Jim's Mailings

Choices that can be freely made

Choices that can be freely made:-
Much has come of the polarization of the American Electorate, and many have come to the aid to explain the quandary. I suppose if one were well read, he or she would have answers in hand. Some profess to a bipartisan inclination, hoping it would work. I do still have hope.
However I think causes exist, which would give credence to a new look at this dilemma faced by both sides of the aisle. I remarked that in Britain, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are both in the minority, and would that it be so over here, with the political strife and end-playing in Congress.
It is easy to look to the Civil War, and the differences that divided us then, and the Army which so chafed the South, which didn't recover even after all the troops were withdrawn about 1879, after a very contentious and disputed presidential election the previous year.
One must start much earlier, and one could point out that the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, which greatly expanded the commercial value of slaves, and the value of their labor, enabled large plantations to obtain a superior position economically, making it a necessity for the South to persist in their "peculiar institution." Slaves were no benefit to the Colonies, in fact, Quakers renounced slavery and freed their slaves as early as 1676, when George Fox made a proposal that they should be freed after a number of years, while preparing them for freedom. By 1785 all slaves of Quakers had been freed. At that time, the Northwest Ordinance of 1785 came up for considerable discussion, for lands that had been obtained by the Virginia Militia and Col. George Rogers Clark. Our ancestor, Robert Walker participated in one of the battles, which were followed by the 1795 Fallen Timbers victory of Gen. Anthony Wayne, and Gen. Harrison's sweep after Tippecanoe in 1813.
A second Ordinance (of 1787) further spelled out the government ambitions in the Northwest Territory, North of the Ohio and as far as the Mississippi. In this ordinance, slavery would not be permitted. A political victory by Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton was celebrated as Jefferson's anti-slavery clauses were rejected by the authors of the Declaration of Independence. They felt that the arguments over slaves were largely over, and in the Constitutional deliberations, prohibition was not really considered but, to forestall the evil, a prohibition of the slave trade was inserted ending 20 years after adoption, or 1809. Meanwhile, the numbers were dealt with by reducing the population of slave holding states by counting only 3/5ths of "other persons."
In time, the fact that the issue had not been settled, created problems, particularly with Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase. Henry Clay, working with John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster are credited with a series of compromises, starting with the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which defined the early political atmosphere in Washington. This first effort was flawed however, as slavery was allowed to extend into Missouri, where it had already gained a foothold, the decision rendered the Federal Government helpless in territories, where the sentiment of the inhabitants were in favor, in this case, of extending slavery. And so slavery was permitted to advance, even in the 1845 annexation of the Republic of Texas, equal to most of the original colonies in area, combined. Iowa and Wisconsin and other states were admitted as Free States
Soon after his last compromise in 1850, Henry Clay died, and the question of Kansas and Nebraska's admissions came up. Citizens of Lawrence, MA chose to settle in Kansas, and create an abolitionist block to westward slavery expansion, calling it the Kansas Free State. Because slave-holder interests chose to blow up the central hotel in Lawrence, President Buchanan was compelled to restore order, and sent Sen. Robert J. Walker to serve as Territorial Governor. Soon, John Brown, his sons and abolitionist adherents were rounded up and deported to Iowa and other places to reduce tension among the many Missouri settlers, who were hoping to expand their slave holding control.
It is judged that many of these citizens were misguided, as the only people to profit from a slave permissive environment were wealthy plantation owners. Small farms could not profit from owning slaves, could not afford overseers and the like. Wealthy people induced poor people to "stand up for their rights," and in some cases, fight. The true facts were that the cash value of slaves on the auction block had risen many-fold, and that large plantations were worth much less than the slaves held against their will. One slave owner moved to a Free State, and his "property" proclaimed his own freedom, and this case went to the Supreme Court as the Dred Scott affair, which resulted in the widely criticized "Dred Scott" decision. He remained a slave.
The principle cause of the Civil War was the election, in 1860, of Abraham Lincoln to be the 16th President of the United States. Yes, a number of other factors, such as John Brown's concerted efforts to "free the slaves," and his execution, other polarizing events, contributed, but the upcoming inaugural of Lincoln precipitated the firing on Ft. Sumpter. It is unfortunate that John C. Calhoun's home state chose to become the first to rebel, as he had stood stalwart for the Union, and in fact owned a perfectly beautiful 16 acre estate as his Georgetown Washington residence, called Dumbarton Oaks, which later served as the site for the famous conference after WWII which got the United Nations off the ground.
And the war went on, as expected. Afterwards, Reconstruction was a messy affair, with little effort expended to ameliorate persistent resentment among the Southerners, before and after the Occupation. For a number of years, rebels were considered felons, and were disqualified from running for public office, or even voting. A bunch of Constitutional Amendments were required to bring some stability in the rules for governing, but they lay mostly inadequate. Eventually a three party system emerged, with the party of Lincoln, the Republicans, dominating, and the two branches of the Democratic Party, which had existed before the "terrible war." The Southerners were called Conservative Democrats, and the Northerners, in lieu of other labels, Liberals. People like Woodrow Wilson, who was born in Georgia, and had a career in New Jersey, ending in being Governor, were considered moderates, and had popular support.
At the same time, differences between Theodore Roosevelt and Wm. Howard Taft over measures Roosevelt had prevailed over a largely Republican Legislature, like the Sherman Antitrust Act, caused a split, with Roosevelt running as a Progressive against Taft's decision to seek a second term. These events resulted in Wilson winning the election of 1912, and with a Southern Democrat as Vice President, the South could see some progress toward "The South Shall Rise Again." After more Republican Years, and corruption in the Executive Branch, again another Roosevelt, Franklin, with a southerner as VP, ran as a Democrat and became President in 1933. Wilson called his program, the New Freedom, emphasizing the many new republics that had been created from the Spanish Colonial Empire, some as a result of the Spanish-American War. European Powers had been remarkably free of war for 40 some years, but trouble lurked in the economic relationships between the mostly Imperial governments. War broke out in 1914 with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo, one of the Balkan capitals. Wilson sent Col. Edward House, his chief assistant to Europe to see if an all out war could be avoided, but that was not the case. France nursed wounds over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and set out to establish the Dual Alliance with Czarist Russia. Russia in turn was spoiling for a fight with Austria over the seeming breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Henry Cabot Lodge, a leading Republican senator, proposed a league of Nations which had compulsory arbitration as a tool to resolve conflicts, but his party called for Wilson to join the in the European conflict, with urgent cries after the sinking of the American Ocean-liner Lusitania, with the loss of many lives. Wilson was forced to send the American Expeditionary Forces over to join the battles, after the Russians, defeated, withdrew, and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy were nearing an ability of rescuing the Ottomans from certain dismemberment. The Americans lost over 50,000 soldiers, many more as casualties in the conflict, known today as World War I. As the Allied armies "The Triple Entente" neared the German borders, on Jan 5, 1918, foreseeing a resolution to the hostilities, Wilson gave a speech to Congress in which he outlined his "Fourteen Points" six of which had to do with establishing new national boundaries, for peoples who, like Poland, were newly liberated from Imperial domination. Wilson felt it necessary to sell his program to the World, and traveled about the country, mentioning the Four Principles, Four Ends and the Five Particulars. However, the centerpiece of the proposals was Point Fourteen, the creation of the League of Nations.
Much of the credit for the Fourteen Points must go to Col. House, but later that year, the 1918 election, gave Wilson a Republican controlled Senate, and Sen. Lodge became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Lodge, with an advanced degree in Law, had taught at Harvard, and had considerable background in History and was Wilson's equal in this regard.
By cultivating the Count of Baden, the German Foreign Minister and the Austrian representative, Wilson and House obtained their aquiesance, and with great difficulty overcame most of the plans the British and French had when the Versailles Peace Conference was convened in 1919 after the Armistice of Nov 11, the previous year. Their representatives, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau, were seriously challenging the American President, because they felt their economic position had deteriorated during the war, and Germany's War machine was still largely intact. Wilson's altruism became a liability, and his grand hopes to conclude this War to End all Wars, became seriously compromised in the agreements. Largely the boundary questions were settled essentially on the six Wilson points that had been heavily promoted.
Returning in ill health to Washington, and the Republican Senate, Wilson asked them to ratify the Versailles Treaty as well as the new League of Nations. The former was successful, but Lodge objected to the compulsory arbitration feature of the League that he had previously proposed. He felt that America was in no position to dilute American Sovereignty, which the covenants agreed upon by Wilson, George and Clemenceau apparently put in writing. After making some revisions, a proposal was sent to Wilson, but he refused, and for the next 25 years, the absence of Americans in the League would be cited as one of the major precipitating factors leading to a Second World WAR.

posted by James E. Opfell @ 8:12 PM