Speaker 1: I like listening to podcasts, but I don't like podcasts
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we have the power of choice. That's what ero dot
net is all about. A R r oe dot Net
twenty different podcasts. It's a podcast network. One of them
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Net A R r oe dot Net. Enjoy your exploration. True,
how are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm great? Great.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you you've you've done something here that and I'm
not going to be the only one that's going to
say this, but you kind of put a sense of
calm inside my soul because everything that we're going through
politically today basically feels like it's already happened. And you
take us into an area of history where I'm going
I did not know this happened, but it's helping me
understand where we are today.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's since I've started writing books, I'm trying
to tell stories that have not been told before.
Speaker 2: So that's that's sort of my whole approach.
Speaker 1: How do you find stories like that? Because I mean,
we live in this AI generated world that's making up
its own stories because obviously think there's no new ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well I'm writing a new book, just just
finishing a new book about Lennon Johnson ran four different
campaigns in nineteen sixty And you think there's been a thousand.
Speaker 2: Books written about Linda Johnson, but no one's ever told
this story.
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm very I'm intrigued by that because Lennon
Johnson was part of my extremely young generation and it's like, wow,
that because that would be probably the first president in
my life as a human.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, he was.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not a big fan of his, but
he was quite an extraordinary person in many ways, and
his political chops were pretty astonishing. I mean literally rans
for four different positions in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Boy wanting to win, that's it. Okay, So how do
we win? We just we apply for every job that's available.
Speaker 2: That's how you win, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm not familiar with William Seward. And
the reason why is because I didn't learn anything about
him in high school or even elementary school.
Speaker 3: The stent he's known at all, it's for purchasing Alaska,
which at the time was thought to be a terrible idea.
They called it Seward's folly. But the real answer to
your question is history writes about winners, and so Abraham
Lincoln has had I don't know ten thousand books written
about him because he got to be president, and of
course he was a great president, probably our greatest president,
and Seward should have been present. He was the presumptive
favorite for the eighteen sixty Republican Convention, and Lincoln beat
him on the third ballot, but he was He was
one of the most consequential people of American history. He
was a governor from New York, senator from New York,
one of the greatest secretaries of state in our history,
and very importantly, the whole construct for our territorial expansion.
Speaker 2: Was his blueprint.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, yeah, yeah, So he he
saw us going to the in the Pacific, taking Hawaii.
He actually bought Midway. He bought the so called Guano Islands.
Speaker 2: He actually.
Speaker 3: Tried to buy Greenland, which is pretty topical for today.
He tried to buy a number of islands in the Caribbean.
He planned the Panama Canal. So he was talking about
all these things in eighteen fifty and eighteen fifty two,
and he got to do some of them and didn't
get to do the others.
Speaker 1: And see, and this is the very reason why I
was bringing up that. It's like, you're helping me understand
today because look at what's going on with the expansion
today or how they're wanting to expand, and so you
give me that opportunity to go back and see other
people in other times of history that had to deal
with other situations almost like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, he was a true visionary and he saw the
future of America was not toward Europe, but really was
toward Asia. And that's where he thought the future really
lay for America. And so that was his whole emphasis.
He was one of the pioneers for the condemental Railroad.
He did all these things, but he's lost to history
because he never became president.
Speaker 1: Right, how do you think it would have played out?
And the reason why is that because we all you know,
associate Abraham Lincoln with the Civil War? Could it have
been prevented because the current president says, we didn't have
to do that, We could have worked things out. And
then when I read it in your book, I'm going,
oh my god, now I've got a different perspective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the writing what it's history is a very
dangerous thing because you never But but what is indisputable
is that Seward did keep the Upper South in the Union.
Between Lincoln's election and Fort Sumter, three different states voted
not to seceed. Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee and Arkansas
essentially did the same thing.
Speaker 2: So all these states stayed in the.
Speaker 3: Union based upon this one guy, William Henry Seward, and
Lincoln followed his advice and not tried to resupply Sumter.
The whole reason for the South and the Upper South
seceding would have not existed. And the amazing thing this
sort of takes away to what if part of history
Lincoln made the decision to resupply Ster knowing, not not suspecting,
but knowing that that would cause the Civil War, and
so had had Seward. What Seward's advice was, look, Sumter
is undefensible, and we can't, we don't have the truth
to resupply it any even it's surrounded on all sides
by Confederate guns ready to shoot it at ship that
comes in there.
Speaker 2: And it's of no military value at all.
Speaker 3: It's just totally it's just a symbol, and more of
a symbol to the South than it is to the North.
There's another fort off of Florida, Fort Pickens, which was
militarily defensible, which did have a strategic value, and we
did resupply it, and the South didn't care. So Seward said,
let's just give up Sumter who cares, and resupply Pickens,
and that'll show the North that we've resupplied a Southern fort,
it's a federal government fort, and not try to do
the impossible, which we know is going to cause the
Civil War. And Lincoln followed that advice in March, but
then changed his mind in April, and that caused the
Civil War. And again he wasn't suspecting that that would happen.
Lincoln knew that would happen. And so this is one
of the things that really has to change people's perspective
on lincol and that while he was our greatest president.
He wasn't a perfect president. He did a lot of
things wrong, and especially in those early months, here was
a guy who literally had no executive experience. He had
one term in the Congress, which wasn't terribly successful. He
didn't know anybody in Washington. Literally, he didn't know any
politicians in the South except for a couple of people
from his days when he was a congressman, and so
he was completely.
Speaker 2: Over his head.
Speaker 3: As I read in the book, he spent his whole
month of first six weeks dealing with patronage people begging
him for jobs. One just on one day in the
White House in March, a thousand people were in the
White House bothering him for job and one day so
he was literally tearing his hair out trying to deal
with this boloney of people wanting jobs while the country's
falling apart, and he has no experience for with this.
You can you can empathize with the poor guy. I mean,
it was like, but he made this decision based upon
terrible intelligence, and he had contray intelligence, which was absolutely true.
In fact, Major Anderson, the guy who's in charge of
Fort Sumter, literally told him, don't try to resupply it
won't work right, and I hadn't did it anyway, So
this was a guy really sort of over his head
and made the wrong decision and it causes of war.
Speaker 1: You know, the way that you described where Fort Sumter is.
For those that have not been in Charleston, I mean,
I really want them to understand how you described that
even in the book, because you're right that island was
out there Fort Sumter and it could be seen by
every angle possible. And I've always wondered why Fort Moultrie
didn't become a part of this and why it wasn't
really brought into that storyline. But I'm telling you that,
you know what you say things about Fort Sumter that
really just opened up my eyes because this is my backyard.
This is I've been on the tours. They never speak
of what you put in this book, and especially when
it comes even with that with the Democratic National Convention
down there and you don't hear of it. But then
again you explain that to me. Nobody talks about the losers.
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well Anderson did actually move from Moultrie to Fort Sumter, really, Yeah,
because it was it was believe it or not, more
if so, you've been there. It's more defensible marginally than
Fort Moultrie, and and so there was some chance, but
it was Look, the guy who was the head of
the army, General Scott, told Lincoln, you'd need twenty thousand
men to actually go in to resupply the fort. Now,
the US Army at that point didn't twenty thousand men anywhere.
Oh my god, let alone twenty thousand men to send
down to do this. So and the one guy, the
one guy who said this could be done, was the
brother in law of his Postmaster general, who had absolutely
no experience in doing.
Speaker 2: Anything like this.
Speaker 3: Lincoln, Lincoln, for some reason took this guy's advice, which
makes no sense at all. Again, it just shows Lincoln,
as smart as he was, especially at the beginning of
that administration, really was overwhelmed, as I mean, as anyone
would be. But Seward, of course had been in Washington
for ten years, knew everybody, everybody respected him. He had
lines across the aisle. So Douglas worked, Stephen Douglas worked
very well with him. Jefferson Davis was a personal friend
of William Henry Seward's. All these people could work with them,
All he was working with all these unionists in the
Upper South who kept telling him, please.
Speaker 2: Don't try to resupply Sumpter. That's like a trigger, that.
Speaker 3: The hair trigger that if you do that, we won't
be able to hold off the fire eaters.
Speaker 1: Was that the main reason why he didn't become president,
because the thing is is that, I mean, I can
understand today you can say one wrong thing on social
media and you're going down and it's like there's something
the needle in the haystack here is is that what happened?
And why the succession of the winter between November of
eighteen sixty to April of sixty one. You sit there
and you go, there is something for all of us
to learn here. I'm going to find out what it is.
And you took the chance to really bravely step forward
with information here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me answer your question. Then it goes.
It does have some time in this to what we're
doing today.
Speaker 3: So Seward was one of the very few Northern politicians
who openly embraced immigration.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so when he was governor of.
Speaker 3: New York, he actually took affirmative steps to welcome Irish
immigrants who came to New York and tried to help them,
especially with respect to parochial schools.
Speaker 2: Now, this.
Speaker 3: Whatever you call that, became a big problem in the
eighteen fifties when a nativist political party called the Know
Nothings became very, very very powerful. Ultimately, the No Nothings
merged with the Republicans, and at the eighteen sixty convention,
the No Nothings, who were particularly prominent in Pennsylvania, Indiana,
and Illinois, didn't want Seward, and interestingly, Lincoln, although privately
he told people he didn't believe in prejudice against people
who were Catholic and from foreign countries, he wouldn't take
that position publicly because he had many friends in the
No Nothing movement and he was more interested in.
Speaker 2: Merging them into the Republicans that he wasn't making them angry.
Speaker 3: So Seward did not become president because he was more
open to immigration and was more tolerant of religion and
religious diversity than Lincoln was.
Speaker 2: And that's why Lincoln got the nomination and Seward did not.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with c Evan Stewart
coming up next. The name of the book William Henry
Sewart Quest to Save the nation. We are back with
c Evan Stewart. Have you taken the time to sit
down with Bill Cunningham, that national syndicated talk show host,
because everything that you're sharing is something that my god.
The way that he does the research as well for
this period, it's almost like you guys are our brothers
from different mothers. Because I just love this side of history,
because you're giving us a clearer picture of so many
different things that took place then as well as everything
that followed.
Speaker 3: So I have not sat down with mister Cunningham, but
people don't like to Americans don't like to talk about
difficult periods in our past, right, and the fact that
here you had this very powerful strain in our country
that went on for a long period of time. I
mean remember when nol you know, you and I weren't
alive then. But when Al Smith ran for president in
nineteen twenty eight, he got absolutely slack because he was Catholic. Yeah,
there's there's been a very strong strain in our country
for a long period of time.
Speaker 2: It really it really ended when Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 3: Was elected president, although a lot of people voted against
him because he was Catholic, but as soon as he
became president, this spear of caol have vanished like overnight.
But up until that time, this was very powerful strain
in American politics. And this is why I mean it's
I point this out in the book. There's no doubt
about it that Lincoln won that nomin over Seward because
those three states, those people perceived that he was more
likely to get know nothing support than Seward was.
Speaker 2: And so that was that was the key to the nomination.
Speaker 1: I got to give you. And you're probably sharing kudos
and its, and it's because I think that you guys
are so tapped into where we are as people who
love content. The way that you were able to put
the notes at the end of the chapters that is
so important to me as a reader because that means
I don't have to put the book down to go
search forward on chat GPT, and you really did your
homework to know exactly that You've given us so much information.
Now we want to have a little bit more, and
you provide that.
Speaker 3: So I was inspired to do that that way by
Lincoln's greatest biographer, a guy named David Donald, who was
a wonderful Harvard professor and wrote the one best single
volume biography of Lincoln. Uh. There's another two volume biography
of Lincoln that I spent a lot in the book.
Also a guy named Michael Burling Game, which is quite good,
although he doesn't like Seward and his his end notes
are a little harder to decipher for the average reader.
But Donald did, and I've tried to emulate that somewhat,
is tell a story in the text, uh sufficiently uh
detailed that people get what's the general point, And then
as you say not, you don't have to go to
the end of the book. Just a couple of pages
later there's a detailed explanation, not just of more details
but debates among historians about what actually happened or so.
For example, there's a huge debate which I talk about
a lot, but in the end notes, why did Lincoln
make this decision when he knew the South was going
to fire.
Speaker 2: On Fort Sumter and would cause this Civil War? Why
did he do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And there are basically three different camps that.
Speaker 2: Don't agree with one another.
Speaker 3: And Lincoln, of course never wrote his memoirs because he
was assassinated. But no one really knows why Lincoln did that,
other than the fact, as I say, it's indisputable. He
was very confused and wasn't sure exactly what he was doing,
and clearly was not listening to a very good advisors
at that point, because include Seward out.
Speaker 2: But so.
Speaker 3: That's one example where you can go into the end
notes when you're saying I think it's a logical point.
If you're reading the text, you might say, jeez, why
did Lincoln do this when he knew it was going
to cause the Civil War? There's a footnote that then
takes you to say, there are three different schools of
thought among historians for the last hundred years who studied
this made that to their life studies.
Speaker 2: Why did Lincoln do this?
Speaker 3: And no one really knows, but here are three general
schools of why he did this, And as with most
things in history, the answer is probably some element of
all three. It wasn't probably just one thing. Most politicians
never do anything for one reason.
Speaker 2: They do things and and good that's a good thing.
I mean, Franklin.
Speaker 3: Roosevelt usually did things for ten different reasons, right, and
that was part of his genius.
Speaker 2: It made people who worked for him to want to
tear their hair out. They couldn't figure out what the
boss really was meant or why he was doing it.
Speaker 3: But that was fine. Roseld said. The only fun who
needs to know why I'm doing what I'm doing is me.
You people don't need to know that.
Speaker 2: And so Lincoln was sort of the same way. I
mean Lincoln at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: Although Seward became his closest advisor on the cabinet level,
it just shows you how different a world it was.
He really only had two aids in the White House,
which is which is sort of hard to believe to
think you're running the country.
Speaker 2: It was a different country then.
Speaker 3: Obviously, but during a Civil War, when you really have
two aids in the White House helping you, that was it.
And they were very young men, so and it was
a very different era. And so the one thing I
I like about Spielberg's movie about Lincoln, about the only thing.
Speaker 2: I like about it is.
Speaker 3: It reflects how closely Seward and Lincoln worked together.
Speaker 2: That's about the aud heard that.
Speaker 1: I heard that.
Speaker 2: That's about the only thing in that movie that's accurate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, But is there is there
a part of your journalistic studies and and your desire
to know history to go into why did he go
into seclusion? Uh? For for when when South Carolina decided
to break away? Because that it seems to be one
of those moments that I would bring up in a debate.
Why did you go into hiding? What was the purpose?
And I'm still wanting to know why was there seclusion?
Speaker 2: Run into seclusion?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I mean it's it's like I guess
when when I see that, it's like, Okay, you turned
your back, you backed in. What's going on? Why Why
were you hiding when this was going on? You don't
know what I mean, It's it's like, okay, because we all
go into hiding for some reason. I just want to
know the better man, the better the better picture of
such a decision.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't completely go into hiding.
Speaker 3: Again, he was still being deluded people speaking jobs at
that point, and uh, he was still meeting with Spert
and others. In fact, he kept meeting with people from
the Upper South literally until the cannon shots were fired
at some good Yeah. But yeah, so give you example,
how do we, oh, there's a little contrary to point.
How do we know that he knew that war was
coming and that he that he what he was was
going to bring war. Well a day or two he
authorized the ships to leave York to go to someone.
So they're they're already on the going down the Atlantic
coast to go there. He calls together leading go from
the Northern States who are Republicans, and he says, several
wars come, and first the first thing the South is
going to do is march. Can I count you, gentlemen
to supply troops to the capital.
Speaker 2: So that that.
Speaker 3: Education of his mind, he knows that this decision is
going to cause this, He knows the likely result, which
is the South uh from the troops moving.
Speaker 2: And the northern governor are they able to bring.
Speaker 3: Troops to bear on the ground in Washington with the
day and they assure him that they can.
Speaker 2: So this this is all no surprised that Lincoln when
the everything sort of falls apart. I think the biggest
point in the book is that link and called for
the Northern.
Speaker 3: States publicly to supply seventy troops. It was sort of
like Pearl Harbor. There was a unified country at least
in the north because of the South had fire first,
and so there was this outrage against the traders a
secession was firing on a federal fort and.
Speaker 2: The relative unity. For example, New York.
Speaker 3: State was very much a democratic city, and they did
not they did not want the war.
Speaker 2: They wanted the South to go peacefully.
Speaker 3: Yes, because of their commercial ties with cotton and other commodities.
Speaker 2: But city flipped overnight. And again it was very much
like Harbor.
Speaker 3: It was very united for that they were going to
take people in the South a lesson and a brief
and glorious encounter with this would result in teaching them
all less than the thing would be fun. Of course,
four years later seven hundred said, wasn't quite so brief
and wonderful an encounter.
Speaker 2: But both sides. Both sides thought that the war would
be very brief, and each would and both were terribly wrong.
Speaker 1: Wow, you have got to come back to this show
anytime in the future. I love your passion for history.
We need history. It's everything that I really try to
put my shoes into. Is that. Just step into the
history and start learning about today, because tomorrow can't happen
without people like yourself.
Speaker 3: Sir, Well, you're very kind of saying that I'd love
to come back, have some time for me.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you
because you talk about your history and how you've written
so much. I really want them to know who you
are and why you do what you do.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: This this is my fourth book. The first book is
about a wonderful man named Myron Taylor, which is entitled
The mand Nobody Knew. He's completely one of the most
important people of the twentieth century. We you and I
German today if it weren't for mister Taylor, just.
Speaker 2: Consequentially he was.
Speaker 3: The second book I wrote is a book called the
Worst Supreme Court Dissions Ever, which for many people but
timely time they ring it. The third book book called
Law in American History Mine, and that's looking at important
episodes where law and American history. For example, you think
you know what jo j simple, actually don't. I'm the
first person who's actually written.
Speaker 2: About the chap equity.
Speaker 3: But the sixty nine from a trial lawyer's standpoint, if
you want to know actual who killed Jack Kennedy? Why
the answers in my book Algier hisss very important trader
in our history.
Speaker 2: Did he get justice or was he railroaded? That's the
answer in that book.
Speaker 3: So those are sort of again stories that are really
well known or are miss mistold. I mean, the amount
of misinformation the public about the Kennedy assassination is just astonishing,
how many lies and mysbruser out there about that. As
I said, the next book, which I'm just finishing, but Johnston.
Speaker 2: Fascinating.
Speaker 3: And then my next next book after is about George Patton,
and that's a different story not been written about, which
is that patent, This idiosyncratic, brilliant military genius literally spent
his entire career at war with the US military because
he was a pretty difficult guy to get along with. IM. Yeah,
here Fremadonna type in the most bureaucratic structure that's ever existed,
the US Army, and I'm going to be looking at
his relate. It's a book talking about his career based
upon his relationship with Eisenhower, George Marshall, all these people,
and how he had Bob and Wee and overcome some
unfairness but partly his own problems to emerge as the
guy who helped US win World War two in Europe.
Speaker 1: Wow, I can't wait to talk to you about those books.
So you've got to come back to this show now, now,
that you've me up. Now we have to have a
payoff when those books are ready to rock.
Speaker 2: I'm ready. Whenever you say.
Speaker 1: Excellent, will you be brilliant today? Okay sir?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, thanks so much for your time. This has
been fun.