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The rise and fall of Abraham Lincoln represents one of America's most profound historical narratives – a story of a man who emerged from virtual political obscurity to lead a nation through its darkest hour.
When the Political Encyclopedia of 1860 was published, Lincoln wasn't deemed significant enough to warrant even a single mention. Yet within months, this relatively unknown figure would ascend to the presidency during the most divisive period in American history. His election triggered the secession of Southern states and ignited a conflict that would redefine the nation.
What's rarely discussed is Lincoln's extraordinary unpopularity during his presidency. In the South, he was reviled as an existential threat, while many Northerners criticized his wartime tactics, including the suspension of habeas corpus and imprisonment of newspaper editors sympathetic to the Confederate cause. The history we learn about Lincoln has been sanitized over time, smoothing over the complex and often controversial figure he truly was.
The path to Lincoln's assassination began long before John Wilkes Booth entered Ford's Theatre. Early plots against Lincoln's life were thwarted thanks to Kate Warrens, the first female detective in the Pinkerton agency. Once war broke out, Lincoln demonstrated remarkable political cunning, using the Emancipation Proclamation as a strategic war measure that only freed slaves in Confederate states – areas where he had no actual authority – while maintaining slavery in Union-controlled territories.
Lincoln's cabinet strategy of appointing his fiercest political rivals – men who actively sought his job – demonstrates a leadership philosophy almost unimaginable in modern politics. This "team of rivals" approach helped guide the nation through its bloodiest conflict, culminating in a Union victory that Lincoln would enjoy for only days before his assassination forever altered the course of Reconstruction and American history.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello everyone and welcome back to Better Life, new
York.
I know it's been a long timesince we've done one of these
podcasts and I apologize.
I had been sick and I probablymentioned it a few times COVID
COVID Bell's palsy, bad back,injections, flu and finally
starting to find my way out, andluckily today we have someone
(00:31):
with us today, jack Stanley,quite a quoted historian.
Today's topic, though we'vetalked about other
assassinations.
We're kind of going to viewback in time and to the Lincoln
assassination and the eventsleading up to it and the events
(00:52):
after it, and probably make someparallels to today, because a
lot of that stuff seems to begoing on at the same time, where
there's this wide division.
But I don't think anything waswider in American history, jack
right, other than the divisionover slavery.
So I don't know where you wantto start.
(01:16):
You want to start with theMissouri Compromise or you want
to go a little?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
sooner than that.
I think I might be a little tooearly, but let's kind of just
start First off, one of the mostfascinating things about
Abraham Lincoln, and I want tomove some of this stuff around.
These are some books here.
Is this book right here?
And I think this tells an awfullot.
(01:43):
I think this is readable, isn'tit?
Can you see?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Maybe we will when it's in final form, but right
now, no, I'll open it up and putit this way this is the
political textbook andencyclopedia of 1860.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Wow, if you want to know what the world was like or
what this country was like, thismassive book covers all the
various subjects.
There's only one person missingfrom the book Lincoln.
Not a single word about Lincoln.
(02:26):
Not a single word about Lincoln, which I find really quite
fascinating, that 1859 is whenthis was written, for 1860.
And he was so unknown he wasbasically not talked about much
at all, maybe in local areas,more toward Illinois and
(02:47):
whatever.
But in 1860, when this book wasalready out, all of a sudden he
started to become a major forcein his speeches and his talks,
speaking at Cooper Union.
I remember I was at CooperUnion in 2007.
One of the individuals I wasvery fortunate to speak to on
(03:12):
the phone was I can't think ofhis name right now, oh dear,
I'll skip that.
Oh dear, I'll skip that.
(03:47):
I was there for a veryimportant meeting, a funeral,
and President Clinton was thereand he was standing at the
lectern and he was banging onthe lectern saying Lincoln spoke
here.
Lincoln spoke right here and hewas so excited about it when he
was speaking and it was reallyquite fascinating.
But the thing is that Lincolnreally became a force starting
in 1860.
His speeches, the debates withDouglas in 1858, of course gave
him some recognition, but itkind of faded after that.
And then in 1860, when theRepublican Party was starting to
(04:11):
really become a viable party wehave to remember it had been
founded just like five yearsearlier and you had Lincoln
running.
It really caused quite a stirbecause first off, there were so
many factions going on, as weboth very much realize how
(04:33):
fractured the country wasalready.
I've got books of all kindsbasically covering the period of
1850 to 1870.
And this series of books, alldifferent types, cover a good
deal of what was going on in thecontemporary view and it's
(04:57):
really quite fascinating, as wego through time, how the views
have changed, how theunderstandings have changed, how
Lincoln has changed.
Lincoln was greatly hatedduring his lifetime.
Lots of people couldn't standhim.
The South couldn't tolerate him.
(05:19):
In the North they had troublewith him.
He was arresting lots ofnewspaper editors and lots of
people who were pro-Southern andbasically removing the writ of
habeas corpus and therefore justtossing people in jail and
throwing the key away.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, there was an assassination plot prior to him
even taking office, wasn't it?
Yes, the Golden Circle orsomething, whatever you know?
I don't know all that muchabout them, but I know they were
pro-slavery, southern,something to do with the whole
lower hemisphere, right?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, and you know something, it was discovered by
a spy.
And you know something?
It was discovered by a spy.
Her name was Kate Warrens andshe used to go to southern
groups and whatever, and she hada great southern drawl which
(06:18):
she would use and she wouldbasically talk to everyone and
hear all the scuttlebutt of whatwas going on.
And of course she worked forthe Alan Pinkerton organization.
She was the first womandetective and she's the one that
(06:41):
discovered it and brought it tothe attention of Pinkerton.
And then of course, they hadthat whole scene coming into
Washington DC in disguise, right, and then Pinkerton was
Lincoln's bodyguard at thatpoint, wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, going down.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, he was with him and several other people were
in that train car with him, I dobelieve, including Kate Warren
and Lincoln of course came at adifferent time.
The train that he was supposedto be on was stopped actually in
that area, I think in Maryland,but he wasn't on it, which was
(07:21):
actually quite good and peoplemade fun of him.
After that, of course, thecartoons came out, etc.
But this was such a terribleperiod of time, I mean it's so
hard to understand.
I mean, today, if we take alook at today, we have the aid
of social media, which isbasically super inflamed things,
(07:44):
but in those days you just hadnewspapers and magazines, and
magazines and newspapers werewritten, let's say, like the
Chicago Democrat or the MarylandRepublican, whatever.
Then they would be focused onthat ideology and everything
(08:06):
would be stated to fit thatideology.
Very much the same as we havewith the Internet, but it was
more localized and certainly notas powerfully driven as it is
today.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well, you could argue that that's exactly what we
have on TV news at the moment.
Oh yeah, Every, every which.
There was a time period that itwasn't.
But when you talk about anindependent press, when you
think of that, it didn't reallyexist then and it doesn't really
exist now.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It did for a while yes, Getting back, so I can
correct myself now I want to.
I was at the getting back, so Ican correct myself now I want
to.
I was at the memorial servicefor Arthur Schlesinger.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh right, Arthur.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Schlesinger passed away in 2007 and I was fortunate
to be able to go to it and Iwas able to talk to him on the
phone and talk about Kennedyadministration a little bit and
other presidents and stuff, andat that time there were all
these interesting people thatcame to Cooper Union and spoke,
(09:15):
including Bill Clinton, edwardKennedy, lauren Bacall and a
bunch of other folks.
It was really quite an amazingevent and a bunch of other folks
.
It was really quite an amazingevent.
But Lincoln, getting back tohim, is an amazing subject.
He's so many different faces.
(09:38):
He's covered by so manydifferent opinions.
He's covered by varioushistorians in very different
ways.
You bring up a subject and youcan do pro and con with Lincoln
quite often.
You know, as we were talkingabout before we started this and
I think I'll bring it up rightnow so we can talk about it and
(10:05):
that is the Corwin Amendment of1860.
And of course, that was the13th Amendment to the
Constitution.
It had been approved by theSenate and the Congress and it
was off to the states to approve.
Now the thing is, what was it?
It was basically to recognizeslavery where it existed and to
(10:31):
make irrevocable the removal ofslavery from where it now exists
.
Now Lincoln even mentions thisin his inaugural address, but
he's a little coy on it.
He knew everything about it.
Seward had come and briefed him.
(10:52):
Seward's people came andbriefed him.
Lincoln read everything.
But in his inaugural address hesays I hear there is a new
amendment to the Constitution Idon't know of its name,
something to that basic.
I'm paraphrasing.
(11:13):
And he said, but I am in fullagreement with it, that it
basically makes things right andirrevocable in the area of
servitude.
They didn't use slavery.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right.
So just to quote how they spokeabout it in the original text
of the amendments, is noamendment shall be made to the
Constitution which willauthorize or give the Congress
the power to abolish orinterfere within any state with
the domestic institutionsthereof, including that of
(11:52):
persons held to labor or serviceby the laws of said state.
They never really mentioned theword slavery.
No, no, they spell out theinstitution pretty well.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yes, they do, and it's a fascinating thing.
Had you know, think about this.
Had that gone through a fewmonths earlier, that could have
very well have become the 13thAmendment.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, it had passed four states already.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We had run in.
You know, they came up withthis great solution it will take
a free state with a slave stateright Somewhere along the line,
yeah, and then, as states comein, and then they wouldn't have
a slave state, so, like inKansas' case, they make it a
slave state which is totallydivided, and they have a civil
(12:52):
war itself inside the state ofKansas.
Yes, indeed, and the phrase I'msure you've used before
bleeding Kansas, which is whatit was called at the time where
people were fighting.
So think about this it isn'tjust North and South, it's
individual states that arecoming on at the same time, and
(13:13):
Lincoln is elected president ofthe United States.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, what a mess If you think about it.
I mean familiar everyone what amess you have to think with
Kansas.
The interesting thing I alwayslike to call it to my classes.
Years ago I used to call it thepilot plant for the American
civil war, because basicallythat's what it was.
They had two differentconstitutions in the state and
(13:43):
of course, bleeding Kansas is ais a mess.
There's there's problemsthroughout the state and of
course, bleeding Kansas is amess.
There's problems throughout thecountry and of course a lot of
it goes all the way back to theCompromise of 1850.
And you know you had theFugitive Slave Act.
That was part of that.
That really started theabolitionist movement getting
(14:03):
very strong up in Massachusetts.
And then again you have Douglaswith popular sovereignty.
Instead of for us say, let thestate say, and then that starts
a whole big mess.
And Lincoln gets elected andhe's put into this and he's
(14:27):
ill-equipped.
You know, if you think about it, he really doesn't know what to
do.
And it's interesting to readthe criticisms of Lincoln early
in his administration.
They're saying he's basicallyanother Buchanan, because
Buchanan his statement was thataccording to the Constitution
(14:49):
it's illegal for a state toleave the union.
But it's also against the lawsof the union to force the state
to stay in it, which is justgoing around in a great big
circle.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right, but the theory of the perpetual union, I think
that's Madison right from the.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Federalist Papers, is it?
Yes, so it's a fascinatingthing when you think about it.
So of course, Lincoln's electedand then of course the war
starts.
I mean, the South has secededalready, basically going back to
the end of December they start.
The end of December they start,and then in January and
(15:28):
February come March and April,then we get all the way up into
Virginia and once Virginia goes,there's no stopping the whole
thing.
I think because Virginia wassuch a powerful, powerful state
and of course it had great,great individuals.
Even the commanding general ofthe Union at the time, winfield
(15:51):
Scott, was from Virginia andRobert E Lee was asked by
Lincoln to become thegeneral-in-chief.
And it is a fascinatinginterchange between Scott and
Lee.
There's a fascinatinginterchange between Scott and
Lee where Scott brings Lee tohis office and tells him that he
(16:12):
should become the general andLee basically says I'm going to
resign my commission and jointhe South.
And Scott's words were soprophetic.
He said you're making the worstdecision of your life and he
(16:32):
was.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And of course Well, it's funny Lee's background too.
I mean Lee and Grant.
Both were at the academy, right, both went to the military
academy at West Point.
Of course Lee graduated in thetop of his class and Grant kind
of graduating at the bottom ofhis class.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
But he excelled in art.
Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So it's really interesting.
I mean, they all fought in theSpanish-American War and they
all fought together and all thegenerals from both sides
basically fought together forsuch a long time until the Civil
War.
And you know the battle cry ofVirginia, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
You know, it's an interesting thing that we
haven't really brought up yet.
That is a very important thing,and that is John Brown.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I was thinking of that when we were talking before
, but I didn't want to bring itup in the wrong place and I
don't remember the year it was1859.
Okay, so that's anothercatalyst, like Kansas.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Oh yeah, and the interesting thing is that John
Brown had been involved inKansas, very much so, and he led
revolts and there were fightsand there was murders, and he
was very strongly religious andbasically used religion with his
(18:00):
authoritarianism and wasbasically killing slave owners.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
My father used to say the most dangerous person in
the world is a true believer.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, and of course then he wants to basically
create a slave revolt inHarper's Ferry, and it fails
miserably.
But who is the person in chargeof his capture, custer, arrest
(18:39):
and eventual execution?
Robert Ely.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That was close.
Custer was in there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Custer becomes a big deal in the Civil War indeed.
But John Brown works so hard tocreate himself in an image.
He writes letters constantly,nonstop, gives interviews.
He writes letters constantly,nonstop, gives interviews.
(19:09):
In fact, I have the book here,which I didn't pull out, that
was written with the approval ofthe family and it's the first
book written on him, which isreally quite fascinating, and it
basically calls him a martyr, avictim and a steward for
(19:33):
liberty.
It's really quite fascinatingand that really has a wild
effect, as does the Dred Scottdecision.
All of these various thingsthat take place.
They just, each one is more orless taking a piece of wood and
hammering it in to the countryand separating it further and
(19:53):
further and further apart.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, it's funny.
John Brown always made me thinkof the ancient Greek story of
Oedipus the king.
Right where they want to bury,he wants to bury his enemy.
His wife or whoever it waswants to bury the enemy and he
forbids it.
Right and the fought betweennatural law, the right of anyone
(20:18):
to be buried under the gods atthat point, and the king's edict
nobody's to bury them.
You know, it just reminds me ofthat eternal conflict between
natural law and man-made law.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Agreed.
There's something else I wantto share with you and I'm not
going to use it right now, butI'll just pull it out here.
This thing is a monstrous thing.
This is a scrapbook made duringthe Civil War and it's filled
with newspaper reports and it's.
Where on earth did you get that?
(20:56):
I found it.
I find things all over theplace and it's almost impossible
for me actually.
Let me see if I can do this.
This is actually about Lincoln'sassassination right here.
It's not very easy to see and Iknow I realize we're just
(21:31):
looking through a little camerahere, but this is fascinating
material.
Once again, I'm alwaysinterested in contemporary views
and behind me, behind me on theshelf here, is all bound
Harper's Weeklys between 1850 to1860.
And it talks about and it'sfascinating because you see that
the whole country is slowlybreaking apart.
In each one of these they saythey have a thing called recent
(21:59):
historical events and itbasically chronicles the country
slowly falling apart.
And we could go on for a monthof Sundays on this because
there's so much that took place,but we have to get back to.
Mr Lincoln, Otherwise I'll startan engine about everything here
, the tall guy with the funnyhat yeah, we can't get rid of
(22:25):
some of these books here.
Now.
Lincoln gets elected, and notby a majority, of course.
The Democratic Party splitsthree ways and that guarantees
Lincoln's going to win.
I mean, any time a party splitsmore or less guarantees that
(22:45):
the other will win.
And he is president and thecountry is only half.
In fact, he wasn't even on theballot in the southern states, I
mean, it was only the norththat elected him, basically.
(23:05):
Now, an interesting thing also alot of times we just talk about
slavery, and slavery is a major, major issue.
You know, people always say itwas about states' rights.
Well, let's look at it this wayWeren't various states
approving of slavery and otherstates not?
And so I mean a lot of thearguments about states' rights
were still over slavery, and itwas also over tariffs.
(23:28):
Lincoln was very, very big intothe Henry Clay and the American
plan, which was all aboutinternal improvements and high
tariffs.
And, of course, what was theSouth's major business?
Cotton.
And who were the buyers oftheir cotton?
(23:51):
All of Europe, england, franceand the North as well.
They were producing so much ofthe cotton of the world.
There's an interesting thingthat people often talk about and
I know I'm bouncing around here, sorry about that, please, but
(24:12):
in 1850, we have to remember theCompromise of 1850, which is an
interesting document becausefirst off, the president did not
approve of it, zachary Taylor,and everyone said, my God, it's
(24:32):
going to happen, becauseeveryone was screaming of civil
war.
And then, of course, taylordies and his vice president says
I'll sign it.
You know, I don't want to dealwith this.
And so he does what everyoneelse had done he kicks it down
(24:52):
the road.
But an interesting thing thatdoesn't get brought up very
often is in 1850, cotton,basically for England, was
coming from the south of theUnited States.
It was a very, very strongindustry.
A good deal of it, not all ofit, but a good deal of it.
(25:14):
In the 1850s, india becomes thejewel in the crown for the
United Kingdom.
And what do they produce?
Their cotton.
A good deal of the cotton comesfrom india at that point, and
this changes the perspective, ifyou think about it, in 1850,
(25:38):
had a civil war taken place,there's a very good chance that
england would have come to theaid of the south due to the fact
of the cotton, which was soimportant In 1860, the averages
had changed greatly.
They were still verysympathetic to the South and
built warships for them andstuff like that, but I think
(26:03):
that things changed drasticallybecause of the cotton and the
availability from India.
That had a profound effect thatdoesn't get talked about too
much at all.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
No, you see the opposite being talked about,
that basically, most of the it'sjust agriculture in the South
and it's just cotton built onthe backs of slaves.
Right, it's also tobacco, butoh, tobacco is a big also
tobacco, but mostly cotton.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Tobacco is a big thing too.
Yeah indeed.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Also tobacco.
But you know, until the cottongin too, they were picking the
seeds out by hand.
So it was totally different.
They needed slave labor to dothat, agreed.
And in the north there werefactories, there were cannon
factories, there were otherthings.
And there's that great linefrom Gone with the Wind where
(26:50):
Rob Butler says, when they'retalking about the grandiose
plans of war, and he says, well,there's not a cannon factory in
all the South, and they say,what does that matter to a
gentleman?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And he says it's going to matter to a lot of
gentlemen, and it's true.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So to a lot of gentlemen, yeah, and it's true.
So the North did have that,they had the industry, they had
the Navy for bottled up theirharbors and blockades, right so?
But even so, lee pretty muchout.
(27:26):
Before making a grand oldmistake, he outmaneuvered the
Union Army to the extreme.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Agreed.
I mean, he was a phenomenaltactician and he understood
things very well and he had thecomplete and total support of
his troops I mean almost godliketo his troops Whereas in the
North we had McClellan Right asLincoln used to write McClellan.
(27:58):
If you're not busy with thehorses, can I borrow them?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
That sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Because McClellan.
Basically, I will say thisMcClellan was phenomenal in
training.
He was phenomenal in drilling,phenomenal in education of
warfare, but he was not a very,very effective general in
leading them into battle and healways complained that he didn't
(28:27):
have enough troops and didn'thave enough supplies and didn't
have enough horses and of course, he had three times what Lee
had and basically sat on hisduff for a lot of times.
There was something else Iwanted to mention about that
whole thing at the time.
There's something else I wantedto mention about that whole
(28:49):
thing at the time.
Lincoln really faces an awfullot of issues.
First off, Congress is not insession and Fort Sumter is fired
upon.
Now, just to take a little stepback from that, we have to
remember something that Lincolnneeded to do, and Lincoln was
(29:11):
smart enough to realize heneeded to do.
He needed the South to firefirst.
He needed to have thatsituation.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Sounds like Roosevelt and the Japanese yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Sounds like Roosevelt and the Japanese.
Yeah, there's a fortunateincident that took place a few
months earlier that is so rarelyspoken of, and that was
Buchanan hired a ship toprovision Fort Sumter Right,
(29:51):
it's called the Star of theNorth, the ship.
And the ship went down to FortSumter and was fired upon by the
batteries, damaging the ship.
And the ship never got to thefort and it went back damaged
(30:13):
and Congress went crazy likesaying is this war?
And if you read Harper's, as Isaid that's why I like to have
these wonderful, wonderful booksthe governor of South Carolina
states that if another ship issent to provision the fort,
(30:37):
south Carolina will look at thatas an act of war.
Now, everybody read that.
Lincoln read that.
So what does he do?
He sends ships to the fort.
Not only does he send the ships, but he also sends a direct
(31:02):
telegraph message to thegovernor of South Carolina
telling him he's sending ships.
And what do they do?
They fire.
He gets his first shot and thenthey secede, right, well, they
had already.
They already seceded.
(31:23):
This was April, april of 1861.
And when was the amendment?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
When was the 13th Amendment, the original 13th
Amendment?
When was the Cohen Amendment?
When was the 13th Amendment,the original 13th Amendment?
When was the Cohen Amendment?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That was in going from basically like January into
April of 1861.
That's why it had been approvedby four states already.
The last one was Illinois andit needed to prove it.
(31:57):
The South didn't approve iteither.
Well, they never even.
I don't even think they paidany attention to it.
They were looking at it as afoolish measure.
At this point the damage hadbeen done already.
It was sort of like you know,talking about saving the Titanic
from an iceberg after hittingit.
You know the damage had beendone, and so the war starts and
(32:24):
he has his first shot and heuses that as the North has been
attacked.
And then, of course, he puts ina call for troops, basically
declares war without theapproval of Congress, which is
(32:47):
an interesting thing and ofcourse the war begins and it
doesn't begin well, and ofcourse the war begins and it
doesn't begin well.
As we mentioned before, theNorth had all of the various
industries.
We had something called thefall line that doesn't get
talked about too much.
And what is the fall line?
(33:08):
That is where the ground goesdown and where lots of water
runs down, and that's where youhad lots of water, wheels
running, industry and stuff.
And that was in the north.
It was right against the coastof the Atlantic, but in the
south it's far further inland,which is one of the reasons why
(33:29):
there was so much manufacturingin the area.
Before you had steam power, youhad, you know, water power, and
the fall line was quiteimportant.
And so the war doesn't go toowell for a long time and
Lincoln's kind of terrified.
And then he decides, as the wargoes on, to put out the
(33:59):
proclamation of emancipation, orthe emancipation proclamation,
and of course we could talkabout this for quite a while,
I'm sure because it's afascinating document written by
an extremely clever politician.
Written by an extremely cleverpolitician Because Lincoln was a
(34:21):
master of doublespeak.
He would make something thatisn't much of anything sound
absolutely fabulous andsomething that is something
great and make it seem mediocre.
He was so good at that.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So one thing I always wondered, and maybe you have a
viewpoint on that.
I mean, like we've talked aboutbefore, the Emancipation
Proclamation only frees theslaves in states in rebellion,
right?
So states that weren't inrebellion, all the states in the
North that didn't free theirslaves through executive order,
(35:02):
Was there a thought in his mindthat some states would come back
into the union and not be inrebellion because in, so they
could keep their slaves becausein?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
so they could keep their slaves, that's.
You know, it's an interestingthing with Lincoln and slavery.
I mean, he went back and forth.
He would say what needed to besaid to whomever it needed to be
said to.
Sounds like a politician to me.
Lincoln's a politician first.
We always have to remember that.
(35:36):
We often think of him as astatesman, but he was a
politician first.
That proclamation which was awar measure, by the way, and
pushed, interestingly enough ithas roots going all the way back
to John Quincy Adams, which isreally interesting.
And the fascinating thing isthat William Seward was a good
(36:09):
friend of John Quincy Adams andbasically supported Adams and
was the biographer of Adamsafter his death.
And Adams was very adamant onthe fact that there would be a
civil war.
And he says when that timecomes to free the slaves, you
use the War Powers Act.
(36:31):
And that's exactly what this is.
You know, it's an interestingthing.
I do believe that Seward hadsuch a profound influence on
Lincoln.
And Lincoln was the great poet,you know.
(36:53):
He could take something andwrite it beautifully and had
amazing ideas.
But I think Seward basicallywould hone things a little bit
and say this is how you do it,Because he was a very great
politician and he was one of themasters in the Senate.
In the Senate and using JohnQuincy Adams' recommendation for
(37:19):
the War Powers Act is apowerful and useful thing,
because it basically says wewill seize your property, and
that means your guns, yourequipment and your slaves.
You call them property.
We will confiscate it.
And of course, that War PowersAct does not affect the North
(37:46):
and nor does it affect theborder states which had slaves.
He didn't dare do that becausehe knew if he did it for the
entire north, they wouldprobably join the south, because
they were fighting oversomething they weren't really
fighting over slavery, they werefighting over union.
(38:07):
And one of the interestingpoints of that proclamation is
it was only in effect as long asthe war was in effect.
So if you think about it, bythe time of the end of the war
it's no longer in effect, whichdoesn't mean much at this point.
(38:32):
But if you think about it,until the 13th Amendment, number
two, comes out in December of1865, slavery was basically
legal again, Right, which is aninteresting thing.
And New Jersey was the laststate to finally give up on
(38:53):
slavery.
Right, and New Jersey was thelast state to finally give up on
Slickford.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I think we had that conversation before the
Mason-Dixon line, where theslavery line was at, and the
bottom of New Jersey as well asbottom of the parts of
Pennsylvania were below thatline, and there's a famous law
review article that says therewere 18 registered slaves in
southern Jersey at the time ofthe Civil War, amendment 13th
(39:19):
1865.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, here's a fascinating booklet also as well
.
This is the census of 1860.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Wow, and it's fascinating reading because it's
basically the time of the CivilWar and what's going on in
various states and the thoughtsthat were going on in various
states and whatever how theydescribe people, because I've
(39:53):
seen those in the South how theydescribe these other persons,
as you may say, and the namesthey use, and a lot of different
ways of characterizing humanbeings, whether they were slaves
or others.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh, it's really kind of horrid.
I mean it's awful, but theCivil War goes on, which we can
kind of fly by, because if westart dissecting things we'll be
talking until tomorrow and thensome.
Yeah, it's a fascinating,fascinating subject.
(40:35):
This is something else I wantedto pull out just to show you.
This is an individual, and onceagain it's a little hard to see
, I guess, but this comes out in1863.
This is a congressman from Ohio, the Honorable CL Valendigham,
(41:05):
quite a name, and he is totallyagainst Lincoln's actions.
He is for basically letting theSouth go, he is pro-union but
he's also anti-civil war andLincoln has him removed from the
(41:28):
country.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Now, that sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
It's a very interesting story.
And Valdeum is basically theysend 180 troops to get him from
his house and it's under thecontrol of General Burnside and
he's sent over to the south, butthe south says we don't want
him, and so then he's sent toCanada.
(41:56):
He becomes a man without acountry.
An interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
So when did and I don't know this, I'm sure you do
when did Alexander deTocqueville come to America and
write his book?
What was it On America?
I mean, it had to be in themiddle of the 18th century
somewhere, whether it was the1840s.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
What was it in the 1830s 1840s, I think?
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah, it had to be around that period, and him
being a French aristocrat, hewas right.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
How his views on slavery, I just don't remember.
And I read a lot of theTocqueville but I don't really
remember.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
It's fascinating reading what he sees.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
On America.
I can't remember the name ofthe book.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think, I think and I might be wrong here and I'm
sorry, but I think it'ssomewhere in the 1840s, 1850s.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
He died like 1860 or something like that, so it had
to be before that.
Yes, sorry, I digress again.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
My limited knowledge of things.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh no, you have a lot of knowledge.
You know so much about thisstuff, and the law of course,
but this whole thing, by Val andDigum.
This is a fascinating chapterin itself, and it would be fun
to do a talk about him sometime.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Okay, I'm in.
I'm always in, I never say no.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Now, of course, these are things for me.
I always liked, as I said, Ilike to look at contemporary
writings and stuff, and I've gotvarious issues of things like
this.
These are all, once again,unreadable.
Let me open this toward thefront.
These are from the Departmentof State and these are all
(44:09):
various messages and statementsfrom the president from Seward
to various countries.
During the Civil War, Sewardwas Secretary of State, yes, A
very powerful Secretary of State.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
And were they adversaries originally Seward
Chase?
Were they adversaries beforeSeward Chase?
Were they adversaries beforeLincoln really started?
Indeed.
They were all adversaries.
I know Chase was right.
He was from New York Seward.
And there's a third person Ican't think of who it was,
Doesn't matter, I'm justthinking off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Chase.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Seward and the rest.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And the rest.
And the rest I can't think ofeither, but those I mean.
Chase was really like he was sohot and heavy to become
president.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Lincoln did the smart thing and brought all his
enemies in.
You know he had the godfatherthing Keep your friends close
and your enemies closer.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, as Harry S Truman said, I'd rather have him
pissing in the tent instead ofoutside of the tent.
Right.
But Chase never let up on thatpresidential ambition and he was
secretary of the treasury,Famous for a couple of things.
(45:40):
First off, he's the fellow thatputs in gods we trust on our
coinage.
That comes from him because hewas a very pious man and he felt
that that should be on thecoinage and Lincoln was too busy
dealing with the war and it'son the two-cent coin to begin
with and eventually it works itscoin to begin with and
eventually it works its way toother coins and finally, in 1956
(46:01):
, 57, on our paper money.
It took a while.
We trusted them with coins butwe didn't trust them with paper.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
What about many as one?
Are you planning to assume?
When did that come on, do youknow?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I think that goes back to almost near the founding
.
I think, yeah, I would think.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You know, with the national seal.
Yeah, I mean when I said to youbefore, sometimes when I think
of Lincoln, I think ofWashington, because Washington
was just so brilliant of ofhandling things and Washington
also was extremely tall,especially in his era.
Being tall was so unusual andhe had a really tall horse, so
(46:50):
he was larger than life.
Um, he had a big horse and hewas very tall.
So when he spoke, scared theshit out of people is what he
did.
And I think Lincoln had thattoo.
Only he spoke in like parablesor something.
Lincoln was a little bit toldstories and when you walked away
you were like was he talkingabout me, you know, kind of
(47:12):
thing.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Lincoln was interesting in that way.
But talking about Washington,there's another thing about
Washington and it goes all theway back to the Roman era, but
during the time of thedeclaration before he was in the
Continental Congress buteventually left.
But he had the biggest calvesin Congress.
(47:36):
The size of your calves wasalso a sign of your integrity
and people would always display.
If you notice so often you'llsee the calf displayed in images
.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And the size of the calf meant everything.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Washington's calves were enormous and he was just a
big guy, you know.
He was tall and kind of largeand he stood out in the crowd
and, to a degree, very much likeLincoln, he has gone through a
pasteurization process wherewe've kind of removed but he had
(48:19):
a little BT Barnum in him too.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You know like he had his uniforms custom made, even
though he wasn't the head of theContinental Army in general,
and he used to wear them to theContinental Congress or whatever
.
When he wear them to theContinental Congress or whatever
, when he I mean it was a littlebit of like we talked about
Edison in our other podcast alittle PT Barnum Lincoln had it,
(48:43):
Washington had it.
It's that cult of personalityis really what it is.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Of course, washington was in Congress saying me I
mean I got it.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I have a horse already.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You don't have to buy me a uniform.
You know, and you know.
The person that does nominatehim, of course, is John Adams.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
And, of course, washington becomes the star,
much more than the star thanAdams ever envisioned.
So getting on with Lincoln.
Lincoln, of course.
Yeah, I can get sidetracked.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
I'll watch it real quick.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
It's easy to do because there's so many stories
and there's so much fascinatingstories about Lincoln, about
every president actually.
But in the Civil War, and bythe time we get to Gettysburg
which is to some people, andit's interesting you look at
(49:49):
some historians and somehistorians say that the changing
point of the Civil War wasGettysburg.
Some say it wasn't, some say itwas 1864.
But I kind of think that Lee,who was not at all in good
health, he had a heart attack Ididn't realize that and also he
(50:10):
was suffering from severedysentery and also had a I
forget, was it a displaced armor something from falling off
his horse.
He was not in good shape.
He rode to Gettysburg riding ona donkey.
Okay, things had changed quitea bit.
He was not riding on the horsebecause he had to stay low until
(50:34):
he could get off, because hewas not feeling well and he was
constantly running to take careof dysentery.
So he wasn't at 100% and youknow, when we get to the point
of Pickett's Charge, which it'squestionable whether he was
working on all cylinders there Imean that was just a
(50:57):
destructive thing.
And you really get that when youwalk through Gettysburg and you
walk to where that fence is.
And I was very fortunate to betaken there by a phenomenal
historian and they sat down andexplained for three days.
(51:20):
We did it, we did Gettysburgand it was a tour de force.
It was fascinating for me.
And he said that they reachedthat point where they were about
1,000 feet from the Union andthey had all their cannon lined
up and in those cannons were themini ball canisters double
(51:46):
charged, and then they fired andhe said all you saw was smoking
shoes.
Just wipe them out.
It's horrific.
I mean it was an amazing thing.
But the Civil War goes on andfinally the Civil War ends more
(52:08):
or less with Lee surrenderingbecause they had nothing.
Grant was the general and ofcourse Grant was called the
butcher.
People at the time were callinghim the butcher because he just
kept throwing men at Lee.
(52:28):
He just had an endless reserve.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Total war.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah, total war, yeah , total war.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
It turned out, sherman said just burn it all
down.
I don't know what to tell you.
As wide as you can make it, asfar as you can go.
When you get to the ocean, youcan turn around, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
That's true, war is hell and that it was.
He made it hell and that wastotal war and Lee eventually
surrenders in Appomattox.
And Lincoln visited the SouthReal quick.
(53:10):
Went to the State House inVirginia.
Went to the statehouse inVirginia, went to the
president's desk JeffersonDavis' desk who had vanished and
sat down, asked for a glass ofwater.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
That is the end of part one of our video on the
Lincoln and his assassination.
Be tuned to part two.
If it's not already available,be available very shortly, in
the next day or so.
All right, thank you forlistening and please like and
subscribe.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Better Life, new
York.
I know it's been a long timesince we've done one of these
podcasts and I apologize.
I had been sick and I probablymentioned it a few times COVID
COVID Bell's palsy, bad back,injections, flu and finally
starting to find my way out, andluckily today we have someone
(00:31):
with us today, jack Stanley,quite a quoted historian.
Today's topic, though we'vetalked about other
assassinations.
We're kind of going to viewback in time and to the Lincoln
assassination and the eventsleading up to it and the events
(00:52):
after it, and probably make someparallels to today, because a
lot of that stuff seems to begoing on at the same time, where
there's this wide division.
But I don't think anything waswider in American history, jack
right, other than the divisionover slavery.
So I don't know where you wantto start.
(01:16):
You want to start with theMissouri Compromise or you want
to go a little?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
sooner than that.
I think I might be a little tooearly, but let's kind of just
start First off, one of the mostfascinating things about
Abraham Lincoln, and I want tomove some of this stuff around.
These are some books here.
Is this book right here?
And I think this tells an awfullot.
(01:43):
I think this is readable, isn'tit?
Can you see?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Maybe we will when it's in final form, but right
now, no, I'll open it up and putit this way this is the
political textbook andencyclopedia of 1860.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Wow, if you want to know what the world was like or
what this country was like, thismassive book covers all the
various subjects.
There's only one person missingfrom the book Lincoln.
Not a single word about Lincoln.
(02:26):
Not a single word about Lincoln, which I find really quite
fascinating, that 1859 is whenthis was written, for 1860.
And he was so unknown he wasbasically not talked about much
at all, maybe in local areas,more toward Illinois and
(02:47):
whatever.
But in 1860, when this book wasalready out, all of a sudden he
started to become a major forcein his speeches and his talks,
speaking at Cooper Union.
I remember I was at CooperUnion in 2007.
One of the individuals I wasvery fortunate to speak to on
(03:12):
the phone was I can't think ofhis name right now, oh dear,
I'll skip that.
Oh dear, I'll skip that.
(03:47):
I was there for a veryimportant meeting, a funeral,
and President Clinton was thereand he was standing at the
lectern and he was banging onthe lectern saying Lincoln spoke
here.
Lincoln spoke right here and hewas so excited about it when he
was speaking and it was reallyquite fascinating.
But the thing is that Lincolnreally became a force starting
in 1860.
His speeches, the debates withDouglas in 1858, of course gave
him some recognition, but itkind of faded after that.
And then in 1860, when theRepublican Party was starting to
(04:11):
really become a viable party wehave to remember it had been
founded just like five yearsearlier and you had Lincoln
running.
It really caused quite a stirbecause first off, there were so
many factions going on, as weboth very much realize how
(04:33):
fractured the country wasalready.
I've got books of all kindsbasically covering the period of
1850 to 1870.
And this series of books, alldifferent types, cover a good
deal of what was going on in thecontemporary view and it's
(04:57):
really quite fascinating, as wego through time, how the views
have changed, how theunderstandings have changed, how
Lincoln has changed.
Lincoln was greatly hatedduring his lifetime.
Lots of people couldn't standhim.
The South couldn't tolerate him.
(05:19):
In the North they had troublewith him.
He was arresting lots ofnewspaper editors and lots of
people who were pro-Southern andbasically removing the writ of
habeas corpus and therefore justtossing people in jail and
throwing the key away.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, there was an assassination plot prior to him
even taking office, wasn't it?
Yes, the Golden Circle orsomething, whatever you know?
I don't know all that muchabout them, but I know they were
pro-slavery, southern,something to do with the whole
lower hemisphere, right?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, and you know something, it was discovered by
a spy.
And you know something?
It was discovered by a spy.
Her name was Kate Warrens andshe used to go to southern
groups and whatever, and she hada great southern drawl which
(06:18):
she would use and she wouldbasically talk to everyone and
hear all the scuttlebutt of whatwas going on.
And of course she worked forthe Alan Pinkerton organization.
She was the first womandetective and she's the one that
(06:41):
discovered it and brought it tothe attention of Pinkerton.
And then of course, they hadthat whole scene coming into
Washington DC in disguise, right, and then Pinkerton was
Lincoln's bodyguard at thatpoint, wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, going down.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, he was with him and several other people were
in that train car with him, I dobelieve, including Kate Warren
and Lincoln of course came at adifferent time.
The train that he was supposedto be on was stopped actually in
that area, I think in Maryland,but he wasn't on it, which was
(07:21):
actually quite good and peoplemade fun of him.
After that, of course, thecartoons came out, etc.
But this was such a terribleperiod of time, I mean it's so
hard to understand.
I mean, today, if we take alook at today, we have the aid
of social media, which isbasically super inflamed things,
(07:44):
but in those days you just hadnewspapers and magazines, and
magazines and newspapers werewritten, let's say, like the
Chicago Democrat or the MarylandRepublican, whatever.
Then they would be focused onthat ideology and everything
(08:06):
would be stated to fit thatideology.
Very much the same as we havewith the Internet, but it was
more localized and certainly notas powerfully driven as it is
today.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well, you could argue that that's exactly what we
have on TV news at the moment.
Oh yeah, Every, every which.
There was a time period that itwasn't.
But when you talk about anindependent press, when you
think of that, it didn't reallyexist then and it doesn't really
exist now.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It did for a while yes, Getting back, so I can
correct myself now I want to.
I was at the getting back, so Ican correct myself now I want
to.
I was at the memorial servicefor Arthur Schlesinger.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh right, Arthur.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Schlesinger passed away in 2007 and I was fortunate
to be able to go to it and Iwas able to talk to him on the
phone and talk about Kennedyadministration a little bit and
other presidents and stuff, andat that time there were all
these interesting people thatcame to Cooper Union and spoke,
(09:15):
including Bill Clinton, edwardKennedy, lauren Bacall and a
bunch of other folks.
It was really quite an amazingevent and a bunch of other folks
.
It was really quite an amazingevent.
But Lincoln, getting back tohim, is an amazing subject.
He's so many different faces.
(09:38):
He's covered by so manydifferent opinions.
He's covered by varioushistorians in very different
ways.
You bring up a subject and youcan do pro and con with Lincoln
quite often.
You know, as we were talkingabout before we started this and
I think I'll bring it up rightnow so we can talk about it and
(10:05):
that is the Corwin Amendment of1860.
And of course, that was the13th Amendment to the
Constitution.
It had been approved by theSenate and the Congress and it
was off to the states to approve.
Now the thing is, what was it?
It was basically to recognizeslavery where it existed and to
(10:31):
make irrevocable the removal ofslavery from where it now exists
.
Now Lincoln even mentions thisin his inaugural address, but
he's a little coy on it.
He knew everything about it.
Seward had come and briefed him.
(10:52):
Seward's people came andbriefed him.
Lincoln read everything.
But in his inaugural address hesays I hear there is a new
amendment to the Constitution Idon't know of its name,
something to that basic.
I'm paraphrasing.
(11:13):
And he said, but I am in fullagreement with it, that it
basically makes things right andirrevocable in the area of
servitude.
They didn't use slavery.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right.
So just to quote how they spokeabout it in the original text
of the amendments, is noamendment shall be made to the
Constitution which willauthorize or give the Congress
the power to abolish orinterfere within any state with
the domestic institutionsthereof, including that of
(11:52):
persons held to labor or serviceby the laws of said state.
They never really mentioned theword slavery.
No, no, they spell out theinstitution pretty well.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yes, they do, and it's a fascinating thing.
Had you know, think about this.
Had that gone through a fewmonths earlier, that could have
very well have become the 13thAmendment.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, it had passed four states already.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We had run in.
You know, they came up withthis great solution it will take
a free state with a slave stateright Somewhere along the line,
yeah, and then, as states comein, and then they wouldn't have
a slave state, so, like inKansas' case, they make it a
slave state which is totallydivided, and they have a civil
(12:52):
war itself inside the state ofKansas.
Yes, indeed, and the phrase I'msure you've used before
bleeding Kansas, which is whatit was called at the time where
people were fighting.
So think about this it isn'tjust North and South, it's
individual states that arecoming on at the same time, and
(13:13):
Lincoln is elected president ofthe United States.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, what a mess If you think about it.
I mean familiar everyone what amess you have to think with
Kansas.
The interesting thing I alwayslike to call it to my classes.
Years ago I used to call it thepilot plant for the American
civil war, because basicallythat's what it was.
They had two differentconstitutions in the state and
(13:43):
of course, bleeding Kansas is ais a mess.
There's there's problemsthroughout the state and of
course, bleeding Kansas is amess.
There's problems throughout thecountry and of course a lot of
it goes all the way back to theCompromise of 1850.
And you know you had theFugitive Slave Act.
That was part of that.
That really started theabolitionist movement getting
(14:03):
very strong up in Massachusetts.
And then again you have Douglaswith popular sovereignty.
Instead of for us say, let thestate say, and then that starts
a whole big mess.
And Lincoln gets elected andhe's put into this and he's
(14:27):
ill-equipped.
You know, if you think about it, he really doesn't know what to
do.
And it's interesting to readthe criticisms of Lincoln early
in his administration.
They're saying he's basicallyanother Buchanan, because
Buchanan his statement was thataccording to the Constitution
(14:49):
it's illegal for a state toleave the union.
But it's also against the lawsof the union to force the state
to stay in it, which is justgoing around in a great big
circle.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right, but the theory of the perpetual union, I think
that's Madison right from the.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Federalist Papers, is it?
Yes, so it's a fascinatingthing when you think about it.
So of course, Lincoln's electedand then of course the war
starts.
I mean, the South has secededalready, basically going back to
the end of December they start.
The end of December they start,and then in January and
(15:28):
February come March and April,then we get all the way up into
Virginia and once Virginia goes,there's no stopping the whole
thing.
I think because Virginia wassuch a powerful, powerful state
and of course it had great,great individuals.
Even the commanding general ofthe Union at the time, winfield
(15:51):
Scott, was from Virginia andRobert E Lee was asked by
Lincoln to become thegeneral-in-chief.
And it is a fascinatinginterchange between Scott and
Lee.
There's a fascinatinginterchange between Scott and
Lee where Scott brings Lee tohis office and tells him that he
(16:12):
should become the general andLee basically says I'm going to
resign my commission and jointhe South.
And Scott's words were soprophetic.
He said you're making the worstdecision of your life and he
(16:32):
was.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And of course Well, it's funny Lee's background too.
I mean Lee and Grant.
Both were at the academy, right, both went to the military
academy at West Point.
Of course Lee graduated in thetop of his class and Grant kind
of graduating at the bottom ofhis class.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
But he excelled in art.
Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So it's really interesting.
I mean, they all fought in theSpanish-American War and they
all fought together and all thegenerals from both sides
basically fought together forsuch a long time until the Civil
War.
And you know the battle cry ofVirginia, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
You know, it's an interesting thing that we
haven't really brought up yet.
That is a very important thing,and that is John Brown.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I was thinking of that when we were talking before
, but I didn't want to bring itup in the wrong place and I
don't remember the year it was1859.
Okay, so that's anothercatalyst, like Kansas.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Oh yeah, and the interesting thing is that John
Brown had been involved inKansas, very much so, and he led
revolts and there were fightsand there was murders, and he
was very strongly religious andbasically used religion with his
(18:00):
authoritarianism and wasbasically killing slave owners.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
My father used to say the most dangerous person in
the world is a true believer.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, and of course then he wants to basically
create a slave revolt inHarper's Ferry, and it fails
miserably.
But who is the person in chargeof his capture, custer, arrest
(18:39):
and eventual execution?
Robert Ely.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That was close.
Custer was in there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Custer becomes a big deal in the Civil War indeed.
But John Brown works so hard tocreate himself in an image.
He writes letters constantly,nonstop, gives interviews.
He writes letters constantly,nonstop, gives interviews.
(19:09):
In fact, I have the book here,which I didn't pull out, that
was written with the approval ofthe family and it's the first
book written on him, which isreally quite fascinating, and it
basically calls him a martyr, avictim and a steward for
(19:33):
liberty.
It's really quite fascinatingand that really has a wild
effect, as does the Dred Scottdecision.
All of these various thingsthat take place.
They just, each one is more orless taking a piece of wood and
hammering it in to the countryand separating it further and
(19:53):
further and further apart.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, it's funny.
John Brown always made me thinkof the ancient Greek story of
Oedipus the king.
Right where they want to bury,he wants to bury his enemy.
His wife or whoever it waswants to bury the enemy and he
forbids it.
Right and the fought betweennatural law, the right of anyone
(20:18):
to be buried under the gods atthat point, and the king's edict
nobody's to bury them.
You know, it just reminds me ofthat eternal conflict between
natural law and man-made law.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Agreed.
There's something else I wantto share with you and I'm not
going to use it right now, butI'll just pull it out here.
This thing is a monstrous thing.
This is a scrapbook made duringthe Civil War and it's filled
with newspaper reports and it's.
Where on earth did you get that?
(20:56):
I found it.
I find things all over theplace and it's almost impossible
for me actually.
Let me see if I can do this.
This is actually about Lincoln'sassassination right here.
It's not very easy to see and Iknow I realize we're just
(21:31):
looking through a little camerahere, but this is fascinating
material.
Once again, I'm alwaysinterested in contemporary views
and behind me, behind me on theshelf here, is all bound
Harper's Weeklys between 1850 to1860.
And it talks about and it'sfascinating because you see that
the whole country is slowlybreaking apart.
In each one of these they saythey have a thing called recent
(21:59):
historical events and itbasically chronicles the country
slowly falling apart.
And we could go on for a monthof Sundays on this because
there's so much that took place,but we have to get back to.
Mr Lincoln, Otherwise I'll startan engine about everything here
, the tall guy with the funnyhat yeah, we can't get rid of
(22:25):
some of these books here.
Now.
Lincoln gets elected, and notby a majority, of course.
The Democratic Party splitsthree ways and that guarantees
Lincoln's going to win.
I mean, any time a party splitsmore or less guarantees that
(22:45):
the other will win.
And he is president and thecountry is only half.
In fact, he wasn't even on theballot in the southern states, I
mean, it was only the norththat elected him, basically.
(23:05):
Now, an interesting thing also alot of times we just talk about
slavery, and slavery is a major, major issue.
You know, people always say itwas about states' rights.
Well, let's look at it this wayWeren't various states
approving of slavery and otherstates not?
And so I mean a lot of thearguments about states' rights
were still over slavery, and itwas also over tariffs.
(23:28):
Lincoln was very, very big intothe Henry Clay and the American
plan, which was all aboutinternal improvements and high
tariffs.
And, of course, what was theSouth's major business?
Cotton.
And who were the buyers oftheir cotton?
(23:51):
All of Europe, england, franceand the North as well.
They were producing so much ofthe cotton of the world.
There's an interesting thingthat people often talk about and
I know I'm bouncing around here, sorry about that, please, but
(24:12):
in 1850, we have to remember theCompromise of 1850, which is an
interesting document becausefirst off, the president did not
approve of it, zachary Taylor,and everyone said, my God, it's
(24:32):
going to happen, becauseeveryone was screaming of civil
war.
And then, of course, taylordies and his vice president says
I'll sign it.
You know, I don't want to dealwith this.
And so he does what everyoneelse had done he kicks it down
(24:52):
the road.
But an interesting thing thatdoesn't get brought up very
often is in 1850, cotton,basically for England, was
coming from the south of theUnited States.
It was a very, very strongindustry.
A good deal of it, not all ofit, but a good deal of it.
(25:14):
In the 1850s, india becomes thejewel in the crown for the
United Kingdom.
And what do they produce?
Their cotton.
A good deal of the cotton comesfrom india at that point, and
this changes the perspective, ifyou think about it, in 1850,
(25:38):
had a civil war taken place,there's a very good chance that
england would have come to theaid of the south due to the fact
of the cotton, which was soimportant In 1860, the averages
had changed greatly.
They were still verysympathetic to the South and
built warships for them andstuff like that, but I think
(26:03):
that things changed drasticallybecause of the cotton and the
availability from India.
That had a profound effect thatdoesn't get talked about too
much at all.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
No, you see the opposite being talked about,
that basically, most of the it'sjust agriculture in the South
and it's just cotton built onthe backs of slaves.
Right, it's also tobacco, butoh, tobacco is a big also
tobacco, but mostly cotton.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Tobacco is a big thing too.
Yeah indeed.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Also tobacco.
But you know, until the cottongin too, they were picking the
seeds out by hand.
So it was totally different.
They needed slave labor to dothat, agreed.
And in the north there werefactories, there were cannon
factories, there were otherthings.
And there's that great linefrom Gone with the Wind where
(26:50):
Rob Butler says, when they'retalking about the grandiose
plans of war, and he says, well,there's not a cannon factory in
all the South, and they say,what does that matter to a
gentleman?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And he says it's going to matter to a lot of
gentlemen, and it's true.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So to a lot of gentlemen, yeah, and it's true.
So the North did have that,they had the industry, they had
the Navy for bottled up theirharbors and blockades, right so?
But even so, lee pretty muchout.
(27:26):
Before making a grand oldmistake, he outmaneuvered the
Union Army to the extreme.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Agreed.
I mean, he was a phenomenaltactician and he understood
things very well and he had thecomplete and total support of
his troops I mean almost godliketo his troops Whereas in the
North we had McClellan Right asLincoln used to write McClellan.
(27:58):
If you're not busy with thehorses, can I borrow them?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
That sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Because McClellan.
Basically, I will say thisMcClellan was phenomenal in
training.
He was phenomenal in drilling,phenomenal in education of
warfare, but he was not a very,very effective general in
leading them into battle and healways complained that he didn't
(28:27):
have enough troops and didn'thave enough supplies and didn't
have enough horses and of course, he had three times what Lee
had and basically sat on hisduff for a lot of times.
There was something else Iwanted to mention about that
whole thing at the time.
There's something else I wantedto mention about that whole
(28:49):
thing at the time.
Lincoln really faces an awfullot of issues.
First off, Congress is not insession and Fort Sumter is fired
upon.
Now, just to take a little stepback from that, we have to
remember something that Lincolnneeded to do, and Lincoln was
(29:11):
smart enough to realize heneeded to do.
He needed the South to firefirst.
He needed to have thatsituation.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Sounds like Roosevelt and the Japanese yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Sounds like Roosevelt and the Japanese.
Yeah, there's a fortunateincident that took place a few
months earlier that is so rarelyspoken of, and that was
Buchanan hired a ship toprovision Fort Sumter Right,
(29:51):
it's called the Star of theNorth, the ship.
And the ship went down to FortSumter and was fired upon by the
batteries, damaging the ship.
And the ship never got to thefort and it went back damaged
(30:13):
and Congress went crazy likesaying is this war?
And if you read Harper's, as Isaid that's why I like to have
these wonderful, wonderful booksthe governor of South Carolina
states that if another ship issent to provision the fort,
(30:37):
south Carolina will look at thatas an act of war.
Now, everybody read that.
Lincoln read that.
So what does he do?
He sends ships to the fort.
Not only does he send the ships, but he also sends a direct
(31:02):
telegraph message to thegovernor of South Carolina
telling him he's sending ships.
And what do they do?
They fire.
He gets his first shot and thenthey secede, right, well, they
had already.
They already seceded.
(31:23):
This was April, april of 1861.
And when was the amendment?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
When was the 13th Amendment, the original 13th
Amendment?
When was the Cohen Amendment?
When was the 13th Amendment,the original 13th Amendment?
When was the Cohen Amendment?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That was in going from basically like January into
April of 1861.
That's why it had been approvedby four states already.
The last one was Illinois andit needed to prove it.
(31:57):
The South didn't approve iteither.
Well, they never even.
I don't even think they paidany attention to it.
They were looking at it as afoolish measure.
At this point the damage hadbeen done already.
It was sort of like you know,talking about saving the Titanic
from an iceberg after hittingit.
You know the damage had beendone, and so the war starts and
(32:24):
he has his first shot and heuses that as the North has been
attacked.
And then, of course, he puts ina call for troops, basically
declares war without theapproval of Congress, which is
(32:47):
an interesting thing and ofcourse the war begins and it
doesn't begin well, and ofcourse the war begins and it
doesn't begin well.
As we mentioned before, theNorth had all of the various
industries.
We had something called thefall line that doesn't get
talked about too much.
And what is the fall line?
(33:08):
That is where the ground goesdown and where lots of water
runs down, and that's where youhad lots of water, wheels
running, industry and stuff.
And that was in the north.
It was right against the coastof the Atlantic, but in the
south it's far further inland,which is one of the reasons why
(33:29):
there was so much manufacturingin the area.
Before you had steam power, youhad, you know, water power, and
the fall line was quiteimportant.
And so the war doesn't go toowell for a long time and
Lincoln's kind of terrified.
And then he decides, as the wargoes on, to put out the
(33:59):
proclamation of emancipation, orthe emancipation proclamation,
and of course we could talkabout this for quite a while,
I'm sure because it's afascinating document written by
an extremely clever politician.
Written by an extremely cleverpolitician Because Lincoln was a
(34:21):
master of doublespeak.
He would make something thatisn't much of anything sound
absolutely fabulous andsomething that is something
great and make it seem mediocre.
He was so good at that.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So one thing I always wondered, and maybe you have a
viewpoint on that.
I mean, like we've talked aboutbefore, the Emancipation
Proclamation only frees theslaves in states in rebellion,
right?
So states that weren't inrebellion, all the states in the
North that didn't free theirslaves through executive order,
(35:02):
Was there a thought in his mindthat some states would come back
into the union and not be inrebellion because in, so they
could keep their slaves becausein?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
so they could keep their slaves, that's.
You know, it's an interestingthing with Lincoln and slavery.
I mean, he went back and forth.
He would say what needed to besaid to whomever it needed to be
said to.
Sounds like a politician to me.
Lincoln's a politician first.
We always have to remember that.
(35:36):
We often think of him as astatesman, but he was a
politician first.
That proclamation which was awar measure, by the way, and
pushed, interestingly enough ithas roots going all the way back
to John Quincy Adams, which isreally interesting.
And the fascinating thing isthat William Seward was a good
(36:09):
friend of John Quincy Adams andbasically supported Adams and
was the biographer of Adamsafter his death.
And Adams was very adamant onthe fact that there would be a
civil war.
And he says when that timecomes to free the slaves, you
use the War Powers Act.
(36:31):
And that's exactly what this is.
You know, it's an interestingthing.
I do believe that Seward hadsuch a profound influence on
Lincoln.
And Lincoln was the great poet,you know.
(36:53):
He could take something andwrite it beautifully and had
amazing ideas.
But I think Seward basicallywould hone things a little bit
and say this is how you do it,Because he was a very great
politician and he was one of themasters in the Senate.
In the Senate and using JohnQuincy Adams' recommendation for
(37:19):
the War Powers Act is apowerful and useful thing,
because it basically says wewill seize your property, and
that means your guns, yourequipment and your slaves.
You call them property.
We will confiscate it.
And of course, that War PowersAct does not affect the North
(37:46):
and nor does it affect theborder states which had slaves.
He didn't dare do that becausehe knew if he did it for the
entire north, they wouldprobably join the south, because
they were fighting oversomething they weren't really
fighting over slavery, they werefighting over union.
(38:07):
And one of the interestingpoints of that proclamation is
it was only in effect as long asthe war was in effect.
So if you think about it, bythe time of the end of the war
it's no longer in effect, whichdoesn't mean much at this point.
(38:32):
But if you think about it,until the 13th Amendment, number
two, comes out in December of1865, slavery was basically
legal again, Right, which is aninteresting thing.
And New Jersey was the laststate to finally give up on
(38:53):
slavery.
Right, and New Jersey was thelast state to finally give up on
Slickford.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I think we had that conversation before the
Mason-Dixon line, where theslavery line was at, and the
bottom of New Jersey as well asbottom of the parts of
Pennsylvania were below thatline, and there's a famous law
review article that says therewere 18 registered slaves in
southern Jersey at the time ofthe Civil War, amendment 13th
(39:19):
1865.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, here's a fascinating booklet also as well
.
This is the census of 1860.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Wow, and it's fascinating reading because it's
basically the time of the CivilWar and what's going on in
various states and the thoughtsthat were going on in various
states and whatever how theydescribe people, because I've
(39:53):
seen those in the South how theydescribe these other persons,
as you may say, and the namesthey use, and a lot of different
ways of characterizing humanbeings, whether they were slaves
or others.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh, it's really kind of horrid.
I mean it's awful, but theCivil War goes on, which we can
kind of fly by, because if westart dissecting things we'll be
talking until tomorrow and thensome.
Yeah, it's a fascinating,fascinating subject.
(40:35):
This is something else I wantedto pull out just to show you.
This is an individual, and onceagain it's a little hard to see
, I guess, but this comes out in1863.
This is a congressman from Ohio, the Honorable CL Valendigham,
(41:05):
quite a name, and he is totallyagainst Lincoln's actions.
He is for basically letting theSouth go, he is pro-union but
he's also anti-civil war andLincoln has him removed from the
(41:28):
country.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Now, that sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
It's a very interesting story.
And Valdeum is basically theysend 180 troops to get him from
his house and it's under thecontrol of General Burnside and
he's sent over to the south, butthe south says we don't want
him, and so then he's sent toCanada.
(41:56):
He becomes a man without acountry.
An interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
So when did and I don't know this, I'm sure you do
when did Alexander deTocqueville come to America and
write his book?
What was it On America?
I mean, it had to be in themiddle of the 18th century
somewhere, whether it was the1840s.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
What was it in the 1830s 1840s, I think?
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah, it had to be around that period, and him
being a French aristocrat, hewas right.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
How his views on slavery, I just don't remember.
And I read a lot of theTocqueville but I don't really
remember.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
It's fascinating reading what he sees.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
On America.
I can't remember the name ofthe book.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think, I think and I might be wrong here and I'm
sorry, but I think it'ssomewhere in the 1840s, 1850s.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
He died like 1860 or something like that, so it had
to be before that.
Yes, sorry, I digress again.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
My limited knowledge of things.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Oh no, you have a lot of knowledge.
You know so much about thisstuff, and the law of course,
but this whole thing, by Val andDigum.
This is a fascinating chapterin itself, and it would be fun
to do a talk about him sometime.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Okay, I'm in.
I'm always in, I never say no.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Now, of course, these are things for me.
I always liked, as I said, Ilike to look at contemporary
writings and stuff, and I've gotvarious issues of things like
this.
These are all, once again,unreadable.
Let me open this toward thefront.
These are from the Departmentof State and these are all
(44:09):
various messages and statementsfrom the president from Seward
to various countries.
During the Civil War, Sewardwas Secretary of State, yes, A
very powerful Secretary of State.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
And were they adversaries originally Seward
Chase?
Were they adversaries beforeSeward Chase?
Were they adversaries beforeLincoln really started?
Indeed.
They were all adversaries.
I know Chase was right.
He was from New York Seward.
And there's a third person Ican't think of who it was,
Doesn't matter, I'm justthinking off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Chase.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Seward and the rest.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And the rest.
And the rest I can't think ofeither, but those I mean.
Chase was really like he was sohot and heavy to become
president.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Lincoln did the smart thing and brought all his
enemies in.
You know he had the godfatherthing Keep your friends close
and your enemies closer.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, as Harry S Truman said, I'd rather have him
pissing in the tent instead ofoutside of the tent.
Right.
But Chase never let up on thatpresidential ambition and he was
secretary of the treasury,Famous for a couple of things.
(45:40):
First off, he's the fellow thatputs in gods we trust on our
coinage.
That comes from him because hewas a very pious man and he felt
that that should be on thecoinage and Lincoln was too busy
dealing with the war and it'son the two-cent coin to begin
with and eventually it works itscoin to begin with and
eventually it works its way toother coins and finally, in 1956
(46:01):
, 57, on our paper money.
It took a while.
We trusted them with coins butwe didn't trust them with paper.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
What about many as one?
Are you planning to assume?
When did that come on, do youknow?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I think that goes back to almost near the founding
.
I think, yeah, I would think.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You know, with the national seal.
Yeah, I mean when I said to youbefore, sometimes when I think
of Lincoln, I think ofWashington, because Washington
was just so brilliant of ofhandling things and Washington
also was extremely tall,especially in his era.
Being tall was so unusual andhe had a really tall horse, so
(46:50):
he was larger than life.
Um, he had a big horse and hewas very tall.
So when he spoke, scared theshit out of people is what he
did.
And I think Lincoln had thattoo.
Only he spoke in like parablesor something.
Lincoln was a little bit toldstories and when you walked away
you were like was he talkingabout me, you know, kind of
(47:12):
thing.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Lincoln was interesting in that way.
But talking about Washington,there's another thing about
Washington and it goes all theway back to the Roman era, but
during the time of thedeclaration before he was in the
Continental Congress buteventually left.
But he had the biggest calvesin Congress.
(47:36):
The size of your calves wasalso a sign of your integrity
and people would always display.
If you notice so often you'llsee the calf displayed in images
.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And the size of the calf meant everything.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Washington's calves were enormous and he was just a
big guy, you know.
He was tall and kind of largeand he stood out in the crowd
and, to a degree, very much likeLincoln, he has gone through a
pasteurization process wherewe've kind of removed but he had
(48:19):
a little BT Barnum in him too.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You know like he had his uniforms custom made, even
though he wasn't the head of theContinental Army in general,
and he used to wear them to theContinental Congress or whatever
.
When he wear them to theContinental Congress or whatever
, when he I mean it was a littlebit of like we talked about
Edison in our other podcast alittle PT Barnum Lincoln had it,
(48:43):
Washington had it.
It's that cult of personalityis really what it is.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Of course, washington was in Congress saying me I
mean I got it.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I have a horse already.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You don't have to buy me a uniform.
You know, and you know.
The person that does nominatehim, of course, is John Adams.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
And, of course, washington becomes the star,
much more than the star thanAdams ever envisioned.
So getting on with Lincoln.
Lincoln, of course.
Yeah, I can get sidetracked.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
I'll watch it real quick.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
It's easy to do because there's so many stories
and there's so much fascinatingstories about Lincoln, about
every president actually.
But in the Civil War, and bythe time we get to Gettysburg
which is to some people, andit's interesting you look at
(49:49):
some historians and somehistorians say that the changing
point of the Civil War wasGettysburg.
Some say it wasn't, some say itwas 1864.
But I kind of think that Lee,who was not at all in good
health, he had a heart attack Ididn't realize that and also he
(50:10):
was suffering from severedysentery and also had a I
forget, was it a displaced armor something from falling off
his horse.
He was not in good shape.
He rode to Gettysburg riding ona donkey.
Okay, things had changed quitea bit.
He was not riding on the horsebecause he had to stay low until
(50:34):
he could get off, because hewas not feeling well and he was
constantly running to take careof dysentery.
So he wasn't at 100% and youknow, when we get to the point
of Pickett's Charge, which it'squestionable whether he was
working on all cylinders there Imean that was just a
(50:57):
destructive thing.
And you really get that when youwalk through Gettysburg and you
walk to where that fence is.
And I was very fortunate to betaken there by a phenomenal
historian and they sat down andexplained for three days.
(51:20):
We did it, we did Gettysburgand it was a tour de force.
It was fascinating for me.
And he said that they reachedthat point where they were about
1,000 feet from the Union andthey had all their cannon lined
up and in those cannons were themini ball canisters double
(51:46):
charged, and then they fired andhe said all you saw was smoking
shoes.
Just wipe them out.
It's horrific.
I mean it was an amazing thing.
But the Civil War goes on andfinally the Civil War ends more
(52:08):
or less with Lee surrenderingbecause they had nothing.
Grant was the general and ofcourse Grant was called the
butcher.
People at the time were callinghim the butcher because he just
kept throwing men at Lee.
(52:28):
He just had an endless reserve.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Total war.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
Yeah, total war, yeah , total war.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
It turned out, sherman said just burn it all
down.
I don't know what to tell you.
As wide as you can make it, asfar as you can go.
When you get to the ocean, youcan turn around, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
That's true, war is hell and that it was.
He made it hell and that wastotal war and Lee eventually
surrenders in Appomattox.
And Lincoln visited the SouthReal quick.
(53:10):
Went to the State House inVirginia.
Went to the statehouse inVirginia, went to the
president's desk JeffersonDavis' desk who had vanished and
sat down, asked for a glass ofwater.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
That is the end of part one of our video on the
Lincoln and his assassination.
Be tuned to part two.
If it's not already available,be available very shortly, in
the next day or so.
All right, thank you forlistening and please like and
subscribe.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.