[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.

Link to previous thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

A New Serial – 1
Florinda – 1, 3
Preaching to the Deaf and Dumb – 2-3
Editorials – 3-4
The Lounger – 4-5
Doomed to Death – 5, 7
Senator Toombs, of Georgia – 6-8
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, Miss Halcombe’s Narrative Continued – 8-11
Domestic Intelligence – 11-13
Foreign News – 13-14
The War in Morocco – 14-15
Miss Adelina Patti, the New Prima Donna – 15-16
How Babies are Put to Sleep in India – 16-17
The Uncommercial Traveler. No IV. By Charles Dickens – 16, 18-19
The Steeple-Chase – 19-20
Commercial Grief – 20-21
Cingalese Boats – 21-22
God Help Our Men at Sea! – 21
Rev. Henry G. Guinness – 21, 23
The New Partner, or “Clingham & Co., Bankers, by Fitz Hugh Ludlow Chapter X – 23-25
Humors of the Day – 25-26
Ye Mightie Live Oak Giant Devouring ye Citie of New Yorke and ye Environs thereof for His Breakfast - 27

[C19fan]

Sen Robert Toombs was such an emphatic “man of the republic” he advocated secession and served in the Confederacy as its Secretary of State.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from March 6 (reply #13.)

Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from March 22 (reply #13).

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

[C19fan]

Just waiting for the Democratic Convention to blow up...…..

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Carson Dobbins Hay to Abraham Lincoln, March 27, 1860

Newton Jasper Co. Ills
March 27th 1860

Hon. A. Lincoln

Honored & Dear Sir

I have been highly delighted at Seeing the perfect Success of your tour East. It is very evident that nothing has transpired recently to so much advance your interest and elevate you in the minds of the people, as that short trip.

I regret you did not address the people of Pennsylvania & New Jersey. I see by the papers that you were urged by the people of those States to do so. Cant you do it yet? Those are two of the doubtful States, and we must have Pennsylvania or we are almost certainly defeated, and I believe there is no man can do as much to secure Penna. as yourself. After the meeting of the Chicago Convention it will probably be too late for you to Speak in Penna. as I think in all probability you will be chosen our Standard-bearer—

I saw one of the delegates to that Convn the other day from the Southern part of Indiana and he Said that the Indiana delegation would will go for Abraham Lincoln on the first balot. He said it was all a mistake about Indiana going for Bates. It is ascertained that the Germans are opposed to Bates, and this fact being once fully understood, will lay him on the Shelf.

I was of opinion some time since, that as it was so all important to carry Penna. it would be pollicy for us to place a Pennsylvanian at the head of the ticket, but I am now fully of the opinion that the Strongest ticket we can get is Abraham Lincoln for President and Simon Cameron for Vice P. –

I shall be at the Decatur Convention and hope to meet you there—

I must not close, without mentioning the fact that we have a little Abraham Lincoln at our house, about twenty four hours old– His arrival created something of a Stir in our little town as it got noised around that your Honor was at Mr Hays, and Several persons were on their way to call on you, when it was discovered that it was not the original, but only a namesake—

I hope you will not think I am trying to flatter you . . . What I write comes from the bottom of my heart –

Believe me very Sincerely and Truly Your Friend and Humb. Sevt.

C. D. Hay

SOURCE: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

[Homer_J_Simpson]

John Lothrop Motley to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, March 29, 1860

OATLANDS PARK HOTEL, WALTON-ON-THAMES,

March 29, 1860.

MY DEAR WENDELL: I am not going to make one word of apology for my long silence. If you will forgive it and write me again at once, I promise faithfully that I will write to you as often as once a quarter if you will do the same. I cannot do without letters from you, and although I have a special dislike to writing them myself, I am willing to bore you for the sake of the reward. I really believe that you are the only one of my friends to whom I have not expressed in rapturous terms the delight with which I have read and re-read your “Autocrat.” We were quite out of the way of getting the “Atlantic” in our foreign residences—in Nice, Switzerland, and Rome. But one day after it had been collected into a volume some traveler lent it to us, and we carefully forgot to return it — a petty larceny combined with breach of trust which I have never regretted, for no one could appreciate it more highly than I, in the first place, and then all my family. It is really even better than I expected it to be, and that is saying much, for you know how high were my anticipations, and if you do not, poor Phillips, now no more, who always so highly appreciated you, could have told you how surely and how often I predicted your great and inevitable success. The “Autocrat” is an inseparable companion, and will live, I think, as long certainly as anything which we have turned out on our side. It is of the small and rare class to which Montaigne's “Essays,” “Elia,” and one or two other books belong, which one wishes to have forever under one's thumb. Every page is thoughtful, suggestive, imaginative, didactic, witty, stimulating, grotesque, arabesque, titillating — in short, I could string together all the adjectives in the dictionary without conveying to you an adequate expression of my admiration.

In order that you shall not think me merely a devourer and not an appreciator, I will add that the portions which give me the most pleasure are those, by far the largest, which are grave, earnest, and profound, and that the passages least to my mind are those which in college days would have most highly delighted me, viz., the uproariously funny ones. But, as Touchstone observes, “we that have good wits cannot hold, we must be flouting,” and I do not expect to bottle you up. I have not the book at my elbow at this moment, and am too lazy to go down-stairs to fetch it, but, as an illustration of what I most enjoy, take such a passage as about our brains being clockwork. I remember nothing of the diction at this instant, but the whole train of thought is very distinct to me. Also the bucketful of fresh and startling metaphors which the Autocrat empties on the head of the divinity student in return for his complimentary language as to the power of seeing analogies. Also — but I shall never get any further in this letter if I once begin to quote the “Autocrat,” so I will only add that I admire many of the poems, especially “The Voiceless,” which I am never tired of repeating. It is scarcely necessary for me to add that it is always with a deep sensation of pride and pleasure that I turn to page 28 and read the verses therein inscribed. Strange to say, I have not yet read “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table.” I tried to buy it the other day at Sampson Low's, one of the chief American republishers or importers, but he said that it had been done by (gentlemen who have, among others, done me the same favor).

Is there no chance of ever getting an international copyright bill and hanging these filibusters, who are legally picking the pockets of us poor-devil authors, who would fain become rich devils if we could? Why do you not make use of your strong position, having the whole American public by the button, to make it listen to reason? If I were an autocrat like you, I would issue an edict immediately. Or I would have a little starling that should say nothing but “Copyright” and let the public hear nothing else. Let me not omit to mention also with how much pleasure I read your poem on Burns. It is magnificent, and every verse rings most sympathetically upon the heart. So you see we do not lose the run of you, although I have been so idle about writing, and I am promising myself much pleasure from “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” which I shall have sent to me from Boston. By the way, I bagged the other day a splendid presentation copy of the “Autocrat,” which you had sent to Trübner for some one else, and I gave it to Mrs. Norton (of whom you have heard often enough, and who is a poet herself), who admires it as much as I do. I do not know whether I shall like the novel as well as your other readers are likely to do, because the discursive, irresponsible, vagrant way of writing which so charms me in the “Autocrat” is hardly in place in a narrative, and, for myself, I always find, to my regret, that I grow every year less and less capable of reading novels or romances. I wish it were not so. However, I doubt not you will reclaim me, but I do not mean to read it until it is finished.

I have not a great deal to talk about now that I find myself face to face with you. We have been, by stress of circumstances rather than choice, driven to England, and we have seen a great deal of English society, both in town and country. We have received much kindness and sat at many “good men's feasts”; and I must say that I have, as I always had, a warm affection for England and the English. I have been awfully hard at work for the last year and a half, with unlucky intermissions and loss of time, but I hope to publish a couple of bulky volumes by the beginning of next year. There is a cartload of MS. already in Murray's hands, but I do not know how soon we shall begin to print.

I wish when you write — and you see that I show a generous confidence in your generosity by assuming that you will write notwithstanding my delinquencies — you would tell me what is going on in your literary world, and also something about politics. One can get but little from the newspapers; but I should really like to know what chance there is of the country's being rescued from the government which now oppresses us. But I forget, perhaps you are not a Republican, although I can hardly conceive of your being anything else. With regard to my views and aspirations, I can only say that if Seward is not elected (provided he be the candidate) this autumn, good night, my native land! I admire his speech, and agree with almost every word he says, barring of course the little sentimentality about the affection we all feel for the South, which, I suppose, is very much like the tenderness of Shylock — “Kind sir, you spat on me on Thursday last, you spurned me such a day, and another time you called me dog, and for these courtesies,” etc., etc. However, if Mr. Seward thinks it worth while to stir in a little saccharine of this sort, he knows best. The essential is to get himself nominated and elected. Now please write and tell me what the chances are, always provided you agree with me, but not if you are for the pro-slavery man, whoever he may be. I have not yet succeeded in suppressing Louis Napoleon, who bamboozles the English cabinet and plays his fantastic tricks before high heaven with more impunity than ever. Of a truth it may be said now, — three hundred years ago it was uttered by one of the most illustrious of her sons, — “Gallia silvescit.” What can be more barbarous than the condition of a country relapsed of its own choice under a military despot?

Pray remember us most kindly to your wife and children, and believe me always

Most sincerely yours,

J. L. MOTLEY.

Pray remember me most affectionately to all the fellows at the club.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 81-5

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Wikipedia page

John Lothrop Motley Wikipedia page

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from February 17 (reply #17).

James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country, A Life

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Victor Hugo: March 30, 1860

Slavery in all its forms will disappear. What the South slew last December was not John Brown, but Slavery. Henceforth, no matter what President Buchanan may say in his shameful message, the American Union must be considered dissolved. Between the North and the South stands the gallows of Brown. Union is no longer possible: such a crime cannot be shared.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 631

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com