According to information on the verso of this volume, American Orations is a series of books in four volumes printing important speeches in American history. The first volume includes speeches on colonialism, constitutional government, the rise of democracy, and the rise of nationalism. The second volume (under review here) includes speeches on the question of slavery. Slavery is also the subject of the speeches in the third volume. The fourth volume important subjects of the post-war era. The speeches found in the present volume are by Rufus King, William Pinkney, Wendell Phillips, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Charles Sumner. Together they provide an interesting look into the salient issues leading up to the Civil War and the manner of oratory of the time.
New York Senator Rufus King addressed the Senate in February, 1820 during the debate over the Missouri Compromise. His speech is an impressive brief, outlining the precedents and principles giving Congress the power to regulate and ban slavery in newly admitted states, without extending that power to currently recognized states. His argument rests on the constitutional principle that Congress has '"the power to make all needful regulations" governing any territory of the United States. Furthermore, Congress retains the power to admit new states, without limitation on the terms of admission. Consequently, Congress may prohibit slavery in U.S. territories and admit states on the condition that slavery remains prohibited. At the same time, Congress my choose not to exercise these powers. He also explains that the current states, having established slavery prior to the adoption of the constitution, are free to maintain slavery within their borders as their ratification of the constitution was dependent upon the continuation of slavery within their states. King's speech recounts several instances in which states were admitted to the Union consistent with these principles, importantly, the Northwest Territory that would be composed of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota. Among the speeches contained in this volume, King's stands out as well-argued.
In the same week as King's speech, Maryland Senator William Pinkney rose in rebuttal. Pinkney argued that to admit new states on terms different from the original thirteen was to deny the equality of states and create a different form of union. While Pinkney no doubt reasons from a plausible premise of equality among states, the protagonists of freedom can just as plausibly argue that there is no reasons that the terms of formation and expansion of the union might not be different. Taken together, King and Pinkney provide clear examples of the two sides of the debate during the discussion of the Missouri Compromise.
The third speech in the volume is by Wendell Phillips which he gave in Boston in 1837 following the murder of Elijah Lovejoy. Lovejoy printed an abolitionist newspaper in St. Louis until the proponents of slavery destroyed his printing press for a third time. He then set up his newspaper across the Mississippi River in Alton, Illinois, but the mob followed him and murdered him while he attempted to defend his press. I'll confess that coming from St. Louis, I have always held Lovejoy in the highest esteem. There are few white abolitionists prior to the war who remained so determined and risked so much as Lovejoy. Consequently, I was rather disappointed in Phillips's speech. While it did eulogize Lovejoy, its primary point was to defend the freedom of the press -- a good cause, no doubt, but I had hoped for a more forceful call to follow Lovejoy's example and raise the profile of resistance to slavery.
John Quincy Adams's speech, given on the floor of the House in 1837. The occasion of the speech was a bill to authorize money to suppress an Indian revolt in Georgia. Adams pointed out that many of his constituents might not be in favor of such an expenditure and that it was beyond the authority of the federal government to tax them for this purpose. In response, Adams argued that the federal government had authorities in peace and authorities in war. While the authorities in peace are limited, authorities in war know no limits. In modern terminology, Adams was appealing to a "national defense" argument. To make this case, he observed several instances when the federal government intervened on the issue of slavery. This was his real purpose. Early, he had been prohibited from making comments about slavery when a resolution was moved that the federal government had no authority to intervene in the slavery question, due to the "gag rule" previously passed into law. No, in the context of appropriating money to suppress an Indian revolt, he was able to lay out his case for why the federal government had the authority to intervene in the slavery question. The speech provides an interesting glimpse into the subtleties of the parliamentary contest that Congress was engaged in during the 1830s along with the constitutional questions that slavery posed.
John C. Calhoun's speech recorded in this volume was the last and perhaps the most significant that he ever gave. It occurred in 1850 during the debate of the great compromise fashioned by Henry Clay. The bill -- an omnibus bill -- called for admitting California as a free state, forming a territorial government in Utah without mention of slavery, amending the Fugitive Slave Act, the abolishing the slave trade in Washington D.C., and establishing the border between Texas and New Mexico. The bill failed in its omnibus form, but each element was subsequently passed by Congress. Calhoun's speech was noteworthy for its rigorous reasoning in opposition to the compromise. His main objections were leveled against allowing California to be admitted as a free state and not unambiguously asserting a right that slaveholders might bring slavery to the territories and establish slavery under the territorial laws. This became known as "squatter sovereignty." He argued that by denying the authority of Californians to choose their own laws related to slavery and failing to stand up for the "rights" of the slave holding states, the honor and equal standing of those states were diminished. With the advantage of an modern viewpoint, it seems clear that Calhoun must have understood that slavery could not be saved by normal political means and that he understood that the slave states would eventually need to secede in order to preserve their human property. Indeed, his speech directly threatens secession if the federal government does not accommodate slavery throughout the nation. Of all the speeches in this volume, Calhoun's is perhaps the most significant and the most reprehensible.
During that same debate, Daniel Webster made a speech that forever separated him from the opponents of slavery. He had previously been seen as at least a lukewarm ally, but his forceful defense of the Fugitive Slave Act outraged his former fellow travelers. The amended Fugitive Slave Act would strengthen the powers of slave hunters and require state and local officials to assist in the captures. The Fugitive Slave Act was justified by a clause in the Constitution which directs that persons "held to service or labour in one state...escaping into another...shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due." Webster found this was sufficient to bind state and local authorities to assist in the capture and return of fugitive slaves. He furthermore referenced the Supreme Court's support for this view. At the time, opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act argued that the clause did not specify "slaves," but on persons "held to service or labour." This reading required the authorities to return indentured servants or other persons who were under contract to perform service or labor. Had it been meant to include slaves, the clause would have said as much. Webster's decision to read the critical clause to include slaves was taken as a betrayal by his anti-slavery supporters. Webster might be praised for standing by what he believed was an honest interpretation of the Constitution, but a reasonable case can be made that no law permitting the enslavement of a person can be valid under a constitution putatively dedicate to freedom. Furthermore, the concept of natural (or human) rights was already well-established, making a free state's assessment of the invalidity of slave labor arguably justified. Webster chose not to avail himself of these arguments and must go down in history as a proponent of a reprehensible positive law at the expense of human rights.
The next speech in the volume is by Henry Clay, the author of the Compromise of 1850. Here we get his direct appeal to the Senate to pass his bill. It is a classic appeal to everyone to give a little in order to get a little. He understands that no one, perhaps including himself, will be happy with every element of the bill, but that peace and tranquility in the nation requires that the Congress come to an agreement on the vexing issues of the day and that given the profound disagreement within the country on so many of these issues, there can be no agreement that satisfies everyone. Perhaps the most surprising passages in the speech -- at least for me -- were those in which Clay condemned slavery in no uncertain terms. I had always understood that he his attitude toward slavery was ambiguous. He both attempted to have it outlawed in his home state and owned 60 slaves at one point. It appears he thought it an unfortunate evil that should not be extended beyond its current scope, but that it was also a fact of economic life for the well-to-do Southerner. Perhaps much as a democratic socialist might regard his or her stock portfolio today. It is an interesting lesson in parliamentary strategy to recognize that his compromise was defeated in its omnibus form, but that each element passed Congress. Often omnibus bills are crafted to ensure an unpopular element passes, but in this case the aggregated opposition minorities combined to defeat the omnibus bill. Alone, each minority failed to defeat what they opposed.
The volume includes a second speech by Wendell Phillips. This is perhaps appropriate as he was widely regarded as the most effective abolitionist speaker. It is a masterful summary of the abolitionist movement starting in 1830 with William Garrison's groundbreaking newspaper The Liberator. He provides an account of the contributions of most of the important abolitionists and places their work in the context of the social and political opposition that they faced. He emphasizes that abolitionists have always been a despised minority, but points out how successful they have been in moving public opinion. He shows how many Whigs, Northern Democrats, and members of the Free Soil Party eventually made use of the arguments of the more radical Garrisonians and other abolitionists when it became politically expedient to do so. For Phillips, staking out a principled, though unpopular opinion was a necessity and he relied on its fundamental decency to eventually win popular support. It's hard to say his strategy was mistaken.
His speech was given in 1853, just three months after the death of Daniel Webster and his unwillingness to speak well of the dead with whom he disagreed is a testament to his principled stand for truth. At one point, he denounces Webster's "treachery," underscoring the abolitionists' dissatisfaction with Webster's support for the Compromise of 1850, particularly his defense of the Fugitive Slave Act.
One could get tied in knots attempting to understand the legal and constitutional status of slavery, the slave trade, the power of the federal government to regulate it, control it within the territories, etc. The intractability of these legal and constitutional questions is rooted in the contradictory attitudes of the framers of the constitution and the presidents and legislators who labored under the Constitution; but the question of the fate of slavery was for many people prior to the war so monumental that it transcended the constraints of law and the Constitution and posed a profound moral question. Wendell Phillips's speeches make it perfectly clear that he understood this and his voice, as much as anyone's, moved our country beyond the terrible condition that it had inherited from colonial times.
The final speech in the volume is by Charles Sumner, given in 1853 on the occasion of a debate over the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. Sumner was widely recognized as the Senate's most articulate proponent of the abolition of slavery. He is perhaps best known as the victim of a "caning" by Rep. Preston Brooks on the Senate floor. Two days following a speech given by Sumner, Brooks beat Sumner unconscious with a gold tipped cane. His reason for doing so was that Sumner's speech had insulted another Senator Andrew Butler, who was related to Brooks. It is noteworthy that in the run up to the Civil War, it was not uncommon for Congress members to come to debates armed and on at least one occasion, several pistols were drawn on the floor of the House.
In Sumner's speech recorded here, he presented a detailed argument that slavery was not properly considered "national," but instead an institution of the states. Consequently, the federal government had no obligation to require officers of free states to participate in the return of fugitive slaves. His argument was based primarily on references to the sentiments of the nation's founders. He then turned to a critique of the argument that the Fugitive Slave Act was required by the Constitution. here is argument was quite strong. Sumner provided a detailed summary of the controversy at issue during the drafting of the Constitution in order to establish the original intent of the Constitution. He makes a strong case that the clause requiring that "persons held to service or labour...escaping to another state" shall be delivered up to whom their service or labour is due was not intended to include slaves. Sumner mentions that an earlier draft of the clause which specifically mentions fugitive "slaves" was rejected and that in a passage in the Constitution the term "service" was adopted in place of "servitude" in order to specify the work of free labor. It is interesting to read Sumner's speech along with Daniel Webster's speech also in this volume. Here, two Massachusetts senators come to completely different interpretations of the Constitution. Perhaps it is my own desire that the Constitution not endorse slavery, but Sumner's arguments seem obviously stronger.
In all, the speeches recorded in this volume are indeed noteworthy, though not always Earth-shattering. Their seeming moderate nature may be due to the distance we have from the super-charged political environment of the antebellum decades. Nonetheless, one does get a sense that the speakers on both sides understood the gravity of what was at stake. Whether they all truly understood that they were drifting toward what William Seward would call an "irrepressible conflict" isn't so clear.
Showing posts with label U.S. History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. History. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Monday, March 14, 2016
American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation--How Indian Spirituality Changed the West / Philip Goldberg -- N.Y.: Harmony Books, 2010
In 1981, Rick Fields published a book entitled, How the Swans Came to the Lake which was a history of how Buddhism made its way to the United States. In American Veda, Philip Goldberg presents a similar history for Hinduism or what he calls "vedanta-yoga." While the subtitle suggests that the story of Hinduism transmission would cover Europe and North America, Goldberg mostly describes its transmission to the U.S. Early on, he makes the rather bold claim that vedism, the idea that we, as individuals, participate in a larger consciousness that constitutes the universe, is a "perfect fit" for the American ethos, at least insofar as vedism permits "personalized pathways to the divine." He goes on, then, to describe to growing impact of Vedic philosophies and yogic practices on Americans. Beginning with Emerson's acceptance of an "over-soul," passing through Thoreau's paeans to nature, Goldberg describes the foundation of vedism in American literature.
The real launch of American vedism begins, however, with the World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. From this point on, Americans began hosting a number of gurus from India who introduced the intelligentsia to vedism. Goldberg recounts the impression these gurus had on such figures as Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, and Gerald Heard. This period is perhaps the first phase of serious examination of the vedic philosophy in America.
It is followed, however, by a much larger influx of gurus following the elimination of immigration restriction from Asia in 1965 and the journey to India by the Beatles, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithful in 1968. The list of celebrities who were influenced by various gurus during the 1960s and 1970s is impressive; however, the scandals associated with many high profile gurus casts doubt on the legitimacy of this paroxysm of interest. To his credit, Goldberg does not shy away from a fair-minded account of this period. What he finally concludes, though, is that despite the appearnce of charlatans, the Western seekers gained a genuine appreciation for vedanta-yoga. In the final chapters he discusses ways in which vedanta-yoga has influence the arts, psychology, and physics.
American Veda is a fine account of the coming of vedanta-yoga to the U.S. It provides a sympathetic, but honest assessment of that history. It does, however, overstate the extent to which vedanta-yoga has permeated American culture. While the trappings of vedanta-yoga might well be increasingly common and more Americans than ever before may be signing up of Hatha yoga classes, an accurate awareness of the vedic world view is still hardly known in America. Goldberg's points out that a significant number of Americans describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious," and he suggests that this is a product of the transmission of vedanta-yoga to the America. It might, however, be more likely a consequence of the success of science made consistent with a reluctance on the part of people to completely abandon their ancestral beliefs. Goldberg also suggests that the increased interest in vedic (and Buddhist) spirituality represents a kind of Great Awakening of the 21st century. Only time will tell about that.
The real launch of American vedism begins, however, with the World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. From this point on, Americans began hosting a number of gurus from India who introduced the intelligentsia to vedism. Goldberg recounts the impression these gurus had on such figures as Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, and Gerald Heard. This period is perhaps the first phase of serious examination of the vedic philosophy in America.
It is followed, however, by a much larger influx of gurus following the elimination of immigration restriction from Asia in 1965 and the journey to India by the Beatles, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithful in 1968. The list of celebrities who were influenced by various gurus during the 1960s and 1970s is impressive; however, the scandals associated with many high profile gurus casts doubt on the legitimacy of this paroxysm of interest. To his credit, Goldberg does not shy away from a fair-minded account of this period. What he finally concludes, though, is that despite the appearnce of charlatans, the Western seekers gained a genuine appreciation for vedanta-yoga. In the final chapters he discusses ways in which vedanta-yoga has influence the arts, psychology, and physics.
American Veda is a fine account of the coming of vedanta-yoga to the U.S. It provides a sympathetic, but honest assessment of that history. It does, however, overstate the extent to which vedanta-yoga has permeated American culture. While the trappings of vedanta-yoga might well be increasingly common and more Americans than ever before may be signing up of Hatha yoga classes, an accurate awareness of the vedic world view is still hardly known in America. Goldberg's points out that a significant number of Americans describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious," and he suggests that this is a product of the transmission of vedanta-yoga to the America. It might, however, be more likely a consequence of the success of science made consistent with a reluctance on the part of people to completely abandon their ancestral beliefs. Goldberg also suggests that the increased interest in vedic (and Buddhist) spirituality represents a kind of Great Awakening of the 21st century. Only time will tell about that.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Catching Up
It has been quite some time (since June 2015) that I posted anything to this blog. I was for most of that time on sabbatical, drafting a book on Indian Buddhism. Consequently, my writing efforts were directed away from reviewing books and toward writing one. Since coming back from the sabbatical, I have not recovered my habit of reviewing the books I read; however, my hope is to recover that habit. To catch up, though, I merely plan to record here a number of the books that I read over that last few months. After all, this blog is primarily a means to record for myself the books I have read. Perhaps one day, I'll return to the most important ones and provide reviews.
Powell, James Lawrence, <i>The Inquisition of Climate Science</i>, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2001. This work is a brief (192 page) book describing the concerted efforts by climate change deniers to sew doubt about the fact and effects of our changing climate. It also recounts many of the highest profile attacks on climate scientists by deniers.
Stern, Nicholas, <i>The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review</i>, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This work is a major landmark (if not the major landmark) in the literature related to the economics of climate change. It has been criticized for employing an inordinately low discount rate, but this mainly reflects a moral judgement regarding the importance of the well-being of future generations.
Nordhaus, William, <i>The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World</i>. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013. The importance of this work is perhaps second only to <i>The Stern Review</i> with regard to the economics of climate change. William Nordhaus (not be confused with his son Ted Nordhaus) is an eminent environmental economist. His analysis of the economic consequences of climate change and climate change mitigation strategies differs somewhat from Nicholas Stern's analysis. Nordhaus applies a higher discount rate making which has the consequence of estimating a higher relative cost for mitigating climate change and he is more sanguine regarding future generations' abilities to adapt to climate change. Nonetheless, he strongly advocates a carbon tax and stresses the importance of acting quickly and decisively to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
Jamieson, Dale, <i>Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future</i>, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2014. This work, by a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. Jamieson provides and account of how governments have failed to address climate change in a time frame adequate to preserve the kind of planet that existed prior to the industrial revolution. He acknowledges that we live in the Anthropocene Era, viz., a geological era in which the actions of human beings are having a determining effect on the natural history of the planet. He also provides chapters on the ethics of responding to climate change.
Medvedev, Zhores A., <i>The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko</i>, I. Michael Lerner, trans., N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1969. This is an account of the period from 1929-1961 during which the influence of T.D. Lysenko distorted Soviet genetics and agricultural sciences. The account is written by a Soviet scientist who had first hand experience with the internal struggles to maintain the integrity of Soviet science.
Joravsky, David, <i>The Lysenko Affair</i>, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Joravsky is an American historian, emeritus professor at Northwestern University specializing in Soviet studies. This work is recognized as among the very best accounts of the Soviet science under the influence of T.D. Lysenko.
Wood, Mary Christina, <i>Nature's Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age</i>, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 2014. I consider this book the best of the year. It describes the decline of environmental regulations established by the promising environmental laws of the 1970s. According to Wood, environmental regulatory agencies have become captured by the industries that they were designed to regulate. Consequently, their primary role now is to approve exceptions to environmental restrictions -- essentially blessing the very damages they were designed to protect us from. Wood argues that our best response to this is to employ trust law to require Congress and the executive branch to protect the public's interest in a livable environment. Basic to this approach is the idea that the natural world is like a trust, with government serving as its trustee on behalf of current and future generations.
Speth, James Gustave and Peer M. Haas, <i>Global Environmental Governance</i>, Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2006. This work provides a brief history of the international efforts to reach an agreement on how to protect the climate from anthropogenic changes.
Kolbert, Elizabeth, <i>Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change</i>, N.Y.: Bloomsbury, 2006. This work is among the most important of several books that were published around this time on the contemporary and pending damages that climate change presents. Ten years on, it is depressing to see how little has been accomplished to address the problems that Kolbert describes.
McKibben, Bill, <i>Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet</i>, N.Y.: N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co., 2010. Bill McKibben may be remembered as the most important voice warning Americans about the damage that we are doing to the climate. His work <i>Eaarth</i> asserts that our actions have already ensured that our planet will become qualitatively different from the one which has been our home. Thus, he slightly alters the spelling of the planet's name. His description of unavoidable changes are clear and illuminating, fully justifying his rather radical observation. McKibben suggests ways in which we might alter our lifestyles in a way that will allow us to live "lightly, carefully, and gracefully" such that we can live reasonably well despite the terrible consequences of our past actions.
Brechin, Gray, <i>Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin</i>, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. This work is a history of the city of San Francisco and the social, political, and particularly the environmental consequences of its development. The story begins with the devastation produced by mining gold and clear cutting California's forests and concludes with the establishment of the academic institutions that developed nuclear weapons. It provides an unflinching critique of the consequences of the unrestrained economic exploitation of people an nature for private gain.
Shelley, Mary, <i>The Last Man</i>, London: Henry Colburn, 1826. This little-known novel by the author of <i>Frankenstein</i> describes in three volumes the extinction of humanity as a result of a virulent plague. The story come to us from 1818 when visitors to a "gloomy cavern of the Cumaean Sibyl," where they find written prophecies, often of events now just past. Among the prophesies is an account of the last man to perish in the world-wide plague. Though set in the last decade, the world Shelley describes is little different from her own time. It is without electricity or internal combustion engines and the struggle between monarchists and republicans is only now becoming resolved in favor of republicanism. The first volume works primarily to introduce and develop the novel's characters. Its story mostly concerns interpersonal relations and political ambitions. The plague makes no appearance. Indeed, appart from passing mention, it only appears one third of the way through the second volume. From there the novel describes the epidemic decimation of England. The third volume recounts the surviving remnants of the country trekking to Switzerland where they hope to find refuge from the plague. Ultimately three survivors continue on to Rome. The novel ends with the last man determining to sail a bark along the oceans' shores in search of another survivor. "Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eyeof the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney--the LAST MAN." If the Victorians were obsessed with death, Shelley's <i>The Last Man</i> is an extreme expression of this obsession. Not only does every character die, but the entire human race is extinguished. The early volume is graced with the romantic prose of the time and peppered with reflections on life, love, and death, but once the plague appears, there is hardly a page in the novel which is not a meditation on mortality.
Powell, James Lawrence, <i>The Inquisition of Climate Science</i>, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2001. This work is a brief (192 page) book describing the concerted efforts by climate change deniers to sew doubt about the fact and effects of our changing climate. It also recounts many of the highest profile attacks on climate scientists by deniers.
Stern, Nicholas, <i>The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review</i>, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This work is a major landmark (if not the major landmark) in the literature related to the economics of climate change. It has been criticized for employing an inordinately low discount rate, but this mainly reflects a moral judgement regarding the importance of the well-being of future generations.
Nordhaus, William, <i>The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World</i>. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013. The importance of this work is perhaps second only to <i>The Stern Review</i> with regard to the economics of climate change. William Nordhaus (not be confused with his son Ted Nordhaus) is an eminent environmental economist. His analysis of the economic consequences of climate change and climate change mitigation strategies differs somewhat from Nicholas Stern's analysis. Nordhaus applies a higher discount rate making which has the consequence of estimating a higher relative cost for mitigating climate change and he is more sanguine regarding future generations' abilities to adapt to climate change. Nonetheless, he strongly advocates a carbon tax and stresses the importance of acting quickly and decisively to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
Jamieson, Dale, <i>Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future</i>, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2014. This work, by a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. Jamieson provides and account of how governments have failed to address climate change in a time frame adequate to preserve the kind of planet that existed prior to the industrial revolution. He acknowledges that we live in the Anthropocene Era, viz., a geological era in which the actions of human beings are having a determining effect on the natural history of the planet. He also provides chapters on the ethics of responding to climate change.
Medvedev, Zhores A., <i>The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko</i>, I. Michael Lerner, trans., N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1969. This is an account of the period from 1929-1961 during which the influence of T.D. Lysenko distorted Soviet genetics and agricultural sciences. The account is written by a Soviet scientist who had first hand experience with the internal struggles to maintain the integrity of Soviet science.
Joravsky, David, <i>The Lysenko Affair</i>, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Joravsky is an American historian, emeritus professor at Northwestern University specializing in Soviet studies. This work is recognized as among the very best accounts of the Soviet science under the influence of T.D. Lysenko.
Wood, Mary Christina, <i>Nature's Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age</i>, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 2014. I consider this book the best of the year. It describes the decline of environmental regulations established by the promising environmental laws of the 1970s. According to Wood, environmental regulatory agencies have become captured by the industries that they were designed to regulate. Consequently, their primary role now is to approve exceptions to environmental restrictions -- essentially blessing the very damages they were designed to protect us from. Wood argues that our best response to this is to employ trust law to require Congress and the executive branch to protect the public's interest in a livable environment. Basic to this approach is the idea that the natural world is like a trust, with government serving as its trustee on behalf of current and future generations.
Speth, James Gustave and Peer M. Haas, <i>Global Environmental Governance</i>, Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2006. This work provides a brief history of the international efforts to reach an agreement on how to protect the climate from anthropogenic changes.
Kolbert, Elizabeth, <i>Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change</i>, N.Y.: Bloomsbury, 2006. This work is among the most important of several books that were published around this time on the contemporary and pending damages that climate change presents. Ten years on, it is depressing to see how little has been accomplished to address the problems that Kolbert describes.
McKibben, Bill, <i>Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet</i>, N.Y.: N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co., 2010. Bill McKibben may be remembered as the most important voice warning Americans about the damage that we are doing to the climate. His work <i>Eaarth</i> asserts that our actions have already ensured that our planet will become qualitatively different from the one which has been our home. Thus, he slightly alters the spelling of the planet's name. His description of unavoidable changes are clear and illuminating, fully justifying his rather radical observation. McKibben suggests ways in which we might alter our lifestyles in a way that will allow us to live "lightly, carefully, and gracefully" such that we can live reasonably well despite the terrible consequences of our past actions.
Brechin, Gray, <i>Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin</i>, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. This work is a history of the city of San Francisco and the social, political, and particularly the environmental consequences of its development. The story begins with the devastation produced by mining gold and clear cutting California's forests and concludes with the establishment of the academic institutions that developed nuclear weapons. It provides an unflinching critique of the consequences of the unrestrained economic exploitation of people an nature for private gain.
Shelley, Mary, <i>The Last Man</i>, London: Henry Colburn, 1826. This little-known novel by the author of <i>Frankenstein</i> describes in three volumes the extinction of humanity as a result of a virulent plague. The story come to us from 1818 when visitors to a "gloomy cavern of the Cumaean Sibyl," where they find written prophecies, often of events now just past. Among the prophesies is an account of the last man to perish in the world-wide plague. Though set in the last decade, the world Shelley describes is little different from her own time. It is without electricity or internal combustion engines and the struggle between monarchists and republicans is only now becoming resolved in favor of republicanism. The first volume works primarily to introduce and develop the novel's characters. Its story mostly concerns interpersonal relations and political ambitions. The plague makes no appearance. Indeed, appart from passing mention, it only appears one third of the way through the second volume. From there the novel describes the epidemic decimation of England. The third volume recounts the surviving remnants of the country trekking to Switzerland where they hope to find refuge from the plague. Ultimately three survivors continue on to Rome. The novel ends with the last man determining to sail a bark along the oceans' shores in search of another survivor. "Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eyeof the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney--the LAST MAN." If the Victorians were obsessed with death, Shelley's <i>The Last Man</i> is an extreme expression of this obsession. Not only does every character die, but the entire human race is extinguished. The early volume is graced with the romantic prose of the time and peppered with reflections on life, love, and death, but once the plague appears, there is hardly a page in the novel which is not a meditation on mortality.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Winning the Presidency 2012 / William J. Crotty, ed. -- Boulder, Col.: Paradigm Publishers, 2013
The 2012 presidential campaign arguably was one of the most important campaigns in recent times. The campaign pitted a status quo candidate (Barak Obama) against a candidate (Mitt Romney) who was fronting a party that was intent upon making sweeping changes to the role of government in American life. That Obama came out the victor can be attributed to many things. It is easy to suggest that the American people (or a slim majority of those who voted) rejected the Republican Party's libertarian agenda in favor of Obama, but that misses two more profound lessons of the election. The 2012 presidential campaign was the first campaign to be waged under the campaign finance rules set by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling and it was the first campaign to make truly effective use of "big data." In a collection of essays edited by William J. Crotty entitled Winning the Presidency 2012, both superficial and profound elements of the campaign are examined with uneven success.
Most of the articles provide analyses that are well-known to anyone who paid moderate attention to the campaign and the post-election media pundits. The demographic shift in the American body politic and the gender gap are reviewed as is the trouble that Mitt Romney had gaining support from the Tea Party elements during the primaries and through to election day. Many of the widely covered watershed events are brought into the spotlight: Romney's refusal to release his tax filings, Obama's "you didn't build that" and Romney's "47%" remarks, Obama's poor showing in the first debate, and Chris Christy's praise of Obama for his leadership following superstorm Sandy. All of these were, of course, important conditions and events of the campaign and so it is valuable that the essays memorialize them. After all, most will be forgotten in ten years. A good, clear record will be useful, but it certainly isn't the stuff that will reveal the true historical importance of the campaign.
The first big change from previous elections that would seem to make more than a marginal difference was the ability to form "super PACs." Winning the Presidency 2012 contains an essay by Dowdle, Adkins, Sebold, and Stewart that admirably discusses the role of super PACs. In short, super PACs are political action committees that are able to raise unlimited amounts of money from donors. This money can be spent directly on election activities as long as they are not "coordinated" with the candidate's campaign. The prohibition against coordinating with the campaign quickly became meaningless and the assumption was that the candidate that was able to make use of the largest super PACs would destroy the competition. This did not turn out to be the case as Karl Rove's massive super PAC campaign chest failed to deliver results for Romney or for candidates down ticket. The lesson, however, has not been made completely clear. It is not that money will not win elections, but that is is important how that money is spent. The Republican spending strategy focused on negative media buys, and while these were not without effect, it appears that a saturation point was reached long before the money ran out. In contrast, Obama's campaign money and sympathetic super PAC money was spent building a highly "data driven" retail campaign organization, particularly targeting swing states. Though outspent by his opponents, his more sophisticated strategy was able to turn out the votes necessary to prevail, particularly in the electoral vote.
The employment of data was the crucial difference in the 2012 election. In an essay entitled, "A Transformational Political Campaign: Marketing and Candidate Messaging in the 2012 Election," Wayne P. Steger describes the Obama campaign's use of massive pools of data gathered during the 2008 election campaign and in the period leading up to 2012. These data were effectively used to segment the voting public in complex ways so that messages could be tailored to fit the audience in ways never before possible. The segmentation of the voting population went well beyond determining likely voters and persuadable voters, it was able to test messages and funding requests to ensure that the audience would be maximally receptive to the campaign's appeal. This is the future of campaigning, and we can only expect the science to be developed well beyond the techniques of 2012.
Campaigns certainly will make use of what has come to be known as "big data," i.e., data sets that are so large that traditional means for storing and processing the data are insufficient, and campaigns increasingly will make use of distributed repositories of data, possibly owned by corporations and organizations other than the campaign. Computer programs will then be written to reveal tendencies within the voting population that will allow highly effective campaign messaging. Imagine, for example, that a campaign is able to acquire the records of automobiles owned by a voting population and segregate them according to gas guzzling vs. more efficient vehicles. The campaign might then match the gas guzzlers to voters who have long daily commutes. The resultant population likely would be quite sympathetic to a message promising to keep gasoline prices low. Other similarly devised messages could be tailored to other sub-populations of voters.
That SUV owners would be gratefully receive promises to keep gas prices low would not be surprising, but other "big data" mining techniques are thought to be able to reveal extremely surprising and powerful results. A campaign that can acquire massive amounts of data about voters and can employ talented computer programmers could become extremely effective in reaching and motivating voters.
And so we can put together the two most important developments in the 2012 campaign: money and data. The disappearance of limits on campaign contributions means that large, valuable, and privately held pools of data, will be able to empower campaigns as never before. The 2012 Obama campaign was the first to reveal this dynamic. It will mark the dawn of a new era of political campaigning in which the owners and managers of our society will be able to employ their vast repositories of data to ensure that their candidates win primary competitions and ultimately general elections. Crotty's book, Winning the Presidency 2012 only hints at this future.
Most of the articles provide analyses that are well-known to anyone who paid moderate attention to the campaign and the post-election media pundits. The demographic shift in the American body politic and the gender gap are reviewed as is the trouble that Mitt Romney had gaining support from the Tea Party elements during the primaries and through to election day. Many of the widely covered watershed events are brought into the spotlight: Romney's refusal to release his tax filings, Obama's "you didn't build that" and Romney's "47%" remarks, Obama's poor showing in the first debate, and Chris Christy's praise of Obama for his leadership following superstorm Sandy. All of these were, of course, important conditions and events of the campaign and so it is valuable that the essays memorialize them. After all, most will be forgotten in ten years. A good, clear record will be useful, but it certainly isn't the stuff that will reveal the true historical importance of the campaign.
The first big change from previous elections that would seem to make more than a marginal difference was the ability to form "super PACs." Winning the Presidency 2012 contains an essay by Dowdle, Adkins, Sebold, and Stewart that admirably discusses the role of super PACs. In short, super PACs are political action committees that are able to raise unlimited amounts of money from donors. This money can be spent directly on election activities as long as they are not "coordinated" with the candidate's campaign. The prohibition against coordinating with the campaign quickly became meaningless and the assumption was that the candidate that was able to make use of the largest super PACs would destroy the competition. This did not turn out to be the case as Karl Rove's massive super PAC campaign chest failed to deliver results for Romney or for candidates down ticket. The lesson, however, has not been made completely clear. It is not that money will not win elections, but that is is important how that money is spent. The Republican spending strategy focused on negative media buys, and while these were not without effect, it appears that a saturation point was reached long before the money ran out. In contrast, Obama's campaign money and sympathetic super PAC money was spent building a highly "data driven" retail campaign organization, particularly targeting swing states. Though outspent by his opponents, his more sophisticated strategy was able to turn out the votes necessary to prevail, particularly in the electoral vote.
The employment of data was the crucial difference in the 2012 election. In an essay entitled, "A Transformational Political Campaign: Marketing and Candidate Messaging in the 2012 Election," Wayne P. Steger describes the Obama campaign's use of massive pools of data gathered during the 2008 election campaign and in the period leading up to 2012. These data were effectively used to segment the voting public in complex ways so that messages could be tailored to fit the audience in ways never before possible. The segmentation of the voting population went well beyond determining likely voters and persuadable voters, it was able to test messages and funding requests to ensure that the audience would be maximally receptive to the campaign's appeal. This is the future of campaigning, and we can only expect the science to be developed well beyond the techniques of 2012.
Campaigns certainly will make use of what has come to be known as "big data," i.e., data sets that are so large that traditional means for storing and processing the data are insufficient, and campaigns increasingly will make use of distributed repositories of data, possibly owned by corporations and organizations other than the campaign. Computer programs will then be written to reveal tendencies within the voting population that will allow highly effective campaign messaging. Imagine, for example, that a campaign is able to acquire the records of automobiles owned by a voting population and segregate them according to gas guzzling vs. more efficient vehicles. The campaign might then match the gas guzzlers to voters who have long daily commutes. The resultant population likely would be quite sympathetic to a message promising to keep gasoline prices low. Other similarly devised messages could be tailored to other sub-populations of voters.
That SUV owners would be gratefully receive promises to keep gas prices low would not be surprising, but other "big data" mining techniques are thought to be able to reveal extremely surprising and powerful results. A campaign that can acquire massive amounts of data about voters and can employ talented computer programmers could become extremely effective in reaching and motivating voters.
And so we can put together the two most important developments in the 2012 campaign: money and data. The disappearance of limits on campaign contributions means that large, valuable, and privately held pools of data, will be able to empower campaigns as never before. The 2012 Obama campaign was the first to reveal this dynamic. It will mark the dawn of a new era of political campaigning in which the owners and managers of our society will be able to employ their vast repositories of data to ensure that their candidates win primary competitions and ultimately general elections. Crotty's book, Winning the Presidency 2012 only hints at this future.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Maryland Women in the Civil War: Unionists, Rebels, Slaves, & Spies / Claudia Floyd -- Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2013
Most histories of the Civil War have approached the topic either from the perspective of a limited military campaign or battle or from a national military-political perspective. Some, of course, examine specific themes related to the war, e.g., the emancipation of slaves, international relations, or political intrigue. Others focus on the biographies of key historic figures. Many of these approaches overlook how different the war seemed to people in different states. The people of Virginia experienced the war quite differently, of course, from how it was experienced by the people of Wisconsin. Ohio University Press has begun a very interesting series of Civil War histories that recognize the importance of these state differences. Included in their offerings are Ohio's War, Indiana's War, Illinois's War
, Missouri's War (reviewed in this blog), and Kansas's War.
In this vein, The History Press has published Maryland Women in the Civil War by Claudia Floyd. The work treats exactly what you would expect from the title. Examining the role of women in Maryland's war is particularly interesting, in that the Maryland was a slave state that was secured by the Union in the early months of the war. Consequently, a large number of southern sympathizers found themselves going about their normal domestic lives under what they perceived as a hostile occupation and resisting that occupation or supporting the southern cause often involved covert activities and not open, armed Resistance. Both men and women could and were fully engaged in these activities.
By and large, Floyd's book examines the roles of a handful of women who we might assume are representative of larger groups of women. We learn about Anna Ella Carroll, a prolific pro-Union propagandist; Elizabeth Phoebe Key Howard, a member of a prominent Baltimore pro-secession family; Madge Preston, a diarist and southern supporter living outside Baltimore; and perhaps the most famous woman from Maryland during the Civil War era, Harriet Tubman; but there are a host of other women who's lives and views make brief appearances in the work.
Floyd does an admirable job of illustrating how different women reacted differently to the war, not just based on their sympathies for the Union or Confederacy, but due to their station in society and particularly due to the effects that the war had on their families. One gets the sense that more than in many other states, the women of Maryland were driven to engage in politics because of the high stakes that existed for families living in a slave state, that bordered the nation's capital and separated free states from slave states. The controversial suspension of habeas corpus by the Lincoln administration mostly affected men living in Maryland, Maryland's geographic location made it particularly important to the underground railroad, and Baltimore's large free black population complicated race relations in ways that the rest of country did not experience. Again, elements of this sort meant that the war reached into domestic life in a way that was not common in other states.
If there is a weakness in the work, it is that it appears to rely too completely on diaries and letters. While this gives the work an admirable immediacy, it is not clear how much the experiences of the women who are the subjects of the book can be generalized to the rest of the women in Maryland. Many of Floyd's women are socially prominent, making it less clear that working class women experienced the war in the same way. For what it is, though, Maryland Women in the Civil War is an engaging and informative work.
, Missouri's War (reviewed in this blog), and Kansas's War.
In this vein, The History Press has published Maryland Women in the Civil War by Claudia Floyd. The work treats exactly what you would expect from the title. Examining the role of women in Maryland's war is particularly interesting, in that the Maryland was a slave state that was secured by the Union in the early months of the war. Consequently, a large number of southern sympathizers found themselves going about their normal domestic lives under what they perceived as a hostile occupation and resisting that occupation or supporting the southern cause often involved covert activities and not open, armed Resistance. Both men and women could and were fully engaged in these activities.
By and large, Floyd's book examines the roles of a handful of women who we might assume are representative of larger groups of women. We learn about Anna Ella Carroll, a prolific pro-Union propagandist; Elizabeth Phoebe Key Howard, a member of a prominent Baltimore pro-secession family; Madge Preston, a diarist and southern supporter living outside Baltimore; and perhaps the most famous woman from Maryland during the Civil War era, Harriet Tubman; but there are a host of other women who's lives and views make brief appearances in the work.
Floyd does an admirable job of illustrating how different women reacted differently to the war, not just based on their sympathies for the Union or Confederacy, but due to their station in society and particularly due to the effects that the war had on their families. One gets the sense that more than in many other states, the women of Maryland were driven to engage in politics because of the high stakes that existed for families living in a slave state, that bordered the nation's capital and separated free states from slave states. The controversial suspension of habeas corpus by the Lincoln administration mostly affected men living in Maryland, Maryland's geographic location made it particularly important to the underground railroad, and Baltimore's large free black population complicated race relations in ways that the rest of country did not experience. Again, elements of this sort meant that the war reached into domestic life in a way that was not common in other states.
If there is a weakness in the work, it is that it appears to rely too completely on diaries and letters. While this gives the work an admirable immediacy, it is not clear how much the experiences of the women who are the subjects of the book can be generalized to the rest of the women in Maryland. Many of Floyd's women are socially prominent, making it less clear that working class women experienced the war in the same way. For what it is, though, Maryland Women in the Civil War is an engaging and informative work.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The White House: An Historical Guide / Mrs. John N. Pearce [a.k.a. Lorraine Waxman Pearce] and William V. Elder III -- Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1963
Over the years, the White House has undergone numerous changes. Perhaps most dramatically was the complete gutting of the interior and subsequent steel reinforcement of the structure that took place duringTruman's administration. It has also accumulated a significant collection of furnishings, some of which are unquestionably outstanding historical pieces. The portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart and the President's desk, built from the timber of the H.M.S. Resolute come immediately to mind; but there are numerous more interesting and beautiful objects in the White House's collection. At the direction of Jacqueline Kennedy, the White House Historical Association took on the task of creating a guide to the history of the White House and its furnishings. Originally intended for children, it was quickly understood that the treasury of artifacts was too important not to address the work to adults. The result was a clear introduction to the history of the White House, illustrated by photographs of some of its most important possessions.
The extent to which the building's interior was remodelled is somewhat surprising. One might, however, justify the expense by claiming that the President's house should, for the benefit of visitors and foreign dignitaries, remain relatively stylish and contemporary. On the other hand, a degree of classical dignity might also be appropriate. Upon reading The White House, one is left with a sense that a reasonably good balance has been met over the years up to 1963. Many of the features of the original structure remain, of course, but with any building that sees regular use, repairs and replacements are required now and then. These present opportunities to update the interior decorating styles. At the same time, pieces art and furniture have been retained and can be brought out of storage according to the taste of the current occupant. What is among the more satisfying consequences of these additions and changes, is that each occupant will leave behind something of their taste and time, making the building and its contents a reflection of the history of the country and the presidency.
The extent to which the building's interior was remodelled is somewhat surprising. One might, however, justify the expense by claiming that the President's house should, for the benefit of visitors and foreign dignitaries, remain relatively stylish and contemporary. On the other hand, a degree of classical dignity might also be appropriate. Upon reading The White House, one is left with a sense that a reasonably good balance has been met over the years up to 1963. Many of the features of the original structure remain, of course, but with any building that sees regular use, repairs and replacements are required now and then. These present opportunities to update the interior decorating styles. At the same time, pieces art and furniture have been retained and can be brought out of storage according to the taste of the current occupant. What is among the more satisfying consequences of these additions and changes, is that each occupant will leave behind something of their taste and time, making the building and its contents a reflection of the history of the country and the presidency.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The Failure of Popular Sovereignty: Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Radicalization of Southern Policitcs / Christopher Childers -- Lawrence, Kan.: Univeristy Press of Kansas, 2012
It is often said the American Civil War was not fought over the issue of slavery, but over the right of states to secede. The assertion is initially appealing in that significant majorities in the northern states felt no need to go to war over the presence of slavery in the South, but a northern army was quickly mobilized when southern states seceded. This analysis, however, overlooks the decades-long debate over slavery, particularly the debate over its extension into the U.S. territories, which was the core disagreement that finally led to secession. Imagine two farmers who begin arguing about the ownership of a plot of land and find themselves coming to blows when they cannot agree on a subtle point in contract law. We would not say that they were fighting over a legal principle, but that they were fighting over the land. So too was the Civil War a struggle over slavery, not state sovereignty. Christopher Childers's masterly book The Failure of Popular Sovereignty traces the long argument that finally led to the Civil War. In the course of the account, the importance of slavery is revealed by the changing justifications offered by southern slaveholders in particular.
The central concern in both the North and the South was the extension of slavery into the territories. In time, four positions surfaced: (1) the federal government had authority to regulate and even outlaw slavery in the territories, (2) the government of a territory could regulate or outlaw slavery, (3) the citizens of a territory could regulate and even outlaw slavery, but only when applying for statehood, and (4) the federal government had an obligation actively to protect slavery in the territories until the territory became a state. Other positions also surfaced, but they tended to be opportunistic modifications of one of these four.
Strong precedents existed for the first of the four positions, even since before the ratification of the Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) prohibited slavery in the the territories north of the Ohio River and Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Ordinance of 1784 regulating territories contained a stipulation that slavery in the territories would be prohibited after 1800. The stipulation was stripped from the ordinance, but only due the the sickness and absence of a single voter in the Confederation Congress. In 1820, the federal government passed the Missouri Compromise which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana territory north of 36' 30". It is noteworthy that during the discussion of the Missouri Compromise, John C. Calhoun, who later became the leading defender of the extension of slavery, endorsed the power of the federal government to prohibit it.
The Slave Power's early lack of concern over the federal power to restrict slavery changed as political sentiment against slavery grew in the country. Proslavery officials came to adopt a version of popular sovereignty that excluded federal authority over slavery in the territories. This headed off the extension of the Northwest Ordinance to the Orleans territory (Louisiana) and allowed the Arkansas territory to draft a slave code and be admitted as a slave state. The proslavery arguments held that the federal government should not dictate legislation to the citizens of the territories. To do so would be to treat them as colonies. This view was not based on any specific language in the Constitution. Indeed, Article Four, Section Three permitted the federal government to pass "needful rules and regulations" for the territories. Instead, the proslavery endorsement of popular sovereignty was based on a basic principle of American government that the people are capable of self-governance and that local authority should trump federal authority.
With the conquest of the Mexican territories, the proslavery position changed. The citizens of the territory of New Mexico were disposed to pass legislation prohibiting slavery, but to protect slavery, the Slave Power argued that the citizens of the territories were not politically mature enough for self-governance and that they could only prohibit slavery at the time they submitted an application for statehood. The Slave Power derided their own earlier position that allowed the territorial government authority over slavery, calling it "squatter sovereignty." It was thought by many that by insisting on "state sovereignty" instead, slaveholders would have time to emigrate to New Mexico and ensure that it would be admitted as a slave state.
By this time, Calhoun had recognized that even while the territorial governments might not be permitted to prohibit slavery, their slave codes (and social conditions) might effectively prohibit the emigration of slaves and slaveholders to the territories. What was necessary, according to Calhoun was the active protection of slave property by the federal government in the territories. Many southerners accepted Calhoun's analysis, but others, especially those in the upper South and border states, continued to adhere to "state sovereignty." Calhoun's position was effectively endorsed years after his death by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). More explicitly, Dred Scott rejected the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise and held that the federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery in the territories, but by this time all four main positions regarding the extension of slavery were advanced by important political factions and various splinter positions were offered in an effort to reach a compromise over slavery.
Perhaps the most consistent position was held by the antislavery forces who argued that the federal government, empowered by the Constitution's Article Four, Section Three, could establish "needful rules and regulations" for the territories, that this included the prohibition of slavery, and that the frequent exercise of this power had established it in practice.
Among Childers's most interesting observations are the fine legal distinctions that were made by proponents of various versions of popular sovereignty. Proslavery radicals appeared to completely alter their views on popular sovereignty, moving through each of the four main positions to fit their interests in the extension of slavery. Steven A. Douglas, a more moderate politicians, retained his view that territorial governments could pass legislation regarding slavery (squatter sovereignty, if you will). Douglas argued that slavery could not exist where laws did not provide for its aid and protection. Douglas, consistent with his previous support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, continued to argue for territorial sovereignty and against federal intervention in the territories. Douglas remained true to his commitment to the principle of self-determination of local communities. He also seemed to hope that this position would satisfy both southern and northern Democrats and maintain his party's political dominance.
Other politicians, particularly Lewis Cass attempted to satisfy both wings of the Democratic Party by issuing ambiguous statements on precisely when a territory was empowered to regulate slavery. His cagey approach nearly won him the presidency in 1848, but he was defeated by the Mexican War hero Zachery Taylor, who simply remained silent about the practicalities of popular sovereignty.
In general, The Failure of Popular Sovereignty is the story of a decades-long struggle over the extension of slavery. It provides an illuminating account of cross-cutting political considerations and evolving views about the constitutional protections afforded to slavery. Specific political figures involved in the formulation of the doctrine of popular sovereignty are vividly drawn, and the rising stakes in the debate lend growing excitement to the story. If there is a weakness to the history, it is the scant descriptions of the antislavery movement. A better understanding the internal debates within the Democratic Party over popular sovereignty would be achieved by placing the debate within a more vivid description of the larger political context. This would, of course, add a number of pages to the work, but the topic certainly deserves additional treatment.
The central concern in both the North and the South was the extension of slavery into the territories. In time, four positions surfaced: (1) the federal government had authority to regulate and even outlaw slavery in the territories, (2) the government of a territory could regulate or outlaw slavery, (3) the citizens of a territory could regulate and even outlaw slavery, but only when applying for statehood, and (4) the federal government had an obligation actively to protect slavery in the territories until the territory became a state. Other positions also surfaced, but they tended to be opportunistic modifications of one of these four.
Strong precedents existed for the first of the four positions, even since before the ratification of the Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) prohibited slavery in the the territories north of the Ohio River and Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Ordinance of 1784 regulating territories contained a stipulation that slavery in the territories would be prohibited after 1800. The stipulation was stripped from the ordinance, but only due the the sickness and absence of a single voter in the Confederation Congress. In 1820, the federal government passed the Missouri Compromise which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana territory north of 36' 30". It is noteworthy that during the discussion of the Missouri Compromise, John C. Calhoun, who later became the leading defender of the extension of slavery, endorsed the power of the federal government to prohibit it.
The Slave Power's early lack of concern over the federal power to restrict slavery changed as political sentiment against slavery grew in the country. Proslavery officials came to adopt a version of popular sovereignty that excluded federal authority over slavery in the territories. This headed off the extension of the Northwest Ordinance to the Orleans territory (Louisiana) and allowed the Arkansas territory to draft a slave code and be admitted as a slave state. The proslavery arguments held that the federal government should not dictate legislation to the citizens of the territories. To do so would be to treat them as colonies. This view was not based on any specific language in the Constitution. Indeed, Article Four, Section Three permitted the federal government to pass "needful rules and regulations" for the territories. Instead, the proslavery endorsement of popular sovereignty was based on a basic principle of American government that the people are capable of self-governance and that local authority should trump federal authority.
With the conquest of the Mexican territories, the proslavery position changed. The citizens of the territory of New Mexico were disposed to pass legislation prohibiting slavery, but to protect slavery, the Slave Power argued that the citizens of the territories were not politically mature enough for self-governance and that they could only prohibit slavery at the time they submitted an application for statehood. The Slave Power derided their own earlier position that allowed the territorial government authority over slavery, calling it "squatter sovereignty." It was thought by many that by insisting on "state sovereignty" instead, slaveholders would have time to emigrate to New Mexico and ensure that it would be admitted as a slave state.
By this time, Calhoun had recognized that even while the territorial governments might not be permitted to prohibit slavery, their slave codes (and social conditions) might effectively prohibit the emigration of slaves and slaveholders to the territories. What was necessary, according to Calhoun was the active protection of slave property by the federal government in the territories. Many southerners accepted Calhoun's analysis, but others, especially those in the upper South and border states, continued to adhere to "state sovereignty." Calhoun's position was effectively endorsed years after his death by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). More explicitly, Dred Scott rejected the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise and held that the federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery in the territories, but by this time all four main positions regarding the extension of slavery were advanced by important political factions and various splinter positions were offered in an effort to reach a compromise over slavery.
Perhaps the most consistent position was held by the antislavery forces who argued that the federal government, empowered by the Constitution's Article Four, Section Three, could establish "needful rules and regulations" for the territories, that this included the prohibition of slavery, and that the frequent exercise of this power had established it in practice.
Among Childers's most interesting observations are the fine legal distinctions that were made by proponents of various versions of popular sovereignty. Proslavery radicals appeared to completely alter their views on popular sovereignty, moving through each of the four main positions to fit their interests in the extension of slavery. Steven A. Douglas, a more moderate politicians, retained his view that territorial governments could pass legislation regarding slavery (squatter sovereignty, if you will). Douglas argued that slavery could not exist where laws did not provide for its aid and protection. Douglas, consistent with his previous support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, continued to argue for territorial sovereignty and against federal intervention in the territories. Douglas remained true to his commitment to the principle of self-determination of local communities. He also seemed to hope that this position would satisfy both southern and northern Democrats and maintain his party's political dominance.
Other politicians, particularly Lewis Cass attempted to satisfy both wings of the Democratic Party by issuing ambiguous statements on precisely when a territory was empowered to regulate slavery. His cagey approach nearly won him the presidency in 1848, but he was defeated by the Mexican War hero Zachery Taylor, who simply remained silent about the practicalities of popular sovereignty.
In general, The Failure of Popular Sovereignty is the story of a decades-long struggle over the extension of slavery. It provides an illuminating account of cross-cutting political considerations and evolving views about the constitutional protections afforded to slavery. Specific political figures involved in the formulation of the doctrine of popular sovereignty are vividly drawn, and the rising stakes in the debate lend growing excitement to the story. If there is a weakness to the history, it is the scant descriptions of the antislavery movement. A better understanding the internal debates within the Democratic Party over popular sovereignty would be achieved by placing the debate within a more vivid description of the larger political context. This would, of course, add a number of pages to the work, but the topic certainly deserves additional treatment.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Mr. Lincoln Goes to War / William Marvel -- Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006
In Mr. Lincoln Goes to War William Marvel makes a strenuous case against Lincoln's actions in the first year of the war. Marvel's Lincoln appears to be eager for war and quite unconcerned about basic civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution. Among the earliest and most famous violations of civil liberties came in the case of John Merryman, a prominent Maryland resident. Well-know for his sympathies for secession, Merryman was arrested in May 1861and held without access to the courts until he was released in July. Merryman's arrest occurred during the most systematic violations of the right to habeas corpus which continued through the first year of the war. During that time, Lincoln authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the region between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia and later extended the region to New York City.
While the right of habeas corpus is fundamental to a free society, Lincoln faced uncertain circumstances that threatened the federal government and potentially the rule of law throughout the country. In the early days of secession, it was not clear what path Maryland would take. Furthermore, rumors were rife within Washington D.C. that the Confederates were amassing an army to capture the city. Indeed, in early March 1861, the Confederate Congress called for 100,000 soldiers to volunteer for a one-year tour of duty. Given significant support for the southern cause within the city and in the state of Maryland, one could make a case for unprecedented police actions. As the threat to the capital subsided, Lincoln released all political prisoners (with some exceptions) on Feb. 14, 1862; however, following the imposition of a draft in the summer of 1863, Lincoln again suspended the writ of habeas corpus. It appears that Lincoln exercised this power for specific purposes at specific times.
Clearly, the Lincoln administration's record regarding civil liberties is at very least questionable, but Marvel's description of it as "arbitrary" seems too harsh under the circumstance. Marvel does little to credit these circumstances. In the case of civil war, one's mortal enemies are fellow citizens and so the protections of citizenship obviously will be strained. Indeed, the gravity of the conflict is illustrated by the violations of civil liberties on both sides, but Marvel makes no mention of the violations perpetrated by the Confederate government. The Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in 1862, passed the Alien Enemies Act which authorized the arrest of anyone in the Confederate states who did not acknowledge Confederate citizenship, and passed the Sequestration Act which authorized the permanent confiscation of the property of Union sympathizers. These actions, along with formation of a hostile army demonstrate the gravity of the threat posed to federal authority and the government itself.
Marvel makes much of the fact that many Union soldiers joined the army not out of a moral or nationalist impulse, but because of economic need. He furthermore notes that a draft was required to sustain the Union war effort. The conclusion Marvel is leading us to is that the war was -- from the beginning -- foisted upon the people of the country by an aggressive president. It should come as no surprise that those signing up to military service would be disproportionately poor and unemployed, but some degree of allegiance to the cause is likely to part of the decision to enlist, particularly as the horror of the war became better known. It is noteworthy that less than 20% of the Union forces were enlisted due to the draft. Marvel does not mention that southerners also joined the Confederate army for economic reasons and that a Confederate draft was required a year prior to the Union draft. Soft popular support for the Confederate cause lends credence to the view that the secession of southern states was in fact a rebellion by a privileged southern elite, not an act of northern aggression.
Marvel also describes the suppression of the press in the North, but again, the exigencies of civil war are not recognized and little mention is made of the state of the press in the South. Marvel does acknowledge that pro-union presses were closed by the Confederacy, but writes that presses in the South practiced "voluntary restraint" and that the infrequency of attacks on the press could be explained by the fact that in the South "the dominant slave culture had long repressed divergent opinion." Time and time again, Marvel provides excuses for Confederate violations of basic liberties, but excoriates the Lincoln administration for similar violations.
Lincoln is not the only object of Marvel's criticism. In a chapter entitled, "The Crimson Corse of Lyon," Marvel describes the Union campaign to control Missouri. For Marvel it is a rebellion against the authorized government of the state of Missouri. Lyon is called "an insubordinate, self-righteous psychopath" who "would not hear of peace when he saw so rare and opportunity to fulfill his apocalyptic personal destiny." It is remarkable that Marvel could diagnosis a personality disorder in Lyon one hundred and fifty years after Lyon's death, when it is difficult for qualified psychiatrists to make such diagnoses for their contemporary patients. It says more about Marvel's polemical intent than Lyon's personality. Marvel writes that Lyon's "unstable temperament" is revealed by his providing intelligence to McClellan that turned out to be incorrect. The connection is so unclear that it borders on being a non sequitur, and in fact, in one case, the "incorrect intelligence" was not really off the mark at all. Confederate forces really were assembling in Arkansas in preparation for an invasion of Missouri.
For a revealing portrait of Lyon, Marvel credits Christopher Phillips's harsh 1990 biography of Lyon, entitled Damned Yankee. I have not read Damned Yankee, but its initial paragraphs read less like history and more like an historical novel. Phillips describes dramatic details that he could not possible know took place. He does so clearly for literary effect. "Pulling pensively at his unruly red beard, forty-three-year-old Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon watched the commotion in the street....His features hardened, the wrinkles at the top of his hooked nose deepened, and his small mouth clenched his cigar as tightly as his false teeth would allow." Prose of this sort hardly engenders confidence in the accuracy of Phillips's accounts.
This is not to say that Marvel's work is credulous. His bibliography reveals the serious research that lies behind his work, but it is not exceptional by professional standards. Marvel makes good use of primary sources, particularly letters and newspaper accounts. He also makes heavy use of The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, but any number of historians have done as well and have not drawn the starkly critical conclusions that Marvel draws. The scrupulous detail tends, however, to ocur in the passages which provide rather tedious accounts of troop movements. Such passages make up a substantial portion of Marvel's work.
At times Marvel's polemics clearly get the best of historical accuracy. At one point he writes of "Lincoln's expedition against Ft. Sumter." Here he is referring to a flotilla of ships that Lincoln ordered to deliver food and water to the besieged Union garrison. Marvel has turned a defensive, holding action into aggression. This may be a simple editorial oversight, but it reveals the lens through which Marvel views history and the extent to which it distorts his vision. The actions "against" Ft. Sumter in 1861 were all perpetrated by the Confederacy -- first a siege and then a potentially murderous bombardment.
Lying behind Marvel's work is the view that Lincoln's defense of federal property and willingness to engage in war was illegal, immoral, and unnecessary. The best defense of this view that I have read is in Democracy in the United States by Ransom H. Gillet, published in 1868. Prior to the war, Gillet was a member of the Democratic Party and a U.S. Representative from New York. His book attempts to resurrect the much-tarnished reputation of the Democratic Party. It is a scathing, partisan attack on the Lincoln administration. Were Marvel to comment on Gillet's work, I suspect he would find Gillet the most accurate and astute observer of the times.
While the right of habeas corpus is fundamental to a free society, Lincoln faced uncertain circumstances that threatened the federal government and potentially the rule of law throughout the country. In the early days of secession, it was not clear what path Maryland would take. Furthermore, rumors were rife within Washington D.C. that the Confederates were amassing an army to capture the city. Indeed, in early March 1861, the Confederate Congress called for 100,000 soldiers to volunteer for a one-year tour of duty. Given significant support for the southern cause within the city and in the state of Maryland, one could make a case for unprecedented police actions. As the threat to the capital subsided, Lincoln released all political prisoners (with some exceptions) on Feb. 14, 1862; however, following the imposition of a draft in the summer of 1863, Lincoln again suspended the writ of habeas corpus. It appears that Lincoln exercised this power for specific purposes at specific times.
Clearly, the Lincoln administration's record regarding civil liberties is at very least questionable, but Marvel's description of it as "arbitrary" seems too harsh under the circumstance. Marvel does little to credit these circumstances. In the case of civil war, one's mortal enemies are fellow citizens and so the protections of citizenship obviously will be strained. Indeed, the gravity of the conflict is illustrated by the violations of civil liberties on both sides, but Marvel makes no mention of the violations perpetrated by the Confederate government. The Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in 1862, passed the Alien Enemies Act which authorized the arrest of anyone in the Confederate states who did not acknowledge Confederate citizenship, and passed the Sequestration Act which authorized the permanent confiscation of the property of Union sympathizers. These actions, along with formation of a hostile army demonstrate the gravity of the threat posed to federal authority and the government itself.
Marvel makes much of the fact that many Union soldiers joined the army not out of a moral or nationalist impulse, but because of economic need. He furthermore notes that a draft was required to sustain the Union war effort. The conclusion Marvel is leading us to is that the war was -- from the beginning -- foisted upon the people of the country by an aggressive president. It should come as no surprise that those signing up to military service would be disproportionately poor and unemployed, but some degree of allegiance to the cause is likely to part of the decision to enlist, particularly as the horror of the war became better known. It is noteworthy that less than 20% of the Union forces were enlisted due to the draft. Marvel does not mention that southerners also joined the Confederate army for economic reasons and that a Confederate draft was required a year prior to the Union draft. Soft popular support for the Confederate cause lends credence to the view that the secession of southern states was in fact a rebellion by a privileged southern elite, not an act of northern aggression.
Marvel also describes the suppression of the press in the North, but again, the exigencies of civil war are not recognized and little mention is made of the state of the press in the South. Marvel does acknowledge that pro-union presses were closed by the Confederacy, but writes that presses in the South practiced "voluntary restraint" and that the infrequency of attacks on the press could be explained by the fact that in the South "the dominant slave culture had long repressed divergent opinion." Time and time again, Marvel provides excuses for Confederate violations of basic liberties, but excoriates the Lincoln administration for similar violations.
Lincoln is not the only object of Marvel's criticism. In a chapter entitled, "The Crimson Corse of Lyon," Marvel describes the Union campaign to control Missouri. For Marvel it is a rebellion against the authorized government of the state of Missouri. Lyon is called "an insubordinate, self-righteous psychopath" who "would not hear of peace when he saw so rare and opportunity to fulfill his apocalyptic personal destiny." It is remarkable that Marvel could diagnosis a personality disorder in Lyon one hundred and fifty years after Lyon's death, when it is difficult for qualified psychiatrists to make such diagnoses for their contemporary patients. It says more about Marvel's polemical intent than Lyon's personality. Marvel writes that Lyon's "unstable temperament" is revealed by his providing intelligence to McClellan that turned out to be incorrect. The connection is so unclear that it borders on being a non sequitur, and in fact, in one case, the "incorrect intelligence" was not really off the mark at all. Confederate forces really were assembling in Arkansas in preparation for an invasion of Missouri.
For a revealing portrait of Lyon, Marvel credits Christopher Phillips's harsh 1990 biography of Lyon, entitled Damned Yankee. I have not read Damned Yankee, but its initial paragraphs read less like history and more like an historical novel. Phillips describes dramatic details that he could not possible know took place. He does so clearly for literary effect. "Pulling pensively at his unruly red beard, forty-three-year-old Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon watched the commotion in the street....His features hardened, the wrinkles at the top of his hooked nose deepened, and his small mouth clenched his cigar as tightly as his false teeth would allow." Prose of this sort hardly engenders confidence in the accuracy of Phillips's accounts.
This is not to say that Marvel's work is credulous. His bibliography reveals the serious research that lies behind his work, but it is not exceptional by professional standards. Marvel makes good use of primary sources, particularly letters and newspaper accounts. He also makes heavy use of The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, but any number of historians have done as well and have not drawn the starkly critical conclusions that Marvel draws. The scrupulous detail tends, however, to ocur in the passages which provide rather tedious accounts of troop movements. Such passages make up a substantial portion of Marvel's work.
At times Marvel's polemics clearly get the best of historical accuracy. At one point he writes of "Lincoln's expedition against Ft. Sumter." Here he is referring to a flotilla of ships that Lincoln ordered to deliver food and water to the besieged Union garrison. Marvel has turned a defensive, holding action into aggression. This may be a simple editorial oversight, but it reveals the lens through which Marvel views history and the extent to which it distorts his vision. The actions "against" Ft. Sumter in 1861 were all perpetrated by the Confederacy -- first a siege and then a potentially murderous bombardment.
Lying behind Marvel's work is the view that Lincoln's defense of federal property and willingness to engage in war was illegal, immoral, and unnecessary. The best defense of this view that I have read is in Democracy in the United States by Ransom H. Gillet, published in 1868. Prior to the war, Gillet was a member of the Democratic Party and a U.S. Representative from New York. His book attempts to resurrect the much-tarnished reputation of the Democratic Party. It is a scathing, partisan attack on the Lincoln administration. Were Marvel to comment on Gillet's work, I suspect he would find Gillet the most accurate and astute observer of the times.
We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861 / William J. Cooper -- N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012
The American Civil War was long in coming. As early as the founding of the country, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces struggled over slavery. At various times in the first half of the 18th century, the political conflict threatened to lead to secession, and of course secession and war finally did come following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860.
The main questions at issue were whether or not slavery would be permitted in the U.S. territories and in the states to be created out of those territories. The Republican platform ratified at the 1860 convention in Chicago called for the complete prohibition of slavery in the territories. The Democratic Party was, however, divided. Under the banner of "popular sovereignty," the northern faction supported the right of territorial governments to prohibit slavery. The southern faction held that only state constitutions could establish such prohibitions. Unable to resolve their differences, the Democratic Party split and ran two candidates: Steven A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge.
Lincoln's election is often thought of as being a result of the split in the Democratic Party. He certainly failed to receive a majority of the popular vote nation-wide and he received virtually no votes in the southern states. His victories in the northern states, however, gave him the electoral votes necessary to win the election, but even if Democratic Party voters had not split their votes, Lincoln's majorities in the northern states would have put him in the White House. State by state popular vote totals demonstrate just how divided the country was on the issue of slavery, particularly the extension of slavery into the territories.
In the weeks following Lincoln's election, seven states seceded from the Union (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas). These states established the Confederate States of America. Its constitution guaranteed slavery in all its states and territories. The movement toward secession was unable to reach beyond the the deep south, though, until after the fall of Ft. Sumter on April 13 and Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 troops to defend the Union. The prospect that federal troops would be used to occupy and "reconstruct" the seceded states led to the secession of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Kentucky legislature declared Kentucky neutral in the conflict, while the federal occupation of Maryland and Missouri precluded secession in those states.
William Cooper's We Have the War Upon Us provides a close account of events between the election of Lincoln and the fall of Ft. Sumter. He especially examines the negotiations between Republicans and conditional unionists who sought to avoid the secession of the upper southern and border states. His treatment is careful and generally even-handed, relying on both primary and secondary sources. The actions (and non-actions) of William Seward and Abraham Lincoln play a central role in Cooper's account -- Seward working hard to accommodate the interests of the conditional unionists and Lincoln remaining largely silent on what his approach to the crisis would be upon his inauguration. The out-going president James Buchanan also played an important role in the unfolding events. Buchanan's view was that while states did not have the legal authority to leave the Union, the federal government did not have the authority to defend its sovereignty over the seceded states. One might argue that his inactivity to address secession forcefully at an early stage left the new Republican administration with a irremediable problem.
The greatest weakness in Cooper's account of the events leading to war is his short treatment of the actions of southern "fire-eaters," i.e., southerners dedicated to secession and the defense of slavery without compromise. By emphasizing the negotiations between the hard line Republicans and the conditional unionists, one is left with the impression that the intransigence of the hard line Republicans was more responsible for the coming of war than is justified. Cooper does not, for example, give much time to discussing the call by the Confederate Congress for 100,000 troops to serve for one year. This call was made more than a month before Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to serve for 90 days. To keep these numbers in perspective, the federal army was composed of only 16,000 troops prior to 1861, most of whom were stationed in the South and in the territories. Many of these soldiers -- and most of the officers -- resigned from the federal army and joined the Confederate forces. Under these circumstances, the rumors of threats to Washington D.C. could not be ignored and the vulnerability of the territories to Confederate annexation was significant. In the end, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Lincoln followed the least belligerent course possible that still adhered to his responsibility to defend federal property.
Reviewing the efforts to negotiate an agreement that would prevent secession and war, leads the reader to conclude that Seward was correct in his assessment that the war was "irrepressible." Efforts by Congress as a whole, the House of Representative's Committee of Thirty-three, the Senate's Committee of Thirteen, the non-governmental Peace Convention, and the Confederate commissioners who came to Washington to negotiate a peaceful separation all appeared to be futile exercises in the face of long entrenched, partisan commitments to an uncompromising resolution to the nation's problem. In that sense, Cooper's title, We Have the War Upon Us is most certainly apt.
The main questions at issue were whether or not slavery would be permitted in the U.S. territories and in the states to be created out of those territories. The Republican platform ratified at the 1860 convention in Chicago called for the complete prohibition of slavery in the territories. The Democratic Party was, however, divided. Under the banner of "popular sovereignty," the northern faction supported the right of territorial governments to prohibit slavery. The southern faction held that only state constitutions could establish such prohibitions. Unable to resolve their differences, the Democratic Party split and ran two candidates: Steven A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge.
Lincoln's election is often thought of as being a result of the split in the Democratic Party. He certainly failed to receive a majority of the popular vote nation-wide and he received virtually no votes in the southern states. His victories in the northern states, however, gave him the electoral votes necessary to win the election, but even if Democratic Party voters had not split their votes, Lincoln's majorities in the northern states would have put him in the White House. State by state popular vote totals demonstrate just how divided the country was on the issue of slavery, particularly the extension of slavery into the territories.
In the weeks following Lincoln's election, seven states seceded from the Union (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas). These states established the Confederate States of America. Its constitution guaranteed slavery in all its states and territories. The movement toward secession was unable to reach beyond the the deep south, though, until after the fall of Ft. Sumter on April 13 and Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 troops to defend the Union. The prospect that federal troops would be used to occupy and "reconstruct" the seceded states led to the secession of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Kentucky legislature declared Kentucky neutral in the conflict, while the federal occupation of Maryland and Missouri precluded secession in those states.
William Cooper's We Have the War Upon Us provides a close account of events between the election of Lincoln and the fall of Ft. Sumter. He especially examines the negotiations between Republicans and conditional unionists who sought to avoid the secession of the upper southern and border states. His treatment is careful and generally even-handed, relying on both primary and secondary sources. The actions (and non-actions) of William Seward and Abraham Lincoln play a central role in Cooper's account -- Seward working hard to accommodate the interests of the conditional unionists and Lincoln remaining largely silent on what his approach to the crisis would be upon his inauguration. The out-going president James Buchanan also played an important role in the unfolding events. Buchanan's view was that while states did not have the legal authority to leave the Union, the federal government did not have the authority to defend its sovereignty over the seceded states. One might argue that his inactivity to address secession forcefully at an early stage left the new Republican administration with a irremediable problem.
The greatest weakness in Cooper's account of the events leading to war is his short treatment of the actions of southern "fire-eaters," i.e., southerners dedicated to secession and the defense of slavery without compromise. By emphasizing the negotiations between the hard line Republicans and the conditional unionists, one is left with the impression that the intransigence of the hard line Republicans was more responsible for the coming of war than is justified. Cooper does not, for example, give much time to discussing the call by the Confederate Congress for 100,000 troops to serve for one year. This call was made more than a month before Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to serve for 90 days. To keep these numbers in perspective, the federal army was composed of only 16,000 troops prior to 1861, most of whom were stationed in the South and in the territories. Many of these soldiers -- and most of the officers -- resigned from the federal army and joined the Confederate forces. Under these circumstances, the rumors of threats to Washington D.C. could not be ignored and the vulnerability of the territories to Confederate annexation was significant. In the end, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Lincoln followed the least belligerent course possible that still adhered to his responsibility to defend federal property.
Reviewing the efforts to negotiate an agreement that would prevent secession and war, leads the reader to conclude that Seward was correct in his assessment that the war was "irrepressible." Efforts by Congress as a whole, the House of Representative's Committee of Thirty-three, the Senate's Committee of Thirteen, the non-governmental Peace Convention, and the Confederate commissioners who came to Washington to negotiate a peaceful separation all appeared to be futile exercises in the face of long entrenched, partisan commitments to an uncompromising resolution to the nation's problem. In that sense, Cooper's title, We Have the War Upon Us is most certainly apt.
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Battle of Pea Ridge: The Civil War Fight for the Ozarks / James R. Knight -- Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2012
There is probably no conflict that has been written about more than the U.S. Civil War. This is both due to the large audience for such works and the large number of amateur historians who are able to find publishers for their research. Such research usually focuses narrowly on a subject that is glossed over or even completely ignored by more general, popular works. The best of this work is based on local historical archives and other primary sources and casts the war or events in the war in a new and valuable light. The worst of it is highly derivative and contributes little to what is already known about the war. Often, these works detail events that provide no help in gaining a deeper understanding of the significance of the war. Sadly, James Knight's short book The Battle of Pea Ridge falls more in the latter category than the former.
The Battle of Pea Ridge is precisely what the title suggests: a blow by blow (or movement by movement) account of the battle between Earl Van Dorn's Confederate army and Samuel R. Curtis's Union army. It is mostly workman-like recounting of the events of the battle, though the presentation is sometimes disjointed and the writing is at best journalistic. It will be of interest to amateur military historians, but more expert historians might be disappointed. Its end notes indicate that it owes a great deal to William Shea and Earl Hess's book Pea Ridge (Chapel Hill, N.C.: UNC Press, 1992) and The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 8 (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1880-1901).
Knight rightly recognizes that the battle is of much greater significance than it is commonly accorded, but it is a shame that he did not do more to place the battle in its broader social and political context.
The Battle of Pea Ridge is precisely what the title suggests: a blow by blow (or movement by movement) account of the battle between Earl Van Dorn's Confederate army and Samuel R. Curtis's Union army. It is mostly workman-like recounting of the events of the battle, though the presentation is sometimes disjointed and the writing is at best journalistic. It will be of interest to amateur military historians, but more expert historians might be disappointed. Its end notes indicate that it owes a great deal to William Shea and Earl Hess's book Pea Ridge (Chapel Hill, N.C.: UNC Press, 1992) and The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 8 (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1880-1901).
Knight rightly recognizes that the battle is of much greater significance than it is commonly accorded, but it is a shame that he did not do more to place the battle in its broader social and political context.
Friday, November 4, 2011
What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America / Thomas Frank -- N.Y.: Henry Holt, 2004
It's been seven years since Thomas Frank published What's the Matter with Kansas?, so the media frenzy -- if you can call it that -- is over, but the basic political relations described in the book remain; indeed, they may have become more pronounced. Frank provides us with a careful examination of conservative politics in Kansas and he suggests that it reflects -- in an exaggerated way -- conservative politics throughout the U.S. Roughly stated, Frank's thesis is that the working class population of Kansas has become hopelessly distracted by hot button social issues and have been fooled into voting for politicians who are undermining their economic interests. The thesis is not without merit; however, Frank's working class Kansans may not be so unaware as he suggests.
What's the Matter with Kansas describes the peculiarities of the state's politics starting from its founding in the 1850s up through the progressive era, but only as background for a description of how it changed from the 1970s to the present. According to Frank the critical juncture was in the early 1990s, when the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) took over the national Democratic Party. The DLC abandoned any pretense of acting on behalf of the working class and openly sought support from business. At the same time, conservatives pundits began a relentless attack on liberals through print and radio broadcasts, portraying them as effete snobs who hated the working class and sought to destroy everything that is good about America. Furthermore, capitalizing on a population already disposed in favor of the pro-life movement, Operation Rescue selected Wichita as the epicenter of its protests against legal abortions. Operation Rescue mounted an extremely effective grassroots organizing campaign in Wichita and through out the state. All of this sparked a massive wave of political activity inside the Kansas Republican party, sweeping out the more moderate business class Republicans and installing a new generation of conservative Republicans in political posts from Senator on down to the lowest Republican party offices.
The political struggle, however, was not really between conservative Republicans and Democrats, but between conservative Republicans (the "Cons") and more moderate republics (the "Mods"). Frank describes at length the hostility that the Cons had toward the Mods, but is amazed by the Cons' inability to recognize that the policies that they were endorsing increased the economic strength of the Mods and were economically disastrous for the Cons. Frank's amazement is the weakest element of his analysis. While he makes occasional gestures toward explaining the Cons' disregard for their economic situation, he more often simply finds the Cons' behavior foolish and irrational. Despite growing up in Kansas, Frank seems unable to genuinely think about politics from within the world view of the Cons. This may be due to his own upbringing in a Mod suburb of Kansas City or simply to his inability to think sympathetically about with the people he is describing. He makes very little effort to consider the Cons as rational people acting on principles that he does not share.
Republican doctrine has long opposed taxes and regulation. They are seen as alien impositions on the main business of America which is, of course, business. Taxes and regulations are merely ways by which the productive elements of society are made to support and defend the politically powerful, but unproductive, elements. If one sees the main activity of life as making a living within the constraints of a system of fair rules, then such a point of view is reasonable. Surely, many if not most working class people in Kansas find making a living an all consuming activity, this is particularly true of people who are self-employed or sell their labor job to job. For them, taxes (no matter how progressive) are an obstacle to getting ahead and regulations limit the kind of economic activity that they find necessary to remain employed or in business.
In addition to this, the ideology of individualism and fair play trump any appeal that government assistance for the disadvantaged might hold. Material well-being may certainly be an important value for the conservative working class, but if earning what you acquire is a greater value, then taxation, regulation, and social programs are likely to be seen as undermining that more important value. What may be missing in this analysis is the importance of equal opportunity and in the case of Kansas working class, they may feel that the degree of inequality of opportunity is not so great as to justify liberal programs like affirmative action, housing assistance, and food stamps.
There is quite a lot in What's the Matter with Kansas that deserves careful attention, but working class Kansans deserve a more sympathetic and deeper analysis of their behavior.
What's the Matter with Kansas describes the peculiarities of the state's politics starting from its founding in the 1850s up through the progressive era, but only as background for a description of how it changed from the 1970s to the present. According to Frank the critical juncture was in the early 1990s, when the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) took over the national Democratic Party. The DLC abandoned any pretense of acting on behalf of the working class and openly sought support from business. At the same time, conservatives pundits began a relentless attack on liberals through print and radio broadcasts, portraying them as effete snobs who hated the working class and sought to destroy everything that is good about America. Furthermore, capitalizing on a population already disposed in favor of the pro-life movement, Operation Rescue selected Wichita as the epicenter of its protests against legal abortions. Operation Rescue mounted an extremely effective grassroots organizing campaign in Wichita and through out the state. All of this sparked a massive wave of political activity inside the Kansas Republican party, sweeping out the more moderate business class Republicans and installing a new generation of conservative Republicans in political posts from Senator on down to the lowest Republican party offices.
The political struggle, however, was not really between conservative Republicans and Democrats, but between conservative Republicans (the "Cons") and more moderate republics (the "Mods"). Frank describes at length the hostility that the Cons had toward the Mods, but is amazed by the Cons' inability to recognize that the policies that they were endorsing increased the economic strength of the Mods and were economically disastrous for the Cons. Frank's amazement is the weakest element of his analysis. While he makes occasional gestures toward explaining the Cons' disregard for their economic situation, he more often simply finds the Cons' behavior foolish and irrational. Despite growing up in Kansas, Frank seems unable to genuinely think about politics from within the world view of the Cons. This may be due to his own upbringing in a Mod suburb of Kansas City or simply to his inability to think sympathetically about with the people he is describing. He makes very little effort to consider the Cons as rational people acting on principles that he does not share.
Republican doctrine has long opposed taxes and regulation. They are seen as alien impositions on the main business of America which is, of course, business. Taxes and regulations are merely ways by which the productive elements of society are made to support and defend the politically powerful, but unproductive, elements. If one sees the main activity of life as making a living within the constraints of a system of fair rules, then such a point of view is reasonable. Surely, many if not most working class people in Kansas find making a living an all consuming activity, this is particularly true of people who are self-employed or sell their labor job to job. For them, taxes (no matter how progressive) are an obstacle to getting ahead and regulations limit the kind of economic activity that they find necessary to remain employed or in business.
In addition to this, the ideology of individualism and fair play trump any appeal that government assistance for the disadvantaged might hold. Material well-being may certainly be an important value for the conservative working class, but if earning what you acquire is a greater value, then taxation, regulation, and social programs are likely to be seen as undermining that more important value. What may be missing in this analysis is the importance of equal opportunity and in the case of Kansas working class, they may feel that the degree of inequality of opportunity is not so great as to justify liberal programs like affirmative action, housing assistance, and food stamps.
There is quite a lot in What's the Matter with Kansas that deserves careful attention, but working class Kansans deserve a more sympathetic and deeper analysis of their behavior.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Vol. 1 / Hermann von Holst -- Chicago: Callaghan and Co., 1889
Von Holst describes his eight volume work The Constitutional and Political History of the United States as the work of a lifetime and after reading volume one and volume seven, I can say that it was a worthwhile life. The first volume, entitled State Sovereignty and Slavery traces the political currents of the period 1750-1833. Von Holst makes two clear and strong arguments. First, the fundamental constitutional question of the time was state sovereignty and second, either explicitly or implicitly, the status of slavery animated the dispute between federalists and states rights advocates. There is, however, a third mostly subtextual argument: specific political commitments usually trumped commitments to constitutional principles.
The volume begins by describing attitudes toward government and national identity in the colonial period through the period governed by the Articles of Confederation. The inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation led to the Constitutional Convention that resulted in the adoption of the Constitution. Von Holst's description of the negotiations leading to adoption is compelling.
The great bulk of the book, however, traces the political conflicts that strained the bonds of union. The imposition of a tax on wiskey led to threats of rebellion in Western Pennsylvania, which was suppressed by resolute proclamations from President Washington and a lessening of the tax. Later, in the wake of Genet's mission to the U.S., the "XYZ Affair," and the Alien and Sedition Laws during the Adams administration, Madison and Jefferson drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, proclaiming the authority of the states to "interpose" (Madison) themselves between the federal government and the state or to "nullify" (Jefferson) federal laws. These resolutions served as the cornerstones for future secessionist arguments.
Seccessionist arguments came, however, from the federalists as well. During Jefferson's administration, the embargo against England rankled Northeastern commercial interests so much that talk of succession arose there. Jefferson needed to insist on the authority of the federal government to maintain the embargo against federalist objections. Later, during the War of 1812, anti-war sentiment rose so high in New England that Rhodes Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut sent delegates to a convention in Hartford to discuss seccession. The report of the convention asserted the value of establishing a separate league of states for self protection and implicitly recognized the right of secession.
Von Holst's treatment of the period following the War of 1812 tends to be more political than constitutional. In particular, he examines the disputes over slavery, in particular the extension of slavery to Florida, the Alabama territory, and the territory of the Louisiana purchase. However, his analysis inevitably returns to assertions of the right of states to secede and these assertions invariably come from those states that appear to be losing the battle for or against slavery.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the union prior to the Civil War came during Jackson's administration. Though ostensibly a states rights Democrat, Jackson opposed South Carolina's attempt to nullify the federal tarrif. Holst presents this conflict compellingly. The result was a political win-win which solved nothing. South Carolina insisted upon the right to nullify federal law, Jackson declared that federal troops would enforce federal law, and the tarrif that was the source of the conflict was reduced to a level that South Carolina could accept. Consequently, neither side needed to assert its claim in practice.
The tarrif nullification crisis demonstrated that federalists and states rights advocates were willing to use consitutional principles to assert their political agendas, but that in the end, a political compromise was always better than pushing the issue to civil war -- that is, of course, until 1861.
What is most clearly revealed in this volume is how tenuous the bonds of union were in the first decades of the nation's history. One is left with the impression that the bulk of opinion, among all parties, was that the federal government had no right to compell states to remain in the union, but that presidents appealed to the minority opinion in favor of federal supremacy to further their objectives. All that kept the union intact were political compromises sufficient to stay rebellion.
The volume begins by describing attitudes toward government and national identity in the colonial period through the period governed by the Articles of Confederation. The inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation led to the Constitutional Convention that resulted in the adoption of the Constitution. Von Holst's description of the negotiations leading to adoption is compelling.
The great bulk of the book, however, traces the political conflicts that strained the bonds of union. The imposition of a tax on wiskey led to threats of rebellion in Western Pennsylvania, which was suppressed by resolute proclamations from President Washington and a lessening of the tax. Later, in the wake of Genet's mission to the U.S., the "XYZ Affair," and the Alien and Sedition Laws during the Adams administration, Madison and Jefferson drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, proclaiming the authority of the states to "interpose" (Madison) themselves between the federal government and the state or to "nullify" (Jefferson) federal laws. These resolutions served as the cornerstones for future secessionist arguments.
Seccessionist arguments came, however, from the federalists as well. During Jefferson's administration, the embargo against England rankled Northeastern commercial interests so much that talk of succession arose there. Jefferson needed to insist on the authority of the federal government to maintain the embargo against federalist objections. Later, during the War of 1812, anti-war sentiment rose so high in New England that Rhodes Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut sent delegates to a convention in Hartford to discuss seccession. The report of the convention asserted the value of establishing a separate league of states for self protection and implicitly recognized the right of secession.
Von Holst's treatment of the period following the War of 1812 tends to be more political than constitutional. In particular, he examines the disputes over slavery, in particular the extension of slavery to Florida, the Alabama territory, and the territory of the Louisiana purchase. However, his analysis inevitably returns to assertions of the right of states to secede and these assertions invariably come from those states that appear to be losing the battle for or against slavery.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the union prior to the Civil War came during Jackson's administration. Though ostensibly a states rights Democrat, Jackson opposed South Carolina's attempt to nullify the federal tarrif. Holst presents this conflict compellingly. The result was a political win-win which solved nothing. South Carolina insisted upon the right to nullify federal law, Jackson declared that federal troops would enforce federal law, and the tarrif that was the source of the conflict was reduced to a level that South Carolina could accept. Consequently, neither side needed to assert its claim in practice.
The tarrif nullification crisis demonstrated that federalists and states rights advocates were willing to use consitutional principles to assert their political agendas, but that in the end, a political compromise was always better than pushing the issue to civil war -- that is, of course, until 1861.
What is most clearly revealed in this volume is how tenuous the bonds of union were in the first decades of the nation's history. One is left with the impression that the bulk of opinion, among all parties, was that the federal government had no right to compell states to remain in the union, but that presidents appealed to the minority opinion in favor of federal supremacy to further their objectives. All that kept the union intact were political compromises sufficient to stay rebellion.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Guide to the Flora of Washington and Vicinity / Lester F. Ward -- Washington DC: GPO, 1881
Flora of Washington is a monograph in the series Bulletin of the United States National Museum, published by the Department of Interior under the direction of the Smithsonian Institute. It is the first "scientific" attempt to catalog the flora of Washington and the surrounding region since the 1830 catalog entitled Florae Columbianae Prodromus, and it contains lists of plants found by several botanists (mostly Ward) over the years 1878-1880.
The volume begins with 59 pages describing the range and localities where plants were collected with various information about the flowering of plants, their statistical frequency, and the methods for classifying them, but the heart and bulk of the volume is a list of the Latin names of the collected plants. Usually accompanying each entry is the name of the collector, the common name or names of the plant, the times when it flowers and fruits, and, when the plant is not commonly found in the region, the locale where it was found. Sometimes further information is included in a note.
Ward's list of plants includes an indication as to whether the plant appeared on the 1830 Prodromus list, providing a valuable record of the impact of the growth of the Washington D.C. on the flora of the region. Unfortunately, the method of classifying plants has changed since 1881, making current use of the list difficult. However, many names are consistent with our names today. For example, Ward writes that Cannabis sativa grows in "waste lots in the city." Somethings haven't changed. Throughout the work, many current concerns about invasive species and habitat destruction are raised, though the concern is understandably less critical than it is today.
The final 28 pages are "Suggestions to Beginners," explaining in extraordinary detail the equipment needed to identify, collect, transport, preserve, and mount plants to be included in one's herbarium. Ward even recommends methods for mailing one's plant inventories and duplicate plants to other botanists when making trades. (By including nothing in writing in the packages of plants, one could take advantage of a cheaper postal rate.)
Flora of Washington contains a final gem: a 31" x 24" fold out map of the Washington D.C. region, printed in 1882. The region ranges from the Rockville and Laurel post offices in the north to the confluence of the Occaquan and Potomac Rivers in the south; and from the Bull Run post office in the west to the Patuxent River in the east. Along with the river system of the region, roads also appear on the map. Some have retained their names to the present, others have changed, but hardly any follow the same routes of their descendant roads today.
The volume begins with 59 pages describing the range and localities where plants were collected with various information about the flowering of plants, their statistical frequency, and the methods for classifying them, but the heart and bulk of the volume is a list of the Latin names of the collected plants. Usually accompanying each entry is the name of the collector, the common name or names of the plant, the times when it flowers and fruits, and, when the plant is not commonly found in the region, the locale where it was found. Sometimes further information is included in a note.
Ward's list of plants includes an indication as to whether the plant appeared on the 1830 Prodromus list, providing a valuable record of the impact of the growth of the Washington D.C. on the flora of the region. Unfortunately, the method of classifying plants has changed since 1881, making current use of the list difficult. However, many names are consistent with our names today. For example, Ward writes that Cannabis sativa grows in "waste lots in the city." Somethings haven't changed. Throughout the work, many current concerns about invasive species and habitat destruction are raised, though the concern is understandably less critical than it is today.
The final 28 pages are "Suggestions to Beginners," explaining in extraordinary detail the equipment needed to identify, collect, transport, preserve, and mount plants to be included in one's herbarium. Ward even recommends methods for mailing one's plant inventories and duplicate plants to other botanists when making trades. (By including nothing in writing in the packages of plants, one could take advantage of a cheaper postal rate.)
Flora of Washington contains a final gem: a 31" x 24" fold out map of the Washington D.C. region, printed in 1882. The region ranges from the Rockville and Laurel post offices in the north to the confluence of the Occaquan and Potomac Rivers in the south; and from the Bull Run post office in the west to the Patuxent River in the east. Along with the river system of the region, roads also appear on the map. Some have retained their names to the present, others have changed, but hardly any follow the same routes of their descendant roads today.
Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 / Sarah Raymond Herndon -- Guilford, Conn.: Morris Book Publishing, 2003
This blog entry will not only review the book in the title, but will also review An Excursion to California over the Prairie, rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada by William Kelly published by chapman and hall, 1851. Both are accounts of travels across the Great Plains during America's westward expansion.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
An Excursion to California Over the Prarie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada / William Kelly -- London: Chapman and Hall, 1851
This blog entry will not only review the book in the title, but will also review Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 the diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon, published by the Morris Book Publishing Company, 2003. Both are accounts of travels across the Great Plains during America's westward expansion.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Die Is Cast: Arkansas Goes to War, 1861 / Mark K. Christ, ed. -- Little Rock, Ark.: Butler Center Books, 2010
One of the amazing things about the American Civil War is that after almost 150 years, so many people remain utterly obsessed with it. The war's enormous human toll is surely a significant explanation for this. Nonetheless, it is astonishing that people in every corner of the country that saw any part of the struggle meticulously pick over the smallest details of their locality's role in the war, making the Civil War perhaps the most studied (and understood) events in history.
In August of 2008, the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas hosted five historians at a seminar entitled "The Die is Cast: Arkansas Goes to War" in which the secession of Arkansas was examined from a variety of perspectives. Under the editorship of Mark Christ, the seminar's five papers create a brief but interesting insight into a little-studied corner of the Civil War.
Among the most interesting papers is Thomas A. DeBlack's "'A Remarkably Strong Union Sentiment': Unionism in Arkansas." DeBlack explains, "Arkansas needed the Union more than many other states. Citizens of western Arkansas, bordered by the Indian Territory, wanted the protection and economic benefits that the presence of federal troops supplied. Delta residents hoped to benefit from a federal swamplands reclamation project begun in 1850." Only 20% of the white population owned slaves and the remaining population saw no strong reason to sacrifice their interests for these slave owners. Even the slave owners were divided as to the wisdom of secession. Economically, Arkansas was more closely integrated with Missouri and the Old Northwest than with the rest of the South. While the sentiment in favor of secession was weak, the sentiment against forcing states to remain in the Union was strong, ultimately resulting in the secession of Arkansas.
In "Why they Fought: Arkansas Goes to War, 1861," Carl H. Moneyhon explains that the allure of adventure and manly pride motivated the state's young men to sign on to the Confederate cause. Once committed to the struggle, the combatants remained in the struggle both out of personal integrity and out of a conversion to the cause. In "Domesticity Goes Public: Southern Women and the Secession Crisis," Lisa Tendrich Frank describes the moral force that women played in pushing men into battle.
The remaining two papers tell less specialized stories, or at least cover the kind of subject common in Civil War histories. Michael A. Dougan describes the Arkansas Secession Convention and William Garrett Piston describes the involvement of Arkansas troops in the Wilson's Creek Campaign.
While each of the five papers address a distinct aspect of the Civil War in Arkansas, there is enough overlap and connection between them to provide the reader with a coherent, broad picture in a rather short work. Whether this was accidental or a result of the work of editor Mark Christ is not clear, but the volume certainly benefits from the interconnections. The work, however, is not so compelling that one is left with a strong desire to learn more about Arkansas in the Civil War. A brief glimpse is enough.
In August of 2008, the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas hosted five historians at a seminar entitled "The Die is Cast: Arkansas Goes to War" in which the secession of Arkansas was examined from a variety of perspectives. Under the editorship of Mark Christ, the seminar's five papers create a brief but interesting insight into a little-studied corner of the Civil War.
Among the most interesting papers is Thomas A. DeBlack's "'A Remarkably Strong Union Sentiment': Unionism in Arkansas." DeBlack explains, "Arkansas needed the Union more than many other states. Citizens of western Arkansas, bordered by the Indian Territory, wanted the protection and economic benefits that the presence of federal troops supplied. Delta residents hoped to benefit from a federal swamplands reclamation project begun in 1850." Only 20% of the white population owned slaves and the remaining population saw no strong reason to sacrifice their interests for these slave owners. Even the slave owners were divided as to the wisdom of secession. Economically, Arkansas was more closely integrated with Missouri and the Old Northwest than with the rest of the South. While the sentiment in favor of secession was weak, the sentiment against forcing states to remain in the Union was strong, ultimately resulting in the secession of Arkansas.
In "Why they Fought: Arkansas Goes to War, 1861," Carl H. Moneyhon explains that the allure of adventure and manly pride motivated the state's young men to sign on to the Confederate cause. Once committed to the struggle, the combatants remained in the struggle both out of personal integrity and out of a conversion to the cause. In "Domesticity Goes Public: Southern Women and the Secession Crisis," Lisa Tendrich Frank describes the moral force that women played in pushing men into battle.
The remaining two papers tell less specialized stories, or at least cover the kind of subject common in Civil War histories. Michael A. Dougan describes the Arkansas Secession Convention and William Garrett Piston describes the involvement of Arkansas troops in the Wilson's Creek Campaign.
While each of the five papers address a distinct aspect of the Civil War in Arkansas, there is enough overlap and connection between them to provide the reader with a coherent, broad picture in a rather short work. Whether this was accidental or a result of the work of editor Mark Christ is not clear, but the volume certainly benefits from the interconnections. The work, however, is not so compelling that one is left with a strong desire to learn more about Arkansas in the Civil War. A brief glimpse is enough.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Lincoln for President: An Underdog's Path to the 1860 Republican Nomination / Timothy S. Good -- McFarland & Co.: Jefferson, N.C., 2009.
Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency demonstrates how different the selection of the president in 1860 was to how it is today. To begin with, ballot access was quite different. Political parties printed their own ballots and distributed them to voters. Consequently, any number of candidates could receive votes. In 1860, divisions among the political elite led to four main candidates in the general election: Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckenridge, and John Bell. All of Lincoln's opponents in the general election supported policies that would permit the extension of slavery into the territories. Consequently, they divided the "pro-slavery" vote and Lincoln won with a plurality.
But prior to the general election, Lincoln's nomination was even more doubtful. As a little known politician, Lincoln's chance of defeating William Seward was tiny. Seward's standing the Republican Party made him so confident of his nomination that he spent much of the year leading up to the Party's convention traveling through Europe; however, Seward's "negatives" were high enough to promote what today might be called an "anyone but Seward" movement. But again, Lincoln was only one of many alternatives to Seward. Most prominent among them were Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Simon Cameron, Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase, and the former Missouri U.S. Representative Edward Bates, but also former New Jersey U.S. Senator William Drayton, Supreme Court Judge John McLean, and Vermont U.S. Senator Jacob Collamer, among others.
The opposition to Seward was based primarily on the belief that he would not be able to carry the "battleground states" of Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The Republicans had swept the northern states except for these in 1956. Winning them would give the Republican candidate a majority of the electoral college votes in 1860. On the second day of the convention, a long debate broke out over including words from the Declaration of Independence in the party platform, thus preventing a vote that would have nominated Seward. A night of intense negotiations followed, in which representatives from the four battleground states gathered to settle on a candidate who could best win those states. By morning, the representatives agreed to recommend Lincoln to their state delegations, but they could not guarantee the votes. That morning, The New York Times remained confident of a Seward victory.
When the first ballot of the convention was cast, the Indiana delegation voted unanimously for Lincoln, an omen that Seward's nomination was not certain. Indeed, he failed to achieve a majority. Furthermore, Lincoln held a commanding lead over Seward's rivals. On the second ballot, Vermont (the most Republican state of all) cast all of its ten votes for Lincoln. Other anti-Seward delegates began to rally around Lincoln, giving him 181 votes to Seward's 184 and a half. Two hundred and thirty-three were needed for victory. On the third ballot, Lincoln's support increased to 231 and a half, but before the vote could be announced, four delegates changed their votes to Lincoln, giving him a majority and the nomination.
Timothy S. Good's short work, Lincoln for President recounts this drama in compelling detail. Instead of a long drawn out primary season conducted under the glare of national media, Lincoln's nomination was engineered in the legendary smoke-filled rooms of the convention city's hotels, and it was done so at the eleventh hour without any certainty of success, even as the votes were being counted.
Good's account of Lincoln's path to the nomination, however, also provides the back story to the convention, following Lincoln's campaign in the Midwest, New York, and New England. According to Good, Lincoln's recent defeat at the hands of Stephen A. Douglas for U.S. Senate led Lincoln to think his political career was over, but as the anti-Seward forces sought alternative candidates, Lincoln's notoriety from the Lincoln-Douglas debates brought him to consideration.
During his campaign, Lincoln abandoned his occasional remarks in favor of second class citizenship for blacks and he instead embraced the ringing phrase of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." Central to his campaign was his opposition to the extension of slavery and a commitment not to interfere with slavery where it existed. These positions were no different from Seward's. Furthermore, Seward's most notorious assertion that the country was heading for an "irrepressible conflict" was mirrored in Lincoln's assertion that the government could not "endure permanently, half slave and half free; that a house divided against itself cannot stand." Indeed, Lincoln defended Seward's "irrepressible conflict" position while campaigning in New England.
According to Good, Lincoln's success as a candidate, both for the nomination and in the general election, could be attributed to his even, genial temper and his unwillingness to personally attack his opponents, both inside and outside the Party. This may, indeed, have been a significant factor, but given the deep divisions within the country and within the Democratic Party, Lincoln appears to have been the beneficiary of numerous circumstance beyond his control, so many so that one might add his name to the list of accidental presidents.
But prior to the general election, Lincoln's nomination was even more doubtful. As a little known politician, Lincoln's chance of defeating William Seward was tiny. Seward's standing the Republican Party made him so confident of his nomination that he spent much of the year leading up to the Party's convention traveling through Europe; however, Seward's "negatives" were high enough to promote what today might be called an "anyone but Seward" movement. But again, Lincoln was only one of many alternatives to Seward. Most prominent among them were Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Simon Cameron, Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase, and the former Missouri U.S. Representative Edward Bates, but also former New Jersey U.S. Senator William Drayton, Supreme Court Judge John McLean, and Vermont U.S. Senator Jacob Collamer, among others.
The opposition to Seward was based primarily on the belief that he would not be able to carry the "battleground states" of Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The Republicans had swept the northern states except for these in 1956. Winning them would give the Republican candidate a majority of the electoral college votes in 1860. On the second day of the convention, a long debate broke out over including words from the Declaration of Independence in the party platform, thus preventing a vote that would have nominated Seward. A night of intense negotiations followed, in which representatives from the four battleground states gathered to settle on a candidate who could best win those states. By morning, the representatives agreed to recommend Lincoln to their state delegations, but they could not guarantee the votes. That morning, The New York Times remained confident of a Seward victory.
When the first ballot of the convention was cast, the Indiana delegation voted unanimously for Lincoln, an omen that Seward's nomination was not certain. Indeed, he failed to achieve a majority. Furthermore, Lincoln held a commanding lead over Seward's rivals. On the second ballot, Vermont (the most Republican state of all) cast all of its ten votes for Lincoln. Other anti-Seward delegates began to rally around Lincoln, giving him 181 votes to Seward's 184 and a half. Two hundred and thirty-three were needed for victory. On the third ballot, Lincoln's support increased to 231 and a half, but before the vote could be announced, four delegates changed their votes to Lincoln, giving him a majority and the nomination.
Timothy S. Good's short work, Lincoln for President recounts this drama in compelling detail. Instead of a long drawn out primary season conducted under the glare of national media, Lincoln's nomination was engineered in the legendary smoke-filled rooms of the convention city's hotels, and it was done so at the eleventh hour without any certainty of success, even as the votes were being counted.
Good's account of Lincoln's path to the nomination, however, also provides the back story to the convention, following Lincoln's campaign in the Midwest, New York, and New England. According to Good, Lincoln's recent defeat at the hands of Stephen A. Douglas for U.S. Senate led Lincoln to think his political career was over, but as the anti-Seward forces sought alternative candidates, Lincoln's notoriety from the Lincoln-Douglas debates brought him to consideration.
During his campaign, Lincoln abandoned his occasional remarks in favor of second class citizenship for blacks and he instead embraced the ringing phrase of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." Central to his campaign was his opposition to the extension of slavery and a commitment not to interfere with slavery where it existed. These positions were no different from Seward's. Furthermore, Seward's most notorious assertion that the country was heading for an "irrepressible conflict" was mirrored in Lincoln's assertion that the government could not "endure permanently, half slave and half free; that a house divided against itself cannot stand." Indeed, Lincoln defended Seward's "irrepressible conflict" position while campaigning in New England.
According to Good, Lincoln's success as a candidate, both for the nomination and in the general election, could be attributed to his even, genial temper and his unwillingness to personally attack his opponents, both inside and outside the Party. This may, indeed, have been a significant factor, but given the deep divisions within the country and within the Democratic Party, Lincoln appears to have been the beneficiary of numerous circumstance beyond his control, so many so that one might add his name to the list of accidental presidents.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Slavery and the Supreme Court, 1825-1861 / Earl M. Maltz -- Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2009
In the decades preceding the Civil War, the question of slavery grew to be all consuming: morally, politically, socially, economically, and legally. Maltz's Slavery and the Supreme Court is a close analysis of the legal issues related to slavery. Often the cases that were before state and federal courts directly addressed a particular issue among a nexus of slavery issues, but more often jurists chose to skirt the central issue and argue their cases on the tangential grounds of jurisdiction and standing. Consequently, a study of the antebellum slavery cases is complex and technical. Maltz does not shy away from these details, making his work difficult and sometimes turgid for anyone without a legal background.
Despite the challenge, Slavery and the Supreme Court repays careful the attention of a lay reader. Four issues dominated the legal history of slavery: the international slave trade, the interstate slave trade, fugitive slave laws, and the territorial expansion of slavery. Among these, fugitive slave laws were the most contentious, though the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories ultimately led to the war.
Maltz describes the suppression of the international slave trade and the 1825 Supreme Court case known as The Antelope which established the power of the federal government to enforce the Constitutional ban on the international slave trade. A more complex legal struggle followed in 1841 when the power of the federal government to regulate the interstate slave trade came before the Court in Groves v. Slaughter. Here the constitution of the state of Mississippi banned the importation of slaves, but nonetheless slaves were imported during the 1830s. So many so, that promissory notes were issued to pay for them. When the Mississippi economy collapsed, purchasers relied on the constitutional ban to renege on their promises. In a split and complicated set of opinions, the Court was understood to have denied the authority of the federal government to regulate the interstate slave trade and endorsed the power of states to regulate it; however, the Courts opinions indicated an unwillingness to deal directly with the central legal issues and instead the Court fashioned a decision that would avoid sectional conflict.
The issue of Fugitive Slaves was more complicated still. Ostensibly protected by a Constitutional guarantee, slave catchers were retrieving runaway slaves through out the North -- much to the disapproval of Northerners. By the 1820s, many free states had passed "personal liberty laws" requiring slave catchers to establish the identity of runaway slaves before a state court. Essentially, the legal obstacles would put them out of business. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania, these laws were put to the test. Again, the Court's opinion was based less on legal principle and more on political expedience. While striking down Pennsylvania's personal liberty law and allowing slave catchers to transport their captives back into slavery, Prigg v. Pennsylvania denied that the federal government or state governments had any obligation to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. In practice, this turned out to be a victory for the anti-slavery forces.
In 1850, Congress addressed the issue in the Fugitive Slave Act which was part of a set of compromise laws related to slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act required federal and state governments to assist in the capture of runaways. It even authorized the authorities to require private citizens to participate in the capture. Anti-slavery forces were, of course, outraged and often attempted to avoid abiding by this law. Among the most important cases that came of this resistance was Ableman v. Booth in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court attempted to nullify the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and acquit Sherman Booth of assisting in the escape of a Joshua Glover, a runaway slave. The incident took place in 1854, but the case dragged on until 1859 with Wisconsin curiously rejecting the authority of the federal government to enforce federal law. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held in favor of federal authority.
While Ableman v. Booth was being litigated, the most famous Supreme Court slavery case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, was tried. Here the critical issue turned on the authority of the federal government to prohibit slavery in the territories. Famously, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote for the majority of a divided court that the federal government had no such power. This clearly established a central aim of the pro-slavery forces, but according to Maltz, even this ruling was an attempt by the Court to fashion a solution that would end sectional strife, this time by taking a contentious issue out of the political arena. Of course it did nothing of the sort, and opposition to the Dred Scott decision was a powerful force leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln and other Republican law makers.
One last case, Kentucky v. Dennison (1860), that Maltz describes clearly expressed the dominant judicial view in the South just prior to secession. Here the Court ruled that the Governor of Ohio, William Dennison, was required to extradite a man accused of assisting the escape of a slave, but that the federal government had no power to enforce this mandate. This was precisely the view that leading Southerners and President Buchannan held with regard to secession. Southern states had no constitutional right to secede, but the federal government had no authority to take action against them if they did.
In all, the judicial issues related to slavery prior to the war turned on numerous judicial principles and constitutional issues that did not always speak directly to slavery: most important was the power of states vis-a-vis the federal government, but also the commerce clause, the comity clause, the relationship between the fugitive slave clause and the extradition clause, and the power of states to establish who among their residents would be citizens. Maltz's treatment of these issues makes it clear that the pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates were willing to adopt any position on these issues that would further their cause and that the Supreme Court justices sought to avoid sectional conflict by issuing opinions that dubiously respected judicial and constitutional principles in favor of sectional harmony. Nonetheless, in the words of William Seward, the country was heading into and "irrepressible conflict," where antagonistic political forces would not be denied by Court rulings.
Despite the challenge, Slavery and the Supreme Court repays careful the attention of a lay reader. Four issues dominated the legal history of slavery: the international slave trade, the interstate slave trade, fugitive slave laws, and the territorial expansion of slavery. Among these, fugitive slave laws were the most contentious, though the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories ultimately led to the war.
Maltz describes the suppression of the international slave trade and the 1825 Supreme Court case known as The Antelope which established the power of the federal government to enforce the Constitutional ban on the international slave trade. A more complex legal struggle followed in 1841 when the power of the federal government to regulate the interstate slave trade came before the Court in Groves v. Slaughter. Here the constitution of the state of Mississippi banned the importation of slaves, but nonetheless slaves were imported during the 1830s. So many so, that promissory notes were issued to pay for them. When the Mississippi economy collapsed, purchasers relied on the constitutional ban to renege on their promises. In a split and complicated set of opinions, the Court was understood to have denied the authority of the federal government to regulate the interstate slave trade and endorsed the power of states to regulate it; however, the Courts opinions indicated an unwillingness to deal directly with the central legal issues and instead the Court fashioned a decision that would avoid sectional conflict.
The issue of Fugitive Slaves was more complicated still. Ostensibly protected by a Constitutional guarantee, slave catchers were retrieving runaway slaves through out the North -- much to the disapproval of Northerners. By the 1820s, many free states had passed "personal liberty laws" requiring slave catchers to establish the identity of runaway slaves before a state court. Essentially, the legal obstacles would put them out of business. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania, these laws were put to the test. Again, the Court's opinion was based less on legal principle and more on political expedience. While striking down Pennsylvania's personal liberty law and allowing slave catchers to transport their captives back into slavery, Prigg v. Pennsylvania denied that the federal government or state governments had any obligation to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. In practice, this turned out to be a victory for the anti-slavery forces.
In 1850, Congress addressed the issue in the Fugitive Slave Act which was part of a set of compromise laws related to slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act required federal and state governments to assist in the capture of runaways. It even authorized the authorities to require private citizens to participate in the capture. Anti-slavery forces were, of course, outraged and often attempted to avoid abiding by this law. Among the most important cases that came of this resistance was Ableman v. Booth in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court attempted to nullify the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and acquit Sherman Booth of assisting in the escape of a Joshua Glover, a runaway slave. The incident took place in 1854, but the case dragged on until 1859 with Wisconsin curiously rejecting the authority of the federal government to enforce federal law. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held in favor of federal authority.
While Ableman v. Booth was being litigated, the most famous Supreme Court slavery case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, was tried. Here the critical issue turned on the authority of the federal government to prohibit slavery in the territories. Famously, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote for the majority of a divided court that the federal government had no such power. This clearly established a central aim of the pro-slavery forces, but according to Maltz, even this ruling was an attempt by the Court to fashion a solution that would end sectional strife, this time by taking a contentious issue out of the political arena. Of course it did nothing of the sort, and opposition to the Dred Scott decision was a powerful force leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln and other Republican law makers.
One last case, Kentucky v. Dennison (1860), that Maltz describes clearly expressed the dominant judicial view in the South just prior to secession. Here the Court ruled that the Governor of Ohio, William Dennison, was required to extradite a man accused of assisting the escape of a slave, but that the federal government had no power to enforce this mandate. This was precisely the view that leading Southerners and President Buchannan held with regard to secession. Southern states had no constitutional right to secede, but the federal government had no authority to take action against them if they did.
In all, the judicial issues related to slavery prior to the war turned on numerous judicial principles and constitutional issues that did not always speak directly to slavery: most important was the power of states vis-a-vis the federal government, but also the commerce clause, the comity clause, the relationship between the fugitive slave clause and the extradition clause, and the power of states to establish who among their residents would be citizens. Maltz's treatment of these issues makes it clear that the pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates were willing to adopt any position on these issues that would further their cause and that the Supreme Court justices sought to avoid sectional conflict by issuing opinions that dubiously respected judicial and constitutional principles in favor of sectional harmony. Nonetheless, in the words of William Seward, the country was heading into and "irrepressible conflict," where antagonistic political forces would not be denied by Court rulings.
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