September 18, 2024 • 50 mins
In Part 2 of the 1865 conversation with Abraham Lincoln, he explains why total devastation of the South was the only way to win the war. He also shares several of his plans to free the slaves including moving them to … Liberia? And he’ll explain why breaking American laws was necessary during war.
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John King's episode on the Calling History Podcast was nothing short of captivating. With 25 years of experience portraying Abraham Lincoln, John seamlessly brought the 16th President to life, offering listeners an authentic glimpse into Lincoln’s journey from a humble log cabin to the White House. As a retired teacher, his engaging storytelling style makes complex historical events easy to understand while also being entertaining. His depth of knowledge and dedication to portraying Lincoln using stories to change hearts and minds is masterful.
He has brought Mr. Lincoln to life for school students, historical groups, civic groups, churches, clubs, a Law Day dinner, birthday parties, Civil War rededications, festivals, and parades. You can reach John at jwking329@yahoo.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
Welcome back to parttwo of Abraham Lincoln.
In the last episode, we ended withLincoln talking about how he would
have to take power from the southbecause his generals had informed
him that without total devastation,they would never stop fighting.
In this episode, he's going todiscuss the different plans that
could result in freeing the slaves.
(00:48):
Although he was not an abolitionist.
He knew that slavery was wrong.
A little later in the podcast.
We'll talk about why it was necessaryto break some significant laws to
keep the United States together.
I was not an abolitionist.
Mrs.
Lincoln was Mary Todd and, but thethought of the abolitionists from
day one was to free the slaves.
(01:10):
But if I had done that,what would I have done?
I would have had.
The freed slaves would come tothe north looking for a job.
And whose job would they take?
They would take your dad's, yourbrother's, your uncle's job.
And that would createmore problems Then solve.
(01:33):
So when the war became so bad, I needto find a way of, in other words,
taking the strength from the South.
I decided to do theemancipation proclamation.
And what that did was free the slaves inthe territory and rebellion as president.
I have the right to take property fromanyone that is doing a treasonous act.
(01:57):
So the Emancipation Proclamation said theareas in rebellion, which would be most
of the South, but not western Virginia,because they were not in rebellion.
And therefore I did not take their slaves.
Natchez, I did not take their slavesbecause they were owned by people in
New England, in the northern states.
(02:18):
So the Emancipation Proclamationdid not free all slaves.
It freed slaves from thestates that were in rebellion.
Territories that were in rebellion.
Territories, right.
Because if you divide Virginiaup, you got the mountain people
and they weren't in rebellion.
Okay, I'm with you.
Right, right.
So there were, I believe, 30 countiesin Virginia, of Western Virginia, that
(02:46):
were fighting to stay with the Union.
And eventually they became a state.
And of course that'sanother story in itself.
But , that was what I did , withthe Emancipation Proclamation.
Let me back up.
, there's a couple things that, that yousaid that I'd like some clarification on.
, . , two things.
Number one, it took twoyears just to catch up.
(03:08):
Considering that thewealth was in the south.
The food was in the South, and nowall the talent was in the South.
Every, all of the wisdom fromWest Point is in the South.
And then basically, as far as from amilitary standpoint, you're kind of
left with the scraps of what was left.
Is that correct, first of all?
(03:28):
Yes, and it's not that thereweren't great generals.
They just didn't fight.
And McClellan was probablyone of the best generals.
The problem is he would not fight.
When it was time to go in Peninsula Fairand others, he always said he didn't have
enough horses, he didn't have enough men.
He said that he was always outnumbered.
(03:50):
Someone asked me once, how manymen does the Confederacy have?
And I said , a million , and hesays, well, how could that be?
And I says, well, because every time wefight a battle, the generals say that
we're outnumbered three to four to one.
And if we have four hundredthousand men, then they have a
million, two hundred thousand.
(04:11):
How can you say McClellanwas a good general?
If he didn't want to fight.
I mean, I understand you couldsay that he was a good man and he
cared about his soldiers, but howcan you say he was a good general?
to be the most frustrating situationof all, a general that wouldn't fight.
Oh, it was for me.
It was terribly frustrating.
And at times I said, I would youloan me your men just so I can
(04:36):
see whether they can fight or not?
And I called him his bodyguards.
I went one time to his house.
The try and convince him that we should,get out there and fight in and I pushed
him when he did the peninsula affair.
He really didn't want to do itbecause he was bound and determined.
He was outnumbered to the one.
(04:56):
He had 100, 000 men and hethought Lee had 200, 000.
Lee had about 80, 000 andso he outnumbered him.
If you just fought like he had bettermen and he could beat him, he would have.
. I don't think he was a coward.
It's two, two factors maybe.
One, he loved his men.
Because if you're going to fight abattle, you bring your officers together.
(05:18):
You tell them what you're goingto do and what each one has to do.
And when they go out, you know that somepeople are not going to live through it.
And, he loved his men so much.
He didn't want to come back in the eveningand know that one of his generals and a
thousand or two thousand or ten thousandof his men had died during that day.
And therefore he madeexcuses rather than fighting.
(05:41):
One time I was so frustrated with it,I went out to his camp and I wanted to
talk to him and encourage him to fight.
And he wasn't there.
And there was a carpenter there.
And he said, Mr.
President, can you help me?
I says, what?
Well, what's the problem?
And he said, well, General McClellanasked me to build him a privy.
(06:03):
And he says he did.
Well, what's the problem?
And he says, well, I don't know whetherto build him a one hole or two hole.
Well, I imagine , if you build hima two hole, by the time he made
up his mind, it would be too late.
Oh, so where does Grantcome into the picture?
? Well, Grant was successful at Vicksburg,the day after Gettysburg, and it looked
(06:25):
very promising, and he was victorious.
So I finally, after I'd gone through awhole slew of generals , and of them were
able to do more than what McClellan did.
And I was looking for someone thatwould be successful in coming,
so I brought him to the east todo what he had done in the west.
(06:47):
And when I did that, I had a group ofPeople from the community come in and
say, , you can't bring General Grantto the east because you just can't.
And I said, well, what's the problem?
He says, well, he drinks too much.
And I says, he does.
What does he drink?
And he says, well, I don't know.
He says, would you go andfind out what he drinks?
(07:11):
And I will get a barrel ofit, give it to every one of
my generals because he fights.
And so when I brought him to the east.
, there were people thatwere apprehensive about it.
He did not want to be in Washingtonas other military leaders had
been because he wanted to be outwith the men he wanted to fight.
(07:35):
And he was what I call a bulldog.
The first battle that the majorbattle was the wilderness , and
they fought for 7 days.
They had tremendous losses inthe public was just thought
he was getting slaughtered.
And when they were done, he told them inthe pack up and we're going after Lee and.
(07:56):
The soldiers kind of looked at eachother and said, this is different
because we're not going to go backand just practice being soldiers.
And he said, let's go, becauseI believe the men wanted to
fight and they wanted to win.
And they knew, even thoughMcClellan may have loved them, they
weren't fighting and winning.
(08:18):
And when Grant did that, he went andeventually cornered Lee, because he
knew Lee was the object, not Richmond.
And he was able to do at St.
Petersburg the same as he did at Richmond.
at Vicksburg, and that he surroundedthem, cornered them, and basically
(08:39):
starved them out, and kept them fromgetting their supplies, which led to
the surrendered Appomattox Ford house.
Grant, so what was the relationshiplike between you and Grant?
It was very good.
I told Grant, do what you're doing,and he was successful at what he did.
I knew that if I tried a couple oftimes, I tried to tell him what to do,
(09:04):
or I told him, I don't think it'll work.
He went ahead and didwhat he normally does.
He was successful and Icomplimented on what he did.
And I says, keep doing whatyou're doing and just keep going.
Kept my hands off ofgiving him instructions.
With McClellan, I had to push him,or I had to prod him, I had to
(09:25):
try and talk him into doing it.
With Grant, once I realized hewas going after Lee, and he wasn't
going to stop until it's done.
Even if he lost a large number ofmen, or things weren't going great.
He just, he was not going to give up.
Describing grant as abulldog seems very accurate.
(09:45):
I'm wondering about these losses though.
I mean, grant is driving into thesebattles to win at all costs, and Lee
seems like he , had the same approach.
Whatever it took as these losseswere mounting, you had the.
You had to be gettingpressure from all sides.
(10:06):
You had to be hearing from theabolitionists, from the people that wanted
war, from the people that didn't want war.
How did you manage to satisfy everyone?
I didn't.
That was a problem.
Everyone when it wasn'tgoing well had a solution.
, and McClellan was one of them,just let him go, and let them have
(10:27):
it, or come to some solution thatthat will bring the war to an end,
because as the body count mountsthe country is getting really upset.
When it comes to 1864, when I needto run again, it looks as though
I have no chance of winning.
(10:47):
And several thingshappened because of that.
One is that I took a piece of paper,and I folded it over so the blank
part is showing to my cabinet.
And I said, each one ofyou needs to sign this.
And they said, what is it?
And I says, just sign it.
And what it was, is our resignation.
And they understoodthat, or figured it out.
(11:08):
And I thought that if we lose,why would we continue fighting?
For Just we would resign, let McClellan,which was a candidate that was running
against us and basically his platformwas let South go, About that time
General Sherman from Ohio had thisidea that if we would go into the South
(11:32):
and go fast enough, in other words,not worry about a supply line, but
forage for what you need to surviveon, and just devastate the South.
He knew that unless you punishthem , to such an extent,
that they would not survive.
That they lose the will, the fightthat . It'll go on for years.
(11:54):
So he goes and divides theSouth and just destroys Georgia
and he didn't exactly like me, but yethe was the one most responsible for me
winning the election because withouthis success, , in the South as he
did I would not have been reelected.
Secondly, because of that, the Republicanparty was looking to put someone
(12:18):
else on the ballot other than me.
And so I looked at how am I going toget enough strength so I can be on the
ballot, because my thought is you can't.
Change horses in the middle of the stream.
And so what I did wasformed the union party.
(12:39):
It was kind of a branch of the Republicanparty and I chose or we chose instead
of Hannibal Hamlin as my vice president,the first term we chose Johnson.
And he had been a governor ofTennessee just before the war, he
decided he wanted to be a senator andthey didn't want him to be a senator,
(13:04):
but they also were, didn't want himto be a a governor again, but he had
people loved him enough that theywere afraid not to make him a senator.
So he's the only senator from the statesthat seceded that actually sat there
when their state had left the union.
And then I, because he had been formergovernor, I appointed him as a military
(13:26):
governor of Tennessee with the taskof keeping Tennessee, even though they
voted to secede from actually leaving.
I'll just keep them in the union.
And then when I needed a vicepresident because one, he was
a Democrat, which would get mevotes that , I would need to win.
And he also had kept Tennesseein the union and he was the
(13:51):
person that would be, you.
Politically, the best personto be the vice president.
Now.
He wasn't the best vice president.
Matter of fact, when we went tobe inaugurated one story is that
he was on a lot of medication.
The other story is, which mayhave been the real one, is that
(14:12):
he had been drinking too much.
And therefore he was installed asvice president, not in the public.
But then again, these peoplethat are drinking, you're
recruiting them now after grants.
Oh, of course.
And the reason for that is itwas more of a joke than anything,
but it, I mean, if you fight abattle and 10, 000 of your men.
(14:36):
How do you handle that?
Yeah, seriously, you havea couple drinks for sure.
Yeah, the stories of Grantdrinking a lot are exaggerated.
He did drink, yes.
, And I believe he did it because hewas devastated by the number of men
that he had lost that he cared about.
(14:56):
And I think you have tounderstand what do you do?
You don't, I mean, you celebrate avictory, but the cost of that victory
is one that creates a lot of sorrow.
Sure, you need something to dole yoursenses because, I mean, the strongest
person that has ever walked the planetwalks onto a battlefield and sees
screaming, dying people and, , theydon't just ignore it, , you feel that.
(15:21):
Yeah.
Let me ask you, okay, you werejust talking about the re election
and concerning the re election in1864, there's something that I've
never been able to figure out.
So, the North and the South arestill divided, and it's time now to
vote for a President of the UnitedStates, and even though the South
(15:44):
has seceded, in your mind, it'sstill the United States of America.
You're just trying to hold it together.
They think they're another country,you're thinking not so much.
This is what I think,and tell me if I'm wrong.
So, my question is, when it comestime to vote for who's the president,
(16:05):
, all the people in the North voted.
Were there votes in the Southfor a Northern president?.
Well, when they were not in theunion, no, they would not vote . So
during that presidential election,there were no votes from the South.
They were only votes from the North.
, and when you had said McClellanran against you, we're talking
(16:27):
about George McClellan, theman who didn't fight, right?
Right.
Yeah, the one I fired twice, right?
Okay.
So now he's running, right?
it looked like he was going to win becausethe people were upset about the war.
By that time, there were probably500, 000 or more people had lost their
(16:49):
lives on both sides because we'reall Americans and , there wasn't a
family that wasn't affected by it.
And yet.
Families were divided on whether theywere for the north or the south, and
it was just a tremendous drain on thecountry, plus normal life and normal
(17:12):
activities were very difficult, becausemain working people on a farm, if they're
out fighting, who's going to help them?
Take care of the crops and planting.
It's either the women thatare left or the young ones.
And it was a real challenge.
Yeah.
President Lincoln give me a littlelatitude to ask a question that's gonna
(17:33):
sound very insulting, but it's justcuriosity and I've always wondered this.
When you are elected president,the South believes that you
are going to abolish slavery.
And Immediately, , some ofthe states started seceding.
Trying to secede beforeyou're actually in office.
(17:57):
First of all, is that correct?
Yes.
Okay.
So, the whole nation, this division,was it just a powder keg waiting for
a spark and the first president thatcame in that had any thoughts of maybe
abolition, , would've lit that powder kegand you just happened to be that person?
(18:19):
Is your election partially responsiblefor the beginning of the war?
Probably correct on both.
Because my campaign against StephenDouglas, when we debated, was
stopping the spread of slavery.
They interpreted thatas eliminating slavery.
(18:39):
This is obviously a bigchanging point in your life.
There are going to be people thathaven't picked up a book in many
years, but they love listening to you.
Can you tell us whoStephen Douglas is exactly?
Stephen Douglas , came from a very wealthyfamily, well educated active in politics.
He would call the little giant.
He was five foot four, I believe it was,but not very tall but a very stout man.
(19:05):
Very strong voice, very goodspeaker and had held many
offices, state and nationally.
He was a U.
S.
Senator when I ran against him in
he was well heeled.
The interesting thing is that when Mrs.
Lincoln Mary Todd came to town and herward was Nyan Edwards with his father
(19:34):
would have been a governor of Illinois.
came with the idea of finding a husbandbecause her older sister was married to
Nyan Edwards, Elizabeth, and then, Anothersister came and went to one of their
parties and met someone and got married.
Now it was Mary's turn to get married,and she comes and at the parties, the
(19:59):
dances that they had, Stephen Douglas wasthere, as well as myself and other people.
Eligible back bachelors and wouldattend and dance with her and like,
and he got to liking her quite well.
Now, Mary had the idea that somedayshe'll be a president's wife and she
told her people her family and the like.
(20:19):
And of course, you can imagine theywould say, oh, yeah, but she really
believed that and she shared it.
Well, Stephen Douglas knew this andhe proposed to her and when he did.
Mary said, well, I will be a president'swife someday, but not as Mrs.
Douglas, because you'renot presidential material.
(20:41):
Now, Mary had a reputationof being outspoken, a tomboy
and a number of other things.
, so.
Douglas was turned down by her, yet hecame from this very wealthy family, very
rich political background, that would meanthat he would be the next, President of
(21:03):
the United States, when I debated him.
And because we knew each other, andwe, as young men in Springfield, as
it's growing, we would get together anddiscuss political things and the like.
We would have debates and other, justwhat, Men in a community would do
(21:26):
and we knew each other very well andwe had debated each other many times
and his reaction was with Lincoln.
I'm okay until he startstelling his stories and, but
he did not want to debate me.
So , when he will go out and talk togroups about being Senator of Illinois,
(21:49):
I would go afterwards before theywould leave and say, Hey, come here.
Let me tell you what I think ortomorrow at such and such a time, let's
get together again and we'll do it.
And I did this enough times thathe decided he would have a debate.
If I had not debated him, Ibelieve he would have been the
16th president of the United States
(22:10):
.Yeah, because I heard these debates were a spectacle.
I heard they were drawing huge crowds.
It was like a prize fight match.
It was.
It was.
And we would speak forthree and a half hours.
We'd speak for an hour anda half, and then an hour.
And that's the way it was divided up.
Each debate of the seven would rotatewho was first and who was second, and you
(22:32):
would have a chance to go back and forth.
And they were so contested thatat times, Stephen Douglas was so
upset with me one time that hesaid, I believe you're two faced.
He didn't know what else to say.
So he said, I believe you're two faced.
And everybody laughed.
They just thought it was really funny.
So when I got up, And said with him, Isaid, well, , if I had another face, do
(22:57):
you think I would be wearing this one?
And then everybody laughed.
So I got the last laugh on it.
And it went on that wayall during the debates.
And another time he got upset withme and he says, well, Lincoln and it
wasn't the, you weren't considered tobe a great person if you drank a lot,
(23:17):
and particularly if you sold liquor.
So he said, well, Ezra Lincoln,when he had a store, he had
a license to sell liquor.
And everyone laughed because that wasnot something that would be admirable.
And so when it was my turn, I said,well, , Judge Douglas says that
(23:37):
I had a store and sold liquor.
And yes, I did have a store andwe did have a liquor license.
And one of my best customerswas Stephen Douglas.
And then I, I followed it up by,I don't have the store anymore,
but he still frequents placeswhere he can get the liquor.
(23:58):
Oh, man.
So we went back and forth andhad some good discussions.
Well, because Douglas was so well known,and the reason I emphasize that, because
he was so well known, the papers cameout and the people came out because they
wanted to hear, the next president, andthey recorded everything that he said,
(24:21):
but they also wrote down what I said.
And what I basically said was a man.
That raises a crop by the sweat of hisbrow, should benefit from that effort.
And the people of theNorth re related to that.
And they understood that I wassaying that the slave raises crops
(24:44):
but he doesn't benefit from it.
And because of that, I wasencouraged to run for president
after I lost the Senate race.
And because of that.
They thought that I , wouldabolish slavery, where in reality,
I was not an abolitionist, asI believe I indicated before.
(25:05):
If we free the slaves, whereare they going to find a job?
Yeah.
I believe in, and it was another story,but when, with the Western Virginia,
when they became a state, one of thethings that I did several months
before, after they had, wrote up aconstitution, they wrote up all the
(25:26):
things that they wanted to do, CongressAccepted them as becoming a state, but
I said that they could not come in asa slave state because of Virginia was
a slave state and they had slaves.
They had to have a planfor gradual emancipation.
And Senator Wiley came up with the plan.
(25:50):
And what his plan was that everyslave child owned by those in western
Virginia had a certain date frombirth to 10 years old would be free.
And then there would be another datewhere those from 10 to 19 would be free.
(26:11):
, in other words, it was gradual.
It wasn't all at once.
And what would happen with that is that,okay, you own all these slaves, and you
see these young children that are born,and the young ones are going to be free.
When the war is over, what I woulddo is let the South know that this
(26:33):
is their labor force and that whatthey need to do Is educate their
slaves, their former slaves, they needto, continue to have them on their
plantations , so they can survivebecause they don't know how to survive
on their own and that you work with them.
Now, I sent a letter to the South.
(26:55):
Encouraging this towardthe end of the war.
I said, I need your help.
What I need for you to do is to startschools and educate your slaves.
Do not let the North come down and do it.
Don't let Stevens and Sumnercome down and do that.
(27:17):
And in addition to that, you needto Give them a path to citizenship.
In addition to that, you need totake some of your common ground land.
And give it to the slavesso that they,, former slaves,
so that they are your equal.
And with that, and there is aletter that I wrote to Southerners
(27:42):
that expresses that exact thing.
Because Sumner and Stevenswanted to come down.
And the method that they ended up usingwould not be one that would be favorable
to them because they want to punish you.
Well, in the South, they had toreceive a letter like that and
think, are you out of your mind?
We're going to educate them.
(28:02):
There are equals.
That is exactly the oppositedirection they were going.
And, but yet, if they had done that,not all slave drivers were terrible and,
but not everyone would,wants to hear that.
, if you have a slave that you trainto be a blacksmith and he takes care
of your horses he's a special person.
You have a slave that serves you dinnerevery night, that's a special person.
(28:28):
And.
You build relationships with them.
Now, but you can't build a goodrelationship because they're not
equal to you because they're property.
But yet, with some of them, therewere some unique situations.
I've had so many of these conversationsnow, and I've spoken with Grant,
and one of the people that Ispoke with is Jefferson Davis.
(28:52):
And Jefferson Davis was, it washis opinion that you made this
war About slavery when in factit wasn't about slavery at all.
It was about the South's legalright to secede from the union.
And he had a pretty strong case that theSouth legally had the right to do that.
(29:16):
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, he also said the reason theyleft, if it wasn't for slavery, it was
because they did not have the rightsthat they felt they should have.
And . I would have talked to himhad he sat down with me and would
have said, okay, who was thepresident when all of these things
(29:40):
are going on before I was elected?
You have Buchanan was a Democrat.
Many of your people, in other words, weresenators in House of Representatives,
and both were run by Democrats.
So you have.
All houses, in other words, Congressand the President are Democrats.
(30:01):
If you have all these issues, whydidn't you follow the procedure that is
expected to happen in Congress, whereyou talk about problems, you address
those problems, you find answers to them.
And if you had done that, if it'sstates rights is the reason you left,
and not slavery, Then why didn't youaddress them and find answers for them?
(30:23):
And since you didn't do that,now you're saying it is slavery.
I never said the freed the slaves,as I indicated a few minutes ago,
because I was not an abolitionist.
I, what I did when I had the opportunityto address it, I said that you need to
come up with, and I didn't come up witha plan, but I said you need to come up
(30:45):
with a plan of a gradual emancipation.
Many of the slave owners treatedtheir slaves very well, not all of
them, , but even with that, you still,at the end of the day, you couldn't go
where you wanted to, when you wantedto, the same as those that are free.
So slavery is wrong.
(31:07):
Was it your intention at somepoint to send the slaves to Liberia
?Is Well, early on, there were a couple things, and that would be one
of them, I'll share the other one also.
I called together Frederick Douglass andother , freed men, that had bought their
freedom . I called them together and Isaid, when this is all over, because
(31:32):
the common understanding at that timeis that the slaves were not allowed to
be educated, therefore they weren't.
Their lifestyle wasdifferent than everyone else.
And I said, because of that, you would be.
Probably happier if you had yourown colony or own place to live,
(31:54):
and a suggestion was that eithersetting up a colony in Africa, where
we'd help you with that, or offof Panama, setting something up.
Right away, they jumped all over me.
They says, wait a minute, we Are thegeneration was born here in America.
We weren't born in Africa.
(32:14):
Why would we want to go back to Africa?
We're Americans.
We want to stay here.
We want to be part of this great country.
And it kind of blew me away.
And I, and it was shocking to mebecause I most certainly misread what
I thought would be a good solution.
(32:36):
Now, another solution thatI tried is I convinced
legislature to stop the fighting.
87 days and because each day that wefight the war, it costs us 3 million.
So the 3 million times 87.
(32:59):
It's a hundred and seventysome million dollars.
We take that money instead offighting and we buy your slaves.
We pay you for yourslaves and they're free.
Now you pay them.
And it was not accepted.
So I tried every way I could to preventthe war from occurring and finding
(33:22):
a way, a solution to the problem.
If the South had just satdown with me , and talked.
and work with me, I believewe could have , avoided the
conflict that we ended up having.
You know, I'm just being the devil'sadvocate based on what you just said
there, but my understanding that theSouth did put some sort of compromise
(33:46):
in front of you that you rejected.
Is that incorrect?
? , the only compromise I can recall was theone where they would keep their slaves.
Right.
And then they would comeback into the union.
And when we had the meeting, itwas on a boat and we talked about
(34:07):
them coming back into the union.
But the slaves would be free.
I see.
And there was no compromise on that.
I see.
So basically we're saying, yeah, look,why don't we just find middle ground
where we get exactly everything we want.
. So, I couldn't have more Respect foryou as a president and in history your
(34:27):
reputation is, if you even understood howhighly you are regarded by , all future
Americans, it is as high as it could be.
And yet there are those that wouldsay in your time that you stretched
the legalities of your office,or the limits of your office.
An example of that would be whenyou suspended habeas corpus.
(34:50):
What can you tell me about that?
Well, I had someone introduced to me thatwas a legalist, knew the law very well.
And suggested that in wartime,there are things that you have to
do for the sake of saving the Union.
And that means that you breakwhat would be the normal rules.
(35:15):
If you follow the normal rulesand allow people to debate in the
talk and give their views and stirup trouble, then We, as a nation,
will not survive this conflict.
Therefore, those that are talkingout, they have to be stopped.
Otherwise, we cannot survive.
(35:37):
And because of that, I put them in prison.
In particular, the governor of Maryland.
I was advised to tell him that ifhe interfered with the soldiers
coming through their state,that he would be thrown in jail.
And he wanted Maryland to withdraw,but I need to keep him in the Union.
(35:59):
And I threatened to throw himin jail if he persisted , in
acting in that particular manner.
And.
Non war times, it was illegal, butto save the Union, I had no choice.
If I didn't do that, wewould not be talking today.
(36:19):
Yeah, it's just like Grant,winning at all costs.
I'm guessing where Grant and his armywere probably destroying railroads.
Well, nobody wants to destroy a railroad.
, but at the same time, you have to doWhat you have to do to win the battle.
Otherwise, you have nothing at the end.
So I guess that makesa lot of sense to me.
. When Sherman was going through the SouthHe had lived there for a few years before
(36:43):
the war, and he knew the South, he knewthe people, he knew what they valued and
what they didn't, and he knew that unlessit is totally devastation, they will not
give up, and he was willing to do that.
Without him, what would have happenedis the North would finally have
(37:03):
given up and let the South go.
Whether that would have been abetter answer or not, I don't know.
Jeez.
President Lincoln you'vegiven me so much of your time.
I just have a few questions I'mtrying to wrap up here, because, , I
have so many questions, so I'm goingto ask you just a couple more quick
things, and then I'm, again, I'mso thankful for all of your time.
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
I've heard stories of a lost speech.
(37:27):
And it's a speech that is rumored to havebeen so incredible that even the reporters
in the room that would normally write downwhat you were saying, they couldn't write.
They just had to listen.
And so, people don'teven know what was said.
Do you have anything thatyou would say about that?
That is, , quite an honor that someonewould think that you were saying
(37:52):
something that was important enoughthat they would put the pencil down.
It did take place I'm honored that I wasable to say something that is profound
enough that people thought it was worthyof listening to and not recording.
Sounds like we're just goingto leave that one for history.
Yes.
Ha.
(38:13):
So, the Though I'm sure in the future somepeople will put it together and give their
rendition of what they thought I said.
Okay.
When you put your cabinet together, thisis fantastic, if this is true, when you
put your cabinet together when you werefirst elected, did you put a bunch of
(38:34):
people into your cabinet that didn'tagree with you and didn't even like you?
Yes, I did.
Yes.
I knew that this is the first timethe Republicans had had the office.
When I was nominated, therewere eight Republicans.
Key candidates in the country thathad a chance in suiting Seward and
Chase and Bates and based my cabinet.
(38:59):
I was not one of the eight.
The only reason I waselected was that the.
The convention was held in Chicago.
Chicago was an up and comingtown, so they came there.
And the wigwam was built for theconvention, and there were those
(39:19):
that managed my position very well.
They did not follow my directions,because I said, don't make a
promise to anyone, because I don'twant to be holding to anyone.
But they did, and one of them, anexample, was Cameron from Pennsylvania and
Cameron was a scoundrel, former governorof Pennsylvania on the 1st ballot.
(39:42):
He had 40 votes for him.
Favorite son.
The second ballot, they gave all 40 to me.
Because of that, other people that wouldgive votes to me saw that Pennsylvania
saw enough in me to make it possibleto be within reach of being nominated.
(40:05):
For that reason, I had togive him a cabinet position.
He didn't last a yearbecause he was a thief.
, he was a scoundrel and I appointed himas representative of Russia, which
was a very good position to give him.
I got him out of town, sothey didn't put him in jail.
(40:25):
And I brought along Stanton as mySecretary of War and both of them
worked out well for me because he cameback and was a good supporter of me.
Cameron was and Stanton was anincredible Secretary of War.
The cabinet was put up to, it was a teamof rivals, but they all wanted my job.
Chase one time had a group of congressmenthat he would get together with on a
(40:50):
regular basis, and he would just tellall kinds of things that happened in the
cabinet that didn't, but were presentedin a way that made him look good.
And one day I asked that group to comeTo a meeting, and I had the cabinet
in a different room, and I went to hissupporters and with the cabinet there,
(41:13):
and I asked him about some things that hehad said, and he realized he was cornered.
And because of that, about the sametime, I had people that were all over me
because of things that Seward was doing.
Secretary of State.
And so when it was done, bothof them gave me the resignation.
(41:34):
Now, I didn't want either one of them,but I said it reminds me of the youngster
when I had was riding a horse and hadto carry two pumpkins and I would put a
bandana around both of them, put a stickthrough them and could carry one of them.
Both of them while I'm riding myhorse, and I said, now I've got both
of them on each end of the stick.
(41:56):
So I have them , where I can live withtheir independence that they have, but
also to where they will do what I needthem to do, and they'll be on my side.
And that was the way I was ableto handle the team of rivals.
The group that had their own opinions,but yet we pulled together for what
(42:17):
needed to be done for the importanceand for the benefit of the country.
That's amazing.
Like, that's the hard way to dothat, to get people that have their
own way of thinking, it's a riskymove, but obviously great one.
Well, can you tell me When you think ofthe Gettysburg Address, when you think
back about that moment, what do you think?
(42:39):
Well, I had been asked to speak twoweeks beforehand because the invited
delegates distinguished peopleand they forgot to invite myself.
So they asked me kind of the afterthought.
They thought, first of all, Iwouldn't accept, which I did.
Secondly, they wanted me to speak to them.
(43:00):
For a few minutes, which wouldhave been 10 to 20 minutes.
. I had for a long time thought, whyare we fighting this war and how
can I let the public know this?
And so the beginning of theaddress, I talked about our
forefathers, , the plan that they had.
That this country and who we were, andthat's what I said, four score and seven
(43:26):
years ago, our fathers brought forth onthis continent, a new nation conceived in
liberty and dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created equal, and
this was my opportunity to do it.
Edward Everett spoke before me forover two hours, and when I got up,
I spoke less than three minutes.
(43:48):
Which was too short, butwho knows what he said.
Yeah, no, you're so right.
, that speech lives to this day.
People know those words.
Have you had dreams, I heard thatyou had dreams about your death?
Yes, , I had a dream a coupletimes that I was in my night
(44:12):
shirt and walked down the stairs.
And when I arrived down there,there was a soldier by a casket.
And I said, well, who has died?
And he said, the presidenthas been assassinated.
And it troubled me.
And one day after that, afew days later, I told Mary.
(44:33):
And after I told her, I wish I hadnot because it was something that was
unsettling and especially for her . And. I had , another reoccurring dream.
And the dream was before Gettysburgand other major victories was
a sailing ship sailing rapidlythrough the water with a full sail.
(44:55):
Yeah, well, I, my very last question,and I am so thankful for your time, Mr.
President, and my last question is that weare all often very critical of ourselves,
, There's no reason for you to be.
You've done everything that any one mancould do in a Even if you stopped here.
And my question is, looking backat what you've done so far, the
(45:18):
war, your presidency, your life,if you were going to do something
different, what comes to mind?
Well, probably would deal with McClellan.
Had I realized that he was not goingto fight, and it took me two years
to finally get to that point, ifI'd made a decision earlier, Grant
probably wouldn't have been the rightperson because he probably wasn't, his
(45:40):
experiences out west had to happen first.
I don't know who I would have putin, but if I'd tried earlier, maybe.
I could have found someone thatwould have been effective earlier.
Or if I just tried a little harderto sit down with some of the leaders
from the South and be able to convincethem of let's just talk about this
(46:03):
rather than start killing each other.
And I guess the worst possible solutionwould have been just let them go.
Maybe we would have been able to comeback together at some time later.
But then again, it wouldnever be the same as it was.
, our nation was blessedbecause we were one country.
(46:25):
And that before then, , when Iwould call for prayer and fasting.
In it, I would say that God has blessedus beyond belief, of our rich resources,
and our forests, and our people, and theland, and the lakes, and the, just the
whole country itself, and that God hasblessed us, and that I believe that we
(46:48):
won the war, because God wanted us to.
I believe the, in God we trust.
Trust on our coins is a way of tellingGod that we are followers of him
because our whole philosophy cannotexist if we don't have a belief.
If we don't have faith, how can youtreat people equally and be fair with
(47:13):
them and have the values, the corevalues of what the Bible leads us to do?
Sir if there's, is there anyother last message that you'd
like to leave with everybody?
, I guess if I look into the future, we weresaved to be one union, one country, and as
we prosper in the future, Will we be therefor a purpose , the same as I thought
(47:38):
as a youngster that God saved me fromdrowning and from a horse killing me so
that I would be there at the end , in thewar that we needed to hold us together?
Will us being one country, And thestrength that we have and the wealth
(47:58):
that we have be something thatwill benefit the world because we
are the great country that we are.
I think that's a great place to leave it.
President Lincoln, thank you so muchfor your time and all the good that you
have done and I'm wishing you the best.
Take care.
Thank you very much.
(48:19):
God bless you and God bless America.
What makes Abraham Lincoln's lifeso extraordinary is that he was
able to solve the one problemthat his predecessors could not.
The founding fathers knew thatslavery was going to be an issue.
Yet they kept passing the problemto future generations because
there was no easy solution.
(48:40):
And in the end, that problemwas handed to Abraham Lincoln.
One of the things that I admireabout Abraham Lincoln is his ability.
To make the absolute best of a challengingand sometimes impossible situation
his debates with Stephen Douglas werenot only a masterful display of Lincoln's
ability To move people with storiesand speeches, but also they allowed him
(49:03):
to put his name on the national stage.
By riding the wave of Douglas hasalready established popularity.
As president when needed,he was flexible and crafty.
Reframing the civil war isa moral issue of freedom.
And when he needed the courage to endslavery, even when the giants of history
(49:23):
before him could not, or would not, hewent all in and changed the world forever.
If Lincoln had been thetiniest bit less courageous.
Patient resilient,intelligent wise or resolute.
If he had been deficient in anyof these traits, it probably
wouldn't have been enough.
(49:43):
Any other leader stepping into hisshoes at that time probably ends
with two countries, the Americannorth and the American south.
But luckily when our countryneeded possibly its greatest
American, he was there.
Thanks for listening.
And don't forget that each timethe calling history podcast
receives a five star review.
(50:06):
A vending machine somewheregives a free snack.
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time.
Um, history.
Welcome back to parttwo of Abraham Lincoln.
In the last episode, we ended withLincoln talking about how he would
have to take power from the southbecause his generals had informed
him that without total devastation,they would never stop fighting.
In this episode, he's going todiscuss the different plans that
could result in freeing the slaves.
(00:48):
Although he was not an abolitionist.
He knew that slavery was wrong.
A little later in the podcast.
We'll talk about why it was necessaryto break some significant laws to
keep the United States together.
I was not an abolitionist.
Mrs.
Lincoln was Mary Todd and, but thethought of the abolitionists from
day one was to free the slaves.
(01:10):
But if I had done that,what would I have done?
I would have had.
The freed slaves would come tothe north looking for a job.
And whose job would they take?
They would take your dad's, yourbrother's, your uncle's job.
And that would createmore problems Then solve.
(01:33):
So when the war became so bad, I needto find a way of, in other words,
taking the strength from the South.
I decided to do theemancipation proclamation.
And what that did was free the slaves inthe territory and rebellion as president.
I have the right to take property fromanyone that is doing a treasonous act.
(01:57):
So the Emancipation Proclamation said theareas in rebellion, which would be most
of the South, but not western Virginia,because they were not in rebellion.
And therefore I did not take their slaves.
Natchez, I did not take their slavesbecause they were owned by people in
New England, in the northern states.
(02:18):
So the Emancipation Proclamationdid not free all slaves.
It freed slaves from thestates that were in rebellion.
Territories that were in rebellion.
Territories, right.
Because if you divide Virginiaup, you got the mountain people
and they weren't in rebellion.
Okay, I'm with you.
Right, right.
So there were, I believe, 30 countiesin Virginia, of Western Virginia, that
(02:46):
were fighting to stay with the Union.
And eventually they became a state.
And of course that'sanother story in itself.
But , that was what I did , withthe Emancipation Proclamation.
Let me back up.
, there's a couple things that, that yousaid that I'd like some clarification on.
, . , two things.
Number one, it took twoyears just to catch up.
(03:08):
Considering that thewealth was in the south.
The food was in the South, and nowall the talent was in the South.
Every, all of the wisdom fromWest Point is in the South.
And then basically, as far as from amilitary standpoint, you're kind of
left with the scraps of what was left.
Is that correct, first of all?
(03:28):
Yes, and it's not that thereweren't great generals.
They just didn't fight.
And McClellan was probablyone of the best generals.
The problem is he would not fight.
When it was time to go in Peninsula Fairand others, he always said he didn't have
enough horses, he didn't have enough men.
He said that he was always outnumbered.
(03:50):
Someone asked me once, how manymen does the Confederacy have?
And I said , a million , and hesays, well, how could that be?
And I says, well, because every time wefight a battle, the generals say that
we're outnumbered three to four to one.
And if we have four hundredthousand men, then they have a
million, two hundred thousand.
(04:11):
How can you say McClellanwas a good general?
If he didn't want to fight.
I mean, I understand you couldsay that he was a good man and he
cared about his soldiers, but howcan you say he was a good general?
to be the most frustrating situationof all, a general that wouldn't fight.
Oh, it was for me.
It was terribly frustrating.
And at times I said, I would youloan me your men just so I can
(04:36):
see whether they can fight or not?
And I called him his bodyguards.
I went one time to his house.
The try and convince him that we should,get out there and fight in and I pushed
him when he did the peninsula affair.
He really didn't want to do itbecause he was bound and determined.
He was outnumbered to the one.
(04:56):
He had 100, 000 men and hethought Lee had 200, 000.
Lee had about 80, 000 andso he outnumbered him.
If you just fought like he had bettermen and he could beat him, he would have.
. I don't think he was a coward.
It's two, two factors maybe.
One, he loved his men.
Because if you're going to fight abattle, you bring your officers together.
(05:18):
You tell them what you're goingto do and what each one has to do.
And when they go out, you know that somepeople are not going to live through it.
And, he loved his men so much.
He didn't want to come back in the eveningand know that one of his generals and a
thousand or two thousand or ten thousandof his men had died during that day.
And therefore he madeexcuses rather than fighting.
(05:41):
One time I was so frustrated with it,I went out to his camp and I wanted to
talk to him and encourage him to fight.
And he wasn't there.
And there was a carpenter there.
And he said, Mr.
President, can you help me?
I says, what?
Well, what's the problem?
And he said, well, General McClellanasked me to build him a privy.
(06:03):
And he says he did.
Well, what's the problem?
And he says, well, I don't know whetherto build him a one hole or two hole.
Well, I imagine , if you build hima two hole, by the time he made
up his mind, it would be too late.
Oh, so where does Grantcome into the picture?
? Well, Grant was successful at Vicksburg,the day after Gettysburg, and it looked
(06:25):
very promising, and he was victorious.
So I finally, after I'd gone through awhole slew of generals , and of them were
able to do more than what McClellan did.
And I was looking for someone thatwould be successful in coming,
so I brought him to the east todo what he had done in the west.
(06:47):
And when I did that, I had a group ofPeople from the community come in and
say, , you can't bring General Grantto the east because you just can't.
And I said, well, what's the problem?
He says, well, he drinks too much.
And I says, he does.
What does he drink?
And he says, well, I don't know.
He says, would you go andfind out what he drinks?
(07:11):
And I will get a barrel ofit, give it to every one of
my generals because he fights.
And so when I brought him to the east.
, there were people thatwere apprehensive about it.
He did not want to be in Washingtonas other military leaders had
been because he wanted to be outwith the men he wanted to fight.
(07:35):
And he was what I call a bulldog.
The first battle that the majorbattle was the wilderness , and
they fought for 7 days.
They had tremendous losses inthe public was just thought
he was getting slaughtered.
And when they were done, he told them inthe pack up and we're going after Lee and.
(07:56):
The soldiers kind of looked at eachother and said, this is different
because we're not going to go backand just practice being soldiers.
And he said, let's go, becauseI believe the men wanted to
fight and they wanted to win.
And they knew, even thoughMcClellan may have loved them, they
weren't fighting and winning.
(08:18):
And when Grant did that, he went andeventually cornered Lee, because he
knew Lee was the object, not Richmond.
And he was able to do at St.
Petersburg the same as he did at Richmond.
at Vicksburg, and that he surroundedthem, cornered them, and basically
(08:39):
starved them out, and kept them fromgetting their supplies, which led to
the surrendered Appomattox Ford house.
Grant, so what was the relationshiplike between you and Grant?
It was very good.
I told Grant, do what you're doing,and he was successful at what he did.
I knew that if I tried a couple oftimes, I tried to tell him what to do,
(09:04):
or I told him, I don't think it'll work.
He went ahead and didwhat he normally does.
He was successful and Icomplimented on what he did.
And I says, keep doing whatyou're doing and just keep going.
Kept my hands off ofgiving him instructions.
With McClellan, I had to push him,or I had to prod him, I had to
(09:25):
try and talk him into doing it.
With Grant, once I realized hewas going after Lee, and he wasn't
going to stop until it's done.
Even if he lost a large number ofmen, or things weren't going great.
He just, he was not going to give up.
Describing grant as abulldog seems very accurate.
(09:45):
I'm wondering about these losses though.
I mean, grant is driving into thesebattles to win at all costs, and Lee
seems like he , had the same approach.
Whatever it took as these losseswere mounting, you had the.
You had to be gettingpressure from all sides.
(10:06):
You had to be hearing from theabolitionists, from the people that wanted
war, from the people that didn't want war.
How did you manage to satisfy everyone?
I didn't.
That was a problem.
Everyone when it wasn'tgoing well had a solution.
, and McClellan was one of them,just let him go, and let them have
(10:27):
it, or come to some solution thatthat will bring the war to an end,
because as the body count mountsthe country is getting really upset.
When it comes to 1864, when I needto run again, it looks as though
I have no chance of winning.
(10:47):
And several thingshappened because of that.
One is that I took a piece of paper,and I folded it over so the blank
part is showing to my cabinet.
And I said, each one ofyou needs to sign this.
And they said, what is it?
And I says, just sign it.
And what it was, is our resignation.
And they understoodthat, or figured it out.
(11:08):
And I thought that if we lose,why would we continue fighting?
For Just we would resign, let McClellan,which was a candidate that was running
against us and basically his platformwas let South go, About that time
General Sherman from Ohio had thisidea that if we would go into the South
(11:32):
and go fast enough, in other words,not worry about a supply line, but
forage for what you need to surviveon, and just devastate the South.
He knew that unless you punishthem , to such an extent,
that they would not survive.
That they lose the will, the fightthat . It'll go on for years.
(11:54):
So he goes and divides theSouth and just destroys Georgia
and he didn't exactly like me, but yethe was the one most responsible for me
winning the election because withouthis success, , in the South as he
did I would not have been reelected.
Secondly, because of that, the Republicanparty was looking to put someone
(12:18):
else on the ballot other than me.
And so I looked at how am I going toget enough strength so I can be on the
ballot, because my thought is you can't.
Change horses in the middle of the stream.
And so what I did wasformed the union party.
(12:39):
It was kind of a branch of the Republicanparty and I chose or we chose instead
of Hannibal Hamlin as my vice president,the first term we chose Johnson.
And he had been a governor ofTennessee just before the war, he
decided he wanted to be a senator andthey didn't want him to be a senator,
(13:04):
but they also were, didn't want himto be a a governor again, but he had
people loved him enough that theywere afraid not to make him a senator.
So he's the only senator from the statesthat seceded that actually sat there
when their state had left the union.
And then I, because he had been formergovernor, I appointed him as a military
(13:26):
governor of Tennessee with the taskof keeping Tennessee, even though they
voted to secede from actually leaving.
I'll just keep them in the union.
And then when I needed a vicepresident because one, he was
a Democrat, which would get mevotes that , I would need to win.
And he also had kept Tennesseein the union and he was the
(13:51):
person that would be, you.
Politically, the best personto be the vice president.
Now.
He wasn't the best vice president.
Matter of fact, when we went tobe inaugurated one story is that
he was on a lot of medication.
The other story is, which mayhave been the real one, is that
(14:12):
he had been drinking too much.
And therefore he was installed asvice president, not in the public.
But then again, these peoplethat are drinking, you're
recruiting them now after grants.
Oh, of course.
And the reason for that is itwas more of a joke than anything,
but it, I mean, if you fight abattle and 10, 000 of your men.
(14:36):
How do you handle that?
Yeah, seriously, you havea couple drinks for sure.
Yeah, the stories of Grantdrinking a lot are exaggerated.
He did drink, yes.
, And I believe he did it because hewas devastated by the number of men
that he had lost that he cared about.
(14:56):
And I think you have tounderstand what do you do?
You don't, I mean, you celebrate avictory, but the cost of that victory
is one that creates a lot of sorrow.
Sure, you need something to dole yoursenses because, I mean, the strongest
person that has ever walked the planetwalks onto a battlefield and sees
screaming, dying people and, , theydon't just ignore it, , you feel that.
(15:21):
Yeah.
Let me ask you, okay, you werejust talking about the re election
and concerning the re election in1864, there's something that I've
never been able to figure out.
So, the North and the South arestill divided, and it's time now to
vote for a President of the UnitedStates, and even though the South
(15:44):
has seceded, in your mind, it'sstill the United States of America.
You're just trying to hold it together.
They think they're another country,you're thinking not so much.
This is what I think,and tell me if I'm wrong.
So, my question is, when it comestime to vote for who's the president,
(16:05):
, all the people in the North voted.
Were there votes in the Southfor a Northern president?.
Well, when they were not in theunion, no, they would not vote . So
during that presidential election,there were no votes from the South.
They were only votes from the North.
, and when you had said McClellanran against you, we're talking
(16:27):
about George McClellan, theman who didn't fight, right?
Right.
Yeah, the one I fired twice, right?
Okay.
So now he's running, right?
it looked like he was going to win becausethe people were upset about the war.
By that time, there were probably500, 000 or more people had lost their
(16:49):
lives on both sides because we'reall Americans and , there wasn't a
family that wasn't affected by it.
And yet.
Families were divided on whether theywere for the north or the south, and
it was just a tremendous drain on thecountry, plus normal life and normal
(17:12):
activities were very difficult, becausemain working people on a farm, if they're
out fighting, who's going to help them?
Take care of the crops and planting.
It's either the women thatare left or the young ones.
And it was a real challenge.
Yeah.
President Lincoln give me a littlelatitude to ask a question that's gonna
(17:33):
sound very insulting, but it's justcuriosity and I've always wondered this.
When you are elected president,the South believes that you
are going to abolish slavery.
And Immediately, , some ofthe states started seceding.
Trying to secede beforeyou're actually in office.
(17:57):
First of all, is that correct?
Yes.
Okay.
So, the whole nation, this division,was it just a powder keg waiting for
a spark and the first president thatcame in that had any thoughts of maybe
abolition, , would've lit that powder kegand you just happened to be that person?
(18:19):
Is your election partially responsiblefor the beginning of the war?
Probably correct on both.
Because my campaign against StephenDouglas, when we debated, was
stopping the spread of slavery.
They interpreted thatas eliminating slavery.
(18:39):
This is obviously a bigchanging point in your life.
There are going to be people thathaven't picked up a book in many
years, but they love listening to you.
Can you tell us whoStephen Douglas is exactly?
Stephen Douglas , came from a very wealthyfamily, well educated active in politics.
He would call the little giant.
He was five foot four, I believe it was,but not very tall but a very stout man.
(19:05):
Very strong voice, very goodspeaker and had held many
offices, state and nationally.
He was a U.
S.
Senator when I ran against him in
he was well heeled.
The interesting thing is that when Mrs.
Lincoln Mary Todd came to town and herward was Nyan Edwards with his father
(19:34):
would have been a governor of Illinois.
came with the idea of finding a husbandbecause her older sister was married to
Nyan Edwards, Elizabeth, and then, Anothersister came and went to one of their
parties and met someone and got married.
Now it was Mary's turn to get married,and she comes and at the parties, the
(19:59):
dances that they had, Stephen Douglas wasthere, as well as myself and other people.
Eligible back bachelors and wouldattend and dance with her and like,
and he got to liking her quite well.
Now, Mary had the idea that somedayshe'll be a president's wife and she
told her people her family and the like.
(20:19):
And of course, you can imagine theywould say, oh, yeah, but she really
believed that and she shared it.
Well, Stephen Douglas knew this andhe proposed to her and when he did.
Mary said, well, I will be a president'swife someday, but not as Mrs.
Douglas, because you'renot presidential material.
(20:41):
Now, Mary had a reputationof being outspoken, a tomboy
and a number of other things.
, so.
Douglas was turned down by her, yet hecame from this very wealthy family, very
rich political background, that would meanthat he would be the next, President of
(21:03):
the United States, when I debated him.
And because we knew each other, andwe, as young men in Springfield, as
it's growing, we would get together anddiscuss political things and the like.
We would have debates and other, justwhat, Men in a community would do
(21:26):
and we knew each other very well andwe had debated each other many times
and his reaction was with Lincoln.
I'm okay until he startstelling his stories and, but
he did not want to debate me.
So , when he will go out and talk togroups about being Senator of Illinois,
(21:49):
I would go afterwards before theywould leave and say, Hey, come here.
Let me tell you what I think ortomorrow at such and such a time, let's
get together again and we'll do it.
And I did this enough times thathe decided he would have a debate.
If I had not debated him, Ibelieve he would have been the
16th president of the United States
(22:10):
.Yeah, because I heard these debates were a spectacle.
I heard they were drawing huge crowds.
It was like a prize fight match.
It was.
It was.
And we would speak forthree and a half hours.
We'd speak for an hour anda half, and then an hour.
And that's the way it was divided up.
Each debate of the seven would rotatewho was first and who was second, and you
(22:32):
would have a chance to go back and forth.
And they were so contested thatat times, Stephen Douglas was so
upset with me one time that hesaid, I believe you're two faced.
He didn't know what else to say.
So he said, I believe you're two faced.
And everybody laughed.
They just thought it was really funny.
So when I got up, And said with him, Isaid, well, , if I had another face, do
(22:57):
you think I would be wearing this one?
And then everybody laughed.
So I got the last laugh on it.
And it went on that wayall during the debates.
And another time he got upset withme and he says, well, Lincoln and it
wasn't the, you weren't considered tobe a great person if you drank a lot,
(23:17):
and particularly if you sold liquor.
So he said, well, Ezra Lincoln,when he had a store, he had
a license to sell liquor.
And everyone laughed because that wasnot something that would be admirable.
And so when it was my turn, I said,well, , Judge Douglas says that
(23:37):
I had a store and sold liquor.
And yes, I did have a store andwe did have a liquor license.
And one of my best customerswas Stephen Douglas.
And then I, I followed it up by,I don't have the store anymore,
but he still frequents placeswhere he can get the liquor.
(23:58):
Oh, man.
So we went back and forth andhad some good discussions.
Well, because Douglas was so well known,and the reason I emphasize that, because
he was so well known, the papers cameout and the people came out because they
wanted to hear, the next president, andthey recorded everything that he said,
(24:21):
but they also wrote down what I said.
And what I basically said was a man.
That raises a crop by the sweat of hisbrow, should benefit from that effort.
And the people of theNorth re related to that.
And they understood that I wassaying that the slave raises crops
(24:44):
but he doesn't benefit from it.
And because of that, I wasencouraged to run for president
after I lost the Senate race.
And because of that.
They thought that I , wouldabolish slavery, where in reality,
I was not an abolitionist, asI believe I indicated before.
(25:05):
If we free the slaves, whereare they going to find a job?
Yeah.
I believe in, and it was another story,but when, with the Western Virginia,
when they became a state, one of thethings that I did several months
before, after they had, wrote up aconstitution, they wrote up all the
(25:26):
things that they wanted to do, CongressAccepted them as becoming a state, but
I said that they could not come in asa slave state because of Virginia was
a slave state and they had slaves.
They had to have a planfor gradual emancipation.
And Senator Wiley came up with the plan.
(25:50):
And what his plan was that everyslave child owned by those in western
Virginia had a certain date frombirth to 10 years old would be free.
And then there would be another datewhere those from 10 to 19 would be free.
(26:11):
, in other words, it was gradual.
It wasn't all at once.
And what would happen with that is that,okay, you own all these slaves, and you
see these young children that are born,and the young ones are going to be free.
When the war is over, what I woulddo is let the South know that this
(26:33):
is their labor force and that whatthey need to do Is educate their
slaves, their former slaves, they needto, continue to have them on their
plantations , so they can survivebecause they don't know how to survive
on their own and that you work with them.
Now, I sent a letter to the South.
(26:55):
Encouraging this towardthe end of the war.
I said, I need your help.
What I need for you to do is to startschools and educate your slaves.
Do not let the North come down and do it.
Don't let Stevens and Sumnercome down and do that.
(27:17):
And in addition to that, you needto Give them a path to citizenship.
In addition to that, you need totake some of your common ground land.
And give it to the slavesso that they,, former slaves,
so that they are your equal.
And with that, and there is aletter that I wrote to Southerners
(27:42):
that expresses that exact thing.
Because Sumner and Stevenswanted to come down.
And the method that they ended up usingwould not be one that would be favorable
to them because they want to punish you.
Well, in the South, they had toreceive a letter like that and
think, are you out of your mind?
We're going to educate them.
(28:02):
There are equals.
That is exactly the oppositedirection they were going.
And, but yet, if they had done that,not all slave drivers were terrible and,
but not everyone would,wants to hear that.
, if you have a slave that you trainto be a blacksmith and he takes care
of your horses he's a special person.
You have a slave that serves you dinnerevery night, that's a special person.
(28:28):
And.
You build relationships with them.
Now, but you can't build a goodrelationship because they're not
equal to you because they're property.
But yet, with some of them, therewere some unique situations.
I've had so many of these conversationsnow, and I've spoken with Grant,
and one of the people that Ispoke with is Jefferson Davis.
(28:52):
And Jefferson Davis was, it washis opinion that you made this
war About slavery when in factit wasn't about slavery at all.
It was about the South's legalright to secede from the union.
And he had a pretty strong case that theSouth legally had the right to do that.
(29:16):
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, he also said the reason theyleft, if it wasn't for slavery, it was
because they did not have the rightsthat they felt they should have.
And . I would have talked to himhad he sat down with me and would
have said, okay, who was thepresident when all of these things
(29:40):
are going on before I was elected?
You have Buchanan was a Democrat.
Many of your people, in other words, weresenators in House of Representatives,
and both were run by Democrats.
So you have.
All houses, in other words, Congressand the President are Democrats.
(30:01):
If you have all these issues, whydidn't you follow the procedure that is
expected to happen in Congress, whereyou talk about problems, you address
those problems, you find answers to them.
And if you had done that, if it'sstates rights is the reason you left,
and not slavery, Then why didn't youaddress them and find answers for them?
(30:23):
And since you didn't do that,now you're saying it is slavery.
I never said the freed the slaves,as I indicated a few minutes ago,
because I was not an abolitionist.
I, what I did when I had the opportunityto address it, I said that you need to
come up with, and I didn't come up witha plan, but I said you need to come up
(30:45):
with a plan of a gradual emancipation.
Many of the slave owners treatedtheir slaves very well, not all of
them, , but even with that, you still,at the end of the day, you couldn't go
where you wanted to, when you wantedto, the same as those that are free.
So slavery is wrong.
(31:07):
Was it your intention at somepoint to send the slaves to Liberia
?Is Well, early on, there were a couple things, and that would be one
of them, I'll share the other one also.
I called together Frederick Douglass andother , freed men, that had bought their
freedom . I called them together and Isaid, when this is all over, because
(31:32):
the common understanding at that timeis that the slaves were not allowed to
be educated, therefore they weren't.
Their lifestyle wasdifferent than everyone else.
And I said, because of that, you would be.
Probably happier if you had yourown colony or own place to live,
(31:54):
and a suggestion was that eithersetting up a colony in Africa, where
we'd help you with that, or offof Panama, setting something up.
Right away, they jumped all over me.
They says, wait a minute, we Are thegeneration was born here in America.
We weren't born in Africa.
(32:14):
Why would we want to go back to Africa?
We're Americans.
We want to stay here.
We want to be part of this great country.
And it kind of blew me away.
And I, and it was shocking to mebecause I most certainly misread what
I thought would be a good solution.
(32:36):
Now, another solution thatI tried is I convinced
legislature to stop the fighting.
87 days and because each day that wefight the war, it costs us 3 million.
So the 3 million times 87.
(32:59):
It's a hundred and seventysome million dollars.
We take that money instead offighting and we buy your slaves.
We pay you for yourslaves and they're free.
Now you pay them.
And it was not accepted.
So I tried every way I could to preventthe war from occurring and finding
(33:22):
a way, a solution to the problem.
If the South had just satdown with me , and talked.
and work with me, I believewe could have , avoided the
conflict that we ended up having.
You know, I'm just being the devil'sadvocate based on what you just said
there, but my understanding that theSouth did put some sort of compromise
(33:46):
in front of you that you rejected.
Is that incorrect?
? , the only compromise I can recall was theone where they would keep their slaves.
Right.
And then they would comeback into the union.
And when we had the meeting, itwas on a boat and we talked about
(34:07):
them coming back into the union.
But the slaves would be free.
I see.
And there was no compromise on that.
I see.
So basically we're saying, yeah, look,why don't we just find middle ground
where we get exactly everything we want.
. So, I couldn't have more Respect foryou as a president and in history your
(34:27):
reputation is, if you even understood howhighly you are regarded by , all future
Americans, it is as high as it could be.
And yet there are those that wouldsay in your time that you stretched
the legalities of your office,or the limits of your office.
An example of that would be whenyou suspended habeas corpus.
(34:50):
What can you tell me about that?
Well, I had someone introduced to me thatwas a legalist, knew the law very well.
And suggested that in wartime,there are things that you have to
do for the sake of saving the Union.
And that means that you breakwhat would be the normal rules.
(35:15):
If you follow the normal rulesand allow people to debate in the
talk and give their views and stirup trouble, then We, as a nation,
will not survive this conflict.
Therefore, those that are talkingout, they have to be stopped.
Otherwise, we cannot survive.
(35:37):
And because of that, I put them in prison.
In particular, the governor of Maryland.
I was advised to tell him that ifhe interfered with the soldiers
coming through their state,that he would be thrown in jail.
And he wanted Maryland to withdraw,but I need to keep him in the Union.
(35:59):
And I threatened to throw himin jail if he persisted , in
acting in that particular manner.
And.
Non war times, it was illegal, butto save the Union, I had no choice.
If I didn't do that, wewould not be talking today.
(36:19):
Yeah, it's just like Grant,winning at all costs.
I'm guessing where Grant and his armywere probably destroying railroads.
Well, nobody wants to destroy a railroad.
, but at the same time, you have to doWhat you have to do to win the battle.
Otherwise, you have nothing at the end.
So I guess that makesa lot of sense to me.
. When Sherman was going through the SouthHe had lived there for a few years before
(36:43):
the war, and he knew the South, he knewthe people, he knew what they valued and
what they didn't, and he knew that unlessit is totally devastation, they will not
give up, and he was willing to do that.
Without him, what would have happenedis the North would finally have
(37:03):
given up and let the South go.
Whether that would have been abetter answer or not, I don't know.
Jeez.
President Lincoln you'vegiven me so much of your time.
I just have a few questions I'mtrying to wrap up here, because, , I
have so many questions, so I'm goingto ask you just a couple more quick
things, and then I'm, again, I'mso thankful for all of your time.
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
I've heard stories of a lost speech.
(37:27):
And it's a speech that is rumored to havebeen so incredible that even the reporters
in the room that would normally write downwhat you were saying, they couldn't write.
They just had to listen.
And so, people don'teven know what was said.
Do you have anything thatyou would say about that?
That is, , quite an honor that someonewould think that you were saying
(37:52):
something that was important enoughthat they would put the pencil down.
It did take place I'm honored that I wasable to say something that is profound
enough that people thought it was worthyof listening to and not recording.
Sounds like we're just goingto leave that one for history.
Yes.
Ha.
(38:13):
So, the Though I'm sure in the future somepeople will put it together and give their
rendition of what they thought I said.
Okay.
When you put your cabinet together, thisis fantastic, if this is true, when you
put your cabinet together when you werefirst elected, did you put a bunch of
(38:34):
people into your cabinet that didn'tagree with you and didn't even like you?
Yes, I did.
Yes.
I knew that this is the first timethe Republicans had had the office.
When I was nominated, therewere eight Republicans.
Key candidates in the country thathad a chance in suiting Seward and
Chase and Bates and based my cabinet.
(38:59):
I was not one of the eight.
The only reason I waselected was that the.
The convention was held in Chicago.
Chicago was an up and comingtown, so they came there.
And the wigwam was built for theconvention, and there were those
(39:19):
that managed my position very well.
They did not follow my directions,because I said, don't make a
promise to anyone, because I don'twant to be holding to anyone.
But they did, and one of them, anexample, was Cameron from Pennsylvania and
Cameron was a scoundrel, former governorof Pennsylvania on the 1st ballot.
(39:42):
He had 40 votes for him.
Favorite son.
The second ballot, they gave all 40 to me.
Because of that, other people that wouldgive votes to me saw that Pennsylvania
saw enough in me to make it possibleto be within reach of being nominated.
(40:05):
For that reason, I had togive him a cabinet position.
He didn't last a yearbecause he was a thief.
, he was a scoundrel and I appointed himas representative of Russia, which
was a very good position to give him.
I got him out of town, sothey didn't put him in jail.
(40:25):
And I brought along Stanton as mySecretary of War and both of them
worked out well for me because he cameback and was a good supporter of me.
Cameron was and Stanton was anincredible Secretary of War.
The cabinet was put up to, it was a teamof rivals, but they all wanted my job.
Chase one time had a group of congressmenthat he would get together with on a
(40:50):
regular basis, and he would just tellall kinds of things that happened in the
cabinet that didn't, but were presentedin a way that made him look good.
And one day I asked that group to comeTo a meeting, and I had the cabinet
in a different room, and I went to hissupporters and with the cabinet there,
(41:13):
and I asked him about some things that hehad said, and he realized he was cornered.
And because of that, about the sametime, I had people that were all over me
because of things that Seward was doing.
Secretary of State.
And so when it was done, bothof them gave me the resignation.
(41:34):
Now, I didn't want either one of them,but I said it reminds me of the youngster
when I had was riding a horse and hadto carry two pumpkins and I would put a
bandana around both of them, put a stickthrough them and could carry one of them.
Both of them while I'm riding myhorse, and I said, now I've got both
of them on each end of the stick.
(41:56):
So I have them , where I can live withtheir independence that they have, but
also to where they will do what I needthem to do, and they'll be on my side.
And that was the way I was ableto handle the team of rivals.
The group that had their own opinions,but yet we pulled together for what
(42:17):
needed to be done for the importanceand for the benefit of the country.
That's amazing.
Like, that's the hard way to dothat, to get people that have their
own way of thinking, it's a riskymove, but obviously great one.
Well, can you tell me When you think ofthe Gettysburg Address, when you think
back about that moment, what do you think?
(42:39):
Well, I had been asked to speak twoweeks beforehand because the invited
delegates distinguished peopleand they forgot to invite myself.
So they asked me kind of the afterthought.
They thought, first of all, Iwouldn't accept, which I did.
Secondly, they wanted me to speak to them.
(43:00):
For a few minutes, which wouldhave been 10 to 20 minutes.
. I had for a long time thought, whyare we fighting this war and how
can I let the public know this?
And so the beginning of theaddress, I talked about our
forefathers, , the plan that they had.
That this country and who we were, andthat's what I said, four score and seven
(43:26):
years ago, our fathers brought forth onthis continent, a new nation conceived in
liberty and dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created equal, and
this was my opportunity to do it.
Edward Everett spoke before me forover two hours, and when I got up,
I spoke less than three minutes.
(43:48):
Which was too short, butwho knows what he said.
Yeah, no, you're so right.
, that speech lives to this day.
People know those words.
Have you had dreams, I heard thatyou had dreams about your death?
Yes, , I had a dream a coupletimes that I was in my night
(44:12):
shirt and walked down the stairs.
And when I arrived down there,there was a soldier by a casket.
And I said, well, who has died?
And he said, the presidenthas been assassinated.
And it troubled me.
And one day after that, afew days later, I told Mary.
(44:33):
And after I told her, I wish I hadnot because it was something that was
unsettling and especially for her . And. I had , another reoccurring dream.
And the dream was before Gettysburgand other major victories was
a sailing ship sailing rapidlythrough the water with a full sail.
(44:55):
Yeah, well, I, my very last question,and I am so thankful for your time, Mr.
President, and my last question is that weare all often very critical of ourselves,
, There's no reason for you to be.
You've done everything that any one mancould do in a Even if you stopped here.
And my question is, looking backat what you've done so far, the
(45:18):
war, your presidency, your life,if you were going to do something
different, what comes to mind?
Well, probably would deal with McClellan.
Had I realized that he was not goingto fight, and it took me two years
to finally get to that point, ifI'd made a decision earlier, Grant
probably wouldn't have been the rightperson because he probably wasn't, his
(45:40):
experiences out west had to happen first.
I don't know who I would have putin, but if I'd tried earlier, maybe.
I could have found someone thatwould have been effective earlier.
Or if I just tried a little harderto sit down with some of the leaders
from the South and be able to convincethem of let's just talk about this
(46:03):
rather than start killing each other.
And I guess the worst possible solutionwould have been just let them go.
Maybe we would have been able to comeback together at some time later.
But then again, it wouldnever be the same as it was.
, our nation was blessedbecause we were one country.
(46:25):
And that before then, , when Iwould call for prayer and fasting.
In it, I would say that God has blessedus beyond belief, of our rich resources,
and our forests, and our people, and theland, and the lakes, and the, just the
whole country itself, and that God hasblessed us, and that I believe that we
(46:48):
won the war, because God wanted us to.
I believe the, in God we trust.
Trust on our coins is a way of tellingGod that we are followers of him
because our whole philosophy cannotexist if we don't have a belief.
If we don't have faith, how can youtreat people equally and be fair with
(47:13):
them and have the values, the corevalues of what the Bible leads us to do?
Sir if there's, is there anyother last message that you'd
like to leave with everybody?
, I guess if I look into the future, we weresaved to be one union, one country, and as
we prosper in the future, Will we be therefor a purpose , the same as I thought
(47:38):
as a youngster that God saved me fromdrowning and from a horse killing me so
that I would be there at the end , in thewar that we needed to hold us together?
Will us being one country, And thestrength that we have and the wealth
(47:58):
that we have be something thatwill benefit the world because we
are the great country that we are.
I think that's a great place to leave it.
President Lincoln, thank you so muchfor your time and all the good that you
have done and I'm wishing you the best.
Take care.
Thank you very much.
(48:19):
God bless you and God bless America.
What makes Abraham Lincoln's lifeso extraordinary is that he was
able to solve the one problemthat his predecessors could not.
The founding fathers knew thatslavery was going to be an issue.
Yet they kept passing the problemto future generations because
there was no easy solution.
(48:40):
And in the end, that problemwas handed to Abraham Lincoln.
One of the things that I admireabout Abraham Lincoln is his ability.
To make the absolute best of a challengingand sometimes impossible situation
his debates with Stephen Douglas werenot only a masterful display of Lincoln's
ability To move people with storiesand speeches, but also they allowed him
(49:03):
to put his name on the national stage.
By riding the wave of Douglas hasalready established popularity.
As president when needed,he was flexible and crafty.
Reframing the civil war isa moral issue of freedom.
And when he needed the courage to endslavery, even when the giants of history
(49:23):
before him could not, or would not, hewent all in and changed the world forever.
If Lincoln had been thetiniest bit less courageous.
Patient resilient,intelligent wise or resolute.
If he had been deficient in anyof these traits, it probably
wouldn't have been enough.
(49:43):
Any other leader stepping into hisshoes at that time probably ends
with two countries, the Americannorth and the American south.
But luckily when our countryneeded possibly its greatest
American, he was there.
Thanks for listening.
And don't forget that each timethe calling history podcast
receives a five star review.
(50:06):
A vending machine somewheregives a free snack.
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time.
Um, history.
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