Posted on 12/01/2020 6:07:15 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
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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
https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:homerjsimpson/index?tab=articles 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
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3909150/posts
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3906799/posts#28
Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3909150/posts#28
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Given the present state of affairs in the U.S., perhaps secession should have been granted, without a horrible, four year war.
If the U.S had been divided into 8 different confederations of states, politics would have been more decentralized and local, and politicians far more weak and accountable.
But the last illustration, “What the Tyrants of the Old World think of Secession” is still very true today.
They’d LOVE it. China, the EU, Russia, Iran...
If, in fact, what you say happened, then I would think Imperial Germany would rule Europe and Japan the Far East. In fact, Germany and the UK would probably be one hegemony, eternally locked in struggle with Imperial Russia and the Empire of Japan.
The German rule would choke fledgling democracy in the UK, and the harsher Prussian world-view would rule.
The various states of the former USA would be puppets in the great three-way battle for world domination.
I find the language in this entry to be fascinatingly similar to a lot of the language on FR these days.
Although the subjects are quite different, the tone, sarcasm, and contempt is palatable.
Perhaps people could learn something from the past?
Illustration of Fort Sumter...hmmmm...
There is an illustration of Emperor of Austria Franz-Joseph meeting the Regent of Prussia. That person would become King of Prussia Wilhelm in a few week. At that time the current King Frederick William IV was incapacitated by a stroke a couple of years earlier.
LOL I think you mean “palpable”.
But then, maybe it IS good for your palette.
You could play that what-if historical fiction all day.
“Germany” was not GERMANY at this point. It was a bunch of duchies haggling over the whole area. Like a microcosm of Europe. Common in culture largely, but jealous in fiefdoms. Bismarck changed that.
WHAT IF Bismarck never made such an impact in another 10 years? Germany would remain weak, per se. It might not be strong enough for WWI at the time known. Then it wouldn’t matter what your US was like so much.
I always wanted to experience a Victorian Christmas but with my luck I would end up at the Gargery residence.
As with many of Dickens’ novels, he enjoyed taking pit shots at what he thought were pompous hypocritical religious types.
How do you think the people are in the “Tyrants of the Old World” illustration. I see the pope by his papal crown, Napoleon III by his mustache, King of Prussia by his helmet, and I believe Emperor Franz-Joseph by his side burns. Is the woman suppose to be Queen Victoria? Seems a bit unfair to group a constitutional monarch with those autocrats. I wonder who the man in the civilian clothes is? Is it the Prime Minister of the UK at the time Lord Palmerston?
Neither outgoing President Buchanan nor incoming President Lincoln had constitutional authority to grant secession or recognize the Southern Confederacy.
Congress could have, constitutionally, but no Southern state ever asked for congressional approval for secession, and no Republican would vote for it, nor would most Northern Democrats.
BrexitBen: "If the U.S had been divided into 8 different confederations of states, politics would have been more decentralized and local, and politicians far more weak and accountable."
That's total nonsense.
A division of the US into eight confederations would mean the largest & strongest of the eight -- that would be the Southern Confederacy -- would quickly conquer & absorb the other seven.
Nobody outside the South wanted such an outcome, and that's why it never happened.
With or without Bismarck, Prussia was still the strongest military power amongst the German proto-states.
With or without Bismarck, Prussia would still have conquered & united the other German states in pursuit of the imperial goals of the Prussian elites.
Those imperial ambitions, including "lebensraum" in the East, were passed on to the now child (born in 1859), in due time to become: Emperor Wilhelm II, who waited until 1914 before acting massively to achieve them.
Curiously enough, those imperial ambitions were also somehow passed along to a young Austrian corporal in the Kaiser's army, with a gift for public speaking and no known restrictions on his conscience...
Had the US divided into two or more separate countries, there would be no effective counter to Prussian military expansions.
Continued from November 25 (reply #9).
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3909150/posts#9
With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, edited by Michael Burlingame
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
For those who’ve indulged DiogenesLamp’s historical theories, I recommend Nicolay’s letter of December 2.
Note that like DiogenesLamp, Nicolay says Lincoln’s election was not the cause of South Carolina’s secession, but only the pretext.
Unlike DiogenesLamp, Nicolay does not here explain what he thinks is the “real reason”, but most curiously he does directly address the economic issues which figure so prominently in DiogenesLamp’s theories.
Here Strong refers to “quite a young man” named Lowndes who argues the secession case in language Strong can’t really understand.
Might this fellow Lowndes be, or be related to, the famous Alabama Fire Eater, William Lowndes Yancey?
Yancey will die while still quite a young man after an altercation on the Confederate Congress floor over the issue of a Confederate Supreme Court, which Yancey supported, if I remember right.
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