More today about Lundberg's book on Greeley. On pp. 64-65, he is discussing Greeley's opposition to the war with Mexico. "When the issue became apparent, Greeley was sure [in 1847] that a long-silenced Southern majority would overthrow Calhoun and his cabal." Greeley formed three critical views at about this time, while opposing war with Mexico. First, that the aristocratic planters who owned most of the south's slaves were a powerful conspiratorial force, extending themselves not just west but north. Second, that a unified "north" had to be called into existence by the force of his own paper and such allies as could be mustered, to oppose this force (to oppose those he would soon start calling the Slave Power). Third, that the downtrodden southern whites, who owned few or no slaves, would before long join forces with the North and overthrow their social superiors in that region. One great theme of Lundberg's book is that Greeley was wildly mistaken...
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President Trump recently stumbled, in his usual word-salad way, into a subject to which I have given a good deal of thought over a period of decades (I once tried to write a book about it.) On May 1, on Sirius XM radio, Trump said: "People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?" Trump said in an interview with The Washington Examiner that also aired on Sirius XM radio. "People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?" This much already is confusing. "People" in general "don't ask" that question? Sorry, but a lot of people do ask, and a lot of people, of varying levels of well-informed to ignoramus, have sought to answer it and have argued with one another's answers. I can only understand Trump here if he is saying, "People in my circles generally don't ask it, or haven't until quite recently, or I haven't paid attenti...
Fergus M. Bordewich, a journalist and historian, has written America's Great Debate , a book about the sectional compromise of 1850 that preserved the union without bloodshed, for another 11 years, anyway. Describes John Calhoun thus early on: "A nominal Democrat through most of his political career, in 1847 Calhoun proposed the formation of a new southern party founded on four principles: that new territories clearly be declared the common property of all the states; that Congress be clearly denied the right to enact any law, or undertake any act, that would deprive a state of its 'full and equal right' in any United States territory; that any law barring the citizens of any state from carrying their property into any territory was a violation of the Constitution; and 'that people have the unconditional right to adopt the government which they think best calculated to secure their liberty, prosperity, and happiness.' This last was a virtual invitation to se...