good evening and welcome to the

american antiquarian society's public program. the rise and fall of the second american republic reconstruction, 1862 1920 with manisha sinha in conversation with john stauffer, the american antiquarian society is located on the ancestral homelands of the nipmuc tribal community who remain an active presence here in central massachusetts. tonight's program is being recorded and will be available on our youtube page or channel following this program. and we are delighted to welcome both those of you who are with us tonight in antiquarian hall in worcester, massachusetts, and those of us who are joining us across the country and around the world on youtube.

my name is scott casper. i'm the president of the american antiquarian society. and tonight's event is a special one for us because we are honored to help launch a brand new book published today by an author who has been part of the a community for many, many years. and i would note that her book has already today been reviewed in the new york times. indeed manisha sinha and her exemplify a us mission which is to cultivate a deeper understanding of the american past grounded in the primary sources we've been collecting here at r us since 1812. manisha has been working in our collections for more than two decades. she held an nea fellowship here in the early 2000s to research the project that became her pathbreaking award winning book, the slaves cause a history of abolition that book, published

in 2016, was an editors choice of the new york times book review. it was named one of three great history books that year by bloomberg news. among many accolades, her previous book, the counter revolution of slavery politics and ideology in antebellum south carolina, published in 2000, was named one of the ten best books on slavery by politico in 2015 and was featured in the new york times 1619 project manisha sinha holds the draper chair in american history at the university of connecticut. she'll soon become president of the society for historians of the early american republic, and she serves on the american antiquarian society council, our governing board. she's also a prolific public who shares her expertise with media outlets such as the pbs news hour. and i would say that in all of her work, manisha thinks big and digs deeply into the sources.

and i saw this firsthand right here at the american antiquarian society in 2020, 2021, when she was our mellon distinguished scholar in residence working on this new book that launches today. she spent weeks and months poring over original newspapers, pamphlets, ephemeral writings to trace this story and how this story changes our notion of reconstruction, both chronological and geographically. during that year. manisha and i did a virtual conversation called rethinking reconstruction, which was our most popular program that year, and it's available on our youtube channel, if you want to check it out. and so we're really excited that she has return to our reading room now that the book is done to share the story after manisha for a bit, she'll be joined in conversation by john stauffer, who is the kates professor of

english and african and african-american studies at harvard. john is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 100 articles, and i'll just mention a few of them. his book, the black hearts of men, won the frederick douglass book prize and. his book, giants the parallel lives of frederick douglass and abraham lincoln, was a national bestseller. this introduction could go on much, much longer, but it stops. there because it is a pleasure for me to welcome manisha sinha back to a to welcome john stauffer here for conversation and now over to manisha. thank you, scott, for that very generous introduction and i thank everyone who showed up here in the middle of the week to help me launch this book.

i'd really like to begin by thanking all the staff at the american antiquarian society as scott just mentioned, i did much of my research for this book here in the archives and the whole world was shut down because of the pandemic. i had the privilege of being able to research this book, so i'm extremely grateful to the people at the american antiquarian society, and i think it's only appropriate that i'm launching this book here today. i thank nan will return for inviting me to do this program and i thank my good friend who in my opinion. is one of the best historians and literary scholars of 19th century america today. and for him to do this conversation with me is also a great honor. so thank you so much for helping me do this so we can move to the

first slide. great. so of course, my talk today, which will be a very brief introduction, is drawn from my new book, the rise and fall of the second american republic. now, the book focuses is over the debate on who is a citizen and the role of the state in expanding or constricting the rights of citizenship and indigenous sovereignty in the aftermath of emancipation and the american civil war. so this is, of course, what we look at as the period of reconstruction, the period immediately after the war starting around 1865, and usually ending in american history textbooks in 1877. but unlike these previous works on reconstruction, my book looks at the long fall of reconstruction.

after 1877 and not just at the period that is classically known as reconstruction, but also the emergence of new domestic racial hierarchies. after its fall. so my understanding of reconceive function then differs from conventional views by looking at this long fall of reconstruction from around 1877 to be end of the 19th century. and so the second half of the book is what i think makes it somewhat different than conventional narratives, because i'm not just concerned with the short lived triumph of reconstruction itself, but it's at its long unwinding. and what that unwinding of reconstruction can tell us about american history and democracy today. now, of course, this period has normally been understood as the

gilded age right. and so one of the major themes in my book is the connection between democracy and, capitalism with the latter's historical entanglement with slavery and imperialism, and their long afterlives. now, after the industrial take off in the united states in the late 19th century, the reconstruction of capitalism proved be successful. even at the reconstruction of democracy faltered. it this story of the unwinding, the emancipatory legacy of the civil war and reconstruct actions interracial democracy that can tell us much about the afterlives of slavery, the persistence of unfree labor and the contested triumph of industrial capitalism that reinforced domestic social hierarchies, created forms of economic inequality, and

inaugurated the global race for empire in the united states. now american to bankruptcy has always been rigorously challenged by forces of political and economic reaction. the rapid industrialization the country, and the dismal conditions of labor that followed reconstruction made a mockery of the free labor ideology of the victorious north new wars and imperial dreams of inspired by the regime of a racist apartheid in the post-reconstruction south and the conquest of western nations for the hobbled american debacle. see at home and abroad the final conquest of the west and destruction of indigenous sovereignties paralleled the overthrow of southern reconstruction, and pointed the way for the rise of an overseas american empire.

as the united states government was fully diverted from immense oratory to imperial aims. now here i should point out that i contradict most historians, those who see southern and western reconstruction as a similar process from the consolidation of, the stemming from the consolidation of the nation state during the civil war in quote a greater reconstruction. so they interested not just in what's happening in the south, but they're also looking at the defeat of indian nations, the west. i argue that, in fact, it is the fall of reconstruction in the south that makes possible the conquest of the west and the race for empire in the pacific by the end of the 19th century. and overseas, american empire was subject people from the caribbean to the philippines colonial rule. the demise of what i call the

american republic inaugurated an era hierarchy and inequality. racial, ethnic, gendered and economic, rather than the one of equal citizenship promised by the war for and reconstruction so connecting the struggles and the debates, the struggle over black citizenship, with debates over gender, economic autonomy and sovereignty that raged at the same time, i aim to show that have missed much by confining in our vision of the end of reconstruction to the south. so it is not just the chronology and scope of my book, but it's in rotation that is thus at odds with conventional narratives which have emphasized how united states was able to develop a unique and long lost experiment in republican by expanding

democracy incrementally. but to groups previously denied inclusion. now, in this prevailing view, the anglo american tradition of liberal democracy is distinct from the more volatile histories of continental europe and latin america. also, the story goes from simplistic stories of american exceptionalism to more sophisticated analysis of democracy in the western world. the old consensus cannot fact explain the violent upheavals the mid to late 19th century american history, most preeminently the civil self and the violent overthrow of reconstruction as president abraham lincoln put it in december 62 fellow cities. and we cannot escape history.

the civil war resulted in the destruction of the first american republic and birthed the second. my notion a second republic comes from the history of french republicanism nine borrowing that terminology to describe events in the united states, i seek to highlight the growth of reactionary authority peronism in the postwar a type of politics we normally associate with europe or the rest of the americas. puts simply the long afterlives of slavery and imperialism are as important to understanding u.s. history as our more familiar emile garrett of tales about the abolition of slavery and the expansion of democracy and citizenship rights during reconstruction. the story of the contest between the two is designed to capture

an essential and ongoing theme in the united states, which is never one or the other. again, i depart from of the new scholarship on emancipation in that instead of capturing that contest lumps all u.s. history under an all encompassing frame racist reaction. so we go from one simple nuance idea of american history to its polar opposite, which is similarly in my opinion, simple and doesn't capture the complexity of the era not only that, but the history of the unmaking reconstruction reveals, the global significance of the first abortive experiment to transform the slaveholders republic into an interracial democrat. see, my goal is to put in a broad tranche national context and to demonstrate that its long

depth has as much to tell us as its short lived triumph. now other recent has expanded reconstruct sense, chronological and spatial boundaries. yet unlike these histories, i emphasize this juncture rather than continue to the reconstruction of the west was, not a parallel process to southern reconstruction, but rather must be understood a with its doubtful to view the bold experience in interracial democracy that was reconstruction as the same political process that led to the subjugation of indigenous nations native the triumph of industrial and imperialism is to completely miss the context nation that shaped this era. i argue that these events must be viewed as part of the long of reconstruction and of the abolitionist aims.

the american civil war, and not as that consequence. so most see the seamless expansion of the american nation state. i feel change and open conflict over democracy, citizenship, sovereignty and political economy. central to this history is the truly emancipate free moment represented by the new civic democracy of reconstruction and the significant legacy of progressive constitutionalism and democratic governance. the novel notion that the government is for expanding rights and maintaining the welfare all its citizens, regardless of color and previous condition of servitude. debates on the nature of governance. whether all citizens and non-citizens are equally rights bearing individuals and claimants before the state

defined the second american republic, so an important interpreter thread in combining these periods reconstruction and the gilded age, which is really the period, the unwinding of reconstruction concerns capitalism and demark recede, but were not born as conjoined twins in the united states or the rest of the world to see them as such is to root one's claim in ideology not history. often the aims of one were antagonist stick to the goals of the other. it would be the defeat of the interracial democracy and the antislavery state or reconstruction that paved the way for the reign of capital and the narrowing of emancipation and as contract freedom and the triumph of laissez faire liberalism or classical liberalism, what we call political conservatism today. this philosophy represented

mostly by liberal republicans, the breakaway group, opposed to reconstruction, who came to dominate the republican party during the gilded age. in this historical government act. tourism on behalf its citizens. former slaves, farmers women, immigrants and labor came to be seen misguided if not horrified. indeed, the film full military and coercive powers the state were deployed to repress indigenous nations, immigrants, labor. and of course this is also the period of the defeat of the first women's suffrage movement, a neocon fed, great political vision, a fundamentally a.t.m. cratic racist ideology combined with antipathy, governmental rhetoric was reborn it meant not only national, international,

dressed up in fundamentalist religious idiom, racism, quote, redeemed the south and the west and provided the rationale for american colonialism, the lost cause mythology. the south was not just nostalgia window dressing for sordid industrialization, it became its ideological handmaiden. now there can be doubt that the destruction of racial slavery and the reconstruction, the misbegotten southern confederacy, fundamentally remade the entire republic, that revolution transformed the u.s. constitution long before historians. so the abolitionist william goodell proclaimed in 1861 in his newspaper the principia, that the civil war was, quote, the second american revolution that portended the national abolition of all inequalities the abolitionist, feminine as

angelina unequivocally reveled in her 1863 address of the woman's national lawyer league to the sold years of our second american revolution argued that the southern, quote, slave ocracy threatened the freedom all american citizens and sought to enslave working men of all colors. they were both right in a way, though goodell's prophecy has yet to come to pass the massive and political dislocations of the gilded age that followed reconstruction was not just a product of the changes wrought by the civil war and reconstruction. there were starved of the political defeat of the prior eras, emancipatory legacy. they represented to borrow the word of the late historian of modern europe, a.j. mayer, quote, the persistence of the old regime, virulently anti-democratic, hierarchical politics that justified the new

global political economy of industrial capitalism and imperialism, not in employing second american republic framework. my work draws inspiration not only from the history of french republicanism, but also from the rest of the americas, where republics arose and fell to the forces of reaction and authoritarianism. the american experiment in democratic republicanism and black citizenship was not unique, but a part of a global transformation from slavery to freedom, from racial privilege, to emancipate asian to a conservative black backlash in the americas, one can discern a broader atlantic reconstruction that included and brazil. brazil, two countries where the second slavery of the 19th century crumbled after slavery was destroyed in the old south,

the rise and fall of the second american republic had. global consequences, the defeat of the, quote, slave power. the civil war inspired the enslaved and abolitionists in spain cuba and brazil. but the demise of inter-racial democracy in the united states also contributed to the unchecked emergence of imperialism and reactionary authoritarianism in the western world by the early 20th century, the united was not just a city upon a hill. unprecedented experiment in democratic republicanism with slavery as the kind paradox in a republic committed to human equality. but it could now serve as a model of racist oppression. the jim crow south and genocidal warfare against indian nations would inspire the nazis in germany as well.

the apartheid state in south africa africa now the second american republic during the civil war then was a massive. course correction in u.s. history, resulting in the destruction of racial slavery and the enactment of national citizenship regardless of race. it's for rather than success paved the way for the triumph of a global u.s. empire and revived the specifically southern dream of an imperial and built on and intended perpetuate racial as i argue in the book, the fall of reconstruction and slavery is long afterlives in the united states, not emancipation, propelled the drive for overseas empire, whether in the form of formal annexation, ends and colonization or more informally, through foreign interventions to serve u.s. strategic and economic interests, we can go to

the next slide. finally. so the pair that i've been talking about is period that is not normally included in histories of reconstruction. this is the fall of the last reconstruction governments in the south in 1877. and then right up to the 19 up to 1900. so i see the 8090s as a kind of a crucial decade when all these things were put in place. you had the mississippi plan that formally disfranchized people, you had the wounded knee massacre that ended in that ended ended in a sovereignty basically in the west going on to plessy versus ferguson and, of course, the spanish cuban american war that launched american empire. and here is an illustration of the men who overthrew an interracial city government in

wilmington, north carolina. it is known as the wilmington massacre of 1898. well, after the fall of reconstruction, you had some interracial governments in the upper south in north carolina and virginia and tennessee. alliances between populous and republicans. and what's interesting about this group are people who violent fully overthrew the city government of wilmington in north is that a lot of them belong to the wilmington light infantry that had actually fought in the spanish cuban american war. they were the same people i'm just showing you how that incidents can tell us about those connections connections. now. the conquest of the west through the so-called indian wars, better referred to as wars against indians excuse me, lasted well until the end of the 19th century and said the stage

for the establishment of overseas empire after the spanish cuban american war of 1898, the annexation of hawaii and the colonization of the philippines, the unmaking of reconstruction was also completed legally only in the 1890s, with black discretion, transient in the south and the establishment of racial segregation legitimized by a mostly reactionary supreme court that emasculated reconstruction laws and amendments from the slaughterhouse cases of 1873 to plessy versus ferguson in 1896, the new southern state constitutions that disfranchized black men also got the green light to establish legal, racial apartheid. the ascendancy of, quote, jim crow colonialism marked the triumph of the vision the defeated south in the nation and abroad.

there was no reflexive or automatic trans transition from. the antislavery state to a racist, imperialist nation state rather, one political project had to be replaced by the other by the end of the 19th century, the second american republics project of interracial democracy was in tatters yet its ideals and. the freedom claims of the disfranchized animated the social movements and struggles for equality that followed these democratic visions were a product of reconstruction and discontent once we just as say that the triumph of industrial and american imperialism by the end of the 19th century was itself a contested area reactionary thermidor, resulting the unwinding of reconstruction, which involved not just the subjugation, african americans and western indian nations, but

also the exclusion of asian immigrants, beginning with the chinese exclusion act of 1882 and going on to the 1924 immigration act with its racial quotas. you could see all these things sort of come together with the rise of jim crow in the south and how these internal regimes are racial fed into the logic and momentum for u.s. imperialism. these domestic developments were, in fact the preconditions for an overseas american empire empire. so to conclude, and i know you have been listening to me rather patiently. the long afterlives of slavery and imperialism are intertwined with the growth of imperialism, with the growth of capitalism at the turn of century, to see developments as simply the fruits of abolition and is to

miss the global significance of the tragic defeat of american reconstruction. thanks so much for listening patiently. i think this is the more interesting part the conversation we get to have. yes, thank you, asia, for that talk. say to the crowd. but i told you earlier that it's a magnificent book introduction of the best books. and i've read it and it's so good in terms of of synthesizing the significance and prompting encouraging and inspiring you to and reading the book.

and your talk with negative the person as well. so one one large question that i would love to have you elaborate on is the long arc that you trace out and. what could have differently and that that would would not have led to really the complete and utter failure to anything. yes. think there were a lot of things that could have happened. there is, in fact, john's question was what could have happened differently with the fall reconstruction? was there an alternative path available? and there was. and there are many sort of

tragic historical accidents. i think that the first one, which is why i begin my book in 1860, because i think it is the election of abraham lincoln that inaugurates the second americas is. the assassination of lincoln. yeah. i think not only was that a terrible tragedy for the united states, but to have lincoln, you know, it's like one of those strange things in american history. so the best presidents role is replaced by someone who was and you begin with somebody like lincoln who really by the who was a moderate anti slavery politician. but by the end of his life is at really supporting becomes the first american president so to support black citizenship the right of some black men to vote and then you get someone like andrew johnson who becomes president and who immediately gives the defeated south the the

sort of the energy and the will to resist the results of the war and about the patient. and you have this, you know, the formation of the ku klux klan, and you have wholesale terror against black people. the black codes in the south that try to put african-americans who as close state of slavery as possible. i think johnson that interregnum was fatal. but of course he was overthrow right. his his ideas were overthrown the radicals in congress. right. with the moderates managed to implement reconceive production. they get the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution and the first federal civil rights laws over which case are still today are being adjudicated so amazingly program. i think what happens in the 1870s is sort of a tragic confluence of really bad faith.

grant's second term, which is not only marred by corruption scandals. but there's the panic of 1873, right the democrats take over the house of representative. and for all of you are confused. the democrat party was the conservative party in the 19 century. the republicans were the liberals at that point. so everything you knew about today's politics. you would flip it for the 19th century, right? i think that it really harmed reconstruct it for and many of the people who had the vision may not necessarily have written the laws, the amendments, but who had the vision of the second american republic. people like charles sumner, right? thaddeus stevens. they die? yeah, they look. and so the history is full of these little contingencies. you know, if they hadn't happened in precisely that order, right. i can think of alternative, bob,

because the nation does move quite a bit. if you just look at the adult white vote population, male voting population in the north, they move from non expansion of slavery to abolition to black. yes. how is it that suddenly that entire program is just upend and i can visualize. that second american republic being, you know, lasting perhaps if we hadn't had that sort of retreat and the defensiveness of a grant. right. and he's opposed by a faction, his own party, the liberal republicans, they form a different party. they don't last as a party. but after the 1872 presidential elections, they pretty much take over the republic and party. and you go after his imperialism from washington, happy to annex.

and to bingo and actually whole island of haiti. and so going from the party of lincoln and anti slavery to the party of big business to the party of empire. yes, not transformation is crucial because the robots, the republic has abandoned freed people in the south. i think the defeat of black freedom becomes the defeat of american democracy as a whole and the defeat of indigenous people as well. so why wasn't there more collaboration between indigenous and african americans? there was some of that, some of the new scholarship highlights. yes. the really rich and significant allies, agencies and it's still somewhat episodic terms of the scholarship. but yeah, it's. could that what what why is

there not more known about the collaboration between indigenous african-americans and is there more much more than we know. i think there is. and i think natalie joy's, new book will probably expand on that. but in my previous book, i pointed out moments of alliances right between indigenous people and african american. right, especially when people like joshua giddings, etc. started opposing the seminole wars, seeing it as a war against indigenous but also against runaway slaves who had been incorporated into the seminole. so there are instance aces of alliances, but i think what happens in the late 19th century. is that while african-americans for them the fight was over citizen ship and equal rights and equality before the law for people it was a fight for sovereignty. that's right.

they they didn't want to be part of this nation that were being forcibly assimilate many times. so if a colonial project with them and i think there is something to be said about that, though there's a lot of new western history that looks at how indigenous people survived within this politics of dispossession and this politics of plundering their land and how they continue to survive and fight for rights within those parameters. it's interesting that all the reconstruction laws, the 14th amendment, the civil rights laws are like it's were all citizens, except nations because they were considered sovereign entities. so then no man's land where their sovereignty not respected, nor do they have equal rights and they are subject to the plenary and arbitrary power of the united states government, which is like a colonial

relationship. yes, eventually that many of these territories have yet to. the united states governments like puerto rico and certainly the philippines sort of becomes a full fledged colony, right where they were republicans after the war, particularly the imperialists and wanting to in large because of the industrialization they needed these new territory areas to sell their goods. there was an overproduction to what degree. what do you make of the fact that that before the war the great imperialists were the southerners after the war, the great imperialists were northerners. did the northerners racking eyes that they were following, because many of them saw themselves vigorously anti-slavery, didn't leave them right about, or respond to the fact that they are following in

the footsteps in a sense of their enemies. yes, that's a great question. so there were some radical republicans who didn't die, right, george julian. yes. becomes or boutwell, who all of them participate aided in the impeachment against andrew johnson, who had good advice, slavery, radical credentials. and they all joined the anti-imperial league and they kept saying they saw it as a betrayal of the nation's founding. you know, as thomas put it, the united states is supposed to be different. it was not like the old monarchies with their aristotle crises and their rigid hierarchy. so many of them were anti-slavery, like lincoln. they saw it as a blot on american republicanism to a some of them were not that concerned about the plight of black people, but they were concerned about the reputation of american republic. so those people, i think, did an

anti-imperialist sort of voice. yes. in the north. yeah. but by that time, the republican party is no longer the party. many of the dominant powers, especially after william mckinley elections in 1896, it becomes far difficult for anti-imperialist to degrade traction. and then many of them support william jennings bryan. right? right. and that is a complete break. that radical republican tradition. right. so yes. there were always dissenters, voices, and there were dissenting amongst african-americans. yes. against imperialism. there were others like douglas and thomas fortune, who went along right advocating democracy cause the great. yet that that's something that i've never understood his support for the attacks nation of the dominican republic which sumner opposed vigorously all

the older abolitionists instead said was very difficult i think, to find a political home for many of these dissenters because democratic party was cato basically an extremely rabidly yes party to jim crow in the south? yes. and the republican party was moving to this new agenda of knowing to mention the economy by the government to serve the interests of the newly emerging industrial robber barons. they were moving towards imperialism. yes, there's no political home for them and they don't try in the populist, the greenback, labor party later on, eugene debs, american socialist party. but there's really no political home for them to go to. that's right. it's not till the rise of progressivism and the new deal state that many of these ideas make it into the mainstream two

party system. i think that was a tragedy that there was opposition but it did not it did not have the effect politically that it ought to had because there was no home for a political home. it that's for another question. are there any questions the audience the that i you might i military historian donald. sure like you. well so i i'm delighted to have this last question because as a lot of us have been the supreme court, i think about time period. so understand is thaddeus stevens is one of those people i'm admitting that i'm a literary scholar and a historian, so i'm thrilled to ask this question of real historians.

thaddeus stevens is very clear that. it is not smart to quickly forgive and re-empower confed traitors, but lincoln even, before he dies, if i'm not mistaken, is preparing to forgive confederate traitors. so what i want to understand is it's not simply lincoln's successor who's to forgive confederate traitors? so how should we be thinking right now as we watch the supreme court basically act as if an insurrection is a non-issue that's a very good question from professor, who is, of course, be modest by saying she's just a scholar because her works are historically informed and i have found them extremely useful as i have read them. you know, with lincoln, that is the claim that has often that there is something called press redemption, reconstruction versus congressional reconstruction, that was simply

following lincoln's policy of forgiving this. you know, everyone remembers, you know, with charity towards all and all that and i argue a bit differently. this book because lincoln as a reconstruction president was a wartime president. we don't know what his plans were for reconstruction when peace comes. right. we do know lincoln was a party leader and he would never have had that break that johnson had with the republican party and the radicals and not just the radicals, the moderates in congress which lincoln represented it. right. we do know that as spies weakens faction is concerned. and this is why i call lincoln our first reconstruction president. and johnson is not a reconstruction president, but as a restoration this of the antebellum status quo is because

his last pronouncements and writings on reconstruction signal towards black citizens, which is something the south would never have accepted and did not want to accept. right. so what we know about lincoln is that the first freedmen's bureau bill was passed under lincoln he signed that legislation. that's the legislation that johnson vetoed. this is a federal agency overseeing the transition from slavery, freedom and giving a lot free people, but also to southern white refugees. right there's a lot of misinterpretation. the freedman's bureau in recent supreme court rulings, but that's what it was designed to do. and johnson vetoes that right. lincoln's last pronouncement is that black union army soldiers, educated black men, and he had met delegations from orleans of free blacks demanding the right to vote should be given right to

vote. now, most moderates were not there. it's just the radical. arms of the abolitionist. so saying that black men should have the right to vote. so i really think with lincoln, one has to see his evolution to that point. and it is precisely that speech that you john wilkes booth swear that he'll assassinated. he says, i'm going to assassinate that man because what he says means, quote, and citizenship, and that candidate means so he gets killed not for emancipation, but for endorsing black citizens. and therefore, i think that actually lincoln had been alive. yes he had this idea that slavery wasn't national, said that we couldn't just blame the southerners because the north had profited. obviously he always said american slavery. and he said, don't you know? he was pretty with that framing about. but i cannot imagine him

endorsing the sort of wholesale racist terror against black people unfolds after the civil and that johnson just turned blind eye to and pretty much supported and encouraged. so i think there is a difference there. but it's very difficult to say because he didn't live long enough to really have a full fledged program of reconstruction and in his last his second inaugural, which is often as one of the greatest speeches in american history, he raises the question of retribution or punishment for the hundreds of years of of enslavement should there be retribution again? most our former enemies say that's a courageous thing to do. it ends, of course, by saying with charity for all, we should wish everyone me but should read that, yes, he is hard hitting his excoriate version of slavery in the pretend partial retribution for that.

yeah absolutely. i'm glad you brought that up because that's the abolitionist rhetoric. oh, drop of blood drawn by the lash shall. one fall by the sword. i mean, that's like pretty vengeful. i don't think anybody is claiming he said that it's like this from scripture. right? right. yes. absolutely. yes. is there a reason why your analysis of this period of change ends in 1920? that's a very good question, because really. to be honest the book really after 1900, it's crazy because you can see, as i said, the 89 days and the crucial decade when

all this comes apart. but in this book, i to make the claim that history is also women's history and. just because women like the formerly enslaved were not of the body politic, it didn't mean that their actions and words didn't matter. and you see the emergence of a suffrage movement. you see the division in the suffrage movement over the issue of race and black men's. and i wanted to end the book also on a high note instead of that dismal note, i ended the book with the 19th amendment. and the reason i did that was because i argue that the 19th amendment should be as the last reconstruction amendment should not be seen, just as a progressive era. reform, because the suffrage movement really takes off during reconstruction. it comes back together in 1890. it's hobbled by expedient compromises over racism,

especially in the south. nonetheless, the 19th amendment, its wording is exactly the same as the 15th amendment that gave black men the right to vote. so that legacy of progressive culture, of having a constitutional amendment that would expand the boundaries of citizenship and give people the right to vote and become active political actors in the republic. that's a reconstruction and legacy. and so that's why it ends at the 1920s. the better fitting because that's the the last chapter in the book. the last week is called the last reconstruction amendment on the 19th amendment and one sees how the issue of women's rights comes up, comes up constantly before supreme court. in the discussions, reconstruction amendments, the word male introduced for the first time in the u.s. constitution rather than just persons, which is gender

neutral. and so these issues of gender were very much part of the conversation over democracy. and that's why i did it in 1920. we have a question in the back here from our virtual audience michael asks to what extent did the rise of the late 19th, early 20th century american progressive left sometimes advocating violence affect the unwinding of reconstruction? could you repeat that question? i didn't get it. sorry. to what extent did the rise of the late 19th, early 20th century american progressive left sometimes advocating violence, affect the unwinding of reconstruction? that's a really good question, because the progress of you know, i see myself as a historian the long 19th century with my book on abolition. i went through the late 18th century with this sort of creep up a little bit of the 20th century was really resisting

going into the progressive era because i was like, that's a whole new kind of worlds. but you can see how many progressive era reformers, especially the group of women. i look at the social feminists like jane addams, lillian, florence kelley, even black women, feminists like, ida wells, mary church, terrell how their notions of social feminism come from progressive era reform movement, but progressive era of reformers in the south, for instance, were very part of this unwinding of reconstruct some legacy. this is when in the south instituted all white primaries that's seen as a progressive reform, but it's actually a part of the unwinding of reconstruction.

so the progressive era reforms are also bent faced. some of them can seen today as, you know, advocating some protections for labor protections certainly for women, labor child labor, getting rid of child labor, etc. but on the other, there were also some sort of un democrat reforms that some of the progressive era intellectuals sort of put forward. so it's, you know, you can see a lot of these reform movements in the u.s. whether it's progressive reformers, labor reformers, women's they are all laboring under the shadow defeat of reconstruction. and for many of them, race remains their achilles heel. they cannot imagine many of them equal black citizenship the way it was implemented during the

construction construction. how much that was a result of the south. as the million dollar. a lot of it was with the south even if you look at the suffrage movement, there'd be a black women's club that says we need to talk about lynching in the south and all the southern white suffragists say, no, no, that has nothing to do with women's rights. we don't want to talk about that. so we need talk about segregation. they don't want to address questions of they felt purely racial, sexual reconciliation sounds good in theory, but it at a heavy price. and it came at the sacrifice. black people's right. right. and you can see this all through the south plays a huge role. yeah here. there within congress. they form a reactionary bloc. right. this is where we have the famous

filibusters, etc. mean you think of some of the dysfunctions in our electoral democratic system. it's all, i think, connected to to this this sort of stolid reaction. the solid south, it was called the solid south was totally reactionary on questions of race and that takes a long time to get over that. i, i just wanted to follow up the question from the gentleman here and then the person online. one of the things that i was thinking about when well, after buying the today and kind of flipping through it and you kind of bring this those questions brought this up between the and the 19th. we do have these three other amendments that could also fall under this concept of reconstruction of of of of a expanding, the franchise, etc., etc. would you can you address those at the 18th is regressive. but at the same time could you

address those three amendments at all? i don't in my book, as i said, i kind of cheat. i really end in 1900 and i don't go further back. but really, prohibition is often seen as being linked to a to, you know, abolition and to temperance movements. and certainly women's christian temperance union, which i do talk about, is part of that coalition. so prohibition and its repeal, but again, a creative space of thing because here women talking about domestic abuse of women because most were spending their wages on alcohol and them up and all these and most of the people who are against prohibition tended to be, you know, the saloon keepers revolts against women's suffrage. but there's a janus face there to because it was also kind of a nativist abetment and it was really directed immigrant catholic workers, right.

against irish workers. it should be. and they were seen as templars. it was part of that nativist kind of moral majority that we are going to regulate the behavior of people. so the progressive era amendments are very strange that way. the one that i like is the one that made the elections of senators direct. right. that's a good one. and that was the expansion democracy. so know these continue because when i looked at the debates over the reconstruction amendments and laws during they were already talking about direct election of senators of president of abolishing the elector college. yes they come close to it and they don't do. but can you imagine what a it would have been for american if we had succeeded with those reforms. but i think prohibition and then its repeal is a good example. like everyone said, 16th amendment would be the women's

suffrage amendment. that's what the suffragists wanted. but it's not until the amendment that they actually get the right to vote. i thanks for this william seward question. so if the story that you're telling us about the republican party eventually away from the ideals of as it began and then moving towards imperialism, what do we do with the figure like bill seward, who as early as 18 we align with lincoln more fought for the not right, but as early as 1867, he masterminded the alaska purchase. he's also trying to buy bunch of caribbean islands. congress doesn't really to do that. but how do we see them if we're figuring imperialism a thing that happens later on after republicans kind of flip and go and do something else?

what do we do with that kind of early behavior by someone in that center of power with the republicans like? so yeah that's a great question. and we like to draw these neat lines right in periodization, but sometimes you can see the roots and origins of something way beyond. so for instance, those who talk about western reconstruction, want to go back to the mexican war. they we should look at the mexican war before the civil war and extend the boundaries of reconstruction to indian dispossession as a result of the mexican war. now, seward is a really interesting. like the addams family you see you can see where he is. so it is interesting because he is indeed a part of the radical anti-slavery coalition, right? yeah. he he was the radical that the dark horse moderate defeated for the nomination. but on secession he becomes fairly moderate and conservative. yes. he's like let's give this out

mexico and give them this. yes. and lincoln says no way. yeah. he says, sorry i'm talking like my students nowadays. but lincoln says, i will not on the platform on which i was elected, which is the non expansion of slavery but seward is willing to give away the house in 1860 and that's when i see now read a number of biographies. seward and i think there's room to to do some really good work on him because his wife, an abolitionist, you know they they gave a loan to harriet tubman so she could open her home to hp all that you know, she's the labor and auburn, new york. and she has these anti genuine anti-slavery credentials as governor of new york. she protected black rights, refused to extradite those abolitionists involved in the underground railroad was very you know you know has irrepressible conflict speech was legendary and he was seen as

the natural heir to webster virtually. but he during the civil war and reconstruction he becomes a compromised figure, especially after the death of lincoln. when he becomes a johnson and he's more interested in american foreign policy, he have an imperial base. i mean, he was almost killed himself. he was almost killed himself. yeah. he i don't know whether that may help. i don't know what played a part. his wife dies. yes. she was a good influence on them and much more of an abolitionist and much more of an abolitionist. but his you know, seward's wallace hopefully in the acquisition of alaska but long before mahone and his treaties on sea poor and having a trading empire in the pacific. seward was thinking of that. he was thinking of alaska the aleutian islands. he wanted all those islands which the united states, some of them, they got them well into 20th century. seward was already thinking of

an imperial trade in empire as secretary of state. yes. i mean, in him, he personified the shift from anti slavery to empire. he probably didn't want to have like, you know, let's just over the philippines then, you know, intervene in cuba whatever we want to, you know, maybe not to that. but he had a notion of a trading empire, this effect, even before behance treaties on super so yeah he's an interesting figure and you know sometimes major major he has that vision and even before the civil war he supports the guano. he's the one republican who supports a democrat administration that he wrote a franklin pierce who want they want to acquire the blotto right to get guano, which is good fertilizer for. so he's got those of imperial visions even earlier so you're right i mean seeds of that be

seen earlier. yes. so the title of the book is the rise and fall of the second american republic. do you see? a third american republic emerges out of this, and if so, what is it? and when you know, when does it start and what does it look like? that's a great question. people are asking. well, what about the first republic? the third republic, scott? that's a great question. i really think the second reconstruction of american democracy that began in the civil rights movement inaugurates, the third republic. what i don't want to write about is the fall of the third republic. you know i think we have to safeguard that. i do see the reconstruct of american democracy as beginning in the civil rights. they're the ones many civil rights activists use. those terms they didn't call themselves a third american republic. they said, you know, this is the

second reconstruction of democracy. we are new abolitionists. they connected their struggles to the past. and if you look at the civil rights act of 1964, the voting act of 1965, they appealed to the 14th and 15th amendments, the reconstruction amendments to the constitution. so, yes, i mean, that's the third republic and that's the title of my new op ed, i don't want to write about the fall of the third republic, but i wanted to last. yeah thank you. well, thank you so manisha sinha and for this terrific converse session, let's all thank them so much for this.