Historian Matthew Karp discusses the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the South’s reaction to Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, how confederate general States Rights Gist embodied the Antebellum period, and what drove the change towards emancipation during the Civil War.

Matthew Karp is a historian of the U.S. Civil War era and its relationship to the nineteenth-century world. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and joined the Princeton faculty in 2013. His first book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy explores the ways that slavery shaped U.S. foreign relations before the Civil War. In the larger transatlantic struggle over the future of bondage, American slaveholders saw the United States as slavery’s great champion, and harnessed the full power of the growing American state to defend it both at home and abroad. This Vast Southern Empire received the John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association, the James Broussard Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, and the Stuart L. Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

The Apple TV+ series "Lincoln's Dilemma," features insights from journalists, educators and scholars, as well as rare archival materials, that offer a more nuanced look into the life of the Great Emancipator. Set against the background of the Civil War, "Lincoln's Dilemma" also gives voice to the narratives of enslaved people, shaping a more complete view of an America divided over issues including economy, race and humanity, and underscoring Lincoln's battle to save the country, no matter the cost. The series is narrated by award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright ("Angels in America") and features the voices of actor Bill Camp ("The Night Of") as Lincoln and Leslie Odom Jr. ("Hamilton") as Frederick Douglas.

To view the entire series please visit:
https://tv.apple.com/us/show/lincolns...

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Chapter Markers:
00:00:13 - Slavery in the Mid-19th century
00:02:13 - Westward expansion and slavery
00:05:45 - Politics and public opinion on slavery
00:09:09 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Lincoln’s re-entry into politics
00:16:03 - Lincoln’s 1850s anti slavery views
00:18:36 - Lincoln is a moderate in a radical party
00:22:20 - The South’s reaction to Lincoln’s election in 1860
00:27:50 - The threat of antislavery politics to the South
00:31:26 - What Lincoln was facing as he assumed the presidency
00:35:12 - The gradual acceleration towards the goal of emancipation
00:44:26 - Northern white opinion on Black rights and slavery
00:48:37 - Lincoln’s actions: moral conviction or political circumstances?
00:51:28 - What accelerated Lincoln’s move towards emancipation
00:55:35 - Frederick Douglass’ second meeting with Lincoln
01:01:12 - Slavery in the 1850s economy
01:03:40 - The experience of the enslaved
01:07:46 - Suppression of anti-slavery dissent in the South
01:10:31 - The racialization of slavery in the South
01:11:50 - The significance of Lincoln and the Civil War

Matthew Karp, Historian, Princeton University
Interview Date: November 13, 2020
Interviewed by: Jackie Olive and Barak Goodman

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