Conversations with History: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery with Eric Foner

this program is a presentation of uctv for educational and non-commercial use only welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies our guest today is Eric Foner who is the the Witt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University his most recent book the fiery trial Abraham Lincoln and American slavery won the Pulitzer Prize the Bankoff PI's and the Lincoln prize professor Foner welcome to Berkley very nice to be here where were you born and raised well I was born in New York City but very quickly my parents like so many others in the aftermath of world war ii moved out to the suburbs in my case Long Beach Long Island not too far from the city and I was raised there until I went off to college and looking back how did your parents influence your thinking about the world well very strongly I mean my both of my parents sort of intellectually politically came out of the 1930s the Great Depression they were political radicals and they had both been stigmatized or persecuted for their political beliefs my father who was a historian was blacklisted for a long time could not get a teaching job my mother who was an artist also had a high school teaching job which she was forced to leave in 1950 does the McCarthy era of course so when I was growing up I it was quite clear so to speak in my family that you know the American ideals which are so important to us of liberty of freedom of speech freedom of thought weren't always being respected so to speak in the society there was a gap between the professions and the reality of American life and that is a that has stuck with me ever since we're current events a big part of the conversation at the dinner table absolutely more than in probably most families I mean my parents both very politically engaged we talked about world affairs we talked about the civil rights movement as it began to develop in the 1950s you know that I I knew a lot about just the current events in ways that probably most teenagers growing up didn't and this stood me in good stead when I got to college and I was in college in the first part of the 1960s when the whole society was in turmoil so I guess I had a my own home education on this as well as whatever I learned in school and importantly your father his work and research focused on the the contribution of blacks to American hate correct he his first book was about the history of blacks in the US Army well actually his first book was about the army after world war after the Civil War and there was an important chapter on black soldiers then he wrote a general book about blacks in the military and he actually when he finally did get a job was able to have founded the first Black Studies program I think in New England up in Colby College at tiny College in Maine in the mid to late 1960s so african-american history and the and particularly growing up in the 60s you know it was very important to our family just that the the situation of African Americans was a critical question in America both at the time and historically and and your family was also what we would call an activist family right I mean very very not just concerned about looking at history but also changing changing it today yeah oh absolutely I had two uncles who were leaders of trade unions my uncle Moe Foner with the drug and hospital workers Union my uncle henry phoner with the fur and leather workers union yes the political activism of one kind or another particularly on behalf of either labor or blackgate rights was very built into my a background I mean when I was a very young kid I met Paul Robeson I met W EB Dubois of course I didn't know who they were so to speak you know but this was yeah this I grew up sort of assuming that this was something that one would do what was it inevitable then that you became a historian you know historians don't like to use the notion of the evitable about anything i some might say yeah sure was inevitable my father was the story my uncle Phillip was a historian but I actually was submerged in science growing up I I went to college wanted to be an astronomer and the first two years of college I mostly took physics math it was only in my junior year I started really getting interested in history took some wonderful courses I was at Columbia University where I now teach as an undergraduate and shifted my interest partly because of some great teachers and partly because the world around us was throwing up these historical questions what were the roots of the civil rights revolution things like that history was extremely relevant to us at that time and who were the really important mentors at Columbia accident well there was a teacher called James P Shenton who passed away a few years ago unfortunately not very well-known as a scholar but an excellent teacher and really in the first District course I ever took was through him and a wonderful inspire a below and really I still remember his teaching very well and the other who I was lucky enough to work with both as an undergraduate and then as my doctoral supervisor was Richard Hofstadter who was probably the most prominent historian of that generation a brilliant writer a really excellent thinker and strongly influenced my own approach to the writing of history and what was your dissertation on well it was called free soil free labor free men and it was about the Republican Party before the Civil War it was a study of political ideology particularly and the answer the rise of the anti-slavery movement in politics leading up to the Civil War mmm-hmm looking at your role as a historian what what what skills or qualities of Karen - or both do you think make a historian well that's that's a good question I mean I think the FIR the first thing which is pretty mundane is the ability to really do a lot of hard work you know I mean it's it's not fun necessarily being in the archives all the time and finding documents although I find it extremely interesting it's almost like it to take a detective story you know but it does take a lot of work but over and above that of course I think one has to have you know personally I think that a strong set of beliefs and commitments makes you a better historian as long as you don't let them trample on the actual historical record some people think no you should go to the past with a completely open mind that doesn't mean though a blank mind if you have no ideas no beliefs no you know commitments of your own why study history at all that so I think having strong feelings about issues in the present helps to make you a good a story and as long as you are intellectually open and willing to change your mind if you come upon you know historical evidence that doesn't fit some preconceived notion but you know the best teachers the ones we remember in history are the people who are passionate who have strong beliefs who bring them to class and I think that does help you make you a better historian but as you're doing the hard work and you you have hone skills that make you shall we say clinical or dispassionate even as you bring your passion to the work you have to be committed to the you might call the standards of the profession and the standards of evidence you know and that's why what are you know good books are generally recognized widely as good books even by people who don't necessarily even agree with them because they rise to a certain set of professional standards a certain kind of professional expertise oh yes you there are techniques of research there are techniques of analysis and you have to master them and of course as Hofstadter instilled in US history is a humanistic it's not a social science the narrative the literary quality is extremely important in convey history and Hofstadter really impressed on us this is a literary art it's not just a scientific study and you really need to learn to express yourself in ways that will reach a broad audience both within and outside the academic world when did you realize that you wanted to write this book the fiery trial well you know as I said my first book Lincoln popped up in there it's about the Republican Party before the Civil War and he I think anyone who is a 19th century historian which is how I basically conceive of myself thinks a lot about Lincoln because he seems to encapsulate so many things that are essential in that society whether it's the westward movement or the the whole crisis over slavery issues like that the market revolution the economic development of the country but it was only a few years ago that I said you know I'm really interested in trying to figure out Lincoln for myself and I think one of the reasons for that without casting aspersions on any particular historian is I became more and more dissatisfied with a trend in current writing about Lincoln which seemed to me to be isolating him from the larger world that there's so many word books on Lincoln just focus on Lincoln as if all you need to know is Lincoln you want to explains Lincoln something Lincoln did as president you look back to his law career that he's you know the wider world slips out of view and I wanted to put him back fully into his historical context and and I the the overriding theme seems to be what ideas influenced him as he as a practicing politician was embedded in the politics of slavery exactly its what influences Lincoln and of course Lincoln influences others and especially when it becomes president the president is very influential and how people think but it's this combination this interaction between the individual the individual experiences and yet the political movement that he's part of you know Lincoln is a party man he's a politician he's part of he's an organization man I don't say that to criticize him that that's how he thought that ideas should be turned into practical impact through political organization so there Fortis you have to compare him to others and I'm particularly interested in how he fits in the spectrum of anti-slavery thought there were people more radical than he was there were people more conservative than he was and he kind of has to relate to all of them and that I think makes for a very interesting story what was the the greatest obstacle in undertaking this research it was what were you going against the convener we're going against a convention well you know you might there's nothing you can say about Lincoln that someone hasn't said before there is something like eight to ten thousand books about Lincoln it's not as if you're digging up anything new exact you know there's no new letters of link if there's no cache of documents that no one has ever seen I think in an odd sort of way the obstacle is the very large size of the literature before that that and that we think we know more about Lincoln than we really do because there's this mythology of the great Emancipator which overrides every you know all evidence it's it's very I'm not trying to denigrate Lincoln at all I admire him a great deal but Lincoln is not born ready to abolish slavery you know who from his bedside so it's it's how he gets to that point but the another problem is we know where he ends up we know Lincoln ends up emancipating slaves but Lincoln didn't know that he was ending out that way we have to read his his trajectory forward rather than backwards as heading toward a predetermined goal so you've got to free yourself of your knowledge of what happened at the end in order to understand how he really got there and and you where you wind up is is really showing us how he was a person who could grow over time and that growth was a product of everything around him in in how he changed over time yes absolutely Lincoln's growth his capacity for growth is I think the essence of his greatness now you might say true people grow but you know there are a lot of presidents who didn't grow if you can pay a Lincoln to his successor Andrew Johnson who comes into office when Lincoln is killed and then presides over another great crisis reconstruction Johnson lacked the capacity to growth he lacked all of Lincoln's qualities of character he was stubborn he was isolated he did not listen to other people he was he was not intellectually curious Lincoln had this incredible it's almost the kind of humility you know he didn't think he had all the answers and therefore he was open to criticized he he enjoyed hearing other ideas so I think there's a question of character involved but it's more than character Lincoln is also a very shrewd judge of politics is a very shrewd judge of the general social situation and when one policy doesn't work during the Civil War he's willing to move to another one so it's the combination of the pressures on him and yet that inner moral compass that enables him to grow until by the end of his life his views on things like race and slavery are quite different from what they had been before the Civil War if we look at his capacity to grow there there are a number of factors that over the course of the book that you cover and and one we might call the background factor so in a way he was well placed by virtue of where he was born where his family moved to and where he entered politics talking about well of course Lincoln is born in a slave state Kentucky it's one of the upper the border slave states but it is a slave state his parents seemed to him in anti-slavery at least what little we know about them in fact they moved when he was young to Indiana a free State and Lincoln later said they moved in part because of slavery and in part because of land problems but there's no question that Lincoln grew up on the one hand disliking slavery but on the other hand among southerners the people he lived with in among in Indiana and then Illinois are from the south like his own family from the upper south and so they on the one hand they're people who don't want to live in a slave society and yet they share many of the racist views of southern society and Lincoln has to Iran a lot of his political growth is simply how to balance off the you know the views of his constituents against his own personal moral beliefs and how much do you compromise and how much do you you know be willing to go a lawyer that every politician faces this then he groped he becomes a statewide politician in Illinois in the 1850s then he's got to deal with a lot of other people he's got to deal with northern Illinois which is very strongly anti-slavery and is settled mostly from the east and so he comes in contact with different people and different ideas and then of course when he becomes president he's got the whole nation or at least the north to deal with so he's got a whole different range of groups so I think you know the changing context in which he's operating helps to create the situation for this growth in attitudes and in Illinois was a kind of the the ideal place to be in terms of the understanding the way the country was changing both in terms of the market and an ideas about to marry Lincoln you know Lincoln's rise is the rise of Illinois it's its Illinois is the fourth-largest state by 1860 but when Lincoln is growing up it's a frontier place it's a backwater but it goes through what we call the market revolution the rapid economic development of agriculture of industry in the north of the Illinois of railroads and Lincoln as part of that you know Lincoln is a railroad lawyer by the tub by the 1850s Lincoln is always promoting economic development I mean that's one of the thing you know railroad construction canal construction public schooling what we would call infrastructure today he thinks that is the way to create opportunity for economic advancement for all people and remember he starts pretty poor and he you know becomes a pretty prominent and well-to-do person and he thinks you know that's the essence of northern society to share in economic prosperity and of course that's what the South does not allow slaves or even many poor whites and so the his own personal experience of a opportunity helps to shape his anti-slavery beliefs and his mentor from a distance I guess in politics is clay anyway from him he gets a sense of the nation and and building the Union now Henry Clay of course is known as the great compromiser it's a little different than nowadays fun being the compromise it was something that people were proud of but the clay is typical of that region he's from Kentucky he's a slave owner who disliked slavery throughout his life is trying to figure out a way of getting rid of slavery without any success obviously Lincoln borrows many of clays anti-slavery ideas in the in in the early part of his career and but clay is also a great nationalist he really believes in the nation his compromises are always to save the Union during political crises and Lincoln definitely imbibes that powerful nationalism and the notion the Union can never be broken up he could never possibly accept southern secession because of that clay nationalism which is really built into him from the very beginning now this background helps us understand an important aspect of Lincoln that through throughout his career he disliked slavery but he was shall we say respectful of the slaveholders of their situation absolutely and this cup comes in part from his the background we just discussed only clay but you know after all his wife comes from a slave owning family his father-in-law is a close friend of clay who is another slave owner who doesn't who wants to get rid of slavery in some form or another and then after clay Jefferson's next political idle is Thomas Jefferson who's also a slave owner who dislikes slavery so Lincoln unlike many abolitionists Lincoln does not denounce the slave owners he doesn't call them sinners he doesn't quote you know he doesn't dwell on the you know personal oppression of the slave he talks about slavery in the abstract it's not the slave owner it's the system that is evil it's evil no question about it he makes that clear but it's the system it's not the slave owner that is full at fault and it's a national problem it's not just a southern problem and the entire nation must figure out a way of putting slavery as he says on the road to ultimate extinction which is actually a term he borrows from Henry Clay so yeah he doesn't he knows slave owners he grows up among people who have slave owning families so he doesn't personally attack them the way some northerners do now the second element of this capacity to grow over time was he was a practicing politician and and through so throughout his career he's navigating the search for solutions to what is increasingly the paramount American problem namely slave absolutely he is a politician today of course politicians are somewhat held in low repute but Lincoln was a professional as you say he first ran for office I think at the age of 22 or something like that and then from then on except for a couple of years in the 1850s he's either in office or running for office his whole life and he's a party man he believes in the political party he sticks with the Whig party his original party longer than many others while it's collapsing in the 1850s then he joins the Republican Party he becomes totally devoted to it and he often has to work out you know especially in the Republicans there's so many different factions radicals conservatives you know different regions and Lincoln is always trying to figure out how to get to the part the party to the lowest common denominator so that everybody can agree but you're right he believes in practical solutions and but on the other hand unlike some politicians who don't seem to have any core beliefs Lincoln has this core hostility to slavery he is not willing to compromise that he will compromise on many things but he will as he says in the secession crisis and a letter to his old friend from Georgia Alexander Stevens you know he says yeah we could compromise this issue that issue but basically the problem is you think slavery is right and we think slavery is wrong now ultimately how you gonna compromise that and you quote him in a letter later the rights public letter 1864 I am naturally anti-slavery if slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong I cannot remember when I did not think and feel absolutely and there's no reason to doubt the sincerity of that statement and yet Satan feeling slavery is wrong does not tell you what to do about it and you know some people some reviewers have criticized me for saying well how can you say Lincoln grew when he was always anti-slavery well the point is what he grew in terms of his understanding of the issue and in his conceptualization of how to deal with it saying I'm anti-slavery is important but it doesn't give you any practical direction on how to deal with the question and neither Lincoln nor anyone else had a very good sense of that before the Civil War Lincoln tried various approaches they didn't work even during the Civil War he's experimenting and eventually he when he grows toward this notion of universal emancipation as the only way to really cut that Gordian knot and you point out again and again that that the Lincoln's great virtue was that he understood the importance of public opinion and that public opinion could be shaped you quote him in 1854 he says a universal feeling whether well or ill found it cannot be safely disregarded we cannot then make them equal well that's he's talking about the question of should we free the slaves and make them equal members of the society and Lincoln did not believe that was possible at least at that point at the very end of his life he's changing somewhat in that view but as a politician you have to be aware of what is politically possible and he says you know racism is deeply embedded in the society Lincoln's shared some of those views there's no question about it he grew up in a society in which racism was pretty endemic one cannot expect Lincoln to be Martin Luther King jr. you know 150 years before the time but nonetheless Lincoln so Lincoln sees public sentiment as an obstacle to racial any kind of racial equality and of course at this period his solution quote-unquote is to free the slaves and encourage them to leave the country find another homeland Central America West Africa Haiti because there they can enjoy their full range of natural rights which they can never really enjoy in the United States he's got to grow out of that also eventually he does come to see the United States as a biracial Society which he doesn't before the Civil War and in the the interesting dynamic here which you point out is that holding back until the political setting is ripe for change allows him and at some point you quote some what he say only you could free the slave because you had the moral authority right well because Lincoln but but but I don't you know of course there are every every Lincoln you want is out there in the literature and there is a Lincoln in some books who waits and waits and waits and never does anything until pressured by public opinion I don't think that's quite right because you know as you well know what the President does also shapes public opinion many people take their views from the president it's not like he's a inert you know passive figure but I think it is true that Lincoln is attuned to when he thinks the public will accept more radical action against slavery but early in the civil war he's taking some actions against slavery he doesn't wait for public opinion for example two months into the war he approves when some generals say well we're not returning fugitive slaves who run away to our ranks you know the Army's not here to return fugitive slaves and Lincoln lets them do that it's not like he's issuing a like statement but on the other hand he doesn't order them no no no we're not fighting about slavery send them back he he's willing to begin making steps about emancipation early on you you quote someone a George white a Massachusetts lawyer as saying describes Lincoln as cunning sly crafty designing man whose public record seems to have been made up for the express purpose of being a successful presidential pen well that was I think written in 1860 this guy is not an admirer of Lincoln obviously and by the way this is when you asked about how historians operate one of the ways we operate is I hope being friendly or cooperative with others that quote was given to me by another historian who knew who founded in this diary who she was studying something entirely different but she said well you're working on Lincoln you might find this interesting I said yeah that's very easy I wouldn't have found it by myself but Lincoln but you know yes Lincoln is a politician and therefore he wants to be elected but what I what I find interesting is what is he willing to compromise and what is he not willing to compromise Lincoln always seemed to be able to keep in mind the difference between basic principle and peripheral issues so even in the secession crisis when the the greatest crisis the nation had faced when it's falling apart people are saying to Lincoln well look let's compromise on this let's compromise and not keep the south end he says look you know we can compromise on the Fugitive Slave issue we can compromise on a couple of others but on the question of the westward expansion of slavery which is where the political crisis was I'm not compromising I'm sorry we I was elected on that issue I am not giving up the principle on which I was elected because these guys are threatening in other words he's willing to risk war not go to war but risk war rather than give up a core principle and so he understands the difference there which not all politicians do now what is extraordinary and you traceless in the book is Lincoln's as a craftsman of language to use the right words to appeal to very different constituencies then to focus on issues that change over time because slavery is America's problem and he is rising by finding words and issues that as you just said commit him to principle but don't go so far as to prematurely alienate certain constituents you know Lincoln is interesting in that he does rise to prominence through oratory through words from 18-49 until he's elected president he doesn't hold any public office he's not in office so how do people know who he is or what he is he runs for office but it's through speeches that had great speeches and one of the pleasures of doing this book was reading carefully the works of Lincoln I mean I'd read the works of Liggett but really reading carefully his language he's such a brilliant writer I think that maybe other than Thomas Jefferson he had the greatest command of the language of any president in American history he chose his words with such enormous care that means you can really take seriously what he says you know it's not just political rhetoric he's a craftsman of language as you said and so he's really trying to convey his ideas in the most precise kind of way I mean I was even you know you read the Emancipation Proclamation one of the most common documents and I found words in there that I just my God why did Lincoln put that in they must you know there's a reason for example I'll just give you one example in the Emancipation Proclamation he says he says to black people you know there's a lot of people said well if you're free the slaves are gonna run amok and start massacring whites and he says you know he says he addresses the slaves he says I urge upon these freed people appear to be peaceful and not resort to violence except in necessary self-defense well it's kind of interesting he's saying they have a right to defend this freedom against white people by violent means if necessary he didn't have to say that but he just put it to make it totally clear that their freedom could not interfered with by their former owners or anyone else you know and I had never really noticed that little phrase before and so studying Lincoln's words really is very illuminating so there's a subtle understanding of complexity which can then be articulated in ways that signal constituencies yeah no absolutely now remember of course he's also addressing audiences which are much more attuned to political language than maybe we are today I mean you know the lincoln-douglas debates a great moment in our political history thousands of people ten you know fifteen thousand people stood there and these are farmers these are artisans these are not your high you know educated people they stood there for three and a half hours the first they weren't debates like let's say our presidential debates such as they are now the first guy spoke for an hour and a half the second guy spoke for an hour no we're in an hour then the other guy spoke for an hour and a half in rebuttal then the first guy got up and spoke for another half hour that's three hours or more and these were well-crafted discussions of the fundamental political issues facing the country and people listen they listen carefully so he's addressing a constituency that is used to politicians taking them seriously intellectually not just pandering to their prejudices or something like that so it's a different political world back then I made a list of how words and positions changed over time and let me just and you can pick out one starting with the no extension of slavery to the emphasis on free labor which he gets from the Whigs to turning to the words of the Declaration of Independence in order to transcend the problem of the Constitution recognizing slavery the respect for the slaveholder the denunciation of slavery the whole question of recompense and colonialization so he's moving through time focusing on issues that are partially presented by the circumstances he's dealing with in the he occupies but then he's articulating a position and he's in and as you said as we were saying before his articulation of them makes him a national figure people are reading his speeches in the newspapers not only in Illinois you know before 1858 he's not speaking outside of Illinois very much so who knows who Lincoln is but his speeches are being read and and people take them seriously and and I think it's what makes him a formidable presidential possibility that his ideas are known even by people who have never laid eyes on him I mean he doesn't come east until 1860 he comes to New York to give his Cooper Union speech but the eastern part of the country has never seen Lincoln before that but nonetheless there are the words of Lincoln out there now he said that let me see if I can find that I claim not to have controlled events but confess plainly that events have controlled me so partially true not completely true true enough but not totally true you know that's the epitaph or epigraph I should say for David Donald's excellent biography of Lincoln excellent although I think he makes Lincoln too passive he takes census okay Lincoln is just buffeted by events you know I think it's true events and this is you know a revolutionary moment in American history if you're not affected by events what are you you know at this time everybody is changing at this time but you know so the events but if the question is what events are we talking about that's really you know what does he mean by events have controlled me the course of the war one of the events that really had a tremendous effect on Lincoln is something of his own initiation which is the enrollment of black soldiers in the Union Army by the end of the war 200,000 black men have served in the Union Army and Navy and Lincoln comes to feel that by their service they have staked this claim to citizenship you know it's it's no longer possible as he did before the water talk about sending blacks out of the country by fighting for the Union they have earned their place in the American nation you know and so that's one of the events that is leading to the changes in Lincoln's attitudes in the last couple of years of the war are you talking after reading the book I get the sense that what you're saying is how do I want to put this on you know we were confronted often today with opportunistic politicians whereas Lincoln really understood how far he could go and so when he was confronted with a situation he really saw the complexity and he believed the complexity wasn't just you know I don't have the votes to do this it's you know well these are real people on the other side who have these beliefs he did he understood he had this great capacity for empathy even of those he didn't agree with in any way but on the other hand you know we have to remember that Lincoln is also befuddled by events just like anyone else you know back to that 1854 speech you quoted where he says public opinion you know cannot be ignored that's a passage where he starts by said well if all power were given to me I would not know what to do about slavery it's not easy to say what to do about this institution you know and then he goes through various possible scenarios but Lincoln is groping like everybody else for a policy he has a plan in the 1850s it's Henry Clay's old plan gradual emancipation of the slaves with monetary compensation to the owners and encouraging them to lead the slaves to leave the country that's what Clay had said that's the way to get rid of slavery peaceably with the acquiescence of southerners without disruption the trouble is nobody would do it that the south didn't the south did not want to give up their slaves whether gradually or immediately and blacks didn't want to leave the country so that policy eventually runs a ground and Lincoln has to come up with a new one and you know in the crisis the war he comes up with a new one which is the exact opposite immediate emancipation not gradual no compensation monetarily for the owners and eventually instead of leaving the country he begins to see blacks as citizens of the United States you we started with this interview talking about you background and one of the tensions or one of the questions you were asking yourself in writing this book is well what was his relation to the radicals to the abolitionist movement what what have you learned in the course of doing this book about how radical movements impact political leaders right that's an excellent question I mean one of the reasons I wrote the book was dissatisfaction with the way that issue was being described in current literature too many works on Lincoln take Lincoln as we were saying in a way as the model of pragmatic politics but they conclude from that that anybody who proposes anything else is obviously uh impractical fanatical there's Lincoln the realistic politician and the abolitionists and radicals are just a bunch of maniacs who don't know anything about that's not it at all Lincoln Lincoln's relation with the radicals was very symbiotic it wasn't antagonistic yes they criticized him a lot and he sometimes criticized them but Lincoln understood that the role of a radical movement is to change public opinion he appreciated that the appellee even though I didn't agree with all the stuff they're saying they were creating a public sentiment that made it possible for politicians like him to operate within the political sphere during the Civil War when there was a big dispute in Missouri between the Radical and more moderate Republicans and the radicals came to badger Lincoln to be you know for something Lincoln met with them and then when they left the White House he remarked to his secretary who kept a diary they're Devils but they're Devils facing Zion word in other words honor grew at that but we're going we are in the same boat where if to use modern terminology Lincoln understood that these radicals and abolitionists were the base of the Republican Party a party can't win just with its base but it would be a pretty stupid party to alienate its base or to throw its base out you build upon that base you expand outward from it but you have to also keep them satisfied so Lincoln is willing to listen two radicals and not always agree with them but he doesn't have this he doesn't see them as a problem where he doesn't resent their criticism of his the way some politicians do in this paragraph that I quoted earlier the public letter the first sentence words about his feelings about slavery but then he says the second sentence and yet I have never understood that presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment that is the hatred of slavery and feeling and I aveer that to this day I have done no official act and mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery right well Lincoln is a lawyer we haven't really discussed that but that's how he makes his living before the Civil War and he's a good lawyer and he is a legalist and he understands that the Constitution protects slavery there is no constitutional grounds by which the President or Congress can act against slavery with one exception and that is the war power and that of course is what the that's the power under which he does eventually admits Lavery or it takes steps toward abolishing slavery but what he's saying is I'm acting within a system within a constitutional legal system and I must respect the limits of that system so the fact that I hate slavery does not mean that I can just do anything I want no politicial can just do anything he wants and so you know but remember Lincoln is also appealing to the broadest possible constituency out there in a war you've got to maintain the broader support for the war effort abolitionists and radicals I don't care why he's acting against slavery they're happy he's doing it but there are a lot of moderates who are not abolitionists but are willing to support measures against slavery if they are necessary to win the war when Lincoln says I'm doing this because it's necessary they'll say all right look I don't know if it's a great idea but I'd rather do this than lose the war so this is part of Lincoln's persistent effort to create the broadest possible base of support for his measures so in and he started he and and he winds up the e season he has to free the slaves because of the extra G's of war and although what he was really trying to save through most of the war was the Union well yes and no you know that's that's the old debate we always have is it to you if Lincoln were only interested in saving the Union he could have come from equal to given into the south in the secession crisis would be very easy to avoid to save the Union just give this out what they want but Lincoln says yes I want to save the Union but it must be a union worth saving a union in which slavery is a permanent feature is not worth saving so yes the Union is the what shall I say is the paramount goal but it's not any means to save the Union not at all it the that Lincoln assists that we must put slavery on this road to extinction it's not immediate it may be way down the road but we have to turn that corner toward getting rid of slavery and I'm not willing to give up that even if it means it may endanger the Union you what what do you see is the lessons that you learned in readers might learn from the story of Lincoln the problem of slavery the evolution of its thinking and how the political system because what are the lessons that we might apply to today's well you know history never repeats itself exactly obviously but I think one lesson that struck me is that you know significant social change significant social progress requires both a mass social movement and enlightened political leadership it's not one or the other and they feed on each other the social movement cannot succeed without a political framework the politician cannot succeed unless the social movement has created public sentiment behind him and that's why as I say this symbiotic relationship between abolitionists radicals and a more moderate Lincoln together it's not one was right and one was wrong it was the combination of their efforts that produced the greatest expansion of freedom in American history so I don't think that politicians today like President Obama who seems to be very annoyed when people further to the left criticize him I think that's the wrong approach I think he should understand that they are trying to make him do better not to undermine him they are trying to make have him do better about what what he's trying to do when he ought to welcome people like that rather than kind of just fluffing them off or dismissing them as he sometimes does but you know you have to have a great deal of humility to be able to take that attitude which Lincoln had I wonder if you're familiar with a clip video clip that the White House put on its website President Obama talking to a group of high school students I've seen that yes so let's talk about them we should explain to that or insist of it is I'm being criticized but I'm a compromiser and Lincoln was a compromiser and I have the Emancipation Proclamation in my desk and you know there are all these caveats in its exemptions right Yeah right so so what what is the problem with that perception and this whole notion of compromise that is in our is in the White House now well look compromise politics is the art of compromise and it's not surprising the politicians compromise you know that that's part of our system but I think that little exchange of Obama's revealed a real deep misunderstanding of what happened in the Civil War and what Lincoln was doing he says in there what do you think the Huffington Post would have said about the Emancipation Proclamation The Huffington Post being left-wing critics today and so the abolitionists back then well we know what the abolitionists said about the Emancipation Proclamation they didn't say oh look Lincoln is exempted these two he they said right on Lincoln this is fantastic this is great they celebrated and then they said you've got to do more you've got to go further and free those slaves who were not freed but they didn't just didn't denounce link it as a compromise they said Lincoln has done a tremendous thing and we've got to now make him do even more a more interesting question to me is not what the Huffington Post would have said about Lincoln but what did Lincoln say about what would Lincoln say about the Huffington Post what did Lincoln say about his critics he didn't say like Obama while these people are just a pain in the neck Lincoln said I welcome criticism criticism is how I learn you know that's education I'm learning from my critics he he didn't have this thin skin that Obama but as I say it's probably a question of character Obama is a guy and I respect Obama of course who has always been as one of his aides said the smartest guy in the room and he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room well if you're the smartest guy in the room you don't have to listen to anyone else Lincoln did not think he was the smartest guy in the room Lincoln thought he could learn from other people that's a great quality which Obama appears to lack and you point out in the book that throughout his career Lincoln is listening and then when he gets into the White House he's encountering for the first time free blacks well that is very important I think that's one of the things I that struck me is how many black people Lincoln met with in the White House you know in Illinois he didn't know any black people who are hardly any out there Lincoln in the White House it's well known that he met a couple of times with Frederick Douglass the great black abolitionist but I was amazed Counting it up he met with Martin Delany Sojourner Truth Bishop Payne Alexander crummell black delegations first of all no president before Lincoln had ever met with any black people it's there were slaves in the White House but I'm here people coming in as Americans to talk about public issues and I think exposure to these educated articulate politically active black men and women helped to change his racial views in other words he encountered talented you know black people and I think his views about race lesson normal you know were mitigated a little bit he understood a guy like Frederick Douglass is like him he saw Douglass as a kindred spirit both of them had risen up from you know very humble circumstances both of them were great orator both of them were big you know very deep thinkers well if a guy like I shouldn't Frederick Douglas have the right to vote what what possible reason is there that this guy is not qualified you know and so I think that this these encounters show something about Lincoln's capacity to you know expand his frame of mind as I read your book I was left with this extraordinary picture of a man who learned compromise through experience in a lifetime career and I'm curious what would you tell us about his compromise versus the way we talk about compromise in the system it seems to be almost a fetish now as opposed to a reality well you know today our political discourse is at a fairly low level I'm sorry to say and you know you have one group in Congress Republicans who seem to say we're never going to compromise on anything and then you have President Obama who seems to flit between one compromise and another but you know doesn't appear to have Lincoln's capacity to distinguish between principled you will not compromise and policies you will compromise because you know as I say Lincoln didn't compromise on the territorial issue during the Civil War during the secession crisis even at the cost of his own re-election in 1864 you know Leda and they thought he was going to lose in a August 1864 there was a lot of war weariness and some Republican leaders came to and said look Lincoln you got to rescind the Emancipation Proclamation people don't think it's prolonging the war why don't you say they can come back with slavery and that will help you get reelected and Lincoln said no I can't do that I can't do that that first of all would be immoral to promise people freedom and then rescind it and second of all the black soldiers would throw down their arms why should they fight for us if we take away their promise of freedom and then we can't win the war but in other words Lincoln was willing to say no I'm not compromising on this policy whereas Obama doesn't I'm sure he has deep principles but he doesn't make clear what it is that he's willing to compromise on and what he's not willing to compromise on and one day you have something that's an absolute principal and then the next day is compromising on it so Lincoln somehow managed to navigate that I think more effectively than perhaps more recent politicians and is that the experience that he had that this this this mature ation developed over time yeah we can't say was the schools he went to no he only had one year of schooling in his entire life he was totally self educated so he didn't get it from his teachers that's for sure maybe his political teachers you know I think it's just the accumulation of experience and the capacity to assimilate that experience in an intelligent creative way you know and you know you start out with personal character but you also then go to political exigencies and the crisis that he's facing and you know it's that combinatoric --all chestnut do men make history or does the history make the men and of course it's some combination of both either way you know so but all we can say is that he rose to the occasion not every political leader would have risen to the occasion that he was placed in one final question after this distinguished career and with this this very interesting start in your family background what have you learned about what history can contribute to to really the current events and policy debates I below I don't think history gives us the answers you know you can know the history of immigration and we should but it's not going to tell us what our immigration policy should be today there's a lot of debate about that but I do think that history can inform us the grit the more we know about history the more we know how politics work how decisions are made the more we know what has been tried in the past and may have worked or not worked I think it too often our political leaders and I'm not mentioning any particular person or any political party but our political leaders seem to be ignorant of history and they they make comments which show that they don't really even understand American history at all and I think the level of our political discourse is not so high that a historical perspective won't help to improve it on that note professor Foner let me assure you booked one more time because it's a great read about a very important figure with in the book has important insights about our time in an indirect way so thank you very much thank you for having me and thank you very much and thank you very much for joining us for this conversation with history

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 47,454

Rating: 4.6703787 out of 5

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln, slavery, civil war

Id: AXgR0EyQkWg

Length: 54min 24sec (3264 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2011