Chatter: Lincoln, Leadership, and Difficult Conversations with Steve Inskeep
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2023
⏱️ 67 minutes
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Summary
Many will recognize the voice of Steve Inskeep from his nearly two decades-long role hosting NPR's Morning Edition. But he's also the author of what is now a trilogy of books about political relationships in the United States during the 19th century, including his newly published Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America. His newest book uses a unique framework to study Lincoln's leadership and growth: Describing in detail difficult interactions Lincoln had with sixteen individuals, ranging from generals to political opponents to his wife Mary Todd Lincoln.
David Priess spoke with Steve about what drew him to Lincoln as a subject; the challenges of recreating private exchanges from long ago; the links between Differ We Must and his earlier books; Lincoln's difficult conversations with Joshua Giddings, Frederick Douglass, Jessie Benton Frémont, Lean Bear, and others; and enduring lessons of Lincoln's pragmatic leadership.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
The book Differ We Must by Steve Inskeep
The book Instant City by Steve Inskeep
The book Jacksonland by Steve Inskeep
The book Imperfect Union by Steve Inskeep
The book series Abraham Lincoln: A History by John Nicolay and John Hay
The book series Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.9 | Welcome to chatter. I'm David Priest. This week, NPR Morning Edition host and author Steve |
| 0:38.7 | Inskeep on Lincoln Leadership and Difficult Conversations. |
| 0:45.6 | George McClellan thought Lincoln was an idiot and never changed his mind. I think that's |
| 0:49.4 | an important insight when we think about our interactions with people who differ today. |
| 0:55.4 | Maybe the goal is not to change someone's fundamental beliefs, but the goal is to get |
| 1:00.1 | something done. |
| 1:04.0 | I don't know that moderate would be the word for Lincoln, he was not the most radical |
| 1:07.9 | anti-slavery guy because he believed that political reality and the constitution limited |
| 1:12.7 | what he could get away with. But he insisted that slavery was wrong, that the system was wrong. |
| 1:20.7 | The tragic part of this is that Lincoln surely knew the black laws were wrong, spoke about |
| 1:26.5 | equality, but did not publicly denounce the black laws. He was focused on slavery, he was |
| 1:32.9 | focused on this bigger goal. |
| 1:40.2 | Steve Inskeep, welcome to chatter. Glad to be here, thank you. You have done something |
| 1:43.9 | that no one else I know has done. You have written three books about the mid 19th century |
| 1:52.7 | that have been immensely interesting and drawn people into a period which often gets |
| 1:56.8 | lost between the revolutionary generation and the Civil War. What first drew you to that |
| 2:03.0 | period and how have you continued to complete this trilogy with different characters? |
| 2:08.1 | Thanks, I think partly it was because I didn't know the story. I grew up with a lot of |
... |
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