10 Score - A Look at the Life and Legacy of our 16th President

today's keep your prisons was originally broadcast on feb fifteen two thousand nine this week marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of our nation's greatest presidents abraham lincoln events are going on all across the country in celebration of lincoln's birthday february twelfth at no nine including a series of lectures at the university of kansas broad institute of politics i'm kate mcintyre and today on tv our prisons ten score a look at the life and legacy of our sixteenth president with historian richard norton smith smith served as the first permanent director of the dole institute for two thousand one to two thousand three when he left kansas to become the founding director of the abraham lincoln presidential library and museum in springfield illinois he's now a visiting scholar in residence at george mason university in suburban washington dc smith talks here with you professor jonathan earle we can really get you remember the last time what

happened what is it that makes a great president well it's a good question and it's a question that in some ways needs to be asked within the context of the times there a president who could have great presidents but for the particular challenge i confronted with herbert hoover had the democrats succeeded as many of them wanted to and nominate the nineteen twenty are the stories got to remember different answer on responses break would've been very different and there are other people like franklin pierce who would've been done in the modern era when when he was in office in the case of lincoln there are so many factors i think the contributor to his greatness and they begin before his presidency because i think if you can walk to come up with a single word that defines this incredibly pretty and figure it's a growth we can never stopped

growing now what is the deal was that we'd when he was a young man the age of twenty two a former acquaintance i want it isn't wasn't going to think that when we die there is the last of us and we can it won't weaken spirituality all afternoon that is something that also grew by the way but it on we can as a young man had a fear when conventional although i would say hyper developed in bishop famously reset ended his ambition that it was a little engine that you know rest it was twenty three when he first ran for the legislature lost its first election came back two years later i served four terms in norwich torture at forty three rides to work friend and if you heard the weekend on a tour of congress it's not true and right over a much he lost his first race for congress they liked him at forty six he

shows up in eighteen forty seven in the nation's capital a town of thirty four thousand people with the thirty seven churches and twice as many taverns some things haven't changed but i had a and he immediately established themselves apart at a party we're introduced was called the spot resolutions evidence in the middle of the mexican war we can have principled opposition to the war he believed it was an immoral a war fought the beach fear of slavery when he chose a kind of dog eat trek almost too clever by how it gets approval for the house and he introduces these resolution to require the prisoners days james k polk to identify the precise spot on the map when mexican aggressions occurred thereby justify an american invasion of our southern neighbor well his party in control the house of the resolution went nowhere

but at the same time in doing that he also demonstrated even at that really early age that he was capable of putting principle ahead of popularity and if you're following can he had one term one unhappy term in congress more people regarded as a failure it goes home to springfield and nurses and top of his family his law practice disappears for five years and then comes something called the kansas nebraska act which effectively repeal the missouri compromise so the point is these the young he had the opportunity to be great but i'll come back in a second because you mention that he served one term in a national office in congress the whig party which was his party didn't even re nominate him to succeed himself the next the next or what about this rather meager preparation preparing lincoln to the president during our nation's greatest crisis if he ran today and you can almost write the opposition's attack ads three o'clock in the morning is no not exactly no

international experience little formal education out of that you know i think we can agree that he truly was well but what do you have to go at sixty had any set of circumstances under which he was not a not autry would be nominated today with that with that background he probably would've been killed off in the yard and the dog eat dog world of arc of american primary politics but what happened by eighteen six he was the country was about to come apart at the seams the democratic party was it really only national institution and it was breaking up so it meant that the republican nominee this is only the second time republicans would nominate someone for president republican party was born eliminating fifties in opposition to see when i was in the kansas nebraska act most republicans believed but they all believe that slavery was an evil that was something that had the control that it was something that had to be restrained many of them believe that was something that had to be ended and the question was exactly when and using

what our government when he was a relative moderate on the question but he believed fervently that the spread of slavery to the directors had to be halted and the time income in effect of drawing the same his advantage at sixty was that he was wrongly i know he was not a blank slate the teachers are way is a lack of experience actually turned out to be his greatest asset because the more prominent republican candidates have long records they had been outspoken they had quotes that could be bright red backpack of enemies they had made enemies and so he was someone in some ways a dark horse armed who could unite the party and take advantage of this unique split that existed within the democratic party what very few people seem to have seriously contemplated was how lincoln would actually cover and again back to just ask a similar question that i understand

and work on this in my own research how he got nominated even how he got elected but what about his his own biography prepared him for the type of leader should challenges he was confronted with immediately we look what president obama's had to contend with and is it really as first moments in office it was so much worse polio already sick of the first hundred days i don't i don't know i mean the president's immediate i recall as we can summon to remain in this is that you go on tv to talk about the first fourteen days no i know i kind of i probably at six or maybe we'll talk in such an artificial construct an edited ronald reagan's first hundred days and the jury would've gotten a passing grade well it's interesting when we need law partner we learned in court in the most shook about me and i never knew himself responding for billboard provide equal autobiography and at sixty said there's not much to it the reason i suppose there's not much to me i'm the last true words were never

spoken there was a great deal to him that lincoln was an extraordinarily cautious i'm committed to calm careful maybe i have that i think went back to his own to his origins you know one of the great myths of american history is it weakens that is what i'm celebrating his humble origins that is he spent a lifetime escaping what what lincoln's political philosophy pay tribute to it seems to me it was a system of government a free society in which the ten dollar a month flap open court through his own efforts raise his station in life and provide for his family and i had become a rubber contributing citizens one factor is really controversial one factor uniquely the prepared we can for the presidency was on happy marriage and now i'm one of those who thinks very top of lincoln's got the bad press our own

here's a woman who was forever children foreigners assassinated her sole surviving son you know had her committed to redwood situation cut the little bit of slack is on it and i sure is how what we were and she she was even the libyans are a classic case of opposites attracting and then propelling and because i actually seriously believe that because we can was accustomed to conflict in his whole house in it you're sort of way he was rattled by conflict in the white house not that that's coordinating things you don't often have in the big buyer is he does have this his preparation from his law practice from his marriage i'm from from learning how to get noticed in the new republican party and how the politician was was lincoln the reason why i think we can as the

president gets to more there's a major first and foremost because he was the most brilliant politician ever occupy the white house any he could play politics nor will it could play a cunning aoun he is a combination of the two he's reluctant against the odds my immediate sixty four frederick douglass said we give the last days were his best days and he was referring specifically to wake of politicking on behalf of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution remember we had written an issue the emancipation proclamation as it is an active military necessity i had no constitutional barrier it could in theory have been repealed by the next president that ticket the president happened the joint call the man ran against lincoln eighty six before we can do that the earth's later there was only one way to permanently eliminate the stain of slavery pro american soil and that was amending the constitution well you know the house was going to do it just because it was a good

idea or more weight admirable idea the president twisted and upright arms to the past what exactly three votes now the us classic case where an undoubtedly can get reelected he and sit back to wait for the bones to claim i n roses record candidates you know didn't want to pay so lincoln brought voters to the white house he practically brought groups of soldiers to the white house and they make these wonderful gem like little speeches but about him or about what they were fighting for and was all about combating war weariness in the south are unit director of the country but in addition to that he also when he authorized to do you need to be made there's a man named james gordon bennett who was a new york newspaper hated lincoln scouts arm was on the bane of his existence and lincoln or to get another country offering the ambassadorship to france you know

so i mean and also he went even general sherman know the president would have no objections that general sherman would what soldiers under his command will hold votes in critical state election so you have someone who elevates politics its young lincoln that young lincoln running for congress it was all about achieving a kind of personal immortality over time weaken outgrew that just as in my opinion he outgrew the racist society the producer we talk about like the lyndon johnson treatment the way lyndon johnson got results by physically leaning over people in commanding them only seen george w bush have a certain way of getting his own ideas of legislation through congress was their lincoln style or that it's kind of a different strategy from each political situation like you mention you know and i think that i think the reason we can stop but i don't think it's a i think it's a it's a remarkable versatility i think we

can have an extraordinary capacity for sort of self and other people's shoes and therefore decide what it was would persuade or convinced or steer the hell out of how the other person ah he was something to read is one of the letters in it ruin his career when he's in congress on its very own research issues and he'd point stranger behind the scenes is not altogether admirable but it's it's that skillful storytelling we can use stories are detained people sometimes to change the subject when he wanted to but also to make a point and effective that you use them as a as a means of persuasion of impressing upon someone that maybe they are given their interpretation of an issue was maybe a little bit off and that he seemed to have a story for almost every occasion and i'm not going and they're relevant stories they're not just you know i'm pulling a story and i

think it weakens the region of reykjavik we can is the greatest communicator american history the great there's so many mysteries about this man you know how did someone with your story or to write the most imperishable pros so we ever by an american or an american president is weekend thunderstorm instinctively while before teddy roosevelt boy pope reporter for harry truman said the key job them on president is persuasion we can understand in his soul that the most important thing that a president could do politically work was to educate people i am and the fact is the war that he be gay we look at the first inaugural address read the first inaugural address in new orleans my dissatisfied fellow countrymen and not in my is the is responsibility for great civil war what lincoln did very skillfully from the very beginning was to put the onus on in the south he knew that when the attack

came the north would have the moral high ground and rapper warren beatty over every rock these public workers that we we think that all of your record reached a wide audience but you know some of them would reach a wider audience through newspapers that would watch a president to address on television in the american wine today so he can get this incredible sixth sense about what needed to be said they'd waited to be said and how to say it and that was the case when we speak to millions of complement lighting fires under members of congress or more on one those are great great ways to answer that question richard do you think it takes extraordinary times to make a great president you seem to live that with wit with herbert hoover although coover who i think have the potential to be a truly excellent president seemed unable to grow into what are the crisis that that was the great depression i've heard bill clinton lament about this as well

be a great crisis turned times present he could've really showed his leadership so let's think about the big ego that that that that that that exhibits what you're saying is your family have the war it all right or or a question and certainly would've been wasted on say calvin coolidge's terms of where i'm sure there are big things that happen in the in the mid twenties obama i stopped the nineteen nineties and has no yeah well they were so so so could there been a great president were nothing big happening and do you need a crisis like this a war to be one of our great leaders traditionally i'm a dove better or worse and i actually i take issue with his big effect the matter is the act of an injury for most of the last several years as a driver single model the presence of what i would call the new deal model and it it puts it and in some ways you think it's been by teddy roosevelt buy it says that the president is the national agenda for the president determines really we will be going as a people

the presidents of mix in many ways a legislative program in the nineteenth century presidents were administrators in chief now other advocates for in all things in general amr that but what the new deal more presupposes the powerful to washington and the power is personalized the presidency so that's the moral that has become a shrine the problem with that it seems to me as ii to the postwar reagan you could actually work that alternative models you can look at i think one reason why a neighbor jackson has been dusted off today or even why people now work at coolidge more seriously there are alternative morals which are appropriate for their time and the worst thing that a historian of all people could do is to forget here is to try to impose our convention's up on every

generation i often thought they knew was a michael which stop and think if you'd been you know my age in nineteen twenty three as an adult you will live through the assassination of a very popular president hu had also been the first president take american overseas we literally spanish american war you'll live through to young reinvented the president everywhere you look at you would've lived through the split in the republican party as tiara taft but the war that you brought and woodrow wilson the first in thirty years the first democratic president thirty years we thought were won who transformed the role of american government the great disillusioned after the war and then you would have gone through the hardy administration a teapot dome and the death of a president but it twenty three in twenty years you were gone to all that cost trajectory you would probably be pining for rupert for equality a little bit of dwight eisenhower ok or a

little bit a couple of the fence i can think however i agree that that the office has changed so much that i don't think you could have an excellent passing president today so i think and i think that might be where if i can try to defend president clinton that that might be where you go and i think george w bush also seem to understand that he was present during very important to her and to knock life changing times i will i will i will challenge is your characterization record his past in a sense everyone knows about teddy roosevelt's stewardship theory of the presidency to read the side here basically that the president is empowered to do anything that the constitution does not explicitly prohibited from doing well i mean now what now when you're when you interpret that as conservation and fighting for our meat that isn't tainted at all or your aunt your drawings i mean in the in the progressive era

that makes perfect sense it is obviously a subject you abuse calling his theory of the presidency is very different he basically says i'm a steward for the taxpayer not for endangered species or their whatever and that basically the president is young one who can protect the taxpayer for these organized interest groups who come to washington with good intentions and helped the chain's so it's a it's a it's a it's a radically different moral the presidency but i don't think it should be dismissed or any other law silent power of war or make him less of what it is but here is the fact that we're having our presidential lecture series curator goldstein up dedicated to abraham lincoln not accomplish as good as he may be why they continued fascination with this name on with this figure with his character on above all else and we have had some other compelling presence and the jacksons an obvious one toward wash and sometimes you know comes back a little bit

and then and i think he really has what is the number is you alright every generation there are very few historical figures and in jefferson's probably has his clothes in terms of people who go to the heart of what it means to be an american and therefore get rediscovered certainly every generation were the important things i think about that possibly give isn't offering parents to joyous much about ourselves and i curl preoccupations and foibles of cultural fashion so you know you know as i say you know generation of brokeback lincoln and your prozac and in the sixties you addicted awaken and races i mean i remember all the women weren't obama first of two american president who from wages grew zero thirty years ago forty years ago it was almost concurrent with the civil rights movement it was a

very significant effort on the part of all of some african american scholars to basically ripped a wall off of lincoln they say he was no regrets about her to quote back things that he said in the context of the tea parties that seemed shockingly races today is not part of my life scott lincoln from fort but that that's one reason i think is why it's your question we get is so reach a figure and lincoln's evolution is so profile but there're also other reasons one week it's funny we can't make silly game is funny when you know there's a whole series of presidents who we defended bigger pipes will look like you're stiff necked figures a weekend has a sense of the ridiculous and that never changed and it was probably his greatest medicine during the war look at win win story begins and word at the great

i mean the essence of america what is it that if if nothing else what are a credible dazzling diversity is one thing that unites us as americans and that is we believe that the conditions of one's birth do not win it or strain the possibilities of one's life that in this country whether you're an immigrant from honduras was just arrived or you know your ancestors came over on the mayflower arm it seems to me that's the civic religion to which we already here and no one including washington or jefferson or like you know one in bodies that more than weight and then and then not finally but one more comedic it's a great passion point of american history the civil war as it's no accident that there are still what the people go to savour roundtable's is no accident that

hundreds of books have been published in conjunction leading up to this bias bicentennial that they're being bought that they're being read you know and like you have some talc is you have some of the best authors coming do not miss people like michael burlingame unbound and ron white mean they they really are the theory cream of the crop and they have contributed significantly to for this generation it would somehow it was amazing that there's not anything else that one could say about abraham lincoln and then here are coming to the lawsuit we have we have for scholars believe were are breaking new ground and finding new things to say i don't know and i love to talk about illinois is is that you start with this idea of lincoln's goats he really doesn't change over time a better way that i loved and so i began studying women's rights

where the republicans head over time i wish that someone one of those guys again where those tools of the early on guess what he's lost about history john carney who thought steven spielberg rebecca move on john quin zy yeah cause i'm not an audience jackson flow the school wants to be at his side is not likely we're talking about a biography of the reason why there are only candidate anybody except for jesus christ is that the story does progressive change again because of the story you can find i don't care who you are you can find something in the story to inspire you there were some things about lincoln that don't change admirably under other things it drew admirably he was ninety one he was an infant when his parents are joining an abolitionist branch of the baptist church it was seven years old

nine years old when they left kentucky for india in part because they didn't want women slaves that he was nineteen years old to a flat bow down the mississippi to the warrens which on one he and dazzle me this is the road that is the first city university endowment but he also shares the border slave auction that he was horrified and never forgot it all the site so from an early age we get a heated sleeve he said there was never time in my life and slavery did not have the power to make me miserable that's a very different thing for embracing what you and i would call racial equality council the fact of matter is when i talk about lincoln's capacity to grow it is most dramatically i think it was traded out that it hadn't happened when he became president it happen in the course of his presidency as he came painfully learn that this was not a

war of the constitution that this was a war about human rights this was a war to remove the stain that the power is left in the constitution when they accepted slavery and the relationship between lincoln and frederick douglass you know there a lot of water a lot of new books but if you want to be right they're collectibles what we get and frederick douglass and that relationship will tell you what that almost any other about lincoln's capacity as an adult would've been elected president serious art to see the error of his ways to see the crime committed by his fellow countrymen he didn't demonize the south and he didn't personalize toward jefferson davis and if you read the second inaugural address which i think is a speech even greater the day for it is the greatest waste or woman in america from a man who has been criticized for not being a church member alice really a sermon almost a

jeremiad directed at his fellow countrymen not a town of celebration you've re elected they would have told the ex the haitian for the sin of slavery that we as a people have confidence that is accurate the thought that that's a good segue from me and talk about the president's spirituality and i agree with you that he did become more spiritual over the court was like an especially as president but would you agree that when abraham lincoln took the oath of office he was one of our the least spiritual musical is presidents we've had no i wouldn't agree with that i would say we review that he was he was a church member he was a thug he was once a credence by i think he was a skeptic he was also the presenter is straight to the bible that are in effect no reason why we can't one of the key it's understanding lincoln's prose was you know you would say that i never finished a novel he said i picked up on a widespread impatience here

but he well shakespeare are at what the king james bible a record both had inferred i don't but he was also remember he was a warrior and it was no ordinary water he was he had the most of the year we want to go rational mind when he has to go on the circuit of the judicial circuit carol white they're these wonderful reports a thankless by if you like herndon his war part one out of the pub at the weekend died of we can wake up in the middle of the night sharing a bed as was the custom in those days of reading euclid geometry that was the line we can talk with him for pleasure or you quit which does use about how his mind operates right now so it's not surprising when you factor all that in every drop of the other kentucky frontier

superstitious place he'd seen all sorts of loan exaggerated hi no dramatic approaches to religion after he lost his mother as a boy he was a sister a few years later he was deaf haunted he was his first leader and i actually one of those i think that in writing wherever it was in fact his first true love owsley all this lost any couldn't reconcile with the notion of a loving god which isn't an eternal forces with people obviously continue to debate but up but i think by the time he became president and the decoys they were weaker the man who was held responsible for this ocean of blood that was the sheer he became human way spiritually on fire in some way what does he does it again he changes over time what does it come about some of the relationships and lincoln's life that were the most important you mentioned ann

rutledge is his first love other people talk about it as his friend died joshua speed his law partner rights attorney who who were the people who affected in the most of them first of all you have to really get his like franklin roosevelt and i would say to make and surprise of the rewrite ah great presidents who could speak for maria to millions of millions of people as my friends and yet whoever was no friends armed with you i would consider that term it had wanted to reframe his wife against joshua speed i don't think we can was the day i don't think joshua speed was gay i think is there's a lot of politicking on on behalf of that theory are and again it's it's it's so easy for us to lose our sense of otherness when it comes to the past and it's so unfair to the past to see to look back over our

shoulders and history being made as opposed to going all the way back and see history as something that's about to happen are the fact is if you read women's letters and the nineteenth century correspondence was it was much more about it was much more emotionally open it's just a different emotional culture and as for it was reversible on the party or view it people or roman three bands well again you know so i mean i think that the problem is in between write about halfway between here and there some amazing run for it i came along and down but if you can if you consider the race for you from your conscience then you can begin to approach it weakens time on lincoln's terms but i think that justice be for example of the great the great evidence of the writ of the state that was when the problems are joshua speed

wanted as that phone was hopelessly love and light in a man insist on the memorial i hung it worried about how to make her welcome back i am down worried about marriage and intimacy and who did he turned to offer advice is his good friend abraham lincoln and you should read the letters a marvelous waters back and forth between lincoln and speed at this time because we can have been going through a very difficult period itself with very top who was so you know he was he was loosely engaged to marry at the beginning of eighty four he won and out they didn't happen i don't think he joined the recovery i don't think it's quite as no dramatic but clearly the relationship broke and up and yet this very tall and his friend joshua speed

was about to leave wake em to go back to kentucky and get married it is writing him for advice and we can use it says is just marvelous and so and there's some to of course be had the opportunity to return the favor when friends brought lincoln and mary back together again as they did and they were married in november at forty two and by the way i want to marry you know he was a way for several months every year and that your judicial circuit leaving her with the children in the house she's the lookout something new about the house's water out stories and she added that house you see today is to laugh stores what he added she added the early edition to accommodate a growing family she and in fact i would say that at their daughter mary we can pursue i don't think it would've been a president like audience will her mission also was was she was as ambitious as you are great problem was she was

born in the wrong quarter of the war crime i mean she was in many ways a hundred years ahead of her time she wasn't politics her father's great friend was henry clay and require was lincoln's political euro as it does a henry clay was that's baker abroad may be married together and mary paid a price because the culture would allow on as a woman you know to run for office or to be really openly interested even in public affairs five years ago we had a really good week we have found jean baker come from going to college has written a wonderful biography of mary todd lincoln and now my friend catherine clinton has a new and i haven't read it yet but so they're telling him continues to be a fascinating said you know what there is no other there's no fraternity was free travel the lincoln scholar an attacker with iraqi people they are very people who will not sit on the same stage with that is that is what level they carry this be

careful be careful what you say is that your hard questions are to do this but i'm trying to think of specific examples of the way president reagan handled certain specific crises during his term his term in office and what we ended the current the current president can learn from where someone is really being tested on the job by by fire well almost every day he was out people still debate when he says that at his corpse was that dictatorship embryo om i think we can respond brilliantly he basically said look i'm suspending because of the constitution to preserve the introduction and then the linkedin marvelous come home we phrase he said sometimes a whim has to be educated to save a life but it's never wise to epic tale wife to say the letter public printer came to the white house and told the president he would have to change the language in one of his state

papers cause you to turn sugar coat it and lincoln said the day will never come in this country when the average american doesn't understand what sugar coated means it states i'm not apply that is weakened understood better than the polls of his tickets surrounding him some of them in his own cabinet what are the american people would would not appreciate it gets another palette its industry or what what is it that gives someone about lincoln one thing we can get it but what the polls at election so you know what you present obama were the present linking the one asking the question well you know i think if i learned a lot already i don't need me but one thing we can get which is fascinating two mornings every week you can walk into the white house you comfortable astonishing middle of a civil war and the secret service no security numbers you can walk off the

streets and into the white house welcomed as hundreds of people get more small stickers that they just up outside the president's office was here us now weekend two mornings a week with dropping the doors to meet with a when he went to the one in the winter and the process of the city of ways to retire you have more boring thing to do your in your ear or d major your health and all the people want something from you and we couldn't refuse and it's interesting there were no public opinion polls in those days obviously we can refer to those meetings as his public opinion bats and it tells you something about someone who did you forget where you came from no more pointed out to get with the legitimacy and power of his office was ultimately ground and the fact that we could would make that effort to be available to ordinary people the dna for the way of office seekers you know like yo ma killed some

presidents falling and we get to you when you tell them with kindness and our job as a group of became one day with a jew jew jew to extol the virtues of a candidate for commissioner to the sandwich islands what you're i know is a widely good job or bad job and out they were on on borrowing or its older patients beyond you know the odd question but he had a health condition that made it mandatory for him to be given this job and the why i once a week and said stop like the air that you know the carrots with his job and they're all sick of the new army how i wish i knew what would that it was his one of the quarry and weakens generosity there's a generosity was a sweetness about lincoln's character that he could because he in that position when he was a congressman and even get reelected what we do he went to the white

house wanted are one of three thousand job as traditional public way of office the campaign for president they were and he thought it was a totally they didn't get it that's why he went back to one or get a job teaching at the public trough well that gave him a particular insight into where these countless people who were feeding at his public trough but but but that would've meant nothing if there had not been forced a generosity of spirit i did ask a couple of questions that will open up to your questions and we heard a lot over last year's they greatly that president bush was a war president we know from our past that they're good war presidents and that were present lyndon johnson's rounding out whether johnson was criticized for staying up late night and i'm actually planning bombing runs a north vietnam where word of lincoln out fall and in that in the end the heart of war president because sometimes he was good at things nice and it was not but it is the war president he invented the job unfortunately

it it may be our subject of misinterpretation it is interesting that of president bush we all now know how much present obama admires president weekend you may not know georgia the bush invited every bit of my arm two years ago i was at the present stable at a dinner in the aisle at the white house for the weekend birthday every year we give birth to the bushes at a special event and i decided to do this now several years ago one was in springfield which i got before the indictments begin to flying lotus yeah well i mean we've did we open the village a museum endowed the bushes came and then a wonderful time and i won't forget taking them through always something they've been there the highway and won every politician's favorites is this wide room with seventy examples of contemporary journalism also cartoons the savages and mrs lincoln

and and dispelling once and for all the notion that lincoln was born on mount rushmore the fact is he was the most controversial most polarizing president in an american history because of what he was doing and i could tell president bush really was getting into this and as we neared the end he says you know he really is at the meeting mr allegedly conclude my party question with with the job you had after your job here at the dole institute describes how he brought the lead in story to life made more accessible with with your work out a migraine even in springfield there were i remember even when we would talk hear some reports of fire people be more that has used to be done down there are there was a lot in and then you know you see this really positive reviews later and if i would like to hear about what it was like to to work for a governor named

broadway which is to do with the men who were doing my car division i think is is modest to the library and museum want it to happen before got there i found out that the back titled the players as a look you'll be judged more than anything else by how you deal with each race and if you think you can isolate it or put it in a box and the chronology here that i think is very recently huge missed opportunity because it is the subject that the wonder years has haunted this country and continues to that's likely why we're still talking about whether there was evidence or and then she went back to the drawing board to trample on their plan to they created a museum that integrated the subject iraq and one of the extraordinary moment in my life right on opening day when you walk through the early years of you come down the mississippi on a plan so you can imagine you turn the corner what you see you see that slave auction

taking place in the wall is white size and and everyone i don't care what party belong to get what ideology or country they come from they all of the same reaction they stop their sort of slack jawed om in astonishment and so i think it was actually a sophisticated treatment of race which of the most proud of the only identify with the exhibit designers because went to their own devices it would also no tail it would've been the world's most expensive wax museum or a handout that i insisted that some people still read and that that the fact is it's one thing to create these extraordinary scenes but you don't tell people what you're seeing and how it connects to the next scene or the wider story then it's again it's the greatest opportunity i can cherry how we have a program for fifth grade boys and i get them a concert and i pointed out that fifth grade boys costly relatively small slice

of the global population and they're probably right at that i'm so we had a view you know we're within that anyone knows me knows that i would it would be the widow of the friction but you know it took him down and you know it's interesting i hear it it's a pro obama went to war in washington where the controversial was in the abstract and then it was built and you don't hear anyone complaining about it anymore so go for if he had him into the museum the migrants think it really it is it is a very sophisticated i'm telling of of lincoln's story and there are some great bells and whistles and there are some great things we have to work to even understand in this criticism of like we did that we went out why an effect so we've been criticized for being too critical of lincoln others the

debate over the emancipation proclamation one actually did and did not do immediate sense oh which has i think quite sophisticated anti i sometimes do worry that we do too much in my possession of song the hay geography of abraham lincoln's i'm glad that you didn't work and i found that oppressive government which was like your car well you know yeah i'll say it's a very good first impression that's about all now i was a lot of the theater because you know he likes history any body heat he you know he was an athlete members were we hire a hundred people to stamp this place in illinois that's about it but just to go to jail i don't know it was astonishing week we actually managed to get the place it was probably it was deeply troubled it was over budget it was behind schedule the

academic committee were taking potshots at rubber lincoln's in and out and all this e and down anyway got a turnaround got a staffed but a dedicated programs up and running biking touring now i decided in advance an indication that i would leave within nine months or so afterwards and end and let the indictments flow i'd love to go back and testify as a non character witness so it was just a standup you're listening to historian richard norton smith and professor jonathan earle they now take questions from the audience as a native kansan and someone who has appointed von again odyssey's the ones that you want to whichever is a date that's not appropriate been showing up in a different part of a question and the time the lincoln spent nearly fifty

nine december in kansas where there anything last two of note for the folks here in four percent well i think a couple things i think that he made a very important political connections within them and go hunt i know a gay guy who it turned out to be very significant at that at the eighty six the convention ah and down and i think he also gave it was one speech where it's actually get some people argue i think i would agree that the speech that he used as a basis for the cooper union speech about which there are entire books yellow cars that there's no there's no transcript and so kansas actually did the play was a watershed the whole breeding kansas issue is what as much as anything else gave rise to the republican party only arab elective lincoln inn at sixties so you could say the kansas up was one of the most important

factors but that system is allowed to question all four storm is we just pray about the uncaring on because conservation into fashion one is opera commission emancipations vs reading union together as first question the second one is the wrong the war by street you want your story is how the journal that difficult task really out their recruitment process well you first have actually framed beautifully that the debate that defines the first part of the weekend president lincoln famously said to horace greeley the tabloid newspaper editor they see this is a war about the union avenue if i could win the war by freed some slaves and not others i would do it but it would've been a week of free all the slaves but even while he wrote that he was primarily

confined to a friend that he was preparing an emancipation proclamation this is again we can lead this is lincoln the movie the politicians and frankly with the spigot to recommit why was he not more opened in advance about the possibility of of emancipation two weeks is to among others while he had were about the border states into kentucky his native state missouri maryland delaware are all slave states and he had reason to believe that as he turned this war into a war for emancipation that he would lose them and secondly his own commanding general george mcclellan was telling him that white men would not apply to war three the black now we can have disagreed with him a vote of how that view in contempt but he had he had to take it seriously and so the story of the wild at sixty two is of lincoln's serpentine maneuvering on the public stage and backstage on as

this war new tapes for about states' rights into a war about human rights the second question i lectured the us about the draft or volunteers how how he won the civil war with an all volunteer force that was part of a controversy of the lincoln presidency the worst riots in american history to this that occurred in new york city in july nineteen sixty three the irish in particular would like him at all who deeply resent african americans who thought that that liberated slaves would take their jobs they write extensively against the operations of a military draft air to give his all book it and how we can very dexterously you enjoy that that issue but it was not an all volunteer army it was about a volunteer

army of course a longtime lincoln frederick douglass that are fighting this war when he had tied behind your back because you're not and was doing african american soldiers and after the emancipation proclamation was issued in the air i'm almost two hundred thousand african americans would volunteer to fight for the union thirty thousand of them will make the supreme sacrifice they contributed significantly to the final victory and when the great ironies is that all the soldiers to put down the draft riots in your city literally came directly from the battlefield at gettysburg so to put down this horrible you know i would ask you a question because i you know i wonder whether there had been a civil war and god knows where that lasted as long as it lasted had a lot in today's twenty four seven internet news climate

only i think the question is is itself or with my biases like i cannot a week and the vietnam is famous as the first living room war and then get the courage of gettysburg and antietam and the wilderness we're coming into our homes twenty four hours a day or take or take what they the very large death tolls from iraq which is more than four thousand dead americans and even you think about target single day in terms of a war were twenty thousand grant last saturday in twenty minutes unfathomable large you know we're we can call him the butcher her husband for joy at a somewhat higher opinion welcome back rich we hope youre doing often i was wondering if lincoln's great ability to make a point by storytelling could have been influenced by his great reading of the bible and jesus' teaching through the parent that's a wonderful

point i'm and i think there's actually truth to that but also think of what other source i didn't i didn't i point out what one of the one of his favorite letter resources avoid resell stables he really sort of cover cover and likewise suggest a certain kind of all wealth storytelling approach to persuasion but there's no doubt that the state destroyed the parables of the bible ronnie i's to rid of ruins the wonderful wonderful story of what's a preacher's kid and i told him that the bible sanctions slavery and he offered them a parable was ow ow and it's too good to grow and by underscoring but he he he in biblical cadence in effect to arrive back in their faces that there's nothing in the bible

that in fact roe justifies what was happening to several million african americans in chains on american soil i'll do it i just wanna close by saying some of the memories that carry that i cherish the most are the conversations that you and i had when you were here about politics everything else it was like old times here tonight and also just want to thank you for bringing this place and in my first war i really loved my time here and i'm very special so thank you for the government which emerged from it the founding director of the abraham lincoln presidential library and museum in springfield illinois speaking with professor jonathan earle of the university of kansas they are top kicked off the dole institute of politics two thousand nine presidential lecture series ten score and j mcintyre k pr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas