Civil War & Americana – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Memo to Elizabeth and Bernie: You’ve been scooped by roughly 130 years

A collection of First Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland’s family and personally owned artifacts went to auction in September 2020.

By Jim O’Neal

March 4, 1893, marked the second time Stephen Grover Cleveland was inaugurated as president of the United States. He was greeted at the Executive Mansion by President Benjamin Harrison, the Republican he had defeated three months earlier. It was a mildly awkward meeting, the only time in history the transfer of presidential power involved outgoing and incoming presidents who had run against each other twice (each one winning once and losing once).

Benjamin “Little Ben” Harrison (he was 5-feet-6) was notoriously cold and aloof and President-elect Cleveland was stubbornly independent, with an aura of self-righteousness. Historian Henry Adams observed that “one of them had no friends and the other only enemies.” Robert G. Ingersoll, nicknamed “The Great Agnostic,” went a step further: “Each side would have been glad to defeat the other, if it could do so without electing its own candidate.” Strangely, I felt the same way in both 2016 and 2020.

Inauguration Day was bitterly cold and many recalled that Harrison’s grandfather, William Henry Harrison (the ninth president) had died 31 days after his inauguration. Following a very long acceptance speech, he caught pneumonia and it was fatal. He was 68 and at the time the oldest person to assume the presidency, a distinction he held until 1981 when Ronald Reagan was sworn in at age 69.

In 1893, President-elect Cleveland’s vice president, Adlai E. Stevenson, took the oath of office first. Sixty years later, his grandson (and namesake) would make two futile runs for the presidency (1952 and 1956). He had the bad luck of having one of America’s greatest heroes, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as an opponent. War heroes are difficult to defeat and, in this case, it’s generally acknowledged that Ike could have beaten anyone and run on either party’s ticket. Outgoing President Harry Truman had even tried to broker such a deal in 1948 when he offered to step down to vice president.

Sadly, the 1892 election was vexed by Harrison’s wife contracting tuberculosis and dying two weeks before the election of Cleveland. But, after the inauguration and traditional transition, the ex-president seemed more than ready to return to his home in Indianapolis. Surprisingly, four years later, some of Harrison’s friends tried to convince him to seek the presidency again. He declined, but did agree to travel extensively making speeches in support of William McKinley’s successful candidacy. Little Ben died in February 1901 from pneumonia and a short six months later, President McKinley would become the third president to be assassinated.

But today belonged to President Cleveland and his wife Frances. They had been married during the first term in office on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room at the White House. Cleveland was 49 years old at the time, Frances a mere 21. Frances Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady in history and became very popular, primarily due to her youthful personality. They would have five children with the first one named Ruth. No, she was definitely not associated with Baby Ruth. That candy bar was renamed 30 years after her birth and 17 years after her death. After a warm welcome at the White House, President Cleveland’s troubles started almost right away.

In May, barely two months back in the White House, Cleveland discovered a growth on his palate, the soft tissue in the roof of the mouth that separates the oral and nasal cavities. It turned out to be a malignant tumor that required surgical removal. Fearful of panic in the already shaky financial markets, a clever plan was devised to perform a secret operation on a yacht in the East River. The surgery was successful and the president recuperated while sailing innocently on Long Island. The press was surprisingly gullible and accepted a story about two teeth that needed removal.

However, on dry land, economic forces were forming a dark storm that would usher in the worst financial crisis in the nation’s history. The pending depression would become known as the Panic of ’93. The 19th century had weathered many boom-bust economic cycles, but this powerful downturn would persist until the 20th century. Even as the president was organizing his cabinet, banks, factories and farms were tumbling into bankruptcy. Virtually everywhere, workers were struggling with layoffs and payouts as companies were swept away.

In his inaugural speech, Cleveland had warned about the dangers of business monopolies and inflation, however, his response to the economic chaos was austere in the extreme. He did not believe government should intervene for fear of eroding self-reliance and over-reliance on government. This was a common belief and it would take another generation for a new consensus to shape American politics. To fully grasp the significant schism that was silently evolving, one only has to read Thomas Sherman’s 1889 essay titled “The Owners of the United States.”

Using census data and promises of anonymity, he developed the thesis that 1/30th of the people in England owned 2/3 of the wealth. In America, he listed 70 individuals worth $2.7 billion and asserted no other country had such a concentration of millionaires. By contrast, 80% of Americans earned less than $500 annually, and 50,000 families owned half of the nation’s wealth. Further, wealthy men and corporations escaped taxation, with the burden falling “exclusively upon the working class.”

Memo to Elizabeth and Bernie: You’ve been scooped by roughly 130 years. Somehow, we managed to have a decent 20th century, save the world several times and develop a technological cornucopia for 330 million people vs. any other time in the history of the world. Go Bezos, Jobs/Allen, the Google guys, Walmart, Henry Ford, FDR and my man T.R.!

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

John Wilkes Booth’s heinous act took away more than a beloved president

A wanted poster for co-conspirators John Wilkes Booth, Mary Surratt, David Herold sold for $47,800 at a May 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

At some point when John Wilkes Booth was planning to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, he must have decided that it would be more impactful to decapitate the primary leadership of the North and expand the hit list to include Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward and, perhaps, even General Ulysses S. Grant. After all, they were in Washington, D.C., and unprotected. It was a desperate move, but it might bolster the morale of the South. In the end, it failed because of a series of unrelated circumstances.

General Grant had declined the invitation of the president to attend a theater show because there was an eagerness to return home and resume normal life. However, that would still leave Secretary Seward, who was at home recuperating from a serious carriage accident that required medical attention. Vice President Johnson had already booked a room that night in the Kirkwood Hotel. Both men would be relatively easy targets for Booth’s co-conspirators.

Lewis Powell, the man assigned to kill Seward, had a clever plan to act like a delivery boy bringing medicine, enter the house and shoot the bedridden Seward. He did manage to stab Seward in the throat, but a metal splint on his jaw deflected most of the blows. Powell ran from the house, was easily captured and later hanged. The other conspirator, George Atzerodt, managed to book a room at the Kirkwood Hotel, but started drinking at the hotel bar, lost his nerve and fled. He was also captured and hanged. That only left Lincoln, and Booth shot him in the theater as he watched “Our American Cousin” with Mary by his side.

The date was April 14, 1865. The location was Ford’s Theatre.

Lincoln had won the 1860 presidential election by defeating three opponents. One was Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat from Kentucky who had helped Lincoln gain national prominence through a series of high-profile debates regarding slavery. (Douglas, coincidentally, died just two months after Lincoln was inaugurated). A second Democratic opponent was John C. Breckinridge – the incumbent vice president for James Buchanan. The third – John Bell – was the Tennessee Senator who ran as the candidate for the Constitutional Union Party, a group that was neutral on slavery but adamant that the Constitution be upheld. Lincoln’s 180 electoral votes were more than the other three combined.

Now it was four years later and President Lincoln was struggling to barely hang on. In June 1864, the prospects for the Union Army were equally dim. General Grant was bogged down in Virginia, General William Tecumseh Sherman was stalled before Atlanta and heavy casualties were shocking people back home. There was even talk about suspending or postponing the election due to the national crisis. But, as President Lincoln pointed out, “We cannot have free government without elections. If this rebellion forces us to forego a national election, it will appear we’re conquered and ruin us.”

We all now know that the 1864 election did go ahead as planned. It was the first time any nation held a general election during a major domestic war.

However, President Lincoln took a pounding in the press. Horace Greeley, founder-editor of the New-York Tribune, claimed “Mr. Lincoln is already beaten!” The influential James Gordon Bennett, founder-publisher of the New York Herald, was more direct: “Lincoln is a joke!” Some wanted to run Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase and some were clamoring for General Grant. Even Thurlow Weed, Lincoln’s advisor, told him his re-election was hopeless.

Just when it seemed that Lincoln had reconciled himself to defeat, military actions started to slowly improve. Admiral David Farragut (who was the first rear admiral, first vice admiral and first full admiral in the U.S. Navy) won a great victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay (admonishing his men to “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”). General Sherman took Atlanta and began his famous “March to the Sea,” which culminated in the burning of Charleston, S.C., where the war had begun. Meanwhile, General Philip Sheridan was routing Southern troops in the valleys of Virginia and then devastating the surrounding areas.

Virtually all of Lincoln’s critics were muffled by these turns of events.

Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson won the 1864 election and the Civil War in 1865. But, the country’s troubles were not over. After Lincoln was assassinated, Vice President Johnson became president and was unable to work with the Republican Congress, which had devised a trap to impeach him. He was acquitted, but lost any hope for governing. He went home a chastened man.

In 1875, he did manage to get re-elected to the U.S. Senate … the only man to do so (up to 2020).

John Wilkes Booth did much more damage than just assassinating a president. By killing Lincoln, he eliminated possibly the only man who could have restored harmony, implemented reconstruction and unified us as our founding documents intended.

Nearly 160 years later, we are still waiting for another messiah.

Are we capable of dealing with the daunting tasks that face us? Of course we are!

A 1776 broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, sold for $514,000 at an April 2016 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Two U.S. presidents have been elected by the House of Representatives. John Quincy Adams became the sixth president (1825) when his chief opponent, Andrew Jackson, failed to win a majority of the electoral votes in the 1824 election. The House held a special election to decide the winner. Supposedly, a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and House Speaker Henry Clay vaulted Clay into the Secretary of State position.

John C. Calhoun easily won the vice-presidential vote and he served four years under JQA. When Jackson bounced back and won in 1828, Calhoun continued as vice president for three more years. Then he resigned and made a run for the nomination in a new party: the Nullifiers … the second third party to form (the Anti-Masons were the first third party).

Earlier, in 1801, Thomas Jefferson had been elected by the House after he tied with Aaron Burr in the general election. However, it took 36 votes in the House to break the tie. Alexander Hamilton finally persuaded the electors from New York to vote for Jefferson since he was “the lesser of two evils.” Two years later, Burr exacted his revenge by killing Hamilton in a duel.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was Adams’ vice president for four years and then served two terms as president. He had hoped that the young nation would expand across North America, becoming a great agrarian society. Instead, great cities evolved out of necessity to accommodate the millions of immigrants fleeing to the new republic with its fabled “streets paved with gold.” In 1800, Jefferson famously wrote: “When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us. … The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation; and I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man.” In Jefferson’s time, the epidemics that repeatedly swept through large cities were especially lethal.

One poignant example occurred in the summer of 1793 when a massive epidemic of yellow fever hit Philadelphia, the largest city in America and temporary capital of the United States. It was caused by the mosquitoes that flourished in the muddy swamps in the area. Yellow fever is an acute, infectious viral disease transmitted by the bite of an infected female.

This episode was responsible for 5,000 deaths, or 10% of the population. An even bigger disaster was averted when President George Washington moved the federal government and nearly 40% of the inhabitants followed. Another mitigating factor helped when a savvy group of doctors imposed a quarantine on all ships and refugees from Philadelphia. Special guards were posted to the wharfs to ensure compliance and citizens were warned not to let any strangers into their homes.

When yellow fever returned to NYC in 1795, they were better prepared with a health department. But in 1798, yellow fever killed 2,086 people (one in 30), or the equivalent of 289,000 in today’s terms. The battle continued during the entire 19th century with major outbreaks in Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans and other southern cities. Eventually, a vaccine was developed.

Thomas Jefferson was eager to obtain what would become part of the Louisiana Purchase when Spain ceded much of North America to France. He dispatched James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France with an offer to buy 40,000 square miles for $10 million. The offer was refused, but Napoleon subsequently made an astonishing counteroffer … 827,987 square miles for $15 million! The offer was quickly accepted since it provided significant benefits. First, safety for shipping on the Mississippi River … a doubling of the size of the entire United States and, mostly, acquisition of the largest, most fertile track of land on Earth. It was enough land to entice migration from the East all the way to the Pacific Ocean. With this vast new area, there would be no need to congest into cities.

However, industrial America developed rapidly as a nation, but cities grew even faster. Masses of immigrants poured into America and a vast population shifted from the country to the city. Between 1860 and 1900, the rural population had doubled, but the number of city-dwellers quadrupled! The city became the supreme achievement of modern industry, the center of civilization. It spread out, built tall skyscrapers, mechanized factories and provided all the goods and services needed for workers.

On the other side of the ledger were the evils: ghettos for the poor, suburbs for the middle-class, exclusive neighborhoods for the wealthy, and ethnic neighborhoods for the immigrants. The city offered hope and opportunity, but it also brought despair. Overwhelming social problems, diseases, poverty, crime and strife between businesses and exploited workers. So we’re left with a few problems to solve:

Rising oceans, melting polar caps, tornadic storms, raging forest fires
Partially filled office buildings and empty, closed-down malls
AI and robots replacing undereducated workers
Rising rates of inequality
Systemic racism
More complex viral diseases as we get deeper into dark spooky places
Telemedicine in place of doctors
Remote learning

Are we capable of dealing with these daunting tasks? Just think about poor George Washington who had to flee when every tenth person was dying. Of course we are, but if we give up in despair, someone (probably China) will assume the leadership role and, in the process, set the world’s agenda. Leaders lead … others follow.

Descent into vitriol began long before our lifetimes

A quarter-plate daguerreotype of President John Quincy Adams, taken at the Washington, D.C., studio of John Plumbe in 1846, sold for $31,250 at a December 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

“The whole country is in a state of agitation upon the approaching presidential election such as was never before witnessed. … Not a week has passed within the last few months without a convocation of thousands of people to hear inflammatory harangues. Here is a revolution in the habits and manners of the people. Where will it end? These are party movements, and must in the natural progress of things become antagonistic … their manifest tendency is to civil war.”

If you guess this was 1964 when LBJ was set to defeat Barry Goldwater, you would be wrong. Or perhaps 1992 when Bill Clinton and Ross Perot were trying to unseat President George H.W. Bush? Sorry. You’re not even in the right century! We’re in a much earlier time, a time without 24/7 cable news and its insatiable appetite for divisive issues coupled with scores of political partisans eager to share their opinions. A time when you could not discern political bias by simply knowing the TV channel.

The year was 1840 when the Whigs were trying to oust President Martin Van Buren from the White House. It was a boisterous time and the speaker was ex-President John Quincy Adams (1767-1848). These words come from a concerned man, but then again, political speeches were more impassioned than we’ve ever heard in our lifetimes.

Eight years later, Congressman JQA, representing Massachusetts, rose in the House of Representatives to speak, but suddenly collapsed on his desk. He died two days later from the effects of a cerebral hemorrhage in the Speaker’s chambers. The public mourning that followed exceeded, by far, anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed one-term presidency, routinely cold demeanor, cantankerous personality, and even the full extent of his remarkable public life.

For two days, the remains of our sixth president (and son of the second president) reposed in-state while an unprecedented line of thousands filed through the Capitol to view the bier. On Saturday, Feb. 25, funeral services began in the House. After all the speeches, and after a choir had sung, the body was escorted by a parade of public officials, military units and private citizens to the Congressional Cemetery. After the coffin remained in a temporary vault for several days, 30 members of Congress, one from each state, were ready to accompany it on the 500-mile railway journey to Boston. The train, with a black-draped special car, traveled for five days through a cloud of universal grief. The caravan stopped often to permit local ceremonies and citizens to stand in silent tribute.

Boston greeted his remains by exhibiting the insignia of mourning virtually everywhere. On March 12, every prominent politician in Massachusetts vied to join in escorting the casket to Quincy’s First Parish Church, where Pastor William Lunt delivered a moving sermon that ended with “Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Later, Harvard President Edward Everett (of Gettysburg fame) eulogized JQA for two hours in the presence of the Massachusetts legislature, which had gathered in Faneuil Hall.

Only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a greater outpouring of national sorrow in the entire 19th century in America.

Eventually, JQA’s coffin was installed in a monumental enclosure with his mother Abigail to his right and his wife Louisa to his left. With the inclusion of his father, John Adams, it has become a national shrine; unique in America’s history since it marks the graves of two presidents of the United States and two First Ladies.

And what of the man who had been secretary of state and vice president for Andrew Jackson and was now trying to win another term as president? Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), the “Wizard of Kinderhook,” was surprisingly short at 5-6, and had been elected in 1836 when Jackson decided against a third term and threw his support to Van Buren.

The opposing Whigs were too divided to hold a national convention in 1836 since they couldn’t agree on a single candidate. Instead, they adopted a clever plan to support regional favorite sons with the hope they could deny Van Buren an electoral victory, force the election into the House of Representatives (as in 1824) and then unite behind a single Whig candidate to secede Jackson. The anti-Van Buren press was vitriolic and the New York American called him “illiterate, sycophant and politically corrupt.”

Van Buren remained implacable and on election day racked up 764,195 votes (50.9 percent) and his three Whig opponents were left to carve up the remainder. New York power broker and publisher Thurlow Weed summed it up succinctly: “We are to be cursed with Van Buren for president.”

However, on May 10, 1837 – only two months after the new president took office – prominent banks in New York started refusing to convert paper money into gold or silver. Other financial institutions, also running low on hard currency, followed suit. The financial crisis became the Panic of 1837. This was followed by a five-year depression that forced bank closures, economic malaise and record unemployment. Now flash forward to 1840, when Van Buren easily won re-nomination at the Democratic National Convention despite the economic woes. But the government was also mired down with major divisive issues: slavery, westward expansion, tension with Great Britain. Van Buren had not recognized what James Carville would memorialize 150 years later: “It’s the economy stupid!”

Other financial panics would continue to plague the country periodically until 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act. These wizards can create money out of thin air by using an electronic switch that coverts ions into gizmos that people will buy with money that is guaranteed by the federal government.

What’s in your wallet?

For all his humanitarian work, Hoover remembered for one, crucial moment

A vibrant from-life oil on canvas portrait of Herbert Hoover, autographed, realized $5,250 at a December 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

With the specter of another depression on America’s horizon, my mind flashes back to the past and sad irony of Herbert Hoover. He was born in 1874 in West Branch, Iowa – the first president born west of the Mississippi River. An orphan at the tender age of 9, he was taken in, luckily, by relatives in Oregon. The Minthorns were Quakers like his parents and they taught him the value of community service and hard work.

In 1891, he enrolled at Stanford University, the first year that classes were open. He was a geology major and after graduation ended up in London with a company investigating gold deposits in Western Australia. While at Stanford, Hoover dated Lou Henry, a fellow geology major and the first female to earn a degree. Hoover proposed to her in a telegraph from Australia and they were married in California in February 1899 – two mining engineers … both intrepid travelers.

Together they set off for China, where Herbert discovered coal deposits. The hard work earned him a junior partnership with his London-based employer. This was followed by a stint in Tientsin just in time for the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 when Chinese rebels rose up against colonial powers. The couple became fluent in Mandarin, a skill they would use later in the White House to communicate in private without the WH staff listening in.

Next was a series of trips starting in Burma (silver, lead and zinc), copper and oil in Russia, and then back to Australia in a quest for more zinc. After forming his own company in 1908, their fortunes began to accumulate and by 1913 exceeded $4 million. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, President Wilson asked Hoover to manage America’s domestic food supplies. In Washington, D.C., he was successful in establishing programs to control prices, eliminate waste and promote conservation by the public. His managerial reputation was beginning to grow and his ability to cut through government bureaucracy produced results almost unprecedented in American history.

After flirting with the presidency in 1920, the ultimate winner, Warren Harding, selected Hoover to become the third Secretary of Commerce. When Harding died unexpectedly in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge retained Secretary Hoover in the Cabinet. Coolidge had observed Hoover’s work and decided to expand his formal duties. He put him in charge of the American Relief Administration to assist the recovery of post-war Europe. Hoover was more than qualified and had played a role in assisting thousands of Americans get back home when the war exploded in 1914. In addition, he had helped Belgium and France from starvation after the German invasions.

He soon became universally recognized as the greatest humanitarian alive in the world. In addition to being widely admired, he had the distinction of having an orbiting asteroid, Hooveria, named in his honor. Earlier, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt had proclaimed, “Hoover is certainly a wonder and I wish we could make him president of the United States! There could not be a better one.”

By 1928, Coolidge had tired of Washington and chose not to run for reelection. The 54-year-old Herbert Hoover was certainly not tired and was eager to demonstrate his extensive experience by expanding America’s fortunes even further. He easily defeated Al Smith, the governor of New York, with help from anti-Catholic voters and the burden of corruption associated with the infamous Tammany Hall group. The newspapers excitedly touted Hoover as an innovator and set high expectations for his administration. In his inaugural address, the new president confidently declared, “I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope!” The joy of his Inauguration day, March 4, 1929, seems totally incongruous with the events of the next four years.

Just seven months after he entered the White House, economic trouble trashed his campaign prediction about “being near the final triumph over poverty.” On Oct. 24, 1929, panic enveloped the New York Stock Exchange when almost 13 million shares changed hands. There was a short respite, but on Tuesday, Oct. 29, the market basically collapsed, heralding the beginning of the Great Depression. No one expected the Depression would last a full decade, including the American Economic Association. Virtually all the experts assumed it would be a matter of months until the normal business cycle resumed. Scholars are still debating the cause of the Depression and the stock market crash is only one of the contributing factors.

Just as it was one of the factors that cost Hoover his job. He didn’t cause the crash, but an episode in 1932 certainly contributed. In 1924, President Coolidge vetoed a bill to pay war veterans a bonus to compensate them for loss of income during their military service. However, Congress overrode his veto and the money was to be paid in 1945. In 1932, 20,000 veterans marched on Washington hoping to get an advance payment to alleviate Depression hardships. Congress was considering a Bonus Bill, but President Hoover opposed it and the Senate rejected it. Veterans turned their sights on the Capitol Building, marching for three days and four nights in a “Death March.”

President Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to force them back into temporary camps. MacArthur overreacted, using cavalrymen with drawn sabers and an infantry with tear gas. Six tanks joined the fray under Major George Patton. The soldiers attacked the camps and the angry veterans set their own huts on fire in protest. Colonel Dwight Eisenhower was shocked at MacArthur’s treatment and later said, “It was a pitiful scene, ragged, discouraged people burning their own little things.” The excessive use of force, especially against veterans, disgusted most Americans. Then Hoover made it worse by deriding the bonus marchers as rabble and refusing to criticize MacArthur.

When Democratic presidential candidate FDR heard about the fiasco, he simply said, “This will elect me.”

Were early presidents too jaded to solve divisive issue of slavery?

An Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas pocket mirror issued to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debates went to auction in 2015.

By Jim O’Neal

The U.S. Constitution is generally considered the most revered document in world history. John Adams described it as “the greatest single effort of national declaration that the world had ever seen.” It was a seminal event in the history of human liberty. While containing remarkable concepts — “All men are created equal” … “Endowed with certain unalienable rights” … “Consent of the governed” (instead of the will of the majority) — the founders proved to be incapable of reconciling the practice of slavery with these lofty ambitions.

In order to gain consensus, they deftly employed what has become known colloquially as “Kick the can.” International slave–trading was banned in the United States, but Congress was denied the right to eliminate slavery per se for 20 years (1808). The assumption (hope) was that slavery would just naturally phase out without the need for formal legislation. Then there was the obvious contradiction between men being born equal while slavery was allowed to continue. The explanation was a tortured rationale that “equal” was meant to mean “under the law” and not racial equality.

We now know that rather than phasing out, slavery flourished as Southern agrarian economies became even more dependent on slave labor and geographical expansion added to the importance of the issue. So the dispute took on new dimensions as each new state entered the Union. Was it to be free or slave? The answer was up to a divided Congress to decide. In an effort to maintain harmony, Congress was forced to negotiate a series of compromises, first in 1820 and again in 1850 and 1854. Rather than continue to battle in Congress, Southern slave states turned to secession from the Union when it was clear that they weren’t strong enough to rely on nullification alone.

What the Northern states needed desperately was a president with the will-power to keep the Union intact … with or without slavery.

His name was Abraham Lincoln, a little–known lawyer from Illinois. Today, most Americans know the major details of the life of the man who would become the 16th president of the United States. His humble upbringing in a pioneer family, his rise from lawyer to state legislator and presidential candidate, his wit and intelligence, his growth as a statesman to become the virtual conscience of the nation during the bloodiest rift in its history. Far fewer are familiar with the decisions and qualities which combined to create the most extraordinary figure in our political history.

In 1858, he challenged Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas in his bid for re-election. Although Lincoln lost, he developed a national prominence when they engaged in a series of high–profile debates, primarily over slavery. Lincoln was eloquent in his attacks from a moral-ethical standpoint, while Douglas was firm in his belief in states’ rights to decide important issues. Then came the presidential election of 1860, with the country poised for war, and the outcome would be the determining factor. It was during the hotly contested campaign that the Democratic nominee Douglas would perform an epic act of “Nation over Party.”

Two years later, Douglas sensed that Lincoln would win the presidency as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana swung to the Republicans. Douglas famously declared “Mr. Lincoln is the next president. We must try to save the Union. I will go South!” Despite a valiant effort consisting of speeches to dissuade the South, it was too late. During the 16 weeks between Lincoln’s election in 1860 and the March 4, 1861, inauguration, seven states had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

On June 3, 1861, the first skirmish of the war on land occurred in (West) Virginia. It was called the Battle of Philippi and it was a Union victory. A minor affair that lasted 20 minutes with a few fatalities, the Union nevertheless celebrated it with fanfare. Ironically, Senator Douglas died on the same day at age 48. Three weeks later, the Civil War exploded at the Battle of Bull Run and would continue for four long bloody years.

One has to wonder if this could have been avoided if our remarkable founders had been more prescient about the slavery issue and ended it with the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Or were those early Virginia presidents — Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe — too jaded or selfish to make the personal sacrifice?

Here’s why Commodore Perry is known as ‘Father of the Steam Navy’

This silver Matthew Calbraith Perry “Treaty with Japan” medal, commissioned by a group of Boston merchants and struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1856, sold for $26,290 at a May 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Generally, James Watt (1736-1819) is credited with the invention of the steam engine. Perhaps this is due to the proximity of this brilliant Scottish engineer and chemist to Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution. His work certainly played a major role in the country’s transition to the world’s leading commercial nation in the early 19th century. However, Watt actually only improved existing steam engines by reducing waste and redesigning the basic technology of heating and cooling liquids.

The result was a dramatic improvement in cost-effectiveness that lowered production costs. England could deliver virtually anywhere cheaper than local production. In a relatively short time, England’s global trading empire stretched from Europe to the North American colonies, through the Caribbean and to the Indian subcontinent. In the process, the nation transformed from an agricultural economy into an industrial juggernaut. The old saying that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” has been used by historians to dramatize the vastness of land under British control. At its apex, it covered 25 percent of Earth’s landmass and daylight was present somewhere at all times.

Then the vaunted British Empire began a long, slow descent into what has become a tired monarchy, with a sclerotic Parliament stuck in the mire of Democratic-Socialism. The embarrassing Brexit erased the vestiges of the Thacker era and raised the specter of disunion in Scotland and a divided Ireland. Recent events have inevitably raised questions about the durability of the royal family. I’m betting Queen Elizabeth II will remain unfazed and continue her remarkable 68-year reign, despite her children’s many escapades.

The actual story of “steam power” stretches back to Hero of Alexandria (circa 10-70 AD), a Greek scientist credited with developing the aeolipile – a rocket-like device that produced a rotary motion from escaping steam. For the next 1,800 years, the world’s inventors, mathematicians and scientists were busy making incremental improvements.

A prominent example is Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858), the first authentic Commodore of the U.S. Navy. He was appointed commandant of the New York Navy Yard in June 1840 by Navy Secretary James Paulding (primarily a writer of note). Perry was an experienced seaman and recognized the critical need for improving the education of Naval personnel. He helped design an apprenticeship system to train new sailors that eventually led to the establishment of the United States Naval Academy in 1845. Near Annapolis, Md., they train 800 to 1,000 plebes (Roman slang) annually to be midshipmen who represent the best traditions of America’s elite military.

Commodore Perry also earned the moniker “Father of the Steam Navy” after organizing the nascent corps of Naval engineers and founding the U.S. Naval gunnery on the New Jersey seashore. He took command of the U.S.S. Fulton (the nation’s second steam frigate). Perry supervised the construction and his extensive naval experience provided an ideal platform to advocate for extensive modernization.

In 1852, President Millard Fillmore assigned Commodore Perry to carry out a strategic mission: Force the Japanese Empire to open all their ports that had been closed to foreigners for 250 years … using gunboat diplomacy if necessary. On July 8, 1853, the Perry Expedition sailed into Edo Bay (Tokyo) and opened trade negotiations. However, it took a second trip in February 1854, this time with 10 vessels and 1,600 men. Perry proceeded to land 500 men in 27 boat ships while bands played the Star-Spangled Banner.

Silently following along was the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” The Japanese quickly realized that Perry’s warships, armaments and technology so out-powered them that it would be prudent to throw open their markets to foreign technology. The feudal lord Shimazu Nariakira summarized it nicely by observing: “If we take the initiative, we can dominate; if we do not, we will be dominated!” They did take the initiative and over the next century defeated Taiwan, Russia and China … taking control of the entire Korean Peninsula from 1910 forward.

Ironically, 100 years later, on Sept. 2, 1945, our war with Japan formally ended. But, days earlier, the battleship USS Missouri glided into Tokyo Bay and anchored within cannon-shot range of Commodore Perry’s moorage of 1853. The Missouri’s deck was arranged with surrender documents, and displayed above was the 31-star flag that Perry had flown on the USS Mississippi, built under the personal supervision of the commodore. It has been on display in the Naval Museum. The Missouri flagstaff luffed the 48-star flag that had flown on the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 1941. America and Japan were finally at peace.

Now we are ensconced in the Middle East with no visible exit and the Navy is busy contending with China over Asian Oceans of questionable value. But we did sleep in a Holiday Inn after mooring a nuclear submarine.

Jackson arrived in D.C. and proceeded to upset the apple cart

A rare Andrew Jackson “pewter rim,” most likely dating to the War of 1812 and celebrating its heroes, sold for $20,000 at a June 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was ready to go home. After serving eight years, he rejoiced that his vice president would succeed him. Occasionally, Jackson had considered resigning to ensure a smooth transition and, more importantly, a continuation of Jacksonianism. VP Martin Van Buren had consistently opposed this and finally “Old Hickory” dropped the idea. The president’s health was failing and many descriptions painted a picture of an old man (he was 70 years old and frail).

Eight years earlier, the president-elect had slipped into Washington, D.C. A welcoming salute had been cancelled since counting the electoral votes was still before Congress. Four years before (1825), Jackson had been denied the presidency despite winning a plurality of popular and electoral votes. Absent a majority of electoral votes, the election had been decided by the House of Representatives in accordance with the 12th Amendment. They chose John Quincy Adams.

Now, while waiting for the final count, Jackson was in deep mourning over the death of Mrs. Jackson a few days before Christmas. The cause was deep depression followed by a heart attack. A bitter controversy had erupted during the campaign when political enemies charged their marriage was bigamous. Rachel Donelson Jackson was mortified to learn a divorce was in question from a prior marriage. Winning the presidency had magnified the embarrassment and she cried out to friends, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington.”

So began a new era in American politics as a strident, partisan president took office still seeking revenge. The new president was obsessed with attacking all special interest groups and their corrupt influence on Congress. Under his leadership, Democrats became the party of the common man. The mantle of populism rested easily on his shoulders and Washington politics would be transformed for an entire generation. The two-party system was now dominant as Democrats and Whigs shared power until the 1860 election.

The turbulence of AJ’s life carried over into the presidency as he defined his policies, not by enacting legislation, but by defiantly thwarting it! He vetoed more bills than the combined total of all six of his predecessors. He was a man in a hurry and Cabinet members either followed his orders or they were quickly dispatched. As an example, the national debt was $58 million when he assumed office in 1829 and by Jan. 1, 1835, it had totally been eliminated (for the first and ONLY time to this day).

Nothing was sacred from his reform crusade and that especially included the Bank of the United States (BUS). The original BUS was created by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 to get the new government operating despite heavy debts from the War of Independence. The bank had been chartered for 20 years with the expectation the charter would be renewed. A successor BUS was founded in 1816, again with another 20-year quasi-monopoly. Jackson believed the bank was unconstitutional (as had Jefferson). Jackson surprised everyone by attacking the bank in his very first message to Congress.

He then promptly vetoed the bill to renew the charter in 1836 by saying, “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”

However, since the bank charter wouldn’t expire until 1836, Jackson decided not to wait. He ordered his Treasury Secretary, William Duane, to withdraw all government funds from the bank and deposit them with state charted banks. Congress had just legislated against this and Secretary Duane refused Jackson’s edict. The president simply fired him and transferred Attorney General Roger Taney into the Treasury job. The Senate, now controlled by Whigs, was furious and refused to approve Taney’s nomination. But they were too slow and the damage was already complete.

Totally frustrated, in March 1834 the Senate adopted a resolution of censure of Jackson, charging him with “assuming authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both.” It was viewed as an impeachment, but without the Constitutional process.

The Whigs responded, “The resolution, then, was in substance an impeachment of the president, and in passage amounts to a declaration by the majority of the Senate that he is guilty of an impeachable offence. As such, it is spread upon the journals of the Senate, published to the nation and to the world, made part of our enduring archives, and incorporated in the history of the age.”

That enduring “history of the age” lasted less than three years. In January 1837, Democrats, back in control of the Senate, voted to expunge the censure resolution, writing boldly across the original record, “EXPUNGED BY ORDER OF THE SENATE THIS 16TH DAY OF JANUARY, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1837.”

Amen.

America, Spanish colonies took vastly different turns

A signed photographic print of Admiral George Dewey went to auction in June 2013.

By Jim O’Neal

On April 25, 1898, the U.S. Congress declared war on Spain, ostensibly because of the sinking of the battleship USS Maine on Feb. 15. The armored cruiser was docked in Cuba’s Havana Harbor, having been dispatched by President McKinley to protect America’s people and interests during an uprising of Cuban dissidents. The cause of the explosion is still a subject of debate yet today.

The first act of war was to prevent Spain’s battleships in the Philippines from going to Cuba to join in the pending fighting. When the U.S. Army arrived in Cuba, they won a series of battles. The most famous was San Juan Hill, featuring a group called the Rough Riders. They were primarily farmers and cowboys that comprised the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry that also included future President Theodore Roosevelt. TR was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions in Cuba.

It was a short war (the actual fighting stopped by Aug. 13) and a formal treaty was signed on Dec. 10. Cuba gained its long quest for independence and the United States gained control of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines islands, an archipelago south of China. American business interests viewed the Spanish colony as a strategic gateway to lucrative trade with East Asian markets.

However, these islands had been under Spanish control since 1521 and Filipinos had also been waging a war of independence since 1896. Gaining their support to oust Spain was critical. U.S. Navy forces were under the command of Commodore George Dewey, and the Battle of Manila Bay against the Spanish flotilla started early on May 1, 1898. Spanish battleships and harbor fort guns were out of range to reach the American fleet, but Admiral Dewey had superiority in armaments. After confirming the distance, he gave a famous command to the captain of the USS Olympia: “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” What followed was the destruction of eight Spanish battleships and with only seven American seamen wounded. The entire battle was over in the first day of fighting.

Spain surrendered and sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, Filipino nationalists were not interested in trading one colonial master for another. In February 1899, fighting between Filipinos and the U.S. military started. In June, the Filipino Republic officially declared war on the invading U.S. forces. Suddenly, the United States had become mired in a war of colonial conquest. It would last for three years and become exceedingly vicious at times.

The United States controlled the capital of Manila, but Filipino revolutionaries, outgunned but with the advantage in manpower and home terrain, predictably resorted to guerilla warfare. U.S. forces quickly forced civilians into internment camps to prevent them from helping or joining the guerillas. It took until 1903 for the United States to prevail, with American troops suffering more than 4,000 casualties, 75 percent from tropical diseases. Roughly a quarter-million Filipinos perished, 90 percent of them innocent civilians. It was not until 1946 that the Treaty of Manila granted the Philippines full independence.

Looking back to the early 19th century, Spain’s colonies in North America were vastly superior to the young United States. This situation was totally reversed by 1900. In terms of territory, population and resources, the United States dominated the Western Hemisphere. It is a story of Protestant austerity, democracy and incursions led by American frontiersmen, farmers, shopkeepers, bankers and waves of European immigrants arriving on our shores, ready to make their fortunes.

The Spanish colonies fragmented as the primarily Catholic and tyrannical governments were unable to maintain coherence and viability. The transformation is marked by three distinct phases starting with Florida and the Southeast by 1820. This was followed by Texas, California, the greater Southwest (1855) and finally Central America and the Caribbean directly as a result of the Spanish-American War. During these major annexation phases, Mexico lost half its territory and 75 percent of its mineral resources.

The story of how to achieve Manifest Destiny from “Sea to shining sea” is embedded in these short episodes.

We’ve seen incredibly successful hucksters and three-ring circuses before

A 1913 poster promoting the Barnum & Bailey elephant baseball team sold for $9,600 at a February 2019 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

One of the world’s greatest hucksters died in 1891. He was born in Bethel, Conn., and died 80 years later on April 7 in Bridgeport, where he had been mayor in 1875-76. Earlier, he had served four terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives, without distinction. The three-ring circus of modern life with all its hustle and bustle had to start somewhere, so why not simply start with the man responsible for the actual three-ring circus?

Phineas Taylor Barnum had been a loyal Democrat until the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which supported slavery, was drafted by Democrats and signed by President Franklin Pierce. It effectively nullified the 1859 Missouri Compromise, escalated tensions over the slavery issue and led to a series of violent civil confrontations known as “Bloody Kansas,” a political stain on American democracy.

Barnum promptly switched political parties, becoming a member of the new anti-slavery Republican Party, which was expanding rapidly with defecting abolitionists. John C. Frémont – “The Pathfinder” – was the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party, losing to Democrat James Buchanan in 1856. Abraham Lincoln prevailed in 1860 and 1864, and Republicans would dominate national politics for the rest of the 19th century.

Yes, we’re talking about that Barnum, who would become world famous as founder of “P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.” Most Americans know the name, but whether they know that “P.T.” stands for Phineas Taylor or that he did not enter the circus business until he was 60 years old is doubtful. If not, then it is surely because of the extraordinary, eponymous circus formed when he and James Bailey teamed up in 1881.

Barnum was an energetic 70-year-old impresario. “The Greatest Show on Earth” may have been a slight exaggeration, but it’s not clear who would have rivaled them for the top spot. Clearly it was a distinctive assertion in a life filled with remarkable contradictions. Perhaps it is more precise to think of him as “the Greatest Showman on Earth” or other lofty positions as one desires. (He would undoubtedly find an angle to exploit to the fullest).

He actually had a modest beginning in his show-biz career, starting at age 25. He purchased a blind, nearly paralyzed black slave woman (Joice Heth) who purportedly was 161 years old and a nurse to a young George Washington. She sang hymns, told jokes and answered audience questions about “Little George.” Barnum cleverly worked around existing laws and exhibited her 10 to 12 hours a day to recoup his $1,000 investment.

As Barnum bribed newspaper editors for extra press coverage (always mentioning his name), he also co-produced a sensationalized biographical pamphlet to further hype the hoax. When Heth died in 1836, Barnum sold tickets to another “event” – a public autopsy to judge her actual age. More than 1,300 people eagerly attended the spectacle, which critics slammed as “morally specious.” At 50 cents a ticket, it provided a surprisingly nice profit. Barnum attempted to appease the abolitionists by claiming (falsely) that all proceeds from this flagrant exploitation would be used to buy her great-grandchildren’s freedom.

It is here that that experts who study such arcane issues will argue that it’s important to define the pejorative term “humbug,” using Barnum’s own precepts. To him, a humbug was a fake that delights audiences without scamming them. It is sleight of hand, not bait-and-switch. He called himself the “Prince of Humbugs.” Perhaps it is a distinction without a difference. However, Barnum, still searching for a code of ethics, fled this humbug. Even in his 1854 biography, he wrote that he wanted people to remember him for something other than Joice Heth. It would haunt him until his death.

By 1841, he was touring the country with magicians and jugglers. He bought John Scudder’s struggling American Museum in lower Manhattan, promptly renaming it with the Barnum brand. While displaying a cabinet of curiosities, he introduced pseudo-scientific exhibitions, live freaks and the normal hokums. Still struggling with his ethical bankruptcy, he gambled on backing a national tour for Jenny Lind, the most celebrated soprano in the world, offering her $1,500 for every performance. He calculated it would be worth losing $50,000 just to enhance his reputation.

Her virtuosic arias drew crowds in the thousands, as Barnum wishfully hoped his association with “the Swedish Nightingale” would lessen his reputational baggage. But driven by an outsize eagerness to enrich himself, he peddled spectacles like the “Feejee Mermaid,” the torso and head of a monkey and the back half of a fish, bound together by the clever art of taxidermy. He continued to worship at the altar of celebrity and the power of the press. He created attractions like General Tom Thumb, who at 5, learned to drink wine; at 7, he was smoking a cigar.

He parlayed an audience with President Lincoln into a European tour involving Queen Victoria, gambling that her subjects would be interested as well. The trip paid off big and was extended to include visits with the Tsar of Russia and other nobles. It is not surprising that in his quest for money and fame, his name itself conjured up qualities of audacity, greed and humbug. But how to account or judge the value of excitement, entertainment and gentle controversy? Even as Charles Darwin was jolting the scientific and religious communities with evolution via his Origin of Species, P.T. Barnum introduced William Henry Johnson, a microcephalic black man who spoke a mysterious language … “solving” the quest to find the Missing Link of mankind.

Sadly, on May 21, 2017, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave the last performance of its 146-year history after the elephants had vanished under pressure from animal rights activists. The audience rose for a standing ovation while singing Auld Lang Syne. Then it was over.

Except that it wasn’t!

P.T. Barnum, famous for grabbing headlines, reached up from the grave as Hugh Jackman lionized him in the movie The Greatest Showman. Recent one-word-titled books like Fraud, Hoax and Bunk have found analogies to today while a generation of Madonnas, Warhols and Kardashians have mastered the media to enhance the power of celebrity. We now have the modern equivalent of a three-ring circus continuously playing on Twitter or any cable news channel 24/7. The Romans knew this when they built the coliseum and so did Walt Disney when Disneyland popped up in 1955.

I do miss the cotton candy.