WEBVTT 00:01.440 --> 00:02.920 Professor David Blight: Okay, there's an outline up 00:02.918 --> 00:04.538 here. I'm going to try to write a 00:04.541 --> 00:07.591 little bigger from now on, and it's been already suggested 00:07.585 --> 00:10.785 I use capital letters and maybe practice my printing a little 00:10.789 --> 00:13.639 better. I will do that too. 00:13.640 --> 00:15.140 I'm not very high-tech. 00:15.140 --> 00:19.470 I will occasionally use some visuals, slides here and there, 00:19.466 --> 00:23.216 a painting here and there, an image now and then, 00:23.221 --> 00:27.011 and certainly maps, especially in dealing with the 00:27.009 --> 00:30.179 1850s and the coming of the Civil War. 00:30.180 --> 00:33.960 But every lecture will have an outline in front of you, 00:33.960 --> 00:38.230 and the intention in every case is to get to the fifth part of 00:38.230 --> 00:42.030 that outline. I almost always do. 00:42.030 --> 00:47.110 Almost. But at least you'll have a 00:47.112 --> 00:51.502 sense of the structure of the topics or the themes that this 00:51.497 --> 00:54.987 lecture is supposed to work its way through. 00:54.990 --> 00:56.480 I do welcome your questions. 00:56.480 --> 00:58.660 I'll ask at times if you have any questions. 00:58.660 --> 01:03.240 This is obviously a terribly formal situation, 01:03.244 --> 01:07.834 me up here on this stage and you out there, 01:07.829 --> 01:12.159 looking into your laptops in some cases, doing whatever 01:12.156 --> 01:14.636 you're doing on your laptops. 01:14.640 --> 01:17.130 Just don't do what one student did a year ago, 01:17.131 --> 01:20.401 though. He was right back there in that 01:20.403 --> 01:22.643 aisle-way, halfway back. 01:22.640 --> 01:25.830 He came in--it was the day I was lecturing on the Dred Scott 01:25.833 --> 01:28.973 decision, for some reason I've never forgotten that--and he 01:28.972 --> 01:31.302 whipped out the Yale Daily News, 01:31.299 --> 01:34.409 and he just was enjoying the Yale Daily News. 01:34.410 --> 01:38.300 I didn't know there was that much to read in it for that 01:38.301 --> 01:40.071 long, most of the time. 01:40.069 --> 01:42.279 But he's just reading the Yale Daily News in front 01:42.284 --> 01:43.974 of him. And at one point I stopped, 01:43.969 --> 01:45.989 rather loudly, and I said, "The Dred Scott 01:45.987 --> 01:49.037 decision is not covered in today's Yale Daily News." 01:49.040 --> 01:51.440 And he didn't hear me. 01:51.440 --> 01:54.460 So I shouted it again, and by that time the whole 01:54.463 --> 01:57.173 class was beginning to laugh, uncomfortably, 01:57.172 --> 02:00.072 and he finally realized what was going on. 02:00.069 --> 02:04.399 The poor guy crumpled up his newspaper and walked out the 02:04.400 --> 02:06.720 back and he never came back. 02:06.719 --> 02:11.679 I felt a little badly about it but--Just don't make it so 02:11.683 --> 02:12.573 obvious. 02:12.570 --> 02:15.890 02:15.889 --> 02:19.849 All right, does everybody have a syllabus, anyone lacking a 02:19.849 --> 02:22.169 syllabus, everyone's got a copy? 02:22.169 --> 02:26.399 We may need some more, the balcony people need 02:26.400 --> 02:30.450 syllabi. They're hiding up there. 02:30.450 --> 02:31.430 David, do you have any extras? 02:31.430 --> 02:39.600 02:39.599 --> 02:42.879 Professor David Blight: None left. 02:42.879 --> 02:46.689 Okay, we'll have more on Thursday. 02:46.690 --> 02:48.470 And I should put it on the Web. 02:48.470 --> 02:53.740 02:53.740 --> 02:54.340 Dumb. 02:54.340 --> 02:57.690 02:57.690 --> 03:03.480 I will put it up, this afternoon we'll get it up 03:03.478 --> 03:10.128 on the Web, through the Registrar's site or however. 03:10.129 --> 03:15.399 Today I'm going to take up the topic primarily of why the 03:15.395 --> 03:18.775 American Civil War period has had, 03:18.780 --> 03:24.980 still has, such a hold on the American, and for that matter 03:24.976 --> 03:29.246 international, historical imagination. 03:29.250 --> 03:33.090 That's what I want to talk about primarily. 03:33.090 --> 03:39.430 But I want to say a word or two about the structure of the 03:39.425 --> 03:45.755 course and what you need to do, as quickly as possible. 03:45.759 --> 03:50.949 First of all every lecture, if you look at the syllabus, 03:50.953 --> 03:54.073 has a topic, a title of a kind. 03:54.069 --> 03:58.629 I will not get behind, in spite of what it may feel 03:58.631 --> 04:01.831 like. The readings are listed each 04:01.831 --> 04:03.261 week. We are using, 04:03.259 --> 04:06.849 among other things--there's a combination of readings, 04:06.845 --> 04:09.515 in fact, a rich combination of 04:09.517 --> 04:14.107 historical monograph, historical kind of syntheses, 04:14.107 --> 04:16.307 two works of fiction. 04:16.310 --> 04:21.290 Two novels, one by Louisa May Alcott, a famous short, 04:21.294 --> 04:26.474 classic little book called Hospital Sketches, 04:26.470 --> 04:31.680 which was based on Alcott's personal experience as a nurse 04:31.676 --> 04:35.796 in Civil War hospitals, an experience that all but 04:35.798 --> 04:37.778 overwhelmed her, emotionally, 04:37.777 --> 04:41.027 psychologically, and she in some ways could not 04:41.030 --> 04:43.010 stop thinking about it. 04:43.009 --> 04:45.469 We also are reading--using two readers; 04:45.470 --> 04:47.200 that is, collections of documents. 04:47.199 --> 04:49.829 One is a collection of documents by, 04:49.829 --> 04:53.209 mostly by and somewhat about, Abraham Lincoln, 04:53.210 --> 04:56.140 a reader edited by Michael Johnson. 04:56.139 --> 04:58.769 There's Nicole Ivy, entering as we speak, 04:58.773 --> 05:00.883 the eighth teaching assistant. 05:00.879 --> 05:05.669 Sorry Nicole, we just did intros. 05:05.670 --> 05:09.400 Anyway, one of the readers is Lincoln, the great speeches, 05:09.402 --> 05:11.172 the great public letters. 05:11.170 --> 05:15.800 We won't use every document in the book but the great Lincoln 05:15.797 --> 05:18.957 stuff is all there and well introduced. 05:18.959 --> 05:21.579 The other reader, which we'll use virtually every 05:21.576 --> 05:24.296 week in the course, and teaching assistants will be 05:24.301 --> 05:27.081 free with this to assign whichever documents they so 05:27.081 --> 05:29.461 choose, any given week. 05:29.459 --> 05:32.299 I'm still taking the plastic off this one. 05:32.300 --> 05:36.550 It's edited by Bill Gienapp, a great Civil War historian, 05:36.551 --> 05:38.071 recently deceased. 05:38.069 --> 05:41.139 It's a collection of documents from essentially the Mexican War 05:41.137 --> 05:44.687 right on through Reconstruction, many of them very brief and 05:44.686 --> 05:47.796 short documents, allowing us at times to teach 05:47.796 --> 05:50.906 with a document. It's possible you'll have an 05:50.907 --> 05:54.307 entire discussion section that centers around a single 05:54.310 --> 05:58.420 document, as well as the other reading you did as background. 05:58.420 --> 06:03.200 The other novel I neglected to mention is a very new novel. 06:03.199 --> 06:05.709 And I'm taking a risk in this course. 06:05.709 --> 06:08.349 For years and years, and I won't admit how many, 06:08.354 --> 06:11.734 I've always taught Michael Shaara's great Civil War novel, 06:11.730 --> 06:14.410 The Killer Angels, which I would venture a quarter 06:14.414 --> 06:16.144 of you have probably already read. 06:16.139 --> 06:17.949 All right, how many of you have already read Killer 06:17.954 --> 06:20.564 Angels? Ah-ha. 06:20.560 --> 06:23.480 We're not reading it this time. 06:23.480 --> 06:26.130 You can't take that week off. 06:26.129 --> 06:27.309 We're reading E.L. 06:27.310 --> 06:30.200 Doctorow's new novel called The March, 06:30.197 --> 06:34.197 which has only been out about a year, just into paperback. 06:34.199 --> 06:38.699 It's Doctorow, the great modern novelist of, 06:38.695 --> 06:43.185 well, urban America, of race in America, 06:43.190 --> 06:45.490 of so many things. 06:45.490 --> 06:47.740 He has actually a brilliant short story in the current 06:47.741 --> 06:49.611 New Yorker, if you haven't read it. 06:49.610 --> 06:51.190 It may not appeal to all of you. 06:51.190 --> 06:54.810 It's really about middle-age men in the suburbs. 06:54.810 --> 07:00.010 I got it. Any rate, Doctorow's 07:00.007 --> 07:03.747 March is about Sherman's march to the sea. 07:03.750 --> 07:08.120 It's about Sherman but it's also about all the people around 07:08.115 --> 07:10.215 him. And I think Doctorow 07:10.223 --> 07:14.383 accomplished something extraordinary in that novel, 07:14.383 --> 07:19.373 which so few American writers of fiction have ever quite been 07:19.374 --> 07:24.454 able to imagine--he's not alone but not many have--and that is 07:24.448 --> 07:27.608 fully realize slave characters. 07:27.610 --> 07:28.960 Those he invents. 07:28.959 --> 07:32.609 A lot of real people in that book, and much of it--like so 07:32.605 --> 07:35.095 many other of Doctorow's great works, 07:35.100 --> 07:38.240 like Ragtime, if you've read Ragtime, 07:38.236 --> 07:40.366 or others--much of the language, 07:40.370 --> 07:44.590 the dialog, is verbatim out of historical sources. 07:44.589 --> 07:47.399 You might even want to read Sherman's memoirs in tandem with 07:47.395 --> 07:48.675 it, if you have the time. 07:48.680 --> 07:52.400 Whole portions of it come directly out of Sherman's 07:52.398 --> 07:56.858 memoirs, and then there are characters invented around it. 07:56.860 --> 08:03.840 Anyway, it's that last, horrible, devastating, 08:03.842 --> 08:10.052 destructive, evil, but sometimes good, 08:10.050 --> 08:15.900 year and a half of the Civil War in Georgia and South 08:15.898 --> 08:22.088 Carolina when the Civil War became a truly kind of total 08:22.085 --> 08:26.615 modern affair. It's a novel about this beast 08:26.619 --> 08:32.069 of war itself but it's very much a novel about what this war was 08:32.071 --> 08:34.511 about. Anyway. 08:34.509 --> 08:37.919 I don't want to go into all the readings. 08:37.919 --> 08:41.809 I divide this course in three parts which may or may not be 08:41.806 --> 08:45.286 obvious the first time you glance at the syllabus. 08:45.289 --> 08:52.229 But essentially the first third of the course is the coming of 08:52.230 --> 08:57.350 the Civil War, it's the story from roughly the 08:57.351 --> 09:01.221 mid-1840s through Fort Sumter. 09:01.220 --> 09:05.730 And the second third of the course is essentially the war 09:05.732 --> 09:10.892 itself, where we tackle not only how the Civil War was fought, 09:10.889 --> 09:14.259 but we tackle what it was about, and we tackle the 09:14.261 --> 09:17.771 question of Confederate defeat and Union victory. 09:17.770 --> 09:19.190 How do we explain that? 09:19.190 --> 09:23.060 And we especially tackle questions of meaning. 09:23.059 --> 09:27.119 If a war of such devastation can have meaning in the end, 09:27.123 --> 09:29.013 what are those meanings? 09:29.009 --> 09:32.399 It's, I think, arguably the most important 09:32.396 --> 09:37.266 take-home set of questions and answers you might take out of 09:37.268 --> 09:40.288 this course. And of course that means we 09:40.288 --> 09:42.358 dwell a good deal on emancipation, 09:42.364 --> 09:45.954 the single most revolutionary result of the Civil War, 09:45.950 --> 09:49.450 and arguably the single most revolutionary historical moment 09:49.446 --> 09:50.746 in American history. 09:50.750 --> 09:55.480 The liberation of 4.2 million slaves to some kind of freedom 09:55.480 --> 09:59.650 and some kind of citizenship, at least for awhile. 09:59.649 --> 10:02.569 And the third third of the course is, of course, 10:02.572 --> 10:06.002 Reconstruction. That "brief shining moment" as 10:06.003 --> 10:10.203 Du Bois once called it, of about eleven years from the 10:10.197 --> 10:13.997 end of the Civil--from Appomattox to the disputed 10:13.996 --> 10:16.366 election of 1876 and '77. 10:16.370 --> 10:19.990 Twelve years. One of the most vexing, 10:19.993 --> 10:23.033 topsy-turvy, turbulent, embittered periods 10:23.029 --> 10:26.879 of American history that historians still fight over, 10:26.880 --> 10:28.510 to say the least. 10:28.509 --> 10:33.609 It is there where we'll try to understand the consequences of 10:33.610 --> 10:37.470 the Civil War. This is a course at the end of 10:37.470 --> 10:40.890 the day about the causes and consequences, 10:40.886 --> 10:44.216 as well as the course, of this event. 10:44.220 --> 10:47.920 10:47.919 --> 10:54.809 Now--but today is January 15^(th), it is Martin Luther 10:54.809 --> 10:59.759 King's birthday. Now I'll start with a very 10:59.756 --> 11:04.066 famous passage. It's not usually the passage 11:04.065 --> 11:08.215 you hear from the "I Have A Dream" speech. 11:08.220 --> 11:12.330 Almost always when the Dream speech is quoted--and now it's 11:12.325 --> 11:14.515 quoted in commercials, right? 11:14.519 --> 11:18.979 Numerous times, or on radio spots, 11:18.982 --> 11:21.422 background. King's voice, 11:21.418 --> 11:24.338 as though it's some kind of American chorus for whatever- 11:24.342 --> 11:26.342 when, at any moment we need to feel 11:26.343 --> 11:29.023 better about ourselves and about race relations. 11:29.019 --> 11:32.809 We often just skip right over the first two or three 11:32.806 --> 11:37.326 paragraphs of the speech where the central metaphor he sets up 11:37.334 --> 11:41.644 in the speech is what he called "the promissory note," 11:41.640 --> 11:45.650 in the "bank of justice." 11:45.649 --> 11:49.639 "I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in 11:49.639 --> 11:53.489 history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the 11:53.490 --> 11:55.310 history of our nation. 11:55.310 --> 11:57.430 And so we have come here." 11:57.430 --> 12:01.040 Excuse me. "Five score years ago"--and 12:01.039 --> 12:06.149 here he is drawing directly off Lincoln--"five score years ago a 12:06.146 --> 12:11.336 great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the 12:11.335 --> 12:13.925 Emancipation Proclamation." 12:13.930 --> 12:17.610 This was of course August 1963. 12:17.610 --> 12:23.290 A hot, a brutally hot August day, King on the steps of the 12:23.294 --> 12:25.194 Lincoln Memorial. 12:25.190 --> 12:28.680 "This momentous decree came as a great beacon, 12:28.682 --> 12:33.342 light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared 12:33.338 --> 12:36.518 in the flames of withering injustice. 12:36.519 --> 12:41.839 It came as a joyous daybreak," he says, "to end the long night 12:41.840 --> 12:43.760 of their captivity." 12:43.759 --> 12:47.639 That sentence is almost directly from the Bible. 12:47.639 --> 12:51.889 "But one hundred years later the Negro still is not free. 12:51.889 --> 12:55.729 One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still sadly 12:55.729 --> 12:59.369 crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of 12:59.373 --> 13:02.433 discrimination. One hundred years later the 13:02.429 --> 13:06.409 Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty, in the midst of a 13:06.406 --> 13:08.896 vast ocean of material prosperity. 13:08.899 --> 13:13.779 One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the 13:13.780 --> 13:18.740 corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his 13:18.744 --> 13:22.464 own land. And so we've come here today to 13:22.462 --> 13:25.192 dramatize a shameful condition. 13:25.190 --> 13:29.940 In a sense we've come here, we've come to our nation's 13:29.940 --> 13:32.360 capital, to cash a check. 13:32.360 --> 13:35.410 When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent 13:35.412 --> 13:38.902 words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, 13:38.899 --> 13:44.399 they were signing a promissory note to which every American was 13:44.399 --> 13:48.389 to fall heir. This note was a promise that 13:48.392 --> 13:52.582 all men, yes, black men as well as white men, 13:52.575 --> 13:57.705 would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, 13:57.710 --> 14:00.820 liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 14:00.820 --> 14:04.820 It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this 14:04.821 --> 14:09.731 promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. 14:09.730 --> 14:15.860 Instead of honoring this sacred obligation America has given the 14:15.862 --> 14:20.922 Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back 14:20.924 --> 14:24.044 marked 'insufficient funds.' 14:24.039 --> 14:28.549 But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt, 14:28.549 --> 14:32.989 we refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the 14:32.985 --> 14:36.455 great vaults of opportunity of this nation. 14:36.460 --> 14:42.850 And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give 14:42.853 --> 14:47.733 us, upon demand, the riches of freedom and the 14:47.730 --> 14:50.440 security of justice." 14:50.440 --> 14:55.540 I would be thrilled if you walked out of this course and 14:55.536 --> 15:01.096 were able to explain to somebody why King made the promissory 15:01.097 --> 15:06.747 note the central metaphor of his "I Have a Dream" speech, 15:06.750 --> 15:14.580 and you could somehow explain why it hadn't been cashed by 15:14.581 --> 15:22.141 1963, and could then begin to discuss whether it's fully 15:22.138 --> 15:28.328 cashed yet. Now--that was just my homage to 15:28.330 --> 15:29.130 King. 15:29.130 --> 15:32.340 15:32.340 --> 15:37.300 Now, I like to do a little ritual at the beginning of every 15:37.296 --> 15:39.316 class. If you'll forgive me, 15:39.317 --> 15:41.607 it only takes me about ten seconds. 15:41.610 --> 15:45.330 But you know we live in a world where all of us in this room 15:45.325 --> 15:46.895 take books for granted. 15:46.899 --> 15:50.689 We throw books on the floor, we throw books at people, 15:50.687 --> 15:53.757 we load them in and out of our backpacks, 15:53.759 --> 15:57.919 we drop them here and drop them there, we lose them, 15:57.924 --> 16:01.684 we rip them up, we write all over them--I write 16:01.680 --> 16:04.850 all over mine. It's only a few generations ago 16:04.847 --> 16:07.637 when there really weren't any bookstores to go to. 16:07.639 --> 16:11.059 Your great-great-grandparents couldn't meander a bookstore, 16:11.062 --> 16:13.542 to speak of, unless they lived in a special 16:13.539 --> 16:15.309 section of a special city. 16:15.310 --> 16:17.960 Books are precious things. 16:17.960 --> 16:20.260 A lot of them are assigned in this course. 16:20.259 --> 16:22.909 There's short ones, little ones, 16:22.914 --> 16:26.514 big ones, syntheses, novels, monographs. 16:26.509 --> 16:28.399 Think of a book, just for a moment, 16:28.404 --> 16:30.804 and then you can forget this if you want. 16:30.800 --> 16:35.480 But think of a book, any book. 16:35.480 --> 16:38.440 It's hard to think of a really bad book this way, 16:38.444 --> 16:41.594 but think of a good book, one of your favorite books 16:41.594 --> 16:44.154 ever, as like a newborn child, 16:44.148 --> 16:47.478 a newborn child brought into the world. 16:47.480 --> 16:51.810 A book. Probably a lot more planning 16:51.807 --> 16:55.357 and thought and design and construction, 16:55.356 --> 17:00.176 at least intellectually, goes into that book than goes 17:00.178 --> 17:02.178 into most babies. 17:02.180 --> 17:06.740 17:06.740 --> 17:09.010 Books have a cover. 17:09.009 --> 17:12.449 They have beginnings, middles and ends. 17:12.450 --> 17:17.480 They're somebody's dream, they're somebody's creation. 17:17.480 --> 17:22.980 They never satisfy--just like people--but they're in some ways 17:22.976 --> 17:27.706 the greatest things we have, and sometimes it's nice to 17:27.712 --> 17:31.782 remind ourselves of that, in the places where we take 17:31.776 --> 17:33.726 them most for granted. 17:33.730 --> 17:39.360 And I want to quote for you, to you, from the oldest history 17:39.361 --> 17:42.321 book in Western civilization. 17:42.319 --> 17:46.109 Not just because it's a book, but I think this is a point one 17:46.106 --> 17:49.636 can make about any history course, it doesn't matter what 17:49.640 --> 17:52.500 the subject is. It can be Social History, 17:52.501 --> 17:55.091 Political History, Intellectual History, 17:55.093 --> 17:57.713 any history. It can be the History of 17:57.712 --> 18:00.482 Ancient Rome, it could be Post-1945 United 18:00.483 --> 18:02.853 States, it could be any history. 18:02.849 --> 18:10.129 But any history course ought to do the two things that Herodotus 18:10.133 --> 18:17.883 named in the opening sentence of the oldest history book we have. 18:17.880 --> 18:20.880 This is Herodotus, The History. 18:20.880 --> 18:23.280 Isn't it great when you're writing the first book, 18:23.281 --> 18:24.851 what are you going to call it? 18:24.850 --> 18:29.080 The History; no subtitles, 18:29.078 --> 18:34.228 nothing fancy, just--"I, Herodotus of 18:34.227 --> 18:39.657 Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my 18:39.661 --> 18:43.661 history, that time may not draw the 18:43.661 --> 18:48.771 color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and 18:48.768 --> 18:53.048 wonderful deeds manifested by both the Greeks and the 18:53.052 --> 18:56.922 barbarians, fail of their report, 18:56.921 --> 19:00.571 and together, with all of this, 19:00.565 --> 19:05.785 the reason why they fought one another." 19:05.789 --> 19:07.509 I don't know how closely you listened to that, 19:07.511 --> 19:08.851 but what has Herodotus just said? 19:08.849 --> 19:12.859 He's basically said history is two things. 19:12.859 --> 19:15.949 It's the story, it's the color, 19:15.951 --> 19:21.101 it's the great deeds, it's the narrative that takes 19:21.104 --> 19:27.054 you somewhere; but it's also the reason why, 19:27.050 --> 19:31.000 it's also the explanations. 19:31.000 --> 19:32.940 That's what history does. 19:32.940 --> 19:34.760 It's supposed to do both of those things. 19:34.759 --> 19:38.929 Some of us are more into the analysis, and we're not so fond 19:38.932 --> 19:41.632 of story. Some of us just love stories 19:41.631 --> 19:44.241 and don't care about the analysis--"oh, 19:44.238 --> 19:46.848 stop giving me all that interpretation, 19:46.845 --> 19:49.585 just tell me the good story again." 19:49.589 --> 19:52.349 This is what goes on, of course, out in public 19:52.348 --> 19:55.408 history all the time: "just tell us the old stories 19:55.414 --> 20:00.324 and just sing us the old songs, make us feel good again. 20:00.319 --> 20:03.519 Stop interpreting, you historians, 20:03.522 --> 20:06.922 and worst of all, stop revising." 20:06.920 --> 20:10.010 You notice how that word 'revision' has crept into our 20:10.005 --> 20:11.165 political culture? 20:11.170 --> 20:14.670 When politicians don't like the arguments of people who disagree 20:14.665 --> 20:18.045 with them they accuse them of being revisionist historians. 20:18.049 --> 20:21.309 It was even a poll-tested word for a while when Condoleezza 20:21.306 --> 20:22.426 Rice was using it. 20:22.430 --> 20:25.090 "Revisionist, revisionist." 20:25.089 --> 20:28.509 As though all history isn't revisionist. 20:28.509 --> 20:31.539 My favorite story about revisionism is my buddy, 20:31.540 --> 20:33.990 Eric Foner, was on a talk show once. 20:33.990 --> 20:37.220 About 1992. He was on one of those shouting 20:37.222 --> 20:40.142 talk shows with Lynne Cheney, who at that--Dick Cheney's 20:40.136 --> 20:42.146 wife--who was then head of the NEH. 20:42.150 --> 20:45.850 And this was a time--you won't remember this--we were having 20:45.854 --> 20:49.624 this national brouhaha over what were called National History 20:49.621 --> 20:51.251 Standards. And Lynne Cheney, 20:51.253 --> 20:53.343 if you remember, a real critic of these National 20:53.338 --> 20:54.268 History Standards. 20:54.269 --> 20:56.899 She didn't particularly like some of the ideas that the 20:56.901 --> 20:58.511 historians were coming up with. 20:58.509 --> 21:00.969 So on this talk show--it was Firing Line where you get 21:00.973 --> 21:03.523 two people on and they just shout at each other for an hour, 21:03.519 --> 21:05.559 or a half hour, and the producers love it. 21:05.559 --> 21:08.909 And Foner is pretty good at rapid fire coming back, 21:08.906 --> 21:10.576 he's pretty good at it. 21:10.579 --> 21:14.699 Anyway they had this set-to and she kept accusing him and other 21:14.698 --> 21:17.088 historians of being "revisionist." 21:17.089 --> 21:20.129 And Eric says the next morning he got a phone call from a 21:20.127 --> 21:22.457 reporter at Newsweek and she said, 21:22.460 --> 21:27.200 "Professor Foner, when did all this revisionism 21:27.202 --> 21:29.632 begin?" And Foner said, 21:29.633 --> 21:32.343 "Probably with Herodotus." 21:32.339 --> 21:33.919 And the Newsweek reporter said, 21:33.920 --> 21:35.330 "Do you have his phone number?" 21:35.330 --> 21:39.690 21:39.690 --> 21:43.360 Never underestimate the ignorance--H.L. 21:43.363 --> 21:47.913 Mencken said this, I didn't--never underestimate 21:47.906 --> 21:51.866 the ignorance of the American people. 21:51.870 --> 21:53.950 Or of journalists, or of--. 21:53.950 --> 22:01.450 22:01.450 --> 22:06.530 Now, as to this question of why the Civil War has a hold on us, 22:06.532 --> 22:10.962 or a hold on historical imagination in this country. 22:10.960 --> 22:13.390 There are many, many ways to think about that. 22:13.390 --> 22:17.430 I'm going to take you through seven or eight possible answers 22:17.427 --> 22:20.587 to that in just a moment, almost like a list. 22:20.589 --> 22:24.789 But again, sometimes if you go back to the oldest explanations 22:24.785 --> 22:28.425 you find things that we haven't even thought about. 22:28.430 --> 22:30.970 In Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, 22:30.967 --> 22:34.387 the first great modern text, in Western Civilization at any 22:34.388 --> 22:36.698 rate, about a Civil War, 22:36.700 --> 22:39.370 the great Greek Civil War. 22:39.369 --> 22:44.449 In Thucydides' great work he has this little sentence where 22:44.451 --> 22:49.801 he actually captures a good deal about why civil wars are such 22:49.796 --> 22:52.756 vexing, difficult problems in nations' 22:52.758 --> 22:54.888 memories once they've had them. 22:54.890 --> 23:00.310 So Thucydides said, "The people made their 23:00.309 --> 23:06.389 recollections fit in with their sufferings." 23:06.390 --> 23:11.630 They began to tell a story that reflected their own suffering. 23:11.630 --> 23:17.020 Now the 'they' here might be white southerners. 23:17.020 --> 23:20.870 They suffered. They lost. 23:20.869 --> 23:24.259 They were truly defeated, conquered. 23:24.259 --> 23:26.639 That suffering might be African-Americans. 23:26.640 --> 23:28.940 Emancipation wasn't a day of jubilee; 23:28.940 --> 23:33.580 it was an agonizing, horrible, terrible, 23:33.580 --> 23:39.170 sometimes wonderful, set of experiences into the 23:39.172 --> 23:42.362 unknown. And the suffering might be 23:42.363 --> 23:43.723 northern Unionists. 23:43.720 --> 23:48.080 23:48.079 --> 23:54.829 About 300,000 Yankee soldiers died in the Civil War and about 23:54.833 --> 23:58.213 650 to 700,000 were wounded. 23:58.210 --> 24:02.080 24:02.079 --> 24:06.999 People made their memories fit their sufferings. 24:07.000 --> 24:11.140 I also like this little passage, to just put into your 24:11.140 --> 24:15.750 craw, about any History course, about any interpretation. 24:15.750 --> 24:18.540 And of course I'm going to have a point of view at times in this 24:18.541 --> 24:20.031 course; all historians do. 24:20.029 --> 24:23.029 Don't even listen to a historian if he or she doesn't 24:23.025 --> 24:24.345 have a point of view. 24:24.350 --> 24:26.490 None of us are blank slates. 24:26.490 --> 24:34.020 None of us can just tell it like it was--"stop interpreting, 24:34.023 --> 24:36.833 please." But I always try to remember 24:36.834 --> 24:40.184 William James' passage in one of his Pragmatism essays, 24:40.177 --> 24:42.807 an essay I think that should be required for U.S. 24:42.808 --> 24:45.338 citizenship. If I ruled the world you'd have 24:45.342 --> 24:46.482 to read this for U.S. 24:46.480 --> 24:50.840 citizenship. In it, James says, 24:50.835 --> 24:57.215 "The greatest enemy of any one of my truths is the rest of my 24:57.219 --> 25:00.639 truths." It's as though James is saying, 25:00.635 --> 25:04.685 "damn, every time I think I really know something--that's 25:04.692 --> 25:08.602 the truth--along comes some other possible truth and it 25:08.603 --> 25:13.083 screws it up." Why can't history just be 25:13.082 --> 25:16.792 settled? Enough already. 25:16.789 --> 25:19.089 If it was, it wouldn't be any fun; 25:19.089 --> 25:21.309 if it was it wouldn't be interesting; 25:21.309 --> 25:23.739 if it was it wouldn't be good for business either. 25:23.740 --> 25:27.270 25:27.269 --> 25:33.569 Now, why does the Civil War have a hold? 25:33.570 --> 25:34.910 Why are you here? 25:34.910 --> 25:37.940 There's 280 of you here for a course on the Civil War. 25:37.940 --> 25:40.640 I know it fits--10:30 on Tuesday, Thursday--a hundred 25:40.638 --> 25:42.868 other reasons--you want a lecture course. 25:42.869 --> 25:47.689 Lots of possible answers to all that kind of question. 25:47.690 --> 25:51.580 But why does this event hold people? 25:51.579 --> 25:55.689 There are now approximately 65,000 books that have been 25:55.690 --> 26:00.100 written on the American Civil War--this doesn't even really 26:00.104 --> 26:03.914 include the books on Reconstruction--that have been 26:03.910 --> 26:06.270 written since Appomattox. 26:06.269 --> 26:09.329 Now, I realized recently when I was giving a public talk that 26:09.333 --> 26:12.353 you can't always say "since Appomattox" and people know what 26:12.346 --> 26:14.146 you mean. I'm going to assume Yale 26:14.151 --> 26:16.241 students do. But that's actually where the 26:16.244 --> 26:18.434 surrender was signed that ended the Civil. 26:18.430 --> 26:20.630 I was giving a talk recently and I said, "Before Appomattox 26:20.632 --> 26:22.912 and after Appomattox"--and I must have said that four of five 26:22.910 --> 26:25.340 times. One of the first questions in Q 26:25.339 --> 26:28.779 & A is this woman innocently asked, "Well what is 26:28.778 --> 26:32.198 Appomattox?" Oh dear. 26:32.200 --> 26:35.480 "Well you see ma'am…" Anyway. 26:35.480 --> 26:37.710 Since Appomattox 65--you know what that is? 26:37.710 --> 26:42.880 That's more than one per day--have been published in this 26:42.875 --> 26:45.085 country on this event. 26:45.090 --> 26:45.490 Why? 26:45.490 --> 26:50.380 26:50.380 --> 26:54.410 What does Robert Penn Warren mean when he said, 26:54.406 --> 26:57.816 "The Civil War draws us as an oracle, 26:57.819 --> 27:05.259 darkly unriddled and portentous of our personal and our national 27:05.255 --> 27:07.765 fate"? That's pretty grandiose 27:07.767 --> 27:10.217 language, but what did Warren mean? 27:10.220 --> 27:13.560 What did Gertrude Stein mean when she said, 27:13.562 --> 27:17.942 "There never will be anything more interesting than that 27:17.939 --> 27:19.849 American Civil War"? 27:19.849 --> 27:23.189 Of all people, Gertrude Stein was hopelessly 27:23.191 --> 27:25.291 interested in this event. 27:25.289 --> 27:29.799 "There never will be anything more interesting than that 27:29.803 --> 27:32.433 American Civil War," she said. 27:32.430 --> 27:35.590 Why are so many people into this? 27:35.589 --> 27:40.269 Why do people want to read about it, re-enact it, 27:40.273 --> 27:42.813 go play it, go visit it? 27:42.810 --> 27:46.420 Is it just heritage tourism? 27:46.420 --> 27:51.160 Is it just the attraction of military history? 27:51.160 --> 27:55.800 What is it that compels us to remember the most divisive, 27:55.797 --> 27:59.437 the most bloody, the most tragic event in our 27:59.440 --> 28:01.180 national history? 28:01.180 --> 28:04.390 And how do we remember it? 28:04.390 --> 28:11.070 Have we sometimes cleaned it up with such pleasing mythology 28:11.072 --> 28:14.472 that we've just made it fun? 28:14.470 --> 28:17.160 Why is the Confederate flag a problem? 28:17.160 --> 28:20.020 Why doesn't it just go away? 28:20.019 --> 28:23.979 It's the second most ubiquitous American symbol across the 28:23.979 --> 28:27.729 world, especially since Michael Jordan quit playing. 28:27.730 --> 28:28.680 Other than the U.S. 28:28.681 --> 28:31.581 flag, the Confederate flag is the most ubiquitous symbol of 28:31.584 --> 28:34.194 the United--maybe Coca Cola, okay, but Coca Cola's an 28:34.188 --> 28:35.688 international symbol now. 28:35.690 --> 28:38.900 You can find the Confederate flag everywhere in this world. 28:38.900 --> 28:41.880 I spent a year in Germany and I've traveled a lot in Eastern 28:41.876 --> 28:45.376 Europe. I saw it all over the place. 28:45.380 --> 28:48.370 I was in Prague, the Czech Republic, 28:48.366 --> 28:51.296 in 1993. Jim McPherson's Battle Cry 28:51.300 --> 28:54.530 of Freedom, a book you're assigned largely 28:54.530 --> 28:57.560 as background, the largest selling book on the 28:57.555 --> 29:01.045 American Civil War published in the last twenty-five years. 29:01.049 --> 29:04.019 International bestseller, sixteen weeks on the New York 29:04.022 --> 29:06.832 Times Bestseller List, was translated into Czech. 29:06.830 --> 29:08.900 I mean, nobody reads Czech. 29:08.900 --> 29:11.630 Except the Czechs, and even them, 29:11.630 --> 29:15.300 even they tend to read fiction in German. 29:15.299 --> 29:17.979 Anyway, I was at a bookstore, they had a big display of Jim 29:17.984 --> 29:20.764 McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, the whole bookstore 29:20.760 --> 29:22.690 window. I couldn't believe it. 29:22.690 --> 29:24.640 But how did they display it? 29:24.640 --> 29:28.460 With Confederate flags. 29:28.460 --> 29:32.430 And they missed the point of the title of the book, 29:32.430 --> 29:36.020 but never mind. How do you portray the American 29:36.015 --> 29:37.885 symbol less symbolically? 29:37.890 --> 29:41.180 Oh it's that Confederate flag that will tell us right away 29:41.178 --> 29:42.388 what this is about. 29:42.390 --> 29:45.340 Why? Why doesn't the Confederate 29:45.344 --> 29:46.344 flag just go away? 29:46.340 --> 29:50.480 29:50.480 --> 29:54.860 Or put another way, why do you love the Civil War? 29:54.859 --> 29:56.959 I can't tell you how many thousands of times in public 29:56.961 --> 29:58.271 lectures, et cetera, et cetera, 29:58.269 --> 30:02.079 et cetera in my--and all Civil War historians face this--people 30:02.082 --> 30:03.622 will come up afterward. 30:03.619 --> 30:07.629 Usually they want to show you their grandfather's letters, 30:07.631 --> 30:10.941 but they'll say, "I just love the Civil War." 30:10.940 --> 30:14.710 And you want to just stop them for a moment and say, 30:14.712 --> 30:16.342 "You need a shrink." 30:16.340 --> 30:20.920 Or, "What is it you love? 30:20.920 --> 30:23.520 Is it the aftermath at Antietam? 30:23.519 --> 30:26.909 Is it the trenches of Spotsylvania? 30:26.910 --> 30:31.100 Is it the latrines at Andersonville? 30:31.100 --> 30:33.680 Is it Booth killing Lincoln? 30:33.680 --> 30:34.540 What is it you love?" 30:34.540 --> 30:42.060 30:42.060 --> 30:44.850 Is it because we love epics? 30:44.849 --> 30:47.839 Is it because a lot of people really are kind of hardwired 30:47.840 --> 30:49.290 maybe? We may even be 30:49.290 --> 30:51.940 hardwired--biologically--for story. 30:51.940 --> 30:54.670 I can't prove that but there's a lot of research on this. 30:54.670 --> 30:58.020 Are we hardwired for story, and therefore, 30:58.017 --> 31:01.367 to some degree, for epic stories that have 31:01.365 --> 31:05.605 heroes and villains and beginnings and ends and great 31:05.611 --> 31:08.751 collisions? Maybe. 31:08.750 --> 31:12.730 Is it because Americans love redemption? 31:12.730 --> 31:16.050 And people around the world love to think that about us 31:16.047 --> 31:19.807 sometimes too. Is it because we like to see or 31:19.813 --> 31:25.293 we've converted this terribly divisive experience into a great 31:25.292 --> 31:27.592 unifier? Do we go back and look at the 31:27.591 --> 31:30.171 Civil War not only to see the beginnings of our own modern 31:30.168 --> 31:31.888 time, in a modern American nation, 31:31.893 --> 31:34.573 a second American Republic, born out of the death of the 31:34.571 --> 31:36.131 first and so on and so forth? 31:36.130 --> 31:41.960 But do we actually go back to this most dividing experience to 31:41.963 --> 31:45.313 figure out how we became unified? 31:45.309 --> 31:48.309 Or as William Dean Howells put it in 1900 in a lovely line, 31:48.312 --> 31:51.322 he said, "What the American people always like is a tragedy 31:51.315 --> 31:53.795 as long as they can give it a happy ending." 31:53.800 --> 31:59.330 31:59.329 --> 32:03.869 Is it because we see the American Civil War, 32:03.865 --> 32:09.235 or have learned to see it, as American's first great 32:09.244 --> 32:11.464 racial reckoning? 32:11.460 --> 32:17.040 Where the nation's national sin of slavery, as some like to put 32:17.044 --> 32:21.554 it, had to finally be remitted in some way, purged, 32:21.548 --> 32:24.978 cleansed? In the language used by both 32:24.978 --> 32:28.768 sides in this war, of purgings and cleansings. 32:28.769 --> 32:34.049 The war that brought a reckoning from 250 years of 32:34.046 --> 32:38.026 slavery, destroyed a slave society, 32:38.029 --> 32:42.629 brought the end of the First American Republic, 32:42.630 --> 32:46.330 and the revolution of emancipation. 32:46.329 --> 32:51.489 I think there's a lot to argue that Americans have begun, 32:51.492 --> 32:56.562 at least, they've just begun this, to love the Civil War 32:56.563 --> 32:59.793 because they love emancipation. 32:59.789 --> 33:03.589 They want to live in the nation that freed its slaves. 33:03.589 --> 33:06.709 My favorite line in George Bush the first's Inaugural Address in 33:06.707 --> 33:09.427 1989--and I'm probably the only one that ever bothers to 33:09.428 --> 33:12.148 remember this line or maybe the only one who cares. 33:12.150 --> 33:13.910 But Peggy Noonan wrote him a sentence. 33:13.910 --> 33:18.040 It's classic inaugural rhetoric and it comes right after the 33:18.043 --> 33:22.253 section in Bush One's inaugural where he's saying we must put 33:22.247 --> 33:26.037 the war in Vietnam behind us, it is too divisive and so on. 33:26.039 --> 33:29.019 And then there's a line where he says, "We must remember, 33:29.017 --> 33:31.837 we are the nation that sent 600,000 of its sons to die 33:31.835 --> 33:33.425 rather than have slavery." 33:33.430 --> 33:38.280 33:38.279 --> 33:41.219 Now, who wouldn't want to live in that country? 33:41.220 --> 33:44.490 That's a great line in an inaugural address. 33:44.490 --> 33:47.360 Of course it's ignoring the fact that at least half of those 33:47.357 --> 33:49.007 people died to preserve slavery. 33:49.009 --> 33:55.209 But never mind, I mean--Do we love the Civil 33:55.210 --> 34:03.430 War because sometimes there's a lot of guilty pleasure, 34:03.430 --> 34:09.960 or not so guilty pleasure, in just loving the details of 34:09.963 --> 34:12.223 military history? 34:12.219 --> 34:16.729 And if you're one of those, fine, that's great. 34:16.730 --> 34:19.830 I had that stage, too. 34:19.830 --> 34:23.120 I will confess, if you make me. 34:23.119 --> 34:26.579 But what is all that nostalgia about for those battlefields? 34:26.580 --> 34:31.600 34:31.599 --> 34:34.629 Or is it because this experience in American history 34:34.633 --> 34:36.243 is ultimately about loss? 34:36.240 --> 34:39.130 Are we attracted to loss? 34:39.130 --> 34:42.110 Is loss more interesting sometimes than victory? 34:42.110 --> 34:47.940 And by loss I mean defeat but also loss in terms of human 34:47.937 --> 34:52.407 life, treasure, proportions of civilizations 34:52.413 --> 34:58.043 that died. Take loss for just a moment. 34:58.039 --> 35:01.209 If you took the 620,000-odd Americans who died in the Civil 35:01.214 --> 35:04.284 War, you moved it ahead to the Vietnam era in roughly the 35:04.279 --> 35:07.179 twelve years the United States fought in Vietnam, 35:07.179 --> 35:10.009 per capita--okay?--approximately 35:10.008 --> 35:14.568 four million Americans would've died in Vietnam. 35:14.570 --> 35:19.260 That's the scale of death and loss in the Civil War -- four 35:19.261 --> 35:21.571 million. Now Americans will never 35:21.566 --> 35:25.116 sustain four million casualties in a war, I would argue. 35:25.120 --> 35:27.340 I can't prove that. 35:27.340 --> 35:31.080 Unless Osama bin Laden is coming through that window. 35:31.079 --> 35:34.899 Who knows, maybe he will one day. 35:34.900 --> 35:37.670 Wouldn't that be cool? 35:37.670 --> 35:42.680 You wouldn't sleep through that lecture. 35:42.679 --> 35:45.799 But I don't think Americans will ever sustain that kind--but 35:45.799 --> 35:49.009 four million--if you came, per capita from the Civil 35:49.011 --> 35:51.921 War-era population to the era of Vietnam. 35:51.920 --> 35:55.040 Every year at Antietam, in rural Maryland, 35:55.038 --> 35:57.698 on the anniversary of the battle, 35:57.699 --> 36:02.769 17^(th) of September, they put out illuminati, 36:02.772 --> 36:06.832 or the illuminaria, excuse me--no, 36:06.829 --> 36:10.429 no, whoa, that's a slip--illuminaria, 36:10.429 --> 36:15.929 or the little candle lamps, all over the battlefield. 36:15.929 --> 36:19.509 They put 23,000 of them out, which was the number of 36:19.505 --> 36:22.305 casualties in eight hours at Antietam. 36:22.309 --> 36:27.539 And when the sun goes down you can look at the battlefield and 36:27.542 --> 36:32.522 get a sense of this kind of powerful, almost artistic sense 36:32.517 --> 36:36.677 of the loss. Every one of those little 36:36.683 --> 36:40.263 candle lights was a human life. 36:40.260 --> 36:44.500 Related to that, is the American imagination for 36:44.497 --> 36:49.907 this event still stimulated in part because sometimes we just 36:49.906 --> 36:51.796 like lost causes? 36:51.800 --> 36:54.950 36:54.949 --> 36:59.419 We are attracted to defeat sometimes more than we are 36:59.415 --> 37:01.385 attracted to victory. 37:01.389 --> 37:05.069 Loss in war is sometimes more interesting. 37:05.070 --> 37:10.080 Lost causes somehow represent the rebel spirit, 37:10.082 --> 37:15.092 a rebellious spirit, an insurrectionary spirit, 37:15.094 --> 37:17.714 an insurgent spirit. 37:17.710 --> 37:19.910 Some people may be attracted in that way. 37:19.910 --> 37:23.090 37:23.090 --> 37:26.930 And maybe last but not least, and this list could go on and 37:26.933 --> 37:30.383 on, there is I think an interest in the Civil War, 37:30.380 --> 37:34.440 among serious readers in particular because it does 37:34.439 --> 37:39.309 somehow satisfy that search we often all have for origins. 37:39.309 --> 37:42.369 The origins of the modern nation state, 37:42.368 --> 37:46.878 the origins of big government, the origins of centralized 37:46.875 --> 37:49.005 power, the origins of what seemed to 37:49.011 --> 37:51.901 be the death of state's rights; but it surely didn't die, 37:51.904 --> 37:53.784 did it? We have a state's rights 37:53.779 --> 37:56.499 Supreme Court now, in case you didn't notice. 37:56.500 --> 37:59.620 The birth of a kind of modernity in America, 37:59.620 --> 38:02.450 in many forms, comes out of this era. 38:02.449 --> 38:04.659 It doesn't just come out of the Battle of Gettysburg but it 38:04.664 --> 38:05.814 surely comes out of the era. 38:05.810 --> 38:09.860 38:09.860 --> 38:12.190 There's also this sense in which, somehow, 38:12.187 --> 38:15.307 in that experience of the Civil War in the middle of the 38:15.309 --> 38:18.889 nineteen century--fought for the existence of an American nation 38:18.885 --> 38:21.605 and for the new definition of that nation, 38:21.610 --> 38:28.200 and just how free and equal the people in it would be--is where 38:28.197 --> 38:34.037 we may somehow see that transformation from a pre-modern 38:34.041 --> 38:36.911 to a more modern world. 38:36.910 --> 38:39.990 38:39.989 --> 38:43.959 And sometimes I suspect that's what attracts us. 38:43.960 --> 38:47.460 38:47.460 --> 38:49.790 Now, the watch says I only have about two minutes. 38:49.790 --> 38:51.600 So let me leave you here. 38:51.600 --> 38:54.770 38:54.769 --> 39:01.089 I do think sometimes we're attracted because war is just so 39:01.094 --> 39:03.934 beguilingly fascinating. 39:03.929 --> 39:06.519 And Drew Faust, a wonderful historian whom you 39:06.516 --> 39:09.386 now know is the President of Harvard University, 39:09.389 --> 39:12.659 has just published a brand new book, it's literally just out 39:12.664 --> 39:14.324 this week. I read it in manuscript, 39:14.317 --> 39:15.467 I have a blurb on the back. 39:15.469 --> 39:19.319 It's called The Republic of Suffering. 39:19.320 --> 39:25.300 And she has much to say in that book, which I highly recommend, 39:25.304 --> 39:28.784 about why death is so interesting. 39:28.780 --> 39:31.660 Let me leave you with this. 39:31.659 --> 39:35.849 Thursday, I'm going to take up the Old South and begin this 39:35.845 --> 39:40.315 comparison of the Old South to the growing capitalist--well, 39:40.320 --> 39:45.820 both sides were highly capitalist--northern society. 39:45.820 --> 39:50.790 But in 1850 or 1840s America you could find both extremes of, 39:50.793 --> 39:53.943 on the one hand, a tremendous seemingly 39:53.944 --> 39:57.264 unfathomable optimism about America. 39:57.260 --> 40:00.770 It seemed to be limitless and boundless, and nobody captured 40:00.770 --> 40:03.210 it, ever, any better than Walt Whitman. 40:03.210 --> 40:07.840 40:07.840 --> 40:10.470 But you can also find expressions all over the 40:10.470 --> 40:13.100 culture, especially from African-Americans and 40:13.101 --> 40:16.081 abolitionists and some slaveholders of a great dread 40:16.083 --> 40:18.483 about the direction of the country. 40:18.480 --> 40:22.090 40:22.090 --> 40:26.600 In Whitman's first line of his Drum-Taps, 40:26.604 --> 40:30.834 his famous collection of Civil War poetry, 40:30.829 --> 40:34.519 comes that phrase, which is up here: 40:34.523 --> 40:37.903 "First O Songs for a Prelude." 40:37.900 --> 40:41.300 And that first poem in Drum-Taps is Whitman 40:41.300 --> 40:44.700 trying to capture just how exciting war can be. 40:44.699 --> 40:50.419 But he'd also written a poem like "Democracy." 40:50.420 --> 40:54.380 And I'll leave you with this, and I'll start with a response 40:54.378 --> 40:55.718 to it on Thursday. 40:55.719 --> 41:00.059 In Whitman's "Democracy," as well as several other Whitman 41:00.061 --> 41:04.251 poems, you can find this limitless sense of optimism. 41:04.250 --> 41:11.270 Just listen to his words: "Sail, sail thy best ship of 41:11.270 --> 41:14.950 Democracy. Of value is thy freight, 41:14.946 --> 41:19.466 'tis not the Present only, the Past is also stored in 41:19.467 --> 41:21.257 thee." This America, 41:21.261 --> 41:25.621 this thing called America to him is the whole world's new 41:25.618 --> 41:28.248 beginning. "Thou holdest not the venture 41:28.250 --> 41:30.600 of thyself alone, not the Western continent 41:32.920 --> 41:35.930 entire floats on thy keel! 41:35.930 --> 41:39.930 O ship is steadied by thy spars. 41:39.930 --> 41:44.540 With thee Time voyages in trust. 41:44.539 --> 41:48.259 The antecedent nations sink or swim with thee." 41:48.260 --> 41:53.990 America is everything, according to Whitman. 41:53.989 --> 41:56.969 "With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, 41:56.967 --> 42:00.017 heroes, epics, wars though bearest the other 42:00.016 --> 42:03.096 continents. Theirs, theirs as much as 42:03.095 --> 42:06.315 thine, the destination-port triumphant. 42:06.320 --> 42:10.150 Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye. 42:10.150 --> 42:14.890 O helmsmen, though carriest great companions. 42:14.889 --> 42:19.349 How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of your 42:19.347 --> 42:22.717 future? I feel thy ominous greatness, 42:22.716 --> 42:24.606 evil as well as good. 42:24.610 --> 42:27.610 I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, 42:27.610 --> 42:29.210 transcending the past. 42:29.210 --> 42:35.070 I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing as if the 42:35.065 --> 42:38.835 entire globe. But I do not undertake to 42:38.840 --> 42:42.820 define thee, hardly can I comprehend thee." 42:42.820 --> 42:46.110 42:46.110 --> 42:51.740 Well that's Whitman saying, as we all do at times, 42:51.744 --> 42:54.394 "America is an idea." 42:54.389 --> 43:00.039 This course is the story of what that idea was and what 43:00.038 --> 43:04.538 happened to it, and the chance it had coming 43:04.535 --> 43:05.995 out of it.