[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts

First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.

Link to January 1857 thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The Discovery of the Northwest Passage – 2-7
Celebrated Wines – 8-12
Monthly Record of Current Events * – 13-16
Editor’s Drawer – 17-24
Fashions for February – 25-26

* The business of Congress – slavery and squatter sovereignty. Controversial Kansas delegate admitted by 112-108 vote. Appropriation approved for steamer for the revenue service to be used in New York area to rescue distressed vessels. Is this how the Coast Guard began?

“The inhabitants of that portion of New Mexico recently acquired by the ‘Gadsden Purchase,’ have sent a delegate to Washington requesting that this district may be erected into a Territory, under the name of Arizona . . .”

“The delegate from Minnesota presented a petition that this Territory might be admitted into the Union as a State . . .”

A chart shows results of the November election in both popular and electoral terms, both state-by-state and free states vs. slave states.

The governor of Mississippi proposes a Convention of Southern States to concert a plan of action in case the northern states continue their hostility towards southern slavery.

“In Utah Judge Drummond charged the Grand Jury that the Mormon ceremony of ‘sealing’ does not constitute a legal marriage, and instructed them to indict all ‘sealed’ persons who had not been legally married, especially in cases where two or more women are found cohabiting with one man.”

“Charles B. Huntington, a New York broker, has been convicted of forgeries to an immense amount. . . . The defense set up was that he was affected with an irresistible propensity to forgery, which amounted to moral insanity . . . This defense proved unavailing . . . he was sentenced to the State Prison for four years and ten months . . .”

Plus news from Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from January 29 (reply #122)

The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas

[BroJoeK]

"Northerners were outraged at the notion that slavery was legal anywhere in the country!"

Extraordinarily important to "get" what happened here, since Dred-Scott represented the culmination of decades of Slave Power political efforts to have slavery permanently recognized nation-wide.
Just like Democrats today, they sought (and found!) from the Court what they could not otherwise win through Constitutional processes.

Lincoln said Dred-Scott implied slavery was legal everywhere, and the next Supreme Court decision would make it explicit.
That's what inflamed Northerners generally, drove radicals like John Brown, and helped elect Republicans as never before.

In other words, in its greatest Federal victory the Slave-Power sewed the seeds of its own eventual destruction.

[Jim W N]

The Dred Scott decision, as Roe v. Wade, was utterly void of constitutionally-based reasoning. Thus, both were examples of federal tyranny leading to misery and death.

[Jacquerie]

Some 45 years ago, I recall reading an 1850s reporter’s account of a political debate in Alabama.

It amazed me. Like Harpers, he painted an event in words.

Compare to Twitter. Blech.

[HandyDandy]

Just for now, I'd like to contribute the following to this thread. Can anyone tell me whose words they are?

""Whatever may be the force of the decision of the Supreme Court in binding the parties and settling their rights in the particular case before them, I am not prepared to admit that a construction given to the constitution by the Supreme Court in deciding any one or more cases fixes of itself irrevokably [sic] and permanently its construction in that particular and binds the states and the Legislative and executive branches of the General government, forever afterwards to conform to it and adopt it in every other case as the true reading of the instrument although all of them may unite in believing it erroneous."

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from December 18, 1856 (reply #28).

1

2

Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics" (1978)

Justice Samuel Nelson Wikipedia page

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from January 6 (reply #40)

Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era

John W. Geary Wikipedia page

[Homer_J_Simpson]

From Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals