Dr. Brands, love the final line and historical connection with Eli Whitney and his inventions to the Civil War. This is one of the ways which I present US History in my class by showing these type of connections, one of which is the link between the Kansas/Nebraska Act helping to spark the Civil War and one hundred years later Brown v Board of Education, Topeka, KS helping to end the legacy left from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
I have really enjoyed these articles and I know they will help enrich my AP US History course this next year. Thank you so much!
Another wonderful post, Bill. The Civil War era is one of my favorite areas of American history. I was fortunate when I was doing my graduate studies at Ashland University (their MAHG--Master's of American History & Government--program) to have taken courses on the Great Triumvirate, Lincoln, and the Civil War & Reconstruction from Lucas Morel. We actually read your book "Heirs of the Founders" in the class on the Great Triumvirate. At the end of the book, you mentioned how Henry Clay believed that the Compromise of 1850 would keep the peace until the South industrialized (thus eliminating the need for slave labor) he hoped in the 1880s. But you also mention in "The Age of Gold" that the admission of California into the Union as a Free State brought about the necessity of passing the Compromise of 1850. And to pass the compromise, Clay had to include the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), which shattered the spirit of accommodation between the North and the South. However, in your opinion, if the Democrats had been able to maintain control of the White House & Congress until the 1880s (so Lincoln never wins in 1860), do you think that the South would have industrialized by then & eliminated slavery, thus bringing about Clay's vision (and preventing a civil war)?
It's a hazardous business guessing what if. After 1850, the extremists on both sides gained increasing influence. After Dred Scott and Harpers Ferry, avoiding a clash might have been impossible, because the sectional dispute by then transcended economics. If California's admission hadn't pressed the issue of slavery in the West and given rise to the Compromise of 1850, which energized the extremists, I think a peaceful resolution would have been possible, with slavery being abandoned by Southerners voluntarily. Note "possible." No guarantees. But nearly every other country ended slavery peacefully. So why not the U.S.?
Dr. Brands, love the final line and historical connection with Eli Whitney and his inventions to the Civil War. This is one of the ways which I present US History in my class by showing these type of connections, one of which is the link between the Kansas/Nebraska Act helping to spark the Civil War and one hundred years later Brown v Board of Education, Topeka, KS helping to end the legacy left from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
I have really enjoyed these articles and I know they will help enrich my AP US History course this next year. Thank you so much!
That Kansas to Kansas connection is a great one
Another wonderful post, Bill. The Civil War era is one of my favorite areas of American history. I was fortunate when I was doing my graduate studies at Ashland University (their MAHG--Master's of American History & Government--program) to have taken courses on the Great Triumvirate, Lincoln, and the Civil War & Reconstruction from Lucas Morel. We actually read your book "Heirs of the Founders" in the class on the Great Triumvirate. At the end of the book, you mentioned how Henry Clay believed that the Compromise of 1850 would keep the peace until the South industrialized (thus eliminating the need for slave labor) he hoped in the 1880s. But you also mention in "The Age of Gold" that the admission of California into the Union as a Free State brought about the necessity of passing the Compromise of 1850. And to pass the compromise, Clay had to include the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), which shattered the spirit of accommodation between the North and the South. However, in your opinion, if the Democrats had been able to maintain control of the White House & Congress until the 1880s (so Lincoln never wins in 1860), do you think that the South would have industrialized by then & eliminated slavery, thus bringing about Clay's vision (and preventing a civil war)?
It's a hazardous business guessing what if. After 1850, the extremists on both sides gained increasing influence. After Dred Scott and Harpers Ferry, avoiding a clash might have been impossible, because the sectional dispute by then transcended economics. If California's admission hadn't pressed the issue of slavery in the West and given rise to the Compromise of 1850, which energized the extremists, I think a peaceful resolution would have been possible, with slavery being abandoned by Southerners voluntarily. Note "possible." No guarantees. But nearly every other country ended slavery peacefully. So why not the U.S.?