The Real Reason Lincoln Was Hated Before He Ended Slavery | Presidents Series | Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck examines Abraham Lincoln’s early life, shaped by his abusive father and stepmother’s moral influence, and his rise from a one-term congressman to president amid assassination threats. His Gettysburg religious awakening reframed the Civil War as a fight for unity over slavery, yet wartime actions like suspending habeas corpus and blockades without congressional approval sparked controversy. Post-Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s 55% re-election victory masked war fatigue and modern critiques of his incomplete abolitionist stance, contrasting with figures like John Quincy Adams. His assassination by John Wilkes Booth—after a failed earlier attempt—followed a confrontation over Lincoln’s "malice toward none" speech, while artifacts like the actress’s bloodstained dress (sold for $100K–$150K) and Mary Todd’s mourning dress highlight the era’s brutality. Beck questions judging history by today’s standards, drawing parallels to modern debates on equality and societal norms. [Automatically generated summary]
Not a lot of people like him, but he wins and he gets into office.
And on the way to office, he is in Baltimore and there is a threat on his life.
They're going to kill him at the train station in Washington.
So he gets into Baltimore at night and one of the guys who are protecting him, they're driving in a carriage.
President could be in an open carriage because nobody knew what he looked like.
He was known mainly by his hat, I think.
And so he takes his hat off and he's in the carriage and he's hearing people say, you know, is that Lincoln in town?
And he's hearing nasty things about him.
And he said, I realized how much trouble the union was in and how much trouble I was in.
George, we have programmed a lot of information and given you a lot of information on what's going on in today's America.
Based on your writings and the writings of the rest of the founders, what is it that you feel is the biggest problem or where we should start to fix things?
If I may speak plainly, my countrymen, the danger, the greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction, but in Manchester.
I was going to say, could you just dumb it down just a little bit?
Okay.
I do have 29 points, and they're all referenced to exactly what we said in the first place.
For this, just speak in today's language.
Okay, okay.
I get it.
All right.
I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me today is the founder of Blaze Media, founder of Torch, the host of the Glenn Beck program, and a birthday boy himself.
62 years young as we tape this today.
My old friend, Glenn Beck, how are you, my friend?
You know, you didn't need to throw in your older as well.
Sorry.
And I think you're just losing weight to make me look fatter.
So thank you for that.
This is a joy so far.
Glenn, you have now moved to Florida.
We're an outdoor people here.
I want you walking the dog early in the morning.
I want you getting sun.
I want to get you on the carnivore diet.
It's all good, man.
How you doing, Dave?
I am doing well.
It is great to see you.
You know, we cold opened with your George AI, which is so cool.
I heard you talk about it a little bit at the Prager U event at Mar-a-Lago a few months ago.
But to watch it in action and see you sitting down with George, well, that's exactly why I do these shows on President's Week.
I want to reignite some of the ideas of the founders, and you guys are leveraging tech to do it.
So we're going to mostly talk about Abraham Lincoln today.
But for just a moment, if you could talk about the genesis of the idea itself and maybe a bit about George Washington.
George Washington is my favorite founder.
And I happen to have a library.
There's three of us, the American Journey Experience, David Barton's Wall Builders, and then My Collection.
And together, it is the largest collection of founding documents from 1610 to about 1830, 1820.
And so we put all of that into a database.
This is all proprietary.
This is not ChatGPT or anything else.
And then we fenced it off so it cannot pull from anywhere else.
It has to memorize.
It can't hallucinate.
And you can ask it to talk about any subject.
You have to kind of give it examples.
Like we asked it about Iran or Russia or something the other day.
And it was like, I don't know what that is.
But It is fascinating to be able to hear what the founders argued, what they actually believed, all from what the original documents are, and also anything that really influenced them when it came to founding our country.
Yeah, it was just such a joy watching.
I watch an extended portion, but even in the clip that we just showed at the top, because there's all the you and I, we can do all the dystopian versions of which way AI and robotics are going to go.
But to see it be used for something positive at the moment and get us back to some of our founding principles.
And I also, I really do love, as you said, that you guys walled this thing off.
So I don't even understand fully how the tech on that works, but basically it will not be hit by outside influence because otherwise, when it comes to AI, we're just following the road that many of the people who screwed up the last 20 years of big tech are taking us down.
Yes.
Yes.
This is completely walled off.
It cannot pull from the outside.
Anything we put in it, it purges immediately.
If it's just a question or we're giving it additional information so it can understand the question, it's all purged.
So it remains pure.
And that's really important.
I mean, somebody said, Glenn Beck is making it, sure sounds like Glenn Beck.
I asked it, do you know who Glenn Beck is?
No.
Do you know what progressivism is?
No.
I mean, it doesn't know anything, doesn't know anything past 1820.
It's fabulous.
Right.
And yet it probably knows a hell of a lot more than the two of I know, the two of us know.
So there you go.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, my friend.
Well, it's President's Week, and I thought you'd be perfect to talk about one of the presidents.
And you got Abraham Lincoln this year.
Where should we start with Abraham Lincoln?
He freed the slaves.
That's the bumper sticker.
But I feel there's a bit more to it than just that.
So I think we should start with him as a child.
Abraham Lincoln, you know, born in the log cabin, born in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, in the woods.
And his father was nasty, drunk, one of these kind of Christians that would beat Christ into you, beat the scriptures into you, would beat his wife.
Just horrible, horrible guy.
Lincoln was terrified of him.
He had a little sister.
His mother dies.
His father just leaves and leaves Abraham Lincoln and his sister, I think he was like seven, six or seven, leaves him and he doesn't know what to do.
So for almost a year, he does all the hunting.
He does everything.
He keeps his sister alive, keeps himself alive.
And then dad walks in one day and he kind of pushes a woman towards him and says, this is your new mother.
And she taught him how to read.
She taught him the scripture.
She taught him everything.
He later said, everything I am, I owe to my mother.
And that's who he meant.
Wow.
Because his father would go, he doesn't need to read.
Reading will just, you know, scramble his head.
He's a moron.
And when he left his home, at first, he's not a good guy.
I mean, he is not a Christian.
He is not living those principles.
He is, he's not a good guy.
And I can't remember now what changed him, but he lives that way for a couple of years and he starts to change.
He doesn't become a Christian again.
He said towards the end of his life, I wasn't a Christian when I was elected president.
I wasn't a Christian when my son died.
I wasn't a Christian another time.
I became a Christian at Gettysburg.
And Gettysburg is the moment where everything changes.
So talk about that change because obviously, you know, people can give you a couple lines out of the Gettysburg Address, but it was a fundamental moment, not only for the country, but for him personally, as you're alluding to.
So, him personally, you have to understand, we had lost every battle but one up until this point.
And he is trying to find his brazen cane, if you will, that Donald Trump has.
He was trying to find somebody who would actually go in, fight it, and win.
And he couldn't.
And he kept going through people.
And Gettysburg happens.
And it's horrendous.
You know, we think of Gettysburg as the battle happened, and then he shows up, and they've buried the dead.
No, the battle happens, and then he shows up like three or four months later, after the summer, and they're still stacking bodies like cordwood.
I mean, I can't even imagine what that town smelled like at the time.
So he goes in and he is deeply moved by this.
He writes just on a little piece of paper, the Gettysburg Address, and basically says, we can't say anything here that anybody's going to remember.
We can't say anything to hallow this ground.
It's their blood.
It's our job to make sure that they didn't die in vain, that we answer the question, can this nation come back together?
And it was very simple.
The guy who gave the speech before him, I think, went on for about an hour.
Abe was like four minutes.
And somebody from the New York Times or one of the papers out of New York came up to him and said, that was a pretty good speech.
You have a copy of it.
And he said, yeah, he reaches in pocket, gives him the original.
And the guy takes it back to New York, types it up, throws the original away.
And there's the Gettysburg Address.
But after this, it drives him to his knees because he had been pleading, but toying with, as again, he said, I wasn't really a Christian.
He hadn't surrendered to God until Gettysburg.
After Gettysburg, he gets on his knees and he's begging God, whatever you want.
Tell me what you want.
I'll do whatever you want.
Just tell me what it is.
And you can see it in his speeches.
He says, you know, if all of the gold and the silver and everything that this country has today is all lost in one heap because of every drop of blood that was drawn by the lash of the whip, remember, God is just.
In other words, that would be a just thing.
If we lose everything, it's still just.
So he calls for a national day of prayer and fasting, humiliation, prayer and fasting.
Humiliation, I think, is the key.
Humiliation means you humble yourself and you realize you don't have any control over anything.
You know, everything you have, you've got from God.
Prayer, please, dear Lord, save the Republic.
And fasting, dedicate yourself, sacrifice something.
He does that.
We lose every battle but one prior to this.
We win every battle but one after the proclamation.
And I think that's important because that's very much like George Washington as well.
When we are a nation of covenants and when we make a covenant, things change.
I want to go back early before this.
He's not, he's a complex guy.
You know, he gets into Congress and John Quincy Adams is in Congress, and he's old by this time.
He's the only president to become president and then leave and go to the House of Representatives.
And the reason why is because he believed slavery had to end.
And so John Quincy Adams sees this young kid, and he's looking for a successor because he has been fighting against slavery forever.
In fact, they had a rule, I think it was the Adams rule, that you could not bring up slavery in session.
And so they'd finish one bill and they'd say, you know, what's next?
And he'd say, I propose, Mr. Speaker, that we end slavery.
And everybody would shout at him.
So they passed a deal because he just, he would not give up.
He sees Abraham Lincoln and he realizes, I think this is the guy that can do it.
So he downloads everything that he has done.
Abe is not necessarily a guy who is marching or leading with abolitionists.
And so, but John Quincy Adams gets him.
And that's the seed, I think, that is planted there at that time that eventually grows into the Abraham Lincoln that.
Do we know or do you know what his thoughts on slavery were before that?
I mean, he was obviously anti-slavery in some sense, but as you point out, he wasn't an abolitionist or it wasn't maybe in the top of his order of importance.
Do we know where that kind of felon is?
I think he was anti-slavery, but not a leader of it.
Like Franklin was a leader of it.
The Adams were leaders in that.
I think he was anti-slavery, but not a leader.
He was more concerned about saving the republic than anything else.
And, you know, people want to make it about slavery or whatever states' rights.
It really, for Abraham Lincoln, at least at the beginning, it was about keep the union together.
And he didn't know how hated he was.
You know, he was voted, I think, on the 50th round of voting at the convention.
I mean, at the end, they had voted 50 times for different people.
And then suddenly Abraham Lincoln, you know, they're like, what about this Abraham Lincoln guy?
Five Days to Reset00:03:03
Everybody's laughing, please.
And so at the end, he's voted as the guy because some people are like, if I throw my vote for Abraham Lincoln, then this guy will be able to pop up.
Well, too many people think that, and he becomes the nominee for the party.
Nobody knows who he is.
He's a failed congressman, one-term congressman.
And so now all of a sudden he's the president.
Nobody knows him.
Not a lot of people like him, but he wins and he gets into office.
And on the way to office, he is in Baltimore and there is a threat on his life.
They're going to kill him at the train station in Washington.
So he gets into Baltimore at night.
And one of the guys who are protecting him, they're driving in a carriage.
President could be in an open carriage because nobody knew what he looked like.
He was known mainly by his hat, I think.
And so he takes his hat off and he's in the carriage and he's hearing people say, you know, is that Lincoln in town?
And he's hearing nasty things about him.
And he said, I realized how much trouble the union was in and how much trouble I was in.
They take him, bring him into a theater.
Halfway through, he sneaks out the side door into an alley.
They tell him to crouch down, take off the hat, you know, put a shawl on, act like you're an old man.
They get him into another carriage.
They take him to a train.
They take him to Pittsburgh and then into Washington on another train going another direction.
He's there before the assassins even show up to greet his train from Baltimore the next day.
Long work weeks and packed weekends can leave you feeling run down.
If you've ever felt like you needed a true reset, not just another quick fix, this is worth paying attention to.
Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet works at the cellular level to reset and rejuvenate your body from the inside out, supporting sustained fat loss, lean muscle protection, metabolism, slower aging, and even glowing skin.
It's a plant-based nutrition program with soups, snacks, and beverages all designed to keep your body in a fasting state while still nourishing it, triggering cellular rejuvenation and renewal.
Developed over decades in collaboration with USC's Longevity Institute and backed by top U.S. medical centers, Prolon is the only nutrition program clinically shown to trigger autophagy in humans, a Nobel-winning prize cellular process that helps remove and recycle damaged cells.
It's also been shown to support biological age reduction.
And in just five days, it can even help reset your relationship with food.
No matter the season, when you're craving a real reset, Prolon is the nutrition program that works.
It's convenient and delivers benefits that stick with you long after the five days are over.
Ready for your own reset for a limited time?
Ruben Report listeners get 15% off site-wide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to the five-day program.
Visit prolonglife.com slash Dave.
That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F-E dot com slash Dave to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift.
Wow.
Abraham Lincoln's Dilemma00:14:51
Do we know what his full rationale for wanting to keep the union together was?
Was it that he just thought we would be warring forever if we did not stay together?
Was it directly connected to all of the slavery stuff?
No, I think, no, I think it's kind of like, I think it's kind of like what I feel now.
You know, there are people who say national divorce, national divorce.
You don't understand what a national divorce means.
A national divorce, you lose everything that we are.
We become a fundamentally different country.
One of the reasons why the Emancipation Proclamation happens is to stop France and I think England from endorsing the South.
And they said, you know, in fact, it was another Adams that happened to be in France, and they're going to send checks now to the South and back the South just for the trade was so good with the South.
And he's told by Adams, no, no, no, don't, don't do that.
I can't tell you what's coming, but wait a week.
I think you'll be impressed because what they were saying was, this isn't about ending slavery.
You're not doing that.
You're trying to preserve this union.
We don't care about the union.
We care about trade.
And trade is happening with the South.
So he knew that we had to keep this together if we were going to be one.
Otherwise, we would be divided up and eaten by foreign powers.
What else do we know about his sort of governing philosophy?
It sounds like we know a bit about his religious philosophy and his religious wake-up, but what about, you know, how he wanted to use government or not use government?
Obviously, you've referenced states' rights here.
There was an awful lot going on between the states and a federal government that still, well, it wasn't nearly as big as our federal government now, but was still kind of putting the pieces together.
I'm not sure you can, I'm not sure it's fair to judge him because he was constantly in war.
It's kind of like looking, Well, it's fair with FDR because FTR, you know, went through and built all this government, and then we went into war.
But presidents sometimes do things in war that you wouldn't necessarily do because it's really bad.
In his case, it was a civil war.
And so you can look at him and say he violated the Constitution at least three times, all on the same thing, writ of habeas corpus, and actually sending the blockade down and being the guy who basically said we're in war now.
And Congress, you know, this has been debated forever.
Does the president have the right to do that?
Or does Congress have the right to do that?
Most people agree that it's Congress that has the right to do that.
So there's his first violation.
And then the writ of habeas corpus.
He is dealing with all these people and he can't let them go because they're just going to join the ranks again.
So what do I do with these people who are seditious?
What do I do?
He holds them and he holds them without trial.
It's my understanding.
I could be wrong on this, but it's my understanding that's kind of like what's happening in Minnesota.
Are you going to get a fair trial of anybody in Minnesota?
And so the president, he believed we have to preserve the republic.
I can't have all these people go out on the streets.
But I think that's the biggest problem people have with Abraham Lincoln.
I mean, I never heard it because I grew up a northerner.
And when I came to the South, I started hearing people talk about, Glenn, I can't believe you like that tyrant, Abraham Lincoln.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
And in some ways, they're right because in war, he was doing things that you wouldn't like to do in peacetime.
But I think he was, my opinion, he was justified in doing those things.
He liked to have people, he's very much like Trump in this way.
He surrounded himself with people that were different.
He didn't like to have everybody think alike.
He brought a team of rivals in.
And that way he could hear all sides.
That was a problem, but it was also, I think, his strength.
What do we know about his popularity before the slaves were freed and then after?
Do you know?
Where?
Right.
Well, I mean, I guess we can probably garner or glean that it was probably a little less popular in the South and a little more in the North.
But do we have any real?
Yeah.
Was it just a little?
I mean, I mean, he only won in second term, I think, by 55%.
You know, the Electoral College was a sweep, but the actual vote was 55%.
So he was just as controversial as any president.
But, you know, by the time you get to the second term, people are tired of war.
You know, again, people, I've heard this from people, you know, civil war.
Are you out of your mind?
You have no idea what that means.
You want to end up looking like Somalia?
That's how you do it.
You know, you're killing family members and family members.
And everybody was done by the time he gets into the second term and we're not winning.
And so he's, you know, I think he was unpopular everywhere.
As soon as he frees the slave, he again becomes more popular in the North, less popular in the South.
But the black community, I mean, he's like a god to the black community, at least at that time, up until really up until recent years, up until about the 60s or 70s, or a lot of it is happening today where, you know, he can do no right.
Right.
So what is that?
Is that just consistent with everything else we see, which is just the rewriting of history in every which way and applying our modern morals to people of the past?
I mean, you have to know he was not a guy who was living for that, but he understood it.
You know, the guy who, the woman who made all of his clothes and his wife's clothes, she was a freed slave that freed herself and bought her freedom and moved to Washington, D.C.
And Abraham Lincoln's wife went into her dress store.
She was a seamstress.
And they hit it off and became friends.
And she closed her store and said, I want to work for the Lincolns in the White House and adored Abraham Lincoln.
In her autobiography, she writes, and Mary Todd Lincoln also is known to have written this as well.
She was a black woman and the only one that Abraham Lincoln and his wife trusted in Washington, D.C.
They told her everything.
They were good friends.
It was a remarkable relationship, remarkable relationship.
But, you know, one of the things people will say is, well, Glenn, you know, he wanted his, he wanted some, I don't know, a private colony or an island for blacks.
That's not Abraham Lincoln's idea.
I mean, Thomas Jefferson even said that because the theory was you have put these people in chains.
You've treated them like this for a very long time.
You're now going to take the chains off of them and say, let's live side by side.
So it was not uncommon at the time to go, that's not going to happen.
Let's buy land.
Liberia is actually part of this.
Let's buy land and send them overseas back to Africa and they can start their own thing.
That's not Abraham Lincoln.
I think that was just a common fear at the time and not a stupid fear.
Right.
That's the thing.
Even in 2026, it's hard to talk about that in some sense, like this idea that they would have resettled people who were brought here as slaves and yet try to imagine how difficult it would be discussing it then when you're one of the people who wants to free the slaves, ironically.
Right.
Well, you want to free the slaves and you want to then you're you're pushing for because everybody else is like, you free the slaves, they'll kill us all.
No, no, no.
We're going to send them back.
I mean, think of this.
How is that a bad idea?
I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Right.
You know, they were taken from Africa and brought here and they didn't come by choice.
Well, our founders and Abraham Lincoln thought we should send them back because that is their home and set them up.
And Liberia for a long time was very successful.
I mean, it was American principles all the way through and through.
But, you know, it didn't happen and thank God it did.
What if parasites could be living inside your body right now causing serious health problems without you ever realizing it?
Most doctors aren't trained to look for root cause issues like this.
Dr. Peter McCullough recently highlighted a case of the New England Journal of Medicine where a man went blind in one eye due to parasitic worms.
Across medicine, the evidence is clear.
Parasites are a real and growing threat and not just in the third world.
The wellness company's ivermectin plus Mebendazole Parasite Cleanse is a doctor-prescribed USA compounded combination designed to help the body eliminate parasites.
One cycle takes just 21 days.
It includes a full 90-day supply.
The process is fully digital, complete in intake form.
A doctor reviews it and the cleanse arrives in about a week.
Be proactive with the wellness company's parasite cleanse.
Go to twc.hell slash Rubin and use code Rubin to save $90 off plus free shipping.
That's TWC.health slash Rubin, code Rubin.
Yeah.
Well, that's why when we have these conversations and people can only get on board the absolute abolitionists, it's like, guys, there was a lot going on there.
Thomas Jefferson was writing the laws to free the slaves while he had slaves.
You couldn't do it like that.
It is very much, I think, be careful on how you judge because there's going to be a lot of this judging happening to us.
The most obvious is abortion.
Okay, there are people who absolutely believe that is murder.
Okay.
And people who say, you're insane, that's not a baby.
Okay.
We have two choices.
We can go to war over it, or we can try to make incremental steps to abolish that.
Okay.
Or change your mind the other direction, whichever.
But we have chosen as a society not to kill each other over that.
Well, in 100 years from now, that may look absolutely barbaric that we allowed this to happen.
I don't know.
It could go the other way, but they will judge us.
How many people do you know that believe this so strongly that is life?
But they're not blowing up abortion clinics.
They're not doing those things because that's unreasonable in our time.
Right.
It's exactly.
That's the way you have to judge people in their day.
It's why we better have some grace with the people of the past because we will be judged way harsher.
I mean, imagine how the people who are for transing kids will be judged, assuming sanity prevails, which obviously that's a big assumption.
But let's jump towards the end of his life.
And obviously everyone knows how this story ends.
Do we have any insight into what was going on politically right before or anything else?
You know, he had just given his speech with malice toward none.
I have a picture, the only picture of John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln together.
Oh, wow.
We're going to get that from you and we'll throw it in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Up in the corner of the stairs, you'll see John Wilkes Booth.
Other people are fuzzy.
Abraham Lincoln is fuzzy.
Remember, you had to stand still.
Booth is zeroed in.
He is clear as the day and he's zeroed in.
And when he hears with charity toward all, malice toward none, he loses his mind.
He actually runs down the stairs and tries to choke Abraham Lincoln to death that day.
He trips and falls.
And so nobody knows what his intent was at the time.
But that's when he's like, I got to kill him.
Because Abraham Lincoln, remember, right after the war, I have Lee.
What do I do with him?
Take your boot off him gently.
So in other words, help him up.
And so he's saying, look, we are all one family.
We've got to come together.
He's for reconciliation.
He's Martin Luther King.
He's for reconciliation.
Booth knows, first of all, he's out of his mind crazy that the South submitted, that they quit.
And so he says, I've got to rile up the North to be able to get them so angry they'll just go back into war because this time it'll be different.
Well, he kills the wrong man and it unites everybody.
But one part of his story that I don't think anybody knows, right around this time, he has a dream that he's going to be killed.
I believe he knows.
He's talking to his wife.
She's like, after the term, what are we going to do?
And he says, I want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
Let's go to Jerusalem.
So that gives you a hint on where he was mentally there.
He goes to the theater that night.
His son is in another theater watching another show just down the street.
The guy who's supposed to be watching the door is in a bar.
Booth happens to be in that bar at the time.
So the guy who's supposed to be watching him off duty and was supposed to be at the door.
Booth is a very famous actor.
He's like Leonardo DiCaprio at the time.
So he can go anywhere and people will let him in anywhere.
He has the whole thing planned.
He goes into the box.
He stands right behind the president.
He knows the lines.
It's a comedy.
And when there's a big laugh coming, that's when he's going to shoot.
And so they hit the line, laugh, shoot.
He's dying.
He then jumps over the balcony, which is a long way down.
I don't know if you've been to Ford's Theater, but he jumps off the balcony onto the stage and basically, you know, death to tyrants.
And he runs.
He Shoots, She Jumps00:02:28
But when he falls, he breaks his leg.
At the same time, Booth has other Confederates and they're trying to kill the cabinet.
Let me stick to Lincoln though.
Lincoln goes, they take him across the street eventually.
I mean, it's so horrific to think what happened.
When he's down on the floor of the theater, the doctor that comes in thinks the best thing to do is to get the bullet out of his head.
So he keeps sticking his finger in the hole and scooping around trying to find the bullet.
His brain starts to swell.
It gets really bad.
It will clog.
And so then he goes back in with his finger to make sure that it can drain.
The woman who was the lead actress in the play that night, she sees an opportunity.
And so she goes downstairs.
She changes into a white dress.
She has a brand new white dress, little green flowers on it.
And then she comes up to the door of the box and says, Well, I just hear the president is lying here on the floor, just bleeding.
And I just can't let that happen.
I just must hold him.
And so they actually let her in.
She puts this whole white dress out.
They lift him up, put his head so he bleeds all over her dress.
She does it because she knows she's going to make herself into the Florence Nightingale of this night.
She goes on tour wearing the dress, telling what happened.
He goes over across the street.
He dies.
As he's dying, the best friend of the Lincolns, she's in the White House and she's making the dress.
The former slave is making the black dress so Mary Todd Lincoln can wear it the next morning.
And I like to think of that part of it.
Here's this black woman who is with a president who was trying to save the union, but then an icon saved her people and ended slavery.
And she's best friends with the wife and knows that the wife has to be wearing black by the time the sun comes up if he's dead.
And I just see her, how she saw through the tears.
I just see her at the sewing machine making this dress all the way through the middle of the night.
A Dress Through Time00:00:58
Gosh.
It's pretty amazing.
It's absolutely amazing.
Do we know where the white dress is?
I feel like if anyone has it, it's probably you.
Yes.
So I actually tried to buy a piece of it.
It was about this big.
And at auction, it ended up being, I think, $100,000 or $150,000 for just that piece.
Wow.
And I didn't think it was worth that.
But there are pieces of it still in existence.
Wow, that is just extraordinary.
Well, I knew you'd be the right guy for this because I wanted people to just get a bite, but also to relate some of the tensions to what's going on today without us having to talk about too much 2026 politics.
Glenn, I wish you a very happy birthday, my friend.
Thanks.
Legendary Glenn Beck making a little appearance on our.
Legendary and old.
Happy birthday, brother.
Thanks, man.
I love you.
Love you too.
If you're looking for thoughtful political conversations that won't raise your blood pressure too much, check out our politics playlist right here.