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john seigenthaler, author of james k. polk, howd they talk you into doing a biography on this president? john seigenthaler sr. arthur schlesinger called me on the phone and said, youre a tennessean. polk was a tennessean. why dont you write a biography for this series that times books is doing on the presidents? and i said, arthur, i dont have time. im retired. he said, i want you to do one thing. he said, alan nevins (ph) has done a paperback that excerpts his diary, his presidential diary. just take the weekend and read it and tell me no. and i read the excerpts from the diary, and i couldnt say no. i was fascinated by the man. did you know much about him before you started on this? you know, i knew he was a tennessean. im a tennessean. i knew that his grave is behind the capitol. there is no marker in nashville, except a plaque on the side of a dirty motel wall. his old home place in columbia is preserved, and id been there many times and have been there s ....
to the civil war when the nation was very clearly divided into two political camps. we live in a politically divided time, although i don t want to imply we are headed for civil war. i don t know what we are headed toward, but there is resonance in the way we have red and blue states today. there were northern and southern states than that were fundamentally divided over this giant issue of slavery. there are other things. the 1840 s and 1850 s was a time of enormous technological change. within a few years of the invention of the telegraph, cities east of the mississippi were connected and there was national conversation which becomes part of the story i tell. it turns out these communication devices that were designed to bring people closest together drove them farther apart. they were horrified by what people on the other side were saying. there is that, there is also just the fact that it is a story of america. it takes place in the same cities we know today. someti ....
susan: steve inskeep, your book is entitled imperfect union: how john and jesse fremont helped cause the civil war. why did you believe the story of a 19th-century power couple would have resonance today? steve: it is a story leading up to the civil war when the nation was very clearly divided into two political camps. we live in a politically divided time, although i don t want to imply we are headed for civil war. i don t know what we are headed toward, but there is resonance in the way we have red and blue states today. there were northern and southern states than that were fundamentally divided over this giant issue of slavery. there are other things. the 1840 s and 1850 s was a time of enormous technological change. cities east of the mississippi were connected and there was national conversation which becomes part of the story i tell. it turns out these communication devices that were designed to bring people closest together drove them farther apart. they were h ....
tonight, but also getting to nikki haley. i saw your coverage of nikki haley in the last hour. just a little before you started that. in new hampshire tonight. she was asked a pretty simple question. what was the cause of the civil war? she managed to give an answer that did not include the words slavery. we re going to show you that later in this hour, and explain why she gave that answer. lawrence, i m looking forward to that because i saw also that same comment after we did our segment so i m glad you re covering it. thank you, jonathan. thanks, lawrence. on christmas day a 77-year-old criminal defendant facing racketeering charges and other felonies in four jurisdictions said that his prosecutors should rot in hell. and unlike every other criminal defendant who has said that, he didn t mumble it to himself bitterly, alone in his jail cell, awaiting trial. he dn t say it angrily to a cell mate. he said it through the reach of social media to the world, and wh ....
question. what was the cause of the civil war? she managed to give an answer they did not include the words slavery. we re going to show you that later in this hour. and explain. why she gave that answer. lawrence i m looking forward to that because i saw also that same comment after we did our segment so i m glad you re covering it. thank you, jonathan. thanks, lawrence. on christmas day a 77 year old criminal defendant facing racketeering charges and other felonies in four jurisdictions said that his prosecutors should rot in hell. and unlike every other criminal defendant who has said that, he didn t mumble it to himself bitterly, alone in his jail cell, awaiting trial. he didn t say it angrily to a cell mate. he said it through the reach of social media to the world and while he was at it, he said the president s united states should rot in hell. the 77 year old criminal defendant is also the leading republican candidate for president of united states. thank ....