Dr. Jonathan White - A House Built by Slaves

Jonathan W. White is a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University.  He is the author or editor of 13 books, including Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (2014), which was a finalist for both the Lincoln Prize and Jefferson Davis Prize, a “best book” in Civil War Monitor, and the winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize. He serves as vice-chair of The Lincoln Forum, and on the boards of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and the Ford’s Theatre Advisory Council.  His most recent books include Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War (2017), which was selected as a “best book” by Civil War Monitor; and “Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War (2018), which he co-authored with Anna Gibson Holloway.  In October 2021 he published To Address You As My Friend: African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln with UNC Press and My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss with UVA Press. His most recent book is A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House.

About The Title Of This Episode

• “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn...” - First Lady, Michelle Obama at the DNC

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• Book: A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House by Jon White
• Article: Meet the Black Men Who Changed Lincoln’s Mind About Equal Rights by Jon White
• Website: http://www.jonathanwhite.org/

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Transcript

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate 

Scott Allen  0:01  
Okay, everyone, welcome to the Phronesis Podcast. Today. I have Dr. Jonathan white. He's a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University. He is the author or editor of 13 books, including Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (2014), which was a finalist for both the Lincoln Prize and Jefferson Davis Prize, a “best book” in Civil War Monitor, and the winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize. He serves as vice chair of The Lincoln Forum, and on the boards of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and the Ford’s Theatre Advisory Council.  His most recent books include Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War (2017), which was selected as a “best book” by Civil War Monitor; and “Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War (2018), which he co-authored with Anna Gibson Holloway.  In October 2021 he published To Address You As My Friend: African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln with UNC Press and My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss with UVA Press. His most recent book is A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House. Sir, I'm sensing a theme! I'm kind of gathering a theme in your work. And I'm really excited for this conversation, because, boy, I'm going to the source here as far as an expert on this gentleman named Abraham Lincoln. And I think, Jonathan, before we jump in, what are some of the things we can share with listeners about you?

Jon White  1:55  
Yes, so I teach at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, where we have a very vibrant leadership program that I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with. I'm in the department of leadership in American Studies. And so we are two different wings of one department. So I've got a lot of colleagues and Leadership Studies, and then I teach the American Studies side of things. But there is some overlap, not only do we share the glories of department meetings, but our core class American Studies, 100 counts as an elective for the Leadership Studies major and minor. And that class is one that looks at America's founding principles in history, and how have different leaders over time are reformers over time, thought about, and reinterpreted America's founding principles. The idea of that class being in the Leadership Studies Program is that if you're going to be a leader in the United States, you should have a good grounding in what the US stands for.

Scott Allen  2:52  
Yeah, well, that's wonderful. Let's dive into this. First, I want to kind of talk about Abraham Lincoln in general. And then we will move into this specific book that you have just released. And for listeners, all of these that I just referenced, all of these resources are going to be listed in the show notes. What are some things is kind of a foundational piece of knowledge that maybe people should know about Abraham Lincoln.

Jon White  3:20  
So in this American Studies, 100 class every year on the first day of class, I do what SNL would call a cold open, I go in on the first day, I don't introduce myself or anything, and I just start talking and for 45 minutes, I do a lecture on the early life of Abraham Lincoln. So I tell a little bit about his parents' background, the hardscrabble beginnings they had I tell about how he was born in a log cabin, I tell stories about how he almost died on a number of occasions, I talked about his education, he used one word to describe his education. And that word was defective. I mean, Lincoln, came out of nowhere, he was born in the wilds of Kentucky, very small education. But he worked hard and was able to rise through life to become, I think, our nation's greatest president and our nation's greatest leader. And so I bring students through his early life from his birth, I talked about his love life, how the love of his life died in the 1830s. And he may have visited a prostitute afterward and just tell all these different stories. And then I put up a picture of the Lincoln Memorial. And I say to the students when you think about Lincoln, if you think about him at all, you probably only really think of an icon, this giant marble man, he's not a real person. And what I hope is that doing this 45-minute lecture, lets them see that he really was a real human being who overcame incredible obstacles, who suffered heartache who made bad decisions, who lost a parent who lost a little Brother, I mean, he lived life and he lived a hard life. And yet he overcame it. And so I bring them up to the point about 1838 In this lecture, and then I say to them, you're going to be reading a speech that Lincoln gave in 1838, for the next class. And I don't want you to just think about it as words on a page, but you now know where he was in his life at this point. And I hope that it makes him more realistic to them as a person and as a leader than just this sort of distant figure who it's hard to see as attainable. Well, you

Scott Allen  5:35  
even shared some things that I'd never heard of, even in this little three-minute summary of that 45-minute lecture. Anything else that you want to underscore about this gentleman for listeners, as we kind of move forward some things that really stand out for you or kind of fascinated you about his life?

Jon White  5:51  
I've always been just utterly fascinated by his push to make himself better. You know, his father was not educated. His mother dies at an early age, there are some books in his home, but not many. But he did everything he could to learn. And that was a lifelong process. And so, you know, as an adult, he decides, I'm going to read Euclid, and he reads Euclidean geometry because he wants to learn how to think more critically and logically. And he believes that Euclid will do that for him. At the same time, there were some things that he just never overcame. And he was a terrible speller for his whole life. Even as president, there was one instance where he was in the White House, and he doesn't know how to spell the word missile. And he says, Does anyone here know how to spell the word missile? 

Scott Allen  6:42  
And there is no spellcheck back that No.

Jon White  6:46  
No Grammarly. And so I hope that that sort of thing can be inspiring to my students, where when they struggle with things they can know that a great leader like Lincoln did too!

Scott Allen  6:57  
as you mentioned, an individual who is not perfect is an individual who is in the process himself. And where we're going to take this conversation is really about some of these African Americans who, who really had an influence on his perspective, about equal rights. And that's where we're going to head but maybe take us through his evolution as an individual across history on that topic, because you have a person who is embedded in a culture that has certain norms, toxic horrible norms, in many ways, in other ways, maybe not. But in the topic of equal rights for sure. Talk about his evolution, his progression in some of these spaces. 

Jon White  7:45  
Lincoln always believed for as long as he could remember that slavery was wrong. That said, in his early life, he was not supportive of equal rights for African Americans. He was not supportive of political rights for African Americans. In the 1830s and 40s. He made public statements opposing black voting rights. And while he believed slavery was wrong, and he took an anti-slavery political position, hoping that slavery would be destroyed, he was not an abolitionist. And the distinction is that an abolitionist has a moral fervor to do anything that can be done to abolish slavery everywhere in the United States, okay. And that is not Lincoln for most of his life. Now, that said, Lincoln believe firmly in the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And when the declaration says all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Lincoln believes that that means what it says, and it is not even just all men, but all people of all colors everywhere. Does this against gender? Yes, absolutely. And one of the speeches I assign in a number of my classes is a speech that Lincoln gave in response to the Dred Scott decision. So that very infamous 1857 Supreme Court case says that African Americans are not citizens, and they have no rights that white people are bound to respect. And Lincoln gave a speech on June 26, 1857, where he talks about the meaning of the Constitution and the meaning of the declaration. And twice in that speech, he uses black women as examples to say that they deserve those natural rights in the Declaration of Independence. And that had to be really jarring for a white male audience in Illinois at that time. In Illinois. Black people had no political rights. They couldn't vote serve on juries, serve the militia to testify against white people in court. And yet in that speech, Lincoln looks at the audience and says in her natural right to eat the bread she earns, with her own two hands. She has my equal And the equal of all others. And so he is very enlightened for his time. He's not a 21st century American, but in that era, he is pushing people to try to understand, we live in a nation that has certain principles. Let's live up to those principles.

Scott Allen  10:17  
Tell me a couple of other stories about his evolution prior to where we're going in this book, this most recent book.

Jon White  10:24  
In 1837, Lincoln takes a really firm stand, there was a debate going on about ending slavery in Congress and southerners were really angry about the rise of abolitionism. And the Illinois State Legislature passed a resolution condemning abolitionists and condemning the idea of ending slavery in DC. Now, Lincoln filed a protest, and he could only get one other person in the legislature to join him in the protest, and that guy was willing to sign off on it because he wasn't running for reelection. So it was easy to take easier to take a controversial position. Lincoln took a controversial position saying that slavery was a bad policy. But he also in that resolution criticized abolitionists as being part of the problem. They're too radical in their push, and they're actually hurting the cause of anti-slavery. That will be Lincoln's position until the Civil War. And he actually wrote a little campaign document in 1860, where he said, My position is the same now as it was in 1837 when I filed that protest, but the war is going to change Lincoln's views and cause him to he's going to keep taking an anti-slavery position. But he's going to make it a stronger position, and he's going to with power now fight directly against slavery in ways that in earlier years, I don't think he would have thought he could have

Scott Allen  11:53  
hmm. And he said something he now he's got some formal authority. Let's talk a little bit about the most recent book, a house built by slaves, African American visitors to the Lincoln White House. And you actually took the title of this from a speech given by Mrs. Obama.

Jon White  12:10  
Yes, at the 2016 DNC. In her speech, she had a short excerpt where she talked about the evolution of race relations in American society. And she talked about slavery to civil rights. And then at the end of that narrative, she said, so that every morning I wake up in a house that was built by slaves, and I thought that was such a powerful description of the racial transformation that had taken place, from the origins of the White House in the late 1790s and early 1800s, when it is being built, in part by enslaved hands to the 21st century when President Obama and Mrs. Obama are occupying a house that had been built by slaves. But one of the things that's often forgotten is that there are other moments of racial transformation. So in this book, I uncover how there is a brief period between 1862 and 65, during the Lincoln presidency, when the kind of racial transformation First Lady Obama was talking about, is also taking place in a really remarkable way, unfortunately, and we can talk about this, unfortunately, that transformation is going to be short-lived. But it is a really important moment during the Lincoln presidency.

Scott Allen  13:24  
Let's talk about that. Go for it.

Jon White  13:26  
So prior to the Civil War, African Americans were more likely to be bought and sold as slaves by sitting presidents than to be welcomed as guests at the White House, James K. Polk in the 1840s, when he was president bought and sold at least 19 human beings. And in my research, I was able to find not quite a half dozen African Americans who were welcomed by as presidential guests during those 60 years between 1800 When John Adams moves into the White House in 1861, when Lincoln does, that changes dramatically, beginning as early as April of 1862, African Americans begin coming to the White House to push Lincoln on issues. Now one of the things that I think listeners need to understand is that the White House is very different now than it was then.

Yeah, he had like office hours. He did. That's right. If you were I wanted to go to the White House today and meet with President Biden, we wouldn't get very far. But in those days, yeah, the President had office hours just like we do his college professors. And anyone who wanted to could go in and meet with the President and talk about just about anything they wanted to I mean, the access was remarkable. And 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of white Americans do that in 1861. And throughout the war, beginning in April of 62. African Americans say You know what, we're gonna we are citizens. We have a First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Lincoln is our president. This is our people's house. We're going to claim this action as well

Scott Allen  15:00  
talk about some of these individuals that visit the White House that help transform President Lincoln's perspectives.

Jon White  15:09  
Some of the visitors who do this are famous, and some of them are people who were not well known then and are completely forgotten today. One of the earliest visitors was someone who became quite famous during the Civil War. His name was Robert Smalls. Robert Smalls was a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, who was working on a Confederate ship called the CSS Planter. And one night before dawn, in May of 1862. Smalls ceases this ship. And he and along with 15 other enslaved people, including his wife, his little children, and about a dozen others, sail the ship out of Charleston Harbor, and take it to the Union blockading vessels out on the high seas. And this was a really remarkable thing. I mean, Smalls had been working on the ship, so he knew all of the signals to give. So as he's leaving the port, he can signal the Confederates and he's wearing a captain's hat. And so people think, Oh, he must be the captain. So he makes it through the Confederate guards and then makes it out to the Union blockaders. And even there was a great danger because if they saw a Confederate ship coming, they might have fired on it, yes. But he acted with bravery leads his family and friends to freedom. And because of this, he becomes a hero in the north, which takes place in May of 1862. In August of 62, he travels to Washington, DC, and one of his first acts is to give a speech at a black church in DC, before a biracial audience of 1200 people and I mean, imagine this guy coming out of bondage to becoming a national hero like this. After giving that speech, he went to the White House and met with Lincoln. Well, prior to this point, Lincoln had opposed arming black soldiers, he was afraid they would be cowardly on the battlefield. At one point, he said, if we put guns in their hands, they'll very quickly wind up in the Confederates' hands. But Robert Smalls met with Lincoln at the White House. And we don't know exactly what they said to each other. But we have to imagine that Lincoln said, Tell me about your escape and that smalls told him, and hearing about this man who acted bravely and fought for freedom, I think had a profound impact on Lincoln's thinking. And smalls returned to Beaufort, South Carolina carrying a letter from the War Department that authorized the recruitment of black volunteers. And for those who don't know, Smalls would go on to serve in Congress for 10 years after the Civil War. I mean, he rises to become one of the most important black leaders in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. So he's one example of someone who I think had a great impact on Lincoln's thinking, How about others, one of the most famous visitors Lincoln had was Frederick Douglass. So Frederick Douglass was one of Lincoln's greatest critics during the Civil War. And we often forget this when Lincoln was inaugurated, Lincoln said the Constitution protects slavery, and I'm going to allow it to be protected where it exists. And I'm going to enforce the fugitive slave law because it's the law. And Frederick Douglass read Lincoln's first inaugural address and was just livid. He called Lincoln abolition isms worst enemy and the South's greatest slave hound, not quite what we normally think of for Abraham Lincoln. Now after Black soldiers begin enlisting in the Union Army in late 1862 and early 1863. There are some problems that arise. One of the first problems is that black soldiers do not get equal pay, they enlist thinking they're going to get paid $13 A month like white soldiers. Instead, they only get paid $10 A month as laborers. And not only that, the government deducts another $3 for a clothing allowance. So they expect to be getting paid seven or $13 a month, and instead, they're getting seven. And the other problem is that Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President has said that if black soldiers are captured on the battlefield, they will either be executed as slaves in an insurrection or auctioned off as slaves and even if they've been born free in the north, so Douglas is furious that Lincoln is not giving black soldiers equal pay. And he doesn't think Lincoln is doing enough to help protect black soldiers. And so in August of 1863, Douglas goes to the White House and meets with Lincoln, completely uninvited, just shows up, presents his card and has a meeting and he pushes Lincoln on these issues. And Lincoln give some answers. Lincoln says, you know, black people are gaining freedom and that has value. And so you know, there's so much white prejudice, if I were to try to give equal pay that that would lead to a major backlash. And so you've got to consider freedom as part of the value that African Americans are getting Lincoln does also pledge to retaliate all against Confederates who committed atrocities. Although Lincoln has a very real problem with this, in that he doesn't think that people should be punished for the crime of another. And so from Lincoln's perspective, if you can capture the people who murder black soldiers then they should be punished for it, but he has a hard time with retaliating against, you know, Confederate POWs who are sitting in a prison camp somewhere. Douglass walks away from this meeting with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he's not fully satisfied with Lincoln's decisions on these issues. On the other hand, Lincoln has treated him like a man Lincoln has treated him as an equal as a guest. Douglas told an audience he said, I felt big there. And he said Lincoln made no mention of the color of my skin and Lincoln didn't talk down to him. The two men would meet again for another private interview the following year, it's August of 1864. The Civil War is going very badly for the Union at that point, Ulysses S. Grant is stuck outside of Petersburg, Virginia, unable to capture Richmond, William Tecumseh Sherman is stuck outside of Atlanta. And Lincoln is convinced that because northern morale is so low, he's gonna lose reelection. This time he calls Frederick Douglass to the White House, he invites him for a meeting. And Douglas comes to the White House, and they sit down together. And Lincoln says to him, something like the slaves is not running away as quickly as I'd hoped after I issued the Emancipation Proclamation, I'm going to lose reelection. And the problem is, once Lincoln is out of office, the next president will rescind the Emancipation Proclamation, and slaves will lose their golden opportunity to become free. And so Lincoln and Douglas sit down together in the White House and concoct a plan where they will send bands of scouts into the Confederacy basically shouting from the rooftops to the slaves, runaway now get free while you can, before Lincoln's out of office. Well, now, Douglas was so moved by this, because when we think about Lincoln, as a political leader and a constitutional leader, his justification for emancipation was I'm doing this as a military necessity. I'm doing it to save the Union and to win the war. There's no morality in it there. But in this meeting with Douglas, what Douglas came to realize was that Lincoln's heart was fully in freeing slaves, freeing the slaves in this way, before Lincoln is out of office has nothing to do with military necessity, nothing to do with winning the war, everything to do with spreading freedom. And Douglas has his view of Lincoln transformed by this meeting, he said that he saw that Lincoln had a greater passion for freeing the slaves at this moment than he had ever seen before. And Douglas for the rest of his life would have an incredible love and admiration for Lincoln. Hmm.

Scott Allen  22:53  
Talk a little bit about Lincoln's lack of evolution on some topics. Were there any instances where he never quite came around, quote, unquote, on any issues that stand out for you,

Jon White  23:07  
Lincoln, again, as a man of his times, and so there are a lot of issues today that we would say he is, he never caught up to us. But at the same time, we couldn't expect him to, on some of the issues. He was maybe slower than we'd wish. But he certainly over time, came to take positions that I think most of us would be glad that he took. And so one of them that I would think of is voting rights for African Americans. So one of the things we often don't realize today is that black men could vote in a majority of the states at the very beginning of our national history between 1776 and 1787. Most restrictions on voting rights have to do with how much property you own. And most states in that very early period did not have restrictions on account of race. And so black men vote in most states very early in our nation's national history. Well, that right to vote is taken away in Jacksonian America in the 1820s and 30s. By the time you get to the Civil War, very few states allow black men to vote. And I mentioned earlier that Lincoln very publicly in the 1830s and 40s had opposed black suffrage. Well, in the spring of 1864, three different delegations of black southerners come to the White House and they push Lincoln to vote or to support black suffrage, black voting rights. And in each of these meetings, Lincoln expresses sympathy and says you should have the right to vote. But he says, Look, the right to vote is controlled by the states. I as president don't have any power over this. In one of the meetings, the two delegates who came to meet with Lincoln were very wealthy elite Creoles, they are light-skinned African Americans. They have African French Spanish hair And they come to the White House. And they meet with Lincoln in March of 1864. And they present a petition that's been signed by 1000 people in New Orleans. And the argument they make is, we are wealthy, we are educated, we pay taxes, we should have the right to vote. And Lincoln sits down with these two men, and they talk about their petition. And Lincoln again, says, you know, I think you should have the right to vote. But unless you can tell me how it helps to win the war, I can't do anything as President. Well, these two men go away. And they come back later, right with a new petition. And this new petition says, essentially, giving black men the right to vote will be a way to protect democracy in this country. And in their first petition, they're calling for elite, wealthy African Americans to have the right to vote. Now they're saying, whether a person has light skin or dark skin born slave or free, they should have the right to vote. Why? Because when the Civil War is over, there's going to be a political process of reconstruction and reunification. And there's a huge white population in the south, that has been treasonous. For the last three years, there is a large black population in the South that has been fully loyal. And if you want to protect the republican government, the best way to do that is by giving black many voices in that government. And Lincoln is moved by this. And the very next day, he sends a letter to the governor-elect of Louisiana, a guy named Michael Hahn, where he says that hon should consider giving black men the right to vote as Louisiana is reconstructing itself, he says, because in some trying time to come, them voting, he says may protect the jewel of liberty and keep it in the family of freedom. And so you know, here's a, here's an opportunity that Lincoln has, where he is the leader of the nation, listening to people interacting with them, learning from them, they're listening to him, they're changing their arguments that then changes Lincoln's argument. Now, some people started pushing Lincoln very early, you got to support black suffrage in public. And Lincoln knew it politically. He just couldn't do that at that point in the war. But he begins working through the behind-the-scenes to support black suffrage. Finally, a year later on April 11, 1865, Lincoln comes out publicly for the first time that a sitting president advocates for black voting rights. He gives a speech outside of the White House, saying that educated African American men and those who have served gallantly on the battlefield should have the right to vote. Standing in the audience at night is a guy named John Wilkes Booth. And booth says that means and word citizenship, that'll be the last speech he ever gives by God, I'll put him through. And of course, we all know the outcome A few days later, Booth shoots and kills Abraham Lincoln. Why? Because Lincoln publicly advocated for black suffrage at the very end of his life. So I think you know, there it that's a very long way of getting to your question. There are some things that people at the time wish Lincoln had advocated for black suffrage earlier. But he did come around and he died in a very, very real way he died because of the political position, he took on black voting rights. And in the aftermath of his assassination, his private letter about keeping the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom becomes public, it gets published. And black reformers and supporters of black suffrage are going to quote that and say, Look, Lincoln is a martyr, he died, he supported our right to vote, we should get the right to vote.

Scott Allen  28:41  
Hmm. Well, you have done just a beautiful job of helping listeners understand what they can expect to learn in this latest book, a house built by slaves, and I think it's, it's, it's awe-inspiring, sir. For listeners, he's just going ahead and some of these quotes, they're just at the top of his head in letters that were written in the 1860s or 30s. Or I mean, I want to switch gears a little bit into your passion for this topic. Where did it Where does it come from? Jonathan, what was the source of because you've spent your career studying this, and of course, other topics, but my gosh...

Jon White  29:28  
It's a great question. I've always loved history. I grew up in a farmhouse from the 1720s, outside of Philadelphia, and it was on a large property that we rented. And when I was a kid, I used to go into the woods behind the house and I just found the old trash pits and I dug up old stuff. And I think that that sort of hands-on history is what started my interest in history as a whole. I went to Penn State for my undergraduate degree. And I started as a business major because I wanted to make A lot of money, and I still would like to make a lot of money. So please go order the book, everyone. But I took a class my first semester of college, it was one of these, you know, large 250 lecture classes where you put your social security number on the exams, so they could identify you. And but I was just so captivated that I thought, This is what I want to do. I want to teach and be a college professor. And, and so I changed paths. Right then I called my parents and they were very upset about this decision at the time. They're very proud of me now. But you know, the prospects for getting a job in academia are very hard. And, and so they knew the risks that I'd be facing. But I thought, my heart is in this and I was willing to take that risk. I have always loved the Civil War. I think I became a Lincoln guy after I got to see in you my first year here, I wrote a book called Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War, which looks at how did Lincoln deal with political dissent and arrested Copperhead dissenters, people who opposed the war effort and southern sympathizers. And I think it was writing that book on Lincoln that really brought me into the Lincoln fraternity and made me a Lincoln guy.

Scott Allen  31:16  
Yeah. Wow. Well, as we close down and wind down for today, Jonathan, can you share one or two things that have caught your eye in recent months, maybe something you've been listening to maybe something you've been reading, watching? It may have something to do with what we've discussed today? It may not. But what's caught your attention in recent months?

Jon White  31:39  
Well, for the last six or eight months, I've been the chair of a book prize called the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. It's a $50,000 book prize, it's given to the best book on Lincoln or the Civil War era. And we got a stack of about 110 or 120 books that I had to plow through with my fellow jurors. And it's been a really difficult but wonderful experience to have this massive stack of books and just see what's going on in the civil war field. And in the Lincoln field. I've read a lot of wonderful books, some of my favorites, there's a book by a guy named James Oakes of the City University of New York that traces Lincoln and his thinking on the Constitution as an anti-slavery document, which just completely transformed the way I thought about Lincoln in the Constitution. And so even here, you know, I'm, I've been studying Lincoln a long time. And I'm finding, I think new things to say about him and a lot of other really good scholars are as well. So I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Civil War, because of this prize service that I've been doing.

Scott Allen  32:46  
Well, it's a great way to institutionalize your own learning, right? I mean, it's kind of like this podcast, I've learned in the last hour that we've been together 45 minutes, half-hour, I've learned. And I love the fact that you are continuing to engage in that work because it really is just absolutely impressive, Jonathan, your command of this space and your understanding of that historical context, and helping others inspiring others, just your passion for this topic. I am confident that the students who are in your courses at CNU, are, there are some sparks flying there as well about their future because Thank you. It's very, very admirable. I am thankful for you being here. Today, I'm going to put a link to everything that we've discussed, not everything, but the major components in the show notes, so that everyone can access that. And any other information that you want to share how people can get in touch with you,

Jon White  33:45  
people can reach out to me my email addresses on the CNU leadership and American Studies website. I'm on Twitter @civilwarjon and I should say it's J-O-N not with an H.

Scott Allen  33:58  
That's a different Civil War John!

Jon White  34:00  
That's right. There is another guy out there. I don't know who he is, though. And then I have a website, www.jonathanwhite.org, if people are interested to see more about my research, or the lectures I've given in public or the books I've written.

Scott Allen  34:13  
Great. Great. Well, thank you for the good work. You do, sir.  Thank you very, very much for stopping by today. 

Jon White  34:18  
Thank you. 

Scott Allen  34:19  
Okay, be well.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai