William Tyler
Post-Bellum America: 1866 Onwards

William Tyler - Post-Bellum America: 1866 & Onwards

- Thank you very much, indeed, and welcome everyone to this third in our series on American history. Now those who I’ve known for a long time here in England some of them have said, why don’t you tell a funny story or tell a joke at the very beginning to break the ice? Well, I usually have done that, not every time, but I have occasionally, or more than occasionally, done it when I’ve been lecturing here in England. And when I came to do lockdown, I thought, well, English humour doesn’t travel particularly well and I’m not sure that it would be appreciated or perhaps even understood. We do have a twisted sense of humour in Britain. But I read this in an obituary of a Jewish barrister in London and it was in the Times, and this struck me as funny, and it’s really a Jewish humour rather than specifically English humour. And I tried it on a Jewish friend earlier today and he said, “Yeah, well you can try that. I think it’s funny.” So if he thinks it’s funny, and I do, and he has a great sense of humour, I’ll try it on you. So this is an obituary of a barrister called Michael Beckman. Michael Beckman. And the obituary read, “An incident that has become almost legendary at the English bar occurred during a trial before Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson, who insisted on calling him Mr. Beckstein, to which Beckman responded, ‘My Lord, I may be Jewish, but I’m not a grand piano.’” Now I hope that amused just one or two of you and the rest of you who it doesn’t amuse will forgive me for that.

So then, starting this third tale, when we ended with the Civil War ending last week. Let me say this, the war is over. The North has won, but now the peace must be won too. If the United States is to regain its unified status, after all, it’s still in 1865, a very new nation, less than a hundred years old and had it broken apart, and that had been the story of the modern United States or a modern America, we would’ve said, historians would’ve said, well, that was inevitable because of the distances involved and the different cultures involved, we’re not surprised that America, intending to be one in the 1770s landed up by the 1870s being divided into two and subsequently maybe more. But that didn’t happen because the North won. But now it has the problem of bringing the south back into the union. The Southern Confederate states must be reintegrated into the union and the concept of the union must be resold. That’s perhaps a relatively straightforward thing to say, but a less straightforward thing to achieve. But there’s also a problem, an additional problem, and that’s to make the emancipation of the slaves work in practise. If some ex-slaves believed that emancipation would solve all their problems and they would have equality before the law and colour would not be recognised in the states, they were in for an unpleasant shock in the years following the many years following the end of the Civil War. The victory in battle is one thing in all wars, but victory in peace is quite another. Think about the more modern campaign in Iraq or think about the Civil War in Yugoslavia post-Communist.

The aftermath of wars tends to linger lot, both in practise and, in particular, in memory. And you need to deal with that at the beginning. And that didn’t really happen in America at the end of the Civil War. A book by the great American historian David McCullough, called “The American Spirit,” which was published in 2018, was reviewed by a newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Old Confederacy, “The American Spirit” and the Richmond Newspaper said this of the book, “Insightful and inspirational. ‘The American Spirit’ summons a vex and divided,” a vex and divided, and this was written in the south in Richmond, not even in 1918, but in 2018, “It summons a vexed and divided nation to remember and cherish our unifying ideas and ideals.” In other words, the looking back at the Civil War in particular, the Americans, well the North thought that what they must do is to reintegrate by using these fundamental principles, the fundamental principles of unification and of high ideals with which the birth of the United States was surrounded. We all know that. The American Civil War frankly cast doubt on what the Founding Fathers were trying to achieve. They had shattered the dream of the Founding Fathers. Now American historians use, and we all use the Latin term post bellum, after the war, simply Latin.

So we can start and date, we can state the start of postbellum America very precisely to the month of April, 1865 when General Lee surrendered and President Lincoln was assassinated. So we know we go into postbellum America without Lincoln. I can’t date the end of the postbellum American period. I’m taking today as a marker at the end, 1890 approximately. But that period, 1866 to 1890, doesn’t resolve the question of the division of America between North and South. And I don’t mean geographical division, I mean political, religious division, economic division, and rather like they say of the French Revolution, it’s too early yet to say, and maybe it’s too early yet to say about the final outcome of the American Civil War. You don’t, as always, have to agree with what I’m saying. I’m just positing for you that although the initial period after the war of 1866 to 1890 is relatively clear, and that’s what I’m going to talk about. There is a huge aftermath. And right at the end today, I’ll say something about today and the aftermath of the Civil War. There was one big change wrought by the war, and this is a really rather important one, and I’m using the rough guide to the history of America ‘cause it expresses it very shortly, which is an advantage for me with only an hour. But it also makes us think, “While 11 of the 12 constitutional amendments passed before the Civil War had limited the powers of the federal government, six of the next seven were to restrict those of the individual states instead.” We talked before about the federal system, the balance between central and the periphery of the states. At the beginning, the states, the old colonies of British America, very different in their historical background, very different in their outlook, sought to control the centre.

Were not going to be told by the centre what to do. But after the Civil War, the centre says, “No, we are going to control it.” And it’s that constant, it’s not a battle that’s over or ever won. It’s a constant pushing and shoving. And why is it important? Because the federal state realised that it could not allow a second civil war of whatever type to emerge. And to do so there had to be government at the centre for those important issues. Not least economic issues, but really important constitutional issues as well. So the balances changed. But there was another problem in the immediate aftermath of the war and the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson becomes president, and he saw his role as mollifying the South. That is to say, mollifying the white south, so that they were reintegrated. Now, Johnson was, of course, a Republican and Congress was overwhelmingly Republican, but Congress challenged the president. Now I’ve just said that the federal government seeks to control the state government. But in Washington itself, Congress seeks to control the president and both are Republican. Johnson wanted to be laid back. Johnson didn’t want a problem with the white elite of the South because how could you govern the South if you were harsh to them? Whilst those in Congress said, “Hang on, we have not fought this civil war to give power back to the very people who started it. We can’t do that. We don’t wish to do that.”

And so there becomes this clash between the two. This is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to American History.” As I said, well I hate, but it’s written by this, I think, really good American historian, Alan Axelrod, and Axelrod writes this, “Andrew Johnson issued amnesty to anyone who took an oath of loyalty to the Union in the future. Johnson required that the states ratify the 13th Amendment, which freed the slaves, abolished slavery in their own state constitutions, repudiated debts incurred while in rebellion, and declared succession null and void. By the end of 1865, virtually all the secessionist states had signed up to that.” In other words, he’s saying, look, we’re all sort of gentlemen, so just sort of sign on the dotted line that will all be awfully good in the future and we can go on as though the war had never happened in a sense. And Congress says, no, we’re not going to do that. And Congress introduced legislation, the Freedman’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act in 1866 to ensure that Black Americans, the ex-slaves, had equality before the law. The President vetoed it and Congress overruled it. Difficulties continued between president and Congress. Congress passed a series of what were called reconstruction acts, acts of Congress to enable the reconstruction of the South. And again, Axelrod, if I may use him, says this, “The reconstruction acts in 1867 effectively placing the south under military occupation. African-Americans were quickly enfranchised and Congress forced acceptance of the 14th Amendment by refusing to recognise new state governments until those governments had ratified and recognised Confederate leaders were specifically barred from participating in the creation of new governments.” And so there is a difference of opinion. In effect, Congress is establishing military rule in the Southern states, very similar to what Cromwell attempted with his rule of the major generals in 1650s England.

They did exactly the same in the South. And the president, Johnson, is not happy with that. In fact, he’s extremely unhappy with that. Let me read you a short piece here. “The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 passed by Congress divided the South into five military districts,” like Cromwell’s major generals had controlled over districts in England. “They divided them into five military districts. The five former Union generals were appointed as governors, military rule. And it specified that the former rebel states will only be restored to the union once they frame and ratify new constitution for universal male sub and elect new legislatures that ratify the 14th Amendment. The command of the Army Act required all the president’s military orders to pass through the general of the Army, currently Ulysses S. Grant. And this stops Johnson directly interfering with southern military leaders ruling in the South.” This act in effect took the south out of the control of the president. Johnson is extremely unhappy about this. He dismisses the Secretary of State for War in 1868 in an attempt to rest power back to himself from Congress, the House, remember, they’re all Republicans, the President and the House. The House charged the president under the Tenure of Office Act. The House then sought Johnson’s impeachment before the Senate.

And a trial of Johnson was held between March and May, 1868. In the end, he was acquitted by one vote, by one vote. Impeachment is something we’ve seen more recently in American history, but this was the first time that impeachment was used against a president. We, in England, were giving up the law of impeachment, but America has kept it. Some of us in England think we perhaps should have kept our impeachment laws brightly shining as America has done. But this is a problem because this isn’t one political party against another political party. This is infighting with a difference of opinion within one political party. And it’s part of Congress’s attempt to control, to control what we would today call control the narrative, of postbellum America. In 1868, General Grant succeeded Johnson as president and serves two terms. He rejected an offer to serve a third term. He wasn’t as competent of, let’s be kind, he wasn’t as competent a president as he was a general. And that’s one of the problems. It’s one of the problems which all democracies face, and America faces in a different way than England faces or Britain faces because the president has more power than the prime minister who is merely the head of government and not the head of state. The president in America has more power, more status, more whatever. And yet, just as in England with prime ministers, you can’t guarantee that at the top of political society is always cream.

Now, neither Johnson nor Grant approached Lincoln. Think what you will of Lincoln. But he was a more than capable politician. He was cream at the top. These are not. And that poses problems because if this is a vacuum at the top, others will seek to fill it. And in America’s case, that means Congress, that sometimes the whole of Congress, sometimes the House and sometimes the Senate. And here we have both House and Senate, but eventually it’s going to be the Senate that’s going to be important. You might say what I’ve been saying about these tensions between federal government and state governments and the tensions between Congress and the presidency are a natural fallout of a democratic system and a democratic system based upon federalism and republicanism. Now, please, anyone listening in America, do not think I am for one moment saying that the British system is better. It isn’t. It’s just different in different ways. And it’s just as flawed because all democracies seem, in the end, to be flawed. And all of us who are lawyers, whatever side of the Atlantic we live, are so concerned about the protection of the rule of law that we can, in America’s case, bring a president, can be bring, brought before, as it were, the bar of justice in an impeachment trial. We are in the middle, here in Britain, of arguments about the rule of law at the moment because of what our government is doing in terms of those seeking refuge coming across the channel. That’s another question for another day. All I’m saying is that there is no democracy that in structure is perfect. They all have tensions.

What matters is if the person at the top is able to manage those tensions, and I’m saying that after Lincoln, neither Johnson nor Grant were capable or proved themselves, incapable of really taking that leadership role. I’ve written here, Johnson was largely sidelined. The Congress wanted to make the emancipation of slaves a reality and not simply something on paper. And Axelrod writes this, he writes, “African Americans were given equal rights. State supported free public school systems were established, labour laws were made fairer to employees and tax laws were more generally equitable. However, radical reconstruction also exacted a heavy tax burden and led to widespread ruinous corruption.” By whom? Hear the word corruption and most of us immediately say politicians, and you’re right. So there’s problems that the Congress has with its presidents, but there’s also problems that it has with the southern white elite who want to frustrate, who want to frustrate the emancipation of the slaves. And they are encouraged to do that by the fact that the economy is in considerable trouble. It it had been in trouble, of course, because of the war. And now it’s going to have to pay Black workers. There’s all sorts of problems emerging. You could say that trouble was bound to ensue and ensue it did. And I’ll read from actual, well just a little piece here. “Radical reconstruction,” that’s the radical Republicans in Congress, that’s what it means.

“Radical reconstruction was born of mixed motives, a desire to bring equality to African Americans, tick the box, and to establish government’s loyal to the union, tick the box, but also to keep Democrats out of Congress and punish the south.” Query, the Democrats, remember in this case, are those who are in favour or were in favour of slavery. And the radical Republicans want them not to achieve power or re-achieve power in the South, nor do they want them, sorry, and they want to punish the south for the war. He said, “These efforts created much bitterness, crippled the southern economy for generations and ultimately deepened the gulf of understanding, separating the races.” Wow. So Johnson’s view of placating the whites hindered the emancipation of the Blacks. The radicals in Congress, Republicans, in wishing to bring the emancipation of slaves into a reality, left them at the mercy of a backlash from the whites. And the backlash took many forms, vigilante groups as the usual phrase . Today we would label such groups, white supremacists. The most infamous was the Ku Klux Klan, of course. And that started in 1866 and four years later, Congress simply outlawed it. The problem is in the late 19th century what Congress says in Washington, how do you actually enforce it in backwards Alabama? And the truth is they couldn’t because although the vigilante groups were outside of the law, there were many others in the Southern states who bluntly supported their actions without themselves being members of such vigilante groups or the KKK. And many of course were in office. But there was an acceptance. So there’s a problem about laws that you can’t enforce. And here we’re not just talking about laws, but we’re talking about the changing attitudes. Changing attitudes is extremely difficult. I can introduce a law which says, anybody who exceeds a speed limit and found guilty will be hung up along the highway.

When I did criminology, that was an example that the professor gave of how you stop crime, how you stop motor crime. If we hang people along the highways, motorways, just for exceeding a speed limit, most people will probably keep within the speed limit. But we judge that as something we cannot do. We cannot enforce the law in that way. And so we continue to have in both or in all the countries that you’re listening from, we continue to have people like us, let’s be honest, like us breaking speed limits. What we do have to do, we have to pay a fine, and we have points on our driving licence. Or when it gets to the top, just employ a lawyer to get rid of the last one. And they all disappear after a period of time. We aren’t… Bluntly, it doesn’t stop us. Hanging us would. But introducing a law which says Blacks have rights, outlawing the Ku Klux Klan does nothing to change the situation in South Carolina, or in all of those previous slave owning southern states. So we moved into the 1870s. This is a book I’ve used before by Heather Williams called “American Slavery,” which is on my list. And she writes this, “Congress passed, and in 1868, the states ratified the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that granted citizenship to African Americans and promised equal protection under the law. In 1870, the states ratified the 15th Amendment that gave Black men the right to vote,” men not women. “During reconstruction, African American men held elected offices in state legislatures and in the US Congress.”

Now, that is the success of Congress’ pushing to make emancipation a reality. Let me share this with you from David Reynolds’ “America.” I guess all the Americans list, they know all of this, but for some people who are not American, this may come as a surprise. Reynolds writes, “For a flavour of what change, consider this description of the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1873.” So this is after Congress’ push through this legislation. “The speaker is Black, the clerk is Black, the doorkeeper are Black, the little pages are Black. The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is Black, and the chaplain is called Black. The body is almost literally a Black parliament. And this is the only one on the face of the earth, which is the representative of a white constituency. These words were the words of James Pike from Maine, one of America’s best known political journalists of the day. Pike was often patronising about negro politicians, but here he accurately captured the drama of the South revolution under radical reconstruction.” I guess many outside of America did not realise that there was this small period of time in the South where Black men controlled the governments. Reynolds gives another example. “In 1873, South Carolina’s House of Representatives had 123 members. Only 23 of 123 were white. Pike said they sit grim and silent, grouped in a corner of the commodious and well furnished chamber.

They stalwartly survey the noisy riot that goes on in the great Black left and centre. Loftily he describes the intellectual level as out of a bevvy of fresh converts at a negro camp meeting. Endless chatter, interruptions quarters. The speakers hammer pays a perpetual to two. The peanuts are cracked and much faster than ever. The Sable crowd laugh as hens cackle. One begins and all follow, but Pike admitted quote, ‘Underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we must not forget that there is something very real to this untutored multitude because they have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly, which we are bound to recognise and respect., Seven years ago, Pike noted, quote, 'These men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer. Today they’re raising points of order and privilege. They find they can raise one as well as the other. They prefer the latter. It’s easier and better paid. It means escape and defence from all oppressors. It means liberty itself.’” Woo. Can this possibly last? No, it can’t possibly last. And why not? Because it is, in effect, an illusion. Heather Williams writes again in her book about it as an illusion, she writes, “Following the controversial presidential election in 1876, the federal government withdrew troops in southern states, leaving African Americans completely under control of white ruled governments. There would be no protection for Blacks in the south.” So those quotations from the journalist Pike came from 1873.

Following the presidential election of 1876, the federal government who rode back on all that, sorry, the federal government withdrew its troops that the five generals and therefore the white elite were able in various ways to come back and take control, which of course they did. “Southern state legislatures says Williams began to essentially extinguish African Americans’ right to vote and put in place systems of segregation that severely circumcised African Americans’ economic, political, and social options.” Segregation. Segregation. Those of you who are not American but are South African, and I know there are South Africans listening, know about segregation. And Americans know about segregation. The white hit back by the end of the 1870s. So what was the 1876 presidential election? Why was it important? It saw President Hayes elected. Now Hayes interestingly had been a hero of the Civil War. He was a lawyer before the Civil War started. You remember from last week, most of the armies were volunteers. He volunteered for the north, of course, and he was wounded five times and he gained a reputation of bravery in battle and was promoted to the rank of major general. He is a genuine American hero. He was also very religious. He neither drank nor smoked. He banned alcohol in all its forms from the White House. The other interesting thing as an aside, is his wife, Mrs. Hayes, was the first wife of an American president to be called First Lady. But she would, that was a phrase used by a journalist and it stuck.

But this man who you might think was cleaner than clean, turned out not to be when he needed or wished to win the presidential election. He is corrupt, and I think you can call him anything, but during his lifetime, his presidency was called the Fraudulency. The Fraudulency. That tells you everything, doesn’t it? This is Axelrod, “During the early 1870s, white resistance reconstruction often turned violent in the tumultuous atmosphere. The presidential election of 1876 resulted in a majority of popular votes going to a Democrat, Samuel Tilden. However, the Republicans reversed the electoral vote tally in three sudden states, they still controlled. And the reconstruction legislation, the Republicans effectively stole the election from Democrat Tilden and gave it to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. After months of wrangling, both sides agreed to send the votes to a special commission. It ruled Hayes the winner, though only after he secretly agreed to stop using federal troops to enforce reconstruction. In effect, this agreement ended reconstruction in its positive as well as its negative aspects.” So all the good things of giving ex-slaves equality is cast aside because it could only happen whilst the Union Army and the five generals were down there in the south. Once the army and the generals are withdrawn, the white elite can manipulate the society and the system to deny the ex-slaves the emancipation that they had gained. In fact, so twisted that Hayes thought, we’re in Trump territory, Hayes thought that his inauguration itself would be challenged maybe in an attempted coup d'etat by Democrats.

And so the night before, the evening before he and Grant and the Chief Justice went into a separate room in the White House where there was a reception, they left the reception, they went into this room and very quietly swore Hayes in as president. And so for a number of hours, America had in effect two presidents, although nobody but those three men knew it. But they did it so that if there was an attempted coup d'etat on the following day, they could say, oh no, he has already been sworn as president, too late. Now there was no coup d'etat and there was never likely to be a coup d'etat. But it says something about the present situation and the previous situation with Trump. Wow. So how did the south go about it? How did the white elite gain power? Well, they introduced number of laws and changes to the Constitution throughout the Southern states, the old Confederacy, they’re known as Jim Crow laws. Now I’m sure every American listening knows exactly why they’re called Jim Crow. It was after a song that was popular, which was a Black song that was taken over by a white actor, comedian, singer. And the song went like this, “Come listen, all you girls and boys, I’m going to sing a little song. My name is Jim Crow. Wheel about and turn about and do it so. Every time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow.” Which was the sort of dance that Black-faced, Blackface, white dancers and comedians did to lampoon Black Americans.

And the phrase, Jim Crow, stuck. It stuck. So what did it mean in practise? Well, it meant quite a lot of things in practise. This is what David Reynolds writes. He says this, “Under what were known as the Jim Crow laws, Black and white was separated,” Segregation. “Was separated in public places, in schools, in restaurants, in housing, even cemeteries.” And Americans listening tonight will know that that isn’t something that was way back in time. It isn’t. It’s in your lives that Black Americans had to sit in different places and white Americans on public transport, for example, “Black and white were separated in public places, schools, restaurants, housing, even cemeteries. Transport was a particularly sensitive issue. The dream crow car is up next to the baggage car and engine said one commentator, it stops out beyond the covering in the rain or sun or dust. Usually there is no step to help you climb on. As for your compartment, this is half or a quarter of an eighth of the oldest car in service on the railroad. Unless it happens to be a through express the plush is caked with dirt, the floor is grimy and the window’s dirty. It was difficult to get lunch or even clean water. Lunch rooms either don’t serve niggers,” remember this is written at the time in the 19th century “Or serve them at some dirty and ill attended hole in the wall. As for toilet rooms, don’t.” That could have been written, could it not, in the 1960s. 100 years. And some of course, and Black Americans reacted even in the 1870s against this. And Reynolds says, “Not all Blacks were willing to accept such discrimination. In Louisiana, Homer Plessy, a light-skinned Black, deliberately sat in a whites only part of a train. After refusing to budge, he was arrested and jailed.

Plessy and his supporters took the case all the way to the US Supreme Court. He was rejected in January of 1896 with only one dissenting vote. Plessy based his argument on the 14th Amendment of 1868, affirming the equal rights of all citizens, Black and white. But according to the court, the amendment quote could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon colour or to enforce social or as distinguished from political equality.” Oh wow. Wow. They pulled right back out. “The court says Reynolds judged that any state was quote, at liberty to act in reference the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people and with a view to the promotion of their comfort and the preservation of the public peace and good order.” It’s rubber stamped. The Jim Crow laws are now rubber stamped by the Supreme Court. And that decision of the Supreme Court was not overturned until 1954, which is one of the causes that linked, that kickstarts the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King. So the aftermath of the Civil War is not a glorious one. The aftermath is messy and the aftermath is lengthy. In his book on the American Civil War, Phil Davis writes in this way right at the end, it was what he writes, “By the mid 1870s, Black representation, the legislatures of the southern states was waning. Segregation of schools, healthcare, and housing became firmly entrenched. And the Black was relegated to the status of second class citizens, a status not to be challenged for 100 years.”

From outside of America, the great promises made in the 1770s by the Founding Fathers of the United States allow lying in the dust or because although the North won the war, they were losing the peace. Of course, many Black, and we’ll come to this when next week when I talk about what was happening in 1900, many ex-slaves move northwards. There’s a whole lot to come. But the trouble is that there is a big division between north and south. A gulf was a word I quoted earlier in this talk. There is a gulf, a divide between how the north thinks and how the south thinks. And in the middle of all of that is the unresolved question of the equality before the law of all Americans, whether Black or white. And before someone shouts at me down it, it didn’t include women. But then America is no different than any other developed country at that time. But it is different in terms of votes for Black people. If you look back at the mother country, at Britain, Black people had the vote. It’s a problem even in the Second World War, when Black regiments of American soldiers were stationed in Britain, they could not believe that the British army had Black Britains and white Britain serving together. They found that extraordinary. It’s another reason that kicked off the civil rights movement, but before Britain’s feel terribly warm about it, there was an incident in the city of Norwich. During the war, many British families invited American troops to come and have Sunday lunch with them.

And Churchill found out that in Norwich they didn’t, which had quite a large number of Black Americans stationed there. The people of Norwich invited Americans, but they didn’t invite Black Americans, only white. And Churchill intervened and told the mayor of Norwich that this must stop immediately and that Black Americans must be invited to lunch alongside white Americans. And that happened. Our histories diverge at this point. And it’s important to note diversification. Our divisions have in Britain have been political between the left and the right, between socialism in a mild form, not in a Marxist form. And sort of central whitism. Americans have this other divide, a divide over Black people and a divide, which is a geographical divide. True in Britain, the Labour Party originally gained its votes in the working class industrial north of England and the conservatives from the agricultural south, in broad terms. But the American divide is much, much greater than that. It’s a cultural divide. It’s a cultural divide between north and south. We’ll come back to all that in subsequent talks, but not least when we come to the issue. And some of you heard me talk about religion, but I’ve got to come back and talk about that again. I said before, Grant refused to stand for a time. Instead, the president who was elected was James Garfield, another Republican. He was duly elected and four months later, duly assassinated over someone who didn’t get a job within public service. So Garfield goes, and he’s replaced by Chester Arthur. I would love this to be live.

And we were all together for tonight. And I would say to all the Amer, all of you who aren’t American can do what you like after dinner tonight. But the Americans must sit down and before they can join the rest of us, you’ve got to write a page of about President Chester Arthur. I think you’d be pushed, wouldn’t you? Somebody’s bound to say afterwards, oh, I’m not. I did my PhD at on Chester Arthur. But I think most Americans would find it quite difficult. He was known as elegant Arthur because he dressed as a swell. We would have said in that particular period in Britain, he dressed extremely well, elegant Arthur. It has been suggested that he might actually not have been born in America, but in Canada, in which case had that been proved and was around at the time, he would’ve been ineligible for office. But I don’t think it matters one way or the other because he hardly did anything. He was followed by Grover Cleveland who saw the decade out. You say, well William, why aren’t you talking about these people? Well, bluntly, because there’s little to say about them. And in an hour it would be ridiculous too. We’re looking at postbellum America and the big themes, but to sort of justify, this is a book by Peter Clements, now called “The Making of a Superpower: USA 1865-1975” And Clements writes this, “The Gilded Age,” G-I-L-D-E-D, “The Gilded Age was the name broadly given for the final 30 years of the 19th century in America as a time of weak governments and widespread corruption.” Did I say more about corruption next week? “The period 1866,” where we started, “to 1896 saw a period dominated by congressional government where presidents tended to be weak and relatively ineffectual.” That I think I’ve told you, Congress controls the presidency. Let me read on. “Indeed, real part lays specifically with the Senate.”

In 1866, there were only 72 senators. It was a small House and thus was able to get things done in a way that larger bodies can’t and smaller bodies can. Clements also gives an extract from the period. This is a book published in 1991, a book by John Garrity called “The American Nation.” For those of you who are in the states, it is Volume two of “The American Nation” by John Garrity. And Garrity wrote, in 1991, “A succession of weak presidents presided over the White House. Although the impeachment proceedings against Andrew Johnson had failed, Congress dominated the government. Within Congress, the Senate generally overshadowed the House of Representatives. In his novel, published in 1880, called ‘Democracy,’ the Cynical Henry Adams wrote that the United States quote, had a government of the people, by the people for the benefit of senators. Critics called the Senate a rich man’s club. And it did contain many millionaires. However, the true sources of the Senate’s influence lay in the long tenure of many of its members, which enabled them to master the craft of politics. In the fact that it was a small enough to encourage real debate and its long established relationship, the wisdom, intelligence, and statesmanship. The House of Representatives, by contrast, was one of the most disorderly and inefficient legislative bodies in the world.” I remind you, this is an American historian writing. “The great political parties profess indemnity to each other, but they seldom took clearly opposing oppositions on the questions of the day. Democrats were separated from Republicans more by accents of religious affiliation, ethnic background, and emotions than by economic issues.”

A rather different America to the America of the 2020s. But what it’s saying is the point I’ve been trying to emphasise is that Congress, and that is making the point that I’ve just read, the Senate in particular control the federal government and the federal government is controlling the state governments, except in the South, they’re dodging away from it in practise under the Jim Crow legislation. And the central government does not deal with that until the latter half of the 20th century. And then in the piece I’ve just read, it raises the question of corruption. Not just corruption in the South, but corruption in the North. And not just amongst the federal state politicians, but down into the roots of American society and that we will also look at next week. But I want to finish in this way. This is the magazine style, the story of the American Civil War that I’ve used before. And it’s just a couple of things I wanted to read from this. First of all, “The American Civil War formed a dividing line between the nation’s past and its future. All wars changed the people and countries involved, but this was a particularly traumatic and wrenching experience. The fact that the nation was a very different place after the guns fell silent was apparent very quickly. It does not seem to me, as if I were living in the country in which I was born,” said former Harvard Professor George Tickner in 1869. “Some of the consequences of four years of war were obvious. There was a new state, West Virginia.

The institutional slavery have been abolished. More than 600,000 men have been killed out of a population of just 38 million. Somehow, despite the divisions of cause and were deepened by the war, the country became more unified. Most tellingly, the name United States ceased to be used in the plural and instead became singular. United States are had been the common usage before the war. The United States is took over afterwards.” Yes, I’ve written, and yet, as we’ve seen in the talk tonight, such a view must largely be seen and judged as a kind mirror. With hindsight, a kind mirror that commentators wished it to be. They wish to paint a picture not of the United States as it was in reality, but what they would like it to be. Unified, democratic, modern. But don’t go to the south, don’t visit South Carolina or Alabama, or the picture you painted will be shown not to be as accurate as you would wish it to be. It airbrushed out Black repression in the South and white supremacists in the South. And I promised before I finished today, I’d say something about the lingering effects of the war. In 21st century America, and even here in 21st century Britain, the old flag of the Confederacy has come to represent new brands of intolerance. Some councils have banned the flying of the Confederate flag, not in the United States only, but here in England. In fact, we had a confederate flag flying down the road from where I am sitting and talking to not only about 400 yards down the road, and the council had it removed. So what were they flying it for? Not slavery or Black rights, it was being flown by someone who adheres to very far right ideas and principles. The flag has been taken over in the 21st century. But I want to finish with this one story.

Again, familiar, I’m sure to every American listening, maybe to lots of other people. And certainly if you follow the news, it may remind you. “In Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 12th of August, 2017, a statue of Robert E. Lee was due to be taken down from one of the parks in the city and a group of people, Trump supporting conservatives, alt writers and neo-Confederates among them, had come to protect its removal. The contractors hired to do the removal job had even received death threats from some quarters. Making the situation already fraught, members of the predominantly white crowd sheered ‘You will not replace us,’ suggesting that they felt threatened by the takedown of Lee’s statue. Some waved swastika flags, some Confederate flags, some wore Confederate flag t-shirts and held up racist and anti-Semitic.” This is the new right, and not just the States, but across Western Europe. “A group of counter protestors from a variety of organisations and movements met them, including the Black Lives Matter movement, Antifa campaigners and some church groups. The situation quickly grew violent and state and white protestors were filmed attacking a Black counter protestor with metal bars and other makeshift weapons. A state of emergency was declared in Virginia just after 11:00 a.m. The rally was aborted, but one angry right wing protestor ran his car into a crowd of counter protestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, and injuring many more.” Divisions across the democracies of the Western world, we’re facing such problems. And all of those of you listening who are Jewish and indeed others listening, know the effects of antisemitism, protests, riots across the western democracies.

We live… We all live in the shadow of the American Civil War. Thank you ever so much for listening. I’m sure I’ve got a number of points that people wish to make. Let me see. Yes, I have. Thank you, Clive. Hannah, I didn’t hear the punchline. Oh, well, the punchline is, I may be a Jew, but I’m not a Beckstein is the punchline. Oh, Anthony says, I knew Beckman. He always had a joke. I knew him too. Hello. Oh, that’s great. Everyone liked the joke. I tell you, if you do jokes, the only thing people remember are jokes. I’ve often tried to do jokes related to what I’m teaching, so at least you remember the joke and it helps you with the teaching. Ellie says, “Historians agree that the chances would’ve been far better for healing and coming together. Johnson was a racist.” I’m not sure… I’m puzzled about Lincoln. We shall never know what Lincoln would’ve done. Arlene agrees with me. We are still in the aftermath of the Civil War. Ellie, actually, that is a myth. We’re in the second coming of Nazism. Well, those two things are not necessarily unconnected, I would say. John Smith, a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union Party to keep coming to office as the Civil War concluded. He was a president, as a precedent he was Republican. He favoured quick restoration of the seceded states union without protection for the newly freed people who were formerly enslaved. This led to conflict, absolutely, with Republican, radical Republican, I would say, radical Republican dominated Congress culminating the impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote, which I think I said.

What Stewart says, sorry. When Lincoln sought reelection in ‘64, he chose Johnson as was running over the Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a former US senator from Maine as a southern unionist and war Democrat. The name for those Democrats who stayed loyal to Lincoln, Johnson was deemed a good fit for the ticket. Lincoln defeated the opponent, his opponent, General McClellan, by an electoral margin of 212 to 21 and garnered 55% of the popular vote. If the audio is dodgy, Marshall, it’s likely to be your end, not this end. Sometimes people say, well, it’s me. It won’t be me, because if it was me, either me as an individual or my iPad, no one would hear, it would be the same. So it’s probably you’ve got some interference which may be external to you at home, which is affecting your, it can be anything. We all know these things don’t always work as they should. Shelly, do you think Congress under Johnson was shortsighted, vindictive, like the Treaty of Versailles and thereby caused subsequent events? No, you see, what the federal government had to do was balance. Was balance… Was balance the conflict between bringing the white elitist Southerners back into the fold whilst at the same time giving rights to Black Americans, and that would’ve been a job for the Lord Almighty, let alone for ordinary politicians. It was an extraordinary, difficult task. David, did Grants’ antisemitism affect his presidency, would you agree that American in this area of vocalism is in a cold civil war? I don’t…

Q&A and Comments:

The first question is, I’m not sure that it did specifically his presidency. Would you agree America… I’d agree that all Western countries in this era of woke-ism, they’re in a cold civil war, and it’s not simple, because some things which are called woke are right and proper and some things are mad. I find in living in Britain, some people who I would fundamentally object to say things that I support, whereas other people that I would wish to support say things I don’t. I think we each, we are becoming very fractured in societies in the Western world.

Henry, I’m reminded of Churchill’s comment. “Democracy is the worst form of government except for the others.” Yes, it’s true, but maybe all our democracies are in need of refreshment in the 21st century. Susan complains about the American education system. Don’t get me on the British education system. We all need a total overhaul.

“Having been raised,” says Rose “in South Africa, we know apartheid, a principle reason for us immigrating to Canada and corruption. This does not appear to change in the government’s all the day worldwide, disgraceful.” Yes. Sad, isn’t it?

Stuart, “Hayes was referred to as Rutherford B. Hayes by his detractors. I attended Samuel J. Tilden High School named for the real winner.”

Michael says, “He must be a Chicagoan,” and Stewart says, “No, I went to high school in Brooklyn.”

Paul, it might be helpful to mention that the platforms of Republican democratic parties, the Civil War here in the decades afterwards, were the opposite of what they’re today. I hope I made that clear last week. In general, the Democrats were conservative, they were I’ve lost it.

Hang on. Got to find it. I’ve gone too far now. Yes, Paula, sorry. In general, the Democrats were conservative and favoured small government as well as segregation, while the Republicans favoured a larger government role. Yes, that’s, as I said last week, it’s very confusing to those of us who aren’t America. It maybe confusing to Americans for all I know.

“The segregation didn’t end at the borders of USA, even in the 1960s, my husband and I went to see Lena Horne cabaret at a London hotel, and later learned that she’d not been allowed to enter by the main doors. Only through the staff entrance,” says Naomi. Yes, of course, Naomi. How nice to hear from you. You’re absolutely right. No one is saying, and I’m certain you’re not saying that everything here was marvellous. It wasn’t, racism was a terrible thing, Rose says segregation is terrible. South Africa, we even have separate benches to sit on in parks. I would be curious to know how the Jews of the time felt about this. You must ask Trudy in one of her talks, the answer to that.

And Stewart says, “Many Jews joined the civil rights and three Jewish freedom riders famously were killed by southern segregationists.”

Jacqueline, “One of the best films that illustrates southern segregation is ‘In the Heat of the Night’ Sidney Poitier andRod Steiger.” Yeah, absolutely.

Carol, “‘The Green Book’ is another film worth seeing based on a true story.” Carol, I’ve not seen that film. That’s something else to put on my list of things to do.

Jean, “Segregation law”- Oh, hello Jean. We’ve been in correspondence. “Re segregation laws, North Carolina passed a law that Blacks and whites could not sit together in restaurants. Durham had a Jewish mayor who owned a department store with a lunch counter. He removed all the seats so that Blacks and whites could stand and eat in the same place.” Oh, that’s a fantastic story, Jean. Well done. That’s fantastic.

Q: Michael, “Given the law of unintended consequences, what implications might the American Civil War have for the current conflict in the Middle East?”

A: I’m loathed to make those sorts of comparisons, Michael, I’m loathed to do that because I don’t think it’s in a different place and in a different time, and if unintended consequences will apply. I’m not sure that I can draw anything very quickly that helps resolves, that throws any light on the Middle East. We’re not in a civil war in the Middle East. We’re in a war, but it isn’t a traditional war. It’s a war of a state against a terrorist group who have taken over a state or part of a state. So I think it’s really different, and I don’t think there’s any easy answer to be gained by looking at the American Civil War.

Oh, Rhonda, “Netflix, Canada movie called ‘Rustin,’ probably available elsewhere,” never heard of it. “The actor portraying Rustin is outstanding and a Tony Award winner. 1954 peaceful demonstration in Washington Civil rights Movement.” Thank you Ronda for that. We do get, increasingly in Britain anyhow, on Netflix, all sorts of things from other countries. We mainly get European stuff, which is really interesting, but we have had Canadian stuff because I’ve watched some and of course American is dominant over everything on our televisions and Netflix and everything else. But no, I have watched Canadian, I’m getting overexcited here. I keep losing it.

Leon says, “Between 1882 and 1968, the Tuskegee Institute recorded 3,446 lynchings of Black people.” Much more dangerous for Blacks in America than South Africa. Michael, so Michael says, “Living in Norris during the war, most Sundays we had American servicemen to lunch, so they had to bring the food as rationing was enforced. As far as I can remember, all our guests were Jewish.” Yeah, they had access to tin fruit, for example, which the British went mad over when the Americans came, and of course British children with American sweets and chocolate and things. Absolutely. There was an ulterior motive in inviting Americans to lunch.

“As a South African,” says Monty, “born white who grew up under apartheid, have something in common with white Americans. Makes me feel less guilty.”

Catherine, “William, I think it’s also appeared of phenomenal industrial growth.” I’m going to say that next week. You’re absolutely right, Catherine. Yeah. America caught up Britain, the workshop of the world. Perhaps we govern enabled unconstrained growth. I’m going to talk next time about the industrial growth as I got to talk about corruption and I will talk about the opening up of the West are sort of the main themes, I think, probably for next week, but as you many of you know, I don’t do it in advance. I’ll do it when I get round to the end of this week, preparing for next Monday.

“All those,” says Ellie, “who accuse America of rampant racism forget that it was the only country that fought a bloody battle to eliminate this stain on humanity.” Every society has a form of bias inherent in its social structures.“ Well, I’m not quite sure Ellie, other countries got rid of, I don’t think you mean racism because I think you mean slavery because racism continued after the battle. Unless you are, I’m not sure I entirely follow your point. I’m sorry. In Charlottesville, the chant was, "The Jews will not replace us,” says Susan.

Ellie, “The new left is the old left, anti-Semitic intolerant. There are far more leftists and the danger emanating from them is far greater, exhibit one being the anti-Semitism on college campuses in the public square.” The same, Ellie, is true here in Britain. We have had, this is why I say it’s very difficult. I’m politically centre right. The conservative party in Britain has gone so far to the right, I’m stranded. The left, in terms of the Labour Party, is desperately trying not to go to the left, like the kids on the streets in America and here when the university’s anti-Semitic. It’s a really odd position to be in. We recently had a home sector who, in my view, was the next best thing to a fascist. In fact, I think I would go as far as say she was a fascist who was standing up for Jews in Britain, which of course we all approve of, me included, but I wish it wasn’t her that said it. This is why it’s incumbent upon us all as individuals to work out where we stand on what issue. That doesn’t help when it comes to vote because there may, certainly in Britain, there may be aspects of each party, which we may want to vote for, but aspects of each party which we are totally against, and there may be similar things happening in the States, but it’s a very profound change here.

We’re still fighting World War I and World War III. Yes. Well, Israel is fighting World War I because the great disaster of the Middle East was getting rid of the Ottoman Empire. I made no mention the carpetbaggers. Why? Because Monique and Danny, I’m sorry, it didn’t sort of fit what I was saying. I can’t do everything. Yes, I was going to say something about carpetbaggers. I’ve made a note to do so, but when I wrote what I said, it didn’t fit the story I was telling. Every historian tells a story and each historian tells a different story. There’s no unbiased story. My bias today about not mentioning carpetbaggers was simply that it didn’t fit anywhere in what I was saying. Had I had another hour, yes, I would’ve done so, but I couldn’t fit it. I’m sorry. My fault.

“The radical Republicans wanted the south punished.” I think I said that. “I was taught Lincoln favoured a more rapid reintegration.” That is true. “The difference with power and wealth as consequences are speculated to have allowed radical Republicans to in turn allow John Wilkes Booth and Dr. Harvey Mudd, et cetera, to successfully carry out the assassination in England. This may seem to be wild conspiracy theory, but many northerners made fortunes in the South subsequent to the Civil War.” Yes, they did. Absolutely.

Francine, I too find the volume of many, but not all of the programmes coming in too low. I have the volume all the way up and have to strain to hear you. I’m sorry about that. There’s nothing I can do this end for that.

Ellie says, “I agree, I’m also centre tending right, but the right here is almost as crazy as the woke left here being USA.” Yeah, well, I think it’s no point looking at Trump and America politics today outside the context of all the Western democracies. We are all facing challenges and that’s why I said it’s incumbent on each one of us to be intelligent enough to make our own minds up. But I fear for us, a general election and for you listening in the States for a presidential election, for those living in other parliamentary constituency in parliamentary countries on who you vote for, it’s not easy. Our politicians are not necessarily representing our views. Maybe we are the great, we are not just the great unwashed, but we’re the great hidden population of ordinary people whose voice is not heard.

Well, that’s too profound to finish on. Have a nice rest of the day. I’m off to watch some football on the television, so see you same time, same place, same subject, but we’re looking at, I’m going to do a situation report in the year 1900 on America next time. Thanks very much for listening. Bye.