Lincoln's Dilemma (2022): Season 1, Episode 4 - A Sacred Effort - full transcript

There is a way to think about
Lincoln as just freeing the slaves.

But what really happens, and I think
is fascinating in the Civil War era,

is that Black people are able
to make their concerns heard,

and federal government officials
are listening to those concerns.

The greatest policies of
Lincoln's presidency worked

because people in power cared
about people who didn't have it.

In August 1864,

Lincoln drafted a letter to a
democratic paper in Wisconsin.

Under intense pressure to end the war,

Lincoln decided it was time
to spell out his conditions

should the Confederates call for peace.



Before he sent the letter,

he invited Frederick Douglass to
the White House for a second visit.

"I found Lincoln in
an alarmed condition.

Everybody was thinking
and dreaming of peace,

and the impression had gone abroad
that the president's antislavery policy

was the only thing which prevented
a peaceful settlement with the rebels.

He showed me a
letter, written with a view

to meet the peace
clamor raised against him."

To Douglass, the letter
was a form of surrender,

not in battle, where the
Union had finally stabilized,

but on principle.

Lincoln suddenly seemed
willing to negotiate the futures

of nearly four million Black people.

"Should the rebels say, 'We cease
fighting and consent to reunion,



but we still claim to hold our slaves, '

I could not continue
the war in such case.

But if the rebels would only cease
fighting and consent to reunion

on condition that I would stipulate to
aid them in re-enslaving the Blacks,

I could not do that either. What, then?

Simply this: We will cease
the war, restore the Union,

and our remaining
dispute about slavery,

we will submit to the peaceful
tribunals of courts and votes.

Before these tribunals, I should
have little fear for those Blacks,

who shall have actively
accepted our promise,

by coming out from among the enemy.

For the rest, I fear their case
might not be quite so clear."

To leave it in the hands of the people

that created and promote and
benefit from the system is absurd,

because there were many
opportunities in which local states,

and even to some degree,
the federal level of leadership,

could have abolished slavery,

curbed slavery, undermined slavery,

and at every turn, they don't do that.

And so, Douglass is pushing
back on that because he's like,

"You think people are gonna do right.

They will not do
right by Black people."

"Now, the question he put to me was

'Shall I send forth this letter?'

To which I answered, 'Certainly not.

It would be taken as a complete
surrender of your antislavery policy

and do you serious damage.'"

Douglass persuaded Lincoln.

The letter was never sent.

I think Lincoln is so human
and he's so complicated,

and everything is so contingent.

Like, what if this hadn't
happened or that hadn't happened

or he never talked to Douglass or...

There are so many different, like, ways

that you can change or
alter his entire trajectory

just with one small tweak.

And so there are all these kinds
of strategic things that have to align,

but fundamentally, the
position of the enslaved people

was the only consistent thing.

They wanted freedom in a country

that was allegedly founded
upon the principle of freedom.

And it took other people

of considerable advantage,
considerable wealth,

considerable education decades

to actually grapple with

things that unlettered, enslaved people

understood about
democracy from the outset.

To consider what would have happened

had the South won the war,
is counterfactual, actually,

and historians don't like to
engage in that kind of thought,

but what the heck,
let's think about it.

Slavery was not just
an economic institution.

It was an institution
for social control as well,

and so there's no reason to assume

that slavery would not have
gone into the 20th century at least.

The war ebbs and flows.

There are times when it
seems like the Union might lose,

and there are times when it
seems like the Union might win.

And so each battle is so pivotal

in moving us closer toward
what might be liberation

or closer toward what
might be chattel slavery

for all of the Confederacy forever.

And so 1864 is right
on the cusp of that.

As the Civil War raged
into its fourth year,

mounting casualties meant
increased reluctance among whites

to serve in the Union Army.

The North's enormous supply of
manpower no longer looked inexhaustible,

so whites gradually began to accept the
necessity of African American soldiers.

But their presence on the
battlefield enraged the South.

In early 1864, the Confederacy
was becoming more and more angry

because African American
troops for the North

were really, truly proving themselves
to be vital for the Northern military.

And for the South, Black people
fighting against them had to be punished.

On April 12th, 1,500
Confederate soldiers

led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest

attacked a command post of Union troops

on a high bluff above the
Mississippi River in Tennessee.

You have a small garrison of
Union troops, Black and white,

who had taken a fort that once
housed the Confederate Army,

and, ultimately, as the Confederates
began to dominate at Fort Pillow,

as Union soldiers began to surrender

suddenly, hundreds were massacred.

Civilian photographer Charles
Robinson had arrived at the fort

just a few days earlier.

"There commenced the
most horrible slaughter

that could possibly be conceived."

"Our boys, when they saw
that they were overpowered,

threw down their arms and
held up, some their handkerchiefs

and some their hands,
in token of surrender.

But no sooner were they
seen than they were shot down.

If one shot failed to kill them,

the bayonet or revolver did not.

I lay behind a high log and could see our
poor fellows bleeding and hear them cry,

'Surrender! I surrender!'

But they surrendered in vain,

for the rebels now ran down the bank,

and putting the revolvers
right to their heads,

would blow out their brains
or lift them up on bayonets

and throw them headlong
into the river below."

That was seen as a blow to the
Union by the Confederacy to say,

"This is what will happen if you
continue to use Black soldiers."

The Confederates were trying
to signal to everybody else

how bloodthirsty they could be.

"One of the rebels soon
came to where I was laying.

And then, putting his revolver
right against my breast, he said,

'You'll fight with the niggers
again, will you, you damn Yankee?'

And he snapped his revolver.

But she wouldn't go off, as
he had shot the last load out

when he killed the soldier by my side."

Mack Leaming, the
highest ranking Union officer

to survive the massacre, described
what happened when, quote,

"the masters, for the first
time, met their former slaves."

"Many of the colored soldiers, seeing
that no quarters were to be given,

madly leaped into the river,

while the rebels stood on the banks
and shot at the heads of their victims.

I could plainly see the
bullets striking the water

around the Black heads of our soldiers...

...until suddenly, the
muddy current became red."

Confederate soldiers then
pulled down the Stars and Stripes

and hoisted the Stars and Bars.

Nearly half of the Union soldiers
at Fort Pillow were massacred,

but the killing was not random.

Seventy percent of white
Union soldiers survived.

Black soldiers were
killed at twice the rate.

Fort Pillow was not of
great military significance

for the Confederacy.

And rather than taking
soldiers as prisoners of war,

killing them,

it's just...

it's so disgusting and vile.

The massacre at Fort
Pillow is a really clear marker

for all Northerners, at least,

that Black men are facing
disproportionate kinds of danger

in fighting for their freedom
in the ways that they are.

Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin
Stanton, was urged to take action.

"If the murder of the colored
troops at Fort Pillow is not followed

by prompt action on the
part of our government,

it may as well disband
all its colored troops.

For no soldiers whom the government
will not protect can be depended upon."

It really becomes a
rallying cry on several levels.

There was a sense that, you know, if
we could capture the people who did this,

they would be punished.

"There seems to be some
anxiety in the public mind

whether the government is
doing its duty to the colored soldier.

If the massacre will
be conclusively proved,

the retribution shall as surely come."

Congress initiated an investigation,

but Lincoln ultimately did nothing.

Passing the fort several weeks
later, an African American regiment

made it clear that
they would never forget.

"The motto of the 68th
is, 'Remember Fort Pillow',

and from the grim faces that
gazed so intently upon that silent bluff

and the fierce threats
that were passed around,

I know that Fort Pillow
will be held in remembrance

when the 68th comes to show mercy."

"To claim that the
indolent, servile Negro

is the equal in courage,
enterprise and fire

to the foremost race
in all the world is a libel.

It is unjust every way
to the white soldier

to put him on a level with the Black."

Even though they had fought for
the same cause for more than a year,

Black soldiers were still not
treated as equals by the Union Army

in respect or dollars.

And these men go on strike.

Some of them stack arms and
refuse to serve until they get equal pay.

Sergeant William
Walker, formerly enslaved,

organized a work strike in protest.

For this, he was soon court-martialed
and convicted of inciting mutiny.

Before the sentence
and trial transcripts

could be submitted to
President Lincoln for review,

the military executed Walker.

Four months after Walker was killed,

Congress finally approved equal
pay, equipment and medical care

for African American Union troops.

Under the homestead roof

Nestled so cozy and warm

While soldiers sleep

With little or naught

To shelter them from the storm

Brave boys are they

Gone at their country's call

And yet, and yet we cannot forget

That many brave boys must fall

By the middle of 1864,

around half a million
soldiers had died.

They had been farmers, teachers,

carpenters, lawyers
and recently enslaved.

The staggering loss of lives
beset the mind of the president.

"War, at the best, is terrible,

and this war of ours, in
its magnitude and duration,

is one of the most terrible.

It has carried mourning
to almost every home

until it can almost be said that
the heavens are hung in black.

Yet we accepted this
war for a worthy object,

and the war will end when
that object is attained."

That summer, painter Francis
Carpenter moved into the White House

to begin a portrait of the president.

The physical toll of the war on
Lincoln was clear to the artist.

"In repose, it was the
saddest face I ever knew.

There were days when I could
scarcely look into it without crying.

Great black rings under his eyes,

his head bent forward upon his breast.

Altogether, such a picture of the
effects of sorrow, care and anxiety

as would have melted the hearts
of the worst of his adversaries."

Despite a depressed morale in
the North and his own malaise,

Lincoln longed for another term

to complete his dual goals of
unifying the country and ending slavery.

And, a politician in his
bones, Lincoln dug in.

Andrew Johnson,

one of the few Southern Democrats
to remain loyal to the Union,

was chosen as Lincoln's new running
mate to send a message of national unity.

"God knows I do not want the
labor and responsibility of the office

for another four years, but I have
the common pride of humanity

to wish my past four years'
administration endorsed.

And besides, I honestly believe
that I can better serve the nation

in its need and peril than
any new man can possibly do."

The public was not as sure.

Supporters who had earlier criticized
Lincoln for being too slow on emancipation

now begged him to give it up.

The North was especially upset
over the Emancipation Proclamation.

Many Americans did not
agree with that executive order.

And Lincoln always said
that he had made a promise,

and the promise of emancipation,
having been made, must be kept.

The president went further than ever

to ensure the abolition of slavery,

leading Republican support
for the 13th Amendment.

Republicans begin to develop
a more comprehensive legal

and political mechanism that
would actually end slavery for good.

And this is the 13th Amendment,
a constitutional amendment

that is a bulletproof way to make
sure that slavery is dead for good.

He knew when he issued
the Emancipation Proclamation

that that wasn't the end of slavery.

There was nothing that prevented
former owners from re-enslaving people,

or establishing the institution all
over again with a new set of people.

Let's bear in mind that the United
States has not amended The Constitution

other than The Bill of Rights
any more than twice by this point.

So Lincoln is talking about doing
something pretty radical here.

He's pulling the public with him

in terms of The Constitution
as an instrument to end slavery.

If they were a radical
party in the in the 1850s,

they're a revolutionary party by 1864.

In August of 1864,

the Democrats nominated
for president George McClellan,

the former Union general
who had been fired by Lincoln.

The two men had very different views

of how the war should be prosecuted

but also what America should look
like and what America's future should be.

McClellan was willing to see
America reunited with slavery intact.

Lincoln was not.

McClellan offered peace terms
that would preserve slavery

with a platform that declared,
"Defeat Negro equality."

So the Confederacy,
here's what they think.

"All we have to do is not lose

until November of 1864.

In which case the white North, so
weary, will turn against this man."

Lincoln's best hope was
to start winning the war.

And for that, he put his faith
in General Ulysses S. Grant.

Lincoln finally finds a general

that is doing his fighting for him.

He trusts Grant.

He had been so frustrated with
every other general before him.

Grant and Lincoln agreed
that it was time to be bold

and launched a massive offensive
to destroy the Confederate army.

Grant attacked Lee's
forces to the North

near the Confederate
capital of Richmond, Virginia...

while General William Tecumseh
Sherman advanced deep into the South,

pursuing the Confederate forces there

all the way to Atlanta,
a vital railroad hub.

On July 20th, Sherman
unleashed an indiscriminate

and tireless assault on the city.

This is absolute destruction.

They take the railroad ties.

They tie them into what become
known as "Sherman neckties."

They heat them and twist them
so that they can't be reused.

If you can destroy the resources,
you can force Atlanta to capitulate.

On September 1st,
after a one-month siege,

the operation broke the
back of the Confederacy.

Sherman's troops marched
triumphantly into the city the next day.

Sherman cabled
Lincoln, "Atlanta is ours."

News of the capture of Atlanta
kind of shifted the political focus,

and people began to feel that the war
was now heading toward a Union victory.

This had a very big effect not only
on the war but on the election of 1864.

But Sherman kind of realized

there's no point in having his
whole army sit there in Atlanta,

and he soon embarked on
the famous March to the Sea.

And, of course, as they marched,

slaves by the hundreds and then by
the thousands abandoned the plantations

to gain their freedom by following
along with Sherman's army.

So by the time he reached Savannah,

to use a modern phrase, you could
see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On November 8th,

Lincoln won his second term
as president in a landslide.

It was a mandate for
the Republican platform

and its central plank,
the 13th Amendment.

With his second presidential term secured,
Lincoln returned swiftly to Congress

and threw himself into lining up

the necessary two-thirds
majority in the House.

Lincoln needs to get the 13th
Amendment passed before the war ends.

Because when the war ends

and the Southern states come back
into the United States, as he hopes,

then he may not be able to get
the 13th Amendment through.

We sometimes forget that
Lincoln was a great politician.

He was not some country bumpkin
who didn't know what he was doing.

He knew who to pressure.

He knew who to offer and what to
offer to people to get their support.

Lincoln leaned on people

that he knew would be able to
push this amendment across the line.

By mid-January, Lincoln
was still two votes short.

Congressional allies

recalled him summoning them to
the White House and demanding...

"I leave it to you to
determine how it shall be done.

But remember that I am president of the
United States, clothed with immense power.

And I expect you to
procure those two votes."

What's really striking to me is that
there was so much work that had to be done

to secure the requisite number of
votes to actually pass this measure.

Still, at this point,
after so much struggle,

after so much bloodshed,

there were dozens of men in
positions of power in the United States

who did not believe that
slavery should be abolished.

On January 31, 1865,

in a dramatic vote, the 13th
Amendment finally passed by two votes.

"The galleries let off,
giving cheer after cheer.

The members on the floor
then joined in the shouting,

throwing up their hats
and clapping their hands,

while the ladies in the galleries
waved their handkerchiefs.

The Democrats had been very
fierce in their demands for order

and had very imperiously
demanded the enforcement of rules.

And therefore, they sat silent and solemn
in their seats amid all the rejoicings."

At the White House,
Lincoln celebrated this victory

for which he would long be remembered.

He said, "It is a king's
cure for all the evils."

Gosh, I can't imagine
the kind of jubilance

that Black people especially had with
the passing of the 13th Amendment.

To know that slavery
was forever abolished.

That it was not just a law but
a constitutional amendment.

Charles Douglass wrote to his father
Frederick Douglass about the day.

"I wish you could've been here.

Such rejoicing I had
never before witnessed.

Cannons firing, people
hugging and shaking hands.

White people, I mean.

Flags flying all over the city.

I tell you, things are
progressing finely."

On March 4th, Washington was
cloaked in thick clouds and cold rain.

Black soldiers participated in the
inaugural parade in a history-making march

for an audience estimated to be
half-filled with African Americans.

A lot of people are coming into Washington
to hear what Lincoln has to say.

Everyone knows it's a matter of
weeks before the war will be over.

Not really since the Gettysburg
Address has Lincoln given a major speech.

But they feel like
history is closing in.

"I took my place in the crowd

where I could see the
presidential precession

as it came upon the east portico,

and where I could hear
and see all that took place.

I felt an instinctive
apprehension that at any moment

a shot from some assassin in the
crowd might end the glittering pageant."

The weather was overcast,

but it becomes sunny right as
he begins to speak, incredibly.

"On the occasion corresponding
to this four years ago,

all thoughts were anxiously
directed to an impending civil war.

And the war came.

Fondly do we hope,
fervently do we pray,

that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away.

Yet, if God wills that it
continue until all the wealth

piled by the bondsmen's 250
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,

and until every drop of
blood drawn with a lash

shall be paid by another
drawn with a sword,

the judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous."

Really, we should talk
about the second inaugural

as one of the finest examples
of American literature.

Because in it

he does this moral calculation

which I think is an
astonishing sentence

for any white person to say in 1865,

all the more so for a head of state.

We may have to suffer as much violence
as we have inflicted on these people

in order to persevere as a nation.

And if that happens,

the judgments of
God are right and just.

This is a really incredible
statement from a president,

that slavery was not only
the suffering of bodies.

Enslaved people were denied access to the
fruits of their labor for generations.

Lincoln, now, is not mincing his words.

He has been cautious for a
long time, and he's speaking

in Frederick Douglass's
language in the second inaugural.

And Douglass is right there, and you get
the feeling Lincoln is looking at him.

It's almost like he's giving
a speech to one person.

"With a malice toward
none, with charity for all,

with firmness in the right as
God gives us to see the right,

let us strive on to
finish the work we are in.

To bind up the nation's wounds.

To care for him who shall have borne the
battle, and for his widow and his orphan.

To do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and a lasting peace

among ourselves and with all nations."

After the inaugural address,

Lincoln held a reception
in the White House.

Frederick Douglass decides he
wants to go say hello to Lincoln

at the inaugural
celebration that evening.

And he's not allowed in
because he's a Black man.

He got word to Lincoln somehow
and Lincoln immediately said,

"Send him in."

"When Mr. Lincoln saw me,

his countenance lighted up,

and he said in a voice
which was heard all around,

'Here comes my friend, Douglass.'"

"Douglass, I saw you in the crowd today

listening to my inaugural address.

There is no man's opinion
that I value more than yours.

What do you think of it?"

"I said, 'Mr. Lincoln,
it was a sacred effort.'

Then I walked off.

That was the last time I
saw him to speak with him."

Less than a month later, on April 2nd,

Richmond, the capital of the
Confederacy, fell under Union control.

Retreating Confederate soldiers
burned everything they could.

So, Richmond falls,

and, importantly enough, it's
United States colored troops

that are some of the first
to march into Richmond.

Think of that.

The capital of the Confederacy,

a nation founded as a
slaveholding republic,

and the first people
to liberate that city

are none other than
African American soldiers.

Lincoln greeted the news
with relief and gratitude.

"Thank God I have lived to see this.

It seems to me that I have been
dreaming a horrid dream for four years,

and now the nightmare is gone."

The next day, Lincoln
traveled to Richmond by boat

with his 12-year-old son Tad.

Confederates were
still hostile and dazed.

Union sympathizers were celebrating.

And enslaved people were free.

Lincoln navigated the commotion
without a single personal security agent.

He surveyed the destruction
aboard a naval vessel

accompanied by Admiral David
Dixon Porter, traveling the James River.

The same river that was used
to move Africans into bondage

in Jamestown in 1619

now carried the president
along to see firsthand

the fallout of the war
waged to end slavery.

Lincoln goes up the James to City Point

and inadvertently goes
very close to the fighting

and sees some of the recently killed.

It's disturbing to him.

But, of course, he knows
that as commander in chief,

a lot of people are dying.

As the river narrowed, Lincoln
was forced into a smaller vessel.

Then he gets on a barge that
is traveling alongside a tugboat.

There's so much
war debris in the river.

I mean, you could have asked,
"What is Lincoln doing there?''

But who's gonna say no to Abraham
Lincoln? He's the commander in chief.

Then Lincoln, with 12 sailors paddling,

approached the muddy shore.

And finally he gets out,

and there's a group of African
Americans right there on the riverbank.

And they begin to figure out who he is.

And then he gives this
extemporaneous speech

that I find one of the most
beautiful speeches he ever gave.

While it is not listed among
Lincoln's official speeches

and is contested by some historians,

it was recollected in multiple ways,
including an account by Admiral Porter.

"My poor friends, you
are free... free as air.

You can cast off the name
of slave and trample upon it.

It will come to you no more.

Liberty is your birthright.

God gave it to you
as he gave it to others,

and it is a sin that you have been
deprived of it for so many years.

But you must try to
deserve this priceless boon.

Let the world see that you merit it

and are able to maintain
it by your good works.

Learn the laws and obey them.

Obey God's commandments
and thank him for giving you liberty,

for to him you owe all things."

Sergeant Isaac J. Hill of
the 29th Colored Regiment

was also in Richmond that day

but recalls a very
different speech by Lincoln.

"In reference to you, colored people,
let me say God has made you free.

Although you have been
deprived of your God-given rights

by your so-called masters..."

"...you are now as free as I am,

and if those that claim
to be your superiors

do not know that you are free,

take the sword and the bayonet
and teach them that you are.

For God created all men free..."

"...giving to each the
same rights of life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness."

When I read this quote I was just
really moved because, you know,

maybe we're not always taking
up the sword and the bayonet,

but ever since Black
people have been enslaved,

they have fought for their freedom.

Lincoln's not saying something
that Black people don't know,

but I think he's affirming an
idea that we should all uphold,

and that is we are all
given freedom by God,

and we should all use whatever
we have in our disposal to maintain it.

That's a beautiful moment,

because that might be
the real end of the Civil War.

Right there on this muddy war bank

surrounded by a group
of African Americans.

It meant something for him
to see slavery end in person.

After Richmond's fall,

the remainder of the Confederate
Army soon succumbed.

On April 9th, after
four years of civil war,

General Robert E. Lee sent a letter
under white flag to Ulysses S. Grant

informing him of his
desire to finally surrender.

Washington is in an ecstatic state
after the surrender of Lee and his army.

And there's a kind of holiday
atmosphere in the town.

And Lincoln wants nothing more
than to go to the theater, be relieved.

To see a comedy.

On April 14th, Lincoln and Mary

went for a well-deserved
night out at Ford's Theatre.

Go to Ford's Theatre sometime.

You're eternally at the moment
where you wanna just stand at that door

and keep that guy
from getting in there.

And stop it.

Just stop it.

But, you know, you can't.

Even historians can't do that.

At about 10:15 p.m.,

with the only guard on
duty away from his post,

the famous actor John Wilkes Booth

slipped effortlessly
into the presidential box.

With the audience
enthralled in the play,

Booth aimed a .44-caliber,
single-shot Derringer pistol

at the back of Lincoln's head.

Booth jumps from the presidential box,

and the spur of his boot is
caught in the folds of a flag.

He was tripped up by a
flag that stood for freedom.

And then he limped offstage and
got onto a horse and rode away.

Members of the audience,
including three doctors,

carried the gravely wounded Lincoln

out of Ford's Theatre to
a home across the street.

By morning, the president
who had led the nation

through its greatest
moral and political crisis

was dead.

Immediately after the assassination,

Washington, D.C., was in the
depths of mourning and grief.

The flags were at half
mast, the bells were tolling.

The buildings were draped in black.

It was seen that,

as Lincoln had painfully overseen
the sacrifice of so many other lives,

sacrificed his own life.

And relief that your sons are
coming home is mixed with the agony

that the person who finally
delivered this salvation has been killed.

African Americans mourned
Lincoln's assassination

with the recognition
that, during the Civil War,

Lincoln had significantly advanced
the possibilities for their freedom.

When Lincoln is assassinated,

I think a lot of Black people

understood his death as very analogous

to their own violent
experiences with the South.

And I think a lot of Black
people, if they did not expect it,

were not particularly surprised
that he might have met this fate

given what he was pushing for.

Lincoln's deification
happens, at least in part,

because of how formerly
enslaved people viewed him

as the man who was going
to guarantee their freedom.

And now he's snatched away from them.

But it is interesting that this is
an instance in American history

where you've got Black
people and white people

able to mourn over a single individual.

That speaks volumes
about Lincoln's role

and how people viewed him.

There was brief consideration given
to burying Lincoln in Washington,

but Mary Todd Lincoln decided to
bury him back in Springfield, Illinois,

where he came from.

On April 21st,

Lincoln's body was loaded
onto a train for the journey home.

His son Willie's casket was
moved from its holding tomb

so he could accompany his
father to their final resting place.

Mary, too distraught to make the
journey, remained in Washington.

And then this remarkable
train journey in reverse began.

In all of these eerie ways, it was

an echo of that train
trip four years earlier.

Went almost stop by stop
through every small town.

At several stops, Lincoln's
coffin was taken off the train,

placed on an elaborately
decorated horse-drawn hearse

and led by solemn procession
to public spaces for viewing.

Often the same horses

that had pulled the
president when he was alive

were now pulling his hearse.

Just the saddest scenes
anyone had ever seen.

People weeping openly in the streets.

Shrieking and crying

and beating their chests with grief.

The train wound its way
through the countryside,

rumbling across seven
states and 180 cities,

with many hundreds of
thousands of mourners

turning out to pay their respects.

In New York, on June
1st, Frederick Douglass,

the man who as much as any other

had shaped the president's
views on emancipation,

delivered a eulogy to Lincoln.

"The fact is the people in
the very depth of their souls

loved Abraham Lincoln.

They knew him, and knew him
as one brother knows another.

And the American people saw in
him a full-length portrait of themselves.

In him they saw their
better qualities represented...

incarnated and glorified...

and as such they loved him."

Lincoln and Douglass had
an interesting relationship.

I know some historians
like to call it a friendship.

I don't call it a friendship when two
people have met only three times.

I think they had a healthy
respect for each other.

Douglass gave a lot of
speeches about Lincoln.

There's the cathartic,

justified anger at the
beginning of the Civil War.

And then the affection
and even astonishment

that Lincoln got so much done

in four short years.

The nation's grief only deepened

when Lincoln's vice president,
Andrew Johnson, took office.

America's new leader was a Southerner

who quickly abandoned his
tough talk against Confederates.

Andrew Johnson comes in,
who has no respect or concern

for African Americans at all.

Lincoln, at least on
the eve of his death,

has endorsed Black citizenship.

But Johnson

did not want African Americans
to be part of the body politic.

Despite Johnson's racist demagoguery,

Congressional Republicans still
had the votes to pass a reform plan

that would reunite the country

and protect the rights of
millions of free Black people.

It was called Reconstruction.

During Reconstruction,
certainly many African Americans

really believed that the country
was going to have this rebirth.

They're seeing, for the first
time, schools appear in the South.

They see the first set of African
American officeholders elected to office.

African Americans picking up
and creating their own towns.

For many Black people
who were born in this country,

they didn't want revenge.

They wanted to be free.

It was the freedom
that white people had.

It was the freedom that
other immigrants were getting

when they came to this country.

But Black equality was a new idea,

and white opponents
embarked on a systematic effort

to derail the policies
of Reconstruction,

dimming the possibilities of an
equitable future for Black Americans.

People are saying, "How
long do we have to do this?

What does this really mean for us?"

And what happens is there is
a backlash to Reconstruction.

What you see is a conscious effort

of returning the South
to the way it once was,

to create a lost cause.

They begin to think about, how
do you change the narrative?

The South only lost the war militarily.

The regime that endured
after Reconstruction

and the federal unwillingness

to take more aggressive
actions on the issue of civil rights

happened as a matter
of deference to the South.

And so the South pledged
that it would rise again.

Instead, the rest of the
country sank down to meet it.

Most Confederate statues were
erected in the early 20th century

by white Southerners who were trying to
reassert their dominance of Black people.

So, a way to make Black
Southerners feel uncomfortable

is to put up a bunch of statues

of people who fought for the bondage
of Black people and their ancestors.

Suddenly, people like Robert
E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson

are not people who were
traitors who lost the war.

They were heroes
fighting for a lost cause.

And it led to the myths that
this was not a war about slavery

but a war about
brother fighting brother.

And what you have is an insurrection

that destroys that time
of possibility and hope.

That's where you get the
genesis of the Ku Klux Klan,

through a lot of this
political, economic angst

about what standing
white people will have.

And you see a wave of violent
attacks on Black communities,

particularly in the summer of 1919.

At the same time, discriminatory
legislation was passed,

creating what we know

as the Jim Crow system
of the late 19th century,

imposing rigid racial segregation

in all areas of Southern
life well into the 20th century.

Because we didn't contend with
the problem of racial hierarchy,

of white supremacy,
Reconstruction fails.

Because this belief in racial hierarchy
is greater than our belief in democracy,

greater than our belief in
equal justice under the law.

And it's why I think this period in
American history needs to be reevaluated.

- Yeah!
- Oh, man!

This is great. This feels great.

And so I think that when we take
down Confederate monuments,

what we do is eradicate

that history of white supremacy that
has been placed on the landscape,

not only in the South
but across the country.

It's a good project to make the
physical geography of the nation

available and accessible and
welcoming to American people.

In 1922, Abraham
Lincoln was memorialized

with his own monument
in Washington, D.C.

But unlike the Confederate statues
that were erected after the Civil War,

every inch of it was designed to
reinforce Americans' common bond.

The Lincoln Memorial
was a symbol of unity.

It has 36 columns, representing
the 36 states in 1865.

There's Georgia marble.

There's Massachusetts granite,
Alabama marble in the ceiling.

So, bringing formerly
hostile sections together.

There's an inclination to
seek out Lincoln in trying times.

That Abraham Lincoln had to be
smuggled into Washington, D.C.,

under threat of his life
ahead of inauguration,

and we saw an inauguration in
2021 of an American president

in which the city was occupied
by 20,000 National Guard troops

to protect the life of
the incoming president.

Stop the steal!

We've seen the accusations of elections

that are thought to have
not been representative,

and all these dynamics that are
extremely dangerous in a democracy.

And in that moment, you
think about the first president

who was tasked with
navigating that kind of situation

in the crucible of major conflict,

and it's Lincoln.

Being American is more
than a pride we inherit.

It's the past we step
into and how we repair it.

We've seen a force that would
shatter our nation rather than share it,

would destroy our country if
it meant delaying democracy,

and this effort very nearly succeeded.

In his goal to save the Union,

Lincoln was unwavering,

obsessive, imperfect.

Sometimes ahead of his time

and inevitably well behind ours.

So the question falls
to each new generation,

how should Abraham
Lincoln be remembered?

The Great Emancipator.

Today, we are uncomfortable
with the idea of saviors,

especially white male saviors.

It just feels hollow
after so much injustice.

There's been a need
for a redemptive vision

of how the country handled slavery.

And so, in focusing on Lincoln
as the grand emancipator,

it allowed the United States... more
specifically, it allowed white people

to empathize the way that slavery ended

without thinking about

the ways in which slavery

was created in this country

and the ways in which it endured.

I think Lincoln reminds us

how much struggle, how much activism,

how much leadership is required

to make these monumental,
transformative changes

that we all live in right now.

You don't just stumble
upon emancipation.

People fought for that.

Emancipation does not die with Lincoln.

Freedom was never about Lincoln.

It's so much bigger than that.

I do not want to
denigrate Lincoln's role

in changing the nature
of the Union war effort

from preserving the
Union to ending slavery.

That was a crucial change.

But in and of itself, it certainly did
not guarantee that slavery would end.

To end an institution like slavery,

it's not just a question of
emancipating individual people.

It's destroying a very
deeply entrenched institution.

And that required the
action of everybody.

"Let us discard all this quibbling
about this man and the other man,

this race and that race, and
the other race being inferior.

Let us discard all these things

and unite as one people
throughout this land

until we shall once more stand up,

declaring that all men
are created equal."