This is Democracy – Episode 214: Civil War by Other Means, Part II

[00:00:00] Intro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the united States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:25] Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

Today we are doing part two of our discussion, uh, of Civil War by other means, uh, my recent book on the legacies of the Civil War for our Politics and Society today, and I am very fortunate that my, uh, partner here, Mr. Zachary Sir. Is going to interview me yet again on the book. We covered the first half of the book or so in our last discussion.

Um, moving through the [00:01:00] assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the challenges of bringing the Civil War battles to an end with continued conflict and resistance far from the battlefields within American society within the. Making of American society after the war. Uh, we’re gonna continue that conversation today.

Uh, Zachary, are you excited for our conversation? Even more important. Are you excited for your birthday today? Yes, very much so. Zachary, It turns 18 today. Uh, it’s wonderful. Happy birthday to you, . Okay. Um, so, uh, as always, we will start with the Birthday Boys poem. What is the title of your poem? In today’s equity, the people

[00:01:45] Zachary Suri: interrogate the spirit of democracy.

[00:01:48] Jeremi Suri: I like that title. Uh, let’s hear it.

[00:01:52] Zachary Suri: Oh, that the coaches halted in the lane to look us in the Crying Eyes of Drain. Instead, they run and gallop past. [00:02:00] They kiss the dog, they pay us. Last, oh that. At dusk we saw the ancient stars and heard the loon, which calls us from afar. The smoke stack in its bellows holds no haunting songs, but empathy holds.

[00:02:15] Zachary Suri: We fill the holes with thoughts of love, with glimpses of a better way. With achings and a doodles dove, we’ll find them all once more. Some blessed. Oh, that indecent wounds would stay unhealed, but welts would unfold and disappear. Due tell of all you’ve heard and said, Then loose me for I must to bed. And the spirit said, In ages when the darkness swells and silt leaves salt in all our wells, I’ve left a crust of bread for you in the cold and snowing hours.

[00:02:49] Zachary Suri: Do not fear to reach for it and with your fingers, take a bit and eat among the. In ages when the ether heaves, and you can hear it in the Eves I’ve [00:03:00] left for us on when times held us for far too long in the depths of ancient ruins, sing it like the woodland wounds to the ghosts, the spectral thongs. But while I’m here, take heart and hope and do not perish like the pious pope with all too few, too little

[00:03:19] Jeremi Suri: wrongs.

[00:03:20] Jeremi Suri: So this poem, Zachary, is almost in the Shakespearean meter, isn’t it? Yes. That’s great. What is your problem about? Well, my poem is

[00:03:26] Zachary Suri: really about, um, how impatient we can become, uh, maybe waiting for a democracy to renew itself, uh, but also how difficult it is, uh, to confront our history, uh, when there seems to be so many more.

[00:03:38] Zachary Suri: I. Uh, problems, so much more immediate suffering around us, and yet how important it remains to keep experi venting and yes, and remain committed to

[00:03:47] Jeremi Suri: this experiment and democracy, right, Despite the distractions and the delusions and all of the, uh, things that, that push us away from what really is the most important issue.

[00:03:57] Jeremi Suri: Yeah, for sure. Great. Well, the floor is [00:04:00] yours to, uh, put me back in the hot seat and, uh, uh, walk us through, uh, Civil War by other means. Well, let’s

[00:04:07] Zachary Suri: jump right in where we left off, I guess. So in your fifth chapter of Civil War by Other Means, which

[00:04:13] Jeremi Suri: everyone should

[00:04:13] Zachary Suri: buy, you discuss the ways in which congressional Republicans, um, attempted to reassert a much more radical reconstruction through the United States Army and through the first major civil rights legislation.

[00:04:25] Zachary Suri: In what way then did the political fight to shape reconstruction change America’s democratic

[00:04:30] Jeremi Suri: institutions? So, uh, it’s a great question, Zachary, because, uh, there was indeed a fight over what reconstruction would mean. Uh, one of the important points of the book is that when wars end, the questions, the dilemmas, uh, only grow wars don’t resolve.

[00:04:47] Jeremi Suri: Many things, wars actually move us to a different point in the debate. And so it was clear that, uh, Northern Republicans had control of the now reunified and reunifying government. [00:05:00] Uh, but there were still, uh, a lot of questions over what that would look like. What role would former slaves play in American society?

[00:05:07] Jeremi Suri: What role would former slave masters. And the debates among Republicans really turned not just on inclusion in the South, but also inclusion in the north where there were large, uh, free pre-civil war and now post-Civil War communities of former slaves, immigrants, uh, and others. The Civil Rights Act of 1866, which Andrew Johnson is President vetoed, and then his veto was overturned by Congress, created a basis for, uh, natural board citizen.

[00:05:38] Jeremi Suri: And a basis for basic protection under the laws for all citizens. Uh, that became the foundation for the 14th Amendment, which of course is one of our most important amendments. Uh, these laws and others like that created the basis for more equal citizenship. The problem then became that of enforcement and Congress still relied primarily on the president [00:06:00] to enforce the law.

[00:06:01] Jeremi Suri: And you had with President Andrew Johnson, a president who was dead set. I’m not enforcing the law. You also had members of Congress, even within the Republican party who did not want to go too. In the enforcement of these laws. So much of the debate after the Civil War in those early years was this debate about how far to go in inclusion and what role the federal government should.

[00:06:22] Jeremi Suri: In the enforcement of those laws. Right.

[00:06:25] Zachary Suri: And, and Congress took increasing authority over, uh, the United States military, uh, as Andrew Johnson sought to sty me many of their efforts. Um, and you write in the book that quote, The military gave African Americans a chance and quote, ensuring limited political and economic freedom for Fort Worth slaves.

[00:06:43] Zachary Suri: To what extent then did the nation building mission of the US Army as outlined by Congress and the Reconstruction Act of 1867,

[00:06:50] Jeremi Suri: succeed? It’s a great question. So, uh, what happened after the Civil War was the president, um, Of the United States [00:07:00] stood in the way of enforcement. Uh, that’s exactly the opposite of what the Constitution presumes.

[00:07:06] Jeremi Suri: The Constitution presumes the President will enforce the laws. As a consequence, Congress had to find a way to enforce its laws by getting around the President, and what Congress did was. Constitutionally questionable, which was to try to take away the president’s commander in chief powers really, and work directly with the US military specifically.

[00:07:28] Jeremi Suri: Uh, Ulysses Grant, who was the commander of American Forces, the Chief General of American, uh, Union Forces Congress created, uh, five military districts, uh, under grants authority with different generals like Sheridan and Sherman serving. As the heads of those districts, the districts created military tribunals.

[00:07:50] Jeremi Suri: In many cases, these districts not only tried in the military tribunals, violent, racist actors who were not tried in local [00:08:00] courts, they removed elected officials. They enforced voting laws. They accompanied and protected African Americans and others who were voting and they were doing this. In response to congressional orders, Congress worked through the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who then uh, passed on instructions to Uliss Grant.

[00:08:20] Jeremi Suri: During this entire process, President Andrew Johnson was trying to counterman those orders and even tried to, Uh, many of Grants generals, he wanted to fire Sherman and Sheridan others, and he also tried to fire eventually, uh, Secretary of War, Edward Stanton, which triggered the impeachment of the President.

[00:08:40] Jeremi Suri: Uh, what’s the key point here is that Congress for a number of years from 1866 through 1868 or so, uh, moved to enforce the laws itself. The military. The military played a crucial role in African Americans. Former slaves were central to [00:09:00] that. Um, there were more than a hundred thousand who were in the Union Army.

[00:09:04] Jeremi Suri: It had mixed results. Uh, the Army had the capability to do this and protected the election of many African-American officials and the participation of African Americans in rewriting state constitutions. Uh uh, but the areas where the army was not present were areas where it was very difficult to enforce congressional law, and as the size of the army reduced as Congress at the same time reduced funding for the military, it was harder and harder to enforce these laws.

[00:09:33] Jeremi Suri: You mentioned the

[00:09:33] Zachary Suri: impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Uh, in the book you devote a whole chapter to this, uh, very unique political mullet, which is often overlooked or at least, uh, in past decades, or is overlooked by historians as a sort of political anomaly. Um, why do you see this moment as, as so important in an understanding, uh, this period after the Civil War, and do you maybe see the politics of 1868?

[00:09:55] Zachary Suri: As parallel to our own in some way. A sort of example of the kind of [00:10:00] politics that arises when we have two distinct visions of democratic

[00:10:03] Jeremi Suri: participation. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson, uh, is fascinating, uh, not simply because it does resonate, particularly with the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

[00:10:12] Jeremi Suri: Uh, but because it’s another moment in this period after Appomattox, uh, where Americans, uh, especially American legislators are reinventing what democracy means. There had never been, uh, an impeachment of a president before. Andrew Johnson is impeached in 1868, uh, because, uh, he has repeatedly. Undermine the law as instituted by Congress.

[00:10:39] Jeremi Suri: He has repeatedly done that, and the triggering factor, as I mentioned before, was his effort to fire Edwin Stanton, who is the Secretary of War, who had worked with Congress to try to enforce the Congressional acts of 1867 and others. Andrew Johnson, uh, claims appropriately that as president, he has the right to [00:11:00] nominate members of his cabinet and to remove them as he wishes.

[00:11:03] Jeremi Suri: Secretary of War Stanton had been inherited from Lincoln, and so he is claiming that he has the right to remove him. Congress does not want him to remove Stanton because Congress wants to use Stanton to continue to enforce the laws of 1866 and 67 Civil Rights Act, the constitutional amendments, et cetera.

[00:11:20] Jeremi Suri: And so, uh, we have this, uh, conflict over who has authority over the enforcement of the law. Uh, when Johnson removes Stanton, Stanton initially refuses to leave claiming Johnson’s removal of him is. And Charles Sumner and other, uh, members of the Senate in the House push for impeachment. The house does indeed impeach Andrew Johnson overwhelmingly, uh, which is to say they vote.

[00:11:46] Jeremi Suri: To, uh, create a trial for him in the Senate, which had never occurred before. I have a drawing of this in the book. It’s fascinating. It is the first time that members of the house as the managers of the [00:12:00] impeachment, as the prosecutors in essence, uh, are in the Senate making their case. The Senate votes by one vote short of two thirds to convict Andrew Johnson.

[00:12:12] Jeremi Suri: Uh, it is a fascinating. Many senators want to remove Johnson, but many senators at the same time don’t want the President Proteor of the Senate. Benjamin Wade, who’s a radical Republican to become president because he’s more radical than many of the other Republicans and senators. Even, uh, very stalwart Republicans are concerned about removing a president and violating what they believe is the will of the people who elected the Lincoln uh Johnson Ticket in 1864.

[00:12:44] Jeremi Suri: And so there are counter pressures against the conviction of the precedent. In the end, Johnson is not convicted because at the last minute he is able to bribe. It is a bribe that saves his presidency. Bribe. Senator Edmund Ross, [00:13:00] who is from Kansas, who would’ve been the deciding vote, he would’ve taken the numbers above to two thirds for the conviction of the president.

[00:13:08] Jeremi Suri: Uh, but he’s bribed when the president offers him. Uh, the custom seat in New Orleans for one of his closest supporters and funders. The custom seat in New Orleans or the custom seat in New York, the Chester Arthur Holds is a source of great graft and corruption as you can take bribes for traders and others coming through New Orleans.

[00:13:29] Jeremi Suri: Uh, this is all documented in my book. Johnson’s presidency, therefore is saved and he remains president through the end of 1868, the beginning of 1869 because there is one vote short of the two-thirds necessary to convict him. Quick point on this. Uh, I think this is evidence that our impeachment and conviction system does not work.

[00:13:48] Jeremi Suri: No one I think would want presidents being removed willy nilly by Congress. But in the case of Andrew Johnson, we have a president who has clearly violated his congressional duty to enforce the law is actually hinder. [00:14:00] The law as passed by Congress, uh, and convi committing various other crimes. Uh, it, it seems to me there should be a method for removal and the conviction, uh, and impeachment method truly doesn’t work.

[00:14:15] Jeremi Suri: We’ve had. Now in our country, uh, five impeachments, and none of them, uh, have really even come close to removing the present. You, you talk in,

[00:14:24] Zachary Suri: in your book about the many ways that, uh, Johnson used, uh, the increased executive authority that Lincoln asserted during the war, the sort of war powers, uh, that Lincoln, uh, took on often.

[00:14:37] Zachary Suri: Congressional or or constitutional backing you would describe of Johnson used those same powers to tying reconstruction and Lincoln’s vision of, of, of how this would go. Uh, does the fact that our political institutions and the presidency chiefs among them, service both protectors of and hindrances to democracy, maybe speak to something fundamentally broken in our institutions, Perhaps the ability to [00:15:00] maintain political stability and guarantee the democratic rights of all citizens at the.

[00:15:05] Jeremi Suri: I think it’s a fundamental question. It’s one. I also asked in my prior book, The Impossible Presidency. The founders presume that the president would be a unifying figure. They presumed the president would enforce the law, that the president would see that as his duty. Um, and the founders assumed that the president’s powers would be pretty minimal actually, that a lot of the enforcement would happen at the state level.

[00:15:26] Jeremi Suri: Um, and so that’s an argument for a weaker presidency as the presidency has grown strong. Through the Civil War in particular, which creates this monumentally strong president that Lincoln is, is operating as in Johnson inherits, as you said so well in your question, Zachary. Uh, but thereafter, as the presidency grows in many other ways as the executive branch grows and is as an administrative, uh, agency or a set of agencies, uh, presidents are in a position not really just to enforce the law, they’re now in a position to reshape.

[00:15:57] Jeremi Suri: They’re in a position to distort it [00:16:00] and in some cases, to stymie the, the law. And there were of course controversies between Andrew Jackson and Congress in the 1830s. Uh, but Jackson was pretty much standing in the way of Congress passing things. He was using his veto pen and using his influence in Congress for those reasons.

[00:16:20] Jeremi Suri: In general, the laws were enforced. Uh, what the Johnson presidency shows is that there is a very anti-democratic element of presidential power, and that anti-democratic element can destabilize our democracy. It certainly did. During Andrew Johnson’s presidency. And what

[00:16:38] Zachary Suri: about President Grant, uh, was elected in 1868, uh, and became president in 1869.

[00:16:44] Zachary Suri: Uh, as Johnson, uh, never elected presidents, uh, left, uh, the office. And you read in your book that quote, Although the Republican Party, when the military battles of the Civil War, the fight over the meaning of America continued. How did President Grant, uh, who we often see as a sort of naive [00:17:00] political outsider and then certainly, uh, one who presided over a.

[00:17:04] Zachary Suri: Uh, infamously corrupt administration. How did he seek to combat this white supremacism in the South? And also, uh, should we understand his efforts as a sort of counter to the Confederate narrative, which eventually arguably one quote, the fight

[00:17:19] Jeremi Suri: open in the. So let me start where your excellent question ended.

[00:17:23] Jeremi Suri: Zachary? Uh, the narrative of Grant that I learned when I was in high school and that many learned until about 10 years ago was that he was bumbling, corrupt, uh, incompetent and drunk. And that was a narrative written by Southerners , not by Northerners. It, it played to certain also northern prejudices.

[00:17:41] Jeremi Suri: This man. Uh, but the truth is, uh, and I show this in the book in great detail and it’s a, a really a new interpretation that various historians have been working on and not just me for the last decade or more. Uh, Grant actually does a lot of things right after the Civil War. [00:18:00] Uh, first of all, he has a change in perspective.

[00:18:03] Jeremi Suri: It’s very rare that you find someone who’s deep within his career in some ways near the end of his career, who has a fundamental change of. Most people don’t change their mind that way. Uh, we see this in his papers. Grant went into the Civil War believing a lot of the racist rhetoric about African Americans and about immigrants and others.

[00:18:21] Jeremi Suri: He comes out of the war, transformed in his view of African Americans because he has seen their valiant, courageous service. During the war, again, more than a hundred thousand former slaves and other African Americans serving in the Union Army and serving, uh, with great courage, uh, through the war and, and, and thereafter.

[00:18:38] Jeremi Suri: Um, and Grant, when he becomes president, uh, he is elected. Probably one of the fairest and most widely participatory elections in American history for another, uh, half century, at least the election of 1868. So he has a large African American constituency, African Americans who can and do vote in the South.

[00:18:59] Jeremi Suri: [00:19:00] They vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Party and for Uliss Grant, he’s one of their, their heroes grants, tries to use his presidency to enforce the laws. Uh, he does a number of things that have enduring consequence. He creates the Justice Department. There was no Justice Department before Grant’s presidency.

[00:19:16] Jeremi Suri: We had an Attorney General, but no Justice Department. He creates the Justice Department to enforce the law in the south. Um, he doesn’t have an FBI yet. There’s no federal police as such, but he tries to use the military in the Justice Department for that purpose. He encourages Congress to pass acts that are directed at the Pro.

[00:19:36] Jeremi Suri: And, uh, prevention of violence against African Americans and others in the South. This is the 1871 Ku Klux Klan. Which, uh, has legislation that’s still in the books today. Uh, the Ku Klux Klan Act and other efforts by the president undermine and in some ways break the back of these various paramilitary militias in the south that are attacking African Americans, uh, and [00:20:00] others.

[00:20:00] Jeremi Suri: Grant also tries to create funding mechanisms for the creation of safe, prosperous. African American communities and others, uh, throughout the country. He fails in many of the things he tries. He succeeds certainly in creating a justice department. He succeeds in, um, breaking the back of the Ku Klux Klan initially, but he doesn’t.

[00:20:24] Jeremi Suri: Convince his own party of the long term commitment that is needed in the South to enforce the law and to build institutions for all citizens in the South. He doesn’t convince them, in part because many Northern Republicans wanna invest their money and resources in the West where there’s more money to be made.

[00:20:40] Jeremi Suri: They’re fed up with the south, they wanna move on. It’s a common phenomenon in American history. We win a war and we wanted to just move on and not deal with all the work that’s required at the end of the war. But also it should be said, Grant is not a great politician. Grant is not someone like a Lyndon Johnson who’s good at manipulating, encouraging, persuading, [00:21:00] and coercing people within his own party.

[00:21:02] Jeremi Suri: So even though he has full control of Congress in many ways, he’s fighting against his own party throughout most of his presidency. That’s not a moral failing. It’s often a failure of judgment, but really what it is, is, uh, fundamentally the recognition he himself comes to that he’s just not a politician.

[00:21:20] Jeremi Suri: Uh, even though he still wants to remain president, he actually wanted to run a third time. Um, his skills are not political persuasion. And as a president, even with your own party and power, you need to be able to persuade. Hmm. Yeah.

[00:21:33] Zachary Suri: Let’s talk about the politicians though, because you have a very interesting narrative of the election of 1876, uh, the infamously contested election, uh, which results eventually in the military, uh, withdrawing from the south prematurely.

[00:21:48] Zachary Suri: Uh, and, and, and, and you discuss how this election led to a conciliatory politics, uh, in, uh, 1877 with the, um, eventual. Of president, uh, Rutherford [00:22:00] b Hayes, uh, is this, as you call it, caretaker politics, uh, to blame for the failure of reconstruction? Is this sort of the point of no return where, where it all

[00:22:08] Jeremi Suri: goes south?

[00:22:09] Jeremi Suri: I, I think Zachary, in some ways our election system is to blame for the failure of reconstruction. Not entirely, but in part to this day, we don’t know who won the 1876 election. We never will because our election system through the electoral college is so. And it’s so evident in 1876, uh, Samuel Tilden, the governor of New York, who’s a Democrat running for President against Rutherford b Hayes, very highly regarded beloved governor of Ohio.

[00:22:38] Jeremi Suri: So if the Governor of Ohio is a Republican governor of New York, Democrat running against one another, Tilden, the governor of New York wins more votes total. Through the electoral college. It looks like Hayes might be close enough to have one more electoral vote. As everyone knows, the electoral college is a winner.

[00:22:57] Jeremi Suri: Take all system so you can be close in a lot of states. [00:23:00] Have a lot of votes and get zero electoral votes, and you can win a lot of states by small margins and get all those electoral votes. The three states that are disputed, where it is so close, it’s very hard to know who actually had more votes are South Carolina, Louisiana, and of course the state that is always at the center of our electoral controversy.

[00:23:18] Jeremi Suri: Zachary , Florida. Right. So in those three states, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, it is very, very close. Uh, the Republican and Democratic votes, and there are legitimately disputed votes. There are cases where it appears someone voted two, three times. Uh, there are cases where the ballot can’t be read.

[00:23:37] Jeremi Suri: There are cases where, uh, a ballot seems to be, uh, fake. There are all kinds of things, so let’s be clear. There is no fraud in our elections today. There was a lot of fraud in elections in 1876. And voter suppression. And voter suppression, of course. So in those three states, it’s hard to know depending how you count the ballots, which you include, whether Hayes or Tilden won each of those three [00:24:00] states.

[00:24:00] Jeremi Suri: Had a Republican governor at the time of the election. The Republican governors in each of those three states certified the electoral votes for Raeford b Hayes. So Hayes had one more electoral vote and it looked like he would become president. The Democrats refused to accept that, and that actually leads to the creation of Electoral Count Act, by the way, of 1887, which was to try to institutionalize certification of elections and worked for about a century or so.

[00:24:25] Jeremi Suri: Um, but here’s the thing, the Democrats refuse to. Presidency of Rutherford b Hayes, they refused to certify it, uh, in the. And so, uh, this goes to, uh, a really period of, of dispute and uncertainty. President’s supposed to be inaugurated in March. We get to January, February, we still don’t have a president, uh, from November to January, February, and electoral commission is created.

[00:24:51] Jeremi Suri: A 15 individuals including five Supreme Court Justices, eight Republicans, seven Democrats on the commission. The eight Republicans say Hayes won the [00:25:00] seven. Democrats say Tilden won. You see partisanship is nothing news accurate. So what happens then? Uh, negotiations behind the scenes, uh, including John Sherman William to comes to Sherman’s brother, who’s a senator from, uh, Republican Senator from Ohio and close friend over them heard be Hayes.

[00:25:16] Jeremi Suri: These negotiations produce an agreement wherein the Democrats will accept Hayes as president in return. For Hayes’s commitment to stop the enforcement of many of the reconstruction acts, and in particular to remove the last union forces, the last army forces from occupation in the South. People also forget, uh, Hayes provides promises of money to the South for infrastructure.

[00:25:42] Jeremi Suri: These states’ rights, white citizens who want, um, the government out, they actually still want government. Everyone wants government money. It’s a question of who’s the money for? Is it for the former slaves or is it for the white elites in the south? Uh, this process of getting a president selected [00:26:00] basically empowers southerners to hold the country hostage and it debilitates Hayes from actually doing the work he wanted to do as president, which was to enforce the reconstruction acts.

[00:26:11] Jeremi Suri: He can’t. Um, and he can’t do that because he had to make these agreements, uh, in order to get into the office. And so as President Hayes, who’s a very good man, I talk about him in the book, no one remembers much about Rutherford b Hayes. Um, he tries to move on. Uh, He tries to bring the country together, but he can’t address the core issues because the core issues of resistance to enforcement of the law in the south are issues that he’s promised not to address.

[00:26:36] Jeremi Suri: And his presidency hinges upon, um, basically accepting law breaking in the south. So our election system actually undermined the very role the president should have played at that moment. So,

[00:26:47] Zachary Suri: So do you think then that maybe the answer for. Our politics today, which I think many people, uh, rightly or wrongly would see as parallel to this politics in some way, shape,

[00:26:57] Jeremi Suri: or form.

[00:26:58] Zachary Suri: Do you think it requires [00:27:00] maybe a more serious political reform, uh, something that goes beyond simply an election? Um, uh, and maybe the expansion of the Supreme Court, the, uh, a shift in the way that we conduct elections or possibly new constitutional amendments along the lines of the 13th, 14th, and 15th?

[00:27:15] Zachary Suri: Uh, is that how we renew our institutions? Maybe.

[00:27:18] Jeremi Suri: Hell yes. . Uh, absolutely. My, my point in my book, my fundamental point is that our institutions develop in the years after Appt in the years and decades after, Appt in ways that sometimes embrace democracy, embrace the end of slavery, but quite often. Push against basic democratic practices and empower forms of behavior, including paramilitary violence and resistance to the law that undermine democracy in all periods.

[00:27:52] Jeremi Suri: We don’t see those cancers, those distortions at work because we often have leaders who don’t weaponize them, who don’t use them, [00:28:00] but when they’re there sitting in our institutions and when the circumstances create con. These distortions and cancers placed in our institutions after Appomattox, they actually undermined the functioning of our democracy.

[00:28:16] Jeremi Suri: They leave us weakened, they leave us far more divided than we have to be. And that’s what we see with the process of our elections. Since then, that’s what we see with gerrymandering. That’s what we see with, uh, inadequate enforcement of, uh, anti-violence and anti extremism in our society. That’s what we see with, uh, all kinds of encouragement for, uh, continued, uh, racism.

[00:28:44] Jeremi Suri: Continued, um, non-inclusion within our society in many ways. And most fundamentally, it’s what we see with a system that elects and creates representation that doesn’t actually represent all people. [00:29:00] So I’m a believer that our institutions have many good things. They do protections for free. That make it possible to have these, for us to have these conversations.

[00:29:08] Jeremi Suri: But our, our institutions since 1865 have also embedded very anti-democratic dangerous practices. We need to reform those institutions. We need new constitutional amendments, and we need fundamental institutional reform. And I believe that a younger generation can make that happen. We can start by creating a, an amendment to protect everyone’s right.

[00:29:31] Jeremi Suri: To make it harder for states and other communities to repress the vote as they do repeatedly. We can do this by creating laws that limit gerrymandering. All of these are steps we can take that are fundamental. They’re realistic, and they’re essential for what I would say would be truly post Civil War politics.

[00:29:50] Jeremi Suri: Otherwise, we’re stuck in, in civil war institutions and civil war. I know that

[00:29:56] Zachary Suri: one of the biggest influences for you in writing this book was actually a conversation we [00:30:00] had with, uh, Susan Neiman, uh, many, I think, uh, years ago at this point. And her book,

[00:30:05] Jeremi Suri: of course,

[00:30:05] Zachary Suri: and her, her book, uh, Learning from the Germans.

[00:30:08] Zachary Suri: Uh, and you write in here concluding chapter that quote, Learning history is really about hearts and minds. Teaching ourselves to look beyond appearances and probe deeply into who we are as a society. And you conclude we have lots of good work to do. Is this then the Fang Heights alpha item or working off of the past that the Germans have embraced?

[00:30:29] Zachary Suri: What role should, should history play? Then, uh, in this transformation.

[00:30:33] Jeremi Suri: Ye well, great question, Zachary, and, and notice how I brought together Susan Neiman and John Lewis with the good work and good trouble we have, uh, to make two people who both of us revere of course, uh, German society since World War II and particularly since the 1960s, has struggled to deal with the legacy of the Holocaust.

[00:30:52] Jeremi Suri: And they’ve done it imperfectly, but they have made a concerted effort since the 1960s. To educate themselves, to understand, not, [00:31:00] not necessarily to condemn themselves, certainly not, but to build a thriving, prosperous, strong democracy that recognizes and has self consciously learned from its shortcomings.

[00:31:13] Jeremi Suri: It’s very grave shortcomings, it’s genocidal shortcomings. Uh, the United States is in, of course, a different situation, and our history is. Uh, but we do have a deep history, not just of slavery, but of anti-democratic violent, uh, white supremacist behavior in our past. And it is still in our institutions. It is still, uh, residing in many elements of our society that even though most people.

[00:31:43] Jeremi Suri: Consciously embrace it. That past is there because our institutions were built the whole point of my book by people who embrace those ideas, so the institutions still reflect them. It’s sort of like in your family, you might have family practices that were started by your grandparents and your grandparents aren’t around, but those family [00:32:00] practices reflect some of their attitudes and that might be good or bad.

[00:32:03] Jeremi Suri: You have to revisit that. You have to revisit that we no longer, at least in our reformed synagogues, see women and men separately. That was a tradition we used to have inherited from the past. We changed that, not because we were disrespectful of the past, but because we had worked through that history.

[00:32:19] Jeremi Suri: We understood what it meant and what it did, and we wanted to make appropriate change. It is crucial for a society to examine itself, examine where it has come from, even the uncomfortable experiences, because those help us to understand what we’re doing. And to then adjust what we’re doing today to be better in line with our own values.

[00:32:40] Jeremi Suri: When you don’t teach the uncomfortable past, you prevent yourself from understanding how it influences you today, and you prevent yourself from changing it. Ignorance of the past. Reinforces the injustices of the past. I love our country. I know you do too, Zachary. I believe our country, [00:33:00] it has been an important and great democracy in the world, and it can only remain so.

[00:33:05] Jeremi Suri: It can only be better if we examine both our accomplishments and our shortcomings. And we self consciously try to take that knowledge into the adjustment and reform of our institutions today. That’s what Susan Neiman is talking about. The Germans have done to some extent, they’re such a different society from what they were even in the late 1940s and 1950s.

[00:33:27] Jeremi Suri: We have to do some of that work today. That’s really what my book calls for. And I know, Zachary, this is something you’ve thought a lot. So, uh, in our close, I want to turn it back to you. How do you think about Ganan Height’s, Alpha Autobi working through history in our country today? How do you think of this particularly as now an 18 year old, uh, trying to chart a future for yourself and for our country?

[00:33:49] Jeremi Suri: Well, I think it

[00:33:50] Zachary Suri: offers a model because it’s not a sort of, For Dragon Heights Alpha by is not, is not a story of sort of self-loathing or, or, or, um, a sort of like collective [00:34:00] guilt. Uh, even if that it should be morally, maybe that is, um, required. Uh, for, to renew political institutions, one must not, uh, learn to hate those institutions.

[00:34:11] Zachary Suri: One need, one need recognized solely the ways in which history shapes those institutions. Consciously to undo that, uh, in the places where it, it, it holds them back. And, uh, this renewal doesn’t have to be, um, something, uh, scary. Uh, and I think that, uh, a sort of collective recognition of our own history can in some ways be unifying in, in the long run.

[00:34:36] Jeremi Suri: And can you just give us a quick example of that, of how you think about that happening in our

[00:34:39] Zachary Suri: so society today? Well, I think that, uh, for me at least, I think that the way in which we teach history now, or at least the ways in which we’re beginning to teach history to young people, um, as, um, I, I would say a sort of shift in perspective, uh, when it comes to teaching history has begun, uh, slowly across the country.

[00:34:58] Zachary Suri: Or at least in certain [00:35:00] pockets. I think that offers a way forward because if we, if we have a society that understands its history from. Many different perspectives. Uh, then we have a society that’s able to look at its institutions critically and favorably

[00:35:13] Jeremi Suri: at the same time. I like that. And I, and I hope my book, Civil War by Other Means, is a little part of that story that it contributes in some ways, uh, and I hope.

[00:35:22] Jeremi Suri: All of our listeners will have a chance to read my book as well as to hear you, Zachary as Austin Youth Poet. Uh, I know you have a number of events coming up and I hope people will look on the website for Austin Youth Poet and find your events so they can hear you not only on the podcast, but hear you in person as well.

[00:35:40] Jeremi Suri: Congratulations on your 18th birthday. Thank you and great questions today. Thank you, Zachary. Thank you to my publish. Uh, and most of all, uh, thank you to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.[00:36:00]

[00:36:05] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Its Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin the music in this episode was written and recorded by Heroes cod. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. See you next time.