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Thank you, paul. And thank you all for coming out today. Why are you in here, anyway . I cannot speak for the other speakers, but it is rare for me at least to have the u. S. Senate imposed on the structure i am standing before. It is a privilege and an honor, and i am happy to be here. Congress came together in december 1865 for the First Time Since early march. The war had ended, we were told, and slavery was over too, we were told, but that made for Big Questions left unanswered. And if we assume, as it is so easy to do, that former slaves must clearly not the citizens, we somehow conflate the turbulent events over the next year or two, or three. And i want to catch the wave early on in that unfolding history. The 15th amendment had been shepherded through congress the previous january, thanks to congressman spielberg. Congress had to face its implications. When they met ....
It had become increasingly clear across the war that the abolition of slavery was a likely outcome. And of course, the objective of winning that war had always been a primary pursuit. Suddenly, you get the two in combination, and each left a huge combination to be addressed. What would the now suddenly former Confederate States be . And how to treat them. And who would the nowformer slaves be . What should be their status. Lawmakers, federal or state, had multiple models to work from as they tried to address the question of former slaves. One was white freedom. The same rights, responsibilities, and resources that occurred to anybody, regardless of race. Not regardless of race. Regardless of gender. Of class, of locale, of all the kinds of things. But it requires the antecedent adjective. There was black slavery to be moved away from to some degree. At least two models between countries the former slaves could populate. One wo ....
Theyre also very different. And i suspect that the truth is somewhere in the middle here, and i couldnt tell you which one is better. And this is another one. This is an image that came out of one of the books that i did and it is showing the british piling up material, and this is in the Capitol Building. And if youll notice, the guy on the left, on the back, hes carrying a backpack that would carry two cases for a congrieve rocket. Rocket and if youll notice the man standing on top of the pile, hes literally taking the projectile material that would have been inside of that rocket and hes sprinkling it over the top and then thats how they would light that fire and here is the actual account and this is by Benjamin Henry latrobe. There was no want of material for the conflagration. For when the number of members of congress was increased the old platform was left in its pl ....
In the war of 1812, obviously. So its my pleasure to welcome colonel eshelman to the podium. [ applause ] good morning, everyone. Thank you. That was a kind introduction. I have never been called colonel when im been introduced. Thank you very much. I want to add to the accolades expressed about the wonderful job the partners and all the individuals have done to put this symposium together. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you have as well. We still have an afternoon to go as well. Itis not over and im looking forward to it. Before lunch, which is an important thing for all of us, i have a few words i would like to say about some of the myth that surround washington, d. C. Specifically, im going to talk about three myths. Im going to present them to you in the form of a question. The first one is did the british really burn Washington City . Question number two. Is the white house really called the white house because it was ....