WEBVTT - Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:18.236 --> 0:00:21.876 Hey, Hey, revisionist history listeners, It's finally happening. One of 0:00:21.916 --> 0:00:25.036 the most exciting projects I've ever been part of at 0:00:25.076 --> 0:00:29.076 Pushkin our collaboration with Barack Obama on the story of 0:00:29.116 --> 0:00:33.436 one of the most consequential and overlooked periods in American history, 0:00:33.996 --> 0:00:37.756 the years after the Civil War, known as Reconstruction, when 0:00:38.116 --> 0:00:42.636 after tearing itself apart over slavery, the United States tried 0:00:42.636 --> 0:00:46.236 to put itself back together. It's easily one of the 0:00:46.236 --> 0:00:49.596 most traumatic eras in American history. The South is a 0:00:49.636 --> 0:00:53.476 smoking ruin, consumed by violence and chaos in the aftermath 0:00:53.516 --> 0:00:55.796 of the war. There are millions of people in the 0:00:55.836 --> 0:00:58.996 South who just a few years before were treated as property, 0:00:59.516 --> 0:01:02.956 who are now asking to be treated as people. The politics, 0:01:03.116 --> 0:01:06.356 the economics, the morality of the Republic is up in 0:01:06.396 --> 0:01:09.596 the air, and Reconstruction is the time when the country 0:01:09.596 --> 0:01:14.956 struggles to meet those challenges and both succeeds and spectacularly 0:01:15.276 --> 0:01:19.236 fails in ways that would have consequences for the next 0:01:19.276 --> 0:01:23.476 one hundred and fifty years. The series is called Reconstruction 0:01:23.836 --> 0:01:27.516 The Unfinished Promise, an eight part podcast hosted by me 0:01:27.956 --> 0:01:31.476 in collaboration with Barack Obama. I'm going to play the 0:01:31.476 --> 0:01:34.116 first episode for you now. You can find the rest 0:01:34.116 --> 0:01:38.516 of the series on Audible or wherever you get podcasts. 0:01:39.996 --> 0:01:40.636 After the War. 0:01:44.236 --> 0:01:48.356 Douglas is such a fascinating character. 0:01:49.676 --> 0:01:54.676 Frederick Douglas perhaps America's most famous abolitionist leader, a person 0:01:54.756 --> 0:01:57.636 who is a child escaped from slavery, who went on 0:01:57.716 --> 0:02:01.196 to become a global spokesperson for freedom. When I sat 0:02:01.236 --> 0:02:04.276 down with President Barack Obama, he really wanted to talk 0:02:04.276 --> 0:02:06.156 about this larger than life man. 0:02:07.036 --> 0:02:20.276 Douglas is constantly battling between a desperate belief that the 0:02:20.356 --> 0:02:26.396 better angels of our nature will win out. He has 0:02:26.516 --> 0:02:34.076 seen this possibility of genuine equality, but he has also 0:02:34.156 --> 0:02:38.756 seen the very worst right. He himself has experienced slavery. 0:02:38.836 --> 0:02:44.036 He has watched slave catchers grab people and haul them away, 0:02:44.316 --> 0:02:50.996 and he has witnessed equivocation and cowardice and betrayal. 0:02:51.996 --> 0:02:54.636 I am stuck by that same thing that he sees 0:02:54.636 --> 0:02:58.916 the best. And he also is clear eyed about who 0:02:58.956 --> 0:03:00.876 we are and what we're capable of. And this is 0:03:00.876 --> 0:03:03.996 why I think he belongs in that kind of pantheon. 0:03:04.036 --> 0:03:06.996 A founding father. Frederick Douglas is a founding father. 0:03:07.756 --> 0:03:08.356 He really is. 0:03:08.436 --> 0:03:08.996 He really is. 0:03:13.476 --> 0:03:16.356 I said that not only because it's true, but because 0:03:16.396 --> 0:03:18.356 Douglas is one of those people who should have been 0:03:18.396 --> 0:03:22.236 crushed by history. Instead, for a long time he bent 0:03:22.316 --> 0:03:25.636 it to his will. The movement to end slavery did 0:03:25.636 --> 0:03:29.156 not begin with Frederick Douglas. That movement existed before the 0:03:29.276 --> 0:03:32.716 United States did. A year before the Declaration of Independence, 0:03:32.916 --> 0:03:37.476 Philadelphia Quakers founded the nation's first anti slavery society, and 0:03:37.516 --> 0:03:41.356 from the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade, enslaved people 0:03:41.556 --> 0:03:47.036 organized revolutions and plotted escapes, and the abolition movement churned 0:03:47.076 --> 0:03:50.396 out fiery figures that are now well known. Harriet Tubman 0:03:50.436 --> 0:03:54.236 and sojournal Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, and David Walker, the 0:03:54.316 --> 0:04:00.516 radical John Brown. But certainly Frederick Douglas was best known 0:04:00.596 --> 0:04:03.596 in his own time, both in the US and abroad. 0:04:04.676 --> 0:04:08.036 And so we begin our series with Douglas in the 0:04:08.076 --> 0:04:12.076 opening days of recon Instruction in eighteen sixty five. He's 0:04:12.116 --> 0:04:14.876 a man who thinks he's just completed his life's work, 0:04:15.596 --> 0:04:18.276 but he's about to discover that his work has just 0:04:18.356 --> 0:04:25.876 begun by Malcolm Gladwell. And this is Reconstruction, the Unfinished Promise. 0:04:36.036 --> 0:04:38.996 One of our editors, Ky write has been obsessed with 0:04:39.036 --> 0:04:42.716 Douglas for years, and particularly with the evolution of the 0:04:42.756 --> 0:04:43.956 man's politics. 0:04:44.356 --> 0:04:47.236 Can you help people understand just how big a deal 0:04:47.356 --> 0:04:50.516 Frederick Douglas is at this stage in history. I mean, 0:04:50.996 --> 0:04:54.556 like today he would have a billion Instagram followers, like 0:04:54.716 --> 0:04:56.476 the most streamed podcasting history. 0:04:56.596 --> 0:04:56.716 Right. 0:04:57.596 --> 0:05:01.916 Kai called up David Blight, who is the Frederick Douglas expert. 0:05:02.316 --> 0:05:05.836 Blight wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Douglas. He's 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:08.196 such a fan that when he spoke with Kai, he 0:05:08.276 --> 0:05:10.556 was wearing a T shirt with a porch of Douglas 0:05:10.556 --> 0:05:12.996 on it. I'm going to let the two of them 0:05:13.196 --> 0:05:17.196 tell the story of this influential activists second chapter. 0:05:17.636 --> 0:05:20.436 And it's interesting to think about. Yeah, he'd be he 0:05:20.516 --> 0:05:23.036 need to be the guest on every major podcast, or 0:05:23.036 --> 0:05:25.876 he'd be doing his own He's a very big deal. 0:05:27.036 --> 0:05:30.916 At the end of the war, his image was everywhere. 0:05:31.636 --> 0:05:35.996 He really couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. Part of 0:05:35.996 --> 0:05:36.636 it was the hair. 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:42.316 Think about the term hair on fire. It's a shock 0:05:42.516 --> 0:05:44.116 of hair alliance made. 0:05:44.876 --> 0:05:48.956 Part of it was just his presence and the voice, 0:05:49.196 --> 0:05:52.476 almost a shouting kind of baritone voice. 0:05:52.876 --> 0:05:56.596 I know of no country where the conditions for affecting 0:05:56.676 --> 0:06:01.916 great changes are more favorable than here in these United States. 0:06:03.036 --> 0:06:07.196 I found all kinds of stories in the press of 0:06:07.316 --> 0:06:11.596 people reciting the first time they saw Douglass. To a 0:06:11.716 --> 0:06:15.716 certain degree, he became a kind of wonder of America. 0:06:16.116 --> 0:06:21.396 The reception so to mister Frederick Douglas, the celebrated Frederick Douglas, 0:06:21.396 --> 0:06:25.516 has been lionized in this city for several days, notwithstanding 0:06:25.556 --> 0:06:28.716 the severe rainstorm last evening, Frederick Douglas drew out an 0:06:28.756 --> 0:06:29.796 immense audience. 0:06:30.356 --> 0:06:34.196 You came to America from Europe, for example, touring the country. 0:06:34.836 --> 0:06:37.076 You wanted to see Niagara Falls, you wanted to see 0:06:37.636 --> 0:06:40.436 New York City, Washington, d c. A few other things. 0:06:41.116 --> 0:06:44.836 But if possible, especially if you came out of reform traditions, 0:06:45.916 --> 0:06:47.516 try to see Frederick Douglass. 0:06:47.956 --> 0:06:51.236 But in the spring of eighteen sixty five, this world 0:06:51.276 --> 0:06:54.956 famous man who has spent literally his entire life working 0:06:54.956 --> 0:06:59.236 to abolish slavery, at the moment of his triumph, he's 0:06:59.236 --> 0:07:06.396 in a funk. He's kind of a guy who's lost 0:07:06.476 --> 0:07:07.556 for purpose. 0:07:07.676 --> 0:07:10.916 Right, he is loss for purpose at the very end 0:07:10.916 --> 0:07:13.916 of the words the way he described it. And he 0:07:14.036 --> 0:07:17.356 drew right from one of his favorite moments in Shakespeare. 0:07:17.396 --> 0:07:20.116 He said, a fellow's occupation is gone. 0:07:21.196 --> 0:07:23.956 I feel as though I have reached the end of 0:07:24.036 --> 0:07:27.596 the noblest and best part of my life. My school 0:07:27.836 --> 0:07:31.316 is broken up, my church disbanded. 0:07:32.196 --> 0:07:34.236 He didn't know, He didn't know where to go. He 0:07:34.276 --> 0:07:38.076 didn't quite know what to do. Douglas see, he's one 0:07:38.076 --> 0:07:43.876 of the rare, rare radical reformers in history who lives 0:07:43.956 --> 0:07:47.476 to see his cause triumph in the middle of his life. 0:07:47.836 --> 0:07:51.516 He's only forty some years old, and he will face 0:07:51.596 --> 0:07:56.836 the challenge the rest of his life to sustain the 0:07:56.916 --> 0:08:01.796 victory of emancipation, the great transition from slavery to freedom. 0:08:03.076 --> 0:08:07.836 But no one knows, No one really knows yet where 0:08:07.836 --> 0:08:11.116 any of this is going. What he was certain of 0:08:11.236 --> 0:08:16.276 kai is that the Confederate South was not going away. 0:08:17.196 --> 0:08:21.836 He kept warning, he warns, They're still there. The slave 0:08:21.916 --> 0:08:26.556 holding spirit he always is warning, is still out there. 0:08:26.516 --> 0:08:33.596 This ghost haunting the United States. I can't overemphasize how 0:08:33.836 --> 0:08:37.836 fast history moved. In eighteen sixty five. The war ends 0:08:37.836 --> 0:08:40.676 in April, and in less than a week Abraham Lincoln 0:08:40.716 --> 0:08:44.436 is assassinated. That obviously catches the whole world off guard. 0:08:44.676 --> 0:08:48.756 But for Frederick Douglas, who again is already disoriented by 0:08:48.756 --> 0:08:51.076 the fact that he's just witnessed the completion of his 0:08:51.116 --> 0:08:54.436 whole life's mission, I just I can't imagine how he 0:08:54.556 --> 0:08:55.876 processed Lincoln's death. 0:08:57.036 --> 0:09:00.716 Douglas was horrified, and there are many ways to understand that. 0:09:03.036 --> 0:09:07.116 He goes back to Rochester at the news of Lincoln's assassination, 0:09:08.516 --> 0:09:12.636 and a huge crowd had gathered in the central Square 0:09:12.636 --> 0:09:16.556 of Rochester, New York, where he lived, and Douglas went 0:09:16.636 --> 0:09:19.116 and joined the crowd, and there were some speakers, and 0:09:19.236 --> 0:09:22.956 the crowd called for him. And it's a very moving 0:09:23.036 --> 0:09:25.196 statement he made. 0:09:25.396 --> 0:09:31.036 It is a day for silence and meditation, for grief 0:09:31.596 --> 0:09:38.836 and tears. Yet I feel that though Abraham Lincoln dies, 0:09:39.956 --> 0:09:42.836 the Republic lives. 0:09:43.596 --> 0:09:49.236 He said at that moment he had never felt a 0:09:49.396 --> 0:09:52.876 kinship for his fellow Americans, and by that I think 0:09:52.876 --> 0:09:57.716 he met white people. He'd never felt such a kinship 0:09:59.116 --> 0:10:00.756 as he did through Lincoln's death. 0:10:06.356 --> 0:10:09.916 Just think about these two men. Here's Douglas, a formerly 0:10:10.036 --> 0:10:13.636 enslaved child who now commanded the attention of the President 0:10:13.676 --> 0:10:14.636 of the United States. 0:10:15.276 --> 0:10:15.836 During the war. 0:10:15.956 --> 0:10:18.196 He was able to look Lincoln in the eye and 0:10:18.276 --> 0:10:22.156 challenge him to do more, not only in slavery, but 0:10:22.196 --> 0:10:24.396 to arm black men in the fight to save the Union. 0:10:25.156 --> 0:10:28.356 And here's Lincoln standing astride history, trying to save the 0:10:28.476 --> 0:10:33.676 Union and gradually realizing that Douglas was right. The only 0:10:33.756 --> 0:10:36.636 way forward for the United States was to abolish slavery. 0:10:37.196 --> 0:10:41.596 Both Lincoln and Douglas are legendary pragmatists, cerebral by nature, 0:10:41.876 --> 0:10:44.676 but each of them see the national story in fully 0:10:44.716 --> 0:10:49.436 biblical terms. They're ready to partner in this divine task 0:10:49.716 --> 0:10:56.196 of rebuilding the United States. And then bang, partnership is 0:10:56.236 --> 0:11:00.116 snuffed out in one gunshot on Easter weekend, no less, 0:11:00.396 --> 0:11:03.876 just days after the end of the war. And the 0:11:03.876 --> 0:11:07.276 man who rises into the presidency as a result of 0:11:07.316 --> 0:11:09.876 that gunshot, he is There's no a Lincoln. 0:11:11.756 --> 0:11:15.596 Andrew Johnson is an interesting character. He was literally the 0:11:15.636 --> 0:11:17.076 polar opposite of Lincoln. 0:11:17.636 --> 0:11:20.236 Manisha Sinha is chair of the history department at the 0:11:20.316 --> 0:11:23.516 University of Connecticut, and she has written a great deal 0:11:23.636 --> 0:11:30.476 about Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, America's troubled seventeenth president. 0:11:30.876 --> 0:11:32.236 She's an advisor on our series. 0:11:32.876 --> 0:11:38.116 Johnson seems to have been a person who really sort 0:11:38.116 --> 0:11:42.116 of lacked political skills. You know, he's petty, he's mean, 0:11:42.516 --> 0:11:46.836 he's vindictive, he's abusive, he's a drunk. He's not a 0:11:46.876 --> 0:11:50.316 great character to inhabit the office of the President of 0:11:50.356 --> 0:11:51.396 the United States. 0:11:51.836 --> 0:11:54.756 But Lincoln had picked Andrew Johnson as his vice president 0:11:54.876 --> 0:11:57.916 in eighteen sixty four as a show of national unity 0:11:58.076 --> 0:12:02.156 because Johnson was a Southern Democrat instead of a Northern Republican. 0:12:03.196 --> 0:12:06.636 The first sign of trouble came on Lincoln in Johnson's 0:12:06.676 --> 0:12:07.636 inauguration day. 0:12:08.356 --> 0:12:12.636 There is a story that Andrew Johnson was a little 0:12:12.716 --> 0:12:16.716 schnocker on some brandy or bourbon or something, because he 0:12:16.756 --> 0:12:20.596 had a horrific toothache that day. Now he might have 0:12:20.716 --> 0:12:23.196 been sipping for other reasons, who knows, but he was 0:12:23.356 --> 0:12:27.796 not entirely sober at his inauguration as vice president of 0:12:27.796 --> 0:12:32.076 the United States. Now, at that point, what Douglas and 0:12:32.116 --> 0:12:35.916 others knew about Andrew Johnson. He's obviously from Tennessee. He's 0:12:35.956 --> 0:12:39.156 from East Tennessee. You know, there's an old saying about Johnson. 0:12:39.636 --> 0:12:43.516 Quote Old Andy never went back on his raisin, which 0:12:43.556 --> 0:12:46.476 means he knew where he was from. He was a 0:12:46.556 --> 0:12:49.476 damn good stump speaker. You know he could jump on 0:12:49.516 --> 0:12:53.076 a wagon and get the farmers cheering about something. He's 0:12:53.076 --> 0:12:57.516 a former slaveholder that was known, who never believed in secession, 0:12:58.916 --> 0:13:00.996 which is why he stayed in the Union. He was 0:13:01.076 --> 0:13:04.836 the only senator from a seceded state to stay in 0:13:04.876 --> 0:13:07.996 the Union, which is what got him on Lincoln's ticket. Which, 0:13:08.036 --> 0:13:10.596 by the way, I've always said this to all my 0:13:10.676 --> 0:13:13.676 dear friends who are Lincoln scholars, why don't you ever 0:13:13.716 --> 0:13:16.716 talk about that. That's one of Lincoln's biggest mistakes. 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:20.836 It's a horrible, horrible it's a horrible choice. 0:13:20.956 --> 0:13:24.716 I mean politically at the moment, it's it's a unity, 0:13:24.956 --> 0:13:29.436 it's a reunion ticket for this symbolism of the Southerner 0:13:29.436 --> 0:13:32.636 who stayed in the Union. He's a unionist he really was, 0:13:33.276 --> 0:13:38.956 but a former slaveholder, racist to in his bones, and 0:13:39.116 --> 0:13:47.836 a fervent states rights advocate. Of course, nobody expected presidents 0:13:47.836 --> 0:13:48.396 to be shot. 0:13:52.676 --> 0:13:55.876 Andrew Johnson takes over the presidency at the start of 0:13:55.916 --> 0:13:59.356 the remarkable era that historians now call reconstruction. 0:14:00.316 --> 0:14:02.916 We get to use the word unprecedented sometimes because it 0:14:03.076 --> 0:14:05.996 fitness uh. The country had never been in this situation. 0:14:06.156 --> 0:14:09.356 The end of a massive civil war. America was now 0:14:09.476 --> 0:14:13.996 being reinvented. But how what would it do? Who were 0:14:14.036 --> 0:14:16.196 the freed people? How would they be defined? 0:14:18.916 --> 0:14:22.316 Frederick Douglas couldn't have felt Andrew Johnson was fit to 0:14:22.396 --> 0:14:25.996 lead the nation through this conversation, But Douglas did have 0:14:26.036 --> 0:14:29.676 a clear idea about how to answer that crucial question 0:14:29.876 --> 0:14:30.676 of reconstruction. 0:14:31.236 --> 0:14:37.116 Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. 0:14:38.436 --> 0:14:42.396 We need voting rights first and foremost, and the Republicans 0:14:42.396 --> 0:14:46.276 who controlled Congress mostly agreed that's where Lincoln had been headed. 0:14:46.796 --> 0:14:49.636 Lincoln when he died, one of the last speeches he 0:14:49.756 --> 0:14:53.036 made was to say black men who are educated and 0:14:53.076 --> 0:14:55.636 who have served in the Union Army should get the 0:14:55.716 --> 0:14:58.996 right to vote. So that's like the first public endorsement 0:14:59.316 --> 0:15:00.516 a black citizenship. 0:15:01.356 --> 0:15:06.596 But Andrew Johnson, he wanted nothing to do with black 0:15:06.636 --> 0:15:10.676 civil rights political rights. He to the extent we can 0:15:10.796 --> 0:15:14.276 understand him, he wanted black people to become a kind 0:15:14.316 --> 0:15:20.916 of an American serfdom. They would remain agricultural workers, they 0:15:20.956 --> 0:15:23.796 would stay in the South, they would be a backbone 0:15:23.836 --> 0:15:27.316 of the economy. To the extent Andrew Johnson thought much 0:15:27.996 --> 0:15:30.476 about all of that. That's as far as he ever 0:15:30.516 --> 0:15:31.236 wanted to go. 0:15:32.196 --> 0:15:35.436 He did think a great deal about how to handle 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:39.916 the Confederacy. Remember, the Confederate states left the Union, they 0:15:39.956 --> 0:15:43.236 succeeded and took up arms against the United States, and 0:15:43.276 --> 0:15:46.916 their leaders, many of whom had been members of Congress 0:15:46.956 --> 0:15:50.996 before the war, were actual literal traders. So one of 0:15:50.996 --> 0:15:54.116 the big questions of reconstruction was how to bring these 0:15:54.156 --> 0:16:00.116 states and their traitorous political leaders back into the fold. Johnson, 0:16:00.236 --> 0:16:02.916 he had been a senator from a Confederate state at 0:16:02.916 --> 0:16:05.956 the start of the war. He just personally refused to secede. 0:16:06.396 --> 0:16:09.836 So now he's president and he wants to traders back in. 0:16:10.636 --> 0:16:15.476 They would be immediately readmitted to the Union. He would 0:16:15.516 --> 0:16:23.556 accept some disenfranchisement of ex Confederates, but even that he 0:16:23.636 --> 0:16:26.756 had an alternative plan for which was to require them 0:16:26.836 --> 0:16:31.996 to apply to him personally for pardons. And that is 0:16:32.116 --> 0:16:36.956 existence well, that whole staff of people working for the 0:16:36.996 --> 0:16:41.076 executive branch just processing pardons for ex Confederates. They would 0:16:41.116 --> 0:16:44.956 literally line up at the White House or executive building 0:16:45.036 --> 0:16:49.396 nearby to get their pardons. Johnson liked the idea. See 0:16:49.476 --> 0:16:52.956 Johnson was Johnson had the self image of a poor boy. 0:16:53.956 --> 0:16:57.316 His poor boy from East Tennessee Hill country, and he 0:16:57.396 --> 0:16:59.876 did grow up with not much, although he had owned 0:16:59.876 --> 0:17:02.716 some slaves, and he was proud to tell you that. 0:17:03.516 --> 0:17:06.636 But he liked the idea of the old planter class, 0:17:06.676 --> 0:17:12.356 which he was not from having a kind of coward him. So, yeah, 0:17:12.356 --> 0:17:15.276 that sounds familiar too, doesn't The guy with the sense 0:17:15.316 --> 0:17:18.236 of grievance is going to make everybody who might have 0:17:18.476 --> 0:17:21.716 looked down on him come and bend their knee. He 0:17:21.836 --> 0:17:22.236 loved it. 0:17:22.596 --> 0:17:24.796 And meanwhile, black people have to get caught in the middle. 0:17:24.556 --> 0:17:26.316 Of the Black people ain't even gonna be allowed in 0:17:26.356 --> 0:17:27.036 the middle of it. 0:17:30.396 --> 0:17:35.796 Whatever Andrew Johnson may be, he is no friend of 0:17:35.836 --> 0:17:36.396 our race. 0:17:39.436 --> 0:17:43.996 So Douglas sees Andrew Johnson and now he's. 0:17:43.796 --> 0:17:45.156 Got his new vocation. 0:17:45.356 --> 0:17:49.756 Now he has found his calling in opposition essentially to 0:17:49.836 --> 0:17:50.596 Andrew Johnson. 0:17:50.796 --> 0:17:52.916 Oh yeah, and what a great foil. 0:17:55.516 --> 0:17:58.636 David Blight and Ky Write will be back to talk 0:17:58.796 --> 0:18:02.796 more about this coming showdown. But first I'm taking us 0:18:02.796 --> 0:18:13.756 to meet the man who really got it underway. Remember, 0:18:14.036 --> 0:18:17.876 Frederick Douglas and Andrew Johnson both need public opinion on 0:18:17.996 --> 0:18:21.716 their side. After the war. Douglas argues that the federal 0:18:21.716 --> 0:18:24.636 government has an obligation to the newly freed people of 0:18:24.676 --> 0:18:28.316 the South. It must not only protect them, but give 0:18:28.356 --> 0:18:33.236 them the right to vote. President Johnson disagrees. He doesn't 0:18:33.276 --> 0:18:36.276 think the federal government should do much of anything. In fact, 0:18:36.516 --> 0:18:40.996 he's busy pardoning Confederates. But Johnson is only president by 0:18:41.036 --> 0:18:45.276 dint of a terrible tragedy. His power is tenuous. He 0:18:45.356 --> 0:18:49.716 needs some ammunition for his arguments, so he sends a 0:18:49.756 --> 0:18:53.236 man you've probably never heard of on a historic mission. 0:18:53.796 --> 0:18:57.516 It's a mission that will become hugely consequential for reconstruction, 0:18:58.476 --> 0:19:05.676 just not in the way Andrew Johnson hopes. This is 0:19:05.676 --> 0:19:09.556 our dude, right. So, in my many years in New 0:19:09.596 --> 0:19:15.316 York City, I have come walked past this monument many times. 0:19:15.316 --> 0:19:17.556 We're in the corner of one hundred and sixteenth Street 0:19:17.556 --> 0:19:22.116 on Morningside Drive, on the edge of Columbia University, on 0:19:21.836 --> 0:19:25.476 the border between Columbia and Morningside Park, one of the 0:19:25.476 --> 0:19:29.076 crown jewels of Manhattan. And there is this statue which 0:19:29.116 --> 0:19:31.396 I have passed and it has never occurred to me 0:19:31.876 --> 0:19:34.556 to stop and wonder who it is. And it's this 0:19:35.716 --> 0:19:41.036 actually quite imposing statue of a man in what looks 0:19:41.076 --> 0:19:44.156 like a man in his sixties or seventies, wearing a 0:19:44.236 --> 0:19:47.836 kind of long imposing cloak, holding onto his hat and 0:19:47.916 --> 0:19:50.516 a very determined look on his face. And it says 0:19:51.156 --> 0:19:54.676 Karl Schurt's a defender of liberty and a friend of 0:19:54.756 --> 0:19:59.636 human rights. So this statue dates to nineteen thirteen. At 0:19:59.636 --> 0:20:03.996 the dedication ceremony for this statue, just to choke, the 0:20:03.996 --> 0:20:05.956 one who led the movement to get a built said, 0:20:06.836 --> 0:20:16.516 this day will not end the memory of Carl. Does 0:20:16.636 --> 0:20:20.356 anyone remember Carl Schertz today? I don't think so. I've 0:20:20.396 --> 0:20:22.996 never seen anyone standing in front of that statue. The 0:20:23.076 --> 0:20:25.716 man actually seems lost to history, like a lot of 0:20:25.716 --> 0:20:28.956 what happened in the Reconstruction era. At the end of 0:20:28.956 --> 0:20:31.476 the Civil War, Carl Schertz was in the vanguard of 0:20:31.476 --> 0:20:34.796 American politics, one of the people who had rallied around 0:20:34.796 --> 0:20:37.396 Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to save the Union. 0:20:38.156 --> 0:20:40.916 If you think about it, this was a we saw 0:20:40.956 --> 0:20:44.956 them and talk about generations in politics, and this was 0:20:44.996 --> 0:20:48.996 a generation of political leaders. They won the Civil War, 0:20:50.116 --> 0:20:55.036 they mobilized as no one had ever imagined, and here 0:20:55.076 --> 0:21:00.836 they are in eighteen sixty five, victorious. It's a remarkable generation. 0:21:02.156 --> 0:21:05.316 And Carl Schertz is right there in the middle of it. 0:21:06.636 --> 0:21:09.676 He's a German immigrant who fought and lost in movements 0:21:09.716 --> 0:21:14.036 against European monarchy before coming to America and joining Lincoln's 0:21:14.036 --> 0:21:18.596 political coalition. He sees the United States as a laboratory 0:21:18.636 --> 0:21:22.836 for democracy, as an example to the world, no more royalty, 0:21:23.116 --> 0:21:26.196 no more aristocracy, and no more slavery. 0:21:26.956 --> 0:21:29.956 The awesome thing about shirts is, on the one hand, 0:21:29.116 --> 0:21:33.916 he's on kind of the side of liberal democracy for 0:21:34.036 --> 0:21:36.276 all these mass movements in the nineteenth century. He's like 0:21:36.396 --> 0:21:38.396 a street running across the nineteenth century. 0:21:39.316 --> 0:21:42.436 Finally I found someone who's gotten into call shirts as 0:21:42.516 --> 0:21:45.756 much as I have John Grinspan, a historian at the 0:21:45.796 --> 0:21:50.276 Smithsonian Institute who studies the politics of the eighteen hundreds. 0:21:50.716 --> 0:21:54.076 And the other thing is Carl Schurtz is incredibly kind 0:21:54.116 --> 0:21:58.836 of needling and pushy, and the Yiddish word nunik is 0:21:58.836 --> 0:22:02.116 the word I think of for him. He's such a difficult, 0:22:02.796 --> 0:22:06.796 sometimes annoying individual that it's fun to see the humanity 0:22:06.836 --> 0:22:08.876 in somebody who's involved in all these kind of go 0:22:09.156 --> 0:22:09.836 arious movements. 0:22:10.916 --> 0:22:13.436 It's the summer of eighteen sixty five, just a few 0:22:13.476 --> 0:22:16.156 months after the Civil war has ended, and after Lincoln 0:22:16.316 --> 0:22:20.596 has been killed, Andrew Johnson, the new president, asks Carl 0:22:20.676 --> 0:22:24.636 Schirtz to come to the White House. Shirts thinks here's 0:22:24.676 --> 0:22:28.676 an opportunity to shape the reconstruction effort that's just begun. 0:22:29.436 --> 0:22:32.436 He sees some things he thinks Johnson is doing wrong, 0:22:32.676 --> 0:22:36.156 and he, in a maybe naive wa thinks he can 0:22:36.196 --> 0:22:38.236 go to Johnson and talk him into a better policy. 0:22:42.076 --> 0:22:45.396 What follows is a little digression, but it's hard to resist, 0:22:45.756 --> 0:22:48.516 and it tells you something about how Americans were handling 0:22:48.596 --> 0:22:53.396 both the trauma of war and a president's assassination. On 0:22:53.436 --> 0:22:56.596 the way to Washington to see Johnson, call Shirts stays 0:22:56.596 --> 0:23:00.556 with friends in Philadelphia. The family had lost two sons 0:23:00.556 --> 0:23:03.276 in the war. Unlike so many others, they wanted to 0:23:03.316 --> 0:23:08.316 communicate with them through a seance. The night Shirts arrives, 0:23:08.676 --> 0:23:11.596 they invite him to join in. He wrote about it later. 0:23:12.636 --> 0:23:17.556 One of the daughters, an uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, and high 0:23:17.596 --> 0:23:22.036 spirited girl of about fifteen, had shown remarkable qualities as 0:23:22.076 --> 0:23:26.156 a writing medium. When the circle was formed around the table, 0:23:26.676 --> 0:23:31.596 hands touching, a shiver seemed to pass over her fingers 0:23:31.676 --> 0:23:35.116 begun to twitch. She grasped a pencil held out to her, 0:23:35.476 --> 0:23:39.076 and as if obeying an irresistible impulse, she wrote in 0:23:39.116 --> 0:23:43.916 a jerky way the messages given her by the spirits. 0:23:44.796 --> 0:23:47.556 He asks that the girl call up the spirit of 0:23:47.636 --> 0:23:50.796 Abraham Lincoln, who's just dead for a few months at 0:23:50.796 --> 0:23:53.636 that point, and he claims that at the seance, the 0:23:53.676 --> 0:23:56.076 spirit of Abraham Lincoln tells him that Johnson is going 0:23:56.076 --> 0:23:59.156 to send him on an important mission. It's classic Carl 0:23:59.196 --> 0:24:01.516 Shirts that he has Lincoln come back from behind the 0:24:01.556 --> 0:24:02.996 grave to give him a promotion. 0:24:06.596 --> 0:24:09.116 But now after that side trip to the spirit world, 0:24:09.596 --> 0:24:12.916 he is a real president to meet. I asked historian 0:24:13.116 --> 0:24:18.116 Militia Sinha about that encounter. So Shirts goes to Washington, 0:24:19.676 --> 0:24:22.556 sits down with Johnson, or what does Johnson explicitly ask 0:24:22.636 --> 0:24:23.076 him to do? 0:24:24.716 --> 0:24:27.996 So Johnson asks Shirts to go to the Southern States 0:24:28.156 --> 0:24:30.836 and says, I want you to report on the conditions 0:24:31.396 --> 0:24:34.076 in the South right now. And I think he wants 0:24:34.116 --> 0:24:36.756 to use Shirts. He wants to send Shirts to the 0:24:36.876 --> 0:24:40.356 South to report back to him. Hey, everything is fine, 0:24:40.396 --> 0:24:43.476 it's all hunky dory, and you know the South can 0:24:43.556 --> 0:24:44.516 rejoin the Union. 0:24:44.876 --> 0:24:49.516 Oh so, from Johnson's perspective, he's looking He's looking for 0:24:49.556 --> 0:24:52.396 a kind of cover story. He thinks he thinks Shirts 0:24:52.476 --> 0:24:55.676 is going to come back with something that kind of 0:24:55.916 --> 0:24:59.196 justifies him, sort of washing his hands of the whole 0:24:59.196 --> 0:25:01.596 thing and moving on. Why does he think Shirts could 0:25:01.796 --> 0:25:03.356 would be such a willing dupe? 0:25:03.716 --> 0:25:07.756 That's an interesting question. I think he's also calculating that 0:25:07.836 --> 0:25:11.116 he wants to send someone one who would be believable 0:25:11.636 --> 0:25:14.796 to the Radical Way and to the entire Republican Party. 0:25:15.996 --> 0:25:19.276 In mid July, Carl Shurtz begins his fact finding mission. 0:25:19.956 --> 0:25:22.756 He boids a steamboat from Washington to the South Carolina 0:25:22.876 --> 0:25:26.236 Sea Islands. A US military officer takes him to a 0:25:26.276 --> 0:25:30.596 plantation near Beaufort, far down the eastern coast, just shy 0:25:30.716 --> 0:25:35.156 at the South Carolina Georgia border. Shirtz is excited by 0:25:35.156 --> 0:25:35.796 what he sees. 0:25:36.516 --> 0:25:40.556 Fields free from wheats, the cotton plants healthy, The cornfields 0:25:40.596 --> 0:25:45.276 promised a rich shield everything, breathing thrift, order and prosperity. 0:25:46.076 --> 0:25:48.316 We passed by a large log house in which a 0:25:48.316 --> 0:25:52.076 colored preacher was exalting his congregation for it was Sunday. 0:25:52.716 --> 0:25:56.396 This is an area where the Union Army, abolitionists free 0:25:56.476 --> 0:26:01.556 people themselves are experimenting in systems of free labor that 0:26:01.676 --> 0:26:06.276 would replace slavery. Freed people's idea of free labor who 0:26:06.476 --> 0:26:10.356 was linked to their own traditions of economic attime. They 0:26:10.596 --> 0:26:15.876 envisioned free labor as sometimes even ownership of land, but 0:26:15.996 --> 0:26:20.436 definitely control over who they labored for, how much they labored, 0:26:20.756 --> 0:26:22.396 and what they would get for it. 0:26:23.956 --> 0:26:26.996