Posted on 07/07/2020 6:02:18 AM PDT 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.
Must have been an awe inspiring sight to see the Great Eastern enter NY Harbor. She was 692 feet long as compared to the Titanic’s 882 feet long. Great Eastern crossed the Atlantic in 10 days. Imagine in a half a century a voyage that took weeks cut down to a little over a week.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
I’m glad George had a nice weekend with his family.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
CRAWFORDVILLE [GA.] , July 10th, 1860.
DEAR SMITH, Your letter of the 6th inst. was received last night. The paper came by the same mail. The point in your historical narrative I referred to was in part corrected by yourself. The word have instead of protect covered the idea. Besides this, one other. My opposition to the Clayton Compromise was not entirely or solely because it did not protect but because it perpetuated the existing status of the country at the time of acquisition, which was antislavery. I wished that status changed either by Congress or that authority might be given to the territorial legislatures to change it. That bill tied the hands of both Congress and the territorial legislatures forever. This however does not amount to much so far as your letter is concerned. I now mention it that you may know the whole facts of the case. You would do well to read that speech, the one I made on the Clayton Compromise, if you write on that subject. What is to become of the country in case of Lincoln's election I do not know. For one I can only give you my own opinion. As at present advised I should not be for disunion on the grounds of his election. It may be that his election will be attended with events that will change my present opinion, but his bare election would not be sufficient cause in my judgment to warrant a disruption — particularly as his election will be the result if it occurs at all of the folly and madness of our own people. If they do these things in the green tree what will they not do in the dry? If without cause they destroy the present Govt., the best in the world, what hopes would I have that they would not bring untold hardships upon the people in their efforts to give us one of their modelling. All I can therefore say in response to your question is that I would not advocate disunion on that ground. Let events shape their own course. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” In point of merit as a man I have no doubt Lincoln is just as good, safe and sound a man as Mr. Buchanan, and would administer the Government so far as he is individually concerned just as safely for the South and as honestly and faithfully in every particular. I know the man well. He is not a bad man. He will make as good a President as Fillmore did and better too in my opinion. He has a great deal more practical common sense. Still his party may do mischief. If so it will be a great misfortune, but a misfortune that our own people brought upon us. This is my judgment — this is the way I look upon it at present. I have not lime now to go more into detail, but I will say this, that I consider slavery much more secure in the Union than out of it if our people were but wise. And if they are not this fact adds no additional grounds to hope for more security out of the Union under the head of those who now control our destinies, than in it. We have nothing to fear from anything so much as unnecessary changes and revolutions in government. The institution is based on conservatism. Everything that weakens this has a tendency to weaken the institution. But I will stop.
P. S. — I see some of our papers are disputing about my position. I shall vote for Douglas; but I do not intend to take any active part in the canvass. I am out of politicks and intend to stay out. This it seems hard to make the people understand.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips,Editor, The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 486-7
Robert Toombs was a fire eater. If you read his address to the Georgia legislature you will have no doubt why the South went to war.
Towanda July 11th. 1860.
Hon. A. Lincoln.
Dear Sir:
Your note of the 4th inst reached me on the 9th.
I wrote you from Chicago, saying I should return home by way of Phila., and that if I observed or heard anything worthy of note, I would write you from that City. My stay in Phila. was more brief than I anticipated – one day only and as I learned nothing of interest, I did not write you.
Your note of the 22d of May was directed to me at Phila. and did not come to hand untill a few days since. I was thinking of writing you when I recd. your last favor.
I see nothing discouraging in the condition of affairs in this State: indeed to me everything looks hopeful and promising. From the day of your nomination, I have had but little doubt of our success in this State. Since the clear development of Mr Buchanan's policy, there has been an overwhelming majority of our people opposed to his Administration. I believed they would generally write in support of any of the prominent candidates before our Convention, except Govs. Seward & Chase. These gentlemen had occupied positions of such mark in the conflicts of the past ten years, that the Conservative & American elements in this State were irrevocably committed against them; but would support other men of equally advanced republican positions, but who had not been held up before them for years, in so unfavorable a light
The division of the democracy of this State is formidable, and I believe irreconcilable. Forney can be of much greater service in moving against a Coalition or Union, than he could possibly be in supporting our ticket. He stands now a recognized & influential leader of the Douglass forces; in the other contingency, he would have been denounced as a traitor, and his influence greatly weakened. At this time Douglass is in the ascendent in this State over Breckenridge, but the latter will gain from this time to the Election. There is no starch in the Northern democracy, and unless the weakened democrats of the North, & especially of Penna, the most servile of the race, shall see, as they will, that Breckenridge is to losing the South, they will flock by the thousands to his standard. They dare not seperate themselves from the South. They understand the danger of such a position, and that away from the South, there is no democratic party.
I cannot feel a doubt of the result. The confusion of Bable has fallen upon the counsels of the Enemies of Freedom. They are doomed through their great iniquities, and by the inexorable moral law of Heaven, to defeat, shame & humiliation. The moral and political power of the party of Slavery is broken, and no patched up arrangements of its leaders, were such a thing possible, can save it from its just doom. The Democracy must turn from its errors, and receive its virtue and strength at the formation of its principles, before it can have the power to retain another political victory. In truth all that remains of democracy in this country, is embodied in the Republican party
I have written you a long and I fear tedious letter
I hope to see you in the fall
D. Wilmot
SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
There’s an interesting piece in today’s WSJ about how “front porch” campaigns were the norm until William Jennings Bryan mounted a road campaign. Then Teddy Roosevelt adopted the same for the Republicans. And the country hasn’t been the same since.
Friday, July 13, 1860.
MY DEAR YANKEE: My book is nearly finished, but, as of old, the Tribune played me false. My self-respect makes it imperative to avoid any contact with the Tribune, and certainly I shall not ask any favor, any notice. Mercantile speculation was scarcely a secondary view in my labor, and, poor as I am, I shall try if a conscientious and (I can say it without conceit, such as few would have done) intellectual production cannot reach the people without the to-be-begged support of an arrogant press.
GUROWSKI.
SOURCE: James Shepherd Pike, First Blows of the Civil War: The Ten Years of Preliminary Conflict in the United States from 1850 to 1860, p. 524
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