♪ ♪ (theme music plays) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubinstein.

And today, we're gonna have a conversation with Professor HW Brands from the University of Texas about his new book, "The Zealot and the Emancipator".

Thank you very much for coming today, Professor Brands.

BRANDS: It's my pleasure, David.

Delighted to be with you.

RUBENSTEIN: So, if I have the count right, you've written about 30 books on American history while you're teaching at the University of Texas.

So, how do you actually write these books while you're teaching as well is there a double that does part of it?

And how are you doing all that?

BRANDS: Well, as a matter of fact, I think I have an advantage over authors who are not teachers because I have to teach the subject and make a point of teaching an introductory course in American history to non-majors.

And so, I have to be able to explain the broad themes, the, the context of American history.

I have to be able to do it in a relatively short amount of time.

RUBENSTEIN: Let's talk about this book, "The Zealot and the Emancipator".

Let's talk about the Zealot first.

Who was John Brown?

Where was he born?

And what, what, what did he do that made him so famous?

BRANDS: John Brown was originally, he was born in New England, in Connecticut, but he moved to Ohio as a young boy.

And he grew up in Ohio at a time when Ohio was still partly wilderness.

This was in the first decade of the 19th century.

But it was, it was critical for John Brown's development that Ohio was a free state, but it was right across the river.

And he lived in the southern part of Ohio right across the river from slave state, Kentucky.

And so, he had exposure to slaves.

And he told the story later in his life about this young black boy, a young slave boy that he grew up with.

And they were good friends.

And they were playmates.

And they did this, that and the other thing, but every so often, the, the young slave boys, master would come and just start beating him over the head and treating him very badly.

And John Brown, the young boy was trying to figure out, "Why?

What's going on here?"

And, and so, in his head early on, he realized that there was something wrong about this and this kind of juxtaposition was something that bothered John Brown for a long time.

He, he wouldn't have been the person he became if he had grown up in Massachusetts and hadn't been exposed to slavery.

RUBENSTEIN: Did he have an occupation, um, that you can describe?

BRANDS: Nothing that he was particularly good at.

He tried one thing and then another.

And he's one of those people who found his final calling after trying and largely failing at all sorts of other things.

RUBENSTEIN: So, John Brown, uh, becomes fairly famous or notorious for something he does in Kansas.

What does he do in Kansas specifically?

BRANDS: In the 1850s, Kansas became the battleground between the advocates of the expansion of slavery and the opponents of the expansion of slavery.

Kansas, at this time, was a territory.

And it was a territory under a rule of government called popular sovereignty.

This was the, the brainchild of Stephen Douglas.

And Stephen Douglas said, "Okay.

We will let settlers who are in favor of slavery and settlers who are opposed to slavery settle Kansas."

And by the time, Kansas has enough settlers, enough population to become a state.

Then, they will vote.

And they will choose to make Kansas a slave state or a free state.

Well, what this bit of legislation did, the Kansas, Nebraska Act of 1854 did, was essentially invite strong advocates, the, the most militant advocates of slavery's expansion to race to Kansas and the most militant opponents of slavery's expansion to race to Kansas.

And so, Kansas became this battleground, literally a battleground between pro-slavery southern forces and anti-slavery northern forces.

And John Brown by this time, had dedicated his life to as, the struggle against slavery.

And he said, "Okay.

If this is where the struggle is playing out, this is where I have to be."

And so, he went to Kansas with several of his adult sons.

And they took up arms literally against slavery which meant against the pro-slavery settlers who had come to Kansas.

RUBENSTEIN: And they killed several of them.

Is that right?

BRANDS: They did, yes.

They took part in battles sort of open battles where each side was shooting the other, but the thing that really got sort of the attention of people in Kansas was a nighttime raid by John Brown and a small band of his followers on a pro-slavery settlement near Pottawatomie Creek.

And they dragged five pro-slavery settlers out of their cabins in the middle of night and hacked them to death with broadswords.

It was a cold-blooded act of terrorism.

John Brown never admitted to his role in these five murders.

The story got out that, yes, he was wanted for these and he left the question hanging because it gave him a kind of credibility in abolitionist circles because there were a lot of armchair abolitionists who thought, "Boy, slavery is a terrible thing, but I don't want to go out there on the front line.

So, let's give money to John Brown, and he will basically do our dirty work for us."

RUBENSTEIN: So, he did raise money, but his main scheme, the greatest, uh, plan he had was ultimately the thing that was his undoing.

And that was a plan to take over, uh, the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

Why was that his plan and what was his... A plan of escape?

BRANDS: So, the attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry was a means to an end.

And the end was to foment a broad uprising of slaves in Virginia.

Harpers Ferry is now in West Virginia, it was in Virginia in those days, to basically cause slaves to rally to his banner.

The reason they were going to the federal arsenal was to get a lot of weapons that they could then hand out to the slaves.

And the slaves would rise up against their masters.

His best-case scenario was that slaves would rally to his banner.

They would go and form a... Of a hideout, a fortress in the Allegheny Mountains.

And then they would help other slaves escape.

Now, the point of all of this in Brown's thinking, the way he described it was it would render the institution of slavery insecure.

And in doing so, it would lower the value of slaves because if slaveholder's thought, "Well, I can't keep my slaves around," then the value of slaves would go down and the institution would be economically undermined and eventually become unprofitable, and slavery would disappear by those means.

Now, that was his best case.

In fact, it was going to require an uprising of slaves in which a lot of slave holders were gonna get killed.

RUBENSTEIN: So, what was the year that he launched this effort?

BRANDS: This was 1859.

RUBENSTEIN: And how many people they have with him including his children?

How many people came to help take over the arsenal?

BRANDS: There were about 15 or 20 of them but the problem was...

They could get in, but they couldn't get out because, I mean, Harpers Ferry is a place that is difficult to get in and out of you can get in, but once you're in, it's easy to pin people down.

And they were pinned down.

He, again, somehow he talked himself into believing that once slaves in the area heard that the war for their freedom had begun, they would all rally to his cause.

Now, he, he utterly lacked the ability to put himself in the shoes of these slaves.

You're gonna join this cause by this crazy white man you've never heard of before and likely get killed.

In fact, there weren't any slaves who voluntarily joined his cause.

And when they didn't, then the thing simply fizzled.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, the US government sent in some troops to kind of, uh, get him out of the arsenal.

Who led those US troops?

BRANDS: Robert E. Lee.

Robert E. Lee was the most promising officer in the union army at this time and it wasn't called the union...

The United States Army at this time.

And Lee came and he gave an ultimatum.

You know, you come out or we're gonna come in and get you.

And Brown and his men, they sort of...

They held out to the last.

Several of them were killed, but Brown was merely wounded.

RUBENSTEIN: Brown was wounded, almost killed, but eventually, he's put on trial.

But he was ultimately found guilty pretty rapidly.

Is that correct after the jury was out?

BRANDS: The trial took several days.

And he was convicted.

And he was sentenced to death.

And he, but he was allowed to speak.

And he basically said that, "You know, God has commanded me to do this.

And this is the right thing.

And I will put, you know, myself before the bar of the almighty, and slavery will come down sooner or later."

RUBENSTEIN: I see.

So, the man who wanted to free the slaves, John Brown didn't actually...

Uh, be able, wasn't able to do that, but the man who ultimately did free the slaves as the book, uh, title, uh, says is the emancipator.

And that's Abraham Lincoln.

So, let's talk about Lincoln.

As a young man, uh, was Lincoln a person who said, "I'm against slavery, and I will do whatever I can to emancipate the slaves?"

BRANDS: Well, once again, like John Brown, Abraham Lincoln was a son of the border.

He was born in Kentucky, a slave state, but his father moved the family out of Kentucky into Illinois.

And this because he couldn't stomach the idea of slavery, and it's really interesting to kind of observe the, the reactions of various people.

It was, it wasn't so much that Abraham Lincoln's father was opposed to slavery per se.

He wasn't a full-blown abolitionist, but what he didn't like was the, the perceived difficulty if not impossibility of a free white person, working class person making a living in a slave-dominated economy because slaves drove the wage rate down to almost nothing.

And so, um, an ordinary person couldn't get ahead in a slave-based society.

So, he took his family to Illinois which is where Lincoln eventually made his mark.

RUBENSTEIN: But Lincoln himself was not seen as an abolitionist by his friends, is that correct?

BRANDS: By no means.

In fact, politicians, political figures, who expected to hope to get ahead in politics, they kept abolitionists at an arms distance because they realized that the abolitionists, they might speak for the conscience of some part of American society, but they were utter, utterly unrealistic.

They had no agenda that could actually be put into effect.

And Lincoln knew that the constitution of the United States protected slavery in the states where it existed.

Slavery was a domestic institution that was determined state by state.

And all the abolitionists did in Lincoln's view was to cause the slave holders to dig in their heels.

RUBENSTEIN: Lincoln's view always was that the founding fathers were to be given a lot of, uh, praise for what they did.

And the founding fathers came up with a constitution which allowed slavery to exist in certain states.

So, he never wanted to get rid of that.

Is that correct?

BRANDS: Lincoln... Well, eventually Lincoln is persuaded to amend the constitution, but now, Lincoln believed that as much as he disliked slavery and he never hid the fact that he disliked slavery and hoped that slavery would go away, but his view was slavery would have to go away after the voters in Virginia and Georgia and South Carolina and all the other states, slave states, decided to abandon slavery just as voters in Massachusetts and New York and Pennsylvania had done.

They couldn't be forced by congress or by the president or by any outside individuals.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, before he served as president, the only elected job in the federal government that Lincoln had was to be a member of the United States Congress for two years.

During that two-year period of time, he did introduce a bill to free the slaves in the District of Columbia, but it was a little complicated.

What was his scheme?

BRANDS: Well, the idea again, and it was complicated.

The slaves would be freed in the federal district, and the federal district.

according to Lincoln's interpretation, that of most people... Was not a state.

And so, the federal district was governed by Congress.

And congress could decide for or against slavery in a federal district.

And this, by the way, was Lincoln's view regarding the, the federal territories in the west, but it's important that Lincoln also insisted that it have to have the support of the people of the District of Columbia.

So, Lincoln was one who recognized, first of all, legally, he probably couldn't impose an end to slavery on people who didn't want it.

And, secondly, even if it could be done legally, it might very well be counterproductive.

RUBENSTEIN: But, ultimately, under his plan, it was to be what called colonization which would be to say if you freed the slaves, they had to go live in another country, Liberia or Latin America or something, right?

BRANDS: So, this was a real stumbling block for people who had been opposed to slavery from days of Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the first people who said, "Okay.

We ought to get rid of slavery, but what are we gonna do with the freed slaves?

What are we gonna do with these black people?

They hate us with very good reason because for all of the injuries and injustice we've done them."

And there was no model then of a successful biracial society.

And especially one that was this emerging democracy.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Lincoln ultimately, uh, leaves congress after one term.

There was a kind of agreement he would serve only one term.

Eventually, he runs again for an office the United States Senate against Stephen Douglas in 1858, and they have a series of debates around the state, the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates or Douglas-Lincoln debates depending on how you look at it.

Uh, Douglas was seen as a person who believed in popular sovereignty.

Each of the new territories or states could vote on whatever they wanted.

What was Lincoln's position in those debates about what we should do with slaves in the new states and territories?

BRANDS: Lincoln believed that Congress could decide the question of whether slaves, would slavery would exist or not exist in federal territories.

They're called federal territories because they're governed by the federal government.

And the constitution says nothing about it, and there were there were no traditions that said that they could make these decisions for themselves.

In fact, the territories had governments that reported directly to Congress.

And Lincoln was of the belief that if the spread of slavery could be contained, then, eventually it would wither and die in the states where it existed, but under no circumstances should it be allowed to expand.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

So, Lincoln, uh, lost the election you could say because in those days, the state legislatures picked the senators, and the state legislature was controlled by the Democratic party which was Douglas's party.

So, Lincoln loses the election 1858, but he's nominated in 1860 to be the, uh, Republican nominee for president.

Did they campaign for anything?

How did people know what his views were on slavery in 1860?

BRANDS: People did not campaign the way people campaigned today.

It was considered, um, to be disrespectful of the office and beneath the dignity of the individuals.

And so, Lincoln had given speeches.

He had spoken on behalf of the Republican Party.

So, Lincoln has to kind of make sure that he doesn't scare off any moderate voters.

There were people.

He was constantly be, uh, accused by his opponents of being an abolitionist and democrats called the Republic to call them Black Republicans, and the black was for the blackness of their hearts, but also for their sympathies toward black people, the slaves.

And Lincoln disavowed abolitionism.

He said, "No, no."

And he said that, "I don't...

Uh, as president, I wouldn't have the power nor do I have the inclination to try to tamper with slavery in the states where it exists."

It's only in the federal territories.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Lincoln gets elected, but as soon as he's elected in those days, the elections are November, but you're not, uh, inaugurated until March.

So, there's a long period of time, uh, before you actually take office, but during that period of time, the southern states begin to secede or a number of them.

Why were they succeeding since he said he wasn't gonna get rid of slavery in those states?

BRANDS: So, this is a really interesting question.

And Lincoln himself acknowledged that underlying all of this was concern about slavery at least at the moment.

However, southern states like South Carolina had been looking for an excuse to secede.

South Carolina nearly seceded over a tax bill in the 1830s.

And there were people in South Carolina, some of the other southern states who just didn't like the idea of having to listen to the federal government.

And when Lincoln was elected, they, they took this as their excuse to leave the union.

Now, strikingly, most of the state said, "We're doing this because we don't think slavery is safe under this new government."

And Lincoln had said in a highly noted speech that in the United States, you know, cannot exist half slave and half free.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

And sooner or later, one side or the other is gonna win all out.

So, southerners who are so inclined could say, "He's declared war on slavery."

But, strikingly, there were, there were unionists in the south.

They could be pro-slavery, but they didn't.

They said, "Don't secede," because if you secede, you are guaranteeing the extinction of slavery because as long as you remain in the union, then you southern slaveholder's, you can embrace the constitution."

And this new president is on record as saying the constitution doesn't allow him to tamper with slavery.

But once you leave the union, then you can't wrap yourself in the constitution anymore.

All bets are off.

RUBENSTEIN: So, why doesn't Lincoln say, "All right, if you southern states want to secede, go do what you want to do.

I'm gonna be the president of what's left."

Why don't I want to go fight a Civil War that's gonna go on for years, kill lots of people?

Why didn't he just say goodbye?

BRANDS: Well, strikingly, a number of the abolitionists said, "Let's do exactly that.

Let them go.

We can wash our hands at this horrible institution and let it be done."

In fact, some of the abolitionists even before Lincoln's election had said that the north should secede from the south because we don't want anything to do with slavery, but Lincoln took very seriously his oath of office to defend the constitution.

And he said that, "I understood the constitution to the constitution over all the states."

And his interpretation the constitution was that the constitution has no exit clause.

And so, if southern states want it out, they would have to fight their way out.

Now, Lincoln did acknowledge what he called a right of revolution.

So, when the American Revolution took place, there was no constitution under which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson could say, "We're leaving."

No.

They fought a revolution.

And Lincoln said, "Okay.

If you want to leave the union, he believed that people have a right to self-government, but you're gonna have to fight your way out and I'm gonna fight to prevent you from leaving."

RUBENSTEIN: Of course, initially, Lincoln thought as most people in the north and many people in the south probably, this war will be over in a couple days.

And the war drags on for quite some time.

Lincoln doesn't have generals that are that great.

Uh, it's costing a lot of money.

A lot of lives are being lost.

Why did he resist freeing the slaves in the early years of the war?

BRANDS: Well, the first thing if he had done that any sooner than he did, then he would have made himself out to be a liar, from having said, "Sorry, as president the United States I don't have authority to do this."

The second thing may be more to the point was that if Lincoln had said at the beginning, "This is a war against slavery," he would have lost the war then and there because he would have forced the hand of the four border states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware.

So, these are the, the slave states that remained tenuously within the union, but if those states had joined the confederacy, then in the first place, Washington DC, the capital of the United States would have had to be evacuated because it would have been surrounded in enemy territory.

And it would have been very much more difficult for the union side to gain the strategic advantage that it eventually had.

Another aspect of this is most people in the north did not want to fight a war to free the slaves.

The northern opinion was by no means unanimous in saying, "Oh, yeah, let's go fight a war to free the slaves.

In fact, by 1863, even after the Emancipation Proclamation when there was a draft call, there was such resistance in New York City that there was a mini-Civil War against the draft on the part of recent Irish immigrants saying, "We don't have to have anything in this war to free the slaves."

RUBENSTEIN: And so, in, uh, September of 1862, he decides that maybe it's time to have an Emancipation Proclamation.

He issues a preliminary one and says, "On January 1 of 1863 if the southern states haven't given up by then, I'm gonna issue this."

Why did he decide he needed to do that?

Under what power did he decide he could, uh, issue this Emancipation Proclamation?

BRANDS: His authority as commander-in-chief allows him to seize enemy property.

And so, just as when a union army marches through part of Virginia, they can take the crops.

They can take the livestock and put them to the use of their, their army.

Lincoln said, "I'm gonna do the same thing with the slaves."

If left enslaved, they are actually working for the enemy.

We can take them and get them to work for us.

So, strikingly, it sounds very much as though Lincoln is conceding the central argument of the slave holders that slaves are property.

So, he's treating the, the slaves in this context as property.

Just as he can seize his other property, he can, he can seize the slaves as property.

But what forces his hand is a fear that Great Britain is going to recognize southern independence because if Britain does this, then it would have the same effect in the Civil War that the French alliance with the United States had during the Revolutionary War.

And the thing that was keeping Britain from making this decision either for or against recognizing confederacy was 'what's the union gonna do about this slavery issue?'

Economics attached Great Britain especially the textile industry in Britain to the south.

But southerners didn't want to be associated for moral reasons and political reasons with this slaveocracy in the south.

And as long as Lincoln was agnostic on slavery, then those in Britain who said we ought to ally with the south said, "There's nothing to choose between the two.

So, we'll go with our economic interests and recognize and support the confederacy."

To prevent that, Lincoln said, "We have to make this distinction.

We have to show that this is a war about slavery as well as about the union."

RUBENSTEIN: So, when he does that and the emancipation is issued, um, he doesn't free a lot of the slaves because slave owners didn't necessarily say, "Well, we're gonna listen to Lincoln," but some people ran away from their slave owners and ultimately about 200,000 show up as soldiers in the union army.

And they were invited to do so by Lincoln.

Is that right?

BRANDS: Exactly, but the Emancipation Proclamation is worded very carefully.

Because it's issued under Lincoln's authority as commander-in-chief, it only applies in theaters of the war.

So, it did not apply, for example, to the loyal slave states.

So, slaves in Kentucky were still slaves.

Slaves in Missouri were still slaves, but everybody knew that once that was issued, then the emancipation of southern slaves has become a union war aim if the union wins the war slavery is doomed.

And so, this really changes the nature of things.

RUBENSTEIN: So, ultimately, when the war is just about over, uh, Lincoln recognizes that because he's used the War Powers Act and the War Power Act will go away when he's not at war any longer, he needs to find something to do with the slaves.

So, he says, "What?

Uh, I'll have all the slaves leave the country and, uh, or I will let them become citizens?"

What does he decide to do?

Did he try to colonize them again or does he say, "I'll have a constitutional amendment that will make it clear they're gonna be free forever?"

BRANDS: Well, first of all, he realized after 30 years of trying to persuade African-Americans, former slaves to leave the country, it just wasn't gaining any ground.

This was their home.

This has been their home in many cases for generations.

They didn't want to leave.

So, that wasn't gonna happen.

But the second thing was, he did recognize that the clock was ticking on his authority as commander-in-chief.

And if he didn't get the constitution amended before the war ended or be, at least before this power ran out, then he could find himself in the worst of all possible positions where, okay, the war ends, the union is held together.

And the thing that precipitated the war, southern slavery, is still there.

And the southern slaveholders would once again quote Lincoln back at himself saying, "You said you have no authority over it."

So, he made it a priority to get at least the House of Representatives to approve the 13th amendment.

And by then though, opinion in the north had recognized that this is our chance to get rid of slavery once and for all.

And once Lincoln got the ball rolling, then he knew there would be no stopping it, but, but it had to be done by constitutional amendment.

And the only, the only amendment that Lincoln proposed was one simply ending slavery.

It said nothing about the future of black citizens.

It said nothing about their right to vote.

Maybe, that was coming down the line, but Lincoln was dead before then.

RUBENSTEIN: This is a very interesting conversation we've had about "The Zealot and the Emancipator".

And I want to thank you, Professor Brands, for bringing this to, uh, our attention.

And, uh, I want to thank you for giving us your time today.

BRANDS: Thank you very much.

It was my pleasure, David.

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