"These great co-workers in the old Whig time are again friends"

I was looking at old New York Times articles concerning Millard Fillmore when I ran across the following brief item. Given the bitter relations between Thurlow Weed and William Seward, on the one hand, and Fillmore on the other, the description of a post-War reconciliation between Fillmore and Weed makes one wonder about could-have-beens. What would have happened if Weed had convinced Seward to see Fillmore as a colleague, rather than a rival?

The article bears a dateline of July 21, 1869. I have added paragraph breaks for readability:

It will afford the friends of both distinguished parties infinite pleasure to learn that the long personal estrangement between Ex-President MILLARD FILLMORE and Mr. THURLOW WEED was brought to a happy close a few days since at Saratoga, by a meeting of reconciliation so magnanimous in its feeling incidents, so creditable and characteristic on both sides, that we trust we violate no private confidence in stating the fact.

They were their own voluntary mediators. Mr. FILLMORE made the first advance by intimating to Miss WEED, on the occasion of an accidental meeting at the dinner table of the hotel, that if he were sure it were agreeable to her father he would call upon him at his rooms. On hearing this Mr. WEED immediately sought the rooms of Mr. FILLMORE, where, without scarcely a momentary reference to by-gones, personal or political, the most hearty good neighborhood and kindly understanding were restored.

So these great co-workers in the old Whig time -- both grown gray in the public service -- are again friends after an estrangement of nearly a score of years.

Mohammed

Thanks to Zombietime.

The Choctaws

A couple of posts ago, I referred to a number of the names borne by political factions in the Byzantine world of antebellum New York politics -- Barnburners and Hunkers, Softs, Hards and Silver Greys.

Well, here's one more: the Choctaws. No they were not Indians. The Choctaws were a dissident group of pro-Seward Know Nothings. In 1854, when the KN-Silver Greys nominated Daniel Ullmann for governor, the Choctaws bolted the KNs and endorsed the Dry Weed Whig, Myron H. Clark.

In early 1855, Thurlow Weed curried favor with the Choctaws as part of his strategy to obtain Seward's reelection to the Senate. Weed selected as speaker of the New York assembly DeWitt Clinton Littlejohn, a KN allied with the Choctaws.

The KNs Vote for Pope Pius

In New York, “[t]he disintegration of anything like party regularity in the chaotic four-party election of 1854 made it impossible to forecast the party breakdown in the new legislature” that assembled at the beginning of 1855. KNs constituted roughly one-third of each house. “By cooperating with the Hards, their most likely allies,” the KN could have controlled both houses.

William Seward had a long history of courting immigrants and Catholics. As such, there was every reason to assume that he was anathema to the KN legislators. Remarkably, Thurlow Weed nonetheless engineered the reelection of Seward to the United States Senate. He used a variety of methods. Using the compliant new governor, Myron Clark, Weed delayed all government appointments until after the vote, to the point that a Silver Grey complained that “[t]he State creeps all over like an old cheese, & swarms of maggots are out hopping & skipping about all the avenues to the Legislature.”

Substantively, Weed and the KNs reached an accommodation. If the KNs voted for Seward, Weed would not “hinder passage of a temperance law and of an anti-Catholic church property law designed to prevent clerical control of ecclesiastical property. Both laws were key pieces of legislation to the KNs, and the temperance law would please the governor as well.

The upshot was that a majority of the American party legislators in both houses voted for Seward, and the legislators got their temperance and church property laws.

The New York Evening Post acerbically commented on the surprising result, “one need not be surprised if the vote of the Know-Nothings is cast for Pope Pius at the next election.”

The Demise of the Whigs: New York 1854

Viewed from a distance, history often looks pretty tidy. Shortly before the Civil War – some one hundred fifty years ago – the Whig party died and was succeeded by the Republican Party. You can say it in a sentence; the transition is seamless; the appearance and eventual triumph of a new party organization seems predestined, inevitable.

Up close and personal, however, it is remarkable how messy the whole process was. There was nothing inevitable about the Republican party. Its leaders included clever tacticians, and they got lucky.

Ironically, it was not even the Republican party that killed off the Whigs. The mid-1850s witnessed a remarkable series of new political issues arise almost out of nowhere that battered both the old Jacksonian Democracy and the Whigs. The Democrats survived. For a variety of reasons, the Whigs did not.

Death took place at different times, and from somewhat different causes, in each state. However, if you had to pick a year in which the Whig party received a mortal blow, it was 1854. I thought I’d take a look at the New York State fall 1854 elections for governor and the state legislature to give you a feel for the utter political chaos of that year.

In his wonderful The Origins of the Republican Party, William Gienapp takes thirteen pages to sort through the election – which will tell you something about the utter confusion that reigned. Obviously, I will not do that here. But bear in mind that this account is tremendously simplified. All quotes are from Professor Gienapp’s book.

To begin with, we have to take a step back, because both the Democrats and Whigs were already badly fractured in New York. The Democratic fracture went back to 1848, when Martin Van Buren deserted the party to run as the presidential candidate of the Free Soil party. Van Buren and his followers, known as the “Barnburners” (as opposed to the “Hunkers” who remained in the party) eventually rejoined the Democrats, creating another fissure. “Hardshells,” or “Hards,” took the position that the Van Buren apostates should be punished by being barred from holding state or federal office. “Softshells,” or “Softs,” were inclined to forgive and readmit the prodigals. In part, these disagreements reflected attitudes toward slavery and the Slave Power, but more fundamentally they concerned factional fights over patronage and personality.

The Whigs, meanwhile, had their own problems. The fundamental division was between the wing of the party controlled by Thurlow Weed and his protégé William Seward, and the so-called “Silver Greys.” The latter were a more conservative, pro-Compromise group, which you can think of, for purposes of convenience, as associated with Millard Fillmore. As with the Democrats, the factions had policy differences, but a good deal of the rivalry grew out of personal animosity and patronage access. You were either fer Weed or agin’ him – and vice versa.

Cutting across these party and factional lines – essentially dicing them up – were a host of issues that were new or assumed increased importance. Old issues that had traditionally divided Democrats and Whigs in New York, such as the Erie Canal, had faded or been resolved. Taking their place were issues that included temperance, immigration, anti-Catholicism and the Slave Power.

As it turned out, there were four candidates for governor:

The incumbent, Horatio Seymour, was a Soft. However, in 1853 he had unexpectedly vetoed a prohibition bill sponsored by Myron Clark, a Whig legislator. A joint Soft-Barnburner convention renominated him. This meant that Seymour would run primarily as an anti-temperance candidate, particularly since disagreements between Softs and Barnburners over Kansas-Nebraska required that that issue be buried.

When combined, Softs and Barnburners significantly outnumbered Hards. Even so, the Hards so resented the rival groups that they went their own way. They nominated their own candidate, Greene Bronson. The Hards, oddly, were both anti-administration (Pierce had sided with the Softs and removed Bronson from a lucrative position) and pro-Nebraska.

At the Whig convention, the Weed-Seward wing battled the Silver Grey faction. Weed was not able to control the convention the way he usually did, but he did retain sufficient influence to engineer the elevation of a candidate he could live with: the pro-temperance Myron Clark, a “pliable” “incompetent who was an admirer of Seward and willing to follow directions from Weed.” The Whig platform and Clark were mildly anti-Nebraska, but Rum (or rather its elimination) was clearly their primary issue.

Late in the campaign, disaffected Silver Greys seized the chance to nominate their own candidate. Taking control of the Know Nothing organization, in October they nominated Daniel Ullmann, “a leading conservative Whig and perpetual office-seeker.” He was known to oppose Kansas-Nebraska, and privately (but not publicly) pledged to sign a temperance law. In effect, Ullmann headed “a separate Know Nothing ticket with a strong Silver Grey taint.”

In this four-way race, Dry Weed Whig Clark actually prevailed, by all of 309 votes out of 469,000 cast, over Soft Wet Seymour:

Clark (Dry Weed Whig) 156,804 33.4%
Seymour (Wet Soft) 156,495 33.3%
Ullmann (Silver Grey KN) 122,282 26.0%
Bronson (Hard) 33,850 7.2%

Even so, the true winners were the Know Nothings – and the true losers were the Whigs. Ullmann had entered the race very late. The Know Nothings had not yet organized in many counties; Ullmann was lackluster and uninspiring; and his pro-temperance views not widely known. Yet where they were organized, the Know Nothing vote swept away the old parties. Observers were stunned:

“Nothing can be assumed from former Elections,” the Albany Evening Herald remarked the day after the election. “Nearly all the old political landmarks are obliterated. Of all parties there has been a regular ‘smash-up’” in the face of “a complete ‘Know Nothing’ stampede.”

Foremost among those swept away were traditional Whigs, who deserted the party in droves. “[T]he nativist vote came primarily from former Whigs and earlier non-voters.” In addition, many of Clark’s votes were based on his dry position – a position that largely overlapped with the views of the KNs (think whiskey-swilling bogtrotters). In short, Clark did not win as a Whig but largely as a pro-temperance KN stand-in, with a few anti-Nebraska votes thrown in:

Despite Clark’s narrow victory, the traditional Whig electoral base had been thoroughly disrupted, since as many Whigs voted for Ullmann as for Clark. [Clark] suffered massive losses among native-born voters, and in fact he ran behind Ullmann in a number of Whig strongholds . . .. At the same time, Clark picked up unexpected support in northern counties, no doubt in part because the Know Nothings had not yet extensively recruited in that area, but also in response to the Whig candidate’s anti-liquor and anti-Nebraska positions.

As a result, most New York Whigs saw the party as finished:

The election had left “the old Whig Organization a mass of ruins,” a Whig paper in upstate New York commented ruefully. “We are utterly wrecked. It is altogether idle to think of a reconstruction of the Whig Party. It is past surgery, past all medicine.” . . . Nativism had sealed the party’s fate. The Know Nothings, as one New York politician remarked, had “torn the Whig strength to pieces.”

One other observation: in New York, there was not a Republican in sight. Former Barnburners had decided not to bolt their party (again), since Soft Seymour was the standard bearer. On the Whig side, Weed and Seward actively resisted the formation of an anti-Nebraska fusion party, because Seward needed Whig votes in the legislature to win reelection to the Senate. But they had at least hoped to make Nebraska the central issue of the campaign. In this they failed utterly: the issues of Rum and Romanism clearly predominated:

With the Nebraska issue swallowed by the forces of ethnocultural conflict, the major parties in turmoil, and a powerful new party having arisen almost overnight (“as if by magic,” one paper claimed), even experienced politicians were at a loss as to what the future would bring. “Parties are now in a state of disorganization – rather of utter anarchy,” a veteran New York Democratic leader observed at the end of the year. “What is to come out of it, no one can foresee.”

The greatest irony, perhaps, was that, as of the end of 1854, many “experienced politicians concluded that the unprecedented opportunity offered by the Nebraska controversy to organize a northern antislavery party had been irretrievably lost.” The analysis of moderate New York Whig Hamilton Fish, surveying the wreckage on December 16, 1854, was not unusual:

Noting that thousands of Whigs, to say nothing of free soil Democrats, had opposed Clark in New York “while the Nebraska issue was still blistering,” [Fish] saw little hope that a new antislavery party could be organized. “The time for ‘fusion’ is in my opinion past,” he proclaimed. “Fire will not burn a second time over the same field.”

Fish and other observers could not know that David Atchison would set fire to same Kansas field again in 1855, and that the flames would burn on and off for three years, until the resolution of the Lecompton crisis in 1858.

"He has a crack across his brain"

I confess however that I cannot be inspired with confidence in any movement that [Horace] Greeley controls. With all his ability he has a crack across his brain that amounts to little short of derangement & will destroy anything which he may be allowed to lead.

Hamilton Fish to Thurlow Weed, March 22, 1856, quoted in William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, at 151.

Gettysburg Day 3: What Think You of This?

I don't pretend to be a Gettysburg expert, but I've read some about it. I have never, however, heard the following. Can any of you who have studied the battle comment on the following:

Is there anything new and important to say about Gettysburg? Perhaps so. Perhaps Lee's imagination and patience did not falter after the abortive attacks on the second day. Perhaps his plan for the third day was the most brilliant of all: he just kept the fact of its failure secret out of concern for his army's morale. That plausible plan concerns something everyone knows -- J.E.B. Stuart's belated return on July 2 -- and something many people may not know" the action Stuart's men fought on July 3 well behind Culp's Hill. It is always assumed that Stuart just meant to disrupt the federal troops' supplies and reinforcements or harry their expected retreat. But strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Lee sent Stuart around the northeastern tip of the Union lines with orders to circle back west and charge Seminary Ridge from the rear in support of Pickett's charge from the front. Why didn't Stuart deliver that mortal blow? Because 2,700 cavalrymen from Michigan, in fighting trim thanks to Hooker's attention, defeated Stuart's gray ghosts about four miles short of their goal. The Union general who rallied his men with the cry "Come on, you Wolverines!" was George Armstrong Custer.

The accompany footnote states, in relevant part, "On Lee's secret plan for the third day, see Tom Carhart, Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg and Why It Pailed (New York: Putnam, 2005)."

Walter A. McDougall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Eara 1829-1877 (New York: HarperCollins 2008) (emphasis added).

Have you heard of this? Is it credible? Do you believe it?

Blind Willie Johnson

The first time I heard Blind Willie Johnson, I felt as if someone had thrust an ice pick in my neck; I was, literally, stunned. Then I began to smile and, ultimately, laugh out loud – in amazement, and in joy that I’d found him. He is, simply, the finest old time blues singer and performer I have ever heard. I am apparently not alone. Ry Cooder reportedly called one of his songs the most “transcendent piece in all American music.” Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton have also cited him as a major influence.

Willie was born near Waco, Texas in about 1902. At age five, he announced that he was going to be a preacher, and his father made his first guitar out of a cigar box. Following the death of his mother, his father remarried. After his father beat his stepmother for cheating on him, she blinded Willie at age seven by throwing lye water in his face (apparently aiming for the father). With few options available, Willie later began performing on street corners with a tin can tied around his neck, singing and playing the guitar in a bottleneck slide style, using a pocketknife. He married in 1927.

Luckily for us, also in 1927 Columbia brought Blind Willie into a studio, where he recorded ten of his songs. They sold very well, and later sessions increased the total number of songs recorded to thirty. By 1930, however, the Depression had devastated his audience. After a final session in April 1930 sold poorly, Blind Willie, like many bluesmen of the era, never recorded again.

With his wife, he lived for the rest of his life in Beaumont, earning a living as best he could by preaching and playing on the streets and occasional church benefits. In 1947, their house burned down. Living in the damp remains of the structure, he died of pneumonia, virtually forgotten until rediscovered during the folk-blues revival in the 1960s.

Although I have termed Blind Willie’s music as “blues,” he would likely have objected to the characterization. He was devoted to the Bible and the Baptist Church, of which he was a member. Most of his songs are religious – gospel, if you will – and on the streets he preached as well as played his music. But whether you label them “blues” or “gospel” or something else, the performances are those of a man fighting for his very life and soul. Sometimes using a sweet tenor, Blind Willie mostly growled and shouted his songs in a raspy, bellowing, moaning – and yet intensely beautiful – low baritone that would make the devil run scared . . . or cause him to get down on the ground and cry out for forgiveness.

Comparisons? Bukka White comes closest. There are marked similarities between their vocal techniques. Bukka's voice is higher, reedier, and I don't think his guitar technique is as distinctive. Recognizing that all such things are personal, Bukka somehow fails to convey, to me at least, the incredible emotional depth that Blind Willie delivers. Such is the mystery of music. Further afield, Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart are sometimes mentioned. Both lack the power and, more importantly, the anguished and yet life-affirming beauty that Blind Willie conveys. This is "soul" music in the literal sense.

Cultural Differences and the Civil War

In response to a recent post, decon left a comment that began:

The "southerners were different from northerners" thesis is offered in many different guises and it drives me nuts.

The idea that cultural differences between the North and South caused the Civil War seems to be largely in remission these days. However, you do see it pop up from time to time.

The best debunking of the idea that I have come across is contained in essay by David M. Potter entitled "The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa," republished in The South and the Sectional Conflict (LSU Press 1968). Professor Potter reiterated many of the same points in The Impending Crisis.

To begin with, the cultural argument

exaggerates the points of diversity between North and South, minimizes the similarities, and leaves out of account all the commonalities and shared values . . .. These featured had proved their reality and their importance by nourishing the strong nationalism which was in full vigor by the 1840s. Further, any explanation which emphasizes the traditionalism of the South is likely to lose sight of the intensely commercial and acquisitive features of the cotton economy.

Cultural dissimilarities exist between or among sections or groups in many countries. Yet they usually do not lead to war. Likewise, in the United States cultural differences between North and South were probably greater during the founding period and the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century than they were in 1860, and differences persisted long after the Civil War ended. Yet southerners were in the forefront of founding the nation and the nationwide Second Party system, and enlisted in the United States army and fought under the American flag in 1898 and 1917.

The cultural diversity argument fails because it cannot account for these phenomena:

To explain an antagonism which sprang up suddenly, and died down suddenly, the historian does not need to discover, and cannot effectively use, a factor which has been constant over a long period, as the cultural difference between the North and the South has been. He needs to identify a factor which can cause bitter disagreement even among a people who have much basic homogeneity.

In short, "[n]o cultural explanation" "would make possible the explanation of the Civil War, without making impossible the explanation of the rapid return to union after the war."

Throes of Democracy

I'm a little over halfway through, but I thought I'd deliver an interim report on Walter McDougall's Throes of Democracy.

Let's begin with what it is not. It is not a narrative political history of the period. If you are not already familiar with the basic chronology of events, this book is not for you. I think the book would be tremendously confusing to a reader lacking sufficient background.

It is true that Professor McDougall does intersperse impressionistic summary accounts of the political background here and there, but I just don't think it's enough. Certainly, the reader who assumes he is going to get a comprehensible overview of the period is going to be sorely disappointed. If that is what you want, my recommendation is that you opt for Daniel Ward Howe's magnificent What Hath God Wrought (covering 1815-1848), David M. Potter's definitive The Impending Crisis (1848-1861), James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom (Civil War) and Eric Foner's Reconstruction (or Kenneth M. Stampp's brief but excellent The Era of Reconstruction).

So much for what the book is not. What, then, is it? Here's where I start scratching my head. I suppose that most would characterize it as a "social history" (with snippets of political narrative scattered about). I fear, however, that that phrase gives the book too much credit. Good social history does not, perhaps should not, have a "point," but it should at least have an organizing principle that allows the reader to understand why the author is focusing on certain phenomena rather than others. Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought is magnificent in this respect, bringing together social, religious, literary, technological and political developments to try to explain the multiple competing visions in the first half of the Nineteenth Century of what America was and what it should become, and how and why it went down one path rather than others.

Broadly speaking, Professor McDougall clearly has a theme. He sees Nineteenth Century America as a wildly diverse, violent and contradictory, teeming with avaricious hustlers, immigrants, preachers (who may be hustlers or reformers or both) and reformers (who may be hustlers or preachers or both).

But in conveying this theme, Professor McDougall encounters a problem. He does so largely by telling a series of stories about particular characters and movements. Some are interesting, some are not, but it is hard to tell what binds them all together, other than the fact that they illustrate the diversity outlined above. However, if diversity is the only common element, then everything is relevant. In the end, one gets the impression that Professor McDougall is simply stitching together otherwise discrete essays, statistics, trivia and biographical sketches. The result is not Frankenstein, but you can see the scars, and the whole is less -- and less satisfying -- than the sum of the parts.

Let me take one chapter as an example: "Migrants, Farmers, Mechanics, and Clowns: The Anxious, Exciting Birth of an Industrial People, 1830-1860. In sixty pages, Professor McDougall discusses aspects of the following:

Introduction, population growth
Irish immigration and efforts to oppose bias
German immigration and influence
Jewish immigration
Emmigration from New England to the Old Northwest
Farming in the Northwest; technological innovation; transport
Technology: patents; telegraph, sewing machine
Coal; locomotive; railroad development
Rise and growth of technology redux
Newspapers and magazines
Dan Rice, entertainer and huckster
P.T. Barnum, entertainer and huckster
High vs. low entertainment

There you have it. The topics are related, and you can even discern a sort of progression from one topic to the next, but the overall impression is an unsatisfying jumble.

As I said, I am only half way through. If my impression changes, I will be happy to repent.

Breach

I don't think I've ever recommended a movie here before. Well, let me break the string. Breach is a fine, understated yet compelling film.

I've watched it three plus times. Chris Cooper is the kind of actor who shouldn't get a lead role in a million years. He's not sexy, he's not pretty; he's just excellent. The movie sold me on Laura Linney as a fine actress, and Ryan Philippe is very good as well.

Finally -- and maybe I should have put this first -- the subject matter is compelling:

Was Braxton Bragg Really That Bad? V

Last year, I devoted several posts, entitled "Was Braxton Bragg Really that Bad," to suggesting that he wasn't. (You can find them by clicking on the "Braxton Bragg" label at the right.) The posts were based largely on the writings of Steven Woodworth, who has argued that the common knee-jerk opinion that Bragg was the worst of the worst does not withstand careful review.

Until yesterday, I thought I was alone; I don't think that I had ever seen anyone else in the blogosphere dare to defend poor Braxton. Yesterday, however, I was delighted to discover a like-minded spirit. At Army of Tennessee, Braggophile Lee White, a Ranger at the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park, has published a number of entries seeking to raise the general's reputation a notch or two. Continue the good work, Mr. White! And thanks for pointing me to Grady McWhiney's talk to the Civil War Round Table in Chicago, Braxton Bragg: Misplaced General, which I had not seen.

The Second Party System

Several years ago, Sean Wilentz, suffering a severe case of BDS (from which he has not yet recovered), wrote a silly article in which he tried to tar Dubya with the epithet . . . "Whig!"

Daniel Walker Howe has, in effect, devoted an entire book to explaining why the Whig label, properly understood, is a badge of pride, not shame. But I was reminded of the article most recently by Walter McDougall's observation that it is a futile exercise to try to impose the contemporary political spectrum on the Second Party System:

Who were the conservatives and who were the liberals in this second party system? If one adopts twentieth-century definitions it might appear that the libertarian Democrats were the conservatives and the statist Whigs the liberals. But in the parlance of nineteenth-century Britain, where the labels originated, the reverse would be true. In regard to slavery, free-soil Whigs would appear the liberals and the Democrats supporters of a racist status quo. But in regard to workers' rights as understood later in the century, neither party was "progressive." In regard to ethnic and religious tolerance the Democrats would appear the liberals, since they embraced Catholics and immigrants. But in regard to education and social reform the reverse would be true. The only way to get a grip on the growing divide among Americans in the mid-nineteenth century is to purge our contemporary notion of the political spectrum and try instead to imagine the ambivalent anxieties of a freewheeling people with one foot in manure and the other in a telegraph office.

A Corrupt Bargain?

If Hillary drops out of the race and throws her support to Obama in return for the vice presidency or a cabinet position like Secretary of State, wouldn't that be a corrupt bargain?

UPDATE:
How about Supreme Court Justice? I'm feeling ill.

Augieblogging

My sister's American Mastiff, Augie, is closing in on 100 pounds.

A Lazy Post

At Civil War Talk, a correspondent posted the following:

In general Southerners seem to have had a greater connection to their state than Northerners did. I have never been sure of why that was (it seems to have been roughly similar at the time of the Revolution), but it is clear that it was so. Perhaps Northerners were less likely to feel that way because of the greater amount of immigration in their area, the easier transportation network, etc.

I responded as follows:

David Potter makes a point that is relevant here, although it tends away from your argument. Potter argues that loyalty to locality and loyalty to a larger political entity (nationalism) are not necessarily contradictory values. Often, there is no conflict between the two, and one can be loyal to and supportive of both. There is no need to prioritize one's values.

Sometimes, however, the loyalties come into conflict. In those cases, one must draw priorities. This is not necessarily an all-or-nothing exercise. One may feel loyalty to one's country, but feel more loyalty to one's locality or state.

Potter argues that in this respect there was nothing unique about the South. Back during the War of 1812, it was New England that perceived tensions between loyalties. The national government was taking actions that were perceived to be harmful to the section. New England rumbled with discontent. James Madison and Henry Clay -- and John Calhoun! -- were the nationalists, because they saw no conflict of loyalties.

The War of 1812 abated of course. Later on, southerners began to perceive (rightly or wrongly -- we can avoid that issue) that the national government was moving in a direction that threatened their interests. They began to have to prioritize their loyalties. By then, it was the Northerners (or most of them) who perceived no contradiction between their loyalties to their section and their country as a whole. Daniel Webster was able to speak "as a Union man" because he saw no conflict between that role and the interests of his state and section.

On a more practical level, it's worth remembering that the south was deeply tied into national and international commerce. Planters -- including those hotspurs in South Carolina -- marketed an international cash commodity. They had agents and brokers in Britain and shippers in New York. Even most farmers produced a bale or two as a cash crop. I just don't think the isolated south vs. engaged north holds up.

I think the dynamic was the other way around. Perceived national threats to local interests generated increasingly strident defenses of local interests, and the elaboration of theories designed to reduce national power. On the other hand (and I think this also supports my contention), where an increase in federal power was perceived to benefit the south (fugitive slave law, federal slave code in the territories), southerners readily embraced those propositions and indeed maintained that they were constitutionally required.

The same goes for the north, by the way. Where northerners perceived a conflict between national and local, and had to prioritize their loyalties, many went local. Examples would include the personal liberty laws designed to hamper the Fugitive Slave Act, and court decisions such as Abelman v. Booth, which held the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.

Martin Van Buren, Transvestite!

Well, I've introduced you to Martin Van Buren, Pervert. Now meet Martin Van Buren, Transvestite:

Davy Crockett, the Whigs' own Tennessee leatherstocking, served up jucier meat. He wrote (or had ghost-written) a campaign biography depicting "little Van" as a fop. Van Buren, it said, turned up his nose at the common people he presumed to lead, rode about in a carriage with servants in uniform ("I think they call it livery"), dressed like a lord, and (here's the kicker) "is laced up in corsets, such as women in town wear. . . . It would be difficult to say, from his personal appearance, whether he was a man or woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers."

Walter A. McDougall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877, at 91-92.

Richard Vaux, "An ass of the first water"

You've never heard of Richard Vaux? He was an early victim of the Know Nothings. The Democrats nominated for mayor of Philadelphia in 1854. He had a close association with Catholics and immigrants and won the Democratic primary in large part because a large portion of the Catholic vote was delivered to him. Running against Whig Robert T. Conrad, the Democrats were confident of a resounding victory.

They were wrong. In the general election, held in June 1854, Vaux was swamped; Conrad, it turned out, was also a Know Nothing, and won with a majority of more than 8,000 votes.

Even some Democrats were disgusted with Vaux's heavy reliance on Catholics. William Gienapp relates that "One indignant Democrat, who claimed that Vaux had been nominated by illegal votes, dismissed the Democratic mayoral candidate as 'really an ass of the first water.'"

I'm not sure what that means, but you get the idea.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part XI

Last winter, I posted a number of entries about Millard Fillmore's decision to run for president as the candidate of the American (Know Nothing) party in 1856. I argued, among other things, that Fillmore was not a nativist or anti-Catholic; that he turned to the American party, for want of any other vehicle, to convert it into a non-sectional, pro-Union party; and that, in winning the nomination and running on the American ticket, he used an absolute minimum of nativist, anti-immigrant rhetoric -- so little, that he alienated many of the hard-core members who had swelled the party's ranks in 1854 and 1855.

I am pleased to see that so learned a scholar as William Gienapp appears to agree. Here are are a few of Professor's Gienapp's observations about Fillmore's involvement with the Know Nothings:

Fillmore had begun pursuing the [Know Nothing] nomination as early as 1854. He appealed principally to the Silver Grey element in the order [Silver Greys were conservative New York Whigs, opposed to the Seward-Weed wing of the party] and to southerners who desired the preservation of a national Union party. Although the former president endorsed limited nativist reforms, he had little interest in this aspect of the American movement (indeed, while visiting Rome in January 1856, he had an audience with the Pope). Instead, from the first he envisioned the American party as a conservative, pro-Union replacement for the Whig organization.

* * *

Also important [to the Know Nothings' decline] was the muddling of the party's appeal with Fillmore at the head of its ticket. The Know Nothings had risen to power by crusading against old party hacks, calling for political reform, and shrewdly exploiting both anti-Catholic and anti-Nebraska sentiment so pervasive in the North. Fillmore had no interest in any of these issues. To him and the clique of Silver Grey Whigs around him, the major issue of the contest, indeed the great issue since 1850, was the preservation of the Union. In a series of short campaign speeches that he delivered following his return from Europe, Fillmore over and over again stressed the importance of the Union issue while giving only lip service to the nativist sentiments that motivated the party's rank-and-file. "Do you notice that K N-ism already has utterly sunk all discussion of its leading principles?" one Republican asked near the end of the campaign. From a quite different perspective, a New York Know Nothing nonetheless made a similar observation when he complained that the party's speakers "have said too little about the great American principles."

Armageddon

Every once in a while I venture out of the Nineteenth Century. I did so last month, reading Max Hastings's Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45. I won't bore you with a review -- there are scores at Amazon alone -- but I found it gut-wrenching, horrifying and stunning. I felt like I'd never read about World War II before.

For a preview of sorts, I recommend a podcast of a talk that Sir Max gave in 2004 about the book at the Pritzker Military Library in 2004.

Hastings's newest book, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945 is also the subject of a Pritzker podcast. I'm adding it to the list.

Salmon P. Chase, Bull-Bitch

I pass this along without comment, mostly because I'm not sure what a "bull-bitch" even is. It doesn't sound good, though:

The sincerity of [Chase's] hatred of slavery is beyond challenge. The Ohio Free Soil leader had committed himself to the antislavery movement in the 1830s when it was not respectable; he had braved anti-abolitionist mobs; he had waged a long legal struggle for black rights; and he had labored diligently for many years to form a powerful antislavery third party. As his commitment to political activity grew, however, so, too, did his ambition; he was, in the words of one Ohio politician, "as ambitious as Julius Caesar." Chase was . . . also unbearably self-righteous and on occasion decidedly duplicitous in his political dealings -- his enemies called him "a political vampire" and "a sort of moral bull-bitch."

William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, at 72.

Franklin Pierce, Wimp

It is remarkable how irrelevant Franklin Pierce seems to be to the momentous events that shook the country during his presidency. In connection with the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the acrimonious debates and violence that ensued, Pierce typically gets only a line or two.

The little notice that Pierce does draw usually focuses on a visit he received from Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas, David Atchison, John Breckenridge and others on Sunday January 22, 1854. The circumstances surrounding that meeting only emphasize what a cipher Pierce seems to have been, and how little the legislators thought of him.

Douglas and his allies had decided the evening before to report the Kansas bill on Monday. Almost as an afterthought, they decided that they should get Pierce and his administration on board. They recruited Jefferson Davis, Pierce’s Secretary of War, and descended on the hapless president at the White House. Although Pierce and his cabinet had previously expressed disapproval of Douglas’s bill, Pierce was unable to resist the pressure and agreed that the administration would support the plan. Not content with his oral commitment, the conferees even bullied the president into writing out a statement that the Missouri Compromise “was superseded by the [Compromise of 1850] and is hereby declared inoperative and void.”

Pathetically, Pierce tried to maintain a little wiggle room by asking his visitors to consult Secretary of State William Marcy as well. They thought so little of Pierce that they never did so, later claiming that Marcy was not at home when they called.

William Gienapp provides a superb sketch of Pierce that explains why he was and remains virtually invisible – and why Douglas insisted on getting the president’s commitment in writing on that fateful day in January 1854:

A handsome, slightly built man with a generous head of hair and more than a touch of vanity, he carried himself with a graceful manner that imparted an imposing presence. Preeminently a social person, he was blessed with great personal charm and easily assumed a familiar air with callers, often throwing an arm around their shoulders. Such behavior betrayed the shallowness of his character. Wanting intensely to be liked and uncomfortable with confrontation, Pierce appeared to agree affably with whomever he was conversing, even when he had no intention of accepting the proffered advice; later, when he adopted a different policy, men naturally felt deceived. Politicians in Washington came to see how little his protestations of friendship really meant, how completely undependable he actually was. . . . Forceful politicians quickly realized that this unsteady and irresolute president could be intimidated.

Iran Disses Millard

Now I’m really pissed. Even the Iranians are dissing Millard Fillmore.

MEMRI TV has a clip aired on Iranian TV that highlighted the fact that murderous thugs have served as President of the United States throughout our country’s history. Here is the transcript:

Masters of the White House - Presidents of the United States of America

Andrew Jackson 1829-1837, AKA "The Slaughterer of Indians " – Annihilation of hundreds of Indian tribes.

Pierce Franklin [sic] 1853-1857 – Threatening the Japanese empire with the American fleet.

Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865 – The American Civil War. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921 – World War I. Thousands of dead and wounded.

Harry Truman 1945-1953 – The 1945 destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by means of two nuclear bombs.

Dwight Eisenhower 1953-1961 – The American intervention in Lebanon on July 15, 1958.

Lyndon Johnson 1963-1969 – The beginning of the air bombardment of North Vietnam on February 9, 1956 [sic].

Richard Nixon 1969-1974 – Sending 540,000 American soldiers to invade Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter 1977-1981 – Sponsor of the Camp David Accords with the Zionist entity.

Ronald Reagan 1981-1989 – Supporting the 1982 Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant.

George Bush (Father) 1989-1993 - Leading the coalition of thirty countries that invaded Iraq in 1991.

Bill Clinton 1993-2001 – An intensive missile attack on Iraq in 1998.

George W. Bush 2001 till now – Thousands of dead and wounded in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, since 2001 to this day.

But, as Paul Mirengoff at Powerline points out, “it was Millard Fillmore who ordered the fleet to Japan, although the treaty that Commodore Perry's visit produced was signed early in the Pierce presidency.” Once again, Millard gets no respect. He can't even get himself listed as the war criminal that he was.

Even Millard’s own biographer is forced to admit that Fillmore and his thuggish henchmen were in fact blood-soaked murderous imperialist pigs who used the threat of overwhelming and devastating force to crush the peace-loving Japanese – and to serve notice to the entire world that the United States was prepared to destroy anyone who stood in its way:

With regard to Japan, . . . Millard Fillmore decided that the United States would be the prime mover. This, presumably, would give the United States an initial edge in negotiations for whatever trade and other advantages might be derived from Japan, and it would show the world that the young democracy was indeed a world power. . . .

First, however, a “pretext” needed to be found:

Beginning in December 1850, Fillmore’s Japan project slowly took shape. . . . The pretext for the expedition would be the return of some shipwrecked Japanese sailors who had been rescued by an American ship and brought to San Francisco.

Using this cover, the warmonger Fillmore instructed the ruthless Commodore Perry, behind a veneer of professions of friendship, to reduce Japan to vassalage under the heel of the United States:

[Perry’s] orders were difficult. He was to convince the Japanese that the incursion of Americans into Japan was inevitable and that they should abandon their position of hostility. He was to remember, however, that his mission was “necessarily of a pacific character,” and he should use force only in self-defense. The Japanese were “proud and vindictive,” and he was to be “courteous and conciliatory” but “firm and decided.” He was to “submit with patience and forbearance to acts of discourtesy . . . by a people unfamiliar with our ways,” but he was to allow no insults.

At the same time, with a wink and a nod, Fillmore made clear to his commander that he was expected to disregard his formal orders and reduce Japan to a smoking ruin if necessary. Perry was specifically assured that “’Any error of judgment’ on his part would be viewed with ‘indulgence’ by his superiors in Washington.”

With these duplicitous orders, Perry set sail, armed to the teeth and laden with gifts designed to corrupt and debauch that pacific island nation:

Perry set sail with four powerful ships carrying two years of provisions; gifts, including one hundred gallons of Kentucky bourbon whiskey, wines, two telegraph transmitters with several hundred feet of wire, a quarter-scale railroad with 370 feet of track, four volumes of Audubon’s Birds of America; and an excellent interpreter.

Eight months later, Perry delivered these gifts and a deceitful letter from Fillmore

assuring the Japanese emperor, his “Great and Good Friend,” that Perry and the United States wanted only “friendship, commerce, a supply of coal, and protection for our shipwrecked people.” In closing, Fillmore added, “May the Almighty have your imperial majesty in His great and holy keeping.”

Franklin Pierce may have gotten the credit for this bloodthirsty exercise, but it is Millard Fillmore who deserves to live in infamy:

The successful conclusion of Perry’s mission would occur during the following administration, but for better or worse, the combination of military threat and peaceful assurances that opened Japan was conceived, planned, organized, and staffed by Daniel Webster, Millard Fillmore, and Edward Everett.

What Hath John C. Calhoun Wrought

Having discussed and quoted from John Caldwell Calhoun’s initial speeches against the war against Mexico, I thought I’d give you a real historian’s more balanced view of the South Carolina Senator’s multiple motivations:

Fundamentally, Calhoun was not interested in territorial acquisitions unless they promised to strengthen the power of slavery. Texas certainly did, but not California and New Mexico, which the South Carolinian foresaw would provoke sectional conflict while offering little practical likelihood of slavery’s extension. He worried that war with Mexico might jeopardize relations with Britain, on which cotton-growers so heavily depended. He also feared to acquire a Mexican population of mixed race that, if enfranchised, would breach the virtual monopoly of political power enjoyed by white Americans.

"It is monstrous"

It is one of the great ironies of the antebellum period that John Caldwell Calhoun opposed the United States’ war against Mexico. After all, as President Tyler’s Secretary of State, Calhoun had help to engineer the annexation of Texas in 1844-45. A year later, he vainly tried to ward off Mr. Polk's war.

On Tuesday May 12, 1846, the United States Senate received from the House a bill entitled “An act providing for the prosecution of the existing war between the United States and the Republic of Mexico,” which provided in part:

WHEREAS, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States:

Be is enacted . . ., That, for the purpose of enabling the government of the United States to prosecute said war to a speedy and successful termination, the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to employ the militia, naval, and military forces of the United States, and to call for and accept the services of any number of volunteers, not exceeding fifty thousand, who may offer their services, either as cavalry, artillery, infantry, or riflemen, to serve twelve months after they shall have arrived at the place of rendezvous, or to the end of the war, unless sooner discharged, according to the time for which they shall have been mustered into service; and that the sum of ten millions of dollars, out of any moneys in the treasury, or to come into the treasury, not otherwise appropriated, be, and the same is hereby, appropriated for the purpose of carrying the provisions of this act into effect.

Senator Calhoun promptly rose to object. He focused on the statement in the Whereas clause that “a state of war” already existed between the two countries. This, said Calhoun, was a factual assertion that required study before the Senate could or should assent to it. He therefore demanded more time to study the underlying documents:

Mr. CALHOUN rose and said, he hoped, at least, one day would be allowed to those who were to vote upon this bill, as an opportunity to consult the documents which had been submitted to the Senate by the Executive, as containing the ground on which the bill was to pass.

Calhoun also suggested that time was needed because the “bill amounted to a declaration of war.”

Mr. C. had no objection whatever to voting the amount of supplies contained in the bill, or even a greater amount; but he was at present unprepared to vote anything which amounted to a declaration of war. The question was one of great magnitude, and gentlemen who entertained doubts respecting the facts on which the bill was founded, or in regard to the necessity or propriety of a declaration of war, should certainly have some short time allowed them for reflection.

Later that day, Calhoun rose again. This time he stated his objection more forcefully:

[Calhoun] was prepared to vote the supplies on the spot, and without an hour’s delay; but it was just as impossible for him to vote for that preamble as it was for him to plunge a dagger into his own heart, and more so. He could not; he was not prepared to affirm that war existed between the United States and Mexico, and that it existed by the act of that Government. How could he affirm this, when he had no evidence on which to affirm it? How did he know that the Government of Mexico would not disavow what had been done? Was he to be called upon to give a vote like this? It would be impossible for him to utter it, consistently with that sacred regard for truth in which he had been educated.

Calhoun’s closing begs to be read aloud. The Congressional Globe reports the speech indirectly. I have changed it to direct speech (and added some paragraph breaks) so you can declaim it yourself:

I have no difficulty as to my course. My mind is made up; it is made up inalterably; I can neither vote affirmatively nor negatively. I have no certain evidence to go on. Whether any one will go with me in this course I do not know; I have made no inquiries, and I do not know that a single friend will be found at my side. As to what might be said on such a course, and all that is called popularity, I do not care the snap of my finger. If I cannot stand and brave so small a danger, I would be but little worthy of what small amount of reputation I may have earned.

I cannot agree to make war on Mexico by making war on the Constitution; and the Senate would make war on the Constitution by declaring war to exist between two Governments when no war has been declared, and nothing has occurred but a slight military conflict between a portion of two armies. Yet I am asked to affirm, in the face of the Constitution, that a local rencontre, not authorized by the act of either Government, constitutes a state of war between the Government of Mexico and the Government of the United States – to say that, by a certain military movement of General Taylor and General Arista, every citizen of the United States is made the enemy of every man in Mexico.

It is monstrous. It strips Congress of the power of making war; and, what is more and worse, it gives that power to every officer, nay, to every subaltern commanding a corporal’s guard. Do gentlemen call upon me to do this? Do they expect I am going to vote for a position so monstrous? If you force the question up me, I shall take my own course. If you want unanimity, you can have it; but if you choose to proceed on your own petty party views, be it so.

The LA Times Does History

According to the LA Times, George Washington served only one term as president:

In his portrayal of our second president, Paul Giamatti creates a man perpetually dissatisfied, disgusted by the preening ambition of politics even as he is infected by it. If his relentless crankiness was a bit hard for some of us to take in early episodes, in the second half of the series it makes much more sense. While exhorting angry men to throw off the shackles of tyranny offers many opportunities for rhetorical fabulousness, setting up a new government is a bureaucratic nightmare, with oversized personalities disagreeing over things both petty and fundamental. George Washington (David Morse) so quickly tired of the infighting among his Cabinet and vagaries of public opinion that he stepped down from the presidency after a single term. "I know now what it is like to be disliked," he says to Adams, his perpetually disliked vice president.

I don't think so.

Lincoln and the Decision for War, Revisited

Last month, I posted a positive review of Russell McClintock's Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession. At Civil War Books and Authors, Andrew Wagenhoffer has now published his review of the book, reaching a similar conclusion: "Highly recommended."

If I do say so myself (!), the two reviews complement each other nicely, emphasizing somewhat different aspects of the book; and together I think they give the prospective reader a good basis for deciding whether to add it to the list.

How Not to Interview for a Judicial Clerkship

A number of years ago, a judge on a state Supreme Court was interviewing a candidate to clerk the following year. At the time, the candidate was a pool clerk for a division of that state's mid-level appellate court, called the Appellate Division. (A "pool clerk" is a clerk assigned to the all of the judges, as opposed to a clerk who works for a particular judge.)

During the interview, the judge asked for a writing sample, and the candidate promptly produced a single sheet of paper that, upon examination, proved to contain a list of citations to perhaps twenty recent Appellate Division decisions, e.g., "Smith v. Jones, 200 App. Div. 1 (19xx)."

The following discussion ensued:

INTERVIEWING JUDGE:

Um . . . this is a list of Appellate Division cases.

CANDIDATE:

Yes.

INTERVIEWING JUDGE:

Um . . .

CANDIDATE:

Oh, those decisions are all mine, every word. They don't write them. Most of the time, they barely read them.

INTERVIEWING JUDGE:

Um . . .

More on Lecompton

In a comment to an earlier post concerning James Buchanan, decon raised some issues about Lecompton and Buchanan that are worth exploring further. This is a very brief response to one portion of that comment.

The Republican party was born out the outrage in the North over Kansas-Nebraska in 1854-55. "Bloody Kansas" and the caning of Charles Sumner in May 1856 allowed the Republicans keep the pot boiling. But after that, the Republicans had few new issues. Northern Democrats were hopeful that the worst was over, and many Republicans expressed concern over the need to maintain momentum to have a chance in 1858 and 1860.

President Buchanan’s decision to endorse the Lecompton Constitution at the end of 1857 was a godsend for the Republicans because it provided them with a new issue with which to flog the Slave Power – and their northern Democratic lackeys. Lecompton was a disaster for the Democrats because it further decimated their northern wing, and alienated their southern wing from Stephen Douglas, laying the groundwork for the catastrophic 1860 Charleston convention.

But for Lecompton, Douglas would probably have gained the nomination of a united Democratic party in 1860. But for Lecompton, the Republicans might well have been defeated for the presidency in 1860. No Republican victory in 1860, no secession in 1860-61 . . ..

In short, consideration of “what ifs” relating to Buchanan’s handling of Lecompton strongly demonstrates how different history might have been, and how contingent history is.

Was the Compromise of 1850 a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

In defending Millard Fillmore’s performance in helping to engineer the Compromise of 1850, I have encountered flack on several occasions. The objections do not focus on Millard or the efficacy of his efforts. Rather, the complaints are, in effect, that the Compromise was a Bad Thing, not a Good Thing; therefore, Fillmore should be blamed, rather than praised, for his actions.

The proposition that the Compromise was a Bad Thing, in turn, appears to rest upon two assertions. First, if the North had held firm, and not appeased the South, the South would have capitulated. There would have been no war, and indeed, a firm, uncompromising position might have utterly discredited the proto-secessionists, eliminating the threat of war in the future. In short, if the North had not caved, not only would there have been no war in 1850-51, there might have been no war in 1860-61, or ever.

The second sub-assertion is that, even if war would have resulted, well, that was a risk worth taking. The North defeated the South when the South foolishly seceded in 1860-61, and the North would have won if the crisis had come to blows ten years earlier.

Both of these are, in effect, “what if” questions, and as such not susceptible of definitive response. Nonetheless, I’m in the midst of rereading David M. Potter’s The Impending Crisis, and I’m sure that I can do no better that he in discussing these issues. (Also, I’m sure that Professor Potter’s opinions are far more persuasive than mine.) So here, brief, is Professor Potter.

On the first sub-issue, Professor Potter clearly believes that, if the Compromise had not been reached, war would likely have resulted. Professor Potter noted, with apparent sympathy, that “Daniel Webster was not alone in believing that ‘if General Taylor had lived, we should have had civil war.’” Several pages later, he made his position clear (emphasis added):

No historian can declare with certitude [whether war would have resulted if the North had held firm]. What then can he say? He can say that in 1832 and again in 1861, people also faced crises in which some thought the danger of disunion was exaggerated, that it would die down if firmly handled and not encouraged by “appeasement.” In 1832 this proved at least partially right, though concessions were certainly made; in 1861, it turned out to be wrong. Were the dangers of 1850 more like those of 1832 or of 1861? In my opinion, the evidence, on balance, indicates that by 1850 southern resistance to the free-soil position was so strong and widespread that if the Union were to be preserved, the South had either to be conciliated or to be coerced. It is true that disunionists in the South began to lose ground to the southern moderates long before the Compromise was enacted, but I believe this was because compromise was confidently expected and the South distinctly preferred compromise to disunion.

On the second sub-issue, Professor Potter is more equivocal, but he clearly has doubts as to whether the Union would have prevailed in a military conflict in 1850-51:

If [Zachary Taylor] was wrong, his policy would have forced the North to face the supreme test of war for the Union before it had attained the preponderance of strength, or the technological sinews, or the conviction of national unity which enabled it to win the war that finally came in 1861.

* * *

[T]he decade of delay was also a decade of growth in physical strength, cohesiveness, and technological resources which enabled the Union to face the supreme challenge far more effectively.

More fundamentally, Professor Potter points out that that, when war ultimately came, it was the concept of Union that bound the North together. He doubts whether an uncompromising stance in 1850, which sacrificed Union before all other options had been exhausted, would not have been fatal to the North – and to the goal of ultimate abolition:

Even as for antislavery, it is difficult to see that the Compromise ultimately served the purpose of the antislavery idealists less well than it served those who cared primarily for peace and union, though it is easy to see why antislavery men found the medicine more distasteful. If, as Lincoln believed, the cause of freedom was linked with the cause of Union, a policy which dealt recklessly with the destiny of the Union could hardly have promoted the cause of freedom.

Into the Cart

Daniel Walker Howe gives a big thumbs up to Walter A. McDougall's new book, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829 - 1877.

The fact that Professor McDougall (like Prof. Howe) apparently does not hide his "quirky" opinions under a bushel is what makes the book look particularly attractive. Provided it's well-argued and based on an intimate familiarity with the facts, history should be opinionated.

"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame . . ."

Barcepundit points to the following unbelievable blast from the past:

The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.

Barack Obama on George Bush? Or was it Jack Murtha? Nancy Pelosi, perhaps? Could it be Michael Moore?

No, it's a Chicago Times' editorial. From 1863. Reacting to the Gettysburg address.

Buchanan and Douglas

Here is a scene I would love to have witnessed as a fly on the wall. It is the evening of December 3, 1857. Senator Stephen A. Douglas appeared at the White House to try to convince President James Buchanan not to back the Lecompton Constitution. The conversation became an angry confrontation:

Buchanan:

Mr. Douglas, I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware the fate of Tallmadge and Rives [two politicians who had crossed Andrew Jackson].

Douglas:

Mr. President, I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead.

Over the next five months, the Democratic party tore itself apart.

Jake Leg

I'm cooling my heels, waiting for the cable guy (really). I'm biding my time by reading and listening to a great CD, My Rough and Rowdy Ways, a compendium of (per the subtitle) "Early American Rural Music Badman Ballads and Hellraising Songs."

One of my favorites on the CD is a song called Got the Jake Leg Too, recorded in 1930 by the Ray Brothers, Will on fiddle and Vardaman on guitar, from Choctaw County in central Mississippi:

I went to bed last night, feelin’ mighty fine,
Two o’clock this morning, the Jake Leg went down my spine,
I had the Jake Leg too, I had the Jake Leg too.
I woke up this morning, I couldn’t get out of my bed,
This stuff they call Jake Leg had me nearly dead,
It was the Jake Leg too, it was the Jake Leg too.

The lyrics suggested that Jake Leg was some sort of alcohol poisoning, and the liner notes seemed to confirm this:

Got the Jake Leg refers to a deadly Prohibition-era drink substituter [sic] called Jamaica Ginger. Health authorities in 1929 and 1930 began to hear widespread reports of illness and death of desperate drinkers, and of the development of a muscle palsy which several songs refer to as "shakes" or "wobbles."

I then discovered that I had another "Jake Leg" song in my collection: Alcohol and Jake Blues, recorded by Tommy Johnson in December 1929.

It turns out there's quite a story behind Jake Leg, as this article from a Hospital and Health Magazine explains:

In the 1920s . . . low-income working-class people (especially men) in rural areas in the Midwest and South were hard-pressed to find affordable alcohol. One available product was a patent medicine, Jamaican Ginger, colloquially known as “Jake,” which contained ginger extract and 70 percent to 85 percent ethyl alcohol; it was a popular cure for nausea and diarrhea. It was also a popular cure for the Prohibition-induced shortage of booze. Federal authorities soon caught on and required that the amount of ginger in Jake be increased to the point that the stuff was undrinkable except in very small quantities, which was appropriate if it was really only being used as a medication.

However, demand for the more potent and drinkable stuff was still there, so Jake manufacturers tried to find adulterants that would make the product appear legitimate, but would allow for more alcohol and would mask the taste of the ginger. In 1930, a couple of Boston chemists-turned-bootleggers, Harry Gross and Max Reisman, hit upon the perfect adulterant: triorthocresyl phosphate (TOCP). An odorless, colorless, tasteless industrial chemical, it fit the bill precisely. Their firm, Hub Products, churned out hundreds of thousands of bottles of this adulterated Jake, which were widely distributed.

TOCP is a central nervous system poison.

Between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans, mostly low-income white and African-American men, drank enough of the bad Jake to develop partial paralysis. They lost control of the muscles in at least one leg, which forced them to walk by lifting the leg and slapping it down as though they were operating a puppet. This became known as the “Jake walk” or “Jake leg.” Most victims never recovered, and few, if any, received optimal medical care or even much sympathy because the gait was so distinctive that it was evident in their often-conservative communities how they had become disabled.

In 1931, Gross and Reisman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate federal law and were each fined $1,000 and sentenced to two years in prison. They avoided prison time by promising to help find some alleged New York bootleggers whom they claimed had really manufactured the tainted Jake. That claim was eventually proved to be bogus, and Gross was ordered to serve his term; Reisman never did.

See also this article, and there's a Wikipedia article as well.