Franklin Pierce, the “Paltry” President1

FRANKLIN PIERCE, THE “PALTRY” PRESIDENT1

(PALTRIEST PRIOR TO GEORGE W. BUSH)

FRANKLIN PIERCE

To my way of thinking Franklin Pierce can no longer be awarded the title “Paltriest President” because that title has come to belong by right to George W. Bush — the Pierce administration was as if George II hadn’t stopped boozing. Had “W” not taken the pledge he would have died when he choked on that pretzel and dived into the carpet — and then our great nation could have had a nice funeral and after a few years of bearable misrule would have been free to search for the unused half of Dick Cheney’s smile.

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

1. I haven’t made up this term “paltry.” It was a term deployed at the time by Waldo Emerson: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1787

THE ADVENTURES OF JONATHAN CORNCOB, LOYAL AMERICAN REFUGEE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. (This would be republished in Boston by D.R. Godine in 1976. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

Nathaniel Hawthorne would allege, in his campaign bio supporting General Franklin Pierce for President of the United States of America in the election of 1852, that Pierce’s father had suffered family tragedy: Another year beheld him [Benjamin Pierce] married to his first wife, Elizabeth Andrews, who died within a twelvemonth after their union, leaving a daughter, the present widow of General John McNeil.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1804

November 23, Friday: Nathaniel Hawthorne would allege, in his campaign bio supporting Brigadier General Franklin Pierce’s campaign for President of the United States of America in 1852, that Pierce had been born on this date at Hillsborough in the State of New Hampshire: FRANKLIN PIERCE was born at Hillsborough, in the State of New Hampshire, on the 23d of November, 1804. His native county, at the period of his birth, covered a much more extensive territory than at present, and might reckon among its children many memorable men, and some illustrious ones. General Stark, the hero of Bennington, Daniel Webster, Levi Woodbury, Jeremiah Smith, the eminent jurist, and governor of the state, General James Miller, General McNeil, Senator Atherton, were natives of old Hillsborough county. General Benjamin Pierce, the father of Franklin, was one of the earliest settlers in the town of Hillsborough, and contributed as much as any other man to the growth and prosperity of the county.... At Franklin Pierce’s birth, and for many years subsequent, his father was the most active and public-spirited man within his sphere; a most decided democrat, and supporter of Jefferson and Madison; a practical farmer, moreover, not rich, but independent, exercising a liberal hospitality, and noted for the kindness and generosity of his character; a man of the people, but whose natural qualities inevitably made him a leader among them. From infancy upward, the boy had before his eyes, as the model on which he might instinctively form himself, one of the best specimens of sterling New England character, developed in a life of simple habits, yet of elevated action. Patriotism, such as it had been in revolutionary days, was taught him by his father, as early as his mother taught him religion. He became early imbued, too, with the military spirit which the old soldier had retained from his long service, and which was kept active by the constant alarms and warlike preparations of the first twelve years of the present century. If any man is bound, by birth and youthful training, to show himself a brave, faithful, and able citizen of his native country, it is the son of such a father.

Presumably we should accept this as accurate at least insofar as date and place of birth, and names of parents, despite the fact that had Pierce been born outside the USA, he would not have been eligible under the Constitution to run for President, as these are data elements attested to by independent, objective, and ordinarily truthful sources as well as by this creative bio done up for him by a college buddy. As to whether Franklin actually inherited from his father anything more than a love of strong drink, as to whether Franklin ever exhibited what we would term patriotism rather than what we would term opportunism, the record this politician left for our consideration is considerably more problematic. The old people of his neighborhood give a very delightful picture of Franklin at this early age. They describe him as a beautiful boy, with blue eyes, light curling hair, and a sweet HDT WHAT? INDEX

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expression of face. The traits presented of him indicate moral symmetry, kindliness, and a delicate texture of sentiment, rather than marked prominences of character. His instructors testify to his propriety of conduct, his fellow-pupils to his sweetness of disposition and cordial sympathy. One of the latter, being older than most of his companions, and less advanced in his studies, found it difficult to keep up with his class; and he remembers how perseveringly, while the other boys were at play, Franklin spent the noon recess, for many weeks together, in aiding him in his lessons. These attributes, proper to a generous and affectionate nature, have remained with him through life. Lending their color to his deportment, and softening his manners, they are, perhaps, even now, the characteristics by which most of those who casually meet him would be inclined to identify the man. But there are other qualities, not then developed, but which have subsequently attained a firm and manly growth, and are recognized as his leading traits among those who really know him. Franklin Pierce’s development, indeed, has always been the reverse of premature; the boy did not show the germ of all that was in the man, nor, perhaps, did the young man adequately foreshow the mature one.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6 day 23 of 11 M 1804 / I have in the corse of the day paid attention to a wellwishing friend of mine as he has set in my Shop reading the Life of Baron F Trink & I have concluded it is not a proffitable Book for young people to read., as the tenor of it is inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel, his pitiful tale of adventures will sometimes raise the power of sympathy & we can see no way but to assent to what he did as being right, thus the mind by dabbling with books which tend to amuse the heads if not affect the heart is drawn away from the persuit of purity & holiness, & at reading those books which affect the passions we often get so raised & to be ready to think they are religious impressions & so center into very unprofifitable Ideas of things, - Altho I have heard much of this book nead to day, yet very deeply has my spirit been affected with things of quite a different nature. - ————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1806

March 12, Wednesday: Jane Means Appleton was born in Hampton, New Hampshire, daughter of the Reverend Jesse Appleton (a Congregationalist minister who was soon to become the president of Bowdoin College) and Elizabeth Means-Appleton. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1821

Nathaniel Hathorne left the home of his Manning relatives in Salem and journeyed to Bowdoin College, where Franklin Pierce was already in residence, and he would reside there into 1825 (one could hardly term him a student) and would luck into a lifelong alliance with some other undistinguished young men one of

whom would amount to something.2 No-one, not even Hawthorne, has ever represented that his college drinking companion Frank was the greatest president we’ve ever had, or that he possessed native strength of intellect, or native strength of character — as Hawthorne later was to represent an immensely popular genocidal racist named Andy “Long Knife” Jackson:

the greatest man we ever had; and his native strength, as well of intellect as character, compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the cunninger the individual might be, it served only to make him the sharper tool.

Nevertheless, Hawthorne would later be willing to write a campaign biography for this drunkard, and lie about the man’s attitudes, and help him follow Andrew Jackson as President of the United States, merely because of this superficial personal connection and from a realistic expectation and hope that through the political reward 2. He also would become lifelong friends with Horatio Bridge and Jonathan Cilley. Of these college years he would write:

“I was an idle student, negligent of college rules and the Procrustean details of academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own fancies than to dig into Greek roots and be numbered among the learned Thebans.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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system set up by Jackson and inherited by Pierce he, Hawthorne, would receive a personal and generous reward.

Statesman Chum and Pretty Boy

Also hovering in the background in those grand years at Bowdoin was a shorty student named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would go on to provide the stuff of legends. During these years of semi-idleness 3 and dissipation he would begin working at FANSHAWE, with its Bowdoin-like setting, and, perhaps, on some of the series of stories that would be issued as SEVEN TALES OF MY NATIVE LAND.

Allmendinger, David F. PAUPERS AND SCHOLARS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF STUDENT LIFE IN NINETEENTH- CENTURY NEW ENGLAND. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1975

3. The “Hartley College” of this narrative had been in fictive existence for 19 years as the aged narrator of this tale recollects upon his youthful matriculation, and in Hawthorne’s 1st year at Bowdoin College as of 1821, it had likewise been inexistence for 19 years, having opened its doors in 1802. It is possible that no such inscription as recorded in this narrative (“borrowed ... SCHOLAR”) has ever been placed upon the grave of Mather. In the Reverend Cotton Mather’s MAGNALIA CHRISTI AMERICANA; OR THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF NEW-ENGLAND the author recorded of his brother Nathanael that “He was as hard student, and quickly became a good scholar.” As republished in Hartford CT in 1820, there is at the front of the first volume an “Attestation” by the Reverend John Higginson in which it is stated that over the grave of Cotton’s brother Nathanael in Salem there had been written THE ASHES OF AN HARD STUDENT, A GOOD SCHOLAR, AND A GREAT CHRISTIAN. During the lifetime of Hawthorne, the inscription above Nathanael Cotton’s grave in Salem read as it now reads: “An Aged person that had seen but Nineteen Winters in the World.” If this is an unaccountable substitution of inscription, the switch would have needed to have been effected after the end of the 17th Century. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

COLLEGES Allmendinger’s history is a refreshing look into the collegial history of New England. Instead of the usual focus on Harvard, Yale, and the other Ivy League schools as the central forces of university history, Allmendinger turns his glance upon smaller New England institutions like Williams, Bowdoin, and Amherst and upon the students who populated these schools. What he has unearthed is telling: since most of these “new,” smaller schools were broke, they attracted poorer students looking for educational bargains and academic schedules that allowed them time to work. Hawthorne knew of, and was one of these “new” students himself. In PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, he saw these students at a commencement in the Berkshires of Williams College and wrote that “Country graduates, — rough, brown featured, schoolmaster-looking, half-bumpkin, half- scholarly figures, in black ill-cut broadcloth, — their manners quite spoilt by what little of the gentlemen there was in them” (quoted in Allemendinger 2). On the surface the admission and matriculation of these non-traditional students in “marginal” institutions may seem unimportant, but Allemendinger show that their effect on American university life was profound. Penniless sons of farmers and small businessmen affected the style and tone of college life. They imposed, Allmendinger observes, “their need for economy upon college arrangements for food and shelter,” forcing “Young gentlemen who sought refinement did so on their own.” They also introduced the frugality, independence, and, in general, the kind of self-reliant student experience that has become so deep a part of popular myth about college life today. These young men also contributed to the notion that a college experience should lead to a practical and rewarding middle class career. [Shawn Gillen, February 1992]

In 1820, at the age of sixteen, he became a student of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine. It was in the autumn of the next year, that the author of this memoir entered the class below him; but our college reminiscences, however interesting to the parties concerned, are not exactly the material for a biography. He was then a youth, with the boy and man in him, vivacious, mirthful, slender, of a fair complexion, with light hair that had a curl in it: his bright and cheerful aspect made a kind of sunshine, both as regarded its radiance and its warmth; insomuch that no shyness of disposition, in his associates, could well resist its influence. We soon became acquainted, and were more especially drawn together as members of the same college society. There were two of these institutions, dividing the college between them, and typifying, respectively, and with singular accuracy of feature, the respectable conservative, and the progressive or democratic parties. Pierce’s native tendencies inevitably drew him to the latter. His chum was Zenas Caldwell, several years elder than himself, a member of the Methodist persuasion, a pure-minded, studious, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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devoutly religious character; endowed thus early in life with the authority of a grave and sagacious turn of mind. The friendship between Pierce and him appeared to be mutually strong, and was of itself a pledge of correct deportment in the former. His chief friend, I think, was a classmate named Little, a young man of most estimable qualities, and high intellectual promise; one of those fortunate characters whom an early death so canonizes in the remembrance of their companions, that the perfect fulfilment of a long life would scarcely give them a higher place. Jonathan Cilley, of my own class, —whose untimely fate is still mournfully remembered,— a person of very marked ability and great social influence, was another of Pierce’s friends. All these have long been dead. There are others, still alive, who would meet Franklin Pierce, at this day, with as warm a pressure of the hand, and the same confidence in his kindly feelings, as when they parted from him, nearly thirty years ago. Pierce’s class was small, but composed of individuals seriously intent on the duties and studies of their college life. They were not boys, but for the most part, well advanced towards maturity; and, having wrought out their own means of education, were little inclined to neglect the opportunities that had been won at so much cost. They knew the value of time, and had a sense of the responsibilities of their position. Their first scholar —the present Professor Stowe— has long since established his rank among the first scholars of the country. It could have been no easy task to hold successful rivalry with students so much in earnest as these were. During the earlier part of his college course, it may be doubted whether Pierce was distinguished for scholarship. But, for the last two years, be appeared to grow more intent on the business in hand, and, without losing any of his vivacious qualities as a companion, was evidently resolved to gain an honorable elevation in his class. His habits of attention, and obedience to college discipline, were of the strictest character; he rose progressively in scholarship, and took a highly creditable degree. The first civil office, I imagine, which Franklin Pierce ever held, was that of chairman of the standing committee of the Athenaean Society, of which, as above hinted, we were both members; and, having myself held a place on the committee, I can bear testimony to his having discharged not only his own share of the duties, but, that of his colleagues. I remember, likewise, that the only military service of my life was as a private soldier in a college company, of which Pierce was one of the officers. He entered into this latter business, or pastime, with an earnestness with which I could not pretend to compete, and at which, perhaps, he would now be inclined to smile. His slender and youthful figure rises before my mind’s eye, at this moment, with the air and step of a veteran of the school of Steuben; as well became the son of a revolutionary hero, who had probably drilled under the old baron’s orders. Indeed, at this time, and for some years afterwards, Pierce’s ambition seemed to be of a military cast. Until reflection had HDT WHAT? INDEX

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tempered his first predilections, and other varieties of success had rewarded his efforts, he would have preferred, I believe, the honors of the battle field to any laurels more peacefully won. And it was remarkable how, with all the invariable gentleness of his demeanor, he perfectly gave, nevertheless, the impression of a high and fearless spirit. His friends were as sure of his courage, while yet untried, as now, when it has been displayed so brilliantly in famous battles. At this early period of his life, he was distinguished by the same fascination of manner that has since proved so magical in winning him an unbounded personal popularity. It is wronging him, however, to call this peculiarity a mere effect of manner; its source lies deep in the kindliness of his nature, and in the liberal, generous, catholic sympathy, that embraces all who are worthy of it. Few men possess any thing like it; so irresistible as it is, so sure to draw forth an undoubting confidence, and so true to the promise which it gives. This frankness, this democracy of good feeling, has not been chilled by the society of politicians, nor polished down into mere courtesy, by his intercourse with the most refined men of the day. It belongs to him at this moment, and will never leave him. A little while ago, after his return from Mexico, he darted across the street to exchange a hearty gripe of the hand with a rough countryman upon his cart — a man who used to “live with his father,” as the general explained the matter to his companions. Other men assume this manner, more or less skilfully; but with Frank Pierce it is an innate characteristic; nor will it ever lose its charm unless his heart should grow narrower and colder — a misfortune not to be anticipated, even in the dangerous atmosphere of elevated rank, whither he seems destined to ascend. There is little else that it is worth while to relate, as regards his college course, unless it be, that, during one of his winter vacations, Pierce taught a country school. So many of the statesmen of New England have performed their first public service in the character of pedagogue, that it seems almost a necessary step on the ladder of advancement.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1821

whom would amount to something.4 No-one, not even Hawthorne, has ever represented that his college drinking companion Frank was the greatest president we’ve ever had, or that he possessed native strength of intellect, or native strength of character — as Hawthorne later was to represent an immensely popular genocidal racist named Andy “Long Knife” Jackson:

Nevertheless, Hawthorne would later be willing to write a campaign biography for this drunkard, and lie about 4. He also would become lifelong friends with Horatio Bridge and Jonathan Cilley. Of these college years he would write:

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the man’s attitudes, and help him follow Andrew Jackson as President of the United States, merely because of this superficial personal connection and from a realistic expectation and hope that through the political reward system set up by Jackson and inherited by Pierce he, Hawthorne, would receive a personal and generous reward.

Statesman Chum and Pretty Boy

Also hovering in the background in those grand years at Bowdoin was a shorty student named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would go on to provide the stuff of legends. During these years of semi-idleness and dissipation he would begin working at FANSHAWE, with its Bowdoin-like setting,5 and, perhaps, on some of the series of stories that would be issued as SEVEN TALES OF MY NATIVE LAND.

Allmendinger, David F. PAUPERS AND SCHOLARS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF STUDENT LIFE IN NINETEENTH- CENTURY NEW ENGLAND. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1975

5. The “Hartley College” of this narrative had been in fictive existence for 19 years as the aged narrator of this tale recollects upon his youthful matriculation, and in Hawthorne’s 1st year at Bowdoin College as of 1821, it had likewise been inexistence for 19 years, having opened its doors in 1802. It is possible that no such inscription as recorded in this narrative (“borrowed ... SCHOLAR”) has ever been placed upon the grave of Mather. In the Reverend Cotton Mather’s MAGNALIA CHRISTI AMERICANA; OR THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF NEW-ENGLAND the author recorded of his brother Nathanael that “He was as hard student, and quickly became a good scholar.” As republished in Hartford CT in 1820, there is at the front of the first volume an “Attestation” by the Reverend John Higginson in which it is stated that over the grave of Cotton’s brother Nathanael in Salem there had been written THE ASHES OF AN HARD STUDENT, A GOOD SCHOLAR, AND A GREAT CHRISTIAN. During the lifetime of Hawthorne, the inscription above Nathanael Cotton’s grave in Salem read as it now reads: “An Aged person that had seen but Nineteen Winters in the World.” If this is an unaccountable substitution of inscription, the switch would have needed to have been effected after the end of the 17th Century. HDT WHAT? INDEX

FRANKLIN PIERCE FRANKLIN PIERCE

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

FRANKLIN PIERCE FRANKLIN PIERCE

friendship between Pierce and him appeared to be mutually strong, and was of itself a pledge of correct deportment in the former. His chief friend, I think, was a classmate named Little, a young man of most estimable qualities, and high intellectual promise; one of those fortunate characters whom an early death so canonizes in the remembrance of their companions, that the perfect fulfilment of a long life would scarcely give them a higher place. Jonathan Cilley, of my own class, —whose untimely fate is still mournfully remembered,— a person of very marked ability and great social influence, was another of Pierce’s friends. All these have long been dead. There are others, still alive, who would meet Franklin Pierce, at this day, with as warm a pressure of the hand, and the same confidence in his kindly feelings, as when they parted from him, nearly thirty years ago. Pierce’s class was small, but composed of individuals seriously intent on the duties and studies of their college life. They were not boys, but for the most part, well advanced towards maturity; and, having wrought out their own means of education, were little inclined to neglect the opportunities that had been won at so much cost. They knew the value of time, and had a sense of the responsibilities of their position. Their first scholar —the present Professor Stowe— has long since established his rank among the first scholars of the country. It could have been no easy task to hold successful rivalry with students so much in earnest as these were. During the earlier part of his college course, it may be doubted whether Pierce was distinguished for scholarship. But, for the last two years, be appeared to grow more intent on the business in hand, and, without losing any of his vivacious qualities as a companion, was evidently resolved to gain an honorable elevation in his class. His habits of attention, and obedience to college discipline, were of the strictest character; he rose progressively in scholarship, and took a highly creditable degree. The first civil office, I imagine, which Franklin Pierce ever held, was that of chairman of the standing committee of the Athenaean Society, of which, as above hinted, we were both members; and, having myself held a place on the committee, I can bear testimony to his having discharged not only his own share of the duties, but, that of his colleagues. I remember, likewise, that the only military service of my life was as a private soldier in a college company, of which Pierce was one of the officers. He entered into this latter business, or pastime, with an earnestness with which I could not pretend to compete, and at which, perhaps, he would now be inclined to smile. His slender and youthful figure rises before my mind’s eye, at this moment, with the air and step of a veteran of the school of Steuben; as well became the son of a revolutionary hero, who had probably drilled under the old baron’s orders. Indeed, at this time, and for some years afterwards, Pierce’s ambition seemed to be of a military cast. Until reflection had tempered his first predilections, and other varieties of success had rewarded his efforts, he would have preferred, I believe, the honors of the battle field to any laurels more peacefully won. And it was remarkable how, with all the invariable HDT WHAT? INDEX

FRANKLIN PIERCE FRANKLIN PIERCE

gentleness of his demeanor, he perfectly gave, nevertheless, the impression of a high and fearless spirit. His friends were as sure of his courage, while yet untried, as now, when it has been displayed so brilliantly in famous battles. At this early period of his life, he was distinguished by the same fascination of manner that has since proved so magical in winning him an unbounded personal popularity. It is wronging him, however, to call this peculiarity a mere effect of manner; its source lies deep in the kindliness of his nature, and in the liberal, generous, catholic sympathy, that embraces all who are worthy of it. Few men possess any thing like it; so irresistible as it is, so sure to draw forth an undoubting confidence, and so true to the promise which it gives. This frankness, this democracy of good feeling, has not been chilled by the society of politicians, nor polished down into mere courtesy, by his intercourse with the most refined men of the day. It belongs to him at this moment, and will never leave him. A little while ago, after his return from Mexico, he darted across the street to exchange a hearty gripe of the hand with a rough countryman upon his cart — a man who used to “live with his father,” as the general explained the matter to his companions. Other men assume this manner, more or less skilfully; but with Frank Pierce it is an innate characteristic; nor will it ever lose its charm unless his heart should grow narrower and colder — a misfortune not to be anticipated, even in the dangerous atmosphere of elevated rank, whither he seems destined to ascend. There is little else that it is worth while to relate, as regards his college course, unless it be, that, during one of his winter vacations, Pierce taught a country school. So many of the statesmen of New England have performed their first public service in the character of pedagogue, that it seems almost a necessary step on the ladder of advancement.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1822

A short young gentleman embarrassed about his name, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, entered Bowdoin

College as a sophomore at the age of 15, along with an undistinguished student named Hathorne (Nathaniel Hawthorne) and an undistinguished student named Franklin Pierce, who were in the process of forming a lifelong alliance. No-one, not even Hawthorne, has ever represented that this college drinking buddy was the greatest president we ever had, or that he possessed native strength of intellect or native strength of character — as Hawthorne later was to represent an immensely popular genocidal racist named Andrew “Long Knife” Jackson:

Nevertheless, Hawthorne would later be willing to write a campaign biography for this drunkard, and lie about the man’s attitudes, and help him follow Andrew Jackson as President of the United States, merely because of this superficial personal connection and from a realistic expectation and hope that through the political reward system set up by Jackson and inherited by Pierce he, Hawthorne, would receive a personal and generous HDT WHAT? INDEX

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reward.

Statesman Chum and Pretty Boy

These lads would go on to provide the stuff of legends:

THE SCARLET LETTER: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; BROOK FARM after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the WALDO EMERSON Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau ELLERY CHANNING about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that LONGFELLOW I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. BRONSON ALCOTT Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Whittier-Holmes-Emerson-Motley-Alcott-Hawthorne-Lowell-Agassiz-Longfellow HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1834

November 19, Wednesday: A setting of Psalm 115 for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn was performed for the initial time, in Frankfurt.

Franklin Pierce got married with Jane Means Appleton Pierce of Amherst.

In a shipboard accident, the Pilgrim lost an English crewman, George Ballmer, overboard: Monday, Nov. 19th. This was a black day in our calendar. At seven o’clock in the morning, it being our watch below, we were aroused from a sound sleep by the cry of “All hands ahoy! a man overboard!” This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of every one, and hurrying on deck, we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding-sails set; for the boy who was at the helm left it to throw something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback. The watch on deck were lowering away the quarter-boat, and I got on deck just in time to heave myself into her as she was leaving the side; but it was not until out upon the wide Pacific, in our little boat, that I knew whom we had lost. It was George Ballmer, a young English sailor, who was prized by the officers as an active and willing seaman, and by the crew as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate. He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main top-masthead, for ringtail halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards, and a marline-spike about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock shrouds, and not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with all those things round his neck, he probably sank immediately. We pulled astern, in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew that there was no hope of saving him, yet no one wished to speak of returning, and we rowed about for nearly an hour, without the hope of doing anything, but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that we must give him up. At length we turned the boat’s head and made towards the vessel. Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and “the mourners go about the streets;” but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore– you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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There is always something which helps you to realize it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you– at your side– you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea– to use a homely but expressive phrase– you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss. All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor’s rude eulogy– “Well, poor George is gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew his work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate.” Then usually follows some allusion to another world, for sailors are almost all believers; but their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They says– “God won’t be hard upon the poor fellow,” and seldom get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will excuse them hereafter,– “To work hard, live hard, die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard indeed!” Our cook, a simple-hearted old African, who had been through a good deal in his day, and was rather seriously inclined, always going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley, talked to the crew about spending their Sabbaths badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared. Yet a sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous. We had hardly returned on board with our sad report, before an auction was held of the poor man’s clothes. The captain had first, however, called all hands aft and asked them if they were satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought there was any use in remaining there longer. The crew all said that it was in vain, for the man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily dressed. So we then filed away and kept her off to her course. The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law or a universal custom, established for convenience, that the captain should immediately hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted from their wages at the end of the voyage. In this way the trouble and risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and the clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on shore. Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind, than his chest was brought up upon the forecastle, and the sale began. The jackets and trowsers in which we had seen him dressed but a few days before, were exposed and bid off while the life was hardly out of his body, and his chest was taken aft and used as a store- chest, so that there was nothing left which could be called his. Sailors have an unwillingness to wear a dead man’s clothes during the same voyage, and they seldom do so unless they are in absolute want. As is usual after a death, many stories were told about George. Some had heard him say that he repented never having learned to swim, and that he knew that he should meet his death by drowning. Another said that he never knew any good to come of a voyage made against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but not being able to refund, was obliged to sail with us. A boy, too, who had become quite attached to him, said that George talked to him during most of the watch on the night before about his mother and family at home, and this was the first time that he had mentioned the subject during the voyage. The night after this event, when I went to the galley to get a light, I found the cook inclined to be talkative, so I sat down on the spars, and gave him an opportunity to hold a yarn. I was the more inclined to do so, as I found that he was full of the superstitions once more common among seamen, and which the recent death had waked up in his mind. He talked about George’s having spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams, and the unusual behavior of men before death. From this he went on to other superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, etc., and talked rather mysteriously, having something evidently on his mind. At length he put his head out of the galley and looked carefully about to see if any one was within hearing, and being satisfied on that point, asked me in a low tone– “I say! you know what countryman ’e carpenter be?” “Yes,” said I, “he’s a German.” “What kind of a German?” said the cook. “He belongs to Bremen,” said I. “Are you sure o’ dat?” said he. I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no language but the German and English. “I’m plaguy glad o’ dat,” said the cook. “I was mighty ’fraid he was a Fin. I tell you what, I been plaguy civil to that man HDT WHAT? INDEX

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all the voyage. I asked him the reason of this, and found that he was fully possessed with the notion that Fins are wizards, and especially have power over winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about it, but he had the best of all arguments, that from experience, at hand, and was not to be moved. He had been in a vessel to the Sandwich Islands, in which the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do anything he was of a mind to. This sail-maker kept a junk bottle in his berth, which was always just half full of rum, though he got drunk upon it nearly every day. He had seen him sit for hours together, talking to this bottle, which he stood up before him on the table. The same man cut his throat in his berth, and everybody said he was possessed. He had heard of ships, too, beating up the gulf of Finland against a head wind and having a ship heave in sight astern, overhaul and pass them, with as fair a wind as could blow, and all studding-sails out, and find she was from Finland. “Oh, no!” said he; “I’ve seen too much of them men to want to see ’board a ship. If they can’t have their own way, they’ll play the d---l with you.” As I still doubted, he said he would leave it to John, who was the oldest seaman aboard, and would know, if anybody did. John, to be sure, was the oldest, and at the same time the most ignorant, man in the ship; but I consented to have him called. The cook stated the matter to him, and John, as I anticipated, sided with the cook, and said that he himself had been in a ship where they had a head wind for a fortnight, and the captain found out at last that one of the men, whom he had had some hard words with a short time before, was a Fin, and immediately told him if he didn’t stop the head wind he would shut him down in the fore peak. The Fin would not give in, and the captain shut him down in the fore peak, and would not give him anything to eat. The Fin held out for a day and a half, when he could not stand it any longer, and did something or other which brought the wind round again, and they let him up. “There,” said the cook, “what you think o’ dat?” I told him I had no doubt it was true, and that it would have been odd if the wind had not changed in fifteen days, Fin or no Fin. “Oh,” says he, “go ’way! You think, ’cause you been to college, you know better than anybody. You know better than them as has seen it with their own eyes. You wait till you’ve been to sea as long as I have, and you’ll know.”

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

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1836

February 2, Tuesday: Franklin Pierce was born to Franklin Pierce and Jane Means Appleton Pierce (this infant would survive only four days).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day was Sub committee Meeting & we passed the day at the School House — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1837

Midshipman James Melville Gilliss went under Captain Charles Wilkes with the United States South-Sea Exploring Expedition, to cruise the South Pacific and Antarctic region for five years while making observations on differences of longitude by means of moon-culminations (he would make metrological observations and work on new instruments). Franklin Pierce and other friends of Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to obtain an appointment for him as historian of this expedition, known informally as the “Ex. Ex.”

It would only be a political accident, that the expedition, which would be derogated by Thoreau in WALDEN as “that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense,” would not avail itself of the services of Hawthorne.

WALDEN: What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring PEOPLE OF Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in WALDEN the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.– “Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.” Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians. I have more of God, they more of the road.

CHARLES WILKES HDT WHAT? INDEX

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THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1839

Thomas B. Laighton, the businessman of Portsmouth, New Hampshire who owned Appledore Island, Cedar Island, Malaga Island, and Smuttynose Island, got mad because he had been defeated by means which he considered unfair in a race for governor of New Hampshire. So he sold his business and moved his family out to White Island on a 2-year contract to be the keeper of the Isles of Shoals Lighthouse. He was the father of the poet Celia Thaxter, at this time still a child. Celia’s father and his friend Levi Thaxter had the notion to build a grand hotel on Appledore. The daughter’s memories in books such as AMONG THE ISLES OF SHOALS

(1873) would make her and the locale known throughout the country. By the time her 1st poem was published, the two men would have turned their unlikely $2,000 investment into a successful business. Celia’s literary fame and Boston connections provided the ideal public relations tool, drawing the cream of big city society to the isolated hotel. Laighton would be so smitten by life away from the mainland that he would never leave the Isles. Visitors during his lifelong tenure would include Richard Henry Dana, Jr. and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who at this point were neither of them yet the sort of famous author whose name would noticeably distinguish one’s guestbook, plus Harriet Beecher Stowe and Friend John Greenleaf Whittier, the painter Childe Hassam, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and the politician Franklin Pierce.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 27, Tuesday: Frank Robert Pierce was born to Franklin Pierce and Jane Means Appleton Pierce (this child would succumb to typhoid fever at the age of four).

The federal district judge for Connecticut, Andrew T. Judson, held an inquiry on board the USS Washington in the New London, Connecticut harbor, and decided to hold the La Amistad issue over for consideration by the grand jury which was scheduled to meet in Hartford in September 1839, as The U.S. v. The Libelants, etc., of the Schooner Amistad.

At about this point our hearts go out to Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, who were writing a Thank-You note to the newspapers of New London, Connecticut in appreciation for their having been rescued from the tender affections of those bad niggers who had resisted being what they rightfully should be, slaves: The subscribers, Don Jose Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes, in gratitude for their most unhoped for and most providential rescue from the hands of a ruthless gang of African buccaneers, and an awful death, would take this means of expressing, in some slight degree, their thankfulness and obligations to Lieutenant Commander T.R. Gedney, and the officers and crew of the U.S. surveying brig Washington, for their decision in seizing the Amistad, and their unremitting kindness and hospitality in providing for their comfort on board their vessel, as well as the means they have taken for the protection of their property. We also must express our indebtedness to that nation whose flag they so worthily bear, with an assurance that this act will be duly appreciated by our most gracious sovereign, Her Majesty the Queen of Spain. THE MIDDLE PASSAGE JOSEPH CINQUÉ

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1841

April 13, Tuesday: Benjamin Pierce was born to Franklin Pierce and Jane Means Appleton Pierce (this child would die in a train accident on January 6, 1853 at the age of eleven).

Jean Baptiste Nothomb replaced Jean Louis Joseph Lebeau as head of government for Belgium.

The new Hoftheater in Dresden, designed by Gottfried Semper, opened with a performance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Torquato Tasso. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

November 14, Tuesday: Frank Robert Pierce succumbed to typhoid fever at age four. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1846

Ida Pfeiffer’s travel journal was published in Austria. She used the returns from VISIT TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, AND ITALY to finance a new adventure into Iceland. Unlike other travelers to Iceland of the time, she was alone and on a tight budget. She relied upon the local pony carts and for some six months lived as the Icelanders did. She sold the plant and rock collections she had made to museums. Her observations would become JOURNEY TO ICELAND, AND TRAVELS IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY. Then, still in the same year, she embarked on a Danish ship with the destination being Rio de Janeiro on the coast of South America. She hired a guide and went into the rain forest to visit the Puri. Then she continued on around the world by way of Cape Horn, her entire journey consuming three years and completing in Vienna only in November 1848. Along the way she became just outraged at the open sensuality of Tahitian females.6

She rode up the river from Portuguese Macau aboard a cargo junk and at Canton she crossed paths with Professor Louis Agassiz. CHINA 6. In America during this year, Herman Melville’s narrative of his sailor sojourn on an island in Polynesia was being republished (it had already appeared in England under the title NARRATIVE OF A FOUR MONTHS’ RESIDENCE AMONG THE NATIVES OF A VALLEY OF THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS; OR, A PEEP AT POLYNESIAN LIFE) by Wiley and Putnam, as TYPEE: A PEEP AT POLYNESIAN LIFE. Melville was “dedicating” this book to his father-in-law Judge Shaw, who had been advancing the cause of racial fairness from the bench. Henry Thoreau read this new book (it may be the only thing by Melville that he ever read) and stuck a reminder to himself into a journal notebook he was keeping that fall, that he would use in his writings about his Maine adventures and then put into his 1st draft of WALDEN, a reminder to cite this work by Melville as proof that elderly people in primitive societies are healthier than their civilized counterparts. Longfellow was praising Melville’s “glowing description of Life in the Marquesas,” and Amos Bronson Alcott was referring to the volume as “charming.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, who by the influence of his friends Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce in the Democratic party, had secured a morning job, “Surveyor of Port,” at the Salem Custom House, was provided with a review copy by Evert Duyckinck and commented in the Salem Advertiser that he knew of “no work that gives a freer and more effective picture of barbarian life.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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For several months she traveled in India with a leather pouch for water, a small pan for cooking, some salt, and bread and rice. INDIA

Continuing on to Baghdad she joined a camel caravan for the 300-mile trek through the desert to Mosul, and then went into Persia, to Tabriz, where she amazed the British consul. Joining a caravan going toward Russia, she was of course briefly detained as a spy and jotted in her journal, “Oh you good Arabs, Turks, Persians, Hindoos! How safely did I pass through your heathen and infidel countries; and here, in Christian Russia, how much have I had to suffer in this short space.”

WALDEN: When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round the PEOPLE OF world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, WALDEN she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she “was now in a civilized country, where ... people are judged of by their clothes.” Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect. But they who yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary sent to them.

IDA PFEIFFER Madame Pfeiffer continued through Turkey, Greece, and Italy to her home in Vienna and reunion with her two sons.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1847

March 3, Wednesday: 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 • 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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May 26, Wednesday: 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.

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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....

May 27, Thursday: 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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 28, Monday: 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

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July 5, Monday: The final departure of the Edinburgh-to-London mail coach (from this point forward, it would be all mail cars on railroads).

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.

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July 6, Tuesday: 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.

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July 7, Wednesday: 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

July 8, Thursday: 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, Monday: 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, Tuesday: 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, Wednesday: 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, Thursday: 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, Friday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 17, Saturday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 20, Tuesday: 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, Wednesday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 23, Friday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 24, Saturday: 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. One 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, Sunday: 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, Tuesday: 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 respectfully Henry D Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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, Thursday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 30, Friday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 1, Friday: 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.

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August 7, Saturday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 8, Sunday: 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

August 19, Thursday: 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.

August 17, Sunday [1851]: ... 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.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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BAWTHORNE’S BIO OF PIERCE The 1st day of the Battle of Contreras: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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, Friday: The 2d day of the battle at Contreras. The battle at Churubusco:

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 21, Saturday: 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Scott had 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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September 14, Tuesday: 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

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1850

The University of Rochester and the Rochester Theological Seminary were founded by Baptists, in the United States Hotel on Buffalo Street (today’s West Main Street) of Rochester, New York.

There was a current controversy over whether or not the pro-slavery Baptist churches of the southern states should be split away from the antislavery Baptist churches of the northern ones. Which was the preferable path, a religious unity based upon silence in regard to this moral issue, or the disunion that inevitably would follow upon a square facing of the difficulty? Andrew Twombly Foss and Edward Matthews prepared FACTS FOR BAPTIST CHURCHES, a book on the facts of slavery for the use of Baptist churches and missions (Utica NY: American Baptist Free Mission Society).7

Spencer H. Cone’s and William H. Wyckoff’s THE COMMONLY RECEIVED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ... WITH SEVERAL HUNDRED EMENDATIONS (New York: Lewis Colby; New Orleans: Duncan, Hurlbutt and Company). Cone and Wycoff were Baptists and founders of the American Bible Union. Their limited revision of the King James Version substituted “immerse” for “baptise.” HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

7. In this year Franklin Pierce denounced Andrew Twombly Foss as a “disunionist.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1851

August 8, Friday: Nathaniel Hawthorne visited the Shakers at Hancock near Lenox,8 was politely shown around by an elder, and decided that his pleasant old host’s society was

hateful and disgusting to think of; and the sooner the sect is extinct the better — a consummation which, I am happy to hear, is thought to be not a great many years distant.

MOTHER ANN LEE AND THE “SHAKERS”

To give you an idea of the sort of thing Hawthorne had encountered, and to which he had had such a strong reaction, here is a description of a Shaker group as of 1829 (you can be sure they didn’t much vary from group

8. At the time, the Shakers or “The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing” of New Hampshire were involved in some sort of legal issue, and their attorney at court was Hawthorne’s college sidekick Franklin Pierce. The Shakers were followers of an exceptionally practical 18th-Century religious mystic they called Mother Ann Lee, whose motto for them was “Hands to Work and Hearts to God.” They were celibate and lived apart from the world. This Society of Believers had numbered some 300 in Hancock, in 1829, although there were only 3 left by 1960 when the village was put up for sale.

The Hancock Shaker Village, phone (413) 443-0188, is five miles out US 20 west of Pittsfield. From May until October 31, the village is open from 9:30AM to 5:00PM, and the cafe in the Visitor’s Center is also open for lunch and snacks. Guided 90-minute tours are also available in April and November from 10:00AM to 3:00PM. Admission is $9.00, and family admission, for two adults and all children under 18, is $25.00. They charge $4.50 for children 6 to 12. Occasionally, for $35.00, they offer an evening tour with candlelight supper. Elizabeth Linzey, an interpreter at the white- framed meeting house with white and Prussian blue interior, tells modern tourists the Shakers believed that “perfect was simply the best you could do. So everyone could do something perfect. That’s why they tried so hard and did so well.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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to group, and that they hadn’t much changed from 1829 to 1851):

The Elders wear long plain coats and wide brimmed hats, but the Sunday costume of the ordinary man consists of pantaloons of blue linen with a fine white stripe in it, vest of a much deeper blue linsey-woolsey, stout calfskin shoes and grey stockings. Their shirts are made of cotton, the collars fastened with three buttons and turned over. The women wear, on Sunday, some a pure white dress, and others a white dress with a delicate blue stripe in it. Over their necks and bosoms were pure white kerchiefs, and over the left arm of each was carried a large white pocket handkerchief. Their heads were covered with lawn caps, the form of all, for both old and young, being alike. They project so as to fully conceal the cheeks in profile. Their shoes, sharp-toed and high-heeled, according to the fashion of the day when the Society was formed [1747], were made of prunella of a brilliant ultramarine blue. And there were children too, with cheerful faces peering out from their broad hats and deep bonnets, for they were all dressed like old men and women. I marvelled at the sight of children in that isolated world of bachelors and maidens, forgetting that it was a refuge for orphans who are unsheltered in the stormy world without.

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of sites such as the Shaker community at Harvard, Massachusetts:

THE WORLD SEES

We have spied through the windows of The Square House at Harvard, where groans, shrieks, loud yellings, incredible laughters, singing and stamping feet — all have lately vibrated the timbers of that house, and of adjoining ones.

What we have seen! A bedlam of chanting, yelling, trembling! Some Shakers jerking their heads and limbs uncontrollably for upwards of twenty minutes, other threshing around wildly on the floor whilst others ramble around them, oblivious.

Some lie as dead (who knows for how long — it’s rumored for hours). Some are beasts and go on all fours like maddened dogs, or whelps, barking, howling, and snapping at others in like dismal states of mind. We have noticed, strongly, that the men seldom mingle with the women, the latter engendering hysteria and beast-madness, in their own parts of the building. It is unlikely, therefore, that they are, as rumored, licentious and libidinous.

But, of this we are certain: we are dismayed, as God-fearing citizens, to have such madness in our midst. Certainly their rheums, catarrhs, and effluvia let loose upon Harvard will propel the rest of us to early graves. We shall deal with these folks as we must, to silence them.*

————————— *Robert Peters. SHAKER LIGHT: MOTHER ANN LEE IN AMERICA. Greensboro: Unicorn Press, 1987, page 121.

August 8, Friday: 71/2 PM To Conantum– The moon has not yet quite filled her horns–9 I perceive why we so often remark a dark cloud in the west at and after sunset– It is because it is almost directly between us and the sun & hence we see the dark side and moreover it is much darker than it other-wise would be because of the little light reflected from the earth at that hour. The same cloud at mid day & over head might not attract attention. There is a pure amber sky beneath the present bank –thus framed off from the rest of the heavens – which with the outlines of small dead elms seen against it –I hardly know far or near –make picture enough. Men will travel far to see less interesting sights than this. Turning away from the sun we get this enchanting view as when a man looks at the landscape with inverted head. Under shadow of the dark cloud which I have described the cricket begins his strain –his ubiquitous strain. Is there a fall-cricket distinct from the species we hear in spring & summer? I smell the cornfield over the brook a dozen rods off –& it reminds me of the green corn feasts of the Indians. The evening train comes rolling in –but none of the passengers jumping out in such haste attend to the beautiful fresh picture which nature has unrolled in the west –& surmounted with that dark frame. The circular platter of the carrots blossom is now perfect. Might not this be called the invalide’s moon on account of the warmth of the nights? The principal employments of the farmers now seems to be getting their meadow hay. & cradling some oats &c. The light from the western sky is stronger still than that of the moon –and when I hold up my hand the west side is lighted while the side toward the moon is comparatively dark.– – – But now that I have put this dark wood 9. It was half full on the night of the 3rd and would be full on the night of the 10th. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(Hubbards’s) between me and the west –I see the moon light plainly on my paper– I am even startled by it– VENUS One star too, is it Venus?, I see in the west Starlight –! that would be a good way to mark the hour if we were precise. Hubbards brook– How much the beauty of the moon is enhanced by being seen shining between two trees –or even by the neighborhood of clouds! I hear the clock striking eight faintly. I smell the late shorn meadows One will lose no music by not attending the oratorios & operas. The really inspiring melodies are cheap & universal –& are as audible to the poor man’s son as to the rich mans. Listening to the harmonies of the universe is not allied to dissipation. My neighbors have gone to the vestry to hear “Ned Kendal” the bugler tonight, but I am come forth to the hills to hear my bugler in the horizon– I can forego the seeming advantages of cities without misgiving. No heavenly strain is lost to the ear that is fitted to hear it for want of money – or opportunity. I am convinced that for instrumental music All Vienna cannot serve me more than the Italian boy who seeks my door with his organ. And now I strike the road at the causeway– It is hard & I hear the sound of my steps a sound which should never be heard –for it draws down my thoughts. It is more like the treadmill exercise. The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been. There is no dew as yet. The planks & railing of Hubbards bridge are removed. I walk over on the string pieces resting in the middle until the moon comes out of a cloud that I may see my path –for between the next piers the string pieces also are removed & there is only a rather narrow plank – let down 3 or 4 feet.– I essay to cross it –but it springs a little & I mistrust myself –whether I shall not plunge into the river. Some demonic genius seems to be warning me. Attempt not the passage –you will surely be drowned– It is very real that I am thus affected– Yet I am fully aware of the absurdity of minding such suggestions– I put out my foot but I am checked as if that power had laid a hand on my breast & chilled me back –never the less I cross –stooping at first –& gain the other side.– (I make the most of it –on account of the admonition –but it was nothing to remark on– I returned the same way 2 hours later & made nothing of it) It is easy to see how by yielding to such feelings as this men would recreate all reestablish all the superstitions of antiquity. It is best that reason should govern us and not these blind intimations –in which we exalt our fears into a genius.

DIFFERENT DRUMMER

On Conantum I sit awhile in the shade of the woods & look out on the moonlit fields– White rocks are more remarkable than by day. The air is warmer than the rocks now. It is perfectly warm & I am tempted to stay out all night & observe each phenomenon of the night until day dawns. But if I should do so, I should not wonder if the town were raised to hunt me up. Sitting on the door step of Conant-house –at 9 o clock I hear a pear drop –how few of all the apples that fall do we hear fall. I could lie out here on this pinnacle rock all night without cold– I hear a horse sneeze? from time to time in his pasture– He sees me & knows me to be a man –though I do not see him. To lie here on your back with nothing between your eye & the stars –nothing but space –they your nearest neighbors on that side –be they strange or be they tame –be they other worlds or merely ornaments to this– Who could ever go to sleep under these circumstances. I hear the 9 o clock bell ringing in Bedford – an unexpectedly musical sound that of a bell in the horizon always is– Pleasantly sounds the voice of one village to another. It is sweet as it is rare. Since I sat here a bright star has gone behind the stem of a tree –proving that my machine is moving– I hear a solitary whipporwill [Whip-Poor-Will Caprimulgus Vociferus] –& a bull frog on the river fewer sounds than in spring. The grey cliffs across the river are plain to be seen– And now the star appears on the other side of the tree –& I must go– Still no dew up here I see 3 scythes hanging on an apple tree– There is the wild apple tree where hangs the forgotten scythe.– the rock where the shoe was left. The woods & the separate trees cast longer shadows than by day –for the moon goes lower in her course at this season. Some dew at last in the meadow. As I recross the string pieces of the bridge –I see the water bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight. I scent the Roman Wormwood in the Potatoe fields. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1852

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s college chum Franklin Pierce was elected 14th President of the United States of America, defeating not only the candidate of the Free Soil Party party, the abolitionist John Parker Hale, but also the victorious General Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate who had been favored in the election. Scott’s defeat would draw attention to the crumbling condition of his party.

This had come about in a most interesting manner. Pierce had come out in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law, and so the Southern slavemasters of the Democratic Party had begun to consider him a sympathetic Northerner, and thus a suitable candidate for Vice-President on their ticket (their ideal slate being a vigorous Southern pro-slavery Presidential candidate, combined just for show with one or another Northern pro-slavery ineffective stuffed shirt sellout Vice-Presidential candidate). However, their convention had had an ironclad rule, that only a 2/3rds vote could confirm a slate, and so it had of course become deadlocked, and it remained deadlocked for 48 consecutive ballots — until the deadlock was broken in fatigue by their simply giving up on all their favorite sons, and promoting instead this Northern dark horse into the primary slot on their ticket. Pierce would, as he had pledged (and as depicted on a following screen), be appointing an entirely proslavery cabinet. For instance, he would appoint his good ol’ buddy Jefferson Davis the secessionist as his Secretary of War.

June 3, Thursday: Balloting began, in Baltimore, at the Democratic national convention. The strategy of some of the delegations was to create a deadlock by, on any ballot on which they did not have the votes to allow their own favorite son to win, always voting for the weakest nominee. This deadlock was maintained for 48 consecutive ballots. Then, on the 49th ballot, North Carolina broke ranks, and the snowball began to roll in favor of, of all persons, that smiling good-for-nothing Franklin Pierce:

“Cass 2, Douglas 2, Butler 1, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire (God bless him!) 282 votes.”

We would not have another such nomination of such a smiling good-for-nothing, ’till early in the 21st Century. Here is what a biography, Larry Gara, would have to say about the disaster that was the four-year presidency of Franklin Pierce, by way of pointing out that the problem we were having was far, far larger than merely a single drunkard incompetent hail-fellow-well-met having found his way into too high an office: For southern blacks, federalism became the curse that bound them in servitude. Most northern politicians tried not to offend their southern colleagues, since both parties needed support in the South when they nominated candidates for the presidency. Yet the North was becoming more restive under the old agreement, which favored the South through the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution.... Before 1850 the slave states had controlled half the Senate and two-fifths of the House, and most early presidents had been southern slaveholders.... The emphasis, always, was on what the South and its slaveholding minority was doing to the North rather than on slavery and what it was doing to the slaves. Only the small abolition movement concerned itself with the plight of the slaves.... Abolitionists, emphasizing the sin of slavery, still had limited appeal, since HDT WHAT? INDEX

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many northerners were as negative about blacks as they were about southerners. Opposed to slavery, they also opposed the idea of a free, multiracial society.

July 13, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau wrote to Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau commenting that Concord was “just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and their knockings,” and expressing his own skeptical attitude that “If I could be brought to believe in the things which they believe, I should make haste to get rid of my certificate of stock in this and the next world’s enterprises, and buy a share in the first Immediate Annihilation company that offered.” SPIRITUALISM

Concord July 13th ’52 Dear Sophia, I am a miserable letter-writer, but perchance if I should say this at length, and with sufficient emphasis & regret, it would make a letter. I am sorry that nothing transpires here of much moment; or, I should rather say, that I am so slackened and rusty, like the telegraph wire this season, that no wind that blows can extract music from me. I am not on the trail of any elephants or mastodons, but have succceeded in trapping only a few ridiculous mice, which cannot feed my imag- ination. I have become sadly scientific. I would rather come upon the vast valley-like “spore” only of some celestial beast which this world’s woods can no longer sustain, than spring my net over a bushel of moles. You must do better in those woods where you are. You must have some adventures to relate and repeat for years to come — which will eclipse even Mother’s voyage to Goldsborough & Sissiboo. They say that Mr Pierce the presidential candidate was in town last 5th of July visiting Hawthorne whose college chum he was, and that Hawthorne is writing a life of him for electioneering purposes. Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and their knockings. Most people here believe in a spiritual world which no respectable junk bottle —which had not met with a slip— would condescend to contain even a portion of for a moment — HDT WHAT? INDEX

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whose atmosphere would extinguish a candle let down into it, like a well that wants airing — in spirits which the very bull frogs in our meadows would blackball. Their evil genius is seeing how low it can degrade them. The hooting of owls —the croaking of frogs —is celestial wisdom in comparison. If I could be brought to believe in the things which they believe — I should make haste to get rid of my certificate of stock in this & the next world’s enterprises, and buy a share in the first Immediate Annihilation Company that offered— I would exchange my immortality for a glass of small beer this hot weather. Where are the heathen? Was there ever any superstition before? And yet I suppose there may be a vessel this very moment setting sail from the coast of North America to that of Africa with a missionary on board! Consider the dawn —& the sun rise —the rainbow & the evening — the words of Christ & the aspirations of all the saints! Hear music! See —smell —taste —feel —hear —anything —& then hear these idiots inspired by the cracking of a restless board — hum- bly asking “Please Spirit, if you cannot answer by knocks, answer by tips of the table”.!!!!!! Yrs H. D. Thoreau

July 13, Tuesday: A Journal. –a book that shall contain a record of all your joy –your extacy.

4 Pm to R. W. E’s woodlot S of Walden. The pool by Walden is now quite yellow with the common utricularia (vulgaris) This morning the heavens were overcast with a fog which did not clear off till late in the forenoon – & heard the muttering of thunder behind it about 5 Am and thought it would rain at last but there were dewy cobwebs on the grass –and it did not rain but we had another hot dry day after all. The northern wild red cherry of the woods is ripe –handsome bright red but scarcely edible– Also sooner than I expected huckleberries both blue & black –the former not described by Gray or Big –in the greater abundance –and must have been ripe several days –they are thick enough to pick– The black only here & there The former is apparently a variety of the latter blue with bloom & a tough or thick skin. There are evidently several kinds of huckleberries and blueberries not described by botanists. Of the very early blueberries at least two varieties one glossy black with dark green leaves the other a rich light blue with bloom & yellowish green leaves –& more kinds I remember. I found the vaccinium Corymbosum well ripe on an exposed hill side. Each day now I scare up woodcocks by shady springs & swamps The dark purple amelanchier are the sweetest berries I have tasted yet. One who walks the woods & hills daily –expecting to see the first berry that turns –will be surprised at last to find them ripe & thick before he is aware of it –ripened he cannot tell how long before –in some more favorable situation. It is impossible to say what day almost what week the huckleberries begin to be ripe unless you are acquainted with & daily visit every huckleberry bush in the town –at least every place where they grow. Already the golden rod apparently Solidago stricta –Willow leaved G preaches of the lapse of time on the Walden road. How many a tale its yellow tells!– The polygala Sanguinea & P cruciata in Bristers meadow –both numerous & well out– The last has a fugacious? spicy scent in which methinks I detect the scent of nutmegs –afterward I find that it is the lower part of the stem & root which is most highly scented like checquerberry & not fugacious. The verbena urticifolia white vervain. Succory or Cichorium intybus. It appears to shut up this hot weather. Is that nettle like plant by the wall below Mrs Heywoods –Urtica gracilis? now in blossom. Polygonum aviculare – goose-grass about the door.

The weather has been remarkably warm for a week or 10 days –the thermometer at 95 degrees more or less –& we have had no rain. You have not thought of cold or of taking cold night or day, but only how you should be cool enough. Such weather as this the only use of clothing is to cover nakedness –and to protect the body from HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the sun. It is remarkable that though it would be a great luxury to throw aside all clothing now –except one thin robe to keep off the sun –yet throughout the whole community not one is found to do it. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 14, Wednesday: It was after the Hawthornes completed their move from Lenox, Massachusetts to West Newton that THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE appeared.10 This novel had, in the judgment of Henry James, Margaret Fuller as Zenobia, a major character who commits suicide from unrequited love.

The novel also mentioned her by name in a most disconcerting manner, as a friend of the narrator:

As I did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she [Priscilla] drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped over it, in a way that had probably grown habitual to her....it forcibly struck me that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face, but not its features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. I cannot describe it. The points, easiest to convey to the reader, were, a certain curve of the shoulders, and a partial closing of the eyes, which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the narrowed apertures, than if they had been open at full width. It was a singular anomaly of likeness co-existing with perfect dissimilitude.... “Priscilla,” I inquired, “did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller?” “No,” she answered. “Because,” said I, “you reminded me of her, just now, and it happens, strangely enough, that this very letter is from her!” Priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much discomposed. “I wish people would not fancy such odd things in me!” she said, rather petulantly. “How could I possibly make myself resemble this lady, merely by holding her letter in my hand?” “Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it,” I replied. “Nor do I suppose that the letter had anything to do with it. It was just a coincidence — nothing more.”

Rufus William Griswold appeared in THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE as “Doctor Griswold.”

In this year Nathaniel also authored a campaign biography of Franklin Pierce that would make him deserving of a political plum. In this writing he did not name a cow after Fuller or suggest that she might commit suicide, or vent any of his other pet peeves, but he did something far worse: this writing was utterly condemnatory of the sort of abolitionist anti-slavery activities of which his neighbor Henry Thoreau, among others, had been 10.A claim of copyright has been made for THE SCARLET LETTER in 1962, for FANSHAWE and THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE in 1964, for THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES in 1965, and for THE MARBLE FAUN in 1968, by Ohio State UP. (We presume that those ostensibly appropriative and global copyright claims could actually have covered not more than whatever value was added to the works by that press at that time, such as their reformatting and pagination and suchlike.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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guilty, and yet it was not an honest or sincere piece of writing.

Statesman Chum and Pretty Boy

President Franklin Pierce was in fact a proslavery drunkard whose qualification to be President was that he had been a totally undistinguished general in the war upon Mexico. Horace Mann, Sr. commented in regard to the writing of this campaign biography that if Hawthorne could make out Pierce to be a great man or a brave man, “it will be the greatest work of fiction he ever wrote.” Hawthorne handled the hot matter of slavery in this campaign biography by suggesting that, for the present, slavery seemed to be in accord with God’s great plan, and that if we simply let it be, eventually in God’s good time –if indeed it was his will that it should be vanquished– human slavery would “vanish like a dream.”

And, the creative writer insisted, this was not mere puffery, it was what he really believed, those “are my real sentiments.” The opportunistic careerism of Pierce, it seemed, had been founded upon the highest moral principle, that of getting results, that of satisfying one’s lust to leave one’s mark upon the world which one has habited. So conveniently, these cronies had overseen the entire course of human history and had observed globally the fact that:

There is no instance, in all history, of the human will and intellect having perfected any great moral reform by methods which it adopted to that end.

Thoreau was continuing his reading in the racist volume about human skulls by Professor Samuel George Morton of the University of Pennsylvania, and making notes in his Indian Notebook #6 and his Fact Book:11 CRANIA AMERICANA

July 14. A writer who does not speak out of a full experience uses torpid words, wooden or lifeless 11. Note carefully here, how our guy’s spirit seems incapable of being harmed by the toxic nature of these racist materials! Isn’t that simply marvelous? Can that be described by any other word than “marvelous”? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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words. such words as “humanitary,” which have a paralysis in their tails. Is it not more attractive to be a sailor than a, farmer? The farmer’s son is restless and wants to go to sea. Is it not better to plow the ocean than the land? In the former case the plow runs further in its furrow before it turns. You may go round the world before the mast, but not behind the plow. Morton quotes Wafer as saying of some albinos among the Indians of Darien that “they are quite white, but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite different from the fair or pale European, as they have not the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion.... Their eyebrows are milk-white, as is likewise the hair of their heads, which is very fine, inclining to a curl, and growing to the length of six or eight inches.... They seldom go abroad in the daytime, the sun being disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which are weak and poring, to water, especially if it shines towards them yet they see very well by moonlight, from which we call them moon-eyed.” E.C. DRAKE In Drake’s “Collection of Voyages.” Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks, methinks, is there “the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion,” but we are, perchance, intellectually and morally albinos, children of Endymion whose parents have walked much by moonlight. Walking much by moonlight, conversing ENDYMION with the moon, makes us, then, albinos. Methinks we should rather represent Endymion in colorless marble, or in the whiteness of marble, than painted of the ruddy color of ordinary youths. Saw to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies dispersing before us, [as] we rode along berrying on the Walden road. Their yellow fleets are in the offing. Do I ever see them in numbers off the road? They are a yellow flower that blossoms generally about this time. Like a mackerel fleet, with their small hulls and great sails. Collected now in compact but gorgeous assembly in the road, like schooners in a harbor, a haven; now suddenly dispersing on our approach and filling the air with yellow snowflakes in their zigzag flight, or as when a fair wind calls those schooners out and disperses them over the broad ocean. How deep or perhaps slaty sky-blue are those blueberries that grow in the shade! It is an unexpected and thrilling discovery to find such ethereal fruits in dense drooping clusters under the fresh green of oak and hickory sprouts. Those that grow in the sun appear to be the same species, only to have lost their bloom and freshness, and hence are darker. [Vide page 283] The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them. Trees have commonly two growths in the year, a spring and a fall growth, the latter sometimes equalling the former, and you can see where the first was checked whether by cold or drouth, and wonder what there was in the summer to produce this check, this blight. So is it with man; most have a spring growth only, and never get over this first check to their youthful hopes; but plants of hardier constitution, or perchance planted in a more genial soil, speedily recover themselves, and, though they bear the scar or knot in remembrance of their disappointment, they push forward again and have a vigorous fall growth which is equivalent to a new spring. These two growths are now visible on the oak sprouts, the second already nearly equalling the first. Murder will out. Morton detects the filthiness of the lower class of the ancient Peruvians by the hair of old mummies being “charged with desiccated vermin, which, though buried for centuries in the sand, could not possibly be mistaken for anything else.”

(Thoreau would use the material about the albino “tribe” of native Americans, which he had obtained from Drake’s “Collection of Voyages” and mentioned in the above journal passage, in his essay “Night and Moonlight.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 27, Friday: Nathaniel Hawthorne completed his campaign bio supporting his buddy General Franklin Pierce’s campaign for President of the United States of America:

Preface

THE AUTHOR of this memoir —being so little of a politician that he scarcely feels entitled to call himself a member of any party— would not voluntarily have undertaken the work here offered to the public. Neither can he flatter himself that he has been remarkably successful in the performance of his task, viewing it in the light of a political biography, and as a representation of the principles and acts of a public man, intended to operate upon the minds of multitudes, during a presidential canvass. This species of writing is too remote from his customary occupations —and, he may, add, from his tastes— to be very satisfactorily done, without more time and practice than he would be willing to expend for such a purpose. If this little biography have any value, it is probably of another kind — as the narrative of one who knew the individual of whom he treats, at a period of life when character could be read with undoubting accuracy, and who, consequently, in judging of the motives of his subsequent conduct has an advantage over much more competent observers, whose knowledge of the man may have commenced at a later date. Nor can it be considered improper, (at least the author will never feel it so, although some foolish delicacy be sacrificed in the undertaking,) that when a friend, dear to him almost from boyish days, stands up before his country, misrepresented by indiscriminate abuse, on the one hand, and by aimless praise, on the other, be should be sketched by one who has had opportunities of knowing him well, and who is certainly inclined to tell the truth. It is perhaps right to say, that while this biography is so far sanctioned by General Pierce, as it comprises a generally correct narrative of the principal events of his life, the author does not understand him as thereby necessarily endorsing all the sentiments put forth by himself, in the progress of the work. These are the author’s own speculations upon the facts before him, and may, or may not, be in accordance with the ideas of the individual whose life he writes. That individual’s opinions, however, —so far as it is necessary to know them,— may be read, in his straightforward and consistent deeds, with more certainty than those of almost any other man now before the public. The author, while collecting his materials, has received liberal aid from all manner of people —whigs and democrats, congressmen, astute lawyers, grim old generals of militia, and gallant young officers of the Mexican war— most of whom, however, he must needs say, have rather abounded in eulogy, of General Pierce, than in such anecdotical matter as is calculated for a biography. Among the gentlemen to whom be is substantially indebted, he would mention Hon. C.G. Atherton, Hon. S.H. Ayer, Hon. Joseph Hall, Chief Justice Gilchrist, Isaac O. Barnes, Esq., Col. T.J. Whipple, and Mr. C.J. Smith. He has likewise derived much assistance from an able and accurate sketch, that originally appeared in the Boston POST and was drawn up, as he believes, by the junior editor of that journal.

CONCORD, (Mass.) August 27, 1852.

This piece of fraudulent misrepresentation would put its author in line to receive a political plum.

In this writing he did not egregiously name a cow after Margaret Fuller12 or suggest that she might commit suicide, or vent any of his other pet peeves, but he did something far worse: this writing was utterly HDT WHAT? INDEX

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condemnatory of the sort of abolitionist anti-slavery activities of which his neighbor Henry Thoreau, among others, had been guilty, and yet it was not an honest or sincere piece of writing.

Statesman Chum and Pretty Boy

President Pierce was in fact a proslavery drunkard whose qualifications to be President were that A.) he had been a totally undistinguished general in the war upon Mexico, and that B.) although a northern politician, he was a safe one, which is to say, he was proslavery and therefore eminently acceptable to the South (Southern Democrats recognized that to get elected their party needed some semblance of a “balanced” ticket). Horace Mann, Sr. commented in regard to the writing of this campaign biography that if Hawthorne could make out Pierce to be a great man or a brave man, “it will be the greatest work of fiction he ever wrote.” Hawthorne handled the hot matter of slavery in this campaign biography by suggesting that, for the present, slavery seemed to be in accord with God’s great plan, and that if we simply let it be, eventually in God’s good time – if indeed it was his will that it should be vanquished– human slavery would “vanish like a dream.”

And, the creative writer insisted, this was not mere puffery, it was what he really believed, those “are my real sentiments.” The opportunistic careerism of Franklin Pierce, it seemed, had been founded upon the highest moral principle, that of getting results, that of satisfying one’s lust to leave one’s mark upon the world which one has habited. So conveniently, these cronies had overseen the entire course of human history and had

12. Footnotes to history: Hawthorne had named a cow at Brook Farm, who was forever kicking over her milk pail and tyrannizing the other cows, after Fuller — and this has led generations of historians, frankly irritated by a woman’s intrusion into history, to record she had joined that community whereas she had merely offered lessons there. Although it is not known that this fractious cow committed suicide, historians also have speculated that Fuller drowned at age 40 because somehow her negative attitude drove the USS Elizabeth aground in that hurricane — or something like that (you read your own psychohistory as I haven’t the will). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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observed globally the fact that:

There is no instance, in all history, of the human will and intellect having perfected any great moral reform by methods which it adopted to that end. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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September: An unsigned reviewer in the Christian Examiner in effect called Nathaniel Hawthorne not a fictioner but a liar. For Hawthorne, in the preface to his THE SCARLET LETTER, had adverted that he had in his possession “historical papers which authenticate the story,” a story which involved “the gross and slanderous imputation that the colleague pastor of the First Church in Boston, who preached the Election Sermon in the year after the death of Governor Winthrop, was a mean and hypocritical adulterer,” which is an “outrageous fiction ... utterly without foundation” that could easily “deceive a reader who had no exact knowledge of our history.”

NOT A RELIABLE HISTORIAN

Meanwhile, Ticknor & Co. of Boston was publishing THE LIFE OF FRANKLIN PIERCE, a Democratic candidate campaign biography. They were actually printing more copies of Hawthorne’s tendentious campaign materials than of any book they had previously issued. Most of the copies were paperback (that is, lacking hard covers) 37 1 and were to retail at $0. /2 each.

Henry Thoreau wrote to H.G.O. Blake, enclosing draft essays on “Love” and on “Chastity & Sensuality” in response to a letter which Blake had sent to him about his trepidations on his pending marriage. These were essays he had been working on since 1846. Unfortunately, Thoreau also had evidently made the mistakes of asking advice in this regard from his married friend Emerson, and of allowing Waldo Emerson to see Blake’s letter, for we find the following caustic remark in Emerson’s journal:

H.D.T. read me a letter from Blake to himself, yesterday, by which it appears that Blake writes to ask his husband for leave to marry a wife.

Mr. Blake, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Here come the sentences — which I promised y[o]u[ ]You may keep them if you will regard & use them as the disconnected fragments of what I may find to be a completer essay, on looking over my journal at last, and may claim again. I send you the thoughts on chastity and sensuality with diffidence and shame, not knowing how far I speak to the condition of men generally, or how far I betray my peculiar defects. Pray enlighten me on this point if you can. Henry D. Thoreau

September 10, Friday: Mrs. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne spent the day in reading the BIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL PIERCE

by her husband, James Ticknor of Ticknor, Reed, and Fields having sent a dozen copies of the book hot off his press, which she received at breakfast time.

NOT MUCH OF A HISTORIAN NOT MUCH OF A PRESIDENT

November 2, Tuesday: Dr. John Aitken Carlyle got married with Phoebe Elizabeth Hough Fowler Watts (1814?-1854), a daughter of John Fowler of Horton Hall in north Staffordshire — who was a widow with four sons, and also happened to be rich.

The Democratic candidate, Franklin Pierce, was elected as the United States president over the Whig candidate, General Winfield Scott (William R. King was elected vice-president). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 27, Monday: During this holiday season the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reverend Heinrich Christian Schwan in Cleveland, Ohio had a lighted and decorated Christmas tree display and –unlike the previous year– no-one denounced the display as heathen idolatry.

The President-elect, Franklin Pierce, had recently paid a visit to his uncle Amos Lawrence in Boston,13 taking along his wife and their 10-year-old son Benjamin Pierce. Old Amos had given little Ben a pencil.14

The Pierce family was back in Andover, and on this day little Ben wrote his rich great-uncle a note of thanks MORE for “the beautiful pencil,” saying that he thought he should “find it very useful.” The boy promised to “keep it very carefully for your sake,” and he hoped “that I may learn to write all the better with it.” But this was not to be. HISTORY OF RR

13. Amos Lawrence’s brother Abbott Lawrence, manufacturer of locomotives, had once been a candidate for the vice-presidency, but Millard Fillmore had achieved the nomination. In the presidential election Abbott had refused to support Franklin Pierce in his quest for high office because of his nephew’s indifference to the evil and cruelty of slavery. 14. Given the date, could this have been a Christmas present? Also, could it have been a Thoreau pencil? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1853

From this year into 1857, the pro-slavery presidency of Franklin Pierce (Democrat). The newly elected president would declare in his inauguration address that the US Constitution maintained slavery as an “admitted right.” There wasn’t any amount of pandering to the slave power, that this good ol’ buddy of Hawthorne of Concord wasn’t willing to do. Pierce’s bodyguard during his Presidency would be Thomas O’Neil — but this wouldn’t prevent a citizen from egging him on the porch of the White House. Peirce would be, per some estimations (estimations made prior to the arrival on the scene of George W. Bush), the sorriest president we have as yet had.

“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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(Note the horse-drawn carriage in the illustration above. How would we know whether the driver was Franklin Pierce? Obviously, we don’t. A case against Peirce, for running down an elderly woman in his carriage, had to be dropped in this year for lack of evidence.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 2d floor bath room, 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.15 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.

15. 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 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. SPIRITUALISM

Henri-Frédéric Amiel, who would be referred to as the “Swiss Thoreau,” wrote in his JOURNAL INTIME: “Self- government with tenderness — here you have the condition of all authority over children. The child must discover in us no passion, no weakness of which he can make use; he must feel himself powerless to deceive or to trouble us; then he will recognize in us his natural superiors, and he will attach a special value to our kindness, because he will respect it. The child who can rouse in us anger, or impatience, or excitement, feels himself stronger than we, and a child only respects strength. The mother should consider herself as her child’s sun, a changeless and ever radiant world, whither the small restless creature, quick at tears and laughter, light, fickle, passionate, full of storms, may come for fresh stores of light, warmth, and electricity, of calm and of courage. The mother represents goodness, providence, law; that is to say, the divinity, under that form of it HDT WHAT? INDEX

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which is accessible to childhood. If she is herself passionate, she will inculcate on her child a capricious and despotic God, or even several discordant gods. The religion of a child depends on what its mother and its father are, and not on what they say. The inner and unconscious ideal which guides their life is precisely what touches the child; their words, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling even, are for him merely thunder and comedy; what they worship, this it is which his instinct divines and reflects. The child sees what we are, behind what we wish to be. Hence his reputation as a physiognomist. He extends his power as far as he can with each of us; he is the most subtle of diplomatists. Unconsciously he passes under the influence of each person about him, and reflects it while transforming it after his own nature. He is a magnifying mirror. This is why the first principle of education is: train yourself; and the first rule to follow if you wish to possess yourself of a child’s will is: master your own.”

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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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.

January 23, Sunday: Mrs. Pierce, who had given birth to three children all of whom were dead, wrote to her 11-year- old Benjy who had been killed in the train wreck while the family was on its way to Washington DC for Franklin Pierce’s inauguration: My precious child - I must write to you, altho’ you are never to see it or know it - How I long to see you and say something to you as if you were as you always have been (until these last three dreadful weeks) near me. Oh! How precious do those days now seem, my darling boy - and how I should have praised [sic] the days passed with you had I suspected they might be so short - Dear, dear child - I cannot bear to think of that agonizing time, when I had just seen you all alive to what was passing around and near me, but not near enough - oh had you but been within reach of your dear father - in a moment changed my dear boy bright form into a lifeless one insensible to your parents’ agony - But you spirit yourself, my dear one - was not your redeeming savior ready to receive you? Your sweet little brother? Your dear Uncle Lawrence? - but you are beyond my knowledge at once - Ah, I trust in joy, but I would fain have kept you here - I know not how to go on without you - you were my comfort dear - far more than you thought. I was thinking how pleasantly we should go on together when we found ourselves at home again - and I would do everything to make you love me and have confidence in me and bring you along gently and sweetly - Oh! You were indeed “a part of mine and of your father’s heart”. When I have told you dear boy how much you depended on me, and felt that you could not do without me - I did not say too how much I depended on you and oh! My precious boy how gladly would I recall all that was unreasonable - or hasty - or mistaken in my conduct toward you. I see surely and I did frequently see afterward that I had wronged you - and would have gladly acknowledged it only that I feared it might weaken your confidence in me and perhaps on that account not be as well for HDT WHAT? INDEX

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you - and now I am at home again dear boy. Oh what anguish was mine on returning without you, and feeling that it must still be so, while I live - to see your little bed that you loved so much - and which I look at many times in the day, and at night feel as if I must see it shape [?] out again and the clothes turned down for you - and unconsciously look in the morning for it and you - and listen for your bright cheerful voice your blithe “good morrow” - and oh! to look around and see your books and everything so connected with you - your dear self - and now on this Sabbath which you loved so much as you said often how I have marked for you each hour with its wonted occupation - and oh to think of you kneeling by me at our evening prayer tonight, dear child - has not the Savior made you His as we so often asked. But now I must kneel alone and beg for strength and support under this crushing sorrow, that the blessed Savior would comfort the heart of your pain stricken Mother - and help me better to bear the burden of your loss which has brought desolation such as I have never (with all my former griefs) known. Dear precious boy! I have passed through the bitter time of leaving our home, and without my child, my own dear Benny. How did I think of you - dear - in every moment - of all your little parting notes and the many good-byes - and again the ride in those rail cars agonizing to my soul - we went in to the same little saloon as when we went down to Andover the last time - we three then, now only two - but we seemed to see you as when there before - and now we are in Boston, still without you, but I fancying what I should do and what I should say to you - continually, and now we must “journey on e’en when grief is sorest” with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint. I will “look to Jesus” (how often I have directed you to him my precious one) and sought his blessing for you and myself - but my son, my dear son, how much I feel my own faults in regard to you - I know that I did not take the right way and should have dealt with you very gently often when I judged hastily and spoke harshly. I can see that I was “unreasonable” and sometimes almost wonder that you loved me at all. God help me now to correct in bitterness my errors when oh! It is too late for you to have the sweet benefit of it - and now this Sabbath evening you will come in fancy before me and I sit close by you, with your hand in mine perhaps, or you will lean against me on the sofa, or as sometimes you did on Sunday evening sit on my lap a little while and we talk together and say hymns and then play and then by and by you go to bed first putting your arms around me and laying your dear head on my shoulder and then you get in your bed and we have our Sabbath night kiss - but to think I can never have another - Oh Benny, I have not valued such a sweet blessing as I ought.

January 23, Sunday: Rain carrying off the snow & making slosh of the lower half of it– It is perhaps the wettest walking we ever have. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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March 3, Tuesday evening On the night before his inauguration in Washington DC, president-elect Franklin Pierce slept at the luxurious Willard’s Hotel which would in the 1860s be the haunt of Nathaniel Hawthorne.16

16. Hawthorne would consider the lobby and bar of Willard’s Hotel to be “the center of Washington and the nation,” more so than “either the Capitol or the White House or the State Department.” He very much liked the thought that one’s common “identity is lost” there among the “illustrious men.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Here is the campaign poster:

Senator Underwood wanted to amend the appropriations bill for the US Navy: A bill making appropriations for the naval service for the year ending June 30, 1854. Mr. Underwood offered the following amendment: — “For executing the provisions of the act approved 3d of March, 1819, entitled ‘An act in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade,’ $20,000.” Amendment agreed to, and bill passed. It appears, however, to have been subsequently amended in the House, and the appropriation does not stand in the final act. CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE, 32nd Congress, 2d session, page 1072; STATUTES AT LARGE, X. 214. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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visit the White House.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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.17

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 17. Oh, give us a break please! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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. 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: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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

To Thine Own Self Be True HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Our Fearless Leaders

NAME BORN INAUGURATED EX OFFICIO DIED

GEORGE WASHINGTON 1789

1792

JOHN ADAMS 1796 JULY 4, 1826

THOMAS JEFFERSON APRIL 13, 1743 1800 DITTO

1804

JAMES MADISON 1808

1812

JAMES MONROE 1816

1820

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1824

ANDREW JACKSON 1828

1832

MARTIN VAN BUREN 1836

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 1840

JAMES K. POLK 1844

ZACHARY TAYLOR 1848

FRANKLIN PEIRCE 1852

JAMES BUCHANAN 1856

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1860

1864

May: In New-York, Frederick Douglass spoke before the American Anti-Slavery Society:

SIR, it is evident that there is in this country a purely slavery party — a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to promote the interests of slavery. The presence of this party is felt everywhere in the republic. It is known by no particular name, and has assumed no definite shape; but its branches reach far and wide in the church and in the state. This shapeless and nameless party is not intangible in other and more important HDT WHAT? INDEX

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respects. That party, sir, has determined upon a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes us as abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored people themselves, to consider and to understand fully. We ought to know who our enemies are, where they are, and what are their objects and measures. Well, sir, here is my version of it –not original with me –but mine because I hold it to be true. I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects. They are these: 1st. The complete suppression of all anti- slavery discussion. 2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of color from the United States. 3d. The unending perpetuation of slavery in this republic. 4th. The nationalization of slavery to the extent of making slavery respected in every state of the Union. 5th. The extension of slavery over Mexico and the entire South American states. Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stern logic of passing events; in the facts which are and have been passing around us during the last three years. The country has been and is now dividing on these grand issues. In their magnitude, these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving them of all life and vitality. Old party ties are broken. Like is finding its like on either side of these great issues, and the great battle is at hand. For the present, the best representative of the slavery party in politics is the democratic party. Its great head for the present is President Franklin Pierce, whose boast it was, before his election, that his whole life had been consistent with the interests of slavery, that he is above reproach on that score. In his inaugural address, he reassures the south on this point. Well, the head of the slave power being in power, it is natural that the pro slavery elements should cluster around the administration, and this is rapidly being done. A fraternization is going on. The stringent protectionists and the free-traders strike hands. The supporters of Millard Fillmore are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The silver-gray whig shakes hands with the hunker democrat; the former only differing from the latter in name. They are of one heart, one mind, and the union is natural and perhaps inevitable. Both hate Negroes; both hate progress; both hate the “Higher Law;” both hate William Henry Seward; both hate the free democratic party; and upon this hateful basis they are forming a union of hatred. “Pilate and Herod are thus made friends.” Even the central organ of the whig party is extending its beggar hand for a morsel from the table of slavery democracy, and when spurned from the feast by the more deserving, it pockets the insult; when kicked on one side it turns the other, and perseveres in its importunities. The fact is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it understands the age and its issues; it wisely sees that slavery and freedom are the great antagonistic forces in the country, and it goes to its own side. Silver grays and hunkers all understand this. They are, therefore, rapidly sinking all other HDT WHAT? INDEX

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questions to nothing, compared with the increasing demands of slavery. They are collecting, arranging, and consolidating their forces for the accomplishment of their appointed work. The keystone to the arch of this grand union of the slavery party of the United States, is the compromise of 1850. In that compromise we have all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, sir, favorable to this view of the designs of the slave power, that both the whig and the democratic party bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder, in their conventions, preparatory to the late presidential election, to meet the demands of the slavery party than at any previous time in their history. Never did parties come before the northern people with propositions of such undisguised contempt for the moral sentiment and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked them to unite in a war upon free speech, and upon conscience, and to drive the Almighty presence from the councils of the nation. Resting their platforms upon the fugitive slave bill, they boldly asked the people for political power to execute the horrible and hell-black provisions of that bill. The history of that election reveals, with great clearness, the extent to which slavery has shot its leprous distillment through the life-blood of the nation. The party most thoroughly opposed to the cause of justice and humanity, triumphed; while the party suspected of a leaning toward liberty, was overwhelmingly defeated, some say annihilated. But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs of the slave power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner did the democratic slavery party come into power, than a system of legislation was presented to the legislatures of the northern states, designed to put the states in harmony with the fugitive slave law, and the malignant bearing of the national government toward the colored inhabitants of the country. This whole movement on the part of the states, bears the evidence of having one origin, emanating from one head, and urged forward by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform, and general, and looked to one end. It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who enacted that law, had not only banished from their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame. It coolly proposes to sell the bodies and souls of the blacks to increase the intelligence and refinement of the whites; to rob every black stranger who ventures among them, to increase their literary fund. While this is going on in the states, a pro-slavery, political board of health is established at Washington. Senators Hale, Chase, and Sumner are robbed of a part of their senatorial dignity and consequence as representing sovereign states, because they have refused to be inoculated with the slavery HDT WHAT? INDEX

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virus. Among the services which a senator is expected by his state to perform, are many that can only be done efficiently on committees; and, in saying to these honorable senators, you shall not serve on the committees of this body, the slavery party took the responsibility of robbing and insulting the states that sent them. It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the states who shall be sent to the senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression on the part of the slave power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed senators the rebuke which we had a right to expect would be administered. It seems to me that an opportunity was lost, that the great principle of senatorial equality was left undefended, at a time when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose of my present statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am persuaded that much ought to be left to the discretion of anti slavery men in congress, and charges of recreancy should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds. For, of all the places in the world where an anti-slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of friends, I take Washington to be that place. Let me now call attention to the social influences which are operating and cooperating with the slavery party of the country, designed to contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed at by that party. We see here the black man attacked in his vital interests; prejudice and hate are excited against him; enmity is stirred up between him and other laborers. The Irish people, warm-hearted, generous, and sympathizing with the oppressed everywhere, when they stand upon their own green island, are instantly taught, on arriving in this Christian country, to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel lie is told the Irish, that our adversity is essential to their prosperity. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our avocation he also has assumed our degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The old employments by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood, are gradually, and it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make room perhaps for some newly-arrived emigrants, whose hunger and color are thought to give them a title to especial favor. White men are becoming house-servants, cooks, and stewards, common laborers, and flunkeys to our gentry, and, for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with all becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to the whites, the whites can fall to us. Now, sir, look once more. While the colored people are thus elbowed out of employment; while the enmity of emigrants is being excited against us; while state after state enacts laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity –the American colonization society –that old offender against the best interests and slanderer of the colored people– awakens to new life, and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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vigorously presses its scheme upon the consideration of the people and the government. New papers are started –some for the north and some for the south– and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude. Government, state and national, is called upon for appropriations to enable the society to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to carry letters and Negroes to Africa. Evidently, this society looks upon our “extremity as its opportunity,” and we may expect that it will use the occasion well. They do not deplore, but glory, in our misfortunes. But, sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the colored people of the United States. And what I have said is far from encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess the case looks black enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even to undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet, sir, in this seemingly desperate case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule. If the influences against us are strong, those for us are also strong. To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution of their designs. In my God and in my soul, I believe they will not. Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery party of the country, viz: the suppression of anti slavery discussion. They desire to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, sir, neither the principle nor the subordinate objects here declared, can be at all gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in order to secure the fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and priceless, cannot, will not, be surrendered to slavery. Its suppression is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed an insuperable obstacle to any such result. “There can be no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Suppose it were possible to put down this discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful spirit. If every anti- slavery tongue in the nation were silent –every anti-slavery organization dissolved –every anti-slavery press demolished – every anti slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or what not, were searched out, gathered, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have “no peace.” In every pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze that soothes, and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, “Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 14, Thursday: Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry made the Japanese an offer which he was supposing they couldn’t refuse, “a commercial and friendship treaty” (this would be categorically rejected and the Commodore would need to sail away emptyhanded). US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

President Franklin Pierce opened the World’s Fair at the New-York Crystal Palace Exhibition. Adjacent to this, at the Latting Observatory, Elisha Graves Otis would be demonstrating his steam-powered passenger elevator. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1854

President Franklin Pierce offered Spain $130,000,000 for Cuba and Spain again turned us down. President Pierce then got into trouble with his Ostend Manifesto, which was considered to be a threat aimed at Spain that the US would “go ahead” and seize Cuba anyway. (These various attempts to buy or forcibly annex the island by invasion would end with the American Civil War, but the lust to annex the island to the American empire has not diminished to this day.)

When Pierce had become President John Russell Bartlett had of course been replaced as a United States Commissioner for the survey of the boundary between the United States and Mexico. He published APERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS AND INCIDENTS IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, SONORA AND CHIHUAHUA (2 volumes) which included sketches of native petroglyphs. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April: The US circuit court for the district of Missouri was holding session in a small back room over a Main Street store in St. Louis. Preliminary skirmishing was taking place before Judge Robert M. Wells in the case of Dred Scott v Sandford.

In Havana, a number of influential slave owners met with US Consul William H. Robertson to urge that he persuade President Franklin Pierce to send American troops to Cuba — in order to prevent slave emancipation.

May 30, Tuesday: Stephen Douglas introduced to Congress, and obtained, the bill establishing Kansas and Nebraska as territories whose legislatures would decide whether they’d be slave or free. It was anticipated that under the Popular Sovereignty clause of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, despite the game-rules set down in the Missouri Compromise Nebraska would choose to be a free state and Kansas a slave state. READ THE FULL TEXT

There were two governments in the Kansas Territory, one proslavery and the other, in Topeka, antislavery. President Franklin Pierce sided with the proslavery government, denouncing the Topeka government as “revolutionary.” Opponents of the act began to coalesce into a new political party, its members calling themselves Republicans. New England Abolitionists rushed to finance the sending of likeminded antislavery settlers into Kansas. Bloody fights and raids erupted between pro- and antislavery settlements. Separate territorial governments were established, one slave and one free. Each had its own capital. Though he represented only a minority, the territorial governor was appointed by President Pierce and could officially recognize only the proslavery government. “My understanding is that anti-slavery and anti-black went hand in hand. This is a modern political assumption that to be anti- slavery was to be pro-black. In fact, the fight against the extension of slavery into Kansas was as much a fight to keep the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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blacks out, even as slaves. Racist whites did not want blacks in their territory, so they were anti the extension of slavery and its aristocratic culture as well as anti black. See Foner’s FREE SOIL, FREE LABOR, FREE MEN for a great summary of the whole free soil mentality.” — Dave Williams This Kansas/Nebraska Compromise set aside the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and undermined the Compromise of 1850. The US government had thrown the Kansas Territory open to white settlement despite the fact that there were 10,000 Native American inhabitants of the territory and despite the fact that Congress had not yet ratified any treaty providing for their cession of this land to the intrusives. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT OF 1854

AN ACT TO ORGANIZE THE TERRITORIES OF NEBRASKA AND KANSAS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this act, to wit: beginning at a point in the Missouri River where the fortieth parallel of north latitude crosses the same; then west on said parallel to the east boundary of the Territory of Utah, the summit of the Rocky Mountains; thence on said summit northwest to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude; thence east on said parallel to the western boundary of the territory of Minnesota; thence southward on said boundary to the Missouri River; thence down the main channel of said river to the place of beginning, be, and the same is hereby, created into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Nebraska; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of the admission: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in such manner and at such time as Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching a portion of said Territory to any other State or Territory of the United States: Provided further, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, or include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the consent of said tribe, to be included within the territorial line or jurisdiction of any State or Territory; but all such territory shall be excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory of Nebraska, until said tribe shall signify their assent to the President of the United States to be included within the said Territory of Nebraska, or to affect the authority of the government of the United States to make any regulations respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to the government to make if this act had never passed. SECTION 2. And Be it further enacted, That the executive power and authority in and over said Territory of Nebraska shall be vested in a Governor who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless HDT WHAT? INDEX

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sooner removed by the President of the United States. The Governor shall reside within said Territory, and shall be commander-in-chief of the militia thereof. He may grant pardons and respites for offences against the laws of said Territory, and reprieves for offences against the laws of the United States, until the decision of the President can be made known thereon; he shall commission all officers who shall be appointed to office under the laws of the aid Territory, and shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. SECTION 3. And Be it further enacted, That there shall be a Secretary of said Territory, who shall reside therein, and hold his office for five years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States; he shall record and preserve all the laws and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly hereinafter constituted, and all the acts and proceedings of the Governor in his executive department; he shall transmit one copy of the laws and journals of the Legislative Assembly within thirty days after the end of each session, and one copy of the executive proceedings and official correspondence semi-annually, on the first days of January and July in each year to the President of the United States, and two copies of the laws to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to be deposited in the libraries of Congress, and in or case of the death, removal, resignation, or absence of the Governor from the Territory, the Secretary shall be, and he is hereby, authorized and required to execute and perform all the powers and duties of the Governor during such vacancy or absence, or until another Governor shall be duly appointed and qualified to fill such vacancy. SECTION 4. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the Governor and a Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly shall consist of a Council and House of Representatives. The Council shall consist of thirteen members, having the qualifications of voters, as hereinafter prescribed, whose term of service shall continue two years. The House of Representatives shall, at its first session, consist of twenty-six members, possessing the same qualifications as prescribed for members of the Council, and whose term of service shall continue one year. The number of representatives may be increased by the Legislative Assembly, from time to time, in proportion to the increase of qualified voters: Provided, That the whole number shall never exceed thirty-nine. An apportionment shall be made, as nearly equal as practicable, among the several counties or districts, for the election of the council and representatives, giving to each section of the Territory representation in the ratio of its qualified voters as nearly as may be. And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district or county, or counties for which they may be elected, respectively. Previous to the first election, the Governor shall cause a census, or enumeration of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the inhabitants and qualified voters of the several counties and districts of the Territory, to be taken by such persons and in such mode as the Governor shall designate and appoint; and the persons so appointed shall receive a reasonable compensation therefor. And the first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, both as to the persons who shall superintend such election and the returns thereof, as the Governor shall appoint and direct; and he shall at the same time declare the number of members of the Council and House of Representatives to which each of the counties or districts shall be entitled under this act. The persons having the highest number of legal votes in each of said council districts for members of the Council, shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected to the Council; and the persons having the highest number of legal votes for the House of Representatives, shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected members of said house: Provided, That in case two or more persons voted for shall have an equal number of votes, and in case a vacancy shall otherwise occur in either branch of the Legislative Assembly, the Governor shall order a new election; and the persons thus elected to the Legislative Assembly shall meet at such place and on such day as the Governor shall appoint; but thereafter, the time, place, and manner of holding and conducting all elections by the people, and the apportioning the representation in the several counties or districts to the Council and House of Representatives, according to the number of qualified voters, shall be prescribed by law, as well as the day of the commencement of the regular sessions of the Legislative Assembly: Provided, That no session in any one year shall exceed the term of forty days, except the first session, which may continue sixty days. SECTION 5. And be it further enacted, That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years who shall be an actual resident of said Territory, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of voters, and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly: Provided, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States and those who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act: And provided further, That no officer, soldier, seaman, or marine, or other person in the army or navy of the United States, or attached to troops in the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in said Territory, by reason of being on service therein. SECTION 6. And Be it further enacted, That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United HDT WHAT? INDEX

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States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. Every bill which shall have passed the Council and House of Representatives of the said Territory shall, before it become a law, be presented to the Governor of the Territory; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it with his objections to the house in which it originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, to be entered on the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within three days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Assembly, by adjournment, prevents its return, in which case it shall not be a law. SECTION 7. And be it further enacted, That all township, district, and county officers, not herein otherwise provided for, shall be appointed or elected, as the case may be, in such manner as shall be provided by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nebraska. The Governor shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, appoint all officers not herein otherwise provided for; and in the first instance the Governor alone may appoint all said officers, who shall hold their offices until the end of the first session of the Legislative Assembly; and shall lay off the necessary districts for members of the Council and House of Representatives, and all other officers. SECTION 8. And be it further enacted, That no member of the Legislative Assembly shall hold, or be appointed to, any office which shall have been created, or the salary or emoluments of which shall have been increased, while he was a member, during the term for which he was elected, and for one year after the expiration of such term; but this restriction shall not be applicable to members of the first Legislative Assembly; and no person holding a commission or appointment under the United States, except Postmasters, shall be a member of the Legislative Assembly, or hold any office under the government of said Territory. SECTION 9. And be it further enacted, That the judicial power of said Territory shall be vested in a Supreme Court, District Courts, Probate Courts, and in Justices of the Peace. The Supreme Court shall consist of a chief justice and two associate justices, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum, and who shall hold a term at the seat of government of said Territory HDT WHAT? INDEX

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annually, and they shall hold their offices during the period of four years, and until their successor shall be appointed and qualified. The said Territory shall be divided into three judicial districts, and a district court shall be held in each of said districts by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, at such times and places as may be prescribed by of law; and the said judges shall, after their appointments, respectively, reside in the districts which shall be assigned them. The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the probate courts and of justices of the peace, shall be as limited by law: Provided, That justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy when the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars; and the said supreme and districts courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction. Each District Court, or the judge thereof, shall appoint its clerk, who shall also be the register in chancery, and shall keep his office at the place where the court may, be held. Writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals, shall be allowed in all cases from the final decisions of said district courts to the Supreme Court, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; but in no case removed to the Supreme Court shall trial by jury be allowed in said court. The Supreme Court, or the justices thereof, shall appoint its own clerk, and every clerk shall hold his office at the pleasure of the court for which he shall have been appointed. Writs of error, and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court, shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the circuit courts of the United States, where the value of the property, or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affirmation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars; except only that in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writs of error, or appeals shall be allowed and decided by the said Supreme Court, without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in controversy; and except also that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, from the decision of the said Supreme Court created by this act, or of any judge thereof, or of the district courts created by this act, or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus, involving the question of personal freedom: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to apply to or affect the provisions to the “act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” approved February twelfth, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and the “act to amend and supplementary to the aforesaid act,” approved September eighteen, eighteen hundred and fifty; and each of the said district courts shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and Laws of the United States as is vested in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Circuit and District Courts of the United States; and the said Supreme and District Courts of the said Territory, and the respective judges thereof, shall and may grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the same are granted by the judges of the United States in the District of Columbia; and the first six days of every term of said courts, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, shall be appropriated to the trial of causes arising under the said constitution and laws, and writs of error and appeal in all such cases shall be made to the Supreme Court of said Territory, the same as in other cases. The said clerk shall receive in all such cases the same fees which the clerks of the district courts of Utah Territory now receive for similar services. SECTION 10. And Be it further enacted, That the provisions of an act entitled “An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” approved February twelve, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and the provisions of the act entitled “An act to amend, and supplementary to, the aforesaid act,” approved September eighteen, eighteen hundred and fifty, be, and the same are hereby, declared to extend to and be in full force within the limits of said Territory of Nebraska. SECTION 11. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed an Attorney for said Territory, who shall continue in office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall receive the same fees and salary I as the Attorney of the United States for the present Territory of Utah. There shall also be a Marshal for the Territory appointed, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall execute all processes issuing from the said courts when exercising their jurisdiction as Circuit and District Courts of the United States; he shall perform the duties, be subject to the same regulation and penalties, and be entitled to the same fees, as the Marshal of the District Court of the United States for the present Territory of Utah, and shall, in addition, be paid two hundred dollars annually as a compensation for extra services. SECTION 12. And be it further enacted, That the Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, and Associate Justices, Attorney and Marshal, shall be nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed by the President of the United States. The Governor and a Secretary to be appointed as aforesaid, shall, before they act as such, respectively take an oath or affirmation before the District Judge or some Justice of the Peace in the limits of said Territory, duly authorized to administer oaths and affirmations by the laws now in force therein, or & before the Chief Justice, or some Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, and faithfully to HDT WHAT? INDEX

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discharge the duties of their respective offices, which said oaths, when so taken, shall be certified by the person by whom the same shall have been taken; and such certificates shall be received and recorded by the said Secretary among the Executive proceedings; and the Chief Justice and Associate Justices, and all other civil officers in said Territory, before they act as such, shall take a like oath or affirmation before the said Governor or Secretary, or some Judge or Justice of the Peace of the Territory, who may be duly commissioned and qualified, which said oath or affirmation shall be certified and transmitted by the person taking the same to the Secretary, to be by him recorded as aforesaid; and, afterwards, the like oath or affirmation shall be taken, certified, and recorded, in such manner and form as may be prescribed by law. The Governor shall receive an annual salary of two thousand five hundred dollars. The Chief Justice and Associate Justices shall each receive an annual salary of two thousand dollars. The Secretary shall receive an annual salary of two thousand dollars. The said salaries shall be paid quarter-yearly, from the dates of the respective appointments, at the Treasury of the United States; but no such payment shall be made until said officers shall have entered upon the duties of their respective appointments. The members of the Legislative Assembly shall be entitled to receive three dollars each per day during their attendance at the sessions thereof, and three dollars each for every twenty miles’ travel in going to and returning from the said sessions, estimated according to the nearest usually travelled route; and an additional allowance of three dollars shall be paid to the presiding officer of each house for each day he shall so preside. And a chief clerk, one assistant clerk, a sergeant-at-arms, and doorkeeper, may be chosen for each house; and the chief clerk shall receive four dollars per day, and the said other officers three dollars per day, during the session of the Legislative Assembly; but no other officers shall be paid by the United States: Provided, That there shall be but one session of the legislature annually, unless, on an extraordinary occasion, the Governor shall think proper to call the legislature together. There shall be appropriated, annually, the usual sum, to be expended by the Governor, to defray the contingent expenses of the Territory, including the salary of a clerk of the Executive Department; and there shall also be appropriated, annually, a sufficient sum, to be expended by the Secretary of the Territory, and upon an estimate to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, to defray the expenses of the Legislative Assembly, the printing of the laws, and other incidental expenses; and the Governor and Secretary of the Territory shall, in the disbursement of all moneys intrusted to them, be governed solely by the instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and shall, semi-annually, account to the said Secretary for the manner in which the aforesaid moneys shall have been expended; and no expenditure shall be made by said Legislative Assembly for objects not HDT WHAT? INDEX

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specially authorized by the acts of Congress, making the appropriations, nor beyond the sums thus appropriated for such objects. SECTION 13. And be it further enacted, That the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nebraska shall hold its first session at such time and place in said Territory as the Governor thereof shall appoint and direct; and at said first session, or as soon thereafter as they shall deem expedient, the Governor and Legislative Assembly shall proceed to locate and establish the seat of government for said Territory at such place as they may deem eligible; which place, however, shall thereafter be subject to be. changed by the said Governor and Legislative Assembly. SECTION 14. And be it further enacted, That a delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, to serve for the term of two years, who shall be a citizen of the United States, may be elected by the voters qualified to elect members of the Legislative Assembly, who shall be entitled to the same rights and privileges as are exercised and enjoyed by the delegates from the several other Territories of the United States to the said House of Representatives, but the delegate first elected shall hold his seat only during the term of the Congress to which he shall be elected. The first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the Governor shall appoint and direct; and at all subsequent elections the times, places, and manner of holding the elections, shall be prescribed by law. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected; and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly. That the Constitution, and all Laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of Nebraska as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slaves in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning c this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form an regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of sixth March, eighteen hundred and twenty, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery. SECTION 15. And Be it further enacted, That there shall hereafter be appropriated, as has been customary for the Territorial governments, sufficient amount, to be expended under HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the direction of the said Governor of the Territory of Nebraska, not exceeding the sums heretofore appropriated for similar objects, for the erection of suitable public buildings at the seat of government, and for the purchase of a library, to be kept at the seat of government for the use of the Governor, Legislative Assembly, Judges of the Supreme Court, Secretary, Marshal, and Attorney of said Territory, and such other persons, and under such regulations as shall be prescribed by law. SECTION 16. And be it further enacted, That when the lands in the said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, section; numbered sixteen and thirty-six in each township in said Territory shall be, and the same are hereby, reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Territories hereafter to be erected out of the same. SECTION 17. And be it further enacted, That, until otherwise provided by law, the Governor of said Territory may define the Judicial Districts of said Territory, and assign the judges who may be appointed for said Territory to the several districts; and also appoint the times and places for holding courts in the several counties or subdivisions in each of said Judicial Districts by proclamation, to be issued by him; but the Legislative Assembly, at their first or any subsequent session, may organize, alter, or modify such Judicial Districts, and assign the judges, and alter the times and places of holding the courts, as to them shall seem proper and convenient. SECTION 18. And be it further enacted, That all officers to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for the Territory of Nebraska, who, by virtue of the provisions of any law now existing, or which may be enacted during the present Congress, are required to give security for moneys that may be intrusted with them for disbursement, shall give such security, at such time and place, and in such manner, as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe. SECTION 19. And be it further enacted, That all that part of the Territory of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this act, to wit, beginning at a point on the western boundary of the State of Missouri, where the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude crosses the same; thence west on said parallel to the eastern boundary of New Mexico; thence north on said boundary to latitude thirty-eight; thence following said boundary westward to the east boundary of the Territory of Utah, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains; thence northward on said summit to the fortieth parallel of latitude, thence east on said parallel to the western boundary of the State of Missouri; thence south with the western boundary of said State to the place of beginning, be, and the same is hereby, created into a temporary government HDT WHAT? INDEX

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by the name of the Territory of Kansas; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in such manner and at such times as Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching any portion of said Territory to any other State or Territory of the United States: Provided further, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, or to include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the consent of said tribe, to be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory; but all such territory shall be excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory of Kansas, until said tribe shall signify their assent to the President of the United States to be included within the said Territory of Kansas, or to affect the authority of the government of the United States to make any regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to the government to make if this act had never passed. SECTION 20. And be it further enacted, That the executive power and chin authority in and over said Territory of Kansas shall be vested in a Governor, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States. The Governor shall reside within said Territory, and shall be commander-in-chief of the militia thereof. He may grant pardons and respites for offences against the laws of said Territory, and reprieves for offences against the laws of the United States, until the decision of the President can be made known thereon; he shall commission all officers who shall be appointed to office under the laws of the said Territory, and shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. SECTION 21. And be it further enacted, That there shall be a Secretary of said Territory, who shall reside therein, and hold his office for five years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States; he shall record and preserve all the laws and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly hereinafter constituted, and all the acts and proceedings of the Governor in his Executive Department; he shall transmit one copy of the laws and journals of the Legislative Assembly within thirty days after the end of each session, and one copy of the executive proceedings and official correspondence semi-annually, on the first days of January and July in each year, to the President of the United States, and two copies of the laws to the President HDT WHAT? INDEX

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of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to be deposited in the libraries of Congress; and, in case of the death, removal, resignation, or absence of the Governor from the Territory, the Secretary shall be, and he is hereby, authorized and required to execute and perform all the powers and duties of the Governor during such vacancy or absence, or until another Governor shall be duly appointed and qualified to fill such vacancy. SECTION 22. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the Governor and a Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly shall consist of a Council and House of Representatives. The Council shall consist of thirteen members, having the qualifications of voters, as hereinafter prescribed, whose term of service shall continue two years. The House of Representatives shall, at its first session, consist of twenty- six members possessing the same qualifications as prescribed for members of the Council, and whose term of service shall continue one year. The number of representatives may be increased by the Legislative Assembly, from time c to time, in proportion to the increase of qualified voters: Provided, That the whole number shall never exceed thirty-nine. An apportionment shall be made, as nearly equal as practicable, among the several counties e or districts, for the election of the Council and Representatives, giving to each section of the Territory representation in the ratio of its qualified voters as nearly as may be. And the members of the Council and of the House of Representatives shall reside in, and be inhabitants of, the district or county, or counties, for which they may be elected, respectively. Previous to the first election, the Governor shall cause a census, or enumeration of the inhabitants and qualified voters of the several counties and districts of the Territory, to be taken by such persons and in such mode as the Governor shall designate and appoint; and the persons so appointed shall receive a reasonable compensation therefor. And the first election shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, both as to the persons who shall superintend such election and the returns thereof, as the Governor shall appoint and direct; and he shall at the same time declare the number of members of the Council and House of Representatives to which each of the counties or districts shall be entitled under this act. The persons having the highest number of legal votes in each of said Council Districts for members of the Council, shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected to the Council; and the persons having the highest number of legal votes for the House of Representatives, shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected members of said house: Provided, That in case two or more persons voted for shall have an equal number of votes, and in case o a vacancy shall otherwise occur in either branch of the Legislative Assembly, the Governor shall order a new election; and the persons thus elected to the Legislative Assembly shall meet at such place and on such day as the Governor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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shall appoint; but thereafter, the time, place, and manner of holding and conducting all elections by the people, and the apportioning the representation in the several counties or districts to the Council and House of Representatives, according to the number of qualified t voters, shall be prescribed by law, as well as the day of the commencement of the regular sessions of the Legislative Assembly: Provided, That no session in any one year shall exceed the term of forty days, except the first session, which may continue sixty days. SECTION 23. And be it further enacted, That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall be an actual resident of said Territory, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of voters, and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly: Provided, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States, and those who shall have declared, on oath, their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act: And, provided further, That no officer, soldier, seaman, or marine, or other person in the ‘army or navy of the United States, or attached to troops in the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in said Territory by reason of being on service therein. SECTION 24. And be it further enacted, That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other properly of residents. Every bill which shall have passed the Council and House of Representatives of the said Territory shall, before it become a law, be presented to the Governor of the Territory; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it with his objections to the house in which it originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which, it shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by two thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, to be entered on the journal of each house, respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within three days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Assembly, by HDT WHAT? INDEX

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adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. SECTION 25. And be it further enacted, That all township, district, and; county officers, not herein otherwise provided for, shall be appointed or elected as the case may be, in such manner as shall be provided by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas. The Governor shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, appoint all officers not herein otherwise provided for; and, in the first instance, the Governor alone may appoint all said officers, who shall hold their offices until the end of the first session of the Legislative Assembly; and shall lay off the necessary districts for members of the Council and House of Representatives, and all other officers. SECTION 26. And be it further enacted, That no member of the Legislative Assembly shall hold, or be appointed to, any office which shall have been created, or the salary or emoluments of which shall have been increased, while he was a member, during the term for which he was elected, and for one year after the expiration of such term; but this restriction shall not be applicable to members of the first Legislative Assembly; and no person holding a commission or appointment under the United States, except postmasters, shall be a member of the Legislative Assembly, or shall hold any office under the government of said Territory. SECTION 27. And be it further enacted, That the judicial power of said Territory shall be vested in a supreme court, district courts, probate courts, and in justices of the peace. The Supreme Court shall Consist of chief justice and two associate justices, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum, and who shall hold a term at the seat of government of said Territory annually; and they shall hold their offices during the period of four years, and until their successors shall be appointed and qualified. The said Territory shall be divided into three judicial districts, and a district court shall be held in each of said districts by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, at such times and places as may be prescribed by law; and the said judges shall, after their appointments, respectively, reside in the districts which shall be assigned them. The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the probate courts and of justices of the peace, shall be as limited by law: Provided, That justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy when the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars; and the said supreme and district courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as well as common law jurisdiction. Said District Court, or the judge thereof, shall appoint its clerk, who shall also be the register in chancery, and shall keep his office at the place where the court may be held. Writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals shall be HDT WHAT? INDEX

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allowed in all cases from the final decisions of said district courts to the Supreme Court, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; but in no case removed to the Supreme Court shall trial by jury be allowed in said court. The Supreme Court, or the justices thereof, shall appoint its own clerk, and every clerk shall hold his office at the pleasure of the court for which he shall have been appointed. Writs of error, and appeals from the final decisions of said supreme court, shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States, where the value of the property, or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affirmation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars; except only that in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writ of error or appeals shall be allowed and decided by said supreme court, without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in controversy; and except also that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, from the decision of the said supreme court created by this act, or of any judge thereof, or of the district courts created by this act, or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus, involving the question of personal freedom: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to apply to or affect the provisions of the “act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” approved February twelfth, - seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and the “act to amend and supplementary to the aforesaid act,” approved September eighteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty; and each of the said district courts shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States as is vested in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States; and the said supreme and district courts of the said Territory, and the respective judges thereof, shall and may grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the same are granted by the judges of the United States in the District of Columbia; and the first six days of every term of said courts, or so much thereof as may be necessary, shall be appropriated to the trial of causes arising under the said Constitution and laws, and writs of error and appeal in all such cases shall-be made to the Supreme Court of said Territory, the same as in other cases. The said clerk shall receive the same fees in all such cases, which the clerks of the district courts of Utah Territory now receive for similar services. SECTION 28. And be it further enacted, That the provisions of the act entitled “An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from, the service of their masters,” approved February twelfth, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and the provisions of the act entitled “An act to amend, and supplementary to, the aforesaid act,” approved September eighteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty, be, and the same are HDT WHAT? INDEX

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hereby, declared to extend to and be in full force within the limits of the said Territory of Kansas. SECTION 29. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed an attorney for said Territory, who shall continue in office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall receive the same fees and salary as the Attorney of the United States for the present Territory of Utah. There shall also be a marshal for the Territory appointed, who shall hold his office for four years, and until his successor shall be appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President, and who shall execute all processes issuing from the said courts where exercising their jurisdiction as Circuit and District Courts of the United States; he shall perform the duties, be subject to the same regulations and penalties, and be entitled to the same fees, as the Marshal of the District Court of the United States for the present Territory of Utah, and shall, in addition, be paid two hundred dollars annually as a compensation for extra services. SECTION 30. And be it further enacted, That the Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, and Associate Justices, Attorney, and Marshal, shall be nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed by the President of the United States. The Governor and Secretary to be appointed as aforesaid shall, before they act as such, respectively take an oath or affirmation before the district judge or some justice of the peace in the limits of said Territory, duly authorized to administer oaths and affirmations by the laws now in force therein, or before the Chief Justice or some Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, and faithfully to discharge the duties of their respective offices, which said oaths, when so taken, shall be certified by the person by whom the same shall have been taken; and such certificates shall be received and recorded by the said secretary among the executive proceedings; and the Chief Justice and Associate Justices, and all other civil officers in said Territory, before they act as such, shall take a like oath or affirmation before the said Governor or Secretary, or some Judge or Justice of the Peace of the Territory who may be duly commissioned and qualified, which said oath or affirmation shall be certified and transmitted by the person taking the same to the Secretary, to be by him recorded as aforesaid; and, afterwards, the like oath or affirmation shall be taken, certified, and recorded, in such manner and form as may be prescribed by law. The Governor shall receive an annual salary of two thousand five hundred dollars. The Chief Justice and Associate Justices shall receive As an annual salary of two thousand dollars. The Secretary shall receive an annual salary of two thousand dollars. The said salaries shall be paid quarter-yearly, from the dates of the respective appointments, at the Treasury of the United States; but no such payment shall HDT WHAT? INDEX

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be made until said officers shall have entered upon the duties of their respective appointments. The members of the Legislative Assembly shall be entitled to receive three dollars each per day during their attendance at the sessions thereof, and three dollars each for every twenty miles’ travel in going to and returning from the said sessions, estimated according to the nearest usually travelled route; and an additional allowance of three dollars shall be paid to the presiding officer of each house for each day he shall so preside. And a chief clerk, one assistant clerk, a sergeant at-arms, and door-keeper, may be chosen for each house; and the chief clerk shall receive four dollars per day, and the said other officers three dollars per day, during the session of the Legislative Assembly; but no to other officers shall be paid by the United States: Provided, That there shall be but one session of the Legislature annually, unless, on an extraordinary occasion, the Governor shall think proper to call the Legislature together. There shall be appropriated, annually, the usual sum, to be expended by the Governor, to defray the contingent expenses of the Territory, including the salary of a clerk of the Executive Department and there shall also be appropriated, annually, a sufficient sum, to be expended by the Secretary of the Territory, and upon an estimate to be made by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, to defray the expenses of the Legislative Assembly, the printing of the laws, and other incidental expenses; and the Governor and Secretary of the Territory shall, in the disbursement of all moneys intrusted to them, be governed solely by the instructions of the secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and shall, semi-annually, account to the said secretary for lit the manner in which the aforesaid moneys shall have been expended; and no expenditure shall be made by said Legislative Assembly for objects not specially authorized by the acts of Congress making the appropriations, nor beyond the sums thus appropriated for such objects. SECTION 31. And be it further enacted, That the seat of government of said Territory is hereby located temporarily at Fort Leavenworth; and that such portions of the public buildings as may not be actually used and needed for military purposes, may be occupied and used, under the direction of the Governor and Legislative Assembly, for such public purposes as may be required under the provisions of this act. SECTION 32. And be it further enacted, That a delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, to serve for the term of two years, who shall be a citizen of the United States, may be elected by the voters qualified to elect members of the Legislative Assembly, who shall be entitled to the same rights and privileges as are exercised and enjoyed by the delegates from the several other Territories of the United States to the said House of Representatives, but the delegate first elected shall hold his seat only during the term of the Congress to which he shall be elected. The first election shall be held at such HDT WHAT? INDEX

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time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the Governor shall appoint and direct; and at all subsequent elections, the times, places, and manner of holding the elections shall be prescribed by law. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be declared by the Governor to be duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly. That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of sixth of March, eighteen hundred and twenty, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery. SECTION 33. And be it further enacted; That there shall hereafter be appropriated, as has been customary for the territorial governments, a sufficient amount, to be expended under the direction of the said Governor of the Territory of Kansas, not exceeding the sums heretofore appropriated for similar objects, for the erection of suitable public buildings at the seat of government, and for the purchase of a library, to be kept at the seat of government for the use of the Governor, Legislative Assembly, Judges of the Supreme Court, Secretary, Marshal, and Attorney of said Territory, and such other persons, and under such regulations, as shall be prescribed by law. SECTION 34. And be it further enacted, That when the lands in the said Territory shall be surveyed under the direction of the government of the United States, preparatory to bringing the same into market, sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six in each township in said Territory shall be, and the same are hereby, reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Territories hereafter to be erected out of the same. SECTION 35. And be it further enacted, That, until otherwise provided by law, the Governor of said Territory may define the Judicial Districts of said Territory, and assign the judges who may be appointed for said Territory to the several districts; and also appoint the times and places for holding courts in the several counties or subdivisions in each of said judicial districts by proclamation, to be issued by him; but the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Legislative Assembly, at their first or any subsequent session, may organize, alter, or modify such judicial districts, and assign the judges, and alter the times and places of holding the courts as to them shall seem proper and convenient. SECTION 36. And be it further enacted, That all officers to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for the Territory of Kansas, who, by virtue of the provisions of any law now existing, or which may be enacted during the present Congress, are required to give security for moneys that may be intrusted with them for disbursement, shall give such security, at such time and place, and in such manner as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe. SECTION 37. And be it further enacted, That all treaties, laws, and other, engagements made by the government of the United States with the Indian tribes inhabiting the territories embraced within this act, shall be faithfully and rigidly observed, notwithstanding any thing contained in this act; and that the existing agencies and superintendencies of said Indians be continued with the same powers and duties which are now prescribed by law, except that the President of the United States may, at his discretion, change the location of the office of superintendent. Approved, May 30, 1854. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1855

May: At Taos, Aaron D. Stevens received a sentence of death for “mutiny, engaging in a drunken riot, and assaulting Major George A.H. Blake” of the 1st US Dragoons (this would be commuted by President Franklin Pierce to three years hard labor at Fort Leavenworth). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1857

The completion of the administration of President Franklin Pierce. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1863

September: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s sketches of life in England previously published between 1857 and 1863 in The Atlantic Monthly were collected into a book OUR OLD HOME: A SERIES OF ENGLISH SKETCHES (Boston: Ticknor and Fields) which the author dedicated to his old buddy, Ex-President Franklin Pierce, “as a slight memorial of a college friendship, prolonged through manhood, and retaining all its vitality into our autumnal years” despite advice from James Thomas Fields that this would hurt sales, that Pierce’s alleged sympathy with the Southern cause had placed him at this point in considerable public disfavor in the North. The first essay was titled “Consular Experiences” and was based on the author’s life as a political appointee of President Pierce.

December 2, Wednesday: Jane Means Appleton Pierce, wife of Franklin Pierce, died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1864

January: Early in this year, despite a gradual deterioration of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s health, he began a carriage trip with his friend Franklin Pierce.

May 24, Tuesday: People were continuing to kill each other at North Anna / Jericho Mill / Hanover Junction. In addition, on this day, people were killing each other at Wilson’s Wharf / Fort Pocahontas. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In Concord on this day, however, people were burying each other. Waldo Emerson recorded in his journal that:

Yesterday, May 23, we buried Hawthorne in Sleepy Hollow, in a pomp of HAWTHORNE sunshine and verdure, and gentle winds. James Freeman Clarke read the service in the church and at the grave. Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Agassiz, Hoar, Dwight, Whipple, Norton, Alcott, Hillard, Fields, Judge LONGFELLOW Thomas, and I attended the hearse as pallbearers. Franklin Pierce was J.R. LOWELL with the family. The church was copiously decorated with white flowers delicately arranged. The corpse was unwillingly shown, — only a few PROF. AGASSIZ moments to this company of his friends. But it was noble and serene in its aspect, — nothing amiss, — a calm and powerful head. A large company JUDGE E.R. HOAR filled the church and the grounds of the cemetery. All was so bright and J.S. DWIGHT quiet that pain or mourning was hardly suggested, and Holmes said to me C.K. WHIPPLE that it looked like a happy meeting. C.E. NORTON Clarke in the church said that Hawthorne had done more justice than any other to the shades of life, shown a sympathy with the crime in our BRONSON ALCOTT nature, and, like Jesus, was the friend of sinners. HILLARD I thought there was a tragic element in the event, that might be more JAMES T. FIELDS fully rendered, — in the painful solitude of the man, which, I suppose, JUDGE THOMAS could not longer be endured, and he died of it. I have found in his death a surprise and a disappointment. I thought him a greater man than any of his works betray, that there was still a great deal of work in him, and that he might one day show a purer power. Moreover, I have felt sure of him in his neighbourhood, and in his necessities of sympathy and intelligence, — that I could well wait his time, — his unwillingness and caprice, — and might one day conquer a friendship. It would have been a happiness, doubtless to both of us, to have come into habits of unreserved intercourse. It was easy to talk with him, — there were no barriers, — only, he said so little, that I talked too much, and stopped only because, as he gave no indications, I feared to exceed. He showed no egotism or self-assertion, rather a humility, and, at one time, a fear that he had written himself out. One day, when I found him on top of his hill, in the woods, he paced back the path to his house, and said, “This path is the only remembrance of me that will remain.” Now it appears that I waited too long. Lately he had removed himself the more by the indignation his perverse politics and unfortunate friendship for that paltry Franklin Pierce awakened, though it rather moved pity for Hawthorne, and the assured belief that he would outlive FRANKLIN PIERCE it, and come right at last. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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“The Wayside” would be occupied by the widowed Mrs. Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, with her two daughters Una Hawthorne and Rose Hawthorne and her son Julian Hawthorne, until, while again living in Europe, in October 1868 they would vend the place to George and Abby Gray. OLD HOUSES HAWTHORNE MAY 23, 1864 How beautiful it was, that one bright day In the long week of rain! Though all its splendor could not chase away The omnipresent pain. The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, And the great elms o’erhead Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms Shot through with golden thread. Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, The historic river flowed: I was as one who wanders in a trance, Unconscious of his road. The faces of familiar friends seemed strange; Their voices I could hear, And yet the words they uttered seemed to change Their meaning to my ear. For the one face I looked for was not there, The one low voice was mute; Only an unseen presence filled the air, And baffled my pursuit. Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream Dimly my thought defines; I only see — a dream within a dream — The hill-top hearsed with pines. I only hear above his place of rest Their tender undertone, The infinite longings of a troubled breast, The voice so like his own. There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told. Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower Unfinished must remain! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1869

October 8, Friday: J. Frank Duryea, with the assistance of his brother, invented the very 1st auto built and operated in the United States of America.

Franklin Pierce died at 4:40AM in Concord, New Hampshire. The body would be buried:

Although the biographer Larry Gara would lay emphasis upon the difficult period in which Pierce had held office as the 14th President of the United States of America, his conclusion would be quite straightforward: [T]here is no question that by the mid-fifties it was no longer possible to persuade northern voters to accept a program of further slave extension. Yet that is precisely what Pierce tried to do. Moreover, it would have taken political genius to persuade the South to relinquish not only slavery itself but the power disproportionate to the southern voting population which derived from slavery. Franklin Pierce was no genius. Indeed, the ordinary demands of the office were often beyond his ability. He was a politician of limited ability, and instead of growing in his job, he was overwhelmed by it. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(Pierce has perhaps unfairly been stuck with what is a properly “Lincolnesque” attitude, that the benefits of American political union outweigh any human harm that might be being perpetrated on account of slavery. Perhaps this is the reason that politico.com now offers, for $15.95 plus shipping and handling, this bobblehead doll of him — that actually makes him look more than a little bit like a young Lincoln.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1966

The Franklin Pierce manse on Montgomery Street in Concord, New Hampshire was being threatened by urban renewal. Would it need to be torn down? Would this be a good chance to tear it down, and thus help the people of New Hampshire to forget about the one US president to have come from New Hampshire, and the shame of it? Or, would Pierce be rescued “from the obscurity he so richly deserves”? Some nasty people who didn’t want New Hampshire to be able to forget bottled up some of Pierce’s favorite drink, his saving grace, bourbon whiskey, and from the sale of special commemorative bottles they would derive enough to relocate and then renovate the house:

(Now see, that didn’t hurt so much. Here, have another drink.)

So this Greek Revival house would be respectfully relocated in 1971 and now stands at the end of North Main Street.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project President Franklin Pierce HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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 2015. 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 28, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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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, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process 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 requests with . Arrgh.