 Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's virtual book talk with Bruce Levine, author of a new biography of Thaddeus Stevens. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Tuesday, March 16th at 1 p.m., Heather Cox Richardson will tell us about her new book, How the South Won the Civil War. While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a new birth of freedom, Richardson argues that democracy's victory was ephemeral, as the system that had sustained the defeated south moved westward and established a foothold there. And on March 30th, at noon, author Dorothy Wiccenden will discuss the agitators, which uses the intertwined lives of Harriet Tubman, Martha Wright and Francis Seward to tell the stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad and the early women's rights movement. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the United States Capitol, the home of the House of Representatives and the Senate, was in the midst of an extensive renovation. An open circle of columns arose from the building awaiting the iconic dome we know today. President Abraham Lincoln famously remarked that construction would continue, even in wartime, because if people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on. Inside the Capitol, the work of Congress went on as well. We may think first of Lincoln and famous generals when we consider the Civil War, but the wheels of government continued in members of the House and Senate, crafted legislation that would shape our nation for decades to come. Senator Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania was long vilified as a leader of the radicals, but in Bruce Levine's new biography, we learn of Stevens' dedication to freedom for the enslaved and his vision of equal civil and political rights for black Americans. His drive helped push through the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Historian Eric Foner has praised this book, saying, at last Thaddeus Stevens, one of the 19th century's greatest proponents of racial justice, gets the biography he deserves. Bruce Levine is the best-selling author of four books on the Civil War era, including the fall of the House of Dixie and Confederate Emancipation, which received the Peter C. Burgle Award for Civil War Scholarship and was named one of the top ten works of nonfiction of its year by the Washington Post. He is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois. Joining Bruce Levine in conversation today is historian and author Manisha Sinha. Dr. Sinha is the Draper Chair of American History at the University of Connecticut and the Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society for the current academic year. She is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery and the Slave's Cause, A History of Abolition. Now let's hear from Bruce Levine and Manisha Sinha. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for that introduction and thank you to all our audience out there for joining us. I'm delighted here to talk with distinguished Civil War historian and author Bruce Levine on his latest biography of the great Paddy Stevens. I also would like to mention to the audience that we will have ten minutes of question and answer from the audience after our conversation. So feel free to put down your questions in the YouTube chat and I should be able to read them out to Bruce. So it's wonderful, this unusually warm spring day to join you today, Bruce, to talk about one of my favorite American statesmen and that is Paddy Stevens. And as was mentioned earlier, for a long time we have not had a modern biography of Paddy Stevens. And could you reflect and just tell us why that is so and what drew you to write a biography of him? Hi Manisha, thank you for being here and for that good starting question. Beginning in the 1880s, the North began to retreat from the achievements of the Civil War. It began to retreat from reconstruction, began to retreat from its promise of equality for African Americans. And as it did so, it also turned its back not only on the African American population but upon those who had led or championed that population. And so people like Paddy Stevens who was closely identified with the most consistent struggle against white supremacy became easy and obvious targets for those anxious to bury or vilify that past and those achievements. And that attitude was prevalent not only among the northern political elite, it also penetrated into academia. And so scholars north as well as south accepted the view of Stevens as an evil predatory individual motivated by the worst possible impulses. And that same point of view was taken up by Hollywood, which produced a series of films presenting Paddy Stevens thinly disguised as basically the same kind of creature. Even John F. Kennedy in the middle of the 1950s when he wrote or published his book Profiles in Courage, vilifies Stevens in line with what he was probably had been taught at Harvard in that same line of interpretation. So it takes the civil rights movement in the United States to begin to compel a mainstream reconsideration, both of the Civil War and reconstruction and people like Stevens. And while there are a few biographies of Stevens published following the civil rights movement, my opinion, Stevens had not even then received full recognition of that he deserved. Absolutely. I agree with you there. I think with the overthrow of reconstruction, the sort of last God's mythology of civil war and then a very sort of critical view of the experiment in interracial democracy and black citizenship, all the things that Stevens stood up for became quite popular, even in academia. And we are still living with the legacy of that, right? I mean, those symbols and statues and those questions are still very much alive for us. Absolutely. So Stevens is really a person who speaks as much to us today as he could have to his times. Yeah, go ahead. To pick up the last part of your question, which I inadvertently dropped, what drew me to Stevens, I came of age in the era of the 20th century civil rights movement and was attracted to it and participated in it. And when I went to college and took what was then called a black history course, I, among other things, read, for example, in W.E.B. Du Bois' book about entitled Black Reconstruction in America. I first began to learn about that is Stevens and the radical Republicans and instantaneously they became heroes of mine. So the opportunity to learn more about Stevens and how someone had come to be that individual and just exactly what role he had played in the unfolding of the events of the Civil War and Reconstruction was something to be cherished and welcomed. And that opportunity arose about five or six years ago. That's such an interesting point how we are shaped by our bringing and our experiences, you know, and your own experience with reading Du Bois' Black Reconstruction where he refers to Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner as the two seers of American democracy, right? And also being influenced by the events of the Civil Rights Movement. You know, it's interesting that I was told that John F. Kennedy, you know, it's not clear how much of profiles and courage he wrote himself or how much of it was ghost written, but that he seems to have changed his views about Stevens and Reconstruction when he had to deal with the immigration of the University of Mississippi. Somewhere I read the same thing. Yeah. He had, he began using, I wonder if they actually told us the truth at Harvard. Exactly. And Harvard and many of the Ivy Leagues, I think, were, you know, like the Darling School in Columbia were breaking grounds for the last course mythology dominated sometimes by Southern historians and their perspectives of the war and reconstruction. So going on from there, Bruce, I want you to introduce Stevens in your own words to our audience out there. Maybe wet our audience's appetite for actually reading your book. You know, you've told us a bit about what attracted you to Stevens, his commitment to equal rights, his commitment to black citizenship. And I was just wondering if you would tell us a little bit more about his abolitionist convictions and his vision for the country. Fine. Thank you. That is Stevens became effectively an abolitionist decades before the Civil War began in the 1830s. By the end of the 1830s, he was in all important respects, effectively an abolitionist. He had been a delegate in that decade to a convention in his adoptive state of Pennsylvania charged with drawing up a new state constitution. And when that constitution wound up explicitly denying the franchise, denying the right to vote to black men, that is Stevens refused to sign the finished product after having waged an unsuccessful fight to include black men in the franchise. And that was an extremely radical point of view in the north. On the other side of a handful of New England states, black men did not vote or were in the process of being disfranchised if they had been able to vote previously. So Stevens was already staking out a position well in advance of most white public opinion. He participates in the Underground Railroad. In the 1840s and in the 1850s, there's archaeological evidence that his office and home was a station in the Underground Railroad. He acted as a defense attorney in a case in the 1850s, arising from the story of the escape of some slaves from Maryland into Pennsylvania, where the claimed owner of the fugitives. Chased them down and sought to take them back and the fugitives resisted arms in hand and killed the former owner that went to trial and Stevens was a key member of the defense team. And so it went and Stevens moved from one political party after another in the course of his life. And in the mid 1850s, when the Republican Party was born, Stevens joined it and was one of the individuals struggling to build it in Pennsylvania. When the war begins, Stevens is anxious to see this war transformed into the instrument for the abolition of slavery. And in this respect, he differs from Abraham Lincoln, who as much as Lincoln despised slavery and there's no doubt that he did, at least no doubt in my mind, he did not see the war in that light. From point of view in the point of view of Lincoln, purpose of the Union war effort was simply to bring the Union back together again as expeditiously and as quickly as possible, so that his political party could get back to itself assigned to the task to gradually and peacefully and eventually see slavery disintegrate in the states where it already existed. And from Lincoln's point of view, and in the advice of his more conservative advisors, achieving that goal meant ruffling southern white feathers as little as possible. That in turn seemed to call, or so he thought, for interfering with slavery no more than was absolutely necessary. And so Lincoln was slower to take up the cause of abolishing slavery during the war. Daddy Stevens vigorously disagreed with that point of view. He instead agreed with Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists that this war should be the instrument for the immediate and uncompensated emancipation of slaves. And he was one of the very first Republicans to say that. He was also one of the first Republicans to call therefore for confiscating the slaves of the rebels. One of the first to call eventually for spreading the abolition movement throughout the United States for emancipating all slaves in the United States. That includes those who lived in the so-called loyal border states that remained within the Union when the Confederacy left. He was one of the very first to call for including black men into what were then still lily white Union armies. And he was one of the first to call for giving the emancipated slaves equal civil rights with whites. And in each case the argument he made was initially viewed with great skepticism by the majority of his party. And in each case both his words and the intrinsic logic of the situation helped to bring the majority of his party over to his point of view. He was an extremely effective leader. And of course the struggle continues after the war. Absolutely. I really like the way in which you lay out Stephen's abolitionist convictions. You know to be an abolitionist and I you know they occupy a sort of a niche for me because I you know have studied the abolition movement so much. But to be an abolitionist was not just to oppose slavery but it was to champion black equality. Exactly. To champion black citizenship and Stephen seems to have done that consistently throughout his career both in his objection to disenfranchising black men in Pennsylvania. I also found a letter he had written to Garrison to William Lord Garrison the preeminent abolitionist who published the Liberator in Boston decrying the burning down of Pennsylvania Hall by an anti abolitionist mob. So he clearly and then you as you mentioned his involvement in the underground railroad and his defense of those who assisted the Christiana slave rebels in Pennsylvania. So he's quite radical in his convictions. And in a sense these radical Republicans were really abolitionist emissaries in in in national politics and people like Stevens and Charles Sumner and you know a few others who are not so prominent perhaps as them during reconstruction. But what strikes one about Stevens is what an adept parliamentarian and he was that with his abolitionist convictions and principles. He has these amazing political skills as you point out to move his party towards higher ground. So from the non extension of slavery as most moderate Republicans like Lincoln stood on you know and it refused to compromise on that I should say Lincoln refused to compromise on the non extension of slavery simply to get back the southern secessionist states but but but Stevens is talking about abolition and black rights from the start and how he manages to move his party from non extension abolition to black rights. It's exactly what Lincoln evolves to write at the end of his life. He is endorsing those positions and the arming of black men the giving black men voting rights. Those are you know Lincoln becomes our first precedent to endorse those things. So people like Stevens and Sumner and other radicals really play an important part as you point out in moving the pendulum. But tell us a bit about Stevens the parliamentarian. I am just reading the Congressional Globe and looking at the ways in which he got those reconstruction acts passed and the way he rallies opposition against Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln and who was arguably one of the most racist and one of the worst presidents the United States has ever had. Tell us a bit about his skill there. And this is just before he he dies. But but really if you think of a person who is an architect of reconstruction it's had his Stevens. So so if you want to talk a little bit about his reconstruction career which I think was really the the sort of crowning achievement of his life. Well, thank you. I'd be happy to do that. He was just as you say, Manisha a skillful parliamentarian. And so he would frequently surprise his adversaries by outmaneuvering them in on the floor of the House of Representatives precisely because he knew the rules and knew how to use them. He's an extremely bright fellow. He had been an active politician for many years. He knew away his way around the rules and he knew how to use them. He was also it's important to remember a leader, not only of his colleagues in the Congress. He became that in large part because he became a leader of the party as a whole. As a number of his colleagues said when he died, most politicians adapt to public opinion that is Stevens preferred to shape public opinion. And he did that actively and consciously. He used as would be said in the 20th century, the bully pulpit. He gave speeches that wound up not only in the congressional globe, but also which was the early version of the congressional record, but also was reprinted were reprinted by many northern newspapers with large circulations in the north. And many of those speeches were also reprinted as pamphlets, which circulated in some cases by the hundreds and thousands. And his mailbox filled up with requests for copies of those speeches so that they could be used to change minds and filled up with letters assuring him that they were doing precisely that. So Stevens is asked toward the end of his life, whether he agrees with the claim often made that he was a leader of the House of Representatives and Stevens says frankly, I lead them yes. But they never come around to my point of view until public opinion swings in my direction. So he was very conscious of not simply being a parliamentary leader or a parliamentary maneuver. He understood that political power in a state that claims to be a political democracy ultimately derives from the ability to weld and wield public opinion, and he did that with extreme success. He did that on most of the issues for which he fought. And just as you say, Lincoln came around himself on many of those issues. One of Stevens colleagues in the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania expressed the opinion that if Stadia Stevens had not been pounding away for emancipation from day one and continue to do so, Lincoln would not have been able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation as early as he did because Stevens work paved the way for doing that. In the era of reconstruction, of course, it's a new ball game because Lincoln is assassinated shortly before the end of the war. And as you note, Andrew Johnson ascends to the presidency and very promptly begins using his power to begin restoring the Southern elite to political control of the southern states. Johnson is not going to go along with restoring slavery per se, but he will not interfere with attempts to try to impose something close to slavery, which is exactly what the Southern elite tries to do beginning in the fall of 1865, when Johnson having brought these states back into participation in the political life in the United States. Southern newly elected Southern legislators include hordes of Confederate leaders, and the legislatures begin to pass the so-called black codes, which strip or deny African Americans of most of the rights that white Americans took for granted in order to keep them in a position of subordination and to keep them as a cheap malleable labor force. That is Stevens fights against that attempt, helps to lead his party in the struggle against the black codes, fights for, on the contrary, giving equal political rights, I should say equal civil rights right away to African Americans, and before very long, the right to vote and hold office as well. In trying to do all of that, of course, he collides with Andrew Johnson, and as Andrew Johnson tries to use his political power in the White House to foil the attempt to give African Americans their rights, Stevens becomes one of the active advocates of his impeachment and pushes hard for the impeachment that does occur in the House of Representatives, becomes one of the House's managers in the Senate in bringing Johnson to trial, and they come within reach of removing Johnson from office. It's only because a handful of so-called moderate Republicans refuse to go along that Johnson escapes condemnation and manages to serve out the rest of his term. Nonetheless, Stevens continues the struggle, pushes through legal provisions granting equal rights, equal civil rights, and then demands that voting rights as well be extended to African American men. By the time he dies, though, that does not pass, doesn't even find its way into the 1864 Republican platform, which Stevens finds astounding and which he denounces. But before very long, the Republican Party, after Stevens' death, does change its point of view, does change its position, introduces the 15th Amendment, whose purpose is to grant the right to vote to black people. So even in death, Stevens is pointing the way forward for his party. Absolutely. I think you show beautifully in this book how Stevens' commitment to black voting rights, to black suffrage is a way ahead of most members of his party and his commitment to black civil rights. And what is so interesting is how he really creates the structure for Reconstruction by refusing to seat those southern states that try to gain re-admittance to the Union with their black codes that was reducing black people back to a state of slavery as close as possible and was approved by Andrew Johnson, who really opposed the Freedmen's Bureau Act, the Civil Rights Act, the most modest rights that were being given to formerly enslaved people. And I just enjoyed the way Stevens is able to push through those Reconstruction acts that makes black male suffrage a condition for the re-admission of southern states into the Union. It really makes it the sort of lodestar of Reconstruction. And you're right. I mean, eventually, you know, they do succeed with black male citizenship with political and civil rights and passing those amazing amendments and laws that create a national citizenship, national birthright citizenship and, you know, voting rights for black men. But there's something more interesting about Stevens than even those achievements. And that is his struggle to get land redistributed amongst African Americans. Again, he is way ahead of many of his contemporaries. Besides abolitionists and African Americans, it's really a handful of radical Republicans who are agitating for the redistribution of land to former slaves. And Stevens very presciently says, you know, we can do two things at once. We can break up the power of these former slaveholders and big plantation owners and create a black humanry, a black and white humanry, land holding humanry in the south that would uphold democracy and would also act as payment for generations of unpaid labor. Tell us a bit more about this radical Stevens that makes him, you know, many people end up calling him the American Robespierre, the great commoner. Yeah, there are all these words for him. But that elicit the admiration of the most radical abolitionists of his time, his commitment not just to political and civil rights, but also social justice. Yes. Yes. Of course, he doesn't invent the idea, as you note, of redistributing the land. The enslaved population of the south is struggling to lay hands on that land themselves, the land that they had worked, the land that they had made profitable, the land that had been purchased with profits made through their labor. And even during the war, they begin to cultivate the land for their own benefit that had previously belonged to slave owners who fled before the advance of Union armies. So Thaddeus Stevens is taking his cue from the African Americans themselves. And he argues that not only is it essential to deprive the old elite of its control of such vast quantities of the most arable land in the south, and thereby undermine their economic and indirectly political power in the south. But as you say, also take that land and give it to those whose labor had made it profitable. And also, what he says is not only will this make for a more egalitarian society, because a society, as he said, made up simply of maybabs and serfs can never be a democratic society, can never support democratic institutions. But also, Stevens has believed since youth, because that was the doctrine that was taught to him, that the best citizens and the only reliable citizens are those who are economically independent, who do not have to work for others. Because if they have to work for others, according to this venerable, republican, small r ideology, their work for others will make them vulnerable to the economic blackmail of others who will be able to use their subordinate economic position to compel them to vote as employers wish them to vote. And so, as Stevens becomes strongly attached to the idea of enfranchising southern black men, he also redoubles his efforts to make them economically independent and therefore less vulnerable to that kind of pressure. Now, it's worth noting, to put it mildly, that while Stevens has by that point proven himself time and time again to his republican colleagues in Congress, as someone whose ideas, no matter how extreme they may seem at first, prove themselves to be necessary to accomplish what the party as a whole wishes to accomplish on this issue, most will not follow his lead. They draw the line. They will not tamper with the private property rights of landholders in times of peace. And so, his goal of redistributing that land is foiled. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right to point to his own republican convictions about political virtue and economic independence and not having these great inequalities in a democratic society. I think part of it comes probably from his own heart scrabble background in Vermont and a lot of these abolitionists have that from New England, people like John Brown, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, but I actually really appreciated the fact that you did not reduce Stevens convictions as has been speculated by Von Brode and others in the movie Lincoln, I'm sure people have seen, to some imagined relationship he may or may not have had with his housekeeper, we have no proof for that. But in fact, you create this portrait of a very principled conviction about equality and principle conviction about democracy and republican governments. And I think that's what makes your book so valuable. Now, I could talk to you endlessly about this book because, as I told you, Thaddeus Stevens has to be one of my favorite American statesmen, but we do have questions coming in, and we do not have that much time and we want to reserve sometimes for our audience to participate. And the first question that has come here is Stevens somewhat controversial involvement with the know nothing party. And before that, of course, the anti Mason party. And I should point out that especially after the breakup of the second party system. There were many anti slavery politicians who were prior wigs who had no political home, and who flirted with know nothingers before they joined the Republican Party. But I was wondering if you would like to answer that question to Well, fine. He first gets wrapped up with what looks in retrospect to most people, including many historians, as a kind of crank outfit. The anti Mason party, a party dedicated to basically combating the order of masons, which order still exists today, of course. And if you look at the masons today, it seems impossible to understand how political party come into being dedicated to fighting against this apparently inoffensive fraternal organization. And what I discovered upon closer look is that at the time Stevens joined the anti Mason party, the masons were a kind of different organization. It was a secret organization whose members pledged secretly to support one another above all others in all walks of life, economic, political and so on. Well, to people who firmly believed in political democracy and feared the undermining of that democracy by secret conspiracies and cabals. This could only appear a dangerous kind of organization. And Stevens home state of Vermont was acutely aware of the need to combat secret organizations and so were the Baptists, to which his family were was also affiliated an organization that had suffered religious and political persecution. And that also feared secrecy in government. So this odd looking organization, in fact, attracted a large number of people who would eventually become Republicans, as well as radical Republicans, because of their commitment to democracy. The Know Nothing Party was a horse of a different color. Just as you say, Manisha, the Know Nothing Party comes into being in the early 1850s. Know Nothing Party is not its official name the official name of course is the American Party, and it is an anti immigrant party. Its goal is to deprive immigrants of the right to vote, or at least to make them wait 21 years after they're naturalized before they can cast the vote. Now, Thaddeus Stevens never became a loud, prominent advocate of deprivation of immigrant rights, but he did evidently join with them in order to boost his own political support. Southern Pennsylvania was a part of the country where nativism was very strong, and Stevens for a long time seemed to see no problem with trying to collaborate with nativists in order to advance his other agenda goals. It's not until about 1860 where Stevens seems to have a change of heart. When the Republican Party in 1860 finally adds to its platform provisions opposing nativism and opposing attempts to deny equal rights to immigrants, Stevens says nothing in protest. Even as he says, I notice that a large number of our immigrants are opposed to slavery. And so that fact that was especially true of Scandinavians and German speaking immigrants seems to play a role in his abandonment of nativism. And meanwhile, Stevens also champions the cause of Chinese immigrants in California who are being persecuted by the political establishment there, and not only by the political establishment. And that establishment includes California Republicans, and Stevens takes on one of those Republicans on the floor of the house and denounces California for its mistreatment of those Chinese immigrants. So we see on this issue to Stevens commitment to democracy, expanding strengthening and coming to touch more and more issues, just as it had led him earlier to endorse women's suffrage. Absolutely. I agree with you. I think his, his motivating political principle was anti-slavery. It was not nativism. And you see that amongst others too, like Henry Wilson and in Massachusetts, where many anti-slavery politicians joined the New Nothing Party in the power vacuum created with the collapse of the Wake Party, but eventually, you know, quickly go to the Republican Party and have nothing to do with nativism or nativist principles, particularly because of the German immigrants. They're just such an important part of the Republican coalition. So yeah, I find that a really convincing answer. There is another question here. We are running out of time. We have literally two, there's quite a few more questions here. But about whether Stevens continued attempt to impede Johnson was motivated by some vengeance. I think Stevens actually really perceived Johnson to be a genuine threat to American democracy. If you read his personal correspondence and what you've written about him, Bruce, to me that seems far more motivating than any kind of vengeful character that many sort of Southern apologists and last course mythologists made up about him. Absolutely. I think it's clear that Stevens does not approach the subject of impeachment out of a spirit of personal revenge or even personal punishment for Andrew Johnson. He says the purpose of impeachment is to deal with misconduct in office and to prevent future misconduct. He sees Johnson accurately as the principal obstacle to the completion of what he regards as a necessary revolution in American life. And it is on that basis that and for that purpose that he seeks to remove Johnson so that Congress can do what needs to be done rather than inflict some sort of punishment on an evil doer. Absolutely. You know, I think Stevens perception of Johnson as a traitor actually was quite accurate. It was precisely what Johnson was doing in terms of undoing reconstruction and that's why he adds that bigger article on impeachment. Right, that Johnson is actually against reconstruction and that was a traitorous act on his part. There are some other questions here, very interesting ones about Stevens contact with African American leaders at that time. In my own research, I found that Charles Sumner had very close contact with the black community because he was involved with abolition and abolitionist struggles, just like Stevens. What was interesting about Stevens was that yes, he he had contacts with some prominent African Americans, but he also had a lot of contact with Southern white unionists who would plead to him. Just if you could elaborate on his contacts with black and black people but also Southern unionists. The contacts that I came across with black leaders were mostly local for the purpose of protecting free blacks in the north and those who had escaped from the south into the north. So he was actively involved, for example, in Pennsylvania in keeping track of slave holders and informing African Americans of what those slave holders were doing those slave chasers were doing and advising the fugitives how to best protect themselves. During the Civil War, he became a recipient of many letters, just as you say, from loyal whites in the Confederacy, both during and after the Civil War, especially after the Civil War, of course, when correspondence was much more possible, advising him of what was taking place and of the persecution, both of African Americans there, and that small minority of loyal whites, which were, which minority was not so small in certain pockets of the south. And Stevens was the recipient of an outsized number of letters precisely from that segment of the Southern population. Absolutely, and it really belies this notion that he was somehow just anti-Southern. Actually, he always makes a distinguish, he makes a difference and he says, you know, loyal white Southerners and blacks and versus the traitors and the slavers and the Confederates. And so your answer there is really, I think, holds up really well. You know, we unfortunately do not have the time that we want. There are lots of questions here that I apologize to our audience that we could not get to. The fact that Stevens' reputation has, in fact, you know, been rescued in the post-Civil Rights Movement makes sense, because finally it's only with the Civil Rights Movement that his vision of an interracial democracy and equal black citizenship is eventually realized. And it shows you how visionary his program of reconstruction was and how important his commitment to black equality is to tell the full story of American democracy. But thank you, Bruce, so much. If you will hold up your book at this point, I would really recommend this read to our audience. It's a brilliant book, a modern biography, a modern sympathetic biography of the great Thaddeus Stevens, long overdue and done by one of our most perceptive Civil War historians. Yes, on that note, I'm afraid we do have to wrap up our program. I wish we had more time. But certainly I would recommend that our audiences, especially those questions that we could not answer, that you will go out and purchase a copy of Bruce Levine's wonderfully new biography of Thaddeus Stevens. Thank you. Thank you so much, Manisha. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for being with us, everyone.