thaddeus stevens and james buchanan. neil: i walked into lancaster. such a potent moment in our history. james buchanan with the last president before the civil war, he was very much of a southern sympathizing pennsylvanian, they called those types of democrats don't face. i would say he is a tragic president because i don't think there was much he could have done either way. thaddeus stevens was an incredible, fiery abolitionist. a truly righteous person. both were lawyers, both lived in the same town. thaddeus stevens is one of the two or three most important people in the 19th century. those who came after push forward on reconstruction for the length of time that that lasted. stevens is instrumental in the house of representatives. in lancaster, there was this see sewing of whose reputation was going up and down. james buchanan, the only president from pennsylvania, has -- his reputation is in the doghouse. susan: there is now a second president from pennsylvania. joe biden is born in scranton. neil: interesting point. susan: the other group of pe

who was white house hostess and niece of president james buchanan when lane moved into the white house in 1857, she became very popular because she was young vivacious and witty and she was also interested in the arts and began collecting art while living in the white house. after buchanan's administration harriet lane became a well-known philanthropist in washington dc and she also traveled europe dedicating time and energy to an art collection upon her death in 1903 harriet lane willed her entire collection of art toward the creation of a national gallery of art. now at the time no institution existed, so it fell under the control of the smithsonian institution. lanes collection of paintings sculptures and buchanan artifacts from her time in the white house became the foundation and the impetus for the creation of the smithsonian american art museum located in washington dc today next slide. now the smithsonian lovingly refers to harriet lane as the first lady of the national collection of fine arts and some of her art is pictured here. next slide the next first lady i'll discuss is

it was only after the republican party came in second to james buchanan's democrats in 1856 and the american party a distant third that the modern political system of republicans and democrats emerged. now there are many lessons that we can draw from that to the modern situation favoring the republican party, much like the two parties that emerged from the ashes of the wig party. we have within the republican party a faction based upon lies and division. >> yeah. >> the republican party has drawn a line in the sand. you have to believe the big lie that trump really won the presidential election to be a bona fide republican and you have to accept his divisive politics. and then you have another party based on the truth, where joe biden won. here are two critical differences as you point out, the republican party is not evenly divided. the part that is based on a lie is overwhelmingly dominant within the leadership and dominant within the rank and file, again. plus it's vastly more difficult today to form a new party. it would take billions of dollars to really compete nationally or for the pr

in the case of lincoln was there anything was with the president for example that james buchanan. again you can resume was much more than is this considered one of the worst president in the greatest so if you didn't already know that lincoln was going to be great, you see from lincoln's preparation, can you find the seeds of greatness there. >> is going to be hard tofind . you have the time remember when lincoln's elected president for the first time a plurality of the popular vote. is not landmark the. and these figures are largely critical of him, calling him our area and certainly people around him are all thinking he'sovermatched . and certainly the cabinet thinks he's overmatched. lincoln himself as late as 1864 things is going to lose his reelection. so at least for a while he thinks so. it's hard i think to look at that resume so to speak and look at the path he's come and think from this path we know he's going to emerge as maybe the greatest resident in american history. having said that it's also true that the table is being laid in a sense at that time. he's got this b

at the time of james buchanan and other inferior presidents and low lo and behold four years later here comes abe, and he is sold as a -- the illinois rail splitter, honest abe, old abe, and lincoln didn't particularly like that name, nor did he like mr. president or mr. lincoln or anything like that. he preferred lincoln. but he did say, i know i was not going to get elected with the image of abe. and that's why i call my book "abe." it's but the interception between him and -- intersection between him and what got him elected which was his knowledge of his contemporary america, and emerson said about lincoln, there's no hero in history who encompassed culture all ranges of cultural from the very highest to the lowest, on the high side lincoln could recite shakespeare by the page, and many other poets -- not to brag because these lines meant something to him and he liked bawdy jokes and frontier humor and everything in between. sappy parlor songs and soing for. so he did bridge the whole range of culture, and he strongly believed that people are shaped by conditions, outside conditions

some first ladies like harry lane johnston, who was the niece of james buchanan and who served in that capacity as his hostess and first lady really understood the power of portraiture and here you see her in a marble portrait bust which she herself commissioned. it's in the collection of the smithsonian american art museum because she gave it to the nation along with her very extensive art collection and that formed the basis of the national fine arts collection, which is now the american art museum. it's very rare to have a portrait of a woman a named woman done in marble during this period and we may see lots of portraits of women that are well not really purchase, but lots of our presentations of women in marble, but more often they are allegorical portraits. they are types like liberty or colombia or america but in the case of harriet lane johnston, she stood the power of portraiture and as a woman she decided that she needed to preserve her likeness not only in two dimensions, but in three dimensions next, please. at the national portrait gallery today, we commissioned portraits