'What Democrats Can Learn From the Forgotten Impeachment of James Buchanan'

[Amy L.]

'- The process doesn’t have to take down a president to do damage to his party'

The history lesson is less interesting, but the comparison of current history-making with an interpretation of history is good...

(Love the quote from Buchanan, “Nothing but perjury can sully my name.”)

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2...ory-087506

"It’s the same question that Republicans confronted in 1860 [-] when they launched a sweeping investigation into James Buchanan, a Democratic president who they believed had undermined democratic norms and institutions, betrayed his Constitutional oath to uphold the sanctity of free elections and kept an administration that was rife with corruption at all levels."

[Gene C]

Fido says it reminds him of a puppy running in circles chasing it's tail.
Puts on quite a show, but looks rather foolish.

[L Verge]

We posted this on the Surratt House Museum's Facebook today:

On December 20, 1860, delegates of South Carolina’s special convention on the issue of secession officially adopted a unanimous resolution to withdraw from the union of states that made up the United States of America. Word of South Carolina’s decision reached the U.S. House of Representatives on December 24 in the form of a letter from several of the delegates. Following the reading of this letter the majority of southerners in the House walked out of session and returned to their own states, many to attend their own secession conventions. Meanwhile, in the dead of night on December 26, Major Robert Anderson and his small command stealthily abandoned their post at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island and proceeded to Fort Sumter on small boats, setting the stage for the opening shots of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.

No matter what "side" you are currently on, our 1860 ancestors had a great deal more to worry about than the political power plays of today...

[Wild Bill]

The notion of corruption is endemic to before, during and after the Civil War Era. The Demos were in charge in the 1850s, the Republicans in the 1860s (including Lincoln who over looked a lot of it, especially on the trans-continentalrailroad), and in the 1870s under Grant. Neither Grant not Lincoln made any money off of it. The history authority is Mark W. Summers in his three volumes, The Era of Good Stealings (1993); The Plundering Generation (1987); and Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity (1984). As the carpetbag governor of Louisiana, Henry Clay Warmoth, once said in front of a congressional committee, "I don't pretend to be honest. . . Corruption is the fashion down there." Then he added, "of course I stole--but I could have taken more." He testified to 135 pages of Louisiana Reconstruction frauds. The committee finally concluded, it did not know if he was an "angel from Heaven or a devil from Hell." Warmoth admitted to neither possibility. He just smiled.

[L Verge]

Love that comment, Wild Bill. I can't quote it exactly, but didn't U.S. Grant once make a comment referencing his devotion to cigars that ran something like this: "I don't mind the cheap cigars. They cover up the smell of cheap politicians."

I think we need to send some drones over the Swamps of Washington, D.C. to mist the air with smoke from cheap cigars. That smoke wouldn't be as dangerous as the game-playing that is going on now...

[David Lockmiller]

(12-20-2019 07:39 AM)Amy L. Wrote:  '- The process doesn’t have to take down a president to do damage to his party'

The history lesson is less interesting, but the comparison of current history-making with an interpretation of history is good...

(Love the quote from Buchanan, “Nothing but perjury can sully my name.”)

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2...ory-087506

"It’s the same question that Republicans confronted in 1860 [-] when they launched a sweeping investigation into James Buchanan, a Democratic president who they believed had undermined democratic norms and institutions, betrayed his Constitutional oath to uphold the sanctity of free elections and kept an administration that was rife with corruption at all levels."

Ostensibly focused on Buchanan’s extralegal machinations to secure slavery in the new state of Kansas, the House investigation uncovered a wide range of criminality that included straw jobs, extortion of federal officeholders and the bribing of multiple congressmen.

What [Republicans] Can Learn From the Forgotten Impeachment of James Buchanan may be of some importance.

[Craig Hipkins]

One wonders what would have happened had President Buchanan reacted decisively with military force when South Carolina seceded from the Union.

[L Verge]

I am currently reading Empire of Mud: A Secret History of Washington, D.C. and am just getting into the slavery system in the city beginning in 1800. Before the inception of the city, slaves were there as chattel of Maryland and Virginia owners. That soon changed.

We tend to want to put the blame on individual Presidents or Congresses or voters as to what allowed this system to go on for so long, but the chapter in this book has one paragraph that gives much perspective on "what a tangled web we weaved [wove]..." many years ago when we let those African slavemongers from various European cultures bring enslaved people to our shores:

"Once established, slavery inevitably required a fully integrated network to support it. Owners had title to fellow humans; traders trafficked in such 'commodities;' companies created infrastructure to support the economy; local governments regulated the trade with laws and taxes; and the national government tied laws and taxes to foreign trade, principally with Britain. All these aspects of the slave trade united in one place - the American capital itself."

For those who read Wild Bill's article in the current Surratt newsletter, this ties back to it in many ways. So many facets to the slavery issue, what caused it, could it have been settled without war, etc. Our forefathers couldn't solve the issue, and I'm not certain that Civil War and Reconstruction helped that much...