Back in America

William Henry Seward was supposed to be president. In 1860, he was the favorite for the Republican nomination until he lost it to a lesser-known prairie lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Then, while Lincoln sat silent in Springfield for four months after the election, Seward fought alone from the Senate floor to save the Union.

C. Evan Stewart, Cornell-trained historian, 40-year securities lawyer, and author of a new book on Seward, walks Stan through what really happened in the Secession Winter of 1860-61: the back-channel meetings with Virginia unionists, the proposed 13th Amendment that would have protected slavery forever, the April 1 memo raising the prospect of confrontation with France, and the day Lincoln changed his mind about Fort Sumter.

From there, they go deeper. The Dred Scott decision and what Chief Justice Taney actually wrote. Why Stewart believes Chief Justice Roberts is quietly rebalancing American power today. Lincoln's record on civil liberties. And the French tariff parallel Stan raises that Stewart bluntly calls "completely different."

Stewart closes with his answer to the show's signature question: What is America to you?

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William Henry Seward's Quest to Save the Nation During the Secession Winter (1860-1861)