On the Waterfront

 

Something for the weekend.  Symphonic suite from On the Waterfront (1954).

August 29, 1864: Democrat Party Platform

 

The convention of the Democrats in 1864 to nominate a standard bearer for President opened on August 29, 1864 in Chicago.  The convention was badly split between War Democrats and Peace Democrats.  The Peace Democrats were strong enough to have a platform approved which dealt with one issue, the War, and which was highly critical of a continuation of the War and called for immediate peace negotiations:

 

Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a people, and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the States, both Northern and Southern.

Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view of an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.

Resolved, That the direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.

Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired, and they hereby declare that they consider that the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution; the subversion of the civil by military law in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test-oaths; and the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense is calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administration to its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of war and in a suffering condition, deserves the severest reprobation on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.

Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and sailors of our navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag of our country, and, in the events of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the republic have so nobly earned.

Sealing Wax

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.

The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll

 

A fascinating look at the use of sealing wax to seal letters.  Among the facts we learn is that sealing wax was not actually wax.  The Past is truly a different country, and what a fascinating realm it is!

The Beginning of American Slavery?

 

In The New York Times’ The 1619 Project it is proclaimed that slavery started in America, presumably the part of North America that became the United States, in 1619.  Like most things about this series that is a lie.  Most Indian tribes practiced slavery, usually involving war captives or men who had sold themselves into slavery.  The Spanish practiced slavery and began to colonize Florida in the Sixteenth Century.  The Spanish began the colonization of what is now New Mexico in 1598 and brought the institution of slavery with them.  The English colonists were Johnny-come-latelies when it came to the institution of slavery in what would become the US.

The date of 1619 is also misleading for another reason.  Until the 1660s most Africans imported to Virginia had the status of being indentured servants, not very different from white indentured servants, a common institution of the time.  An indentured servant was freed after his period of indenture.  The perpetual slavery of blacks was a later development in Virginia and took time to be codified in law, with the first Virginia slave code being enacted in 1705.

Slavery as an institution is as old as Man and it persists in the contemporary world under other names.  It deserves serious scholarly study and not the shoddy ideological point scoring of The 1619 Project.

Allan Nevins Online

 

Recently I have been reading about Grover Cleveland.  I recalled that I had Allan Nevin’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Cleveland in my library and I retrieved it.  Nevins was a masterful researcher and an artful stylist and he performs the art of historical necromancy well as he brings to life eras from the past to gracefully dance before the eyes of his readers.  Alas Nevins, who died in 1971, is largely forgotten today.

 

His magnum opus, The Ordeal of the Union, depicted the history of the US from 1847-1865 in eight fat volumes, the final four volumes dealing with the Civil War in microscopic detail.  I was recently delighted to discover that most of his work is online.  Go here to take a look at it, and hopefully you will learn what a master of Clio’s craft he was.

We’ve Only Just Begun

 

Something for the weekend.  We’ve Only Just Begun (1970) sung by the brother and sister duo of Richard and Karen Carpenter.  It was the second million dollar single by the Carpenters and was considered by them to be their signature song.  It was played endlessly on the radio in the Seventies but I never tired of hearing it.  It has been said that personal suffering can lead to great art.  I don’t buy that, but Karen Carpenter could be put forward as an example by a proponent of the theory, although I suspect that Miss Carpenter would have had a much happier, and much longer, life if she had never sung a note in public.  Art sometimes demands far too much from an artist and that was certainly true in her case.

 

Cotton Mather and Inoculation

Cotton Mather  in many ways represents some of the worst traits of the Puritans who ruled Massachusetts in the Seventeenth Century: fanatical, severe, dogmatic, usually blind to any side of an issue other than his own.   Completely unrepentant of his role in the Salem Witch Trials, Mather generally cuts a poor figure in early American history.  However, not always.  Narrow in most of his views, Mather possessed a good mind and a questioning spirit when dealing with issues outside of his religious beliefs.

In 1706 Onesimus, a slave, explained to Mather how he had been inoculated against small pox as a boy in Africa.  When a smallpox epidemic hit Boston in 1721, Mather encouraged Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to try the procedure.  Boylston performed inoculations of cowpox on his own son and two slaves.  They all recovered in a week.  James Franklin, Ben Franklin’s older brother, in the New England Courant, published article after article denouncing inoculation and so inflamed public opinion that the selectmen of Boston banned the procedure.  (James Franklin was a chronic bomb thrower who loved nothing better than to whip up turmoil and thus to sell more issues of his paper.  He and Ben did not get along.)  Boylston’s life was in danger, and a hand grenade was thrown into Mather’s house for his championing inoculation and sheltering a clergyman who had undergone inoculation.  Stubborn as always, Mather remained an ardent supporter of inoculation.  Boylston fled to England, published his findings, and was elected to the Royal Society in 1726.  Mather died in 1728, as unrepentant about championing inoculation as he was in regard to the Salem Witch Trials.

1957

 

An interesting look at 1957, the year of my birth.  We are now as far in time from 1957 as 1957 was from the year 1895.

Trump’s Folly

(I originally posted this at The American Catholic and I thought the history mavens of Almost Chosen People might find it interesting.)

News that I missed courtesy of The Babylon Bee:

 

NUUK, GREENLAND—There have been rumors that President Trump was considering buying Greenland, and Trump has now confirmed those rumors, revealing that he sees it as a great moneymaking opportunity if the U.S. purchases the world’s largest island, fixes it up, and then sells it at a much higher price.

“Look at it; it’s prime real estate,” Trump told the press. “It’s on the very desirable Upper West Side — you know, of the Prime Meridian — and if we just modernize it a bit, that’s going to be some valuable property. And I’m going to split the profits from selling it with the American people, 60/40.”

Trump says his first plan will be to get rid of the giant glacier in the middle of Greenland. “That used to be popular, but it’s out of style now,” he explained. He plans to replace it all with “ultra-fancy” hardwood floors. In addition, he plans to maybe put up some shiplap, add an island, and upgrade the bathrooms. He’s looking at opening it up into more of an “open concept” feel with some farmhouse sinks for a more rustic feel. The president has reportedly hired Chip and Joanna Gaines to help with the upgrades. They previously worked with him to put some shiplap up on the southern border wall.

Democrats, however, are opposed, as they are usually against all of Trump’s awesome schemes, like his tax cuts and his Robot Force — a fighting force made entirely of robots. “I don’t know if I trust the market to not collapse soon,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said. “Plus, with the sheer volume of hardwood floors he’s talking, we’d basically have to deforest all of Brazil.”

 

Go here to read the rest.  My late father did Arctic Survival Training in Greenland in the early fifties.  I have long thought we should acquire it due to its likely mineral wealth and its strategic location.  Denmark says no sale for now.  Of course it took from 1867-1917 for us to purchase the Danish West Indies and turn them into the US Virgin Islands.  The process was started by Secretary of State Seward at the same time he acquired Alaska, Seward’s Folly, for us.  Trump has started a process and we shall see how it plays out over time.

Parker Brothers Games on American Wars

 

 

While I was at GenCon this year I purchased for a buck a Parker Brothers game published in 1961 called 1863.  The game was a very primitive strategic wargame, no doubt published in an attempt to cash in on the Civil War Centennial.  I hadn’t realized this but Parker Brothers had a long history of publishing games on American Wars, as Susan Asbury noted in a post in 2017:

Recently, as I was conducting dissertation research at The Strong museum on the role of board games in the Victorian parlor, I stumbled across a group of Parker Brothers’ games on the Spanish-American War and the Filipino Insurrection. Reflecting ideas of growth, progress, and material gain, I realized that these games provide perfect illustrations of the ways in which game designers and manufacturers infused their products with the geopolitical conflicts of the day as they fostered new family rituals in the home.  

The Spanish-American War lasted only a few short months in 1898. But newspapers had been reporting on the Cuban insurrection for years beforehand, and Parker Brothers contributed to a  ​ popular understanding of the conflict through games focused on famous battles, military figures, and patriotism. Games such as The War in Cuba (1897) allowed participants to understand the Cuban insurgency against Spain. Once America took up arms against Spain, the company released The Battle of Manila (1898) and The Siege of Havana (1898), both of which recreated famous battle scenes, gave players wooden pieces to use as artillery shells, and allowed players to captain their own American vessels. In each, the winner was the player who inflicted the most damage on the Spanish fleet. Two additional games, The Blockade Runner (1899) and Dewey’s Victory: Never Beaten (1900), again emphasized America’s naval capabilities, with the former game allowing one player to be the blockade runner attempting to reach the port of either Havana or Matanzas with supplies and the latter giving players the opportunity to re-enact the Battle of Manila.

Parker Brothers book-ended the Spanish-American War with The Philippine War: Crushing the Rebellion in Luzon (1900) a game in which each player represented an American general in charge of a regiment. The winner was the first person to capture five towns on the board (a map that included most of the Island of Luzon). Capturing a town meant that players moved game pieces to a city “to crush the rebellion in Luzon by occupying and holding the principal towns throughout the island.” The game represented the company’s shift from supporting a war against Spain to the perspective of supporting American troops against an insurgent population on an island the U.S. had seized as a result of the Spanish-American conflict.

Go here to read the rest.​