 Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Barton Myers, Professor of Ethics and History at Washington and Lee University, and this afternoon we're going to talk with Dr. Paul Escott, the Reynolds professor of history emeritus at Wake Forest University. In his career, Paul has written about the Confederacy, its leadership, and about Lincoln and racial attitudes in the Civil War North. His recent books include Lincoln's Dilemma, which is about the Republican Party's struggles over racism and equality, and the worst passions of human nature, white supremacy in the Civil War North. But this afternoon, we are here to discuss his latest book, Black Suffrage, Lincoln's Last Goal, which is forthcoming with the University of Virginia Press this month. Please join me in welcoming Professor Paul Escott. Well, thank you Barton. I appreciate your taking part in this dialogue and I have great respect for your work on the Civil War period. Thank you very much, Paul. If you don't mind, I'd like to go ahead and jump right in with some of the questions that I have about you. Voting rights remains an important issue for us today as Americans. Is that why you studied the issue of Black Suffrage in 1865? Not really. It was fortuitous that this book is coming out at a time when that is important. But I had been studying racial attitudes within the Republican Party and then white supremacist attitudes in the North during the Civil War. That study ended with Lincoln's death and it seemed logical to me to go further with my research and to see what was happening in the rest of 1865 about these crucial issues and about the question of Black Suffrage. So that's how it came about. Great, great. That's great. What was Lincoln's attitude toward Black Americans? Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of his own racial ideology? Certainly, I'd be happy to. There is some misunderstanding in popular culture about Lincoln. He certainly deserves to be remembered as the great emancipator, but sometimes people think of him as the great egalitarian and that goes too far, I'm afraid. We must remember that Lincoln lived in the middle of the 19th century when racism was very widespread and he deserves to be thought of as a progressive person and someone who adapted and evolved. But for most of his career as a politician and even as president, Lincoln was in favor of colonization. He argued for the removal of Black people from the United States and sending them to some other country outside of our territories. Lincoln continued to have an interest in colonization even after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. So his conversion to supporting Black rights was a bit late in his career, but it did come about as he evolved. Lincoln, when he issued his plan for Reconstruction at the end of 1863, talked about his sympathy for the deeply afflicted people of the South by which he meant the white Southerners and at that point he was saying he would leave up to them the way that they would devise a status for Black people. As long as Black people were given their freedom and some opportunity for education, that would be satisfactory to him as of December 1863. In the last year of the war period though, he did evolve. He wrote to the governor of his Loyalist government that had been established in Louisiana and suggested privately and just as a personal suggestion that Louisiana should allow some Black men to vote, perhaps the real intelligence he said, intelligent ones he said, or those who'd served in the army. Also during these last several months of the war, he had contact with quite a number of Black people. Frederick Douglass in the North, Abraham Galloway from the South and others. He sometimes stopped in at Freedman's camp near Washington and talked with runaway slaves and heard them sing spirituals and such. By the end of December 1864, he was discussing with Charles Sumner and other radical Republicans in the North the idea that they might require the returning Southern states to give the vote to Black people if his government in Louisiana could come in as it was. That discussion fell apart, but still we have the fact that in the last address that he gave before he was assassinated just a few days before his death, he stated that it was his personal preference that Black people, some Black men should be allowed to vote. And again, he's talking about the very intelligent and those who had served in the Union army. So Lincoln came rather late to this, but I agree with the late historian David Donald that Lincoln was serious about this, that he really wanted to move forward with Black rights. And Lincoln himself had always said that he maybe moved slowly, but once he took a position he did not retreat. And I feel that had he lived, he would have worked toward greater rights for Black people and at least suffrage for some Black males. I've always been fascinated by this evolution of Lincoln, the American Whig and Lincoln, the Republican president and that evolution that you're talking about there. When do you think suffrage became his last goal? At what point on the timeline do you think that he tipped toward that goal? Well, it's clear to me that he is thinking about it in 1864, as early as March 1864. By the end of 1864, I think he's realized that any prospect of colonizing Black people abroad is futile, that this isn't going to take place. African Americans were not interested in leaving the United States. They wanted to have their rights here in the United States, which they saw as their country. So I imagine that by the end of 1864 he had already determined that Black Americans were going to be part of the country and part of and should be part of the polity. And he was moving toward an advocacy for voting rights for at least some Black people by that point. And then he comes out publicly in April of 1865. What do you think is the real possibility in all of this? Could he have accomplished this, whether if he had lived longer or if for some reason there had been more support on the ground for it? That's a very good question and certainly one that a lot of historians and well-informed members of the public would ask because we're aware that once Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson became president and did what he could to block this. I was surprised, however, when I began my research to see how much support, how much substantial and even surprising support there was for the idea of Black suffrage right after Lincoln's death. For example, the New York Herald was a conservative newspaper, usually in agreement with the Democratic Party, although it didn't call itself a Democratic paper. And the New York Herald came out with a strong statement that it was now the logical thing to do to give Black people the right to vote. They had been enslaved, now they were free, free voters, free men ought to be able to vote in the United States. And the New York world was a very influential, very pro-democratic newspaper in New York, which also took a position that it would be wise and politic as they put it for the South to give Black people the right to vote. There were two other large newspapers in New York City that spoke out for this. When the returning Union veterans marched through the city of New York, Black troops received an ovation. And this was very surprising to people because New York City had a great deal of vicious racism going on. Newspapers on the Republican side all spoke out strongly for the idea of giving Black people the right to vote. And you had the New York Tribune, for one example, the Chicago Tribune was another very influential Republican newspaper that spoke out for Black suffrage. And then the most important magazines of the time spoke out for Black suffrage. This would include the North American Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Weekly, The New Englander, and other influential people in the North promptly spoke out for Black suffrage. For example, Henry Ward Beecher, the most influential Protestant clergyman of the time. So there were a lot of people speaking out for the idea of Black suffrage right after Lincoln's death. And we then would have to see what happened as a debate developed within the North. One of the crucial facts is that Congress adjourned. And therefore there wasn't going to be any newspaper reporting of debates in Congress as to whether Black should vote or not. Instead, there would be other actors who were going to create this dialogue. And it was an extensive one in the North. So you see 1865 as a real moment of possibility here, right on the eve of what we traditionally think of as Reconstruction. Is Black suffrage really possible in 1865? Do you see that in the newspapers that you've read in your research that you've found? Given the substantial amount of support for it, I believe that it was possible. But we are going to run into some problems. Andrew Johnson, of course, would be a major one. But in addition, as we'll see, and I'll talk about this later, the Republican Party did not give its full support to Black suffrage. It's clear during 1865 that Republican politicians are increasingly supporting the idea of equal rights or Black suffrage or at least partial Black suffrage. But there would be some in the Republican Party who were slower to make that transition, and that would prove to be one of the problems that would keep this idea of Black suffrage from being realized in 1865. Later on, as Reconstruction goes on, and as Southern intransigence becomes very clear, the Northern Congress will move to require Black suffrage. Was Andrew Johnson responsible for the failure of Black suffrage? Is there a little more to this story that we need unpack? Well, Andrew Johnson was partially responsible. He was a very important influence. But there were other actors, other main actors that created a very extensive dialogue during 1865. And this is what I tried to portray and to describe in the book. You had very important statements being made by politicians. They were seizing every opportunity on July 4th or on a celebration of the end of the war or an anniversary of emancipation in the Caribbean and other such events to speak out in favor of Black suffrage. The abolitionists, Black and White in the North, were very active. And I want to say some more about all of them. And then in addition, one of the most striking things is that Black people, North and South, organized, assembled, created petitions, developed addresses to the public, and spoke out very strongly and very impressively for the idea that they were entitled to their rights and that they, as members of the democracy, should have the crucial right of voting. I think that's great. Maybe, Paul, you could share with us a little bit more on the cast of characters, who was supporting, who favored Black suffrage. Who are the main actors that we're talking about here that are really the focus of the meat of your book? Yes, I'd love to do that. And let me show some slides here so that we can look at some of the individuals. I'm going to share a screen here. And I'll begin with some of the politicians. There were quite a few Republican politicians who spoke out strongly. One was Benjamin Butler, a somewhat conservative man in the pre-war period. He had been a Democrat and he sometimes was controversial in his later career. But Butler was speaking out every chance he could get to talk about the importance of Black suffrage. In addition, we had other politicians. I want to show you the next slide. There we go. William Kelly from Pennsylvania was also very active. And one of the things that his activity represents is the growing confidence among Republicans that they could speak out for suffrage. When Kelly was running for reelection in 1864, he was guarded. He was careful to talk about what rights Black should have. But many Republicans, after the victory in 1864, had greater confidence that now they could speak out and favor Black rights. And Kelly was another one of the important people who did so. Chief Justice Salmon Chase was not restrained at all. He, in fact, took a tour through the South where he spoke out in favor of Black suffrage. You had many other leading Republican politicians such as Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, John Sherman, Justin Morrill. There were many who seized opportunities to speak out for Black suffrage. But in addition to the politicians, the abolitionists were very important. Here we have our image of Wendell Phillips. I wanted to include him because he was one of the very first to denounce Andrew Johnson. He decided early on that Andrew Johnson was against Black suffrage and against Black people and was hopeless. And he was speaking out strongly in that point. Frederick Douglass was very influential throughout this period. He had been the loudest voice during the Civil War itself, arguing for equal rights for Black people. And he emphasized again and again that the Black man had shouldered a musket and gone into battle to support the union, and therefore he was entitled to have his right to vote as someone who had helped to preserve the union. Douglass would continue to speak out loudly all during this time and effectively. Surprisingly, William Roy Garrison decided that it was now time to disband his anti-slavery society. But Black abolitionists who had worked shoulder to shoulder with him opposed all of that. And one of the ones who was most eloquent was Charles Lennox Remind. He spoke out against the idea of disbanding the anti-slavery society and pointed out that prejudice was still widespread, that he had experienced it personally, even on his way to the meeting, and that this was simply something that could not be done until Black people had their rights as equal citizens in the United States. Another abolitionist who really deserves some attention is George Luther Stearns. This man was a manufacturer and businessman from Massachusetts who had built up a considerable fortune, and he basically spent his fortune during 1865 to promote Black suffrage. One of the first things that he did was to try to create a register of everyone who was interested in promoting Black suffrage. He thought he might develop a list of 2,000 people that he could correspond with. He ended up having close to 10,000. And the first thing that he did was to collect some of the most impressive and eloquent speeches and addresses in favor of Black suffrage, put them together into a publication, and he then sent out 90,000 copies of this publication so that people could use it to promote the idea of Black suffrage. He then went on and founded a Universal and Equal Rights Association, and through it he started sending out as many as 10,000 newspapers per week and 3,000 pamphlets per week. So this is part of a large-scale publicity campaign to promote Black suffrage. The people who would receive these publications could share them with others, could speak about them in their local communities, and could help develop this dialogue in favor of Black rights. Equally impressive or even more impressive to me was the activity of African Americans, North and South. Many people remember that Black leaders in the North had been organizing and meeting in conventions since 1830. They met periodically to talk about how they could advance their race and how they could gain more rights, and these Black conventions become a very important element that is led by Black people in the North to promote equal rights. Quite a few members of these conventions had impressive and effective resumes. George Downing was a restaurateur and businessman primarily from Rhode Island who worked hard to advance Black rights in that state, but he took on a larger role. In late 1864, when the National Convention met that year, they decided to create a National Rights League, Equal Rights League, which would have affiliates and chapters in all of the different states. They proceeded then in 1865 to organize these different chapters and they decided to send George Downing to Washington to work as a lobbyist to promote issues of Black suffrage, so he had an important role and worked very hard in that role. Another important Black leader from these convention movements was George Vashon. I probably included him because my mother went to a high school that was named after him, so I had long heard of him and there were many whose photos I do not have, but we should remember John Mercer Langston because he was chosen as the first president of this National Equal Rights League. Again, I want to emphasize that the Black leaders of the North organized chapters of this National Equal Rights League in every state in the North, held conventions, drew up petitions, wrote addresses arguing for their rights and trying to convince the public in favor of Black suffrage. Beyond that, it's also important to know that the same thing was going on in the South. Black people in various southern states began very promptly to organize themselves and to speak out. In the summer, by the early summer of 1865, Black people in five cities of Virginia and North Carolina had gotten together, held meetings, organized protests and sent petitions, and at the same time Black people in states further south were beginning to speak out. You had meetings in Mississippi, in Georgia, in South Carolina, in Tennessee, and in North Carolina. And this organization by Black people to defend their rights and to demand the rights would continue through the rest of 1865. So if we take all these things together, you see that there's a strong dialogue developing in favor of Black suffrage. Well, Paul, could you talk a little bit about the opposition to Black suffrage in 1865, a little bit about the Democratic Party's role in that opposition, the major political opponents that are pushing back against it? Absolutely. Unfortunately, this is another major part of the story. The Democratic Party in the Civil War years was a party that was proud of white supremacy. It described itself as the party that supported white supremacy and wanted to keep government and power entirely in the hands of white people. During the war itself, many Northern Democrats had defended the rights of Southerners, had claimed that the war was unnecessary, that if the Republicans had simply agreed to some compromise at the beginning of the war, as Lincoln refused to do, that all would have been well. And by 1864, people will recall that the Democrats met in convention and declared that the Civil War was a failure, and that negotiations should begin to end the war. And at that point, that would suggest that they would end the war with some compromise for the South or with independence for the Southern Nation. So that had been the record up to this time. And when the postwar period began, it was interesting to see that at first, Democrats and especially Democratic newspaper editors were trying to figure out where they stood with regard to Andrew Johnson. They were aware early on that he had been a Democrat before he was nominated as Lincoln's Vice President. And they watched his early activities and statements very clearly. They saw some reassuring signs that he was very strong in favor of states' rights. They found previous statements of his that were very hostile to black Americans. And to my surprise somewhat, they very early came to the position that Johnson was going to be their advocate. By late May or early June, almost all of the major Democratic newspaper editors had decided that Johnson was on their side, that they could support him and that if they worked with him, they would be able to do a great deal to frustrate black suffrage in the North. They began by the summer to denounce black people in hostile, racist language, girlish attacks, disgusting language. They claimed that everything that Johnson was doing was working perfectly, that there was no need to have any voting rights for black people in the South. Johnson had decided that new governments should be organized, but these would be organized entirely by white voters and only white men would be participating. The Democratic Party supports Johnson and argues that it would be a great mistake to involve black people in any of these rights. And as the summer goes on and the fall begins, their rhetoric becomes more vicious, more hostile. They talk more about the dangers of miscegenation, about social equality, about the Africanization of the South. And the Democratic Party is going to resist the movement toward black suffrage constantly and very energetically. So that's an important and regrettable part of the story as we look back on that time. If you flip the coin and look at what the Republicans are doing during that exact same period from the summer into the fall, into that 64 presidential election period, what are they saying? How are they combating this rhetoric from the Democratic Party? By the time the summer was arriving, Republicans in the North were realizing that the conflict of the war years wasn't over and that conflict with the Democratic Party over goals and priorities was not over at all. It was really a situation that was so highly polarized that we're kind of familiar with that today. But the Republicans decided that the war was in essence continuing now through politics. Politics was a war by other means. They decided that they must become unified, that they must take strong stands. So as early as June, the Republican Party is bringing out new arguments in favor of black suffrage. They made public Lincoln's private letter to Michael Hahn, who had been the governor of the loyalist government established in Louisiana during the war. So they made it clear that Lincoln as early as March of 1864 had called for black suffrage for some white men. They made all of the important arguments why black people should be allowed to vote, why it was their right, why it would benefit the country, why it was a part of democracy, why black people had earned that right because of their fighting in the war and their other contributions to the union cause. And then they also went on to remind people of what had been at stake in the war and who had been for the union and who had been against the union. And they argue that it would be dangerous to turn the South over to these white governments that Lincoln was organizing because it wasn't a question of color, it would be a question of loyalty. The whites in the South, Republicans begin to argue, were showing that they were still disloyal, that they were not supporting the union, that they were trying to regain power. Their intent was to re-enslave black people, to establish the firm racial control over black Americans that they had had before, and that something had to be done to change that dynamic. They also pointed out or reminded people of reasons that they had to avoid having sympathy for the white South. They talked about mistreatment of union soldiers, about Andersonville prison. They reminded people that this had been a vicious opponent and that people shouldn't simply turn things over to the white South now that the war was over and the fighting had stopped. So the Republicans make strong arguments there and I'd say that by the summer their papers were united and they continued then to report on all the problems that were developing in the South. Violence against black people, murders of blacks who sought their rights, an intent on the part of white Southerners to return black people to serfdom. As Johnson's program developed and as the governments that he had called upon to get organized started taking shape, they pointed out that a lot of these people were unpardoned rebels. They were people that had shown that they were loyal to the Confederacy, not to the Union. So these governments coming into being in the South under Johnson's program were not going to be loyal governments. They also presented evidence that the former slaves were adapting well to freedom and were working well. They used statistics to show that most of the rations that were being given out to people who were suffering in the South went to white Southerners who were hungry, not to black people who refused to work. No, they pointed out that the black people were working, were growing crops in some of the areas where they had statistics they could show that they were saving money and moving forward. So they try to present a comprehensive case that it made sense not to support Johnson's program but to move forward with a program that was more progressive and that would include suffrage for some black males. The one other thing I would mention in regard to that is that by the summer I'm certain that quite a few Republican politicians and members of Congress were deciding that it would be premature to admit the South back into Congress. Congress would reassemble in December and then the decision would have to be made about whether Congress would continue with its northern representatives who had served during the war and who had been elected in the last election or whether the Congress would be expanded now by welcoming back southern representatives from these new governments that Johnson was creating. And I believe that by the summer among Republican politicians there is a growing belief that the South should not be allowed to return to Congress until the whole situation in the Reconstruction South looked better and more promising. That's fascinating. Yeah, this whole period of presidential reconstruction I think is one of those that really needs more light shed upon it and you're doing a great job at this poll. It's just fantastic. Fascinating. How united was the Republican Party in support of black suffrage at that moment? Where is the weak spot or the weak links in the party at that point? Yes, as I mentioned before, this is one of the things that keeps black suffrage from occurring in 1865. And the history of the Republican Party is relevant here because the Republican Party was a brand new organization that was formed in the middle of the 1850s and people came to it out of concern for the growing power of slavery and for slavery's power in the territories. And they came to the Republican Party either from the weak party, which had fallen apart, or from the Democratic Party. Now the weak party had been more open to reform elements and to reform visions. The Democratic Party during these pre-war decades was very strongly in favor of white supremacy. And you have influential members of the Democratic Party deserting that party and becoming important Republicans because they're concerned about slavery in the territories. That did not mean, though, that they were going to have enlightened racial views. If you take the New York Times, for example, whose editor Henry Raymond was the chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1864, his paper in December of 1864 declared that black people in the south who were getting out of slavery were as ignorant upon all public questions as the driven cattle. And then early in 1865, his paper again denounces the possibility of black voting because that would bring into the electorate, he said, an enormous mass of animal ignorance. You had quite a few other Republicans who also were going to share some of those attitudes. And let me call up some images once more. Great. Let's look at a member of Lincoln's cabinet. This should be able to get it going. There we go. Okay, let me go up. Gideon Wells was the secretary of the Navy in Lincoln's cabinet. And Wells was a conservative, states rights-oriented man with racist views. He wrote in his diary, I am no advocate for social equality, nor do I labor for political or civil equality for the Negro. I do not want him at my table, nor do I care to have him in the jury box or in the legislative hall or on the bench. Wells was one of a number of important Republicans who felt that way. In the cabinet, you also had the secretary of the Treasury, Hugh McCulloch, who spoke about the importance of white supremacy and of the dominant white race continuing to set the agenda for the future. But at the state level, there were other leaders who had been active in Congress, who were equally racist and opposed to black rights. James Doolittle was a senator from Wisconsin. And he was notable throughout the Civil War for his persistent and detailed and repeated arguments for colonization. He wanted to remove black people from the United States. He was in favor of emancipation, but he was perhaps even more strongly determined that black people should be removed from the United States. He went so far as to give detailed arguments about this with calculations of how many people could be placed on a steamship and how often steamships could run to some other area. And he was doing this at a time when many people had decided that colonization was a futile idea that nothing was going to happen from it. But he continued to think in these terms. And in 1865, he refuses to come out for black suffrage in any way and in fact blocks this in discussion among Wisconsin Republicans. So he's an important example of these racist Republicans. If we turn to Ohio, we see that General Jacobs Cox is another example of weakness in the Republican ranks. In Southern Ohio and in Indiana, you had areas that had earlier been settled by Southerners, sometimes people who had been slaveholders. And there was some strong anti-black feeling in the culture of those areas. Ohio particularly was divided between Northern Ohio, which had some very strong reform ideas, and Southern Ohio, which was very hostile to black rights. Cox receives the nomination of his party, the Republican Party, to run for governor of Ohio in 1865. And the first statement that he makes about the racial situation is a proposal of internal colonization. That is, he's suggesting that black people be sent together to some particular part of the Southern states where they would live apart from black people. So he's not in favor of full rights and he's concerned about conflict between the races. After making that initial argument, which is criticized by a lot of other Republicans, he then tries to evade the issue. He doesn't want to talk about it much in the campaign. The Democrats in Ohio attack him and say that he's an abolitionist and an advocate of equal rights, and he simply tries to avoid the issue whenever possible. He claims that Ohioans don't need to really trouble themselves with that question because it'll be handled at the national level. In addition to Cox, you had the interesting case of Oliver P. Morton in Indiana. I describe this as interesting because in a few years, Morton would become a very strong advocate for black equality and for resistance to white Southerners. He became a very strong supporter of reconstruction policies by the radical Republicans. But in 1865, he opposes black rights and he actually says that if rights were to be given to black people in the South, that would lead to a race war. It couldn't be considered. It was too dangerous, ought not to be pursued at all. So these were elements of the Republican Party that were not on board. I would stress again that I believe most Republicans were moving rather strongly toward support for black suffrage. And we'll see that by the end of 1865, they were ready to take a united position in Congress that more has to be done. But as the elections of 1864 approached, you had these crucial elements of weakness within the Republican Party and that would work against the possibility of black suffrage in 1865. If we look at the role that African Americans are playing both North and South at this point, as fall in the reconvening of Congress is approaching, could you talk a little bit about their role in this dialogue and this conversation? Yes. I want to emphasize that the activities of African Americans in the North and in the South intensified and became even more impressive. I mentioned the National Equal Rights League and the African American leaders of the North had established affiliates or chapters of this National Equal Rights League in every state of the North. From the summer on through the fall, these National Equal Rights Leagues have their state conventions and state meetings. They have eight different states where the black leaders assemble. They draw up statements about the importance of equal rights. They give all of the important arguments that need to be made. They talk about the fact that black people had earned their rights by their service in the war and by their fighting to keep the union together, that democracy rested upon suffrage. They appealed to fairness and to Christian sense of justice on the part of the Northern public. They also argued that Northerners should consult their self-interest. This comes from Southern blacks as well. In addition to these eight states in the North where you had black conventions being held and dresses made to the public petitions sent to leading congressmen, you also had conventions coming together in the South where the newly freed former slaves assemble, show their awareness of democracy and of democratic procedures, make arguments for the necessity of their having equal rights. They point out that they are being mistreated in the South, that there are efforts to return them to a condition like slavery or to serve them, that there's violence against black people. They also make the point that the North doesn't have to consider spending huge amounts of money to maintain large armies in the South that would support them. Instead they come out and say give us the ballot and we will take care of ourselves, but we have to have the ballot in order to protect ourselves. There were four different conventions that were held in the Southern states and impressive statements were made there. I have just a couple of images that I will share with you here because I wanted to say a good word about a couple of the black leaders from the South. A number of them came from North Carolina where I live. JP Samson had been born in the North and was active in North Carolina, but then moves to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he starts a newspaper and he continues to be an influence. James Walker Hood was a prominent figure in North Carolina during 1865. The black people there are a symbol, a group of over 100 leaders from across the state who meet in Raleigh and draw up an address or a petition to the Constitutional Convention that Andrew Johnson has called into being. They appeal to the white people who are writing a new constitution and do so in a very effective and very clever and well designed way. Their appeal is largely to Christian values. They argue that black people in North Carolina did not turn on their owners or bring any violence against them during the war. They said, we hope you would excuse us for praying that freedom might come, but they go on to argue that black people are being mistreated, that they deserve an opportunity for keeping their families together, for having their children under parents' control, for having an opportunity to gain an education, and instead people are mistreating them and are often ejecting them from the fields after the crop has been grown but not giving them any share in it. And they say in clear enough, although somewhat veiled language, that they believe that the new constitution that is drawn up in North Carolina should not have any restrictions on rights for citizens. It's clear if you read it carefully, although they're very even humble in the way that they word their document, that they want all of the rights that they feel they're entitled to. James Walker Hood was one of the members of that group and he was arguing strongly for black rights in North Carolina, but I mentioned him especially because he was a minister in the AME Zion Church and he goes on from his activity in North Carolina in 1865 to establish AME Zion churches all over the South. He became a very important figure in the black community as time went on. So the other important thing to say about 1865 is that the black community North and South worked very hard to press for black rights. This leads to a slightly more complicated question I think about Andrew Johnson and his legacy. How should we see his role, his responsibility in this whole issue of black suffrage in 1865? It was a very important role, but also a somewhat deceptive one. Johnson decided early on that he wasn't going to give black people an opportunity to participate in these new governments that were being formed, but during 1865 he continues to say things that sound rather favorable toward black rights. He tells one group of black people that he would like to see them agitate for their rights in their state and that he would give the weight of his moral authority to them for that. He sometimes says encouraging things to Republican leaders who want to see black people vote. Even Charles Sumner is confused at one point as to where Johnson stood on this. He thought Johnson was going to be supportive. One of the members of Lincoln's cabinet tells him, no, you're mistaken. That's not what he meant at all. But Johnson, I believe, took advantage of every opportunity to be ambiguous that he could so that he could keep the Republicans guessing, and they have a challenge to figure out what they're going to do about Johnson in 1865. They don't want to have an openly hostile relationship with him because he's now the titular head of their party, and they're going into an important legislative session at the end of 1865, but at the same time they are not overly worried about where they stand because all of these Republicans assume and believe that Congress will have an important role. Johnson has taken the lead in Reconstruction because Congress was out of session, but as Republicans become more dubious and more concerned about Johnson's program, they also reassure themselves that they will be in charge once the Congress reassembles. And that's one of the reasons that you don't hear more open conflict between Johnson and the Republicans during 1865. What do the pro-suffrage Republicans decide to do about Johnson? Well, they decide at the end of 1865 that they are not going to let senators back into Congress. The elections in that fall are very important. The Republicans make the basic case that they are the party that preserved the Union and that the Democrats in the North cannot be trusted to preserve the Union and to preserve the victory that was so hard won and at such great cost. So they continue to argue for black suffrage. They continue to emphasize how badly things are going in the North, how much violence against black there is, how many old unrepentant rebels are returning to office, and they make the point that voters must come out and support the Republicans. The Democrats, on the other hand, are intensifying their racist campaign. They claim that blacks are Africanizing the South, taking over the South, that the Union is going to be degraded into a black republic. They're hostile to negro equality and to the moral assumptions from New England that New England and the Northerners know better. They worry about blacks ending up in school with white children. They sometimes claim that atrocities were committed by blacks for which there's no evidence, little or no evidence at all. But the elections in 1865 in the fall then are fought out on this basis between the Republicans and the Democrats, and the Republicans prevail basically because they have made the argument that they are the ones who saved the Union and that they must be entrusted with policy going forward in order to preserve the benefits of the Union victory. They win the elections in the North, but due to these elements of weakness that we've talked about, there are some very important reversals as well. Referenda take place in Connecticut, in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin on the question of whether blacks will be allowed to vote. And in none of those states is the black population very large. In Minnesota and Wisconsin it's tiny, only about one percent or less. But when the votes are held, the referenda all fail, and there's also a failed referendum in Maryland. The elections showed that many Republicans were now voting in favor of black suffrage, but many of those who had cast their votes for a Republican governor did not vote for black suffrage. So there's a fallout or a decline in the level of black support from office holders to the question of suffrage. And the defeat of those three referenda is a key reverse for the question of black suffrage in 1865. The guidance or the leadership of the Speaker of the House, the incoming Speaker of the House who is going to be re-elected, Schuyler Colfax, is very important in December. When Republicans return to Washington in December, Schuyler Colfax gives a major speech in which he says we should not let the South return to Congress. There are serious problems in the South and in Johnson's reconstruction program that have to be addressed. He argues that the Republican Party and the nation must respect the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, protect the rights of all, and insist on loyalty now that the Union has been preserved. He even used some of Andrew Johnson's quotations against Johnson to support his position. And although Democrats were very hopeful that the Republicans could not unite around this program, when they assembled in caucus, they were totally unanimous in their decision in December 1865 that they would not allow the South to return to Congress. Some of the historians who have studied the Republican Party position most clearly at this point argue that by this time, radical Republican strength within the Party and within Congress had increased to almost 50%. So the Republicans were going to take a stand and were going to keep the South out of Congress so that reconstruction policy could be revised and reshaped. You talk a little bit about the elections in the Northern states and the border South states that remain loyal that ultimately rejected Black suffrage at this point. What does this tell us? Had the North slipped back into older ways of thinking and racial attitudes? How do we gauge this looking back on that particular moment and that overt rejection at the ballot box? Many years ago, C. Van Woodward had pointed out that the North did not make a firm commitment to Black equality during the war itself. And it seems to me that the crisis of war, an existential crisis about the Union's survival, created a revolutionary period, a revolutionary moment. People realized that they needed to undertake policies that they otherwise would not have expected or would not have embraced. And there was some revolutionary momentum caused by the crisis. This does fade, however. Once the moment of emergency is over and the war ends, people start returning to their normal activities. People hope to get back to something that they were used to before the war. People are glad that soldiers are coming home and the Union Army, the White soldiers, are sent back home in large numbers very quickly. So the atmosphere of crisis, the atmosphere of the necessity for revolutionary change does fade and other things become more prominent in people's minds. Early on, the newspapers are full of information about capturing Jefferson Davis or about trials for the assassins of Lincoln. And even stories about Andersonville come up in many newspapers early in 1865. But as time goes on, people become interested in other issues that are part of the news of the day. For example, oil is being found in Pennsylvania. Industry is going to take advantage of that. There is a telegraph cable that is being laid across the Atlantic Ocean from Britain to the United States. And newspapers follow the story of that with great interest. There are disturbances that occur in some of the Caribbean islands. Those become front page stories. All of these things tend to take people away from the moment of crisis and the revolutionary spirit does fade and loses its zip. Paul, what would you say is the most surprising research find that you had when you were working in this book and on the project? I would mention two. One was the extent of support for the idea of black suffrage right after Lincoln's death, which we talked about earlier. That told me that there was a moment of potential there that could have been developed. The other thing, though, that really impressed me was the energy, activity, and impressive organization of African Americans. North and South, they are getting together, showing their knowledge of the mechanisms of democracy, making strong arguments for their rights and for the need for black suffrage. This was totally contrary to what Democrats said was even possible, and even some Republicans were saying that black people weren't able to do this. Had people paid more attention to what black people actually were doing, they certainly would have been reassured on those points. But unfortunately, there was a great deal of racism from before the war and still during that time. And in the North, we have to remember that among the free states, black people were only about 1% of the population. So they had a hard time to make their voices heard. This is a problem not only of racism, which it was, but also a problem inherent in democracy in that small groups may have a hard time stating their interests and getting those interests attended to by the majority, which may assume that their interests are the ones that matter. Well, I'd like to thank you, Paul, for taking the time to talk about your new book and your fascinating research. It's just really wonderful. And so your new book is Black Suffrage, Lincoln's Last Goal. And it's Paul S. Scott. We'd like to thank the National Archives for the opportunity to have this wonderful conversation about Paul's new book. And I, too, thank the National Archives. And thank you, Barton, for your good questions and for your participation. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Paul.