"the war continues after the battle's end this is something that's hard for Americans to understand our system is built with the presumption when War is Over when we signed a piece of paper everyone ca..."

"our institutions I believe if you love your country you want to encourage your institutions to get better and better I love my University where I work but I want it to be better we have many flaws I l..."

"what we have to recognize is that our institutions are necessary there's a reason government exists there's a reason uh our Union was created that's what Abraham Lincoln was heroically fighting for uh..."

"for both from a history perspective sure so historically there has uh always been an urge to burn down the institutions and start again start with a blank slate uh the historical record is that almost..."

"record now what we have to be careful about is as we're working through institutions not to become bought into them not to become of those institutions so what I've written about in this book and in o..."

"it takes a special kind of human being as opposed to being a anti-establishment on everything which also gets a lot of uh attention but being just enough anti-establishment to figure out ideas how to ..."

"how do you get there I think you get there by having a historical perspective always knowing that no matter what moment you're in and no matter what room you're in with really smart people there are a..."

"have folks on their side like that they can really trust as a fellow human being to challenge them that's a very difficult role to be in and because in these battles you kind of have a tribe and you h..."

"they're just telling a story and it gets in there right that's right that's right when we look at what zielinski has done in Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion and I know you you were there o..."

"to leave we're staying because we care about Ukraine and the story of Courage I mean that's the story that you know babies grow up seeing their parents as courageous right it's the most natural of all..."

"slavery to exist and of course that argument did exist but it wasn't it was an argue it was a war over over Freedom especially after 1863 into the second year of the war when Lincoln because of War pr..."

"how did the American Civil War start and why so the American Civil War starts because of our flawed institutions the founders uh had mixed views of slavery but they wanted a system that would eventual..."

"so who was on each side the union Confederates what are we talking about what are the states how many people uh what's like the the demographics and the Dynamics of of each side the union side is much..."

"and what about the military who are the people that picked out guns what are the numbers there so the the union also outnumbered a Confederate by far but it's a really interesting question because the..."

"but suffice it to say the Union Army throughout the war is often three times the size of the Confederate Army what's the relationship between this uh no conscription and people standing up to fight fo..."

"um and so Americans have have throughout their history been gun owners not AK-47 owners but gun owners and gun ownership has been for the purpose of community self-defense the question coming out of t..."

"mean my inclination would be to say that can work during war but you have to take the guns back after the war but they might be very upset when you try that's the problem no that's precisely the probl..."

"was the election of 1860 like that brought Lincoln to power so the election of 1860 uh was a very divisive election we have divisive contested elections from 1860 really until 1896. the 1860 election ..."

"what do you think he was throughout his life was there a deep because that takes quite a vision like you look at society today and you it takes quite a man to see that there's something deeply broken ..."

"and he famously said that uh if he could preserve the union and stop the spread of slavery by allowing slavery to stay in the South he would if he could do it by eliminating slavery in the South he wo..."

"ourselves you know for a long time we stopped using that verb to civilize I believe in Civilization I believe there's a civilizing role Lincoln spoke of that right so did Franklin Roosevelt the civili..."

"View Animal labor today and maybe in 50 years we'll see that as a contradiction but the notion among many Americans in the 17th 18th century and this would also be true for those in other societies wa..."

"documents of course is slavery and inequality and women's exclusion from voting and things of that sort uh but the real Brilliance of Abraham Lincoln is to build on the Brilliance of the founders and ..."

"for a certain wage you might not have a job but you decide you decide right you can see where that comes from his own background as a poor man right so freedom is control of your own labor second demo..."

"Founders coming out of the Enlightenment planted and and Lincoln carries them forward he gives us the 2.0 version of them so a few uh tangent questions about each of those so one on democracy um peopl..."

"the person in charge uh was serving a particular class it was that the person in charge the institutions were to serve Serve the People they adopted Republican tools to get there because they were fea..."

"kinds of voice and I think what we've learned as historians I think what the founders knew because they were very well read in the history of Rome and Greece was that democracy will always have unique..."

"so just the link on that topic is there if you do representative you said like you know democracy should not one failure mode is Mob rule so you should not descend into that not every issue should be ..."

"the people for the people means you are in some way accountable to the people and the problem with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union this was already evident before Stalin came into power is the..."

"uh because I I think that people should have the right to speak uh what what makes our democracy function is that there is always room for quite frankly people like you and me who uh like to disagree ..."

"it again I'm really sorry it's okay it never happened you know we get drunk so the people who don't know your your professor UT Austin is just it's nearby so sometimes I I get a little drunk and wande..."

"sense of how do you create a world where every voice is heard of the People by the people for the people that's not a that's a complicated technical problem when you have a Public Square how do you ha..."

"someone to speak to my students who is unqualified it's not a political judgment the rules at a university are where an educational institution you need to have the educational credentials to come spe..."

"country back just that no but then you know because I might say that I might say we need to take I say that all the time I go again I walk around drunk just screaming at everybody I know you wanted it..."

"scale of comments and posts and so on that are doing this kind of clearance I mean don't ask me those questions well I have to say some of that is motivation some of that is vision and some of that is..."

"so that we can create a place for like for Humanity to flourish through the process of conversation but it's just hard it's just really hard when you look at like millions of posts trillions of intera..."

"fight against these uh evils while still not succumbing to the sort of the political narratives of it oh that's tricky but you have to do that kind of and I think walk calmly through the fire because ..."

"it's extraordinary how many people died more than more than half a million and this was without a single automatic rifle without a single bomb it was mostly in hand-to-hand combat which is to say that..."

"did they hate the other side I think actually they were fighting out of fear what we what we know from Reading their letters what we know from the accounts is that yes their their ideas that are promo..."

"fighting and will commit enormous damage and that's why this happens it goes on for four years and just the extensive research you've done on this war for this book uh what are some some of the worst ..."

"has often at personal Peril because he was close to the lines and he connected it wasn't propaganda there weren't always reporters following him he was able to build empathy in this context and I thin..."

"what's Ulysses Grant's story what uh what do you learn from him was he a hero or a villain of this War I think he's a hero uh though he's a flawed hero as all heroes are um he's a man from Ohio and Il..."

"numbers and he just poundsly pounds him to death similar what the United States does at the end of World War II with Germany and Japan he comes out of the war Grant does he's a believer in Union he wa..."

"for what he was doing uh even though he was trying to do what in the end I think were the right things what was the role of the KKK at that time so the Ku Klux Klan is formed at the end of the Civil W..."

"ritualistic legitimacy and hide identity though everyone knew who they were oh so that that whole brand that whole practice was there from from have you studied the KKK it's history a little bit I hav..."

"closest relatives just retired from 25 years in the New York Police Department thank God he survived I have deep respects one of the best public servants I know but what we also have to recognize as w..."

"not there at all that there is not institutional racism or policing uh but if if that's the case then you can also say that if there is not direct institutional racism there what is it the Echoes of H..."

"something whatever um mostly for humor's sake but I'm also giving a a kind of metaphor that um history can have an individual and a large-scale society effect on on human interactions both the good an..."

"ideas but everybody knows and so now you're just exploring you're sitting across the table maybe not in his case um maybe somebody who's an active KKK member sitting across from a person that literall..."

"and he wanted to know what they thought so he could be prepared and I also see like perhaps as a historian you may be able to appreciate this kind of thing that's probably how you see the world but th..."

"sorts of figures I am not for the puff piece on Fox and Friends uh where they just come on and they're asked oh isn't it tell us what you think of this tell us what you think of that yeah so but there..."

"of course some journalists do do that and they do that masterfully and that's the best of Journalism but I think a lot of the times when the questions are as you said uh out of touch with the society ..."

"is as if at the end of World War II Hitler had been allowed to just retire and he didn't go back into politics but yet he was there and he continued to have meetings with former Nazis and people would..."

"something that's hard for Americans to understand our system is built with the presumption when War is Over when we sign a piece of paper everyone can go home that's not what happens I mean Civil War ..."

"it's not but we could change it we could fix that how do we fix that but how do how do we fix that what I think was argued at the end this is one of the really important things about studying history ..."

"back in office foreign how did the War end in quotes uh what was the so you said and you make this case in the book that in some sense the elements the tensions behind the Civil continue to this day b..."

"video I set up a whole thing where I record a video like what happens if I die I record a video to release I gave my uh brother access to my passwords to so that and I gave them instructions you're no..."

"of the other reasons why someone like Lincoln or certainly Henry Kissinger doesn't create a successor because you're afraid they're going to steal your passwords you're afraid they're gonna steal the ..."

"anything you care about if you wanted to live on and that's the problem but if you unless you can devise a technical solution like that you have to give someone power now yeah and that's the tricky th..."

"at the end of the Civil War and then we went backward more so than we would have if there had been a new election because if there had been a new election there still would be reason for that person r..."

"believe too much in the role of one man and not in creating a more balanced approach to governance and that's a function of War that's where war is dangerous War has an inherent centralizing power in ..."

"president let's say he wins somehow and a true Victory which is just hypothetical he should not be he should be praised maybe given a nice Villa um but someone else should take over because the proble..."

"or tripled because um Lincoln was was removed and the opposite came into Power with Andrew Johnson so you don't think there's a case you made the Andrew Johnson was turned out to be a bad decision but..."

"view uh but it created a really big problem and um there were people who said he should have removed Johnson as soon as he was elected and in retrospect he probably should have how gangster is that to..."

"what about the other kind of factual question of what what would have happened if Confederate States won the war the Confederate States had won the war you would have seen I think a separate country a..."

"Warfare in those areas from a counter factual history perspective can you make the case that secession would have been created a better world like if we're sitting today and do Back to the Future thin..."

"together or is it better to get a divorce I think in this case it was better to work through the problems not even working through them together it's better to work through the problems where one side..."

"I like how you take every question I ask and make it into a better question that's a deep I deeply appreciate it I'll ask every time I ask some ridiculous question and you go that's really interesting..."

"our country that's not about Glory I'm all for the greatness of our country but you become great by studying your failures as well as your successes and that's a real problem we have and I would love ..."

"there in recent years have been a kind of movement of highlighting some of the hypocrisy sort of highlighting the racism the fact that many of the finding fathers were slave owners that kind of thing ..."

"I've studied is a hypocrite I'm a hypocrite I think I'm a pretty good father luckily my son is an even better mother but uh uh the parts of me there I mean I often find myself telling our children to ..."

"on the hypocrisy side many of the people that participate in cancel culture and these kinds of movements that call everything as racist and so on sometimes they're highlighting uh properly the evils i..."

"is funded by it yep I think that's right I think to analyze ourselves and look honestly in the mirrors very hard I also think I make this point in actually all of my books um the real and it's an Eli ..."

"uh journey and you know what what's interesting to me uh and what I learned writing this book every book is a journey what I learned in this in the laboratory of this book right was a lot of those fig..."

"that yeah that's why I admire a boxer the horse I will work harder even if he gets sent to the slaughter by the evil pigs you're on Orwell today I love how much recently I mean uh animal farm is one o..."

"human being it's Transcendence I totally agree my understanding you would know better than I would is that it's now a best-selling book in Russia again 1984 yeah it's actually being downloaded more th..."

"constantly being repeated in his writing for John Wilkes Booth and many other uh people who were close to the southern part of the country and the Confederacy they believe the country should be a demo..."

"different from what we've seen in the 20th century for people who justify ethnic cleansing or genocide uh let's go to the you know the extreme example of Hitler again uh that we've talked about before..."

"and uh Christian nationalism is there an intersection between them I've heard these terms used oh separatism too right that um is there interesting distinction that permeated that history that's the l..."

"relatively new there are little pieces of that in our history but but many of those who are white supremacists even those in the Confederacy are not Christian nationalists because they don't agree on ..."

"familiar with him he uh he does uh live streaming debates with people it's very passionate I've heard of this my students have told me I'm not actually my students are always up on the most hip things..."

"those issues do you draw any parallels"

"those issues do you draw any parallels uh with our time and what are some key differences there's been contested elections uh Florida Florida with Al Gore and there's been just contest election after ..."

"we have this myth that our elections are peaceful no there's always violence involved in one way or another violence in either trying to prevent people from voting or violence and preventing people fr..."

"elections and provide protection for people uh we need to think about that a lot of people don't vote because they're afraid they don't want to take the time but they're also afraid that they're going..."

"one of our Great accomplishments has been to eliminate virtually all the fraud in our elections how have we done that by creating safeguards um it is very difficult all the evidence we have is that th..."

"uh one of the lessons we want to maybe learn from that is that doesn't actually have to be election fraud for either side to claim this election fraud it seems like it's more and more common and it se..."

"should simplify the system in Brazil they had a very close election and uh it's very hard for bolsonaro who lost that close election to claim there was fraud because there's a central Authority run by..."

"from from our keyboard thank you for from our keyboards billions of rubles billions of pennies pennies uh why can we move money safely and not vote in the same way yeah and at the same time so there's..."

"tweet or not you like it and so on um that too seems to be like a possibility for improvement well there's certainly a way to improve polling we could measure public opinion better we still pull as if..."

"Spectrum maybe you can push back on that can you make the case for either perspective on your own personality as a fan of yours that uh that you do lean left or you don't lean left I think it depends ..."

"I am a believer that there are certain areas where the federal government should play more of a role and there are other areas where things should be left to the localities and so sometimes that can c..."

"people as opposed to again throwing poop I just like saying poop all right oh I got a challenge for you given that you uh have been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump can you say one thing you like a..."

"better because there are too many people on the left and the right who think that the you know that we can't make things better we have to accept them as they are or they're getting worse uh I I think..."

"so assuming I'm a basic human psychology perspective and I I think he doesn't even care about his children I think he's just I think it's it's him I think he's gone into a rap and Holly might not alwa..."

"that'll probably be one of my I mean because I'm a sucker for great speeches and so for me that's definitely a thing that stands out for several reasons one in a time because we've been facing so many..."

"think what they are is they're mobilizing and you can mobilize people to the same mission with different points of view do you think Trump derangement syndrome is a medical condition um also is there ..."

"and the way we're bombarded and it's it's like it becomes a drug I mean they're people I know who hate Trump or Biden so much and just watch them it's not that they don't watch them it's that they do ..."

"it seems to bother you though doesn't it yeah I hate of any kind not towards me just the people because I I think about them and I I tend to think that most people are amazing human beings and that ha..."

"strength but in general I'm exaggerating here but because most of the time 99 of people are supportive on the Internet it's just something about the human psychology um really stands out to you when s..."

"easier to be a journalist like journalists do this well where they they don't have a empathy for the person they're just asking the hard questions uh so where were you at this time last night because ..."

"before and and these are not opinions of mine we have the documentary evidence we have the testimony from people about this we can differ over what you think of his presidency as a whole we can differ..."

"I was troubled by the way the Press covered it that they politicized the crap out of that um and not not just the Press but also Congress itself it just seemed like impeachment and all this that just ..."

"I had I had students one who works for Senator Romney for example who spent hours in a closet hearing people outside looking on her phone when is the president sending people to protect us so we can d..."

"I wonder how difficult it is to lose a presidential election it's happened so many times we know I understand that but it's uh especially when like what is it you know uh 80 million people vote for yo..."

"didn't have the right moral character and Bush did everything he could to help the next president get started well and they became good friends yeah George W bush if didn't love Obama that's considere..."

"they agree with Republicans on that but they want more more to be done about climate change they're they're in the middle on these issues and and I think giving them more more opportunity so what's th..."

"divisions who are in their 20s and teens rather than that's why we do our podcast that this is democracy Zachary and I do that my son and I because we're exactly that you will never hear an episode wh..."

"like for socialized health care you're gonna be like no no no no let's go full hammer and sickle yep I'm gonna wear red and then the same with the white supremacy or uh just a red pill this the way yo..."

"careful I think you and I agree on this um it's not that universities are free of bias the universities especially large universities whether it's UT MIT Yale whatever we're talking about right uh the..."

"struggle maybe the public criticism is the very mechanism that makes universities the administration smaller absolutely we have we have those issues and off you can also say Athletics has gotten out o..."

"today and in this case it was clear that even in Germany there's a lot of Unfinished work in explaining to people and helping those for instance in the former East where a lot of this group has its su..."

"all fall into focus on the humanity what is your brilliant popular son Zachary taught you about life always taught me so much in his 18 years as has our daughter who's 20. two things stand out he's ta..."

"taught me um is as I said about the Poetry the importance of the Arts I've always been a a lover of the Arts but it had always been in some ways parallel to my historical scholarship we need to do a b..."

"there and you don't see it and it's hidden it's been unmasked I don't care where you stand I think I I I probably spoken in about 25 30 cities about this book every audience I've asked how many of you..."