On a Beating

The rhetoric that surrounds much of the modern political discourse walks a razor’s edge of violence. Politicians know precisely what to say that will encourage their like-minded supporters to move to physical action while allowing the politicians at the same time to argue that their words were misconstrued. They rely on the plausible deniability to protect them from not only prosecution but also responsibility for the resulting violence. All of this has resulted in a polarization in the public discourse in the US that hasn’t been seen in a while. We need to remember that words have power and choose them carefully.

But what happens when the politicians who speak in these “dog whistles” become the ones who act out the violence? That’s something that happened in a most unusual place–the United States Senate floor. There was a time that tempers were running high between a Republican senator from the north against a Democratic senator from the Old South. The two men were on opposite sides of most issues, but the emotional issue of Civil Rights divided the pair the most. And it got personal. The Republican even made fun of the Democrat’s slurred speech that he had developed as a result of a recent stroke. True, this type of personal attack is unwarranted and uncouth, but politics is a nasty business, after all.

But a relative of the Democratic senator took great offense at the Republican’s attacks of both political and personal natures. And while the saying about sticks and stones is true, words can lead to the use of them for a certain. This man, this relative of the senator, he actually made plans to kill the Republican. And, to make this bad situation even worse, the relative with the murderous intent was a member of the US House of Representatives and also a prominent Democratic politician. A friend talked him out of murdering the poison-tongued northern senator and instead convinced the man to merely beat him. The younger relative reluctantly agreed.

Well, the Republican was at his desk on the almost empty Senate floor after the day’s business. He was busy writing a speech for the next day and was so intent on his work that he failed to notice the representative approaching him. The Democrat pulled out a cane with a golden handle and, with a mighty backswing, struck the sitting senator in the head with all his force. The blow knocked the man from his chair. He later said that he blacked out at that point and barely remembers holding his arms up in a vain attempt to defend himself against the blows that began raining down on his head and shoulders.

The attacker got several blows in before anyone nearby could intervene. Some later privately said that the northern senator got what was coming to him, but then others managed to tear the attacker away. The northern man was so severely beaten that pools of his blood surrounded his desk; he had to be carried from the chamber on a stretcher and then treated for a concussion and also received several stitches. The attack was so violent that the man wielding the can broke it in several places; his swings were so violent that he hit himself with the cane and had to also receive some stitches.

Sadly, the senator from the north was so badly beaten that it would be over a year before he was physically able to return to his desk. And equally as sad, many in the nation agreed with the attack. Some media recommended that the senator receive such a beating regularly. And some other people sent the young representative a new cane, one even inscribed with the words, “Do It Again.” However, other supporters of the beating said that it was not as bad as the senator made out. The severity of the beating was, in effect, fake news.

But it wasn’t fake. Nor were the divisions between the two sections of the nation.

The beating of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by US Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina in 1856 symbolized the moment when the rhetoric about the issue of slavery turned violent and presaged the bloody Civil War that would follow four short years later.

On Some Expats

Since I’ve not found a permanent home outside of the United States as of yet, I’m classified as an expatriate or expat. Once I find some place and settle, I’ll then become an immigrant. This is the story of about 20,000 other American expats, most of whom became immigrants in the South American nation of Brazil.

The last Emperor of Brazil was Don Pedro II. In the 1860s, he wished to diversify his nation’s agricultural exports to Europe’s eager markets. Thus, he made it incredibly easy for American farmers to come to Brazil and get cheap land and help Brazil become much more of an agricultural exporter.

As said above, over 20,000 Americans brought their families south and set up farming in Brazil. Interestingly, until that time, Brazil had been a diverse national ethnically but had been almost 100% Catholic religiously. The expats who came there from the US built the first protestant churches and cemeteries that Brazil ever saw.

Now, Brazil was certainly a difficult change for many of the Americans. The language and culture challenged many of the expats as they sought to raise their children as “American” as possible within the confines of the Brazilian nation. Guide books were written and published in the US detailing how to make the giant leap and move to Brazil and raise your kids while maintaining your “American-ness.” The most famous of these books was Hunting a Home in Brazil and published in 1867.

Some of the Americans brought their metal plows with them, and these technological marvels caused the native Brazilian famers to gasp with awe. An agricultural school was set up to teach the Brazilians the latest farming techniques. The settlements in Brazil grew quickly, and, today, the Brazilian city of Americana boasts over 200,000 residents, many of them descendants of those early American expats turned immigrants.

What do you think made so many Americans accept Emperor Don Pedro II’s offer to come help Brazil’s agricultural sector? Well, if you know anything about American History, you know that the early 1860s saw the American Civil War.

And those more than 20,000 American expats–known today as Confederados–who left the United States for a fresh start?

They were American slave owners who couldn’t stand the idea of living in a nation that had outlawed slavery.

On the Capture of a Radical

John Brown led a small insurrection against the United States in 1859 in what is now West Virginia. Brown’s intent was to raid a federal gun depository–the armory at Harper’s Ferry, in what was then Virginia–and arm slaves with guns so that they revolt against their masters. He and his fellow ultra-radical abolitionists thought that the slave population would rise to answer their call of armed insurrection against the evil of what many Americans referred to as The Peculiar Institution. Abolitionists like Brown felt that they were the hands and feet of God’s freedom and were put on earth to end slavery.

So, with a small “army” of about two dozen men, both black and white, Brown truly believed that he and his men would soon be joined by hundreds of armed newly-freed slaves. These slaves would then turn their guns on their masters, punishing the slaveowners for what Brown felt was a terrible sin in the eyes of God. But, after he and his men took the armory, he realize that he had no way to let the enslaved people know about his plan without raising an alarm that would bring state and federal militias against him and his cohorts. So, to make sure the outside world wouldn’t hear of the capture of the armory, Brown ordered the telegraph lines to be cut.

But he forgot about the train. Some of his men shot at a train that pulled through Harper’s Ferry, and the train managed to make its way down the tracks to a station that had a working telegraph. The train crew sent out word about the situation in Harper’s Ferry, and, soon, a detachment of marines were dispatched to recapture the armory and arrest the insurrectionists. Within seven hours, Brown and his men found themselves surrounded by the marines and other various militia groups who had come on their own accord.

The colonel in charge of the marines sent a message under a flag of truce into the armory, telling Brown and his fellow rebels that they would be protected if they surrendered and gave up all their arms. Brown refused the terms. That led the colonel to order a full assault on the armory. Inside the building, a short but bloody skirmish took place that saw the marines quickly regain control. Afterward, Brown lay seriously injured by a saber blow and several of his men, a few marines, and some civilians Brown had taken hostage were either hurt or killed.

Brown’s actions were first seen as being terrible and radical, especially in the south. Pro-slavery proponents pointed out that his actions were the natural result of uninhibited and dangerous abolitionist rhetoric. After the initial shock of the violence, people in the north began to speak of Brown in glowing terms, began to see him as a shining example of liberty and freedom as defined in the American founding documents. Many today see Brown’s attempted rebellion as the first shots of the American Civil War.

After Brown was finally executed by hanging for his insurrection, people began eulogizing him in literature and song. John Brown’s Body became a refrain sung by Union troops as the Civil War began two years later. In part, it said, “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave, but his truth is marching on.” Julia Ward Howe changed those words to what we now know as the Battle Hymn of the Republic–leaving out references to Brown but keeping the ideas of the ware being a blow for freedom against slavery.

Oh, and remember that colonel who led the marines in the recapture of the armory at Harper’s Ferry? The one who penned the surrender terms to Brown?

He was offered the command of the Union Army by President Lincoln as the Civil War began.

But, as we know, Robert E. Lee turned down that offer.

On the Building of Washington, D.C.

You’re probably aware that George Washington is the only US President who never lived in Washington, D.C., during his time in office. While the Father of His Country did lay the cornerstone to what would become the White House (wearing his Masonic apron, no less), the first President to live there was John (and his wife, Abigail) Adams who stayed in the unfinished and freezing cold mansion a short time before the newly-elected Thomas Jefferson took office. And every Chief Executive since then has resided there.

The story of the building of the city is as interesting as it is long. We won’t delve into that in this format, but you should know that the plan to build a permanent and new capital city for the new nation was approved while Washington was still in office. The next step after the approval of the (swampy) land was the design. Thomas Jefferson, ever the designer/architect and Washington’s Secretary of State, put in his two cents regarding building design, but it was a French military officer who had fought with the Americans against the British over a decade earlier who conceived not only of a general style for the architecture of the buildings but also of the overall plan for the city as a whole. His name is Pierre L’Enfant.

L’Enfant’s plan has undergone several changes over the past 220+ years, but the essential heart of the city’s layout and building design is his. As far as cities built as national capitals go, the capital city of the United States remains one of the most beautiful and beautifully designed. The nations of Brazil (Brasilia), Myanmar (Naypyidaw), and Pakistan (Islamabad) all have purpose-build capital cities with varying levels of beauty and livability. Washington remains one of the most beautiful (St. Petersburg, Russia, was also purpose-built as Peter the Great’s capital city, and it is absolutely beautiful, but the Soviets moved the capital to Moscow).

But there’s an irony to the building of the US capital city as you will soon see. L’Enfant’s plan called for the use of sandstone, a plentiful, nearby, and (relatively) easy to manipulate stone building material. While later builders in the city used marble and other stones, much of the original construction of the major buildings of Washington were made of sandstone. The stone was cut, shaped, loaded, hauled, unloaded, shaped again, and then laid to construct the buildings we know so well today. Many of the masons who did the laying stonework were Scots. Scottish stone masons are famed for their craft, and some were “imported” to the United States just for this purpose. However, the Scots, as important and as skilled as they were, did not do the heavy lifting.

No, the backbreaking work of building Washington, D.C., the capital of a nation built, as Abraham Lincoln would say several decades later, on the proposition that all men are created equal, was largely performed by African slaves. It is said to have grieved the abolitionist Adams to see enslaved persons working on liberty’s capital, specifically the executive mansion.

Interesting, isn’t it? For a nation where many people attempt to define what it means to be an American by having been born here or by displaying a certain cultural, ethnic, or linguistic identity, to have the capital city of that nation designed and built by people from Africa, France, and Scotland (among other places).

So, to argue that foreigners and immigrants built this nation, it is true–and literally in the case of the nation’s capital city.

On a Political Moderate

It’s difficult for us today to grasp how divisive the issue of slavery was in the United States before the American Civil War. Of course, today, we think that the United states is terribly divided politically between Republicans and Democrats. However, today’s political divisions pale in comparison to the schisms that led this nation to the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Even politicians we might think of as moderate for that time still professed strongly held beliefs in the idea that the races were unequal and so created by God. One typical mid-western moderate politician of the era said, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races.” This same former member of the United States House of Representatives went on to argue that Blacks should not have the vote, were unqualified to be on juries, hold office, and most certainly should never be allowed to marry white people. God, forbid!

On another occasions, this same moderate argued for the resettlement or colonization of Blacks to, well, somewhere else in the world. Liberia, the African nation set up by former slaves of the U.S., was one of the possible places Blacks could be sent, he said. Central America was also floated as a potential resettlement spot by this man. He justified this belief by saying that the differences between the races were simply too great to be resolved and, therefore, separation was the only safe and sane recourse.

He further held that he must support slavery simply because he believed in the United States Constitution. While the Constitution did not specifically mention slavery as a right, the fact that such things as the 3/5 Compromise and the reference to Fugitive Slave Laws in the document supported the idea in his mind—even if he personally disliked the institution. These feelings echoed those of Thomas Jefferson—himself a slave owner—who supposedly said that slavery, “was like holding a wolf by the ears. You didn’t like it, but you sure didn’t let it go.”

You can see that even moderates of that period such as this man held beliefs that today are wildly inappropriate and wrong. That should show you how deeply held the racial animosity was among those considered to be radical in the period leading up to the Civil War.

Yet, this politically moderate man further felt that the institution of slavery was a “necessity” in those area where it existed. When, during the Civil War, the discussion of declaring slavery to be illegal in the areas of the United States where it did not exist—the idea of an Emancipation Proclamation—he posited again that he wished to not interfere with those parts of the nation where slavery still was legal.

Yes, Abraham Lincoln’s position on slavery was indeed moderate for its time, even if he eventually came to see the Civil War as the method for eliminating it once and for all.