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2008-02-19 Home Front: Politix

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Posted by anonymous5089 2008-02-19 14:41|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 Glad to see my two personal favorites, Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson, are included.

I wasn't around during Buchanan's term and don't know much about that period of history. But I have to wonder if the American Civil War would have been as horrific as it was if Buchanan had been more proactive against slavery. Seems as though he followed the Democrat tradition of doing little to nothing while a problem festers and eventually necessitates a war that might have been avoided.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-02-19 15:16|| 2008-02-19 15:16|| Front Page Top

#2 Ebbang Uluque6305 what was the last straw for the South was the Republicans' vow to pass the Tarrif of 1860 which made it impossible for the South to do business with any other than Northeastern business by imposing a 48% tarrif on imported goods. In other words, if I sent 1 million bucks worth of raw materials to England and the company that took them sent me back 1 million bucks worth of finished goods I would have to pay the Government $480,000.00. Slavery was a big issue but not the one that pushed the South over the edge. Buchanan was one of the worst Presidents though.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2008-02-19 16:23|| 2008-02-19 16:23|| Front Page Top

#3 Carter's greatest achievement was leaving office.

Yeah. Alive...

Posted by tu3031 2008-02-19 16:36|| 2008-02-19 16:36|| Front Page Top

#4 This is indeed a list that needs much debate.

Old Frank Roosevelt deserves a high place in infamy, for destroying the US constitution, delaying the national recovery from the Great Depression, and sacrificing millions of people to the Soviet Bear.

LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson all deserve recognition for their arrogance, short sightedness, placing politics above principle, and in the case of the Democrats, naive idealism.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-02-19 16:44|| 2008-02-19 16:44|| Front Page Top

#5 FDR should get some credit for not losing WW2. I don't disagree with his list of failures but there was one serious test during his administration and he got us into the war so all the other stuff fades.

This is how Bush will be seen in time.

LBJ should get some credit because he made an absolute hash of everything and yet still is loved because he "tried" with his social programs and managed to transfer much of the blame of Vietnam onto Nixon somehow. Not saying he's great but teflon can't hold a candle to this fellow.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-02-19 17:39|| 2008-02-19 17:39|| Front Page Top

#6 Buchanan was one of a string of Dem presidents (Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan) who aggressively enforced the Fugitive Slave Act in the North and otherwise worked to expand and protect and privilege the Peculiar Institution. Used to being indulged, the South grew to acting very spoiled and petulant--"Give us what we want RIGHT NOW or we'll secede!"--so that the relationship between the slavery interests and the national government became much like a co-dependency, with Pierce and Buchanan as enablers. This was not a stable situation because the North had a larger population and a larger economy, and the trends were going in its favor. When Lincoln won, the very thought of having to deal with a non-enabler president was too much for the South to bear, so the Southern states started seceeding--but if it hadn't been Lincoln, something else would've pushed them to it eventually.

The best explanation I've ever seen of the pre-Civil War political situation was in James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Check it out.

Posted by Mike 2008-02-19 17:52|| 2008-02-19 17:52|| Front Page Top

#7 In 1860 80% of Federal revenue came from the Southern States but money from the government to provide for increased infrastructure (roads, railroads, and other transportation projects) was almost solely spent in the Northeast. The Tarrif of 1860 would have been way more devastating than either the Tarrif of 1828 or the one in 1832. Those two bankrupted a lot of Southerners. They were not about to let that happen again. The biggest crisis of Jackson's Presidency, started by South Carolina opposition to the tariffs leveled in 1828 and 1832 by Jackson supporters. "Nullifiers" thought that a state could nullify a federal law within its own borders if it so desired. When South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun, announced its intention to nullify the tariffs in the fall of 1832, it touched off what almost developed into a civil war, as Jackson massed military resources on the state's borders. Finally resolved in the spring of 1833 when South Carolina agreed to a new fairer tariff passed by Congress.
The Southern states were not the first to threaten to secede, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York all threatened to secede at some time prior to the Civil War.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2008-02-19 19:06|| 2008-02-19 19:06|| Front Page Top

#8 1) Jimmy Carter
2) Jimmy Carter
3) A player to be named later

Posted by SteveS 2008-02-19 19:22|| 2008-02-19 19:22|| Front Page Top

#9 [Aris Katsaris has been pooplisted.]

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2008-02-19 19:39|| 2008-02-19 19:39|| Front Page Top

#10 Let me guess,
Jimmy C. is Mr. PoopList's favorite Prez.

:)

Posted by RD">RD 2008-02-19 19:55|| 2008-02-19 19:55|| Front Page Top

#11 Mike,

Charles Dew was a believer in the tariff hoo-ha until he actually went back and studied the contemporary speeches of the secessionist commissioners, which he describes in Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War. A Nation Divided: New Studies in Civil War History. (Charlottesville and London: University Press
of Virginia, 2001)

As one reviewer notes

"Dews principal target is the somewhat shadowy "Neo-Confederate" movement, including the League ofthe South and the patrons of "Neo-Confederateweb sites, bumper stickers, and T-shirts" (p. 10).He notes correctly that secessionists themselves"talked much more openly about slavery thanpresent-day-neo-Confederates seem willing to do"(p. 10). The books first chapter makes clear therelevance of his discussion to recent controversiesover the Confederate flag in a number of states and Virginias Confederate history month, among others. The author writes with some obvious passion. A native southerner he recalls "my boyhood dreaming about Confederate glory," and confesses that he is "still hit with a profound sadness when I read over the material on which this study is based"

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.cgi?path=216321011979454

This is also a good review of the book:

http://fortyrounder.blogspot.com/2007/02/essay-on-apostles-of-disunion-by.html

Posted by E Brown 2008-02-19 21:48|| saturninretrograde.blogspot.com]">[saturninretrograde.blogspot.com] 2008-02-19 21:48|| Front Page Top

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