Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

(05-14-2024 05:44 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  David,

Just because Lincoln turned down the territorial governorship that didn't lead to his becoming president, just as if he had accepted it that wouldn't have precluded it.


Best
Rob

[Lincoln] was offered the more lucrative and prestigious governorship of Oregon (paying $3000 per year), which tempted him. John Todd Stuart and Lincoln were in Bloomington attending Court when a special messenger arrived informing him of the Oregon governorship offer. When Lincoln asked Stuart if he should accept, his former law partner said he “thought it was a good thing: that he could go out there and in all likelihood come back from there as a Senator when the State was admitted.” Lincoln “finally made up his mind that he would accept the place if Mary would consent to go. But Mary would not consent to go out there.” Joshua Speed later told Stuart “that Lincoln wrote to him that if he [Speed] would go along, he would give him any appointment out there which he might be able to control. Lincoln evidently thought that if Speed and Speed’s wife were to go along, it would be an inducement for Mary to change her mind and consent to go. But Speed thought he could not go, and so the matter didn’t come to anything. "During her husband’s presidency Mary Lincoln “did not fail to remind him that her advice, when he was wavering, had restrained him from ‘throwing himself away’ on a distant territorial governorship.” She “had had enough of frontier life.”

And so Lincoln returned to Springfield. Shortly after his defeat by Butterfield, while pacing the floor of his room, he suddenly stopped and “looking up to the ceiling in his peculiar manner” told a friend: “I am worth about three Thousand Dollars. I have a little property paid for and owe no debts. It is perhaps well that I did not get this appointment. I will go home and resume my practice at which I can make a living – and perhaps some day the People may have use for me.”

Some thought Lincoln’s defeat a blessing in disguise. Richard W. Thompson believed that Lincoln’s failure to win the commissionership of the General Land Office was “most fortunate both for him and the country.” If he had been successful, Thompson speculated, he would have stayed on in Washington, “separated from the people of Illinois,” sinking “down into the grooves of a routine office, so that he would never have reached the eminence he afterwards achieved as a lawyer, or have become President of the United States."

Rob, this is what normal people call "reasoned argument." What would the Lincoln-Douglas debates have been like, at a critical point in this nation's history, if Lincoln had not been one of the participants?

David

[Rob Wick]

Normal people? Too much buckshot in that to go any further.

Quote:What would the Lincoln-Douglas debates have been like, at a critical point in this nation's history, if Lincoln had not been one of the participants?

Well, speaking as a normal person, they wouldn't have been called the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(05-14-2024 07:39 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Normal people? Too much buckshot in that to go any further.

Quote:What would the Lincoln-Douglas debates have been like, at a critical point in this nation's history, if Lincoln had not been one of the participants?

Well, speaking as a normal person, they wouldn't have been called the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Best
Rob

As you have said: "Genius is rarely recognized in one's own lifetime."

[Rob Wick]

David,

Going back to one of your earlier posts, you wrote:

Quote:If he had done so, he would have lost his requisite close political base of support in Illinois. This asset was critical to Lincoln being elected President of the United States. The mistake to his political career would have been irreparable.

This comment is exactly what I'm talking about regarding your historical myopia. In the 1860 election, Illinois had only 11 electoral votes. Five other states had more electoral votes than Illinois (Indiana and Massachusetts, 13; Ohio, 23; Pennsylvania, 27; New York, 35). A candidate needed 152 votes of the 303 available to win the White House. Had Lincoln lost Illinois, he still would have received 169 electoral votes (from the five I mentioned and the various smaller states he also won) and easily won the presidency. So not only was Illinois NOT critical to Lincoln's victory, but accepting the territorial governorship would not have caused "irreparable" harm.

It should also be noted that your belief that Lincoln would have lost his "close political base of support" had he moved west is merely a matter of opinion. Stephen A. Douglas wasn't even a factor in Illinois, and he was by far better known and politically closer to voters there statewide.

By the way, thanks for acknowledging my genius.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(05-15-2024 12:08 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  David,

Going back to one of your earlier posts, you wrote:

Quote:If he had done so, he would have lost his requisite close political base of support in Illinois. This asset was critical to Lincoln being elected President of the United States. The mistake to his political career would have been irreparable.

This comment is exactly what I'm talking about regarding your historical myopia. In the 1860 election, Illinois had only 11 electoral votes. Five other states had more electoral votes than Illinois (Indiana and Massachusetts, 13; Ohio, 23; Pennsylvania, 27; New York, 35). A candidate needed 152 votes of the 303 available to win the White House. Had Lincoln lost Illinois, he still would have received 169 electoral votes (from the five I mentioned and the various smaller states he also won) and easily won the presidency. So not only was Illinois NOT critical to Lincoln's victory, but accepting the territorial governorship would not have caused "irreparable" harm.

It should also be noted that your belief that Lincoln would have lost his "close political base of support" had he moved west is merely a matter of opinion. Stephen A. Douglas wasn't even a factor in Illinois, and he was by far better known and politically closer to voters there statewide.

By the way, thanks for acknowledging my genius.

Best
Rob

I acknowledged that you had acknowledged your genius.

As I recall, the national news coverage of the Lincoln-Douglas debates brought Abraham Lincoln national notoriety. In 1860 the Lincoln-Douglas debates were printed as a book and used as an important campaign document in the presidential contest that year, which once again pitted Republican Lincoln against Democrat Douglas.

His astute friend Joseph Gillespie believed that the debates with Douglas “first inspired him with the idea that he was above the average of mankind.” (Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. One, page 558.)

[Rob Wick]

What in the world does this have to do with my post about the 1860 electoral college results?

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

Rob Wick Quote:

A candidate needed 152 votes of the 303 available to win the White House. Had Lincoln lost Illinois, he still would have received 169 electoral votes (from the five I mentioned and the various smaller states he also won) and easily won the presidency. So not only was Illinois NOT critical to Lincoln's victory, but accepting the territorial governorship would not have caused "irreparable" harm.

Best
Rob

So, in his last sentence, Rob effectively mixes fact with his opinion that diverged significantly from Lincoln's final decision on the matter at hand.

Yes, it is a fact that 152 was the number of electoral votes needed to win the presidential election, "but accepting the territorial governorship would not have caused 'irreparable' harm" is only Rob's opinion.

Professor Burlingame wrote:

Joshua Speed later told Stuart “that Lincoln wrote to him that if he [Speed] would go along, he would give him any appointment out there which he might be able to control. Lincoln evidently thought that if Speed and Speed’s wife were to go along, it would be an inducement for Mary to change her mind and consent to go. But Speed thought he could not go, and so the matter didn’t come to anything. "During her husband’s presidency Mary Lincoln “did not fail to remind him that her advice, when he was wavering, had restrained him from ‘throwing himself away’ on a distant territorial governorship.”

And so Lincoln returned to Springfield. Shortly after his defeat by Butterfield, while pacing the floor of his room, he suddenly stopped and “looking up to the ceiling in his peculiar manner” told a friend: “I am worth about three Thousand Dollars. I have a little property paid for and owe no debts. It is perhaps well that I did not get this appointment. I will go home and resume my practice at which I can make a living – and perhaps some day the People may have use for me.”

[Rob Wick]

David,

I imagine many people here are growing weary of our back and forth. I know I am.

Quote:So, in his last sentence, Rob effectively mixes fact with his opinion that diverged significantly from Lincoln's final decision on the matter at hand.

I don't know how to break this to you, but historians (you know, the people who seriously study history) often offer opinions where objective fact does not exist. Even your hero, Michael Burlingame, offers opinion.

There is no objective evidence that accepting the territorial governorship would have forever precluded Lincoln from running for president. Given that the years 1860 to 1865 would have been different without Lincoln in charge, we have no idea what the state of the nation would have been. Likely, William Seward would have won the Republican nomination and possibly the White House (but, of course, that is merely my opinion). What would have happened after that would be speculation and, therefore, not worth discussing.

Just because Lincoln believed it to be the right decision doesn't place it in the guise of "irreparable harm." Nothing is irreparable unless it actually happens and sometimes not even then.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(05-16-2024 10:27 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Just because Lincoln believed it to be the right decision doesn't place it in the guise of "irreparable harm." Nothing is irreparable unless it actually happens and sometimes not even then.

Best
Rob

I guess different people have different opinions:

Some thought Lincoln’s defeat a blessing in disguise. Richard W. Thompson believed that Lincoln’s failure to win the commissionership of the General Land Office was “most fortunate both for him and the country.” If he had been successful, Thompson speculated, he would have stayed on in Washington, “separated from the people of Illinois,” sinking “down into the grooves of a routine office, so that he would never have reached the eminence he afterwards achieved as a lawyer, or have become President of the United States."

[AussieMick]

I have to write this.... it keeps nagging me .... if Lincoln had become Governor of Oregon, chances are Willie wouldn't have died of typhoid ....
And Lincoln wouldn't have gone to Ford's theatre.

[David Lockmiller]

(05-16-2024 03:13 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  I have to write this.... it keeps nagging me .... if Lincoln had become Governor of Oregon, chances are Willie wouldn't have died of typhoid ....
And Lincoln wouldn't have gone to Ford's theatre.

And, . . . there would be no Lincoln Discussion Symposium and perhaps no democracies in the world.

[RJNorton]

(05-16-2024 03:33 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  perhaps no democracies in the world.

Why? Can you explain what you mean here? Thank you.

[David Lockmiller]

(05-16-2024 04:23 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-16-2024 03:33 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  perhaps no democracies in the world.

Why? Can you explain what you mean here? Thank you.

I believe that at the time Europe had divided up the world with colonization.

The prime example, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Government took over the administration to establish the British Raj. The British Raj was the period of British Parliament rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, for around 89 years of British occupation. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria.

European colonization was a massive structural event, whereby the imperial powers of Europe including Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, and later (in the 1880's) Germany and Italy, violently invaded the lands of North, South, and Central America, Australia, New Zealand, China, ...

Can you be a democracy and subjugate other peoples of the world at the same time?

What's the difference between this and the Roman Empire, with its subjugation of conquered peoples?

[Rob Wick]

Quote:Can you be a democracy and subjugate other peoples of the world at the same time?

Of course you can. I believe a strong case can be made that American imperialism actually began with the idea of Manifest Destiny and the spreading of America across the West. America also did it after the Spanish-American War, when the United States exercised significant control over Cuba, annexed Hawaii, and claimed Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as territories. To be sure, there was a large anti-imperialistic faction in the United States at the time, but it never really achieved the same standing as the forces of imperialism, namely TR, Albert J. Beveridge and Henry Cabot Lodge.

I'm assuming your question is more philosophical. It is too complicated to answer in a brief comment. Here is the transcript of a book discussion that appeared in 2019 on Fresh Air.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/18/694700303...-bird-poop

Here is a link that discusses the evolution of American power through a digital exhibition.

https://dp.la/exhibitions/american-empir...ing-empire

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(05-17-2024 10:34 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:Can you be a democracy and subjugate other peoples of the world at the same time?

I believe a strong case can be made that American imperialism actually began with the idea of Manifest Destiny and the spreading of America across the West.

Best
Rob

Finally, a statement made by you with which I absolutely agree.

I made the following post on June 25, 2021 on the thread titled "Re: Had the President lived . . ."

I make the following post regarding the anticipated actions in behalf of American Indians by President Abraham Lincoln to be taken following the close of the Civil War. The source of the citations is Professor Michael Burlingame in his Lincoln Prize winning (2010) book, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. TWO, (2008), at pages 483-484.

The president told a friend that [Episcopal Bishop Henry B.] Whipple “came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots.”. . . He pledged that “if we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.” [82 – Henry B. Whipple, Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: Being Reminiscences and Recollections of the Right Reverend Henry Benjamin Whipple, (1899), pages 136-137.] Similarly, in the winter of 1863-1864, he told Joseph La Barge, a steam-boat captain who protested against corrupt government Indian agents, “wait until I get this Rebellion off my hands, and I will take up this question and see that justice is done the Indian.” [83 – Hiram M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River: Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge, (1903), page 342.] To Father John Beason, a noted Indian clergyman, he said “that as soon as the war was settled his attention should be given to the Indians and it should not cease until justice to their and my satisfaction was secured. [84 – John Beason to Henry W. Bellows, (1862), Bellow Papers, MHi.] In his 1862 annual message to Congress, Lincoln urged that it change the system. “With all my heart I thank you for your recommendation to have our whole Indian system reformed,” Whipple wrote the president. “It is a stupendous piece of wickedness and as we fear God ought to be changed.” Though Lincoln did not live to see this recommendation implemented, he gave a significant boost to the movement that eventually overthrew the corrupt system. [85 – Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians, page 145.]

The Manifest Destiny policy of this nation began long before President Lincoln was born. President Abraham Lincoln could only address present conditions and address current issues that came to his immediate attention such as the Dakota 38.

That's everything in a nutshell.