Tag Archives: politics

Learning Something New Every Day

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Relistening to my Shelby Foote audiobooks, I realised he had, in fact, covered this surprising fact, but it suffered in my memory for being presented amidst the guns and guts narrative of the Overland Campaign.

Recognizing the importance of the War Democrats, the Republican Party changed its name for the national ticket in the 1864 presidential election, held during the Civil War. The National Union Party nominated the incumbent president and “former” Republican Lincoln for president and “former” War Democrat Andrew Johnson for vice president. As a result many War Democrats could support Lincoln’s Civil War policies, while avoiding the “Republican” ticket. While a large number of Republican dissidents had maintained an entity separate from the National Union party leading up to the 1864 election, they withdrew their ticket for fear that splitting the vote would allow the Copperhead Democrats and their “peace at all costs” ticket to possibly win the election.

via War Democrats – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Geopolitics (Microcosm Edition)

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I was just looking up some info on Samuel Tilden, the winner of 1876’s election.  (Just as Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet, he also didn’t invent losing an election despite winning a popular vote.)  Wikipedia lists this neat little tidbit:

There is a Tilden Street in an area of Wichita Falls, Texas, where the streets are named for the U.S. presidents Van Buren through Garfield (excluding Pierce, Andrew Johnson and Lincoln). Tilden runs parallel between Grant Street and Hayes Street, as if he had won the presidency in 1876.

His article also mentions Bourbon Democrats, which along with the Redeemers, Scalawags, Carpetbaggers and Mugwumps made the Gilded Age the most linguistically colorful political era in American history.

via Samuel J. Tilden – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Homesteady

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The Homestead Act is one of those Civil War consequences whose real intention has been lost in its legacy. We remember it for opening up the West to settlement, and for its effects on the Native Americans on the plains, whose displacement it began. What we tend to forget is that it was issued when the fire of secession was still burning, and the question of free versus slave statehood was still theoretically open to debate. It helps to remember Shelby Foote’s words on Lincoln, “Almost everything he did was calculated for effect.” I need to be more cynical in my historical readings!

The Homestead Act effectively opened up thousands of acres of land in the Midwest where slavery had been discussed but not approved, as well as the upper South where blacks would be more welcome as well as further West, which was open to all.

By the time it was over, some four million settlers had filed claims to be allowed to receive the land, which covered 270 million acres in 30 states. This accounted for roughly ten percent of the landmass of the country. 

Since the varying peoples of the United States, even then, could not unanimously agree on much of anything, the land deals were equally as divisive. The land proposition had initially been talked of in the 1850s, but Southern congressmen had blocked the proposed legislation each time it was brought up. It was their fear that this expansion might produce more free states, which would not be in favor of the expansion of slavery.

via The Civil War: Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862, bane or blessing? | Washington Times Communities.

Gov. William Buckingham

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I’m familiar with a few Civil War state governors, but William A. Buckingham’s name was new to me.  Funny how venerable men can fade from history as the years pass.

The story goes that President Abraham Lincoln was at work in the White House executive office one day when he was interrupted by a visitor from Connecticut.

Rising from his chair, the lanky, care-worn president clamped his hand down on the man’s shoulder and exclaimed: “From Connecticut? Do you know what a good governor you have got?”

Lincoln knew well what Connecticut today has largely forgotten: Its Civil War governor, William Alfred Buckingham, was one of the greatest leaders in the state’s long history.

One of only four Union governors to serve throughout the entire Civil War, Buckingham proved an able, energetic administrator, a staunch and often eloquent opponent of slavery and a vital supporter of the Lincoln administration. His decisiveness and political courage in the days immediately following Fort Sumter assured that Connecticut was among the first states to answer Lincoln’s call for volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion.

When the crisis refused to die quickly, Buckingham’s administration worked tirelessly over the next four years to raise and supply troops…

For years afterward, Buckingham Day observances were held. But today, Buckingham’s legacy has been largely forgotten.

via Gov. William Buckingham: Gov. William Buckingham, Faded From History, Played National Role During Civil War – Hartford Courant.

Penny for His Thoughts

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(Apologies for the title – I couldn’t resist a little Copperhead joke.)

I’ll be covering Clement Vallandigham in more detail in the long-delayed podcast, but for now it’s worth taking a look at this very controversial personality.

Survey histories, such as the Ken Burns documentary, have little time for complex character portraits, and in most cases will have an editorial bent. The Burns documentary cast Lincoln – as many of us do – in a golden glow, but we forget that he and/or his administration had some questionable policies during the war. Vallandigham was cast as an irritating thorn in the side of Our Hero, and the hissing epithet “Copperhead” made the group sound more nefarious than it might appear upon closer inspection.

As a modern, anti-war and pro-civil rights Canadian, I often wonder how I would have reacted to the events of the day. When Quebec was rattling its séparatiste sabre, I was toeing Greeley’s “let the erring sister depart in peace” line. When the US invaded Afghanistan, I was against the destruction but supportive of the higher aims of creating a secular state with civil rights for all – an ennobled cause like that of Emancipation. As the Middle Eastern wars dragged on, though, I questioned the value of prolonging it. Would I have supported a peace candidate in 1864? And given how much the PATRIOT Act appalled me, would I have had the same feelings of revulsion in reading Lincoln and Hamlin’s names in the paper as I did seeing Bush and Cheney’s? (In truth, I don’t imagine Hamlin got as much say or press as Cheney did.)

Vallandigham, as we learned from the Disunion piece on the Chaplaincy legislation, was a politician who cared about religious freedom, and was an anti-war, free-press protestor who was first jailed, then exiled for thought crimes. I have a feeling I would have voted for him.