Abraham Lincoln was called a liberator, and he said, don't call me that. It was the anti-slavery movement and the Union soldiers that did it all.

And even at the turn of the 20th century, the progressive movement was there in the settlement houses in the social gospel of religion before Teddy Roosevelt came on the scene.

And then the civil rights movement was essential for everything, of course, in the 60s.

And I think citizens just have to believe right now that they have the power.

And that's where change has always taken place.

And it demands that you have a belief that collective energy can make a difference.

Your task will not be an easy one.

Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle hard.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America.

Good night and good luck.

Hey, everybody. It's Rick Wilson, your host, as always, it's the Lincoln Project Podcast.

I am so delighted to be joined today by one of the premier,

one of the eminent presidential historians in our country,

Doris Kern's Goodwin.

Doris is a prolific author of stories about what she calls the old guys.

And her new book is an unfinished love story, a personal history of the 1960s, and it chronicles

an examination of a lot of the historical records that Dick Goodwin, her husband, had left in

300 boxes of materials after his work in the 1960s for Lyndon Johnson and for John F. Kennedy and with Jackie Kennedy.

And what I loved about this, Doris, is it sort of unfolded your personal history this time,

and you looked inward instead of outward. Talk to me about the discovery of all this material

and how you came to write this book.

Yeah, well, what had happened is when I married Dick, I didn't realize that I was not just getting

...