Posted on 02/05/2019 5:09:28 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.
Posting history, in reverse order
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
NEW YORK, February 5,1859.
MY DEAR SIR, — A friend requests me to write a line to you introducing Captain John Brown of Kansas.
I have carefully watched the movements of Brown for two years and have considerable personal knowledge of him. He is of the stuff of which martyrs are made. He is of the Puritan order militant. He is called fighting Brown, because under his natural and unaffected simplicity and modesty there is an irresistible propensity to war upon injustice and wrong. He is cool, fearless, keen, and ready with all his mental and bodily powers in the most sudden and imminent dangers. If you would like to talk with him upon the square, and hear what he has to say about what might perhaps seem at first to be treason, he will be glad to talk with you.
So far as one man can answer for another whom he has not known very long and intimately, I can answer for Brown's honesty of purpose.
Faithfully yours,
S. G. HOWE.
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p.178
In “End of the Pacific Railroad Scheme” the editors say it will cost about 18 months of federal revenues, an amount not then affordable.
The estimate was pretty close, actual cost appears to have been $65 million or roughly 18 months of 1858 revenues.
But as a percentage of Civil War costs, that was a drop in the bucket.
The cost estimate presumably does not include $10 million already spent on the Gasden Purchase in support of the Southern route.
That may help explain why Southern lawmakers insisted it must be the Southern route or nothing.
They don't write 'em like that any more! (Thank goodness!)
John H. W. Hawkins, b. 1797, Washingtonian temperance advocate. Amazon.com has a facsimile-reprint edition of the book advertised on Page 7.
If anyone ever fancied a return to the picturesque past, he should read “Dr. Horace Green and His Method,” pp. 13-18.
EEEEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!
Only $.75 in paperback.
The report of the Paris correspondent, page 3, makes me happy to live in the United States.
I guess no relation to BC Forbes who founded the magazine.
Resolved, That while we sympathize with the oppressed, and will do all that we conscientiously can to help them in their efforts for freedom, nevertheless we have no sympathy with those who go to slave States to entice away slaves and take property or life when necessary to attain that end.
J. S. Smith, Secretary.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 488
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
I really feel George’s pain regarding all the committee-work. It’s such a nuisance when other people just don’t show up.
**Spoiler alert** ;-)
I looked up some better estimates of both the transcontinental railroad's cost and US Federal revenues.
Plus, it helps to keep some perspective:
For comparison, today's total US railroad route mileage is ~140,000, including at least six transcontinental routes.
Rails carry about 40% of US freight, #1 item being coal.
1880 US railroads:
February 9. Did little downtown. Savings Bank trustees met at half-past four in the afternoon. Recommendations of the Examining Committee adopted, one of them on a close vote. Every board of trustees, directors, managers, and so on that I’ve had to do with keeps a donkey – one donkey, at least. It is a great physiological law of corporate existence; an asinine element is essential to corporate life. It seems represented in this body by one Benjamin H. Field, who makes it a point to be vehemently garrulous on the wrong side of every question that comes before it.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong (editors’ preface), Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Would those 2 routes to San Francisco and Los Angeles become known as Central Pacific and South Pacific? As a kid living across the street from some tracks in suburban L.A. I saw lots and lots of railroad cars marked Southern Pacific and a few marked Central Pacific. I see the start of a Northern Pacific line on the map, And I think eventually a Canadian Pacific line was constructed.
But what's most astonishing, when you think of it, is how closely slavery in 1859 lines up politically with abortion in 2019.
On the one side we have huge numbers of Democrats pushing as hard as they can for unlimited "rights" to slavery-abortion.
In this they were/are supported by the Washington, DC, establishment and powerful interest groups nationwide.
On the other side we had/have small numbers of Republicans who'd like to abolish slavery-abortion entirely.
In the middle the vast majority were/are, ah, queasy about it, don't like it, don't want to see it, think it should be limited as much as possible if not outright abolished.
In both cases we have notorious SCOTUS 7-2 decisions -- Dred Scott in 1857 and Roe v Wade in 1973.
As a result, the number of slaves grew to nearly 4 million in 1860 (equivalent to 45 million today) and abortions to 60 million since 1973 -- numbers which were/are no problem to Democrats but leave most Republicans stunned.
By 1860 the Union potentially outnumbered the Southern "slave power's" constitutional votes through millions of new immigrants.
Those immigrants lived & worked mainly in Northeastern port cities supporting US manufacturing & exports.
However, before 1860, nearly all voted as Democrat allies to the Southern slave power -- in other words, new immigrants tightened the South's grip on Washington, DC.
But when the South seceded and threw Northern immigrants out of work, they could & did find reasons to support the Union in Civil War.
Today's illegal immigrants perform the same constitutional role, only better, as 1860 slaves -- when counted in the census, illegals increase a state's representation in Washington without the need to seek their votes.
So illegals today, like slaves in 1860 are "vote multipliers" for Democrats.
However, while everybody in 1860 could see at least some of the nation's 4-million African Americans, nobody today can see the 60 million aborted children.
And, while speculation on Free Republic over a potential "Civil War II" always draws a lot of comments, the reality is Southern Democrats never declared secession before 1860 -- so long as they ruled in DC.
Today Democrats practice Nullification (i.e., sanctuary cities) but have not yet seriously proposed outright secession.
I'd say it's because, unlike in 1861, Democrats today have never been seriously removed from their power over the DC swamp.
Any bets as to when that's coming?
A merchant philanthropist, Field was born in Yorktown Heights, Westchester County, New York. He was a member of The New-York Historical Society, and served as its treasurer, vice-president, and, beginning in 1885, its president.
https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibit/benjamin-hazard-field-1814-1893
Biography of Field here:
https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-lost-benjamin-h-field-house-21-east.html
His daughter had HIS diarys burned unread.
The transcontinental link across Texas was completed in 1881.
Another problem is how to organize a secession. Slavery conveniently placed a bright line between north and south (although MD, KY and MO smeared it). Abortion hard core supporters and opponents seem to be divided more according to population density than geographic location. That is, urban/suburban vs. small town/rural. How does secession happen in that situation?
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