a discussion on February 8, 2022, about
ABOUT THE PRESENTATIONS:
Dr. Allen Guelzo will speak about the question he is asked most often: "What if Lincoln had lived?"
Dr. Guelzo notes that Lincoln was at the height of his popularity and political power after being re-elected in 1864 with his Republican party firmly in control of both houses of Congress. He believes Lincoln would have pushed for full voting rights for freed blacks by giving them financial help to settle new lands out West through the Freedmen's Bureau. Landowners were considered citizens with voting rights (even though many southern legislators threw obstacles in their way, such as literacy tests and poll taxes).
Would Lincoln have better managed the immediate aftermath of the Civil War than his successor Andrew Johnson, who tried to veto the Freedmen's Bureau? Would Reconstruction of the South have been botched, which led to a century of bad feelings, racial tension and a region that lagged behind the rest of the United States in both economy and education? Would the country have avoided a lot of the problems with Jim Crow, segregation and racial hostility? Dr. Guelzo's presentation will cover these and other questions.
Dr. Michael Burlingame will speak about African Americans attending receptions and other activities at the White House, the subject of his 2021 book Emphatically the Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln and Racial Equality. He will describe Lincoln’s unfailing cordiality to African Americans, including: his willingness to meet with them in the White House; to honor their requests; to invite them to consult on public policy; to treat them with respect and kindness whether they were kitchen servants or leaders of the Black community; to invite them to attend receptions and tea; to sing and pray with them on their turf; and to authorize them to hold events on the White House grounds. All these manifestations of an egalitarian spirit fully justified the tribute paid to him by Frederick Douglass and other African Americans who met with him.
Dr. Burlingame will also discuss the Democratic press uproar resulting from Lincoln's actions (including from the Chicago Times, the Dayton, Ohio Empire and the Milwaukee Daily News) and the support for Lincoln's actions in many local papers (including the Washington Chronicle and the Washington National Intelligencer).
Questions and answers will follow their presentations.
Sources: https://www.
https://reparationscomm.org/
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities as well as the Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
Dr. Guelzo is an acclaimed scholar of American history whose writings have been recognized as among the most important contributions to scholarly and public understanding of 19th century America. His book Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President received the 2000 Lincoln Prize, as well as the 2000 Book Prize of the Abraham Institute of the Mid-Atlantic. His Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America Emancipation and his Gettysburg: The Last Invasion also received the Lincoln Prize in 2005 and 2013, respectively. Dr. Guelzo's latest book, Robert E. Lee: A Life, was published in 2021. For a list of his many publications (albeit incomplete) on Amazon.com, click HERE.
A winner of the 2018 Bradley Prize, Dr. Guelzo earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an honorary Doctorate of History from Lincoln College.
Dr. Michael Burlingame currently holds the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He was born in Washington DC and attended Phillips Academy, Andover. He graduated from Princeton University and received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Burlingame is the author of numerous books and publications, including: Abraham Lincoln: A Life ( a two volume set) and The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln. Simon and Schuster published two new books by Dr. Burlingame in 2021: An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd and Emphatically the Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln and Racial Equality.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life won the 2010 Lincoln Prize, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and Gettysburg College. The book also was a co-winner of the annual book prize awarded by the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington, D.C., and won the Russell P. Strange Book Award given annually by the Illinois State Historical Society for the best book on Illinois history.
Sources: https://jmp.
http://www.michaelburlingame.
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