|
|
|
1.) You've been selected to deliver the Lincoln Lecture this year at the University of Saint Mary. What subject will you be focusing on primarily?
I'm going to focus on the early stages of Lincoln's presidential campaign, when Kansas was central. First, John Brown (famous across the country for his actions in Kansas between 1856-1858) was captured in Harpers Ferry in the midst of one of the most daring raids — and acts of domestic terrorism — in U.S. history. Second, Lincoln happened to be in Kansas testing the national political waters when Brown was, after a quick trial in Virginia, executed. His comments in Leavenworth on Brown show the very real damage the abolitionist could have done to the new Republican party.
2.) How/when did you interest in history start?
I grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, so I have been surrounded by history my entire life. I spent a lot of time when I was a kid at Civil War battlefields and DC-area monuments. I was lucky enough to go to schools with excellent history programs and decided to make it a career.
3.) What role did Kansas, and Leavenworth specifically, play in the events leading up to the election of 1860?
Kansas was THE national issue in politics in the five years before the election. So even had Lincoln not visited in December, 1859 Kansas would have loomed large. It was clearly the place where the battle over slavery's expansion was being decided, in real-time and covered ad nauseam by the national press.
4.) More than a century after the fact, why do you think Lincoln's popularity endures?
Lincoln was actually despised during his presidency, in the North as well as the South. His job performance and judgement were called into question over and over again. But he did something many presidents do not: He grew in office, became more thoughtful, and presided judiciously during the most painful and violent period in our history. His popularity doesn't endure everywhere (there is a powerful neo-Confederate movement right now in this country), but in the mainstream he is lauded as our best President.
5.) What do you hope people will take away from your lecture?
I hope they will gain an appreciation of how central those first Kansans were (and I'm including the Brown family here) in framing the debate during the nation's most severe crisis. Kansas wasn't "flyover country" then: It was the future. We should be proud of that.
1.) You've been selected to deliver the Lincoln Lecture this year at the University of Saint Mary. What subject will you be focusing on primarily?
I'm going to focus on the early stages of Lincoln's presidential campaign, when Kansas was central. First, John Brown (famous across the country for his actions in Kansas between 1856-1858) was captured in Harpers Ferry in the midst of one of the most daring raids — and acts of domestic terrorism — in U.S. history. Second, Lincoln happened to be in Kansas testing the national political waters when Brown was, after a quick trial in Virginia, executed. His comments in Leavenworth on Brown show the very real damage the abolitionist could have done to the new Republican party.
2.) How/when did you interest in history start?
I grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, so I have been surrounded by history my entire life. I spent a lot of time when I was a kid at Civil War battlefields and DC-area monuments. I was lucky enough to go to schools with excellent history programs and decided to make it a career.
3.) What role did Kansas, and Leavenworth specifically, play in the events leading up to the election of 1860?
Kansas was THE national issue in politics in the five years before the election. So even had Lincoln not visited in December, 1859 Kansas would have loomed large. It was clearly the place where the battle over slavery's expansion was being decided, in real-time and covered ad nauseam by the national press.
4.) More than a century after the fact, why do you think Lincoln's popularity endures?
Lincoln was actually despised during his presidency, in the North as well as the South. His job performance and judgement were called into question over and over again. But he did something many presidents do not: He grew in office, became more thoughtful, and presided judiciously during the most painful and violent period in our history. His popularity doesn't endure everywhere (there is a powerful neo-Confederate movement right now in this country), but in the mainstream he is lauded as our best President.
5.) What do you hope people will take away from your lecture?
I hope they will gain an appreciation of how central those first Kansans were (and I'm including the Brown family here) in framing the debate during the nation's most severe crisis. Kansas wasn't "flyover country" then: It was the future. We should be proud of that.
