Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation Part Six: The Last Best Hope on Earth
Executive Decision
In this final part of our six part episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, we review exactly how Lincoln made his decision--one that was forced upon him by circumstance, and the unwavering insistance of millions of Americans that slavery be abolished, forever. Audio Clips: Martin Luther King, Jr., excerpt from the “I Have a Dream” speech (1963): Musical Clips: “Let Jesus Lead You,” The Jubilee Gospel Team (date unknown): “I Be So Happy When The Sun Goes Down,” Ed Lewis: “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” Henry Burr (1911): “Rock My Soul,” The...
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Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation Part Five: The Emancipation Decision
Executive Decision
On July 8, 1862, Abraham Lincoln journeyed to Harrison's Landing, Virginia, to confer with US General George McCellan on the conduct of the war against the southern insurrection. During the meeting, McCellan delivered Lincoln a memorandum that instructed him to abandon any effort to liberate the four million slaves in America. Lincoln responded by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and by sacking McCellan. In part five of our analysis of the decision to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, we review this meeting, and the other factors that went into delivering this most momentous...
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Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation Part Four: The War to Expand Slavery
Executive Decision
In part four of our episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation we review the causes of the Civil War, and the momentous events of the 1850s, especially the Fugutive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decision, which rallied northern opinion against the expansion of slavery, and the southerners who insisted on that expansion--even into the North. Part 4: The War to Expand Slavery Audio Clips: Richard Blackett, “The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law,” talk given to the The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (2018): Musical Clips: “Early...
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Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation Part Three: Slavery and Human Rights
Executive Decision
American slavery may have been the most successful totalitarian system in history, lasting ten generations, far longer than comparable 20th century totalitarian regimes. In some ways, slavery's success as an economic and socio-political system was that it was just brutal enough to generate effective rates of return on investment. But it became even more brutal from the beginning of the 19th century to the Civil War, in part in response to slave rebellions, and to the attacks on the institution made by abolitionists. In part three of our six part episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation...
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Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, Part Two: Democracy, Perfectionism and Degradation
Executive Decision
In the antebellum South, democracy was racialized; as the vote was extened to every white man, it was granted in return for the political support of forced labor slavery. In part two of our six part episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, we review this process, and the social context in which Lincoln made his emancipation decision. We probe attitudes towards democracy, the religious concept of perfectionism, and the idea of social degradation, especially in the context of slavery. We ask the question: How could so many people support an economic institution that was...
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Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, Part One: Slavery and Capitalism
Executive Decision
In part one of our six-part episode on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, we look at the evolution of historical thinking about the Civil War, slavery, and the emancipation proclamation. We discover why the moral objections to slavery held by ordinary people has become the chief driver in interpreting the war and emancipation. Part 1: Slavery and Capitalism Music Clips “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Reinald Werrenrath (Viktor, 1917): “Battle Cry of Freedom” (US Everlasting, date unknown): “Old Kentucky Home,” Harry Macdonald (Victor Monarch,1901): Bibliography ...
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FDR and the Decision to Intern the Japanese, Part Three
Executive Decision
In 1941, Government agents seized Ewan Yoshida's father. He was never seen again. In this final part of our three part episode on FDR and the decision to intern the Japanese in WWII, we review the consequences of the internment decision for the people sent to the camps, and why Roosevelt made the decision in the first place.
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FDR and the Decision to Intern the Japanese, Part Two
Executive Decision
What happens when a strong person makes a weak decision and a weak person makes a strong one? In part two of our episode on FDR and the internment of the Japanese in WWII, we look at the anti-Japanese hysteria that seized the West Coast in the wake of Pearl Harbor and the bureaucratic infighting that resulted in the imprisonment of 120,000 people.
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FDR and the Decision to Intern the Japanese, Part One
Executive Decision
The internment was put in motion on February 19, 1942, by Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. How one of the most esteemed presidents, justly lauded for his leadership during the Depression and World War II, came to embrace such a draconian and unjust policy can tell us a lot about the process of decision making--both good and bad.
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Lend Lease and the Decision to Intervene in WWII: Part Three
Executive Decision
Executive Decision is a podcast that looks at some of the most significant presidential decisions in American history: Why they happened; how they happened; and what they ultimately tell us about the process of decision making. This is Part Three, Episode Three: FDR and the Lend Lease Decision. It reviews how FDR moved the Lend Lease decision through Congress, and summarizes FDR's decision making process.
info_outlineIn Episode two of Executive Decision, the podcast that reviews the great decisions in presidential history, we look at Harry S Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on two cities in Japan during World War II. This first part of the three part episode analyzes Truman's background in WWI, the machine politics of Missouri, and the New Deal. It also contrasts his decision making process with that of Franklin Roosevelt, who left him no guide for the awesome decisions he would be forced to make.