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WAR UPON MEXICO US Army Mortality Statistics

War on Mexico 110 per 1,000 Civil War 65 per 1,000

“I do not think there was ever waged a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign.” — Ulysses S. Grant, PERSONAL MEMOIRS, 1885

“Fiddle-dee-dee, war, war, war, I get so bored I could scream!” —Scarlet O’Hara

Over the years, people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, “Is it an anti-war book?” “Yes,” I said. “I guess.” “You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?” “No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?” “I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’” What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE OR THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE A DUTY-DANCE WITH DEATH. NY: Dell, 1971, page 3. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1632

Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO.

1810

October 19, day: Mexican revolutionary leader Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla proclaimed the end of slavery in the nation.

1813

Mexico declared its independence.

1815

José María Morelos, a priest who had for several years been sponsoring an insurrection against the Spanish dominion in Mexico, was executed.

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1819

June 23, Wednesday: Under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, Washington Irving put out the 1st American 1 installment of his THE SKETCH BOOK, including “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” In this text this racist author (the same racist author who announced that a Negro was “an abomination”) regurgitated our “Philip of Pokanoket” legend dating to “King Phillip’s War”, titillating us yet again with our very precious memory of a dead Indian chief. READ THE FULL TEXT

At Concord, John D. Folsom of Concord got married with Betsy W. Dakin of Concord.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 23rd of 6th M 1819 / Our Meeting this Afternoon was a very triumphant one. Truth rose into dominion in a very remarkable manner. The meeting was as large as it ever is on first day at Yearly Meeting time, & more quiet than usual at that time. The Govoner of this state with both Houses of the Legislature attended & sat in a body. — Elizabeth first appeared in humble prayer, chiefly on behalf of those placed in Authority over us. Then in a very pertinent address to the members of the Legislature on the subject of intemperance & War. Then the current of testimony run chiefly to the female part of the Audience & lastly to an hardened, rebelious state which she felt to be present. & the latter part of her testimony in particular came with such living power & gospel Authority that it seemed to me, that had she preached before the Apostle Paul he would at least have qualified his charge, forbidding Women to “preach or to teach” &c. — The Audience was all attentive & many deeply impressed with the Power of her ministry, as was evident in many who took her by the hand at the close of the Meeting with tears in their eyes. — The Govoner observed that he never heard Such preaching before. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

1. There is in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER a literary reference to Irving’s headless horseman figure:

THE SCARLET LETTER: Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving’s Headless Horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man.

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The Supreme Council of the Province of Texas declared the independence of Texas from Mexico: As all Governments were originally established by the will of the people for the benefit of society, whenever the existing Government, in any community, fails to effect the purposes for which it was instituted, it is competent to the community at large to rescind its express or tacit allegiance to the ruling power, and to organize a new constitution and form of government, more consistent with its interests, and more consonant with its feelings. In exercising this unquestionable right, an independent people have only to consult their own discretion. But, though amenable to no tribunal for its municipal acts, a free state, in claiming admission to the immunity of nations, owes of itself an exposition of the motives which have prompted it to the assertion of its rights, as well as of the principles which it assumes to vindicate. The citizens of Texas have long indulged the hope, that in the adjustment of the boundaries of the Spanish possessions in America, and of the territories of the United States, that they should be included within the limits of the latter. The claims of the United States, long and strenuously urged, encouraged the hope. An expectation so flattering prevented any effectual effort to throw off the yoke of Spanish authority, though it could not restrain some ineffectual rebellions against an odious tyranny. The recent treaty between Spain and the United States of America has dissipated an illusion too long fondly cherished, and has roused the citizens of Texas from [the] torpor to which a fancied security had lulled them. They have seen themselves, by a convention to which they were no party, literally abandoned to the dominion of the crown of Spain and left a prey not only to impositions already intolerable, but to all those exactions which Spanish rapacity is fertile in devising. The citizens of Texas would have proved themselves unworthy of the age in which they live, unworthy of their ancestry, of the kindred of the republics of the American continent, could they have hesitated in this emergency what course to pursue. Spurning the fetters of colonial vassalage, disdaining to submit to the most atrocious despotism that ever disgraced the annals of Europe, they have resolved under the blessing of God to be free. By this magnanimous resolution, the maintenance of which their lives and fortunes are pledged, they secure to themselves an elective and representative government, equal laws and the faithful administration of justice, the rights of conscience, and religious liberty, the freedom of the press, the advantage of liberal education, and unrestricted commercial intercourse with all the world. Animated by a just confidence in the goodness of their cause, and stimulated by the high object to be obtained by the contest, they have prepared themselves unshrinkingly to meet and firmly to sustain any conflict in which this declaration may involve them. Done at Nacogdoches, the 23rd day of June, in the year of our Lord 1819.

James Long, President of the Supreme Council

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Bis[en]te [sic] Tarin, Secretary

September 16, Thursday: Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s Grito de Dolores ignited an insurrection led by Ignacio Allende, that would produce both their deaths promptly and, after eleven years, the independence of Mexico.

Frederic Tudor wrote to Samuel Parkman, who had made his nut in real estate, that he also was beginning to consider himself a rich man. Owning four icehouses worth $40,000 (not counting the value of their extensive real estate) can do that to you! This year he had already sold $30,000 worth of ice and expected to sell $6,000 or $8,000 more.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 16th of 9th M 1819 / Our meeting was rather small J Dennis & father Rodman appeared in short testimonies, & to me it was a season of but little life, tho’ I thought in the forepart of it there was a little life & perhaps closed with a little. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

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1821

As Mexico became independent from Spain, Mexican troops replaced Spanish troops at the Alamo.

REMEMBERING THE ALAMO Mexico began to use its California province as a dumping-ground for criminals. Upon condition of their pledging that all children born in Mexico would be free –even the children of their slaves– Mexico allowed a group of United States citizens led by Stephen A. Austin to bring slaves into the “Texas” region of Mexico. The white American families emigrating with Austin were awarded large tracts of land on which to settle, and the Spanish government of Texas promised to refrain from offering freedom to the slaves of these families, so long as they were slaves of the initial generation.2

2. Later, these white USers would of course ignore the pledge they had made, and treat the new children of their slaves as a new crop of their slaves — but by that time they would be heavily armed and would have created an effective segregated militia, so the government of Mexico would be unable to bring them to honor the pledge they had made in order to obtain these grants of land. 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Between 1814 and this year, Thomson had been creating this map:

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

January 17, Wednesday: A lead-mine operator from Missouri who had been ruined during the collapse of 1819, Moses Austin, was granted a large tract of territory in the Mejican province of Tejas by the government of New Spain, with permission to bring in a party of some 300 settlers provided that they were all Catholics, and all descended exclusively from Europeans. (Moses would die, but his son Stephen F. Austin would be allowed by the government of Mexico to inherit his grant and lead this group of acceptable Catholic white folks into Texas. They would of course bring with them their black slaves.)

Governor Clinton of New York accused Martin Van Buren of bartering states rights for patronage in Washington DC.

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1822

William Bullock exhibited a herd of reindeer with their harnesses and sleds accompanied by a family of Laplanders, their furniture and even their huts. He then went to Mexico, where he would become involved in silver mine speculation. He would bring back to London many artifacts and specimens and create a new exhibition in his Egyptian Hall.

May 18, Saturday: Augustin de Iturbide was named Emperor of Mexico.

July 21, Sunday: Augustin de Iturbide was crowned Emperor of Mexico.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 21 of 7 M / In the forenoon Mary Morton Hannah Dennis Father Rodman & Jonathon Dennis were all concerend in testimony. — it was a good meeting & Truth was raised [—] to dominion in many Minds. — Silent in the Afternoon. — After Meeting went with

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MEXICO MEJICO GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE my Wife & Sister Ruth to D Buffums & took tea. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 12, Thursday: Agustin de Iturbide declared himself Emperor of Mexico and was so recognized by the USA.

Jan Vaclav Vorisek underwent examination as one of nine candidates for the position of 2d court organist in Vienna (he was successful and would take up his duties in the following month).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 12th of 12th M 1822 / Our Meeting was pretty well attended & it appeard to me was a good favourd time tho’ some roving was my lot yet a comfortable portion of devotion was experieinced. — Father Rodman bore a short but acceptable testimony. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

1823

An indigenous bush producing leaves that contained caffeine was found growing in Upper Assam. This, eventually, would break the Chinese monopoly on tea. The 1st agricultural laborers in tea in northern India would be Chinese accustomed to work on Chinese tea plantations, who would be enticed by Charles Bruce out of China to transplant young native bushes into nursery beds.

Warren Delano sailed from Boston for Canton on behalf of Russel & Co. He would return after traffic in opium had made him a wealthy man. He well knew that opium was “black dirt,” but defended his conduct by pointing out that alcoholic beverages were also being imported into America — and nobody was barfing at that. In 1851 he would settle in Newburgh, New York, where he would give the hand of his daughter in marriage to James Roosevelt (father of Franklin Delano Roosevelt).

The fuchsia had been first noticed by Fuchs in 1501. The scarlet fuchsia had been introduced from Chile in 1788 and the slender fuchsia in 1822, and in this year the tree fuchsia was obtained from Mexico.

January 3, Friday: The government of Mexico granted land in Texas to Stephen F. Austin.

March 19, Wednesday: Mexican Emperor Augustin de Iturbide was forced to abdicate.

The New England Farmer, which began publication in 1822, regularly published the prices of country produce. First quality butter was 15 or 16 cents per pound this week, while eggs were 14 to 16 cents per dozen and a barrel of cider (which might be quite alcoholic at this time of year) was 1 dollar 50 cents.

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March 31, Monday: Manuel Felix Fernandez Guadelupe Victoria, at the head of a triumvirate, began to rule Mexico.

Lady Blessington arrived at Genoa, with her husband and Count D’Orsey.

July 1, Tuesday: Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica formed the Confederation of United Provinces of Central America, making them independent of Mexico. Chiapas decided to remain part of Mexico.

1824

William Bullock’s SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AND TRAVELS IN MEXICO; CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEW SPAIN, ITS NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, STATE OF SOCIETY, MANUFACTURES, TRADE, AGRICULTURE, AND ANTIQUITIES, &C. (London: John Murray). Also, his LE MEXIQUE EN 1823, OU RELATION D’UN VOYAGE DANS LA NOUVELLE-ESPAGNE, CONTENANT DES NOTIONS EXACTES ET PEU CONNUES SUR LA SITUATION PHYSIQUE, MORALE ET POLITIQUE DE CE PAYS (Paris: Alexis-Eymery).

Once he was back in London, Bullock staged one exhibit on Ancient Mexico and another exhibit on Modern Mexico at his Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly: A DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIQUE EXHIBITION CALLED ANCIENT MEXICO: COLLECTED ON THE SPOT IN 1823 BY THE ASSISTANCE OF THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT, AND NOW OPEN FOR PUBLIC INSPECTION AT THE EGYPTIAN HALL, PICCADILLY (Printed for the proprietors). Also, his CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION, CALLED MODERN MEXICO: CONTAINING A PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE CITY, WITH SPECIMENS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN ... AT THE EGYPTIAN HALL, PICCADILLY (Printed for the proprietor).

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Joel Roberts Poinsett’s NOTES ON MEXICO.

The courtyard of the Great Temple at Tenochtitlan near Mexico City was being excavated. ARCHAEOLOGY IN 1824

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October 2, Saturday: The 1st constitution of the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) was approved, to go into effect at midnight (midnight seems somehow appropriate, for this 1824 constitution was one that normalized human enslavement.)

“HEY HEY HEY, AND HO HO HO! / HUMAN ENSLAVEMENT, IT’S THE WAY TO GO!”

TEXAS Later on, Anglo “Texian” immigrants would be fulminating against mongrel Mejico to the south and seeking to join themselves unto the United States of America to the north. They would put “1824” on their banner in reference to this constitution. –Without doubt, what these white men meant by such a shorthand reference was something like

“SLAVERY FIRST — SLAVERY LAST — SLAVERY ALWAYS!” WAR ON MEXICO

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In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 10th M 2nd (7th day) 1824 / This Afternoon Samuel Peebles of Gravelly Run who has been here about 8 Weeks wanting a few Days let [left] us, taking the Packet for NYork on his way home. — he has been a pleasant & very acceptable inmate in most of the

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families of Friends here during his stay, his solid deportment has comforted my mind, & under the afflicting disease which attends him, I have been almost surprised to behold in him a pattern of patience & resignation, & it affords me no small satisfaction that he has found his health in a considerable degree improved by our Air We have hitherto known but very little of Friends of the Yearly Meeting of Virginia, but thro’ Saml a medium of acquaintance seems to be open which I think may be useful. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 3, Sunday: Establishment of the Rensselaer School of Theoretical and Practical Science, at Troy, New York. [Elsewhere I have seen recorded that the school was founded on November 5th.] Rather than educating young gentlemen wannabees in the classics, this institution was to take a trade school approach and educate them to become productive servants of society. (The first of these students would graduate in 1835 and in 1861 the school would change its name to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.)

The 1st constitution of the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos), having been approved on the previous day, went into effect.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 3rd of 10th M 1824 / Our Meeting large & an uncommon portion of Preaching, in rotation as follows Anne Dennis Mary Morton Hannah Dennis, Father Rodman & Abigail Sherman. — In the Afternoon Mary Morton & Father Rodman were concerned to bear short testimonies. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

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1825

In London, a Zoological Garden was created in Regent’s Park.

William Bullock’s A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION, ENTITLED ANCIENT AND MODERN MEXICO: CONTAINING A PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE PRESENT CITY, SPECIMENS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN ... AT THE EGYPTIAN HALL, PICCADILLY. (London: Printed for the proprietors). He sold his museum complex on Piccadilly in London to the bookseller George Lackington. Also, his SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AND TRAVELS IN MEXICO; CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEW SPAIN, ITS NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, STATE OF SOCIETY, MANUFACTURES, TRADE, AGRICULTURE, AND ANTIQUITIES, &C. (London: John Murray) in two volumes, the second volume of which would be checked out from the Harvard Library by Henry Thoreau in 1834. BULLOCK’S MEXICO, I BULLOCK’S MEXICO, II

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Mexico, while still subject to Spain in 1821, had granted land within the Mexican state of Texas to Moses Austin. White settlers had brought with them black slaves, to the extent that in this year one out of every five residents of Texas was a slave.

Richard Henry Horne went with Captain Thurlow Smith, R.N. as a midshipman on an expedition to Mexico, was at the siege of Vera Cruz and the taking of San Juan Ulloa, was taken prisoner, came close to being executed, escaped, and enlisted as a midshipman in the Mexican navy to take part in their ongoing struggle with Spanish forces based in Cuba. Leaving that conflict after being defrauded of prize-money, he cruised off the Floridas,3 landed at New-York, went up the Erie Canal, visited some Native American villages, visited Niagara Falls breaking two of his ribs, lost all his money at billiards, worked his way along the St. Lawrence River to Montréal and Québec, was shipwrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, visited the cod-fisheries off Newfoundland, and finally was able to sail toward England on a lumber schooner.

March 7, Monday: Representative Joel Roberts Poinsett became US Minister to Mexico.

The University of Virginia, its buildings and curriculum designed by Thomas Jefferson, opened to students (the buildings would be completed in the following year).

May: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami made his way back from Mexico to New Orleans, and discovered that in his absence his book had more or less been dismissed as a fantasy. Also, the Roman Catholic church had issued a condemnation of him and his writings. He would soon travel on to Philadelphia.

(Also in this year, according to Colonel Robert Campbell, when some Indians paid a visit to St. Louis, the first thing they did was purchase some red umbrellas and they “walked in Indian file, bare headed with the umbrellas spread over them, making a ludicrous appearance.” It is worth the speculation, that these native’s sense of style had been affected by their encounter with Giacomo Costantino Beltrami two years earlier — because Beltrami had in fact brought with him into the wilderness a large umbrella, and it was red.)

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1826

August 31, Thursday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami notified the REVUE ENCYCLOPÉDIQUE that he had discovered in Mexico, and obtained for the outside world, an ancient Mexican manuscript printed upon agave 4 leaves, now known as “the Aztec codex” and as EVANGELARIUM EPISTOLARIUM AZTECUM.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 31 of 8 M / Rode with my H to Portsmouth to attend our Monthly Meeting, which was a time of refreshment our first meeting was livily in silence & the testimony all sweet & encouraging. — Mary Hicks D Buffum, Ruth Freeborn Clarke Rodman Hannah Dennis & A Sherman bore short lively testimonys, corresponding in exercise, that we might seek peace & persue it. — In the last the buisness was conducted orderly & in harmony. — Joshua Shaw & Hannah Pearce published their intentions of Marriage. — We dined & spent the remainder of the Afternoon at Uncle Stantons. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

4. It would turn out that the particular codice retrieved by Beltrami wasn’t ancient at all, having been produced by native students in 1529 under the sponsorship of a teacher at the Imperial College of Santa Cruz de Tlaltelolco in Mexico, Bernardino de Sahagun. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 17 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1827

William Bullock went again to Mexico, and then passed on to the United States. Purchasing land on the bank of the Ohio River from Thomas D. Carneal, he proposed to build a utopian community named Hygeia (Health).

The settlement, laid out by John Buonarotti Papworth, would not succeed, although some such as Frances Trollope would enroll.

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Bullock would sell out to Colonel Israel Ludlow in 1846.

Publication of his SKETCH OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE WESTERN STATES OF NORTH AMERICA: FROM NEW ORLEANS, BY THE MISSISSIPPI, OHIO, CITY OF CINCINNATI AND FALLS OF NIAGARA, TO NEW YORK, IN 1827 (London: Miller).

1828

A Mexican official of Austin, Texas informed the government of Mexico that United States citizens living outside their settlement were “lazy people of vicious character.” Their “unbecoming methods” included abusing their black slaves while drunk. Could the Mexican government forbid additional such immigrants from the United States? Where others send opposing armies, the Americans send their colonists.

1829

Spring: Kit Carson, who had gained considerable experience along the Santa Fe Trail and in Mexico, signed on with a 40-man trapping party that Ewing Young intended to lead into unexplored territory along the Gila River. In the course of some hostilities with a band of Apache, Kit would for the first time need to kill someone.

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April: William Lloyd Garrison accepted the post of associate editor on Friend Benjamin Lundy’s paper, the

Genius of Universal Emancipation. Friend Benjamin’s belief in forming colonies in thinly populated regions abroad for freed slaves would, however, lead the two editors in differing directions. Friend Benjamin would be spending much time visiting Haiti and Canada, and between 1830 and 1835 would travel to Texas three times in the hope of obtaining land there for such a colony. He would consider Texas to be ideal because of the positive response from the Mexican government, which had over the years developed some markedly negative ideas about human enslavement. (The Texian Revolution and the US government’s attack on the nation of Mexico eventually would intervene, and the new Republic of Texas –since it considered itself to be all about freedom and since what freedom is all about is the ability to molest and mess with other people– would of course immediately legalize human enslavement.) WAR ON MEXICO

April 1, Wednesday: The American ship Sachem left Bangkok carrying the Chinese conjoined twins Chang and Eng, to Boston and their career in show-biz.

Edward Everett set out to discover what sort of western country it was, that had spawned a personage such as Andrew Jackson.

Vicente Ramon Guerrero Saldana replaced Guadealupe Victoria as President of Mexico.

Back home in Providence, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th M 1st 1829 / Today Daniel Puckett from Indiana & his companion Charles Lippincot from Jersey left Providence in the Steam boat for NYork intending to attend the Yearly Meeting approaching at Philads & from thence Daniel expects to return home - Daniel has made several visits at the School, & his testimony, has had a remarkable reach on the mind of some of the children. — I accompanied him to Swanzey to an appointed meeting

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there, & was well satisfied with his communication. — It is now a longer time than has occured in many years since I have written regularly in my journal, & as I do not feel satisfied with the omission, conclude to attend more to it in future than I have for the Month past. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 26, Sunday: Felix Mendelssohn and his friend Karl Klingemann reach Edinburgh. They will spend three days there attending a bagpipe competition, visiting Holyrood Castle and “the Mecca of the Romantics,” Walter Scott’s home in Abbotsford.

4,000 Spanish troops landed near Veracruz to reestablish Spain’s control over Mexico (they would surrendered on September 11th).

August 25, Tuesday: The United States minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, was instructed to begin negotiations for the purchase of the department of Texas, in the Mejican states of Tejas and Coahuila. The initial offer would be 5,000,000 pesos.

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September 15, Tuesday: At this point human enslavement, which had been normalized under the Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824, the Spanish invasion force having been repelled, was abolished in Mexico (except that two and a half months later President Vicente Guererro would temporarily exempt the Tejas territory from the decree when Governor J.M. Viesca pointed out that land fees, an important source of local government income, were being interrupted). The following year a law would be passed forbidding further colonization by US citizens and forbidding further importing of slaves. The revolting Texians (not a pun) would have the number “1824” on their banner because they wanted the Constitution of 1824 reinstated, because it had tolerated their practices. “I have had a flag made — the colors and their arrangement the same as the old one — with the words and figures, ‘Constitution of 1824’, displayed on the white in the center.” In other words, “I’m a Constitutionalist and your black ass belongs to me!” The policies of Santa Anna, as progressive as they might be in other areas, here threatened the human property of these migrants.

CONSTITUTION

OF 1824

Later on, Anglo “Texian” immigrants would be fulminating against mongrel Mejico to the south and seeking to join themselves unto the United States of America to the north. They would put “1824” on their banner in reference to this constitution. –Without doubt, what these white men meant by such a shorthand reference was

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TEXAS something like

“SLAVERY FIRST — SLAVERY LAST — SLAVERY ALWAYS!” WAR ON MEXICO

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December: Returning from Mexico, where his office had been to cause the term poinsettismo to enter the Spanish language as a shorthand for “officious and intrusive,” US Minister Joel Roberts Poinsett brought north some cuttings of the Euphorbia pulcherrima, known in Mexico as La Flor de Noche Buena, the plant which would be publicized in the US as the “poinsettia,” the red bracts of which (they’re not red flowers, the flowers are the little knobs) have become a synonym in all the nations of Christendom and in all the department stores of all the cities on the planet for the holy night of Xmas Eve. Back home in our nation’s puzzle palace, Poinsett became a player in President Andrew Jackson’s deal to force Mexico to “sell” Texas to the United States. The asking price (the US asking price) for Texas was to be US$5,000,000.5

There was no living American who was more truly a citizen of the world, in the old Jeffersonian way, than Joel R. Poinsett, the Charleston friend of Petigru and William J. Grayson, the poet, who were also opposed to the sectionalism of the adored Calhoun. [In a footnote: Both Calhoun and Poinsett were pupils of Timothy Dwight in Connecticut, Poinsett at the Greenfield Hill Academy, Calhoun at Yale.] This first American minister to Mexico, whence he had brought back the Christmas flower and plant that bore his name, retained the universal mind, with the courtier’s manner and the versatile charm, of the days before cotton filled the horizon of the South. In years of travel in his youth he had visited Madam de Staël, studied at Edinburgh, lived for a while in Russia, and in 1811 President Madison had sent him to Chile and Argentina to cultivate friendly relations with these embryo republics. As one of the Americans, like Madison and Clay, for whom their country was ordained to establish an order superior to that of the old world, he encouraged the liberals in these insurgent colonies of Spain on this first of the inter-American “good will” missions. Then Poinsett, as secretary of war, furthered the exploration of the West, enabling the Charlestonian Frémont to show what he was made of, while he appointed Charles Wilkes to command the South Sea expedition and tried to secure George Catlin’s pictures for the nation. A naturalist and an antiquarian, always a patron of learning and art, he had helped Prescott in his work on the Mexican conquest, preserved examples of the Indian crafts, rescued Peruvian manuscripts and made a collection of ancient Mexican sculpture. Still later, on the Pedee river, he had experimented with grapes and rice, assembling countless specimens of trees and shrubs from all over the world in the park that surrounded his plantation-house.

5. The Encyclopædia Britannica, always a good source of whitewash, alleges that “A fervent liberal, he frequently meddled in the affairs of Latin American nations and was one of the earliest U.S. citizens to be disliked for his misdirected good intentions.” Q: Why is the worst thing one can say, about a white man, that his good intentions were misdirected? A: It’s pointless to try to say anything more challenging than this, for the white people simply wouldn’t believe one, they’d assume one was being malicious. It can be known directly and indubitably, from the contents of personal consciousness, that white people are well-intentioned. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 25 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 2, Wednesday: To prevent unrest, President Vicente Guerero exempted the Tejas Territory of Mexico from the antislavery decree of September 15th.

“A Monody,6 made on the late Mr. Samuel Patch, by an admirer of the Bathos,” by Robert Sands, appeared in the New-York Commercial Advertiser: ... he dived for the sublime, And found it.

SAM PATCH

In Providence, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 2nd of 12th M 1829 / Silent Meeting. — This morng I awoke from a Dream just before the Clock struck three - I at Portsmouth & on a piece of Ground near Lawtons

6. For another “monody,” see July 22, 1882. 26 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Gulley, where I have often been both Sleeping & waking - I dreamed was with me a child it seemed as if he inclined to turn in to a certain place to get some water from a certain spring - I remarked to him he had better not go as it was dangerous but he inclined to, & steped round, on my going in another position I saw him opposite, & saw the Rock was shelving & crumbly or rotten, of which I appraised him & requested him to step round & come on my side - but as he moved his foot hold gave way & down he went into the water & tho’ it was not higher than his middle -he was evidently hurt & crying - in agitation I awoke This dream convey’d instruction & warning which I hope to remember & proffit by - & I dont know but I may convey it to [blank] believing it was for his warning as well as mine.- RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 17, Thursday: Jose Maria Bacanegra replaced Vicente Ramon Guerrero Saldana as interim President of Mexico.

At a meeting of the new Concord Academy Debating Society that had recently been organized by Preceptor Phineas Allen, in the absence of the designated secretary, David Henry Thoreau was appointed to be the society’s “secretary pro-tem.” Evidently the 12-year-old failed to comprehend what was expected of him in such a post, for when the secretary returned it was necessary to reconstruct what had taken place on the basis of hearsay.

December 23, Wednesday: A triumvirate consisting of Pedro Velez, Lucas Igancio de Paula Alaman y Escalada, and Luis de Quintanar Soto Bocanegra y Ruiz took over the presidency of Mexico.

A tempest began in Washington DC because the Russian minister, Baron Krudener, seeking to seat Peggy Eaton at a banquet in a manner appropriate to her husband’s rank in the President Andrew Jackson’s cabinet, placed her next to the wife of the Dutch envoy, Madam Huygens. In the course of the meal Madam Huygens would make an unfortunate comment, for which President Jackson would need to demand an explanation.

1830

Uneasy about the numbers of new USers settling within Mexico, Mexican officials attempted to curb the number of newcomers, including enslaved Americans. It was decreed that foreigners could not cross the border into the Tejas Territory from the United States without obtaining a passport issued by Mexican agents. The Mexican government would, however, be generally ineffectual in enforcing this law and it would be largely ignored.

In the decade of the 1830s the boll weevil Anthonomus grandis, which would devastate American cottonfields in the early 20th Century and cause bank failures, was first collected and made known to entomologists, in fields near Vera Cruz, Mexico. At this time it was feeding on wild cotton and other members of the plant family Malvacaea and was not observed in domestic crops. (In 1892 it would cross the Rio Grande.)

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January 6, Wednesday: Fanny Wright and William S. Phiquepal boarded the brig they had chartered, the John Quincy Adams anchored off New Orleans, to convey their Nashoba slaves to Haiti and there set them free.

General Manuel de Mier y Teran reported on a plan to defend Mexico against encroachment by the USA.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 6th of 1st M / Our dear friend Mary B Allen was at Meeting with us & bore a living & faithful testimony much to our comfort & Strength Lydia Breed also bore a short but good and appropriate testimony. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

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April 6, Tuesday: Joseph White, an 82-year-old man in Salem, Massachusetts, was murdered.

On this day the Church Christ (which is to say, the Mormon church; the church would change its name two more times) was organized in Fayette, near Lake Cayuga with a handful of people, as God’s one true church on earth. Hyrum Smith, schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery, David and Peter Whitmer, and Samuel H. Smith comprised the founding committee. Back in Palmyra, New York, on this fateful day, THE BOOK OF MORMON was being published; Joseph Smith, Jr. had been able to translate it, he said, by peeking through a hole in a stone, from mysterious inscriptions he could make out on the surface of a set of golden tablets, that he had

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found buried, near Palmyra.7 –Did I mention this prime beachfront property in New Mexico?

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Speaking of New Mexico, on this day the government of Mejico was enacting fateful legislation designed to prevent further intrusion of US settlers and their slaves into the northern regions of its nation, and to interfere with their freedom to traffic in these slaves. This act of insolent disregard for American freedom would, eventually, lead to their being invaded by an all-white US army –and the capture of their capital city –and the war loss of all of the northern regions of their nation.

WAR ON MEXICO

Grand Duke Ludwig I of Hesse died and was succeeded by his son, Ludwig II.

7. An interesting relationship has been discovered between the BOOK OF MORMON and the Translators’ Preface to the KING JAMES BIBLE, a preface which had, of course, been created as of 1611. This relationship challenges the claim of Joseph Smith, Jr. –if that claim needs to be challenged rather than being in-your-face preposterous– that the writings in question had been produced in ancient times by Nephites rather than being created by him during 1830. The 1611 Translators’ Preface has: ...clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this Land, that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk... the appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists...

There are in the BOOK OF MORMON phrases which it would seem could only have been taken from this 1611 Preface: ...the cloud of darkness, which had overshadowed them, did not disperse... (Helaman 5:31) ...the cloud of darkness having been dispelled... (Alma 19:6) This expression “clouds of darkness” or “cloud of darkness” is not anywhere in the text. The word “overshadowed” appears in the NEW TESTAMENT but this cannot be the source as these ancient Nephites imagined by Smith would not have had access to it. The word “dispelled” is not anywhere in the King James Version and Smith did not employ it again in the BOOK OF MORMON. Also, the Translators’ Preface of 1611 has it that the appearance of King James, like “the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled” dark mists. The verse in Alma 19:6 was also written concerning a king, although his name is given as Lamoni rather than as James, and speaks of “the light which did light up his mind... yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled....”

(A personal note: Although I am very much an advocate of religiosity as a force in our lives, I am in no manner a worshiper of origins and happen to consider the origins of all the “big religions” to be frankly ludicrous. I do not intend here, therefore, to portray the origin of Mormonism as in any manner uniquely ludicrous — I merely mean to portray it as at least as amusing as most.) “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 31 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1831

From this year until 1837, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski and his older brother Mikhail (who had been born during 1820) would be attending boarding schools together in Moscow. After the loss of their mother to tuberculosis in 1837, they would be sent together to a preparatory school in St. Petersburg.

Josiah Gregg had training in both law and medicine and had practiced both as a lawyer and as a physician. At this point, however, due to worsening tuberculosis, the young lawyer/physician joined a caravan that was heading out on a new trail, from Van Buren in the Arkansas Territory to Santa Fe in northern Mexico. His hope was that his consumptive condition would be ameliorated in some warm, dry climate. He would settle in New Mexico Territory, finding local work as a bookkeeper, and in 1844 would publish about his experiences between 1831 and 1840 in this region of the world.

A Mexican official, Senator Francisco de Tagle, suggested that they might be able to set up an effective barrier against further white immigration from the USA (white “wetbacks” sneaking south? –that’s a fancy thought!), by allowing American fugitive slaves to settle along their northern frontiers.8

1832

US slaveholders had been looking to Mexico for land, but so also had US abolitionists. If owners were assured that manumitted slaves would leave the United States of America, Benjamin Lundy believed, they would free themselves of large numbers of their charges.9 Therefore he attempted to set up a colony for ex-slaves in Texas, trusting that he would be able to obtain an exception to the passport requirements that Mexico had set up in 1830 (well, but in fact he would not succeed in this).

June 8, Friday: For some reason the Reverend Daniel Starr Southmayd preached his final sermon before Concord’s Trinitarian Congregationalists and asked to be released from the pulpit. (He had been their pastor since 1827. There had been some sort of controversy that had alienated one member of the church, Joseph C. Green, to the extent that an article describing the conflict had been placed a Boston religious publication, which had led to this member’s formal trial before the congregation and his excommunication. The next time we hear news of this man, he will be attending the foundational meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833, representing himself as of Lowell, Massachusetts, and then we will see him functioning as a Presbyterian missionary, and schoolteacher, in the general vicinity of Mejico’s Tejas province that today is known as Houston.)

The Rev. DANIEL S. SOUTHMAYD was born at Castleton, Vermont, February 11, 1802, graduated at Middlebury College in 1822, and at the Theological Seminary at Andover in 1826. After sustaining the pastoral office a little over five years, he asked for a dismission, June 8, 1832, which was granted by the church, and confirmed by a council on the 15th, consisting of the Rev. Samuel Stearns of Bedford, moderator, the Rev. Elijah Demond of 8. Ronnie C. Tyler. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico,” Journal of Negro History, Volume 57, Issue 1 (January 1972), page 2. 9. Merton Dillon. BENJAMIN LUNDY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO FREEDOM (Urbana IL: U of Illinois P, 1966), page 27. 32 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Lincoln, scribe, the Rev. Sewall Harding of Waltham, the Rev. Leonard Luce of Westford, and delegates from their respective churches. From the time the church was organized to Mr. Southmayd’s ordination, 6 members were added to the church, and during his ministry 77, (53 by original profession, and 30 by letter from other churches,) and 30 were males and 53 females; 4 have been dismissed, 2 excommunicated, and 5 have died; present [1835] number of members 88, of whom 30 are males. Several, however, have removed from town. Mr. Southmayd administered 46 baptisms, and married 26 couples. He now [1835] lives at Lowell. ... Deacon John White bequeathed to this church $700, and Miss Sarah Thoreau $50, which has been vested as a fund for its use.10 In Providence, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th M 8th 1832 6 day of the week 1832 / This Morning We went down to Newport to attend the Yearly Meeting - We took quarters with Aunt Nancy Carpenter, & had the privilege of using our rooms as usual — Many called to see us in the course of the YMeeting [Yearly Meeting] & we had a precious favoured Meeting through out. - In the Morng of first day there was not as much preaching as usual - a large preportion of it however was good, & in particular the testimonies from our friends Hannah C Backhouse & John Meader, stood high in my estimation — In the Afternoon our friends Joseph Bowne was large & powerful —I do not feel like undertaking to record many particulars of the transactions of the Meeting suffice it to say it was a season of favour & tho’ some trying things were under consideration, I believe the Minds of Friends were engaged to cultivate love & harmony & labour for the maintainance of the good cause After repeated settings the Meeting closed on 6th day forenoon & the School committee & the meeting for Sufferings sat in the Afternoon RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 1, Monday: Texian political delegates convened at San Felipe de Austin (this is closer to present-day Houston than it is to Austin, Texas) to petition the government of Mexico for changes in governance for this northern district.

Samuel F.B. Morse boarded the packet-ship Sully in the harbor of Havre, France to return to the United States of America. During this ocean voyage, engaged in a conversation about electromagnetism, he would find himself casually remarking “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity.” He was having the idea that if a spark could be made to travel along an electrified wire by suddenly interrupting the circuit at one end, that spark might be assigned a meaning, perhaps a part of speech, perhaps a number or a letter of the alphabet, and when that spark would exhibit itself at the far end of the wire, why, it could be taken to mean that part of speech, number, or letter! This would constitute a “telegraph,” transmitting meaning, conveying a message, but unlike an ordinary telegraph made up of raised and lowered flags or raised and lowered balls seen at a distance, this would be — 10. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry David Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.) “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 33 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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an “electric telegraph!” In a few days, during this voyage, he would make rough sketches of the necessary physical apparatus for producing and receiving a series of such spark-messages, amounting to an elaborate communication such as “Our vessel is in peril, please come rescue us” or “The enemy is sneaking up on you.”

George Augustus Thatcher got married with Rebecca Jane Billings (the daughter of Thoreau’s deceased aunt Nancy Thoreau Billings). The new style for women’s hair was a low, Grecian arrangement, with coronets of pearls, cameos, or flowers worn low on the brow. High gallery shell combs were out of style in favor of lower combs, in gold, with rows of cameos, and women were weaving gold beads or pearls into their braided hair. Another style which began in this year, and which would last longer, would be to wear the hair in a Grecian knot high in the back, with the front hair parted and arranged in soft curls on the temples.

This couple would produce seven children: 1st George Putnam Thatcher born July 14, 1833, who would move to California, 2d Frederick Augustus Thatcher born on September 24, 1835, who would die during his toddlerhood on January 10, 1838, 3d Charles Alfred Thatcher born on May 16, 1837, who would enlist in the Union army during the US Civil war and die at Red River, Louisiana on November 26, 1864 while in command of the steamer USS Gazelle, 4th Benjamin Busey Thatcher11 born on April 21, 1839 in Brewer across the Penobscot River from Bangor, Maine, who would become an entrepreneur (lumber, wood pulp, then railroad and bank director) in Bangor and would serve as a state Representative and state Senator (Republican), 5th Caleb Billings Thatcher born on November 5, 1840, a resident of Bangor, Maine, 6th Sarah Frances Thatcher born on June 7, 1842, and 7th Henry Knox Thatcher born on August 3, 1854 in Bangor, Maine. Rebecca Jane Billings Thatcher would die on October 27, 1883. Henry David Thoreau would refer to this group of relatives as the “Penobscot tribe” of his family.

That 4th son, Benjamin B. Thatcher the railroad and bank executive and state legislator, would father a son George Thoreau Thatcher and daughter Charlotte May Thatcher. With the relocation of the remains of the Thoreau family of Concord to the new “Author’s Ridge” of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery during roughly the 1880s, it was Benjamin B. Thatcher who provided Maine granite for their new simple grave markers. He would die on June 3, 1906.

That 7th son Henry Knox Thatcher became a physician in Maine, was a member of the Republican Party, and attended the Congregational Church. Dr. Thatcher got married with Annie Ross of Bangor, Maine and the couple produced one child, born in 1884 on the anniversary of the birth of Henry David Thoreau, whom they named Henry David Thoreau Thatcher. This eponomously-named son was educated in the schools of Dexter, Maine and in 1905 was graduated from the University of Maine at Orono, Maine. As a civil engineer Henry David Thoreau Thatcher helped design the sewerage of Old Town, Maine.

December 24, Monday: Manuel Gomez Pedraza y Rodriguez replaced Melchor Eca y Muzquiz as President of Mexico.

Sam Houston’s application for head rights in the Texas colony, “with the object of acquiring lands for establishing myself,” was approved by Stephen F. Austin.

11. Disambiguation: Benjamin Busey Thatcher (1839-1906) of Bangor was not, but was probably related to, Boston historian and attorney Benjamin Bussey Thatcher (1809-1840), Bowdoin Class of 1826, a representative of the Boston Lyceum who scheduled lectures at Odeon Hall. 34 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1833

Benjamin Lundy would write about meeting an escaped slave in San Antonio de Bexar, in the Tejas district of Mejico. Much to the surprise of white Americans, former slaves were doing well in their new communities south of the border.

In North Carolina, Wake Forest College was founded. The Reverend Doctor Furman addressed a lengthy communication to the Governor of North Carolina, expressing the sentiments of the Baptist church and clergy on the subject of slavery. The general idea was: “The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.” “It is simply crazy that there should ever have come into being a world with such a sin in it, in which a man is set apart because of his color — the superficial fact about a human being. Who could want such a world? For an American fighting for his love of country, that the last hope of earth should from its beginning have swallowed slavery, is an irony so withering, a justice so intimate in its rebuke of pride, as to measure only with God.” — Stanley Cavell, MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? 1976, page 141

Soon thereafter the good reverend went to Judgment and his personal property was advertised for sale as follows: NOTICE. On the first Monday of February next, will be put up at public auction, before the court-house, the following property, belonging to the estate of the late Rev. Dr. FURMAN, viz: — A plantation or tract of land, on and in the Wataree Swamp. A tract of the first quality of fine land, on the waters of Black River. A lot of land in the town of Camden. A LIBRARY of a miscellaneous character, chiefly THEOLOGICAL. TWENTY-SEVEN NEGROES, some of them very prime. Two mules, one horse, and an old wagon. An extract from The Observer, a religious paper edited in Lowell, Massachusetts by the Reverend Daniel S. Southmayd: We have been among the slaves at the south. We took pains to make discoveries in respect to the evils of slavery. We formed our sentiments on the subject of the cruelties exercised towards the slaves from having witnessed them. We now affirm that we never saw a man, who had never been at the south, who thought as much of the cruelties practiced on the slaves, as we know to be a fact. A slave whom I loved for his kindness and the amiableness of his disposition, and who belonged to the family where I resided, happened to stay out fifteen minutes longer than he had permission to stay. It was a mistake — it was unintentional. But

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what was the penalty? He was sent to the house of correction with the order that he should have thirty lashes upon his naked body with a knotted rope!!! He was brought home and laid down in the stoop, in the back of the house, in the sun, upon the floor. And there he lay, with more the appearance of a rotten carcass than a living man, for four days before he could do more than move. And who was this inhuman being calling God’s property his own, and ruing it as he would not have dared to use a beast? You may say he was a tiger — one of the more wicked sort, and that we must not judge others by him. He was a professor of that religion which will pour upon the willing slaveholder the retribution due to his sin. We wish to mention another fact, which our own eyes saw and our own ears heard. We were called to evening prayers. The family assembled around the altar of their accustomed devotions. There was one female slave present, who belonged to another master, but who had been hired for the day and tarried to attend family worship. The precious BIBLE was opened, and nearly half a chapter had been read, when the eye of the master, who was reading, observed that the new female servant, instead of being seated like his own slaves, flat upon the floor, was standing in a stooping posture upon her feet. He told her to sit down on the floor. She said it was not her custom at home. He ordered her again to do it. She replied that her master did not require it. Irritated by this answer, he repeatedly struck her upon the head with the very Bible he held in his hand. And not content with this, he seized his cane and caned her down stairs most unmercifully. He then returned to resume his profane work, but we need not say that all the family were not there. Do you ask again, who was this wicked man? He was a professor of religion!!

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1834

The Reverend Timothy Flint’s translation of THE BACHELOR RECLAIMED OR CELIBACY VANQUISHED, FROM THE FRENCH (Philadelphia). Also, a 2d edition of his FRANCIS BERRIAN; OR, THE MEXICAN PATRIOT (Philadelphia, London). He traveled in New England and Canada, and made a visit to Europe (or so he would allege), and then returned from New-York to his “Lunenburg”12 slave plantation near Cheneyville, Louisiana.

Colonel Juan Almonte suggested to Benjamin Lundy that he re-petition for land on which to set up a colony for manumitted US slaves in Mexico, this time in the state of Tamaulipas just south of Texas straddling the Rio Grande River, territory which had not been included in the 1830 law of passports.13

January 3, Friday: In Mexico City, Stephen F. Austin was thrown in jail.

March 19, Wednesday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the 2d volume of William Bullock’s SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AND TRAVELS IN MEXICO; CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEW SPAIN, ITS NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, STATE OF SOCIETY, MANUFACTURES, TRADE, AGRICULTURE, AND ANTIQUITIES, &C WITH PLATES AND MAPS (London: John Murray, 1825).

“There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away” — Emily Dickinson

12. Isn’t it interesting that he named his slave plantation “Lunenburg,” after having been so savaged by the good church folks of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, who had so sadly neglected to grasp what a marvelous fellow their pastor was? –This could only be his retribution. 13. Merton Dillon. BENJAMIN LUNDY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO FREEDOM (Urbana IL: U of Illinois P, 1966), page 180. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 37 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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BULLOCK’S MEXICO, II

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1835

The Mexican General Martin Perfecto de Cos fortified the Alamo compound in response to rebelling Texians, but was defeated in street fighting outside the walls.

REMEMBERING THE ALAMO Per THE DOCUMENTS OF TEXAS, a Lieutenant Colonel from Mejico, sent into the Tejas province by the sitting Vice President, in this year was surveying the three departments of the province (Brazos, Nagadoches, and Bexar) and reporting on their demographics. In the two departments with mostly Anglo populations (Brazos and Nagadoches) he would offer that he had found approximately 1,000 people who were effectively enslaved — and accordingly would recommend that the Mejican Congress issue some sort of decree, freeing these black people from the control of these Anglos.

By this year a percussion Kentucky squirrel rifle was in use in the Texas territory.

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This depiction of a buffalo hunt was prepared in this year by A. Fisher and W.E.Tucker:

Anglo settlers in Texas began to use chili powder, as a convenience in their preparing “sorta-Greaser-style” dishes.

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WALDEN: On gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo PEOPLE OF like popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music WALDEN occasionally penetrate thus far. To me, away there in my bean- field at the other end of the town, the big guns sounded as if a puff ball had burst; and when there was a military turnout of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon, as if some eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina or canker- rash, until at length some more favorable puff of wind, making haste over the fields and up the Wayland road, brought me information of the “trainers.” It seemed by the distant hum as if somebody’s bees had swarmed, and that the neighbors, according to Virgil’s advice, by a faint tintinnabulum upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils, were endeavoring to call them down into the hive again. And when the sound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the most favorable breezes told no tale, I knew that they had got the last drone of them all safely into the Middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent on the honey with which it was smeared. I felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of our fatherland were in such safe keeping; and as I turned to my hoeing again I was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future. When there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if the village was a vast bellows, and all the buildings expanded and collapsed alternately with a din. But sometimes it was a really noble and inspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet that sings of fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish, –for why should we always stand for trifles?– and looked round for a woodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry upon. These martial strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm-tree tops which overhang the village. This was one of the great days; though the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it.

VIRGIL FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS WAR ON MEXICO

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March: Benjamin Lundy was granted 138,000 acres of Mexican land in Tamaulipas. Lundy wanted to establish a colony at least 250 families of manumitted US slaves within two years (the Texas fighting would intercept this plan).14

The Reverend Daniel Starr Southmayd and Joanna Kent Southmayd began a school at Harrisburg, which Joanna estimated to consist of some 40 adults and 15 children of school age (this probably was the 1st school within what is now Houston, Texas). The teaching would be the wife’s task as the husband would need to pursue the family’s “headright” land grant that the Mexican authorities in San Felipe de Austin, 40 miles away, the current seat of the colonial government, were registering to each emigrant family that settled in Texas.

He managed to title a homestead in the family name, the “Southmayd League,” but then according to the rules this had to be improved and had to be lived upon. The Reverend Southmayd borrowed an axe and began to fell trees and put up a split-rail fence enclosing six acres which the family hoped to be able to farm. He would make the 25-mile trek from this claim to the Harrisburg shack as often as possible, but the family had as yet no horse.

14. Benjamin Lundy. THE LIFE, TRAVELS AND OPINIONS OF BENJAMIN LUNDY. Ed. William Parrish. (Philadelphia: William D. Parrish Publisher, 1847), page 168; Merton Dillon. BENJAMIN LUNDY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO FREEDOM (Urbana IL: U of Illinois P, 1966), pages 203-4. 42 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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October 28, Wednesday: When Texians defeated Centralists in a skirmish near Mission Concepcion, they did so under a flag which to them signified their God-given right to enslave other human beings.

REMEMBERING THE ALAMO

CONSTITUTION

OF 1824

“I’m a Constitutionalist, which means that your black ass belongs to me!”

In New Zealand, Maoris calling themselves the Confederation of the United Tribes declared independence under British protection.

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December: USers in Texas rebelled, seeking independence from Mexico. According to Benjamin Lundy, their motivation was that they had “ascertained that slavery could not be perpetuated ... under the government of the Mexican Republic.”15 In the midst of the fighting many of their slaves would escape into Mexico, but those who would attempt to settle on Lundy’s Tamaulipas land grant would find themselves once more entrapped because the Texan nation’s new boundaries would extend all the way to the Rio Grande River. Lundy’s land grant was no longer in Tamaulipas but in the new Republic of Texas, making his colony impossible.16 Texas would declare slavery to be legal, and in its decade of existence its slave population would increase 450%, from 5,000 to nearly 27,500.17

December 10, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 10th of 12th M / Elisha F Rogers And Elizabeth Mitchell daughter of Jethro F Mitchell were married in our Meeting House -the gathering was much larger than last 5th day, & quite as still & quiet but I did not think there was as much of solid weight as was felt a week ago - short testimonies were deliverd by Father & Hannah Dennis This Afternoon I wrote to my dear friend Thos Thompson of Liverpool. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

15. Benjamin Lundy, “The Origin and True Causes of the Texas Insurrection,” (originally published in Philadelphia’s National Gazette, 1839), 31. 16. Merton Dillon. BENJAMIN LUNDY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR NEGRO FREEDOM (Urbana IL: U of Illinois P, 1966), page 219. 17. Frederick Law Olmsted. TILL FREEDOM CRIED OUT. Ed. T. Lindsay Baker and Julie Baker. (College Station TX: Texas A&M Press, 1997), page xxi. 44 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The Battle of Béxar came to an end as the Texians fought their way into San Antonio de Béxar and General Martín Perfecto de Cos surrendered his Centralist Mexican army. REMEMBERING THE ALAMO

Until January 24, 1836, US Marines would be protecting American interests in Callao and Lima, Peru during an attempted revolution. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

Our Perennial Quest to Do Harm So Good Will Come

Extermination of the Pequot Tribe 1634-1637 “King Phillip’s” Race War 1675-1676 The War of 1812 1812-1815 The Revolution of the Texians 1835-1836 War on Mejico 1846-1848 The War for the Union 1862-1865 War to End War 1916-1919 Stopping Hitler 1940-1945 The Korean Police Action 1950-1953 Helping South Vietnam be Free 1959-1975 Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

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December 12, Saturday: Between this day and Saturday the 19th, David Henry Thoreau would mail off to Harvard College materials that would be valued at 29 points, raising his accumulated points toward graduation to 10,290.

Nicolò Paganini led an orchestra concert in Parma for the birthday of Grand Duchess Maria Louisa (widow of the Emperor Napoléon).

The Mexican garrison under General Martín Perfecto de Cos at San Antonio de Béxar, having surrendered to the besieging Texians, was paroled.

REMEMBERING THE ALAMO

1836

March 19, Saturday: At Goliad in Texas, about 300 Anglo-Americans surrendered to the Mexican forces. WAR ON MEXICO

March 27, Palm Sunday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 27th of 3 M / Our Meetings were silent, but solid good seasons. Father yet confined with a very havy cold & lame back — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

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In Kirtland, Ohio, the 1st Mormon temple began to be dedicated (this would be a drawn-out process).

At Fort Defiance (Presidio La Bahia) in the town of Goliad, General Jose de Urrea, acting reluctantly under repeated direct orders of President of Mexico Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who considered these foreigners to have the same legal standing as pirates, had 303 Texian prisoners of war marched out in three columns in three different directions, and then gunned down. Of the 40 who had been unable to walk, 39 were killed inside the fort. The commanding officer, Colonel James W. Fannin, was the last to be executed, and asked the firing squad to shoot him in the heart rather than in the face — so of course they shot him in the face. Of the 303 men in the three columns, 28 were able to feign death and escape.18 Now I tell what I know in Texas in my early youth, (I tell not the fall of Alamo, Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,) ’Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men. Retreating they had form’d in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy’s, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance, Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv’d writing and seal, gave up their arms and march’d back prisoners of war. They were the glory of the race of rangers, Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship, Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters, Not a single one over thirty years of age. The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer, The work commenced about five o’clock and was over by eight.

None obey’d the command to kneel, Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight, A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together, The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there, 18. Some 100 others were also executed (by the way, at this point Halley’s Comet was finally fading from being visible to the naked eye). SKY EVENT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 47 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Some half-kill’d attempted to crawl away, These were despatch’d with bayonets or batter’d with the blunts of muskets. A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more came to release him, The three were all torn and cover’d with the boy’s blood. At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies; That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.

— Walt Whitman, SONG OF MYSELF, 34

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1837

November: Thomas Carlyle oer’reached himself at a dinner party in London, outraging a gent, Henry Crabb Robinson, who had been the foreign editor of The Times of London and had known both Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, by advocating not only the US annexation of the Tejas province of Mejico but also the continuation of negro slavery. WAR ON MEXICO

Evidently this diatribe of his went on and on getting worse and worse, with his rationalization turning out to amount to that 1.) skin melanization reflected a natural hierarchy of worthiness and that 2.) it was not only natural but right that the strong should dominate the earth. Robinson took careful note of that dangerously twisted, even vicious, pattern of thought and applied your typical Brit solution to it: I found Carlyle so very outrageous in his opinions that I have no wish to see him again, and I avoided saying anything that looked like a desire to renew my acquaintance with him. RACISM [Hey, for once I’m siding with a dinner-party snob — I’d snub this Carlyle dude too. But hey, what can I tell you, I’m merely one of those iggerant “presentists” who so mistakenly retroject the values and PC attitudes of the present in easy condemnation of historical figures who were merely representing the usual sentiments of their time!19]

1839

Major James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was sent on a tour of inspection of harbor improvements on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. Then, during this year and into the following one, he would be serving as astronomer for a surveying party that, in behalf of the United States, was taxed to establish a boundary-line between the United States of America and the new Republic of Texas.

Benjamin Lundy, who had been defeated in all his plans to establish colonies for manumitted US slaves in Mexico, died.20

John Niles, in his HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA AND MEXICO (Hartford CT: H. Huntington), characterized the abolition of slavery by Mexico a decade earlier as having been a “hazardous experiment.” US Senator Niles argued that Spanish methods of colonization, in particular the practice of amalgamation with indigenous peoples, produced a deterioration in innate intelligence levels and in the ability to practice democracy. He predicted that if this racially degenerative trend were to continue no Mexican republic could possibly succeed. To be right you gotta be white.

19. How could Waldo Emerson possibly correspond with this stone racist Thomas Carlyle fellow, treat him as a good ’ol buddy, and indeed attempt to model himself as “the Carlyle of America”? –Len Gougeon, in “Abolition, The Emersons, and 1837” (New England Quarterly 54 [1981]: 345-64), offers us some ideas on this topic. 20. A.M. Shotwell. BENJAMIN LUNDY. (Lansing MI: Robert Smith Printing Company, 1897), page 9. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 49 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1841

July: Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, lamented to US General William Harding that “...two valuable negro boys for which I had paid in cash $2100 previous to my visit to Nashville, ran away last spring to Mexico. Thus you can see I am in bad luck.”21

Sam, our heart goes out to you. It’s so hard to find good help these days! –Had these enslaved boys no gratitude?

1842

March: President Sam Houston mobilized the army of the Republic of Texas to repel a Mexican army that had entered the territory.

September: When General Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón moved toward San Antonio with a strong force, President Sam Houston sent 1,200 men into Mexico. TEXAS

September 11, Monday: Mexican troops captured San Antonio, Texas.

September 18, Monday: Texans defeated Mexicans at Salado Creek.

21. Sam Houston. THE WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, Volume III. Ed. Amelia Williams and Eugene Barker (Austin TX: U of Texas P, 1942), page 10. 50 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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October 19, Wednesday: Samuel F.B. Morse attempted to transmit an underwater message across a mile of copper wire insulated with pitch, tar, and rubber that he had laid between Castle Garden Emigrant Depot in Battery Park on Manhattan Island and Governor’s Island. The experiment failed because a ship’s anchor snagged his wire.

Constable Stratton, with a warrant from the Boston Police Court, took George Latimer, “a fine looking colored man,” under arrest.

Believing war to have broken out between Mexico and the United States, Commodore Thomas A.C. Jones USN brought his squadron into Monterey harbor and demanded the town’s surrender. Lacking any real choice, local officials complied, whereupon Commodore Jones claimed California for the United States of America (when he would discover the US and Mexico to be still at peace, he would withdraw, saluting, but a week later a similar such mistake of overeagerness would be made at San Diego). US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

A correspondent of the New-York Herald wrote from St. Louis and included some information that was not very up to date, about goings-on in the West:

Committed to jail in this place, on the 29th of April last, a runaway slave named Creesy, and says she belongs to William Barrow, of Carroll county, Mississippi. Said woman is stout built, five feet four inches high, and appears to be about twenty years of age; she has a band of iron on each ankle and a trace chain around her neck, fastened with a common padlock. J.N. SPENCER, Jailer. May 15, 1844. SLAVERY Presumably, had the telegraph system already been in place in this country, news of Miss Creesy’s recapture would have been able to travel at a much more efficient and effective speed cross-country! And such a recapture would have been much desired by a man such as Morse, who believed that slavery was a “positive good” to its victims!

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October 21, Friday: Frederick Douglass lectured at Rome, New York.

Commodore Thomas Jones USN learned that in fact war has not broken out between Mexico and the United States of America, lowered his flag, and sailed out of the harbor of Monterrey, California. The United States of America would need to apologize to Mexico.

Bronson Alcott, Henry Gardiner Wright22, Charles Lane, and Lane’s son William Lane arrived at Dove Cottage in Concord, bringing with them from England many invaluably impressive volumes of metaphysical

22. This Henry Gardiner Wright was an English companion of Charles Lane. (The American ex-reverend, Henry C. Wright, was at this point on an extended tour of Europe.) 52 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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speculation.

…And speaking of sentiment brings us very naturally to the ‘Dovecote.’ That was the name of the little brown house which Mr. Brooke had prepared for Meg’s first home. Laurie had christened it, saying it was highly appropriate to the gentle lovers who ‘went on together like a pair of turtle- doves, with first a bill and then a coo.’ It was a tiny house, with a little garden behind and a lawn about as big as a pocket-handkerchief in the front. Here Meg meant to have a fountain, shrubbery, and a profusion of lovely flowers, though just at present the fountain was represented by a weather-beaten urn, very like a dilapidated slop-bowl, the shrubbery consisted of several young larches, who looked undecided whether to live or die, and the profusion of flowers was merely hinted by regiments of sticks to show where seeds were planted. But inside, it was altogether charming, and the happy bride saw no fault from garret to cellar. To be sure, the hall was so narrow it was fortunate that they had no piano, for one never could have been got in whole, the dining-room was so small that six people were a tight fit, and the kitchen stairs seemed built for the express purpose of precipitating both servants and china pell-mell into the coal-bin. But once get used to these slight blemishes and nothing could be more complete, for good sense and good taste had presided over the furnishing, and the result was highly satisfactory. There were no marble-topped tables, long mirrors, or lace curtains in the little parlor, but simple furniture, plenty of books, a fine picture or two, a stand of flowers in the bay-window, and, scattered all about, the pretty gifts which came from friendly hands and were the fairer for the loving messages they brought.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

October 21st 42 The atmosphere is so dry and transparent, and as it were inflammable at this season — that a candle in the grass shines white and dazzling, and purer and brighter the farther off it is. Its heat seems to have been extracted and only its harmless refulgent light left. It is a star dropt down. The ancients were more than poetically true when they called fire Vulcan’s flower. Light is somewhat almost moral– The most intense — as the fixed stars and our own sun — has an unquestionable preeminence among the elements. At a certain stage in the generation of all life, no doubt, light as well as heat is developed– It guides to the first rudiments of life. There is a vitality in heat and light {One-third page blank} I never tire of the beauty of certain epithets which the ages have slowly bestowed, as the — Hunters moon and the Harvest moon. There is something pleasing in the fact that the irregularity in the rising of these two moons, and their continuing to rise nearly at the same time for several nights should have been observed by the husbandman before it attracted the attention of Science. All great laws are really known to the necessities men, before they become the subject of study to the intellect.

Christmas Day: A battle in Mier between Texan raiders and Mexican defenders cost the lives of 600 Mexicans and 30 Texans. Unaware of these relative losses, the Texans surrendered.

That evening, in Boston, Abba Alcott took little Louisa May Alcott and little William Lane to see the lighting of the Christkindelbaum.

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1844

February 1, Thursday: José Valentín Raimundo Canalizo Bocadillo replaced Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón as President of Mexico.

June 4, Tuesday: The last two documented individuals of the Great Auk (garefowl) Pinguinis impennis, a flightless seabird, were clubbed near Iceland, to be sold to a taxidermist. This bird has been being hunted aggressively for years, its feathers selling primarily in Europe (first, but not last, North American native species to fall victim to the European intrusion).

Weavers in Silesia revolted against the Prussian authorities in protest of very bad economic conditions, unemployment, and hunger.

Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón replaced José Valentín Raimundo Canalizo Bocadillo as President of Mexico.

Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

On wednesday afternoon I returned [from Boston] to this retired and quiet spot now called my home.... Here my time is occupied in reading a little, studying less, and thinking and contemplating the remainder part of the time, which is the most.... Man rules his destiny only by perfect submission to God; or by perfect cooperation with His will ... never have I been conscious of living such an earnest deep effectual life as I am now conscious of living. My very existence seems to be one perpetual act.... My sense of nothingness increases upon me, and I trust Abraham’s hand will not be said as of old.

1845

March: George Bancroft was made the Secretary of the Navy. He would sign a standing order that in the event of war with Mexico, the US Navy would proceed to seize would seize all California ports (indeed Captain John D. Sloat, commanding the Pacific squadron, when the conflict would formally begin in May 1846, would in accordance with this standing order immediately seize all those ports). WAR ON MEXICO

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“The critic’s joking comment that Bancroft wrote American history as if it were the history of the Kingdom of Heaven, had a trifle of truth in it.” — Russel Blaine Nye

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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March 1: President Tyler, aware that the act meant war upon Mexico, signed a Joint Resolution of the Congress of the United States for the Annexation of Texas. The connection between such a bill of territorial conquest and a topic such as child endangerment may not be evident to some, quite as non-evident as the connection between the use of $12-per-month abandoned 9-year-old boys in military units and child molestation, so on the following page is a studio portrait of three such drummer boys late in the period of the war upon Mexico, in THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, Review of Reviews Co.23 US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS WAR ON MEXICO

1846

The Free Soil Party was formed as moderate Whigs broke with conservative, status quo Whigs over the issue of slavery. This disruption drew much of the political strength toward the Democrats as the USA declared war upon Mexico. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft of Massachusetts refused to support this act of aggression, and both the Whigs and the Democrats became divided on the merits of the action.

23.These boys had to stand stock still for five minutes under studio lighting in order to make this photograph of their heroism. The only known candid photograph of US troops marching off for the attack upon Mexico is not shown because it is inadequate, but the picture credit is Joel Snyder, courtesy of Graphic Antiquities Collection, Arlington Heights, Illinois and you can inspect this solitary photograph on page 42 of Editors of TIME-LIFE Books. THE MEXICAN WAR. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books, 1978. 56 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft of Massachusetts

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Alexander William Doniphan became colonel of the 1st Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and would participate during the war on Mexico in several campaigns, including General Stephen W. Kearny’s campaign for capture of the settlement at Santa Fe and then continuing into a northern region of Mexico (present day northern New Mexico).

During the War upon Mexico, Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon would be in command of the brig Isis. WAR ON MEXICO

Governor George Nixon Briggs of Massachusetts refused to grant commissions to militia officers unless they pledged to not to take their units beyond the borders of the state. Caleb Cushing raised a regiment which would serve in the war as a unit of the Regular US Army. In Massachusetts, the Liberty Party received larger voter

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support than it had ever before received.

“HUCKLEBERRIES”: In this country a political speech, whether by Mr. Seward or Caleb Cushing, is a great thing, a ray of light a little thing. It would be felt to be a greater national calamity if you should take six inches from the corporeal bulk of one or two gentlemen in Congress, than if you should take a yard from their wisdom and manhood.

WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD CALEB CUSHING HIGHER LAW SLAVERY During this year, in his journal of his trip to Maine, and later in his published account of the trip, Thoreau would mention this Liberty Party:

Fall 1846: One after another we filed into the rude lumberers’ camp at this place built of logs like those I have described. Here was only the cook to receive us A phlegmatic well fed personage who set about preparing a cup of tea and hot cakes for his visitors. His fire had been entirely put out and his fire fire place filled several inches deep by the rain but now it was kindled again –and we sat down on the log benches around it to dry us. The chinks were not filled against the winter –and light & air came in on every side Here was an odd leaf of the bible –some genealogical chapter to prove their Christianity– And the next things that turned up was Emerson Address on W I Emancipation –which had made two converts to the liberty party here, an odd number of the Westminster Rev. for 1834 –& a pamphlet entitled Hist. of the Erection of the MYRON HOLLEY Monument on the grave of Myron Holley –& these were well thumbed and soiled The men employed in such works as this are Jacks at all trade, who are handy at various things and accustomed WALDO EMERSON to make shifts –skilful with the axe and ruder implements of good judgement and well skilled in wood and water-craft. I observed by their poles that they sometimes indulged in fishing. Their hands not restricted to the processes of one trade only –but free and as it were intelligent to practise many. tea was served out to us in tin cups from a huge coffe pot with molasses but no milk of course and hot cakes for solid food We did ample justice to this fare and when we had done filled our pockets with the never failing sweet cakes which remained –foreseeing that we were not soon to meet such fare again. And so informing John Morrison that we had pocketed all his sweet cakes and exchanging our batteau for a better we made haste to improve the little daylight that remained. The dam had smoothed over many a rapid for us where formerly there was a rough current to be resisted – Beyond there was no trail –and the river and lakes was the only practicable rout. We were from 25 to 30 miles from the summit of the Mt –(though not more than 20 perhaps –in a straight line24 WEST INDIES EMANCIPATION

24.The Twin Lakes, like Quakish Lake, are enlargements of the Penobscot River. It is easy for a canoeist, unfamiliar with the area, to spend long hours seeking the river inlet to the lakes. Thoreau’s party was fortunate to have an experienced guide, in attempting a crossing at night. 60 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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THE MAINE WOODS: We filed into the rude logger’s camp at this place, such as I have described, without ceremony, and the cook, at that moment the sole occupant, at once set about preparing tea for his visitors. His fireplace, which the rain had converted into a mud-puddle, was soon blazing again, and we sat down on the log benches around it to dry us. On the well-flattened and somewhat faded beds of arbor-vitae leaves, which stretched on either hand under the eaves behind us, lay an odd leaf of the Bible, some genealogical chapter out of the Old Testament; and, half buried by the leaves, we found Emerson’s Address on West India EMERSON Emancipation, which had been left here formerly by one of our company, and had made two converts to the Liberty party here, as I was told; also, an odd number of the Westminster Review, for 1834, and a pamphlet entitled History of the Erection of the Monument on the grave of Myron Holly. This was the readable, or HOLLEY reading matter, in a lumberer’s camp in the Maine woods, thirty miles from a road, which would be given up to the bears in a fortnight. These things were well thumbed and soiled. This gang was headed by one John Morrison, a good specimen of a Yankee; and was necessarily composed of men not bred to the business of dam- building, but who were Jacks-at-all-trades, handy with the axe, and other simple implements, and well skilled in wood and water craft. We had hot cakes for our supper even here, white as snow- balls, but without butter, and the never-failing sweet cakes, with which we filled our pockets, foreseeing that we should not soon meet with the like again. Such delicate puff-balls seemed a singular diet for back-woodsmen. There was also tea without milk, sweetened with molasses. And so, exchanging a word with John Morrison and his gang when we had returned to the shore, and also exchanging our batteau for a better still, we made haste to improve the little daylight that remained. This camp, exactly twenty-nine miles from Mattawamkeag Point, by the way we had come, and about one hundred from Bangor by the river, was the last human habitation of any kind in this direction. Beyond, there was no trail; and the river and lakes, by batteaux and canoes, was considered the only practicable route. We were about thirty miles by the river from the summit of Ktaadn, which was in sight, though not more than twenty, perhaps, in a straight line.

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January 13: The 1st legislation to provide for separate treatment of people with mental retardation was introduced in the New York State Senate by E. F. Backus. Backus introduced a resolution calling for purchase of land and construction of buildings. It was not until 1851 that an experimental school was established in Albany. It proved so successful that a permanent state facility was established in 1854.25 PSYCHOLOGY

Our Perennial Quest to Do Harm So Good Will Come

Extermination of the Pequot Tribe 1634-1637 “King Phillip’s” Race War 1675-1676 The War of 1812 1812-1815 The Revolution of the Texians 1835-1836 War on Mejico 1846-1848 The War for the Union 1862-1865 War to End War 1916-1919 Stopping Hitler 1940-1945 The Korean Police Action 1950-1953 Helping South Vietnam be Free 1959-1975 Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

25. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994 “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 63 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The U.S. formally declared war on Mexico. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

President James Knox Polk had secretly ordered General Zachary Scott to “defend American soil” by occupying contested territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande River, right up to the town limits of Matamoros.

WAR ON MEXICO

President Polk would duplicitously inform Congress that the war was because Mexico “had invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.” That of course was a fraud. Why, really, were we declaring war on Mexico? –Consider what Glenn W. Price had to offer on page 18 of his ORIGINS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO: THE POLK-STOCKTON INTRIGUE (Austin TX: U of Texas P, 1967): In 1829 slavery was abolished in Mexico, but the remonstrance in Texas was so vigorous that the province was excepted from the decree. The threat of the loss of their “chattel property” thenceforth hung over the heads of the Americans in Texas. Historians, intent upon disentangling themselves from the thesis of a conspiracy of the slaveocracy in the Texas affair, have muted this note as a factor in the Texas Revolution; but there is no question whatsoever but that it played a part. The Concord Freeman would report that the battles fought by Zachary Taylor on the Rio Grande in Mexico were “among the most gallant” that have “anywhere ever” been fought. That’s not hard to believe, if you think about it, but the local paper also opinioned that the American Army was covered with gore — oops, that’s a typo, they said glory.

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“[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION? March 11, 1882

Salmon Portland Chase would favor the idea of our going to war with Mexico. He would regard this as a good chance for us to extend the southern boundary of the United States of America all the way down “to the Isthmus.” In other words, for him this was, pure and simple, not any matter of “defending American soil,” but instead a straightforward a war of conquest.

The Harbinger, published at Brook Farm, would declare that the war against Mexico, although due to the basest of motives, needed to be understood as an act of Providence. By this iniquitous means, Providence was moving under the covers to extend the

intelligence of advanced civilized nations

and break down

barriers to the future progress of knowledge.

Properly understood, the war represented a

great subversive movement towards unity among nations.

The problem arose, how to keep women from enlisting in the US military, and how to keep men of mixed race from enlisting. Sometimes the rules about requiring each recruit to strip for examination were not carefully followed, and in fact several women were discovered during the course of the war against Mexico, serving in men’s clothing as common soldiers. You can consult, for instance, THE FEMALE VOLUNTEER; OR, THE LIFE AND WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF MISS ELIZA ALLEN, A YOUNG LADY OF EASTPORT, MAINE.

It was easy enough to keep full-blooded non-Caucasoids out of the army, from general appearance, but there was a perceived need, a perceived need strongly felt, to exclude also any man who had any degree of contamination in his blood. In a manual of instruction for the medical examination of army recruits, we find the army surgeon being cautioned to be diligent in this area, for “soldiers would not tolerate the mixed breeds as comrades.”26 When in doubt, throw the bastard out. The surgeon was advised to be alert to other racial

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characteristic, over and above mere skin color. Thus the surgeon was to be alert not only for hair that suggested kinkiness, but also to the shape of the skull itself, and was to reject any applicant whose skull shape seemed in any way negroid. At Fort Monroe VA, in regard to one applicant during the first year of the war, the surgeon was suspicious but in consultation with the commanding officer decided to allow a man to enlist as a white man, and then

Some weeks after, a person of respectable standing called on the officer, and claimed the man as his slave and his son. Not a doubt could be entertained of the credibility of the gentleman who applied for the youth, who was his son by a bright mulatto woman, his slave.

If you want to see what a white man’s army looks like, consult EYEWITNESS TO WAR: PRINTS AND DAGUERREOTYPES OF THE MEXICAN WAR, 1846-1848. The screwball thing about this race consciousness thing is, that unless someone mentions that these are pictures of a racial army, this matter would never come to anyone’s consciousness.

While you’re looking at the pictures, notice the black-powder clouds hanging in the air, obscuring the view after each volley. In this year of 1846, guncotton had just been invented by Schönbein and its use was not yet widespread.

The question has been raised, why were there so many atrocities perpetrated by US soldiers against Mexican civilians during the US’s invasion of Mexico? Some psychological studies of atrocities committed in our more recent wars have indicated that a disproportionate number of the soldiers committing atrocities had had an older brother killed in the war, prior to their commission of their crime. But this thirst for vengeance would not be an explanation in the case of our invasion of Mexico, for a large percentage of the invading troops were FOBs, fresh off the boat, that is, were recent immigrants to the US from Europe, and were soldiering merely to have employment and a paycheck. The US Army went from a low of 7,400 before the war to a peak of 112,000, but a popular explanation at the time, that the atrocities were being committed by the large numbers of undisciplined volunteer troops who had not been subjected to rigorous military discipline, as had the small cadre of Regular Army soldiers, does not now seem to have been an accurate assessment. Because of these difficulties, an explanation now favored is that the war was really not very exciting day by day. During eighteen months of campaigning there were only about a dozen general battles, and none of these soldiers were draftees who were there against their will. They had gone to Mexico in order to be able to kill someone and get away with it, they had gone for fun and games, and this was just not matching up to their expectations.

If I Dye in the war with mexico I donte want you to say he was perswaded into it but that he volenteered of his own accord and died in defending the riches of his cuntry.

WAR ON MEXICO

A large proportion of the US soldiers were stuck in filthy support camps and had never been given an opportunity to express their rage by the killing of Mexican soldiers in combat — therefore they naturally took out this rage on those Mexicans who were within their reach and at their mercy, that is, on the local populations of defenseless civilians living in the vicinity of these filthy support camps.27

26. Henderson, Thomas. HINTS ON THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF RECRUITS FOR THE ARMY AND ON THE DISCHARGE OF SOLDIERS FROM THE SERVICE ON SURGEON’S CERTIFICATE. Philadelphia PA: J.B. Lippincott, 1840, revised edition 1856. Page 32. 66 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The primary cause of the atrocities now seems to have been the pervasive, compelling atmosphere in the US army, shared equally by officers of every rank as well as by the regular soldiers and the volunteer soldiers, and frankly encouraged from the top, an attitude of the most utter contempt toward everything Mexican, of contempt toward everything that could be marked, by skin tone, or speech accent, or cultural origin, as un- American, lazy, stupid, profligate, backward or otherwise weak. That is, this level of atrocity is about what is to be expected of an army that is so constituted as to be “racially pure,” when it goes off to a foreign land away from the restraining and moderating influences of loved ones at home, of church and of society, to fight against the racial other and the racially mixed or impure. The articles of war in effect at that time made a distinction between military activities at home and military activities abroad, and a number of things that would have been considered to be violations of the military code of conduct at home were simply not violations, not proscribed, when committed against the citizens of a foreign country. Also, the US would not permit any US citizen to be tried in a Mexican court, so it was quite unnecessary for the soldiers to honor any Mexican law in their dealings with Mexican civilians.

27. Which is not to suggest that the US atrocities in Mexico ever approached the organized level of the atrocities committed, say, by the Japanese army after the capture of the Chinese capital, Nanking, during the 2d World War. The worst of the atrocities committed by our whites-only army in Mexico were more on the order of the sweep of the village of My Lai during the Vietnam adventure, and the incidents in the vicinity of Concord during “King Phillip’s War”, and the white riots in New-York during the Civil War. The sort of thing of which I am speaking would be exemplified by the bombardment of the city of Veracruz from March 22 to 27, 1847, during which the relevant people in the US army were not troubled by the fact that half of the people they were killing, by the tactic of indiscriminate city-busting that they chose and the weapons they decided to employ, were helpless Mexican civilians. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 67 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A reminisce by Walt Whitman deals in part with this year: “Specimen Days”

BROADWAY SIGHTS Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway — that noted avenue of New York’s crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, William Henry Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case — (I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or ’6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of “the Broadway Journal.” [Page 702] The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish’d. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear’d well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck’d in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop’d in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn’t think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look’d for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp’d and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor. The years 1846, ’47, and there along, see me still in New York city, working as writer and printer, having my usual good health, and a good time generally.

In his jingoist editorials for making war on Mexico, Whitman was explaining that it was the divine duty of the US to seize Mexican territory because Mexican “superstition,” a “burlesque upon freedom” amounted to “actual tyranny by the few over the many” and did not provide the sort of opportunity to “increase human happiness and liberty” that was present in the United States of America. He demanded rhetorically what Mexico had “to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?” The popular image of the Mexican in this period of United States history was of a person who was happy if “animal” needs had been satisfied. For Henry Thoreau to adventure toward contentment was for him to disassociate himself entirely from “Anglo-Saxon stock” and lump himself together with dirty Mexicans, savage Indians, and lazy Negroes, as a member of the inferior races which needed to be pushed aside. In a

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distinctly Orwellian manner, people were declaring during this period that “raising the Texian standard” as a slave state would constitute an extension of the borders of human freedom since this would mean that, in the words of Senator Robert J. Walker,28

our kindred race, predominated over that fair country, instead of the colored mongrel race, and barbarous tyranny, and superstitions of Mexico.

During this period, we note now in observations written by Mexican ambassadors in Washington DC to their offices in Mexico City, it was extremely difficult to deal with the officials of the US government, such as Secretary of State James Buchanan (who used the adjective “mixed” to describe the USA, but the adjective “mongrel” to describe Mexico), because these officials were making no attempt whatever to dissimulate the racial contempt in which they held their guests. –It must have been like Jewish diplomats attempting to negotiate with SS officers. “[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION? March 11, 1882

28. In the Orwellian world of American proslavery rhetoric, during this period, slavery was freedom: if the federal government were to attempt to deny to a citizen the freedom to dispose of his moneys in the purchase of slaves, the government would be interfering with the citizen’s freedom — which would be very wrong. America is about freedom, that’s why we had slavery.

In the Orwellian world of Reconstruction which was to come after our Civil War, of course, we corrected this era: during the Reconstruction period, the period of the “Jim Crow” Black Code in the South, black Americans were sharecroppers, and instead of slavery being freedom, freedom would become slavery. America is about freedom, that’s why we had the Ku Klux Klan.

(I find that I simply cannot resist reminding you of a standard joke of the Stalinist USSR: “In capitalist countries, it’s dog eat dog — here in the Worker’s Paradise, of course, it’s quite the other way around.”) “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 69 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Nevertheless, despite the social cost and the stigma, Thoreau, sitting in the door of his cabin on the pond, was adventuring toward a “Mexican” contentment which we can compare not with Walt Whitman but with Friedrich Nietzsche’s later experience of Gelassenheit, in his poem “Sils-Maria”:

Hier sass ich wartend, wartend, –doch auf nichts, jenseits von Gut und Böse, bald des Lichts geniessend, bald des Schattens, ganz nur Spiel, ganz See, ganz Mittag, ganz Zeit ohne Ziel. Here I sat waiting, waiting — yet for nothing, beyond good and evil, sometimes enjoying light, sometimes shadow, completely only play, completely lake, completely noon, completely time without goal.

It is indeed instructive that, at such a watershed, we find Thoreau and Whitman taking their stances upon quite opposite sides.

Published author Josiah Gregg was hired as a news correspondent and interpreter during the war. In this capacity, he would travel through Chihuahua.

At some point, in order to protect white laborers from “the disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor,” David Wilmot authored the “Wilmot Proviso” that slavery was not to be permitted on any territory acquired from Mexico. WAR ON MEXICO

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The Blundering Generation Revisited29

WAR ON MEXICO Michael F. Holt needs no introduction to historians of the United States. He has been the scholar probably most responsible for the emergence of what some critics call a neo-revisionist interpretation of the origins of the Civil War. The historians who write in this vein echo a central theme of the work of revisionist historians Avery Crandall and J.G. Randall: they emphasize the degree to which the Civil War could have and 29. A review for H-CivWar by Graham A. Peck, Department of History and Political Science, Saint Xavier University. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 71 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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perhaps should have been averted. Vigorously defending this position, Holt has long criticized historians who contend “that sectional conflict over slavery and slavery extension caused the Civil War.”30 Instead, he has argued in a series of influential books and articles that contingent political factors played the predominant role in stimulating disunion. Holt’s latest book,31 retracing much the same ground in greatly abbreviated fashion, does not break from the mold. “To locate the most direct causes of the American Civil War,” he contends in the preface, “one must look at the actions of governmental officeholders in the decades before that horrific conflict” (page xiii). His purpose, therefore, in writing THE FATE OF THEIR COUNTRY was not to “recant” his prior interpretations, but rather to attract new, non-specialist readers (page xiii). If so, the book already rates as a magnificent success. It comes in at a breezy 127 pages, and also includes a 30-page appendix of 8 valuable primary source political documents (7 excerpted), ranging from Lewis Cass’ 1847 “Nicholson letter” to William Seward’s “Irrepressible Conflict” speech in October 1858. In conjunction with the primary source documents, Holt’s brevity makes the book ideal for course adoption, and moreover will be no small relief to those who have read his small-print, 1,248- page magnum opus on the American Whig Party. One can only imagine the gratitude of his editors. The book is structured very simply, with an opening chapter titled “Pandora’s Box,” and three subsequent chapters titled “The Wilmot Proviso,” “The Compromise of 1850,” and “The Kansas- Nebraska Act.” The book’s structure, length, and subject of study are reminiscent of Don E. Fehrenbacher’s THE SOUTH AND THREE SECTIONAL CRISES (1980), although Holt provides a stronger historical narrative, linking his chapters together and presents an altogether contrasting argument. Whereas Fehrenbacher emphasized the long-standing resistance of Southerners to antislavery politics and hence the core problem of slavery in antebellum politics, including secession, Holt contends that political decisions made from 1846 to 1858 played a critical role in intensifying sectional hostility prior to secession and the Civil War. The “long-accumulated mistrust, fear, and loathing” that led Southerners and Northerners to massive bloodletting sprang neither from “whole cloth,” nor were they “simply products of the undeniable differences between the social systems of the North and the South and the contrasting value systems those different societies spawned.” Rather, Holt maintains, those hatreds “had intensified” in response to politicians’ actions on slavery-related issues (page 126). Holt’s argument is notably similar to Craven and Randall in two respects. First, he observes that “attempts to resolve the secession crisis foundered on the question of slavery’s future expansion into southwestern territories, where it did not exist, rather than on its guaranteed perpetuity in the southern states,

30. Michael F. Holt, POLITICAL PARTIES AND AMERICAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT FROM THE AGE OF JACKSON TO THE AGE OF LINCOLN (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1992), page 11. 31. Michael F. Holt.THE FATE OF THEIR COUNTRY: POLITICIANS, SLAVERY EXTENSION, AND THE COMING OF THE CIVIL WAR. NY: Hill and Wang, 2005 72 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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where it already did” (page 4). By this logic, the Civil War was precipitated by an abstraction rather than by a tangible problem. Although he does not explicitly say so, one cannot help feeling that he does not consider this largely abstract and apparently “intractable” issue as sufficient justification for a great Civil War (page 4). Hence his criticism of politicians who broached the issue of slavery’s extension into the West; it was they who opened the Pandora’s Box. Holt’s censuring of the reckless politicians who repeatedly brought abstract arguments about slavery’s expansion into public debate is the second way in which his work echoes the revisionists. He perhaps could forgive the politicians had their actions followed from constituent demands, but he believes that all too frequently the politicians were just working the angles. As he put it, party politicians often made “shortsighted calculations of partisan advantage” rather than considering the broader national interest, a problem that was especially pronounced in regards to slavery extension (page 9). Undeniably, the consequences of public debate over slavery were portentous. For this reason, probably the single greatest villain in Holt’s story is President James Knox Polk, an unrepentant nationalist and expansionist. According to Holt, Polk unscrupulously circumvented northern Democrats’ opposition to proslavery aspects of the joint resolution that authorized the annexation of Texas in 1845. Having acquired the votes of northern Democratic senators for the resolution by promising that he would renegotiate the terms of annexation after its passage, he promptly broke his word. To make matters worse, he then unilaterally endorsed Texas’s inflated claims to Mexican territory and sent U.S. troops into the disputed territory in order to provoke Mexico into a war. After Mexican troops attacked the invading Americans, Polk deliberately deceived Congress and the public by claiming that Mexico had precipitated war by shedding American blood on American soil. It was a bravura performance from the standpoint of unrestrained national expansion, yielding a bountiful crop of approximately half of Mexico, but Holt is utterly condemnatory. Polk “used his power as commander in chief to deploy troops to pursue his personal agenda,” never seeking “the prior approval of Congress.” In the process he created a “nightmare” for northern Democrats like New York’s Martin Van Buren, beginning a war that northern Whigs “could ‘charge with plausibility if not truth’ that Democrats ‘waged for the extension of slavery’” (page 18). In the end, the nightmare would be a national one, not merely a northern Democratic one, because there was no easy way for politicians to resolve the slavery extension problem once the United States had acquired vast tracts of Mexican land. Hence, from Holt’s perspective, this was a selfish, mendacious, and breathtakingly foolhardy beginning to what would become a remorseless sectional struggle over slavery’s expansion. In like manner Holt is critical of many other politicians or political groups whose actions contributed to sectional strife over slavery extension. For instance, in his chapter on the Wilmot Proviso, he observes that the 1848 effort of Free Soilers “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 73 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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to oppose slavery’s expansion, “regardless of attempts to settle that issue, is one reason why that vexatious and increasingly dangerous question defied permanent settlement” (page 44). Meanwhile, in his chapter on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he criticizes New York’s Hardshell Hunker Democrats for exploiting the slavery extension issue in order to punish intra-party rivals. The Hards demanded that all Democratic Party appointees seeking confirmation by the Senate in 1854 acknowledge that the popular sovereignty provisions of the Compromise of 1850 “applied to all federal territories” and not just to land taken from Mexico. Appointees who did not endorse this novel, proslavery reading of the 1850 compromise measures would be denied confirmation and replaced by trusty Hards (page 98). Holt is equally critical of the F Street Mess, a handful of powerful southern senators who refused to support the organization of Nebraska Territory unless Congress explicitly repealed the antislavery provisions of the Missouri Compromise. Their obduracy doubtless influenced Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s fateful decision in 1854 to cooperate in the repeal of the provisions, which enraged antislavery northerners and precipitated the organization of the Republican Party. Yet Douglas also comes in for blame. Holt maintains that Douglas’s desire to rekindle partisan rivalries through the Kansas- Nebraska Act sacrificed the nation’s interest to that of the Democratic Party (pages 99-100). Last, but not least, Holt does not spare the freesoil activists who condemned Douglas’s Nebraska bill in the incendiary January 1854 “Appeal of the Independent Democrats.” Holt claims that their ill-conceived assault pre-empted more moderate objections from northern and southern Whigs, the latter of whom especially might have prevented passage of the bill. As he put it, the freesoil protesters, like Douglas, pursued “their own partisan purposes,” which in this case was to “perpetuate their party and their own political careers” in the face of declining northern interest in the slavery issue after the Compromise of 1850 (page 107). One can only imagine the withering rebuke Holt would have administered to the secessionists had his narrative culminated with the outbreak of war. There is clearly much blame to go around. Yet his central argument is undermined by his frequent acknowledgments that many politicians attempted to resolve the slavery extension problem in order to preserve their party, the Union, or both. In 1848, for instance, Whigs, worried about the effect of the slavery extension issue on their party’s prospects to win the presidency, proposed letting the federal judiciary decide the legality of slavery in the territories taken from Mexico. This compromise legislation passed the Senate but was tabled in the House of Representatives. Holt explains that congressmen “from both sections were too uncertain about what might happen” if they left the issue for judges to decide (page 46). In other words, both sides cared so deeply about a favorable outcome that they refused to take the risk of not getting one. Later that year, Stephen A. Douglas proposed to admit all of the Mexican Cession territory as the state of California to avoid 74 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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debate and rancor over territorial slavery. However, as Holt recounts, southern senators “buried Douglas’s proposal in a hostile committee” because they feared that California would enter the Union as a free state (page 53). In 1849, Southern Whigs introduced a similar bill in the House. Concerned that a failure to resolve the slavery extension issue would destroy their party, they presumed northern Whig colleagues would support the bill. Instead, northern Whigs insisted that slavery be barred from the territory prior to the meeting of a state constitutional convention. “In this amended form,” Holt acknowledges, the “bill failed to receive a single favorable vote” (page 56). In 1850, President Zachary Taylor proposed to admit California and New Mexico as states, skipping the controversial territorial phase. Only northern Whigs strongly supported this initiative, which consequently had no chance of success (pages 56-67). Nevertheless, despite this string of failures, compromisers led by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas ultimately triumphed in 1850, albeit against some strong resistance. So it can hardly be said that there were not strong, powerful, and persistent politicians vying for the preservation of the Union. Even more troubling for Holt’s argument is that the line between compromisers and reckless partisans sometimes seems quite blurry. For instance, while Douglas did indeed help push the inflammatory Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress, he strongly promoted compromises on slavery prior to 1854 and during the secession crisis. Likewise, Georgia Whig Robert Toombs supported the California statehood bill in February 1849, despite his acknowledgment that it would lead to a free state; yet “within a year [he] would vow to lead a secession movement in the South should Congress itself try to bar slavery from California” (pages 55, 64-65). Meanwhile, southern Whigs contributed handsomely to the 1850 compromise, yet in 1854 provided critical votes in the House of Representatives for passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act. These political shifts do not fit neatly into Holt’s argument, especially considering that these politicians probably did not consider themselves to be inconsistent. For instance, Douglas believed that the Kansas-Nebraska Act would ultimately strengthen the country by permanently ending congressional debate over slavery’s expansion. As he repeatedly declared in 1854, the doctrine of popular sovereignty solved the thorny problem of territorial slavery; after all, if settlers decided the fate of slavery in national territories, it would forever remove that abstract, intractable problem from Congress. Although the historian may be excused for wondering if Douglas later privately regretted sponsoring the Kansas-Nebraska Act, in 1854 he expected to achieve a political triumph that would benefit his party and the Union. Once popular sovereignty was the nation’s settled policy for territorial slavery, the Democratic Party could continue to promote national expansion without fear of disunion. Had he not believed this, he would neither have sponsored the bill nor have modified it to suit the demands of Southerners, no matter what pressures southern congressmen placed upon him. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 75 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Hence one question unavoidably arises: if there were at least as many responsible compromisers as there were reckless partisans, and if it is sometimes difficult to discern the difference between them, what explains the Civil War? After all, in his prior scholarship Holt freely acknowledges and indeed celebrates the competitiveness of the Second Party System. Whigs and Democrats battled fairly evenly for almost a decade in the 1840s, leading to a robust party system throughout the nation. Yet none of this robust competition, a product of rampant partisanship, led to civil war. Sometime Democrats won, and sometimes Whigs, but either way the country managed to hold together. Likewise, after the Civil War, rampant partisanship and the two-party system have produced stability rather than war. So what was different about the 1850s? A very good explanation peeps through the text repeatedly. In the course of his narrative, if not in his thesis, Holt often recognizes that politicians did in fact respond to public pressure. A major case in point is the Wilmot Proviso. Since the proviso produced a slavery extension controversy par excellence, Holt seeks to explain the behavior of northern Democratic and southern Whig congressmen, whose votes produced a sectional rather than partisan divide. Northern Democrats previously had joined southern Democrats to support the annexation of Texas, while southern Whigs had leagued with northern Whigs to oppose it, yet many northern Democrats strongly and persistently supported the Wilmot Proviso in concert with northern Whigs, while southern Whigs and southern Democrats bitterly opposed it. Holt argues that the northern Democrats “initial support for the proviso” flowed from their anger at Polk’s duplicity over Texas, but that “northern and southern public opinion best explains the continuing sectional polarization over it” (pages 22-23, 26). As he put it, the “longer and more fractious congressional debate over the Wilmot Proviso became, the more intense sectional animosity in the population at large grew, which in turn unquestionably aggravated politicians’ disagreement over that issue” (page 26). To be sure, Holt frames “public opinion” adroitly in this instance, locating its origins in congressional debate. Nevertheless, what follows the quote is considerably more significant: eight pages dedicated to explaining why Northerners and Southerners held contrasting opinions on slavery’s expansion. While some scholars may quibble with his explanation of southern proslavery attitudes, the fact is Holt unhesitatingly acknowledges Northerners’ strong opposition to slavery’s expansion and Southerners’ strong support for it, including the incredible emotional vehemence Southerners invested in the issue. Holt’s thesis notwithstanding, the significance of these bedrock sectional attitudes shows repeatedly in the rest of the text. An excellent illustration of the power of public opinion on antebellum politicians is the consequential proslavery shift of southern Whigs in 1849. While a number of southern Whigs had supported the prospect of California statehood early in 1849, they were not remotely as conciliatory after leaving Congress and speaking with their constituents. As Robert Toombs wrote 76 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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later that year to a colleague, “public feeling in the South is much stronger than many of us supposed” and “passage of the Wilmot Proviso would lead to civil war.” He reported that Southerners would respond to the admission of California as a free state with “bitterness of feeling” (pages 64-65). His fear must have been palpable given the triumphs of Southern Democrats in the Mississippi and Georgia elections that year, which resulted in stridently proslavery public declarations by Democratic politicians. In Georgia, for instance, the state legislature passed resolutions instructing the governor “to call a secession convention immediately if the new Congress enacted the proviso, admitted California as a free state, or failed to pass a new, more rigorous fugitive-slave act” (page 65). This was strong medicine for southern Whigs, and they can hardly be blamed thereafter for refusing to support President Taylor’s plan to quickly admit New Mexico and California as states. All of this suggests the profound significance of the slavery issue after all. Given the underlying proslavery attitudes in the South, conciliatory southern Whigs faced a difficult challenge: either keep slavery out of public debate or face immolation at the polls. After all, like angry hornets, southern voters swarmed out to defend perceived threats to slavery. Yet Southerners were certain to perceive such threats--which were hardly illusory--given public attitudes in the North. After all, antislavery politicians, not southern Democrats, bore primary responsibility for stirring up the hornets. A northern Democrat, for instance, proposed the Wilmot Proviso. Moreover, as Kenneth Stampp argued years ago, historians cannot reasonably consider northern antislavery values as some sort of aberration or the product of misguided agitation. Those values were fundamental to a free society, even if not universally embraced in the North. Hence the southern Whigs’ situation alone suggests that, contra Holt, a crop of selfish and incompetent politicians in 1840s and 1850s was not the critical factor in precipitating civil war. Slavery was the foundation of the southern social system, the basis of its wealth and culture, and threats to it necessarily produced great volatility in American politics. Ironically, given this fact, Holt’s thesis can probably be turned on its head for the period following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act: after 1854, a political rupture was likely to occur eventually without an unusually skillful conciliation by concerned politicians, which itself was unlikely without an outpouring of conciliatory sentiments from most people in both the North and South. Needless to say, the conciliation never came. Yet to deny that politicians were the critical factor is not to say that they were insignificant--far from it. In fact, Holt’s book underscores a truth that is worth reiterating. “What politicians do in elective office matters, often profoundly,” he contended, “to the lives of ordinary Americans” (page xi). There can be no doubt about that, nor about the value of studying politicians, whose decisions have indeed done so much to shape the country’s history. For this reason alone I would willingly assign this book to undergraduates. On the significance of “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 77 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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politics to the Civil War, historians who are on the other side of the aisle, so to speak, about the origins of the war should be in complete agreement. And this area of agreement suggests that the contemporary rival schools of Civil War causation might not be as far apart as is sometimes thought. Just as Holt acknowledges, to a degree, the powerful interplay between politicians and public attitudes toward slavery, historians who emphasize the slavery issue must explain how contingent factors, including political ones, influenced the coming of the war. In the end, the real test of historical explanation is showing through creative reconstruction how a wide variety of relevant political, social, economic, and cultural factors produce change over time. Focusing on high politics, Michael Holt does not attempt a history on that scale. However, he does carefully examine an important historical issue and his argument invites debate over the relative influence of structural and contingent factors in bringing on the Civil War. As for the debate, at the risk of being as shortsighted and reckless as some politicians, I say, “bring it on.” Copyright (c) 2006 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: [email protected].

April: From Mexico, Josiah Gregg initiated a correspondence with Dr. George Engelmann of St. Louis, Missouri.32 He would be providing plant specimens quite new to Botany — such as the night-blooming cactus Cereus greggii.

The end of the Canadian Rebellion had eased border tensions without the new redoubts of Fort Niagara’s ever having needed to be tested. Troops stationed there had often been called away for other duties elsewhere. The United States government had been becoming more and more reluctant to pay the expenses of a garrison to man this old fortification. At this point the post was once more abandoned, in favor of something that seemed much more important, to wit, making this War on Mexico.

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends would declare that what the US was attempting by violence to bring about in Mexico was to “reestablish slavery where it had already been abolished.”

Back on his plantation in South Carolina, surrounded by his slaves, retired government official and private citizen Joel Roberts Poinsett opposed this war. In Mexico, meanwhile, an American soldier found a Mexican girlfriend. Then he discovered his officer on top of her and made the serious mistake of threatening this man. Perhaps this officer was one of those who had been trained in Secretary of War Poinsett’s vastly improved West Point academy. His comrades were drawn up into a standard three-sided square for his execution, but although he urged them to shoot straight and not make him suffer –and although, as under normal circumstances, one or two of the muskets to be used by the firing squad had been loaded randomly with powder but no ball in order to make it easier for the soldiers to commit this act– evidently his comrades were reluctant to aim at him. So, after the volley he was still conscious. The officer, rather than dispatch the condemned as per usual with his own pistol applied to the back of the neck, had two of the enlisted men recharge their muskets and fire at short range directly into their comrade’s head as he lay on the ground. One of the men wrote home, that this time they really blew his head apart. –It must have looked like a poinsettia. The record does not indicate what happened to the Mexican, where she spent her next Noche Buena. We do not have a record which indicates what impact there was on the war against Mexico, that former Minister to Mexico, former Secretary of War Poinsett, on his plantation in South Carolina surrounded by his slaves, was counseling against it. “[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION? March 11, 1882

After April 18: Events were shaping up along the banks of the rivers vaguely separating Mexico from Texas. The Mexican army had just been reinforced by the Mexico Light and 8th Line Cavalry Regiments, 4th Line Infantry, Mexico, Puebla & Morelia Activo Battalions and 6 guns, and acting on secret orders direct from President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces James Knox Polk, General Zachary Scott was about to send out a reconnaissance in force of about 70 US Dragoons commanded by Captain Seth Thornton with orders to scout an area 20 miles northwest of what later would become Brownsville, Texas and “determine whether the Mexican Army had crossed the Rio Grande for a possible attack on Fort Texas.” The actual purpose of these orders, of course, was to get these unsuspecting dragoons done to death by the Mexican army on land between the rivers that we could reasonably allege was “American soil,” so we would have plausible cause to declare “defensive” war — and launch our preplanned invasion of Mexico. WAR ON MEXICO

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After April 18, 1846: {Two leaves missing} man could have consciously devised. Commerce is brave & serene –alert –adventurous –unwearied – It is very natural –much more than many fantastic enterprises –sentimental experiments and hence its success – I am refreshed and expanded when the freight-train rattles past me on the rail road –and I smell the stores which have been dispensing their odors from long-wharf last –which remind me of foreign parts of coral reefs & Indian oceans and tropical climes –& the extent of the globe– I feel more a citizen of the world at the sight of the palm leaf which will cover so many new England flaxen heads the next summer –the manilla cordage –& the cocoanut husks– The old Junk & scrap iron, and worn out sails –are full of history more legible & significant now these old sails than if they could be wrought into writing paper. Here goes lumber from the Maine woods which did not go out to sea in the last freshet –risen 4 dollars on the thousand by reason of what did go out or was split up –pine spruce cedar –1st 2nd –3d & 4th quality so lately all of one quality, to wave over the bear & moose & caribou. –next rolls of Thomaston lime a prime lot which will get far among the hills before it gets slacked– These rags in bales of all hues & qualities the last and lowest condition of dress –of patterns which are now no longer cried up those splendid articles –poplin & muslin de laines –& pongees –from all quarters both of fashion & of poverty –going to become paper of one color –or a few shades COD This closed car smells of salt fish the strong scent –the commercial scent –reminding me of the grand banks & the fisheries & fish flakes A hogshead of molasses or rum –directed John Brown –Cuttings-ville Vt. –some trader among the growers who imports from the farmers near his clearing and now perchance stands over his bulk head and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast Is telling his customers perhaps –has told 20 this morning that he expects some by the next arrivals– It is advertised in the cuttingsville Times I know a woman who possess a restless & intelligent mind –interested in her own culture & that of the family and earnest to enjoy the highest possible advantages. I meet her with pleasure as a natural person who a little provokes me –& I suppose is stimulated in turn by myself– Yet our acquaintance plainly does not attain that degree of confidence & sentiment –which women –while all –covet – I am glad to help her, as I am helped by her, I like very well to know her with a sort of strangers privilege –and hesitate to visit her often like her other friends– My nature pauses here & I do not well know why. Perhaps she does not make the highest demand on me –not a religious demand. Some with whose prejudices or peculiar bias I have no faith –yet inspire me with confidence –and I trust they consider in me also as a religious heathen at least, –a good Greek– I too have principles as well founded as their own – If this person would conceive that without wilfulness I associate with her as far as our destinies are coincident –as far as our good geniuses permit –and still value such intercourse it would be a grateful assurance to me. I feel as if I appeared careless & indifferent & without principle –or requisition –to her –not expecting more & yet not content with less– If she could know that I make an infinite demand on myself, as well as all others – she would see that this true though incomplete intercourse was infinitely better than a more abandoned & unreserved though falsely grounded one –without the principle of growth in it. For a companion I require one who will make an equal demand on me with my own genius– Such a one will always be rightly tolerant. It is suicide –it corrupts good manners to welcome any less than this. I value & trust those who love & praise my aspiration and tendency –not my performance – If you would not stop to look at me, –but look whither I am looking & further –then my education could not dispense with thy company. The struggle in me is between a love of contemplation and a love of action –the life of a philosopher & of a hero. The poetic and philosophic have my constant vote –the practic hinders & unfits me for the former. How many things that my neighbors do bunglingly could I do skillfully & effectually –but I fain would not have leisure– My tendency is, on the one hand to the poetic life –on the other to the practic –and the result is the indifference of both –or the philosophic. In the practic the poetic loses its intensity –and fineness but gains in health & assurance- The practical life is the poetic making for itself a basis –and in proportion to the breadth of the base will be the quantity of material at the apex– The angle of slope for various materials is determined by science. The fabric of life is pyramidal. The man of practice is laying the foundations of a poetic life The poet of great sensibility is rearing a superstructure without foundation. To make a perfect man –the Soul must be much like the body not to unearthly & the body like the soul. The one must not deny & oppress the other. The line of greatest breadth intersects the line of greatest length at the point of greatest depth or height A law so universal –and to be read in all material –in Ethics as well as mechanics –that it remains its own most final statement.

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–It is the heart in man– It is the sun in the system –it is the result of forces– In the case of the pond it is the law operating without friction. Draw lines through the length & breadth of the aggregate of a man’s particular daily experiences and volumes of life into his coves and inlets –and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character. You only need to know how his shores trend & the character of the adjacent country to know his depth and concealed bottom. There is a bar too across the entrance of his every cove –every cove is his harbor for a season –and in each successively is he detained –land locked. There is no exclusively moral law –there is no exclusively physical law. THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle is a brave and genuine man earnest & sincere A most talented writer of English –an art of which he is master If he is sometimes an extreme praiser he is never a fatal detractor A Detector of shams A practical bent. He inspires us to greater earnestness & effort –and useful activity I find I cannot fish without falling a little in my own respect. I have tried it again & again –and have skill at it –and a certain instinct for it which revives from time to time but always I feel that it would have been better if I had not fished I think I am not mistaken. It is perhaps a faint intimation– Yet so are the streaks of morning. It tempts me as one means of becomming acquainted with nature not only with fishes but with night & water and the scenery –which I should not see under the same aspects; –and occasionally though {Two leaves missing} boat I seem to hear a faint music from the horizon– When our senses are clear and purified we always may hear the notes of music in the air– This is the tradition under various forms of all nations –the statue of Memnon– The music of the spheres –of the sun flower in its circular motion –with the sun &c. &c. THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyles place & importance in English Literature is not yet recognised – For the most part I know not how the hours go. Certainly I am not living the heroic life I had dreamed of– And yet all my veins are full of life –and nature whispers no reproach– The day advances as if to light some work of mine –and I defer in my thought as if there were some where busier men– It was morning & lo! it is now evening– And nothing memorable is accomplished– Yet my nature is almost content with this– It hears no reproach in nature. What are these pines & these birds about? What is this pond a-doing? I must know a little more –& be forever ready. Instead of singing as the birds I silently smile at my incessant good fortune but I dont know that I bear any flowers or fruits– Methinks if they try me by their standards I shall not be found wanting –but men try one another not so. The elements are working their will with me. As the fields sparrow has its trill sitting on the hickory before my door –so have I my chuckle as happy as he – which he may hear out of my nest. Man is like a plant and his satisfactions are like those of a vegetable –his rarest life is lest his own– One or two persons come to my house –there being proposed it may be to their vision the faint possibility of intercourse – & joyous communion. They are as full as they are silent and wait for your plectrum or your spirit to stir the strings of their lyre. If they could ever come to the length of a sentence or hear one –or that ground they are thinking of!! They speak faintly –they do not obtrude themselves They have heard some news which none, not even they themselves can impart. What come they out for to seek? If you will strike my chord? They come with somethings in their minds no particular fact or information –which yet is ready to take any form of expression on the proper impulse It is a wealth they bear about them which can be expended in various ways Laden with its honey the bee straightway flies to the hive to make its treasure common stock– The poet is impelled to communicate at every risk and at any sacrifice. I think I have this advantage in my present mode of life over those who are obliged to look abroad for amusement –to theatres & society –that my life itself is my amusement –and never ceases to be novel –the commencement of an experiment –or a drama which will never end.

April 23, Thursday: Mexico declared war on the United States of America.

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May: There was a threat of war between Great Britain and the USA over the Oregon territory. In New-York, Lewis Tappan secured 400 signatures to a petition to the effect that it would be better for Oregon to sink to the bottom of the ocean rather than for it to become the occasion for war “to the disgrace of civilization, Christianity, and rational freedom.”

George Bancroft, serving as acting Secretary of War, ordered General Zachary Taylor to invade Mexico. On the basis of a standing order that had been issued by Secretary of the Navy Bancroft in 1845, Captain John D. Sloat, commander of the Pacific squadron, immediately seized all California ports.

“The critic’s joking comment that Bancroft wrote American history as if it were the history of the Kingdom of Heaven, had a trifle of truth in it.” — Russel Blaine Nye

President Polk told the US federal Congress that he wanted to make war upon Mexico because that neighbor nation “had invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.” –Which of course was a fraud. Why, really, did we declare war on Mexico? Consider what Glenn W. Price had to offer on page 18 of his ORIGINS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO: THE POLK-STOCKTON INTRIGUE (Austin TX: U of Texas P, 1967): In 1829 slavery was abolished in Mexico, but the remonstrance in Texas was so vigorous that the province was excepted from the decree. The threat of the loss of their “chattel property” thenceforth hung over the heads of the Americans in Texas. Historians, intent upon disentangling themselves from the thesis of a conspiracy of the slaveocracy in the Texas affair, have muted this note as a factor in the Texas Revolution; but there is no question whatsoever but that it played a part. The Concord Freeman reported that the battles fought by Zachary Taylor on the Rio Grande in Mexico were “among the most gallant” that have “anywhere ever” been fought. That’s not hard to believe, if you think about it, but the local paper also opinioned that the American Army was covered with gore — oops, that’s a typo, they said glory. WAR ON MEXICO

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May 8: Oscar Hammerstein, playwright (Kohinoor), was born in Germany.

A pitched battle was fought at “Palo Alto,” a field eight miles north of the Rio Grande River, two miles north of the present city limits of Brownsville, Texas. War correspondents were on the scene, as was a Daguerreotypist, to capture the throes of combat, and this was the first military engagement of which the results would be reported by telegraph. WAR ON MEXICO

The hill being fought over was covered with scrub and some twenty feet high. The battle turned out to be a technological one pitting charges of cavalry against artillery barrages, and some 39 of the participants would become, at some later point in their lives, generals. Unfortunately, such technological battles tend to be messy: nine US soldiers lost their lives and 43 were wounded. After the battle the US sawbones administered ether to the wounded as he processed them through his tent. Somewhere between 100 and 400 Mexican soldiers had been killed and after the battle their musical instruments could be inspected strewn about “rent as if of paper.” Because of the significance of this struggle, our National Park Service will be designating the 3,400-acre plot the “Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Center” — this will be a real contribution to human civilization if they will add some shade trees. How well can the government –any government, for that matter– tell the truth about itself and maintain the authority to exercise stewardship of historic properties?

Daniel Webster would nickname his rifle “The Wilmot Proviso” when Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would bar slavery or involuntary servitude from the territories annexed to the United States in the Mexican War:

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May 9: News reached Washington DC that on April 25th there had been a border dust-up between white troops under a Captain Thornton and Mexican troops under a General Arista in which several white soldiers had been killed. In a couple of days President Polk would be able to inform the US Congress that a state of war existed.

The battle of Resaca de la Palma:

WAR ON MEXICO

That night, on the trail out west, Brevet Captain John Charles Frémont received a courier, Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, bearing a message from President James Polk. While he was evaluating the new information he neglected to issue the order posting a watchman for the camp that night. This neglect has later been alleged to have been found troubling by Kit Carson — and yet it is clear from his actions at the time that he had not anticipated any actual danger. Later that night Kit was awakened at a thump, and jumped to his feet to find his fellow trapper Basil Lajeunesse sprawling in blood. He sounded the alarm and soon the white men became aware that their camp had been infiltrated by a native band of perhaps several dozen warriors. By the time the camp was again secure, two other members of their group were dead. They found the body of one attacker, whom they presumed, probably incorrectly, to have been a Klamath Lake native. The group of white men fell into “an angry gloom” and Kit, in a fury, smashed this dead face into a pulp.

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May 13, Wednesday: The US Congress having been informed a couple of days before by President James Knox Polk, that a state of war existed between the United States of American and its southern neighbor, Mexico, it recognized the existence of a state of war with Mexico and voted to authorize the President to solicit volunteers for the purpose of prosecution of that de facto war. What had happened was that the US had staged a provocation, inducing army soldiers to don stolen Mexican uniforms and stage a mock attack upon their own garrison post near the border. Word of this “Gulf of Tonkin” fraud would soon leak out of government circles and the war upon Mexico would become the 1st, but not the last, widely protested war in our history.33 WAR ON MEXICO

Medical standards were so nonexistent that a fraud like Dr. Thomas J. Hodges would have no trouble performing the duties of a US Army surgeon during this foreign campaign. “Which leg?”

May 28: Zachary Taylor was anointed a brevet major general for his zealous and distinguished services in Mexico. WAR ON MEXICO

End of May: There was a 100-gun salute on Boston common, in honor of the war upon Mexico. The cost of this fireworks display was borne by private subscription. WAR ON MEXICO

The wagon train containing among others the Donner family completed the crossing of the Big Blue River.

June 4, Thursday: Recruiting parties were patrolling the streets of Boston, confronting young men and urging them to enlist in the war upon Mexico. WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

June 15, Monday: Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, in Regard to Limits Westward of the Rocky Mountains.

An anti-Mexican-War statement about the higher law by Henry Thoreau appeared in a Whig newspaper that generally supported that war, the Boston Courier: Conflict of Laws In the conflict of laws, one law must be supreme. If our state laws conflict with our national, the state law yields. The higher law always renders the conflicting 33. A Representative from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, would 1st rise to the nation’s attention when he would begin to make public demands of the President, that we be informed of the “exact location” at which Mexico had allegedly invaded the United States. That Representative would learn that such anti-war antics did nothing to help the personal career and agenda of an American politician and, the next time the occasion offered, he would not attempt this stunt but instead would stay safely on the “loyal” pro-war side of the fence. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS 86 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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lower law null and void. Is it not so in all cases? If the national law bids me do what my conscience forbids, must not my conscience be supreme? Shall the law of conscience or the law of Christ be repealed by the Congress of the United States? WAR ON MEXICO In regard to this 1846 public appeal to conscience by Thoreau, we should consider that according to Professor Daniel Walker Howe’s MAKING THE AMERICAN SELF: JONATHAN EDWARDS TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN (Studies in Cultural History. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1997, page 236), the real subject of Thoreau’s January 1848 lecture “‘The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government’ would be the construction of a moral self, to which the act of breaking the law is a means.... Thoreau refused to accept the conventional wisdom that conscience was a weak faculty, and undertook to illustrate, through precept and example, the potential power of conscience in everyday life ... his essay is in its way a religious document, part of the literature of spiritual perfectionism.” Although the title which Thoreau assigned for his essay “Resistance to Civil Government” highlights his repudiation of Garrisonian nonresistance, Howe points out on page 240 that “Thoreau had attempted to preserve some of the conventional nonresistant attitude toward government. ‘I submit to loss, inconvenience, suffering, in obedience to law even if I conceive the law unjust,’ he declared, ‘but I cannot do wrong,’ even to obey the law.”

Continuing on pages 244-5, Howe argues that Thoreau cannot be described as a liberal. What he was rather than a liberal, Howe offers, was “a Romantic religious perfectionist.” Thoreau’s orientation to political thought did not really come primarily from the liberal tradition. His extensive library included none of Locke’s political writings and nothing at all by Thomas Jefferson. He conceded the applicability of liberal premises to American institutions of government only in order to consign them to the inferior realm of man-made, as opposed to the eternal moral principles of nature. The coordinates of Thoreau’s thinking about politics had been established by his study of moral philosophy as an undergraduate. The philosophers whom Harvard College took most seriously in his day were ethical intuitionists like the Scotsman Dugald Stewart. A favorite whipping-boy of Harvard moral philosophy was William Paley, archdeacon of Carlisle and popularizer of “Christian Evidences.” ... As the title “Resistance to Civil Government” indicates, Thoreau framed his argument as a sarcastic commentary on Paley’s chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government” in his MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.... (Paley only deals with the question of revolution, not with selective civil disobedience.) Thoreau comments sardonically: “Paley never seems to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it.”34 Paley represented a tradition

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in Latitudinarian Anglicanism going all the way back to Archbishop Tillotson and John Locke, one that Benjamin Franklin had found congenial. For Thoreau, Paley typified the shortcomings of the whole of bourgeois utilitarian liberalism, concerned with self-interest and expediency. It was no accident that Thoreau’s essay, along with his other writings, gained a significant audience only when nineteenth-century liberalism was coming under widespread attack.

RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT

Continuing on pages 245-6, Howe offers that: To understand Thoreau’s purpose in the essay “Resistance to Civil Government,” we must see it as an example of religious perfectionism. Among the earliest and most consistently influential examples of the constructed self in American culture were religious identities. The distinguishing characteristic of the evangelical tradition is its insistence that a proper Christian must be born again, that is, must experience a transformation into a new identity as follower of Christ. The decision for Christ is generally conceived as a response to divine grace. Henry David Thoreau’s writings are also framed to provoke in his readers a conversion experience of a sort — or at least, as preparation for a transforming grace that will be encountered in nature. The objective is a new identity as a moral being, and this demands a conscious resolve.... Particularly relevant was Jonathan Dymond (1796-1828), an English Quaker whose ESSAYS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY Thoreau studied in his student days. Dymond argued that the American colonists of 1776 could have made their point successfully and without bloodshed simply by massive noncompliance with the tax laws. JONATHAN DYMOND

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July: At the convention of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, the Reverends William Henry Channing and Theodore Parker joined in a pledge to oppose the new war against Mexico “at all hazards, and at every sacrifice, to refuse enlistment, contribution, aid and countenance.” Helen Louisa Thoreau and Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau were also at this convention, and signed this pledge.35

July: In an act which had nothing whatever to do with St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, Captain James Montgomery pulled down the flag of the United States of Mexico and raised that of the United States of America at El Pueblo de San Francisco, the town of the founder of the Franciscan Order overlooking La Bahia de San Francisco, the bay of St. Francis of Assisi. By fair means or foul the US had attained its all-important port on the Pacific Ocean. WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

35. Within the month, Helen Louisa Thoreau’s and Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau’s surviving brother Henry David Thoreau would not only refuse to pay his past-due poll tax but also suggest that he be imprisoned. WAR ON MEXICO “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 89 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Our national birthday, the 4th of July: There was an elaborate fireworks display on Boston Common to simulate the bombardment of the private citizenry of Veracruz in Mexico.36

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July 23 or 24: Henry Thoreau provoked Sheriff Sam Staples, who was under contract as the Concord tax farmer, into

taking him illegally to the Middlesex County Prison37and spent the night there, for having for several years (up to perhaps 9), following the example of Bronson Alcott, refused to pay certain taxes as useful for the perpetuation of domestic slavery and foreign wars.38

“RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT”: It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour — for the horse was soon tackled — was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. This is the whole history of “My Prisons.” I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax- bill that I refuse to pay it.

37. The usual penalty for failure to pay the Massachusetts poll tax was property seizure and auction upon failure to display a stamped tax receipt, and was most certainly never imprisonment, but young Thoreau possessed few auctionable items and probably did not use a bank account. 38. During the one year 1845, in Massachusetts, the “poll tax” had been being reckoned as if it were a state tax, although in all other years it had been and would be reckoned as a municipality or county tax. As a town tax, and as a county tax, of course, it could hardly be considered to be in support of slavecatching or of foreign wars, since neither the Massachusetts towns nor the Massachusetts counties engaged in either slavecatching or the raising of armies. Also, even in the one year 1845, while this tax was being considered as a state tax, under the law no part of this revenue was to be used for the catching of fugitive slaves, and no foreign war was going on at the moment (the march upon Mexico had not yet fairly begun). Thoreau, therefore, in declining to pay voluntarily this tax bill, actually was not refusing to acknowledge slavery, as alleged, or a war effort, as alleged, but was refusing to recognize any political organization whatever. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 91 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Walter Harding has tracked down what may well be the origin of the often-told but utterly spurious story, that Waldo Emerson came to visit Thoreau in his prison cell and expressed concern: he found a “Bringing Up Father” cartoon strip in the newspaper, in which Paddy was in jail for drunkenness, and when Jiggs asks him how come he was in jail Paddy retorts “How come you’re not?” Alcott has reported that Emerson’s reaction to the news of this was to find Thoreau’s stand to have been “mean and skulking, and in bad taste.” Therefore, is this not the point at which we can profitably ask, was Thoreau merely running away from his social responsibilities, as has been so often alleged, when he went out to live at Walden Pond? Let’s attach the humorous title “DECAMPING TO WALDEN POND: A GENDER 39 ANALYSIS BY MARTHA SAXTON” to the following quotation:

It seems, from exaggerated nineteenth-century sex definitions, that Victorians were afraid men and women might not be able to distinguish gender. So women were trussed, corseted, and bustled into immobility while men posed in musclebound attitudes of emotionless strength. this suppression of tenderness, warmth, and most expressions of feelings produced the male equivalent of the vapors. Louisa [May Alcott]’s teacher and secret love, Henry David Thoreau, decamped to Walden Pond rather than confront social demands that he be conventionally “male.”

Another member of the Thoreau family, we don’t know who, paid the tax for him, as the tax had previously been paid by Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar when Alcott had almost been jailed on January 17, 1843. Although Emerson was irritated no end by such unseemly conduct, on the part of an associate, as failure to pay one’s share of the general tax burden, to his credit he did continue to press for publication of Thoreau’s WEEK manuscript. However, at that time Thoreau was still preparing additions to the second draft.40

39. On page 226 of her LOUISA MAY: A MODERN BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Saxton accused Thoreau of “unrelenting misogyny” as her way of elaborating on Bronson Alcott’s remark of November 5, 1858 that Thoreau was “better poised and more nearly self-sufficient than other men.” This caused me to look back to her title page and inspect the date of publication and say to myself, “Yeah, this thing was published back in 1977, the bad old days when we thought we had to combat male sexism by nurturing prejudice against anyone with a penis.” 92 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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40. Lawrence, Jerome (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994), THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL: A PLAY. NY: Hill and Wang, 1971, Spotlight Dramabook #1223, c1970, c1972

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I should make reference here to a snide remark that Albert J. von Frank has included at page 202 of his 1 AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. The sentence is as follows, in its entirety: “Henry Thoreau expressed his own anti-politics a month later by spending a night in jail for tax evasion, an act that drew Emerson’s quick disapproval, thought the principles behind the act, as Thoreau explained in ‘Civil Disobedience,’ had more in common with Emerson’s own position than he then suspected.” Now here are the things that I suppose to be quite wrongheaded about von Frank’s assertion, which would seem on its face simply to be praising Thoreau against Emerson: •“anti-politics” Thoreau’s act was not an act of anti-politics but an act of politics. To privilege assent over dissent in such a manner constitutes an unconscionable expression of mere partisanship. •“tax evasion” Thoreau’s act was not the act of a tax evader. A tax evader is a cheater, who is trying through secrecy or deception to get away with something. Thoreau’s act was the deliberate public act of a man who would rather be imprisoned than assist in ongoing killing, and thus is in an entirely separate category from such cheating. To conflate two such separate categories, one of self-service and the other of self-abnegation, into a single category, in such manner, is, again, an unconscionable expression of prejudicial politics. •“had more in common” The implication here is that Emerson’s attitudes constitute the baseline for evaluation of Thoreau’s attitudes, so that Thoreau may be condescendingly praised for imitating Emerson whenever the two thinkers can be made to seem in agreement, while preserving the option of condemning him as a resistor or worse whenever these contemporaries seem at loggerheads. –But this is unconscionable.

Albert J. von Frank. AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. NY: G.K. Hall & Co. and Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994

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Emerson to his journal:

These rabble at Washington are really better than the snivelling opposition. They have a sort of genius of a bold & manly cast, though Satanic. They see, against the unanimous expression of the people, how much a little well directed effrontery can achieve, how much crime the people will bear, & they proceed from step to step & it seems they have calculated but too justly upon your Excellency, O Governor Briggs. Mr Webster told them how much the war cost, that was his protest, but voted the war, & sends his son to it. They calculated rightly on Mr Webster. My friend Mr Thoreau has gone to jail rather than pay his tax. On him they could not calculate. The abolitionists denounce the war & give much time to it, but they pay the tax. The State is a poor good beast who means the best: it means friendly. A poor cow who does well by you — do not grudge it its hay. It cannot eat bread as you can, let it have without grudge a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield you milk from its teat. You who are a man walking cleanly on two feet will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful of clover & welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat.

DANIEL WEBSTER We now understand that Sheriff Sam was considerably twisting the law under which he confined Thoreau for nonpayment of that $5 or $6 arrears of poll tax, and for his own convenience. For what the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts required him to do in regard to such a tax resistor, prior to debt imprisonment, was to attempt to seize and sell some of Thoreau’s assets, such as the books he had in storage in his parents’ boardinghouse in Concord. Sheriff Staples hadn’t been inclined to do this and at this point didn’t have time because he was leaving office — and the sad fact of the matter is that, since he was merely under contract as a “tax farmer,” had he vacated his position without collecting this money from the Thoreau family, Massachusetts would simply have deducted the sum from his final paycheck (bottom line, The Man always takes his cut). For here is that law, and it simply offers no support whatever for what Sheriff Staples did to put pressure on Thoreau:

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Section 7. If any person shall refuse or neglect to pay his [poll] tax, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of his goods, excepting the good following, namely: • The tools or implements necessary for his trade or occupation; • beasts of the plow necessary for the cultivation of his improved lands; • military arms, utensils for house keeping necessary for upholding life, and bedding and apparel necessary for himself and family. Section 8. The collector shall keep the goods distrained, at the expense of the owner, for the space of four days, at the least, and shall, within seven days after the seizure, sell the same by public auction, for the payment of the tax and the charges of keeping and of the sale, having given notice of such sale, by posting up a notification thereof, in some public place in the town, forty eight hours at least before the sale. Section 11. If the collector cannot find sufficient goods, upon which it may be levied, he may take the body of such person and commit him to prison, there to remain, until he shall pay the tax and charges of commitment and imprisonment, or shall be discharged by order of law.

TIMELINE OF ESSAYS TIMELINE OF WALDEN

After July 24: In my short experience of human life I have found that the outward obstacles which stood in my way were not living men –but dead institutions It has been unspeakably grateful & refreshing to make my way through the crowd of this latest generation honest & dishonest virtuous & vicious as through the dewy grass –men are as innocent as the morning to the early riser –and unsuspicious pilgrim and many an early traveller which he met on his way v poetry –but the institutions as church –state –the school property &c are grim and ghostly phantoms like Moloch & Juggernaut because of the blind reverence paid to them. When I have indulged a poets dream of a terrestrial paradise I have not foreseen that any cossack or Chipeway –would disturb it –but some monster institution would swallow it– The only highway man I ever met was the state itself– When I have refused to pay the tax which it demanded for that protection I did not want itself has robbed me– When I have asserted the freedom it declared it has imprisoned me. I love mankind I hate the institutions of their forefathers– What are the sermons of the church but the Dudleian lectures –against long extinct perhaps always imaginary evils, which he dead generations have willed and so the bell still tolls to call us to the funeral service which a generation can rightly demand but once. It is singular that not the Devil himself –has been in my way but these cobwebs –which tradition says were originally spun to obstruct the fiend. If I will not fight –if I will not pray –if I will not be taxed –if I will not bury the unsettled prairie –my neighbor will still tolerate me nd sometimes even sustains me –but not the state. And should our piety derive its origin still from that exploit of pius Aenaeus who bore his father Anchises on his shoulders from the ruins of Troy Not thieves & highwaymen but Constables & judges –not sinners but priests –not the ignorant but pedants & pedagogues –not foreign foes but standing armies –not pirates but men of war. Not free malevolence –but organized benevolence. For instance the jailer or constable as a mere man and neighbor –with life in him intended for this particular 3 score years & ten –may be a right worthy man with a thought in the brain of him –but as the officer & tool of the state he has no more understanding or heart than his prison key or his staff– This is what is saddest that men

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should voluntarily assume the character & office of brute nature.– Certainly there are modes enough by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion & neighbor. There are stones enough in the path of the traveller with out a man’s adding his own body to the number. There probably never were worse crimes committed since time began than in the present Mexican war –to take a single instance– And yet I have not yet learned the name or residence and probably never should of the reckless vilain who should father them– all concerned –from the political contriver to the latest recruit possess an average share of virtue & of vice the vilainy is in the readiness with which men, doing outrage to their proper natures –lend themselves to perform the office of inferior & brutal ones. The stern command is –move or ye shall be moved –be the master of your own action –or you shall unawares become the tool of the meanest slave. Any can command him who doth not command himself. Let men be men & stones be stones and we shall see if majorities do rule. Countless reforms are called for because society is not animated or instinct enough with life, but like snakes I have seen in early spring –with alternate portions torpid & flexible –so that they could wriggle neither way. All men more or less are buried partially in the grave of custom, and of some we see only a few hairs upon the crown above ground. Better are the physically dead for they more lively rot. Those who have stolen estate to be defended slaves to be kept in service –who would pause with the last inspiration & perpetuate it –require the aid of institutions –the stereotyped and petrified will of the past But they who are something to defend –who are not to be enslaved themselves – –who are up with their time – ask no such hinderance THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle’s is not the most lasting words nor the loftiest wisdom –but for his genius it was reserved at last to furnish expression for the thoughts that were throbbing in a million breasts– It has plucked the ripest fruit in the public garden– But this fruit now least concerned the tree that bore it –which was rather perfecting the bud at the foot of the leaf stalk. Carlyle is wonderfully true to the impressions on his own mind, but not to the simple facts themselves. He portrays the former so freshly and vividly –that his words reawaken and appeal to our whole Experience But when reinforced by this terrible critic we return to his page his words are found not to be coincident with the thing and inadequate and there is no host worthy to entertain the guest he has invited. On this remote shore we adventurously landed unknown to any of the human inhabitants to this day – But we still remember well the gnarled and hospitable oaks, which were not strangers to us, the lone horse in his pasture and the patient ruminating herd whose path to the river so judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulty of the ascent we followed and disturbed their repose in the shade. And the cool free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to the wayfarers though still green and crude. The hard round glossy fruit which if not ripe –still is not poison but New English –brought hither its ancestor by our ancestors once. And up the rocky channel of a brook we scrambled which had long served nature for the sluice in these parts leaping from rock –through tangled woods at the bottom of a ravine, darker and darker it grew and more hoarse, the murmur of the stream –until we reached the ruins of a mill where now the ivy grew and the trout glanced through the raceway and the flume.

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And the dreams and speculations of some early settler was our theme

But now “no war nor battle’s sound” Invades this peaceful battle ground but waves of Concord murmuring by With sweetly fluent harmony. But since we sailed, some things have failed And many a dream gone down the stream Here then a venerable shepherd dwellt ...... The Reverend Ezra Ripley Who to his flock his substance dealt And ruled them with a vigorous crook By precept of the sacred Book. But he the pierless bridge passed o’er And now the solitary shore Knoweth his trembling steps no more. Anon a youthful pastor came ...... Nathaniel Hawthorne Whose crook was not unknown to fame His lambs he viewed with gentle glance Dispersed o’er a wide expanse, And fed with “mosses from the Manse” We view the rocky shore where late With soothed and patient ear we sat Under our Hawthorne in the dale And listened to his Twice told Tale. It comes on murmuring to itself by the base of stately and retired mountains –through dark primitive woods – whose juices it receives and where the bear still drinks it– Where the cabins of settlers are still fresh and far between, and there are few that cross its stream. Enjoying still its cascades unknown to fame perhaps unseen as yet by man –alone by itself –by the long ranges of the mountains of Sandwich and of Squam with sometimes MT. KEARSARGE the peak of Moose hillock the Haystack & Kearsarge reflected in its waters. Where the maple and the raspberry that lover of the mountains flourish amid temperate dews. Flowing as long and mysterious and untranslateable as its name Pemigewasset. By many a pastured Pielion and Ossa where unnamed muses haunt, and receiving the tribute of many an untasted Helicon Not all these hills does it lave but I have experienced that to see the sun set behind them avails as much as to have travelled to them. From where the old Man of the Mountain overlooks one of its head waters –in the Franconia Notch, taking the basin and the Flume in its way –washing the sites of future villages –not impatient. For every mountain stream is more than Helicon, tended by oreads dryads Naiads, and such a pure and fresh inspirit draught gift of the gods as it will take a newer than this New England to know the flavor of.

Such water do the gods distill And pour down hill For their new England men. A draught of this wild water bring And I will never taste the spring Of Helicon again. But yesterday in dew it fell This morn its streams began to swell And with the sun it downward flowed So fresh it hardly knew its road. Falling all the way, not discouraged by the lowest fall –for it intends to rise again. There are earth air fire & water –very well, this is water. down it comes that is the way with it. It was already water of Squam and Newfound lake and Winnipiseogee, and White mountain snow dissolved on which we were floating –and Smith’s and Bakers and Mad rivers and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag –and Suncook & Soucook & Contoocook –mingled in incalculable proportions –still fluid yellowish restless all with an inclination seaward but boyant. Here then we will leave them to saw and grind and spin for a season, and I fear there will be no vacation at low water for they are said to have Squam and Newfound lake and Winipiseogee for their mill ponds. By the law of its birth never to become stagnant for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood through beaver dams broke loose not splitting but splicing and mending itself until it found a breatheing plaace in this lowland– No danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again before it reach the sea for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with every eve We wandered on by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains –& through notches which the stream

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had made –looking down one sunday morning over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabitants –like crusaders strolled out from the camp in Palestine–41 And looking in to learning’s little tenement by the way –where some literate swain earns his ten dollars by the month –after the harvest –with rows of slates and well cut benches round –as well cut as farther south –not noticing the herd of swine which had poured in at the open door, and made a congregation– So we went on over hill and dale through the stumpy rocky –woody –bepastured country –until we crossed a rude wooden bridge over the Amonnoosuck and breathed the free air of the Unappropriated Land. Now we were in a country where inns begin– And we too now began to have our ins and outs– Some sweet retired house whose sign only availed to creak but bore no Phoenix nor golden eagle but such as the sun and rain had painted there – –a demi public demi private house –where each apartment seems too private for your use –too public for your hosts. One I remember where Landlord and lady hung painted as if retired from active life –upon the wall –remarkable one might almost say –if he knew not the allowed degrees of consanguinity for a family likeness –a singular deflexion of the nose turned each to each –so that the total variation could not have been better represented than in the picture. –But here at any rate the cream rose thick upon the milk –and there was refreshment One “Tilton’s Inn” tooo sheltered us which it were well worth remembering, in Thornton it was where towns begin to serve as gores only to hold the world together –reached late in the evening and left before the sun rose. But the remembrance of an entertainment still remains and among publicans Tiltons name still stands conspicuous in our diary. But where we took our ease was not Canterbury street, no Four corners nor Five points –no trivial place where 3 roads meet but hardly one road held together– A dank forest path –more like an otter’s or a marten’s trail or where a beaver had dragged his trap than where the wheels of travel ever raised a dust. The pigeon sat secure above our heads high on the dead limbs of the pine reduced to robins size– The very yard of our hostelries was inclined upon the skirts of mountains and as we passed we looked up at angle at the stems of maples waving in the clouds –and late at evening we heard the drear bleating of innumerable flocks upon the mountains sides seeming to hold unequal parley with the bears Shuddered through the Franconia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved into mountain waves from Agiocochook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs in the sun– And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adroscoggin “take up their mountain march– Went on our way silent & humble through the Notch –heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains late at night –looked back on Conway peak –threaded the woods of Norway pine –and saw the Great Spirit smile in Winnipiseogee42 Varro advises to plant in Quincunx order in order not to “obstruct the beneficial effects of the sun and moon and air,” and adds “nuts, when they are whole, which you might comprize in one modius, because nature confines the kernels in their proper places, when they are broken, can hardly be held in a measure of a modius and a half.” Vines thus planted produce more fruit “more must and oil, and of greater value”. I read in Varro that “Caesar Vopiscus AEdilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the gardens [(sedes)] of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of the herbage.” This soil was not remarkably fertile yet I was so well contented with myself it may be & with my entertainment –that I was really remind of this anecdote. In speaking of “the dignity of the herd” Varro suggests that the object of the Argonautic expedition was a ram’s fleece the gold apples of the Hesperides were by the ambiguity of language [] goats and sheep which Hercules imported –the stars and signs bear their names the AEgean sea has its name from the goat and mountains and straits have hence their names –sic. The Bosphorus Piso makes Italy to be from Vitulis– The Romans were shepherds “Does not the fine [mulcta, a mulgendo] that was by ancient custom paid in kind refer to this?” The oldest coins bore the figures of cattle and the Roman names Porcius –Ovinus Caprilius & the 41. We wandered on (by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains — & through notches which the stream had with awe made — looking down ^one sunday morn- ing over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabi- where every house seemd to us a holy sepulchre tants — like crusaders strolled out from Richards as if we were the camp in Palestine — (T 74)

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surnames Equitius, Taurus, Capra Vitulus. Vide Cato “Of purchasing an Estate –” “How an estate is to be planted –” &c in Lat & Eng.

I will insert here some commentary on this early draft of material that would wind up in the “Monday” chapter of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

A WEEK: If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that is he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.

The following is, if I recall correctly and can trust my notes, from William Bronk’s THE BROTHER IN ELYSIUM: IDEAS OF FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES (1980), pages 104-106: The crux of the matter is that Thoreau believed that all evil did come in through the opening formed when any man might so betray his own nature as to lend himself to perform an inhuman office. While it might be contended that good and evil are something to be done at will and according to will, without reference to our own constitutions, — that we are of indifferent or irrelevant moral quality ourselves, and are able to choose between a good act and an evil one and so determine by the excess of one kind of action over the other our own moral quality and the moral quality of the world, yet it was Thoreau’s contention that the process by which good and evil came into being was more 42. our way Shuddered ^through that Fran- conia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved into mountain waves from Agioco- chook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs in the sun — And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adros- coggin “take up their mountain march — Went on our way ^silent & humble through the Notch ^— heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains holding unequal parley with the wolves & bears late at night — ^looked back on Conway peak — threaded the woods of Norway pine — and saw the Great Spirit smile ^in Winnipiseogee (T 76-77) 100 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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exacting and natural, less arbitrary than this. He believed that it was always necessary to make the choice between good and evil whenever such a choice was presented, but he also believed that in most cases, the choice was not presented, and that evil resulted in some mysterious way without anyone’s willing it, or being aware of it, and even to everyone’s surprise and chagrin. Thoreau accounted for this phenomenon by saying that being is more important and more effective than doing. Anything therefore might happen to us which was consistent with the nature we took for ourselves, even though the process by which the happening came about was so subtle or so complicated that we missed the apprehension of it, even after its end. If. as Thoreau said, we do outrage to our proper nature, — if we take our identity from the state, then we become liable to the evils of the state, and have no defense against war and slavery, since it has none. It is only by refusing to do the office of inferior and brutal natures that we can hope to escape, on our own part, treatment which in its brutality is suited to inferior natures. We must be treated according to the nature which we determine shall be ours. We can win or lose, or act in any other way, only in accordance with terms we set for ourselves. The identity which Thoreau wished us to find, which left no opening for the evil we claimed to deplore, was most certainly not to be found in the state; and neither was it to be found in any other external form, for its essence was personal. It was to be found only through that steady communion with one’s deepest desires and insights, which was called silence. He found no evil and little that was ambiguous in silence. It is easier to see now, of course, why Thoreau rejected philanthropy and reform, since to find one’s identity, to become personal, was truly to ennoble one’s being; it was to enjoy those moments of serene and self-confident life which were better than whole campaigns of daring; it was to combat evil directly by leaving no opening by which it could enter. Philanthropy’s method was less direct. It offered the goodness of actions as an excuse and substitute for being. Reform was an attempt to avoid a change in true form by changing the surface only.

August 15, Saturday: Only a month after the American flag had been raised over Monterey, California in northern Mexico, The Californian carried the news of a declaration of war by the United States of America against that nation.

The Manchester Times and Gazette of Manchester, England presented a miscellaneous series of extracts from books. They had mixed among these extracts two paragraphs out of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE, this initial one on “EMERSON’S STUDY,” which mentions Waldo Emerson and NATURE: There was, in the rear of the house, the most delightful little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I first saw the room its walls were blackened with the smoke of un-numbered years and made still blacker by the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 101 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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grim prints of Puritan ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now, a cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted paper hangings lighted up the small apartment — while the shadow of a willow tree that swept against the overhanging eaves attempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. plus a subsequent one on “A RIVER PICTURE,” which mentions Henry Thoreau: Rowing our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth — nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet’s imagination. It is sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; so that elsewhere there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a ripple across the shaded water. The current lingers along so gently that the mere force of the boatman’s will seems sufficient to propel his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the midmost privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if river and wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and of the clustering foliage, amid which fall showers of broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has a dream picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real — the picture, or the original? — the objects palpable to our grosser senses, or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disimbodied images stand in closer relation to the soul. But both the original and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied that this river had strayed forth out of the rich scenery of my companion’s inner world; only the vegetation along its banks should then have had an Oriental character. Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At one spot there is a lofty bank, on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if resolute to take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set their feet in the flood, and are fringed with foliage down to the surface. Cardinal flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark nooks among the shrubbery. The pond lily grows abundantly along the margin — that delicious 102 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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flower, which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them unfolding in due succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower — a sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to proper focus with the outward organ. Grape vines here and there twine themselves, around shrub and tree and hang their clusters over the water within reach of the boatman’s hand. Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will, and enriching them with a purple offspring of which neither is the parent. One of these ambitious parasites has climbed into the upper branches of a tall, white pine, and is still ascending from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crowd the tree’s airy summit with a wreath of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. The turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its banks, and reflected in its bosom, than we did.

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September 19-24: The battle of Monterrey:

WAR ON MEXICO

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

1847

Aaron D. Stevens ran away from home at the age of 16 to serve with a Massachusetts volunteer regiment in Mexico. WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from

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the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

Led by Jim Bridger, Mormons entered and settled the Great Salt Lake Valley, which was Mexican territory.

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

Fur trader Charles Bent became governor of the New Mexico territory but Pueblos and Mexicans entered his home at Taos and killed him and 12 other Anglos. A punitive expedition used howitzers and hand grenades against Pueblos taking refuge in a church and 150 were killed, 300 wounded.

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane served with the United States Marine Corps. The Secretary of War sent him to Mexico City to deliver an oral message to General Winfield Scott and, during an encounter with guerillas, he was severely wounded. WAR ON MEXICO

At about this time the poinsettia plant was brought up from Mexico into the United States. It was introduced by, and named after, a man who like Thoreau was a descendant of French Huguenot religious refugees, Joel Roberts Poinsett. Poinsett was industrious, was frugal, was active in botany, and helped create a precursor organization to the Smithsonian Institution. Unfortunately, the resemblance to Thoreau ends there, for Squire Poinsett was a Charleston plantation slaveholder.43

43. Legally, there was a distinction between a slaveowner and a slaveholder. The owner of a slave might rent the custody and use of that slave out for a year, in which case the distinction would arise and be a meaningful one in law, since the other party to such a transaction would be the holder but not the owner. However, in this Kouroo database, I will ordinarily be deploying the term “slaveholder” as the normative term, as we are no longer all that concerned with the making of such fine economic distinctions but are, rather, concerned almost exclusively with the human issues involved in the enslavement of other human beings. I use the term “slaveholder” in preference to “slaveowner” not only because no human being can really own another human being but also because it is important that slavery never be defined as the legal ownership of one person by another — in fact not only had human slavery existed before the first such legislation but also it has continued long since we abolished all legal deployment of the term “slave.” “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 105 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Frank S. Edwards’s A CAMPAIGN IN NEW MEXICO WITH COLONEL DONIPHAN. BY FRANK S. EDWARDS, A VOLUNTEER. WITH A MAP OF THE ROUTE, AND A TABLE OF THE DISTANCES TRAVERSED (Philadelphia, Carey and Hart).44

WAR ON MEXICO READ THE FULL TEXT

44. Henry Thoreau would copy from this into his Indian Notebook #3. 106 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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January 14: On the question of war taxes during the war on Mexico, William Wells Brown said that since the government would be taking the money by coercion, the individual taxpayer would not be blameworthy for the evil that would be done with the tax moneys. He would come to advocate that, if the government were to make a move to begin to conscript American blacks to fight in this war against Mexico, that seeing as how Mexico had outlawed slavery — that American blacks should, like the San Patricios, “fight against the United States.” WAR ON MEXICO

Who were these “San Patricios”? — As Robert Ryal Miller’s SWORD AND SHAMROCK makes clear, many so- called San Patricios were Irish deserters from the US Army, most deserting because of ill treatment and from sympathy with the Mexicans as fellow Catholics. This would lead to some problems after the war in punishing the men. Those who had deserted from the army after declaration of the war upon Mexico would be hanged, but those who had deserted before the declaration of war would often merely be flogged and have their cheek branded with a “D.” (On the other hand, actually the bulk of the San Patricios were Mexican nationals, as this group included men of German, English, and Irish extraction who were living in Mexico.)

January 15: The Religious Society of Friends of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, etc., authorized the Clerk of their meeting to send a petition to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled, expressing the society’s condemnation of the current war against our neighbor Mexico: The memorial of the Representatives of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, &c., Respectfully represents: That firmly believing as we do in the truth and divine authority of the Christian religion as set forth and explained in the precepts of our Lord and his apostles, and exemplified in their lives and conduct, we are constrained to consider all wars, whatever their ostensible object may be, as originating in the unbridled passions of men, which it is the one great object of our holy religion to regulate and control; and as irreconcilable with the tenor and spirit of the gospel, which was ushered in by the angelic anthem of Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. The injunction of our blessed Redeemer, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you,” is of primary and perpetual obligation, and contains a prohibition of the passions and feelings in which wars are unavoidably prosecuted, too forcible and direct to be shaken by argument or entangled by sophistry; and that his petition for his persecutors when expiring on the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” furnishes an illustration too clear to be mistaken of the genuine spirit of Christianity. Situated as the people of the United States under the favor of an all bountiful Providence happily are, with a country possessing almost every variety of climate and soil, and which by its varied extensive and increasing productions offers to foreign nations much greater advantages from peaceful commerce than they can possibly expect from hostile aggression, we are

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under strong and peculiar obligation to appreciate the blessings we enjoy, and to manifest our gratitude to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, by cultivating peace among ourselves, and promoting the virtue and happiness of all who fall within the sphere of our influence. There is probably no other nation on the surface of the globe, which possesses in an equal degree with the people of the United States, the means and the opportunity of holding up to the world, the example of a nation devoting its energies and resources entirely to the improvement of its moral and social condition, and to the maintenance of peace throughout the world; and commensurate with that opportunity must be our condemnation, if we suffer it to pass unimproved. Entertaining these sentiments in relation to war in general, and of the duty incumbent on the people of the United States, we trust we shall not be charged with being actuated by party or political motives, or with hostility to the government under which we live, when we express our unwavering conviction, that the contest now waged with a neighboring nation, when examined by the standard which the religion of our Lord and Savior has given us, forms no exception to the character of wars at large, and must fall under like condemnation. Deploring as we do, the deterioration of morals incident to national contests, and the sufferings of our fellow men dying in camps, with few of those alleviations which their condition demands, or bleeding on the field amidst the confusion and uproar of contending armies, and the numbers thus hurried without preparation to their everlasting account; regretting that the bounties of a munificent Providence, and the hard- earned productions of the laboring classes should be wasted and melted away in the profuse expenditures of war; believing that the best interests of our beloved country would be essentially promoted by the restoration of peace, and that no injuries past or prospective which could be sustained while the relations of peace are maintained can be compared with the evils unavoidably resulting from war; and fervently desiring that the rulers of this great and growing republic may experience, in the administration of its numerous and complicated concerns, a portion of the wisdom which comes from above, “and which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,” we respectfully but earnestly solicit the government to adopt with the least possible delay, efficient measures to stop the effusion of blood, and restore to the North American continent the blessings of peace. Signed on behalf and by direction of a meeting of the representatives of the Religious Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, &c., held in Philadelphia, the 15th of the First month, 1847. William Evans, Clerk WAR ON MEXICO THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY

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February 21-26: Leading the Second Relief, James F. Reed heads up into the mountains from Johnson’s Ranch on the twenty-first, the same day the First Relief leaves the camps with 23 refugees: Edward and Simon Breen; John Denton; Elitha and Leanna Donner, their cousin George, and George’s half brother William Hook; Noah James; Philippine Keseberg and her daughter Ada; Mary and William Murphy; Naomi Pike; Eleanor, Lovina, and William C. Graves; Margret Reed and her children Virginia, Patty, James Jr., and Thomas; their servant Eliza Williams; Mrs. Wolfinger. Patty and Tommy Reed give out and are taken back to stay with the Breens. Ada Keseberg died and was buried in the snow. John Denton gives out and was left behind to die.

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February 22-23: The battle of Buena Vista:45

PEOPLE OF WALDEN

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WALDEN: What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. I see these men every day go about their business with more or less courage and content, doing more even than they suspect, and perchance better employed that they could have consciously devised. I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plough for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o’-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snow, perchance, which is still raging and chilling men’s blood, I hear the muffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank of their chilled breath, which announces that the cars are coming, without long delay, notwithstanding the veto of a New England north-east snow storm, and I behold the ploughmen covered with snow and rime, their heads peering above the mould-board which is turning down other than daisies and the nests of field-mice, like bowlders of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an outside place in the universe.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

45. This is approximately the correct timeframe into which to interject an anecdote dating it would seem to early in this year. General of the Line Zachary Taylor was priding himself on having picked up some of the Spanish language. When a Mexican citizen came to the general’s tent with a complaint about US soldiers stealing from him, General Taylor shouted “¡Huevos! ¡Huevos! ¡Huevos!” –giving the man a lesson in Spanish. As Walt Whitman had pointed out in the Brooklyn Eagle,

Mexico, though contemptible in many respects, is an enemy deserving a vigorous “lesson.”

(The Illinois state historical record that has preserved this incident alleges that, actually, the Spanish term for which the general had been groping had been “¡Vamos!” :-) WAR ON MEXICO

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WAR ON MEXICO

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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March 3: In the US Army, Colonel Franklin Pierce was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. WAR ON MEXICO

Continuing along the tragic trajectory of the Donner disaster: Reed left the emigrant camps with 17 travelers, to wit, Patrick and Margaret Breen and their children John, James F., Peter, Patrick Jr., and Isabella, Mary and Isaac Donner and their half brother Solomon Hook, Elizabeth Graves and her children Nancy, Jonathan, Franklin Ward, Jr., and Elizabeth, and Patty and Tommy Reed.

An undated letter from Margaret Fuller on her travel experiences from London to Paris was printed as a column by the New-York Tribune: READ ABOUT THIS

Paris. When I wrote last I could not finish with London, and there remain yet two or three things I wish to speak of before passing to my impressions of this wonder-full Paris. I visited the model prison at Pentonville; but though in some respects an improvement upon others I have seen, — though there was the appearance of great neatness and order in the arrangements of life, kindness and good judgment in the discipline of the prisoners, — yet there was also an air of bleak forlornness about the place, and it fell far short of what my mind demands of such abodes considered as redemption schools. But as the subject of prisons is now engaging the attention of many of the wisest and best, and the tendency is in what seems to me the true direction, I need not trouble myself to make prude and hasty suggestions; it is a subject to which persons who would be of use should give the earnest devotion of calm and leisurely thought. The same day I went to see an establishment which gave me unmixed pleasure; it is a bathing establishment put at a very low rate to enable the poor to avoid one of thee worst miseries of their lot, and which yet promises to pay. Joined with this is an establishment for washing clothes, where the poor can go and hire, for almost nothing, good tubs, water ready heated, the use of an apparatus for rinsing, drying, and ironing, all so admirably arranged that a poor woman can in three hours get through an amount of washing and ironing that would, under ordinary circumstances, occupy three or four days. Especially the drying closets I contemplated with great satisfaction, and hope to see in our own country the same arrangements throughout the cities, and even in the towns and villages. Hanging out the clothes is a great exposure for women, even when they have a good place for it; but when, as is so common in cities, they must dry them in the house, how much they suffer! In New York, I know, those poor women who take in washing endure a great deal of trouble and toil from this cause; I have suffered myself from being obliged to send back what had cost them so much toil, because it had been, perhaps inevitably, soiled in the drying or ironing, or filled with the smell of their miscellaneous

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cooking. In London it is much worse. An eminent physician told me he knew of two children whom he considered to have died because their mother, having but one room to live in, was obliged to wash and dry clothes close to their bed when they were ill. The poor people in London naturally do without washing all they can, and beneath that perpetual fall of soot the result may be guessed. All but the very poor in England put out their washing, and this custom ought to be universal in civilized countries, as it can be done much better and quicker by a few regular laundresses than by many families, and “the washing day” is so malignant a foe to the peace and joy of households that it ought to be effaced from the calendar. But as long as we are so miserable as to have any very poor people in this world, they cannot put out their washing, because they cannot earn enough money to pay for it, and, preliminary to something better, washing establishments like this of London are desirable. One arrangement that they have here in Paris will be a good one, even when we cease to have any very poor people, and, please Heaven, also to have any very rich. These are the Crèches, — houses where poor women leave their children to be nursed during the day while they are at work. I must mention that the superintendent of the washing establishment observed, with a legitimate triumph, that it had been built without giving a single dinner or printing a single puff, — an extraordinary thing, indeed, for England! To turn to something a little gayer, — the embroidery on this tattered coat of civilized life, — I went into only two theatres; one the Old Drury, once the scene of great glories, now of execrable music and more execrable acting. If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it. At the Sadler’s Wells theatre I saw a play which I had much admired in reading it, but found still better in actual representation; indeed, it seems to me there can be no better acting play: this is “The Patrician’s Daughter,” by J.W. Marston. The movement is rapid, yet clear and free; the dialogue natural, dignified, and flowing; the characters marked with few, but distinct strokes. Where the tone of discourse rises with manly sentiment or passion, the audience applauded with bursts of generous feeling that gave me great pleasure, for this play is one that, in its scope and meaning, marks the new era in England; it is full of an experience which is inevitable to a man of talent there, and is harbinger of the day when the noblest commoner shall be the only noble possible in England. But how different all this acting to what I find in France! Here the theatre is living; you see something really good, and good throughout. Not one touch of that stage strut and vulgar bombast of tone, which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion, is tolerated here. For the first time in my life I saw something represented in a style uniformly good, and should have found sufficient proof, if I had needed any, that all men will prefer what is good to what is bad, if only a fair opportunity for choice be allowed. When I came here, my first thought was “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 115 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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to go and see Mademoiselle Rachel. I was sure that in her I should find a true genius, absolutely the diamond, and so it proved. I went to see her seven or eight times, always in parts that required great force of soul and purity of taste even to conceive them, and only once had reason to find fault with her. On one single occasion I saw her violate the harmony of the character to produce effect at a particular moment; but almost invariably I found her a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her conceptions immortalized in marble. Her range even in high tragedy is limited. She can only express the darker passions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Nature has not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes that lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She does not melt to tears, or calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that needs all the assaults of Fate to make it show its immortal sweetness. Her noblest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge. I admired her more in Phedre than in any other part in which I saw her. The guilty love inspired by the hatred of a goddess was expressed in all its symptoms with a force and terrible naturalness that almost suffocated the beholder. After she had taken the poison, the exhaustion and paralysis of the system, the sad, cold, calm submission to Fate, were still more grand. I had heard so much about the power of her eye in one fixed look, and the expression she could concentrate in a single word, that the utmost results could only satisfy my expectations. It is, indeed, something magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death; but it was not that I admired most in her: it was the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it. For the rest, I shall write somewhere a detailed critique upon the parts in which I saw her. It is she who has made me acquainted with the true way of viewing French tragedy. I had no idea of its powers and symmetry till now, and have received from the revelation high pleasure and a crowd of thoughts. The French language from her lips is a divine dialect; it is stripped of its national and personal peculiarities, and becomes what any language must, moulded by such a genius, the pure music of the heart and soul. I never could remember her tone in speaking any word; it was too perfect; you had received the thought quite direct. Yet, had I never heard her speak a word, my mind would, be filled by her attitudes. Nothing more graceful can be conceived, nor could the genius of sculpture surpass her management of the antique drapery. She has no beauty except in the intellectual severity of her outline, and bears marks of age which will grow stronger every year, and make her ugly before long. Still it will be a grandiose, gypsy, or rather Sibylline ugliness, well adapted to the expression of some tragic parts. Only it seems as if she could not live long; she expends force enough upon a part to furnish out a dozen common lives. 116 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Though the French tragedy is well acted throughout, yet unhappily there is no male actor now with a spark of fire, and these men seem the meanest pigmies by the side of Rachel; — so on the scene, beside the tragedy intended by the author, you see also that common tragedy, a woman of genius who throws away her precious heart, lives and dies for one unworthy of her. In parts this effect is productive of too much pain. I saw Rachel one night with her brother and sister. The sister imitated her so closely that you could not help seeing she had a manner, and an imitable manner. Her brother was in the play her lover, — a wretched automaton, and presenting the most unhappy family likeness to herself. Since then I have hardly cared to go and see her. We could wish with geniuses, as with the Phoenix, to see only one of the family at a time. In the pathetic or sentimental drama Paris boasts another young actress, nearly as distinguished in that walk as Rachel in hers. This is Rose Cheny, whom we saw in her ninety-eighth personation of Clarissa Harlowe, and afterward in Genevieve and the Protégé sans le Savoir, — a little piece written expressly for her by Scribe. The “Miss Clarisse” of the French drama is a feeble and partial reproduction of the heroine of Richardson; indeed, the original in all its force of intellect and character would have been too much for the charming Rose Cheny, but to the purity and lovely tenderness of Clarissa she does full justice. In the other characters she was the true French girl, full of grace and a mixture of naïveté and cunning, sentiment and frivolity, that is winning and piquant, if not satisfying. Only grief seems very strange to those bright eyes; we do not find that they can weep much and bear the light of day, and the inhaling of charcoal seems near at hand to their brightest pleasures. At the other little theatres you see excellent acting, and a sparkle of wit unknown to the world out of France. The little pieces in which all the leading topics of the day are reviewed are full of drolleries that make you laugh at each instant. Poudre-Colon is the only one of these I have seen; in this, among other jokes, Dumas, in the character of Monte-Christo and in a costume half Oriental, half juggler, is made to pass the other theatres in review while seeking candidates for his new one. Dumas appeared in court yesterday, and defended his own cause against the editors who sue him for evading some of his engagements. I was very desirous to hear him speak, and went there in what I was assured would be very good season; but a French audience, who knew the ground better, had slipped in before me, and I returned, as has been too often the case with me in Paris, having seen nothing but endless staircases, dreary vestibules, and gens d’armes. The hospitality of le grande nation to the stranger is, in many respects, admirable. Galleries, libraries, cabinets of coins, museums, are opened in the most liberal manner to the stranger, warmed, lighted, ay, and guarded, for him almost all days in the week; treasures of the past are at his service; but when anything is happening in the present, the French run quicker, glide in more adroitly, and get possession of the ground. I find it not the most easy matter to get to places even where there is nothing going on, there is so much “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 117 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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tiresome fuss of getting billets from one and another to be gone through; but when something is happening it is still worse. I missed hearing M. Guizot in his speech on the Montpensier marriage, which would have given a very good idea of his manner, and which, like this defence of M. Dumas, was a skilful piece of work as regards evasion of the truth. The good feeling toward England which had been fostered with so much care and toil seems to have been entirely dissipated by the mutual recriminations about this marriage, and the old dislike flames up more fiercely for having been hid awhile beneath the ashes. I saw the little Duchess, the innocent or ignorant cause of all this disturbance, when presented at court. She went round the circle on the arm of the Queen. Though only fourteen, she looks twenty, but has something fresh, engaging, and girlish about her. I fancy it will soon be rubbed out under the drill of the royal household. I attended not only at the presentation, but at the ball given at the Tuileries directly after. These are fine shows, as the suite of apartments is very handsome, brilliantly lighted, and the French ladies surpass all others in the art of dress; indeed, it gave me much, pleasure to see them. Certainly there are many ugly ones, but they are so well dressed, and have such an air of graceful vivacity, that the general effect was that of a flower-garden. As often happens, several American women were among the most distinguished for positive beauty; one from Philadelphia, who is by many persons considered the prettiest ornament of the dress circle at the Italian Opera, was especially marked by the attention of the king. However, these ladies, even if here a long time, do not attain the air and manner of French women; the magnetic atmosphere that envelops them is less brilliant and exhilarating in its attractions. It was pleasant to my eye, which has always been so wearied in our country by the sombre masses of men that overcloud our public assemblies, to see them now in so great variety of costume, color, and decoration. Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of Academician, looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet. French savants are more generally men of the world, and even men of fashion, than those of other climates; but, in his case, he seemed not to find it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles. Speaking of Leverrier leads to another of my disappointments. I went to the Sorbonne to hear him lecture, nothing dreaming that the old pedantic and theological character of those halls was strictly kept up in these days of light. An old guardian of the inner temple, seeing me approach, had his speech all ready, and, manning the entrance, said with a disdainful air, before we had time to utter a word, “Monsieur may enter if he pleases, but Madame must remain here” (i.e. in the court-yard). After some exclamations of surprise, I found an alternative in the Hotel de Clugny, where I passed an hour very delightfully while waiting for my companion. The rich remains of other centuries are there so arranged that they can be seen to the best advantage; many of the works in ivory, china, and carved wood are truly splendid or exquisite. I saw a dagger with jewelled 118 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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hilt which talked whole poems to my mind. In the various “Adorations of the Magi,” I found constantly one of the wise men black, and with the marked African lineaments. Before I had half finished, my companion came and wished me at least to visit the lecture-rooms of the Sorbonne, now that the talk, too good for female ears, was over. But the guardian again interfered to deny me entrance. “You can go, Madame,” said he, “to the College of France; you can go to this and t’other place, but you cannot enter here.” “What, sir,” said I, “is it your institution alone that remains in a state of barbarism?” “Que voulez vous, Madame?” he replied, and, as he spoke, his little dog began to bark at me, — “Que voulez vous, Madame? c’est la regle,” — “What would you have, Madam? IT IS THE RULE,” — a reply which makes me laugh even now, as I think how the satirical wits of former days might have used it against the bulwarks of learned dulness. I was more fortunate in hearing Arago, and he justified all my expectations. Clear, rapid, full and equal, his discourse is worthy its celebrity, and I felt repaid for the four hours one is obliged to spend in going, in waiting, and in hearing; for the lecture begins at half past one, and you must be there before twelve to get a seat, so constant and animated is his popularity. I have attended, with some interest, two discussions at the Athenée, — one on Suicide, the other on the Crusades. They are amateur affairs, where, as always at such times, one hears much, nonsense and vanity, much making of phrases and sentimental grimace; but there was one excellent speaker, adroit and rapid as only a Frenchman could be. With admirable readiness, skill, and rhetorical polish, he examined the arguments of all the others, and built upon their failures a triumph for himself. His management of the language, too, was masterly, and French is the best of languages for such a purpose, — clear, flexible, full of sparkling points and quick, picturesque turns, with a subtile blandness that makes the dart tickle while it wounds. Truly he pleased the fancy, filled the ear, and carried us pleasantly along over the smooth, swift waters; but then came from the crowd a gentleman, not one of the appointed orators of the evening, but who had really something in his heart to say, — a grave, dark man, with Spanish eyes, and the simple dignity of honor and earnestness in all his gesture and manner. He said in few and unadorned words his say, and the sense of a real presence filled the room, and those charms of rhetoric faded, as vanish the beauties of soap-bubbles from the eyes of astonished childhood. I was present on one good occasion at the Academy the day that M. Rémusat was received there in the place of Royer-Collard. I looked down from one of the tribunes upon the flower of the celebrities of France, that is to say, of the celebrities which are authentic, comme il faut. Among them were many marked faces, many fine heads; but in reading the works of poets we always fancy them about the age of Apollo himself, and I found with pain some of my favorites quite old, and very unlike the company on Parnassus as represented by Raphael. Some, however, were venerable, even noble, to behold. Indeed, the literary dynasty of France is growing old, and here, as in England and Germany, there seems likely to occur a serious gap before the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 119 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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inauguration of another, if indeed another is coming. However, it was an imposing sight; there are men of real distinction now in the Academy, and Molière would have a fair chance if he were proposed to-day. Among the audience I saw many ladies of fine expression and manner, as well as one or two precieuses ridicules, a race which is never quite extinct. M. Rémusat, as is the custom on these occasions, painted the portrait of his predecessor; the discourse was brilliant and discriminating in the details, but the orator seemed to me to neglect drawing some obvious inferences which would have given a better point of view for his subject. A séance to me much more impressive find interesting was one which borrowed nothing from dress, decorations, or the presence of titled pomp. I went to call on La Mennais, to whom I had a letter, I found him in a little study; his secretary was writing in a larger room through which I passed. With him was a somewhat citizen-looking, but vivacious, elderly man, whom I was at first sorry to see, having wished for half an hour’s undisturbed visit to the apostle of Democracy. But how quickly were those feelings displaced by joy when he named to me the great national lyrist of France, the unequalled Béranger. I had not expected to see him at all, for he is not one to be seen in any show place; he lives in the hearts of the people, and needs no homage from their eyes. I was very happy in that little study in presence of these two men, whose influence has been so great, so real. To me Béranger has been much; his wit, his pathos, his exquisite lyric grace, have made the most delicate strings vibrate, and I can feel, as well as see, what he is in his nation and his place. I have not personally received anything from La Mennais, as, born under other circumstances, mental facts which he, once the pupil of Rome, has learned by passing through severe ordeals, are at the basis of all my thoughts. But I see well what he has been and is to Europe, and of what great force of nature and spirit. He seems suffering and pale, but in his eyes is the light of the future. These are men who need no flourish of trumpets to announce their coming, — no band of martial music upon their steps, — no obsequious nobles in their train. They are the true kings, the theocratic kings, the judges in Israel. The hearts of men make music at their approach; the mind of the age is the historian of their passage; and only men of destiny like themselves shall be permitted to write their eulogies, or fill their vacant seats. Wherever there is a genius like his own, a germ of the finest fruit still hidden beneath the soil, the “Chante pauvre petit” of Béranger shall strike, like a sunbeam, and give it force to emerge, and wherever there is the true Crusade, — for the spirit, not the tomb of Christ, — shall be felt an echo of the “Que tes armes soient benis jeune soldat” of La Mennais.

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March 5: The advance guard of the “California B’hoys” of Colonel Jonathan Drake Stevenson, aboard the Thomas Perkins, arrived at the Golden Gate. The American flag was already flying. California had already been conquered. WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

March 7, Sunday: The march on Mexico City began:

WAR ON MEXICO

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose G. Bierce US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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March 9, Tuesday: After camping for several weeks on Lobos Island, the 1st New York Volunteer Infantry participated in Major General Winfield Scott’s 1st-ever amphibious landing attempt by the US Army, at Vera Cruz, Mexico. 2d Lieutenant Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr. would use the nom-de-guerre “Ecolier” to prepare “Sketches by a Skirmisher” as a correspondent for the New-York gazette Spirit of the Times.

WAR ON MEXICO

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From this day until the 29th, the siege:

In early April 1847, when the news of this bombardment would arrive in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the bells of all but one local church would ring out in celebration of the grand American victory. Only the bells of Portsmouth’s South Church would remain silent. This was in protest. In his sermon that Sunday, the Reverend Andrew Preston Peabody would have the following to offer: I pity, from the bottom of my heart, the man who can have so much as a momentary feeling of exultation at such horrors. What! rejoice at the explosion of those infernal missiles in those late peaceful homes, — at the scattering of those dissevered limbs and mangled corpses of those hundreds of women and children? It was no unknown thing, that what the United States military had just done was a war atrocity, in that it had chosen to ignore the vital distinction between civilian and military, intentionally destroying the lives of civilian men, women, and children in order to oblige the Mexican military to withdraw from the town’s fortifications. The Reverend Peabody was no pacifist and he was not protesting the invasion of Mexico as such, but rather, he was condemning our atrocity of the bombing of innocent families. Again, the Mexicans are called our enemies. They probably are so. We have done enough to make them so... [but] Those Mexicans have human hearts. There are there, as here, fond parents and loving children. They have the same susceptibilities of suffering and anguish with ourselves.... I confess, my sympathies are with the bereaved, suffering homeless Mexicans – of the multitudes that, without fault of their own, have been made to feel the direst of earthly calamities, and have been given over to the wasting of the war-fiend, whose tender mercies are cruelty. They are our brethren. He could not in his own study of the New Testament discover any way in which a Christian might rationalize such systematic killing as in accordance with the fundamentally peaceful teachings of Christ. He would continue in his anti-war-atrocity sermon:

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Suppose our whole population surrounded by the engines of war — our wives and children forbidden egress — witnessing day after day spectacles of the utmost agony...The groans of the wounded, the wild shrieks of the dying rises from house to house above the roar of the artillery. The Reverend Peabody didn’t stop with protesting the month-long atrocity of American bombardment of the civilian population of Vera Cruz. He also posed the question we have attempted to answer at the Nürnberg Trials — How can a soldier be considered to be under obligation to implement an immoral order, when, if the order is immoral, that soldier’s moral obligation is instead to refuse to obey it? War frees no individual of any moral responsibility, he insisted: When the individual soul stands before the divine tribunal, stained with the wanton butchery of those women and babes, think you that the plea, “I knew that it was wrong and vile, but my country bade me do it?” will be accepted in Heaven’s chancery in mitigation of the crime? Soldiers, Peabody said, should be rewarded for acting on their moral beliefs, rather than punished. After this sermon the Dover NH newspaper would editorialize that “The Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, of Portsmouth, N.H. has made himself particularly ridiculous.”

South Church, in which the Reverend Andrew Preston Peabody delivered this homily, stands yet. It is a dark stone Greek-revival building on State Street, now known as the Unitarian Universalist church.

March 22, Monday: More of the “California B’hoys” of Colonel Jonathan Drake Stevenson, aboard the Loo Choo, arrived at the Golden Gate.

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March 22-27: The coastal city of Veracruz, Mexico was bombarded, and the decision-makers in the US Army appear not to have been much troubled by the fact that half of the people they were killing, by their tactic of indiscriminate city-busting and the weapons they were deploying, were helpless and were civilians:

You will note that in the above contemporary hand-colored patriotic depiction of the bombardment there is no indication whatever that it was helpless civilians were being targeted rather than fortifications or Mexican military defenders, or that the objective of our bombardment was to cause such terrific loss of life that the military would surrender merely to put an end to this indiscriminate slaughter of innocents.46 WAR ON MEXICO

Some American soldiers who were physically closer to the blood and gore, however, had more human feelings:

I cannot relate to you all; my heart sickens in the attempt, what a horrible thing is war!

And also:

My heart bled for the inhabitants. The soldiers I did not care so much for, but it was terrible to think of the women and children.

46. Since the statistics are that the American bombardment killed between 1,000 and 1,500 Mexicans and that civilian casualties outnumbered military by a factor of about 2 to 1, it would seem that we killed some 666-1,000 Mexican civilians in the process of persuading these local soldiers to allow us to disembark unopposed. In a very real sense, this bombardment during Thoreau’s lifetime was a precedent for the firebombings of the civilian cities of Dresden and Tokyo during WWII, and the A-bombing of the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because the objective was through atrocity and general terrorism to influence military decisionmaking. At this point the closest we had to a terror weapon was this sort of cannonfire, since although we had already introduced area-fire rockets, such a new weapon system was not yet being found to be cost-effective. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 125 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Eventually this US army under General Winfield Scott would be able to disembark unopposed in this port and be able to proceed inland toward Mexico City. WAR ON MEXICO

Spring: US Army doctors in Veracruz, Mexico began to use sulfuric ether on their patients, but discontinued this experiment by the summer because of a fear that the chemical would “poison the blood and depress the nervous system” or because of a feeling that to avoid pain was not manly, not soldierly. Robert E. Lee commented:

I think a little lead, properly taken, is good for a man.

WAR ON MEXICO

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April: Splitting his forces, General Winfield Scott took the major part of the US Army out of the camp besieging Veracruz and began the march toward the capital, Mexico City. “Fearless,” he had decided to repeat the tactic

of Cortez, of burning his ships behind him so to speak. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington commented, when he heard of this, that

Scott is lost — he cannot capture the city and he cannot fall back upon his base.

Well, he was mistaken about this, General Scott’s army of invasion was lost neither in the map sense nor in the military sense, they were marching along the road from an eternal shame to a historic victory, but the point is not that Wellington’s military judgment was overtaken by history, the point is that, clearly, the Duke felt it was just as important to avoid strategic stupidity as to avoid tactical fearfulness. He refused to take seriously his own solecism about fear being the only thing to avoid! –No, this noble Brit “lets-Duke-it-out,” who had invented a chair that enabled him to read backward (look it up), was not that backward! WAR ON MEXICO

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“[A nation is] a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors.” — E. Renan, QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION? March 11, 1882

April 8: The ice on Walden Pond was completely melted:

WALDEN: In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in ’46, the 25th of March; in ’47, the 8th of April; in ’51, the 28th of March; in ’52, the 18th of April; in ’53, the 23rd of March; in ’54, about the 7th of April.

During this month Boston vessels would be offloading ice (and watermelons as well, although I have no idea where they might have been mature during this season) at Veracruz, Mexico in support of our expeditionary troops. The price of ice there would be one dollar the pound. Some of this ice might very well have been from Walden Pond! MEXICAN WAR

After April 8: {Twelve pages missing} but it was all gone out of the river –and he dropped down without obstruction from Sudbury where he lived –to Fair Haven pond –which he found unexpectedly was a firm field of ice– It was a very warm spring day and he was astonished to see such a body of {Four-fifths page missing} Saw a woodchuck out 30 March snow fell 8 inches deep next day. heard a hyla Ap. 6th pond ice melted Ap 8th 1847 —— On the 15th March 142 years before this compelled her to rise from childbed –time to put on one shoe –dashed out the {Four-fifths page missing}{Leaves missing}

I

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Robin Hood ballads, for instance, which I can recommend to travel by. Sweavens are swift, sayd lyttle John, As the wind blows over the hill; For if it be never so loud this night, To-morrow it may be still.” And so it went up hill & down till a stone interrupted the line, when a new verse was chosen. His shoote it was but loosely shot, Yet flewe not the arrowe in vaine, For it met one of the sheriffe’s men, And William-a-Trent was slaine.” There is, however, this consolation to the most way worn traveller, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life –now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon. from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, & though he may be very wary & travel worn, it is yet sincere experience. Thus we went on our way passing through Still river village –at sundown –seen from whence the Wachusett was already lost once more amid the blue fabulous mts in the horizon.– Listening to the evening song of the robin in the orchards –& contrasting the equanimity of nature with the bustle & impatience of man– His words & actions presume always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent & unpretending.– Without stopping to tell all o our adventures let it suffice to say that we reached the banks of the Concord on the third morning after our departure –before the sun had climbed many degrees into the heavens And now when we look again Westward from the hills of concord Wachusett and Monadnock have retreated once more among the blue & fabulous mts of the horizon –though our eyes rest on the very rocks where we boiled our hasty pudding amid the clouds.

April 17: On this day and the following one, the battle of Cerro Gordo:

MEXICAN WAR

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May 26: Nathaniel Hawthorne saw his school chum Franklin Pierce off on a foreign adventure: The author saw General Pierce, in Boston, on the eve of his departure for Vera Cruz. He had been intensely occupied, since his appointment, in effecting the arrangements necessary on leaving his affairs, as well as by the preparations, military and personal, demanded by the expedition. The transports were waiting at Newport to receive the troops. He was now in the midst of bustle, with some of the officers of his command about him, mingled with the friends whom he was to leave behind. The severest point of the crisis was over, for he had already bidden his family farewell. His spirits appeared to have risen with the occasion. He was evidently in his element; nor, to say the truth, dangerous as was the path before him, could it be regretted that his life was now to have the opportunity of that species of success which —in his youth, at least— he had considered the best worth struggling for. He looked so fit to be a soldier, that it was impossible to doubt —not merely his good conduct, which was as certain before the event as afterwards, but —his good fortune in the field, and his fortunate return.

NEWPORT RHODE ISLAND WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one

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season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

May 27: Henry Thoreau’s letter of May 8th was responded to by James Elliot Cabot presumably in Boston, speaking of Professor Agassiz’s surprise and pleasure at the extent of Thoreau’s subsequent collections, mentioning a live fox which was “doing well” in a cage in Agassiz’s back yard.

Mr. Agassiz was very much surprised and pleased at the extent of the collections you sent during his absence; the little fox he has established in comfortable quarters in his back-yard, where he is doing well. Among the fishes you sent there is one, probably two, new species.

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Franklin Pierce departed from Newport, Rhode Island on his grand foreign adventure: He sailed from Newport on the 27th of May, in the bark Kepler, having on board three companies of the Ninth Regiment of Infantry, together with Colonel Ransom, its commander, and the officers belonging to the detachment. The passage was long and tedious, with protracted calms, and so smooth a sea that a sail boat might have performed the voyage in safety. The Kepler arrived at Vera Cruz in precisely a month after her departure from the United States, without speaking a single vessel from the south during the passage, and, of course, receiving no intelligence as to the position and state of the army which these reenforcements were to join.... During the passage from America, under the tropics, he would go down into the stifling air of the hold, with a lemon, a cup of tea, and, better and more efficacious than all, a kind word, for the sick. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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June 28: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal, this is the date on which he debarked in Vera Cruz and constituted his first experience in Mejico: The vomito rages fearfully; and the city every where appears like the very habitation of pestilence. I have ordered the troops to be taken directly from the transports to Virgara, a extensive sand beach upon the gulf, where there is already an encampment consisting of four or five hundred men, under the command of Major Lally. The officers are under much apprehension on account of the climate and the vomito, the statements with regard to which are perhaps exaggerated. My orders are to make no delay here, and yet there is no preparation for my departure. About two thousand wild mules had been collected; but through the carelessness of persons employed by the quartermaster’s department, (a precious set of scoundrels, it being possible to obtain few but desperate characters to enter this service here at this season,) a stampede has occurred to-day, by which fifteen hundred have been lost. The Mexicans fully believe that most of my command must die of vomito before I can be prepared to march into the interior.

Finding that he was expected to share a tent occupied by a sick man at this military camp outside Vera Cruz, Pierce moved into more appropriate lodgings inside the city. WAR ON MEXICO

BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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July 5: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Pitched my tent at Virgara, two miles from the city. Mornings close, and heat excessive. Fine breeze after eleven o’clock, with breakers dashing upon the smooth beach for three miles. Our tents are upon the sand, which is as hard as the beach at Lynn or Hampton. Heavy rains, and tremendous thunder, and the most vivid and continuous flashes of lightning, almost every night. Many of the officers and soldiers are indisposed; but as yet there is no clear case of vomito. The troops are under drill every morning, the sun being too intense and oppressive to risk exposure at any other period of the day. I find my tent upon the beach decidedly preferable to any quarters in the city. Neither officers nor soldiers are allowed to go to the city except by special permission, and on duty.

BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

July 6: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Mules and mustangs are being collected daily; but they are wild, unaccustomed to the harness, and most of them even to the bridle. Details from the different commands are actively engaged in taming these wild animals, and breaking them to harness.

BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

July 7: Richard Biddle died in Pittsburgh.

Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Last night, at ten o’clock, there was a stampede, as it is called in camp. The report of musketry at the advanced picket induced me to order the long roll to be beaten, and the whole command was at once formed in line of battle. I proceeded in person, with two companies, to the advanced picket, and found no ground for the alarm, although the sentinels insisted that a party of guerillas had approached within gun shot of their posts. I have ordered that, upon the repetition of any such alarm, the two companies nearest the picket shall proceed at once to the advanced post. The long roll will not be beaten until a report shall be sent in from the commanding officer of the detachment, who is to take with him a small detachment of cavalry as couriers. This will secure the quiet of the camp at night, and at the same time afford protection against surprise. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 8: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Lieutenant T.J. Whipple, adjutant of the Ninth Infantry, was induced by curiosity to visit, with private Barnes of Manchester, the cemetery near the wall of the city — an imprudent act, especially as the audacity of the guerillas, and their daily near approach, have been well understood. That he should have gone with a single unarmed private, and himself without arms except his sabre, is astonishing. Lieutenant Whipple was attacked by six guerillas, and overpowered. Barnes escaped, and found me, within half an hour, at Governor Wilson’s quarters. I immediately despatched a troop of cavalry in pursuit; but no trace of the miscreants has been discovered, and great alarm is felt for the safety of our gallant, but too adventurous, friend. There was in my command no braver man or better soldier than Whipple.

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July 12: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Being informed that Adjutant Whipple’s life had been spared, and that he was a prisoner with a band of guerillas about twelve or fourteen miles from my camp, I sent a strong detachment, by night, to surprise the ranchero, and, if possible, to recover our valued friend. The village was taken, but the guerillas had fled with their prisoner. Captain Duff, the efficient and gallant commander of cavalry, attached to my command, having been greatly exposed in an excursion in search of Whipple, is dangerously sick of vomito.

About eighty American horses have reached me from New Orleans, and I shall put my command in motion to-morrow or the next day. I know not how long my delay might have continued, but for the activity of my officers generally, and especially if I had not secured the services of a most efficient staff, which has cheerfully rendered its aid in season and out of season. Major Woods, of the Fifteenth Infantry, a graduate of West Point, and an officer of great intelligence, experience, and coolness, kindly consented to act as my adjutant general. My aid-de-camp, Lieutenant Thom, of the Topographical Engineers, Lieutenant Caldwell, of the Marine Corps, brigade commissary, and Lieutenant Van Bocklin, of the Seventh Infantry, brigade quartermaster, have all, regardless of the dangers of the climate, performed an amount of labor, in pushing forward the preparations for our march, which entitles them not merely to my thanks, but to a substantial acknowledgment from government. Major Lally is dangerously sick of vomito. I have sent him in an ambulance, on my mattress, to Major Smith’s quarters, in the city, to-day. Major Seymour is also sick, but is determined to go on with the command. I visited the gallant Captain Duff this morning, and have decided to send him to the hospital, in the city. His is an undoubted case of the vomito, and I fear that but slight hope of his recovery can be reasonably indulged. I feel his loss seriously; he was a truly brave and efficient officer. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

July 13: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: After a delay of nearly three weeks, in this debilitating and sickly climate, where I had reason to expect, before landing, a delay of not more than two days, — and after an amount of labor and perplexity more trying than an active campaign in the field, — the hum and clank of preparation, the strand covered with wagons, going to and returning from the city, laden with ammunition, subsistence, &c., sufficiently indicate that the long-deferred movement is at last to be made.

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July 14: Per General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Colonel Ransom, with the Ninth Infantry, and two companies of the Twelfth, under Captain Wood, left this morning, with about eighty wagons of the train. He will proceed to San Juan, twelve miles distant, on the Jalapa road, and there await my arrival with the remainder of the brigade. It would be almost certain destruction to men and teams, so long as we remain in tierra caliente, to march them between the hours of nine o’clock, A.M., and four, P.M. Colonel Ransom’s command, therefore, struck their tents last night, loaded their company wagons, and bivouacked, in order that there might be nothing to delay an early start in the morning. Fortunately, it did not rain, and the advance moved off in fine order and spirits.

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July 15: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: It is impossible for me to move today, with the remainder of the brigade, on account of the deficiency of teams. Notwithstanding all my exertions, I shall be compelled to rely on many mule teams, which, when I move, will be in harness for the first time. I have, however, sent off a second detachment, consisting of four companies of the Fourteenth and two companies of the Third Infantry, under the command of that accomplished and admirable officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hebert, of Louisiana.

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July 16: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: After much perplexity and delay, on account of the unbroken and intractable teams, I left the camp, this afternoon, at five o’clock, with the Fourth Artillery, Lieutenant Colonel Watson’s Marine Corps, and a detachment of the Third Dragoons, with about forty wagons. The road was very heavy; the wheels sinking almost to the hubs in sand, and the untried and untamed teams almost constantly bolting, in some part of the train. We were occupied rather in breaking the animals to harness, than in performing a march. At ten o’clock at night, we bivouacked, in the darkness and sand, by the wagons in the road — having made but three miles from camp. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 17: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp near San Juan. Started this morning, at four o’clock. Road still heavy, over short, steep hills; progress slow and difficult. Reached Santa Fe, eight miles from Vera Cruz, at eight o’clock, A.M. Heat exceedingly oppressive. Remained here till four, P.M. About twelve o’clock, two muleteers came to our bivouac in great agitation, to announce that five hundred guerillas were on the Jalapa road, not five hundred yards distant, advancing rapidly. Lieutenant Colonel Watson, with the Marine Corps, is, by order, immediately under arms, and Major Gavet, with two pieces of artillery, in position to keep the road. No guerilla force approaches; and it is doubtful whether the muleteers, looking through the medium of terror, were not entirely mistaken. Still, it was our first alarm, and useful, as stimulating to vigilance and constant preparation for an attack.

Resumed the march at four P.M., and reached San Juan about nine o’clock in the evening, in a drenching rain. The road from Santa Fe to this place is level and firm; no water, until the first branch of the San Juan is reached. The guerillas had attempted to destroy the bridge over the stream; but Colonel Ransom’s advance was upon them before the work of destruction was complete, and New England strength and ingenuity readily repaired damages. The rain continued to pour, throughout that night, the next day, and the night following. The encampment being upon low, muddy ground, along the margin of the stream, officers and men were compelled to find their only repose, literally, in the mud and water; and I resolved to move, notwithstanding the heavy rain, which continued to pour until the evening of the 19th. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 20: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Telema Nueva. My brigade, with the exception of Lieutenant Colonel Bonham’s command, left Camp Pierce, (a name given it before my arrival, by Colonel Ransom,) at San Juan, yesterday evening, and marched to this place, twenty-four miles from Vera Cruz. Several escopettes were discharged upon the detachment of dragoons, at the head of the column. These shots came from an eminence on the left of the road, a direct line to which was impracticable for cavalry. Lieutenant Deven, in command of the advanced detachment, dashed rapidly up the hill, along the road, to reconnoitre the position of the main body of the enemy, which, it was supposed, might be posted behind the eminence. Captain Ridgeley, of the Fourth Artillery, threw a few round shot in the direction from which the fire came; and in the mean time, I had despatched Captain Bodfish, of the Ninth Infantry, with the grenadiers and Company F., to take the enemy in flank. The duty was promptly and handsomely performed; but the enemy had fled before Captain B. had arrived within musket shot of his position. The march continued about a mile, when mounted Mexicans could be discerned at distant points, evidently reconnoitring. This being the place where Colonel Mcintosh’s train had been attacked and sustained so much damage, I made dispositions for any such contingency. I detached Captain Larkin Smith, of the Eighth Infantry, with three companies of infantry and a party of dragoons, by a path on the left of the main road, that debouched from an old Spanish fort, whence an attack was anticipated. A detachment of dragoons under Lieutenant Deven, Colonel Ransom with the Ninth Infantry, and Captain Ridgeley with three pieces of his battery, marched on the main road. Captain Smith, having traversed the route upon which he was directed, again intersected the main road, near the fort above referred to, a little in advance of the head of our column. In this position, as soon as Captain Smith’s detachment had well extended upon the road, the enemy opened a brisk fire. They were concealed and strongly posted in the chapperal, on both sides of the road — the greater number on the right. The fire was promptly returned, and sustained on both sides for some minutes, when Captain Ridgeley unlimbered one of his pieces, and threw a few canister shot among them. This immediately silenced the enemy’s fire, which had been nearly done by Captain Smith, before the artillery came up. Captain Bodfish, with three companies of the Ninth Infantry, was sent to attack the enemy in flank; but his flight was too precipitous for this detachment to come up with his main body. I could not ascertain the enemy’s loss. The Mexican paper at Jalapa stated it at forty; which, I think, was an exaggeration. Our own loss was six wounded, and seven horses shot. I witnessed with pleasure the conduct of that part of my command immediately engaged, on this occasion. The first fire of the enemy indicated a pretty formidable force, the precise strength of which could not be ascertained, as they were completely covered by the chapperal. It was the first time, on the march, that any portion of my command had been fairly under fire. I was at the head of the column, on the main road, and, witnessing the whole scene, saw nothing but coolness and courage on the part of both officers and men.

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July 21: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Puente Nacionale. The brigade resumed its march yesterday, at three o’clock, and reached Paso de Orejas, three miles distant, where we encamped for the night. The march was unobstructed by the enemy; and our advanced troop reached the place last named at an early hour. The rear, however, in consequence of our immense train, did not arrive till after dark. As it descended towards the camp, it was approached by guerillas; but they were kept at bay by a few discharges from a six pounder, left with Lieutenant Colonel Watson, in the rear, These parties had been seen during the day, on distant and elevated points, reconnoitring our line. The road, on this part of the march, is high and dry; no water except in small ponds or pools. Paso de Orejas is on the west side of a rapid and beautiful stream, spanned by a substantial and expensive bridge; and, judging from the spacious buildings, it has evidently been a place of considerable business. We left Paso de Orejas at four o’clock in the morning, and pursued our course uninterruptedly, until we reached Puente Nacionale. Anticipating, from rumors which had reached us upon the road, an attack at this place, and having no map of its defences, natural or artificial, I halted the entire command on the top of the long hill, which descends to the fork of the Antigua River. With a detail of two companies of the Twelfth Infantry, commanded by Captains Wood and Danvers, I proceeded in person, two or three hundred yards, to an elevation on the right of the road, from which, with my glass, I could command a view of the bridge, the village, and the enemy’s positions. There were a few lancers in the village, riding rapidly from one position to another, flourishing a red flag, and occasionally, as if in defiance, coming up to the barricade which they had thrown across the bridge. The main body of the enemy, however, was posted behind a temporary breastwork on a bluff, a hundred and fifty feet high, commanding the whole bridge, and overhanging, as it were, the eastern arch. Their position could not be turned, as the heights continue precipitous from the water’s edge, for a long distance below. The tongue of land, dividing the fork referred to above from the main stream of the Rio del Antigua, rises to an immense height on the left; and on this eminence is a fortification, which, from the road, has the appearance of great strength. After crossing the bridge, the road turns suddenly to the left. Having satisfied myself that this fort, on the left, was not occupied, I sent forward Captain Dobbins with his company, together with Company G, Fourth Infantry, and Company I, Voltigeurs, under Captain Archer, along the brow of the hill to the bank of the Antigua, opposite the village, with instructions, if possible, to cross the river above. The passage above, like that below, being found impracticable, I rode forward, with my aid-de-camp, Lieutenant Thom, to reconnoitre the enemy’s works more closely, and to find on the left, if possible, a position for artillery. In this I was to a certain extent successful, and immediately ordered forward three pieces, two under the command of Captain Ridgeley, and one under BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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Lieutenant Getty, of the Fourth Artillery. These were stationed on a piece of table land, perhaps an acre in extent, four or five rods from the west end of the main bridge, and thirty feet above it. The pieces swept the bridge, and dispersed the lancers from the village. Shots were also thrown at the heights, but, in consequence of the great elevation of the bluff where the enemy’s main body were posted, without any other effect than to distract his fire from the advance, under Colonel Bonham, then awaiting my orders to cross. This portion of Colonel Bonham’s command consisted of Company B, Twelfth Infantry, under Captain Holden, a detachment of the same regiment under Lieutenant Giles, two companies of Pennsylvania volunteers under Captains Caldwell and Taylor, Company C, Voltigeurs, under Lieutenant Forsyth, and Company F, Eleventh Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Hedges. Under the discharge of the artillery of the enemy’s works, the command was given to Colonel Bonham to advance. It was admirably executed. Captain Holden’s company, leading, rushed over the bridge with a shout; the captain, some paces in advance, leaped the barricade of brush and timber, his men following with great enthusiasm. Having crossed the bridge, he threw his company, under the cover of buildings, immediately beneath the bluff, and taking a narrow, steep path to the right, was in a few moments upon the summit, where the whole brigade greeted him with hearty cheers. The remainder of the command followed rapidly, and in good order. In the mean time, with a view to cut off the retreat of the foe, Captain Dupreau, of the Third Dragoons, had leaped the barricade, dashed through the village, and, almost simultaneously with Captain Holden, planted the colors of his company upon the breastwork, from which the plunging fire had so recently ceased. The guerillas and lancers could hardly have waited, after the first shout of Holden’s company, to see the effect of their own fire; for, before our first detachment reached their works, they were in full flight, beyond pursuit, in the dense chapperal of the mountains in their rear. Colonel Bonham’s horse was shot near me, and I received an escopette ball through the rim of my hat, but without other damage than leaving my head, for a short time, without protection from the sun. The balls spattered like hailstones around us, at the moment the column advanced; and it seems truly wonderful that so few took effect. A large portion of them passed over our heads, and struck between the rear of Colonel Bonham’s command and the main body of the brigade, two or three hundred yards behind, with the train; thus verifying what has so often been said by our gallant fellows, within the last forty days, that the nearer you get to these people in fight, the safer. The encampment was made in the village, for the night, thirty miles from Vera Cruz. Here General Santa Anna has a spacious and magnificent hacienda, in which I established my headquarters. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 22, Thursday: The Mormon wagon train camped for the 1st time in the Salt Lake Valley.

The tragic opera I masnadieri, to words of Maffei after Schiller, was performed for the initial time, at Her Majesty’s Theater, London, and was directed by its composer Giuseppe Verdi with a baton. The soprano was Jenny Lind. When Verdi arrived in the orchestra there was 15 minutes of applause, during which the Queen, her consort Prince Albert, 6-year-old Albert Edward the Prince of Wales, and a large contingent of the royal family arrived. The opera enjoyed a great success. However, it would be awarded but four performances.

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Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: I left the princely hacienda of Santa Anna, at the Natural Bridge, this morning at four o’clock. The moment our picket guards were withdrawn, the enemy appeared on all the surrounding heights, but at distances too respectful to provoke any particular notice. I proceeded on the march, without molestation, until we commenced the descent of the Plan del Rio, where Captain Dupreau’s company of cavalry, a few hundred yards in front of the column, was fired upon from the chapperal, and three horses wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Hebert, being next to the dragoons, threw out a company of skirmishers on either side, and, with the remainder, continued the march on the main road. Nothing more, however, was seen or heard of the enemy. An old Spanish fort stands on a high eminence at the right of the road, commanding it in all directions, and overlooking the bridge. A bridge, about four hundred yards west of the main stream, had been barricaded, evidently with the intention of defending it. But neither the fort nor the position beyond the barricade was occupied; the enemy, as we soon learned, having hit upon another expedient for checking our advance, which they evidently believed must cause several weeks’ detention, and probably drive the command back upon the coast. Removing the barricade at the small bridge, and proceeding about four hundred yards, we came to the Plan del Rio, over which there had been a bridge similar to Puente Nacionale. It was a magnificent structure of art, combining great strength and beauty, a work of the old Spaniards, so many of which are found upon this great avenue from the coast, fitted to awaken the admiration and wonder of the traveller. The fact that the main arch, a span of about sixty feet, had been blown up, first burst upon me as I stood upon the brink of the chasm, with a perpendicular descent of nearly a hundred feet to the bed of a rapid stream, much swollen by the recent rains. As far as the eye could reach, above and below, the banks on the west side, of vast height, descended precipitously, almost in a perpendicular line, to the water’s edge. This sudden and unexpected barrier, I need not say, was somewhat withering to the confidence with which I had been animated. The news having extended back along the line, my officers soon crowded around me; and the deep silence that ensued was more significant than any thing which could have been spoken. After a few moment pause, this silence was broken by many short, epigrammatical remarks, and more questions. ‘We have it before us now!’ said Lieutenant Colonel Hebert. ‘The destruction of this magnificent and expensive work of a past generation could not have been ordered, but upon a deliberate and firm purpose of stern resistance.’ ‘This people have destroyed,’ said another, ‘what they never will rebuild.’ ‘What is to be done with this train?’ ‘What do you purpose now, general?’ ‘To have it closed up,’ I replied, ‘as compactly as possible to-night, and to cross to-morrow with every wagon!’ But, I confess, there was no very distinct idea, in my own mind, how the thing was to be accomplished. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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I ought to have mentioned that the Ninth Infantry, under the gallant Colonel Ransom, which was that day in advance, on discovering that the bridge had been blown up, and supposing the enemy to be in force on the other side, immediately descended the steep banks, by the aid of trees and other supports, and forded the river. They then took possession of a church on the other side. A long hill descends from the west towards this river; the road is narrow, and there is no ground for an encampment or the packing of wagons. The wagons, therefore, having been closed up, were of necessity left in the wood, making a line of more than a mile and a half in length. Thus disposed, every precaution was taken for the protection of the train, and the brigade was left to bivouac. The growth, for miles around, was low and scrubby, affording no timber to reconstruct the arch; and it was perfectly apparent that no passage could be effected at the north. Lieutenant Thom, and two or three scientific officers with him, had been occupied from the time of our arrival in making a careful reconnoissance down the banks of the river, for two or three miles below. At dusk, they reported that the difficulties in that direction did not diminish, but that a road might probably be constructed down the bank, some hundred yards south of the bridge. Weary, and not in the most buoyant spirits, we all sunk to repose. WAR ON MEXICO BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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July 23: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Early the next morning, I sent for Captain Bodfish, of the Ninth Infantry, an officer of high intelligence and force of character. He had been engaged for many years in the lumber business and accustomed to the construction of roads in the wild and mountainous districts of Maine, and was withal a man not lightly to be checked by slight obstacles in the accomplishment of an enterprise. It occurred to me, therefore, that he was the very man whose services should, on this occasion, be put in requisition.

Being informed of the object for which he had been called, he retired, and, returning in half a hour, said that he had examined the ground, and that the construction of a road, over which the train might safely pass, was practicable. ‘What length of time,’ he was asked, ‘will necessarily be occupied in the completion of the work?’ ‘That,’ said he, ‘will depend upon the number of men employed. If you will give me five hundred men, I will furnish you a road over which the train can pass safely in four hours.’ The detail was immediately furnished; and, at the end of three hours, this energetic and most deserving officer reported to me that the road was ready for the wagons. Fortune favored us in more respects than one. The water in the river, which, in the rainy season, is a rapid and unfordable stream, fell one and a half feet from the time of our arrival to the hour of the completion of the work. ‘Bodfish’s road’ (unless this nation shall be regenerated) will be the road, at that place, for Mexican diligences, for half a century to come.

Without removing an article from a single wagon, the entire train had passed, without accident, before the sun went down on the evening of the 23d. Here, on the east side of Plan del Rio, where there are barracks and many ranchos, we are comfortably quartered for the night. The troops are in the highest spirits; and jokes innumerable are passing among our southern brethren upon the absurdity of Mexicans attempting to play such a trick on Yankees. The heat had been so excessive that I intended to remain one day at this place, for the refreshment of men and animals; but all are anxious to proceed, and we move in the morning. Thus the destruction of this very expensive work, instead of retarding my progress for a single hour, has added fresh confidence and enthusiasm to the command. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 24: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Encero. Plan del Rio being within four miles of Cerro Gordo, and being apprehensive of a plunging fire on the trains, from the eminences, I despatched Lieutenant Colonel Bonham with five hundred picked men, at twelve o’clock, last night, to take possession of the heights, by the way of Twiggs’s route, as it is called. An officer, in my command, was at the battle of Cerro Gordo, and supposed that he sufficiently understood the localities to act as guide. This military road of Twiggs turned off from the main road, four or five miles from Plan del Rio. I went forward in person, with Captain Dupreau’s company of cavalry. The rain poured in torrents; and the darkness was such that I could not see Dupreau’s white horse, while riding by his side. In consequence of this extreme darkness, Captain Scantland was unable to find the route, and I returned with the cavalry to camp. The detachment rested upon their arms till morning, when the duty was handsomely performed, although the strongholds were found unoccupied.

When our train left Plan del Rio, at early dawn, the Mexicans appeared on the heights, and discharged a harmless volley upon the rear guard. They evidently made a mistake. Not having calculated distances with their usual accuracy, Colonel Ransom, being in the rear with a six pounder, under the command of Lieutenant Welsh, threw a few canister shot among them. These undoubtedly took effect, as they scattered in all directions without firing another gun. We reached this place at about two o’clock, where is another magnificent hacienda, owned by Santa Anna. There being large herds of cattle around us, but no owner of whom to purchase, I have sent out detachments to supply our immediate wants.

Two or three of the young officers, desiring to participate in the chase of the cattle, left the camp without permission, and, in the excitement of the chase, wandered to a considerable distance. 0ne of them has just been brought in with a dangerous gun shot through the thigh — a very natural result of such imprudence. The only matter of surprise is, that they were not all killed or captured by the hands of guerillas, who are known to hang upon our rear by day, and about our camp by night. I am sorry for the officer, but trust the admonition may be salutary. We have here a delightful encampment, upon a green carpet that slopes gently to a fine stream of clear, pure water. Jalapa is only eight miles distant.

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July 25: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp near Jalapa. We left the encampment at Encero at seven o’clock, not without regret, so pleasant was the situation, and so refreshing the pure stream that rushed sparkling by us. It reminded all New England men of their homes. Our march to Jalapa, which we reached at noon, was uninterrupted. The main road to Puebla passes outside of the city. I rode with twenty dragoons to the principal fonda, kept by an intelligent Frenchman, where I dined, and remained two or three hours, until the train and rear of the command had passed. In the hotel, I met and conversed, through an interpreter, with many persons in the garb of gentlemen. Full of compliments and professions of friendship, they quite stagger a blunt Yankee. The truth is, instead of being induced to take up my quarters on account of these protestations, I the earlier thought it time, with my true friend and aid-de- camp, Lieutenant Thom, and the twenty dragoons, to join the command. I hardly know why, amid pleasant conversations, this feeling came over me. It was instinct, rather than any legitimate deduction from what I either saw or heard; but, in this case, it proved better than reason, for, returning to the main road, I found the extreme rear halted, and in no little excitement. A colored servant of Lieutenant Welsh, having been sent to water a horse, not six rods from the road, had been stabbed, and the horse stolen. I stopped long enough to ascertain that no trace could be found of the robbers, and then proceeded to camp, two and a half or three miles distant.

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July 27: Henceforth the benches on Boston Common would be iron rather than wood, because taggers couldn’t resist whittling their initials. BOSTON

Henry Thoreau wrote to Evert Augustus Duyckinck from Concord.

Concord July 27th 1847 Dear Sir It is a little more than three weeks since I returned my MSS, sending a letter by mail at the same time for security, so I suppose that you have received it. If Messrs Wiley & Putnam are not prepared to give their answer now, will you please to inform me what further delay, if any, is unavoidable, that I may determine whether I had not better carry it elsewhere — for time is of great consequence to me. Yrs re- spectfully Henry D Thoreau.

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Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp near Jalapa. Several soldiers, while strolling to the city or the neighboring ranchos, in violation of general orders, have, either deserted, been killed, or taken prisoners. Mr. N., a lawyer resident in New Orleans, but a native of Maine, having business in the interior of Mexico, was permitted to accompany my command from Vera Cruz. He seems to have been enjoying a stroll in the streets of Jalapa, when he was seized by the guerillas, who are evidently in disguise in all parts Of the city. He wrote me a note after his capture, stating that he had been offered his liberty, if I would send to the Alcalde of Jalapa a certificate that he was a private citizen, and in no way connected with the American army. This was, of course, promptly forwarded.

The guerillas, I believe, have complete possession, or rather control, of Jalapa. The citizens, who dread them more than we do, and who suffer severely from them, dare not inform against nor resist them, so long as an uncertainty exists with regard to protection from the American forces. They stroll about the city in disguise, and, whenever an opportunity presents itself, they kill or carry off our stragglers, and steal and rob with impunity.

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July 29: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp near La Hoya. We left our camp near Jalapa this morning at seven o’clock. The sick list, instead of diminishing, has increased and now includes more than four hundred men. The principal cause is excessive indulgence in fruits, which it was found impossible to keep from the troops. We are now upon the margin of a stream, where are the remains of fires and other relics of a former encampment. The ground is low and level. The rain is pouring in torrents, and rushes through my tent, in a channel dug by the orderly, like a permanent, living brook.

On arriving at San Miguel el Saldado, I required the Alcalde of that place, and another Mexican, to go forward with us as guides to the passes that turn the strong positions commanding the roads over which we shall pass to-morrow. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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July 30: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp near the Castle of Perote. The whole command was under arms at dawn. Two regiments (the Ninth Infantry under Colonel Ransom, and detachments from various regiments under Lieutenant Colonel Bonham) were ordered to take the paths leading over the heights commanding the road, while the main body, with the train, should pass this strong defile. During the night, the Alcalde had furnished two guides, better acquainted with the paths than himself. One accompanied each of the flanking columns. This service, performed by Colonel Ransom and Lieutenant Colonel Bonham, was exceedingly arduous, although they occupied the heights without resistance. The train passed this gorge of the mountains, which furnishes the strongest natural defences, without molestation; the two flanking regiments making their appearance, every few moments, in the openings, and on the peaks of the surrounding summits. At Las Vegas, about four miles from Perote, we were met by Colonel Wyncoop, of the Pennsylvania volunteers, now in command of the castle, with Captain Walker’s elegant company of mounted riflemen. Captain Walker is the same who gained (earned is the better word, for officers sometimes gain what they do not merit) such an enviable reputation on the Rio Grande. His company is in all respects worthy of their efficient, gentlemanly, modest, and daring commander. I reached the castle before dark, and Colonel Wyncoop kindly tendered me his quarters; but I adhered to a rule from which I have never deviated on the march — to see the rear of the command safely in camp, and where they pitched their tents to pitch my own. The rear guard, in consequence of the broken condition of the road, did not arrive until nine o’clock; when our tents were pitched in darkness, and in the sand, which surrounds the castle on all sides. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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August 1: Per Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign journal: Camp under the walls of the Castle of Perote, August 1. We make a halt here of two or three days, to repair damages, procure supplies, and give rest to the troops. I have sent two hundred sick to the hospital in the castle, and received about the same number of convalescents, left by trains that have preceded me. While at the artillery quarters, to-day, in the village, Captain Ruff arrived, with his company of cavalry and the company of native spies, as they are called, now in our service, and commanded by the celebrated robber Domingues. Captain Ruff was sent forward by General Persifer F. Smith. The latter, in consequence of the rumors that had reached the commander-in- chief, in relation to the attacks made upon my command, had been sent down as far as Ojo del Agua, with a view to ascertain my whereabouts and condition, and to afford support, if necessary.

WAR ON MEXICO BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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August 7: Per Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1852 bio of Brigadier General Franklin Pierce during his campaign for the US presidency, our guy’s supply column at this point reached its destination, the main body of the US army encamped at Puebla, “in fine order, and without the loss of a single wagon.” Oh, we can be sure that everyone was so impressed! General Pierce’s journal here terminates. In its clear and simple narrative, the reader cannot fail to see —although it was written with no purpose of displaying them — the native qualities of a born soldier, together with the sagacity of an experienced one. He had proved himself, moreover, physically apt for war, by his easy endurance of the fatigues of the march; every step of which (as was the case with few other officers) was performed either on horseback or on foot. Nature, indeed, has endowed him with a rare elasticity both of mind and body; he springs up from pressure like a well-tempered sword. After the severest toil, a single night’s rest does as much for him, in the way of refreshment, as a week could do for most other men. His conduct on this adventurous march received the high encomiums of military men, and was honored with the commendation of the great soldier who is now his rival in the presidential contest. He reached the main army at Puebla, on the 7th of August, with twenty-four hundred men, in fine order, and without the loss of a single wagon.

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Hey Nat, give us a break will you? The only thing remarkable about this trip accompanying some supply wagons was that Pierce was tolerated by his superiors for the time being, i.e. not considered of such great significance as to be relieved of his command. —Obviously they were preoccupied with other matters. WAR ON MEXICO

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August 8: Per Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bio of Brigadier General Franklin Pierce as of 1852 during his campaign for the US presidency, with our guy’s supply column having finally connected up with the main body of the US army under General Winfield Scott which had been waiting for him at Puebla, was able to move out on the next stage of its operation against los Mejicanos: GENERAL SCOTT, who was at Puebla with the main army, awaiting this reinforcement, began his march towards the city of Mexico on the day after General Pierce’s arrival. WAR ON MEXICO

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August 12: From this date until September 15th, General Winfield Scott’s operations at Mexico City:

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August 19: At about this point some of our troops were beginning to trickle home from the war against Old Mejico:

There was something of a pattern in these occasions. There was a parade, featuring a brass band, perhaps a local militia company, and the veterans themselves. Sometimes the citizens of the community joined in, and the entire procession then marched to a nearby spot for a grand picnic. When the revelers reached the picnic grounds, some prominent local speaker typically welcomed the soldiers back to their home state, “the honor of which you have so nobly, so gallantly and so valiantly sustained.” There followed a recounting of the brave deeds performed and the hardships endured. These speakers also heaped lavish praise upon the volunteers who had not seen any enemy action.

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August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

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Although Nathaniel Hawthorne would feel it inappropriate to make mention of this fact in his campaign bio of Brigadier General Franklin Pierce during that panjandrum’s bid for the Presidency, complimenting the general instead on his horsemanship, He had proved himself ... physically apt for war, by his easy endurance of the fatigues of the march; every step of which (as was the case with few other officers) was performed either on horseback or on foot. Nature, indeed, has endowed him with a rare elasticity both of mind and body; he springs up from pressure like a well-tempered sword. After the severest toil, a single night’s rest does as much for him, in the way of refreshment, as a week could do for most other men. at this point there was coming to us out of Old Mejico some bad news as well as the good.

Our horseyback general had fallen off his horsie — but his injury, although serious enough to intercept any further acts of heroism or shepherdings of supply wagons, would not actually prove so serious as to prevent him from riding a desk, making important decisions, and accepting grand emoluments and praises.

TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS Our campaign biographer tells the tale in a different manner — but notice carefully that this officer, having completed his assignment to bring up the supply wagons, had no official position on this day other than that of an observer, so that whenever and wherever Hawthorne speaks of “General Pierce’s brigade,” or in any of Pierce as having troops and command responsibilities, as giving orders, as leading anyone other than his own orderly, as making decisions, etc., this must be taken with a grain of salt the size of, say, the Plymouth Rock:

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The enemy’s force consisted of about seven thousand men, posted in a strongly-intrenched camp, under General Valencia, one of the bravest and ablest of the Mexican commanders. The object of the commanding general appears to have been to cut off the communications of these detached troops with Santa Anna’s main army, and thus to have them entirely at his mercy. For this purpose, a portion of the American forces were ordered to move against Valencia’s left flank, and, by occupying strong positions in the villages and on the roads towards the city, to prevent reenforcements from reaching him. In the mean time, to draw the enemy’s attention from this movement, a vigorous onset was made upon his front; and as the operations upon his flank were not immediately and fully carried out according to the plan, this front demonstration assumed the character of a fierce and desperate attack, upon which the fortunes of the day much depended. General Pierce’s brigade formed a part of the force engaged in this latter movement, in which four thousand newly- recruited men, unable to bring their artillery to bear, contended against seven thousand disciplined soldiers, protected by intrenchments, and showering round shot and shells against the assailing troops.... General Pierce’s immediate command had never before been under such a fire of artillery. The enemy’s range was a little too high, or the havoc in our ranks must have been dreadful. In the midst of this fire, General Pierce, being the only officer mounted in the brigade, leaped his horse upon an abrupt eminence, and addressed the colonels and captains of the regiments, as they passed, in a few stirring words — reminding them of the honor of their country, of the victory their steady valor would contribute to achieve. Pressing forward to the head of the column, he had nearly reached the practicable ground that lay beyond, when his horse slipped among the rocks, thrust his foot into a crevice, and fell, breaking his own leg, and crushing his rider heavily beneath him. Pierce’s mounted orderly soon came to his assistance. The general was stunned, and almost insensible. When partially recovered, he found himself suffering from severe bruises, and especially from a sprain of the left knee, which was undermost when the horse came down. The orderly assisted him to reach the shelter of a projecting rock; and as they made their way thither, a shell fell close beside them, and exploded, covering them with earth. “That was a lucky miss,” said Pierce calmly. Leaving him in such shelter as the rock afforded, the orderly went in search of aid, and was fortunate to meet with Dr. Ritchie, of Virginia, who was attached to Pierce’s brigade, and was following in close proximity to the advancing column. The doctor administered to him as well as the circumstances would admit. Immediately on recovering his full consciousness, General Pierce had become anxious to rejoin his troops; and now, in opposition to Dr. Ritchie’s advice and remonstrances, he determined to proceed to the front.

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BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE The 1st day of the Battle of Contreras:

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With pain and difficulty, and leaning on his orderly’s arm, he reached the battery commanded by Captain McGruder, where he found the horse of Lieutenant Johnson, who had just before received a mortal wound. In compliance with his wishes, he was assisted into the saddle; and, in answer to a remark that he would be unable to keep his seat, “Then,” said the general, “you must tie me on.” Whether this precaution was actually taken is a point on which authorities differ; but at, all events, with injuries so severe as would have sent almost any other man to the hospital, he rode forward into the battle. The contest was kept up until nightfall, without forcing Valencia’s intrenchment. General Pierce remained in the saddle until eleven o’clock at night. Finding himself, at nine o’clock, the senior officer in the field, he, in that capacity, withdrew the troops from their advanced position, and concentrated them at the point where they were to pass the night. At eleven, beneath a torrent of rain, destitute of a tent or other protection, and without food or refreshment, he lay down on an ammunition wagon, but was prevented by the pain of his injuries, especially that of his wounded knee, from finding any repose. At one o’clock came orders from General Scott to put the brigade into a new position, in front of the enemy’s works, preparatory to taking part in the contemplated operations of the next morning. During the night, the troops appointed for that service, under Riley, Shields, Smith, and Cadwallader, had occupied the villages and roads between Valencia’s position and the city; so that, with daylight, the commanding general’s scheme of the battle was ready to be carried out, as it had originally existed in his mind.

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August 20: The 2nd day of the battle at Contreras. The battle at Churubusco:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bio of his buddy Brigadier General Franklin Pierce written during the campaign of 1852, he would make it seem almost as if his buddy had been the leader and the hero of the field, whereas

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actually he had only been getting in the way of the opposing Presidential candidate, General Winfield Scott: At daylight, accordingly, Valencia’s entrenched camp was assaulted. General Pierce was soon in the saddle, at the head of his brigade, which retained its position in front, thus serving to attract the enemy’s attention, and divert him from the true point of attack. The camp was stormed in the rear by the American troops, led on by Riley, Cadwallader, and Dimmick; and in the short space of seventeen minutes it had fallen into the hands of the assailants, together with a multitude of prisoners. The remnant of the routed enemy fled towards Churubusco. As Pierce led his brigade in pursuit, crossing the battle field, and passing through the works that had just been stormed, he found the road and adjacent fields every where strewn with the dead and dying. The pursuit was continued until one o’clock, when the foremost of the Americans arrived in front of the strong Mexican positions at Churubusco and San Antonio, where Santa Anna’s army had been compelled to make a stand, and where the great conflict of the day commenced. General Santa Anna entertained the design of withdrawing his forces towards the city. In order to intercept this movement, Pierce’s brigade, with other troops, was ordered to pursue a route by which the enemy could be attacked in the rear. Colonel Noah E. Smith (a patriotic American, long resident in Mexico, whose local and topographical knowledge proved eminently serviceable) had offered to point out the road, and was sent to summon General Pierce to the presence of the commander-in-chief. When he met Pierce, near Coyacan, at the head of his brigade, the heavy fire of the batteries had commenced. “He was exceedingly thin,” writes Colonel Smith, “worn down by the fatigue and pain of the day and night before, and then evidently suffering severely. Still, there was a glow in his eye, as the cannon boomed, that showed within him a spirit ready for the conflict.” He rode up to General Scott, who was at this time sitting on horseback beneath a tree, near the church of Coyacan, issuing orders to different individuals of his staff. Our account of this interview is chiefly taken from the narrative of Colonel Smith, corroborated by other testimony. The commander-in-chief had already heard of the accident that befell Pierce the day before; and as the latter approached, General Scott could not but notice the marks of pain and physical exhaustion, against which only the sturdiest constancy of will could have enabled him to bear up. “Pierce, my dear fellow,” said he, — and that epithet of familiar kindness and friendship, upon the battle field, was the highest of military commendation from such a man, — “you are badly injured; you are not fit to be in your saddle.” “Yes, general, I am,” replied Pierce, “in a case like this.” “You cannot touch your foot to the stirrup,” said Scott. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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“One of them I can,” answered Pierce. The general looked again at Pierce’s almost disabled figure, and seemed on the point of taking his irrevocable resolution. “You are rash, General Pierce,” said he; “we shall lose you, and we cannot spare you. It is my duty to order you back to St. Augustine.” “For God’s sake, general,” exclaimed Pierce, “don’t say that! This is the last great battle, and I must lead my brigade!” The commander-in-chief made no further remonstrance, but gave the order for Pierce to advance with his brigade. The way lay through thick standing corn, and over marshy ground intersected with ditches, which were filled, or partially so, with water. Over some of the narrower of these Pierce leaped his horse. When the brigade had advanced about a mile, however, it found itself impeded by a ditch ten or twelve feet wide, and six or eight feet deep. It being impossible to leap it, General Pierce was lifted from his saddle, and, in some incomprehensible way, hurt as he was, contrived to wade or scramble across this obstacle, leaving his horse on the hither side. The troops were now under fire. In the excitement of the battle, he forgot his injury, and hurried forward, leading the brigade, a distance of two or three hundred yards. But the exhaustion of his frame, and particularly the anguish of his knee, —made more intolerable by such free use of it,— was greater than any strength of nerve, or any degree of mental energy, could struggle against. He fell, faint and almost insensible, within full range of the enemy’s fire. It was proposed to bear him off the field; but, as some of his soldiers approached to lift him, be became aware of their purpose, and was partially revived by his determination to resist it. “No,” said he, with all the strength he had left, “don’t carry me off! Let me lie here!” And there he lay, under the tremendous fire of Churubusco, until the enemy, in total rout, was driven from the field. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

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August 21: In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bio of his buddy Brigadier General Franklin Pierce written during the campaign of 1852, he would make it seem almost as if it had been the opposing Presidential candidate, General Winfield Scott, who had been the one deceived by General Santa Anna on this day, whereas in point of fact Scott had

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not even been present: Immediately after the victory, when the city of Mexico lay at the mercy of the American commander, and might have been entered that very night, Santa Anna sent a flag of truce, proposing an armistice, with a view to negotiations for peace. It cannot be considered in any other light than as a very high and signal compliment to his gallantry in the field, that General Pierce was appointed, by the commander-in-chief, one of the commissioners on our part, together with General Quitman and General Persifer F. Smith, to arrange the terms of this armistice. Pierce was unable to walk, or to mount his horse without assistance, when intelligence of his appointment reached him. He had not taken off his spurs, nor slept an hour, for two nights; but he immediately obeyed the summons, was assisted into the saddle, and rode to Tacubaya, where, at the house of the British consul general, the American and Mexican commissioners were assembled. The conference began late in the afternoon, and continued till four o’clock the next morning, when the articles were signed. Pierce then proceeded to the quarters of General Worth, in the village of Tacubaya, where he obtained an hour or two of repose.

The expectation of General Scott, that further bloodshed might be avoided by means of the armistice, proved deceptive.

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September 8, Wednesday: The battle at Molino del Rey:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bio of his buddy Brigadier General Franklin Pierce written during the campaign of 1852, he would come very close to admitting that on this solitary occasion on which his buddy had attempted to bring some troops into battle, they had arrived upon the field of engagement too late and, once there, had

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merely gotten in the way of the actual fighters: The expectation of General Winfield Scott, that further bloodshed might be avoided by means of the armistice, proved deceptive. Military operations, after a temporary interruption, were actively renewed; and on the 8th of September was fought the bloody battle of Molino del Rey, one of the fiercest and most destructive of the war. In this conflict General Worth, with three thousand troops, attacked and routed fourteen thousand Mexicans, driving them under the protection of the Castle of Chepultepec. Perceiving the obstinacy with which the field was contested, the commander-in- chief despatched an order to General Pierce to advance to the support of General Worth’s division. He moved forward with rapidity; and although the battle was won just as he reached the field, he interposed his brigade between Worth and the retreating enemy, and thus drew upon himself the fire of Chepultepec. A shell came streaming from the castle, and, bursting within a few feet of him, startled his horse, which was near plunging over an adjacent precipice. Continuing a long time under fire, Pierce’s brigade was engaged in removing the wounded, and the captured ammunition. While thus occupied, he led a portion of his command to repel the attacks of the enemy’s skirmishers.

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September 13, Monday: In Salem, customs inspector Nathaniel Hawthorne approved a shipment:

Brigadier General Franklin Pierce, lucky guy, had an opportunity to vicariously experience one more battle: There remained but one other battle, —that of Chepultepec,— which was fought on the 13th of September. On the preceding day, (although the injuries and the over-exertion, resulting from previous marches and battles, had greatly enfeebled him,) General Pierce had acted with his brigade. In obedience to orders, it had occupied the field of Molino del Rey. Contrary to expectation, it was found that the enemy’s force had been withdrawn from this position. Pierce remained in the field until noon, when, it being certain that the anticipated attack would not take place before the following day, he returned to the quarters of General Worth, which were near at hand. There he became extremely ill, and was unable to leave his bed for the thirty-six hours next ensuing. In the mean time, the Castle of Chepultepec was stormed by the troops under Generals Pillow and Quitman. Pierce’s brigade behaved itself gallantly, and suffered severely; and that accomplished officer, Colonel Ransom, leading the Ninth Regiment to the attack, was shot through the head, and fell, with many other brave men, in that last battle of the war. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE

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The American troops, under Quitman and Worth, had established themselves within the limits of the city, having possession of the gates of Belen and of San Cosma, but, up till nightfall, had met with a vigorous resistance from the Mexicans, led on by Santa Anna in person. They had still, apparently, a desperate task before them. It was anticipated, that, with the next morning’s light, our troops would be ordered to storm the citadel, and the city of Mexico itself. When this was told to Pierce, upon his sick bed, he rose, and attempted to dress himself; but Captain Hardcastle, who had brought the intelligence from Worth, prevailed upon him to remain in bed, and not to exhaust his scanty strength, until the imminence of the occasion should require his presence. Pierce acquiesced for the time, but again arose, in the course of the night, and made his way to the trenches, where he reported himself to General Quitman, with whose division was a part of his brigade. Quitman’s share in the anticipated assault, it was supposed, owing to the position which his troops occupied, would be more perilous than that of Worth. WAR ON MEXICO

At this “Battle of Chapultepec” 2d Lieutenant Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr. was wounded in the left leg above the knee by an escopette ball (he would receive a battlefield promotion to 1st Lieutenant and ever afterward would proclaim himself to have been a captain). He would assert later that he had been shot while leading “up the men who received the last volley of the enemy’s fire, and thus left the scaling of the wall [and the political plum, a political plum worth a vice presidency under Polk in the case of the candidate Major General Gideon Johnson Pillow, of being shot in the left leg while in command of the 1st group of soldiers to scale the wall into the fortress of Chapultepec] a mere matter of climbing, as scarcely any one was shot afterwards.”

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September 14: The US army under General Winfield Scott entered Mexico City. Brigadier General Franklin Pierce found it was all over, except of course for the necessarily endless rounds of mutual self-congratulation: But the last great battle had been fought. In the morning, it was discovered that the citadel had been abandoned, and that Santa Anna had withdrawn his army from the city.

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December: Having to his own satisfaction proven himself on the field of battle, Brigadier General Franklin Pierce was at this point quite done with Mexico and with Mexicans: General Pierce remained in Mexico until December, when, as the warfare was over, and peace on the point of being concluded, be set out on his return. In nine months, crowded full of incident, he had seen far more of actual service, than many professional soldiers during their whole lives. As soon as the treaty of peace was signed, he gave up his commission, and returned to the practice of the law, again proposing to spend the remainder of his days in the bosom of his family. All the dreams of his youth were now fulfilled; the military ardor, that had struck an hereditary root in his breast, had enjoyed its scope, and was satisfied; and he flattered himself that no circumstances could hereafter occur to draw him from the retirement of domestic peace. New Hampshire received him with pride and honor, and with even more enthusiastic affection than ever. At his departure, he had received a splendid sword at the hands of many of his friends, in token of their confidence; he had showed himself well worthy to wear, and able to use, a soldier’s weapon; and his native state now gave him another, the testimonial of approved valor and warlike conduct. BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE WAR ON MEXICO

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

December 22, Wednesday: Congressman Abraham Lincoln from Illinois presented resolutions questioning President James Knox Polk about US hostilities with Mexico.47 WAR ON MEXICO

47. The Representative from Illinois would learn that opposing a rush to war can do nothing to help a politician’s Washington career and, the next time the occasion would offer, he would remain safely on the “loyal” or pro-war side of the fence. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS 178 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1848

Since 1846 the US army had been fully involved in the Mexican War, and Fort Niagara had been standing abandoned. At this point the US Army conquered Mexico City and what would become our Southwest and our California were ceded. The garrison of this New York border fort would therefore be returning to their duties in the vicinity of the Niagara Falls.

Mexico was not only fighting a national war against the United States of America, it was fighting a race war against its Maya peoples of the Yucatán peninsula. After the Armistice, a number of US soldiers enlisted in the

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Mexican Army to help it kill off the Maya. They were not, however, as successful as they had anticipated:

It was easy to kill the strange white men, for they were big and fought in line, as if they were marching.... We hid behind trees and rocks wherever we could, that they might not see us, and so we killed them.

January 13: The “Cahuenga Capitulation” ended fighting between the United States and Mexico in California.

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

January 22, Sunday: With the fighting finally at an end, Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois gave a speech on floor of the House of Representatives in opposition to President James Knox Polk’s war policy regarding Mexico.

Margaret Fuller reported to the New-York Tribune from Rome: January 22, 2 o’clock, P.M. Pour, pour, pour again, dark as night, — many people coming in to see me because they don’t know what to do with themselves. I am very glad to see them for the same reason; this atmosphere is so heavy, I seem to carry the weight of the world on my head and feel unfitted for every exertion. As to eating, that is a bygone thing; wine, coffee, meat, I have resigned; vegetables are few and hard to have, except horrible cabbage, in which the Romans delight. A little rice still remains, which I take with pleasure, remembering it growing in the rich fields of Lombardy, so green and full of glorious light. That light fell still more beautiful on the tall plantations of hemp, but it is dangerous just at present to think of what is made from hemp. This week all the animals are being blessed,48 and they get a gratuitous baptism, too, the while. The lambs one morning were taken out to the church of St. Agnes for this purpose. The little companion of my travels, if he sees this letter, will remember how often we saw her with her lamb in pictures. The horses are 48. One of Rome’s singular customs. — ED. 180 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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being blessed by St. Antonio, and under his harmonizing influence are afterward driven through the city, twelve and even twenty in hand. They are harnessed into light wagons, and men run beside them to guard against accident, in case the good influence of the Saint should fail. This morning came the details of infamous attempts by the Austrian police to exasperate the students of Pavia. The way is to send persons to smoke cigars in forbidden places, who insult those who are obliged to tell them to desist. These traps seem particularly shocking when laid for fiery and sensitive young men. They succeeded: the students were lured, into combat, and a number left dead and wounded on both sides. The University is shut up; the inhabitants of Pavia and Milan have put on mourning; even at the theatre they wear it. The Milanese will not walk in that quarter where the blood of their fellow-citizens has been so wantonly shed. They have demanded a legal investigation of the conduct of the officials. At Piacenza similar attempts have been made to excite the Italians, by smoking in their faces, and crying, “Long live the Emperor!” It is a worthy homage to pay to the Austrian crown, — this offering of cigars and blood. “O this offence is rank; it smells to Heaven.” This morning authentic news is received from Naples. The king, when assured by his own brother that Sicily was in a state of irresistible revolt, and that even the women quelled the troops, — showering on them stones, furniture, boiling oil, such means of warfare as the household may easily furnish to a thoughtful matron, — had, first, a stroke of apoplexy, from, which the loss of a good deal of bad blood relieved him. His mind apparently having become clearer thereby, he has offered his subjects an amnesty and terms of reform, which, it is hoped, will arrive before his troops have begun to bombard the cities in obedience to earlier orders. Comes also to-day the news that the French Chamber of Peers propose an Address to the King, echoing back all the falsehoods of his speech, including those upon reform, and the enormous one that “the peace of Europe is now assured”; but that some members have worthily opposed this address, and spoken truth in an honorable manner. Also, that the infamous sacrifice of the poor little queen of Spain puts on more tragic colors; that it is pretended she has epilepsy, and she is to be made to renounce the throne, which, indeed, has been a terrific curse to her. And Heaven and Earth have looked calmly on, while the king of France has managed all this with the most unnatural of mothers.

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February 2: The 1st shipload of Chinese arrived at San Francisco harbor.

A treaty between the United States of America and Mexico, termed a “treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement,” was signed at Guadalupe-Hidalgo. READ THE FULL TEXT

General Stephen W. Kearny charged Alexander William Doniphan to write a code of civil laws to be used in the lands annexed from Mexico (this would be known as the “Kearny code”) in both English and Spanish.

A bill would be introduced into the House of Representatives on February 18, 1848 to authorize our nation to borrow $16,000,000 in order to complete its prosecution of the war, and it seeming an excellent investment, this would be approved in the US House of Representatives and then considered be the US Senate. The Treaty would, with the advice and consent of the US Senate, be ratified by our President on March 16, 1848. Subsequent to its signature and ratification, further war measures would be considered and adopted by our federal congress. According to the Treaty, almost half the land area of Mejico was to be surrendering by that nation to the United States of America. That is to day that during this year in which the cornerstone was being laid for the Washington Monument, using slave labor of course, by a treaty made possible through hostile invasion and occupation of foreign territory, we were obtaining TX, CA, NM, AZ, NV, UT, and parts of CO and WY for our federal union at a compensation of merely $15,000,000. TEXAS

We note in passing that Senator James Mason was already deploying the US Constitution as a bulwark for the practice of human enslavement.

Upon learning the terms imposed, Friend John Greenleaf Whittier would write the following:

THE CRISIS. ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o’er the desert’s drouth and sand, The circles of our empire touch the western ocean’s strand; From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free, Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California’s sea; And from the mountains of the east, to Santa Rosa’s shore, The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more. O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple children weep; Close watch about their holy fire let maids of Pecos keep; Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre’s pines, And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn and vines; For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain, Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada’s plain. Let Sacramento’s herdsmen heed what sound the winds bring down Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold Nevada’s crown! Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of travel slack, And, bending o’er his saddle, leaves the sunrise at his back; By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir and pine, On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-fires shine. O countrymen and brothers! that land of lake and plain, Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with grain; Of mountains white with winter, looking downward, cold, serene, On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped in softest green; Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o’er many a sunny vale, 182 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison’s dusty trail! Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whose mystic shores The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars; Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds that none have tamed, Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the Saxon never named; Deep mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature’s chemic powers Work out the Great Designer’s will; all these ye say are ours! Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden lies; God’s balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies. Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised and trembling scale? Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail? Shall the broad land o’er which our flag in starry splendor waves, Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread of slaves? The day is breaking in the East of which the prophets told, And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian Age of Gold; Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to clerkly pen, Earth’s monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs stand up as men; The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations born, And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul’s Golden Horn! Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sow The soil of new-gained empire with slavery’s seeds of woe? To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World’s cast-off crime, Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from the tired lap of Time? To run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran, And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong of man? Great Heaven! Is this our mission? End in this the prayers and tears, The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, better years? Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in shadow turn, A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer darkness borne? Where the far nations looked for light, a blackness in the air? Where for words of hope they listened, the long wail of despair? The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it stands, With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt’s sands! This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin, Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal’s cloudy crown We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing down! By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame; By all the warning words of truth with which the prophets came; By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes which cast Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the Past; And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth’s freedom died, O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side. So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on his way; To wed Penobscot’s waters to San Francisco’s bay; To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the vales with grain; And bear, with Liberty and Law, the Bible in his train: The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea, And mountain unto mountain call, Praise God for we are free! WAR ON MEXICO

February 21: Representative John Quincy Adams voted “no” on war upon Mexico, motioned to the Chair that he desired to speak, staggered as he rose and was caught before he hit the floor, and was carried to the Speaker’s private chamber. He had suffered a heart attack. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 183 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 22, Saturday: The Massachusetts Regiment arrived back from Mexico, in Boston.

August 17, Sunday: ... Mexico was won with less exertion & less true valor than are required to do one season’s haying in New England– The former work was done by those who played truant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexican’s were mown down more easily than the summer’s crop of grass in many a farmer’s fields....

1849

June 27, Wednesday: Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr.’s described his experiences with the 1st New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment during Major General Winfield Scott’s campaign toward the interior and Mexico City in WAR LIFE. WAR ON MEXICO

1850

John Russell Bartlett returned to Providence, Rhode Island. From this year into 1853 he would serve as a United States Commissioner for the survey of the boundary between the United States and Mexico, although owing to lack of funding this project would never be completed.

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Dr. Robert Knox of Edinburgh, in THE RACES OF MEN: A FRAGMENT,49 disseminated knowledge he had attained by dissecting the purchased, hardly cold bodies of executed men of various races. “Race is everything,” he opinioned,

literature, science, art — in a word, civilization depends on it.

Who is our neighbor? –Dr. Knox inquired. The wisdom he had to offer was that here is no point in trying to be a Good Samaritan to a person who is of dark race rather than of Saxon blood, as for instance a Chinese:

Destined by the nature of their race to run, like all other animals, a certain limited course of existence, it matters little how their extinction is brought about.

He recommended the teachings of Jesus on the mount, for use on the white homefront, and abroad, he recommended the principles of Niccolò Machiavelli. When Waldo Emerson read this obvious self-serving drivel, he found in Knox’s pages not self-serving drivel but “pungent and unforgettable truths.” However, there was a difference between Knox’s approach and Emerson’s: temperamentally the Sage of Concord was more inclined to praise the excellence of the fittest to survive, at least in these earlier years,50 than he was to express

49. Doctor Knox’s treatise would be renewed in 1862 as THE RACES OF MEN: A PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRY INTO THE INFLUENCE OF RACE OVER THE DESTINIES OF NATIONS, again published in London by Renshaw). This is, incidentally, the same notorious physician whose repeated purchases of bodies for dissection had inspired William Burke and William Hare to lure into their Edinburgh boarding house, make drunk, and suffocate, some 15 persons in series in order to supply the ongoing market. He had managed due to his social position, despite the fact that he had been hanged in effigy by an indignant crowd outside his home, to evade formal prosecution. Eventually, this physician’s body would in its turn be dissected. 50. Later in life, the kindly Emerson grew less kindly toward the mass of humanity, when he discovered that the “calamity” was these “enormous populations, like moving cheese,” the “guano-races” in regard to which “the worst of charity is, that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.” 186 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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contempt for the incompetence of our unfit inferiors such as the Mexicans whom we overrun

and it will in the course of ages be of small import by what particular occasions and methods it was done.

And, by temperament, Emerson lovers down the decades have been inclined to overlook the fact that there is no practical difference between Emerson’s praising the excellence of “the strong British race” as the fittest to survive and Knox’s expressions of contempt for any group of colored pseudo-people which whom civilization could murder to dissect — as long as a culture-maven is legitimating this work, he or she is doing this work, he or she is a full-fledged co-conspirator in genocide.

In order to hold at arm’s length any accusation that a portion of the misery in Ireland might be due to some

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measure of misrule on the part of England, the physician Knox hypothecated that:

[T]he source of all evil lies in the race, the Celtic race of Ireland. Look at Wales, look at Caledonia; it is ever the same. The race must be forced from the soil; by fair means, if possible; still they must leave.

For the animadversions to be found in this 1850/1862 treatise, Philip Curtin has recently awarded to Doctor Knox a title of sorts: “the father of English racism.”51

Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr.’s THE RIFLE RANGERS: A THRILLING STORY OF DARING ADVENTURE AND HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES DURING THE MEXICAN WAR. WAR ON MEXICO

Jeez, guy, give it a rest, will you?

Literally thousands of escaped US slaves were living in Mexico, having in the absence of an organized network made their way there either individually or in small groups. These thousands did not compare, however, with the numbers still enslaved in Texas. According to the US census there were 58,161 slaves there, out of a population of 212,592: more than 28% of the Texas population was enslaved.52 Finding the Mexican government to be totally uncooperative, Texas slaveowners took measures to stop escapes as well as reclaim runaways, pressuring the US government to set up border patrols. With only a few troops available to patrol an extended frontier, this would never prove adequate.53

Over the following couple of years Mrs. William Cazneau, who lived in the border town of Eagle Pass between Texas and Mexico, would be documenting the experience of an acquaintance of hers who encountered an ex- slave in Monterey. Much to the surprise of white Americans, former slaves were obtaining wealth and status in their new communities south of the border. 51. Curtin, Philip. THE IMAGE OF AFRICA. BRITISH IDEAS AND ACTION 1780-1850 (Madison WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1964, page 377). It is worth noting, however, that this title “the father of English racism” is a disputed title, for Paul Fryer, in STAYING POWER: THE HISTORY OF BLACK PEOPLE IN BRITAIN (London: Pluto P, 1984, page 70), has awarded it to Edward Long, the slavemaster who in 1774 had authored a racist HISTORY OF JAMAICA. 52. Frederick Law Olmsted. A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS. (NY: Dix, Edwards and Company, 1857), page 472. 53. Ronnie C. Tyler. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico,” Journal of Negro History, Volume 57, Issue 1 (January 1972), page 4. 188 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March 7, Thursday: On January 25th, Senator Henry Clay had submitted a series of resolutions on human enslavement in connection with the acquisition by the US of real estate previously held by Mexico, and there had been protracted debate. On March 6th Senator Walker of Wisconsin had been so repeatedly interrupted that he had been unable to finish. At this point it became generally understood that Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts would soon seize the opportunity to contemplate the dangers posed for the federal union by the existing agitation, and propose an acceptable compromise.

Expecting to hear what he might propose, at an early hour an extensive audience began to assemble. Not only the Senate gallery but also the antechambers and the floor itself were so fully packed that it was difficult for Senators to reach their seats.

At noon, when the Vice-President formally invited Senator Walker of Wisconsin to return to the lectern to complete his presentation, that gentleman rose as expected to declare: Mr. President, this vast audience has not come together to hear me, and there is but one man, in my opinion, who can assemble such an audience. They expect to hear him, and I feel it to be my duty, therefore, as it is my pleasure, to give the floor to the Senator from Massachusetts. I understand it is immaterial to him upon which of these questions he speaks, and therefore I will not move to postpone the special order.

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It was Senator Webster who then addressed the chamber on the unfortunate constitutionality of slavery and the dire need for preservation of the Union. He called for enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, admission of California into the Union as a free state, self-determination in the territories of Utah and New Mexico, and the end to the slave trade in the District of Columbia: putting the best possible face on it, one might say he was merely trying to put some sort of compromise package together that would go through –a “Compromise of 1850” inclusive of a “Fugitive Slave Law”– in a culture polarized into virtual deadlock.54

Mr. President,—I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States. It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a just sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks, with confidence, for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing counsels. It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy South combine to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the political elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with fidelity, not without a sense of existing dangers, but not without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation of all; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear, for many days. I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. “Hear me for my cause.” I speak to-day, out of a solicitous and anxious heart, for the restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the blessings of this Union so rich, and so dear to us all. These are the topics that I propose to myself to discuss; these are the motives, and the sole motives, that influence me in the wish to communicate my opinions to the Senate and the country; and if I can do any thing, however little, for the promotion of these ends, I shall have 54. Edwin P. Whipple’s THE GREAT SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER WITH AN ESSAY ON DANIEL WEBSTER AS A MASTER OF ENGLISH STYLE (Boston: Little, Brown, 1879). 190 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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accomplished all that I expect. Mr. President, it may not be amiss to recur very briefly to the events which, equally sudden and extraordinary, have brought the country into its present political condition. In May, 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico. Our armies, then on the frontiers, entered the provinces of that republic, met and defeated all her troops, penetrated her mountain passes, and occupied her capital. The marine force of the United States took possession of her forts and her towns, on the Atlantic and on the Pacific. In less than two years a treaty was negotiated, by which Mexico ceded to the United States a vast territory, extending seven or eight hundred miles along the shores of the Pacific, and reaching back over the mountains, and across the desert, until it joins the frontier of the State of Texas. It so happened, in the distracted and feeble condition of the Mexican government, that, before the declaration of war by the United States against Mexico had become known in California, the people of California, under the lead of American officers, overthrew the existing Mexican provincial government, and raised an independent flag. When the news arrived at San Francisco that war had been declared by the United States against Mexico, this independent flag was pulled down, and the stars and stripes of this Union hoisted in its stead. So, Sir, before the war was over, the forces of the United States, military and naval, had possession of San Francisco and Upper California, and a great rush of emigrants from various parts of the world took place into California in 1846 and 1847. But now behold another wonder. In January of 1848, a party of Mormons made a discovery of an extraordinarily rich mine of gold, or rather of a great quantity of gold, hardly proper to be called a mine, for it was spread near the surface, on the lower part of the south, or American, branch of the Sacramento. They attempted to conceal their discovery for some time; but soon another discovery of gold, perhaps of greater importance, was made, on another part of the American branch of the Sacramento, and near Sutter’s Fort, as it is called. The fame of these discoveries spread far and wide. They inflamed more and more the spirit of emigration towards California, which had already been excited; and adventurers crowded into the country by hundreds, and flocked towards the Bay of San Francisco. This, as I have said, took place in the winter and spring of 1848. The digging commenced in the spring of that year, and from that time to this the work of searching for gold has been prosecuted with a success not heretofore known in the history of this globe. You recollect, Sir, how incredulous at first the American public was at the accounts which reached us of these discoveries but we all know, now, that these accounts received, and continue to receive, daily confirmation, and down to the present moment I suppose the assurance is as strong, after the experience of these several months, of the existence of deposits of gold apparently inexhaustible in the regions near San Francisco, in California, as it was at any period of the earlier dates of the accounts. It so happened, Sir, that although, after the return of peace, it became a very important subject for legislative consideration “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 191 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and legislative decision to provide a proper territorial government for California, yet differences of opinion between the two houses of Congress prevented the establishment of any such territorial government at the last session. Under this state of things, the inhabitants of California, already amounting to a considerable number, thought it to be their duty, in the summer of last year, to establish a local government. Under the proclamation of General Riley, the people chose delegates to a convention, and that convention met at Monterey. It formed a constitution for the State of California, which, being referred to the people, was adopted by them in their primary assemblages. Desirous of immediate connection with the United States, its Senators were appointed and Representatives chosen, who have come hither, bringing with them the authentic constitution of the State of California; and they now present themselves, asking, in behalf of their constituents, that it may be admitted into this Union as one of the United States. This constitution, Sir, contains an express prohibition of slavery, or involuntary servitude, in the State of California. It is said, and I suppose truly, that, of the members who composed that convention, some sixteen were natives of, and had been residents in, the slave-holding States, about twenty-two were from the non-slaveholding States, and the remaining ten members were either native Californians or old settlers in that country. This prohibition of slavery, it is said, was inserted with entire unanimity. It is this circumstance, Sir, the prohibition of slavery, which has contributed to raise, I do not say it has wholly raised, the dispute as to the propriety of the admission of California into the Union under this constitution. It is not to be denied, Mr. President, nobody thinks of denying, that, whatever reasons were assigned at the commencement of the late war with Mexico, it was prosecuted for the purpose of the acquisition of territory, and under the alleged argument that the cession of territory was the only form in which proper compensation could be obtained by the United States, from Mexico, for the various claims and demands which the people of this country had against that government. At any rate, it will be found that President Polk’s message, at the commencement of the session of December, 1847, avowed that the war was to be prosecuted until some acquisition of territory should be made. As the acquisition was to be south of the line of the United States, in warm climates and countries, it was naturally, I suppose, expected by the South, that whatever acquisitions were made in that region would be added to the slave-holding portion of the United States. Very little of accurate information was possessed of the real physical character, either of California or New Mexico, and events have not turned out as was expected. Both California and New Mexico are likely to come in as free States; and therefore some degree of disappointment and surprise has resulted. In other words, it is obvious that the question which has so long harassed the country, and at some times very seriously alarmed the minds of wise and good men, has come upon us for a fresh discussion,—the question of slavery in these United States. 192 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Now, Sir, I propose, perhaps at the expense of some detail and consequent detention of the Senate, to review historically this question, which, partly in consequence of its own importance, and partly, perhaps mostly, in consequence of the manner in which it has been discussed in different portions of the country, has been a source of so much alienation and unkind feeling between them. We all know, Sir, that slavery has existed in the world from time immemorial. There was slavery, in the earliest periods of history, among the Oriental nations. There was slavery among the Jews; the theocratic government of that people issued no injunction against it. There was slavery among the Greeks; and the ingenious philosophy of the Greeks found, or sought to find, a justification for it exactly upon the grounds which have been assumed for such a justification in this country; that is, a natural and original difference among the races of mankind, and the inferiority of the black or colored race to the white. The Greeks justified their system of slavery upon that idea, precisely. They held the African and some of the Asiatic tribes to be inferior to the white race; but they did not show, I think, by any close process of logic, that, if this were true, the more intelligent and the stronger had therefore a right to subjugate the weaker. The more manly philosophy and jurisprudence of the Romans placed the justification of slavery on entirely different grounds. The Roman jurists, from the first and down to the fall of the empire, admitted that slavery was against the natural law, by which, as they maintained, all men, of whatsoever clime, color, or capacity, were equal; but they justified slavery, first, upon the ground and authority of the law of nations, arguing, and arguing truly, that at that day the conventional law of nations admitted that captives in war, whose lives, according to the notions of the times, were at the absolute disposal of the captors, might, in exchange for exemption from death, be made slaves for life, and that such servitude might descend to their posterity. The jurists of Rome also maintained, that, by the civil law, there might be servitude or slavery, personal and hereditary; first, by the voluntary act of an individual, who might sell himself into slavery; secondly, by his being reduced into a state of slavery by his creditors, in satisfaction of his debts; and, thirdly, by being placed in a state of servitude or slavery for crime. At the introduction of Christianity, the Roman world was full of slaves, and I suppose there is to be found no injunction against that relation between man and man in the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or of any of his Apostles. The object of the instruction imparted to mankind by the Founder of Christianity was to touch the heart, purify the soul, and improve the lives of individual men. That object went directly to the first fountain of all the political and social relations of the human race, as well as of all true religious feeling, the individual heart and mind of man. Now, Sir, upon the general nature and influence of slavery there exists a wide difference of opinion between the northern portion of this country and the southern. It is said on the one side, “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 193 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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that, although not the subject of any injunction or direct prohibition in the New Testament, slavery is a wrong; that it is founded merely in the right of the strongest; and that it is an oppression, like unjust wars, like all those conflicts by which a powerful nation subjects a weaker to its will; and that, in its nature, whatever may be said of it in the modifications which have taken place, it is not according to the meek spirit of the Gospel. It is not “kindly affectioned”; it does not “seek another’s, and not its own”; it does not “let the oppressed go free.” These are sentiments that are cherished, and of late with greatly augmented force, among the people of the Northern States. They have taken hold of the religious sentiment of that part of the country, as they have, more or less, taken hold of the religious feelings of a considerable portion of mankind. The South, upon the other side, having been accustomed to this relation between the two races all their lives, from their birth, having been taught, in general, to treat the subjects of this bondage with care and kindness, and I believe, in general, feeling great kindness for them, have not taken the view of the subject which I have mentioned. There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery; and there are more thousands, perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation of the society in which they live, can see no way in which, let their opinions on the abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation. And candor obliges me to say, that I believe they are just as conscientious, many of them, and the religious people, all of them, as they are at the North who hold different opinions. The honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] the other day alluded to the separation of that great religious community, the Methodist Episcopal Church. That separation was brought about by differences of opinion upon this particular subject of slavery. I felt great concern, as that dispute went on, about the result. I was in hopes that the difference of opinion might be adjusted, because I looked upon that religious denomination as one of the great props of religion and morals throughout the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, and westward to our utmost western boundary. The result was against my wishes and against my hopes. I have read all their proceedings and all their arguments; but I have never yet been able to come to the conclusion that there was any real ground for that separation; in other words, that any good could be produced by that separation. I must say I think there was some want of candor and charity. Sir, when a question of this kind seizes on the religious sentiments of mankind, and comes to be discussed in religious assemblies of the clergy and laity, there is always to be expected, or always to be feared, a great degree of excitement. It is in the nature of man, manifested by his whole history, that religious disputes are apt to become warm in proportion to the strength of the convictions which men 194 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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entertain of the magnitude of the questions at issue. In all such disputes, there will sometimes be found men with whom every thing is absolute; absolutely wrong, or absolutely right. They see the right clearly; they think others ought so to see it, and they are disposed to establish a broad line, of distinction between what is right and what is wrong. They are not seldom willing to establish that line upon their own convictions of truth and justice; and are ready to mark and guard it by placing along it a series of dogmas, as lines of boundary on the earth’s surface are marked by posts and stones. There are men who, with clear perceptions, as they think, of their own duty, do not see how too eager a pursuit of one duty may involve them in the violation of others, or how too warm an embracement of one truth may lead to a disregard of other truths equally important. As I heard it stated strongly, not many days ago, these persons are disposed to mount upon some particular duty, as upon a war- horse, and to drive furiously on and upon and over all other duties that may stand in the way. There are men who, in reference to disputes of that sort, are of opinion that human duties may be ascertained with the exactness of mathematics. They deal with morals as with mathematics; and they think what is right may be distinguished from what is wrong with the precision of an algebraic equation. They have, therefore, none too much charity towards others who differ from them. They are apt, too, to think that nothing is good but what is perfect, and that there are no compromises or modifications to be made in consideration of difference of opinion or in deference to other men’s judgment. If their perspicacious vision enables them to detect a spot on the face of the sun, they think that a good reason why the sun should be struck down from heaven. They prefer the chance of running into utter darkness to living in heavenly light, if that heavenly light be not absolutely without any imperfection. There are impatient men; too impatient always to give heed to the admonition of St. Paul, that we are not to “do evil that good may come”; too impatient to wait for the slow progress of moral causes in the improvement of mankind. They do not remember that the doctrines and the miracles of Jesus Christ have, in eighteen hundred years, converted only a small portion of the human race; and among the nations that are converted to Christianity, they forget how many vices and crimes, public and private, still prevail, and that many of them, public crimes especially, which are so clearly offences against the Christian religion, pass without exciting particular indignation. Thus wars are waged, and unjust wars. I do not deny that there may be just wars. There certainly are; but it was the remark of an eminent person, not many years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, that it is one of the greatest reproaches to human nature that wars are sometimes just. The defence of nations sometimes causes a just war against the injustice of other nations. In this state of sentiment upon the general nature of slavery lies the cause of a great part of those unhappy divisions, exasperations, and reproaches which find vent and support in different parts of the Union. But we must view things as they are. Slavery does exist in the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 195 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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United States. It did exist in the States before the adoption of this Constitution, and at that time. Let us, therefore, consider for a moment what was the state of sentiment, North and South, in regard to slavery, at the time this Constitution was adopted. A remarkable change has taken place since; but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the country think of slavery then? In what estimation did they hold it at the time when this Constitution was adopted? It will be found, Sir, if we will carry ourselves by historical research back to that day, and ascertain men’s opinions by authentic records still existing among us, that there was then no diversity of opinion between the North and the South upon the subject of slavery. It will be found that both parts of the country held it equally an evil,— a moral and political evil. It will not be found that, either at the North or at the South, there was much, though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and cruel. The great ground of objection to it was political; that it weakened the social fabric; that, taking the place of free labor, society became less strong and labor less productive; and therefore we find from all the eminent men of the time the clearest expression of their opinion that slavery is an evil. They ascribed its existence here, not without truth, and not without some acerbity of temper and force of language, to the injurious policy of the mother country, who, to favor the navigator, had entailed these evils upon the Colonies. I need hardly refer, Sir, particularly to the publications of the day. They are matters of history on the record. The eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspicuous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments,—that slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. There are no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement in the North at that day as in the South. The North was not so much excited against it as the South; and the reason is, I suppose, that there was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or thought to be seen, at the South. Then, Sir, when this Constitution was framed, this was the light in which the Federal Convention viewed it. That body reflected the judgment and sentiments of the great men of the South. A member of the other house, whom I have not the honor to know, has, in a recent speech, collected extracts from these public documents. They prove the truth of what I am saying, and the question then was, how to deal with it, and how to deal with it as an evil. They came to this general result. They thought that slavery could not be continued in the country if the importation of slaves were made to cease, and therefore they provided that, after a certain period, the importation might be prevented by the act of the new government. The period of twenty years was proposed by some gentleman from the North, I think, and many members of the Convention from the South opposed it as being too long. Mr. Madison especially was somewhat warm against it. He said it would bring too much of this mischief into the country to allow the importation of slaves for such a period. Because we must take along with us, in the whole of this discussion, when we are considering the sentiments and opinions in which the 196 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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constitutional provision originated, that the conviction of all men was, that, if the importation of slaves ceased, the white race would multiply faster than the black race, and that slavery would therefore gradually wear out and expire. It may not be improper here to allude to that, I had almost said, celebrated opinion of Mr. Madison. You observe, Sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the Constitution. The Constitution does not require that “fugitive slaves” shall be delivered up. It requires that persons held to service in one State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. Mr. Madison opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the Constitution; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by the Constitution of the United States of America that there could be property in men. Now, Sir, all this took place in the Convention in 1787; but connected with this, concurrent and contemporaneous, is another important transaction, not sufficiently attended to. The Convention for framing this Constitution assembled in Philadelphia in May, and sat until September, 1787. During all that time the Congress of the United States was in session at New York. It was a matter of design, as we know, that the Convention should not assemble in the same city where Congress was holding its sessions. Almost all the public men of the country, therefore, of distinction and eminence, were in one or the other of these two assemblies; and I think it happened, in some instances, that the same gentlemen were members of both bodies. If I mistake not, such was the case with Mr. Rufus King, then a member of Congress from Massachusetts. Now, at the very time when the Convention in Philadelphia was framing this Constitution, the Congress in New York was framing the Ordinance of 1787, for the organization and government of the territory northwest of the Ohio. They passed that Ordinance on the 13th of July, 1787, at New York, the very month, perhaps the very day, on which these questions about the importation of slaves and the character of slavery were debated in the Convention at Philadelphia. So far as we can now learn, there was a perfect concurrence of opinion between these two bodies; and it resulted in this Ordinance of 1787, excluding slavery from all the territory over which the Congress of the United States had jurisdiction, and that was all the territory northwest of the Ohio. Three years before, Virginia and other States had made a cession of that great territory to the United States; and a most munificent act it was. I never reflect upon it without a disposition to do honor and justice, and justice would be the highest honor, to Virginia, for the cession of her northwestern territory. I will say, Sir, it is one of her fairest claims to the respect and gratitude of the country, and that, perhaps, it is only second to that other claim which belongs to her,—that from her counsels, and from the intelligence and patriotism of her leading statesmen, proceeded the first idea put into practice of the formation of a general constitution of the United States. The Ordinance of 1787 applied to the whole territory over which the Congress of the United States had jurisdiction. It was adopted two years before the Constitution “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 197 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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of the United States went into operation; because the Ordinance took effect immediately on its passage, while the Constitution of the United States, having been framed, was to be sent to the States to be adopted by their conventions; and then a government was to be organized under it. This Ordinance, then, was in operation and force when the Constitution was adopted, and the government put in motion, in April, 1789. Mr. President, three things are quite clear as historical truths. One is, that there was an expectation that, on the ceasing of the importation of slaves from Africa, slavery would begin to run out here. That was hoped and expected. Another is, that, as far as there was any power in Congress to prevent the spread of slavery in the United States, that power was executed in the most absolute manner, and to the fullest extent. An honorable member [Mr. Calhoun], whose health does not allow him to be here to-day— A SENATOR. He is here. I am very happy to hear that he is; may he long be here, and in the enjoyment of health to serve his country! The honorable member said, the other day, that he considered this Ordinance as the first in the series of measures calculated to enfeeble the South, and deprive them of their just participation in the benefits and privileges of this government. He says, very properly, that it was enacted under the old Confederation, and before this Constitution went into effect; but my present purpose is only to say, Mr. President, that it was established with the entire and unanimous concurrence of the whole South. Why, there it stands! The vote of every State in the Union was unanimous in favor of the Ordinance, with the exception of a single individual vote, and that individual vote was given by a Northern man. This Ordinance prohibiting slavery for ever northwest of the Ohio has the hand and seal of every Southern member in Congress. It was therefore no aggression of the North on the South. The other and third clear historical truth is, that the Convention meant to leave slavery in the States as they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the States themselves. This was the state of things, Sir, and this the state of opinion, under which those very important matters were arranged, and those three important things done; that is, the establishment of the Constitution of the United States with a recognition of slavery as it existed in the States; the establishment of the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, prohibiting, to the full extent of all territory owned by the United States, the introduction of slavery into that territory, while leaving to the States all power over slavery in their own limits; and creating a power, in the new government, to put an end to the importation of slaves, after a limited period. There was entire coincidence and concurrence of sentiment between the North and the South, upon all these questions, at the period of the adoption of the Constitution. But opinions, Sir, have changed, greatly changed; changed North and changed South. Slavery is not regarded in the South now as it was then. I see an honorable member of this body paying me the honor of listening to my remarks [Mr. Mason of Virginia]; he brings to my mind, Sir, freshly and vividly, what

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I have learned of his great ancestor, so much distinguished in his day and generation, so worthy to be succeeded by so worthy a grandson, and of the sentiments he expressed in the Convention in Philadelphia.55 Here we may pause. There was, if not an entire unanimity, a general concurrence of sentiment running through the whole community, and especially entertained by the eminent men of all parts of the country. But soon a change began, at the North and the South, and a difference of opinion showed itself; the North growing much more warm and strong against slavery, and the South growing much more warm and strong in its support. Sir, there is no generation of mankind whose opinions are not subject to be influenced by what appear to them to be their present emergent and exigent interests. I impute to the South no particularly selfish view in the change which has come over her. I impute to her certainly no dishonest view. All that has happened has been natural. It has followed those causes which always influence the human mind and operate upon it. What, then, have been the causes which have created so new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South, which have changed the whole nomenclature of the South on that subject, so that, from being thought and described in the terms I have mentioned and will not repeat, it has now become an institution, a cherished institution, in that quarter; no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral blessing, as I think I have heard it latterly spoken of? I suppose this, Sir, is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the COTTON plantations of the South. So far as any motive consistent with honor, justice, and general judgment could act, it was the COTTON interest that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor. I again say that this change was produced by causes which must always produce like effects. The whole interest of the South became connected, more or less, with the extension of slavery. If we look back to the history of the commerce of this country in the early years of this government, what were our exports? Cotton was hardly, or but to a very limited extent, known. In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200 pounds.56 It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop may now, perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a hundred millions of dollars. In the years I have mentioned, there was more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article of export from the South, than of cotton. When Mr. Jay negotiated the treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the twelfth article of the treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that cotton was exported at all from the United States. Well, Sir, we know what followed. The age of cotton became the golden age of our Southern brethren. It gratified their desire for improvement and accumulation, at the same time that it excited it. The desire grew by what it fed upon, and there soon came to be an eagerness for other territory, a new area or new areas for the cultivation of the cotton crop; and measures leading to this result were brought about rapidly, one after another, under the lead of Southern men at the head of the government, they having a majority in both branches of Congress to accomplish their ends. The honorable member from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] observed that there has been a majority all along in favor of the North. If that be true, Sir, the North has acted either very liberally and kindly, or very weakly; for they never exercised that majority efficiently five times in the history 55. See MADISON PAPERS, Volume III. pages 1390, 1428, et seq. 56. Bear in mind that in early periods the Southern states of the United States of America produced no significant amount of cotton fiber for export — such production not beginning until 1789. In fact, according to page 92 of Seybert’s STATISTICS, in 1784 a small parcel of cotton that had found its way from the US to Liverpool had been refused admission to England, because it was the customs agent’s opinion that this involved some sort of subterfuge: it could not have originated in the United States. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 199 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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of the government, when a division or trial of strength arose. Never. Whether they were outgeneralled, or whether it was owing to other causes, I shall not stop to consider; but no man acquainted with the history of the Union can deny that the general lead in the politics of the country, for three fourths of the period that has elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution, has been a Southern lead. In 1802, in pursuit of the idea of opening a new cotton region, the United States obtained a cession from Georgia of the whole of her western territory, now embracing the rich and growing States of Alabama and Mississippi. In 1803 Louisiana was purchased from France, out of which the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri have been framed, as slave-holding States. In 1819 the cession of Florida was made, bringing in another region adapted to cultivation by slaves. Sir, the honorable member from South Carolina thought he saw in certain operations of the government, such as the manner of collecting the revenue, and the tendency of measures calculated to promote emigration into the country, what accounts for the more rapid growth of the North than the South. He ascribes that more rapid growth, not to the operation of time, but to the system of government and administration established under this Constitution. That is matter of opinion. To a certain extent it may be true; but it does seem to me that, if any operation of the government can be shown in any degree to have promoted the population, and growth, and wealth of the North, it is much more sure that there are sundry important and distinct operations of the government, about which no man can doubt, tending to promote, and which absolutely have promoted, the increase of the slave interest and the slave territory of the South. It was not time that brought in Louisiana; it was the act of men. It was not time that brought in Florida; it was the act of men. And lastly, Sir, to complete those acts of legislation which have contributed so much to enlarge the area of the institution of slavery, Texas, great and vast and illimitable Texas, was added to the Union as a slave State in 1845; and that, Sir, pretty much closed the whole chapter, and settled the whole account. That closed the whole chapter and settled the whole account, because the annexation of Texas, upon the conditions and under the guaranties upon which she was admitted, did not leave within the control of this government an acre of land, capable of being cultivated by slave labor, between this Capitol and the Rio Grande or the Nueces, or whatever is the proper boundary of Texas; not an acre. From that moment, the whole country, from this place to the western boundary of Texas, was fixed, pledged, fastened, decided, to be slave territory for ever, by the solemn guaranties of law. And I now say, Sir, as the proposition upon which I stand this day, and upon the truth and firmness of which I intend to act until it is overthrown, that there is not at this moment within the United States, or any territory of the United States, a single foot of land, the character of which, in regard to its being free territory or slave territory, is not fixed by some law, and some irrepealable law, beyond the power of the action of the government. Is it not so with respect to Texas? It is most manifestly so. The honorable member from South Carolina, at the time of the admission of Texas, held an important post in the executive department of the government; he was Secretary of State. Another eminent person of great activity and adroitness in affairs, I mean the late Secretary of the Treasury [Mr. Walker], was a conspicuous member of this body, and took the lead in the business of annexation, in co-operation with the Secretary of State; and I must say that they did their business faithfully and thoroughly; there was no botch left in it. They rounded it off, and made as close joiner-work as ever was exhibited. Resolutions of annexation were brought into Congress, fitly joined together, compact, efficient, conclusive upon the great object which they had in view, and those resolutions passed. Allow me to read a part of these resolutions. It is the third clause of the second section of the resolution of the 1st of March, 1845, for the admission of Texas, which applies to this part of the case. That clause is as follows:— “New States, of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, he formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution. And such States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory

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lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.” Now what is here stipulated, enacted, and secured? It is, that all Texas south of 36° 30’, which is nearly the whole of it, shall be admitted into the Union as a slave State. It was a slave State, and therefore came in as a slave State; and the guaranty is, that new States shall be made out of it, to the number of four, in addition to the State then in existence and admitted at that time by these resolutions, and that such States as are formed out of that portion of Texas lying south of 36° 30’ may come in as slave States. I know no form of legislation which can strengthen this. I know no mode of recognition that can add a tittle of weight to it. I listened respectfully to the resolutions of my honorable friend from Tennessee [Mr. Bell]. He proposed to recognize that stipulation with Texas. But any additional recognition would weaken the force of it; because it stands here on the ground of a contract, a thing done for a consideration. It is a law founded on a contract with Texas, and designed to carry that contract into effect. A recognition now, founded not on any consideration, or any contract, would not be so strong as it now stands on the face of the resolution. I know no way, I candidly confess, in which this government, acting in good faith, as I trust it always will, can relieve itself from that stipulation and pledge, by any honest course of legislation whatever. And therefore I say again, that, so far as Texas is concerned, in the whole of that State south of 36° 30’, which, I suppose, embraces all the territory capable of slave cultivation, there is no land, not an acre, the character of which is not established by law; a law which cannot be repealed without the violation of a contract, and plain disregard of the public faith. I hope, Sir, it is now apparent that my proposition, so far as it respects Texas, has been maintained, and that the provision in this article is clear and absolute; and it has been well suggested by my friend from Rhode Island [Mr. Greene], that that part of Texas which lies north of 36° 30’ of north latitude, and which may be formed into free States, is dependent, in like manner, upon the consent of Texas, herself a slave State. Now, Sir, how came this? How came it to pass that within these walls, where it is said by the honorable member from South Carolina that the free States have always had a majority, this resolution of annexation, such as I have described it, obtained a majority in both houses of Congress? Sir, it obtained that majority by the great number of Northern votes added to the entire Southern vote, or at least nearly the whole of the Southern vote. The aggregate was made up of Northern and Southern votes. In the House of Representatives there were about

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eighty Southern votes and about fifty Northern votes for the admission of Texas. In the Senate the vote for the admission of Texas was twenty-seven, and twenty-five against it; and of those twenty-seven votes, constituting the majority, no less than thirteen came from the free States, and four of them were from New England. The whole of these thirteen Senators, constituting within a fraction, you see, one half of all the votes in this body for the admission of this immeasurable extent of slave territory, were sent here by free States. Sir, there is not so remarkable a chapter in our history of political events, political parties, and political men as is afforded by this admission of a new slave-holding territory, so vast that a bird cannot fly over it in a week. New England, as I have said, with some of her own votes, supported this measure. Three fourths of the votes of liberty-loving Connecticut were given for it in the other house, and one half here. There was one vote for it from Maine, but, I am happy to say, not the vote of the honorable member who addressed the Senate the day before yesterday [Mr. Hamlin], and who was then a Representative from Maine in the House of Representatives; but there was one vote from Maine, ay, and there was one vote for it from Massachusetts, given by a gentleman then representing, and now living in, the district in which the prevalence of Free Soil sentiment for a couple of years or so has defeated the choice of any member to represent it in Congress. Sir, that body of Northern and Eastern men who gave those votes at that time are now seen taking upon themselves, in the nomenclature of politics, the appellation of the Northern Democracy. They undertook to wield the destinies of this empire, if I may give that name to a republic, and their policy was, and they persisted in it, to bring into this country and under this government all the territory they could. They did it, in the case of Texas, under pledges, absolute pledges, to the slave interest, and they afterwards lent their aid in bringing in these new conquests, to take their chance for slavery or freedom. My honorable friend from Georgia [Mr. Berrien], in March, 1847, moved the Senate to declare that the war ought not to be prosecuted for the conquest of Territory, or for the dismemberment of Mexico. The whole of the Northern Democracy voted against it. He did not get a vote from them. It suited the patriotic and elevated sentiments of the Northern Democracy to bring in a world from among the mountains and valleys of California and New Mexico, or any other part of Mexico, and then quarrel about it; to bring it in, and then endeavor to put upon it the saving grace of the Wilmot Proviso. There were two eminent and highly respectable gentlemen from the North and East, then leading gentlemen in the Senate, (I refer, and I do so with entire respect, for I entertain for both of those gentlemen, in general, high regard, to Mr. Dix of New York and Mr. Niles of Connecticut,) who both voted for the admission of Texas. They would not have that vote any other way than as it stood; and they would have it as it did stand. I speak of the vote upon the annexation of Texas. Those two gentlemen would have the resolution of annexation just as it is, without amendment; and they voted for it just as it is, and their eyes 202 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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were all open to its true character. The honorable member from South Carolina who addressed us the other day was then Secretary of State. His correspondence with Mr. Murphy, the Chargé d’Affaires of the United States in Texas, had been published. That correspondence was all before those gentlemen, and the Secretary had the boldness and candor to avow in that correspondence, that the great object sought by the annexation of Texas was to strengthen the slave interest of the South. Why, Sir, he said so in so many words— MR. CALHOUN. Will the honorable Senator permit me to interrupt him for a moment? Certainly. MR. CALHOUN. I am very reluctant to interrupt the honorable gentleman; but, upon a point of so much importance, I deem it right to put myself rectus in curia. I did not put it upon the ground assumed by the Senator. I put it upon this ground: that Great Britain had announced to this country, in so many words, that her object was to abolish slavery in Texas, and, through Texas, to accomplish the abolition of slavery in the United States and the world. The ground I put it on was, that it would make an exposed frontier, and, if Great Britain succeeded in her object, it would be impossible that that frontier could be secured against the aggressions of the Abolitionists; and that this government was bound, under the guaranties of the Constitution, to protect us against such a state of things. That comes, I suppose, Sir, to exactly the same thing. It was, that Texas must be obtained for the security of the slave interest of the South. MR. CALHOUN. Another view is very distinctly given. That was the object set forth in the correspondence of a worthy gentleman not now living [Mr. Upshur], who preceded the honorable member from South Carolina in the Department of State. There repose on the files of the Department, as I have occasion to know, strong letters from Mr. Upshur to the United States Minister in England, and I believe there are some to the same Minister from the honorable Senator himself, asserting to this effect the sentiments of this government; namely, that Great Britain was expected not to interfere to take Texas out of the hands of its then existing government and make it a free country. But my argument, my suggestion, is this: that those gentlemen who composed the Northern Democracy when Texas was brought into the Union saw clearly that it was brought in as a slave country, and brought in for the purpose of being maintained as slave territory, to the Greek Kalends. I rather think the honorable gentleman who was then Secretary of State might, in some of his correspondence with Mr. Murphy, have suggested that it was not expedient to say too much about this object, lest it should create some alarm. At any rate, Mr. Murphy wrote to him that

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England was anxious to get rid of the constitution of Texas, because it was a constitution establishing slavery; and that what the United States had to do was to aid the people of Texas in upholding their constitution; but that nothing should be said which should offend the fanatical men of the North. But, Sir, the honorable member did avow this object himself, openly, boldly, and manfully; he did not disguise his conduct or his motives. MR. CALHOUN. Never, never. What he means he is very apt to say. MR. CALHOUN. Always, always. And I honor him for it. This admission of Texas was in 1845. Then in 1847, flagrante bello between the United States and Mexico, the proposition I have mentioned was brought forward by my friend from Georgia, and the Northern Democracy voted steadily against it. Their remedy was to apply to the acquisitions, after they should come in, the Wilmot Proviso. What follows? These two gentlemen [Messrs. Niles of Connecticut and Dix of New York], worthy and honorable and influential men, (and if they had not been they could not have carried the measure,) these two gentlemen, members of this body, brought in Texas, and by their votes they also prevented the passage of the resolution of the honorable member from Georgia, and then they went home and took the lead in the Free Soil party. And there they stand, Sir! They leave us here, bound in honor and conscience by the resolutions of annexation; they leave us here, to take the odium of fulfilling the obligations in favor of slavery which they voted us into, or else the greater odium of violating those obligations, while they are at home making capital and rousing speeches for free soil and no slavery. And therefore I say, Sir, that there is not a chapter in our history, respecting public measures and public men, more full of what would create surprise, more full of what does create in my mind, extreme mortification, than that of the conduct of the Northern Democracy on this subject. Mr. President, sometimes, when a man is found in a new relation to things around him and to other men, he says the world has changed, and that he has not changed. I believe, Sir, that our self-respect leads us often to make this declaration in regard to ourselves when it is not exactly true. An individual is more apt to change, perhaps, than all the world around him. But under the present circumstances, and under the responsibility which I know I incur by what I am now stating here, I feel at liberty to recur to the various expressions and statements, made at various times, of my own opinions and resolutions respecting the admission of Texas, and all that has followed. Sir, as early as 1836, or in the early part of 1837, there was conversation and correspondence between myself and some private friends on this project of annexing Texas to the United States; and an honorable gentleman with whom I have had a long acquaintance, a friend of mine, now perhaps in this chamber, I mean General Hamilton, of South Carolina, was privy to that correspondence. I had voted

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for the recognition of Texan independence, because I believed it to be an existing fact, surprising and astonishing as it was, and I wished well to the new republic; but I manifested from the first utter opposition to bringing her, with her slave territory, into the Union. I happened, in 1837, to make a public address to political friends in New York, and I then stated my sentiments upon the subject. It was the first time that I had occasion to advert to it; and I will ask a friend near me to have the kindness to read an extract from the speech made by me on that occasion. It was delivered in Niblo’s Saloon, in 1837. Mr. Greene then read the following extract from the speech of Mr. Webster to which he referred:— “Gentlemen, we all see that, by whomsoever possessed, Texas is likely to be a slave-holding country; and I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do any thing that shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slave-holding States to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already amongst us. The Constitution found it in the Union; it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound, in honor, in justice, and by the Constitution. All the stipulations contained in the Constitution in favor of the slave-holding States which are already in the Union ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness of their letter. Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the reach of Congress. It is a concern of the States themselves; they have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no rightful power over it. I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no measure, no menace, no indication of purpose, which shall interfere or threaten to interfere with the exclusive authority of the several States over the subject of slavery as it exists within their respective limits. All this appears to me to be matter of plain and imperative duty. “But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties are then both different.... “I see, therefore, no political necessity for the annexation of Texas to the Union; no advantages to be derived from it; and objections to it of a strong, and, in my judgment, decisive character.” I have nothing, Sir, to add to, or to take from, those sentiments. That speech, the Senate will perceive, was made in 1837. The purpose of immediately annexing Texas at that time was abandoned or postponed; and it was not revived with any vigor for some years. In the mean time it happened that I had become “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 205 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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a member of the executive administration, and was for a short period in the Department of State. The annexation of Texas was a subject of conversation, not confidential, with the President and heads of departments, as well as with other public men. No serious attempt was then made, however, to bring it about. I left the Department of State in May, 1843, and shortly after I learned, though by means which were no way connected with official information, that a design had been taken up of bringing Texas, with her slave territory and population, into this Union. I was in Washington at the time, and persons are now here who will remember that we had an arranged meeting for conversation upon it. I went home to Massachusetts and proclaimed the existence of that purpose, but I could get no audience and but little attention. Some did not believe it, and some were too much engaged in their own pursuits to give it any heed. They had gone to their farms or to their merchandise, and it was impossible to arouse any feeling in New England, or in Massachusetts, that should combine the two great political parties against this annexation; and, indeed, there was no hope of bringing the Northern Democracy into that view, for their leaning was all the other way. But, Sir, even with Whigs, and leading Whigs, I am ashamed to say, there was a great indifference towards the admission of Texas, with slave territory, into this Union. The project went on. I was then out of Congress. The annexation resolutions passed on the 1st of March, 1845; the legislature of Texas complied with the conditions and accepted the guaranties; for the language of the resolution is, that Texas is to come in “upon the conditions and under the guaranties herein prescribed.” I was returned to the Senate in March, 1845, and was here in December following, when the acceptance by Texas of the conditions proposed by Congress was communicated to us by the President, and an act for the consummation of the union was laid before the two houses. The connection was then not completed. A final law, doing the deed of annexation ultimately, had not been passed; and when it was put upon its final passage here, I expressed my opposition to it, and recorded my vote in the negative; and there that vote stands, with the observations that I made upon that occasion.57 Nor is this the only occasion on which I have expressed myself to the same effect. It has happened that, between 1837 and this time, on various occasions, I have expressed my entire opposition to the admission of slave States, or the acquisition of new slave territories, to be added to the United States. I know, Sir, no change in my own sentiments, or my own purposes, in that respect. I will now ask my friend from Rhode Island to read another extract from a speech of mine made at a Whig Convention in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the month of September, 1847. Mr. Greene here read the following extract:— “We hear much just now of a panacea for the dangers and evils of slavery and slave annexation, which they call the ‘Wilmot Proviso.’ That certainly is a just

57. See the remarks on the admission of Texas in WEBSTER’S WORKS, Volume V, page 55. 206 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to found any new party upon. It is not a sentiment on which Massachusetts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who holds to it more firmly than I do, nor one who adheres to it more than another. “I feel some little interest in this matter, Sir. Did not I commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, entirely? And I must be permitted to say that I cannot quite consent that more recent discoverers should claim the merit and take out a patent. “I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me to say, Sir, it is not their thunder.... “We are to use the first and the last and every occasion which offers to oppose the extension of slave power. “But I speak of it here, as in Congress, as a political question, a question for statesmen to act upon. We must so regard it. I certainly do not mean to say that it is less important in a moral point of view, that it is not more important in many other points of view; but as a legislator, or in any official capacity, I must look at it, consider it, and decide it as a matter of political action.” On other occasions, in debates here, I have expressed my determination to vote for no acquisition, cession, or annexation, north or south, east or west. My opinion has been, that we have territory enough, and that we should follow the Spartan maxim, “Improve, adorn what you have,” seek no further. I think that it was in some observations that I made on the three-million loan bill that I avowed this sentiment. In short, Sir, it has been avowed quite as often, in as many places, and before as many assemblies, as any humble opinions of mine ought to be avowed. But now that, under certain conditions, Texas is in the Union, with all her territory, as a slave State, with a solemn pledge, also, that, if she shall be divided into many States, those States may come in as slave States south of 36° 30’, how are we to deal with this subject? I know no way of honest legislation, when the proper time comes for the enactment, but to carry into effect all that we have stipulated to do. I do not entirely agree with my honorable friend from Tennessee [Mr. Bell], that, as soon as the time comes when she is entitled to another representative, we should create a new State. On former occasions, in creating new States out of territories, we have generally gone upon the idea that, when the population of the territory amounts to about sixty thousand, we would consent to its admission as a State. But it is quite a different thing when a State is divided, and two or more States made out of it. It does not follow in such a case that the same rule of apportionment should be applied. That, however, is a matter for the consideration of Congress, when the proper time arrives. I may not then be here; I may have no vote to give on the occasion; but I wish it to be distinctly understood, that, according to my view of the matter, this government is solemnly pledged, by

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law and contract, to create new States out of Texas, with her consent, when her population shall justify and call for such a proceeding, and, so far as such States are formed out of Texan territory lying south of 36° 30’, to let them come in as slave States. That is the meaning of the contract which our friends, the Northern Democracy, have left us to fulfil; and I, for one, mean to fulfil it, because I will not violate the faith of the government. What I mean to say is, that the time for the admission of new States formed out of Texas, the number of such States, their boundaries, the requisite amount of population, and all other things connected with the admission, are in the free discretion of Congress, except this; to wit, that, when new States formed out of Texas are to be admitted, they have a right, by legal stipulation and contract, to come in as slave States. Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles for ever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or New Mexico. Understand me, Sir; I mean slavery as we regard it; the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the Southern States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is no slavery of that description in California now. I understand that peonism, a sort of penal servitude, exists there, or rather a sort of voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt; an arrangement of a peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say is, that it is as impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us, should find its way, or be introduced, into California and New Mexico, as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges of mountains, of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys. The sides of these mountains are entirely barren; their tops capped by perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its constitution, and no doubt there are, some tracts of valuable land. But it is not so in New Mexico. Pray, what is the evidence which every gentleman must have obtained on this subject, from information sought by himself or communicated by others? I have inquired and read all I could find, in order to acquire information on this important subject. What is there in New Mexico that could, by any possibility, induce anybody to go there with slaves? There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some little articles, some little wheat for their tortillas, and that by irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico, made fertile only by irrigation? I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I 208 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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believe, in regard to New Mexico, will be but partially for a great length of time; free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no Wilmot Proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or an irrational pride, of the citizens of the Southern States. I have no such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected. I repeat, therefore, Sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it. Sir, if we were now making a government for New Mexico, and anybody should propose a Wilmot Proviso, I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk treated that provision for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was known to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot Proviso; but he felt the necessity of establishing a government for the Territory of Oregon. The proviso was in the bill, but he knew it would be entirely nugatory; and, since it must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no right, no describable, no tangible, no appreciable right of the South, he said he would sign the bill for the sake of enacting a law to form a government in that Territory, and let that entirely useless, and, in that connection, entirely senseless, proviso remain. Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any of the Northern Democracy, or any one of the Free Soil party, who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that man would of course be of opinion that it is necessary to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress. Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 209 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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I am pledged to it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I will perform those pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding. Now, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I proposed to do so, the proposition with which I set out, and upon which I intend to stand or fall; and that is, that the whole territory within the former United States, or in the newly acquired Mexican provinces, has a fixed and settled character, now fixed and settled by law which cannot be repealed,—in the case of Texas without a violation of public faith, and by no human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that, therefore, under one or other of these laws, every foot of land in the States or in the Territories has already received a fixed and decided character. Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each, and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, Sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one which has in my opinion just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and the article [Article IV, Section 2, § 2] of the Constitution which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from service is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that those persons escaping to other States “shall be delivered up,” and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my 210 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee [Mr. Mason] has a bill on the subject now before the Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative capacity or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such an attempt. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider of this. They have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of motives, as the occasion arose, and they have neglected to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations; which, I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfil with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, Sir, that here is a well-founded ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the different departments of this government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the judicature of this government, in the several States, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for their restoration to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject, and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North, I say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as a duty. Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 211 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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whatever on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the States, for two reasons: first, because I do not consider that the legislature of Massachusetts has any thing to do with it; and next, because I do not consider that I, as her representative here, have any thing to do with it. It has become, in my opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down than I have to uphold it; it has become, in my opinion, quite too common a practice for the State legislatures to present resolutions here on all subjects and to instruct us on all subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in too imperative a shape. I took notice, with pleasure, of some remarks made upon this subject, the other day, in the Senate of Massachusetts, by a young man of talent and character, of whom the best hopes may be entertained. I mean Mr. Hillard. He told the Senate of Massachusetts that he would vote for no instructions whatever to be forwarded to members of Congress, nor for any resolutions to be offered expressive of the sense of Massachusetts as to what her members of Congress ought to do. He said that he saw no propriety in one set of public servants giving instructions and reading lectures to another set of public servants. To his own master each of them must stand or fall, and that master is his constituents. I wish these sentiments could become more common. I have never entered into the question, and never shall, as to the binding force of instructions. I will, however, simply say this: if there be any matter pending in this body, while I am a member of it, in which Massachusetts has an interest of her own not adverse to the general interests of the country, I shall pursue her instructions with gladness of heart and with all the efficiency which I can bring to the occasion. But if the question be one which affects her interest, and at the same time equally affects the interests of all the other States, I shall no more regard her particular wishes or instructions than I should regard the wishes of a man who might appoint me an arbitrator or referee to decide some question of important private right between him and his neighbor, and then instruct me to decide in his favor. If ever there was a government upon earth it is this government, if ever there was a body upon earth it is this body, which should consider itself as composed by agreement of all, each member appointed by some, but organized by the general consent of all, sitting here, under the solemn obligations of oath and conscience, to do that which they think to be best for the good of the whole. Then, Sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they 212 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an Abolition press, or an Abolition society, or to pay an Abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies; but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this point recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made by Mr. Jefferson Randolph for the gradual abolition of slavery was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man who could read; and to those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina, these Abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into the slave States; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other words, they created great agitation in the North against Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves were bound more firmly than before, their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether anybody in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph, Governor McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press? We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing that these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of the South.58 Again, Sir, the violence of the Northern press is complained of. The press violent! Why, Sir, the press is violent everywhere. There are outrageous reproaches in the North against the South, and there are reproaches as vehement in the South against the North. Sir, the extremists of both parts of this country are violent; they mistake loud and violent talk for eloquence and for reason. They think that he who talks loudest reasons best. And this we must expect, when the press is free, as it is here, and I trust always will be; for, with all its licentiousness and 58. Letter from Mr. Webster to the editors of the National Intelligencer, enclosing extracts from a letter of the late Dr. Channing. Washington, February 15, 1851. MESSRS. GALES AND SEATON:— Having occasion recently to look over some files of letters written several years ago, I happened to fall on one from the late Rev. Dr. W.E. Channing. It contains passages which I think, coming from such a source, and written at such a time, would be interesting to the country. I have therefore extracted them, and send them to you for publication in your columns. Yours respectfully, DANIEL WEBSTER. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 213 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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all its evil, the entire and absolute freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of government on the basis of a free constitution. Wherever it exists there will be foolish and violent paragraphs in the newspapers, as there are, I am sorry to say, foolish and violent speeches in both houses of Congress. In truth, Sir, I must say that, in my opinion, the vernacular tongue of the country has become greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted by the style of our Congressional debates. And if it were possible for those debates to vitiate the principles of the people as much as they have depraved their tastes, I should cry out, “God save the Republic!” Well, in all this I see no solid grievance, no grievance presented by the South, within the redress of the government, but the single one to which I have referred; and that is, the want of a proper regard to the injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves. There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States, and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation of slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation which does not now exist; and that, by events, by circumstances, by the eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States, where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact of the Constitution. They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the acquisition of new territory. Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the newspapers, some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or some portion of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect upon the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman who would be more slow to give offence to anybody, and he did not mean in his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, Sir, he took pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring people of the North, giving the preference, in all 214 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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points of condition, and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves of the South. The honorable member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the whole North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, Sir, that five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate their children, they provide the means of independence. If they are not freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created. Such is the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and frugal. And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy a gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the North? There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the North. Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North, generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a Southern port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar’s mission, some time ago, to South Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint. The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as the cases occur constantly and frequently, they regard it as a great grievance. Now, Sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment, in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more fraternal sentiments between the South and the North. Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word “secession,” especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 215 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country,—is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, Sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character. Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, Sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there will be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that the idea has been entertained, that, after the dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am sorry, Sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side and the free States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too strongly, perhaps, but there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical world, and I hold the idea of a separation of these States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men 216 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that erelong the strength of America will be in the Valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, Sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two, and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray, Sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, Sir, are five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession. Sir, I hear there is to be a convention held at Nashville. I am bound to believe that, if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in convention, their object will be to adopt conciliatory counsels; to advise the South to forbearance and moderation, and to advise the North to forbearance and moderation; and to inculcate principles of brotherly love and affection, and attachment to the Constitution of the country as it now is. I believe, if the convention meet at all, it will be for this purpose; for certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember, Sir, that, when the treaty of Amiens was concluded between France and England, a sturdy Englishman and a distinguished orator, who regarded the conditions of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House of Commons, that, if King William could know the terms of that treaty, he would turn in his coffin! Let me commend this saying of Mr. Windham, in all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of this Union over the bones of Andrew Jackson! Sir, I wish now to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if it should be hereafter, at any time, the pleasure of the government of Texas “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 217 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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to cede to the United States a portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New Mexico, and north of 36° 30’ of north latitude, to be formed into free States, for a fair equivalent in money or in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well worthy the consideration of Congress, and I shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should have a connection with the government at that time. I have one other remark to make. In my observations upon slavery as it has existed in this country, and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or melioration. I will say, however, though I have nothing to propose, because I do not deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to take any lead on this subject, that if any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme, to be carried on by this government upon a large scale, for the transportation of free colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object. Nay, Sir, following an example set more than twenty years ago by a great man [Mr. Rufus King], then a Senator from New York, I would return to Virginia, and through her to the whole South, the money received from the lands and territories ceded by her to this government, for any such purpose as to remove, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal beneficially with, the free colored population of the Southern States. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been received into the treasury of the United States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands ceded by her. If the residue should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free people of color among them, or such as may be made free, they have my full consent that the government shall pay them any sum of money out of the proceeds of that cession which may be adequate to the purpose. And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display. I have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion, nor have I attempted any train of elaborate argument. I have wished only to speak my sentiments, fully and at length, being desirous, once and for all, to let the Senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future service that I can render to the country, consistently with these sentiments and opinions, I shall cheerfully render it. If there be not, I shall still be glad to have had an opportunity to disburden myself from the bottom of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that therein exists. And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union; let us 218 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pygmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to come. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man’s liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles:— “Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned With his last hand, and poured the ocean round; In living silver seemed the waves to roll, And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.”

April 23, Tuesday: In Arizona, John Glanton and his gang of professional scalphunters were surrounded and killed by the Yuma. Over the previous couple of years Glanton’s gang had killed approximately a thousand native Americans, earning roughly $100,000 by turning in their scalps for the Mexican government’s reward. Since they also sold Mexican and anglo scalps as native American scalps, the United States of America had been offering a $75,000 reward for their capture (the Yuma, being colored people, would of course not be eligible for such a monetary reward from the government — however, Fort Yuma would be named in their honor).

William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, Grasmere, Westmorland at the age of 80. Alfred, Lord Tennyson would be chosen to succeed him as Poet Laureate. (The Poet Laureate of England was considered a life member of the Royal Household, charged with creating occasional verse upon occasion, but no longer received his traditional annual award of one “pipe,” or double-hogshead cast containing 126 gallons, of Canary wine. The monarchy, which had begun that practice in 1630, had for reasons unknown discontinued it as of 1790.)

“WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT”: The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those

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services which the community will most readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet- laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is the most correct.

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December 6, Friday: The foraging party that had been abandoned by the barque Powhatten, including Eugene Ring, arrived at Minatitlan on the eastern coast of Mexico.

In Concord the day was cold and snowy. Waldo Emerson delivered “PROPERTY”.

Meanwhile Henry Thoreau was in Newburyport MA lecturing on Cape Cod at their Market Hall, a building on the waterfront with a landing place at the back of the building for boats and barges. His was the 6th lecture in that season’s course of 20, and he received the usual $20 awarded to out-of-town lecturers such as Emerson. Some 424 season tickets had been sold at $1 each, and for Thoreau’s lecture an additional 30 evening tickets were sold for $.12 apiece (by contrast, just nine such additional tickets would be sold when Emerson lectured there on February 21st). The average sale of such additional tickets that season would be 22 if we disregard one extreme case, a lecture by the hugely popular Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. It is likely then that Thoreau drew a good crowd. Other lecturers who spoke before the Newburyport Lyceum that season, in addition to the Reverends Beecher and Emerson were Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes and the local Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

DATE PLACE TOPIC

June 1, 1850 (?) Worcester “Cape Cod” (?) December 6, Friday, 1850, at 7:30PM Newburyport MA; Market Hall “An Excursion to Cape Cod” January 1, Wednesday, 1851 Clinton MA; Clinton Hall “An Excursion to Cape Cod”

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There had been notices placed in both Newburyport gazettes, the Morning Advertiser and the Daily Herald, for the day of the lecture and for the preceding day. Here is the Daily Herald: NEWBURYPORT LYCEUM. The 6th Lecture will be delivered at MARKET HALL, 1 on FRIDAY EVENING, Dec. 6, at 7 /2 o’clock, by H. D. THOREAU, Esq. Subject — “Cape Cod.” SEASON TICKETS are for sale by the Secretary at one dollar each. A.A. CALL, Sec’y.

December 6: Being at Newburyport this evening Dr (H.C.?) Perkins showed me the circulations in the Nitella, which is slightly different from the Chara, under a microscope– I saw plainly the circulation looking like bubbles going round in each joint up one side & down the other of a sort of white line, and some times a dark colored moat appeared to be carried along with them. He said that the circulation could be well seen in the Common Celandine and moreover that when a shade was cast on it by a knife blade the circulation was reversed.– Ether would stop it –or the death of the plant. He showed me a green clam shell –anodon fluviatilis, which he said was a female with young –found in a pond near by. Also the head of a Chinook or Flathead. Also the humerus of a Mylodon ______of Owen from Oregon– Some more remains have been found in Misssouri, and a whole skeleton in Buenos Ayres. A digging animal. He could not catch his frogs asleep.

December 20, Friday: The surviving members of the foraging party, including Eugene Ring, arrived at the port of Vera Cruz, Mexico. From there they would be able to catch a steamer to the port of New Orleans.

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1851

Breveted Lieutenant-Colonel James Duncan Graham of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers was making himself useful as Principal Astronomer and “Head of the Scientific Corps,” on the part of the United States, for the joint demarcation of the Boundary between the United States and Mexico, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the final resolution of boundary issues resulting from the War with Mexico.

Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr.’s THE SCALP HUNTERS; OR, ROMANTIC ADVENTURES IN NORTHERN MEXICO.

The author, implementing a folk maxim “when they’re big enough they’re old enough,” began to groom his London publisher’s teenybopper daughter Elizabeth Hyde: Captain Mayne Reid had now met his fate; not in the dark-eyed Mexican señorita, but a fair little English girl, a child scarce thirteen years of age. Her name was Elizabeth Hyde, the only daughter of George William Hyde, a lineal descendant of the first Earl of Clarendon. In his novel of “The Child Wife,” he describes his first meeting this young girl: “In less than ten minutes after, he was in love with a child! There are those who will deem this an improbability. Nevertheless it was true; for we are recording an actual experience.” Later on he says to his friend Roseveldt: “That child has impressed me with a feeling I never had before. Her strange look has done it. I feel as if she had sounded the bottom of my soul! It may be fate, destiny, but as I live, Roseveldt, I have a presentiment she will yet be my wife!” The courtship was in itself a romance. Elizabeth Hyde was living in London with Mrs Hyde, the widow of her Uncle Clarendon, who brought her up after her mother’s death. At Mrs Hyde’s house Captain Reid was one evening a guest. Afterwards he told his wife, “I fell in love with you that evening at first sight.” The next morning her aunt said, “Captain Mayne Reid has quite fallen in love with you.” Elizabeth answered, “You can tell him I have not fallen in love with him.” A short time afterwards to the question of some one who had not seen the “lion,” “What is

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Captain Reid like?” she replied, “Oh, he is a middle-aged gentleman.” This was repeated to Captain Reid, and he afterwards allowed that his vanity was much wounded at the time. A few weeks passed and the “middle-aged gentleman” was quite forgotten. Other matters occupied Elizabeth Hyde’s thoughts. One day she was alone in the drawing-room making a doll’s outfit. Captain Reid entered the room, but she did not recognise him. He looked surprised, and said, “Do you not remember me?” As he had a very foreign appearance, she exclaimed, “Oh, yes, you are Monsieur—” Then he mentioned his name. He asked how old she was, and, on hearing, said, “You are getting old enough to have a lover, and you must have me.” The “middle-aged gentleman” did not, however, come up to her standard. Her uncle was her ideal. After this Captain Reid made long and frequent visits to the aunt’s house, but saw the niece very little. With her, indeed, he found so little favour that she intentionally avoided his society. Mrs Hyde began to believe herself the attraction, as Mayne Reid spent hours in her society. All is fair in love and war.

April 24, Thursday: The southern border of Arizona had always been considered to be at the Gila River, because that made such an obvious east/west barrier across the landscape. John Russell Bartlett, for the United States, and Pedro Garcia Conde, for the Republic of Mexico, placed a reference marker designating 32 22 north latitude atop a small knoll at the confluence of the Gila and Salinas Rivers, west of the modern city of Phoenix, as the initial point for the official survey of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. (This marker is now on the grounds of the Phoenix International Raceway. Although in 1852 the Gadsden Purchase of 30,000,000 acres would relocate the international boundary to the south, this marker would remain the primary reference point for all land surveys in the state of Arizona.)

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1853

The adventurer William Walker, five-foot-two and weighing a hundred pounds dripping wet, careering among our little brown brothers, led an expedition of USers in an attempt to capture the state of Sonora, Mexico. He was known as un filibustero, in Central America, which was shortened in the US to “a filibuster.”

This term had originated in Holland during the freebooting years, when a Dutch sea captain who looted the Spanish gold ships was known as a vrijbuiter, literally a “free robber.” This term had passed directly into English as “freebooter,” but via the French fribustier and then the Spanish filibustero, it has eventually here passed into English again, as “a filibuster,” a sort of problematic person — rather than as at present,

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an opportunistic stalling activity that takes place on the floor of Congress.

These actual Southern states of mind and these customs and modes of behavior, together with the singular characters who expressed and upheld them, appeared occasionally in the books of the time, enough to excite one’s regret that literature so failed to do justice to life in the South. What would not readers in later days have given for a genius of the fifties, a Virginian Turgenev, a Gogol of South Carolina, who could have amplified the glimpses that actual writers conveyed of the picturesque, noble or fantastic people of the South. What made many of these characters so striking was that they lived in a timeless world, a society that was little touched by modern conditions, so that they embodied traits of the eighteenth, seventeenth, sixteenth centuries, either wholly unaltered or so altered as to be still more striking. There was William Walker, for one example, the filibuster from Tennessee, a well-trained surgeon who had studied medicine in Paris, in whom all the accretions of the modern man merely threw into bolder relief a character that properly belonged in Elizabethan times. Half- consciously an agent of the cotton kingdom that aspired to be an empire, this latter-day Cortes had much of the original in him, and Sam Houston had still more of the ancient swashbuckler in a composition that savoured, like so many others, of the militant South. Knight-errancy and quixotism throve on every hand there, ideals of the moment were mingled with ideals of the past, and men could be taken for practical leaders who ignored in their dreams of romance the most essential elements in the situation.

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January 6, Thursday: To the north, in the State of New Hampshire, the honored family of President-elect Franklin Pierce –husband, wife, and 10-year-old Benjy– were boarding the train for their move from Andover to Washington DC. (Life was going to be pretty good at the White House, since in that residence, beginning in this year, to get hot water in the first family’s second floor water closet, all one needed to do was turn a tap — the mansion had just been plumbed for, of all modern luxuries, hot running water. Also, the White House orangery was being transformed into a greenhouse.) A few minutes out of the Andover station the train plunged down an embankment and Benjamin was killed.59 There is no notice of what became of the boy’s new pencil.

Juan Bautista Ceballos replaced Mariano Arista Luna as interim President of Mexico.

59. Was the train pulled by one of their relative Abbott Lawrence’s locomotives constructed in the mill shops at Manchester NH, which Thoreau visited after January 1849?

After January 1849: Manchester, Warrington & Liverpool

Cylinder 15 inch diam. £ 1.950-0-0 $9.750 16 2.113-10 10.566 18 2.500 12.500

An engine went through a fourteen inch wall on starting. Most of their locomotives can draw 600 tons 12 miles an hour. with coke & water in weigh 50 tons apiece. Inspected after every journey by several persons in succession. A luggage truck lasts about 12 years. As soon as the luggage train is unloaded the wheels “are gauged to see that there are no bent axles, and that none of the ‘journals’ or working ends of the axles have been heated, for they sometimes get red-hot; squeezing wheels on to their axles, or wrenching them off.” The land & receive letters while going 40 miles an hour in the flying post office –with a landing net made of iron which catches them up. The northern division of the L & N W R. with its branches is 360 miles At their work shop in Crewe there are for this division 220 engines –100 being at work every day– They have “here turned out a new engine & tender on every monday morning” for the last year 1848 Keep a record of casualities which is examined every fortnight by a special committee of directors. “A boiler of copper inside & iron outside.” Crewe is a rail way town of 8000 inhabitants Engine composed of 5416 pieces. Robert Stephenson said “A locomotive engine must be put together as carefully as a watch.” The total number of carriages maintained at Crewe is 670 –number of work men 260 “half & inch thick of hair felt” then deal then tarpaulin, secured by iron hoops. The panels of all the carriages even luggage vans “invariably made of mahogany; ‘the bottom sides’ of English oak; the rest of the framing of ash. The break blocks are made of willow, and usually last about ten weeks work.” They employ in all over 10,000 persons “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 227 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Injured, and overcome with grief, Mrs. Pierce would return home and sit out her husband’s presidency. TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

She would meet with the Spiritualist Maggie Fox in an attempt to summon up the spirit of her dead son.

January 6th: Walden froze over apparently last night. It is but little more than an inch thick– & 2 or 3 square rods by Hubbards shore are still open. A dark transparent ice– It would not have frozen entirely over as it were in one night or may be a little more and yet have been so thin next the shore as well as in the middle, if it had not been so late in the winter, & so ready to freeze. It is a dark transparent ice. But will not bear me without much cracking. As I walked along the edge I started out 3 little pickerel no bigger than my finger from close to the shore which went wiggling into deeper water like bloodsuckers or pollywogs. When I lie down on it and examine it closely, I find that the greater part of the bubbles which I had thought were within its own substance are against its under surface, and that they are continually rising up from the bottom. perfect spheres apparently & very beautiful & clear in which I see my face through this thin ice (perhaps 1 & 1/ 8 inch) from 1/80 of an inch in diameter or a mere point up to 1/8 of an inch. There are 30 or 40 of these at least to every square inch– These probably when heated by the sun make it crack & whoop– There are also within the substance of the ice oblong perpendicular bubbles 1/2 inch long more or less by about 1/30 of an inch & these are commonly widest at the bottom? –or oftener separate minute spherical bubbles of equal or smaller diameter one directly above another like a string of beads–perhaps the first stage of the former– But these internal bubbles are not nearly so numerous as those in the water beneath. It may be 24 hours since the ice began to form decidedly. I see on the sandy bottom a few inches beneath–the white cases of Cadis worms made of the white quartz sand or pebbles– And the bottom is very much creased or furrowed where some creature has travelled about and doubled on its tracks–perhaps the cadis worm, for I find one or two of the same in the furrows–though the latter are deep & broad for them to make. This morning the weeds & twigs & fences were covered with what I may call a leaf frost–the leaves 1/3 of an inch long shaped somewhat like this with triangular points but very thin. Another morning there will be no frost. I forgot to say yesterday that I picked up 4 pignuts by the squirrel’s hole from which he had picked the meat–having gnawed a hole about half the diameter of the nut in width on each side. After I got home I observed that in each case the holes were on the sides of the nut & not on the edges–and I cut into a couple with my knife in order to see certainly which was the best way to get at the meat. Cutting into the edge I came upon the thick partition which runs the whole

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length of the nut, and then came upon the edges of the meats & finally was obliged to cut away a good part of the nut on both edges before I could extract the meat because it was held by the neck in the middle– But when I cut holes on the sides not only the partitions I met with were thin & partial but I struck the meats broad side & extracted them with less trouble. It may be that it is most convenient for the squirrel to hold the nut thus, but I think there is a deeper reason than that. I observe that out of six whole pig nuts which I picked from a tree 3 are so cracked transversely to the division of the meat that I can easily pry them open with my knife. They hang on as food for animals.

February 8, Tuesday: Manuel Apolinario José María Ignacio Lombardini de la Torre replaced Juan Bautista Ceballos as interim President of Mexico.

A Convention between the United States of America and Great Britain. READ THE FULL TEXT

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March 4, Friday morning The name of former Senator and Congressman Franklin Pierce, a heroic officer of a volunteer brigade in the successful war upon Mexico, had not been placed in nomination at the national convention of his Democratic party until the 35th polling of its delegates, and he had not become their chosen candidate until their 49th ballot (it is almost as if they were aware that he had been rather totally ineffective during that conflict, displaying little more ability than the ability to fall off a horse). Nevertheless on this morning he became President of the United States of America (until March 3, 1857). It was snowing. Although a commemorative copper token was struck,

there would be no inaugural fete because officially he was in mourning, his only child Ben having been killed in that railroad car accident of January 6th.

(Mrs. Pierce would be sitting out his presidency at home in New Hampshire in mourning; she would never

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visit the White House.)

When Chief Justice Roger Taney came to administer the oath of office as President of the United States of America on the East Portico of the Capitol, this gent who had never caviled at the thought of killing other humans, who would earn fame as one of our very worst presidents, due to his religious scruples quailed at the term “swear” and chose, rather, to “affirm” that he would perform his duties in his new office. He would go down in history not only as incompetent but also as our only president to affirm, rather than swear, his oath of office.60

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My Countrymen: It is a relief to feel that no heart but my own can know the personal regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been borne to a position so suitable for others rather than desirable for myself. The circumstances under which I have been called for a limited period to preside over the destinies of the Republic fill me with a profound sense of responsibility, but with nothing like shrinking apprehension. I repair to the post assigned me not as to one sought, but in obedience to the unsolicited expression of your will, answerable only for a fearless, faithful, and diligent exercise of my best powers. I ought to be, and am, truly grateful for the rare manifestation of the nation's confidence; but this, so far from lightening my obligations, only adds to their weight. You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength. When looking for the fulfillment of reasonable requirements, you will not be unmindful of the great changes which have occurred, even within the last quarter of a century, and the consequent augmentation and complexity of duties imposed in the administration both of your home and foreign affairs. Whether the elements of inherent force in the Republic have kept pace with its unparalleled progression in territory, population, and wealth has been the subject of earnest thought and discussion on both sides of the ocean. Less than sixty-four years ago the Father of his Country made “the” then “recent accession of the important State of North Carolina to the Constitution of the United States” one of the subjects of his special congratulation. At that moment, however, when the agitation consequent upon the Revolutionary struggle had hardly subsided, when we were just emerging from the weakness and embarrassments of the Confederation, there was an evident consciousness of vigor equal to the great mission so wisely and bravely fulfilled by our fathers. It was not a presumptuous assurance, but a calm faith, springing from a clear view of the sources of power in a government constituted like ours. It is no paradox to say that although comparatively weak the new-born nation was intrinsically strong. Inconsiderable in population and apparent resources, it was upheld by a broad and intelligent comprehension of rights and an all-pervading purpose to maintain them, stronger than armaments. It came from the furnace of the Revolution, tempered to the necessities of the times. The thoughts of the men of that day were as practical as their sentiments were patriotic. They wasted no portion of their energies upon idle and delusive speculations, but with a firm and fearless step advanced beyond the governmental landmarks which had hitherto circumscribed the limits of human freedom and planted their standard, where it has stood against dangers which have threatened from abroad, and internal agitation, which has at times fearfully menaced at home. They proved themselves equal to the solution of the great problem, to understand which their minds had been illuminated by the dawning lights of the Revolution. The object sought was not a thing dreamed of; it was a thing realized. They had exhibited only the power to achieve, but, what all history affirms to be so much more unusual, the capacity to maintain. The oppressed throughout the world from that day to the present have turned their eyes hitherward, not 232 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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to find those lights extinguished or to fear lest they should wane, but to be constantly cheered by their steady and increasing radiance. In this our country has, in my judgment, thus far fulfilled its highest duty to suffering humanity. It has spoken and will continue to speak, not only by its words, but by its acts, the language of sympathy, encouragement, and hope to those who earnestly listen to tones which pronounce for the largest rational liberty. But after all, the most animating encouragement and potent appeal for freedom will be its own history—its trials and its triumphs. Preeminently, the power of our advocacy reposes in our example; but no example, be it remembered, can be powerful for lasting good, whatever apparent advantages may be gained, which is not based upon eternal principles of right and justice. Our fathers decided for themselves, both upon the hour to declare and the hour to strike. They were their own judges of the circumstances under which it became them to pledge to each other “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” for the acquisition of the priceless inheritance transmitted to us. The energy with which that great conflict was opened and, under the guidance of a manifest and beneficent Providence the uncomplaining endurance with which it was prosecuted to its consummation were only surpassed by the wisdom and patriotic spirit of concession which characterized all the counsels of the early fathers. One of the most impressive evidences of that wisdom is to be found in the fact that the actual working of our system has dispelled a degree of solicitude which at the outset disturbed bold hearts and far- reaching intellects. The apprehension of dangers from extended territory, multiplied States, accumulated wealth, and augmented population has proved to be unfounded. The stars upon your banner have become nearly threefold their original number; your densely populated possessions skirt the shores of the two great oceans; and yet this vast increase of people and territory has not only shown itself compatible with the harmonious action of the States and Federal Government in their respective constitutional spheres, but has afforded an additional guaranty of the strength and integrity of both. With an experience thus suggestive and cheering, the policy of my Administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection, if not in the future essential for the preservation of the rights of commerce and the peace of the world. Should they be obtained, it will be through no grasping spirit, but with a view to obvious national interest and security, and in a manner entirely consistent with the strictest observance of national faith. We have nothing in our history or position to invite aggression; we have everything to beckon us to the cultivation of relations of peace and amity with all nations. Purposes, therefore, at once just and pacific will be significantly marked in the conduct of our foreign affairs. I intend that my Administration shall leave no blot upon our fair record, and trust I may safely give the assurance that no “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 233 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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act within the legitimate scope of my constitutional control will be tolerated on the part of any portion of our citizens which can not challenge a ready justification before the tribunal of the civilized world. An Administration would be unworthy of confidence at home or respect abroad should it cease to be influenced by the conviction that no apparent advantage can be purchased at a price so dear as that of national wrong or dishonor. It is not your privilege as a nation to speak of a distant past. The striking incidents of your history, replete with instruction and furnishing abundant grounds for hopeful confidence, are comprised in a period comparatively brief. But if your past is limited, your future is boundless. Its obligations throng the unexplored pathway of advancement, and will be limitless as duration. Hence a sound and comprehensive policy should embrace not less the distant future than the urgent present. The great objects of our pursuit as a people are best to be attained by peace, and are entirely consistent with the tranquillity and interests of the rest of mankind. With the neighboring nations upon our continent we should cultivate kindly and fraternal relations. We can desire nothing in regard to them so much as to see them consolidate their strength and pursue the paths of prosperity and happiness. If in the course of their growth we should open new channels of trade and create additional facilities for friendly intercourse, the benefits realized will be equal and mutual. Of the complicated European systems of national polity we have heretofore been independent. From their wars, their tumults, and anxieties we have been, happily, almost entirely exempt. Whilst these are confined to the nations which gave them existence, and within their legitimate jurisdiction, they can not affect us except as they appeal to our sympathies in the cause of human freedom and universal advancement. But the vast interests of commerce are common to all mankind, and the advantages of trade and international intercourse must always present a noble field for the moral influence of a great people. With these views firmly and honestly carried out, we have a right to expect, and shall under all circumstances require, prompt reciprocity. The rights which belong to us as a nation are not alone to be regarded, but those which pertain to every citizen in his individual capacity, at home and abroad, must be sacredly maintained. So long as he can discern every star in its place upon that ensign, without wealth to purchase for him preferment or title to secure for him place, it will be his privilege, and must be his acknowledged right, to stand unabashed even in the presence of princes, with a proud consciousness that he is himself one of a nation of sovereigns and that he can not in legitimate pursuit wander so far from home that the agent whom he shall leave behind in the place which I now occupy will not see that no rude hand of power or tyrannical passion is laid upon him with impunity. He must realize that upon every sea and on every soil where our enterprise may rightfully seek the protection of our flag American citizenship is an inviolable panoply for the security of American rights. And in this connection it can hardly be necessary to reaffirm a principle which should now be regarded 234 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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as fundamental. The rights, security, and repose of this Confederacy reject the idea of interference or colonization on this side of the ocean by any foreign power beyond present jurisdiction as utterly inadmissible. The opportunities of observation furnished by my brief experience as a soldier confirmed in my own mind the opinion, entertained and acted upon by others from the formation of the Government, that the maintenance of large standing armies in our country would be not only dangerous, but unnecessary. They also illustrated the importance—I might well say the absolute necessity—of the military science and practical skill furnished in such an eminent degree by the institution which has made your Army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the public service than for unobtrusive bearing and high moral tone. The Army as organized must be the nucleus around which in every time of need the strength of your military power, the sure bulwark of your defense—a national militia—may be readily formed into a well-disciplined and efficient organization. And the skill and self-devotion of the Navy assure you that you may take the performance of the past as a pledge for the future, and may confidently expect that the flag which has waved its untarnished folds over every sea will still float in undiminished honor. But these, like many other subjects, will be appropriately brought at a future time to the attention of the coordinate branches of the Government, to which I shall always look with profound respect and with trustful confidence that they will accord to me the aid and support which I shall so much need and which their experience and wisdom will readily suggest. In the administration of domestic affairs you expect a devoted integrity in the public service and an observance of rigid economy in all departments, so marked as never justly to be questioned. If this reasonable expectation be not realized, I frankly confess that one of your leading hopes is doomed to disappointment, and that my efforts in a very important particular must result in a humiliating failure. Offices can be properly regarded only in the light of aids for the accomplishment of these objects, and as occupancy can confer no prerogative nor importunate desire for preferment any claim, the public interest imperatively demands that they be considered with sole reference to the duties to be performed. Good citizens may well claim the protection of good laws and the benign influence of good government, but a claim for office is what the people of a republic should never recognize. No reasonable man of any party will expect the Administration to be so regardless of its responsibility and of the obvious elements of success as to retain persons known to be under the influence of political hostility and partisan prejudice in positions which will require not only severe labor, but cordial cooperation. Having no implied engagements to ratify, no rewards to bestow, no resentments to remember, and no personal wishes to consult in selections for official station, I shall fulfill this difficult and delicate trust, admitting no motive as worthy either of my character or position which does not contemplate an efficient “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 235 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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discharge of duty and the best interests of my country. I acknowledge my obligations to the masses of my countrymen, and to them alone. Higher objects than personal aggrandizement gave direction and energy to their exertions in the late canvass, and they shall not be disappointed. They require at my hands diligence, integrity, and capacity wherever there are duties to be performed. Without these qualities in their public servants, more stringent laws for the prevention or punishment of fraud, negligence, and peculation will be vain. With them they will be unnecessary. But these are not the only points to which you look for vigilant watchfulness. The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. You have a right, therefore, to expect your agents in every department to regard strictly the limits imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States. The great scheme of our constitutional liberty rests upon a proper distribution of power between the State and Federal authorities, and experience has shown that the harmony and happiness of our people must depend upon a just discrimination between the separate rights and responsibilities of the States and your common rights and obligations under the General Government; and here, in my opinion, are the considerations which should form the true basis of future concord in regard to the questions which have most seriously disturbed public tranquillity. If the Federal Government will confine itself to the exercise of powers clearly granted by the Constitution, it can hardly happen that its action upon any question should endanger the institutions of the States or interfere with their right to manage matters strictly domestic according to the will of their own people. In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject rich has recently agitated the nation to almost a fearful degree, I am moved by no other impulse than a most earnest desire for the perpetuation of that Union which has made us what we are, showering upon us blessings and conferring a power and influence which our fathers could hardly have anticipated, even with their most sanguine hopes directed to a far-off future. The sentiments I now announce were not unknown before the expression of the voice which called me here. My own position upon this subject was clear and unequivocal, upon the record of my words and my acts, and it is only recurred to at this time because silence might perhaps be misconstrued. With the Union my best and dearest earthly hopes are entwined. Without it what are we individually or collectively? What becomes of the noblest field ever opened for the advancement of our race in religion, in government, in the arts, and in all that dignifies and adorns mankind? From that radiant constellation which both illumines our own way and points out to struggling nations their course, let but a single star be lost, and, if these be not utter darkness, the luster of the whole is dimmed. Do my countrymen need any assurance that such a catastrophe is not to overtake them while I possess the power to stay it? It is with me an earnest and vital belief that as the Union has been the source, under Providence, of our prosperity to this time, so it is the 236 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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surest pledge of a continuance of the blessings we have enjoyed, and which we are sacredly bound to transmit undiminished to our children. The field of calm and free discussion in our country is open, and will always be so, but never has been and never can be traversed for good in a spirit of sectionalism and uncharitableness. The founders of the Republic dealt with things as they were presented to them, in a spirit of self-sacrificing patriotism, and, as time has proved, with a comprehensive wisdom which it will always be safe for us to consult. Every measure tending to strengthen the fraternal feelings of all the members of our Union has had my heartfelt approbation. To every theory of society or government, whether the offspring of feverish ambition or of morbid enthusiasm, calculated to dissolve the bonds of law and affection which unite us, I shall interpose a ready and stern resistance. I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. I hold that the laws of 50, commonly called the “compromise measures,” are strictly constitutional and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the constituted authorities of this Republic are bound to regard the rights of the South in this respect as they would view any other legal and constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs. Such have been, and are, my convictions, and upon them I shall act. I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity. But let not the foundation of our hope rest upon man's wisdom. It will not be sufficient that sectional prejudices find no place in the public deliberations. It will not be sufficient that the rash counsels of human passion are rejected. It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence. We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis. Wise counsels, like those which gave us the Constitution, prevailed to uphold it. Let the period be remembered as an admonition, and not as an encouragement, in any section of the Union, to make experiments where experiments are fraught with such fearful hazard. Let it be impressed upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments. Standing, as I do, almost within view of the green slopes of Monticello, and, as it were, within reach of the tomb of Washington, with all the cherished memories of the past gathering around me like so many eloquent voices of exhortation from heaven, I can express no better hope for my country than that the kind Providence which smiled upon our fathers may enable their children to preserve the blessings they have inherited. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 237 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Thomas Davis had been elected to the federal congress, and on this day took his seat as a Democrat. His wife Paulina Wright Davis would reside with him in Washington DC. (Thomas would serve out his term, but would then fail to win re-election in 1854 and would need to return to the manufacture of jewelry in Providence, Rhode Island.)

A good time was had that day in Washington DC, by all and sundry:

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Pierce would, as he had pledged, be appointing an entirely proslavery cabinet:

To Thine Own Self Be True

April 18, Monday or 20, Wednesday, 3PM: The Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward embarked for England. This would be the last time he would see his mother: Like my father, she was converted in early life, and was a member

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of the Methodist denomination (though a lover of all Christian denominations) until her death. This event, one of the most afflictive of my life, occurred on the first day of September, 1853, at New York. Since my father’s demise I had not seen her for nearly a year; when, being about to sail for England, at the risk of being apprehended by the United States’ authorities for a breach of their execrable republican Fugitive Slave Law, I sought my mother, found her, and told her I was about to sail at three p.m., that day (April 20th, 1853), for England. With a calmness and composure which she could always command when emergencies required it, she simply said, in a quiet tone, “To England, my son!” embraced me, commended me to God, and suffered me to depart without a murmur. It was our last meeting. May it be our last parting! For the kind sympathy shown me, upon my reception of the melancholy news of my mother’s decease, by many English friends, I shall ever be grateful: the recollection of that event, and the kindness of which it was the occasion, will dwell together in my heart while reason and memory shall endure. In the midst of that peculiarly bereaved feeling inseparable from realizing the thought that one is both fatherless and motherless, it was a sort of melancholy satisfaction to know that my dear parents were gone beyond the reach of slavery and the Fugitive Law. Endangered as their liberty always was, in the free Northern States of New York and New Jersey — doubly so after the law of 1851 — I could but feel a great deal of anxiety concerning them. I knew that there was no living claimant of my parents’ bodies and souls; I knew, too, that neither of them would tamely submit to re-enslavement: but I also knew that it was quite possible there should be creditors, or heirs at law; and that there is no State in the American Union wherein there were not free and independent democratic republicans, and soi- disant Christians, “ready, aye ready” to aid in overpowering and capturing a runaway, for pay. But when God was pleased to take my father in 1851, and my mother in 1853, I felt relief from my greatest earthly anxiety. Slavery had denied them education, property, caste, rights, liberty; but it could not deny them the application of Christ’s blood, nor an admittance to the rest prepared for the righteous. They could not be buried in the same part of a common graveyard, with whites, in their native country; but they can rise at the sound of the first trump, in the day of resurrection. Yes, reader: we who are slaveborn derive a comfort and solace from the death of those dearest to us, if they have the sad misfortune to be BLACKS and AMERICANS, that you know not. God forbid that you or yours should ever have occasion to know it! There would be interesting details for the Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward to relate, in regard to his steamboat journey across the Atlantic: After I had travelled in the service of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada from December 1851 until April 1853, they desired to take advantage of the well known anti-slavery feeling of Great Britain, quickened and intensified as that feeling had recently become by the unprecedented influence of Mrs. Stowe’s masterpiece, “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN,” by sending me to England, to “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 241 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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plead in their behalf, and in behalf of my crushed countrymen in America, and the freed men of Canada. Accordingly, I took the good steamer “Europa” on the 18th of April, 1853 (having bid adieu to Toronto, and the precious ones within it, the day before), for my first voyage across the Atlantic. This voyage was, to me, one of no ordinary interest. It was my first departure from my native continent. I was on my way to a strange land, thousands of miles from family, friends, relatives, or any one who cared for me. I confess to no little nervousness on this account. Then, I had scarcely gone on board before a fact occurred that did nothing to increase my mental comfort. And, while I am about it, I may as well state two facts of like character. The first is, that Lewis Tappan, Esq., in procuring a passage for me, had, with his characteristic straightforward manliness, told the agents that I was a black man. For this I was grateful: it saved me much inconvenience. They sold Mr. T. a ticket upon the back of which was the following indorsement: — “This gentleman’s passage is taken with the distinct understanding that he shall have his meals in his state room. — E.C.”61 Mr. Tappan, both as my personal friend and as a Christian man, remonstrated; but it was of no avail. As if this were not enough, so soon almost as I touched the deck of the ship, a fine gentlemanly-appearing Englishman accosted me — “Mr. Ward, I believe?” “The same.” “You are going out to Liverpool?” “I am.” “When Mr. Tappan took your passage, I was obliged to say to him, that you would take your meals in your state room; for you know, Mr. Ward, what are the prevalent feelings in this country in respect to coloured people, and if you eat at the cabin table Americans will complain. We cannot allow our ship to be the arena of constant quarrels on this subject; we avoid the difficulty by making the rule that coloured passengers shall eat in their state rooms, or we can’t take them.” I replied, “I desire, Mr. Cunard, to be in London by the 4th of May. If I wait for another steamer, I shall be too late. For that reason I submit to that to which, I wish you to understand, I do not consent.” “I am an Englishman,” said Mr. C.: “I entertain no such feelings; but I must see to the comfort of the passengers. I will see that you have a comfortable state room; and indeed, you shall have a room, if possible, on deck, which will be more pleasant for you; and the steward shall have directions to make you as comfortable as possible; and I wish you a pleasant voyage, sir.” Well, thought I, here is an Englishman perverted, according to his own showing — like the Yankee, making the dollar come before right, law, or anything. He does not “share” Yankee feeling — he only accommodates, panders to it! that is all! His passengers must be made “comfortable”; that is, if they be white. If not, why, the ship must not be “an arena for public discussion,” &c.! This was not exactly sea sickness, but no one will be surprised 61. The initials of Mr. Edward Cunard. 242 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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that it did not add to the pleasantness of going to sea. I could not but reflect upon the arrogance of the Americans. They are for freedom, but they must enforce their own views of matters upon other people. They believe in equality; but it must not be exhibited, even in a British ship, in a form different from their way of showing it. In a word, the arrogance of Yankees amounts to this — “Wherever we go, and over whomsoever we meet, our peculiar views, feelings and customs, shall be made the supreme rule.” Worse, however, than Yankee arrogance, is the easy accommodating virtue of a Yankeefied Englishman. The other fact came to my knowledge soon after. It seems that the second steward, having some “flesh in his heart,” and seeing that, with one or two exceptions, the second-cabin passengers (of which class I was) were Englishmen, proposed that I should be invited to join my fellow passengers at the table. All agreed but one, and that one was a small-sized Welshman! He had been to Texas, forgotten his Welsh breeding, become a slave-holder and a Negro-hater, and his pro-slavery spoiled dignity couldn’t endure my black presence at table. I knew that no passenger, nor even the owners, could legally deny me my right to enter the second cabin. I knew that I had submitted to quite enough, in allowing them to put me into a superior state room, abaft the wheels, 20 feet further aft than second-cabin passengers are allowed to go, as a compromise with Negro-hate. Now, to be kept out of the cabin by a little fellow about “four feet nothing and a half” tall, was quite too much. I therefore entered the cabin when I pleased, defiant of my little friend, who, I am bound to say, became quite civilized in a few days; so much so, that ere we parted, he invited me to a small entertainment, in that very second cabin within which he could not at first endure my presence. What an ever-present demon the spirit of Negro-hate is! How it haunts, tempts, wounds, the black man, wherever his arch-enemy, the American, goes! In Mr. Cunard’s case, in its likeness to and connection with those of many other Englishmen, of such character, I found occasion for serious reflection, that has driven me to a conclusion which shall hereafter control my life. It is a conclusion to which my excellent friend, Mr. J.N. Still, of Brooklyn, came long since. I never really differed from him, but I confess that not until I came to Europe did I see it in its full importance. Mr. Cunard is a man of business; so are the mass of Englishmen. What interferes with or threatens a diminution of the gains of business must be avoided. What is right or wrong, if not set aside altogether, must at least be merged in or be made subservient to business considerations. What is peculiar to an Englishman’s feelings, what is accordant with the spirit of British law, what is included with a British subject’s rights, in my case, must all give way to the mere question of business: i.e., Yankees pay largely, as passengers on the Cunard line. True, there are three Yankee lines competing with it; and it is equally true, that the rights of a black subject are as sacred in the eye of the law as those of a white subject (though Yankees are not subjects, by the way); so it was true, that what were my rights on British soil were my rights “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 243 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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in a British ship. It was also true, that Her Majesty’s Government retained so much control over that line as to have the power, when necessary — as has since been done — to send half the vessels comprising it to the Baltic, in the transport service. It was equally true, too, that if any one made a disturbance on board of the “Europa,” that was the person to be deprived of his rights, and not an innocent person; besides, in my case, the matter was prejudged, and I was made to feel the weight of the regulation, in advance of any disturbance arising from my presence. But, pshaw! This is simply the right and the law of the case. It must be viewed, Mr. Cunard thought, in a business light. Yankees are frequent customers; Negroes are not. Now, could not the thing so be managed as to retain the £50,000 given by the Government for carrying the mails, retain the patronage of the Yankees, and, if some few Negroes occasionally go on the steamers, partly conciliate them and partly sacrifice them? That is the business view of the matter — that is the view of Mr. Cunard; and I am sorry to say, about ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishmen in America view such matters in the same light. What is a Negro made for, but to be kicked about for a white man’s convenience? Then I saw, that the chief, almost the only business of the Negro, is to be a man of business. Let him be planter, merchant, anything by which he may make his impression as a business man. Let a fair representation of us be found, not in servile and menial positions, but in business walks — on ’change, in Lombard Street, at the Docks, anywhere; but let it be in active prosperous business life. Let us become of some value as customers; then, when such devoted men of business as Mr. Cunard have before them the question of treading under foot some Negro, they will conclude differently. They will say, “Yes, it is true he is black, and our taste is like yours, gentlemen — a taste wonderfully improved by living with you under the “stripes and stars” of republican freedom and equality; but then, looking at the matter with an eye to business, the fact is, we cannot very well afford to lose the custom of this class.” Yes; black men must seek wealth. We have men of learning, men of professional celebrity, men who can wield the pen, men of the pulpit and the forum, but we must have men of wealth; and he who does most to promote his own and his neighbour’s weal in this regard, does most to promote the interests of the race. Could we speak of wealthy blacks as we fortunately can of Robert Morris and Macon Bolden Allen, of Boston, as lawyers; James McCune Smith, of New York, and John V. Degrasse, of Boston, and Thomas Joiner White, of Brooklyn, as medical men; Charles L. Reason, William G. Allen, and George B. Vashon, as college professors; James William Charles Pennington, William Douglass, William Paul Quinn, Daniel A. Payne, Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, Amos Gerry Beeman, and William H. Bishop, as divines; James M. Whitfield and Miss Watkins, as poets; Frederic Douglass, William Howard Day, John J. Gains, Charles Mercer Langston, and William J. Watkins, as orators — we should be looked upon and treated in altogether a different manner. But as we have produced such men as I have named — or rather, as 244 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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they have, under God, produced themselves — so let us hope and be assured that the day is not far distant when, like the Quakers and the Jews, we shall be well and widely known for the pecuniary prosperity and independence of our class. With the exception of the two annoyances referred to, I had a most delightful voyage, and became a most capital sailor — that is, in the passenger’s sense of the term, which simply is, to be able to do nothing, comfortably and perseveringly, without sea sickness. I eat, drank, and slept, well — great comforts, at sea. I had the honour of daily visits from the excellent physician of the vessel, whose acquaintanceship I have the pleasure of still enjoying. Mr. W.M. did me the honour to spend an hour daily in my state room. He, too, still honours me with his friendly acquaintance. The Lord Bishop of Montreal called upon me, the day after our first Sunday. Perhaps his Lordship was looking after me as a stray sheep, for I did not attend the service conducted by him on the day before. The service was in the after-cabin. I was not a passenger in that cabin. I was partly proscribed, because of my colour, to accommodate the passengers. To be a fellow worshipper with them, on sufferance, was more than my self-respect would allow. I therefore remained in my state room, where, I trust, I found and worshipped the omnipresent, the impartial Jehovah. For the kindness shown me, as well as for the manner of showing it, by the gentlemen referred to, I shall ever be grateful. There were several Americans on board, not one of whom came to me. Of course I did not seek them. While in England, the Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward would attempt to explain to the English audiences how it was, that their American cousins, who were so loud in defense of liberty, could be so easy about the holding of slaves. He pointed up one salient difference between the earlier defenders of the institution of human slavery, in England prior to the general emancipation, and the current American defenders of that peculiar institution, to wit, that no English proslavery advocate had ever attempted to defend the institution of slavery on religious grounds, whereas it was common in America, to hear the institution of slavery defended on religious grounds: It is a matter of surprise to people in England that the Americans should profess so loudly the Christian religion, and insist so strongly upon republicanism as the only proper form of government, and yet hold slaves and treat Negroes, as they do, in the directest possible opposition both to republicanism and Christianity. The opposition which the citizens of the United States, of both the North and the South, make to the anti- slavery cause, is, to Europeans, an inexplicable mystery. Far be it from me to attempt a solution of it. I will endeavour to state the real issue betwixt anti-slavery men and their opponents; and, in doing so, I fear I shall make the matter more,

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instead of less, mysterious.

Those who recollect, or who have read of, the opposition Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Buxton had to encounter in their day, on the subject of the slave trade, in the British senate, and from Englishmen interested in the slave trade, know what class of arguments were used against the measures of righteousness advocated by them. Precisely the same class of arguments have been made against the abolition of slavery in the United States, by American senators, and by American merchants, theologians, and politicians: indeed, I have seen where the very words used by His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, against the abolition of the slave trade, were uttered in the American Senate against the abolition of slavery there. When the abolition of West India slavery was urged by Henry Peter Brougham, Stanley, and others, they in their turn were assailed with the same sort of opposition which their anti-slavery fathers, so to speak, met; and just such opposition have Sumner, Wilson, Seward, Giddings, and others, to overcome in the American Senate now. We explain the opposition of British slaveholders and slave traders to abolition, on the ground of interest, long continued use and abuse of authority, degenerating into petty tyranny and worse than brutal cruelty. These, however, sailed under no flag of boasted freedom. They did not clamour for the equality of all men. They found no fault with other than republican forms of government. They did not set themselves up as universal reformers. They said but little — wisely— about religion, for they had but little religion to talk about; and such as they had, judging from their lives, was more honoured by silence than profession. In America the case was different. Parties having the least to do with the South, or with slavery, are among the fiercest opposers of the anti-slavery cause. Ladies —save the mark!— and gentlemen of the most amiable and benevolent dispositions, such as contribute to every local charity, listen to all the cries of misery from the Old World, and honour all drafts made upon them for the spread of the gospel among the distant heathen, are the most active and, from their high religious position, the most powerful abettors and defenders of the slave system — not as it was in some ancient country two thousand years ago, but as it is now in the United States. Northern pulpit orators defend slavery from the Bible, the Old Testament and the New; and this is not true of one here and there only, it is so of the most learned, most distinguished of them, of all denominations. The 246 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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very men who cater for British popularity, are the loudest declaimers in favour of this “domestic institution.” Another class of them maintain the most studious silence concerning it. If they speak at all, they condemn only “slavery in the abstract,” and condemn abolition in the concrete. They neither hold nor treat slavery as sinful; and when pressed, declare that “some sins are not to be preached against.” Such was the teaching of a distinguished theological professor to his class in a “school of the prophets” in New York State. Besides, all the machinery of the benevolent societies is so framed, and set, and kept at work, as not only not to interfere with slavery, but to pander to it. The American Tract Society not only publishes no tract against slavery, but they favour that abominable system in the two following ways: — 1. If an English work which they republish has a line in it discountenancing slavery, however indirectly, it is either taken out, or so altered as to lose its force in that particular direction. Their emasculation of “Gurney on the Love of God” is notorious. 2. They refuse to publish a tract on the subject, when other acknowledged Christians and Christian ministers propose to write and prepare one, and defray the expense of publishing the same. No, poor slave: dumb as thou art, dumb shalt thou ever be, so far as this Society is concerned. The American Bible Society distributes no Bibles among the slave population. To do so, it is freely admitted, were contrary to law in some States — not in all. It is so in nine of the fifteen Slave States, but not in the other six; and some of these laws were framed, and all of them are upholden, and many of them administered and executed, by members, friends, and patrons of this Society. Not one word ever escapes the lips of that Society, as such, against these anti-Protestant laws! In 1841 I knew of an agent of an auxiliary to that Society who was distributing Bibles in Louisiana, and, being ignorant of the laws upon the subject, asked a free coloured man if he could read, with the intention of giving or selling him a Bible if he could. Some one overheard him, and informed against him. He was arrested, tried, found guilty, but leniently discharged, on account of his ignorance of the law which he had violated. Slaveholders and their abettors belong to and are officers of the American Bible Society, and they control it. That slavery forbids the searching of the Scriptures, which Christ enjoins, is to them not even a matter of complaint. Albeit, they pledge themselves to give the Christian Scriptures to every family in the Union. The American Sunday-school Union stands in precisely the same category, and is controlled by precisely the same influences; and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is, and always has been, both in its policy and its officers, of the very same character. The several religious bodies, with their respective branches, of all denominations, except the Quakers and the Free-Will Baptists (although the majority of their numbers are Northern men), are completely subject to the control of their slaveholding members. But the most lamentable fact is, that in Congregational New England the sons of Puritan sires are as guilty as the guiltiest enemies of the down-trodden slave. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 247 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Such was the state of the case in 1839, when my labours began; such, I regret to say, continues the case at this moment: and here I will take the liberty of saying that, although my connection with the New York State Anti-Slavery Society dissevered me from the division of the abolitionists in 1840, and although I never belonged to the Garrison branch of the abolitionists, so-called, I will do them the justice to record, that the least, slightest tendency towards infidelity, or even of impatience with the Churches, was never seen or suspected in them until after the New England clergy, as a body, had taken ground distinctly and openly against the anti-slavery cause (vide Goodall’s “History of the Anti-Slavery Cause”). What reason is given for this strange action on the part of religious denominations, benevolent institutions, theological professors, and individual clergymen? I will state it as fairly as I can. Their chief reason is, that it will disturb their existing harmony so to take up, discuss, and consider this question, as, it seems to abolitionists, its importance demands. In the Churches, while they maintain silence upon it, or ignore it altogether, they have nothing to cause disagreement. This question would be an apple of discord, as brethren of equal piety would range themselves on opposite sides of it. So it would be in the benevolent societies. Harmony, peace, are sought in that country by religious people, at almost any expense; slaveholders are members of the different religious denominations; in fact, one sixth of all the slaveholders belong to Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians. To treat slavery as sinful, would offend these brethren; and what is the use of that? They are good Christians; they treat their slaves well; and so long as they give signs of piety, are regular in their standing, pious in conversation, sound in doctrine, and correct in other matters, save the one of slavery, why should they be disturbed? why offend them? Some deny the sinfulness of slaveholding; others shelter themselves behind the faults of the abolitionists; others defend slaveholding from the Bible; but I think their love of harmony is their chief alleged reason for their present attitude. Let it not be forgotten, however, that behind all this —and going very far, I think, to explain it— is the contempt they all alike maintain towards the Negro. Surely, if they believed him to be an equal brother man, such miserable pretexts for, and defences of, the doing of the mightiest wrongs against him, would never for a moment be thought of. The abolitionists, on the other hand, point out the intrinsic nature and character of slavery — not in the abstract, but in the concrete —not as one might imagine it to be, but as it is — not as it was (or was not) two thousand years ago, more or less, but as it is to-day —its brutalizing, chattelizing; buying, selling, the image of God and the members of Christ’s body; its adultery, fornication, incest —and ask if religious men and ministers are really serious in declaring this to be no sin? If not serious, is it not a matter too grave to jest about? Violating, as it does, every part and parcel of the Decalogue, 248 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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could He who gave the law from Sinai approve it? They point to the law of love, and ask, Shall not our black brother receive the treatment, the love, of a brother, as well as the Hindoo or the Laplander? They point to the law which denies him the Bible, and ask, Can the God of the Bible approve that law? They hear Christ say, “Inasmuch as ye did it (or did it not) to the least of these my brethren, ye did it (or did it not) unto me.” Black men are, in the estimation of these brethren who oppose the anti- slavery cause, “the least.” Should not religious men tremble, lest the Son of Man should denounce these terrible words against them? When told of the piety of slaveholding professors of religion, they point to the acknowledged piety of the Jewish Church; notwithstanding which God denounced them for refusing “to break the yoke and let the oppressed go free” (ISAIAH 1 viii. 1-6). When the harmony and peace of the Church are pleaded for, against them, abolitionists plead for the “wisdom which is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable.” When urged, as it frequently is, that it is no part of the business of the Church, or her benevolent handmaids, to speak against existing social and political evils, abolitionists remind brethren of the firm lodgment which the evils connected with and inseparable from slavery have in the Church; so that, as the gentle and gifted Birney hath it, “the American Church is the bulwark of slavery:” so that, as the amiable Barnes saith, “there is no power out of the Church that could sustain slavery a twelvemonth, if the Church should turn her artillery against it.” If abolitionists hear pro-slavery men say there are sins which the Church and the Pulpit ought not and need not rebuke, they point to the preaching of all the true prophets, to the Lord, and to the apostles; all of whom took especial pains to rebuke and to denounce the specific forms of iniquity which, in their own times, were most prevalent, most fashionable, most profitable. This sin of oppression was not among the least of them: so when told that some who denounce slavery, and at the same time inveigh against pro-slavery Churches and ministers, are sceptics, it is with no sort of pleasure that abolitionists recall the time when the most prominent of this class, were as sound and orthodox in their views of divine truth as any of their accusers, and continued to be so until appalled and disgusted by seeing how lamentably the class who now cry out “Infidel!” exhibited that worst, most delusive, most practical form of infidelity — the “holding of the truth in unrighteousness,” the justifying of the foulest crimes (such as of necessity enter into and form constituent elements of slavery) by God’s holy Word. Such was the issue betwixt the anti-slavery cause and its religious opposers in 1839; such was it during my humble advocacy of emancipation; and such were, on the one side and on the other, the sort of arguments I had to meet and to make; and such is the issue between those who take opposite sides of this great question in that country now — an issue neither beginning nor ending with the rights and the liberties, the weal or the woe, of the poor Negro; but an issue involving the honour of “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 249 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Christ, the purity of the Church, the character of God, and the nature of our religion —of Christianity— and the influence of the American people, religiously, at home and abroad. What sort of Christ is he who, while professing to die for the race, authorizes the exclusion of the coloured portion thereof —at least three fourths— from the commonest benefits of his salvation? Even such is the Christ of American pro-slavery religion. What is the character of that God who, giving a moral code from Sinai, right in the fitness of things, as well as because an emanation from himself and a transcript of his will, but who authorizes one fourth of those upon whom he makes that law binding to violate and trample under foot every precept and principle of that code, touching the other three fourths of their fellow men? Even that is the character of the Deity, as seen in the light —or the darkness— of a pro-slavery religion. How pure can that Church be which smiles upon, fondles, caresses, protects, and rejoices to defend, a system which cannot exist without turning out a million and three quarters of the women of the country to the unbridled lusts of the men who hold despotic power over them? some of these women, three hundred thousand, being owned by members of the Church, and some sixty thousand of these women being members of it too! Such is the purity of the American pro-slavery Church. What can be the nature of a religion with which all this is consistent, and a part of which it is? Just such is the nature of the pro-slavery religion of my native country; and, what is more grievous to add, just so far as it shall spread in heathen lands, just so far as it passes current in Europe, just so far does this blighting, withering influence go with it. Now, abolitionists — Christian abolitionists— in America, are contending as to whether the religion of Jesus, or that which is fashionable about them, shall prevail over themselves and their neighbours. They see that when a system of religion becomes so corrupt as to uphold and defend so abominable a system of iniquities as slavery, it is not to be trusted upon anything else. They know that if such a Church be not reformed it must become a sort of mother of harlots, and all manner of abominations. Whether that Church can be reformed or not is, with them, still a question; with me it is not. But I entreat the reader to look at the issue. It is not whether some men have wisely or unwisely pleaded this cause, nor whether their measures were commendable or not; nor merely, what shall be done with the Negro? It is, shall religion, pure and undefiled, prevail in the land; or shall a corrupt, spurious, human system, dishonouring to God and oppressive to man, have the prevalence? That is the issue, “before Israel and the sun.”

November 5, Saturday: The 1st telegram was sent in Mexico, between Mexico City and Nopaluca, Puebla.

December 16, Friday: Generalissimo Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón was declared dictator of Mexico.

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December 30, Friday: In Mexico City the United States signed to purchase 30,000,000 acres south of the Gila River for $10 million to facilitate a new railroad (which would never get built). In the US this relocating toward the south of the international boundary, from the line that had been established in 1851 by John Russell Bartlett for the United States and Pedro Garcia Conde for the Republic of Mexico, would be known as the “Gadsden Purchase” after James Gadsden, US minister.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal about certain natural sounds the hearing of which kept summoning him back into the present moment, that Dr. Alfred I. Tauber would offer as relevant to his appreciation of time and eternity. TIME AND ETERNITY

December 30, Friday, 1853: The strains of the aeolian harp and of the wood thrush are the truest and loftiest preachers that I know now left on this earth.... They, as it were, lift us up in spite of ourselves. They intoxicate, they charm us. Where was that strain mixed into which this world was dropped but as a lump of sugar to sweeten the draught? I would be drunk, drunk, drunk, dead drunk to this world with it forever.

1854

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz’s THE PLANTER’S NORTHERN BRIDE (Philadelphia: T.D. Peterson). The gist of this was that the author, although a personal friend of the misled Harriet Beecher Stowe, had quite a bit more life experience in regard to human slavery. What a crock was her UNCLE TOM’S CABIN! Actual southern white masters cared for their black slaves and watched over them and provided for them. Northern white abolitionists were selfrighteous busybodies and were motivated by a desire for personal gain rather than a desire to benefit humankind. Besides, it would be manifestly wrong to encourage the terror of a slave uprising, and besides, in the “free” North there’s a crying need for cheap labor, so there!

Benign White Mistress

... the negroes of the south are the happiest labouring class on the face of the globe.

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Frederick Law Olmsted would write of encountering an escaped US slave during his travels through Mexico. Much to the surprise of white Americans, former slaves were holding their own in their new communities south of the border.

Bronson Alcott was so perturbed about the capture and return of “fugitive slaves” to the slaveholders of the South that, for the 1st time in his life, he abandoned his posture of complete noncooperation with government, and went to the polls and voted.

January 18, Wednesday: Just after midnight, the steamer SS Golden Gate, “probably the most magnificent sea steamer afloat,” limped into the harbor of San Diego, California with a broken centre shaft, making best use of its one remaining engine and paddlewheel, to take on fresh provisions for its 750 passengers for the trip farther up the coast. At 3PM the vessel began to leave the harbor of San Diego, and there would be a series of mishaps, followed by a storm and a shipwreck, with the 750 passengers being returned to San Diego to board other steamers (the Golden Gate would be recovered but this incident would end up costing the steamboat company some $140,000).

Robert and Clara Schumann left Düsseldorf for Hanover to give concerts and visit Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim (this would be their last trip together).

Having received minimal interference from Mexican authorities, William Walker expanded his domains from Baja California to Sonora (although he has never been there).

The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher sermonized, in his Tabernacle “crowded to its utmost capability,” on John Mitchel and his attitude toward human slavery. He read to this audience the substance of the disgusting letter that Mitchel had placed in The Citizen, to “a tempest of hisses and cries of shame.” He suggested to this

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audience that they consider Mitchel to be among “the dead,” which is a curious thing to say since it is so ambiguous: –it might be taken to mean that everyone ought to shun such a person, –or it might be taken to mean that someone ought to put him out of his misery.

Henry Thoreau was summoned as surveyor by Middlesex County Justice of the Peace L. Marett of the Court of Common Pleas in Cambridge to help resolve a land dispute at 9 AM on January 20th in regard to a survey he had just completed for William O. Benjamin. The other party was listed as “Leonard Spaulding Lots.”62 The threat made in the legal summons was merely the customary and usual sort of belligerent insolence which one is to expect, when an established government bureaucracy deals with a mere citizen:

Hereof fail not, as you will answer your default under the pain and penalty in the law in that behalf made and provided.

Middlesex[ ] SS[ ]To Henry D. Thoreau of Concord in said County of [Middlesex] Greeting. You are hereby required, in the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to make your appearance before Justices of the Court of Common [Pleas] now— — holden at Cambridge Thursday within and for the County of [Mid- dlesex] on [Friday] the twentieth day of January instant at 9 O clock [A.M] and from day to day until the Action hereinafter named is heard by the court, to give evidence of what you know relating to an Action or Plea of Tort then and there to be heard and tried betwixt William C Benjamin Leonard Spaulding [& als] } Plaintiff and William [C] Benjamin ------} Defendant

Hereof fail not[,] As you will answer your default under the pains and penalty in the law in that behalf made and provided.— Dated at Cambridge the [E]igh- teenth day of January [ ] in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty four L. Marrett Justice of the Peace[.]

View Henry Thoreau’s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

Thoreau testified in Cambridge, but his client Benjamin lost.

62. It has been pointed out that this episode occurs too late to account for the appearance of the Spaulding farm in “Walking.” “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 253 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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May 8, Monday: Six months after beginning his expedition to take over northern Mexico, William Walker and 33 followers crossed into California and surrendered to the US military.

In the morning Henry Thoreau went to Nawshawtuct and in the afternoon he went by boat to Fair Haven.

June 29, Thursday: The US federal congress ratified the Gadsden Purchase, adding to the United States of America parts of present-day New Mexico and Arizona. In connection with this purchase a Delegate Elect, Sylvester Mowry, had written a Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona: READ THE FULL TEXT

In the afternoon Henry Thoreau walked to the limekiln.

1855

Major W.H. Emory completed a survey of the new boundary that had been established by the Gadsden Purchase of 1852 between the United States of America and Mexico. Returned from some three years in the Southwest region of the United States, from this year until 1872 John Russell Bartlett would serve as Secretary of State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (this would be the longest anyone ever served in that capacity). He would be most diligent in the preservation of Providence and Rhode Island’s historical records.

Texas slaveowners were in the habit of offering rewards of $200-$600 for the recapture of slaves fleeing south toward the Mexican border. A group of bounty hunters, unprepared for the resistance they received, abandoned their mission. Much to his own surprise, Noah Smithwick, a member of this group, found himself hoping that the freedom-seekers they had been pursuing would be able to make their way into Mexico.63

By order of Texas Governor Elisha Pease, Captain James Callahan of the Texas Rangers entered Mexico and attempted to round up former slaves. Callahan meanwhile insisted that the purpose of his excursion was to pursue renegade native Americans, not recover fugitive slaves. The Rangers reduced a small village to ruins. The Mexican government, however, with the assistance of local native Americans, forced this band of Rangers to withdraw without the blacks they had captured.64

January 6, Saturday: Henry Thoreau wrote to Friend Daniel Ricketson in New Bedford. Friend Ricketson learned of Thoreau’s good experience, lecturing on Nantucket Island: Concord Mass Jan 6th 1855

Mr Ricketson, I am pleased to hear from the shanty whose inside and occupant I have seen. I had a very pleasant time at Brooklawn, as you know,—

63. Noah Smithwick. THE EVOLUTION OF A STATE (Austin TX: Gammel Book Company, 1900), page 326. 64. Ronnie C. Tyler. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico,” Journal of Negro History, Volume 57, Issue 1 (January 1972), pages 8-9; Frederick Law Olmsted. A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS. (NY: Dix, Edwards and Company, 1857), page 333. 254 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and thereafter at Nantucket. I was obliged to pay the usual tribute to the sea, but it was more than made up to me by the hospitality of the Nantucketers. Tell Arthur that I can now compare notes with him, for though I went neither before nor behind the mast, since we had n’t any—I went with my head hanging over the side all the way. In spite of all my experience I persisted in reading to the Nantucket people the lecture which I read at New Bedford, and I found them to be the very audience for me. I got home Friday night after being lost in the fog off Hyannis. I have not yet found a new jacknife but I had a glorious skating with channing the other day on the skates found long ago. Mr Cholmondeley sailed for England direct in the America on the 3d—after spending a night with me. He thinks even to go to the east & enlist! Last night I returned from lecturing in Worcester— I shall be glad to see you when you come to Boston, as will also my mother & sister who know something about you as an abolitionist. Come directly to our house. Please remember me to Mrs Ricketson, & also to the {One-half page missing} young folks Yrs Henry D Thoreau

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Giacomo Costantino Beltrami died in the large palazzo on his Azienda estate in Filottrano, Ancona, Italy at the age of 76. The various knick-nacks that he had brought back from his travels in Minnesota and Mexico are now on display in the glass cases of the Beltrami Museum in Filottrano, for what they are worth. A bronze bust has been sculpted by Vittorio Morelli:

May 3, Thursday: At 3 PM Henry Thoreau went to Assabet Bath (Gleason 4/E5) and had a conversation about Jonas Melvin with Humphrey Buttrick, one of the few Concordians who had been able to return from the War upon Mexico.

May 3, 1855: P.M. — To Assabet Bath. Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head. Hardhack leafed two or maybe three days in one place. Early pyrus leafed yesterday or day before, if I have not named it. The skull of a horse, — not a mare, for I did not see the two small canine teeth in the upper jaw, nor in the under, — six molars on each side, above and below,

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and six incisors to each jaw. I first observed the stillness of birds, etc., at noon, with the increasing warmth, on the 23d of April. Sitting on the bank near the stone-heaps, I see large suckers rise to catch insects, — sometimes leap. A butterfly one inch in alar extent, dark, velvety brown with slate-colored tips, on dry leaves. On the north of Groton Turnpike beyond Abel Hosmer's, three distinct terraces to river; first annually overflowed, say twenty-five or thirty rods wide, second seven or eight feet higher and forty or sixty wide, third forty feet higher still. Sweet-fern opened apparently yesterday. Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum began to leaf yesterday. Young red maple leaf to-morrow; also some white birch, and perhaps sugar maple. Humphrey Buttrick, one of eight who alone returned from Texas out of twenty-four, says he can find wood- cock’s eggs; now knows of several nests; has seen them setting with snow around them; and that Melvin has seen partridges’ eggs some days ago. He has seen crows building this year. Found in a hen-hawk’s nest once the CAT legs of a cat. Has known of several goshawks’ nests (or what he calls some kind of eagle; Garfield called it the Cape eagle); one in a shrub oak, with eggs. Last year his dog caught seven black ducks so far grown that he got DOG sixty cents a pair for them; takes a pretty active dog to catch such. He frequently finds or hears of them. Knew of a nest this year. Also finds wood ducks’ nests. Has very often seen partridges [Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus] drum close to him. Has watched one for an hour. They strike the body with their wings. He shot a white-headed eagle from Carlisle Bridge. It fell in the water, and his dog was glad to let it alone. He suggested that my fish hawks found pouts in holes made by ice.

August 9, Thursday: Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS titled “The Battle of the Ants” in the Boston Christian Watchman and Reflector, 125:2-4.

From a work entitled, Thoreau’s Life in the Woods, we select the following, which has a moral to it worthy of attention: [Reprints “Brute Neighbors,” pages 228.25-231.26.]

Mexican liberals (Juaristas) defeated loyalist troops at Acapulco.

Aug. 9 Elecampane, apparently several days. River is risen and fuller, and the weeds at bathing-place washed away somewhat. Fall to them. Dana says a sprit is the diagonal boom or gaff, and hence a spritsail. Host fore-and-aft sails have a gaff and boom. RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR.

August 17, Friday: Mexican generalissimo Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, replaced as president by Martín Carrera Sabat, boarded ship in Vera Cruz for another exile in Venezuela.

Henry Thoreau was written to by Horace Greeley in New-York. New York, Aug. 17, 1855. Friend Thoreau, There is a very small class in England who ought to know what you have written, and for whose sake I want a few copies of “Walden” sent to certain periodicals over the water — for instance, to Westminster Review, 8 King Wm. St. Strand.

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London The Reasoner, 147 Fleet-st. London Gerald Massey, office of The News Edinburgh. — Wills, Esq. of Dickens’s Household Words, Fleet-st. London. I feel sure your publishers would not throw away copies sent to these periodicals; especially if your “Week on the Concord and merr imac” could accompany them. Chapman, Ed Westminster Rev. ex- pressed surprise to me that your book had not been sent him, And I could find very few who had read or seen it. If a new edition should be called for, try to have it better known in Europe; but have a few copies sent to those worthy of it at all events. Yours, Horace Greeley. H. D. Thoreau, Concord, Mass.

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September 12, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass attended the Liberty Party convention at Ithaca, New York. He would be nominated for the office of Secretary of State of New York — the 1st time any American political party had attempted to confer such an honor upon a black citizen.

Rómulo Díaz de la Vega replaced Martín Carrera Sabat as President of Mexico.

An American naval force began to land in the Fiji Islands to obtain reparations for depredations that had been being committed there against American residents and seamen. This social interaction would be continuing, in the Fijis, until November 4th. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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October 4, Thursday: Henry Thoreau was still at Friend Daniel Ricketson’s home “Brooklawn” in New Bedford:

Clear and fine most of the day; shower latter part afternoon. Rode to Westport with Thoreau and examined the old Proprietor’s Records of the old township of Dartmouth for the names of my ancestors. Returning stopped upon the shore of Westport Pond in a grove of young oaks, where ourselves and old Charley 1 ate our dinner, arriving home about 4 /2 P.M. Showery evening.

Juan Alvarez replaced Rómulo Díaz de la Vega as interim President of Mexico.

1858

February: The governor of Texas, Sam Houston, introduced a resolution proposing the establishment of a US protectorate over the “so-called Republic of Mexico.”

The problem that he needed to solve was the problem of runaway Texas slaves obtaining refuge in Mexico (something that some of his own slaves had in fact succeeded in doing). To “provide for the reclamation of our slaves who escape into her territory,”65 since the mongrel Mexicans were entirely incapable of maintaining a democracy or creating a “good neighborhood,” Mexico needed to be reduced to the status of a protectorate of the United States of America.66 Restoring human enslavement in Mexico would, Sam pointed out benevolently, improve its ability to feed its citizenry.

65. Sam Houston. THE WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, Volume VII. Ed. Amelia Williams and Eugene Barker. (Austin TX: U of Texas P, 1942), page 362. 66. Sam Houston. THE WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, Volume VII. Ed. Amelia Williams and Eugene Barker. (Austin TX: U of Texas P, 1942), page 104. 260 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1862

The negrero Ocilla, out of Mystic, Connecticut, was able to insert some fresh slaves into Cuba (SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 38th Congress, 1st session Number 56, pages 8-13). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

Despite its defeat in the US campaign of 1846-1848, Mexico had continued to refuse to enter into extradition treaties with the United States. It was determined to remain a place of refuge. By 1850 literally thousands of escaped US slaves had been living there, in the absence of an organized network by having made their way there either individually or in small groups. At this point the United States of America obtained an extradition treaty with Mexico — but only by specifically allowing an exception for such runaway US slaves.67

Slaves were manumitted by Congress, in the District of Columbia. The slaveholders, among them of course the congressmen and senators who were voting this payoff, would of course be fully compensated by the federal government out of the public coffers for their loss of goods and services.68 “It is simply crazy that there should ever have come into being a world with such a sin in it, in which a man is set apart because of his color — the superficial fact about a human being. Who could want such a world? For an American fighting for his love of country, that the last hope of earth should from its beginning have swallowed slavery, is an irony so withering, a justice so intimate in its rebuke of pride, as to measure only with God.” — Stanley Cavell, MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? 1976, page 141

January 6, Monday: British ships joined French in the port of Veracruz in an attempt to oblige Mexican President Juárez to resume payments owed to them.

Henry Thoreau was being written to by Myron B. Benton of Leedsville, in Dutchess County, New York.

Leedsville, Dutchess Co. N.Y. Jan 6, 1862 Mr. Henry D. Thoreau. 67. Ronnie C. Tyler. “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico,” Journal of Negro History, Volume 57, Issue 1 (January 1972), page 11. 68. Legally, there was a distinction between a slaveowner and a slaveholder. The owner of a slave might rent the custody and use of that slave out for a year, in which case the distinction would arise and be a meaningful one in law, since the other party to such a transaction would be the holder but not the owner. However, in this Kouroo database, I will ordinarily be deploying the term “slaveholder” as the normative term, as we are no longer all that concerned with the making of such fine economic distinctions but are, rather, concerned almost exclusively with the human issues involved in the enslavement of other human beings. I use the term “slaveholder” in preference to “slaveowner” not only because no human being can really own another human being but also because it is important that slavery never be defined as the legal ownership of one person by another — in fact not only had human slavery existed before the first such legislation but also it has continued long since we abolished all legal deployment of the term “slave.” “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 261 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Dear Sir— When I heard incidentally last Spring, that your health was seriously affected with pulmo- nary disease, it gave me real pain. It seemed more to me, than if it were one with whom I was acquainted only through the imperfect medium of his pen;— rather as if it were a personal friend, whom I had known for a long time. You have been very frequently in my thoughts for several years, and I have had it in mind to write you a letter before this; but never have, it seemed so little in reality that I could say. But I will pen a few words now, if for no more than to thank you for the solid pleasure which I have derived from your writings

Page 2 since they first fell into my hands. And how often have I perused them since,— for they have indeed proved a source of perennial delight. Undoubtedly much of their fascination lies in the fidelity of their descriptions of Nature. This though a great, is still but little more than a negative merit; but it is more your view of Nature,— Nature seen by the light of a grand imagination. One perceives a rare and unique character, sketched on this superb background. But I will not attempt to explain the secret of the influence, by which your writings charm me; for it would be useless. It is altogether as intangible, though real, as the attraction[s] of Nature herself. But so it is;— I read and re-read your books, ever with fresh delight. Nor is it pleasure alone, that I feel indebted to them for. There is a singular spiritual health- iness, with which they seem imbued;

Page 3 the expression of a soul essentially sound,

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—so free from any morbid tendency. I have lived in constant communion with Nature's attractions, in this plasant locality; —a valley which the Indians named Nehutook, or Pleasant Hunting Grounds. Many are the long Summer-Sundays I have spent, roaming alone for miles in the mountains which surround it, without even a book or gun to carry for an excuse; and when I heard of your illness, it seemed very sad to think that you, above all others, who love such scenes so well, should be deprived of that great source of enjoyment. I was in hope to read something more from your pen, in Mr. Conway's Dial, but only recognised that fine pair of Walden twinlets. Of your two books, I perhaps prefer the “Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers;” but after all, “Walden” is but little less a favorite. In the

Page 4 former, I like especially those little snatches of poetry, interspersed throughout. If it were not impertinent, I would like to ask what progress you have made in a work some way connected with Natural History — I think it was [in] Botany — which Mr. Emerson told me something about, in a short interview I had with him, two years ago in Poughkeepsie. I will not ask you to reply to this, for fear your strength may not permit, without exertion; but if you should feel perfectly able at any time to drop me a few lines, I would like much to know what your state of health is, and if there is, as I cannot but hope, a prospect of your speedy recovery. I am very sincerly yours Myron B. Benton.

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February 19, Wednesday: In the Soledad Agreement signed on this day in the port of Veracruz, Mexico, France, Great Britain, and Spain agreed to recognize the government of Benito Juárez, discuss debts owed by the nation, and confine their troops to Tehuacán, Córdoba, and Orizaba (France would fail to ratify this concord).

April 9, Wednesday: The final conference of the occupying powers at Orizaba came to an end. Spain and Great Britain decided to end their intervention in Mexico (only France would remain).

May 5, Monday: Mexican forces defeated French and Mexican conservatives at Puebla (the day would come to be celebrated as the national holiday, “Cinco de Mayo”).

Fighting at Williamsburg / Fort Magruder, Virginia resulted in greater losses for the Federals, although the Confederates were forced to retire.

1885

July 23, day: Ulysses Simpson Grant died in Wilton, New York. His memoirs as a US general and then a US president were set to go through the press in two volumes during this year and the following one.

“I do not think there was ever waged a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign.” — Ulysses S. Grant, PERSONAL MEMOIRS, 1885

“Fiddle-dee-dee, war, war, war, I get so bored I could scream!” —Scarlet O’Hara

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1907

January 7, day: Mexican troops fired on striking textile workers at Orizaba, Veracruz State, killing 30 and wounding 80. Several of the strike leaders would be executed.

1909

July 30/31, day/day: Earthquakes destroyed the towns of Acapulco and Chilpancingo in Mexico.

1910

September 11, day: In Mexico City, demonstrators favoring opposition candidate Francisco Madero threw stones through the window of the house of dictator Porfirio Díaz. Police on horseback charged into the crowd, to induce them to disperse.

September 27, day: Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz was once again declared “elected,” precipitating the Mexican Revolution.

October 7, day: Mexican opposition candidate Francisco Madero escaped into Texas. In San Antonio he would publish a manifesto declaring the election void and himself provisional president. He would also call for a revolution, to begin on November 20th.

November 27, day: Pascual Orozco, a storekeeper, and Pancho Villa, a bandit, led a force which defeated Mexican federal troops at Pedernales. They had made themselves the masters of the southern portion of the district known as Chihuahua.

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1911

To calm a rumor started in American newspapers by the German Kaiser, that Japan was going to invade California through Mexico, President William Howard Taft needed to dispatch half the US Army to the Mexican border for maneuvers.

The first movie about the Alamo, a silent one titled “The Immortal Alamo,” began a tradition of depicting the Mexican enemy in a derogatory manner — in this version of the fight General Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón is depicted as a druggie.

January 18, Wednesday: 26 Japanese leftists and anarchists were convicted of plotting to kill the Emperor Meiji. Two were sentenced to prison terms, 24 executed.

In San Francisco Bay, Lt. Eugene Ely, USN became the 1st person to land an airplane on a ship, the cruiser USS Pennsylvania.

With expiration of the lease on the US naval base in Magdalena Bay, Mexico, the US Navy was obliged to withdraw.

In Hamburg, Sonata for cello and piano op.116 by Max Reger was performed for the initial time.

March 7, day: When the US ambassador to Mexico informed him that unrest there might threaten American lives, President Taft dispatched 20,000 troops to the border.

March 10, day: Emiliano Zapata began a rebellion in Mexico, in Morelos state, to protest the dispossession of campesinos by wealthy landowners.

May 1, day: Mexican rebels captured Durango.

May 10, day: Mexican revolutionaries under Orazco and General Francisco “Pancho” Villa captured Ciudad Juárez.

May 21, day: On a flying field at Issy (site of the exploits of Manuel Debussy during the war of the Commune in 1871), there was an accident and the French Minister of War was killed.

At the request of the Sultan of Morocco, who needed to be rescued from internal opposition, French troops occupied Fez (Germany took this to be a French ruse, preparatory to an occupation and colonization).

Outside Ciudad Juárez, Mexican factions came to an understanding. President Díaz would resign and turn over the government to Francisco de la Barra, then there would be elections.

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May 24, day: Almost a week after the death of Mahler, Anton Webern writes to Arnold Schoenberg from Berlin, “Gustav Mahler and you: there I see my course quite distinctly. I will not deviate. God’s blessing on you.”

Dante and Beatrice, a symphonic poem by Granville Bantock, was performed for the initial time, in Glasgow, under the direction of the composer.

Rima op.6, a song for voice and piano by Joaquín Rodrigo to words of Becquer, was performed for the initial time, in Aeolian Hall, London.

The Second Symphony of Edward Elgar was performed for the initial time, in Queen’s Hall, London, conducted by the composer. Both the public and critics were confused and lukewarm.

After announcement of the May 21st treaty, crowds swelled into the streets of Mexico City demanding the immediate resignation of President Díaz. Federal troops fired into the mob, killing 200.

The symphonic movement Americanesque by Henry Gilbert was performed for the initial time, in Symphony Hall, Boston. It was sometimes titled Humoresque on Negro Minstrel Tunes. The critics were generally positive about the music while noting the particularly bad performance.

May 25, day: Only a week after the death of Gustav Mahler, Thomas Mann visited Venice and conceived his novella Death in Venice.

President Porfirio de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz of Mexico, suffering from an abscessed tooth, succumbed to popular demands and family pressure and resigned, ending 26 years of dictatorship. He was replaced by Francisco León de la Barra y Quijano. The news produced general delirious pandemonium in the capital.

May 26, day: Germany granted Alsace-Lorraine a constitution.

Former Mexican president Porfirio Díaz left Mexico City for exile in Europe.

November 1, day: Francisco Indalecio Madero González replaced Francisco León de la Barra as president of Mexico.

The Chevrolet Motor Company was incorporated in Detroit by William Durant and Louis Chevrolet.

The British expedition under Robert F. Scott departed their base camp on McMurdo Sound making for the South Pole.

Giulio Gavotti became the 1st person to deliver explosives by means of an airplane — he tossed four grenades out of the cockpit onto Turkish troops at Taguira Oasis and Ain Zara.

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1912

69 According to Theodore Dreiser’s THE FINANCIER, Francis J. Grund, a famous newspaper correspondent and lobbyist at Washington DC, had possessed the faculty of unearthing secrets of every kind, especially those relating to financial legislation, and because of this privy access to business information and political schemes, had in 1850 been able to profit greatly from insider trading: The secrets of the President and the Cabinet, as well as of the Senate and the House of Representatives, seemed to be open to him. Grund had been about, years before, purchasing through one or two brokers large amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt certificates and bonds. The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from Mexico, had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in value to ten or fifteen million dollars. Later, in connection with the scheme to make Texas a State of the Union, a bill was passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States of five million dollars, to be applied to the extinguishment of this old debt. Grund knew of this, and also of the fact that some of this debt, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was to be paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and there was to be a false or pre-arranged failure to pass the bill at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders who might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. ... Grund, ... and possibly three or four others, had made over a hundred thousand dollars apiece.

1913

February 9, day: A coup d’etat against the Mexican government erupted as troops under Bernardo Reyes and Felix Díaz entered the plaza before the cathedral in the center of the capitol. Federal troops under General Villar, loyal to President Madero, fired on them, killing two or three hundred including Bernardo Reyes and scores of innocent civilians on their way to Sunday mass. Díaz led his men in retreat to set up a defensive position a kilometer or two away. General Villar, when he was wounded in the battle, was replaced by General Victoriano Huerta. The two forces, federal and revolutionary, then used artillery on one another, in the process killing thousands of civilians in downtown Mexico City.

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February 18, day: Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré replaced Clément Armand Fallières as president of France.

This day marked the end of the “tragic ten days” during which revolutionaries under Felix Díaz and Rodolfo Reyes, and federal troops under General Victoriano Huerta, shelled each other’s positions a kilometer or two apart in downtown Mexico City. Thousands of civilians were being killed and their bodies being piled up in the street, doused with kerosene, and set alight. US Ambassador Wilson helped General Huerta negotiate with Díaz to combine their forces to overthrow the government. With promises of immunity and exile from General Huerta, President Francisco Madero and Vice President José Pino Suarez resigned. The presidency fell to Pedro Lascurain Paredes, who resigned in favor of General Huerta.

February 19, day: Enustiano Carranza, governor of Coahuila state, announced that he would not recognize General Victoriano Huerta as President of Mexico. Within a few days Governor Carranza and a small band of followers would rise in open rebellion, and a national campaign against General Huerta would begin.

February 22, day: Former President Francisco Madero and Vice President José Pino Suarez were taken from confinement at the palace in Mexico City, ostensibly to be transferred to a penitentiary, but along the way were executed by their guards, followers of General Victoriano Huerta. US Ambassador Wilson urged his government, and all Americans who happened to be then in Mexico, to do what they might to ensure the success of the regime of General Huerta.

March 13, day: General Francisco “Pancho” Villa and an army of vaqueros crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico to began a revolutionary campaign against federal troops.

Our national birthday, the 4th of July:In Tucson, Arizona on this day, at the Mexican Consulate, the flag got “torn

down and trampled on.” That would have been the flag of Mexico (at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, interestingly, it was an American flag that was getting trampled on).

On French Mountain near Lake George, New York, a forest fire was started by fireworks.

Princeton, New Jersey celebrated not only the nation’s birthday but also the 100th anniversary of the town’s incorporation.

When, at New Salem, North Dakota in this year, the German community celebrated the 4th, it was a whole big deal — for in the four previous anniversaries they had been uninterested in celebrating our national birthday.

August 14, day: Julián Carillo became director of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City.

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August 27, day: US President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the Mexican government of General Victoriano Huerta.

1914

By this point Cadbury’s Dairy Milk had become the firm’s biggest line. During World War I this formerly Quaker firm would proclaim itself in support of its nation’s war effort, entirely disregarding the Quaker Peace Testimony. More than 2,000 of its male employees would enlist in the British armed forces –or so it would brag– and the firm would send books, warm clothes, and of course chocolates to the front lines. The company would augment the Government’s allowances to the dependants of its workers who had become warriors. At the end of the war the former employees who had become warriors would either be invited to return to their previous jobs, or be sent for education, or be looked after in convalescent homes at company expense.

(That the firm was on a morally slippery slope should have been apparent — for during World War II it would become a weapons contractor, and afterward it would brag about such warlike activity.) THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY

Marijuana smoking had been appearing in the United States, among laborers in towns along the Mexican border, and was spreading along the Gulf Coast. Between this year and 1931, 29 states, most of them west of the Mississippi, would be prohibiting its nonmedical use. However, this anti-drug legislation would initially receive only limited media attention.

US forces occupied Vera Cruz and a fleet arrived off Tampico in consequence of hostile acts by Mexicans. After pressuring the Mexican President to resign, Vesustiano Carranza attempted to supplant him but became engaged in a civil war with one of his former lieutenants, Pancho Villa.

In the US, 27 state and city laws prohibited the smoking of opium.

The federal Harrison Act treated cocaine as more dangerous than opium, classifying it (incorrectly) as a narcotic. Fears over cocaine use, particularly by blacks, had led by this point to regulatory laws in 46 states of the United States of America — whereas only 29 states had enacted such regulatory laws in regard to opiates. In result of this legal situation, cocaine use would become surreptitious, and the substance would be used primarily by bohemians and musicians, and in the urban ghettos. Ostensibly a tax measure designed to control the marketing of opium, this required all persons authorized to handle or manufacture narcotic drugs to register, pay a fee, and keep a record of the drugs in their possession. The act did not prohibit the supply of opiates to users by registered physicians “in the course of their professional practice.” Subsequent Supreme Court decisions and government enforcement policies would, however, restrict the right of doctors to prescribe opiates.

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April 21, day: Luigi Russolo gave his initial concert of “noise music” in Teatro del Verme, Milan before an overflow crowd. A number of the audience, there for this specific purpose, attempted to disrupt the performance with boos, whistles, and “anti-noise” of all kinds, as well as the launching of produce toward the stage. In the middle of one piece, five of the musicians descended from the stage into the audience and physically attacked the demonstrators while their colleagues played on. One of the vanguard would remember, “It was a display of an amazing harmonic arrangement of bloody faces and dissonances, an infernal melee.” Eleven people would be hospitalized.

In an attempt to assist the overthrow of Mexican President Huerta, United States President Woodrow Wilson ordered the seizure of Veracruz to forestall the off-loading of munitions from a German merchant ship. 200 Mexicans were killed in the process, causing the opposite effect of its intention — Huerta, in opposing the Americans, had been made a defender of Mexico from foreign invasion and Mexico would break relations with the United States (an American embargo on arms to Huerta would, however, eventually produce Huerta’s downfall).

April 25, day: When Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate the US/Mexico dispute, President Woodrow Wilson readily assented.

May 20, day: Luigi Russolo put on a 2d concert of “noise music” in the Teatro Politeama of Genoa (although there was protest, this was shushed by other audience members).

In a meeting held at the Niagara Falls, representatives of Ontario, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile attempted to mediate the dispute between Mexico and the United States.

June 19, day: At Zacatecas, the troops of General Francisco “Pancho” Villa defeated federal Mexican forces.

July 14, day: After initial reluctance, the Hungarian government agreed to send an ultimatum to Serbia and if necessary to attack.

In London, Sergei Diaghilev introduced Sergei Prokofiev to his main conductor, Pierre Monteux. Prokofiev played his First Piano Concerto and some other works for them and was favorably received.

Mexican President Huerta resigned and fled toward exile in Europe, leaving the responsibility of negotiating with the soon-to-be victorious revolutionaries to his Chief Justice Francisco Sebastián Carbajal y Gual.

Robert Goddard of Worcester, Massachusetts received a patent for a liquid-fuel rocket.

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August 15, day: Sospiri op.70 for strings, harps and organ by Edward Elgar was performed for the first time, in Queen’s Hall, London.

The Colony of Angola was created by Portugal.

Japan declared for the allies and demanded the handing over of the German base at Tsingtao.

Two more Liège forts fell to the Germans: Boncelles and Lantin.

German and native troops captured Taveta, British East Africa (Kenya).

Alvaro Obregón made a triumphal entry into Mexico City at the head of his troops, having defeated the federal armies of Victoriano Huerta.

The US government banned loans from American firms to belligerent nations.

The Panama Canal was formally opened to traffic.

AMANAPLANACANALPANAMA The Davis Lock of the Soo opened.

Construction began on the Severn division of the Trent-Severn Waterway.

Macedon’s Erie Canal Lock #60 was abandoned to make way for the Barge Canal.

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August 20, day: After successes and failures on both sides, the series of engagements over the previous four days around Gumbinnen (Gusev), 110 kilometers east of Königsberg (Kaliningrad), resulted in, by and large, what might be described as a Russian victory. However, the Russian forces would not press their advantage.

The Battle of the Jadar concluded with Austrian troops fleeing under Serbian bombardment. The invading Austrians were ordered to retreat across the Sava River.

In Lorraine, the invading French were cut to pieces by the Germans at Morhange Sarrebourg and forced into retreat.

The German First Army marched into Brussels, parading through the streets. A governor-general was installed.

Upon completing the draft of Act I of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Richard Strauss wrote on the manuscript: “Completed August 20, 1914, on the day of the victory of Saarburg. Hail to our excellent and courageous troops, hail to our German fatherland!”

In Rome, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, Pope Pius X, died.

On this day Anton von Webern was scheduled to begin duties in Stettin, but the theater was closed.

Venustiano Carranza de la Garza took charge as, at least nominally, President of Mexico.

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August 28, day: Austria went to war against Belgium.

After cutting off the Russian line of retreat, the Germans commenced their major blow at Tannenberg (Stebark) 150 kilometers northwest of Warsaw.

In three days of fighting, the French staved off furious German assaults south of Sedan.

Ministers of the United States, Mexico, and Sweden visited Louvain and witnessed the death and devastation. The news would be sent around the world.

Turkish troops were garrisoned in Armenian schools and churches in the Sivas Province. In the city of Sivas, Armenia, 56,000 soldiers of the 10th Army Corps were quartered in and around the Christian districts.

October 10, day: Germans defeated Russians at Grojec, south of Warsaw.

Remaining Belgian troops in Antwerp surrendered as the Germans completed the occupation of the city.

There was news that “the war contribution” looting of Armenians by Turks was continuing in Diyarbekir Province. In Zeitun, Armenia, all the Armenian notables were called to a meeting. About three score attended — and they were immediately taken into detention.

Follow the Colours, in the version for male chorus, by Edwar Elgar to words of Stretton, was performed for the initial time, at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Also premiered was Elgar’s song A Soldier’s Song: Roll Call to words of Begbie.

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Margot, a comedia lírica by Joaquín Turina to words of Martínez Sierra, was performed for the initial time, in Madrid.

King Carol I of Romania died in Sinaia, succeeded by his nephew, Ferdinand I.

A meeting of revolutionary leaders in Aguascalientes agreed to back Eulalio Gutiérrez as President of Mexico.

In Berlin, Ferruccio Busoni wrote in his diary, “Today Antwerp ‘fell’...What to they actually intend to do with Belgium? Hand it back a little damaged.”

November 14, day: British and Indian troops began to fight their way up the Shatt-al-Arab against Turkish opposition.

The village of Otsni in Erzerum Province was attacked at night by chete forces. The local Armenian priest and many other Armenians were killed. Every house was looted. The first attacks by chete forces on the Armenian villages of Erzerum were reported.

The sheikh-ul-Islam, leader of Sunni Muslims, announces in Constantinople a jihad against all Christians (except Germans and Austro-Hungarians).

After a convention of Mexican revolutionary leaders broke down, two of them, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, joined to force a 3d, Venustiano Carranza, out of Mexico City. The two victors set up their own government in the capital while Carranza retired to Veracruz to plot revenge.

November 23, day: British Indian troops captured Basra from the Turks.

Previously undisturbed Armenian schools and churches in Sivas Province, together with many private residences, were requisitioned by the Turkish army for use as barracks. The carts, horses, and other travel equipment of the Armenian villagers in the provinces were confiscated.

The Portuguese parliament authorized the government to declare war on Germany if necessary.

By order of President Wilson, American forces departed from Vera Cruz, Mexico.

1915

January 17, day: The Ugly Duckling op.18 for solo voice and piano by Sergei Prokofiev to words of Anderson, was performed for the initial time, in Petrograd.

General Francisco “Pancho” Villa named his puppet, Roque González Garza, as president of Mexico.

Russian troops defeated the Turkish offensive at Sarikamis, southwest of Kars.

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June 10, day: The German garrison at Garoua, Kamerun, 350 kilometers southwest of Fort Lamy (N’Djamena), surrenders to a combined British-French force.

A law enacted by the Ottoman government describes how the property of all arrested Armenians was to be handled. Beginning today through June 13, 25,000 Armenians deported from Erzerum province were massacred by Turks at Kemakh.

Francisco Jerónimo de Jesús Lagosw Cházaro replaced Roque Gonzálex Garza as acting President of Mexico.

October 19, day: Great Britain ceased to consider Czechs and Slovaks as enemy aliens.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Uruguay, and the United States formally recognized Venustiano Carranza as president of Mexico while his general, Alvaro Obregón, was in the process of defeating both General Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

Italy and Russia declared war on Bulgaria.

1916

U.S. remained officially neutral in the European war while chasing Pancho Villa along the US/Mexican border (Villa has raided Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17). General Pershing, sent into Mexico to take Villa “dead or alive,” would fail. The Duluth unit of the Minnesota National Guard took part in this.

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To protect their positions from German aerial spotters, British and French artillerists begin covering their firing pits with burlap-festooned fishnets. Thus the beginning of modern military camouflage.

Harry S Truman joined the Grandview Baptist Church in Grandview, Missouri. He helped organize an oil- drilling company that would be named the Morgan Oil and Refining Company, investing $10,000 and becoming its treasurer and managing perhaps to recover his investment before the company was dissolved in 1919.

2d Lieutenant George Smith Patton, Jr. served as aide to General Pershing in the Mexican Punitive Expedition. Riding along was Peggy Hull of the El Paso Times, who is usually regarded as our initial female war correspondent (actually, Margaret Fuller had reported on the Italian Revolution for the New York Herald Tribune, although nobody pays any attention to this). As part of this, Patton commanded the first use of mechanical vehicles in combat (his mechanized vehicles being a couple of Dodge touring cars). He got to use his new Colt .45 pistol to kill “General” Cardenas, head of Villa’s bodyguard — that must have been a real thrill. He carved two notches into the ivory grips of his weapon.

He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. He wrote some more one-handed poetry: Valor When all the hearts are opened And all the secrets known When guile and lies are banished And subterfuge is gone When God rolls up the curtain And hidden truths appear When the ghastly light of Judgement Day Brings past and present near.... Then shall we know what once we knew Before wealth dimmed our sight That of all the sins, the blackest is The pride which will not fight. The meek and pious have a place And necessary are, But valor pales their puny rays As does the sun a star.

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What race of man since time began Has ever yet remained Who trusted not its own right hand Or from brave deeds refrained? Yet, spite the fact for ages known And by all lands displayed We still have those who prate of peace And say that war is dead. Yes, vandals rise who seek to snatch The laurels from the brave And dare defame heroic dead Now filling hero graves. They speak of those whose love, Like Christ’s, exceeds the lust of life As murderers slain to no avail A useless sacrifice. With infamy without a name They mock our fighting youth And dare decry great hearts who die Battling for right and truth. Woe to the land which, heeding them, Lets avarice gain the day And trusting gold its rights to hold Lets manly might decay. Let us, while willing yet for peace, Still keep our valor high So when our time of battle comes We shall not fear to die. Make love of life and ease be less Make love of country more So shall our patriotism be More than an empty roar. For death is nothing, comfort less Valor is all in all Base nations who depart from it Shall sure and justly fall.

L’Envoi When the last great battle is finished And the last great general shall fall, When the roar of the mighty guns is dumb As the kiss of the nickeled ball, When the screams of the dying that mixed With the shout that the living give out As they rush on the foe, When the mixed noise of an army in flight The gasp and the curse and the shouting are low, When soldiers have ceased to struggle, When war is raged with the tongue, When men are praised for cowardice And men for bravery hung, When honor and virtue and courage Are fled like departing day As the cursed shape of eternal peace Comes up on the evening gray,

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When money is God and Lord of all And liars alone have weight, When the road to heaven is barred with gold And wide yawns Hell’s black gate -- Then those who live in servile chains To filthy lucre slaves Ah, how they will yearn for the soldier’s life And for the hero’s grave, And will say as they sadly think of it: War was a priceless benefit Although a sacrifice.

March 9, day: A force of 400 under the command of Pancho Villa crossed the US border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico, 110 kilometers west of El Paso, killing as many US citizens as they could find. After a skirmish with American troops, the Mexicans would retire across the border.

Germany declared war upon Portugal because it was refusing to hand over some German ships it had seized in the port of Lisbon.

March 13, day: South African troops reached Moshi, but failed to trap or engage the Germans.

Mexican President Carranza tacitly approved of a punitive expedition by American forces into Mexico against Pancho Villa.

Summer for orchestra by Frank Bridge was performed for the initial time, in Queen’s Hall, London, the composer conducting.

March 16, day: After ten days of furious assaults, the Germans gave up trying to capture Le Mort Homme, northwest of Verdun.

António José de Almeida replaced Afonso Augusto da Costa as prime minister of Portugal.

American General John J. Pershing led 6,000 men across the border into Mexico in an attempt to punish Pancho Villa and his forces for their raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

April 12, day: Irish revolutionary Roger Casement was spirited into Ireland by a German U-boat.

An American scouting party, 300 kilometers inside Mexico in the town of Parral, was fired upon by civilians. Mexican federal troops soon joined the engagement on the side of the civilians. The Americans withdrew. There were 42 dead.

Symphony in Yellow op.3/2 to words of Wilde from Tone-Images for solo voice and piano by Charles T. Griffes was performed for the initial time, in the Punch and Judy Theater, New York.

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June 21, day: A joint British-French statement to King Konstantinos demands that Greece demobilize its reserves, hold new elections and dismiss officials opposed to the allies.

The 2/4 Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps, containing orderly Ralph Vaughan Williams, was posted to France.

After repeated warnings Mexican federal troops fired on an American force at Carrizal, south of El Paso, killing 12 and capturing 23.

June 30: Ambassador von Wolff-Metternich reported to the German Chancellor that Ittihad was devouring the remaining Armenian refugees.

On the argument that those who refused were going to be deported into the desert again, the proposal was made to the Armenian labor battalions in Damascus and to the civilian deportees that they convert to Islam. Very few would accept. Sarah Brown, one of the younger of John Brown’s 20 children, who had come west with her mother Mary Ann Day Brown and lived in Rohnerville for a number of years, died at her daughter’s home in Campbell, California.

Mexico released the 23 prisoners of war taken at Carrizal.

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1917

Masticophis taeniatus girardi, the Central Texas Whipsnake, was named in honor of Charles Frédéric Girard (Stejneger and Barbour).

U.S. entry into World War I was precipitated by intelligence that Germany was preparing to begin unrestricted submarine warfare, and that it was seeking an alliance with Mexico, suggesting that by such an alliance it would reclaim the lost territories of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado (in the German communication, for some reason, Texas wasn’t mentioned).

January 16, day: A telegram was sent from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to his minister in Mexico City, Heinrich von Eckhardt. Zimmermann believed that a war between Mexico and the United States would prevent American involvement in the European war. If the United States should enter the war, Eckhardt was told to offer President Venustiano Carranza joint conduct of the war and the peace. He further offered financial support and territory lost by Mexico to the United States in 1848 and 1853 as part of a post-war treaty. That territory would definitely include California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado (for some reason Texas seems to have gone unmentioned).

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January 27, day: Troops of the American punitive expedition into Mexico began to withdraw back into Texas.

Poème for cello and piano by Charles Martin Loeffler was performed for the initial time, in Aeolian Hall, New York.

January 28, day: The United States federal government made public a communication from the Germans to Mexico proposing that that nation ally itself with Germany in order to recover territories it had lost to the USA.

January 31, day: A new constitution for Mexico was finally finished by the convention working on it in Querétaro.

February 5, day: Leos Janacek’s cantata The Eternal Gospel, to words of Vrchlicky, was performed for the initial time, in Prague.

President Carranza of Mexico announced the new “Constitution of Querétaro” recently completed by a popularly elected constituent assembly. This was to be put into effect on May 1st. At the same time, the last of the American punitive expeditions was to leave Mexican soil.

March 3, day: The British advanced on Bapaume.

Mexico denied that it had received any offer of an alliance from Germany.

March 4, day: The armed neutrality bill was filibustered and defeated in the Senate.

German Foreign Minister Zimmermann publicly acknowledged that the telegram to Mexico was authentic.

March 17, day: Bapaume fell to the British. Roye and Lassigny were occupied by the French.

The Ukranian Rada was established by socialists in Kiev.

British troops occupied Bapaume in the area evacuated by the Germans while the French occupied Roye.

A public disagreement with members of his cabinet over war policy forced French Prime Minister Aristide Briand to resign. He was replaced by Alexandre Felix Joseph Ribot.

La Société Française de Musicologie was founded in Paris.

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George Gershwin left his job as a song plugger at Jerome A. Remick’s music publishing to seek a career in musical theater, but without immediate prospects.

The 1st jazz recording was issued by the Victor Company. Livery Stable Blues was on one side, Dixieland Jazz Band One Step was on the other.

Mexico declared neutrality in the Great War.

Snow for piano by Bohuslav Martinu was performed for the initial time, in Policka by the composer.

May 1, day: A large number of Hungarian workers demonstrate against the war.

Venustiano Carranza was inaugurated as the 1st constitutionally elected president of Mexico since the death of Francisco Madero in February of 1913.

September 4, day: With few prospects in Mexico, Silvestre Revueltas and his younger brother Fermín enrolled at St. Edward’s College in Austin, Texas.

December 25, day: Searching for robbery suspects in a neighborhood of Ponvenir, Texas Rangers killed 15 Mexicans and tortured 10. Feliz Navidad!

1918

Up to this point mineral graphite had been ground, mixed with clay, and fired in a kiln. It had been mined in the hill country of England, in Sri Lanka, in Madagascar, in North Korea, in the Sonora province of Mexico, near the town of Bristol in New Hampshire beginning in 1821 (the small deposit discovered and claimed by Charles Jones Dunbar), in New York, in the Ontario province of Canada, and, beginning in 1856, in Siberia near the border of China. By this year the block mineral form that needed to be finely ground had been fully superseded by a derivative of petroleum coke which because it could be brought into existence already in the condition of a fine powder was inherently not only of much higher quality but also much cheaper to produce.

August: After the withdrawal of “Black Jack” Pershing’s expedition from Mexico, US troops had needed to enter Mexican territory in pursuit of bandits at least 3 times this year (and 5 times in the subsequent year). During this month American and Mexican troops were fighting each other, at Nogales. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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1919

April 10, day: Former Governor Kemal Bey, found guilty of the murder of thousands of Armenians in Ankara Province, was hanged in Turkey.

Four days of balloting in Hungary for a national soviet came to an end.

The Belgian government decreed universal suffrage.

The comédie musicale Masques et bergamasques by Gabriel Fauré, to words of Fauchois, was performed for the initial time, in Monaco.

Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata was gunned down by federal troops at the hacienda of San Juan Chinameca in Morelos.

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1920

T.J. Looney identified Sir Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (April 12, 1550-June 24, 1604), author of the poem “Love compared to a tennis playe,” as the real source of the plays we have been supposing to have been produced by one William Shakespeare (so very little actually is known for sure about the life of the playwright that since this point a sizeable body of “Oxfordians” have been able endlessly to speculate on such a theme).

The movie “The Mark of Zorro” raised the possibility that Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. might actually have had his florut in Mexican California in swashbuckling times. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 285 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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May 20, day: Fleeing a coup by General Alvaro Obregón, who had captured Mexico City and been elected President after the capture of General Francisco “Pancho” Villa (Villa was awarded a handsome estate at which he would reside until his own assassination on June 20th, 1923), President Venustiano Carranza of Mexico was assassinated by dissident generals Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor, Alvaro Obregón Salido, and Calles in Tlaxcalatongo.

The 1st commercial radio broadcast in Canada took place from the Marconi station, XWA, in Montreal.

May 24, day: May 24: The British Music Society adopted a standard pitch of A=435.4 cps at 59° F.

Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor replaced Venustiano Carranza as president of Mexico.

June 1, day: The Communist Party of Spain was founded.

Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor, revolutionary leader of Mexico, was named interim President.

Aglavaine et Sélisette, an overture by Arthur Honegger, was performed publicly for the initial time, in the Salle Gaveau, Paris.

December 1, day: Liberato Damião Ribeiro Pinto replaced Alvaro Xavier de Castro as prime minister of Portugal.

Alvaro Obregón Salido replaced Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor as president of Mexico.

1923

June 20, day: Mexican revolutionary General Francisco “Pancho” Villa was assassinated in Parral.

August 31, day: After the killing of four Italians in Greece, Italy bombarded and occupied Corfu.

After a riot by blacks in Johnstown, Pennsylvania left several policemen dead, the mayor ordered the expulsion of all blacks, and in addition any Mexicans who had been resident in the town for less than seven years.

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1924

W.H. Sheldon, himself a white scientist of impeccable ancestry, did a study of “The Intelligence of Mexican Children” which offered our American public school systems the hope that while “Negro intelligence” might come to a “standstill at about the 10th year” of its life, nevertheless the intelligence of a child of Mexican origin may not come to a standstill until about its 12th year.

May 26, day: A new Comprehensive Immigration Act was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge in Washington DC. It favored immigration from northern Europe but set severe quotas on immigration from southern Europe, Mexico, and Asia. A quota for each nation was set at 2% of that nation’s population in the US in 1890. Japan would declare May 26th a national day of humiliation.

November 29, day: At 4:00AM in Brussels, Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini died of heart failure following X-ray treatment and surgery for throat cancer at the age of 65.

Julián Carrillo published an article in La Antorcha answering the criticisms of Carlos Chávez: “I do not believe we should deny the Mexican mestizos … the right to produce something new that Europeans have not found so far … I understand my musical knowledge as a continuation of the glorious German music tradition.”

November 30, day: News items relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: • Radio Facsimilie Transmission, the transmission of photographs from the Marconi wireless telegraph offices in London to New York City, was demonstrated by the Radio Corporation of America. • The 1st radio station in Mexico, established by Educación Pública, began broadcasting in Mexico City.

Tzigane, rapsodie de concert, in the version for violin and orchestra, by Maurice Ravel, was performed for the first time, in Paris.

The first issue of Der deutsche Rundfunk containing the writing of their new music correspondent, Kurt Weill, was published.

Two works for chamber orchestra by Arthur Honeger were performed for the first time, at a League of Composers concert in the Klaw Theater, New York: L’ombre and L’homme et la mer.

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December 1, day: A funeral service was held in memory of Giacomo Puccini in the Church of Sainte-Marie, Brussels. The body would be transported by train to Milan.

Plutarco Elías Calles replaced Alvaro Obregón Salido as President of Mexico.

Lady Be Good, a musical comedy with book by Bolton and Thompson, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin, was performed for the initial time in New York, at the Liberty Theater.

Songs by Gershwin included Fascinating Rhythm and the title song. “The Man I Love” was cut before the play reached New York City. This would see 330 performances.

1925

In Jamaica, the Great Depression, the rise of Rastafarianism, and racial fears increased concern over the use of marijuana. The Panama Canal Zone Report concluded that there was no credible evidence that cannabis was habit forming or that it was having any “appreciably deleterious influence” on American soldiers in the Zone, and recommended that no action be taken. However, urban legends that associated horrible crimes with marijuana and Mexicans were given credence in a Surgeon General’s Report.

During the era of prohibition, Sanka would be introduced and coffee consumption would reach new highs. By this year, in the United States, a widespread illicit liquor trade had become well established. “Speakeasies” had made their appearance, and consumption had increased particularly among women. A local businessman named Al Capone, none too smart, none too efficient, and not at all charismatic, was able to seize primacy in Chicago’s underworld due to opportunities offered by prohibition of the legal sale of alcoholic beverages.

In the midst of all this, a young graduate of Englewood Technical Prep Academy on the South Side of Chicago, Milton Sanford Mayer, matriculated at the University of Chicago.

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September 1, Tuesday: In Bucharest, 28 Communists were arrested.

Henri, comte de Baillet-Latour of Belgium replaced Pierre, Baron de Coubertin as President of the International Olympic Committee.

The Bank of Mexico was inaugurated as a central bank, and the only one allowed to print money.

Seeking to escape a stifling professional atmosphere in the United States, Virgil Thomson sailed for France.

1926

July 31, day: In opposition to the anti-clerical stance of President Calles, Mexican priests refused to say mass.

December 1, day: Juan Bautista Sacasa returned to Nicaragua from exile and declared himself head of a provisional government at Puerto Cabezas, in opposition to US-backed President Adolfo Díaz. Mexico immediately extended recognition to Sacasa.

Poema autunnale for violin and orchestra by Ottorino Respighi was performed for the initial time, in Berlin.

1927

January 6, day: Fearful that Mexico was spreading Bolshevism to Nicaragua, threatening US capitalist interests and the Panama Canal, President Calvin Coolidge again ordered US Marines to Managua, to fight the forces of Augusto Sandino in the mountains.

Concerto for organ and orchestra op.27 by Howard Hanson was performed for the first time, at the Eastman Theater, Rochester, New York, directed by the composer. The work was an arrangement of Hanson’s Concerto for organ, strings and harp op.22/3.

The “Gopher Limited,” a Great Northern passenger train, struck a stalled streetcar in Superior, killing 5 and injuring 16.

January 10, day: In Berlin, “Metropolis,” a film by Fritz Lang, was shown for the initial time.

President Calvin Coolidge sent a message to the US federal congress alleging that Mexico was providing large quantities of arms to Liberal rebels in Nicaragua.

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August 29, day: Telephone service began between Washington DC and Mexico City.

At the Broadway Theater, Long Branch, New Jersey, “Strike Up the Band,” an operetta with book by Kaufman, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin, was performed for the initial time. One of the new songs was “The Man I Love.” The play would never reach New York.

November 23, Wednesday: Guy Davenport was born in Anderson, South Carolina. There in the foothills of Appalachia, his father was an agent for the Railway Express Agency.

Otis Chandler was born in Los Angeles. He would straighten out the Los Angeles Times, that had been a rabid right-wing newspaper, transforming it into one of the nation’s finest.

Eric Rotheim obtained a Norwegian patent for an aerosol spray can.

Vocalist Flora McCrea Eaton recorded “By the waters of Minnetonka” on the Victor label.

In Berlin, Vom Tod im Wald, a ballad for bass and ten winds by Kurt Weill to words of Brecht, was performed for the initial time, in the Philharmonic Hall.

In Mexico, execution by firing squad of Padre Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J. as he shouted “Viva Christo Rey!” (he has since been beatified).

An US Army pilot, Rusty Rowell, located the Nicaragua mountain base being used by the Sandinista rebels for raids against National Guard troops and American troops occupying Nicaragua.

December 13, day: Charles Lindbergh flew the “Spirit of St. Louis” nonstop from Washington DC to Mexico City in response to an invitation from the new US ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow, to come and visit in an attempt to lessen the tensions between the two countries. While staying at the embassy for Christmas he would be meeting the ambassador’s daughters, one of whom was Anne Spencer Morrow.

1928

July 17, day: José de León Toral, a Catholic seminary student, believed that General Alvaro Obregón was responsible for religious persecutions. He found him at a dinner in Mexico City celebrating his recent election to the presidency and gunned him down (it’s what Jesús would’ve done).

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December 1, day: Hugo Celmins replaced Peteris Jurasevskis as Prime Minister of Latvia.

Emilio Cándido Portes Gil replaced Plutarco Elías Calles as president of Mexico.

In his Paris apartment, Sergei Prokofiev played through his ballet The Prodigal Son for Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev was generally pleased, but the evening was not without its differences.

Two of the Three Pieces for Small Orchestra by Arnold Bax were performed for the initial time, in Central Hall, Westminster.

1930

February 5, day: Twelve Songs op.48 for voice and piano by Gustav Holst to words of Wolfe was performed completely for the initial time, in Wigmore Hall, London.

Pascal Ortiz Rubio replaced Emilio Cándido Portes Gil as president of Mexico.

1931

September 12, day: Mexico was admitted to the League of Nations.

The Heimwehr (Austrian fascists led by Walter Pfrimer) attempted a putsch in Styria. This would fail.

After learning of pay cuts, many sailors from ten British warships met in Invergordon, Scotland and voted to strike. However, no direct action would be taken.

1932

April 27, day: While returning by sea from Mexico, 34-year-old Hart Crane committed suicide by jumping overboard.

Before Sleep, the sixth of the Six Choruses op.53 by Gustav Holst to medieval lyrics translated by Waddell, was performed for the initial time, at Harvard University.

Piano Trio in e minor by Frederick S. Converse was performed for the initial time, at New England Conservatory, Boston.

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July 15, day: The League of Nations underwrote a loan of 300,000,000 schillings to Austria. In return, Austria renounced annexation or a customs union with Germany.

Until December 8th, Diego Rivera would be painting Henry Thoreau (among others) on the walls at the New Workers School at 51 West 14th Street, New York City, for a 21-panel “Portrait of America” project. Thoreau was in panel E because of his resistance to the war against Mexico and was portrayed behind bars holding out a scroll indicating that the only place for him in such a situation was the hoosgow. Photographs of panels A through G of the 21 panels (only a few of which are still in existence) depict events relevant to Thoreau’s life and times.

September 4, day: Abelardo Luján Rodríguez replaced Pascual Ortiz Rubio as president of Mexico.

1933

May 9, day: Diego Rivera stopped work on his mural “Man at the Crossroads” at the Rockefeller Center on Manhattan Island. The painting was immediately covered and would be destroyed early in the following year. Nelson Rockefeller had objected to a depiction of Lenin in the painting (to our knowledge, nobody had noticed that Henry David Thoreau was also in the painting). Rivera would recreate the mural in Mexico.

May 13, day: General Motors rescinded its Chicago World’s Fair commission to Mexican Marxist artist Diego Rivera.

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July 15, day: From this day until December 8th, Diego María Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez70 painted a portrait of Henry Thoreau in his Middlesex County cell (along with portraits of many other friends of Mexico and of freedom), at the New Workers School at 51 West 14th Street, New York City, as part of Panel E of a 21-panel “Portrait of America” project:

Then Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera returned to Mexico, a nation which had already outlawed human enslavement even before Thoreau had gotten entangled in politics relating to it. 70.“Diego Rivera” to you, gringo. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 293 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1934

December 1, day: Sergei Mironovich Kirov, politburo member and heir presumptive to Stalin, a force for moderation, was assassinated at his office in Leningrad despite being heavily guarded by state security forces. This would presumably have been at the order of Stalin simply because he was the only politician such an act would benefit. Stalin would help carry the coffin, which probably proves something or other. Then there would be a widespread purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as Stalin murderously attempted to ferret out the real murderers (hardly in the fun manner in which OJ would search the golf links of Florida in his relentless pursuit of the real killer).

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, three songs for voice and orchestra by Maurice Ravel to words of Morand, was performed for the initial time, in the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris.

Lázaro Cárdenas del Río replaced Abelardo Luján Rodríguez as President of Mexico.

1935

Formation of the League of Nations’ Permanent Advisory Committee of Seven Experts on Slavery. This committee was limited from the get-go to being sheerly “advisory,” and would be dominated by nations that were more interested in defending their national interests than in dealing with slavery. By 1937 Britain would become discouraged at this, and the committee’s work would be laid down.

As part of the centennial celebration of the Republic of Texas –which had by the sheerest coincidence been established precisely when the Mexican Republic had begun offensively to struggle against race slavery– Clarence R. Wharton wrote a series of historical articles for the Houston Chronicle none of which happened to mention why it had been that at that point in time that as the sheerest coincidence the white men of the Republic had seceded. Among these historical articles that were interesting both for what they considered and for what they failed to consider were several congratulatory articles about Joanna Kent Southmayd.

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1937

November 4, day: Alyeksandr Mosolov was arrested. He would be convicted of “anti-Soviet propaganda” and sentenced to eight years in work camps. Through the intervention of his teachers, he would be released during the following August.

President Lazaro Cardenas of Mexico nationalized 140,000 hectares of land leased to Standard Oil Company of California. This was part of a general nationalization of the country’s oil industry.

Nadia Boulanger conducted the Royal Philharmonic Society, thus becoming the 1st woman to conduct a symphony orchestra in London.

1938

March 18, day: President Lázaro Cárdenas of Mexico nationalized the assets of 17 foreign oil companies (this date would be annually commemorated as Mexico’s Declaration of Economic Independence).

1940

First commercial paprika crops grown, in California. PLANTS

Steroids discovered in the yam (Dioscorea) proved useful for the manufacture of cortisone and sexual hormones. (Consequently, the cost of hormones dropped from $80 to $2 per gram. This was amplified through the work of Russell Marker, who while assigned to study steroids during a research fellowship at Pennsylvania State University discovered he could manufacture progesterone from steroids in the yam. Unable to receive support to further this work, he moved to Mexico City and formed a joint venture named Syntex. Though Marker abandoned his research, Syntex continued work with other chemists. Eventually Syntex manufactured testosterone and 19-norprogesterone, an analog of progesterone that was even more effective at inhibiting ovulation. Administered in an oral version, this would become in 1956 “The Pill.”)

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August 20, Tuesday: Italian bombers attacked Gibraltar.

Praising the pilots of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, Prime Minister Churchill observed that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Former Red Army commander Lev Trotsky was mortally injured near Mexico City by a Stalinist agent wielding a mountain ax. He would soon die and the Stalinist, Roman Mercador del Rio, would receive a 20- year sentence. WORLD WAR II

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December 1, Sunday: The USA cracked the code system being used by the Japanese, giving it total access to all intercepted communications between military commands. According to Captain Safford, chief of OP-20-G, “By 1 December 1941 we had the code solved to a readable extent.” Churchill would write, in GRAND ALLIANCE, that “From the end of 1940 the Americans had pierced the vital Japanese ciphers, and were decoding large numbers of their military and diplomatic telegrams.”

Miguel Avila Camacho replaced Lázaro Cárdenas as president of Mexico.

Incidental music to Garcia Lorca’s play Blood Wedding by Otto Luening was performed for the initial time, at Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont.

The headquarters for Alaskan units of the Coast Guard area were established at Ketchikan.

An auxiliary cruiser of 16,402 tons, formerly the passenger liner Montrose, which had been requisitioned as an Armed Merchant Cruiser in 1939 and renamed HMS Forfar, was on its way under the command of Captain N. Hardy to escort an incoming convoy when it was torpedoed about 500 miles west of Ireland by Leutnant- Commander Otto Kretschmer’s U-boat U99. Badly damaged after 4 torpedo hits over a period of an hour, the Forfar would sink at 4:50AM the following morning, taking 172 down. There would be only 18 survivors.71

71. At a first order of approximation there seems to be a remarkable similarity between fighting at sea and feeding fish.

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(During the previous month this Leutnant-Commander Kretschmer had sunk two other AMCs, the Laurentic and Patroclus. He was Germany’s top U-boat ace with 44 sinkings to his credit! He would be captured when

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U99 was sunk while attacking convoy HX-112 in March 1941, would survive the war, and in Germany’s postwar navy would attain the rank of Admiral! He was, you see, an honorable man. Congratulations on being a survivor, Otto! Yours was truly a life worth having! We’re glad you didn’t drown yourself! WORLD WAR II

1941

April 1, day: In Eritrea, British forces captured Asmera.

In Libya, German troops took Mersa Brega (Marsa al’Burayqah).

In a dozen US states, 400,000 soft coal miners went on strike.

In Peru, the assets of Lufthansa airlines were seized.

In Caracas, mobs set fire to a German-owned hotel.

Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador seized 16 Italian and 7 German merchant ships. WORLD WAR II

June 23, Monday: German troops entered Lithuania and Latvia.

Dmitri Shostakovich volunteered for active service in the Red Army, but was refused because of his poor eyesight.

Hungary and Slovakia declared war on the USSR.

Presidential Advisor Harold Ickes sent a memo to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia.” WORLD WAR II

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July: The US Military Attache in Mexico forwarded a report that the Japanese were constructing special small submarines for attacking the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that a training program then under way included towing them from Japan to positions off the Hawaiian Islands, where they were practicing surfacing and submerging.

WORLD WAR II

The British “Maud” Committee reported that if a government could accumulate and concentrate 10 kilograms of U-235, a weapon could be made. The US Academy of Sciences endorsed the creation of an atomic-bomb program.

Robinson Jeffers’s play THE TOWER BEYOND TRAGEDY was staged at the open-air forest theater in Carmel under the direction of John Gassner, with Dame Judith Anderson as Clytemnestra.

When German troops occupied the town of Vinnitsa in Russia they found in the courtyard of the town’s prison a mass grave. This pit had been 20 metres long by 6 metres wide and turned out to contain 96 Ukrainian political prisoners who had just been executed because it had not been possible to evacuate them prior to the arrival of the Germans. Then, behind the prison in another courtyard, they found a 2nd such pit, from which they did not exhume and count the corpses. Persistent rumors among the civilian population of Vinnitsa would lead to the discovery of such pits at three other locations. In a pear orchard a couple of kilometers outside the town, 38 such pits were mapped, in the old cemetery 40, and in the People’s Park 35. Most of the victims had been Kulaks, small landowners, and had made themselves “enemies of the people” by not embracing the collectivization policies of Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili, known as “Stalin.” When digging would begin on May 25, 1943, the forensics would reveal that the victims had been killed some five years before which is to say, during about 1938. The digging would be interrupted by adverse weather conditions and would never be resumed because, soon afterward, the Red Army would re-occupy the area. However, by the time the Soviets entered the town a total of 9,439 corpses, each with a bullet wound in the neck, had been tabulated. Local Ukrainians reported that from 1938 until the arrival of the German troops in 1941, trucks had kept coming and going day and night, bringing the corpses of these Kulaks from NKVD prisons.

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December 8, Monday: Croatia declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom. Soviet forces retook Tikhvin, 180 kilometers southeast of Leningrad. Führer Adolf Hitler announced the suspension of military operations against the Soviet Union due to severe weather conditions.

A German policy of killing Jews by gas was put into effect. 700 Jews from Kulmhof (Chelmo), 60 kilometers northeast of Lodz, were taken by van (with the exhaust system hooked into the van) to a nearby wood. By the time they arrived, they were dead. From this day on, Jews from the surrounding district were daily transported to Kulmhof for the same purpose. This was the first death camp to begin operations. The region would be emptied of its 360,000 Jews. ANTISEMITISM

This was the day on which the US Pacific fleet had been ordered to steam out of Pearl Harbor to seek battle engagement with the Japanese fleet, but the hulls of many capital vessels of this US fleet were resting on a bed of mud in the warm shallow waters of Pearl Harbor, awaiting recovery and salvage efforts, and oil slicks were glistening upon the surfaces of these waters.

After Japanese soldiers made a quick lunch of the defenses of the British crown colony of Hong Kong, Governor Mark Young was restricted to his quarters in the Peninsula Hotel. British civilians were rounded up and some 20,000 Chinese per month would be deported to the mainland.

US Marines and other Allied nationals were interned at Shanghai, Beijing, and Tientsin.

Striking Force, Asiatic Fleet (Rear Admiral W.A. Glassford) departed Iloilo, Philippine Islands for Makassar Strait, Netherlands East Indies.

The river gunboat Wake (PR-3) was surrendered to Japanese at Shanghai after an attempt to scuttle it failed (The Wake would be the sole United States ship to surrender during this war).

The Potomac River Naval Command, with its headquarters at Washington DC, and the Severn River Naval Command, with its headquarters at Annapolis, Maryland, were established.

The SS President Harrison, en route to evacuate Marines from Chingwangtao, China, ran aground at Sha Wai Shan, China, and was captured by the Japanese.

Japanese aircraft bombed Guam, Wake, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippine Islands. Extensive damage was inflicted on United States Army aircraft at Clark Field, Luzon, Philippine Islands.

Japan interned United States Marines and nationals at Shanghai and Tientsin, China.

A United States naval vessel was sunk by a horizontal bomber: the minesweeper Penguin (AM-33), near Guam in the Marianas Islands.

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Japan invaded Thailand, which capitulated.

Japanese troops landed unopposed at Victoria Point, the southern tip of Burma.

Japanese landed on Bataan Island north of Luzon, Philippine Islands, and on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. (At some point during their occupation of the Philippines, on Luzon, 14 Filipino resistance fighters would be forced to surrender because they ran out of ammunition. Other POWs were required to dig 14 foxholes for them and were then executed. These resistance fighters were forced into the foxholes and earth shovelled around them and stamped down, until only their heads and necks were above ground, so that the Japanese officer could use them for his sword practice. Some of the soldiers having defecated onto banana leaves, shit was stuffed into their mouths with considerable hilarity before the officer drew his sword. HEADCHOPPING

The Chelmno death camp near Lodz, Poland opened for business.

In a conversation with Rosenman, one of his speechwriters, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke of Führer Adolf Hitler as his first target, and “feared that a great many Americans would insist that we make the war in the Pacific at least equally important with the war against Hitler.” He was, however, saying nothing of the sort to the American people.

Instead we were receiving, on this day that will live in infamy, a lie that would send more than 16 million US citizens to war: TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -a date which will live in infamy- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a form reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hit of war or armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days

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or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government had deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending through out the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. — Franklin D. Roosevelt DECLARATION OF WAR

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The British declared war upon Japan. Declarations of war upon Japan were issued by Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the Free French, and Panama. Mexico, Colombia, Belgium, and Egypt did not declare war, but did sever diplomatic relations with Japan. (The USSR would neither declare war upon Japan nor sever diplomatic relations, until that nation lay prostrate and devastated in the very last moments of the hostilities.) WORLD WAR II

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Pearl Harbor I Here are the fireworks. The men who conspired and labored To embroil this republic in the wreck of Europe have got their bargain, — And a bushel more. As for me, what can I do but fly the national flag from the top of the tower, — America has neither race nor religion nor its own language: nation or nothing. Stare, little tower, Confidently across the Pacific, the flag on your head. I built you at the other war’s end, And the sick peace; I based you on living rock, granite on granite; I said, “Look, you gray stones: Civilization is sick: stand awhile and be quiet and drink the sea-wind, you will survive Civilization.” But now I am old, and O stones be modest. Look, little tower: This dust blowing is only the British Empire; these torn leaves flying Are only Europe; the wind is the plane-propellers; the smoke is Tokyo. The child with the butchered throat Was too young to be named. Look no farther ahead. II The war that we have carefully for years provoked Catches us unprepared, amazed and indignant. Our warships are shot Like sitting ducks and our planes like nest-birds, both our coasts ridiculously panicked, And our leaders make orations. This is the people That hopes to impose on the whole planetary world An American peace. (Oh, we’ll not lose our war: my money on amazed Gulliver And his horse-pistols.) Meanwhile our prudent officers Have cleared the coast-long ocean of ships and fishing-craft, the sky of planes, the windows of light: these clearings Make a great beauty. Watch the wide sea; there is nothing human; its gulls have it. Watch the wide sky All day clean of machines; only at dawn and dusk one military hawk passes High on patrol. Walk at night in the black-out, The firefly lights that used to line the long shore Are all struck dumb; shut are the shops, mouse-dark the houses. Here the prehuman dignity of night Stands, as it was before and will be again. Oh beautiful Darkness and silence, the two eyes that see God; great staring eyes. — Robinson Jeffers

At the home of Helen Clarke Grimes, in Spragueville near Smithfield northwest of Providence, Rhode Island, as in many homes in America, the radio was being kept constantly on, not for the soap operas that filled the daytime airwaves, but for the sporadic news flashes about the war situation. Helen made notes for her diary: Dec. 8 — This Monday morning we face a turquoise and coral sunrise with the sick realization that we are at war, and that the radio bulletins are not something by Orson Welles. We had turned the radio off at eleven o’clock last night, worn dull by hours of incessant listening, and were about to go to bed when Charlie and Harriett who had spent the day at his mother’s, came home with two copies of the War Extra.

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We talked until twelve, soberly with no fine frenzy to fire us. Constance and Oliver phoned, but there was nothing to say. It is 8AM and the news is pouring in over the radio. Hongkong has been bombed, and there is a report of 200 casualties suffered at Singapore. Ford Wilkins in Manila says there has been no violence in that city as yet. He tells of Japanese landing on some parts of the Phillipines, of the round-up and internment of Japanese in Manila; of the evacuation of Manila, and of a naval battle reported in the Pacific. A Washington commentator says our losses are far more serious (in Hawaii) than given out. Hangers have been flattened, planes destroyed, there has been torpedo damage — altogether a heavy naval defeat. At night the lights burned in embassy windows along Massachusetts Avenue [in Washington DC]. In Providence, the State Guard has been mobilized, and roving guards placed at industrial plants, at the airport, and along the waterfront. On the West Coast few went to bed last night, excitement running high the thoroughfares crowded. Charles Collingwood in a report from London, speaks of grey parliament buildings, and of Churchill in his black Homburg hat. Arthur Crock, in writing of the American reaction in the “N.Y. Times,” says one can almost hear national unity clicking into place. This is a grim day. Here, in one of the smallest communities in the smallest state in the union, the stark branches of the apple trees are bleak and cold against a lowering sky. Mother is having an asthma attack. Twelve o’clock noon — The sun is out, the sky a thin wash of blue. Japanese planes are only forty miles from Manila. 12:30 — President Roosevelt spoke to the joint session of House and Senate, a short address of five hundred words, at the end of which he asked “that Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday Dec. 7th, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.” The “President Pierce” reported to have been torpedoed, was the first dollar liner on which Oliver sailed to the Orient. A news flash breaks into a concert of chamber music to tell of an air raid now in progress over Manila. 2:30 — The Phillipines direct. At 1:30 a terrific air attack had begun over Manila. It is thought that twenty-five American bombers have been destroyed. As the announcer broadcasts there is the sound of Japanese planes overhead. An N.B.C. announcer on the roof of an eight story building reports a great fire which is destroying the gasoline supply dump on Nichols Field, a base airfield in the heart of Manila. He is panting from his run up eight flights of stairs, the elevator boy having deserted his post. The stars were shining over the city and a bright moon rides

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directly over head. Galvanized iron rooftops stand out like mirrors, the black-out rendered futile by the moon. 3:30 PM — Prime Minister Churchill has delivered a solemn speech in a tired, husky voice. 4:30 PM — The tires of the news boy’s bicycle grit on the gravel as he wheels up to the door. There is a thud as the “Providence Bulletin” hits the door. Its headlines have no power to shock those already benumbed by the radio. 9:35 PM — There is a report from the “San Francisco News Chronicle” that fifty unidentified planes have been sighted flying from the south west toward San Francisco. The city is blacked-out to a depth of ten miles. 10:00 PM — An air raid siren is blowing in San Francisco. All radio stations but one are off the air. Planes are said to have been seen off the Golden Gate. The man in the street is wondering if this is an air raid test of the real thing. A copy of the November “Atlantic Monthly” lies on the table, the back page given over to a vacation ad: “Hawaii. Standing two thousand miles out in the gentle latitudes of the South Pacific ...” San Francisco motorists are driving without headlights. The all-clear signal has been given. False alarm or practice work-out? 11:00 PM — A summary of to-day’s events — and so ends the first day of this war. We go to bed wondering why, when for months there has been a strong possibility of war with Japan, our forces were caught napping. Will close this with two lines from Shakespeare. King John, I think. “For when you should be told they do prepare The tidings come that they are all arrived.”

It goes on: “O where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept?” Oh, where indeed!

December 11, Thursday: Canti di prigionia for chorus, two pianos, two harps and percussion by Luigi Dallapiccola, to words of Mary, Queen of Scots, Boethius and Savonarola, was performed completely for the initial time, in the Teatro delle Arti of Rome.

Lieutenant Haruki Iki flew over the area of ocean in which his flight of torpedo bombers had struck two ships on the previous day, killing 840, to drop a bouquet of flowers.72

In Washington DC, four of the cherry trees were found to have been chopped down in what must have been a retaliation for the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (because messages had been pinned to the stumps). In hope to prevent future vandalism, for the duration of the war the government would be referring to these trees

72. Maybe he should have been a florist. (Albert Einstein would suspect that maybe he should have been a plumber.) “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 307 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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as “Oriental” flowering cherries.

Soviet forces captured Istra, 50 kilometers west of Moscow. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had hoped and expected, Germany and Italy declared a state of war with the United States. GERMAN WAR DECLARATION

Adolf Hitler addressed the Reichstag in regard to these “circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt,” saying that he had been given information of “a plan prepared by President Roosevelt ... according to which his intention was to attack Germany in 1942 with all the resources of the United States. Thus our patience has come to a breaking point.”

The United States immediately declared by joint resolutions of the Congress a state of war with Germany and Italy. Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic declared war against Germany and Italy. Poland declared a state of war with Japan. Mexico severed diplomatic relations with Germany and

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Italy.

Wake Island’s Marine defenders repulsed a Japanese landing attempt and sank two of its destroyers: • Destroyer Hayate, by Marine shore batteries. • Destroyer Kisaragi, by Marine aircraft.

The Japanese effected landings at Legaspi, Luzon, Philippine Islands. WORLD WAR II

At the home of Helen Clarke Grimes, in Spragueville near Smithfield northwest of Providence, Rhode Island, as in many homes in America, the radio was being kept constantly on, not for the soap operas that filled the daytime airwaves, but for the sporadic news flashes about the war situation. Helen made notes for her diary: Dec. 11 — Now that President Roosevelt has all the power he has demanded in his insatiable desire to rule absolute, it remains to be seen if he is capable of applying it wisely — or if he will continue his Grand Court of Lagado. It is no time for national disunity, the people must stand or fall with the man thrice acclaimed by the majority. An early report gives news of a Japanese battleship sunk by American bombers off the Phillipines. This morning, Hitler in one of his high flown speeches declared Germany at war with the United States. Italy obediently tailed along. By 10 o’clock we had received word that the United States had declared war against Germany. A late bulletin reveals that there were four attacks on our fleet in Pearl Harbor: three on Sunday and a fourth on Monday, which may have been the basis of a preposterous rumor emanating from Washington itself the early part of this week that ninety percent of the fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor had been destroyed.

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1942

February 27, Friday: A joint United States/Mexican defense commission was established.

Japanese troops captured Mindoro Island in the Philippines.

During a 7-hour battle in the Java Sea near Surabaya, in which an enemy force was attempting to provide cover for a Java invasion convoy, a total of 25 Allied warships and 4 Japanese warships were sunk, and a total of 6,339 died (both sides). 152 tin fish were fired by enemy warships.

The Kortenaer, Lieutenant-Commander Kroese’s 1,640-ton destroyer, was struck amidships by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro at 17:13PM, broke in two and sank almost immediately. 59 died out of a crew of 171. The destroyer HMS Encounter would rescue 113 but one of these would soon also die. The De Ruyter, a 7,548-ton Dutch light cruiser, flagship of the Allied Forces Commander, was struck by a torpedo from the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro at 23:32PM and went down. 366 died including Rear Admiral Karel Doorman RNN. There were 70 floaters. The Java, a 7,205-ton Dutch light cruiser, was struck by a torpedo from Rear Admiral Takagi’s 14,980-ton heavy cruiser Nachi, and sank in 15 minutes. 530 died. There were 35 floaters. The 1,600-ton British destroyer HMS Jupiter (Lieutenant-Commander N. Thew), part of an Allied force under the command of Rear Admiral K.W.F.M. Doorman of the Royal Netherlands Navy, was hit by a torpedo. Four officers and 91 ratings died.73 The survivors were taken prisoner by the Japanese and 27 of them would die in captivity. The list of course goes on and on.

During the roar and terror of this battle there was an unrecognized act of gallantry. The HMAS Perth was a 6,830-ton Australian cruiser that had been launched in 1934 under the name HMS Amphion, then transferred in 1939 to the Australian Navy and renamed. When the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter was hit, Captain Hector Waller pulled his Perth out of line to position it between the Japanese warships and the men on the sinking ship.United States naval vessel sunk: • Seaplane tender Langley (AV-3), by horizontal bombers, 75 miles south of Tjilatjap, Java, 8 degrees 58 minutes South, 109 degrees 2 minutes East

United States naval vessel damaged: • Heavy Cruiser Houston (CA-30), by naval gunfire, battle of Java Sea WORLD WAR II

73. Isn’t is curious, the macabre way these statistics are routinely kept? The number of officer deaths gets cited, then the number of “ratings” deaths? Imagine trying to say to a “rating” who is going down for the third time, “Look, fellow, you’re obviously taking this pretty hard –it’s your death and all that– but can’t you at least derive some consolation from the fact that this would have been a significantly greater loss to us, had you been an officer? God must have loved you enlisted types, he made so many of you. Soon you will lose consciousness — and then you’ll be a mere nameless, painless statistic who has given your life for your country! Don’t sweat it, it’s the way things are. Come on now, at least you can hum a bit from ‘There’ll always be an England’....” 310 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March: The experiments with Zyklon-B gas had already begun in the previous year. The first crematoria had already been constructed, for the disposal of large numbers of Jewish bodies. Thus it could have come as no surprise to those in the know, when the 1st transports of Jews began to a concentration camp in the vicinity of the village of Auschwitz, Poland.

But, was Führer Adolf Hitler one of those who was in the know? In this year we know that he confided to aides that if Jews could not be deported to Madagascar, if that was impractical, then at least they could be deported to the Soviet Union. Was he unaware at this point that the Final Solution program was already under way?

Lest you suppose that concentration camps only happen in Europe: During this month the dusty little Texas/ Mexico border town of Kenedy, some 62 miles southeast of San Antonio, with, this goes without saying, a depressed economy, persuaded the United States Border Patrol to lease the former J.M. Nichols CCC Camp on its outskirts as an internment camp, for “aliens” or whatever.

The United States was arresting and would intern everyone of German, Japanese, or Italian descent residing in Latin America and South America. All together there would be about 20 such facilities scattered across the US. Families would be sent to an internment camp at Crystal City, Texas while the Kenedy camp would be filled with the single males.

The Kenedy camp had nine barracks and several smaller buildings. Additional facilities, including a large

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dining hall and kitchen, a headquarters, a hospital, officers’ and nurses’ quarters, officers’ kitchen and dining room, and 200 16-by-16-foot prefabricated building huts called “Victory Huts” would be constructed.

A double barbed-wire fence ten feet high would be thrown around the perimeter. Guard towers would occupy the four corners, and there would be a guard tower at the entrance gate and one in the middle of the long side at the rear. There would be censors trained in the German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish languages to review and approve all communications in and out. All job applicants for the 90 camp jobs were to be cleared in advance by the FBI and the State Department. The various sheriffs’ departments of Karnes and surrounding counties were briefed so they would help track down escapees. (Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German-American Bund, and a dozen former sailors from the Graf Spee that had scuttled itself at Montevideo, would escape and be recaptured.) WORLD WAR II

April 21, Tuesday: Clarinet Sonata by Leonard Bernstein was performed for the initial time, in the Institute of Modern Art, Boston, with the composer himself at the piano.

German troops who had been surrounded at Demyansk were relieved after 2 1/2 months.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the seizure of all enemy-controlled patents, some 25,000 in number.

News Headline: “‘Manzanar Nice Place – It Better Than Hollywood,’ by United Press”

News Headline: “City to Clear Japantown Slums”

News Headline: “‘Food for Victory’ from Seized Japanese Farms”

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General Joseph Stilwell set up his Headquarters at Lashio, Burma and issued Battle Order 0001 to the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma.

The Kenedy Alien Detention Camp received, as its initial consignment of internees, 156 Japanese, 456 Germans, and 14 Italians. The Japanese had been brought mainly from Mexico but the Germans and Italians had been brought largely from Central and South America.

(However, the sad fact is that 80% of the prisoners in the three Texas camps would come from Peru and about 70% of these would be Japanese who had been deported arbitrarily not because they provided any sort of security problem but as a result of race prejudice and because they had been strong competition economically for “native” Peruvians.) WORLD WAR II

May 13, Wednesday: The Bureau of Navigation was renamed Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Japanese troops crossed the Salween River, Burma, driving toward Kengtung.

Soviet troops began to evacuated the Kerch Peninsula.

A German submarine sank a Mexican oil barge in the Gulf of Mexico (Mexico would make a formal complaint).

The French agreed to immobilize three of their warships at Martinique in the French West Indies. WORLD WAR II

May 22, Friday: Incidental music to LaGallienne’s (after Carroll) play Alice in Wonderland by Irving Fine was performed for the initial time, in John Hancock Hall, Boston.

The US War Production Board announced that new tires and safety razors would not be available to the average citizen for at least two years.

Later Mexico would decide retroactively that as of this date it had entered into a state of war against Germany, Italy, and Japan. WORLD WAR II

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June 1: An airplane from the USSR arrived in New York. Aboard was a box of microfilm containing the score and parts of the Symphony no.7 “Leningrad” by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Great Britain restricted the clothing ration by one-quarter.

The United States Marine Corps sank so low as to allow some American black men to enlist (in all of World War II only a total of 19,168 such enlistments would be tolerated).

In fierce fighting, German and Italian forces eliminated the Free French defenders of Bir Hacheim, Libya.

After the sinking of a couple of its ships by German submarines, the government of Mexico declared that a state of war had existed with Germany, Italy and Japan retroactive to May 22d.

On this night the Royal Air Force sent 1,036 planes over Essen, Germany (and, they weren’t waving hello).

Liberty Barricade, an underground newspaper of the Polish Socialist Party, published an extensive description of gassing at the Chelmo concentration camp. At least one of the German death camps was at this point exposed, to Europe and the West.

August 19, Wednesday: A draft law was passed in Mexico.

A commando raid on Dieppe in German-occupied France by mostly Canadian forces was repulsed with over 50% casualties. 1,000 Allied soldiers were killed and 2,000 were taken prisoner. 345 Germans die in the raid. WORLD WAR II

All the patients (numbering several hundred) at a Jewish mental asylum at Otwock near Warsaw were sent to Treblinka. ANTISEMITISM

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November 9, Monday: 4,000 Jews from Lublin arrived at Majdanek on this day. ANTISEMITISM

New Zealanders entered Sîdi Barrâni, Egypt.

With Vichy acquiescence, German forces occupied airfields in Tunisia.

Canada and Mexico broke relations with the Vichy government.

United States Transport Leedstown (AP-73) was sunk by submarine and aircraft torpedo and horizontal bomber near Algiers.

1943

February 20, Saturday: Die Kluge by Carl Orff to his own words after the Brothers Grimm was performed for the initial time, in the Städtische Bühnen, Frankfurt-am-Main.

The 13th of 18 patriotic fanfares for brass and percussion commissioned by Eugene Goossens and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Fanfare for Commandos by Bernard Rogers, was performed for the initial time, in Cincinnati.

Hollywood consented to censorship of movies by the Office of War Information.

In Mexico, the volcano Parícutin sprang up in the middle of a farmer’s cornfield.

US Motor Minesweeper YMS-133 foundered and sank in Coos Bay, Oregon.

German forces attacked through the Qasserine Pass of Tunisia, causing US troops to retreat 30 kilometers toward the Hamra Pass.

Japanese Destroyer Oshio and its patrol vessel were sunk by US submarine Albacore (SS-218) north of Manus in the Admiralty Islands, at 0 degrees 50 minutes South, 146 degrees 6 minutes East. WORLD WAR II

May 31, Monday: In East Los Angeles, the “Zoot Suit” riots (basically, between enlisted personnel stationed at military bases in the area and on liberty, and local Mexican-American young men).

The US submarine Steelhead (SS-280) laid mines off Erimo Saki, Japan. WORLD WAR II

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October 9, Saturday: O Salutaris for solo voice and organ by Arthur Honegger was performed for the initial time, in Eglise Saint-Séverin, Paris.

Mexico reinstituted the death penalty, that it had abandoned in 1928.

The US Army Air Forces Psychological Film Test Unit was activated at Santa Ana Army Air Base in California. Lieutenant Colonel James J. Gibson would direct a program of the development of films to be used for personnel classification testing, aircraft recognition training, and studies of training film effectiveness.74 PSYCHOLOGY

In Ancona a Catholic priest, Don Bernardino, warned local Jews of an impending roundup. Most were able to find hiding places with Christian families; only ten were caught and deported.

On Yom Kippur a hundred Jews were deported from Trieste to the Auschwitz death camp. ANTISEMITISM

United States Destroyer Buck (DD-420) was sunk by submarine torpedo in Italian waters, at 39 degrees 48 minutes North, 14 degrees 36 minutes East. WORLD WAR II

1944

Maurice Garland Fulton’s DIARY & LETTERS OF JOSIAH GREGG. EXCURSIONS IN MEXICO & CALIFORNIA 1847-1850 (U of Oklahoma P).

74. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994 316 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April 10, Monday: Soviet troops occupied Odessa after heavy fighting.

Soviet forces captured Radauti and Suceava in northeast Romania.

Dr. Robert Burns Woodward and Dr. W.E. Doering, working for the Polaroid Corporation at Harvard University, produced the first synthetic quinine.

Lt. Antonio de la Lama Rojas attempted to gun down President Manuel Avila Camacho during a conversation at the Presidential Palace in Mexico City. He failed and would later be seriously wounded by guards (he would die on April 12th).

Arnold Schoenberg’s organ work Variations on a Recitative was performed for the initial time, in New York.

The USSR captured Odessa.

German submarine sunk: U-68, by aircraft (VC-58)from escort carrier Guadalcanal (CVE-60), off Madeira Island, 33 degrees 25 minutes North, 3 degrees 58 minutes West. WORLD WAR II

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May 3, Wednesday: Anne Frank to her diary: “I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There’s in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.”

Two Harvard University chemists, Dr. Robert B. Underwood and Dr. William E. Doering, announced the development of synthetic quinine.

The Mexican government banned the siesta.

In the northern Atlantic Ocean and in the western Mediterranean Sea on this day, torpedoes from submarines who were deliberately going about their intended business of destruction were continuing to do our dirty work for us as US Destroyer Escorts Donnell (DE-56) and Menges (DE-320) as they were deliberately going about their intended business of destruction were struck and damaged. Our urge to destroy, our urge to kill, to murder and rage, were receiving full play. We were well on our way to destroying and disfiguring everything that we had been building up, cultivating, and growing — after which of course we would need to begin all over again (this time with “Dear Kitty,” the diary that Anne Frank had been keeping there in her hidey hole, but without the presence of Annelies Marie Frank herself who in the year 2011 under other circumstances would have reached 82 years of age).

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1945

March 6: Resolution approved by the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace at Mexico: Inter- READ THE FULL TEXT

American Reciprocal Assistance and Solidarity (Act of Chapultepec). The final German offensive of the war began — an effort to defend the vital oil fields of Hungary, without access to which their war machine would grind to a halt. GERMANY

That night, Dutch underground fighters intending to ambush and steal a German lorry instead fired into a staff car, killing the driver and orderly and seriously wounding SS General Hans Albin Rauter. Some hours later, German troops came across the damaged BMW and took Rauter to the St. Joseph-Stichting hospital on the outskirts of Apeldoorn — after a series of blood transfusions he would be arrested by British Military Police in a hospital at Eutin and turned over to the Dutch. Soon after this ambush, the SD arrived on the scene. In charge of the SD’s investigation was SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Eberhardt Schongarth, who had 116 men rounded up, taken to the scene of the ambush, and executed (their bodies fill a mass grave in Heidehof Cemetery in the village of Ugchelen). In various Gestapo prisons in different parts of Holland, prisoners were taken out and shot as part of the reprisal. The Germans would execute a total of 263 by way of reprisal. Hans Albin Rauter would be tried by a Special Court of Justice at the Hague and on March 25, 1949 in the dunes near Scheveningen Prison would face a firing squad. Eberhardt Schongarth would be tried by a British Military Court on another war crime charge and in 1946 would be hanged. WORLD WAR II

March 8, Thursday: The Inter-American Conference, which had been in session in Mexico City since February 21st, came to an end.

Japanese naval vessel sunk: Transport #143, by Army aircraft, Formosa area, 23 degrees 35 minutes North, 121 degrees 35 minutes East. WORLD WAR II

November 7, day: Vladimir Ussachevsky was honorably discharged from the United States Army.

Mexico and the Union of South Africa ratified the United Nations Charter.

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1946

December 1, day: The state of Rheinland-Pfalz was created by joining Rheinland-Hessen-Naussau with Pfalz.

Miguel Alemán Váldez replaced Miguel Avila Camacho as president of Mexico.

The first version of the Symphony no.3 by Anton Bruckner was performed for the initial time, in Dresden, 73 years after it was composed.

1947

March 3, day: President Harry S Truman arrived in Mexico on a state visit and, staying on safe ground, reaffirmed his predecessor’s Good Neighbor Policy.

1948

April 30, day: British forces entered the Battle for Jaffa on the side of the Arabs. Their tank assault was halted by Jewish infantry.

Land Rover automobiles were introduced at the Amsterdam Auto Show.

The public prosecutor in München decided not to appeal the court decision of October 17th, 1947 exonerating Werner Egk.

The charter of the Organization of American States was signed in Bogotá by representatives of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela (this was to take effect on December 13th, 1951). READ THE FULL TEXT

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1949

January 12, day: Sonatas and Interludes for piano by John Cage was performed publicly for the initial time, in the Carnegie Recital Hall of New York City (parts of this had been performed as early as 1946).

American Pipers for orchestra by Henry Cowell was performed for the initial time, in New Orleans.

After 65 days of fighting, Chinese communists completed the annihilation of a nationalist army at Hwai-Hai n one of the largest battles in modern history. The nationalist cabinet resolved that all but essential personnel must evacuate from Nanking.

Burial of the body of Felix Longoria, who had been killed in World War II, had been refused in his home town in Texas (Three Rivers) because –as the only funeral director in town expressed the matter– “white people” had objected to the providing of his services to “people of Mexican origin” (thank you for your service, now go lie down in a ditch: the solution decided upon would be to inter the remains of this war veteran at the Arlington National Cemetery).

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March 8, day: In the face of moves by the legislature to investigate corruption, Prime Minister Sun Fo of China resigns with all his government. He was replaced by General Ho Ying-chin, an advocate of peace with the Communists.

Four Protestant ministers were sentenced to life in prison by a Sofia court for treason, espionage and black marketeering. Eleven others receive prison sentences ranging from one year to 15 years.

In accepting the resignation of Carlos Chávez as director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, the managing council announced the dissolution of the orchestra. “The Symphony Orchestra of Mexico was, in reality, the personal work of Carlos Chávez who founded it in 1928 and directed it uninterruptedly for 21 seasons.” The Red Pony, a film with music by Aaron Copland, was shown for the initial time, in the Mayfair Theater, New York.

In South Vietnam, the French reinstalled Bao Dai as their puppet head of state.

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1950

June 26, day: President Harry S Truman ordered US air and sea forces to aid South Korean troops in resisting the Communist forces of North Korea, which had on the previous day invaded South Korea.

KOREAN WAR

Mexico City television station XHTV turned on its transmitter. Mexico was to be the 1st Spanish-speaking country to inaugurate television service.

August 18, day: UN forces recaptured Pohang on the east coast. A North Korean drive toward Taegu was halted by UN troops.

The head of the Belgian Communist Party, Julien Lahaut, was gunned down by two men at his home near Liège.

The Zato Concrete Co. of Teaneck, New Jersey announced the formation of the A-Bomb Shelter Corp — for as little as $1,500 clients might have an atomic bomb shelter in their yard. “You, sir, yes you, how much is your life worth to you?”

Morton Sobell, a radar and electronics expert, was taken into custody by FBI agents in Laredo, Texas as he was being deported from Mexico. He was implicated in the same alleged plot to steal the nation’s atomic secrets which included David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs. KOREAN WAR

August 31, day: North Korean forces begin an offensive to collapse the Pusan perimeter.

The first general television broadcast in Mexico.

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1951

July 7, day: The Portage Canal was shut down.

Mexico ended its state of war with Germany.

Elbert Russell’s “Quakerism and Modern Bible Study” appeared in Friends’ Intelligencer (it would also appear in THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE by William I. Hull).

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September 7, day: William S. Burroughs, not yet a weird author, was on an endlessly drunken vacation escape in Mexico when he suddenly decided to relieve everyone’s boredom by “doing his William Tell act”:

(next screen)

Bill, heir to a calculating-machine fortune, had already failed in East Texas as a farmer whose crops were oranges, cotton, and marijuana. He and his wife Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs and their two children had gone on the lam a step ahead of the American illicit-drug authorities. At the sodden party in question, Joan, seated in an armchair, cooperatively set a 6-ounce highball glass atop her head, turning to the side since, she joked, “I can’t stand the sight of blood.” He took careful aim with his Star .380 automatic pistol. A little hole appeared in his wife’s temple, the glass fell off her head and rolled around intact on the linoleum floor, and she slumped.75

Here he is, playfully posing later with a pistol for a book jacket:

October 15, day: The Egyptian Parliament voted to end the 1936 defense treaty with Great Britain. This would require British forces to pull out of the Suez Canal Zone and the Sudan.

In Mexico City, Carl Djerassi perfected a synthetic progesterone pill — creating an exceedingly delicate situation for, although the medication was obviously to be a birth control pill, no one including Djerassi could afford to be found guilty of testing or sponsoring it for such use. 75. An ambulance would take the victim to the Red Cross Hospital near Orizaba but when it would arrive she would be pronounced dead. The Mexican authorities would charge the shooter with criminal imprudence but while on bail awaiting his trial, his lawyer would kill someone. When his lawyer fled, Burroughs also would flee, winding up as a druggie along the north coast of Africa. He would author such noted works as NAKED LUNCH (1959) and ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION (1971) and would credit this William Tell incident with having gotten him started as a writer. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 325 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 20, day: An experimental nuclear reactor at Arco, Idaho produced enough electricity to light four lightbulbs (wattage of these bulbs not of record).

The independence of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was recognized by Great Britain.

Baja California became the 29th state of Mexico.

Two of Les chants de Nectaire for flute op.200 by Charles Koechlin were performed for the first time, at the Schola Cantorum, Paris.

1952

March 18, day: The government of Mexico returned a painting entitled “Nightmare of War and Dream of Peace” to the artist Diego Rivera, that he had prepared for an art exhibit in Paris. Officials had found offensive the “pro- Communist” nature of the work.

December 1, day: Adolfo Ruiz Cortines replaced Miguel Alemán Váldez as president of Mexico.

The New York Daily News reported on its front page about a recent operation in Denmark whereby Bronx native George Jorgensen had become Christine Jorgensen.

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1953

October 17, day: In Mexico, women were granted full citizenship.

December 31, day: The Mexican Congress granted the rights to vote and hold political office to married women over 18 and single women over 21.

1954

September 26, day: 1,168 died when the Toya Maru, a commercial ferry, sank in the Tsugaru Strait off Hokkaido, Japan in a typhoon. TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

This typhoon also killed about 500 other people.

Diego Rivera was readmitted to membership in the Communist Party of Mexico (he had been expelled in 1929 as a Trotskyite).

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1955

Our national birthday, the 4th of July, day: Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam claimed complete victory over the Hoa Hao rebels.

General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin, and several other top Soviet officials visited an Independence Day celebration at the US ambassador’s residence in Moscow. This was the 1st time senior Soviet officials had visited the residence or attended such an event and was taken as a desire to improve relations.

The Argentine government rescinded its expulsion order on two Vatican officials thrown out of the country on June 15th.

In congressional elections in Mexico, women voted for the first time.

1956

June 25, day: According to the official results if you need to believe them, Egyptian voters had simultaneously approved a new constitution and a 6-year term as President for Gamal Abdel Nasser.

This day’s edition of Sovyetskii Muzykant identified Sofia Gubaidulina, a student at Moscow Conservatory, as the winner of 1st prize in gymnastics at an athletic competition of students at all of Moscow’s higher education institutions.

Robert Briscoe became the first Jew to be Lord Mayor of Dublin.

20 Cuban exiles, one of whom was named Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, were arrested in Mexico City on the charge of plotting to assassinate Cuban President Fulgencio Batista.

Darius Milhaud’s Piano Concerto no.5 was performed for the initial time, at Lewisohn Stadium, New York.

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December 2: Israel announced that its forces had withdrawn to more than 50 kilometers east of the Suez Canal.

After a sea voyage from Mexico on the 60-foot yacht Granma, 81 revolutionaries under the leadership of Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz landed in Oriente province on the southeastern coast of Cuba. Poor communications between the expeditionaries and the Cuban underground, bad weather, and government knowledge of their arrival would enable Fulgencio Batista’s forces to kill or capture most of them. A dozen survivors found refuge in the Sierra Maestra mountainous jungles west of Santiago including the Castro brothers Fidel and Raúl, and Che Guevara.

1957

November 24, day: Diego Rivera died in Mexico City at the age of 70.

Cultivation op.104, a setting for chorus of two Russian folksongs by Dmitri Shostakovich, was performed for the initial time, in Moscow Conservatory Bolshoy Hall.

1958

December 1, day: Fire broke out at Chicago’s Our Lady of the Angels, killing 90 students and three nuns.

The Territorial Assembly of Ubangi-Shari voted to accept the offer of autonomy with close association to France, and renamed itself the Central African Republic.

Martial law and curfews were lifted in Jordan.

Adolfo López Mateos replaced Adolfo Ruiz Cortines as president of Mexico.

Arnold Schoenberg’s unfinished oratorio Jacob’s Ladder, to his own words, for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, was performed for the initial time, in Hamburg.

1959

October 27, day: The Moscow newspapers Pravda and Izvestia printed the 1st publicly available photograph of the far side of the moon, taken by Lunik III on October 7th.

A Pacific hurricane struck the Mexican state of Colima killing more than 1,000 with its torrential rains that initiated devastating mudslides.

Harmonica Concerto by Heitor Villa-Lobos was performed for the initial time, in Edison Hall, Jerusalem.

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1961

January 24, day: The commandeered cruise ship Santa Maria put in at St. Lucia to let off 2 wounded crewmembers and 7 other crew.

Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe got divorced in Juarez, Mexico.

A federal judge in New York determined that the schools of New Rochelle were racially segregated and ordered the city to create a desegregation plan.

April 17, day, 1961: 1,500 Cuban exiles, armed and trained by the United States, invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón) in Las Villas Province.

Demonstrators attacked the United States Information Service building in Buenos Aires with rocks and hand grenades. Anti-US demonstrations took place in Bogotá, Mexico City, Caracas, Venezuela, Montevideo, and Santiago de Chile.

April 21, day: Havana newspapers reported that 14,000 had been arrested since the start of the Bay of Pigs invasion, 31 of whom had been executed.

Police and soldiers battled anti-US demonstrators who were attempting to march on the National Palace in Mexico City. 150 were injured, 200 arrested.

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August 28, day: A Most Wanted Bulletin would be promulgated in Charlotte, North Carolina, signed of course by none other than FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, charging Robert F. Williams with unlawful interstate flight to avoid prosecution on a charge of “kidnapping.”

BLACKMAILER-IN-CHIEF It is not clear that there was ever any basis for such an accusation — when eventually the fugitive would be taken into custody and extradited, the authorities would immediately desist from such a prosecution. The accused would nevertheless for an extended duration be forced to flee, first to Canada, then to Mexico, then to Cuba, where he would make regular radio addresses on “Radio Free Dixie” (a station enabled by Dr. Fidel Castro), and issue a newspaper, The Crusader. During this period in Cuba, also, he would be writing NEGROES WITH GUNS.

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1964

December 1, day: At the White House, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and Defense Secretary Robert Strange McNamara, a bunch of guys with good haircuts without a single clue, recommended to President Lyndon Baines Johnson precisely the opposite of what any sane or decent adviser might have recommended: a policy of gradual escalation of US military involvement in Vietnam.

Sic ‘em, boy! Viet Cong fighters overran the district headquarters at Thiengiao east of Saigon. After killing the district chief and carrying of a large weapons cache, they retired before government reinforcements could arrive.

West Germany acceded to the Common Market agricultural plan, paving the way for the integration of the agricultures of the six member countries.

Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños replaced Adolfo López Mateos as president of Mexico.

Malawi, Malta, and the Republic of Zambia were admitted to the United Nations.

“Three Against Christmas,” a comic opera by Andrew Imbrie to words of Wincor, was performed for the initial time in Berkeley, California.

1967

October 29, day: Viet Cong forces attacked the town and US base at Locninh north of Saigon.

The first of the Five Fantasies for organ by Ross Lee Finney was performed for the initial time, in the First Unitarian Church, San Francisco.

The Mexican government distributed over 1,000,000 hectares of land to 9,600 families in the State of Chihuahua.

Symphony no.8 op.106 by Vincent Persichetti was performed for the initial time, in Berea, Ohio.

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1968

July 26, day: About 20 commandos attacked the US air base at Udorn, Thailand. Three people were killed, four wounded. Two of the planes were damaged.

Vietnamese peace activist Truong Dinh Dzu was sentenced to five years in prison by a Saigon military court for conduct “detrimental to the anti-Communist spirit of the people and the armed forces.”

Seven Arab terrorists and two Israelis were killed in a battle near Jericho.

Riul for clarinet and piano by Isang Yun was performed for the initial time, in Erlangen.

Los visitantes, the third revision of Panfilo and Lauretta, an opera by Carlos Chávez to words of Kallman after Boccaccio translated by Lindsay and Hernández Moncada, was performed for the initial time, in Mexico City.

July 30, day: Street battles broke out in Mexico City between police, federal troops, and students over charges of police brutality.

Symphonie pour l’univers Claudelien op.427b for orchestra by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, in Aix-en-Provence.

July 31, day: The French government declared support for the secessionist province of Biafra.

The Mexican government used troops to quell student demonstrations in Villahermosa and Jalapa.

August 1, day: Kristian Eldjarn replaced Asgeir Asgeirsson as president of Iceland.

About 10,000 people gathered in Prague demanding to know the truth about the talks in Cierna. After four days of meetings in Cierna, Czechoslovakia, Soviet and Czechoslovak leaders declared a compromise had been reached. Liberal reforms and criticism of them would be scaled back.

50,000 students, joined by the Rector of the National University, marched peacefully through Mexico City to protest police brutality.

Rondo for string quartet by Anton Webern was performed for the initial time, at the Fourth International Webern Festival, Hanover, New Hampshire, 62 years after it was composed. On the same program, Instant Remembered for soprano, orchestra and tape by Ernst Krenek to words of various authors, was performed for the initial time, the composer conducting. The work was dedicated to the memory of Webern.

Music for saxophone and piano by Leslie Bassett was performed for the initial time, in Tempe, Arizona.

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August 9, day: The Territorial Assembly of French Polynesia voted to ban nuclear testing in its area.

After a 24-day strike, Canadian postal workers agreed to return to work with a compromise contract.

About 150,000 students at the National University and the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City began a strike. They demanded freedom for all political prisoners, the dissolution of special riot police, the resignation of the Mexico City police chief, and indemnities to students injured in July, when police had invaded the university campus.

Police raided the National University in Montevideo, searching for the kidnapped president of the state telephone and electricity service. This precipitated what would turn out to be ten days of fighting between students and police.

Fan Music, a sound work by Max Neuhaus, was inaugurated on the roof of 137-141 Bowery in New York, on the composer’s 29th birthday. It would run for three days.

August 28, day: Thus far in the year, there have been 221 student protests against the US presence in Vietnam, at 101 colleges and universities. During the Democratic national convention in Chicago, 10,000 antiwar protesters were confronted on downtown streets by 26,000 police and national guardsmen, who on this day began to riot. The brutal crackdown had full live coverage on network TV and we all watched the batons rise and fall as 800 defenseless demonstrators were being whacked at. in this riot the police and national guardsmen injured 100 citizens and arrested 175. The United States of America was experiencing a level of social unrest unseen since its Civil War era a hundred years before.

The Czechoslovak National Assembly declared the invasion of the country illegal and demanded the withdrawal of troops.

In Guatemala City, the pro-Communist Rebel Armed Forces of Guatemala attempted to kidnap US ambassador John Mein. Mein broke loose and ran and was shot dead by his kidnappers.

Police battled student demonstrators in front of the National Palace in Mexico City.

September 19, day: Malaysia broke diplomatic relations with the Philippines.

Jiri Hajek, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, was sacked under intense pressure from the USSR.

Arab terrorists killed six Israeli soldiers near Jenin. The terrorists were then annihilated by the Israelis.

Mexican armed forces took control of the National University in Mexico City, following seven weeks of student unrest.

September 24, day: The Kingdom of Swaziland was admitted to the United Nations.

Two days of battles between students and police in Mexico City left three people dead.

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October 2, day: In street fighting between Mexican troops and protesting students in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, Tlatelolco, Mexico City, unknown hundreds were killed when security forces opened fire on the crowd. Officially, 49 were killed and several hundred injured, but many bodies had been removed by the government before an independent count could be made.

Marcel Duchamp died in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the age of 81.

October 12, day: The Republic of Equatorial Guinea, under President Francisco Macias Nguema, was declared independent of Spain.

The Games of the Nineteenth Olympiad of the Modern Era opened in Mexico City.

October 27, day: In London, 50,000 protested the war in Vietnam.

The Games of the Nineteenth Olympiad of the Modern Era closed in Mexico City. In 16 days of competition, 5,516 athletes from 112 countries had participated. Two black American athletes on the winners’ podium raised fists in black gloves during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

String Trio by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, in the National Gallery, Washington DC.

1969

September 4, day: Israeli forces struck into southern Lebanon to destroy bases used by Palestinian terrorists to send rockets into Israeli villages.

US Ambassador to Brazil C. Burke Elbrick was kidnapped in Rio de Janeiro by anti-government commandos. They demanded publication of a manifesto and release of political prisoners.

A subway system began operation in Mexico City.

“Aufwärts” from Aus den Sieben Tagen by Karlheinz Stockhausen was performed for the initial time, in Darmstadt.

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1970

Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As the “Father of the Green Revolution” he had, while working at the Rockefeller-financed CIMMYT Agricultural Station near Mexico City, developed high yielding dwarf strains of wheat. The idea was that such seed would enable tropical countries to double their wheat productivity. Of course, subsistence farmers were still outa luck, because such seed could be obtained only by those able to purchase it, and able to obtain the commercial fertilizers needed to nourish it, and the commercial pesticides needed to protect it. PLANTS

March 15, day: Israeli forces raided inside Syria, attacking a military camp and destroying power lines northeast of Damascus.

The Japanese Consul General in Saõ Paulo, Nobuo Okuchi, was released unharmed after the Brazilian government freed five political prisoners and transported them to Mexico (he had been abducted on March 11th).

Symphony no.4 by Samuel Adler was performed for the initial time, in Dallas.

1971

June 10, day: The “Corpus Christi Massacre” of student in Mexico City.

June 15, day: Mayor Alfonso Martínez Dominguez and Chief of Police Rogelio Flores Curiel of Mexico City resigned their posts following the “Corpus Christi Massacre” of students that had taken place on June 10th.

President Richard Milhous Nixon attempted to stop further publication of the Pentagon Papers by way of a legal action against the New York Times in the US District Court for New York. What, freedom of the press? What freedom of the press? VIETNAM

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“[President Richard Milhous Nixon] will, with time, be a landmark in the history of quiet, determined desperation.” — Murray Kempton

1974

June 2, day: Andrei Sakharov began a hunger strike for amnesty for Soviet political prisoners. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

72 Chileans, including a former cabinet minister, were allowed to leave the Mexican embassy in Santiago and fly to Mexico.

October 3, day: The Watergate trials began.

The Mexican government instituted price controls over a wide range of products.

1976

December 1, day: Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam of Syria and his wife were shot and seriously wounded by Palestinian gunman who attacked their car in Damascus.

José López Portillo replaced Luis Echeverria Alvarez as president of Mexico.

Angola was admitted to the United Nations.

“Letter from Mozart by Michael Colgrass” was performed for the initial time, in New York.

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1977

Michael Meyer’s SEVERAL MORE LIVES TO LIVE: THOREAU’S POLITICAL REPUTATION IN AMERICA (Westport CT: Greenwood Press). In 1995, the book would be reviewed by Wynn Yarborough of Virginia Commonwealth University as follows: Criticism of Henry Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” changed dramatically from the 1920s to the 1970s. Michael Meyer’s SEVERAL MORE LIVES TO LIVE: THOREAU’S POLITICAL REPUTATION IN AMERICA shows the progression of opinion surrounding Thoreau and his politics. In the 1920s, an age of relative affluence, Thoreau was popularly seen as an anarchist, a rebel. In the critics’ minds, but there were mixed opinions. Most of these reflect a reaction to the materialism of the time. Eliseo Vivas noted that Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government,” in The New Student, was “... one of the first native attacks upon American Imperialism....” (34) Vivas was writing when the US was involved in many countries in South America and Central America. Vivas saw Thoreau’s politics, especially his stance on resistance to government, as troubling, “Thoreau’s ideals are inoperative in the real, everyday world, and because he will not compromise his ideals, at all, they have no effect upon the world: they are politically useless” (35). In the 1960s, we will see how useful Thoreau becomes. Another critic, Vernon Parrington, would praise Thoreau as truly original and independent. “Parrington transforms what several of his contemporaries [such as Atkinson] considered to be Thoreau’s selfish tenacity into a virtue. Thoreau’s unwillingness to compromise was not a sign of perversity but of principle” (40). The political anarchist image of Thoreau does not disturb Parrington, who considered him American in political thought: “Parrington places Thoreau in the liberal tradition by tracing the political ideas in “CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE” back to William Godwin’s POLITICAL JUSTICE (page 409, Parrington), which helped inform Jefferson...” (42). The 1920s criticism also shows the one direction criticism of Thoreau would maintain, in some slight degree, throughout the century. Brooks Atkinson, a conservative critic, bashed Thoreau for his politics, calling him “a self-contained, unsocial being, a troglodyte of sorts” (36). But it is not his personal attacks on Thoreau that emerge as important; in fact we could disregard his opinion except for the fact that underlying his charges against Thoreau’s “feline” politicism is his great respect for Thoreau, the naturalist. This will reappear throughout the century, the focus away from the political towards the naturalist. Here would be a good place to note why. Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” clashes with his defense of John Brown. In one he advocates non-violent resistance; in the other he defends the actions of violence.

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This is where critics find the clash of logic, and many simply ignore his politics, because they are considered inconsistent. I would argue that Thoreau is human, subject to emotion and became quite involved in the slavery question. Brown was an individual doing what he thought necessary; Thoreau opts for another course, one of nonviolence, although the implication in “Resistance to Civil Government,” is that violence is prevalent throughout history. Here is where the student of Thoreau must make a decision, Should Thoreau be held to a philosophical tract he wrote in 1848 as compared to “A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN,” written in 1860 at a time of great tension about slavery? It must be remembered that Thoreau did not join a society for abolition, but rather vocalized his thoughts on injustice. He is political in thought, and as proven from his own action, a practitioner of non-violent resistance. In the 1930s, James MacKaye would turn to the politics and denounce them. MacKaye saw Thoreau’s politics showing no cooperation and devoid of reason. Meyer sees him as an extension of the twenties critics, “In this, MacKaye followed commentators of the twenties. It is one thing for a person to regulate his own economy and thereby free himself from want, but it is quite another to repudiate government.” MacKaye continues in the tradition of Atkinson, whereas Blankenship, continues in the tradition of Parrington. The thirties marked a different era for America, the flirtation with communism, trying to find a solution for the Great Depression. “[H]is radicalism was no longer considered to be so shocking by most commentators of the thirties. His radicalism was studied even within the academy” (58). It should be remembered that it was not academics who were doing the writing on “Resistance to Civil Government” but journalists and social critics. “Until the forties, the best criticism on Thoreau (using any critical standard for excellence) is to be found in journalistic pieces, or occasional chapters on Thoreau in books — most of them written by critics outside the academy” (59). Meyer goes further to state that “There was not one American analysis of even article length on “CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE” ... prior to the 1940s. In the thirties there was a strong tendency to use Thoreau first and ask questions later”(74). There was an avoidance of the politics in this essay, although people used him and his simple economy to protest the effects of industry, especially in an age of the collapse of the American economy. The 1940s show some of the universal appeal of Thoreau, in terms of his usefulness. Thoreau was used as guidance for those who opposed the war as “conscientious objectors.” A society gearing up for war might have trouble appreciating Thoreau. Thomas Lyle Collins, one critic who was opposed to the war, “uses Thoreau as a rationale for American isolationism and noninterventionism” (85). Max Cosman used Thoreau to justify World War II based on the differences between the War on Mexico and WWII. Here we see a reconciling of “RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT” and “A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN.” In “A Plea,” Thoreau foresees circumstances where he might have to “kill or be killed”; this applies to his attitude against slavery. Cosman sees the same attitude towards the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 341 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Nazis. Cosman “calls attention to this passage in order to conclude with the major point of his article, which is that Thoreau speaks to Americans in 1944” (86). Here we see the usefulness of Thoreau by dissenters and by consenters. The Thoreau Society was founded in 1941 by Walter Harding who saw Thoreau as being in both camps in the debate over the war. He saw Thoreau “[as] not a dangerous isolationist but an individual”(94). Harding does go further to see Thoreau as primarily a non-violent pacifist, ignoring his support of John Brown. Meyer seems to see Harding as doing what Thoreau himself would have loathed, “deification.” F.O. Matthiessen connects Thoreau with socialism in AMERICAN RENAISSANCE. Matthiessen was concerned with the text, the art itself, not the artist so much. Matthiessen said that Thoreau’s individualism was inflated, that Thoreau believed in collective action. Meyer, while lauding the contribution of Matthiessen to study of WALDEN, saw Matthiessen as too political in his assessment of Thoreau, “Matthiessen allows his enthusiasm and appreciation for Thoreau’s art to interfere with a view of politics that would be more in keeping with his own values, values which were highly suspicious of Transcendental individualism” (101). Please remember that Matthiessen is noted as changing the face of American criticism from the artist to the art. The 1950s, the age of McCarthyism, reflected the ignorance of his politics again. The influence of Matthiessen is evident in how Thoreau’s political thought diminished and literary art form increased, “Commentaries on Thoreau tended to be about how he expressed his ideas rather than about what his ideas were” (110). Stanley Hyman, chief critic during the fifties and one of the most respected scholars on Thoreau, cites style as more important that politics in Thoreau. He follows, of course, Matthiessen. Meyer traces this view of elevated artist as tied to Hymen’s personal view, which once again shows us the “usefulness” of Thoreau. Hyman places Thoreau in the “compartmentalized functionaries” of Emerson; one is an artist and that is it. Henry Eulaus, a political scientist, saw Thoreau as promoting his own version of the nation-state. Eulaus “reasons that because liberals have convinced themselves that Thoreau was a liberal collectivist, they overlook his self-righteousness and fall into the same trap of “ethical absolution” that he did” (124). Eulaus sees Thoreau as close-minded and concerned with “the individual conscience as the bedrock of all action” (124). Eulaus saw the dangers of both “enlightened liberalism” and McCarthyism and, more importantly, the need for compromise, so it is easy to see why he would have problems with someone like Thoreau. This is the first critical essay on the politics of Thoreau, according to Meyer. In the 1960s, Thoreau became not only relevant but almost a popular icon. “He became important to the reform impulse of the 1960s, and as that impulse spread so too did Thoreau’s political reputation” (152). Carried over from the fifties was the beginning of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King would use Thoreau to show the path of 342 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX

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nonviolent resistance, but once again he was using Thoreau, not studying him. “RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT” was used by everyone from the Beats to the Pacifists. Staughton Lynd, a New Left historian, claimed that Thoreau was both violent and nonviolent, which would seem to follow from the dichotomy of messages in “RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT” and “A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN.” Meyer claims that “Lynd does not make an issue of the means of reform, because he is interested in gathering “non-aligned individuals” of the new radicalism under one umbrella in order that they might discover what unites them-their insistence on direct action as a response to injustice” (165). Some attacks on Thoreau came out of this period that still focused on his isolationism and his “estrange[ment] from collective action and the specific needs of the people” (170). But one of the most original perspectives to come out in the sixties was a psychological interpretation of Thoreau. This came out of Carl Bode’s introduction to THE PORTABLE THOREAU, which he edited. Bode re-edited this edition in 1964 and drew on a Freudian approach to Thoreau, based on Raymond Gozzi’s work. Bode claims that Thoreau was “plagued by an ‘incipient homosexuality’” (page 111, Bode as quoted by Meyer, 173). Bode saw John Brown as a mythological father-figure for Thoreau. The hatred of father is translated into a hatred of state, of the paternalistic powerful government, according to Bode. In the same psychoanalytical mode, C. Roland Wagner writes “that much of Thoreau’s writing represents his unconscious struggle for a sexual identity” (Meyer 175). The 1970s saw Thoreau as the forefather of protest to the Vietnam War. THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee was a one-act play which centered on his protest of the Mexican War. It was quite successful and kept Thoreau alive in terms of the seventies, ushering in the Vietnam era. Meyer has the great last word by recalling Thoreau’s sense of humor and disgust, “washing of hands” in political matters: it “is important and chastening to be learned from Thoreau’s apolitical temperament, a temperament which resulted in his unwillingness to take politics seriously and his subsequent impulse to champion violence as a means of surgically removing evil from the world” (192).

March 3, day: Two French reporters attempting to interview human rights activist Jiri Hajek at his Prague home were sprayed with tear gas by police.

The Mexican army occupied the city of Oaxaca and surrounding communities after ten days of fighting with police by peasants and students.

Cuts and Dissolves for orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

March 28, day: Spain and Mexico announced they will restore full diplomatic relations after a break of 38 years.

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May 19, day: Carlos Chávez was named an advisor to Mexican President José López Portillo.

During the 3d of the nationally broadcast interviews with David Frost, former President Richard Milhous Nixon uttered the immortal words “When the president does it that means that it was not illegal.” THE ACTUAL INTERVIEW THE MOVIE CLIP

The Winds for eight winds and piano by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York.

A Water Bird Talk, a monodrama by Dominick Argento to his own words after Chekhov and Audubon, was performed for the initial time, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The 1st movement of “Percussion Symphony for 24 percussion players” was performed for the initial time at William Paterson State College, Wayne, New Jersey, with the composer Charles Wuorinen himself conducting.

September 14, day: Somali-backed rebels captured Jijiga, a town in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region.

40 bombs exploded before dawn in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Oaxaca. The targets of the leftist guerrillas were state-owned or US-owned concerns, and banks. Five people were injured and there was some $20,000,000 in damage.

1978

January 19, day: Having sold more than 19,000,000 “People’s Cars” since civilian production resumed in 1945, Volkswagen stopped producing “the beetle” in Germany. This had been a longer run than any other car model in history (and, Volkswagen would continue to produce the model, in Mexico).

February 24, day: The remains of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan were discovered during construction work in Mexico City.

The Chinese Peoples Political and Consultative Conference, which has not met since 1964, meets in Peking.

A tentative agreement was reached in the three-month long US coal strike.

Wind Quintet no.1 by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, in Great Hall, Cooper Union, New York.

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August 2, day: Three Iraqi embassy guards who had killed a French policeman on July 31st were expelled from France (diplomatic immunity precludes their prosecution).

Mycenae alpha for two-track tape by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, in Mycenae.

Il vitalino raddopiato for violin and chamber orchestra by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, in Salzburg.

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramirez died of a heart ailment in Mexico City at the age of 79.

1979

May 20, day: String Quartet no.4 by Michael Tippett was performed for the initial time, in the Bath Assembly Rooms.

Mexico broke diplomatic relations with Nicaragua, citing the Somoza government’s “horrendous genocide.”

At the Venezuelan embassy in San Salvador, the Venezuelan ambassador and seven others escaped from their captors.

November 12, day: Süleyman Demirel replaced Mustafa Bülent Ecevit as Prime Minister of Turkey.

US President Carter suspended all oil purchases from Iran.

Mexico closed its embassy in Teheran and removed all staff.

1981

March 17, day: Como una fantasía for cello by Joaquín Rodrigo was performed for the initial time, in Sala Netzahuacoyotl. Later that night a fire breaks out in the Mexico City hotel where the composer and his wife were staying. They manage to make it to the elevator but find it not working. Finally, two maids arrive in a freight elevator and guide them to safety. They lose most of their belongings but were unhurt.

April 14, day: When, during a full-contact karate match in Tijuana, Mexico, 15-year-old Alfredo Castro Herrera was knocked out by Angel Luis Rodriguez and died on the mat, the audience of 2,500 insisted that the show go on.

August 29, day: Two Arab terrorists attacked a synagogue in Vienna with hand grenades and automatic weapons, killing 2 and injuring 20. The attackers were captured.

France and Mexico recognized leftist guerrillas in El Salvador as a “representative political force,” that should be included in negotiations to bring the conflict to an end.

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1982

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a record El Niño, the most intense ENSO event of this century to date, was causing floods, droughts, and hurricanes during this year and the next that would result in an estimated total $8,110,000,000 in damage worldwide. This flipflop would also cause this winter of 1982-1983 and the following one of 1983-1984 to be exceptionally mild for the USA as a whole, despite the fact that in California torrential rains and flooding were causing 14 deaths, the evacuation of 15,000 ENSO people, and some $265,000,000 in property damage, with high tides eroding the coastline, destroying oceanfront homes and landmark piers such as the Santa Monica pier, the Seal Beach pier, and the Huntington Beach pier, and dislodging kelp beds. Five hurricanes hit French Polynesia. There was flooding in Louisiana and Florida. There were serious droughts in Hawaii, Mexico, and Australia. (It was being warned in 1997 that the new record El Niño that has begun as of April 1997 could well prove even more impactive than this one both for California and worldwide.)

February 21, day: President José López Portillo of Mexico announced a wide-ranging peace proposal for Central America and counseled strongly against US military intervention.

March 28, day: The El Chichón volcano in Chiapas state, Mexico, began erupting. Over the following week it would erupt three times destroying all villages within 7 kilometers and killing some 2,000 people while leaving additional thousands homeless.

Five right-wing parties did surprisingly well in elections in El Salvador, imperiling the reforms of centrist President José Napoleon Duarte.

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April 3, day: The mortal remains of Carl Orff were deposited in the Schmerzhafte Kapelle of the monastery church in Andechs.

Yacov Barsimantov, an Israeli diplomat in Paris, was gunned down by an unknown woman in his apartment building.

The United Nations Security Council demanded the withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands. Argentina refused. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher froze all Argentine assets in Britain and imposed economic sanctions. She announced that a naval task force would be dispatched to recapture the Falkland Islands.

When El Chichón volcano erupted 675 kilometers southeast of Mexico City, some 5,000 were killed and some 200,000 rendered homeless.

Harpsichord Sonata no.4 op.151 by Vincent Persichetti was performed for the initial time, at Shippensburg State College, Pennsylvania.

September 1, day: All Palestinian guerrillas still remaining in Beirut were evacuated from the city as part of the cease- fire agreement with Israel. 15,000 guerrillas had been removed from Lebanon.

The Reagan administration backed down from the severity of sanctions against foreign companies doing business on the Siberia-Europe gas pipeline.

Due to the flight of capital, President José López Portillo of Mexico nationalized all banks.

December 1, day: Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado replaced José López Portillo as president of Mexico.

1983

January 5, day: A cease fire went into effect between Moslem militias in Tripoli, Lebanon.

The French government banned the Corsican National Liberation Front.

Foreign ministers of Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Panama met on Contadora Island to issue a declaration calling for negotiations in Nicaragua.

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1984

January 8, day: South African troops began to withdraw from southern Angola after a month-long offensive into the country.

Texaco Incorporated reached an agreement to buy Getty Oil Corporation for $9,980,000,000.

String Quartet no.3 by Alfred Schnittke was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

Five Central American nations agreed to the peace proposals of the Contadora Group (Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela).

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: A Musical Illumination of the William Blake Poems for soloists, chorus and orchestra by William Bolcom, was performed for the initial time, in Stuttgart.

1985

April 22, day: The Nicaraguan government and the Indian contra group Misurasata pledged mutual non-aggression in an agreement signed in Mexico City.

The trial of nine former members of the military junta opened in Buenos Aires.

July 7, day: The Institutional Revolutionary Party won 291 of 300 contested seats in Mexican congressional elections.

September 19, day: The South African government admits it has violated the 1984 non-aggression pact with Mozambique by supporting conservative guerrillas in Mozambique.

A magnitude 8.1 earthquake hit Michoacan state, Mexico. About 10,000 people were killed, at least 30,000 were injured, and 100,000 were left homeless. Damage was estimated at US$3,000,000,000-4,000,000,000.

Serenade and Dialogue for flute and piano by Otto Luening was performed for the first time, at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.

September 20, day: Police fired into a crowd in Escalante, the Philippines, that was protesting the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos, killing 20.

Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of the French Secret Service, was dismissed, while French Defense Minister Charles Hernu resigned, due to the “Rainbow Warrior” affair.

A 2d earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale, hit central Mexico.

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1986

In 1846, while pursuing a Mexico blockade runner off Veracruz, the USS Somers had sailed directly into a sea gale and disappeared beneath the waves. When the wreck was located in this year its cannon were still loaded.76

Mayan peasants were being described as waiting for the date December 23, 2012 to roll around, in the expectation of great wars that would reduce the world’s armies to fighting with sticks and machetes. The prediction was that once again the Maya would rule over Central America. –Actually the people who were passing this New Age stuff around didn’t know anything at all about or care anything at all about what was going on among descendants of the Maya in Mexico. They were patching this stuff together out of a combination of Cold War propaganda with Christian eschatology, and timing it as falling at the completion of an ancient Mayan calendar “Great Cycle.”

June 28, day: Syrian forces reentered west Beirut to return security to the area.

Milanko Renovica replaced Vidoje Zarkovic as President of the Presidium of the League of Yugoslav Communists.

Argentina defeated West Germany 3-2 in Mexico City to win the 13th FIFA World Cup™.

September 23, day: Two Japanese newspapers quoted Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone as saying that the intellectual level in the United States was lowered by the presence of “a considerable number of blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans.”

A revised version of cummings ist der Dichter for 16 solo voices, chorus and chamber orchestra by Pierre Boulez was performed for the first time, in Strasbourg, conducted by the composer.

1987

October 20, day: The Tokyo stock market dropped a record 15%. Stock prices dropped 29.3% in Sydney. The London stock market dropped a record 21%. Over this day and the following one the Mexico City stock exchange would plunge 30%.

Irish Rhapsody no.3 by Charles Villiers Stanford was performed for the initial time, in Belfast — 74 years after it had been composed.

On the eve of her 38th birthday, Shulamit Ran underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The operation was successful but full recovery would take a year. 76. Refer to Herman Melville’s BILLY BUDD and to the documentary film “The Curse of the ‘Somers’” (55 minutes), by George Belcher. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 349 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1988

July 13, day: The Federal Election Commission in Mexico awarded the July 6th presidential election to the ruling PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. 260 of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies were awarded to the ruling PRI. The delay of a week in announcing the returns would produce charges of fraud from opposition candidates.

After a 3d round of negotiations in New York, Angola, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States agreed on principles for a cessation of hostilities in Angola.

Taurhiphanie for computer generated stereo tape by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, in Arles.

December 1, day: Four criminals took over a schoolbus full of children in Ordzhonikidze, USSR, drove it to a nearby airport, and began negotiations with authorities.

Carlos Salinas de Gortari replaced Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado as President of Mexico.

A revised version of Valis, an opera by Tod Machover to words of Ikam, Raymond and the composer after Dick, was performed for the initial time, at the Pompidou Center, Paris.

Serenade in G for string sextet op.64b by Robin Holloway was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of the BBC, originating in London.

Slides for chamber ensemble by Witold Lutoslawski was performed for the initial time, in Merkin Concert Hall, New York, composed in honor of Elliott Carter’s 80th birthday on December 11th.

1990

May 13, day: The Chamber of Deputies of Mexico votes to return the nation’s banks to private control after eight years of nationalization.

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December 9, day: Lech Walesa was elected President of Poland in a runoff held today.

Three days of anti-government protests began at the national university in Tirana, Albania.

The first multi-party elections in Serbia and Montenegro took place.

The government of Mexico sold a controlling share of Telefonos de Mexico SA, the state-owned telephone company, thus privatizing it.

Divertimento for oboe, percussion and piano by Ross Lee Finney was performed for the initial time, at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

1991

July: Three Russians, Nikita Pokrovsky, Mikhail T. Gusev, and Piotr M. Saveliev, led The Thoreau Society in a non- violence walk from the plaque marking the site where Henry was put in jail for refusing to fund slavery and the war upon Mexico (Massachusetts has long since torn down this Middlesex County prison that used to stand in the center of Concord, replacing it with several much more commodious facilities just down the road), out to Walden Pond, the site of Henry Thoreau’s experiment in freedom.

One of these Russians, Piotr, had just come from leading a non-violence walk in the heart of Russia, a walk “in search of the green stick” which began in Yasnaya Polyana at the grave of Lev Nikolævich Tolstòy, the great Russian apostle of nonviolence.

I would like to support these three in their effort. I would like to provide them with a literary and theoretical underpinning for their fine use of the corpus of our Henry. We need this because there is a real question whether Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. were as nonviolent as Tolstòy. Gandhi explained forthrightly that for him nonviolence was a mere tactic, not a way of life. He said that Russians did not understand the tactic of non-violence, that had it been the Russians in India rather than the British in India, his people would have been forced to resort to violence. The Reverend King likewise.

One may usefully contrast Gandhi with Saul Alinsky on means and ends. Here is Gandhi:

Where there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or himsa. Take an instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back is the desire to attain the cherished end.

And here is Alinsky:

The man of action views the issues of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms.... He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.

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November 3, Sunday: Mexican runner Salvador Garcia won the New York City Marathon. His fellow Mexicans finished in 2d and 3d places.

1992

August 12, day: A draft of the North American Free Trade Agreement was approved by representatives of Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

2:40 p.m. John Milton Cage, Jr. died at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in New York City after a stroke, at the age of 79.

October 7, day: In San Antonio, Texas, officials of Canada, Mexico, and the US initialed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A military court on San Lorenzo Island, Peru convicted Abimael Guzman Reynoso of high treason and sentenced him to life in prison. He had been the leader of Sindero Luminoso. Ten other guerrilla leaders were also sentenced to life in prison.

December 17, day: After the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli border guard by Hamas, Israel expelled 415 Palestinian terrorists, depositing them in Lebanon. The Lebanese government refused to allow them into territory it controls.

Thousands of Polish coal miners struck against the projected loss of 180,000 jobs over the next ten years.

Acting United States Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger released the names of Serbs and Croats believed by the United States to be war criminals. The list included Slobodan Milosevic (president of Serbia), Radovan Karadzic (political leader of the Bosnian Serbs), Ratko Mladic (military leader of the Bosnian Serbs), Vojislav Seselj (commander of the Cetniks), and Zeljko Raznjatovic AKA “Arkan.”

In their respective capitals, the heads of government of Canada, Mexico, and the US signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

1993

November 22, day: The Mexican Senate ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement.

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1994

January 1, day: Intense factional fighting resumed in the vicinity of Kabul, Afghanistan.

The North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army captured four towns in Chiapas State, Mexico, including San Cristóbal de las Casas (they were objecting to the dispossession of Indians from communal farm lands, to NAFTA, and to poverty in general).

January 4, day: Mexican troops retook the four towns in Chiapas lost on January 1st.

January 16, day: The militant Pan-Africanist Congress announced it was suspending its armed struggle against whites and that it planned to contest the April South African elections as a political party.

The Mexican government declared a unilateral cease fire in Chiapas (the death toll in two weeks of fighting was put at 107).

Communion Words for chorus by John Harbison was performed for the initial time, in Emmanuel Church, Boston.

March 2, day: The Zapatista National Liberation Army and the Mexican government reached a tentative agreement at San Cristobal de las Casas.

Set cançons valencianes for viola and piano by Joaquín Rodrigo was performed for the initial time, in Madrid.

March 23, day: Mario Aburto Martínez shot Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, candidate of the PRI for president of Mexico, twice after a campaign speech in Tijuana. The gunman and another suspect were arrested (Colosio would undergo surgery for a stomach wound, but would succumb).

Idyll no.3: Frost at Midnight op.78 for orchestra by Robin Holloway was performed for the initial time.

May 26, day: The 40-nation International Whaling Commission, meeting in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, created a permanent sanctuary for whales around Antarctica.

US President William Jefferson Clinton reneged on a campaign promise, authorizing most-favored-nation status for China.

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August 21, day: French troops withdrew from Rwanda, which would make it necessary for more refugees to flee the country into Zaire.

Mexican voters elected Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of the PRI as president (his party retained majorities in both houses of Congress).

December 1: Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León replaced Carlos Salinas de Gortari as President of Mexico.

Popular music performer Tupac Shakur was convicted of having in the previous year sexually abused a woman in a New York hotel room (he would be sentenced to prison for one and a half to four and a half years).

Air Force Magazine published its 4th major article: “If the Enola Gay program is fixed — and that is a big if — what about the next exhibition, and the one after that? What about the people who created such a biased exhibit in the first place? What else do they have in mind?” They do not seem to realize that visitors “are not interested in counterculture morality pageants put on by academic activists” (“Airplanes in the Mist” by John T. Correll, Air Force Magazine, 12/94, 2).

Congressmen Sam Johnson, Peter Blute, and Stephen Buyer would become most explicit: “it is time for Secretary Heyman to act by removing [Harwit] as director” (“Harwit Firing Demanded,” World War II Times, December-January 1995). WORLD WAR II

December 20, day: Russian planes bombed Grozny killing at least ten people.

All parties in the Bosnian war agreed to a temporary cease fire negotiated by Jimmy Carter, to begin December 24th.

Mexican tanks and troops retook territory in Chiapas unopposed by the Zapatistas.

1995

January 31, day: US President William Jefferson Clinton authorized an emergency loan of $20,000,000,000 to save the Mexican peso and protect the nation of Mexico from being forced to default on its short-term debt.

February 12, day: Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party was dealt a severe electoral blow, losing almost all major races in the state of Jalisco to the National Action Party.

Song and Dance for tuba and piano by Leslie Bassett was performed for the initial time, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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1997

Representatives of Afghanistan’s “Taliban” movement met (met, as it happened, in Texas) with officials of Unocal to discuss their plans to construct a gas pipeline across Afghanistan (Unocal would advise the US Congress that construction of its proposed pipeline could not begin “until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place” — after the invasion of Afghanistan that put such a government in place, the head of that new government, President Harmid Karzai –as it happened previously an employee of Unocal– would sign a deal to construct that pipeline).77

Richard Bruce Winders’s MR. POLK’S ARMY: THE AMERICAN MILITARY EXPERIENCE IN THE MEXICAN WAR (College Station TX: Texas A & M UP, reviewed for H-SHEAR by David Coles of the Florida State Archives): The current observance of the Mexican-American War sesquicentennial has led to the a resurgence of interest in the conflict. Richard Bruce Winders’ MR. POLK’S ARMY was among the best of these recent titles, and perhaps the most significant writing on the subject since K. Jack Bauer’s 1973 book, THE MEXICAN W AR, 1846-1848. As the title indicates, Winders’ study was part of the “new” military history, which seeks to place the military experience within the broader scope of American society. He succeeds admirably in this effort, demonstrating that the American army reflected “the beliefs and values of the society from which it [was] drawn.” As “[t]he product of Jacksonian America, Polk’s army carried its view of democracy to the land of the Montezumas” (p. 13). These views included a certainty in the superiority of Anglo-Saxon culture and institutions, and a condescending attitude towards other governments, religions and ethnic groups. Winders begins with a discussion of the war’s background causes, as well as the Democratic-Whig infighting that marked the era. He then details the Regular Army’s organization, from its staff offices (such as the Adjutant General, Inspector General, Commissary, Medical, and Ordnance Departments), to the artillery, cavalry, and infantry regiments of the line. The army’s two principal commanders, Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, “came to represent two different military styles” (p. 30). The aristocratic Scott strove to organize the American army along professional, European lines, while the more democratic Taylor was at least perceived as favoring a less formal organization with a freer, more aggressive style of warfare. “While the war would bring defeat to Mexico,” Winders proposes, “it also would strike a serious blow at ‘democrats’ in the army and so further professionalize the military” (p. 31). During the war, President Polk feuded with both of his commanders, arguing that neither was fit for command. Initially more supportive of Taylor, the president had a serious falling out with the general in the fall of 1846. A dispute over American

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strategy following the Battle of Monterey developed into an “intense hatred” (p. 33). The president could not remove Taylor, however, because of his even greater dislike of Scott. Well aware of the latter’s presidential ambitions, he reluctantly selected Scott for command of the climactic campaign against Mexico City. To counteract the effect of Whiggish leanings among Regular Army officers, the president moved to appoint loyal Democrats as volunteer generals. Of thirteen volunteer general officers selected and confirmed during the war, all were Democrats. Some, including William O. Butler, James Shields, and Sterling Price performed capably, while others such as Gideon Pillow and Caleb Cushing proved less successful. Overall, “[t]hese volunteer generals did not give Polk what he needed,” as they failed to rise above either Taylor or Scott in public prestige (p. 48). After examining the army’s administration and command, Winders next focuses on the rank and file. In two chapters, he compares the Regular Army with the volunteers. The Regular Army entered the war with a shortage of both officers and enlisted men, which necessitated its expansion. Before the war, the public had a low opinion of the military, viewing the service as a refuge for failures and loafers. Many officers were old and ready for retirement, and few had experience commanding large bodies of troops. Maintaining a rigid separation from the enlisted ranks, they ruled with iron discipline, with few engendering the respect of their men. The enlisted ranks were comprised of a large percentage of foreigners. Most lacked formal or even much military education, and the majority were poorly motivated. Polk used the expansion of the army to appoint westerners and Democrats to the officer ranks in an attempt to “break the monopoly of the officer corps that West Point graduates had begun to develop” (p. 64). The expansion of the Regular Army and the appointment of new officers, “reshaped the image of the regular army, which emerged from the conflict with newfound confidence, born on the battlefield.” Polk’s attempt, however, “to diminish West Point’s influence failed, as the professionalism displayed by its alumni brought acclaim to the institution” (p. 65). To supplement ranks of the Regular Army, over 70,000 volunteers enlisted during the conflict. These citizen soldiers compiled a mixed record of service. Only a minority served with the two main American armies, but regiments like the First South Carolina, the First Mississippi Rifles, and the Second Illinois Infantry, fought well and suffered heavy losses. Many volunteers chaffed at the restrictions of military life. “Reared in Jacksonian America,” Winders contends, volunteers “clung tightly to the privileges they had known in civilian life. The melding of democratic institutions and the army never was completed, as the ‘citizen’ never really became transformed into the ‘soldier’” (p. 87). Volunteer officers proved to be a particular concern. Though some had pre-war military experience, most received their commissions because of political connections or personal popularity. Consequently, discipline was more relaxed in volunteer units, and the level or training and drill “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 356 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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generally inferior. Volunteer regiments also seem to have perpetrated far more crimes on Mexican property and civilians than their Regular Army counterparts. Future Union general George Meade complained that while the regulars fought the Mexican army and government, the volunteers, “by their many outrages, carried the war to the Mexican people,” which hardened the war and incited hatred towards all Americans (p. 197). Other subjects examined by Winders include the weaponry, uniforms, and equipment of the army as well as other factors that affected soldiers’ lives such as rations, medicine, disease, leisure activities, and the relationship between the military and the Mexican civilian population. American weaponry was a mixture of old and new. Some percussion muskets were used in the war, but the overwhelming majority of foot soldiers fought with flintlocks. The field artillery batteries of the Regular Army represented perhaps the finest arm of the American service, while the mounted regiments were also well-equipped and armed. Soldiers, particularly volunteers, suffered from clothing shortages during the war. As might be expected, the rations provided to the men, consisting mostly of salted meat, hard bread, and coffee, elicited many complaints. Most troopers supplemented their rations by purchasing food through sutlers or from civilians. Disease proved even more deadly than might be expected. The Mexican-American War ranks as the deadliest in American history, with a mortality rate of 110 per 1,000.78 The great majority of these deaths were the result of diseases such as yellow fever and dysentery. The Sixth Illinois Infantry, for example, lost one man in battle and 296 to disease, and many units had similar records. Those wounded in battle also faced long odds of recovery, particularly if the wound was in the torso. Amputation remained the treatment of choice for extremity wounds that fractured bones. In all, MR. POLK’S ARMY provides readers with a well-written and well-documented overview of the American military experience in the Mexican-American War. Winders’ bibliography was extensive, although he does not utilize manuscript collections, particularly the letters and diaries of private soldiers, to the degree of James M. McCaffrey in his recent ARMY OF M ANIFEST D ESTINY: THE AMERICAN SOLDIER IN THE MEXICAN WAR, 1846-1848. Winders’ work, though, covers a much broader subject than McCaffrey’s, which focuses primarily on soldier life and attitudes. MR. POLK’S ARMY contains little operational history, so readers looking for a summary of battles and campaigns will be disappointed. For those seeking, rather, to understand the character of the American army that fought the Mexican-American War, from the lowliest private to the commanding generals, Winders’ work was essential. H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by [email protected] (June, 1998) Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This 78. The reviewer should have said “deadliest in US history” rather than “deadliest in American history,” since the race war known as “King Philip’s War” had had a considerably higher mortality rate and did occur in America although the US had not yet been formed. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 357 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit was given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact [email protected].

Now here is another review of the same book, a H-NET BOOK REVIEW by [email protected] (July, 1997), this one by Ricardo A. Herrera <[email protected]> of Marquette University: The 1997 publication of Richard Bruce Winder’s MR. POLK’S ARMY: THE AMERICAN MILITARY EXPERIENCE IN THE MEXICAN WAR was timely. One- hundred-and-fifty years ago, United States troops defeated several numerically superior but poorly led, trained, and armed Mexican armies. By 1848, Mexico City was in American hands, Mexico had ceded from one-third to one-half of its territory to the United States, and American national dominion extended across much of the continental expanse. All in all, it was a good war for United States expansionists. Mexico, however, was not the sole battleground. A coterminous struggle was fought for the political spoils of the republic by Democratic and Whig politicians through the institution of the United States Army. Ironically, despite early Whig opposition to the war, Whig party leaders mimicked Democratic leads and hoped to use the war and the army as the means to promote their party’s future too. Democratic president James K. Polk chose the army officer corps as his battlefield for patronage and influence. The self- declared one-term president understood the attractiveness of war heroes to the electorate and the need to reward the party faithful through patronage. What better way, Young Hickory reasoned, to extend and insure Democratic control of American politics than through the popular exploits of a victorious army and its Democratic soldiery. In addition, the Tennessean believed an infusion of Jacksonian Democrats and their philosophical convictions into the ranks of regular officers might help reform the body. Polk, a believer in the myth of the citizen-soldier, equated the regular officer corps with everything antithetical to the American character. In Polk’s mind regular officers, especially West Pointers, were loafing anti-democratic Whigs with aristocratic pretensions. And enlisted men were even worse. Any man who would willingly sign away his freedoms as a regular was a slavish hireling unfit to participate in the life of the republic. It was an existence that could appeal only to a failure or a foreigner. Polk realized that although he could not refashion the whole army, he could determine the character of much of its wartime leadership. With these thoughts in mind the president set out to Democratize the army. Polk’s estimation of American political tastes and his strategy for electoral victory was astute. The president officered the ten regular regiments raised for war with Democrats. All thirteen volunteer generals were Democrats. Polk expanded on his Jacksonian vision in the newly-raised Regiment of Mounted Rifles. The president, with only a few exceptions, commissioned officers, mostly Westerners, directly from civil life. Young Hickory hoped to prevent competition and professional jealousies

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among the regulars, to break the West Point monopoly, and to recognize the rising importance of the West through the officers of the new regiment. In the end, the results of Polk’s efforts were mixed. Academy-trained officers continued to dominate the army. And while brigadier general and future-president Franklin Pierce emerged as a Democratic hero, his presidency followed that of Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, a Whig. Winders, a historian and curator at the Alamo, has worked at integrating social, political, and military history in order to link the army to the society that produced it “so that it might be understood as being emblematic of mid-nineteenth American political culture” (p. xii). The picture which emerges was one of political, professional, and personal conflict between Whigs and Democrats, regulars and volunteers, and the government and its army. James K. Polk was not unique in his attempt to fashion the army into an instrument of party policy and a prize for loyal supporters. Indeed, he had simply followed the example set by earlier presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, in his attempt to politicize the army. The good of the party had been equated with the good of the nation. In detailing the creation and life of Mr. Polk’s army, Winders has given the reader an insight into the organization, structure, and weaponry of the United States Army and its volunteer forces. Furthermore, the author delivers a good account of the activities, experiences, and beliefs of the men who constituted the army. Not surprisingly, the undisciplined, parochial, and touchy conduct of the volunteers was simply the behavior of their home states and American society writ small. The author’s background development on the causes of the war and on prevailing popular attitudes in the United States adds a good measure of depth to his story. Although much of what was offered in MR. POLK’S A RMY has been alluded to or directly posited by other historians of the Mexican War, none has gathered so much material and presented so comprehensive a picture of the army in one convenient book. In spite of the overall quality of this work a concern arises over the issue and place of battlefield tactics. If, as Winders makes clear, military behavior and organization are indicative of greater cultural norms then surely the same principle must apply to the way an army fights. There is much knowledge which can be gleaned from tactical practices. Combat and the style in which it was performed were integral components of the American military experience in the Mexican War, and thus are deserving of greater analysis and development. MR. POLK’S A RMY is a welcome addition to the historiography of the Mexican War. Mr. Winders has packed a great deal of valuable information in his work and his conclusions are judicious. Notwithstanding the sole reservation, this work should become a standard reference in the history of United States Army in the Mexican War. Historians and laymen alike will enjoy this book and find it a worthwhile read. H-NET BOOK REVIEW

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Published by [email protected] (June, 1998) Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact [email protected].

January 15, day: Two weeks of rallies began across Albania, calling on the government to protect citizen investments in pyramid schemes.

Representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Hebron.

Mexico paid off an emergency $12,500,000,000 loan from the United States 3 years ahead of schedule, including an interest payment of $580,000,000.

July 6, day: Forces of second premier Hun Sen ousted first premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh in Cambodia (the Prince had left for France two days earlier).

For the 1st time since 1929, the PRI lost its control of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies in elections. It also lost the mayoralty of Mexico City to Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano of the Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen for alto by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Ludwigsburg.

August 10, day: Samuel Conlon Nancarrow died in Mexico City at the age of 84.

December 5, day: Turkish forces once again entered Iraq to attack Kurdish guerrilla forces.

Leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano was sworn in as the 1st democratically-elected mayor of Mexico City.

December 22, day: The U.S. imploded its last Minuteman II missile silo. ATOM BOMB

US President William Jefferson Clinton received a tumultuous welcome as he visited Sarajevo.

A report by the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva noted an “escalation of repression” by the Chinese in Tibet. They asserted that China was engaged in an “all-out war” against the Dalai Lama.

20-25 gunmen with machetes invaded the Indian village of Acteal in Chiapas state, Mexico, killing 45 residents and wounding at least 25 others. Local officials and other members of the governing PRI party would be charged with the crimes. (The village had supported Zapatista rebels.)

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1998

Chancellor John R. Silber and his wife Kathryn Underwood Silber donated $1,000,000 toward full-tuition scholarships for graduates of Texas public schools who would attend Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Texas, a district known for its chivalry, has not since the execution of Chipita Rodriguez in the Year of Our Lord 1863 (for the murder of a horse trader) executed any woman — until, in this Year of Our Lord 1998, Governor George W. Bush sent the repentant Karla Faye Tucker to Heaven.

The Department of Botany at The University of Texas at Austin was dismantled, following the 3-decade trend in major research universities to redistribute biological sciences based on descriptive and organismic studies versus molecular, biotechnological, & microbiological.

John S.D. Eisenhower’s AGENT OF DESTINY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT (NY and London: The Free Press, reviewed for H-SHEAR by James M. McCaffrey of the University of Houston-Downtown): Winfield Scott entered the U.S. Army in 1808 as a captain of artillery and spent most of the next fifty-three years on active duty. Scott’s long and notable career, as John Eisenhower relates in this book, encompassed the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars, the Mexican War, and the early phases of the Civil War. It is difficult to imagine another American soldier, with the possible exception of Douglas MacArthur, who had such a long and colorful career. Scott’s career was almost stillborn, however. He was dissatisfied with his first assignment, under General James Wilkinson near New Orleans, and submitted his resignation from the army in 1809. When war with England began to appear more and more likely, Scott had second thoughts and asked for reinstatement. Secretary of War William Eustis complied with his request, but then sent him right back to his original unit where his outspoken criticism of General Wilkinson earned him a court- martial. Finding him guilty of unofficer-like conduct, the court ordered Captain Scott suspended for twelve months. Captain Scott was reinstated in 1811, in time for our second war with England beginning the following year. The major theater of operations for most of the war was along the border with Canada, and American land forces there had a spotty record at best. Scott’s conduct, however, was one of the bright spots in an otherwise disappointing series of campaigns. His personal bravery under fire was an inspiration to his men, and his dedication to the benefits of training soon bore fruit at Chippewa and at Lundy’s Lane. By the end of the war, Winfield Scott wore the star of a brigadier general. During the 1820s, Scott completed work on a set of general regulations for administering the army and also compiled a drill manual for the troops which, with periodic updating, remained in use until the eve of the Civil War. He also continued feuding

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with other high-ranking military leaders, including Andrew Jackson and Edmund Gaines. The early 1830s saw an outbreak of Indian troubles on the northwestern frontier. Scott led a contingent of troops against Black Hawk and his band, but cholera struck the soldiers before they reached the seat of war. By the time the disease had subsided enough for Scott to continue, the short war was over. With the onset of the Second Seminole War in late 1835, however, Scott again faced armed combat. American troops were not very successful against Osceola’s warriors, and this lack of success gave General Scott an opportunity to lash out at fellow officers. His intemperate language led to a court of inquiry in which his old nemesis General Edmund Gaines placed General Scott on the same level as Benedict Arnold. Upon the death the general-in-chief of the army, in 1841, General Scott unabashedly put himself forward to fill the void. “I take it for granted,” he wrote to the secretary of war, “that my name will be sent, in a day or two, to fill the vacancy [resulting from] the death of Major-General Macomb” (p. 208). His assumption proved correct, and for the next twenty years Winfield Scott would be the nation’s highest ranking soldier. War with Mexico saw Scott take active command of one of the major armies that the United States put into the field. Following the steps of Hernando Cortez several centuries earlier, Scott put his force ashore near Veracruz and led it in a successful march on the enemy capital, bringing the war to an end within six months. Americans seem to like to reward military leaders with high political office, and Winfield Scott was more than ready to accept such rewards. Unfortunately, it was General Zachary Taylor who rode his own military reputation into the White House immediately following the Mexican War. Scott willingly ran for that office in 1852 as the dying Whig Party’s last such candidate, but was defeated by Franklin Pierce who had led volunteer troops in the late war. The secession of some of the Southern slave states from the Union in early 1861 found General Scott almost seventy-five years old. He was bothered by various health problems and was no longer in any shape to take to the field. After contributing some thoughts on the Union’s potential grand strategy, Winfield Scott left the actual military leadership to younger men. The old general left active service in November 1861 and died almost five years later. He had been a major player in much of the development of the nation in the first half of the nineteenth century, and Mr. Eisenhower’s characterization of him as an “Agent of Destiny” seems fitting. In fact, a more appropriate title might be AGENT OF MANIFEST DESTINY. In reading this life of an American general, I was struck by what, to me, were the striking similarities between this soldier’s life and that of one who came along a century later — Douglas MacArthur. Each reached flag rank at a relatively young age and maintained a strong influence on American military affairs for a long time. Each was foiled in his attempt to secure the presidency. Each left the army in the midst of a war. Each had a monumental ego. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 362 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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It has been a long time since a full-blown biography of Winfield Scott has been published, and John Eisenhower does a fine job of bringing him alive. Eisenhower, as fits his pattern, consulted a vast array of published sources in preparing this book but virtually no unpublished works. I cannot help but wonder what information there might be in untapped manuscript sources that would have enhanced the story told here. Surely there are diaries or collections of letters left behind by Scott’s contemporaries that might shine new light on the character of the man himself. Perhaps there are unpublished letters between Scott and his wife that would yield interesting insights. This book also contains a fair number of factual errors of varying degrees of importance. For example, Eisenhower tells us that the British government rescinded the despised Orders in Council on the very day in 1812 that the United States declared war on England, when in fact the British decision was announced two days earlier (p. 25). Several other dates, such as the fall of the Alamo, are incorrectly given (p. 154). Lake of the Woods, Minnesota appears in Michigan (p. 214). General Scott, rather than Navy Lieutenant George M. Totten, receives credit for having designed the surfboats used to get the troops ashore at Veracruz in 1847 (pages. 234, 239). Gideon Pillow appears, incorrectly, as President James K. Polk’s former law partner (pages. 254, 316). Henry Clay, rather than Stephen Douglas, was credited with breaking the Compromise of 1850 up into its component parts to win passage in the Congress (p. 323). In spite of these, and other lapses, I would still commend this book to college history professors looking for something to bolster their textbooks in courses such as U.S. Military History, Representative Military Leaders, or the U.S. to 1865/ 1877.

April 19, day: China released human rights campaigner Wang Dan and put him on a flight to the US (the release was in return for a US promise not to sponsor a condemnation of China at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission).

Poet and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz died in Mexico City at the age of 84.

Four movements of Harrison’s Clocks for piano by Harrison Birtwistle were performed for the initial time, in Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

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2012

December 21, day: According to an ancient Mayan calendar, a cycle of time would arrive at its completion.

Notice that this didn’t have anything at all to do with anything that anybody on top of a pyramid out in a jungle in today’s Mexico was supposing. Terence McKenna has elaborated upon Mayan chronology by adding something called Novelty Theory and arrived at a prediction that on this day something uniquely singular is going to occur. Perhaps the earth will collide with an asteroid or some “trans-dimensional object,” or an alien will make contact with us, or there will be a solar explosion, or the Milky Way will transit from a galaxy into a quasar. Whatever it is, it is going to be humongous — maybe even as humongous as the rogue planet in the movie “Melancholia.” Uh, yeah, wait for it.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: March 1, 2013

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 364 HDT WHAT? INDEX

MEXICO MEJICO GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request we have pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining. To respond to such a request for information, we merely push a button.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 365 HDT WHAT? INDEX

MEXICO MEJICO GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE

Commonly, the first output of the program has obvious deficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and do a recompile of the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place your requests with . Arrgh.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 366