Posted on 08/27/2019 5:08:23 AM PDT 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.
Posting history, in reverse order
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
I to-day received the enclosed letter and check.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 534
It is, perhaps, too late to bring slavery to an end by peaceable means, — too late to vote it down. For many years I have feared, and published my fears, that it must go out in blood. These fears have grown into belief. So debanched are the white people by slavery that there is not virtue enough left in them to put it down. If I do not misinterpret the words and looks of the most intelligent and noble of the black men who fall in my way, they have come to despair of the accomplishment of this work by the white people. The feeling among the blacks that they must deliver themselves gains strength with fearful rapidity. No wonder, then, is it that intelligent black men in the States and in Canada should see no hope for their race in the practice and policy of white men. . . . Whoever he may be that foretells the horrible end of American slavery is held both at the North and the South to be a lying prophet, — another Cassandra. The South would not respect her own Jefferson's prediction of servile insurrection; how then can it be hoped that she will respect another's? . . . And is it entirely certain that these insurrections will be put down promptly, and before they can have spread far? Will telegraphs and railroads be too swift for even the swiftest insurrections? Remember that telegraphs and railroads can be rendered useless in an hour. Remember too that many who would be glad to face the insurgents would be busy in transporting their wives and daughters to places where they would be safe from that worst fate which husbands and fathers can imagine for their wives and daughters. I admit that but for this embarrassment Southern men would laugh at the idea of an insurrection, and would quickly dispose of one. But trembling as they would for beloved ones, I know of no part of the world where, so much as in the South, men would be like, in a formidable insurrection, to lose the most important time, and be distracted and panic-stricken.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 544
SPRINGFIELD, August 30, 1859.
DEAR FRIEND, — I enclose you a draft for fifty dollars on New York, bought with money sent by Mrs. Russell. Dr. Howe has already sent you fifty dollars, and G. S., of P.,1 writes me has sent, or will send, one hundred dollars. The remainder will perhaps come more slowly; but I think it will come. I have sent your letter to Gerrit Smith. Please acknowledge the receipt of these sums.
F.
1 Gerrit Smith, of Petersboro’
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 535
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Interesting. If tin foil had been invented back then, Our Diarist would not be wearing a hat made of it.
Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher
LANCASTER, OHIO, Sept., 1859.
I will come up about the 20th or 25th, and if you have an appointment to speak about that time, I should like to hear you, and will so arrange. As you are becoming a man of note and are a Republican, and as I go south among gentlemen who have always owned slaves, and probably always will and must, and whose feelings may pervert every public expression of yours, putting me in a false position to them as my patrons, friends, and associates, and you as my brother, I would like to see you take the highest ground consistent with your party creed. . .
SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 39
MONTREAL, September 1st 1859.
DEAR SIR:— It is with extreme pleasure that I set down to inclose you a few lines to let you know that I am well & I hope when these few lines come to hand they may find you & your family in good health and prosperity I left your house Nov. 3d, 1857, for Canada I Received a letter here from James Carter in Peters burg, saying that my wife would leave there about the 28th or the first September and that he would send her on by way of Philadelphia to you to send on to Montreal if she come on you be please to send her on and as there is so many bouts coming here all times a day I may not know what time she will. So you be please to give her this direction, she can get a cab and go to the Donegana Hotel and Edmund Turner is there he will take you where I lives and if he is not there cabman take you to Mr Taylors on Durham St. nearly opposite to the Methodist Church. Nothing more at present but Remain your well wisher
JOHN SCOTT.
SOURCE: William Still, The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters &c., p. 105
It took balls to be a Republican and accept the presidency of a school in Louisiana.
I don’t know about his sex life, but as a politician I’m getting the impression Douglas was the Slick Willie of his day.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
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