WEBVTT - Abraham Lincoln: Fact vs Fiction 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:02.440 I often ask this when I lecture on Lincoln. I 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:04.480 lecture on the Civil War. What if you go to 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.440 do research on the Civil War? What's the name? What's 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:08.879 the official name of the Civil And I got a 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.119 lot of studs here in the audience. I want one 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.600 of my past failed students who are in senior year. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.360 A Science of Happiness, Appreciating Condern Painting, dilemmas of modern Medica, 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.759 Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, the artistic genius of 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:35.920 michel Angelo, when intuition, American Psychology of Religion, One Day University. 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.440 The most acclaimed and popular professors from top colleges. They're 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:49.840 best lectures, fascinating conversations. Hi, I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.640 what's what's the name of the war? Yeah, I see, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.000 you're all good. You're all good. It's the War of 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.120 the Rebellion if success. I'm Lou Majorum, Distinguished Professor of 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.319 American Studies in History at Rutgers University. I lecture on 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.880 Abraham Lincoln. What's fact and what's fiction? You're a rebel. 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.680 When I gave a lecture on Lincoln in Atlanta, they 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:13.920 all said, it's the War of Northern aggression. I said, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:20.120 absolutely right, absolutely right, make no mistake about it. What 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.119 do we get wrong about him? Is there one thing 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.520 above others that we make a big mistake when we 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.080 think of Lincoln. Lincoln is is so complicated in so 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.720 many ways, and of course he's politicized. So when you 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.000 ask what do we get wrong about him? It depends 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.520 on on on your point of view. Right, the biggest 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.080 question has always been, of course, Lincoln and slavery, Lincoln 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.120 and emancipation. The people who believe that he truly is 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.880 the great emancipator who freed the slaves, and the people 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.360 who cherry pick from other things that he said to 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:56.680 indicate that he was a racist who didn't really care 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.600 about slavery, who didn't free the slaves. So you start 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.080 there air and you can move into all kinds of 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:08.080 different questions because history is about interpretation. We we we 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.800 try to know the facts the best that we can, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.200 but ultimately it's our job to turn facts into truths. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.360 And so the truths of Lincoln, Uh, you're gonna have 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.720 different people disagreeing upon. Take, for example, the issue of 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:26.080 Lincoln and slavery. Lincoln was always against slavery, he said 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.280 I'm naturally anti slavery. I can't recall a place at 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.120 a time when I did not think and feel so. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.040 But he wasn't always an abolitionist. He wasn't always committed 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.280 to freeing the slaves. So the question then becomes when 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.200 you ask what's fact and what's fiction? Well, was he 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.400 against slavery? Was he not against slavery? Did he free 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.160 the slaves? Did he not free the slaves? A lot 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.560 depends on how you frame the question, the answer that 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:55.480 one gets. He had a very different policy view on 0:02:56.120 --> 0:03:00.760 slavery when he started as president, then a couple of 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:05.160 years later he's always against slavery, but he can't act 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.600 against slavery when he becomes president, even if he wanted to. 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:17.160 Slavery is a state institution protected by state laws. The 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.880 federal government has no power of slavery, and if you're 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.440 a Southern Unionist who owned slaves, you're still entitled to 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.519 your property. He has two generals early in the war, 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.560 General Hunter and General Fremont, who issue military orders freeing 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.239 the slaves in their areas. And what does Lincoln do. 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.160 He immediately revokes those orders, and people go apoplectic. Those 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.440 on the left, I mean the anti slavery abolitionists crowd. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.000 Lincoln says, if there is a power to act against slavery, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.480 it is vested in me as commander in chief, and 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.960 not in any of my generals. This is the thing 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.440 about Lincoln. This is where people get so confused on 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.280 the subject of Lincoln and slavery. Why couldn't the act 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.800 against slavery He didn't have the power to do so. 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.760 Lincoln time and again said that I cannot act against slavery. 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.520 I will not act against slavery. He said it leading 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.080 up to the Civil War to try and reassure those 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:10.080 Southern states that they had nothing to worry about with 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.560 him being elected president. They didn't believe that. In eleven 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.960 of them succeeded. But he does not cannot even if 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.520 he wanted to abolish slavery at the beginning of the war. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.440 So the question then becomes, how do we get from 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.200 March of eighteen sixty one, when he says I can't 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:32.400 do anything against slavery to January one, eighteen sixty three, 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:37.039 when he issues an emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves. That 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:42.160 is the story of Lincoln and slavery. How radical was 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:49.680 the Emancipation Proclamation. Frederick Douglas, the great abolitionist, said the 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:55.320 Emancipation Proclamation stood next to the Decoration of Independence as 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.960 one of the two pole stars of liberty in America 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.279 at the time. P but recognized it to be the 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.680 most significant document since the Declaration. It has lost some 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.880 of its luster over time. That's another subject, perhaps, and 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.400 another story about reputation, about how the past gets viewed 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.559 through the prism of the present. But to think that 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:23.279 in a nation that had embraced slavery, he issued a 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:29.440 document that freed the majority of slaves is remarkable. What 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.880 a lot of people don't understand about the document is 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:36.760 it does something else that's even more radical. It authorizes 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.719 the enlistment of black soldiers in the U. S. Army. 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.080 Think about that, We're not only going to free the slaves, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.440 We're going to put guns in their hands and send 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.719 them back South to fight for the Union. So it 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.120 was a one two punch that was profound, and at 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.080 the moment seemed that it would shift the balance of 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.880 the war. The question should be not what took them 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.839 so long to do it, but how unbelievable it is 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:09.159 that he did and he did it gradually, as was 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:15.280 his want. So Lincoln takes these steps, and he does 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.599 so under the doctrine of military necessity. And you can 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.560 watch again, it's an intellectual problem, as much of his is. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.919 It's any other kind of problem. Okay, how do we 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.720 get from it's illegal down constitutional free to slaves too? 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.919 I have the legal, constitutional right to do so. And 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.080 the answer is as a as a necessary means of war, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.000 as a way to promote the military effort. Now, the 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.960 slaves themselves are not all quite impassive in all of this. Right, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.799 the enslaved runaway delivered themselves to Union lines and also 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.800 forced Lincoln to consider this. He says in July, the 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:56.640 pressure upon me in this direction is great, Lincoln. I so, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.719 you know. So it's not just that Lincoln acts. Lincoln reacts. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.680 The famous line of Lincoln's that I cannot claim to 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.640 have controlled events, but I have been controlled by them. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:11.440 How did Lincoln's views about the slaves change over the 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:16.800 years of his presidency. Well, if you think about the 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.800 problem of race in America, race and the question of 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.000 race continues to bedevil the nation in a variety of 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.680 different ways. Now, if you think back to the nineteenth century, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.760 what are we going to do with these free blacks? 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.040 That literally was the question that was asked. If the 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.280 slaves are freed, what are we going to do with them? 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.240 The question is not always posed that way, but it 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:39.800 has to be posed that way because that's the way 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.480 in which they thought about the problem. For them, the 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.760 problem with slavery was not only yeah, slavery is wrong, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.360 it's immoral, it's illegal, it's unconstitution We should abolish the slaves. 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.360 But then there's a second question. Four million formally enslaved 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.840 persons now free, what are we gonna do? And a 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.200 lot of that is to understand the racialist ideology of 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.920 the day, which varies in terms of where you want 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.520 to go on the spectrum of quote unquote racism. You know, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.600 there's actually a paternalistic, benevolent racism and it goes like this. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:13.760 And this isn't to justify it. But if we're gonna 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.120 be historians, we have to think the way in which 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.760 the nineteenth century thought and not necessarily impose some of 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.680 our own ideas upon them. Well, if you thought slavery 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:28.120 was such a total institution of barbaric, horrible damage, institution 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.560 that deprived individuals of any idea of humanity, then any 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.160 theory of personality means you have one of two types 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.680 coming out of it. Either the enslaved are made to 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.800 be so docile and childlike and infantilize that they can 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:47.240 possibly function for themselves and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.880 Or they have been made so savage, so barbarous that 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.000 the result is going to be bloodshed, that they're going 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.520 to exact revenge on their former masters. So what do 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.520 we do? And here's a classic example of Lincoln changing 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:07.800 his mind. Lincoln, like many Americans, believed they can't live 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.080 peaceably side by side with whites, so they believed in colonization. 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.040 You know we're gonna do. We're going to get them 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.760 voluntarily to emigrate out of the country. And Lincoln supported this. Indeed, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.040 he was a sucker for every colonization scheme that came 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.839 his way because he believed that this was a solution 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:27.960 to what we might call the race problem in America. 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.079 African Americans didn't want that. Black said, no, we're Americans. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.160 We don't want to go to Liberia. That's one of 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.600 the first countries founded as a colony for former blacks 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.480 in America. We want to stay. And over time Lincoln 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:46.040 comes to understand that that's right, that that not only 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.320 should slavery be ended, but we must find the way 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.920 for the black citizens of America to obtain their full 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.240 rights as citizens within this country. He goes so far 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.000 as to not only abandoned colonization, but in the very 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.240 last speech that he gives on April eleventh, eighteen sixty five, 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.560 he endorses black suffrage. We're talking about the evolution of 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.160 Abraham Lincoln as president and commander in chief. So in 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.720 that last speech, among other things, he says that he 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:25.320 supports black suffrage for educated blacks and those who served. 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.880 Think about that. Shockingly, the right to vote today is 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.000 still contested. Think about what it meant to give the 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:37.280 vote to black men in eighteen sixty but Lincoln was 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.880 prepared to do so. This is a man who eleven 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.080 years earlier didn't even know they deserve political and social equality. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.720 John Wokes Booth is among the crowd who hears Lincoln 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.199 deliver that speech, and he turns to his co conspirator, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.839 Louis Pale, and he says, that's the last speech he'll 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.560 ever give. And we don't often think of Lincoln as 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.480 a martyr to civil rights, but to the stent that 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.080 while the conspiracy was in motion, it's that speech and 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.400 the endorsement of black suffrage that immediately led Booth three 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.560 days later to assassinate Lincoln. That's important to remember. So 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:19.480 we have this man, Abraham Lincoln, who starts out, I'm 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.560 not so sure about whites and blacks being equal, certainly 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.559 not certain that blacks should live in this country, against slavery, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.280 but not willing really to act against slavery. Doesn't have 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.240 the power to do it. And where do we end up. 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.800 We end up with this man who not only frees 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.600 the slaves, but he believes that you have to give 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:39.920 black men the right to vote so that they could 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.800 be full citizens of the nation. That's greatness. There's a 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.920 lovely moment in your lecture when you talk about Lincoln 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.480 growing a beard. It's fabulous story. It's one of the 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.720 many great Lincoln stories. He he grows it in response 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:03.720 to a letter that he gets after he was elected. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.679 Around the time of his election, what did he do 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.920 he grew here? He seems to do so in response 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.160 to a letter that he gets from an eleven year 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.360 old girl named Grace Biddell Grace writes them a letter 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.760 in October eighteen sixty and says, I've got four brothers, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.360 and part of them will vote for you anyway. If 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.319 you will let your whiskers grow and I will try 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.959 and get the rest of them to vote for you, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.199 you would look a great deal better. For your face 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:38.160 is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers, and they 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.760 would tease their husbands to vote for you, and then 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:45.000 you would be president. My father is going to vote 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.600 for you, and if I was a man, I would 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.280 vote for you too. But I will try and get 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.480 everyone to vote for you that I can. Remarkable letter 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.080 from an eleven year old girl, and it's just beautiful. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.000 Of course, it captures some other fundamental truth about Lincoln. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.520 And that's how weird looking he was for the times. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.280 He was awkward. He was downright ugly, and he knew it. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.560 He's constantly making references to his appearance. Anyone who ever 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:16.480 saw Lincoln jotted something down about how he looks. What Whitman, 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.120 the great poet, was working in Armory Hospital, he used 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.080 to see Lincoln coming and going. He writes a letter 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.840 to his mother where he says, I see the president 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:30.240 every day. He is like a who'sier Michaelangelo? So awful, ugly, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.280 he's almost beautiful. So and now here you have this 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.440 eleven year old girl also saying, you know, I think 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.400 you look better with a beard. What's remarkable because Lincoln responds, 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.960 and he responds as if she's a constituent, and he 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.040 he says, thank you for your consideration, and indeed he 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.040 goes ahead and grows the beard. I also argue in 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.560 my lecture that the beard is in effect also his 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:59.000 war beard. It's grown between his election and his inauguration. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:04.720 He's preparing for the cataclysmic conflict that seems to be 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:09.120 coming on the horizon. Did he, above most other men 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.920 of his time feel deeply about the importance of preserving 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.920 the Union? Right from the get go, preserving the Union 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.480 was everything to Lincoln. Time and again he talked about 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.280 the Union. He in fact creates in some ways the 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.960 cult of Union. In his inaugural address, he talks about 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.640 the perpetuity of the Union. He countered every chance he 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.680 could the argument being made by the secessionists that it's 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.560 the states that had ultimate authority. No, no, no, no, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.720 Lincoln said, the federal government, the Union that's what had 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.120 ultimate authority, and that no one had a right to 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.200 leave the union. You could do all kinds of things. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.640 If you're unhappy with the election of the president, you 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.080 can wait four years and vote amount of office. You 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.720 can try and organize a constitutional convention to change the 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.840 frame of government. There are many things that you could do. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.280 What you can't do is leave. Lincoln articulates this critical 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.520 legal constitutional doctrine of the illegality of secession. That's what 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:18.920 he's spending his time doing. Is, of course a lawyer. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.760 He's done a tremendous amount of research. He argues that 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:28.000 secession is an ingenious saphis m. Those are his words. 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.720 He says, it is the essence of anarchy. You cannot 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.120 have a government in which there's a constitutional right to secession. 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.480 Lincoln said, nonsense. The compact theory of government does not 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.440 mean states take precedence over the federal government. Cannot be done. 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.640 The nation exists before the state. And there are many 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.400 parts of Lincoln's greatness. Part of course, of his greatness 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.160 is his ability to argue and sustain an argument for 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.680 the nation the union in predominance over the state, and 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.880 his defense of the union. His articulation of that is 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.080 one of the great contributions to our history. That's the 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.360 meeting of the Gettysburg Address four score and seven years ago. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.360 Our fathers came forth to create a new nation. That 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.840 word nation. The address is a little over two words. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.640 He uses the word nation five times. That's what Lincoln 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.680 believed in, right, those mystic chords of memory that he 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.400 spoke about, and that's what he defended, and that's ultimately 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.760 what he preserved. His refusal to allow the Union to 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.440 be lost is what kept this country together. Do you 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.720 think that without Lincoln the United States would have split 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.840 apart and remained split in a much more fundamental way 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.720 than it is today. Counter Factuals and hypotheticals are always 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.760 difficult for historians to answer. Are generally we try to 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.320 avoid answering them because you just can never know. But 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:01.400 I think there's a strong likelihood, with out Lincoln's leadership, 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.600 his determination, his skills, and a lot of luck, that 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.719 indeed the strength of states rights, the strength of secession 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.240 may very well have led to the fracturing and breaking 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.080 up of this nation into into two nations or more. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.679 It's worth noting that those questions are still alive right there. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.200 You know, the state of California today is threatening to 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.800 succeed in California is one of the world's largest economies. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.159 Are questions of states rights haven't gone away? Although I 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.160 do think the commonplaces to say this. Before the Civil War, 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.480 the United States was plural. After the Civil War, it's singular. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.720 Lincoln was one of the driving forces to help make that. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:50.440 So you said that the greatest thing about Abraham Lincoln 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.960 may well have been that he changed his mind. Why 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.520 is that so important? You know? I tend to try 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.280 not to talk about as it matters when I lecture 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.400 about the past. But I think we need only look 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.600 around at the state of politics today on all sides 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.919 of the political spectrum. This is a nonpartisan comment about 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.600 the rigidity, about the ways in which positions become ossified, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.800 about the ways in which it seems that discourse is 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:26.160 limited and people refuse to move in any direction. For me, 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.359 it makes my admiration of Lincoln all the greater. How 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:36.400 did this man born in poverty, self educated? How did 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.240 he come to represent this ability and this willingness to 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.800 think through things and to change his mind over time? 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.760 I'll give you two diametrically opposed quotes from Lincoln to 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.120 show you how he changed his mind during the war. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:58.080 August Lincoln told delegates from Indiana, who offered to raise 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.960 two black regiments, quote, the nation couldnt afford to lose 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.080 Kentucky at this crisis, and to arm the Negroes would 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.520 turn fifty thousand bayonets from the loyal border states against 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.680 US that were for US. August two. Not doing it. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:22.120 Here we go January one, weeks after. The colored population 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.200 is the great available and yet unavailable force for restoring 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:30.359 the Union. The bare site of fifty thousand armed and 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.160 drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.280 end the rebellion at once. And who doubts that we 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.520 could present that site if we but take hold of 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:43.040 it in earnest? Is that wonderful? I think ultimately that's 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.040 the measure of a great political leader, change over time. 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.960 It is a remarkable phenomenon to study and to witness. 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.000 And I'm not alone in doing that, you know, I 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.320 often in my lecture quote W. E. B. Du Bois, 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.639 the great African American IT or historian activists, founder the 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:07.600 Double A CP. The boys thought a lot about Lincoln 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.440 at the time of the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.640 and one of the things that he said about him, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.320 he said, I love him not because he was perfect, 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.520 but because he wasn't, and yet he triumphed. That's the 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.199 thing about Lincoln. We could see all the ways in 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.879 which he wasn't perfect. We could see all the ways 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.400 in which he was a bundle of contradictions. We can 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.439 see all the ways in which he struggled in his 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.560 own time. But in the end he triumphed, and because 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.439 of his triumph, this nation continues. What do you hope 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:51.240 that audiences will take away from this lecture? My deepest 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.479 hope for what audiences will take away from this lecture 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:02.960 is to understand that all of us today can still 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.760 become some better version of ourselves, because I think the 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:14.000 genius of Lincoln is that he was always becoming, He 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.080 was always changing. He didn't start out as Abraham Lincoln. 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.639 He became Abraham Lincoln. And what that means is any 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:27.399 of us can also become the thing that we most 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.600 hope we want to be. So in that sense, to 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.840 see Lincoln, yes, it's to understand the past, is to 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:38.000 understand a seminal figure without whom this nation would be 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.760 fundamentally different. But the best of history also allows us 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:54.400 to understand something about ourselves. I'm Richard Davis. Thanks for listening. 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:57.920 Sign up on our website one day you dot com 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.240 to become a member and access over six hundred full 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:14.000 length video lectures for the world's finest professorsh