JON STEWART: So we just discussed the history of slavery with my friend there, Judge Andrew Napolitano — and I mean friend, I do love this man, he's a warm-hearted and good man. And so, we're going to do it now on a game show we just invented, called Weakest Lincoln. You've already met our first contestant, Judge Andrew Napolitano. Why don't we right now meet his opponent? He is, objectively, America's greatest President. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln!
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Wow! What's up, everybody?
JON STEWART: We have an esteemed panel of judges. From the City University of New York, Distinguished Professor Jim Oakes. From UMass Amherst, Manisha Sinha, Professor of Afro-American Studies. And also we have, from... what is the college that you're from?
ERIC FONER: Columbia University.
JON STEWART: Columbia University, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Mr. Eric Foner! We're going to get right to our first question. Why did Abraham Lincoln start the Civil War? (Napolitano buzzes in) Yes, Judge Napolitano.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Because he wanted to preserve the Union, because he needed the tariffs from the southern states, because he resented the challenge to his authority.
JON STEWART: Abraham Lincoln, yes.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Yeah, well, they shot first, and you don't mess with Lincoln. All the vampires know what I'm talking about.
JON STEWART: Panel? Professor Oakes? Why did Lincoln start the Civil War?
JIM OAKES: Because they shot first, and you don't mess with Lincoln.
JON STEWART: Here we go. Now we touched on this earlier too. This is an interesting question. If Lincoln wanted to purchase and free every slave in the United States, how much would that have cost? How much? Mr. President, let's go with Lincoln. Lincoln, how much would it have cost?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Well, it would have cost $3 billion dollars, and keep in mind, I only carry $5 dollar bills.
JON STEWART: Your answer? Now there were about, what, 4 million slaves? Judge, you got an answer?
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Look, the numbers are equivocal because you're trying to talk about it in modern terms. But in 1860 terms, I'll agree with the number $3 billion dollars. Less than half of what it cost to fight the Civil War and rebuild the South.
JON STEWART: Professor Foner, what's the bill for freeing everybody?
ERIC FONER: The $3 billion is correct...
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Thank you, professor.
ERIC FONER: ... but it should be noted that if you wanted to buy all the factories, railroads, and banks in the country at that time, it would have only cost you $2.5 billion. In other words, the slaves were by far the largest concentration of property in the country. They didn't have the money to buy up $3 billion dollars worth of slaves. And more to the point, the South was not willing to sell their slaves.
JON STEWART: So slavery was still economically viable for the South at that time.
ERIC FONER: Slavery was not only viable, it was growing. There were more slaves in the United States in 1860 than there ever had been before. This idea that it was dying out, it was going to die out, is ridiculous. It was thriving and growing....
JON STEWART: Now, let's.... When he says "ridiculous", what he means is "good answer, see me after class". Question three: If the goal was to avoid devastating consequences, how does slavery stack up to the Civil War? Lincoln.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 500,000 people. Let's see... carry the four score and 7... you know what, I'm not exactly a numbers person.
JON STEWART: I understand. Judge?
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Somewhere between 785,000 and 800,000 human beings died because of Lincoln's war. That's more Americans than all war put together.
JON STEWART: And how many slaves?
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: You know, I don't know the answer on how many slaves. That was not in one of the questions you gave me ahead of time.
(everybody cracks up)
JON STEWART: You were supposed to pretend we were all smart, Judge! You were not supposed to tell them that we had the answers beforehand!
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Not the answers, just the questions!
JON STEWART: Professor Sinha, what is the historical fact?
MANISHA SINHA: Nearly 12 million Africans were forcibly removed to the Americas in the African slave trade. By the most conservative estimates of the mortality rate, 10 to 20%. 2 to 5 million may have perished.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Are we talking about during the Civil War, or during the slave trade?
JON STEWART: Well, I think we were doing the cost-benefit analysis of the Civil War, versus the damage.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: But the slave trade ended in 1808, forty years before the Civil War.
JON STEWART: Slavery.
MANISHA SINHA: But it existed for four centuries before that.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Yes.
JON STEWART: And the slave trade also, while it ended officially, they still did that. In fact, England used to patrol the seas, and they would capture 200,000, 300,000 slaves every year. Please tell me that's true.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: It's true.
MANISHA SINHA: Yes, absolutely.
JON STEWART: So even though they abandoned it, people were still using people as property, and isn't that what the war was about?
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: The President used, forgive me, Abe...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: That's fine, that's fine.
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: ... the President used federal marshals to chase down slaves that had escaped and returned them to the South during the Civil War!
ALL THREE PROFESSORS: That's not true!
(massive audience cheering and applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, that's all the time we have for The Weakest Lincoln! We'll be right back.
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involving the NSA and the SAT.