford: reform from their perspective. no african-american would agree. mr. blight: wilson did not invite too many african-americans to test it. >> or to the white house as roosevelt had. mr. holzer: here is sort of a daring question but we might as well and with something provocative. how much is modern-day felony disenfranchisement legacy of the post reconstruction era? professor foner: felon disenfranchisement has a long history. there were some states that had that before the civil war, but before the civil war, there were not a lot of felons. in the south, slaves were not thrown in jail. that would be beside the point. they are supposed to be laboring. there was virtually no prison system at all. there was very little prison system anywhere before the civil war. what happens after reconstruction in the south particularly is that many, many new crimes are redefined as felonies -- minor theft, stealing a chicken, is now a felony. these are directed mostly against blacks. the judicial system is worked -- warped so that white people are not prosecuted for these things and blacks are. it is a way of taking away the right to vote. under the 15th amendment, you could not pass a law saying black people can't vote. that would be a direct violation. there were all these other ways -- felon disenfranchisement was one of them, literacy tests, pull tests, all of them extensively nonracial but really directed toward limiting the power of african-americans. the prison system that we live with today is a relatively modern thing. 1960, there were not that many people in federal prisons. it burgeoned starting with the johnson administration and 1970's, 1980's, and the war on drugs. today, there are millions of people who have lost the right to vote because of these laws saying, if you are convicted of a felony, you can never vote. it is not just while you are in jail, but even if you have served your time, you have lost the right to vote. not in every state, but many. it does have roots in the jim crow era, although it has burgeoned in or mostly the last 30 to 40 years. mr. blight: you called that a daring question, so what the heck? if you want to understand the current state of the last 10 years or so of the passage of all kinds of voter id, voter suppression measures by 30-some odd states controlled by the republican party, the best template you have is to go back to this era we are discussing, the kinds of subtleties, ways around the idea that what you were doing was disenfranchising black voters. that is exactly what voter id and voter suppression was, happening in this country for the past decade. i don't know whether these people read about reconstruction, but that is their model. they are doing it better even than the late 19th century. professor foner: one difference -- back in the late 19 century, people were forthright about what they were doing. mr. blight: more so. professor foner: in the mississippi constitutional convention of 1890, they said, hey, we are looking for ways to get the right to vote away from black people, and here is what we are doing. it was upfront. today it is more through circumlocution. when it got to the supreme court, williams v. mississippi and there were no blacks voting anymore, supreme court said, these laws say nothing about race. we can't go into the minds of people who wrote the law and figure out the motive, even though the motive was right out there. supreme court said, as long as it does not mention race, not a problem with the 15th amendment. mr. blight: i have always said -- sorry, daring, right? we will know we have had some kind of turn in our political culture when one republican will stand up and admit what they are doing. [applause] professor greene medford: the interesting thing is -- mr. blight: about voting. [laughter] professor greene medford: the interesting thing is that there has been a great deal of conversation in the last couple of weeks about the millions of people who voted illegally, and the reality is there were a significant number of people apparently who were denied the opportunity to vote. >> millions. professor greene medford: who were illegally registered, with the same kinds of tactics used during the late 19th century. that is something we all should be very concerned about. mr. holzer: let me see if i can squeeze one more question in. >> i would end on that. mr. holzer: this is also provocative. there are two questions relating to women. one suggests that we have not spoken enough aside from the feminist founding mothers, whose adjusted the 13th amendment, in advancing the ideals of positive reconstruction. and also issues of gender and sexuality and how they relate to the push for racial equality then and now, if at all. what about the women in the movement then? professor greene medford: women have always been such an important part of the rights of all people. we talk about the male abolitionist when there were so many women who were by their side and sometimes ahead of them in many instances. the same thing is true during reconstruction as well. there have been some wonderful studies that have been done recently on exactly how women are being impacted by reconstruction and how they are in turn impacting reconstruction, so i would really suggest strongly that you take a look at some of those recent studies. >> as she says, add to your reading list books by stephanie camp, sarah edwards, stephanie mccurry. we can tell you more about this later. these are books that have shown that a lot of the reaction beginning in the confederacy but certainly in southern laws passed during reconstruction and beyond, where ways of controlling gender, ways of controlling the lives of women, keeping women domestic, keeping women at home, on the plantation, on the farm, and so on. there was a certain domestication to law during reconstruction and beyond. as edna says, there is a lot of good work out there that shows that. on the level of rights, voting rights, it is a huge battle. of course, the struggle for women's suffrage did not succeed until the early 20th century. it is also an interesting case of one example of where the right to vote succeeded first at the state level. sometimes there are things that happen because of states rights. it depends on which side of the battle you are on. certain states passed women's suffrage before the federal amendment. >> including new york state. professor foner: as david mentioned, this was a period of a bitter dispute between people who were allies before -- the leaders of the women's suffrage movement and the male abolitionists particularly over whether black male suffrage should go forward or universal suffrage. the women's movement itself splits. there were some who say no, we have to get the right to vote for black men, that is the crucial now. others say if women are left out now, you are rewriting the constitution. stanton said it would take 50 years, which is what it took. mr. blight: she said some ugly stuff. professor foner: she turned to racist things, you cannot enfranchise sambo while the daughters of abigail adams do not have the right to vote. the battle over rights is central to reconstruction. one of the rights of citizens -- what are the rights of citizens, who should enjoy them, who should define them. to go back to the first point harold made, this era is relevant to the moment today. it is not dead history. the issues of reconstruction are issues on the front pages of our newspapers right now -- citizenship, rights, federal and state power, terrorism. mr. blight: refugees. professor foner: all sorts of things. people need to know more about reconstruction. mr. blight: the word refugee is in the freedmen's bureau name. freedmen's bureau of refugees. mr. holzer: speaking of ending where we began, i feel obliged morally, politically, socially, to give the last word to hillary clinton because i began by quoting her gaffe. >> is she running again? [laughter] mr. holzer: she ran from her first statement with her second statement. she wanted to expound -- expand and expound on this issue after her initial statement. this is what she said. "we might have gone to a better place under lincoln's leadership. what we needed after the civil war was equality, justice, and reconciliation. instead, we saw the federal government abandon reconstruction before real change took hold. too many injustices remain today. we are continuing a long struggle that still has to be fought and won in our own generation." i think we can all agree on that and we thank you all for participating. [applause] >> we thank you so much. is there more to talk about? i think we can do this again next year, how's that? thank you all for coming. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span 3. forow us on twitter information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. yes, they have very nice lifestyles. i do think to make it to the very top and stay there are not motivated by money. they want to have standing and status and want to be respected and want to have power. night, how the financial elite rule our world. >> many people see what is wrong with the system. -- are hold the system they presenters of the system? is it their fault or the system's fault? it is the interaction of both. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern. >> on lectures in history, texas christian university professor max brockwell teaches a class on changes to labor organizing in the post-world war ii era. he describes how unions argued for the continuation of wartime practices, but often failed due to opposition from manufacturers and the lack of political party supports. his class is about an hour.