All the Powers of Earth

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All the Powers of Earth Page 1

by Sidney Blumenthal




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  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Timeline of Major Events

  Cast of Major Characters

  PART ONE THE PRESENT CRISIS

  ONE Things Fall Apart

  TWO Vaulting Ambition

  THREE The Spirit of Violence

  FOUR War to the Knife

  FIVE The Puritan as Prophet

  SIX Cyclops

  SEVEN A Voice from the Grave

  EIGHT The Harlot Slavery

  NINE The Assassination of Charles Sumner

  TEN Arguments of the Chivalry

  ELEVEN Exterminating Angel

  TWELVE Democracy in America

  PART TWO THE RISE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  THIRTEEN Creation

  FOURTEEN Miss Fancy

  FIFTEEN The Forbidden Word

  SIXTEEN Vice President Lincoln

  SEVENTEEN The Birther Campaign

  EIGHTEEN The Great Awakening

  NINETEEN The White Man

  TWENTY All the Powers of Earth

  TWENTY-ONE The Wizard of Mississippi

  TWENTY-TWO The Unmaking of the President

  TWENTY-THREE A House Divided

  TWENTY-FOUR The Higher Object

  TWENTY-FIVE The Moral Lights

  TWENTY-SIX The Phoenix

  TWENTY-SEVEN Icarus

  TWENTY-EIGHT This Guilty Land

  TWENTY-NINE Witch Hunt

  THIRTY Right Makes Might

  THIRTY-ONE Walpurgisnacht

  THIRTY-TWO The Railsplitter

  THIRTY-THREE The Wigwam

  THIRTY-FOUR A Fallen Star

  THIRTY-FIVE Wide-Awake

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustration Credits

  For John Ritch and Christina Ritch

  “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

  THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, JULY 4, 1776

  “In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.”

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN, JUNE 26, 1857

  “At any time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power of the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers–men brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands. . . . No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. . . . The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the name, but not the thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish that.”

  SENATOR JAMES HENRY HAMMOND, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, MARCH 4, 1858

  “Our best people do not understand the danger. They are besotted. They have compromised so long that they think principles of right and wrong have no more any power on this earth.”

  JOHN BROWN, 1859

  TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS

  March 4, 1853:

  Inauguration of Franklin Pierce as president

  May 30, 1854:

  Kansas-Nebraska Act passes the Congress

  October 4, 1854:

  Lincoln speaks against the Kansas-Nebraska Act at the Illinois House of Representatives

  February 8, 1855:

  Lincoln, the Whig candidate for the U.S. Senate, recognizes he lacks the votes in the state legislature to win, and throws his support to the antislavery Democrat Lyman Trumbull to defeat the pro-Douglas candidate

  August 16, 1855:

  Andrew Reeder, the first territorial governor of Kansas, removed by President Pierce for his objections to fraudulent elections

  September 28, 1855:

  New York Republican Party created out of fusion of Whigs, Democrats, and Free Soilers

  October 7, 1855:

  John Brown arrives in Kansas

  October 23, 1855:

  Free state settlers meet at Topeka to adopt a constitution banning slavery in the territory, elect a governor, and designate Andrew Reeder its congressional delegate

  November 1855:

  Wakarusa War in Kansas between free state and proslavery forces

  December 25, 1855:

  Christmas dinner at Maryland home of Francis P. Blair to found the national Republican Party

  February 22, 1856:

  The Know Nothing Party, or American Party, nominates former president Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate

  February 22, 1856:

  First national convention of the Republican Party takes place at Pittsburgh

  February 22, 1856:

  Lincoln writes the platform at a meeting of antislavery editors at Decatur as the founding document of the Illinois Republican Party and calls for its first convention

  March 12, 1856:

  Stephen A. Douglas submits his report on Kansas to the Senate

  May 19–20 1856:

  Charles Sumner delivers his speech to the Senate, “The Crime Against Kansas”

  May 21, 1856:

  Missouri Ruffians led by former senator David Rice Atchison sack the Kansas free state capital of Lawrence

  May 22, 1856:

  Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina canes Charles Sumner in the Senate

  May 24–25, 1856:

  John Brown and his men murder five proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie, Kansas

  May 29, 1856:

  Lincoln delivers his “Lost Speech” as the keynote of the foundi
ng convention of the Illinois Republican Party

  June 6, 1856:

  James Buchanan defeats Stephen A. Douglas at the Democratic Party national convention to win nomination as the presidential candidate

  June 19, 1856:

  John C. Frémont nominated as the first Republican Party presidential candidate; Lincoln’s name put into nomination for vice president but loses to William Dayton, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey

  November 4, 1856:

  James Buchanan elected president

  March 4, 1857:

  Inauguration of James Buchanan as president

  March 6, 1857:

  Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issues decision in the Dred Scott case

  June 12, 1857:

  Douglas defends the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield

  June 15, 1857:

  Fraudulent election in Kansas elects proslavery delegates to a constitutional convention

  June 26, 1857:

  Lincoln assails the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield, declaring of the captive slave, “All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him.”

  August 24, 1857:

  The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company collapses, triggering an economic panic

  October 19, 1857:

  Proslavery delegates meeting at Lecompton to ratify a Kansas constitution legalizing slavery

  November 26, 1857:

  Kansas territorial governor Robert J. Walker confronts President Buchanan at the White House on the Lecompton Constitution and is rebuffed

  December 3, 1857:

  Douglas visits Buchanan at the White House, demands he reject the Lecompton Constitution as a violation of “popular sovereignty,” and is threatened by the president that he will be “crushed”

  December 8, 1857:

  Buchanan endorses the Lecompton Constitution in his first annual message to the Congress

  December 9, 1857:

  Douglas denounces Buchanan in a speech before the Senate

  December 11, 1857:

  Frederick P. Stanton, acting territorial governor serving in Walker’s absence, dismissed by Buchanan

  December 15, 1857:

  Walker resigns as territorial governor

  December 21, 1857:

  Fraudulent referendum in Kansas approves the Lecompton Constitution

  January 4, 1858:

  Free state Kansas legislature conducts a referendum that overwhelmingly rejects the Lecompton Constitution

  February 2, 1858:

  Buchanan submits Lecompton Constitution to the Congress to approve for admission of Kansas as a slave state

  March 4, 1858:

  Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declares in a speech, “Cotton is king”

  April 1, 1858:

  The House of Representatives rejects the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution

  April 30, 1858:

  The Congress passes the English bill stipulating a new referendum on the Lecompton Constitution

  June 17, 1858:

  Lincoln delivers his “house divided” speech in accepting the Republican nomination for the Senate

  August 2, 1858:

  Kansas voters by a large margin reject the Lecompton Constitution

  August 21, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ottawa, Illinois

  August 27, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Freeport

  September 15, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Jonesboro

  September 18, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Charleston

  October 7, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Galesburg

  October 13, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Quincy

  October 15, 1858:

  Lincoln-Douglas debate, Alton

  November 2, 1858:

  Douglas reelected, Lincoln defeated

  November 4, 1858:

  The Illinois Gazette of Lacon publishes an editorial: “Abraham Lincoln for President in 1860”

  January 5, 1859:

  Inner circle of Lincoln men meet at the Illinois State Capitol and propose running Lincoln for president or vice president

  April 7, 1859:

  Illinois Republican State Committee meets at Bloomington, decides to support Lincoln as a presidential candidate and to keep him in the background for the moment

  April 1859:

  Lincoln secretly buys a German language newspaper, the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger

  September 1859:

  Douglas publishes an article in Harper’s Monthly, “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories”

  September 13, 1859:

  Senator David C. Broderick, Democrat of California, a Douglas ally, killed in a duel with California Supreme Court chief justice David Terry, ally of Senator William Gwin, Democrat of California, an enemy of Douglas

  September 1859:

  Lincoln speaks in Ohio cities, following Douglas, in off-year election campaign; Republicans sweep statewide offices

  October 12, 1859:

  Lincoln receives a telegram inviting him to speak to a group of Republicans in New York

  October 16–18, 1859:

  John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry

  December 2, 1859:

  John Brown hanged

  February 27, 1860:

  Lincoln poses for a photograph at the studio of Mathew Brady in New York City

  February 27, 1860:

  Lincoln delivers speech at the Cooper Union: “Right makes might”

  April 30, 1860:

  Seven Southern state delegations walk out of the Democratic Party national convention at Charleston to stop Douglas’s nomination and protest the failure to endorse the Alabama Platform in favor of the extension of slavery to the territories

  May 3, 1860:

  The Democratic Party national convention at Charleston adjourns without nominating a candidate

  May 9, 1860:

  Illinois Republican convention nominates Lincoln for president; he is dubbed “The Railsplitter”

  May 10, 1860:

  Constitutional Union Party convention nominates John Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president

  May 18, 1860:

  Republican Party national convention at Chicago nominates Lincoln for president

  June 18–23, 1860:

  Democratic Party national convention reconvenes at Baltimore, refusing to seat Southern delegations that had bolted at Charleston; nominates Douglas for president

  June 23, 1860:

  National Democratic Party convention at Baltimore, comprised of Southern bolters, nominates Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president and Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon for vice president

  November 6, 1860:

  Lincoln elected president

  December 20, 1860:

  South Carolina secedes from the Union

  CAST OF MAJOR CHARACTERS

  PRESIDENTS

  Zachary Taylor, 12th President

  Millard Fillmore, 13th President

  Franklin Pierce, 14th President

  James Buchanan, 15th President

  THE SENATE

  David Rice Atchison, Missouri, Democrat, president pro tempore, F Street Mess

  Edward D. Baker, Oregon, Republican, former Illinois congressman and friend of Lincoln

  James A. Bayard, Delaware, Democrat

  Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, Democrat

  Jesse Bright, Indiana, Democrat, president pro tempore

  David C. Broderick, California, Democrat

  Andrew Butler, South Carolina, Democrat, F Street Mess

  Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, Democrat/Know Nothing/Republican

  Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, Republican

  Clement Clay, Alabama, Democrat

  John J. Crittenden, Kentucky, Whig/Know Nothing

  Jefferson Davis, Mississippi, Democrat


  Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois, Democrat

  William Pitt Fessenden, Maine, Republican

  Henry S. Foote, Mississippi, Democrat

  John C. Frémont, California, Republican candidate for president 1856

  William M. Gwin, California, Democrat

  John P. Hale, New Hampshire, Republican

  James Henry Hammond, South Carolina, Democrat, former governor

  Robert M.T. Hunter, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess

  Preston King, New York, Republican

  Joseph Lane, Oregon, Democrat, National Democratic candidate for vice president 1860

  James M. Mason, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess

  William Seward, New York, Republican

  John Slidell, Louisiana, Democrat

  Charles Sumner, Massachusetts, Republican

  Lyman Trumbull, Illinois, antislavery Democrat, Republican

  Benjamin Wade, Ohio, Republican

  Henry Wilson, Massachusetts, Republican

  THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  William Barksdale, Mississippi, Democrat

  Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri, Democrat

  Francis P. Blair, Jr., Missouri, Republican

  Preston S. Brooks, South Carolina, Democrat

  Anson Burlingame, Massachusetts, Republican

  Schuyler Colfax, Ohio, Republican

  Henry A. Edmundson, Virginia, Democrat

 

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