Harper’s Weekly – December 4, 1858

Harper's Weekly archives ^ | December 4, 1858

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[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 previous thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The Cutter “Christopher Columbus” – 2-4
Contents – 3
Somewhere to Go – 4
Editorials – 4-5
The Lounger – 6-7
Modern Algiers – 8-11
The Centennial Celebration at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 11-13
A Street in Naples – 14-15
Darling Dora M’Ilvaine – 15
T4FG2G: A Detective Experience – 15-17
The Double Widowhood, in 4 Chapters – 17-19
Our Special European Correspondence – 19-20
The Story of Fauntleroy the Forger – 20-22
Chess Chronicle – 22
Interesting Facts About the Mormons – 23-26

[Tax-chick]

The large advertisement for “Saleratus!” on page 12 led me to look it up. (It’s a chemical leavening agent used in baking.) In an episode of the memoirs of the Mormon pioneers which I was reading last night, a young girl remembered her mother’s making biscuits using “saleratus” collected from the ground near the trail. She said they were rather bitter and salty, but the mineral turned them a pretty orange color.

Have you seen “The Village Blacksmith”?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Have you seen “The Village Blacksmith”?

I find that John Ford made a 1922 adaptation of the Longfellow poem. Now lost. Is that what you mean?

[Tax-chick]

No, the line is in the newspaper in several places, just a strip between other ads.

[Tax-chick]

It was published in 1940, so maybe this is a new print edition.

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Ah, now I see it. Curious.

[Tax-chick]

Subliminal advertising!

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from December 1 (reply #3) .

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

[colorado tanker]

Wow! That is one of the best written, most learned and powerful rants I’ve ever read! Our Diarist was on fire today!

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Wow! That is one of the best written, most learned and powerful rants I’ve ever read! Our Diarist was on fire today!

And that's no grandiose gibbering.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from November 17 (reply #13).

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Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America

[BroJoeK]

colorado tanker: "Wow! That is one of the best written, most learned and powerful rants I’ve ever read!
Our Diarist was on fire today!"

Amazing and just a little too uncanny.
I suspect Homer has figured out a way to put today's conditions into Mr. Strong's words, how else to explain it?

;-)

[BroJoeK]

Here Guelzo focuses on the effects of Lincoln-Douglas debates in exposing the irreconcilable split between Northern & Southern Democrats regarding slavery in the territories.
Without the debates Douglas may have gotten away with speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the subject.
Interesting to note the words of Senators Davis & Benjamin, not usually thought of as Fire Eaters, but here doing their bit to make Northerner Douglas unacceptable to Southern Democrats.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

[Continued from December 6 (reply #10).]

December 10. Jem Ruggles dined here and spent the evening reading music, Martha and Nozze di Figaro, with Ellie. Looked into the third volume of Prescott’s Philip the Second, mainly devoted to the Moresco Insurrection, Don John, the Escurial, and Lepanto. Better than the first two volumes, I think; less wordy and more picturesque.

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

[Tax-chick]

It sounds as if George is stuck indoors due to weather. I’ve been watching lectures about the Etruscans.

[colorado tanker]

If Dred Scott is right (which I strongly dispute) about slaves being non-citizen chattel, then Davis and his "moderate" Southern Democrats logically are right - the Constitution would protect their "property" rights even in Northern free-soil states.

What it boils down to IMHO, is Lincoln was right, not Taney. The Union under the Constitution could not endure half slave and half free. Douglas has been trying to square a circle that cannot be squared and Freeport exposed him.

Taney thought Dred Scott would resolve the slavery issue once and for all. Instead, Dred Scott set up the split between Northern, Douglas, Democrats and Southern Democrats that would ultimately put Lincoln in the White House.

[BroJoeK]

Colorado Tanker: "If Dred Scott is right (which I strongly dispute) about slaves being non-citizen chattel..."

If I understand correctly, Taney's words covered not just slaves, but anyone of African descent, freedmen & mixed blood included, as non-citizens without rights which needed to be respected.
So Taney was way, way ahead of the political debate in, say, 1857 and was laying the groundwork for, as Lincoln's House Divided speech said:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

And abolished freedmen to boot!

[colorado tanker]

Great quote - and spot on. Dred Scott was such a bad decision in so many ways.