Harper’s Weekly – May 5, 1860

Harper's Weekly archives ^ | May 5, 1860

[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 Harper’s Weekly thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Only for Something to Say – 2
Rats in the Hospitals – 2-4
Editorials – 4-5
The Lounger – 5-6
Little Maggie – 6-7
The Convention – 8-9, 21
Captain Brand of the Schooner “Centipede,” by Lieut. Henry A. Wise, U.S.N. (Harry Gringo). Part I, Chapter X-XII – 10-14
Domestic Intelligence – 14-15
Foreign News – 15
Bloody, Brutal, and Blackguard Prizefight in England between Heenan and Sayers, on April 17, 1860 – 16
The Uncommercial Traveler, by Charles Dickens, No. VII – 17-18
Humors of the Day – 18
The Hon. John Minor Botts, of Virginia – 18-20
Hon. Erastus Brooks, of New York – 19-20
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, the Housekeeper’s Narrative continued – 19, 22-24

[C19fan]

Those poor Democratic delegates having to sleep on cots.
Boxing pre-Marquuess of Queensbury was nasty with bare knuckles, with holds and throws allowed. I saw a boxing reenactment from the Regency Period. The boxers could spear each other. There was no rounds. A match would not end until a knockout or an opponent got too injured to go to the start position.
How come Lincoln is at the bottom row of the picture of Republican POTUS contenders.? Hee hee I am assuming Seward is most prominent because he was the heavy favorite.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Harper’s is a New York publication, like the Times. Senator Seward (D-NY) is indeed considered the heavy favorite.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Aack. *(R-NY)*

[BroJoeK]

"Hee hee I am assuming Seward is most prominent because he was the heavy favorite."

1860 may not prove such a good year for establishment-type candidates, though I'm guessing we'll see nearly all of those names again in years to come.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from May 3 (reply #20).

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3

Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from 5/3 (reply #21.)

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

[x]

Chase was more anti-slavery than most other Americans in 1860, but he switched parties so easily that it would be hard to call him a "Republican die-hard."

If Stephens spoke that strongly in private about the dangers of civil war, it would have been nice if he'd done so in public. Did he?

I tend to distrust these accounts of dire warnings. Someone may have had qualms at the time, a sense that things were going wrong, and in retrospect build that uneasiness up into thundering prophecies.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

If Stephens spoke that strongly in private about the dangers of civil war, it would have been nice if he'd done so in public. Did he?

Catton's footnote cites Life of Alexander H. Stephens, by R.M. Johnston and W.H. Browne. Where those authors got the quotes I can't say. I have seen Stephens's prophesy elsewhere. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing a politician would broadcast to his countrymen.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

If Stephens spoke that strongly in private about the dangers of civil war, it would have been nice if he'd done so in public. Did he?

Catton cites Life of Alexander H. Stephens, by R.M. Johnston and W.H. Browne as his source for the Stephens quotes. Where they got it I can't say. That kind of prophesying wouldn't have been well received among his fellow southerners, I shouldn't think. As a politician he would have been reluctant to offend them with such unpopular words.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Oh, drat. I thought I accidentally deleted my first attempt at a reply to you so I tried to recreate it. Now I see that I got it posted. Feel free to choose which wording you prefer.

[colorado tanker]

Douglas’s passion for popular sovereignty reminds me a little of the abortion debate. The only party with no say in the decision is the affected person, in this case those who were or would be enslaved.

[Tax-chick]

Congratulations to George and Ellie.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from March 15 (reply #10). On this date Chase wrote to supporter James A. Briggs and made the observation cited in the last sentence of the following excerpt.

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Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Continued from March 30 (reply #19). On this date William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to his brother, Rep. John Sherman, that “this year’s presidential may be a dangerous one; may actually result in civil war. . . “ (second paragraph of the following excerpt.)

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

George L. Stearns to Mary Hall Stearns, May 8, 1860

[May 8, 1860.]

Yesterday a black man was kidnapped from this place, which set the people in some commotion, but the real abolitionists are the exception. Have seen most of the latter class. They are a sturdy race.

Ames, the United States marshal who was shot at Topeka, was the same who previously tried to arrest Montgomery and there has been no second attempt, as I supposed, to arrest him. All is quiet here, and I do not think there will be any trouble in this territory this year. It is generally understood that it was an attempt on the part of the marshal to get some money, instead of which he got a ball.

Conway is here, but will leave with us for Chicago to attend the convention. I never saw him in so good health as at present. I am glad I came out here, and hope some time to come again with you. I think in another year we can accomplish it. They are having a fearful drought here. It has hardly rained at all since last September. Their winter wheat all dried up, and the corn does not even swell in the ground. If it continues there will be a famine here.

Of course all is dust, but it is not troublesome to me, at least as it would be to you. I send you samples of it in this paper, which was clean when I began to write.

May 9. So busy last night that I forgot to put this in the mail. My visit has been eminently successful, but not exactly as I supposed. I stay here to-day to get letters from home. Hope to get one from you.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 224-5

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

[GreenLanternCorps]

1860 may not prove such a good year for establishment-type candidates, though I'm guessing we'll see nearly all of those names again in years to come.

Well Cassius Clay should change his name to get more attention...

[BroJoeK]

We should notice once again: the reason the Democrat party split-up in Charleston -- it was related to what Catton calls Senator Jefferson Davis' "Southern rights code" and what Sherman biographer McDonough calls "a Federal slave code in all US territory".

• Not tariffs
• Not "money flows from Europe"
• Not "northeastern power brokers"
• Not the 1817 Navigation Act
• Not Southerners paying for Federal government.

The issue was slavery in the territories, and by extension, the threat to slavery everywhere from Northern Black Republican abolitionists.

Senator Davis' words to the Senate & Catton's commentary:

Davis: " 'The power of resistance [note that word]...consists in no small degree, in meeting the enemy at the outer gate...
We of the South have made no war upon the North.
We have asked no discrimination in our favor.
We claim but to have the Constitution fairly and equally administered.'

Catton: Firmly entrenched at the outer gate, Senator Davis would await the assault, which at the moment was verbal.
He was fighting over words.
If it could be said plainly, flatly, and irrevocably that the United states government must under no circumstances interfere with slavery, all might be well, but the drift of the times, unhappily, was against it.
The desperate intransigence of Southern leaders in this spring of 1860 carried an anxiety that their cause might be doomed no matte4r what anyone said.
The intricate, fragile, and cherished society based on slavery could not endure very much longer, simploy because the day in which it might live was coming to a close and nobody could stave off the sunset.
Senator Davis would try, stalking into the shadows with infinite integrity and fixity of vision..."

Slavery was the issue, the only issue powerful enough to split the Democrats' party and eventually the nation.

In the end, the Senate will pass Senator Davis' "Southern Rights Code" but it will go nowhere until eventually modified by Ohio Representative Thomas Corwin, hoping then to appease Border State slaveholders.

[jeffersondem]

“The intricate, fragile, and cherished society based on slavery could not endure very much longer, simploy because the day in which it might live was coming to a close and nobody could stave off the sunset.”

If that view was correct - and you put it forward as if you think it may have been correct - then we can forever dismiss notions posted on this site that slavery would have continued indefinitely without Lincoln's wily, but virtuous, interventions.

In fact, the inevitability-of-slavery's-demise argument undercuts the blue-state premise that Lincoln's invasion of the South, and all the killings, were morally necessary at all.

Once 300,000 Southerners were safely buried, the North was able to dictate a new constitution and a new economic and political equilibrium to blue-state advantage.