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Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist LI [James Madison]
Independent Journal (New York) February 6, 1788 “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature?” This rhetorical question, which James Madison posed, is one that governments throughout the world—throughout history—have answered by showing that even the best-intentioned government fails where it does not take human nature into account.
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The Civil War: Jefferson Davis: Message to the Confederate Congress
April 29, 1861 With only a few weeks at the helm of the Confederate government, president Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress had cause for concern—but also cause for inspiration. The whole of the South (and the whole of the North) was animated: men and women were mobilizing; making their preparations to contribute to the…
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The Civil War: Benjamin F. Butler to Winfield Scott
One night in late May 1861, “three negroes”—who said they were field hands, slaves—delivered themselves to the picket line at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Fort Monroe, sat on the peninsula between the York River and James River, had at its helm Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler. The fugitive slaves had come to the fort to…
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The Civil War: William Howard Russell: from My Diary North and South
April 17, 1861 In the weeks and months leading up to the fall of Fort Sumter, the South had been brimming with excitement for the future. Charleston, South Carolina—with newly taken Fort Sumter in its harbor—was leading the South into that future both through its rhetoric and through its actions. Enthusiasm was abound for what…
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The Civil War: George Templeton Strong: Diary, April 13-16, 1861
Throughout the months leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter, there was widespread wonder about how the country would react to such a provocation; it was bound to be a cleave dividing the country and also its communities. Generations later—with the accordion of events neatly folded and the result of the war known—it would…
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The Progress of Women in the 1830s and 1840s
Around the 1830s and 1840s, individuals who suffered from mental illness were treated as criminals, regardless of whether they had actually committed a crime. See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 604. Dorothea Dix sought to change that.
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Lincoln the Teetotaler
While the Democrats had held up Andrew Jackson as the ideal man, the Whigs began to view Abraham Lincoln in the 1840s as the ideal man, even though his personality was “artificial—that is, self-constructed.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 598.
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The Illinois System
Abraham Lincoln, as a Congressman in the House of Representatives, would be “an ardent supporter of internal improvements.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 596.
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The Emergence of Bankruptcy
In the wake of the Panics of 1837 and 1839, Congress sent the White House a new bill to be signed into law: The Bankruptcy Act of 1841. See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 593. From then on, bankruptcy would be part of American life, providing an option for when debts become…
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Constitution Sunday: Letters from the “Federal Farmer” to “The Republican”
Letters from the “Federal Farmer” to “The Republican” New York, November 8, 1787 Following are excerpts from a series of letters published in New York, supposedly from the Federal Farmer to The Republican: “A general convention for mere commercial purposes was moved for—the authors of this measure saw that the people’s attention was turned solely…
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The First Presidential Succession
Following William Henry Harrison’s death just a month into his presidency in 1841, John Tyler rose to the presidency, in the first instance of a president dying while holding the office. See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 589.
Last Best Hope of Earth 