The Capitol Attack of 1861
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2021
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
February 13, 1861. The city of Washington DC is waiting. Bracing itself. For weeks, there have been threats that this day is going to get violent because pro-slavery voters feel the recently elected president, Abraham Lincoln, is a threat to their way of life. Today, Lincoln is supposed to be affirmed when the electoral votes are counted in the US Capitol building, but on the morning of the count, hundreds of anti-Lincoln rioters storm the building. Their goal: to stop the electoral count. What happened when a mob of anti-Lincoln rioters tried to take over the US Capitol? And how did American democracy handle the test?
Thank you to our guest, Ted Widmer, distinguished lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY and author of "Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington."
Correction: The Emancipation Proclamation only freed enslaved people in the Confederacy, not throughout the country.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:04.8 | History this week, February 13th, 1861. |
| 0:10.9 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:14.4 | The air is still today. |
| 0:17.5 | The New York Times would later write that the flags over the Capitol building |
| 0:20.9 | aren't flapping but are hanging loose against their staves. |
| 0:25.1 | And the city of Washington, DC, is waiting. |
| 0:28.5 | Bracing itself. |
| 0:31.1 | Because for weeks, there have been threats that this day is going to get violent. |
| 0:37.3 | The country has just come through a contentious election. |
| 0:41.4 | The winner is Abraham Lincoln. |
| 0:44.7 | He's a Republican. |
| 0:46.0 | He's opposed to slavery and against its expansion and post-lavery voters, |
| 0:50.8 | especially many Southern voters, think that Lincoln's election |
| 0:54.9 | spells the end of their way of life. |
| 0:57.5 | And they're not having it. |
| 1:00.5 | Seven states have already seceded. |
| 1:05.4 | Today is a very important day for this democracy in crisis. |
| 1:10.6 | In the halls of Congress, Lincoln's victory will be affirmed |
| 1:13.7 | when the electoral votes are officially counted. |
| 1:17.4 | But on the morning of February 13th, |
| 1:20.8 | anti-Lincoln rioters begin pouring into the streets. |
... |
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