Posted on 03/01/2017 5:02:55 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed. To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
* Two new states coming into the union – Minnesota and Oregon. Arizona application to become a territory – Denied. Not enough people, among other reasons. U.S to enter into contract with Transatlantic Telegraph Company. “The Indian Appropriation Bill includes a sum of $700,000 for pacifying the natives in Oregon.” - “In the House, the Committee on Territories has reported a bill abrogating the laws passed by the Legislature of Kansas, and ordering a new election.”
“In the Senate the Republican vote has been greatly increased by the recent State elections. . . . The next Senate, it is estimated, will be composed of 37 Democrats, 20 Republicans, and 5 Americans.”
Governor Geary set forth, “in a long and elaborate message”, the state of affairs in Kansas.
“Mr. Preston S. Brooks, the assailant of Mr. Sumner in the Senate Chamber, died very suddenly at Washington, January 27, at the age of 37 years. He had been for some days confined to his room by a cold, but was apparently recovering, when he was attacked by croup, and expired almost before any serious danger was apprehended.”
“The vocabulary of crime, especially in New York, has been enriched by a new term descriptive of a new mode of robbery. It is performed by two or more, one of whom seizes the victim by the neck from behind, in such a manner as to strangle him and render him powerless, while the others proceed to rifle his pockets. This is styled garroting from its resemblance to the well-known Spanish mode of execution.”
The foregoing description is followed by a detailed account of the Burdell case, comprising more column inches than any other topic in the current events section.
Darn. Young guy like that, Zot. My son Vlad had croup a couple of times as a baby, but for an adult to be carried off by it is amazingly pre-modern.
March 1857 was the last time a Democrat president saw his Democrat successor sworn into office.
Let’s see. War in the Middle East, turmoil in the Far East, equal rights debate, comic celebrity and fashion. I guess after 150 years, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Late” implies the trouble is in the past. That may be premature.
A mistake that would have consequences for the next two generations. A territorial government might have been able to avoid the Bascom Affair and the Apache War that resulted from it--a war that was largely ignored at first because of the greater struggle looming in the nation.
Despite the efforts of people like Tom Jeffords and Cochise, it wasn't until 1886 and the capture of Geronimo that Arizona became "pacified." The Apaches, Hopi, and Navajo could probably have retained just as much, if not more land, without the Arizona war.
The Supreme Court had no valid jurisdiction in this case since slavery was not a constitutional issue - until the 13A-15A, slavery was a states' issue - and Dred Scott had undergone due process in the Missouri Supreme Court.
That $700,000 pacify the natives didn’t go too far. When my grandfather arrived in the U.S. from Macedonia in 1906, his first job was working on a railway crew in Oregon. They had cavalry escorts to keep the marauding Indians away. A couple times the crew had to take cover during a firefight. He shared this story with me when I was eight years old between matches of Championship Wrestling on Channel 4 and extoling the virtues of socialism.
Taney did not invent the concept of Substantive Due Process. It’s origins can go back to James Otis’ arguments in the Writs of Assistance Case in 1761 and to Justice Chase’s opinion in Calder v. Bull in 1798. However, Taney’s decision was the only example of it’s actual application to strike down a statute until the two cases of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. City of Chicago and Allgeyer v. Louisiana in 1897. And it is something of a stretch to call Dred Scott a Substantive Due Process case. The idea that slaves were property subject to ownership was not novel and a relatively widely recognized property right at the time. Dred Scott was more of a straight up application of Constitutional construction in the line of Marbury v. Madison, Gibbons v. Ogden or McCulloch v. Maryland.
On March 4, 1857 President James Buchanan was inaugurated, taking the oath from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. The Vice President was John C Breckinridge. Breckinridge would be elected to the US Senate in 1860, but then was expelled. He was also indicted for treason. Breckinridge was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army on November 2, 1861.
Breckinridge was one of the commanders of the Orphan Brigade, also known as the 1st Kentucky Brigade.
Continued from February 23 (reply #161).
Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics" (1978)
This is the first excerpt from this book. You can read my book report on it from July 19 of last year (reply #47)
William J. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis, American
Breckenridge being charged with Treason was his impetus for fleeing to Cuba at the end of the war.
Burke Davis wrote a great book called The Long Surrender which gives a good account of the flight south with many anecdotes of Breckenridge and Judah Benjamin travelling down into the Keys.
Meck library has it, but only as an e-book. I don’t want an e-book!
I met the author a his house back in the early 90’s where he signed a couple of books for me. Very nice elderly man.
We discussed a few things war related and I mentioned some other authors I had read. He piped in, “That’s why I stopped writing at the continental of the end of the war. Everybody and their brother was writing books then”.
True, there are a lot of history writers. Some should not be writers!
Union County doesn’t have anything, either.
I have that book.
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