The Importance of the Telegraph in the US Civil War: Part 1 - The Invention of the Telegraph

The American Civil War (1861-65) saw a breakthrough in various technologies. One of particular importance was the telegraph, a communication technology that had grown greatly in significance in the years before the US Civil War broke out. Here, K.R.T. Quirion starts his three-part series on the importance of the telegraph in the US Civil War by looking at the history of the telegraph globally and in the US before the war broke out.

Samuel Morse sending the message ‘What Hath God Wrought’ in 1844. Image available here.

Introduction

The five years of the American Civil War saw the development of hundreds of new technologies. The number of patents approved by the U.S.Patent Office had been steadily increasing before the war. In 1815, the agency issued 173 patents, 1,045 in 1844, and 7,653 in 1860. [1] With the start of the Civil War, the rate of innovation increased so much that at least 15,000 patents were issued every year of the war. [2]

Some of these technologies, like the Gatlin Gun and the Ironclad, were developed specifically for the battlefield; others, such as improvements in transportation and communication were not. Much has already been written on the role that these new technologies played in the Civil War. For instance, that the Minie ball contributed to the high casualty rate has been widely accepted as has the significance of the railroad across the nation’s 1,000-mile battlefront. 

This article will focus on the role of the telegraph. Specifically, it will look at how the Union employed this new technology to successfully prosecute the war. It will argue that the telegraph allowed Union commanders, the War Department, and President Lincoln to control huge armies with unprecedented precision across the vast American landscape. This was made possible by thousands of miles of telegraphic wire, sophisticated mobile communication units, and hundreds of trained and dedicated operators. Together, these factors helped to shorten one of the most tragic episodes in American history. 

The development of the military telegraphic communication system was a slow and difficult process. Not until the closing years of the war was the Union able to achieve a high level of telegraphic integration within its command structure.  In order to appreciate the important role of the telegraph, it is necessary to examine both the development of this infrastructure and how Union leaders sought to integrate it into the military’s command structure.

Military Communication before the Telegraph

Prior to the invention of the telegraph, commanders and their civilian leaders had limited means with which to communicate. The principal method was through writing by couriers or orally by messengers. On the field of battle, other means to communicate were developed to coordinate dispersed units. Smoke signals, trumpets, drums, and flags became important in this regard. In 1794, the French military organized two companies of balloon riding “aeronauts” who used flags to signal their observations of enemy troop movements to friendly units on the ground. [3]

By the 18thcentury, practically every nation had adopted its own signature march which its troops were required to memorize. Amid the chaos of battle, the identity of a distant column of troops could often be identified solely by their marching music. On multiple occasions, resourceful commanders were able to use this to their advantage. One German force in the Thirty Years’ War, obscured its identity by maneuvering to The Scots Marche. According to William Trotter, “Allied (Anglo-Dutch-Austrian) drummers played The French Retreate so convincingly” that part of the French army withdrew from the field during the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708. [4]

In America, the organizational structure of the British Army was closely followed, including field communication by fife and drum. These were further improved during the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge. There, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben instituted the Continental Army’s first system of drill procedures, which included standardized maneuver and communication signals. These signaling methods “remained virtually unchanged until the invention of the electric telegraph.” [5]

In 1854, Dr. Albert Myer developed a new military signaling system which used a flag and torch combination. This system, known as “wigwag” employed only one flag as opposed to the traditional semaphores signaling, which employed two flags. [6]After appearing before a board of examination in Washington D.C., Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee declared that Dr. Myer’s wigwag “system might be useful as an accessory to… but not as a Substitute for the means now employed to convey intelligence by an Army in the Field, and especially on a Field of Battle.” [7]

Myer’s was authorized to test his new system in combat simulations. In June of 1860, the U.S. Army Signal Corps was created and Dr. Myers was appointed as its sole officer. By 1861, Myer had patented his signal system and was testing it in active combat situations in New Mexico under the command of Col. Thomas T. Fauntleroy. During this same time however, an even more revolutionary communication system was being created.   

Invention of the Telegraph

The development of the electric telegraph was the work of many individuals over nearly a span of 80 years. In 1774, the first experiments with electronic signaling were conducted by Georges Louis Le Sage of Geneva. Le Sage’s technique employed twenty-four insulated wires that each represented an individual letter and were connected to a pith ball electroscope. When the desired letter was imputed, the electrical current would excite the respective ball on the other end thereby spelling words letter by letter. [8]

Samuel B. Morse began his work on the telegraph in 1832.  Morse’s improved telegraph machine was patented on June 20, 1840. Patent number 1,647 covered the electro telegraph machine itself, Morse’s specialized “code” system, the type set for communicating those symbols and even its accompanying dictionary. His patent also included a “mode for laying the circuit of conductors” needed to operate the telegraph system. [9]

With this new design, the electric telegraph would soon transform the nature of communications. Morse, too poor to test his invention on a large scale, went before Congress in order to request $30,000 with which to construct an appropriate experiment. Wary of spending taxpayer monies on a dead end, Morse’s request was initially rejected by Congress. Despite this, the 1843 Congress approved the expenditure in its “expiring hour” and Morse began the work of constructing a “double (circuit) wire between Washington [D.C.] and Baltimore.”[10]

Finally, in 1844, Morse sent the world's first electric telegraph message across the Washington-Baltimore circuit. [11]He quoted four simple words from Numbers 23:23, “What God hath wrought?” Underlying this dramatic message was the knowledge that the world had entered a new era of communication and connectedness. [12]In 1841, it had taken 110 days for the news of the death of President Harrison to reach Los Angeles, California. [13]By the end of the decade, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph line would tie together the American landscape. This near instant transmission of information forever altered the course of history.

The State of Telegraphic Communications before the Start of the Civil War

Implementation of the telegraph on the battlefield would first occur in Europe during the Crimean War (1854 - 1855). This crude military telegraph system was limited to inter-command center communications. Two years later in India, the English used a system of rollers and carts to deploy miles of telegraph lines that were said to have worked over distances of one hundred miles. [14]The success that the English experienced with the telegraph caught the attention of the German military. Beginning in 1855, they instituted the first telegraph system as a permanent part of their military organization. The French and the Spanish militaries followed soon after.

In America, the telegraph had just over seven years to “develop in peaceful employments” before the start of the Civil War. [15]During that time, thousands of miles of wire were laid in conjunction with the rail lines that were beginning to crisscross the American landscape. Together, these new technologies began to change the pace of American life. Near instant communication and speedy travel “began to insinuate time as a factor into people’s daily lives...” and “…in business thinking.” [16]

Three great companies grew out of America’s growing reliance on telecommunications: the American Telegraph Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Southwestern Telegraph Company. By 1861, the combination of these three concerns had connected all of the major cities in the Union with the exception of those to San Francisco, California which were not completed until the end of the year. [17]There were more than 50,000 miles of telegraph cable in operation by 1861. [18]Yet, as the country headed toward war, the vast potential of the telegraph had only begun to be realized. Over the following five years, the telegraph would prove itself to be among the most revolutionary inventions of the 19thcentury. 

 

What do you think about the importance of the telegraph in the 19th century? Let us know below.

Now, you can read part 2 on the telegraph in the early years of the US Civil War here and part 3 on the Union’s use of the telegraph in the US Civil War here.

[1]“Civil War and Industrial Expansion, 1860–1897 (Overview),” Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, 1999, Encyclopedia.com, accessed February 28, 2016.

[2]Ibid.

[3]William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1974), 16.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Rebecca R. Raines, Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1996), 4.

[6]Ibid., 5.

[7]Ibid., 6. 

[8]Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I,24.

[9]Samuel F.B. Morse, “Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism,” Patent No. 1,647, United States Patent Office, (June 20, 1840), 1.

[10]Plum, Vol. 1,25.

[11]Don Cambou, Civil War Tech inModern Marvels, (New York, NY: A&E Television Network, 2006).

[12] “First transatlantic telegraph cable completed,” History.com, accessed March 01, 2016. 

[13]Arthur K. Peters, Seven Trails West, (New York, NY: Abbeville Press, 1996), 173.

[14]Plum, Vol. I,27.

[15]Ibid., 26.

[16]John E. Clark, Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 10.

[17]Plum, Vol. I,63.

[18]Cambou.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources:

Bates, David H. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. New York, NY: D. Appleton-Century Company Inc. (1907).

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Ed. Roy Basler. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (1953).

Greely, A.W. “The Military-Telegraph Service.” Signal Corp Association. Accessed May 3, 2016. 

http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/telegreely/telegreely.html

Morse, Samuel F.B. “Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism.” Patent No. 1,647. United Stets Patent Office. (June 20, 1840).

O’Brien, John E. Telegraphing in Battle: Reminiscences of the Civil War. Scranton, PA: The Reader Press. (1910).

Plum, William R. The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Vol. I & II. New York, NY: Arno Press. (1974).

“War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 Vols.” U.S. War Department. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. (1880–1901).

Secondary Sources:

Cambou, Don. Civil War Tech in Modern Marvels. New York, NY: A&E Television Network. (2006).

“Civil War and Industrial Expansion, 1860–1897 (Overview).”  Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 1999. Encyclopedia.com. Accessed February 28, 2016. 

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400169.html

Clark, John E. Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. (2001).

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York, NY: Random House. (1958).

“First transatlantic telegraph cable completed.” History.com. Accessed March 01, 2016. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed.

Hagerman, Edward. The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (1988).

McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. (2001).

Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York, NY: Penguin Books. (2007).

Peters, Arthur K. Seven Trails West. New York, NY: Abbeville Press. (1996).

Raines, Rebecca R. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History. (1996).

Wheeler, Tom. Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War. New York, NY: Harper Business. (2007). 

Journal Articles:

Farhi, Paul. “How the Civil War gave birth to modern journalism in the nation’s capital.” Washington Post.(March 2, 2012). 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-the-civil-war-gave-birth-to-modern-journalism-in-the-nations-capital/2012/02/24/gIQAIMFpmR_story.html.

O’Brien, J. Emmet. “Telegraphing in Battle.” The Century, Vol. 38, Is. 5 (Sep., 1889). http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/teleinbat/teleinbat.html.

Scheips, Paul J. “Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict.” Civil War History, Vol. IX, No. 4 (Dec. 1963).

Trotter, William R. “The Music of War.” HistoryNet. http://www.historynet.com/the-music-of-war.htm.

The Controversial Career of the First Female US Senator: Rebecca Latimer Felton

In my history classes at Texas A&M University-Commerce, I enjoy talking about strong women in American history who championed for women’s rights. I consider Rebecca Latimer Felton (b. 1835) to be one of these powerful women. Felton became the oldest freshman senator  - and first female senator - at eighty-seven years old in 1922. In this article I analyze the political career of Rebecca Felton—a patriotic and successful, yet highly controversial legislator in the Progressive Era. 

Joshua V. Chanin explains.

Rebecca Felton in later life.

Political Beginnings 

Rebecca was unlike her boisterous peers on the playground, instead enjoying quieter, mature activities such as reading newspapers and partaking in dinner conversations on the state of American politics. Since her father was a Whig, young Rebecca naturally followed suite and devoted herself to reading dense material written by several prolific Whig leaders, including Henry Clay and Millard Fillmore. “I confess to a real liking for political questions. It was my habit for many years to keep up with the progress of great questions in the national congress and I found interest and food for thought in the daily, but dull, congressional record.” She later attested that Henry Clay was the greatest man in the United States in the nineteenth century. 

One of her first major political experiences was the 1844 presidential election between Henry Clay and James K. Polk. Rebecca, at age nine, “read the newspapers very diligently” and, like others among the higher social class, firmly believed that “Henry Clay’s election was a forgone conclusion. His ability as a statesman was so transcendent; defeat was unthinkable…” However, the pollsters were wrong, and Polk easily won the political race, capturing 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105. Rebecca later recalled the political shockwaves in the South following the 1844 election: “It was a terrible affair—it ruptured friendships, split up neighborhoods and got among church people.” Rebecca’s political upbringing allowed the young girl to absorb a distinct preview of the life she would be drawn to in the future—a life of activism and unforeseen outcomes.

Standing at the Side

Amid an education at Madison Female College and responsibilities at the family plantation in Cartersville, Georgia, Rebecca Latimer fell in love with Dr. William Harrell Felton, a southern minister. The couple wed in October 1853. Political ambitions were put aside as Rebecca Felton settled into domesticity where she completed chores and tendered to five children—one of whom, Howard Erwin Felton, survived childhood. She was one among the many women in the South prior to the Civil War who did not have a public voice and was obligated to stand at the side of their husband. Rebecca Felton not only supported her spouse in his expansive political career in Georgia’s House of Representatives and the national House, she gradually honed her own political skills by polishing his speeches and helping draft bills—William Felton’s constituents often bragged that they were getting two politicians for the price of one. At first Rebecca Felton believed her career was tied to her husband, however, she strategically used her husband’s position as a springboard for her future roles. And her visibility as a champion for public education—interest in this subject increased after the Felton’s opened Felton Academy following the Civil War—and in women’s suffrage grew to immense capacities in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

A Patriot

Like many Southerners during the Civil War, Felton did not label herself as a “rebel” nor a “secessionist.” Instead, she viewed herself as a patriot, a defender of Southern values, and a proud citizen of Georgia: “I loved my country. No heart ever was more loyal to the South and Southern honor.” Felton, among many in this region, were angry at the 1860 presidential election results and terrified that Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who had flirted with the idea of stopping the spread of slavery in the West, would abolish the slave trade and forcefully drive the Southern economy to a grinding halt. Thus, southerners kept a watchful eye for hostile political opponents and Union spies. Felton wrote about the hidden enemy in a diary: “..Danger lurked in every passing breeze and was concealed under every hasty legislative act of our political war leaders.” To combat this enemy fear, it was natural for southerners to adopt a patriotic tone in life and demonstrate fierce nationalism. 

Rebecca Felton’s love for the South and its common Confederate sympathizers during the war is evident in her 1911 memoirs: “Such heroism was unexemplified! The South has reason to be proud of its soldiers and its women. Their story of courage will bear repeating, because it was genuine, sincere and patriotic. Like all other military achievements, the officers earn and receive all the honors of war, but it was the plain soldiers and true-hearted women of the defunct Confederacy who deserve the medals of merit.” When the Confederate government ceased operations and fled Richmond in April 1865, many supporters blamed Confederate President Jefferson Davis for the country’s economic and political failures. Instead, Felton consistently defended the president’s policies, heeding to the fact that Davis had a herculean undertaking at the start of the war: “He was not faultless—he had many and violent enemies…he was victimized by newspaper reporters…he gave it the best that was in him—and went down with it in defeat.” Although patriotism plays a key role in fueling a politician’s agenda and despite being a Dixie woman of her time, Felton’s admiration for Southern racial politics cannot be ignored.

Racial Politics

Felton’s inhumane racial views coincided with her political career. She openly shunned Native Americans and called them “savages,” a label that presumably had been in her vocabulary since she was a young child when her mother occasionally told her bedside stories of Native-led massacres against the white man. Moreover, Felton promoted white supremacism by partaking in regional Ku Klux Klan activities and dissuading her husband’s political colleagues to vote on bills that favored more liberties for African Americans; she believed that more money spent on black education would result in more black crimes in neighborhoods, and voting rights for black women would lead directly to the rape of white women. Felton was eager to spread her nauseating racial beliefs to mass audiences and publicly mock the “half-civilized gorillas,” as she tried to do at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago where she proposed a southern history exhibit that featured “A cabin and real colored folk making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.” To the relief of some, the suggested slave exhibit never came to fruition. 

During a bloody time where racial violence was already prevalent in the South, Rebecca Felton advocated for more lynchings in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. She wanted the rugged noose to play a fixed role in Southern society, as evident by an explicit diary entry dated on August 11, 1897: “When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about inonce and virtue—if it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts—then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.” Following the burning of Sam Hose, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, by a white mob in Georgia’s Coweta County in April 1899—where civilians sold parts of Hose’s body as souvenirs—Felton vocally made it known that Hose was a “beast” who was no better than a rabid dog. Not only was she an aggressive advocate of racial prejudice, Felton condemned anyone who dared to question the South’s racial practices. When Andrew Sledd, professor of Biblical Studies at Emory University, published an article in the Atlantic Monthlyin July 1902 criticizing the lynchings of black men, Felton played an instrumental role in forcing Emory’s administration to terminate Sledd for improper behavior and stoked public anger towards the professor through a series of editorial attacks in the Atlanta Constitution. Felton’s racial views were perpetual as she treaded lightly with progressive politics and stayed true to antiquated Southern beliefs—Felton, having possessed slaves since she was eighteen years old, was the last member of either house of Congress to have been a slave owner. 

U.S. Senator

The peak of Rebecca Felton’s political career was her one-day appointment to the United States Senate between November 21-22, 1922. A Senate seat suddenly became vacant on September 26, 1922, following the death of Thomas E. Watson. Since Georgia Governor Thomas W. Hardwick wanted to win the November special election for the seat and appease the women voters who were displeased on his opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment, he strategically decided to appoint Felton as Watson’s temporary replacement on October 3. Despite the fact that Congress was not expected to reconvene until the end of November—President Warren Harding persuaded Congress to meet earlier due to an influx of letters from Felton’s supporters requesting the woman to take the oath of office—Walter F. George, the special election winner, chose to step aside and allow Felton to be sworn in as the nation’s first woman senator on November 21. The symbolic gesture to permit a female to sit in one of the highest political chairs in the United States (even just for a day) was a major political victory for white women.

Equal Partners

Felton did not have the opportunity to support or challenge any legislation in the Senate since she only served for one day. However, in front of a filled senate chamber, Felton delivered a speech to her male peers on November 22, pronouncing the increasing influence women had in 1920s national politics: “When women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.” The reactions in the chamber after the address varied. Felton wrote that some of the gentlemen “Seemed to be a little bit hysterical, but most of them occupied their time looking at the ceiling.” Felton’s triumphant exit from the Senate reinforced the suffrage message she had been campaigning about for decades. Felton had been an outspoken leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union since 1886 and had articulated the ideas of white women having more decision-making power in the home, acquiring education beyond basic schooling, and enjoying more influence over their children. 

Felton also had tirelessly championed for white women’s suffrage during her career—she ferociously debated anti-suffragist Mildred Lewis Rutherford in 1915. Although the suffrage marches in the 1910s propelled the government to pass the Nineteenth Amendment, the Georgia Legislature was the first state to reject the amendment on July 24, 1919. In retaliation, Felton criticized the hypocrisy of southern gentlemen who boasted about their chivalry but opposed women’s rights: “In truth, character seemed to have gone out of politics…The moral salt of character could not be rescued, inside the party, controlled by such machinery…these men in the saddle were full, fat and saucy!” Thus, white women in Georgia were not allowed to vote in the 1920 presidential election, having to wait until the 1922 congressional elections. 

Conclusion

Following an active career in politics—behind and in front of the curtain—Felton returned home to lecture at public libraries and write books; she died in Atlanta in January 1930. Senator George remarked that “All in all she [Felton] must be grouped among the great women of her time.” Despite her political success and critical efforts to advance the women’s suffrage movement, Rebecca Felton was unquestionably a flawed character, rooted in her discriminating beliefs on race and southern prejudice.

What do you think of Rebecca Felton? Let us know below.

References

Felton, Rebecca L. Country Life in Georgia in the Days of my Youth. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1919. 

Felton, Rebecca L. My Memoirs of Georgia Politics. Atlanta, GA: The Index Printing Company, 1911. 

Helms, Amanda. ““Poor forsaken colored girls:” Rebecca Latimer Felton, White Supremacy, and Prison Reform, 1896-1900.”  M.A. Thesis, DePaul University, 2013. 

Staman, A. Louise. Loosening Corsets: The Heroic Life of Georgia’s Feisty Mrs. Felton, First Woman Senator of the United States.Macon, GA: Tiger Iron Press, 2006. 

Talmadge, John E. Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy Decades. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1960. 

Whites, LeeAnn. “Rebecca Latimer Felton and the Wife’s Farm: The Class and Racial Politics of Gender Reform.” Georgia Historical Quarterly76 (1992): 354-372.

The Importance Today of Abraham Lincoln’s Perpetual Speech

There seems to be ever-growing division and bitterness in American politics today – but there have been warnings this would happen before. Here, Mac Guffey explains an important speech – the Lyceum Address - by Abraham Lincoln on January 27, 1838.

You can also read Mac’s past articles: A Brief History of Impeachment in the US (here), on Franksgiving (here), the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War Two (here), and Christmas 1855 in the USA (here).

Abraham Lincoln in the mid-1840s.

One hundred and eighty-one years ago, on a January evening in a small Illinois town, a man talked about the way Democracy will die in America.

It won’t be from another country, he said. “It must spring up from amongst us,” and we, America’s citizens, will be both its author and its finisher, he warned.

The blueprint that he laid out that night for this collapse was two-phased.

The first phase will involve a nation-wide increase of what he called a “mobocratic spirit”. He defined this spirit as a growing propensity for violence, and those people who participate in this violence, he labeled as a “mobocracy”. The effect of this increasing frequency of violence will be a growing indifference - a numbness - by the public as the violence becomes more commonplace.

Therein, he said, lays the beginning of the end for Democracy.

This ‘numbness’ to violence will lead to even more violence by the mobocracy as their fear of the government decreases, and their contempt for its ineptitude grows.

The other effect of the escalating violence, he pointed out, is when the numbness by law-abiding citizens to the frequency of violence now turns to fear – fear for the safety of their person and property. Then he qualified that statement: It’s when the citizens believe their RIGHT to be safe in person and in property is threatened. For that, he predicted, they’ll blame the government.

So, contempt for the government from one faction of citizens and a loss of faith in the government from the other faction creates the “perfect storm” that weakens or destroys any sense of allegiance or support for that form of governance.

At that point, from among us, comes a person who promises to fix the problems.

Driven by a desire for power or fame, this person uses the moment of wavering allegiance to stir up support for another way to run things, to tear down the way it is, and to suggest to our citizens a better way to solve the problems in order to maintain their RIGHT to be safe in person and property.

But this person’s intent is to pull down Democracy - to substitute in its place, something selfish, something self-glorifying, and something non-democratic.

The solution to this human threat, said the speaker, is three-fold: One, our citizens must always be aware that THEY are the weak link in any Democracy. Two, our citizens must remain united with one another and united as a nation. Last, our citizens must maintain their allegiance to and their faith in our way of governing. These steps, he said, will successfully frustrate any person’s designs to interrupt the ‘perpetuation of our political institutions’. [1]

The View Now

In his lecture - that cold winter evening in 1838 - Abraham Lincoln perfectly described the grave threat that currently faces America’s participatory Democracy. As he said then, the responsibility for the perpetuation of our political institutions lies with its citizens. 

Now, it’s up to US to put Lincoln’s solution to work.

What do you think of Abraham Lincoln’s speech? Let us know below.

Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions – A speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum”. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln – Vol. 1.New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953.pp. 109-116.

How Ulysses S. Grant Saved Native Peoples in 1850s California

In the mid-nineteenth century there were a number of settler communities in northern California. These communities often came into conflict with native peoples. Here, Daniel Smith explains how future US President Ulysses S. Grant helped to save some native people from settler violence in the region in the 1850s.

Daniel’s new book on mid-19thcentury northern California is now available. Find our more here: Amazon US|  Amazon UK

Members of the Klamath in canoes in the 19th century.

Arthur Wigmore was a settler to northern California from Missouri. He lived near Lower Rancheria on the Eel River. Settlers from back east, such as Mr. Wigmore, would come to farm the land among other choice career opportunities. In September of 1854, he was murdered and thrown into a local marsh. After an investigation by officials and locals, it was made clear that a native known by the locals as “Billy” was the one who had killed him.

As soon as word of “Billy’s” accusation reached the local natives of the Lower Rancheria, they, apparently knowing or having good reason what to expect in response to this accusation, fled into the elevations of the Trinity Mountains. Over the course of a few days, meetings were held and plans were in the works to find and arrest the murderer of Mr. Wigmore. During the course of this time, one citizen “enlisted into their service a small band of renegade” natives to hunt down the perpetrator. After a day or two, the natives returned with a newly decapitated head claiming it to be that of “Billy.”[1]

Around that same time, then Commander of Ft. Humboldt Colonel Robert Buchanan sent out Captain Henry Judah to arrest any natives implicated in the murder. Judah, proving an effective leader, surprised a camp of about 100 local natives—two of whom confessed to the murder. Judah detained the two perpetrators and escorted them back to Ft. Humboldt to await civil authorities’ intervention—leaving the rest of the tribe alone.[2]

Released Without Charges

A communications breakdown would occur at this point, as the citizens of the county called upon the Commander of Ft. Humboldt to punish them—which he would not. Buchanan held firm that he had “no authority to punish the Indians for the murder of Wigmore, even after admission of guilt” occurred. At that moment in time, it was seen as not the place of the civil authorities to give legal trial to prisoners captured by the military. In the end, the two local natives were released without charges and let back to their tribe.

This incident stirred negative sentiments from the settling citizens of these industrious towns across the entire western region of Northern California. For about a year afterwards there was no outbreak of hostility. The local native tribes, however, were completely restless though and the miners in the mountain and foothill districts of Humboldt and Trinity counties were well aware. There was serious trouble on the horizon and the miners’ knew it.

Orleans Bar is located on the Klamath River that forks the Trinity River in Humboldt County.[3] In 1855, the miners along the Klamath River passed local ordinances that “all persons detected in selling fire-arms to the Indians should have their heads shaved, receive twenty-five lashes and afterward be driven from camp; and also that all the Indians in the vicinity be disarmed.”[4] In following through with the last resolution passed, a delegation of miners visited a handful of ranches and the weapons discovered there were confiscated.

The Klamath's Grace

A few tribes, though, would be reluctant to hand over their firearms to the entrustment of the miners, regardless of the reason or cause. In response to the local tribes’ disagreement, an armed company of miners was formed.  They punctually marched to the nearest ranch withholding firearms and demanded their surrender of weapons. The natives responded with a quick volley of fire from their firearms to the miners’ sudden surprise. After the melee that followed, several miners would lay dead and others would scatter wounded.

Instead of fighting, the miners retreated under attack to Orleans Bar and sent for military assistance from Commander Buchanan at Fort Humboldt. He sent Captain Judah up to the Klamath River as a response—with very little reaching effect. Partially this reason is due to his non-consent and unwillingness to lay waste to all of the natives living on the Klamath under such an isolated issue of murder in this nature. For instance, “Billy” was known around the neighborhood personally. This would further make it a domestic issue. More than that though, Captain Judah was recalled by the U.S. Army before he could even make any standing order on how to deal with the situation.

At this same time, at various areas above Orleans Bar the situation was equally as bad. At the split where the Klamath and Salmon rivers meet, there was a stout anxiety in the mining communities and they wanted to kill all of the local Klamath natives once and for all. The determination to carry out a massacre massacre was quickly thwarted by United States Army soldiers and among them was a young Captain-in-Charge by the name of Ulysses S. Grant. This is that same man who would later “rise to the highest distinction in the profession of arms and the highest office in the gift of his countrymen.”[5] Captain Grant curtailed the miners’ hostility and agitation that day, using a show of force as well as masterful communication skills. It would have been a day where the ends at that moment would have not justified the means. Without Grant's assistance, the miners would have dealt a swift end to the Klamath River tribes.

Daniel’s new book, 1845-1870 An Untold Story of Northern California, is available here: Amazon US| Amazon UK

You can read Daniel’s past articles on California in the US Civil War (here), Medieval Jesters (here), How American Colonial Law Justified the Settlement of Native American Territories (here), Spanish Colonial Influence on Native Americans in Northern California (here), Christian ideology in history (here), the collapse of the Spanish Armada in 1588 (here), early Christianity in Britain (here), and the First Anglo-Dutch War (here).

Finally, Daniel Smith writes at complexamerica.org.

Bibliography

1.             Hittell, Theodore H. "State Growth | Treatment of Indians." In History of California, 913-915. San Francisco: N. J. Stone & Co., 1897.

2.             Indian Wars of the Northwest, by A.J. Bledsoe, San Francisco, 1885, 161-163, 179-181.

3.             U.S.G.S. "GNIS Detail: Orleans." United States Geological Service. Accessed December 8, 2019. https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq:3:0::NO::P3_FID:264396.

The Lack of Christmas Traditions in America in the Mid-19th Century: ‘Olden times’

Today’s Christmas traditions have evolved over time in different countries. But in America, there were few shared Christmas traditions in the mid-19thcentury. Mac Guffey tells us about Christmas in America in 1855.

You can also read Mac’s past articles: A Brief History of Impeachment in the US (here), on Franksgiving (here), and the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War Two (here).

Kriss Kringle's Christmas Tree. Philadelphia, 1845.

Christmas time is here again!

“. . . the time of merry-making, social re-unions and every kind of feeling among all classes . . . Krisskringle is presumed to hold sway . . . by the wondering and expectant little ones . . . he is supposed to let himself down the dark mysterious chimney, and stuff their carefully hung-up stockings with sugar-plums, pretty toys and nameless other nick-nacks. Fond pa­rents forget their own care-laden years, and grow young in the delight and smiles of their children; green garland and branches and grateful looks give an air of freshness and festivity to the plainest home.”[1]

When this description appeared in the December 22nd edition of New York City’s The Evening Post, Franklin Pierce was the President of the United States - the Civil War was six years away – and Abe Lincoln was still a Whig. Yes, it was Christmas time - in antebellum America.

It was part of an opinion piece, written by Julia Logo, a correspondent for The Evening Post. The main thrust of her lengthy article was that the way Christian countries celebrated Christmas reflected the feelings of their people, and the traditions that they developed became a “bright imagery, that time seem not able to efface.”

Unhappy Christmas?

But she was not impressed with the way America celebrated Christmas – at least in 1855.

“In our own land, each one is left to commemorate this day as best suits his tastes and inclinations. It is not throughout the United States, and as is the case with most countries of Europe, a . . . popular festival. With the exception of Philadelphia, New Orleans and some few other towns of the Middle and Western States, there is but little geniality and harmony of feeling manifest­ed in its observance.” 

Not only was the enthusiasm for Christmas and the spirit of Christmas lacking in America, but also about the different dates on which it was observed in the different cities in this country:

“What strikes me as strange, Mr. Editor, is the vast difference in the sister cities New York and Philadelphia . . . In New York, but little attention is paid to the observance of Christ­mas, farther than the ringing of bells and preaching at some of the churches; here, New Year’s day takes the place of Christmas as a popular day of amusement and festivity. In Gotham childhood is the favorite protégé of Santa Claus, and [the children come]on this day for a full share of fanciful bounties, which the jovial patron is supposed to dispense in much the same mysterious manner as good old Krisskringle.

And Logo was not above some pointed barbs regarding her preferences about Christmas date OR the name of the mythical gift-giver!

“Through some comical misrepresentation of ideas and tradition, Santaclaus has been permitted by the Gothamites to hold his levee in their gay metropo­lis on the first day of the year, instead of the day al­lotted to that worthy spirit in most Christian countries in Europe, which is about the first of December.” [1]

She explained the manner in which Christmas was kept in other countries - the St. Nicholas Day traditions and superstitions in Switzerland, the different times for celebrating the festival among the Germans and the different names they had for Him who gave humanity its first Christmas gift.

“In some parts of Germany, it is Christmas morn, but more frequently Christmas eve that is dedicated to the presentation of gifts of every variety of form, shape and purpose, that the loving heart and skillful hand can suggest and perform . . .they have in some parts such rough, and ready genii, as Krisskringles, Beltsnickles, etc.; but these are all subservient to the beautiful “Christ-kind’’ (Christ-child,) who is the ruling spirit of the feast.” [2*]

But Christmas time was different in America. To Logo, it lacked a commonality, popularity, and the set of traditions like other Christian countries. This country had bits and pieces of every type of Christmas in the world – and even areas with none at all.

In other words – in 1855 - America was still looking for its way to celebrate Christmas. 

The View Now

In the 1965 TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas,the Peanuts gang danced around the stage singing, Christmas Time Is Here.  One part of the song goes:

“Olden times and ancient rhymes; Of love and dreams to share.” [3]

From all of those ‘olden times’ the immigrants brought with them, America gradually found its own ‘Christmas Time’ traditions. Although our traditions - as Julia Logo noted 164 years ago - are a cultural mish-mash, they reflect the single, most salient feature of this country - America itself is a mish-mash of world cultures.

We should always be thankful for that diversity. Besides, who wants to find coal in their stocking on Christmas morning?

What do you think of American Christmas traditions? Let us know below.

References

[1] Logo, Julia. “Christmas Festivities.” The Evening Post – Saturday, December 22, 1855.

[2*] ‘Beltsnickles’ refers to Belsnickelwhich is an adaptation of Pelz Nichol, stemming from St. Nicholasand the December 6th gift-giving holiday commemorating his death. Krisskringleand Santaclausboth originated with the Dutch - a corruption of Christkindlein, or Christ Childand Sinter Klass, the shortened form of Sint Nikolaas(Dutch for Saint Nicholas). 

[3] “Christmas Time Is Here” a song written by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi for the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas.

How the Source of the River Nile was Found: Solving "The Problem of the Ages"

The source of the world’s longest river, the River Nile, had intrigued people for millennia. From the Egyptians onwards, the source remained a mystery, leading to be called “the problem of the ages”. In fact, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century when some extraordinary explorers found the great river’s source. Victor Gamma explains.

A portrait of John Hanning Speke, the man who played such a key role in the discovery of the source of the River Nile.

John Hanning Speke stared at the foamy torrents pouring out of the lake he had just named Victoria after his beloved queen. Speke smiled in triumph, and no wonder, the date was July, 28, 1862 and Speke, along with his companion James Augustus Grant was about to solve a riddle that had bedeviled the world for 2,000 years; the source of the world's greatest river, the Nile: "Here at last I stood on the brink of the Nile!", he later wrote in his journal. 

It might seem strange that finding the place where a river begins would be that hard, but it was not called 'The Problem of the Ages' for nothing!  In fact, the headwaters of the Nile River system have such a complicated geology that even today geographers and other scientists continue to study its labyrinth-like network of physical features and debate its source. Technically, that prize goes to a tiny spring in the hills of Burundi. This spring is amongst the headwaters that nourish Lake Victoria. 

If complex geography weren't enough of a problem, think of how challenging it would be to explore that same system without the sophisticated technology and transportation that today's explorers enjoy. Traveling in that part of Africa in the mid-nineteenth century was not easy; fever, attacks by hostile locals, and desertions were only some of the problems encountered. When you realize that almost every rugged, hot, wet, scratchy, insect-infested mile was a struggle, you will understand why the discovery took so long. 

Why was it so important to discover the source of the Nile anyway? The Nile River has always held a special place in humankind's imagination. To the Egyptians it was the divine basis of life itself, for without it, life was unthinkable. To them, its beginnings were lost in mystery, flowing from a land far beyond where they dared to venture, and they simply worshiped it as a god. Many later civilizations held the beautiful and marvelous culture of Egypt in wonder and could point to the Egyptians as the originators of civilized life. It is not hard to see then why, starting with the ever-curious Greeks, a quest for the source of the fabled Nile became an on-going obsession. 

From Myth to Science

By the time Richard Burton and his partner Speke began their quest, two thousand years of failed attempts stretched before them. Both the Greeks and the Romans, unable to penetrate to the upper reaches of the Nile, fell back on speculation or hearsay as to the great river's ultimate origin. Puzzled Romans represented the Nile as a male god with his face and head obscured by drapery. To be fair, though, the Greek merchant Diogenes and the mathematician Eratosthenes both correctly identified lakes inland from the east coast of Africa as the Nile's source. This knowledge was noted by the great Ptolemy. But to make mention of something is one thing, to see it for oneself is quite another! For centuries after Ptolemy, the question was relegated to the realm of fable and speculation. These included the myth of Prester John and the idea that a branch of the Nile flowed into the Atlantic. 

The mists of speculation began to clear up as the light of modern science and discovery shone on the question. By the mid-18th century the connection of the Blue and White Nile had been identified as well as a river meandering into Lake Tana, which we now know is the source of the Blue Nile. But it was to the Victorians that the honor of settling the "Great Question" was to be given; specifically Burton, Speke and Grant. 

It would take a determined fellow to solve a 2,000-year-old riddle and these three men certainly fit the description. Speke was an officer in the Indian Army. After strenuous months of training and fighting Speke spent his furloughs not in relaxation but exploring the Himalayas and Tibet. Burton was already famous as a traveler, linguist and, shall we say, "eccentric?" Unlike the disciplined and well-mannered Speke, Burton was known to be irascible and difficult to deal with. Burton was one of those men who placed obedience to his own convictions above societal convention. His method of travel was to meld with the local population so as to be indistinguishable from them. His facility with five languages was another unusual distinction. What these two men shared, though, was an obsession for exploration and their combined talents attained one the great feats in the history of discovery.

It was Burton who invited Speke to join him in exploring east Africa. That was in 1854. Two years later, sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, an expedition began into the interior of east Africa to locate a series of great lakes said to exist. They also, of course, were hoping to find the source of the Nile. 

A Prize Gained but a Friend Lost

Their final attempt began in June 1857. This 500-mile trek was slowed not only with fever but the never-ending complications of local politics. As the expedition passed from the realm of one ruler to another great caution and skill were needed to secure permission and protection as well as to recruit guides. This involved so much gift giving and bribery that the expedition was well fleeced by the time Speke made his great discovery. Burton became so ill that he was eventually forced to stay behind while Speke forged ahead to a lake the locals called Ukerewe. This separation was to prove ominous to the two adventurers, for it meant that when Speke beheld what he believed was the source of the Nile, Burton was not there to see for himself. Burton would refuse to accept Speke's opinion. This led to a disagreement between the two men that quickly became very public and bitter. 

Nonetheless, the parting of two great men of exploration did not stop the march of geographical progress. Leaving Burton behind in the Arab settlement of Ujiji, near the lake of the same name, Speke set out across this lake, now known as Lake Tanganyika, hoping it was the source of the Nile. Unable to obtain an adequate boat, Speke was forced to abandon the quest and rejoined Burton. While recuperating at Kaze, in the land of the Unyamwezi where they had stayed earlier, the locals related more tales of Lake Ukerewe to the two explorers. Illness sapped the interest that Burton would normally have had, but the stories fired Speke's imagination. With a hurriedly gathered force of men and supplies Speke set off for the fabled lake. On July 30, 1858 he reached the shores of the lake. He bestowed the name Victoria on the lake in honor of his queen. But lack of provisions and equipment forced Speke to content himself with a rough sketch of the lake and a burning conviction that he had the solution to a 2,000 year-old riddle.  He returned to Kaze and presented his case to his colleague. The fever-stricken Burton, however, refused to accept Speke's conclusion. An on-going debate ensued in which the two men failed to agree. The discussion became exceedingly lively. Illness, exhaustion and divergence of temperament all played their part. The final fallout occurred when Speke, back in England, made his case to the Royal Geographical Society. Burton had remained in Zanzibar, too sick to travel but expecting that Speke would delay his announcement until Burton could be present to argue his side of the issue. Although Speke could hardly ask his sponsors to wait to hear the results of their investment, Burton saw Speke's actions as a mortal sin and never forgave him. 

The Puzzle Unraveled at Last

To confirm the epic discovery, Speke returned to Africa, this time in the company of an old companion from his India days, James Augustus Grant. Having learned his lesson from earlier attempts, Speke and Grant assembled a well-provisioned expedition of 200 men before setting out in 1860. Nonetheless, the usual delays of travel in Africa at that time caused interminable delays. It would in fact be two years before Speke arrived at his longed-for destination. But when Speke heard of a river that flowed out of Lake Victoria, nothing could stop him from reaching for what men had dreamed of so long. Leaving the fever-stricken Grant behind to rest, he explored Lake Victoria and found the rapids where a river left the lake and fed the Nile. 

Rejoined by Grant and accompanied by another associate from the Indian service, hunting-enthusiast Samuel Baker, Speke then began a descent of the Nile. Upon reaching Khartoum, Speke wasted no time in sending a now famous telegram to London. The terse but momentous message read simply, "The Nile is settled." Upon his return to England, Speke received full credit and plaudits for his accomplishments. Like Columbus, John Hanning Speke's moment of triumph was short-lived. Only two years later, in a tragic postscript, and on the day before he was to face his old colleague and enemy Burton in a debate over the Nile question, Speke was killed in a hunting accident. He was 37. 

Final confirmation of the source of the Nile was to wait until 1875. It was then that Henry Morton Stanley, of "Dr. Livingstone I presume" fame, circled Lake Victoria and confirmed Speke's claim. Grueling determination, suffering and imagination had solved another age-old mystery.

What do you think of the explorers who confirmed the source of the Nile River? Let us know below.

References

Southwaite, Leonard, Unrollingthe Map: The Story of Exploration,The Junior Literary                    Guild, New York, 1930, pages 253-8

(February 4, 2010) "Speke and the Discovery of the Source of the Nile: An Introduction." [Web blog post], https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/speke-and-the-discovery-of-the-source-of-the-nile-an-introduction/

How We Remember Slavery: Whitney Plantation Is a New Type of Plantation Museum

John J. Cummings has created what he has called “America’s First Slavery Museum.” The museum is an anomaly for American plantation museums—it memorializes America’s enslaved in a style reminiscent of Holocaust memorials while also acting as a traditional (although reinterpreted) Southern plantation tour. Jackie Mead explains.

You can read Jackie’s previous article on Lewis Temple and the 19th century whaling industry here.

The Big House at the Whitney Plantation. Source: Bill Leiser, available here.

In 1991, a crumbling former plantation 35 miles outside of New Orleans attracted the attention of a rayon manufacturer, Formosa. Locals commissioned an eight volume study as a way to slow the project until rayon went out of fashion. When the property went up for sale again, it was bought by eccentric trial lawyer John J. Cummings III. Unlike most people, when he is given an eight-volume study on a new purchased property, he reads it.[i]

For the next several years, John J. Cummings would spend eight million dollars of his personal fortune to create what he dubbed “America’s First Slavery Museum.” The museum is an anomaly for American plantation museums—it memorializes America’s enslaved in a style reminiscent of Holocaust memorials while also acting as a traditional (although reinterpreted) Southern plantation tour.

A Museum Anomaly

Plantation museums in the former Antebellum American South have fallen into a comfortable pattern over the years. The lives of the white landholders (and slave owners) were focused on exclusively. Tours were limited to the “Big House” and ignored the various “outbuildings” where slaves lived and worked.[ii]They stood as testaments to the conspicuous consumerism of the pre-Civil War South, a world in which manicured lawns held garden parties with mint juleps, and women in hoop skirts fanned themselves beside elegant picture windows. This myth of the South has made the plantations a popular site to hold weddings and sorority reunions, a trend that museums encourage because of the valuable revenue they bring in.[iii]This view eliminates the people who made such grandeur possible—African American slaves. 

Whitney plantation is entirely different. Today, the plantation includes at least twelve historic structures that are open to the public. The home is interpreted entirely from the enslaved point of view, discussing the domestic tasks performed there to support the Haydel family’s domestic needs.[iv]Slave quarters were moved from a nearby planation in order to properly represent the homes of the enslaved. A steel-barred cell in the style used to punish rebellious slaves has also been added to the property.[v]The final historic building exhibited on the plantation is the Antioch Baptist Church. All of these buildings are visited during the 90-minute walking tour included with the visitor ticket. 

Memorials to Slavery

Whitney Plantation also includes several memorials, springing directly from the mind of John Cummings. One of these is the Field of Angels, a circular courtyard listing the names of the almost 2,200 slave babies in St John Parish that died before their third birthday in the 40 years leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation. Surrounded by child-sized pink and blue benches, there is a statue of a black angel embracing a tiny baby tenderly in its arms, about to bring the child to heaven.[vi]The bronze was cast by Rod Moorhead, a Louisiana native who has worked on other African-American memorials. David Amsden of the New York Times called the statue “at once chastening and challenging, beautiful and haunting.”[vii]The memorial is meant to bring attention to the exceptionally high mortality rates among slave children, as well as to mourn their passing.

Whitney Plantation’s most recognizable memorial sits within Antioch Baptist Church. John Cummings commissioned well-known African American artist Woodrow Nash to cast forty life-size casts of slave children to stand and sit within the pews of the church. Affectionately called “The Children of Whitney” by the museum staff, they represent the lost childhoods of Whitney’s former residents.[viii]Cummings was inspired to create the exhibit by listening to the interviews of former slaves collected by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. “The best expression I have heard about slavery is: ‘Those who viewed cannot explain, only those who endure­d should be believed,’ he said to The Australian.[ix]Inspired by these words, Cummings has placed a great emphasis on the interviews collected by the WPA, and intends recordings to be played on a loop in both the church and in the slave cabins at a later date.[x]Many of the former slaves interviewed by the WPA were children at the time of emancipation, and therefore their interviews recall their lives as children and teenagers. The Children of Whitney depict these people as they were—children.[xi]

There are two memorials that feature names carved in stone: The Wall of Honor, which is dedicated to the more than 350 slaves that worked at Whitney Plantation, and the Allées Gwendolyn Mildo Hall Memorial, which is dedicated to the 107,000 slaves in Louisiana complied by its eponymous historian.[xii]Both of them were inspired by Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Because of issues with dating the various documents the names were drawn from, names have been placed on the plaques with no order at all, in order to convey the chaos of slavery. Many slaves lack family names, so the walls are dotted with repeating lines of Mary, Bob, Amelia, and Joseph with no way to distinguish individuals.[xiii]In continued dedication to firsthand accounts, Cummings requested that sections from the WPA’s interviews with former slaves be carved onto the memorial in order to give visitors an idea of what these individuals suffered. 

Grappling With The Past

John J. Cummings III believes it is important for America to follow the example of countries like Germany and South Africa in dealing with this national trauma. Both nations built museums and memorials to honor their unsavory past as a way of retroactively grappling with it. “In Germany today, there are hundreds of museums and memorials dedicated to the Holocaust, and the Germans are not proud of that history,” said Cummings to TheNew Yorker, “But they have studied it, they have embraced it, and they own it. We haven’t done that in America.”[xiv] 

In fact, the opposite has occurred. In an ethnographic study of 138 south-eastern plantation museums, two academics found the African-American presence to be “annihilated.”[xv]This is due to the fact that many of these plantation museums have white administrative staff, curators, and interpreters that cater to the white perspective.[xvi]As a result, museum tours focused almost exclusively on the privileged lives of the white landowners, reducing slaves to nameless laborers identified by the tasks they performed for the white family. Such museums were especially popular during the Civil Right Movement, when white Southerners yearned to remember a “simpler” time.[xvii]  

This is no longer the case. In the past twenty years, twenty-four museums in south Louisiana have opened slave exhibits. These exhibits have increased tourism for plantation museums, both private and public, with 1.9 million visitors to historic sites across the state.[xviii]School groups are especially popular visitors.[xix]Museum administrators have cited the growing interest in common people and a desire to show a more integrated version of American history as reasons for adding these kinds of exhibits.[xx]

Mourning Slavery

Whitney Plantation is a new approach to the plantation museum. Instead of offering additions to an already existing tour, Whitney is a plantation tour with slavery-based interpretation combined with a memorial museum. This is a far more effective way to convey the true tragedy of race-based slavery. According to Silke Arnold-de-Simine, a British expert on memory and author of Mediating Memory in the Museum,memorials are intended to make visitors identify with history’s victims. By establishing an environment that encourages visitors to imagine themselves experiencing these atrocities, visitors can empathize with the people of the past. Arnold-de-Simine refers to this as “prosthetic memory.”

This principle is important for memorial museums because they inspire feelings of guilt and grief rather than pride, and must channel those negative feelings into a personal commitment to pluralism and tolerance.[xxi]This is done through a combination of first-person testimonials, visual recreations of the conditions the individuals experienced, and memorials where collective grief can be expressed. All of these techniques were pioneered during the building of Holocaust memorials. This is what allows the plantation to have such a profound emotional effect on visitors. “Everything about the way the place came together says that it shouldn’t work,” says Laura Rosanne Adderley, a Tulane history professor, “And yet for the most part it does, superbly and even radically. Like Maya Lin’s memorial, the Whitney Plantation has figured out a way to mourn those we as a society are often reluctant to mourn.”[xxii]Although Whitney Plantation might seem mismatched, this combination of techniques is very effective.

Taking a Risk Pays Off

The plantation received 34,000 visitors in its first year—double the projected turnout. It is a respectable number for a new museum.[xxiii]Whitney Plantation has managed to attract African-American tourists at a rate unprecedented by other Louisiana plantation museums. Roughly half the people present at opening day were black.[xxiv]

Whitney plantation has also seen considerable tourism from school groups, especially secondary schools. The direct and unfiltered depiction of slavery, rarely seen in school curriculums, has a profound effect on students. One visitor left a comment card reading, “I learned more in an hour and a half than I have in any school.”[xxv]  

The inability of the American school system to adequately deal with slavery was one of John J. Cummings III’s many reasons for establishing Whitney plantation. “Without knowledge about how slavery worked and how crushing the experience was — not only for those who endured it, but also for their descendants — it’s impossible to lift the weight of the lingering repercussions of that institution. Every generation of Americans since 1865 has been burdened by the hangover of slavery,”[xxvi]he wrote in the Washington Post. Cummings believes that it is only when Americans are properly educated on the abuses and legacy of slavery, that can we hope to move forward. 

John J. Cummings III understands how unusual it is for a white former trial lawyer to be the person who establishes America’s first museum dedicated to slavery. In an attempt to explain, he said of his process of research “You start understanding that the wealth of this part of the world — wealth that has benefited me — was created by some half a million black people.”[xxvii]Whitney stands tribute to those black people, but it does far more than that. It memorializes them in a style reminiscent of the Holocaust, and uses the restored landscape and first-person narratives to create feelings of empathy with those who suffered slavery. It seeks to create an emotional response in its visitors so that America can finally remember its wounds openly—because it is only then, according to John. J. Cummings—that American can finally start to heal. 

What do you think of Whitney Plantation? Let us know below.

[i]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.” 

[ii]Julia Rose, “Collective Memories and the Changing Representations of American Slavery,” The Journal of Museum Education29, no. 2/3 (Spring/Summer 2004): 27. 

[iii]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.” 

[iv]Whitney Plantation, “The Big House and the Outbuildings,” 2015, http://whitneyplantation.com/the-big-house-and-outbuildings.html

[v]Margaret Quilter, “Lest We Forget: Louisiana’s Slavery Museum,” The Australian, February 7, 2015, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/lest-we-forget-louisianas-slavery-museum/story-e6frg8rf-1227210481228

[vi]Quilter, “Lest We Forget.”

[vii]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.”

[viii]Whitney Plantation, “The Children of Whitney,” http://whitneyplantation.com/the-children-of-the-whitney.html

[ix]Quilter, “Lest We Forget.” 

[x]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.” 

[xi]Whitney Plantation, “The Children of Whitney.” 

[xii]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.” 

[xiii]Jared Keller, “Inside America’s Auschwitz: a new museum offers a rebuke—and an antidote—to our sanitized history of slavery,” Smithsonian Magazine,  April 4, 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-americas-auschwitz-180958647/

[xiv]Kalim Armstrong, “Telling the Story of Slavery,” The New Yorker,February 17, 2016, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/telling-the-story-of-slavery

[xv]Rose, “Collective Memories,” 27.

[xvi]Rose, “Collective Memories,” 27.

[xvii]Keller, “America’s Auschwitz.” 

[xviii]Keller, “America’s Auschwitz.”

[xix]Rose, “Collective Memories,” 26. 

[xx]Rose, “Collective Memories,” 28.

[xxi]Silke Arnold-de-Simine, “The ‘Moving’ Image: Empathy and Projection in the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool,” Journal of Educational Media, Memory & Society4 (Autumn 2012): 24.  

[xxii]Asmden, “First Slavery Museum.” 

[xxiii]Keller, “America’s Auschwitz.”

[xxiv]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.”

[xxv]Keller, “America’s Auschwitz.” 

[xxvi]Cummings, “35,000 Museums.” 

[xxvii]Amsden, “First Slavery Museum.”

The 19th Century Whaling Industry, Lewis Temple and the Temple-Toggle Harpoon

The whaling industry was at its height in the nineteenth century as it helped power the Industrial Revolution. The center of the whaling industry in the US was in Nantucket and later New Bedford. But there were a number of breakthroughs that powered the industry. Here, Jackie Mead tells the story of Lewis Temple, a free African American who invented something very important for the whaling industry.

A statue of Lewis Temple in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Source: LGagnon, available here.

Hunting whales has been an integral part of Native American communities for millennia, but whaling had never been practiced on such a massive scale as it was in the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution demanded whale oil to light the factories, as well as the plastic-like baleen for lady’s corsets and spermaceti for mass-produced candles and perfumes. Whaleships became floating factories for processing the massive creatures, complete with tryworks for boiling the whale blubber into precious oil. A consumer might pay as much as $2.50 for a gallon—$80 today.[1] This meant whales were essentially swimming petroleum deposits, and massive fortunes could be made by those brave enough to hunt them down.

An Upstart City

Nantucket, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, was an obvious capital of the whaling industry. By the 1840s, however, they were being eclipsed by an upstart mainland town: New Bedford.[2] In 1851, Herman Melville wrote in his masterpiece Moby Dick, “New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling,”[3]and that “nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford.”[4]The city had a superior harbor that fit even the biggest of whaleships, and a rich industry sprang up around the waterfront.

One person that came to the city to make their fortune was a free African American named Lewis Temple. He was born either a slave or freedman in Richmond, Virginia around the year 1800. Temple arrived in New Bedford in 1829 and married Mary Clark, presumably also African America, and had two daughters shortly after.[5]A blacksmith by trade, he opened a shop on Walnut Street in 1836 and began producing the various metal objects required on whaling ships.

The Weapon of Choice

The most important tool of a whaler was his harpoon: a barbed iron point mounted to a long wooden handle. When thrown at a whale, the barbs would catch in the blubber and prevent the harpoon from dislodging. The crew would grab onto a rope tied to the harpoon and be pulled through the ocean as the whale tried to escape, a risky experience referred to as a “Nantucket sleigh ride.” When the whale was too exhausted to continue, they would then row close enough to stab the leviathan to death. 

If the harpoon came out during the chase, the whale would get away. Since almost all crews were paid through a cut of the profits, losing a whale was a significant hit to their paycheck.[6] 

In the first half of the nineteenth century, harpoon tips resembled arrowheads. These would frequently tear holes in the whale’s blubber instead of lodging in it, leading to angry whales and no profit. Toggling harpoons, which have a frontward cutting edge and a backwards sweeping barb that pivots (or toggles), had been used in the Arctic for centuries. New Bedford whalers were aware of this technology from hunting in Alaskan waters, but were unable to replicate it.[7]

A New Harpoon

Lewis Temple created the first iron toggle harpoon in his Walnut Street shop in 1848. It was similar to its Arctic predecessors, with a sharp point and swinging barb that was held in place by a pin. A small piece of wood held the head straight while it was thrown into the whale, breaking on impact and allowing the barb to pivot ninety degrees into the blubber. This was far more effective than the traditional harpoon, quickly becoming the weapon of choice for all savvy harpooners. 

Lewis Temple, Inventor

Lewis Temple never patented his invention. Although a gifted blacksmith, he never received a formal education.[8]The idea of obtaining a patent probably would not even have crossed his mind. Only three to ten percent of patent holders were African American, many choosing to file under the name of a white lawyer to ensure their product had a fair shot.[9]Since Temple was unable to write his own name, it was unlikely he could have hired one without help. With nothing to prevent them, other blacksmiths freely copied his idea and made their own improvements. 

The Temple family continued to grow, and Lewis began to train his son, Lewis Temple Jr., in blacksmithing. He moved shops several times, renting homes nearby for his family.[10]He was elected Vice President of the New Bedford Union Society in 1834, the city’s first anti-slavery group. It is also possible he knew a young Frederick Douglas in the 1830s, when the famous author was pursuing odd jobs at the wharfs.[11]

His lack of commercial success, despite his stroke of genius, may have been the motivation for the local firm Delano and Pierce to offer Temple a new shop in 1854. However, he was never able to work in it. 

Earlier that year, Temple was walking home at night and tripped over a plank left out by a New Bedford construction crew, sending him into a sewer ditch and injured beyond hope of recovery. His wife and children sued the city for negligence, winning $2,000 in March 1854. Temple died only six weeks later.[12]The local newspaperran a story describing how the Temple family had yet to receive their settlement payment, which was finally given to his widow in February 1857.[13]

Legacy

The New Bedford sailor and artist Clifford W. Ashley wrote in 1926, “It is safe to say that the Temple toggle harpoon was the most important single invention in the whole history of whaling.”[14]Although he was never able to profit from his work, Lewis Temple made a significant impact on the American whaling industry. His toggle harpoon helped make the city the richest per capita in the entire United States.[15]In 1880, $10 million (yes, 10 million 1880 dollars) was flowing through New Bedford, all the product of the toggle harpoon. Herman Melville wrote “all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.”[16]

A statue of Lewis Temple stands outside the New Bedford Public Library. The artist depicts him standing in a blacksmith’s apron with his new invention in his hands, unaware of how it will change the industry forever.

What do you think of Lewis Temple’s role in the whaling industry? Let us know below.

[1]PBS, “The ‘Whale Oil Myth’,” 2008. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/this-post-is-hopelessly-long-w

[2]PBS, “The History of Whaling in America.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/whaling-history-whaling-america/

[3]Herman Melville, Moby Dick(New York: Constable and Company, 1922): 8. 

[4]Melville, Moby Dick,40.

[5]New Bedford Historical Society, “Lewis Temple.” http://nbhistoricalsociety.org/Important-Figures/lewis-temple/

[6]Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea(New York: Viking Penguin, 2000): 18.

[7]Sidney Kaplan, “Lewis Temple and the Hunting of the Whale.” Negro History Bulletin17 (October 1953): 8. 

[8]Kaplan, “Lewis Temple,” 7.

[9]Michael J. Andrews and Nicolas L. Ziebarth, The Demographics of Inventors in the Historical United States (2016): 8.

[10]Kaplan, “Lewis Temple,” 10.

[11]New Bedford Historical Society, “Lewis Temple.”

[12]Kaplan, “Lewis Temple,” 10.

[13]New Bedford Historical Society, “Lewis Temple.”

[14]Kaplan, “Lewis Temple,” 7.

[15]Derek Thompson, “The Spectacular Rise and Fall of U.S. Whaling: An Innovation Story.” The Atlantic(February 22, 2012) https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-spectacular-rise-and-fall-of-us-whaling-an-innovation-story/253355/

[16]Melville, Moby Dick, 41.

The History of the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is one of the most famous symbols of America. But the statue has a long history. Here Aliasgar Abuwala explains the French origins of the statue, how it took many years from being an idea to actually being erected in New York, and the importance of its symbolism in the twentieth century.

The Statue of Liberty. Source: Daniel Schwen, available here.

Throughout most of the 19th century, France had alternated between absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies and republican forms of government, with varying degrees of power held by elected representatives. The collective psyche of the French was undergoing a monumental change in its beliefs in royal traditions, equality and religion. However, the ideals of the French Revolution had taken root and France had many influential liberals both in and out of its government bodies.

One of them was Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, a lawyer, author, academician and anti-slavery activist. Deeply influenced by the values enshrined in the constitution of the United States, he felt France and the U.S. were common partners in promoting these values. After the Union’s victory in the U.S. Civil War in 1865, he had the idea that France should present a monument to the United States to commemorate its ideals of liberty and democracy. In this way, he wished to infuse the same ideals into the consciousness of his countrymen.

Liberty Enlightening the World

Laboulaye put forward the idea to Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the noted sculptor who had a passion for designing monumental structures. The sculptor wholeheartedly supported Laboulaye. Naming the statue was key for the project to take off. Liberty was a controversial term in 19thcentury Europe. It was associated with revolution and violence by many people. The statue had to be seen as a symbol of law and peace, showing the way to freedom. The statue called, Liberty Enlightening the World, would be an honourable and authoritative figure above political turmoil. The statue would be funded by the French and presented to the United States.

The project stalled due to the Franco-Prussian War, in which France’s emperor Napoleon III was captured and deposed. Laboulaye had been elected to the National Assemble and was instrumental in forming The Third Republic. These were ideal circumstances to generate support for the Statue of Liberty. Armed with references and letters of introduction given by Laboulaye, Bartholdi travelled to America to discuss the idea with influential people. 

As soon as Bartholdi’s ship sailed into New York Harbour, he decided that Bedloe Island, now Liberty Island, should be the site of the statue as it would be seen by all ships leaving or leaving the United States. Among the powerful people he met in America was President Ulysses S. Grant who assured him that obtaining the site would not be a constraint. Bartholdi travelled the length and breadth of America, but after returning to France, he confided to Laboulaye that the general response was not as enthusiastic as they had hoped. They decided to launch a public campaign and organized a group called the Franco-American Union.

Design and Symbolism

Bartholdi and Laboulaye had to come up with a figure that could best express the American idea of liberty. They decided on adopting the dominant image of Liberty in the United States, which was derived from the Roman goddess of freedom, Libertas. However, Libertas was popular all over Europe. Artists of the 18thand 19thcenturies often used the goddess to represent democratic ideals, but often in a manner that associated her with violence. Liberty Enlightening the World had to depict peace and progress and it was decided that Liberty would wear flowing robes and would hold a torch.

The statue also needed to be crowned. There were two kinds of headwear that statues of Liberty were traditionally donned with: a pileus, a kind of cap given to freed slaves in ancient Rome, and a helmet. Bartholdi chose a diadem instead.  The crown has seven rays which form a halo. It was designed to depict the sun and the seven continents. The rays of the sun are meant to reinforce the torch, by which Liberty Enlightens the World. 

Bartholdi designed the statue with strong classical contours to best set if off against the harbour. He wanted passengers on ships entering the harbour to have altering perspectives of Liberty as they sailed towards Manhattan. Reflecting the scale of the project and its solemn objective, Bartholdi scripted his thoughts: 

The surfaces should be broad and simple, defined by a bold and clear design, accentuated in the important places. The enlargement of the details or their multiplicity is to be feared. By exaggerating the forms, in order to render them more clearly visible, or by enriching them with details, we would destroy the proportion of the work. Finally, the model, like the design, should have a summarized character, such as one would give to a rapid sketch. Only it is necessary that this character should be the product of volition and study, and that the artist, concentrating his knowledge, should find the form and the line in its greatest simplicity.

Bartholdi wanted to place a broken chain implying freedom in Liberty’s left hand but thought it would be controversial in the aftermath of the Civil War. So he placed the chain under her robes, beneath her stride, and where it would be relatively inconspicuous In her left hand, Bartholdi placed a tabula ansata, a tablet associated with law and governance. Though even the master sculptor admired the United States Constitution, he chose the Declaration of Independence to be associated with the idea of Liberty. Hence, the ‘JULY IV MDCCLXXVI’ inscription on the tablet. The height of the statue had been decided at just over 151 feet or 46 meters.

Getting to Work

By 1875, France’s economy had recovered from the war. Laboulaye decided it was time to announce the project and seek public support. The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia seemed the best time to do it. Laboulaye formed the Franco-American Union to help in raising funds for the project. Liberty Enlightening the World would be financed and made in France and America would be required to produce the pedestal on which Liberty would be mounted. The announcement was received with general enthusiasm; as would be expected French monarchists opposed the statue, if for no other reason but to spite Laboulaye who was recently elected a senator-for-life. 

Laboulaye organized fund-raising events designed to appeal to the rich and influential. A musical held at the Paris Opera on April 25 1876, featured a new cantata composed by Charles Gounod especially for the project. It was titled La Liberté éclairant le monde, the French translation of the announced name. However, Laboulaye was able to raise funds from all sections of French society, including schoolchildren and municipalities. Laboulaye asked for support in his political rallies; descendents of the French contingent who had fought in the American War of Independence contributed. French copper industrialist Eugene Secretan donated thousands of pounds of copper.

Bartholdi began fabricating the head and diadem of Liberty and the right arm bearing the torch. In May 1876, he sailed to the United States to participate in the Centennial Exhibition as a member of the French delegation. A huge painting of the statue was displayed in New York as a part of the Exhibition. The head and arm reached Philadelphia too late to have the sculpture recorded in the exhibition catalogue, due to which few could identify it as the Statue of Liberty. However, the exhibit became popular in the closing days of the festival and people climbed up to the balcony of the torch for a better view of the fairgrounds. The head and arm were displayed in Madison Square Park in New York for several years before they were transported back to France to join the rest of the statue.

Bartholdi turned to his former trainer and mentor, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, to design the internal structure of the statue. He suggested a wooden framework with masonry compartments filled with sand be used to support the thousands of pounds of copper skin. Viollet-le-Duc also asked Bartholdi to mold light-weight copper sheets by battering them onto the wooden structure, a technique known as repoussé. He would then use armature bars to attach the molded sheets. The master also helped his former pupil in designing Liberty’s torch and her arm’s support system.

Viollet-le-Duc died unexpectedly in 1879 and Bartholdi asked Gustave Eiffel to finish the internal construction. The creator of his future eponymous landmark designed a completely new support structure for the statue but retained Viollet-le-Duc’s repoussé technique and his skilful use of armature bars.

The Pedestal

Bartholdi made a third trip to the United States and urged Americans of the Franco-American Union to raise funds for the pedestal. Laboulaye turned to his fellow Union League Club members, a group that supported the Union in the Civil War. One of the members was William Maxwell Evarts, an accomplished statesman and lawyer, who was made chairman of the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty. Committees were formed in several states but the New York committee understandably took on most of the responsibility for the pedestal. The committee included 19-year old Theodore Roosevelt, the future President of the United States. 

However, Evarts would prove to be the key figure in the success of the fundraising campaign for the pedestal. The senior statesman’s committed involvement and his social and political influence validated the campaign in the eyes of the public and press. More important was Evart’s influence in the White House and with President Grant. After much persuasion, a joint committee of Congress passed a resolution officially accepting the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France on March 3, 1877. He was also instrumental in Congress contributing $56,000 towards the pedestal.

Famous architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned to design the pedestal. Bartholdi, the creator of Liberty Enlightening the World imagined the pedestal as looming ‘Fortress of Liberty’. He also discussed other designs, including a stepped pyramid with Hunt. From 1882 to 1884, Hunt experimented with numerous designs of his own. The architect and the French sculptor ultimately combined the ‘Fortress’ with Hunt’s ‘Pharos I’ design inspired by the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of antiquity. Hunt’s pedestal fused in harmony with the colossal statue above it and remains an important monument in its own right.

Hunt’s other notable works include the New York Tribune building, the Lenox Library and many more. Hunt also founded the American Institute of Architects in 1857 and served as its first secretary. Hunt received $1,000 for his work on the statue, which he donated to the pedestal’s construction.

Statue of Liberty Unveiled by Edward Moran.

The Symbol of Liberty

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated as the symbol of democracy, the ideals of the Enlightenment and equality for all. However, the struggle for liberty and justice for all was still a reality for a section of American society. African Americans were loath to embrace the symbol of a nation, which would not include them as equal citizens. The Statue of Liberty would not help them achieve equality and justice in the truest sense for another century.

America had long been a nation of immigrants, but when nearby Ellis Island became an immigration centre in 1892, the Statue of Liberty became a welcoming figure as the ships sailed into the harbour. Over time, the Liberty emerged as the ‘Mother of all Exiles’, a beacon of hope for generations of foreigners who had dreamt of a better life in the New World. President Franklin D. Roosevelt further solidified the statue as an immigration icon in his speech on its 50th anniversary when he described immigration as a central part of America’s history. However, the symbolism ignored the real difficulties of settling in the United States, particularly for immigrants from non-European countries.

The two World Wars further advanced the Statue of Liberty as an emblem of freedom for the poor and persecuted people of Europe. The islands of New York harbour had long served as military bases and the statue came to be associated with the US military as well. In wartime, the monument achieved renewed significance for soldiers sailing out to fight overseas. It became an image they may never see again. 

Pictures of the Statue of Liberty were used to sell war bonds and mobilize war efforts in the country. It also reminded Americans that the statue was a gift from embattled France. Servicemen and women returning from war were moved by the sight of Liberty as they sailed back into the harbour. Even after 9/11, the Statue of Liberty was invoked to express American horror, anguish and rage. 

The Statue of Liberty was originally intended to serve as a lighthouse under the administration of the U.S. Lighthouse board. However, though the torch had been electrified, the statue had not been designed to serve as a lighthouse. After some decades under the U.S. Department of War, the Statue of Liberty was eventually turned over to the National Park Service in 1937. Norman T. Newton, the landscape architect of the National Park Service transformed Liberty Island into a park befitting the national monument.  In 1984, the statue was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

What do you think of the importance of the Statue of Liberty? Let us know below.

This article was written by Aliasgar Abuwala of Travel Back Through Time.

The Failure of America’s Attempts to Resolve Slavery before the US Civil War

Slavery was sadly familiar during the early decades of an independent America. Here, Ian Craig discusses the failure of compromise during the years from 1789 until the US Civil War. In particular he considers the sectional divide between the North, South, and – later – Western American states.

You can also read Ian’s series on President James Buchanan and the US Civil War here.

The official White House portrait of President Zachary Taylor. Taylor played a key role in the Compromise of 1850.

In the history of the United States, the nation has long been divided along sectional lines, most notably North and South.  In 1789, when the Constitution became the law of the land, compromise had been used to get the states to agree on the new form of government.  The Three-Fifths Compromise was one such example.  Slavery was deeply rooted in the economy of the South, while the North began to rely heavily on its manufacturing industry. When it came time to decide representation in the new Congress, the Southern states demanded that their slave population be counted toward their population total.  Since the North did not support slave labor and had a growing abolitionist movement, it disagreed with the South’s proposal.  Instead, the authors of the Constitution, including James Madison, came up with a compromise.  The South’s total slave population would not count towards representation, only three-fifths of its slave population would be counted towards each southern states’ population.  This compromise managed to win support on both sides, but the debate and compromise over slavery did not end there.

When President Thomas Jefferson agreed to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, he had no idea that it would help spark further debates over slavery.  The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States with most of its territory lying northwest of the Mississippi River.  The acquisition of such a vast territory was seen by many Americans as progress for the young nation.  No one considered the idea that as more territory was added to the nation, that slavery’s expansion would take center stage.  In 1819, the first debate over slavery’s expansion into the western territories took place.  Missouri, which was relatively more north than south, wanted to enter the Union as a slave state.  However, this would upset the balance of power between slave and free states in the Senate.  The South needed to maintain this due to the fact that the North’s greater population often gave them more support in the House of Representatives.  In an attempt to put an end to the issue, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky came up with a compromise.  He called for slavery to be banned in the region northwest of Missouri and for Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) to enter the Union as a free state.  This compromise was agreed to and attempted to hold the nation together for another thirty years.  However, when the compromise was passed in 1820, it merely put a temporary fix on the growing issue of slavery.  It did nothing to settle the growing sectional divide the nation was facing as well.

Sectionalism in the US

Sectionalism was deeply rooted in the United States.  When the nation was founded in 1776, many Americans had more loyalty to their individual states rather than the nation as a whole.  This was because many felt that their own state governments represented their best interests because they were their neighbors and friends in some cases. In conjunction with this, many did not trust the new federal or central government.  This goes back to the trade off between having a king thousands of miles away to having many “kings” a mere couple hundred miles away.  It was for this reason that the original government of the United States, under the Articles of Confederation, was made relatively weak.  Under the Articles, there was not one single leader, but many in a representative body or congress.  This Congress was led by a president, but this person was by no means the President of the United States.  In addition, the government had no power to collect taxes or to raise them nor could it regulate trade or create a standing army and navy to defend the nation.  In these terms, the States had all the power as it was intended to be.  Therefore, the Continental Congress had to ask the states to raise funds and relied on the states to provide their militias in times of war.  The Articles left the federal government extremely weak, the Founding Fathers did not want to have a repeat of the rule they had under King George III and Great Britain.   

The federal government would become much stronger when the Constitution was passed in 1789; however, the individual loyalty to one’s state remained.  Often America was referred to as “these United States” instead of a single nation “The United States.” It is this sentiment that began to take hold after 1820. In 1848, when the U.S.-Mexican War came to an end, more territory was added to the nation through the Mexican Cession.  This included land that would become the American southwest and California.  When gold was discovered in California in early 1848, prospectors and settlers flocked to the territory causing its population to rapidly increase.  By 1850, California was ready to enter the Union and become the thirty-first state. However, the majority of the population had come from areas that did not support slavery and as a result, California had wished to enter as a free state.

The Compromise of 1850

This concept had re-opened the door for slavery’s debate in the nation.  Although it had never gone away, it now became a topic for discussion for many. President Zachary Taylor wanted to see California admitted into the Union as soon as possible.  He recognized the sizzling debate of slavery which was growing over the nation, but he felt that a quick admission would solve the issue. In contrast, allowing California to enter the Union as a free state would upset the balance of power in the Senate. Something had to be given to the South for compensation.  This led to the Compromise of 1850 which began under Henry Clay but was resolved under Senator Stephen Douglas.  

In order to appease both sides, Douglas was able to come up with five resolutions that would require a vote. They included allowing California to enter as a free state, the ban of the slave trade in Washington D.C., the creation of a new Fugitive Slave Law, that popular sovereignty be allowed in the territories of Utah and New Mexico, and that Texas’ border dispute with New Mexico be resolved.[1]  President Taylor threatened to veto the legislation if it came to him because he did not want any chance of slavery entering the western territories.  This surprised those in the South who believed that Taylor, a Southerner himself, had betrayed them.  In July 1850, the president’s unwillingness to compromise seemed to be taking hold.  However, President Zachary Taylor died of presumed food poisoning after eating cherries and drinking a pitcher of milk.  His vice president, Millard Fillmore, had no issue signing the Compromise of 1850 as he believed he had once and for all settled the question of slavery’s expansion.  Instead, he only made the issue much worse. 

Disputes in the 1850s

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 meant that the North no longer became a safe haven for escaped slaves.  Instead, those in the northern states were required by law to aid slave catchers in their retrieval of runaway slaves.  Any violation of the law would result in fines and even jail time.  With this act in place, the federal government was essentially allowing slavery to continue while keeping it enforced.  In the eyes of the North, this was a betrayal by the federal government as it appeared to be helping the South continue slavery not end it.  By 1854, the debate which was thought to have ended with the Compromise of 1850 heated up again.  Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, governments were formed for the territories of Kansas and Nebraska allowing for popular sovereignty.  At the same time, the Missouri Compromise, which had banned slavery in those territories for thirty years, was repealed.  This caused much concern for those in the North.

Although the Kansas-Nebraska Act which was also authored by Stephen Douglas, attempted to appease both sides, it ended up causing much violence in the region.  When Kansas wanted to enter the Union as a free state, pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri crossed the border illegally.  This resulted in the election of a pro-slavery government.  In what would become known as “Bleeding Kansas,” pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces would battle for control of the territory.  This would continue until President James Buchanan sent the military to secure fare elections; however, it wasn’t until 1861 that Kansas was admitted as a free state.  

The sectional wound that the nation felt only became worse after the 1854 Act.  “Bleeding Kansas” was a snapshot of what would come during the US Civil War.  Compromise failed in many ways, but ultimately if failed because the sectional wound between the North, South, and eventually the West, was never resolved. Each compromise or act only put a temporary bandage on a wound that needed stitches to fully heal.  However, all sides refused to find that resolution because they all believed their point of view was correct.  They did not have any regard for the integrity of the nation, instead it was for their individual homes or states.  When the Civil War broke out and South Carolina seceded from the Union, a man who would go down in history was offered a much different path. President Lincoln authorized Francis P. Blair Sr., an advisor, to offer Robert E. Lee full command of the Union Army to put down the rebellion in the South.  Despite his loyalty to the United States, Lee refused because he could not help lead an invasion of his native home Virginia and the South.  Like Lee, many others felt the same way in taking up arms to either defend or fight against the United States.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.      

[1]James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction 3rded, (McGraw-Hill, 2001), 74.