Primary Sources November 19, 2008

Here are our two latest primary sources. 

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html#letters

 

 A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Union

 

The primary source was found by using a word search for Texas succession from the Union. The website is run and maintained by Dr. George H. Hoemann. This is a reliable source, because it is run by a professor from the University of Tennessee. The primary source is a document written by delegates of state Texas, and lists all of their causes for succession from the Federal Union. The people of Texas want to succeed from the Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility, and ensure the blessing of peace and liberty for her people. The inhabitants of Texas were frustrated with the government for not protecting them from renegade Indians and bandits from Mexico. They were also even more infuriated when the government would not reimburse the state for their expenses from defending themselves from these threats. Texans believed that the Northern states have deliberately violated the second, third, and fourth article of the slave laws, and have threaten Texas’ liberty and equality.  All of theses reasons, added to the election of a president and vice president that will continue the attack on Southern states by non-slaveholding states is cause for succession from the United States. The document was adopted on February 2, 1861.

The Texas’ document for succession is very similar to other state’s causes for secession. All southern states believed that they were being invaded by Northern abolitionists that were promoting insurrection and slave rebellion. They also all believed that the slave laws were being deliberately violated by Northern states. What makes Texas stand out from the other states is that sixteen years ago Texas was asking to be admitted into the United States and now they want to leave.     

The second primary source is located here: http://elections.harpweek.com/1860/cartoon-1860-Medium.asp?UniqueID=23&Year=1860

It is a cartoon about the Election of 1860, and sees Stephen Douglas, the front-runner in the Democratic Party, as being ground down by elements of the Buchanan administration. The diminutive stature of the Buchanan loyalists, which is reminiscent of the Lilliputians of "Gulliver's Travels", is supposed to suggest that while they are minor impediments to Douglas, they are still impediments on his journey to the White House. It also shows the dangers in Douglas being in the public spotlight for so long: on his right leg, you can see a member of the press trying to climb up, showing his prominence in national affairs. The website is part of the harpweek.com election center, which chronicles elections from 1860 to 1912. 

Primary Sources, November 13

Here are the two latest sources are group has found.

http://tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/annexation/part4/page2.html

The primary source was found by using a word search for Texas annexation. The website is sponsored by the Texas State Library and Archives Committee. This is a reliable source, because it is sponsored by the state and uses original archives for their sources of information. The primary source is a letter written by James K. Polk to a committee in Cincinnati that was debating the Texas issue. They wanted to know where Polk stood on the issue of annexation.
Polk’s letter to the Cincinnati committee, who opposed the annexation of Texas, was very straight forward and short. Polk firmly stood by his view for the immediate annexation of Texas. He believed that since Texas is connected to the Mississippi Valley, and was once part of the American territory. America has the right to bring Texas into the United States. Also, he stated that Texas should have never been ceded away to Spain when the United States acquired Spanish’s Florida. Polk also fears that if the government is to reject Texas’s acceptance to enter the United States. The British will try to bring Texas under their control. He also stated that to ensure that this will never happen again in the future. He is in favor for Oregon to become a state as well.
I believe that Polk’s letter was very simple and easy to understand. He simply stated why he was in favor of the Texas issue and his reasons for believing so. He did not get in great depth about politic issues behind his decision, and did not mention anything about the South or the expansion of slavery in his letter.

The second source, http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu//dbq/11014.html#D, includes the Republican Party platform of 1856. It shows that by the middle of the decade, a new party had risen in opposition to the Democratic Party's position on the territories. For the Republicans, slavery had to stay confined to the South, and the Constitution itself forbade any growth into the territories. It is also interesting to note that the platform uses language such as "in the spirit of Washington and Jefferson" to support their own policies. The irony, of course, is that both men were Southerners and slaveowners, but Republican Party's appeal is to their views on the federal government. Of course, this is also a slight jab at the Democrats, who claimed ideological lineage with Jeffersonian thought throughout the 19th century. This source could be very useful at seeing the evolution of free-soil thought in the 1850s, especially as it relates to national politics.

Primary Sources, October 30

Here are the latest primary sources from our group. Firstly, we have the slave codes of Washington D.C., circa 1860, here. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/stpres02.html The slave codes show the extent to which Washington was still very much a Southern city, and how much there were in restrictions on the movement of slaves in the area. The documents are provided courtesy of the Library of Congress, and provide a window into the effects of slavery on the legal system.


Our second primary source is a bit shorter than the first, but shows the length of one Southern politician's famous career. At this site, http://c.cf7.si.edu/display/primarysource/viewdetails.aspx?PrimarySourceId=1057, you get to read John C. Calhoun's last speech, in which he makes clear his, and the South's, desire to expand slavery all the way to the Pacific coast. The speech shows some of the problems the United States had with the massive acquisitions it made due to the Mexican War of 1846-1848. For many Americans, the question of what would happen to the newly gained territories, as well as other territories in the Midwest, would be the central issue of the 1850s.

Primary Sources October 23, 2008

This week, we showcase two primary sources covering the late Antebellum period. The first one is an excerpt from a book entitled The Gathering Storm, which was featured in J. William Harris' book Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society. The excerpt talks about the effect slavery had on the Southern economy as a deterrent to growth. While Helper's text tries to stay away from criticizing non-slave holding whites, he still condemns slavery on the basis of its economy. 

The site the excerpt is post to, digitialhistory.com, offers many sources across American history, and is a very good website for searching for primary documents.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=25

http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/retexas

The  second primary document was found by using a word search for U.S primary documents. One of the web sites that showed up was Documenting the American South. This web site is a reliable source because it is sponsored by the University of North Carolina. The document that was chosen dealt with Texas concerns with rejoining the Union. The person who wrote the document was R.J. Townes, and it was approved by Texas House of Representatives. Then the resolution was sent to Jeff Davis to be read. The House of Representatives of Texas wanted it to be clearly stated to the North. The southern states did succeed from the Union just to protect the institute of slavery. They dissolved their relationship with the Union to “preserve their freedom and their sovereignty to govern themselves as a free nation”. The House also wanted it to be known that they did not approve the North’s tactics of fighting the war. The North used criminals and outlaws to fill the ranks of their armies. Also, the North refused to trade prisoners during the war, and that the term “Yankee” will always be looked down upon with disrespect in the South. Texas wanted the war to be over and have a time of peace between the states, but they wanted to keep their independent from the North. It is stated in the document that “if the horrors of the war could be swept from their memories that their past experiences in the Union would still keep them form a re-union with the North”.

It is clearly seen in the resolution that Texas is still does not like the North. Texas is upset with the outcome of the war, and does not want to rejoin with the North. Texas disapproved the way the North fought the war, and thought they used barbaric tactics. They believe that the North will press their views on the South, and they will louse their independence they once had. Texas still wants to keep the institute of slavery alive. But, they know that this is not possible.          

 

Primary Sources October 16, 2008

The primary source was found by using a word search for primary southern documents. The word search led to the website www.ourdocuments.gov. The website is sponsored by the United States National Archives and Records Administration. I believe this is a reliable source, because the government holds all original documents and this website is used in many research projects. The primary source that is used is President Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress on Indian Removal in 1803.

Jackson’s message begins with announcing that two main Indian tribes have agreed to the terms of the American government to move to another territory. Jackson insists that the move must be done quickly for the protection of American citizens and Indians. He also lists many of the benefits that will result form the Indian removal such as opening of all Tennessee and Louisiana land, and further separation of Indians from settlers.  Jackson then describes how good of a deal the government is giving the Indians, and how any white man would jump at the chance to be given land and place to live. He agrees that forcing them to move from their homes where their ancestors lived will be tuff. But, he maintains that this is what the Americans did to come to this land, and it is what their children will to in their life time.

Jackson believes this is a great victory for the government. The newly acquired land that is now available will flourish with new towns and agricultural land. Even though Jackson mentions the removal of the Indians from their homeland will be tuff on them emotionally. You can tell that he does not really care for the Indians at all in the way he describes them in his message. He uses the words savage, red skin, and uncivilized numerous time throughout his message to describe the Indians. At the very end of his message, Jackson says this is the only way to save the Indians from “utter annihilation”, which is probably what he would prefer.      

Another primary source we found online is at this website: http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/benton/calhoun_340113.html It is the recording of statements said in the United States Senate on January 13, 1834, mostly by Senator John C. Calhoun. Here, he argues that the North has already impressed its will upon the South, and he also argues against the Bank of the United States.

 

This came at a moment of near crisis for the United States. Already, Calhoun has turned away from his old nationalist leanings towards sectionalism, favoring South Carolina about the protection of the Union. The language he uses, suggesting the South is under threat, is a preview of even more incendiary language that will be used up until the start of the American Civil War.

 

We only stumbled upon this website by accident. It is, unlike most other sites cited by our group, not directly linked to a university. Still, it has plenty of content to make itself somewhat useful, especially when analyzing events up until the Civil War. Here is the main page to show its additional offerings:

 

http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/ 

Primary Documents October 9, 2008

Here are the two latest primary documents are group has discovered on the web. 

The first is a letter written by Henry Clay during the disputed election of 1824, in which Andrew Jackson won more popular and electoral votes than his rivals Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and William Crawford, but was unable to garner the necessary electoral votes to win the majority required for gaining the presidency. Henry Clay's letter, found on a website of digital history available courtesy of the University of Houston and its collaboration with several groups, describes the current situation that the election is in. Clay realizes that the election will go to the House of Representatives, a situation which was unprecedented in American political history. He devises strategies by which he could win, Adams could win, and how Jackson could be victorious. Such a letter shows the closeness of the election of 1824, an election which only delayed the rise of Andrew Jackson by four years. 

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=59

The second website is on the Nullification Crisis of 1833, and specifically shows a copy of the Force Act, designed to keep any state in the Union and make them follow the tariff laws, even if they are against them. The document, provided by the Library of Congress, shows the law that Congress passed in order to prevent South Carolina from rebelling against the tariff. Both of these websites, rich in content and in primary sources, provide some good information for anyone studying the Jacksonian period. 

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Nullification.html

Primary Sources, September 25

We chose, for this week, primary sources that deal with the post-Revolution era and the early 19th century.

We found a great site entitled ourdocuments.gov. The authors of the site are A National Initiative on American History, Civics, and Service. The reason we find the site useful is because you can find numerous primary source documents all scanned so that you can see the actual hand writing. They have a scanned copy of the Lee resolution from 1776 all the way to the voting rights act of 1965. We chose to focus my attention on the Missouri Compromise. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=22%20. You can move the cursor around to any part of the document to enlarge it.
The Missouri Compromise deals with weather or not Missouri would be admitted as a free or slave state. “This legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. It also outlawed slavery above the 36º 30´ latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory.” [1].

Another website we recently discovered is devoted to Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefVirg.html The University of Virginia, appropriately enough, has put the entire book on the web, broken down chapter by chapter. The more interesting parts of the book have to deal with Jefferson’s views on race. In particular, Jefferson makes an argument as to why African Americans, even those who are free, cannot be allowed to stay in the country: “Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” This is in the chapter entitled “Laws”, in which Jefferson argues that Africans are not even equal to whites, disparaging the poetry of Phyllis Wheatly. Ironically, years later he would sing the praises of Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician and astronomer.
The website is very reliable, due to the fact that it maintained by the University of Virginia. Such a source would be useful in showing some of the rationale for racism in late 18th century America, when people both north and south began to think seriously of ending slavery, yet not so seriously about treating blacks as equals.


[1] Citation: Conference committee report on the Missouri Compromise, March 1, 1820; Joint Committee of Conference on the Missouri Bill, 03/01/1820-03/06/1820; Record Group 128l; Records of Joint Committees of Congress, 1789-1989; National Archives.