VP Beast Butler?

[Thomas Thorne]

Bill is quite right that the delay in the Civil War between 1850 and 1860 was ruinous to the South for the reasons he stated. The growth of the railroad net in the 1850's was quite striking. Union armies in 1850 might have experienced logistical difficulties that might have rendered their field operations more akin to those of the British and Americans during the Revolution over a much larger area.

Unionists can rejoice that the bluff simple soldier president Zachary Taylor died when he did in 1850. "Old Rough and Ready" was spoiling for a fight with Texas over the Lone Star state' s outsized boundary appetites. War between the United States and Texas might have provoked secession by sympathetic southern states.

David Potter called the Compromise of 1850 the Armistice of 1850 because each of its key provisions were rejected by the majority of the particular section which found it repugnant. A true compromise would have entailed a majority of each section swallowing hard and digesting unpalatable parts. What saved the compromise were swing votes who did not reflect the views of the congressional majority of their section.

Maybe we should declare Millard Fillmore's birth day, Janary 7, a holiday as he signed the Compromise of 1850.

The only book about Fillmore I ever read was George Pendle's uproarious parody "The Remarkable Millard Fillmore." We learn things about our history that were hitherto too idiotic to reveal.

I bet none of you Lincoln assassination buffs knew it was Millard Fillmore in drag and not Mary Todd who accompanied AL to Ford's theater on 4/14/65 . His reaction to the assassination was somewhat singular but very funny.
Tom