America's Second Civil War

Reprinted with permission from:

"The Second Civil War in the USA and its Aftermath" by Sam Vaknin (second, revised impression, 2029)

Summary of Chapter 83

"The polities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries swung between extremes of nationalism and polyethnic multiculturalism. Following the Great War (1914-8), the disintegration of most of the continental empires - notably the Habsburg and Ottoman - led to a resurgence of a particularly virulent strain of the former, dressed as Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism. 

The aftermath of the Second World War brought on a predictable backlash in the West against all manner of nationalism and racism. The USSR, Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, the EU (European Union, the European Community), the Commonwealth led by the United Kingdom, and the prominent USA epitomized the eventual triumph of multiculturalism, multi-ethnic states, and, in the Western democracies, pluralism.

Africa and Asia, just emerging from a phase of brutal colonialism, were out of synch with these developments in Europe and North America and began to espouse their own brands of jingoistic patriotism. Attempts to impose liberal-democratic, multi-cultural, tolerant, pluralistic, and multi-ethnic principles on these emergent entities were largely perceived and vehemently rejected by them as disguised neo-colonialism.

The disintegration, during the second half of the twentieth century, of the organizing principles of international affairs - most crucially Empire in the 1960s and Communism in the 1980s - led to the re-eruption of exclusionary, intolerant, and militant nationalism. The Balkan secession wars of the 1990s served as a stark reminder that historical forces and ideologies never vanish - they merely lie dormant.

Polyethnic multiculturalism came under attack elsewhere and everywhere - from Canada to Belgium. Straining to contain this worrisome throwback to its tainted history, Europeans implemented various models. In the United Kingdom, regions, such as Scotland and Northern Ireland were granted greater autonomy. The EU's "ever closer union", reified by its unfortunate draft constitution, was intermittently rejected and resented by increasingly xenophobic and alienated constituencies. 

This time around, between 1980 and 2020, nationalism copulated with militant religiosity to produce particularly nasty offspring in Muslim terrorism, Christian fundamentalist (American) thuggish unilateralism, Hindu supremacy, and Jewish messianism. Scholars, such as Huntington, spoke of a "clash of civilizations".

Ironically, the much-heralded conflict took place not between the USA and its enemies without - but within the United States, in a second and devastating Civil War.

Americans long mistook the institutional stability of their political system, guaranteed by the Constitution, for a national consensus. They actually believed that the former guarantees the latter - that institutional firmness and durability ARE the national consensuses. The reverse, as we know, is true: it takes a national consensus to yield stable institutions. No social structure - no matter how venerable and veteran - can resist the winds of change in public sentiment.

In hindsight, the watershed obtained during the Bush-Cheney presidency (2001-2009). The social and political concord frayed and then disintegrated with each successive blow: the war in Iraq (2003-7), the botched evacuation and rescue efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005), the failed assassination attempt on the President's life (2006), the further restrictions placed on civil and human rights in Patriot Acts III and IV (2008), and, finally, the nuclear terrorist attack on Houston in the closing days of this divisive reign.

From there, it went only downhill.

As opposed to the first Civil War (1860-5), the Second Civil War (2021-26) was fought within communities and across state boundaries. It was not territorial and classic - but total and guerilla-like. It cut across the country's geography and pitted one ideological camp against another.

It may be too soon to objectively analyze and evaluate this gargantuan conflict. It was preceded by a decade of violent demonstrations, home-grown urban terrorism, and numerous skirmishes involving the National Guard and even, in violation of the Constitution, the armed forces.

Some historians cast the whole period as a battle of the religious vs. the secular. It clearly was not. By 2021, most Americans professed to be deeply religious, in one manner or fashion. No one seriously disputed the importance of the Church - but many insisted on its separation from the state. 

Hence the protracted (and heated) confrontation between pro-life and pro-choice advocates when Wade vs. Roe was overturned by a politicized and weakened Supreme Court in 2007. Hence the drawn out (and violent) debates about the teaching of evolution theory in schools or the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research.

Nor was the Civil War fought between isolationists and interventionists. An ever more brazen brand of post-September 11 global terrorism and a growing dependence on international trade inexorably drove most Americans to accept their new role as an Empire. They actually learned to enjoy it, both emotionally and economically.

Thus, even erstwhile Jacksonian isolationists reluctantly acquiesced in their country's foreign exploits. But they insisted on blatant unilateralism and the projection of American might merely and only to protect American interests. They abhorred the missionary ideology of the neo-conservatives. Spreading values, such as democracy, should better be left to NGOs and charities - they thundered.

The Civil War was not about the preservation of East Coast liberalism, as some self-serving scholars would have it. America was never less racist and homophobic than in the years immediately preceding the conflagration. The debate, again, revolved around institutions. Should changing mores be enshrined in legislation and case law? Should the national ethos itself be rewritten? Should the very definition and quiddity of being an American (white, male, straight) be revisited?

Neo-Marxist chroniclers attribute the causes of the Second Civil War to the growing disparities of wealth between the haves and the have not. Presidents Bush and Cheney surely reversed L.B. Johnson's Great Society. They and their successors erased the numerous entitlements and aid programs that many of the economically disenfranchised came to depend upon and to regard as a birthright and as a cornerstone of the social contract. 

Turning the clock back on affirmative action and food stamps, for instance, indeed provoked widespread violence. But such outbursts can hardly be construed to have been the precursors of the giant flame that consumed the USA a few years hence.

Finally, the Civil War was not about free trade (beneficial to the service and manufacturing based economies of some states) versus protectionism (helpful to the agricultural belts and bowls of the hinterland and to the recovering Gulf Coast). America's economy was far too dependent on the outside world to reverse course. Its national debt was being financed by Asians, its products were being sold all over, its commodities and foods were coming from Africa and Latin America. The USA was in hock to a globalized and merciless economy. Protectionism was campaign posturing - not a cogent and coherent trade policy.

So, what were the roots and causes of the Second Civil War?

None of the above in isolation - and all of the above in confluence. For decades, the citizenry's trust in a packed and rigged Supreme Court declined. Politicians came to be regarded as a detached and heartless plutocracy. Americans felt orphaned, cheated, and robbed. The national consensus - the implicit agreement that together is better than alone - has thus evaporated. The outcome was the shots and explosions that rocked the United States (and the world in tow) on January 20, 2021."

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Myths of the American Civil War

Civil War Balle Scene - Photo: Wikimedia

The Civil War (1861-5) has spawned numerous myths and falsities.

The Republicans did not intend to abolish slavery - just to "contain" it, i.e., limit it to the 15 states where it had already existed. Most of the Democrats accepted this solution. 

This led to a schism in the Democratic party. The "fire-eaters" left it and established their own pro-secession political organization. Growing constituencies in the south - such as urban immigrants and mountain farmers - opposed slavery as a form of unfair competition. Less than one-quarter of southern families owned slaves in 1861. Slave-based, mainly cotton raising, enterprises, was so profitable that slave prices almost doubled in the 1850s. This rendered slaves - as well as land - out of the reach of everyone but the wealthiest citizens.

Cotton represented three-fifths of all United States exports in 1860. Southerners, dependent on industrial imports as they were, supported free trade. Northerners were vehement trade protectionists. The federal government derived most of its income from customs duties. Income tax and corporate profit tax were yet to be invented.

The states seceded one by one, following secession conventions and state-wide votes. The Confederacy (Confederate States of America) was born only later. Not all the constituents of the Confederacy seceded at once. Seven - the "core" - seceded between December 20, 1860, and February 1, 1861. They were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. 

Another four - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas - joined them only after the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Two - Kentucky and Missouri - seceded but were controlled by the Union's army throughout the war. Maryland and Delaware were slave states but did not succeed. 

President James Buchanan who preceded Abraham Lincoln made clear that the federal government would not use force to prevent secession. Secession was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court only in 1869 (in Texas vs. White) - four years after the Civil War ended. New England almost seceded in 1812, during the Anglo-American conflict, in order to protect its trade with Britain.

The constitution of the Confederacy prohibited African slave trade (buying slaves from Africa), though it allowed interstate trade in slaves. The first Confederate capital was in Montgomery, Alabama - not in Richmond, Virginia. The term of office of the Confederate president - Jefferson Davis was the first elected - was six years, not four as was the case in the Union.

Fort Sumter was not the first attack of the Confederacy on the Union. It was preceded by attacks on 11 forts and military installations on Confederate territory. 

Lincoln won only 40 percent of the popular vote in 1860. Hence the South's fierce resistance to his abolitionist agenda. In 1864, the Republicans became so unpopular, they had to change their name to the Union Party. Lincoln's vice-president, Johnson, actually was a Democrat and hailed from Tennessee, a seceding state.

He was the only senator from a seceded state to remain in the Senate. 

Reconstruction started long before the war ended, in Union-occupied Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Slave tax was an important source of state revenue in the South (up to 60 percent in South Carolina). Emancipation led to near bankruptcy.

The Union states of Connecticut, Minnesota, and Wisconsin refused to pass constitutional amendments to confer suffrage on black males. The Union army consigned black labor gangs to work on the plantations of loyal Southerners and forcibly separated the black workers from their families.

Contrary to myth, nearly two-thirds of black families were headed by both parents. Slave marriages were legally meaningless in the antebellum South, though. But nearly 90 percent of slave households remained intact till death or forced separation. The average age of childbirth for women was 20.

Segregation was initiated by blacks. The freedmen lobbied hard and long for separate black churches and educational facilities. Nor was lynching confined to blacks. For instance, a white mob lynched, in September 1862, forty-four Union supporters in Gainesville, Texas. Similar events took place in Shelton Laurel, North Carolina. The Ku Klux Klan was the paramilitary arm of the Democratic party in the South, though never officially endorsed by it. It was used to "discipline" the workforce in the plantations - but also targeted Republicans.

The Democrats changed their name after the war to the Conservative Party. By 1877 they have regained power in all formerly Confederate states.

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Another Look at INDIANS (Native Americans, Amerindians)

Native American chiefs in 1865 - Photo: Wikimedia

Native Americans are often cast in the role of victims of White aggression and unbridled avarice-driven or gratuitous violence, especially in the territories known collectively today as the United States. But the first massacre was perpetrated by Indians in the British colony Jamestown, in Virginia in 1622. They slaughtered 347 white men, women and children on that occasion.  

Europeans are also accused of importing pathogens, disease-causing agents, such as smallpox and measles, malaria and yellow fever. Indigenous people had no immunological resistance to these illnesses as they were never exposed to them.

But recent findings by a team of anthropologists, economists, and paleopathologists who have completed a massive study of the health of people living in the Western Hemisphere in the last 7,000 years - suggest that Native American's health was severely run down long before the Europeans delivered the coup de grace.

The researchers analyzed more than 12,500 skeletons - half of them pre-Columbian - from 65 sites in North and South America for evidence of infections, malnutrition, and other health problems.

 The study - "The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere", edited by Dr. Richard H. Steckel and Dr. Jerome C. Rose - discovered that the haleness of Native-Americans declined markedly in the 1000 years before Columbus "discovered" them. 

The vast majority of the skeletons showed telltale signs of advanced degenerative joint disease, deteriorating dental health, stature, anemia, arrested tissue development, infections and trauma from injuries. These were attributed by the participants to limited diets and urban congestion. People became shorter and died earlier - on average at age 35 - as the centuries passed.

"Pre-Columbian populations were among the healthiest and the least healthy in our sample," Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose said. "While pre-Columbian natives may have lived in a disease environment substantially different from that in other parts of the globe, the original inhabitants also brought with them, or evolved with, enough pathogens to create chronic conditions of ill health under conditions of systematic agriculture and urban living."

Moreover, there are signs that diseases hitherto thought to have been introduced by the white explorers were actually indigenous.1,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, for instance, were found to have been infected with tuberculosis in their lungs.

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The US Presidency and Tecumseh's Curse

Battle of Tippecanoe - Photo: Wikimedia

In 1840, General William Henry Harrison easily won the US presidency. He was celebrated as a war hero for having participated in the Battle of Tippecanoe, which defeated Tecumseh's Shawnee forces. However, Harrison's presidency would be short-lived. Some say it's a result of "Tecumseh's Curse".

According to legend, Chief Tecumseh sent a prophetic message to General Harrison. The message contained a premonition outlined by Tecumseh's brother, who had accurately predicted a lunar eclipse and gained credibility as a seer. The Shawnee warning stated that if Harrison were to win the presidential election, he would not finish his term. 

Furthermore, "After him, every great chief chosen every twenty years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of our people." A curse had supposedly been set on the White House and its future occupants. The legend of the curse was not widely known until 1931 when a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" book brought publicity. In 1980 the Library of Congress would be unable to substantiate that Tecumseh had sent this message. 

Nonetheless, Harrison's presidency was indeed brief and unfortunate. He delivered a long inaugural address on a cold and windy day, and then he was caught in a rainstorm. He contracted a cold that quickly led to pneumonia and death. His death would be seen as the beginning of a long pattern: from 1840 to 1960, presidents elected in a year ending in zero would be assassinated or die of natural causes while in office.

The next supposed victim of the curse was Abraham Lincoln, who was elected in 1860. He was assassinated during his second term in 1865, just a few days after the Civil War had officially ended. His assassin was the Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. The twenty-year cycle next met President James Garfield. He took office in March of 1881. He was shot within a few months and died in September of that year. His assassin was Charles Guiteau, who was "upset" after being denied a diplomatic post by Garfield's administration. 

Next, William McKinley survived his first presidential term, but he was elected again in 1900. He was shot in 1901 while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He died about a week later. The assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was a self-described anarchist who called McKinley "the enemy of the people". 

Warren Harding was the next president to die while in office. He was elected in 1920. During a 1923 cross-country Voyage of Understanding, President Harding died at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The cause of his death is uncertain. Food poisoning and pneumonia may have been underlying causes. Newspapers cited heart attack or stroke, but suspicions of suicide or murder abound. Harding was an unpopular president and publicly stated that he wasn't fit for office! Some have accused Mrs. Harding of ending her husband's life; he was known to have extra-marital affairs, and he secretly had a child with another woman. 

The 1940 presidential election was met with newspapers headlines shouting "Curse Over the White House!" Franklin Roosevelt was then elected to his third presidential term, and then a fourth in 1944. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945. The course's final victim would be President John F. Kennedy, who was elected in 1960. He was assassinated in 1963 while riding in a motorcade through Dallas. There are many conspiracy theories about his assassination, but Lee Harvey Oswald was officially judged to be the lone gunman. 

The Shawnee curse was well-publicized by the 1980 election. President Carter was asked his opinion about it during a campaign stop that year. He replied, "I'm not afraid. If I knew it was going to happen, I would go ahead and be President and do the best I could, for the last day I could." 

President Ronald Reagan, who was ultimately elected in 1980, is believed to have broken Tecumseh's curse. He escaped a serious assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr. within months of his inauguration in 1981.

The curse is also known as the Curse of Tippecanoe, the presidential curse, the zero-year curse, and the twenty-year curse. 

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Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks - Photo: Wikimedia

In any great movement which effects great change in a nation or a people, there is something called a watershed moment.  A watershed moment is that one signature event that triggered the onslaught of great and historic change.  In American history, that watershed moment might be the Boston Tea Party.  But in the context of black history, particularly when we consider the central role that the civil rights movement has played in black history in this country, there is really just one watershed moment that virtually anybody who understands black history will point to.

That event took place on December 1, 1955, on a simple city bus when a black woman by the name of Rosa Parks got on that bus.  When the bus became crowded, the bus driver ordered Ms. Parks to relinquish her seat to a white man as was the cultural order of things at that time.  But Rosa Parks was not interested in seeing that cultural order of things continue.  She refused to give up that seat.  

The explosion of outrage and social change that was released by that one simple act of civil disobedience is the watershed moment that anyone affected by the civil rights movement points to at the most important event in modern black history.  Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving her seat up that day and the trial for that act of civil disobedience brought to the national spotlight another important leader in the civil rights movement by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

This one event began to escalate and gather energy in the black community.  It was an exciting and somewhat frightening time as the black community was energized and began to organize around these two courageous leaders and the result was the most powerful civil rights protests in the history of the movement occurred which came to be known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

There are many reasons why such a simple event has had such a powerful effect on a people such as it did on the black community of the fifties.  Clearly, the frustration and gathering power of a movement was already building in the black community.  A situation like this can best be described as a tinderbox that is just waiting for a spark for it to explode into fire.  When that simple black woman finally decided that she was no longer going to live in servitude to the white man and she put her foot down and said NO, that was the spark that set the civil rights movement in motion.

Rosa Parks was not a trained instigator or a skilled manipulator of groups.  Because she was just a citizen and a simple woman with simple daily needs, that itself was a powerful statement that this was the time for the community to take action and effect change.  She was not even looking to start a nation changing civil rights movement when she refused to give up her bus seat.  As she said later in an interview about the event…

"I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen of Montgomery, Alabama.”  And then in her autobiography, My Story she elaborated that…  “People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true.  I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day.  I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then.  I was forty-two.  No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks won the right to be treated as a human being for herself and for her people across America and even around the world with her simple act of civil disobedience.  She is an inspiration to us all that we too must demand the right of simple human dignity for all people who are citizens of this great land.  And the story of Rosa Park’s defiance shows that if we demand that, it will be won.

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The Rainbow Coalition

Rainbow-PUSH_Headquarters - Photo: Wikimedia

The struggle for freedom and equality for African Americans is one that is passed down from generation to generation and from one era of black leadership to the next.  Throughout history, the African American leadership has had many outstanding men and women who made their mark and made a difference for black people in America.  And that tradition continues to this day with modern black leadership such as Barrack Obama, The Reverend Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson.

Jessie Jackson has organized his efforts to continue the struggle for civil rights in one of the most innovative organizations in history that came to be known as the Rainbow Coalition.  This organization represented the dreams and goals of the Reverend Jackson, to be sure.  But it also represents the shared efforts of black Americans across the country in modern times to keep the dream of Martin Luther King alive and moving forward.

In fact, the Rainbow Coalition was the outcome of a series of efforts and movements that began with a relationship between Reverend Jackson and Dr. King.  It was Martin Luther King that asked Jessie Jackson to head up a movement called Operation Breadbasket, a project to seek the economic improvement of black communities across the country, particularly in the inner city.  Operation Breadbasket eventually evolved into a powerful civil rights organization known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

As these movements started to make a real difference in the lives of African Americans in America, another step was the development of Operation PUSH which stood for People United to Save Humanity.  This influential organization has become the cornerstone for promoting civil rights and social justice for African Americans in the last twenty years. 

It was from these different initiatives and the success they were realizing that the Rainbow Coalition was birthed to seek economic opportunity in the business community and to encourage Fortune 500 companies to hire minorities and to expand their involvement in the nurture and the development of the black community for the good of all peoples.

The naming of the movement “The Rainbow Coalition” is pivotal to the vision Reverend Jackson had for the civil rights movement.  He did not see it as just black people working for the betterment of the black community.  Instead, inspired by Martin Luther King’s dream of equality and brotherhood of all races, the coalition would truly be a partnership of all minorities, the white community and other equal rights movements to seek equal opportunity for all of America’s citizens.  

The important stance that The Rainbow Coalition brought to the consciousness of the black community and to America was the concept that civil rights were not just a black issue.  It emphasized that all of America cannot move forward when a part of the population is left behind to flounder in poverty and without the benefits of a good education and job opportunities.  The result is that the black pride that was built by key figures of black history such as Mohammed Ali, Spike Lee and even more radical elements such as Malcolm X and the Black Panthers could now be used to promote true equality in the society.  In doing so, Jackson and other contemporary black leaders taught that the African American community not only could be but must insist on being fully black and fully American in their status in American culture.

Finally, the Rainbow Coalition emphasized that civil rights is not just a political issue.  The emphasis was on all aspects of American life including economic equality, social opportunity and even equal representation in the media and entertainment arts.  To be truly represented as an important part of American culture, black Americans must have equal opportunities in all venues.  

This is the message for its time that Reverend Jackson and the Rainbow coalition has brought and continues to bring to the national stage.  And it’s an important message that takes the good that was done in past civil rights movements in this country and brings up to date with a new century.

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The Legacy of Columbus

Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus - Photo: Wikimedia

If you thought back to the first things you ever learned about the history of America, the one that jumps out is that Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America is 1492.  While the date is correct, we later learned when our study of history became more scholarly that there is some dispute about whether Columbus discovered America at all.  So what is the real legacy that this legend of Columbus has given to the American culture that has made him such a revered figure in cultural history?

So much of the Columbus story is approximate that, at first review, we would almost relegate the story of how Columbus discovered America to the level of a myth that borders on superhero worship.  But Columbus was not a myth.  There really was an explorer named Columbus who carried out three bold journeys across the ocean and during those journeys, he did indeed discover “the new world.”  His ships really were named the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and he did indeed embark one of those three voyages in 1492.

The legacy of Columbus then is more than just the facts of his exploratory journeys and their outcome.  There is a reason to believe that Columbus’s fabled “discovery of America” did not occur on North American soil but somewhat further south of here, somewhere in the Bahamas.  But the legacy of Columbus lies in his spirit and the challenge he took on that is part of the American spirit and one we identify with so strongly.

Part of the legend was that Columbus embarked on this trip for the new world despite the prevailing “scientific” belief that the world was flat.  Now research in recent times has surfaced sufficient documentation to show that sailors of that time never did believe that teaching.  Their extensive knowledge of navigation and astronomy, which is crucial for any successful sea voyage, was sufficient for sailors to know that the earth was round and that they would never “fall off the edge.”  However, the image of those brave men launching out to sea, against the advice of popular opinion, to find something new and exciting so connects with the American spirit of discovery and adventure that this myth persists as part of the legacy of Columbus.

Christoper Columbus arrives in America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Americans do have a tremendous sense of discovery and adventure and a deep-seated need to conquer new lands, to reach out beyond their own grasp and to do the impossible.  This was the spirit of Manifest Destiny which gripped the nation long before there was any reason to believe that this meager band of colonists had the resources to settle a great nation.  Americans always have had such a firm belief in themselves and a core faith that they could do the impossible.  That part of the American spirit is what connects to Columbus’s setting out on these bold missions facing certain dangers so he too could discover new lands and have great adventures.

The legacy of Columbus also lies in the American desire to explore.  Even though the source of the quotation is only a science fiction show, the “mission” of the fictional spaceship “The Enterprise” sums up a deep desire in the heart of all Americans.

Space, the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.  Her five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds.  To seek out new life and new civilizations.  To boldly go where no man has gone before.

For Americans, the mission of James Kirk is a perfect restatement of the mission of Christopher Columbus.  And it is the mission of America which has driven this country and its citizens to discoveries and achievements that have never been done before.  It is that spirit of Columbus in all Americans that is one of the things that have made this country great.

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Click HERE for more information about Christopher Columbus

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Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny - Photo: Wikipedia

America is a vast country covering thousands of square miles of land that traverses tremendously diverse climate and landscape.  From high and majestic mountains, to wide deserts to vast fruitful plains that seem to go on forever, the sheer size of the physical landscape of America is breath taking.

Obviously, this was not always the case.  When those earliest settlers landed on the east coast and carved out their stark settlements, they had no idea of huge expanse of land that lay to the west.  It took the bold explorations of surveyors such and Lewis and Clark to report back how stunningly huge the amount of physical space that was available for America to inhabit.

At first, the very idea of becoming a nation was seemingly impossible for the early settlers to grasp.  They came here to escape persecution, tyranny or to make a new home for their families.  If they could have looked a few hundred years down the line into the future and seen the powerhouse of a nation that would grow up from their work in those early years, they would have been stunned that this country grew to be such a world force.  So the earliest challenges of settlers and early leaders of the citizens of the young America was to grasp the scope of what they were about to set about to achieve.

But grasp that scope they did.  It seemed that the physical majesty of what was to become the nation of America inspired a concept that was just as grand as the land itself and that was the concept of Manifest Destiny.  Manifest destiny was the force that drove those settlers and explorers to drive their wagon trains across sometimes impossible terrain through difficult weather conditions and facing many dangers from animals and Native Americans alike to build a nation that spanned form the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

This was the dream of the early settlers of this country.  They did not just see a new nation but one of importance, of an almost holy calling to become a virtual utopia of democracy and opportunity.  And part of that utopian vision was the idea of a nation that spanned ocean to ocean and from Mexico to the Canadian border as well.  

When you think about it, its phenomenal that a people who did not have space photographs of a landscape or high speed travel such as is common today to get a vision of a unified nation of such vast size and scope.  But it was more than just physical size that spoke to the hearts and souls of those early Americans.  Manifest Destiny spoke to a vision of greatness for America that was birthed in the hearts of even these early citizens.  

The size of the country was to be a reflection of the majesty of the human spirit and the magnificence of the American experiment to build a nation built on freedom, the will of the people and on democracy and opportunity.  Today such concepts seem ordinary and for that we can thank the early founders of this country for catching that dream together and making it a reality.

Many have criticized Manifest Destiny as greed or empire building.  And to be sure, mistakes were made and many people died or had their individual destinies hurt in the wholesale rush to the west that America experienced in its early decades.  But what is not diminished is that sense of calling and that sense that America was put here for something great.  That calling lives still in the hearts of all true Americans as we find out how we too can help our country fulfill its Manifest Destiny to be a voice for freedom and liberty in the world.  Let’s hope Americans never loose their sense of calling and destiny.  Because if that dies away, something holy and magnificent will die with it.

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The Boston Tea Party

"The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor" - Photo: Wikimedia

There are some events that took place during the historic time when America was declaring its independence from England that are so historic, so iconic that they have taken on the status of myth and legend as much as history.  And certainly, the Boston Tea Party fits that description.  This is such a standout event in American history that it is common to see school children reenact it during elementary school plays or skits.  And the participant's names including John Hancock, Paul Revere, and John Adams have similarly become classic heroic figures in American folklore and history.

But the events of December 16, 1776, were not fable or myth but real and important parts of the development of the American Revolution that was crucial to the early foundation of this country.  The situation of taxation that was being imposed by Brittan on goods that were coming into the colonies was one of serious stress on the colonists because they had no control over those taxes.  And that tax situation was made more extreme with the relationship between the British government and the East India Tea company who was receiving tax breaks for their goods that would place them at a competitive advantage in the Americas.  

These kinds of preferential treatment only aggravated the already tense relationship between the colonies and Britain and many in leadership over the American states saw the way England was handling the situation as conspiratorial to try to hurt the economy of the growing new country and to impose restrictive rule through taxation on the colonies and the colonists.  That is why that famous proclamation “No Taxation Without Representation” became one that is historic for the outrage against the English that took the colonies into a revolutionary war that eventually lead to the independence of the American colonies and the beginning of a new country.

Finally, on Thursday, December 16, 1776, decisive action needed to be taken.  And our forefathers were nothing if known for bold and decisive action in the fact of tyranny.  The East India Tea Company had docked the HMS Dartmouth in Boston harbor full of a fresh import of tea for the colonies.  It was time for the colonists to make a statement that this unethical and immoral use of taxes on tea was for all intents and purposes an act of war and they were going to treat it as such.

Badly disguised as Indians, the brave colonists boarded the HMS Dartmouth and her sister ships, the HMS Beaver and the HMS Eleanor and skillfully and efficiently dumped the entire delivery of tea into Boston harbor.  All totaled, over forty-five tons of tea went into the water that night.  It was a stunning blow.  But more than that it was a slap in the face of the British government and a gauntlet laid down that their attempts to rule the colonies b tyranny were not going to be tolerated any longer.

This event was pivotal in pushing the hostilities between England and the colonies past the “nuisance” stage and setting forces in motion for war.  But more than that, it was such a bold statement of defiance that many colonists were inspired to join the increasing chorus calling for war and independence.  

For loyal Britains, the idea of separating and forming their own country was hard to grasp.  But the leadership of the men who planned and executed the Boston Tea Party demonstrated a new independent spirit.  This was the kind of backbone, the sense of pride and independence that was to come to define the American spirit in years ahead.  But it took the courage and boldness of this little band of men to demonstrate that treading on by a foreign tyrant was not something we had to put up with.  

It made a statement to England and to the colonists at the same time that revolution was possible and they really could think of themselves as free people who would bow to no king.  From that time forward the independence of America was inevitable.  These visionary leaders showed us an America that gave power to its people, not to kings or governments and the result in how America works and our lives are lived in the direct outcome of bold protests such as the Boston Tea Party.

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Causes of US Involvement in World War II

Four US-Soldiers watching allied bombardment - Photo: Wikimedia

Following World War I, the United States adopted an isolationist stance. Starting in 1935, Congress even passed various neutrality acts to enforce the will against foreign entanglement. But by December of 1941, President Roosevelt’s formal declaration of war made this legislation irrelevant. 

Although America attempted isolationism, European and Asian affairs brought global tension that eventually hit the country’s traditional allies. An aim of World War I had been “to make the world safe for democracy”, but democracy in the 1930s was increasingly endangered. The roots of World War II lay in the totalitarian leaders of Asia and Europe and their agendas for expansion. 

Totalitarianism emerged in the Soviet Union, Italy, Spain, and Germany. The fascist leaders had expansionist goals and soon crushed neighboring societies. Italy invaded Ethiopia and established Italian East Africa. Meanwhile, Japan invaded Manchuria, seized Chinese land, and occupied French possessions in Southeast Asia.

In 1938 Europe, the war officially began when Germany’s Adolf Hitler invaded Austria and took Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, which was home to 3.5 million ethnic Germans. Hitler claimed he was only “restoring rightful boundaries”, since Germany had lost territory in World War I. But Hitler had ideas of widespread domination. In 1939 he and Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis alliance, a military agreement designed to last ten years. Japan entered the pact later that year. Hitler had the confidence to invade Poland in 1939. Poland’s allies, England and France, therefore declared war on Germany. America’s traditional allies were at war.

Initially, President Franklin Roosevelt limited his aid to arms sales, which were restricted in a neutrality act. But Hitler’s invasions continued. He took Denmark, Norway, and Holland, and the Belgian king surrendered his army shortly thereafter. And in June of 1940, France succumbed to Nazi forces. The Axis alliance now dominated Europe from the North Cape of Africa to the Pyrenees. Great Britain’s Winston Churchill vowed to continue the battle for democracy.

Churchill soon needed military aid, and Roosevelt declared that the United States must become “the great arsenal of democracy”. By 1941, he officially ended the country’s isolationist stance by passing the Lend Lease Act, which lifted restrictions on supporting foreign troops with defense gear; the Act first appropriated $7 billion to lend or lease supplies to any countries the president designated. President Roosevelt also started to call US National Guard members to war training.

Next, the Americans built a base in Greenland. Then, stationed aboard warships near Newfoundland, Roosevelt and Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter in June of 1941. Although the US had not officially entered the war, the Atlantic Charter presented the two countries’ goals for a war against fascism. It included their disinterest in acquiring new territories through the war. Shortly thereafter, the US became involved in the years-long Battle of the Atlantic.

The United States officially entered World War II in December of 1941. Japanese military leaders, led by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, attacked a US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese limed to destroy the US fleet docked in the Pacific, thus leaving the Japanese free to pursue oil mines in the region. A series of aerial attacks by 361 airplanes succeeded in compromising eight important warships. The air attacks also killed more than 2,300 people. The following day, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. Congress obliged. By the time of this official declaration, there were battles to fight on many fronts, but “Remember Pearl Harbor!” became a rallying cry for the war. 

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John F. Kennedy

J.F.Kenney - Photo: Wikipedia

In the life of this great nation, a few of its presidents have emerged from the pack as truly historic and memorable even more than others.  Of course, the presidents from the generation of the founding fathers certainly fit that bill including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  And presidents that served the country in times of great crisis also are deeply honored in memory.  But in recent memory, there probably no other president that brings up emotions of respect and admiration as much as that of John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy seemed to capture the hearts of the American people in a way that was unique in presidents before or since.  Part of it may have been the era in history that the country was in when he became the President of the United States.  The historic time between 1950 and 1970 was a time when the largest generation of youth, now known as the “baby boomers”, was coming of age.  With them a new youth movement brought a sense of optimism, a “can do” attitude and to some extent a sense of revolution.  They were looking for new ways of seeing things, a new vision of the future and new leadership and John F. Kennedy was the perfect man of the hour to provide that leadership.

So much about Kennedy’s presidency has an aura of romance and almost a fairy tale excitement of it.  From the naming of his family estates “Camelot” to the love affair that the public had with the strikingly beautiful presidential couple, Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy.  That touch of magic extended to everything he did and virtually everybody in his family including his younger brother Robert who was idolized as well and almost certainly would have served as president had he not been tragically assassinated during his early bid for that office.

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But this was not to say that Kennedy was not a phenomenal leader.  He faced serious challenges.  The Cuban Missile Crisis may have been one of the most frightening showdowns between a nuclear Russia and a nuclear America that has ever happened in history.  When it became clear that Russia was beginning to build bases in Cuba and arm them with those terrible weapons, this was no time for a weak president.  Had Russia been able to bully Kennedy or intimidate the young president and put those missiles in Cuba, it seems certain that the outcome of the cold war would have been one of failure rather than success.  But Kennedy was not bullied or intimidated and using the power of his office, Kennedy stood his ground and stood ground for all Americans and forced the Russians to remove those missiles.  

But this was not the only great accomplishment of Kennedy’s administration.  It took a leader who had great vision and ability to inspire a nation as nobody else than John F. Kennedy could to set the sights of the nation on landing on the moon.  But Kennedy put that desire and that high calling in the hearts of his people and the nation rallied to finally see that man step out on the moon and declare, “This is one step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”  That was one of the proudest days in American history and it was Kennedy who inspired us to that kind of greatness.

As much as the life and leadership of John F. Kennedy perfectly exemplified the optimism and youthful zeal of a generation, his tragic assignation changed the country forever as well.  On that sad day of November 22, 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald gunned down America’s beloved president, the hearts of Americans changed forever.

This was one of those days that almost everybody who was alive at the time, from school children to grandfathers remembered where they were when they heard the news.  Since we laid to rest this great leader, the presidency itself has never been the same.  While Americans will always respect their presidents, that sense of adoration for the man in the White House disappeared forever.  But the thing that did not disappear was the ongoing adoration of the man, John F. Kennedy, who inspired a generation and a nation to look forward to greatness and in the famous words of his inaugural address in 1961…

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

GEORGE WASHINGTON

It is impossible to reflect on the truly great leadership that has been one of the real blessings of this nation without including the name of George Washington in that list.  In fact, in almost anyone’s “top ten” list of truly great presidents, Washington would almost certainly top the list.  His stature in American history is legendary and the respect Americans have for this their first president borders on adoration of myth.  

The earliest authenticated portrait of George Washington shows him wearing his colonel's uniform of the Virginia Regiment from the French and Indian War. The portrait was painted about 12 years after Washington's service in that war, and several years before he would reenter military service in the American Revolution. Oil on canvas.
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In fact, there is a lot of myth and some humor about our first president that reflects the love people have for this great leader.  From the many quips about his supposed wooden teeth to the thousands of places around the nation that proclaim “George Washington slept here”, to the mythical story of how he threw a silver dollar across the Potomac as a child or his response when he was caught cutting down a cheery tree and responded to the accusation “I cannot tell a lie”, Washington’s myth is strong in the national memory of this great leader.

Washington never set out to become the greatest president of all time or even to be in a position of leadership in the new country he helped to start.  He was the one who originated the concept of a “citizen president” and he believed so strongly in that concept that he refused to run for a third term because his time as citizen leader was over.  This tradition was sustained with little exception until it was codified into part of our constitution in the form of the 22nd amendment.

But before Washington was a great political leader, he showed his tremendous leadership skills on the field of battle.  He learned the art of warfare serving honorably in the French and Indian war and his influence and the respect he had earned during that conflict netted him the title of commander and chief of the American Army when the continental congress created that role in 1775.  Small wonder when he ascended to the presidency some years later, he carried the responsibility of commander and chief with him to the presidency where it continues to reside today even though few of our modern presidents have the military credentials of Washington.

When commanding the troops during the revolutionary war, a famous incident that has been captured beautifully by artists was his decision to cross the Delaware in New Jersey to stage a surprise attack and win the battle against the British.  It was yet another brilliant maneuver that showed his firm grasp of military strategy and only served to add to his fame and reputation as an outstanding leader of men.

After the war, Washington again was interested in retiring from public life but he was never one to turn away when his nation needed him.  And needed him it did as he presided over the Continental Congress to assure the successful drafting of the US Constitution.  Of the many great accomplishments of his life, his ability to provide leadership and inspiration to that assembly to produce this masterpiece of American political ligature would certainly be ranked as perhaps his finest hour.

George Washington was rewarded for his superior leadership skills when he was given the awesome responsibility of serving as the nations first President of the United States.  His wisdom and insight into what the nation needed at east stage of its early development made him the man of the hour for a struggling republic.  Few recognize that one of his greatest contributions to the presidency was recognizing that the nation was torn and weary of war.  So using his considerable influence and negotiating skills, Washington signed a number of important treaties that resulted in years of peace that were needed to turn the country from thoughts of war to thoughts of building a great nation.

Washington never tired of providing leadership for two terms as the first American president and it was he who decided not to serve a third term and returned once again to private life.  But his impact on the nation and the world was profound and long lasting.  It was the kind of nation shaping influence that truly earned him the title associated to him to this day of “father of the nation.”

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The Scandalous Typhoid Mary

In 1907, Mary Mallon was working as a household cook when an inspector named George Soper knocked on her employer’s door. Soper explained to Mary that he represented the New York City Department of Health. He believed she was a carrier of typhoid and had caused many people to become sick; some had even died. Mallon retorted that she felt healthy. She cursed at this intrusive man, who insisted on collecting blood and urine and stool samples, and she advanced toward him with a carving knife. 

Typhoid Mary in a 1909 was a famous case of a subclinical infection of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, the infectious agent of typhoid fever
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Soper fled the scene, but the epidemiologist soon pursued Mallon again with the aid of an assistant. The two men followed her to a friend’s tenement house. Again enraged, she frightened the men away. Their next strategy of sending a female doctor was also met with resistance. In the end, the doctor reappeared with police officers, more assistants, and an ambulance. Mallon lunged at her visitors with a kitchen fork and ran away, only to be discovered hours later when her dress poked through a closet door. The resistant Mary Mallon was carted off to a hospital with one aid sitting on her chest! 

At the hospital, suspicions of Mallon’s typhoid carrier status was confirmed. To avoid contaminating other people, health officials banished her to a cottage on a hospital island in New York’s East River. (The property had been designed years ago to quarantine smallpox patients.)

Had Mallon known that she was infecting people with typhoid? During her employment as a cook on Long Island that summer, eleven people in her household came down with typhoid fever. An investigator researching her employment history found that typhoid outbreaks coincided with most of her previous jobs. Between 1900 and 1907, she had taken seven jobs and apparently infected 22 people. Sufferers endured about a month of high fever, upset stomach, headache, and rash. One girl died of fever shortly after Mallon came to work her family. 

Still, Mallon claimed to believe she was unfairly accused. She said she didn’t understand how she could be related to all the sickness surrounding her when she herself seemed healthy. In 1909 – after spending two years on the island -- she sued the health department, saying that stool samples she’d sent to a private lab tested negative. However, the judge ruled in favor of the government, who countered her claim with a series of mostly positive tests. Mallon was returned to the quarantine island with only a dog for companionship. 

Better news came for Mary Mallon in 1910 when a new health commissioner reached a different decision: Mallon would be set free, provided that she did not work as a cook and promised to always take hygienic precautions. Mallon agreed and next found employment laundering clothing. The terms of her release required her reporting to health officials every three months.

Mary Mallon (foreground) in a hospital bed during her first quarantine
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For some reason, however, Mallon did not report to authorities as instructed. She eventually went back to working as a cook! Perhaps she could not survive on lower wages. Maybe she didn’t believe that a healthy person could really infect people, or maybe she had malicious intentions all along. 

In any case, five years after her release from the island, New York's Sloane Hospital for Women suffered a typhoid fever outbreak that resulted in two deaths. Co-workers joked that Typhoid Mary worked among them, but nobody suspected this was truly the case. Investigators turned to a newly-hired cook who called herself Mrs. Brown. Sure enough – Mrs. Brown was the infamous Mary Mallon! 

Mallon was sent once again to the North Brother Island cottage. There she lived for twenty-three more years. She did not live in total isolation; she helped around the hospital and by 1925 was assisting in the hospital’s lab. She was even allowed to visit friends off of the island. In 1932 she suffered a paralyzing stroke. Mallon was then transferred to a ward of the hospital and there remained until her death six years later. 

American INVENTIONS

The history of how America emerged as the premier superpower in the world is about more than just a great military or a homeland so rich in natural resources that we were able to become the breadbasket of the world.  There are many forces that combined in the American experiment that has made this country so great.  One of those great forces is the phenomenal inventive minds that have graced America virtually since its inception.  Starting with the powerful mind of Benjamin Franklin, the history of inventions that started in America and transformed the world is lengthy indeed.

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The computer has become so much a part of our lives that we forget that it was once invented.  The history of the development of this “futuristic” device is long and filled with genius.  The actual first prototypes of the computer were developed by the Defense Department, which is oddly the source of a lot of the great innovations in American history.  But it was the early PC developers including Steve Wozniac, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that took the computer to the level of familiarity we know it to be now and made computers a part of our everyday lives.

Most world changing inventions have a profoundly positive influence on mankind’s quality of life.  But an invention that did not improve life but destroyed it is also an American invention that changed the world.  That invention, of course, is the Atomic Bomb.  Developed by the fabled “Manhattan Project”, this bomb changed everything about war, diplomacy and the way nations relate to one another.  And to find a positive amongst all the death the bombings in Japan brought about, that bomb may be one of the key elements that brought an end to a horrific war, World War II.  And in the long run, that is a conflict that the world breathed a sigh of relief when it came to an end.

There is a joke that makes its rounds frequently during political jesting that “Al Gore invented the internet.”  If he had invented it, he would be a world changing inventor for sure.  But it is not out of line to declare that America invented the internet.  Again, the original primitive retypes for what became our modern internet was the work of the American Defense Department as a measure to insure that America’s computer security was guarded by decentralizing the network.  From this simple goal, the vast World Wild Web has emerged that has transformed everything about how we look at communication, information and knowledge.  We have American ingenuity to thank for that.

But of the thousands of American inventions that have done so much in the fields of medicine, technology, research and communications, none can compare to an invention by a brilliant thinker by the name of Henry Ford.  That invention, obviously, is the automobile.  Just like with some of the other inventions we have talked about, we can hardly imagine a time where there was no such thing as an automobile.  

Mr. Ford’s amazing invention literally transformed society not just in America but around the world.  From it came the freeway system and an overhaul to how cities and towns are organized and linked together.  And while there are downsides to the widespread use of automobiles, it has been a huge leap forward for America and civilization as a whole.  And Mr. Ford, like any of the inventors we have talked about and thousands we have not, would see the betterment of mankind as their greatest calling.  America has hosted this great calling for centuries and will continue to produce brilliant inventors such as these for a long time to come.

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