A Completely different Perspective: David S. Reynolds on Lincoln’s Dilemma | Interviews

The sequence begins very thoughtfully with a real-life tightrope walker who was a preferred entertainer in Lincoln’s time. Why is that such a great metaphor?

There was an unbelievable tightrope walker named Charles Blondin who went forwards and backwards throughout Niagara Falls, many occasions ahead, then backward with a person on his shoulders and pushing a wheelbarrow. Fairly wonderful. And Lincoln a number of occasions in contrast himself to Blondin. As soon as folks approached him early within the battle, they usually mentioned, “Can’t you make this a extra anti-slavery battle from the very starting?” He mentioned, “I’ve to be very cautious. I’ve to be like Blondin as a result of if I lean too far in a method, we’re going to lose the Border States. We’re going to lose Kentucky, Missouri. We nonetheless had folks in bondage in slavery however they have been loyal to the Union. I’ve to be proper on my tightrope the entire time.” And he needed to look ahead to simply the appropriate minute to launch the Emancipation Proclamation. Though he hated slavery as a lot or greater than nearly anyone in America, nonetheless, he needed to be Blondin. First to get elected however secondly, when he was in workplace to attempt to hold the North collectively, to attempt to hold it collectively. And it was not simply the way in which he say himself. There are a whole lot of political cartoons of him as Blondin crossing that tightrope over Niagara Falls.

This sequence reveals us how Lincoln’s technique developed over time. And I used to be significantly struck by the concept that he talked to a few of the fugitive enslaved folks, and the way did that have an effect on him?

He had been uncovered to slavery early on when he traveled right down to New Orleans, and he noticed enslaved folks on a ship in Kentucky. He talked to fugitive slaves, he had such a deep sympathy really for African People. And so they influenced him. They turned type of his conscience. I feel that’s one factor that the sequence reveals very, very nicely. One fugitive slave named Frederick Douglass, after all, very well-known, was at all times type of goading him, and was at all times in his ear driving him towards emancipation. And Lincoln needed that as nicely. However Douglass was such an energetic power. And Lincoln was the primary to permit African People into the army. And he thought that with out the African American participation he by no means would have gained the battle. After which on the very finish of the battle when he walks into Richmond, he meets these beforehand enslaved individuals who encompass him when he walks into the Accomplice capital, which has fallen, and he says, “You at the moment are free as air, you’re free because the air now.” And one in every of them really received on his knees to him, he mentioned, “Get in your knees to your Maker. You don’t need to get in your knees to me, simply go on and do your greatest in life.” So, he was actually impressed by African People. And the movie reveals that as nicely.

I consider analysis for a e-book like this being in archives with parchment paperwork. Was that what it was like?

Within the previous days, after I wrote a few of my earlier books, I had to enter a whole lot of bodily archives as a result of all of the previous newspapers and books have been there. However there are full runs of newspapers from the nineteenth century. Even Lincoln’s hometown newspaper, the Sangamon Journal, or within the Illinois State Journal, they’re on-line. And it’s simply unbelievable. You may sit at your pc and actually do phrase searches. You may study so, a lot proper now sitting at house. And likewise, so many elderly books are on Google Books, and in addition on archives on-line. And so, even throughout COVID, I continued my analysis towards one other e-book I’m engaged on. It’s simply unbelievable these days.