Posted on 10/27/2020 4:54:58 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.
Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
There’s more to read in 4-5 pages than an entire Sunday paper today.
I continue to take a daily paper because I'm an old fart used to starting my day reading the news. My two next door neighbors don't take a daily paper.
Well, that's one explanation for why the State of South Carolina thought it was a good idea to go to war against the government of the United States.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
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Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury
Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
George is getting quite anxious, and I don’t blame him.
The talk of secession was remarkably open before the election.
BOSTON, October 30, 1860.
I have already seen your article in “Blackwood.” . . . It strikes me, however, as an entirely fair and rational view of the question, as presented by you. The fact of the present association of human relics with the fossils in a bed of gravel is no proof of synchronous deposit. Nor have we a right, even granting the synchronism, to exclude positively the very great geological antiquity of man, since we have no certain knowledge of the time of extinction of these accompanying fossil forms. It will be important to weigh the evidence, such as this is, gathered from neighbouring and remote regions, on the question of the degree of antiquity to be assigned to these extinct fossils, wholly independent of any association with traces of man. Next, it will be necessary to accumulate all the facts bearing on the question of the physical relations and those under which the two have been brought together, whether by a tranquil process or by turbulent intermingling of different sediments. This, it seems to me, would demand an examination of the whole region, topographically, connected with the Somme valley. As our knowledge in all these particulars now stands, I think a suspension of judgment is the truly philosophical course. You have shown this, I think, most clearly and impressively, and I am sure that all the readers of the article will be struck with its cogency and ability.
I send you in a box some copies of my Report on an Institute of Technology, which you may distribute as you think best. I am, however, mailing a copy to you by to-morrow's steamer. The pamphlet will not be distributed for some time. After the elections are over, and the public ready for other thoughts, we shall try to interest parties here and in the other larger towns, so as to effect a preliminary organization. Then this Institute will join the Natural History Society, Horticultural Society, etc., in a renewed application to the Legislature for a grant of land on the Back Bay. I think you will find the plan of the Institute to include all the features which we used to talk of, and to be at least broad enough for any practical result.
. . . We have no doubt of the election of Lincoln and Hamlin. But there will, of course, be a Democratic Senate, and a very large opposition in the House. The threats of disunion are already less loud. Robert is well, and about to make an analysis of the water-gas, as it is called, which is now used in lighting the new hotel at the corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets. He likes Dr. Pepper, the successor of Wood, very much, and writes in good spirits.
SOURCE: Emma Savage Rogers & William T. Sedgwick, Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers, Volume 2, p. 43-5
Continued from June 23 (reply #4) . The estimate from the editor of the Jackson Mississippian about 99% of Breckinridge supporters favoring secession if Lincoln wins appeared in the newspaper on this date.
William J. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis, American
The picture below is from Jefferson Davis, American.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Talk of Democrat violence is remarkably open before the 2020 election...
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