An Article from March 20, 2010 designed to help folks seeking research paper topics on the Civil War

2011 marks the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War. Such anniversaries prompt a deluge of books and articles on everything from the causes of the war to the effects on the nation following Appomattox. American history students will find the temptation to write papers on the Civil War irresistible and in many cases mandatory by history instructors.

 

The tendency is to take the “easy way out” and write a broad paper on such themes as “Causes of the Civil War,” “Gettysburg,” and “Why Lee was Defeated.” A better approach is to formulate a thesis based on a focused, narrow topic. Suggestions include:

 

Military Topics

 

The training and superiority of Southern Generalship

Political Generals

Why McClelland Hesitated at Antietam

Why the Peninsular Campaign Failed

The Role of Attrition in Union Victories

Was the Anaconda Plan Successful?

Overconfidence at First Bull Run

Significance of the New Orleans Union Victory

How Ironclads changed Naval Warfare

The Morality of Sherman’s Campaign

The Andersonville Prison Camp

The Wisdom of Pickett’s Charge

Strategic Importance of Capturing Vicksburg

Punishment of Confederate Leaders

Importance of the Mississippi River

Defending Washington

The Importance of Blockade Runners

The fall of Richmond

Why the Oklahoma Cherokee Fought for the South

Advances in Military Technologies

Significance of Fort Monroe

 

Political Topics

 

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation’s Effect on Northern Democrats

The Election of 1864

Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

The Diplomatic War with Britain

Effects of Secretary of State William Henry Seward’s foreign policy

Lincoln’s Suspension of Habeas Corpus

Civil War Amendments to the Constitution

Ex Parte Milligan

Why Andrew Johnson was Chosen Vice President

 

Social and Cultural Topics

 

Civil War Poetry

Civil War Music

Northern Draft Riots

Conscientious Objectors (Shakers & Quakers)

Rationing

Profiting from the War

Immigrants Serving in Union Armies

Civil War Soldier Rations

Prostitution among the Troops

The Civil War in Art

Effect of the War on the Home Front

How the Civil War Split Families

 

African American Topics

 

Confiscation Acts

Fort Pillow Massacre

Black Troops at Charleston

Plight of Liberated Slaves

Comparing Slave Emancipation to Russian Serf Emancipation

Status of Slavery in Border States

 

General Topics

 

How the Civil War helped the Railroad Industry

The Development of a Federal Union

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

The Gettysburg Address

Was Lincoln an Abolitionist?

The Confederate Constitution

The Civil War and the Federal Budget

 

Focusing on the Topic

 

The key to a narrowly focused research paper begins with the formulation of a straight forward thesis. Each of the above topics can be expressed this way. The body of the paper – regardless of length requirement, should follow the thesis by presenting solid evidence from the research. Any attempt to deviate from the focus must be avoided, although the temptation to fill a paper with what some professors call “fluff” is great, especially if the assignment becomes a last minute effort.

 

Further information on this can be found in the article on how to write a history thesis.

Why the Spanish American War Mattered

 

What was the importance of the Spanish-American War, America’s shortest and most popular conflict? It was fought for the wrong reasons, supported by a few influential national leaders, and relied on propaganda to incite average Americans into war. But as the events of 1898 drew to a close, the United States found itself in possession of an overseas empire which caused future state policy to devote more energy and resources toward constructing a global presence and influence.

 

How Imperialistic was America after the Spanish American War?

 

Americans would be slow in exploiting the notions of “empire.” There were still too many leading politicians and intellectuals unwilling to accept an Imperial United States. Although organizations like the Anti-Imperialist League stoked the national conscience, most Americans were willing to accept the burden of overseas responsibilities as a result of the war without losing focus on pressing domestic problems.

 

Teddy Roosevelt Promotes American Imperialism

 

President Theodore Roosevelt probably had the most acute sense of the American role in the beginning of the 20^th Century. Associated with the charge up San Juan Hill as second in command of the Rough Riders, he had been one of the leading imperialists – a member of John Hay’s “pleasant gang” favoring war with Spain.

 

Roosevelt went on to build the Panama Canal, institute the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, send the Atlantic Squadron to North Africa, and order America’s “Great White Fleet” around the world as a symbol of American strength and pride. This first spirit of internationalism was made possible by the Spanish American War.

 

The Spanish American War Unified Americans

 

Another important result of the Spanish American War was its impact on American unity. National divisions coming out of the Civil War which ended in 1865 remained long after. The dominant Republican Party also saw periodic schism as moderates fought for control of the party against the Stalwarts.

 

With the rise of the industrial nation, labor unions, populism, and immigration concerns divided Americans. The Spanish American War was an opportunity to bring Americans together in a common cause. Quoted by Howard Zinn, Theodore Roosevelt in 1897 stated “…I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one.” In many ways, the Spanish American War reinvigorated Americans. In 1918, following World War I, Randolph Bourne would write that, “war is the health of the state.”

 

War Opponents were in the Minority in 1898

 

Although some Americans opposed the war, including President William McKinley, war fever overtook the nation in what has been called America’s most popular war. Subsequent imperialist policies, including the Philippine military occupation, were supported by most Americans, as seen in the results of the Election of 1900 during which the war and its aftermath became an issue.

 

The Spanish American War helped Change Directions for U.S. Foreign Policy

 

One result of the war was an expanded awareness of global affairs. Although the late 19^th Century missionary movement in countries like China had already educated Americans about other lands and cultures, the war positioned the United States as a viable competitor among European nations and Japan striving to build overseas empires and exploit natural resources.

 

As Senator Albert Beveridge stated, America was producing more than it could consume and needed export markets. The Spanish American War made it easier for America to insist on an Open Door trade policy in China while building on already established overseas ventures such as Samoa and Hawaii.

 

Importance of the First War to Acquire a Colonial Empire

 

The Spanish American War led to a robust spirit of imperialism. It allowed for expanded export trade opportunities. Additionally, the war brought Americans together in a common cause, even though the reasons resulted from yellow journalism and emotional response to the sinking of the USS Maine. The Spanish American War represented a first, major step in American internationalism. This would help to set long term patterns in the 20^th Century.

 

Sources:

 

Albert J. Beveridge, The Meaning of the Times and other Speeches (Books for the Libraries Press, 1908)

Ivan Musicant, Empire By Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century (Henry Holt and Company, 1998)

G.J.A. O’Toole, The Spanish American War: An American Epic 1898 (W.W. Norton & Company, 1984)

James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations 1897-1909 (The Macmillan Company, 1922)

William Roscoe Thayer, John Hay: American Statesmen Series Part 2 (Harper and Brothers, 1908)

Warren Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002)

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (available on-line)

Published in Suite101 June 14, 2010 M.Streich copyright 

 Halloween Music

The repertoire of classical and romanticist music contains a number of very familiar works that are frequently resurrected in October because their themes complement the spectral and supernatural at Halloween. Many of these works revolve around similar motifs: the return of dead spirits, the interaction of demonic forces with humans, and selling one’s soul to the devil.

 

Obsession with the Plague Years and the Dance of Death

 

One of Halloween’s most frequently played pieces is Camille Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre. Like Franz Liszt’s Totentanz, the music celebrates 14^th Century artists’ depictions of the dance of death, found throughout Europe in murals on church walls and in museums. Like many Halloween stories set to music, Danse Macabre was taken from a poem by Henri Cazalis, ending with the line, “Long live death and equality!”

 

Similar emotions are evoked in the second act of Adolphe Adam’s tragic ballet Giselle. The dead heroine, a humble peasant girl, is visited at her grave by a young nobleman she had fallen in love with. Even as they dance together, the spirits of other betrayed female lovers join the dance to destroy him.

 

Listeners can feel the frivolity and anguish of the spirits as their dancing builds to a heated crescendo, only to be called back to their graves as dawn approaches. The same feelings are evident in Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare (or Bold) Mountain, another Halloween favorite popularized by Walt Disney’s animated interpretation Fantasia.

 

Death, Sacrilege, and selling one’s Soul to the Devil

 

Although many people can identify Charles Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette as the Alfred Hitchcock theme, Franz Schubert’s Erl King is not as well known. Based on a poem by the German Romantic poet Goethe, it is the story of a father riding swiftly through the forests, cradling his sick son. The boy tells his father that the Erl King beckons to him even as the father vainly attempts to outrun death. In the end, the father arrives home, but the child is dead.

 

Dark and spooky forests are the scene of many Halloween pieces of music. For the 19^th Century Romantics, the dense European forests were the perfect abode of evil spirits and otherworldly phantoms. In Cesar Franck’s The Accursed Huntsman, a nobleman is cursed for going hunting on the Sabbath rather than attending Mass. The theme of Der Freischutz by Carl Maria von Weber involves a forester who meets the devil deep in the forest and sells his soul for seven magic bullets. The selling of one’s soul is also the theme of several works by various composers that capitalized on the Faust tale, another poem by Goethe.

 

From Light-Hearted Themes to Wagnerian Romanticism

 

Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a Halloween perennial and based on another Goethe poem. Also featured in Fantasia with Mickey portraying the hapless apprentice, it represents an excellent Halloween vehicle for children that tend to be unfamiliar with classical music. Selections from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites serve the same purpose with their focus on Scandinavian mythologies, trolls, and other dwarf-like beings.

 

At the other end of the spectrum are the works of Richard Wagner, deep and emotionally cumbersome like The Flying Dutchman and The Ride of the Valkyries. Yet they also comprise elements associated with Halloween themes and are therefore included in concerts devoted to ghostly themes.

 

For listeners seeking more on Halloween than the Ghostbusters theme or Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the classical music genre offers variety guaranteed to stir emotion and fantasy. Harkening back into a time when superstition and fear was rampant, these composers have managed to produce pieces that stir supernatural awareness or simply appeal to the human desire to look beyond the everyday real world.

 

Source:

 

Max Wade-Matthews & Wendy Thompson, The Encyclopedia of Music (Anness Publishing Limited, 2007)

Published 9/16/2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich

Halloween and the Christian Church

 

Halloween symbols are often offensive to some Christians that equate witches, vampires, ghosts, black cats and similar Halloween staples with the diabolical. Some Christians reject Harry Potter books and movies on similar grounds. Christians that accept demonology, for example, view Halloween as just another manifestation of paganism and occult practices. It didn’t help matters when a 1999 television excerpt disclosed conservative Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell admitting that she “dabbled in witchcraft” and had a date on a “Satanic altar” with blood marks on it.

 

The Complex Issue of Halloween and Evil for Christians

 

Evangelical Christians, for the most part, believe that ghosts are actually demons. Although this was not the connection made in the pre-Christian Mediterranean and Near East cultures where “unclean spirits” were not viewed as demons, second and third century Christians began the process of categorizing a specific and very defined cosmology that divided the cosmos into the sacred and the profane.

 

At the height of the Middle Ages, paganism had so infused peasant Christianity, that pre-Christian practices and superstitions became a part of ecclesiastical calendars and pagan symbols were incorporated into Christian beliefs and practices.

 

This included Halloween bonfires, the early jack-o-lanterns, going door to door begging (trick or treating), and dangerous spirits that the church identified with demons. Witches, however, had always been there, even in the ancient world.

 

The Reformation and Halloween Celebrations

 

Although the Reformation rejected much of Medieval Catholic belief, including peasant superstitions, it could not extinguish those beliefs, as several studies have shown such as Gerald Strauss’ evaluation of Lutheran “visitation reports” in his book Luther’s House of Learning.

 

Reformers, however, held to a strong belief in a literal devil and his domain. Thus Puritans, for example, rejected any celebration of Old Hallows Eve. Since most early American settlers identified with Calvinism, Halloween practices, as they are known today, were not celebrated. European peasant superstitions, however, persisted as they pertained to harvest time.

 

The Double Standard of Rejecting Halloween and not Christmas

 

Christians that reject Halloween on the basis of paganism fully accept the symbols, traditions, and practices of Christmas. Yet the origins of Christmas as celebrated in contemporary America are also rooted in pagan traditions. Additionally, Christmas, like Halloween, is a commercial holiday for most Americans.

 

Is Halloween an Open Door to Anti-Christian Beliefs and Practices?

 

The debate over the merits of celebrating Halloween has caused public schools to reevaluate how they treat the holiday. Some churches sell pumpkins to raise funds, knowing that many of them will be carved into spooky images conforming to Halloween. But does this open the door to evil or occultism?

 

In many ways, Christians rejecting Halloween outright are caught in a trap, much like the Catholic Church was when confronted by Galileo’s conclusions of a helio-centric solar system. Contemporary Halloween symbols may not be dangerous, but by accepting them an entire world-view is challenged.

 

Some symbols of Halloween have been accepted as mere superstition. Others more blatantly point toward the profane. Some symbols highlight the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil.

 

Primitive Irish jack-o-lanterns carved out of gourds and containing candles were meant to remind people to pray for the souls in purgatory. Bonfires drove away evil spirits. Masks served similar purposes. The symbols of Halloween do not invite evil but drive it away. Practically every religious belief in the world uses similar symbols to banish evil.

 

Celebrating Halloween as a Secular Holiday

 

Halloween can serve as a good object lesson for children whose parents might object to the origins or symbols. It presents and opportunity to discuss matters of faith in terms of what good and evil really consists of. Further, the secularization of Halloween should allow children to participate without the fear of demon possession simply by wearing a mask or painting a face.

 

Additionally, contemporary Halloween is an American holiday and custom. With over $5.8 billion in generated revenue (MSNBC, September 24, 2010), the haunted holiday will do much toward economic recovery. Instead of banning Halloween on dubious theological grounds, parents should discuss the day’s origins and symbols if they have concerns.

 

Sources:

 

Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford University, 2002)

Jeffrey B. Russell, A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans (Thames and Hudson, 1980)

Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1978)

Published 9/24/2010 by M.Streich in Suite101 and still under copyright 

The Election of 1964: A Modern American Landslide for the Democrats

 

The Presidential Election of 1964 resulted in one of the greatest modern landslide victories in election history. Lyndon Johnson was reelected with over 61% of the popular vote, beating Republican challenger Barry Goldwater of Arizona by 15,951,320 votes. The magnitude of victory allowed Johnson to further pursue his “Great Society” goals while at the same time breaking a campaign pledge not to widen the war in Vietnam. It helped that Goldwater was viewed as “reckless and irresponsible,” having threatened once to “lob” a nuclear bomb “into the men’s room of the Kremlin…” In several ways, the Election of 1964 would dramatically alter both political parties.

 

The Democratic Convention in Atlantic City

 

The Democratic Party convention was hosted by Atlantic City in late August. Lyndon Johnson, fresh from a significant congressional victory over the Gulf of Tonkin incident as well as seeing the passage of key Great Society legislation, had no reason to fear losing the nomination. But in the days before the opening of the convention, Johnson became paranoid, speculating that his Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, was seeking to highjack the convention.

 

Complicating matters, an independent delegate group from Mississippi representing that state’s black population and calling itself the Mississippi Freedom Delegate Party, was challenging the convention’s Rule’s Committee, demanding to be seated as legitimate delegates. White delegations from Southern states threatened to walk out if the upstart group was seated. Defying all attempts at compromise, the group staged demonstrations on Atlantic City’s boardwalk throughout the convention, garnered media attention.

 

Johnson’s fears regarding Robert Kennedy were unfounded, although he insisted that the film tribute on the late president be scheduled after his nomination was secure. Robert Kennedy had resigned as Attorney General in order to seek the New York Senate seat. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota would be the Vice President.

 

The Republican Convention in San Francisco

 

The Republican Party convention was packed with pro-Goldwater activists. Rejecting the pleas of moderate Republican conservatives like New York’s governor, Nelson Rockefeller, they ended splitting the party and thus enabling a strong Johnson victory. Middle of the road Republicans and liberal Republicans deplored the contradictory Goldwater while extreme conservatives and members of such ultra conservative groups as the John Birch Society viewed him as the savior of the Republic.

 

The massive Republican loss in 1964 saw party leadership devolve to middle ground conservatives like Richard Nixon. It would not be until the Election of 1980 that the so-called right-wing of the Republican Party would regain control, incorporating the newly organized “religious right” and ultimately hatching the egg that in 2000 became neo-con Republicanism.

 

According to Historian Paul Boller, Barry Goldwater was portrayed as a “drum-beating, saber-rattling zealot who might get the country into a nuclear war if he became president.” The fears of Goldwater’s hand on the buttons to launch a global nuclear catastrophe ultimately trumped Republican accusations of corruption and Johnson’s “wheeler dealer” style of politics.

 

The Fruits of Democratic Victory in 1964

 

The “unity” Johnson referred to after winning a landslide victory was short lived. Escalation of the Vietnam War would polarize Americans and generate mass anti-war movements that ultimately led to the debacle of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Senator Eugene McCarthy, who had been considered as a possible VP in 1964, staged a separate campaign, supported by students and peace activists.

 

The Election of 1964 resulted in addressing on-going Civil Rights issues, an extensive expansion of New Deal legislation under the banner of Johnson’s “Great Society,” and an escalation in American presence in Vietnam. With everyday a battle for domestic or foreign gains, it is little wonder that President Johnson, in early 1968, told the American people, he chose not to run again.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Jon Margolis, The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 (William Morrow and Company, 1999).

Published April 9, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich

 President Trump continues to warn against Anarchists and those he believe want to destroy America. But what is an anarchist? From a 2009 article (November 13) Professor Streich Answers the Question

In 1965 Ernesto “Che” Guevara arrived in Bolivia to begin a Cuba-style revolution. Guevara, who was killed by the Bolivian army two years later, had been a disciple of the 19^th Century Russian radical, Mikhail Bakunin. Part of Guevara’s inspiration came from The Catechism of the Revolutionary, a guide-book of sorts written by Bakunin and his younger protégé Sergei Nachaev. Bakunin was the founder of anarchism, a revolutionary movement that included Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman.

 

The Roots of Anarchism and Russian Radicalism

 

Guevara’s Bolivian Indians fit well with Bakunin’s model of revolution. These were the very poor, impoverished peasants, who had everything to gain by rising up in popular revolution. This had worked for Lenin in Russia and Mao in China. Anarchism targeted the lowest members of society. Referring to the Revolutions of 1848, historian Paul Avrich writes that Bakunin “threw himself into the uprisings of 1848 with irrepressible exuberance…moving with the tide of revolt from Paris to the barricades of Austria and Germany.”

 

Bakunin was an adolescent when the Decembrist Revolt took place in St. Petersburg, yet it had a profound affect on his thinking. Russia had a long history of peasant uprisings, the most recent one under Catherine the Great. The Pugachev Revolt involved tens of thousands of peasants – serfs that rose against imperial rule leaving a bloody trail as they marched on Moscow. Before Pugachev were the revolts of Razin and Bulavin.

 

Although Bakunin studied the philosophies of the German realists, thinkers like Hegel and Fichte, he was not a theorist like Karl Marx and other radicals of the 19^th Century. Bakunin was an activist. Anarchism advocated the total destruction of the social and political order. Out of this conflagration would arise a new and more equitable state and society. Bakunin was a man of action who personally rolled up his sleeves to show the peasants how real revolutions are fought.

 

19^th Century Anarchism in Action

 

According to the Catechism of the Revolutionary, an anarchist “knows only one science, the science of destruction.” This conflagration of the existing society began with a “spark,” or “the bunt.” 19^th Century anarchism focused, in part, on political assassination. Both the popular Empress Elizabeth of Austria and the American President William McKinley were assassinated by anarchists. Alexander Berkman, a key figure in the violent strike against Carnegie Steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania, was an anarchist. During a rally of angry workers in New York City, Emma Goldman told the crowd to break the windows of shops and take what they needed. She was deported back to Europe.

 

Bakunin’s message to the activist was that everything which “promotes the success of the revolution is moral and everything which hinders it is immoral.” Thus, any actions taken in the name of revolution were condoned and even glorified. Bakunin, however, was not the stereotype of a cold-blooded killer with mass murder in his eyes. Historian E. H. Carr’s biography anecdotes Bakunin’s attendance at a performance of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony in Leipzig. At the conclusion of the Ode to Joy, Bakunin rushed to the front of the stage proclaiming, “Everything must be destroyed except this symphony!”

 

Legacy of Bakunin and Anarchism

 

Bakunin’s call to revolution as an immediate uprising by the poorest members of society was most keenly seen in the various 20^th Century revolutions that utilized peasant masses, achieving radical change from “the bottom up.” His radicalism affected such modern groups as the American Black Panthers as well as movements in South America and Africa. Anarchism continues to be an active force even though other 19^th Century revolutionary ideals, like Marxism, have been discredited.

 

Sources:

 

Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits (Princeton University Press, 1988)

E. H. Carr, Mikhail Bakunin (Vintage Books, 1961)

Imperial Russia: A Source Book, 1700-1917, Basil Dmytryshyn, editor (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1967)

Aileen Kelly, Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism (Yale University Press, 1987)

American Imperialism: United States Exceptionalism 

 

 

 

American imperialism, beginning prominently in the 1890s, had a number of motives. Also John Hobson noted regarding British imperialism, “…the dominant directive motive was the demand for markets for profitable investment…” Such views were supported by American imperialists as well. There was also the element of inevitable expansion, the “frontier mentality” in the United States and the need to secure world standing in order to remain competitive. Finally, there was a religious motivation, the providential charge to bring Christian civilization to foreign cultures.

 

American Imperialism and Commercial Considerations

 

Albert Beveridge of Indiana was a leading advocate of American imperialism. In his 1898 March of the Flag speech he presents a case for overseas expansion. Americans were producing more than they could use and foreign markets would increase national prosperity. Acting on Alfred Thayer Mahan’s book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, American imperialists felt the need to protect expanding mercantile trade through a strong two-ocean navy, coaling stations in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and a canal.

 

The Spanish American War was concluded in August 1898, giving the United States several possessions previously owned by Spain. Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were the chief prizes of the war. Hawaii had been annexed in July of that year, while public attention was focused on military operations in Cuba.

 

Cuba’s natural resources were well known and American companies already had enterprises at work. Hawaii provided one of the best Pacific ports (along with Pago Pago in Samoa, already under US control in partnership with Imperial Germany) and made access to the China trade more efficient. By 1899, Secretary of State John Hay pressured European powers with the Open Door Notes to modify trade limitations in China that effectively block US participation.

 

Moral and Civilizing Motives of Imperialism

 

As a “Christian” nation that saw itself as “God’s chosen,” many Americans saw imperialism as a way of spreading the Christian Gospel to so-called “heathen nations.” This motive was a part of President William McKinley’s decision to keep the Philippines. The United States had a moral duty to uplift peoples in lands considered uncivilized. Kumar Goshal, writing of similar British motivations regarding India, states that, “the overwhelming majority…lived in…unbelievable filth and squalor…ill-housed, ill-clothed, and undernourished…”

 

Rudyard Kipling, the literary apostle of imperialism, expressed similar views in his poem the White Man’s Burden in which he classifies colonial peoples as “half devil, half child.” Such views gelled perfectly with both American and British missionary goals. The great missionary movement that saw the establishment of countless missionary boards and organizations coincided with national imperialistic movements which may be why critics have difficulty separating the two movements.

 

Criticism of Imperialism

 

In America, prominent business, government, and labor leaders opposed imperialism, most notably the occupation of the Philippines which erupted into a bloody war in 1899. Labor leaders like Samuel Gompers believed that cheap foreign labor might become a detriment to American workers. Carl Schurz, a founding member of the Republican Party, decried imperialism as contrary to the principles of Democracy and American freedom. Similarly, Mark Twain wrote, “I am opposed to the eagle putting its talons on any other land.”

 

Opponents of imperialism formed the Anti-Imperialist League which condemned American action in the Philippines and denounced “the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror.” Imperialism was defined as the “pursuit of un-American ends.” American imperialism would be a dominant issue in the reelection campaign of William McKinley against William Jennings Bryan, a pacifist opposing imperialism.

 

Dealing with Imperialism

 

Although the 1900 Foraker Act established a civil government in Puerto Rico, the 1901 Platt Amendment, inserted into the Cuban constitution, gave the US the right to intervene in Cuba. The Philippines would not receive independence until after World War II. Imperialism assisted in establishing America as an emerging global partner.

 

Sources:

 

Albert Beveridge, “The March of the Flag,” The Meaning of the Times (Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1908)

Kumar Goshal, People in Colonies (New York, 1948)

John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (London, 1902)

Platform of the American AntiImperialist League

Mark Twain quoted in A Pen Warmed up in Hell

Published in Suite101 January 10, 2009 by Michael Streich

Alfred Thayer Mahan: Architect of a Modern America

 

 

 

 

Alfred Thayer Mahan died in 1914, the year World War I began and the year the United States was forced to make choices that would ultimately break the isolationist mentality. Mahan’s monumental Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783, published in 1890, had already contributed to the fever of imperialism. Mahan, however, stressed the historical significance of sea power, beginning with Hannibal’s defeat by Rome. The importance of sea power was keenly evident in the 1890’s, coming at a time Imperial Germany was building a modern fleet and providing a rationale to up-coming global powers like the United States.

 

The Limited Age of Capital Ships

 

According to Mahan, the American fleet was defensive in character, seldom possessing the size of navies of great trade empires like Britain or small powers in the Western Hemisphere. The Chilean navy, for example, was far more formidable, as observed while Mahan was on active duty in South America.

 

Although Mahan’s book was eagerly read in Europe, few policy-makers in the United States embraced his theories. Only Theodore Roosevelt became Mahan’s stalwart supporter, furthering the careers of men like George Dewey and advocating a naval policy that included foreign coaling stations such as Samoa and Hawaii and, as president, promoting construction of the Great While Fleet.

 

Mahan sailed through the Suez Canal and trekked across the Isthmus of Panama. He witnessed the future importance of a Panama Canal first hand. Historian Warren Zimmermann likens Mahan’s views to George Kennan’s Cold War theories, especially as they impacted U.S. hegemony of the vast Pacific region and American control of key Pacific islands like Guam.

 

Underestimation of Ground Troops Form a Weakness in Mahan’s Argument

 

Historian Paul Kennedy postulates that Mahan relied too strongly on naval ships to the detriment of “boots on the ground.” But Mahan himself acknowledged the role of ground forces when writing, for example, about France. Napoleon Bonaparte had a superb army, but was unable to cross the channel to England.

 

England maintained a small army, relying on a navy to protect trade routes. Trade routes became even more important in the latter 19^th Century as European powers competed for global colonies. For America, this “march of the flag” coincided with the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of the Philippines.

 

Mahan’s Theories Still Apply in a Modern Age

 

The age of capital ships came to an abrupt end in December 1941 when a squadron of Japanese planes sunk the British ships Repulse and Prince of Wales as they were steaming along the Malay coast. Mahan could not envision airpower or even the role of submarines.

 

Battleships stood alone in the late 1890’s, supported by lesser vessels. But his principles remained: successful nations could only compete globally if they possessed a superior navy.

 

Additionally, Mahan left a legacy of history: learning from the past in order to predict the future. Some aspects of Mahan’s study remain universal. These include a combination of defensive and offensive capabilities, deterrence, and the willingness to protect the flow of commerce. Such theories transcend technology and for this Mahan deserves credit.

 

Sources:

 

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 To 2000 (Random House, 1987)

Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, And The Coming Of The Great War (Random House, 1991)

Ivan Musicant, Empire By Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century (Henry Hold and Company, 1998)

Edward Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country A World Power (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002)

Published April 12, 2011 by M.Streich 

Compromise of 1850 Merely Postponed the Civil War for a Decade

 

The 31^st Congress was called to order December 3, 1849. After weeks of sorting through petitions, Henry Clay of Kentucky presented eight resolutions designed to “settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy…arising out of the institution of slavery.” The Senate began debating his resolution the following Tuesday, February 5, 1850. By the adjournment of the Senate that summer, the “Compromise of 1850” was law, sectional tension was higher, and one of the great Senate thinkers, John C Calhoun, had died.

 

The Resolutions of Henry Clay

 

California would be admitted as a free-soil state based on its state constitution

Congress should not introduce or “exclude” slavery in any of the new territories

The western boundary of Texas should conform to the Rio del Norte

The U.S. government will pay Texas pre-annexation monetary claims

Texas will “relinquish…any claim which is has to any part of New Mexico

Slavery will continue to exist as an institution in the District of Columbia as long as it exists in Maryland

The sale or slave trade within the District will be abolished

A stronger “fugitive slave” provision be enacted

Congress has “no power to prohibit or obstruct the trade in slaves between slaveholding States…

 

Debating the Resolutions

 

Although Senator Clay envisioned a compromise designed to give the North and the South some measure of satisfaction, it stirred up a hornet’s nest of often angry debate. Many senators proposed amendments favorable to their constituencies. Senator Pratt of Maryland argued for federal compensation to slaveholders that lost income resulting from fugitive slaves. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi favored extending the 1820 Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific.

 

John C. Calhoun, whose speech was read by Virginia’s Senator Mason, called for a constitution amendment establishing two sectional Presidents. Calhoun, already frail, died in March. William Henry Seward’s speech referred to a “higher law” that superseded the Constitution in terms of slavery. Both Seward and Salmon Chase of Ohio urged the adoption of the Wilmot Proviso. Stephen Douglas of Illinois supported the resolutions in an attempt to assuage sectional discord. Although representing a Northern state, Douglas owned slaves himself through his second marriage.

 

Although President Zachary Taylor urged the speedy admittance of California into the Union, he opposed the expansion of slavery into the other territories. According to Historian Frederick Merk, “Taylor would have met any southern move toward secession at the head of the United States army.” Taylor, however, died in July and the new President, Millard Fillmore, supported the resolutions.

 

Results of the Compromise

 

Passage of the separate bills was due in large part to the efforts of Stephen Douglas, who maneuvered the legislation through Congress after Clay returned to Kentucky. Southerners, for the most part, viewed the Compromise with disdain and in four southern states, conventions met to consider secession.

 

Northerners also opposed parts of the Compromise, most notably the new Fugitive Slave Act. Both New York and Wisconsin attempted to nullify this act, without success. The issue of extending slavery beyond those states in which the institution already existed would dominate political and sectional thought for the next decade and act as a catalyst in the eventual outbreak of war.

 

Sources:

 

William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978).

Journal of the United States Senate, 31^st Congress, The Library of Congress, “American Memory”

Written for Suite101 4/5/2009 by M. Streich who still holds the copyright. 

IMPACT OF THE VIKINGS

 

 

 

The reign of Charles the Great or Charlemagne is often referred to as a renaissance, a time when Western Europe sought recovery from the barbarian ravages that helped to transform Rome from an empire to a series of self-sufficient territories. These pagan ravages had not ended when Charlemagne was crowned King of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day in AD 800. After Charlemagne died in 814, one of Western Europe’s most consistent threats came from the Vikings or Norsemen, Scandinavians known for plundering the British Isles and what was left of Charlemagne’s kingdom during the 9^th Century.

 

Scandinavian Migrations Begin the Viking Age

 

The influence of the Scandinavians cannot be underestimated. Despite their usual depictions as pirate-types destroying churches and monasteries – a picture left by Christian chroniclers, their migrations and ultimate settlements are far more complex. Historians differ as to the reasons the Danes and Norwegians traveled south, often establishing agricultural communities and commercial settlements as in the Shetlands and Orkneys.

 

While there is always the side of adventure that paints the Scandinavians as freebooters and, if Christian sources are to be trusted, a “scourge” ripe for conversion, historians note population concerns that might have forced migrations as well as the early consolidation and centralization of rudimentary kingdoms. What is not questioned is the scope of these migrations.

 

Another reason involves changes in climate, forcing emigration to southern regions. Evidence of climate changes impacting emerging communities is growing and can be traced to far earlier periods. But migrations for a variety of reasons are still the accepted historical answer, according to Tierney and Painter.

 

Evidence of Migratory Patterns in the British Isles

 

Matthias Schultz, commenting on a highly controversial topic, at least in Britain, writes that, “Biologists at University College in London studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and northern German men – and it is surprisingly common in Great Britain.” (Spiegel magazine, June 16, 2011) Schultz adds that, “New isotope studies conducted in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries produced similar results.”

 

 

In 2007 the discovered of a Viking “treasure hoard” in northern England attested to the Scandinavian’s commercial motivations as well as their migratory habits. (Archaeology, November/December 2007) At the same time, Historian Charles Haskins, writing in 1915, refers to the Scandinavian’s “monopoly” of sea power, made more successful by their vessels often called “dragon ships.”

 

Motivations for Viking Presence in Western Europe

 

Did the Vikings come to destroy? Scandinavians sacked numerous communities including Hamburg and Paris in 845, but historians agree that the Vikings were great traders as well as colonizers. In the year 911, the Viking chief Rollo was granted Normandy. Military historians point to this action as one of last resort: it represented a feudal answer to the Viking problem by making vassals of one group in order to stop the incessant incursions of the 9^th Century.

 

The British Isles, however, were another matter, notwithstanding the long-term influences of Germanic invasions. England had been part of the Roman Empire and was fully converted. Ireland evolved independently, without any political unity. Even the Irish Catholic Church developed differently without the presence of bishops. British historian H. R. Loyn argues that, “…the Scandinavians played a part, possibly a decisive part, in the making of England, of Scotland, of Ireland, and of Wales.”

 

Unlike Europe (Charlemagne attempted to pacify and convert the unruly Saxons three times during his reign), England was Christian. Charlemagne, in establishing the cathedral school at Aachen, looked to York for his principal teachers, monks like Alcuin. Not until the reign of Alfred in England, however, were the Danes checked and violence and plundering subsided, at least for a time.

 

Legacy and Historical Interpretations of Viking Incursions

 

The Viking Age (800 – 1100) was characterized by extensive migration, commercial pursuits, and a spirit of adventure. Loyn, for example, analyzes this quest for “status” as, “Possession of a free kindred, possession of land, and valor in war…”

 

Historical interpretations are also bound by national feelings. This, Jacques Le Goff refers to the Viking migrations in terms of plunder, while Norwegians strive to portray their ancestors in more enlightened terms. Visitors to the Viking Museum in Oslo, for example, will be reminded that it was a Norwegian who first discovered America, not an Italian sailing for Spain.

 

The Sophistication of Early Scandinavian Culture

 

That the Vikings were more than mere pirates is evident from their artifacts. The archaeological find at Harrogate, northern England included over 600 coins, some of which came from Russia and Afghanistan. At the Oslo Viking Museum, scientists discovered tools, textiles, and jewelry representing a sophisticated civilization along the banks of Oslo’s fjord.

 

Loyn, for example, discusses the construction of their vessels as well as their superb navigational skills. Taken together, such evidence supports conclusions that the Vikings, according to Hastings, “had…a culture of their own…rich in its treasures of poetry and story.” Viking influences persist, and not just in Germanic fairy tales, the days of the week, or their colorful sagas.

 

The Scandinavian contact with Western Europe toward the end of the 8^th Century was as much a contribution to western culture and traditions as the remnants of Rome and the growth of Christian institutions. Their migrations helped to alter existing societies, creating an added framework to the evolving culture that would become Western European civilization.

 

Sources:

 

Charles Homer Haskins, The Normans in European History (Barnes & Noble, 1995; first published in 1915)

Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings (Oxford University Press, 1968)

Jacques Le Goff, Medieval Civilization (Basil Blackwell, 1988)

H. R. Loyn, The Vikings in Britain (St. Martin’s Press, 1977)

Matthias Schult, “The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: Britain Is More Germanic than It Thinks,” Spiegel, June 16, 2011

“Spectacular Viking Hoard,” Archaeology, Volume 60, Number 6, November/December 2007

Karl Theodor Strasser, Wikinger und Normannen (Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1928)

Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter, Western Europe In The Middle Ages 300-1475, Fifth Edition (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992)

[The author has visited the Oslo Viking Museum twice]

Written by M. Streich for Suite101

When Franklin Roosevelt tried to "Pack" the Supreme Court

 Michael Streich

 The Election of 1936 gave Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party a resounding victory. FDR carried 46 of 48 states and Democratic majorities in the Congress swelled. Roosevelt saw the victory as an opportunity to confront the US Supreme Court, the last bastion of conservatism. In 1935 the high court had invalidated the NIRA and in 1936 the AAA. FDR was acutely aware that the court could well invalidate the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act, two pillars of New Deal legislation. Roosevelt resolved to reorganize the court.

 

Democrat Opposition to the Court

 

At issue was the courts power of judicial review. Of the nine justices, the so-called “Four Horsemen,” James McReynolds, Pierce Butler, Willis Van Devanter, and George Sutherland joined to invalidate New Deal legislation. The swing vote in crucial cases had been Owen Roberts. Leading Democrats floated several proposed Constitutional amendments that all had a similar goal: deprive the court of judicial review.

 

President Roosevelt, however, felt that an amendment would take too much time. His plan, amounting to little more than “court packing,” would expand the court to fifteen and allow him to appoint a new justice whenever a member of the high court reached the age of seventy and refused to retire.

 

FDR injected the issue of age and this was unfortunate. Justice Brandeis was the oldest member of the court but he was also the most liberal. Owen Roberts, the swing vote, was under the age of seventy.

 

A Switch in Time Saves Nine

 

Roosevelt’s plan split the Democrats. In the Senate, Judiciary Chairman Joseph Robinson led the fight to change the court but was opposed by Burton Wheeler and Carter Glass, two powerful Senators. The Republican strategy was to remain silent and allow the Democrats to fracture. The general public saw Roosevelt’s actions as a direct attack on the Constitution.

 

The general perception was that the number of justices, fixed at nine since 1869, was somehow sacred. Even the Catholic Church criticized the plan, comparing the high court’s power with papal infallibility. Congressmen dealt with a tidal wave of constituent letters, mostly critical of the proposed change.

 

By the summer of 1937, the issue was resolved after a series of incidents made court reorganization redundant. The Supreme Court began to validate New Deal legislation with Justice Roberts joining the liberal members. Historian William Leuchtenburg maintains that Roberts was following the will of the people based on the 1936 election. Others have stressed Roberts’ sincere change of principle based on his understanding of the Constitution. [1]

 

Leuchtenburg relates an intriguing story that involves Republican Senator William Borah of Idaho, walking across the hall in his apartment house and knocking on his neighbor’s door, Associate Justice Van Devanter. After a brief conversation, Borah returned to his own apartment but Van Devanter would resign from the court the next day. This gave FDR his first appointment to the high court: Senator Hugo Black of Alabama.

 

The final derailment of Roosevelt’s plan came with the sudden death of Senator Robinson. The Judiciary Committee rejected the reorganization bill, stating that it was, “in direct violation of the American Constitution.” The Committee also suggested that the bill would undermine “the independence of the Courts.”

 

Roosevelt’s court packing scheme ultimately redirected the philosophy of the high court by embracing liberal nationalism. Additionally, the in-party disagreements would fracture Democratic Party unity and pave the way for Republicans to stage a slow comeback.

 

[1] See William E. Leuchtenburg, “Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Supreme Court ‘Packing’ Plan,” Essays on the New Deal, Harold Hollingsworth and William F. Holmes, Editors. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969)

 

See also:

 

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1976) p.714-718.

Copyright of this article owned by Michael Streich; any reprints require written permission.

Vice Presidents "On Their Own" in American History: the "accidental" VP's

 

Modern presidential elections carefully vet men and women fortunate enough to be on a candidate’s “short list” to avoid surprises and embarrassments. One question journalists ask potential vice presidential candidates is, “will you faithfully follow the president’s policies and the party platform if chosen?” While all will say yes without batting an eye, American history is full of vice presidents who changed course – and perhaps history, after following a president who died or faced removal from office.

 

Tyler and Fillmore

 

The first Whig candidate to win national election was William Henry Harrison in 1840. Harrison died, however, after a month in office, elevating his vice president, John Tyler to the office. Tyler, however, was not a Whig, although he hated Andrew Jackson. Tyler’s agenda included the immediate annexation of Texas and settlement of a border dispute between Main and Canada. The Whig cabinet promptly resigned. Needless to say, Tyler was not reelected and remains an anomaly in American history books as the only President to serve in the Confederate Congress.

 

In 1848 General Zach Taylor, a southerner with large slave holdings, became the president. Taylor had distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War, notably at Buena Vista. Taylor was fully expected to support efforts to allow the extension of slavery into the new acquired territories, but he did not. Taylor’s first act was to recommend admittance of California as a free-soil state. Once Kentucky Senator Henry Clay presented his famous Compromise of 1850, Taylor opposed it.

 

Taylor died suddenly following the July 4, 1849 parade and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore of New York, by all accounts a drab Congressman. But Fillmore signed Clay’s compromise. He was also bypassed for reelection by the Whigs in 1852 when the party turned yet again to a war hero, Winfield Scott.

 

Andrew Johnson and Chester Arthur

 

The venerable Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 and replaced a a Southern Democrat, Andrew Johnson. Johnson’s reconstruction plans were very different from Lincoln and he lacked the diplomacy to deal with the Radicals in Congress. He became the only president before Bill Clinton to undergo the Constitutional process of impeachment. Not reelectable on a major platform, Johnson was returned to Washington as a Senator but died before assuming his seat.

 

Chester A Arthur was never vetted as Garfield’s vice president. Rather, he was a compromise candidate elevated to assuage the egos of Republican Party stalwarts like Roscoe Conkling of New York. But Arthur got the job done, instigating civil service reform and leaving positive marks on his tenure as president.

 

The Twentieth Century was little different. In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President for two terms upon the assassination of William McKinley of Ohio. McKinley presided over the Spanish War and subsequent annexations, but it was Roosevelt who gave meaning to the new American possessions. It was Roosevelt who forged the building of the Panama Canal and setting the long-range presence of the United States in the Pacific.

 

Twentieth Century Vice Presidents

 

Following the short presidency of scandal-ridden Warren Harding in 1920, Calvin Coolidge, a cold and bland man, presided over an economic contradiction that led disastrously to the Crash of 1929. It can be argued, however, that both Roosevelt and Coolidge improved on the times, setting aside obvious scandal and foreign policy indolence.

 

Harry Truman was FDR’s fourth Vice President at the most crucial period of World War II. The Allies were victorious on all fronts, the U.S. was ready to use a bomb like no other, and worldwide peace would have to be made with America as the leading power. How prepared was Truman? Was he privy to any sensitive information? As history discloses, Truman was, for all purposes, out of the loop.

 

After the Dallas assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson became President. Johnson coveted the Presidency and with his long leadership history in the Congress engineering the passing of many progressive, New Deal-type measures with a greater ease than Kennedy could have accomplished. There was no need to vet Johnson: the powerful Texan could easily have won the Democratic nomination in 1960.

 

Gerald Ford, like Johnson, came from the Congress and was well known and respected. Unlike Johnson, Ford was a caretaker president. There was no need to go through a long vetting process. Ford would end the Nixon years and attempt to keep the White House in Republican hands.

 

Vetting potential vice presidents is an integral part of the election process. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned for allegations of corruption while governor of Maryland. North Carolina’s John Edwards would have faced resignation had he successfully won either the vice presidency or the presidency. In 2008, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared to be a good choice until journalists and debates determined that her base of knowledge was shallow.

 

Vice Presidential choices, historically made for many reasons designed to balance the ticket and win votes, do not guarantee an easy transition or follow-through if they are ever called upon to replace the President. The vetting process is highly important, but can never assure the absence of potential future surprises.

 

Reference:

 

William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Gramercy Books, 2001)

Page Smith, A People’s History of the United States, volumes 4-7 (McGraw-Hill Book Company)