Every night, in the city of Charleston, South Carolina in 1860, a drummer boy would bang out a signal 10 minutes before 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock when the days were longer. This was the signal for the blacks in the city, slave or free, to move indoors to observe curfew. The streets were patrolled by patrolmen and vigilance committees. These laws were necessary, or at least that's what the people of Charleston believed. They were necessary because the city was overrun by abolitionists. And the very fact that no abolitionists had actually been caught in the city was proof as to how cunning these abolitionists were as they ran about stirring up revolution among their slaves. A month before the presidential election, the Charleston courier reported that the citizens of Greenville, a city at the northern edge of the state, quote, have had reason to believe that their slaves were being tampered with by abolition emissaries. Vigilance committee was formed, but owing to the cunning and dexterity of the incendiaries, it was found impossible to catch them. The Alabama Mail ran an article that was reprinted in other newspapers throughout the South, including the Charleston courier that stated, quote, the South is infested with scores and hundreds of abolition agents whose business here it is to prepare our people for the rule of Lincoln. Southern men everywhere ought to be on their guard against them, end quote. White men who were suspected of being Republican supporters were arrested and tried in front of mob juries. Some of them hanged, some imprisoned, some expelled from the state after having their homes ransacked. The courier tells the hanging of a man and his son in the October 18th issue for having letters that proved them to be abolitionists. It doesn't tell us the content of these letters. William Freeling in the Road to Disunion tells of a Republican who had the misfortune of wandering into South Carolina when he was arrested and imprisoned for 10 days while his home was raided before he and his son were finally released and they were chased by a mob until they made it out of the state. Lincoln was elected on November 6th, but most people in the state already knew what the election meant. On November 7th, Robert Gordon, the jury foreman for the U.S. District Court in Charleston announced that the Republican election had, quote, swept away the last hope for the permanence, for the stability of these sovereign states. In these extraordinary circumstances, the grand jury respectfully declines to proceed with their presentments, end quote. With Gordon's announcement, the presiding judge, Andrew Gordon McGrath, took off his robes and announced his resignation. As far as I'm concerned, Judge McGrath said to the audience, the temple of justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is now closed. Before the election, one South Carolina diarist, a widow named Kazia Brevard, wrote, quote, It is time for us to show the rabble of the North we are not to be murdered in cold blood because we own slaves, end quote. She got word of the election results on November 9th. She lived away out of the city, so the news was delayed, and she wrote, quote, Oh my God, this morning heard that Lincoln was elected. I do pray that if there is to be a crisis, that we all lay down our lives sooner than free our slaves and our midst. No soul on earth is more willing for justice than I am. But the idea of being mixed up with free blacks is horrid, end quote. At the time of her writing that, Charleston actually had more than 3,000 free blacks, and 131 of them actually owned slaves themselves. But I guess she was far enough out of the city to not have to interact with any of them. Senator Charlstonian H. Pinkney Walker wrote that he believed the new government, quote, will be bent on the destruction of the Southern institutions, end quote. On November 17th, Captain M. Barry of the steamship Columbia set off from the New York Harbor to head back to Charleston. After he was at sea, he ordered that the U.S. flag be lowered, and he raised a new flag to replace it. South Carolina didn't have its own official flag yet, though it had battle flags for the South Carolina militia companies, but Barry had his own flag custom made for this occasion. It had 15 stars, one for each slave state, and the iconic Palmetto of South Carolina. For this bold act, Barry would be presented with a gold-headed Palmetto cane shortly after his arrival at South Carolina. For much of the South, secession was a serious question that would have to be debated. But for South Carolina, the matter had been decided before Lincoln was even officially elected, and the state's political leaders had resolved to secede, even if they had to do so alone. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. Today's episode will wrap up the series on the end to bellum years with the culminating event, which was the first wave of secession. It doesn't even need to be said that this was a remarkably significant event in United States history, but the only thing I want to talk about is the actual act of secession itself and the history surrounding it. There are many important questions that I'm sure people would be interested in that I do not intend to cover, such as the question of the constitutionality of secession, but I'm going to defer to historians like Kevin Goodman and Brian McClanahan on that question because I agree with their answers. They argue that it is constitutional, and they base their arguments on certain elements of the ratification debates, which they, and I believe are the most legitimate source for constitutional legitimacy, as James Madison himself asserted. But I'm less interested in the constitutional question. There is historical significance to it because both sides wanted to demonstrate that they had the constitutional higher ground, and particularly in the case of Lincoln, the constitutionality of his actions was something that he needed a legal defense of, which led to several significant points of debate throughout the war. And I will talk about some of these issues when we get to those episodes, but I'm less interested in the constitutionality of secession than I am the constitutionality of other things that apply to the Civil War. To me, it seems like a moot question. Secession itself is nothing more than the statement that you, as a person or political representative, refuse to recognize the government you have been subordinate to any longer. You can't physically move the territory you live in. It's just a matter of recognizing the political authority that claims jurisdiction over you and submitting to it. So even if there were a clause in the U.S. Constitution that specifically prohibited secession, what would it matter? Secession would be a statement that you no longer recognize the political authority of the entire document. So the question of secession is not whether the states have a right to secede, but whether or not the federal government has the authority to use force to compel you to submit to their authority. The reasons for why the southern states seceded and the particularities of this historical event are of no consequence regarding this ultimately philosophical question. Ethically or illegally, it can only be posed as a question of whether or not any government has the legitimate right to use political force to force submission by any other government or persons. Now, some people might accuse me of posing this question in a way that compels a certain answer, basically that I'm biased in my view here, but I don't think I am. Some political and ethical theorists throughout history would say that, yes, the government absolutely has the right to do this. Thomas Hobbs and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I believe, would answer this question in the affirmative. So my blunt rephrasing of the question certainly doesn't compel any answer. It just offers the perspective that I think people should have when thinking about the particular history of the southern secession and the American Civil War, because for many people in the north and the south, this was the question that colored their opinions of legitimate reaction to the southern states. I'm posing the question as something to keep in mind for this episode and the next season, but any answers of legitimate action will necessarily depend on your personal philosophy. I just want everybody to think about whether their personal philosophical answer to the question I posed is consistent with their view of the historical circumstances of the United States in 1860 and 61. At least that's the kind of thing that makes history interesting to me. But given that question, I'm going to do my best to relate the history as accurately as possible. When Lincoln was elected, there were 15 slave states, though some of them, like Delaware, barely qualified as slave states because there were so few slaves in them. But the initial hope among the deep south states was that all 15 slave states would join the Confederacy. I think this is worth thinking about, too, by the way. Secession is a decentralizing movement by definition. But people forget that southern secession was accompanied immediately by a centralizing movement as well. I'm not mentioning this to paint southern secession as a good or a bad thing. That usually just depends on your personal values or ideological leanings rather than the objective facts of history. But it is a point that's often overlooked. The secessionist hotbed, of course, was South Carolina. And it was the first state to secede, being the only one to secede in 1860. They did so on on December 20th. For nearly a month, South Carolina was the only state to have left the union. The second state to secede, Mississippi, didn't do so until January 9th, at which point the other five states rapidly followed. But when South Carolina seceded, it already had the Confederacy in mind, as well as a strategy to convince other states to follow suit. South Carolina believed that if they left the union, the rest of the South would follow their lead. And newspaper editorials argued that, quote, dissolution will never come by the voluntary act of the people. Some master spirits must lead the way, end quote. Such editorials already spoke about the unified southern nation. One said, quote, we will be a compact people made homogenous by a great similarity of interests and one principle of cohesion above all others, slavery, end quote. South Carolina seceded alone, but they did so with a plan in mind for the centralizing movement that would follow to bring the southern states together under a national government, not incredibly unlike the one they just left. So all the secession movements were individual to the state, but these decentralizations were quickly followed by the centralizing movement to unite in their own confederation, just as the colonies had with the US Constitution. Naturally, this was largely motivated by the fear of war, but that doesn't mean we should ignore this element of southern secession. One of the editorials I quoted from asserted that dissolution could not be a popular act of the people. This is something historians continued to debate, was secession top down, bottom up or something in between. But one of the first seven states did put secession to a popular vote. This was Texas and it won by a three to one vote, which means that the majority of Texans who supported secession would not have been slave owners. James McPherson asserts that there's no reason to believe that it would have been any different in any of the other states either, which suggests that there was at least some grassroots support for secession. Two states, in fact, South Carolina and Mississippi had populations in which more than 50 percent of their white citizens were slave owners or the children of slave owners. And it's probably not a coincidence that these were the first two states to secede. There's a correlation between the proportion of slave owners in a state and its willingness to secede, which suggests that there was a top down element to the movement as well. Southerners are generally divided into three camps on the issue of secession. The first category, which probably encompassed most of the deep south, was the immediate secessionists. At their center was a group referred to as fire eaters, being those people who are most vocally agitating for disunion. This would be somebody like Lawrence Kitt, who held onlookers at Bay while his colleague Preston Brooks, beat Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856. In the previous episode, I mentioned that historian Gary North considers John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, two of the three people most responsible for disunion. Dr. North considers Lawrence Kitt to be the third person because of his fire eating speeches he gave to rally support for secession. A good example of the typical immediate secessionist might be the Georgian Thomas Cobb. He made arguments in favor of secession that would be common in the deep south. Lincoln's election had violated the spirit of the Constitution, he claimed, because his victory was evidence that the North as a whole was attacking the constitutional right of slavery. Because of this, Cobb and those like him argued that Southerners needed to take action before Lincoln was inaugurated because this would be safer. Many Southerners were afraid of the prospect of war if they seceded and the immediate secessionists believed war was less likely if they seceded before Lincoln was in office. Additionally, Cobb and others argued, even though the executive powers were constrained, the president still had enough power to do damage without the help of Congress. He can appoint officials in the South for certain federal positions, for example, and he could help build up a Republican Party in the South, which meant that Lincoln had enough power to threaten slavery, even if Southern congressmen were able to prevent anti-slavery legislation. The second category of Southerners, which would be more important for the Upper South in the second wave of secession, were the conditional unionists. These were Southerners who were not thrilled at Lincoln's election and they were wary of the new government. They also believed secession was a constitutional right. However, the conditional unionists thought it was best to wait until the new administration took some offensive action before seceding. For the four states who seceded during the second wave of secession, Lincoln's decision to call for troops after the bombardment of Fort Sumter was a violation of his executive authority. And as I mentioned earlier, many people saw the bombardment of Fort Sumter as a defensive action, so the mobilization of troops was the type of action they were holding out for. Where the fire eaters stood out among the immediate secessionists, the ultimatists stood out among the conditional unionists. These Southerners did not want to secede immediately, but they did want the Southern states to draft a list of demands for their loyalty to the union. These would be predictable demands mirroring the Southern Democratic Party platform of the recent election. They wanted assurance that the fugitive slave law would be enforced and the personal liberty laws of many northern states would be repealed. They also wanted express guarantees that slavery would not be interfered with where it existed, and they wanted slavery to be allowed in at least to those territories south of the Missouri compromise line. But the ultimatists were a minority among the conditional unionists. And in a few episodes early in the next season, I am going to talk about the infamous Corwin Amendment and the compromise proposals that led to the Corwin Amendment. So there were northerners who were willing to take these ultimatums seriously. But there were other northerners, of course, who were offended at the entire idea of the South making an ultimatum after the election. But but I'll get to that in a few episodes. A more typical example of a conditional unionist would be the Georgian Alexander Stevens. He made arguments typical for a conditional unionist. He claimed that the country had resolved the dangerous conflicts of the past. So it was possible that this conflict could also be resolved. Thank, for example, the Missouri compromise and the nullification crisis. Stevens also argued that Southerners should make an effort to do everything they could to protect their rights within the union before making the decision to secede, which should only be a last resort. Stevens, who knew Lincoln personally, also argued that the incoming president wasn't really a threat. He was a moderate Republican for one thing. And Stevens pointed out that Lincoln had never advocated the abolition of slavery where it already existed. This was true, of course, but many Southerners either doubted the sincerity of this claim or were of the completely wrong impression. Also, Stevens argued that the House and Senate stood in the way of Lincoln's abilities to pass anti-slavery law, though remember that the immediate secessionists were countering this argument by pointing out what the president could do with his executive power. Finally, Stevens argued most people in the North harbored no ill will towards the South. But if the Southern state seceded, they would lose the support from the friendly citizens of the North. And this, both the immediate secessionists and the conditional unionists were arguing for strategies that they believed were most likely to avoid war. So the fear of the North waging war was real. And both sides wanted to avoid it, but they didn't agree on the best way to avoid war. Both sides, by the way, I mean the immediate secessionist and the conditional unionists. In the North, there were a lot of people that wanted to avoid war, but there were also a lot of people calling for war, even before the bombardment of Fort Sumter. So both sides being the immediate secessionists and conditional unionists wanted to avoid war. The third category of Southerners on the secession issue would be the unconditional unionists. There were not many of these in the deep South. Most of these types were in the border states that would either secede in the second wave or would not secede at all. A standard example of an unconditional unionist would be, again, the Georgian William Markin, who made standard unionist arguments against secession. It was treason, it was unconstitutional, it was immoral. Secession was a plot by the slaveholders. That would be of no benefit to the common people in the South. They also argued that secession would actually hasten the demise of slavery and it would lead to a war that would end slavery. These last arguments are interesting because many people in the North, like William Lloyd Garrison since 1832, believe that disunion would hasten the demise of slavery as well. It's a reasonable theory because secession meant that the Northern states were no longer obligated to enforce the fugitive slave law, at least not against the slave states who seceded. But of course, many Southerners believed that the threats to slavery by a Republican administration would make the fugitive slave law moot anyway. Notice that all my examples came from the same deep South state. This is partly to highlight the fact that no state enjoyed uniformity in the position on secession among its constituents or politicians. Georgia was the fifth state to secede doing so on January 19th, but it was also one that stood out in a number of ways. For example, any evidence in favor of the tariff thesis for secession typically comes from Georgia. So now let me tackle the all important question over the motivation for secession. I talked about the tariff thesis in the last episode of that. And I also mentioned it in the first episode of the season. Additionally, for those interested, I have an article on the Mises wire on whether or not the tariff disagreement drove secession. The title of the article is did tariffs caused the civil war? But I actually think the title is misleading because I was only addressing whether or not the tariff debate drove secession. Though I don't think tariffs were the reason Lincoln waged the war either. Some people argue I just think it's important to separate the two questions. So let's look at the tariff question and see why I reject it. And I know I feel like I'm I'm almost beating a dead horse at this point on the tariff question. But I keep bringing it up because no matter how much I bring it up, I still get people giving me pushback on this. And it seems to be just such a widely circulating misconception that that I can't help bringing it up any time we're talking about secession to just drive this point home because it isn't important. And the profession of history, there is a degree of trust that historians expect their readers to have when they are writing or in this case doing a podcast or giving a lecture, whatever the case may be, people have to trust that you as an historian are honestly and accurately reporting the facts according to your investigation. This is never perfect because even if you're being honest and accurate, there's always evidence that you haven't seen or evidence that is destroyed or doesn't exist or whatever. So there's nothing wrong with historical disagreement or historical debate. And a lot of these disagreements are waged between equally honest historians or simply debating over the best interpretation of historical causes according to imperfect evidence and imperfect knowledge. But the matter of trust comes into play, particularly when the historian presents his or her evidence. The general assumption is that the historian has looked at large mountains of historical evidence and when choosing quotes or documents to cite or offers supporting evidence that these isolated pieces of evidence are representative of the general documentary evidence. A dishonest historian is not usually one who directly falsifies information. It's usually a historian who selectively presents evidence. So here's a quote that supports the argument and the general audience, if they trust the historian, assumes that the supporting quote is representative of the large body of evidence. But a cherry picked quote and you hear this accusation a lot, sometimes fairly, sometimes not, is one that is an exception to the larger body of evidence. This, in my estimation, is how the tariff thesis for Southern secession is argued. You have really compelling quotes like the one from George's Robert Tombs, where he argued that the proposed moral tariff, which would be passed shortly after the South seceded, would raise tariffs to extreme heights. And remember that Republicans did advocate a protective tariff in their platform. And Tombs says that the proposed tariff was presented because Northerners were, quote, united in a joint raid against the South, end quote. So this is a compelling quote that supports the idea that the tariff drove secession. George's secession document also alludes to protective tariffs. George's ordinance of secession, like the other deep South secession documents, does explicitly cite slavery as the first and primary cause for secession. But unlike other states, it does reference the tariff controversy. After a lengthy outline of the slavery issue. So even here in the Georgia document that is the primary culprit, the Georgia ordinance of secession reads, quote, the material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the federal government, that of the South, not at all. In the first years of the Republic, the navigating, commercial and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests, end quote. And then goes on to list specific examples of protective tariffs, though it does not use the word tariff, but that is clearly what they are referring to. So again, we see some pretty interesting evidence that tariffs are a driving motive for secession. The problem, and this goes back to what I said about trusting that the evidence historians to cite is representative of the larger body of evidence that cannot all be meticulously included. The problem is that this is just about it. I mean, you can get a line here. They're nodding to the tariff, the Confederate Constitution outlawed protective tariffs. And as I said, the disagreement over the tariff between the North and the South still existed. But when you actually start digging into the documents, the evidence is just overwhelming that the issue that dominated the 1850s all the way up to secession was slavery. And the tariff issue is hardly mentioned at all, except when people claim to miss the days when people were divided over tariffs rather than the far more contentious issue of slavery. So some people were actually saying, I miss. I miss the day when we were divided over things other than slavery, like the tariff, then you might hear it mentioned a little bit. There's also a logical flaw in the tariff thesis that I hear a lot. This primarily comes from pointing to the nullification crisis of the 1830s, which was, at least on the surface, a dispute over the tariff. There's a private letter from John C. Calhoun, in which he admits that he sees the real issue as being over slavery. But that isn't even important in understanding secession, because when I say that the tariff was not the reason for secession, the response I commonly provoke is something like, but the tariff dispute goes back for decades. And then they cite the tariff controversy during the constitutional convention and the nullification crisis in which protective tariffs really were a divisive issue between the two sections of the country. But this is odd logic to me. If the question is, why did the southern states secede in 1860 and 1861, then why are we pointing to controversies from the 1830s or 1780s? It is true that the tariff dispute goes back a long way, but that is nothing to show that it survived all the way up to the 1860s. The only way the history of the tariff dispute can even be applicable to the 1860s is to show that it continued to create major issues in the recent history before secession. So showing how far back the dispute goes, if that's what you have to resort to, seems to me to actually weaken the argument, not strengthen it. It's like if I were to say that southern secession was driven by a belief in Zeus, the Greek God of Thunder, but my evidence to this was to show that the belief in the Olympus gods goes all the way back to ancient Western civilization. It would be immediately apparent how absurd such an argument is. But this is what people do when they point to the nullification crisis of the 1830s as evidence that tariffs drove secession in 1860 with little to no evidence of a tariff controversy. In the 30 years in between, especially the decade before secession, which is when all this controversy was really heating up. So I find that the tariff thesis is supported by cherry picked quotes that represent very little in the way of southern conversation during the 1850s, while slavery was on everybody's mind. You you really can explain nothing about the 1850s by looking at tariffs. But slavery is at the center of every major political issue. And the tariff thesis is also supported by what I can only call poor logic in interpreting the historical evidence, this fallacy that evidence found further back in history is somehow more compelling than recent evidence prior to an event like the secession movements of 1860 and 61. So there are references to the tariff disagreements here and there. But these few references don't seem to explain anything significant. Slavery, on the other hand, does. And in addition to the entire political controversy of the 1850s that I've spent months on, there are two really clear sources that slavery was the southern concern during the secession movements themselves. One would be the secession documents. Some of the secession documents like George's come out and state that slavery is the reason for secession right up front. Mississippi, for example, which was one of only two states in which a majority of whites owned at least one family slave, says at the very top of the document, quote, our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery. Now, I said that the tariff quotes do not represent the larger body of evidence and the audience has to have some degree of trust that any supporting quote is representative of the larger pile of evidence. And that's true here, since it would be impossible for me to list all of the evidence supporting the slavery thesis for southern secession. It would be impossible because the evidence on this end is mountainous. All of the deep south ordinance of secession cite slavery as their motivation, though some of the documents in the second wave of secession like Virginia's don't cite slavery at all. Since the second wave of secession was driven more by opposition to Lincoln's perceived usurpation of authority. But the secession documents have a lot of interesting and insightful tidbits in them. The Mississippi documents, like many of the other secession documents, claims that the Union has, quote, nullified the Fugitive Slave Act in almost every free state in the Union, end quote. Remember this, if you ever need an argument in support of nullification, people who oppose nullification never seem to give a reasonable philosophical basis for their opposition. They typically just point out that John C. Calhoun put forth the idea of nullification. So it must be axiomatically bad. But nullification of the Fugitive Slave Law was a common grievance among southern states. So the themes of the secession documents, all of which you can read in full online at the website for Yale's Law School is first and foremost slavery and secondarily would be states' rights, usually as an extension of slavery. But it's worth remembering that even non-slave owners often saw an attack on slavery as an attack on their rights in general. And states' rights became the more general motivation for Confederate soldiers after the right to peaceful secession was denied by the Union government. And the theme of violations of the Constitution are also apparent in the secession document, though this would be according to their interpretation of the Constitution, which I find to be somewhat contradictory, given the citation of the nullification of the Fugitive Slave Law by sovereign states as something that the South did not recognize as legitimate. But one other interesting source affirming that slavery rather than the general states' rights of the Constitution was the motivation for secession, at least among the politicians who had the power to vote for secession, since only Texas put it to popular vote, is found in the arguments made by the secession commissioners. A lot of the public speeches on the matter downplayed the issue of slavery. Jefferson Davis' first speech as president of the Confederacy, for example, cited the common arguments about Northern aggression and states' rights. But when urging secession, several deep South states appointed commissioners to travel to other Southern states to encourage secession. This would include states that did not secede or did not do so until after Fort Sumter. But the arguments of the secession commissioners are a little bit more blunt than people like Jefferson Davis when he was speaking publicly. The secession commissioners did not dance around the issue of slavery. They were appealing to the state's politicians and the various state legislatures naturally had a higher population of slave owners than their respective states as a whole. Additionally, the commissioners were not making public speeches that would be advertised to their entire country. So they were able to avoid the political maneuvering that public figures have to include in their rhetoric. So prior to Lincoln's inauguration, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana all appointed secession commissioners to visit other states and try to convince them to join the secession movement. These arguments continued from December of 1860 until April of 1861. Mississippi and Alabama were the only two of these states to send a commissioner to every slave state, all 14, not including their own, which meant they even sent commissioners to South Carolina, which seems rather unnecessary in hindsight. But the arguments that the commissioners used are what's really telling, at least for those who question how much the slavery issue played a role in the decision for the deep south to secede because these commissioners were giving the reasons that their own states seceded as part of their appeals. William Harris, Mississippi's commissioner to Georgia, is a useful example. He gave arguments typical of the secession commissioners, quote, Our fathers made this a government for the white man, rejecting the Negro as an ignorant inferior barbarian race and capable of self government and not therefore entitled to be associated with the white man upon terms of civil, political or social equality. The Lincoln administration wants to overturn and strike down this great feature of our union and to substitute in its stead their new theory of the universal equality of the black and white races. This new union with Lincoln black Republicans and free Negroes without slavery or slavery under our old constitutional bond of union without Lincoln black Republicans or free Negroes either to molest us. Harris went on to say that if Southerners wanted to avoid, quote, submission to Negro equality, secession is inevitable. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish. The part of Mississippi is chosen. She will never submit to the principles and policy of this black Republican administration. She had rather see the last of her race, men, women and children emulated in one common funeral pyre than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the Negro race. The Mississippi commissioner to Maryland argued that, quote, slavery was ordained by God and sanctioned by humanity. And Southerners, quote, would not give up their slaves because doing so would mean turning the, quote, beautiful cotton fields into barren wastes. I pointed out in the previous episode that Lincoln, regardless of whether or not he was speaking out of sincere conviction or simple political moralization, he did speak of slavery as an immoral institution. Lincoln's statements about the morality of slavery were also referenced by the secession commissioners. Handy again said, quote, the moment that slavery is pronounced a moral evil, a sin by the general government, that moment, the safety of the rights of the South will be entirely gone, end quote. Obviously, this is meant to appeal to fears among Southerners about Lincoln's moral statements about slavery, which is one of the reasons they are important to recognize even if you believe Lincoln was insincere or hypocritical on the matter. You also find explicit statements of what a lot of people already assume, which is that the Confederate states banned the importation of slaves because they wanted to protect the prices of domestic slaves. Isham Garrett, the Alabama commissioner to North Carolina, said, quote, the non slave holding states while declaring that we shall not expand and that thereby we shall be crushed by our slave population are charging upon us a design to reopen the African slave trade. The charge is slander upon our people and a reflection upon their intelligence. Southerners fill no desire to depreciate the value of their own property nor to demoralize their slaves by throwing among them savages and cannibals, end quote. There's a lot to be gleaned out of the records of the secession commissioners. John C. Calhoun's son, by the way, served as the commissioner to Alabama, which meant that he did attract more attention from the press than other commissioners. But for the most part, the secession commissioners are largely overlooked in the histories, even though they're a very useful source for the Frank motivation for the first wave of secession. In the end, of course, only seven of the 15 slave states would secede prior to Lincoln's inauguration. South Carolina led the way on December 20th, with Mississippi following on January 9th, Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, Louisiana on the 26th and Texas on February 1st. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's subsequent call for troops, four of the eight remaining slave states would join the Confederacy, this time motivated by Lincoln's abuse of executive power. And among the four slave states to remain, two of which, Missouri and Maryland, seemed like they might have joined as well, had Lincoln not sent troops to impose martial law and prevent their secession. But all of this will be covered in the next season, which will cover the war itself. And we will begin by looking at the decision for war, which, unlike secession, was distinctly not motivated by the issue of slavery. Additionally, if you want to see my sources for this season, I have written up a bibliographical essay detailing my most commonly referenced pieces of scholarship, just as I did for the first season on the War on Drugs, which you can read at Mises.org. It is by no means a complete list of works on the antebellum controversy, as there are thousands of books on this period, but it should give you enough to check my claims, or if you simply want to do some further readings. Our look at the American Civil War will begin in the next episode. For more content like this, visit Mises.org.


So now we come to the last part of the demo. You've seen the inner loop and the outer loop working in an integrated fashion. You've seen the developer focus. You've seen use of the IDE. You've seen Tecton. You've seen Argo CD. You've seen the whole end-to-end process. But this entire demo was running on three instances of OpenShift, each on a different cloud vendor. And what we've actually got as a component of OpenShift is something called the Advanced Cluster Manager, which allows you to operate and manage these clusters from a single pane of glass. And what I'm going to actually show you as part of the demo now is the use of the ACM. So if I quickly switch, so this is a startup page on the ACM itself. ACM is actually running on Google Cloud, but it's managing the clusters running on AWS and Azure. One of the nice features of OpenShift is we've got opinionated installers that work in an automated fashion to actually install instances of OpenShift to appropriate end platforms. It's called the IPI, the Installer Provisioned Infrastructure Mode. And we've actually used it here to install an instance on AWS, an instance on Azure, and an instance on Google. If I switch to the overview, you'll see that we've actually got three clusters, as I said, and they're identified correctly as being Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. From this single control point here, I can see the status of every one of the clusters running. It also tells me which type of Kubernetes I'm running, regions they're in, and how many nodes are actually running in my total state. If I switch very quickly to the clusters page, you'll see a more detailed description of the actual clusters. And one of the nice features of OpenShift and ACM is the ability to add additional labels onto objects within the Kubernetes system. In this case, what we've done is I've added demo.cluster type to the Azure and the Amazon Web Services instance to actually distinguish them as production or CI CD. And we can use that label to uniquely push applications from ACM itself into those clusters. One of the nicer features of this is the ability to see the state of your clusters at all times. You can see from here I'm running five nodes on the Google cluster for ACM. I'm running 11 nodes on the CI CD, which is where all the work was done to build, to develop, to automate. And I'm running six on the Azure version, which is our production cluster. One of the other nice features of this is that you have the ability to look at the applications running on any of the clusters and control them. And for example, if I go and look at full store, you can see we've got a number of different versions of the applications running on production, on the mobile, on the CI CD. I can click and actually drill down into those applications. So for example, I can go and look at the inventory application running on the CoolStar prod and actually look at the entire topology, which gives me the indication of all the objects that have actually been installed onto that application. And this is all done from a single point. Again, this comes as part of the OpenShift Plus package. It allows you to maintain your clusters, manage your clusters, monitor your clusters, apply governance, apply applications, and all those features you need for an enterprise strength cluster system. With that in mind, I'm now going to hand over to Serena, who's going to give you an insight to some of the future things that are coming as part of the OpenShift and Ansible platforms.


Now, going back we perform a overall energy balance in the sense that we choose what is called as a semi infinitesimal control volume. So, the semi infinitesimal control volume is spanning the entire width of the channel, but it has a length of only delta x. If you perform the energy balance what you will realize is that the energy flow into this control volume it is a steady flow. So, there is no accumulation. What is coming in is given by m dot multiplied by the specific heat multiplied by the mean temperature at let us say the left phase of the control volume. From the walls there is a heat flux which is providing a heat input over a length of delta x and then the addition of these two guys will go out as the energy content that the fluid is carrying with it. That energy content with the fluid is carrying out of the control volume is as usual expressed in terms of what is coming in and the first order Taylor series expansion about that expression or about that formula. So, what we have is the energy content of the fluid leaving from this semi infinitesimal control volume is m dot c t m which was the energy content of then the fluid coming into the control volume plus m dot is a constant it is a constant mass flow rate situation c is a constant. So, I take that out from the Taylor series. So, only differentiation left is with respect to x of the mean temperature multiply that by the length over which we are carrying out this Taylor expansion which is delta x that is our first order Taylor expansion. So, you perform the energy balance in the sense that the wall heat flux providing the energy into the control volume plus the fluid that is bringing certain energy that into the control volume is equal to whatever is going out of it because there is no accumulation, no other form of energy and work are being considered either because there is none. If you carry out this balance you will come to conclusion that the rate at which the mean temperature is changing with respect to x will be given by this 2 times q double prime s over the mass flow rate times c. And from the previous slide we had just figured out that the temperature at any given y location is also changing at the same rate as the mean temperature is changing. So, therefore, I am equating these two again and saying that partial derivative with respect to x of temperature which is some general temperature at any y within the fluid is also equal to this 2 times q double prime s over m dot c. So, this we obtain from the energy balance employed on this so called semi infinitesimal CV why semi infinitesimal because it is delta x, but the entire span of the channel is chosen. One last thing that we assume here is that the y direction conduction heat transfer would be considered to be much more than the x direction heat transfer conduction heat transfer. Convection of course is happening in the y direction or technically I should say advection is happening in the y direction, but as far as conduction heat transfer is concerned we will assume that the y direction conduction heat transfer that is the lateral conduction heat transfer is much higher than the longitudinal conduction heat transfer. And from again conduction heat transfer you may recall that the second derivative of temperature with respect to x provides us a net amount of heat transfer into the control volume due to conduction in the x direction. Similarly, second derivative of T with respect to y will imply that it is the net conduction heat transfer in the y direction within our control volume. So, because we assume that the y direction conduction heat transfer is much larger than the x 1 we will employ this simplification and with all this background now we are in a position to start looking at the energy equation. It is a steady flow situation so that the time derivative which is our local derivative is identically equal to 0 only the convective derivative is left. Within the convective derivative you remember that when we talked about the flow solution we had figured out that the v velocity is identically equal to 0. So, that this v is also the third term on the left hand side is also equal to 0. From the assumption that the y direction conduction heat transfer is much larger than the x direction conduction heat transfer I am immediately throwing out this term I am not putting this equal to 0, but it is some sort of a comparison between these two conduction terms. And I am saying that d 2 T dx squared is much smaller in comparison with d 2 T dy squared and therefore, I am simply neglecting it from the equation. So, the reduced energy equation finally with all this discussion and background turns out to be u multiplied by partial derivative of t with respect to x equal to alpha which is what is called as the thermal diffusivity which is k the conductivity divided by rho multiplied by c which is a constant coming from the left hand side here times d 2 T dy squared that is the only surviving term from the right hand side. So, the equation that we are boxing now is what the reduced energy equation is and this is to be solved subject to the u velocity profile being already determined from the flow solution as given on the bottom right on the right hand side on the slide. And this energy balance giving us 2 times q double prime which is the wall heat flux divided by mass flow rate times the specific heat equal to partial derivative of t with respect to x. So, these two results are put together because we have a d T dx here we have a u here substitute that d T dx equal to 2 q double prime s over m dot c in here substitute this u in here and what is left is a reasonable amount of algebra which I am not going to carry out here what you end up doing is that having substituted these two terms on the left hand side you integrate then this equation with respect to y. So, I have just outlined the procedure this is actually a reasonable amount of algebra and those who want to do it can do it at their leisure, but I do not want to do it right now we integrate the reduced energy equation with respect to y and then we will obviously since it is a integration with respect to y we will do it twice having done that we will have to eventually employ a couple of boundary conditions. The two boundary conditions that we will employ here in this case are that because the problem is symmetric about y equal to h by 2 as we have drawn in the sketch the variation of temperature with y at y equal to h by 2 which is the y gradient of temperature will be essentially equal to 0. So, that is one condition which is d T dy at y equal to h by 2 equal to 0 and then even though we are not really specifying a surface temperature in this particular problem let us assume that there will be some surface temperature at a given actual location and use that as the other boundary condition in particular at the bottom plate it is a symmetric problem. So, it does not matter where you choose it let us choose it at y equal to 0. Then the resulting temperature profile is plugged back into the expression for the bulk mean temperature which is given here. So, this T here that you see is what you first obtain from integration and then plug it in here to carry out the expression for bulk mean temperature this is also reasonably T d s algebra. Finally, if you have the patience to go through all this you will realize that the final expression results to what is called as the formation of a Nusselt number which many of you who are dealing with heat transfer would know and that Nusselt number is defined as the heat transfer coefficient h suffix c is what I am calling that multiplied by a length scale which in this particular case I am treating this as a hydraulic diameter which is given for the present situation as 2 multiplied by the separation distance divided by the conductivity k and this entire collection is what is called as the Nusselt number based on the hydraulic diameter and if you completely work out this algebra you will say that or you will show that the Nusselt number turns out to be equal to 8.24 in this case. So, the solution of the energy equation finally, let us look at what we have obtained the solution of energy equation is fundamentally to obtain the temperature profile one may stop at that that is perfectly fine. So, that is the top bullet here. However, from a heat transfer engineering point of view what is important to know is the heat transfer coefficient value which is non dimensionalized in the form of this Nusselt number. So, therefore, the second part which is taking that expression from the temperature and plugging it into the bulk temperature expression and carrying out the further analysis to bring about this Nusselt number value is required. If some of you are interested to actually trace this entire development starting from right here actually because this is where we began. We first obtained the velocity profile for our plane Poisson flow then we took up the heat transfer problem. If someone is really willing to go through all these details make sure that you understand how each of these simplifications is being done, perform the final integration and the calculation of the bulk mean temperature etcetera. I will be really impressed and happy if you get to this number. Normally these types of problems we are not solving in undergraduate heat transfer or fluid mechanics courses. Typically, we are solving these for post graduate heat transfer courses in particular this problem that we have just talked about is really a classic problem that we solve in a post graduate heat transfer problem. It is a purely convection situation as you can see. So, in that sense it is not a per say fluid mechanics problem. What we are solving is an energy equation using the velocity profile that we obtain from our fluid mechanics analysis and that is the reason I have gone through slightly fast in this case. But I am very sure that many of you if you just go back and go through the steps you will be able to follow how it has been done. If you want to look at some of these details, you must open a convective heat transfer or convection heat transfer book because typically this problem in the plane channel case typically at least I have not come across this solution in the standard heat transfer books in an undergraduate level book. However, if you look at a convection heat transfer book which is slightly at higher level I am sure you will find this analysis in one of the books. Finally, the number that we are going to obtain as a part of the solution here is the Nusselt number defined in this particular fashion is equal to 8.24. So, those who are interested I really suggest go back and do all this. It is worthwhile doing it once partly because it is a test of patience a little bit in some sense. The other part will be that you will appreciate the kind of work required if you want to work out some of these analytical solutions. In fact, to be honest with you this is one of the more straightforward analytical solution. Many of the analytical solutions that people have worked out in the literature are far more complicated in terms of the level of mathematics and the level of analysis required and that is the reason I would like you to work out this to satisfy yourself that it is indeed this 8.24 that comes up when you perform the analysis. So, here what I am doing now is I will take up the problem of circular Poiseuille flow. So, we have just completed the discussion of plane Poiseuille flow which was a channel formed by two parallel plates and the flow was happening between these two plates. Now, what we have is a pipe of circular cross section and in the cross section it is going to look exactly like a pair of parallel plates. So, it is a pipe of radius r and we are essentially solving a pure fluid mechanics problem right now in the sense that we are after determining the velocity field which will turn out to be again a velocity profile in this case. So, we will assume that this is a steady constant density flow, we will neglect body forces. The thing that is going to happen here is that because it is a pipe of circular cross section I am going to utilize those governing equations in the polar coordinates or the r theta z coordinates and that is why what I am showing here is the radial coordinate as a lateral coordinate and the axial coordinate in this case is z. We will assume a few more things here to simplify our situation otherwise we cannot solve this analytically. So, we will assume that as the flow moves there is no tangential component of the velocity. In other words the flow is not swirling as it moves through the pipe. So, that v suffix theta that tangential component of the velocity will be assumed to be 0. We will assume that it says axis symmetric flow meaning that no matter which theta position around the periphery that you go you get the same situation ok. So, this is in some sense equivalent to that two dimensional approximation that we employed for the plane channel. This is in some sense equivalent to that that it is an axis symmetric situation. In other words what will happen is that if you form a derivative of any quantity with respect to theta you will essentially see that there is no change and that is the reason partial derivative of any quantity with respect to theta is equal to 0 due to the axis symmetric nature of the flow. And we will finally assume that the flow is fully developed which again means that the axial derivative of the axial velocity is 0. The axial velocity will not change with axial distance and that mathematically means that it is the partial derivative of vz with respect to z equal to 0 vz being the axial velocity. Immediately we point out that that means that the axial velocity is not a function of z because d dz of vz is equal to 0. So, my point is that you keep these two sets of slides for the plane Poiseuille flow that we talked about a few minutes back and the circular Poiseuille flow that we are now going to do side by side. You will see that these are extremely analogous and the steps that we will follow are also extremely analogous. So, if you have understood what was getting done in the previous case this is actually exactly similar. Only thing is that here we are utilizing these r theta z coordinates and corresponding velocity components, but other than that in principle there is nothing different between what we did for the plane Poiseuille case the channel situation and now what we are doing. So, let us see that. So, I have listed here for the convenience again the entire set of equations which the first one is the continuity equation written for r theta z situation our cylindrical coordinates and the next three are the three momentum equations the Navier-Stokes equations written in r direction theta direction and the axial direction which is the z direction. Remember this is a pure flow situation with a constant density. So, we do not have to bother about dealing with the energy equation at this point. What I am going to do is I will work out the continuity equation and show you what is happening. So, if you go back to the continuity equation which is the first one on slide number 14 and simplify it according to our assumptions the third term is getting to 0 because it is a fully developed flow. So, v dz of v dz equal to 0 fine. Second term is getting equal to 0 because it is a axisymmetric flow and we said that the derivative with respect to theta the tangential direction of any quantity is going to be 0. So, this second term is going to 0 because it is a axisymmetric assumption. So, then what is left is 1 over r you can cancel with 0 obviously and d dr of r multiplied by v r is equal to 0 which then you integrate with respect to r and you will find out that this implies that the radial direction velocity v suffix r can be a function of theta and z as a result of the partial integration with respect to r divided by r. So, let me just show this explicitly.  So, first we get rid of this 1 over r and then what is left is d dr of r v r equal to 0. So, we partially integrate this with respect to r when we partially integrate this with respect to r we have r times v r not as an integration constant on the right hand side, but because we are doing a partial integration with respect to r we are forced to say that this could be a function of theta and z and therefore, we will write that the radial velocity then is a function of theta comma z divided by r and that is precisely what has been written out here. Then let me take the time to go back and establish the equivalence. Here we go back to our first example the plane Poiseuille flow parallel plate equation. We had integrated the continuity equation which was reduced to only partial derivative of v with respect to y. So, we actually integrated this partially with respect to y and therefore, we did not have a integration constant here we had a function of x. So, this is the analogy between the plane situation and what we have just carried out right now I hope you are able to see that ok. So, now we need to figure out just as we did in the case of the plane channel what should be this function in order to do that we employ a boundary condition on the radial velocity in particular what we say is that the radial velocity at r equal to capital R which is essentially equal to the pipe wall is equal to 0. This is same as your v equal to 0 at y equal to 0 or y equal to h in the case of the parallel plate channel. We are still talking about the same situation in the sense that we are employing this boundary condition for this normal velocity at the solid surface and if we are assuming that the solid surface is impermeable we will say that the normal velocity at the solid surface is equal to 0. Remember in this case we are dealing with a radial coordinate. So, let me go to the whiteboard and show this pipe in the cross section in some sense. So, this is my cross sectional area and the radial coordinate is perpendicular to the surface here and this is r equal to capital R and at this point which is the wall we are employing this normal velocity equal to 0 because there is no because the wall pipe wall is considered to be impermeable solid. So, if at the pipe wall the radial velocity has to be 0 the only way you can obtain a 0 value of this radial velocity is by assuming that this function theta comma z is identically 0 that is the only way you can obtain a 0 value in general. So, therefore, just as we had argued and found in the case of the plane Poiseuille flow that the v velocity which is the lateral velocity in that case is identically 0 everywhere. Remember I had remarked that as a result of these fully developed situations you will see that the lateral velocity will always turn out to be 0 which is what is happening again in this case. The lateral velocity in the case of this pipe flow is the radial velocity and which is coming out to be equal to 0. Of course, we have already assumed that there is no swirling and therefore, there is no tangential velocity, but additionally now we are saying that the radial velocity will be always equal to 0 no matter what. So, what we are saying essentially is then the only non-zero velocity is going to be the axial velocity in this case just the way we had only axial velocity left in parallel plate channel here is the same situation. So, therefore, this is the conclusion here only non-zero velocity is the axial velocity and it is a function of R alone. So, why do we say that we already have seen that as part of our assumption the axial velocity is not a function of z nothing is a function of theta anyway because it is an axisymmetric situation. So, what is left is that we simply say that it has to be a function of only the radial coordinate I hope you followed that. Now, this is a very straightforward set of algebra which I will show you how to do it, but I am not showing it here on the slide neither will I show it on the whiteboard. What we do is again look at the analogy in the case of the parallel plate problem after the continuity equation we went to the y momentum equation. So, just like that we are going to visit the tangential and the radial momentum equations in this case. So, let me go back to the set the second equation here is the radial momentum equation the third equation is the tangential momentum equation simply go here plug in the expressions for this del squared which are the Laplacian operators and I had I had written down explicitly the expression for Laplacian in the radial coordinates yesterday. So, go back to those slides plug those expressions here and verify yourself that under the set of assumptions and under the set of results that we have obtained up to this point here you will see that all terms from the radial momentum equation and the tangential momentum equation will drop off leaving you with the only conclusion that there is no tangential pressure gradient and then there is no radial pressure gradient which means that pressure is not going to be a function of r and theta if it is not going to be a function of r and theta the only possibility is that it is going to be a function of z. So, that is what the conclusion will be I hope you understood what I meant go to those two momentum equations simplify terms according to our assumptions and the intermediate results and you will see that p is only a function of z. Finally, we visit the x momentum equation and I am directly now writing the reduced form of the x momentum equation. Since p is at most a function of z we have dp dz in the total form we do not have to talk about the partial derivative you will see that the left hand side can be couched or placed in the form of mu over r d dr of r d v z dr. So, let us see if that turns out to be the case we write this down what was written on the before. So, I have just rewritten the left hand side in the form of this mu over r d dr r d v z dr the reason is because it is easy to integrate this than the way it is written here. All right, but let us see what is happening if you look at the left hand side we had argued that axial velocity can be at most a function of r. If you see the left hand side it involves only r and r derivatives of v z. So, the left hand side can be at most a function of r e is already argued to be a function of z at most therefore, dp dz can be again at most a function of z at most a function of r on the left hand side equal to at most a function of z on the right hand side will mean just like what we had concluded in the case of parallel plate channel each of them has to be equal to the same constant. And therefore, just like what we assume in the case of parallel plate channel here also we will assume that the axial pressure gradient is a known constant. And with respect to this known constant then the left hand side will be integrated with respect to radial distance twice. And we obtain an expression for the axial velocity as a function of r with a known axial pressure gradient with two integration constants. So, this is a pretty straightforward integration and I would like you to do it because it is really straightforward. In order to determine these two constants of integration we realize that there is a problem with this second term which involves this logarithm of r. However, here we invoke this physical boundary condition in some sense that at r equal to 0 which is our pipe center line r equal to capital R is our pipe wall. So, r equal to 0 is our pipe center line and we say that purely based on physical argument in this case we must have a finite value of the axial velocity at r equal to 0 which will mean that if you want to have any finite value this ln r which will be a troublemaker since r is tending to 0 has to be thrown out all together. And the only way you can throw it out all together is if the constant a is equal to 0. So, we conclude that the constant a is equal to 0 the other boundary condition will be at the pipe wall the axial velocity will be 0 exactly because of that so called no slip boundary condition we are essentially assuming that the pipe is a stationary pipe. So, there is no relative tangential velocity at the pipe wall which is solid surface. So, therefore, v is equal to v z equal to 0 the axial velocity 0 at r equal to capital R and if you work out the or if you substitute these in the expression at the top you will realize that we again come up with a parabola sort of a distribution for the velocity as a function of r. I am very sure most of you know this I just and there is a good chance by the way that many of you would have actually gone through this step by step procedure starting from the governing equations and then simplifying it in a step by step to eventually obtain this what we call as the paraboloid of revolution. But in case those of you who have not seen this kind of a procedure to simplify the governing equations one by one and obtaining finally a solution for the velocity in terms of assumed known pressure gradient I think it is a good example finally it turns out to be again that paraboloid of revolution of course it is an axisymmetric situation. So, that is why we call it a paraboloid of revolution. So, this is as I said an analogous situation to that plane Poiseuille flow this is popularly called as the circular Poiseuille flow or also a Hagen Poiseuille flow as many of you would know it in that fashion. I am not going to work out the corresponding energy equation in this case which is again a convective heat transfer problem. This energy equation in the circular Poiseuille flow will follow the exact same procedure as what we did for the energy equation in case of the plane Poiseuille flow however here is a cylindrical coordinate. What you can remember perhaps is that if you have seen this in a heat transfer class you will remember that for the case of a constant heat flux thermally and fully sorry thermally and hydrodynamically fully developed conditions the Nusselt number based on the diameter of the pipe turns out to be 4.36. So, that solution is many times worked out in standard text books and I think if I remember correctly the heat transfer undergraduate text books will actually work out this solution completely in the convection chapters. So, those who are interested to read this and those who already by the way do not know this there is a very good chance that many of you have seen this in the heat transfer course. Let me just write a couple of names of heat transfer text where you can see that solution. So, there is a very famous text written by Professor Sukhathmi of this department I think it is a text book on or off I think of heat transfer and one more text that we routinely follow I think in the heat transfer courses here is by in Kropera and do it this is I think fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. So, if you look at any of these books and of course there are plenty more, but these are the two that we follow quite regularly in classes here for the undergraduate heat transfer. You will see that in the chapter on convection this energy equation solution for the case of a circular pipe cross sectional pipe with a constant heat flux imposed on the wall is worked out to finally show that the Nusselt number is equal to 4.36 in a situation like this. So, remember that in the case of plane channels earlier here we had obtained the result that it is 8.24 of course the definition is based on a hydraulic diameter which is defined as 2 times the separation distance in this case, but it is essentially an analogous result to what we are going to see in a circular Poiseuille flow which is this 4.36. So, since this is a heat transfer convection type problem I did not want to really discuss this too much I have given you a couple of references where if you are really interested you can go and see this. On the other hand that plane channel problem which I worked out earlier is possibly not to be seen in those undergraduate text books, but if you see one of the postgraduate level convection book most likely you will find it there. What I will do is I will take a break now. Thank you.


Work-life balance is crazy, right? It's crazy. We got to maintain that balance in our life So that we have sanity so that we have good sleep good food We got to take care of ourselves, but we also are responsible especially as a husband as a father You know I have responsibilities And so how do I maintain that balance with the daily vlog and editing and filming and you know Communicating with all of you and so today I'm going to talk as best I can knowing that I'm busy filming here on this work Trip, but as best I can share my insights as to what I think about work-life balance and how I maintain that balance Capiche? Capiche? Time to go run We're back filming with red leaves. It's amazing. All right back to the work-life balance discussion work-life balance, I'm wondering if we need to Change the terms to priorities priorities in our daily living instead of striving for a work-life balance Finding those layers of our every day activities, you know, you go to the grocery store not every day But every week you go to the grocery store. So how do you how are you efficient? That is one of my most favorite words in the world is efficient how are you efficient at going to the grocery store getting gas in your car and Checking the mail at the post office. So I as far as addressing this topic of Work-life balance for me I strive for efficiency in basically everything I do and that's how I'm able to run every day now Sometimes it's at 8 p.m. At night sometimes it's early in the morning, but sometimes it's on lunch break But like I think we need to find those layers where we can be efficient So that's kind of the the takeaway word from this little Here it comes And another way to find those layers in life is to find things that you enjoy remember We talked about that yesterday like if you if you find an activity that you're good at Follow that path. There's a reason you're good at that that that task that activity whatever you enjoy doing So for me, it's running but as a family man, I have to think long term and say, okay If I love running, how does my family integrate into running? So cheering me on at races Dovetailing family vacations with running like that's that's the overlap that I look for in different Tasks that I need to complete every single week And so for me with running like going up to run rabbit run is an example and running up in the mountains But I would I would never go up there for three days without without my family there. Does that make sense? Question of the day question of the day What do you guys do for that work life balance or as I like to kind of think of it a little differently as priorities and layering life and making sure that there's overlap between work between My family between true love between my hobbies aka running. It's like the only hobby I really have but like what is your strategy? What do you how do you approach work life balance? How do you approach? Priorities in your life, and I know this is like a big topic, but if you have thoughts down below comment down below Appreciate it. Appreciate it So I want to speak specifically to will right now and any other endurance athlete for tips on how to basically manage life work Family and trying to stay in shape trying to take care of your health through running Maybe it's cycling, but what I am slowly learning will is that Like the 30 to 40 mile long run Getting ready for a 50k or a 50 miler is Maybe overkill. I really um now Everyone's endurance capabilities are different. Everyone's bodies are different, but don't hesitate to Keep your mileage a little lower aka saving time because you're busy and Increasing the intensity by let's say 10 to 15 percent So instead of running 20 miles for a long run on Saturday when your family's eating pancakes in their pajamas reduce that to 12 to 15 miles But increase the speed. I think I think you'll you'll see a difference in your your speed So on race day, you'll be a little faster now and frankly your body will be able to hold up longer So anyway, I'm slowly learning this and that's a little tip for all the endurance athletes out there. Hi As I'm talking to myself in the woods people are walking by on their on their hike Where New location along the Mississippi Racing for the Sun. Oh, man. I gotta go Gotta get that golden hour. I gotta get that golden hour on the banks of the mighty Mississippi We got to learn to say no, you know will and all the endurance athletes, you know They staying out late going out to you know have a couple drinks like ever now and then that's okay But rarely am I able to do that especially with vlogging like I'll just be honest that a lot of times I have to pass and it's a little sad But I think a lot of my friends know that I just I have to I have to do what I do in order I have to sleep not to take care of myself and in order to do that. Oh my gosh There's an eagle and so we just have to learn to say no in a gentle way in a loving way But you know if you're waking up at 5 a.m. To go for a 35 or 40 minute run in order to You know eat breakfast and get ready for work so you can get to work by 8 But you know you can't be staying out at the bars till 11 p.m. Now trust me on the weekends It's fun to have a little drink get to hang out with people relax, but um It's hard. That's my little tidbit on the banks of the mighty Mississippi not today YouTube not today. We're not dying today


Not the scent of the smoke, but the sight of it, not the sight actual, but the screen through which it altered the sunlight. She couldn't articulate the change exactly. It's just the light seemed odd, like the slightly surreal light of a nightmare. She had overslept. She was used to waking at the sound of his alarm. Woken dazed and blinking into this odd day, the cool and yellow morning. Before she woke the girl, she stood on the deck. I have use of my limbs she thought without knowing why she thought it, and went back into the house. She dressed the child and combed her hair, and she shook cereal into the bowl for her distractedly. This child seemed not to notice anything at all. She was still pliant with sleep and ate without speaking, but with an unfocused concentration she brought to most tasks, that she brought even into her dreams. Her face concentrated even in the task of its dreaming, mirroring perhaps the dream face which rarely smiled. It was too late now to hurry, and the girl ate slowly. The mother had the urge to smack her. She turned her eyes down to the mug of her coffee, and took a sip from it. Without milk or sugar, it tasted wholly of acid and drank. She was coming awake. Where's daddy today? Halfway through the soggy bowl. The girl was halfway through the soggy bowl. Went to work early. You know, he might get home late too after you're in bed. I feel funny, said the girl. Funny how? Shrugged. The mother put a testing hand against a silky forehead. You're fine. I feel funny. Yes, she wasn't fine. The forehead was hot. But Jesus God, just a moment alone today of all days. Children made noise, the woman had been told. But nobody had ever told her that the noise that children made would be this intolerable. The noise they made, the sneezing and singing and screaming and shrieking, nothing wrong when she raced to the other room. The child was shrieking with delight and crying, crying, a scraped knee, a broken doll, and the cat crashing of toys and furniture and bodies. This noise was near constant, slowly growing throughout the waking hours, swelling in the afternoon to an evening crescendo, the noise under everything, diminishing every pure thought in action, the noise she could not block out but had to monitor for signs of true distress. Even alone, one child, Christ, imagined two, looking down at the sick daughter. She was small. She was six years old, very small, but turning already, or should she say, finally human, with her own thoughts. Dark as her father, darker than him, the mother had not made a mark on her. Okay, stay home with me today. I'll call the school. You go back to bed. I don't want to.  Don't try me right now. The anger in her own voice scared her. The girl, the girl fled. Annika. She called the school. Something going around. She was shaking.  Annika?  Now the mother was gentle and stroked her back. The structure of her ribcage was like hands. Ribs had an affinity with slender fingers. The little body contained a soul. She wasn't crying, but her face was flushed. Come, let's get you. No! Let's get you. Annika, still, for she was squirming, then shivering, as the woman lifted the dress over her head and pulled down the tights. Her baby's body gone skinny. The ribs, the dark chest, tiny nipples. Her pajamas were pink. They buttoned. She dressed the girl into them and then tucked the blankets around her. Still cold? She nodded. You'll warm up. Read me. The same book, when they could both easily recite by memory. Father, too. The mother made herself patient. One winter morning, Peter woke up and looked out the window. The body beside her felt incandescent.  Maybe even two days before. Had she? Three pages and the girl was dozing.  Out the window, the sky had a certain unrealness and she stepped outside to gaze at it. The air felt very dry in her throat. The hills sloped away from the house, bare for a mile, and then trees started. Not tall enough to block the view yet, but they were creeping slowly upward and one day they would. The woman was remembering the hillside when it was green and jeweled with newts, bisected purple and orange with sideways eyes, cool on the palm, their movement slow with terror. The girl had caught. Delighted. They lost their tails, she told the mother, if they were caught. Does it hurt? The mother didn't know. What happens to the tail? Does it become a whole new newt? The mother said maybe. And then the girl's lighting up with, the girl's eyes lighting up with understanding. Is that how humans are made too? Baby, the mother asked, do we have tails? But the rain had not come for months and months and the hillside had browned. Some would say become golden, but she would say brown and it was not bitterness because she had felt this way for years, wary of summer. The light was golden, as light should never be, but the, as light should be, but never is. Then she got the first dark scent. Oh, what now? But the feeling was like wonder. Smoke? She was a body in air. As he was speaking last night, she could hear the water in his mouth. That is his spit. She could hear the sounds of the mouth that happened around the words, of the lips opening and closing, of the tongue sliding, and occasionally of the click of teeth. Under the sound of the words was the sound of breath. The breath that carried those words. So at first it was difficult to hear them, the words. And when she did hear them, there was so much space around them. She thought, well, I'm okay. But later, only a little later, she realized it had just been shock. She had not let the words into her body. It was though she had just placed a pill on her tongue, and while she could feel the weight of it there, she could not yet taste it. Alone in the almost empty house, for the girl was sleeping, his words began to enter her. She tasted them. She felt the burning of their swallow. She felt them come into her bloodstream.  His words had changed her. She wanted to see it. Her features were the same, but they had a different meaning now. She looked older and sour, and she saw the lines on either side of her mouth and traced them with her finger. The lines of her mother, her mother's sourness, oh, God. And then she turned away from the mirror with a clenching, a balling up, for once her tears began to form, she would not be able to stop them. For days, she would live in a daisy red and swollen mind, stuffed up as if by cold, and eyes always leaking in betrayal. Inside she turned on the TV for news, but there was nothing, only soaps. Three channels came in, and a Spanish channel, and a Christian one switched it off, and restless. She went into the child's room.  Sick, the child was docile. Hers, she was her mother's, but not her own. Too docile, suffering, but the face in sleep was angelic.  She had not given her any medicine like a bad mother. Should she, should she wake her? But didn't the body need sleep most of all? She thought of the drive to school with her daughter pulling to the curb and watching her walk into the stony building. Then she had not thought, but likely she would have ended up at the ocean. Walking, walking, or sitting, but just sitting in the car, dry, watching the sea fold over. Where was he, work or Started by a knock at the door. She looked through the window in the kitchen and saw a man in uniform. He started speaking as soon as she opened the door, polite, but with little preamble. The hillside was burning, far off, but uncontained, growing in the other direction still. Are you all right? She nodded. She was not sure what shape her face had been in to make him ask. It's not going to come this close, I promise you. Then why do we have to leave? She heard herself speaking like a child. The man had a face she noticed, a young face, dark with stubble, the kind of man who couldn't keep his chin clean. The eyes of the man were amber with pity under his hat. Just a precaution, really. There's no need to be afraid. Do we have enough water? What? To put the fire out? Helicopters, he said, come from the lake. Is there enough water in the lake? No need to worry. We're just being extra careful.  She watched his jeep turn in the drive and wave to him. And how she stood looking dumbly out at the possessions they had gathered and arranged. Each thing was in its place with few subtractions. He had taken only a few shirts and pants and a beloved sweater she sometimes borrowed in two books. Each thing was in its place and clean because she had just cleaned. She went to the kitchen and opened the utensil drawer and looked down at the spoons. Which should she take? And would they melt? She began to take them out of the drawer and put them in a paper bag with handles, then the forks. Not the real knives with teeth, but the gentle butter knives made for spreading. Then she took out the utensil holder and put that in a bag too. The drawer looked very odd undressed. She took off her wedding ring and put it in the drawer and closed it hard. She could hear the gold slam against the wood. Mommy, in the doorway of the room, as if in a frame of a picture, but who would paint a child like this skinny and weary, the eyes of it oddly yellow? Her baby, go back to bed, auntie.  What? I was sick.  Her mother undressed her for a third time and pulled the foul clothes off the bed. Heat came off the body of the child like it would a radiator. But now the mother would be a good mother, lifting the girl who smelled sweet in her hair and taking her to the bathroom and running a bath as she waited, wrapped in a towel on the toilet to keep warm. The mother poured a spoon of blue medicine down the girl's throat, bitter, but she told the girl of Shiva's heroism, sucking the poison from the ocean as it was turned by the gods and holding it in his dark throat so the rest would stay unharmed. Will I turn blue? No love. Why so tender and tears suddenly rising and you go, have I been bad? No. Then why are you crying?   She washed her daughter's hair. The girl was having trouble keeping upright and wanted to lie down. Her head bubbled under the water for a few seconds as it followed its own weight. Almost at the mother patting the body dry. She brought a two big t-shirt for the girl and slipped her arms and neck through it. Forcing her tears back into her eyes took all her effort. But she wiped her face and turned to the girl and smiled, okay kiddo, back to bed. In her parents' bed the child looked tiny. That's all for now. Thanks guys.