Posted on 11/21/2015 11:35:55 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Before when free-soil men invoked the right of revolution in defense of their political rights, proslavery men condemned them for defying the legitimate government. But proslavery men feared the loss of their right to own slaves as much as free soilers feared the loss of the right to exclude slavery.
At Hickory Point, [Kansas] a squabble over land claims ignited these political quarrels. A settler named Franklin M. Coleman had been squatting on land abandoned by some Hoosiers, who subsequently sold the claim to Jacob Branson, another Hoosier. In late 1854, when Branson informed Coleman of his legal claim and attempted to move into Coleman’s house, Coleman held him off with a gun. A group of arbitrators later awarded part of the claim to Branson, but the boundaries between his land and Coleman’s were not determined. Branson invited in other men, including a young Ohioan named Charles W. Dow. Branson belonged to the free-state militia, a connection he used to intimidate Coleman, although Branson later testified that there had been no problems between Dow and Coleman – until the day of Dow’s murder.
On the morning of November 21, 1855, Dow went to the blacksmith shop at Hickory Point to have a wagon skein and lynchpin mended. While there he argued with one of Coleman’s friends, but left unharmed. As he walked away, he passed Coleman on the road. Coleman snapped a cap at him. When Dow turned around, he received a charge of buckshot in the chest and died immediately. His body lay in the road until Branson recovered it four hours later. Coleman claimed that Dow had threateningly raised the wagon skein (a two-foot piece of iron) as they argued over their claim dispute, forcing him to act in self-defense. Fearing that he could not get fair treatment at the free-state settlement of Hickory Point, Coleman and his family fled to Missouri.
Nicole Etcheson, “Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Eraâ€
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
In the rules of negotiation, you never want just one point. If negotiation comes to one point (like the price of the car) , then you have a winner and a loser. Our issues are too squishy yet.
What will be the one issue that requires us to pick a side?
gun rights?
immigration?
homos?
Wagon ruts. Wow. It is interesting how many there were in prominent groups.
I was born before 1950 and grew up just off of State Line Road in Johnson County, Kansas. My Great Grandfather was in Maple Hill and “rode with” John Brown. I built over the well at Westport Landing adjacent to the oldest structure in Westport (later absorbed by KC).
The house I lived in in college in Lawrence still had a mini-ball in the front porch beam and the fighting prior to the war in Platte County was all around where I lived for twenty years.
There are more books on this era now than there were available in the 60s and 70s..
From your source:
............... The title reflects part of the speech’s introduction, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” a concept familiar to Lincoln’s audience as a statement by Jesus recorded in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).
Even Lincoln’s friends regarded the speech as too radical for the occasion. His law partner, William H. Herndon, considered Lincoln as morally courageous but politically incorrect. Lincoln read the speech to him before delivering it, referring to the “house divided” language this way: “The proposition is indisputably true ... and I will deliver it as written. I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language as universally known, that it may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times.”
The speech created many repercussions, giving Lincoln’s political opponent fresh ammunition. Herndon remarked, “when I saw Senator Douglas making such headway against Mr. Lincoln’s house divided speech I was nettled & irritable, and said to Mr. Lincoln one day this — ‘Mr. Lincoln — why in the world do you not say to Mr. Douglas, when he is making capitol out of your speech, — ‘Douglas why whine and complain to me because of that speech. I am not the author of it. God is. Go and whine and complain to Him for its revelation, and utterance.’ Mr. Lincoln looked at me one short quizzical moment, and replied ‘I can’t.’”
1) would anyone today recognize the source of the house divided?
2) Why did Lincoln have a quizzical look and reply “I can’t”? (to a perfectly good, political response you and I would encourage him to say)
I don’t know.
But it should be abortion. The God-given, unalienable right to live is the supreme right, and the protection of that supreme right is the very raison d’etre of all decent, legitimate, just human government.
I will add for others, my GG-Dad’s Maple Hill doesn’t exist anymore, it was west of Fort Scott and Fulton not the Maple Hill up west of Topeka.
Mapleton is what is nearest to where he was as I understand it but the family called it the Maple Hill farm.
1. Some few would still recognize it.
2. I imagine it was a matter of conscience. I don’t profess the ability to see into his heart or mind to discern exactly what the struggle was in that respect. But he obviously just didn’t feel free to respond in that way.
Hard to argue with the outcome, over the long haul.
We reap what we sow, even if the harvest doesn’t all come in overnight.
Douglas won a Senate seat. Lincoln won immortality.
Ft. Leavenworth was built on the bluff. The ferry and steamboat landing was at the bottom of the bluff on the Missouri River bank. The wagons had to climb up the hill to get to the fort and also to join the Santa Fe Trail and the several connections to the immigrant trails. I think that individual wheel ruts that still exist were worn into soft rock. The hill is soil, so its a single swale worn into the hill and about 50-100 yards of it remains.
Remnants of this period still exist throughout the area, but you need to know where to look. A surprising number of ghost towns still leave a mark in the soil, a few structures exist, and most of the trails and roads have been traced. My place is on the Leavenworth - Lawrence stage road, but the stage line did not start until 1857, so I don’t know if the road was there in 1855. It’s called New Lawrence Road, so it’s not the original road. The road has sunken into the surrounding fields in places.
You guys are giving me impetus to get on with my reading. Back to “Bleeding Kanssas.”
Having spent my career as a builder, I walked a lot of undeveloped land. The various jumping off points, stage coach outfitting and supply points caused a lot of spiderweb movement of the trail origination and routing. One could see that in the land where the trails survived.
Of course, the farm trails that developed did not always cause a later dirt road to follow — some just lost use and lay as marks upon the prairie fields.
Thanks for personal connections.
It seemed in Homer's WWII threads that many, if not most, drew responses from people with personal connections -- their Dads, Uncles, grandparents, etc. -- who were there and experienced something about it.
My guess is the Civil War will also draw personal responses, though probably not so many, making each one all the more valuable.
Thanks again!
Well, the distance between us and those who were there is certainly greater.
Certainly none of us knew any of the participants.
Although, some of us old fogies did know a few of the children of Civil War veterans, when they were very old, and we were very young.
And now that I think about it, we had actual participants join us on the WW II threads.
Don’t think that will happen this time!
:-)
I wish I knew more about my forbears. Both of my father’s parents had ancestor who emigrated to Oregon from the east. His father (my Grandfather) was born in Lacygne, Kansas in 1884. They moved west when my Grandfather was a youth. My father’s maternal grandfather was born in 1848 in Benton Co. Missouri. His maternal grandmother was born in Marion Co. Iowa in 1850. They didn’t move to Oregon until 1880. Besides those relatives there were dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins spread out from Pennsylvania to Alabama whose stories I don’t know. Surely some of them had interesting Civil War stories to tell.
My paternal grandmother was the family historian. Over the years she gathered up all the documentation and notes on our ancestors. One day in a fit of pique (she had early onset of Alzheimer’s) she burned it all.
That is sad. What a loss.
The way I see it preceding generations were too busy keeping body and soul together and keeping their families fed and housed to spend much time pondering or recording the times they lived through.
And even today, with the amazing tools we have available to us at the click of a mouse, it takes a lot of time and effort and detective work to ferret out what information is out there. And even then, once you do go to all that trouble, there are always huge gaps in your knowledge.
But man, what an excursion through American history it is. Well worthwhile. I would recommend it to anybody.
I’ve spent almost a decade now on the hunt, and my perception of my own history, the history of my family, and the history of my country, has been vastly broadened and deepened.
:-(
Bump, and please add me to the ping list.
Something has gone wonky with text rendering on the server side, JimRob is aware, we’re all painfully aware, and it’s supposed to get fixed real soon now . . .
In the meanwhile, there were some sites posted where you could paste text, and it would take the oddball quotes chars and other thingamajiggies that aren’t rendering well, and substitute normal chars that will.
Hey! Lookie there! I bookmarked one of them.
http://dan.hersam.com/tools/smart-quotes.html
1855 - My Bondage and My Freedom, by Frederick Douglass
This book is published in 1855. Deserves a read if we are to understand the times.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/202/202-h/202-h.htm
Absolutely! I just added it to my Amazon shopping cart. I recently reflected that of the bios relevant to the era Lincoln and Douglass may be the most important in the period before the war. I plan to find out what some of the generals were doing pre-war but that is of casual interest compared to the experience of Douglass.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.