VP Beast Butler?

[Thomas Thorne]

(12-17-2014 01:48 PM)Don1946 Wrote:  Great! Let's go from Jesse James to Nathan Bedford Forrest, another Confederate hero, slave trader, founder of the KKK, commanding officer at the Fort Pillow massacre.

Why should this forum be given over to these subjects? Am I alone in finding these neo-Confederate discussions tiresome and pointless?

Let's keep this forum to talk about Lincoln, his life, his presidency, and what he stood for, not give it over to defending historical figures who despised him and everything he stood for. There are many other sites on the web to vent those points of view. Here, as they said in 1861, We are Lincoln Men (and women!)

Onward

Although I consider myself a Lincoln man, I must respectfully reject Don 46's idea mentioned in other posts that this forum be restricted to Lincoln admirers.

Such a forum would be awfully dull and would not be worth anyone's time.

I have greatly profited from being exposed to points of view I disagree with. Probably no one on this forum has more historical knowledge than Wild Bill. His theories of Extraterritoriality are so fascinating ,they inspired me to educate myself on the the Framers' beliefs on Congressional authority over slavery in the territories which was the principle cause of the Civil War.

My reading convinced me that Wild Bill,despite being very erudite, is on this topic wildly wrong. Congress did have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. Despite this, I still retain my deep admiration for Wild Bill and am eager to read his latest book.

One sees an alarming tendency in modern life to believe that if you educate yourself about a political or historical topic, anyone doing similar research must come to the same conclusion as you. Opposition to your opinion is therefore not disagreement with you but is really a lie designed to promote a nefarious cause, as the Truth must be obvious to anyone of intelligence.

If the truth were so obvious, we would not need wonderful forums like the one Roger has given us.
Tom

[L Verge]

Thank you, Tom, for the show of support for free exchange of ideas (within reason). Now, you know that, since I do not know the correct answer about extraterritoriality, in 200 words or less, please share your findings with us. I never remember hearing that word until Bill educmacated me.

[HerbS]

Thank you Tom and Roger for giving us the"voice of reason".

[Thomas Thorne]

The constitutional obligation of states to return criminals,slaves or indentured servants to the places from which they escaped should not be confused with the idea that the US government lacked the ability to prohibit or regulate slavery in the territories. The Federal government could do so under its authority to govern its territories.

Congress prohibited slavery in the old Northwest in its ordinances of 1784 and 1787. The latter was adopted by the 1st Congress in 1789. The law was approved by George Washington who when the capitol was moved to Philadelphia the following year was careful not to have the number of his personal slaves in Philadelphia exceed the maximum number permitted by Pennsylvania law lest they be freed.

In the acts of organizing Mississippi and Louisiana territories in 1798 and 1804 Congress permitted slavery but prohibited the importation of foreign slaves to those areas. These provisions likely violated the migratory clause of the constitution which forbade passage of laws prohibiting importation of foreign slaves until 1808 unless you believe this clause only applied to Congressional action regulating slave commerce into existing states.

The Louisiana law was signed by another slave holding president, Thomas Jefferson. The law also prohibited carrying slaves into Louisiana who entered the United States after 1798 and forbade slaveholders from bringing slaves into the territory unless it was for their personal use.

These laws excited little controversy in their day. They were accepted by a southern political class of the founding era which did not accept Chief Justice Taney's and 1850 Southern Hotspurs ideas of congressional inability to govern slavery in the territories.
Tom
PS -Sorry Laurie ,my rough word count is 247. Please don't send the word count censor shark after me blaring the theme from "Jaws."

[L Verge]

Thanks for your quick response, Tom. I'll admit to being totally confused still. As for the word count, if I had held others, including myself to limits on this forum, Roger would have kicked me off real fast.

[HerbS]

The Confederate states were looked at as,concoured provinces.[Constitutional-Law]Albert Castel-WMU-1964.

[Wild Bill]

Thank you for your comments, Tom. I believe much as you do on the value of debate.

I am willing to admit the problem of the Land Ordnance of 1787 and the Constitution and other examples given above. I assume that you have read Paul Finkleman's articles on this. It seems so from your argument.

However, I will stand with Roger B. Taney in seeing the Missouri Compromise 1820 as unconstitutional and the Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 as constitutional. The Founders were not completely infallible, just mostly so. Extraterritoriality is admittedly an interpolation of Art IV Sect 2. of the Constitution of 1787, not an exact science by any means. You are correct in saying that Slavery in the Territories was the main cause of the Civil War, for this exact reason. I have a paper on this topic that is a bit much in length for the Courier on this being why the North caused the Civil War.

My new book, The Assassinators: The Trial and Hanging of JWB (available through the Surratt Society bookstore) does treat on this in abbreviated form. I plan to be at the annual meeting, unless unforeseen family matters intervene.

[HerbS]

How about the Compromise of 1850? Do you think that contributed to the final outcomb of the Confederacy?

[Wild Bill]

The Compromise of 1850 was critical in the outcome of the Civil War. Had the war began in 1850, the South would have had a better chance to win. Ten years later the North had become the beneficiary of German and Irish immigration, and the development of the industrial might that became its ace in the hole in the war of attrition. There was also no Republican party or any equivalent. Just my feeling.

[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

[RJNorton]

(12-22-2014 12:32 AM)Thomas Thorne Wrote:  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 .

In Buffalo a large crowd assembled around Fillmore's house when news of the assassination spread. The crowd was protesting Fillmore's decision not to drape his home in mourning for the death of Lincoln. Apparently the people didn't realize the former president was really still in Washington. It would seem a Fillmore double told the mob his wife was ill, and he hadn't the time to drape the house. Many people in the angry crowd bought the double's explanation and departed the scene, but there was a report that some people in the mob smeared black paint on the ex-president's house.

[HerbS]

Thank you,Wild Bill and Tom.Roger,Fillmore is still considered a"joke" in New York Satate history!

[Gene C]

Here are some interesting items about Millard Fillmore

http://www.classroomhelp.com/lessons/Pre...lmore.html

[RJNorton]

(12-22-2014 07:02 AM)HerbS Wrote:  Roger,Fillmore is still considered a"joke" in New York Satate history!

Herb, I know next to nothing about Fillmore. I have read one less book about him than Tom. I checked to see how he reacted to Lincoln's inaugural train and also his funeral train. On the inaugural journey Fillmore welcomed the president-elect to Buffalo with a hearty handshake. It was quite the scene. Crowds of onlookers surged forward to get a closer view of the two men as they walked from the train. The disorder was so great that one gentleman had his ribs fractured and another (Major David Hunter) came away from the confusion with a dislocated arm/shoulder. Later Lincoln spoke to the people of Buffalo from the hotel's balcony, and the next morning he attended services at the Unitarian Church as Fillmore's guest.

Fillmore was again gracious when the funeral train came through. He and other members of the Buffalo Reception Committee boarded the train at Batavia and rode it to Buffalo.

[L Verge]

(12-22-2014 07:56 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Here are some interesting items about Millard Fillmore

http://www.classroomhelp.com/lessons/Pre...lmore.html

If Fillmore survived as a child laborer in the textile mills, he deserves a lot of credit just for that. He seems to have been a decent person from the things stated here. That's more than what a lot of our politicians can say.