Ramblings from the Marginalized

This post is written by my friend Josh L. He is currently a student in High School so feel free to critique his work.

The topic of who or what was primarily responsible for the United States civil war is one that is continually being debated. There are those that point to such persons as then president Abraham Lincoln, or confederate president Jefferson Davis himself, or perhaps even lesser known fringe players, such as the raging abolitionist John Brown. How these arguments are flawed is that the stage for the Civil War had already been set decades before those persons previously mentioned had any influence whatsoever on the overall climate of the U.S. Indeed, the establishment of the Confederate States of America and in turn the cause of the civil war itself, may be traced back to the Jackson presidency of the 1830s. Jackson's quarrels with then Vice President John C. Calhoun regarding the prospect of South Carolina seceding from the union sparked a polarization of North and South. This would grow exponentially over the decades leading up to the civil war until finally reaching critical mass in the early 1860s.

It all began thanks to a recurring theme throughout U.S. history: Resentment of taxation. More specifically, South Carolina's resentment of the Tariff of 1828, considered by many at the time to be the “Tariff of Abominations”. The tariff placed “...a heavy tax on imports designed to discourage foreign imports and encourage American manufacturing.” (Cayton 251). The North, being highly industrialized, benefited greatly. The South, however, which was rural and highly agricultural, was badly hurt, and thought that the tariff was unfair. This prompted South Carolina, Calhoun's home state,

to act upon his belief that the States had the right to voice their dissent against the Federal Government, and furthermore to act as they saw fit, a belief first outlined in Calhoun's doctrine of nullification. “A single state, Calhoun argued in his South Carolina Exposition of 1828, might suspend a federal law which it regarded unconstitutional (that is to say, as injurious to its own interests), until three quarters of the states had justified the law through the amending power.” (Schlesinger 34). In 1832, yet another tariff was passed by congress, advancing South Carolina's malice. It was Jackson's refusal to pander to South Carolina's wishes that was a crucial component of the engine that drove America to Civil War.

South Carolina was threatening to secede the Union if its demand for the full nullification of the tariff was not met. Instead of negotiating with South Carolina and making some sort of compromise, Jackson had a much different approach to the dilemma. Jackson was not a man who made compromises. Jackson dealt not in words, but in lead, as his dueling record would attest to. “At his urging, in 1833 Congress passed the Force Bill, which required South Carolina to collect the tariff. Jackson threatened to send 50,000 federal troops to enforce the law.” (Cayton 252). The day was saved when Henry Clay finally made a compromise with South Carolina which reduced some of the import duties. “South Carolina canceled its nullification act. Yet in an act of continued defiance it nullified the Force Bill at the same time.” (Cayton 252). For a brief period of time, decades before the< U.S. broke out into all-out civil war, the nation stood on the brink of conflict. Though we had subverted disaster for the time being, Henry Clay's remedy was no more effective in the long run than putting a band-aid on a cancer patient and calling it a job well done. Andrew Jackson's aggression would not be forgotten. The 1833 dilemma set a precedent that would be observed by future generations, disillusioned by the privileged North and intent on severing all ties to the Union.

Calhoun's assertions that the States had power over the Federal Government instigated secessionists to carry out their plan to break away from the United States and form the Confederate States of America, a new country devoted to those issues that were held in high importance by the southernmost states. One prominent secessionist was a man named William Lowndes Yancey, who was an influential journalist and a famous orator at the time. “There was no secret about what Yancey wanted. More than a decade earlier he had denounced 'the foul spell of a party which binds and divides and distracts the South,'”. (Catton 2). According to Yancey, there was “'...only one hope of righting ourselves and doing justice to ourselves and the Union'” (Catton 2). Yancey would soon discover that “...nothing but secession would do.” (Catton 2). Already a fervent supporter of the southern cause, “He moved south,” and “fell under the spell of John C. Calhoun”. Yancey was not the only influential secessionist to channel the spirit of Calhoun in his effort to advance the Confederate cause, as many others followed suit. Indeed, the seeds that Calhoun had sown had finally reached fruition. The threat of secession which had been evaded 30 years earlier was now back on the table. “On the day after the speaker election, Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, arose in the Senate to present a series of resolutions on the slavery question. These began by reasserting the state-sovereignty doctrines of John C. Calhoun, declared that it was the Senate's duty 'to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to person or property' in the territories, and then flatly stated that there was no power anywhere to limit slavery in the territories.” (Catton 18). Calhoun had risen to the status of an idol amongst secessionists. “The news from Charleston brought crowds into the streets at New Orleans; there were parades, bands again played the 'Marseillaise,” a bust of John C. Calhoun was crowned with a blue cockade, and the press noted 'a general demonstration of joy.'” (Catton 138).

Annoyed with excessive tariffs, South Carolina declared their opposition citing John C. Calhoun's writings on the power of the States over the Federal Government. A stubborn Jackson failed to respond in the appropriate fashion, and instead dug a deeper hole. Tensions between the North and the South escalated for decades until the breaking point when the U.S. was suddenly embroiled in all-out civil war. The fuse had been set, and it was only a matter of time before the spark inevitably met the cannon.

Works Cited

Catton, Bruce. The Coming Fury. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961.

Cayton, Andrew, Elisabeth I. Perry, Linda Reed, and Allan M. Winkler. America: Pathways to the

Present. Needham, MA: Prentice Hall, 2000. 251, 252.

Schlesinger, A. Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945.

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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 Inalienable 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 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.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Signed by:

* New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
* Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
* Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
* Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
* New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
* New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
* Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
* Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
* Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
* Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
* North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
* South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
* Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Trivia

Jefferson's original draft included a denunciation of the slave trade ("He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."), which was later edited out by Congress, as was a lengthy criticism of the English people and parliament. According to Jefferson:

"The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense."

Jefferson remained upset over the removal of this condemnation of slavery (despite being a slave owner himself) until his death.

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In a recent issue of the Knights of the Dinner Table gaming magazine I read an article about ideas for seeding real world treasures into your fantasy RPG games. One item mentioned was that of roman artifacts being found in Texas long before they should have been there.

• Roman coins found in Texas. The most convincing example came from the bottom of an Indian mound at Round Rock. This mound is dated at approximately 800 AD. Skeptics suppose that the coin was dropped on top of the mound in recent times and was carried to the bottom by rodents and tree roots. Hmmm!
• The remains of a shipwreck. Circa 1886, the wreck of an unusual ship was found in Galveston Bay. Belfiglio says this ship's construction is typically Roman. Nautical experts doubt this. but they will admit that real Roman craft were perfectly capable of sailing to Texas.
• The remains of an ancient bridge. Also in Galveston Bay, the timbers of an old bridge were found under 15 feet of sediment. A similar divergence of opinion prevails here.
• Language concordances. Belfiglio has pointed out many similarities between Latin and a dialect of the now-extinct Karankawas tribe. No comment here from the language experts.

(Lee, Victoria; "Professor Explores Theory of Romans' Ancient Voyage," Dallas Morning News, June 13, 1993. Cr. T. Adams via L. Farish.)

If Romans being in Texas were not strange enough how about this?

In 1976, diver Jose Roberto Texeira salvaged two intact amphorae from the bottom of Guanabara Bay, 15 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro. Six years later, archeologist Robert Marx found thousands of pottery fragments in the same locality, including 200 necks from amphorae.

Amphorae are tall storage vessels that were used widely throughout ancient Europe. These particular amphorae are of Roman manufacture, circa the second century B.C. Much controversy erupted around the finds because Spain and Portugal both claim to have discovered Brazil around 1500 A.D. Roman artifacts were distinctly unwelcome. More objectively, the thought of an ancient Roman crossing of the Atlantic is not so farfetched. Roman wrecks have been discovered in the Azores; and the shortest way across the Atlantic is from Africa to Brazil -- only 18 days using modern sailing vessels.

(Sheckley, Robert; "Romans in Rio," Omni, 5:43, June 1983.)

What about The legend of Prince Madoc and the White Indians? It is the amazing saga of the Twelfth Century seafarer whose name has become renown in the annals of ancient maritime history. This new book presents the complete untold story of America's first Colony which was founded by Prince Madoc of Wales in 1170 A.D. The information contained in this book could eventually redefine the foundation of American history.

• An assembly of recorded facts have led to the conclusion that Prince Madoc reached the shores of America during the year of 1170 AD.
• The physical evidence supports the recurring theory that the Welsh voyager penetrated far into the interior of America where he established a chain of fortifications and stoneworks that still exist today.
• The existence of a pre-historic race of white people who lived in permanent settlements in America long before the days of Christopher Columbus who are believed to have been the survivors of a colony that spoke Welsh and was established by Prince Madoc in the 12th century.

What about the story of An Ancient North African Treasure-Trove in Southern Illinois?

After nearly two decades, the controversy may be resolved in the near future, as excavation proceeds at what researchers believe is the prev- iously undisclosed, underground location itself. If and when it is finally opened, the chambers' bizarre contents may prompt more questions than answers. But so many objects have already been removed and exam- ined, that a credible, even convincing interpretation of the site now seems possible. The chief argument against its authenticity may in fact be the most persuasive evidence on its behalf as a repository for indisput- able, abundant, material proof of peoples from the Ancient World in the American Middle West.

Christopher Columbus may be the explorer we celebrate as the man who discovered the "New World" but many questions exist as to who came before him.

What of Leif Ericson? Didn't he leave his mark on North America long before Columbus was born?

Before you go on about the Native Americans and the peoples who were living in the "New World" when Columbus arrived let me point out that this article is designed to make you think (and wonder) about how much earlier than 1492 explorers from Europe and Africa may have 'discovered' the "New World". Obviously the people who were already living there 'discovered' it first.

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