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A Pageantry of Power: Planning Washington’s First Inauguration

Emily Schramm — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 07:59:00 +0000

This blog post, written by faculty member Sarah Morgan Smith, was first posted on January 19, 2021.

An online resource guide at Library of Congress, showcases the development of the inauguration day ceremonies. For each president, library staff have collected primary materials illustrating what made his inauguration unique. There are drafts of inaugural addresses, descriptions of the ceremonies written by attendees (sometimes by the president himself), and a wide variety of memorabilia, including ceremony tickets and programs, prints, photographs and even sheet music. Each entry also includes a list of historical ‘firsts,’ along with factoids like which Bible the president was sworn in on, the number of inaugural balls held, and so on. A particularly interesting set of documents illustrates the very first presidential inauguration ceremonies, those for George Washington.

The first Presidential inauguration in American history entailed careful planning, with much behind-the-scenes negotiation. As the first grand public event of the nation under its new Constitution, the inauguration had to strike just the right note. Ceremony was needed, but the event could not be overly solemn, lest it be seen as a royal coronation. Nor could it be merely celebratory, lest it appear too common.

William Maclay, the first United States Senator from Pennsylvania and an inveterate diarist, believed the Senate spent altogether too much time worrying about the niceties of the occasion: “Ceremonies, endless ceremonies, the whole business of the day” (Journal of William McClay, April 25th [1789]). Although a member of the “upper” house, Maclay had very republican tastes and habits. He abhorred those whom he saw applying too aristocratic a veneer over the inauguration ceremonies and, by extension, the new government. Virginians and New Englanders were particularly prone to this vice, Maclay thought, although the “gentlemen of New England” were the worst:

No people in the Union dwell more on trivial distinctions and matters of mere form. They really seem to show a readiness to stand on punctilio and ceremony. A little learning is a dangerous thing (’tis said). May not the same be said of breeding? … Being early used to a ceremonious and reserved behavior, and believing that good manners consists entirely in punctilios, they only add a few more stiffened airs to their deportment, excluding good humor, affability of conversation, and accommodation of temper and sentiment as qualities too vulgar for a gentleman (Journal of William McClay, 28 April 1789).

Vice President John Adams, in particular, irritated Maclay. Adams worried over the formalities, particularly as they related to his (relatively non-existent) role in the forthcoming event. The plan was for Washington to come to the Senate chambers after taking the oath of office. Adams, ever the dramatist, informed the Senate that he was unsure of how to handle himself under such circumstances:

Gentlemen, I feel great difficulty how to act. I am possessed of two separate powers; the one in esse [nature] and the other in posse [power]. I am Vice-President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything. But I am president also of the Senate. When the President comes into the Senate, what shall I be? I cannot be [president] then. No, gentlemen, I cannot, I cannot. I wish gentlemen to think what I shall be. (Journal of William McClay, April 25)

The Senate, wisely, refrained from attempting to resolve Adams’ identity crisis and moved on to discuss more substantive aspects of the inauguration ceremonies.

Other tense moments marked the planning process. Each highlighted the difficulty of creating in a moment the customs of a new nation. A joint committee, made up of members from the House and Senate, worked out a proposed order of ceremonies. The two houses of Congress then discussed the plan, suggesting amendments. Maclay, a stickler for parliamentary procedure, objected to a motion that the Senators join Washington at a church service following his inauguration. The idea had already been rejected by the joint committee in the course of their sessions. Maclay wrote, “I opposed it as an improper business after it had been in the hands of the Joint Committee and rejected, as I thought this a certain method of creating a dissension between the Houses.” (Journal of William McClay, 27 April) The following day a proposal was made to require state officials to swear allegiance to the new government. Now Maclay worried that the relationship between the federal government and the states would be damaged by the inauguration ceremonies.

Inauguration day dawned at last: “a great, important day,” Maclay wrote, and then implored, “Goddess of etiquette, assist me while I describe it.”

The Vice-President rose in the most solemn manner. … “Gentlemen, I wish for the direction of the Senate. The President will, I suppose, address the Congress. How shall I behave? How shall we receive it? Shall it be standing or sitting?” (Journal of William McClay, 30 April 1789).

In response to Adams’ question, a number of senators began to discuss the behavior of the houses of Parliament when being addressed by the king, and whether, indeed, the new Senate ought to model itself on Britain at all.

Before this question could be resolved, the Clerk from the House of Representatives appeared at the door of the Senate chamber with “a communication.” His appearance vexed the Senate greatly, according to Maclay, for they knew not how to receive him:

A silly kind of resolution of the committee on that business had been laid on the table some days ago. The amount of it was that each House should communicate to the other what and how they chose; it concluded, however, something in this way: That everything should be done with all the propriety that was proper. The question [now] was, Shall this be adopted, that we may know how to receive the Clerk? It was objected [that] this will throw no light on the subject; it will leave you where you are.

Mr. Lee brought the House of Commons before us again. He reprobated the rule; declared that the Clerk should not come within … that the proper mode was for the Sergeant-at-Arms, with the mace on his shoulder, to meet the Clerk at the door and receive his communication; we are not, however, provided for this ceremonious way of doing business, having neither mace nor sergeant …. (Journal of William McClay, 30 April 1789).

Things went on in this vein for some time, with the poor Clerk kept out of the Senate chamber until finally “repeated accounts came [that] the Speaker and Representatives were at the door. Confusion ensued….” Eventually, the members of the House were admitted and sat down with the Senators to await the arrival of the President. After a delay of over an hour, Washington appeared.

The President advanced between the Senate and Representatives, bowing to each. He was placed in the chair by the Vice-President; the Senate with their president on the right, the Speaker and the Representatives on his left. The Vice-President rose and addressed a short sentence to him. The import of it was that he should now take the oath of office as President. … The President was conducted out of the middle window into the gallery, and the oath was administered by the Chancellor. Notice that the business done was communicated to the crowd by proclamation, etc., who gave three cheers, and repeated it on the President’s bowing to them. (Journal of William McClay, 30 April 1789).

Interestingly, administration of the oath of office seems to have been the extent of the public’s involvement in the inauguration ceremonies, for Washington then returned to the Senate chamber where (despite the formally unresolved status of Adams’ earlier question of protocol) all parties took their seats. Washington then stood and addressed the room. To Maclay’s eye, “this great man was agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket. He trembled, and several times could scarce make out to read, though it must be supposed he had often read it before.” As he read, Washington fidgeted, holding the speech first in one hand and then the other, moving his free hand into and out of the pocket of his breeches.

When he came to the words “all the world,” he made a flourish with his right hand, which left rather an ungainly impression. I sincerely, for my part, wished all set ceremony in the hands of the dancing-masters, and that this first of men had read off his address in the plainest manner, without ever taking his eyes from the paper, for I felt hurt that he was not first in everything. … (Journal of William McClay, 30 April 1789).

Following Washington’s speech (in accordance with the Senate resolution noted above regarding the inclusion of a church service in the day’s festivities), “there was a grand procession to Saint Paul’s Church, where prayers were said by the Bishop.” Maclay notes that members of the militia stood along one of the streets through which the group traveled, but that appears to have been the extent of the pageantry. That evening, however, “grand fireworks” and illuminations were offered to the public.

The wrangle over ceremonial details was not yet finished, however, for the Senate had to take up the President’s address and consider the proper means of entering it in their journals. Introducing it to the record, Adams referred to the inaugural address as the president’s “most gracious speech.” Maclay spoke up, objecting “I cannot approve of this.” Then,

I looked all around the Senate. Every countenance seemed to wear a blank. The Secretary was going on: I must speak or nobody would. “Mr. President, we have lately had a hard struggle for our liberty against kingly authority. The minds of men are still heated: everything related to that species of government is odious to the people. The words prefixed to the President’s speech are the same that are usually placed before the speech of his Britannic Majesty. I know they will give offense. I consider them as improper. I therefore move that they be struck out, and that it stand simply “address” or “speech,” as may be judged most suitable.” (Journal of William McClay, 1 May 1789).

Adams, predictably, defended his use of the phrase, saying “he was for a dignified and respectable government, and as far as he knew the sentiments of the people they thought as he did.” Maclay—ever the republican—countered “that there had been a revolution in the sentiments of people respecting government equally great as that which had happened in the Government itself.” Americans, he argued, were leery of even the “modes” of monarchy, and already suspicious of the new Constitution with its concentration of power at the federal level. “The enemies of the Constitution had objected to it the facility there would be of transition from it to kingly government and all the trappings and splendor of royalty,” he observed. “If such a thing as this appeared on our minutes, they would not fail to represent it as the first step of the ladder in the ascent to royalty.” (Journal of William McClay, 1 May 1789).

Although Adams remained unconvinced, Maclay won the day: Washington’s address was entered into the minutes with republican simplicity. Pageantry to celebrate the successful launch of the new government was one thing; pomp and circumstance in the day-to-day business of politics, quite another.

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Passage of the 1924 Immigration Act

Emily Schramm — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:01:00 +0000

On May 26, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Act, the first federal law in American history designed to establish permanent, comprehensive restrictions on immigration. It came at the end of a long, contentious process that debated the nature of American citizenship and identity along with the perceived merits and hazards of mass immigration. The law is rightly regarded as one of the triumphs of American nativism and a pivotal moment in the history of U.S. immigration policy.

Aside from a brief allusion in Article 1, Section 9, to “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” (i.e., enslaved Africans), the U.S. Constitution—including all amendments to date—is silent on the question of immigration. The only constitutional guidance even on the crucial question of defining American citizenship was to empower Congress in Article 1, Section 8 “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Two years after the Constitution was ratified, Congress set about fulfilling this mandate by limiting eligibility for naturalization to “free white persons” of “good character” who had been in the United States as little as two years, adding that their children under the age of 21 would likewise be counted as naturalized citizens. (The 14^th and 15^th Amendments gave greater clarity to these matters.)

Anxieties about the perils of unfettered immigration and dangerous “aliens” were apparent from the beginning. Worries over French radicalism led to the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, empowering the President to deport those deemed a threat to the “safety and security” of the nation. These laws revealed deeper anxieties about national loyalty and the importance of preserving cultural uniformity, concerns that form a consistent throughline in the evolution of American debates over immigration to this day.

Early in the 19^th century, Americans began to sound the alarm over new arrivals—especially Irish Catholics. These anxieties generated what historians call “nativism,” an impulse that would become a stable feature of American life and an impetus for immigration policy. Erika Lee defines nativism as “the naming of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant settlers and their descendants as ‘natives’ to the United States and the granting of special privileges and protections to them.” As the U.S. grew in territory, population, and diversity, so would nativist ambitions to circumscribe the nation’s citizenship qualifications and terms of entry.

The most important early turning point in this evolution came in 1882 with the , the first federal law restricting free immigration to the United States (it remained in effect until 1943). The law’s passage established the need for a federal administrative apparatus for managing the flow of people into the country most notably at key points of entry in San Francisco and New York City. Little attention was given at this time to the nation’s northern or southern borders.

The 1880s also marked the beginning of the so-called “Great Wave” of immigration from Europe, a massive upsurge in foreign-born people pouring into the United States. Between 1880 and 1924 roughly 25 million predominantly southern and eastern Europeans arrived in the U.S.; large populations of Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and other Slavs, among them 3 to 4 million Jews. These “huddled masses” would dramatically change the complexion and character of America’s cities. They were outsiders by language, custom, and religion, prompting a rising chorus of critics who questioned whether they could ever assimilate to the America way of life. Some wondered, moreover, if these new arrivals might be bringing strange diseases and radical ideas that could destabilize the country in permanent ways.

The foundations of the 1924 Immigration Act were laid during these decades. In 1894, a group of Harvard educated Boston “Brahmins” formed the Immigration Restriction League, aiming to preserve the Anglo-Saxon “stock” of the American people. They lent intellectual credence to something called the “Nordic theory” of racial supremacy, which assumed that Anglo-Protestantism was the source of American greatness. One of the League’s founders, Prescott F. Hall (1868-1921), created an enduring distinction on this basis between “old immigrants” (British, German, and Scandinavian presumed to be intelligent, dynamic, and free) and “new immigrants” (Latin, Asian, Jewish, and Slav presumed to be backwards, stagnant, lazy, and servile). The League also immediately began pushing legislation that would curtail the flow of “new immigrants.”

League efforts in Congress were championed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA), who worked tirelessly pushing their most prized policy goal: the literacy test. By this time, both Democrats and Republicans were eager to limit the flow of immigration, and bills advocating the literacy-based restrictions passed multiple times during the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s, but were consistently vetoed by presidents who argued that such tests ran contrary to American ideals. Meanwhile, Congress authorized the United States Immigration Commission led by Senator William P. Dillingham (R-VT), its first major effort to study the issue. The resulting massive 41-volume report reinforced Nordic theory assumptions and, among many other recommendations, endorsed the establishment of national immigration quotas.

World War I both interrupted the flow of immigration and witnessed a mass exodus of foreign-born men re-crossing the Atlantic to fight for their homelands. Wartime also supplied “emergency conditions” that increased the national appetite for long desired restrictions. On the front end, Congress passed and Wilson signed the Immigration Act of 1917, which finally satisfied the dream of a literacy test along with other restrictions. At the war’s end, with a rising tide of social unrest and xenophobia, Congress passed an even more restrictive law, the landmark Emergency Quota Act of 1921, temporarily capping immigration at 350,000 and for the first time implementing a quota system on the basis of national origins. The quotas were based on the 1910 census and limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of the number of residents from that country in the United States, giving much greater weight to people from northern and western Europe.

Because the 1921 law was intended as a temporary fix, the debate over immigration restriction continued. The national mood heading into the 1920s was decidedly conservative, leading Senators Albert Johnson (R-IL), a staunch eugenics advocate, and David Reed (R-PA) to pen what would become the most restrictive immigration law in American history. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 overwhelmingly passed in both houses of Congress. It built on the 1921 legislation, this time capping total immigration at 165,000 and reducing the nationality quota from 3% to 2%, but importantly established the basis for these calculations on the population distribution within the 1890 census. It also barred all immigration from Asia. These moves vastly diminished the flow of people from outside of northern and western Europe, thus guaranteeing white Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance in the U.S. through the heart of the twentieth century.

Immigration to the United States shrank to historic lows over the coming decades thanks to the new law, with a strong assist from the economic collapse of the Great Depression. While Congress adjusted and amend features of the 1924 provisions in the coming decades, Johnson-Reed largely defined immigration policy until 1965 when Lyndon Johnson dismantled and reshaped its priorities as part of his vision for a Great Society. It is impossible to understand today’s debates about immigration without a deeper understanding of the one-hundred year old Johnson-Reed Act and its long shadow.

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The Power of Primary Documents

Ellen Tucker — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Primary documents prompt reflection on history. Landen Schmeichel sees this often when using documents in his Advanced Placement US History course at Legacy High School in Bismarck, North Dakota. During a unit on the Progressive movement, he asked students to read an excerpt of Justice David Brewer’s 1908 ruling in Muller v. Oregon. It upheld an Oregon State law prohibiting women from working more than 10 hours in a day. After they read the excerpt, Schmeichel showed students a textbook summary of the ruling that called it a win for women. But in the opinion, Brandeis referred to women as a class of persons needing protection because they were physically weaker than men. He also argued that their energies needed to be conserved for service in the home. “Wait a minute,” a female student said. “What if I want to work more than 10 hours? Wouldn’t this ruling do the opposite of what the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment intends?”

Landen Schmeichel

Discussion then shifted to the meaning of equality in the Fourteenth Amendment. Does equal protection under the laws really entail treating some people—but not others—as members of a protected class? “This is sexist!” the female student protested. “If I apply for a job at Home Depot, and they tell me they’re hiring a man because he can work more hours in a day than I can, I’ll be mad. I’ll never shop there again!”

Liberty and Equality: Ideas That Shaped America

Primary documents prompt reflection on powerful ideas. Many of the documents Schmeichel uses reflect American political theory, probing the interrelated ideas of liberty and equality. “Those ideas birthed what I would say is the greatest nation in human history. Our job as educators is to engage students in conversation about what those ideas mean. When we engage with those ideas, we’re not diminishing what history is as a discipline; we’re elevating it. We’re reflecting on what matters to us most—what we aspire to be not only as individuals, but collectively as a nation. We need such discussion if, as Federalist 1 puts it, we want a government based on reflection and choice rather than accident and force.”

Schmeichel finds the well-curated primary documents he needs for his teaching in ɫ��ɫ’s Core Document volumes, which excerpt key documents of American history, preface them with a scholar’s summary of their historical context, and suggest questions for discussion. “This collection, I would argue, is the preeminent source for primary documents that are accessible to students. And the online versions are free.”

An Easier and Completely Rewarding Way to Teach

When Schmeichel began teaching APUSH, he relied on the textbook. “I had students read a chapter a week. In class I lectured over the chapter’s major arguments and major terms, often using PowerPoint slides. My AP pass rates were decent—above the national average. But if a student said, ‘There’s a term on page 242 I don’t understand,’ I’d have to reply, ‘I have no idea myself. Let’s read that passage and try to figure it out.’ That type of engagement wasn’t too beneficial for students.”

He began looking for primary sources to flesh out the story of history, which led him to and to its Master’s program centered around reading and discussing documents. Awarded the James Madison Foundation in constitutional studies for North Dakota in 2021, he immediately enrolled in MAHG. Soon he was reading about history through the words of those who lived and shaped it, gaining insight into their decision-making.

“Three years down the line, I understand those documents and can ask the questions that help students wrestle with really hard topics. We can discuss history from multiple perspectives. Now my job is not only easier; it is completely rewarding.

A Safer, More Effective Way

“It’s also a safer way to teach,” Schmeichel says. “When you say, ‘This is the textbook that I use,” you’re saying, ‘This is the narrative that students are being sold.’ That’s a dangerous way to put yourself out there as an educator.” To prevent misunderstandings—and help students better understand the contest of ideas that shaped history—Schmeichel gives students firsthand access to those ideas.

“For example, when I’m teaching the antebellum South, I let students discover for themselves the arguments made by Southern slaveholders. I give them documents by John C. Calhoun, James Henry Hammond and George Fitzhugh, who claim the state must preserve chattel slavery because that’s what’s best for African Americans. Students react in shocked disapproval, saying the arguments are racist. Yet they see how the arguments might have persuaded Northerners unfamiliar with slavery’s reality. This makes them uneasy. Then I ask them to consider whether those arguments are consistent with the founding ideals of liberty and equality, principles that Abraham Lincoln often discussed in his great speeches. Students who compare the proslavery arguments to Lincoln’s arguments easily see that slavery violates the principles on which self-government depends. It moves the conversation from our personal feelings to the facilitation of critical thought.”

Schmeichel connects each document he assigns to a learning standard and objective, ensuring he covers the wide-ranging requirements for the APUSH course. Then he uses the documents to shape a narrative about Americans’ ongoing attempt to realize the ideals of liberty and equality. “If you tell students, here are the 540 things you need to memorize before you take the AP test on May 10, they’ll say, ‘There’s no way I’ll pass!’ But if you teach thematically, you’ll help students draw connections between events and ideas. They remember much more.”

Primary documents prompt students to reason through the implications of powerful ideas, like liberty and equality. Schmeichel encourages this by guiding students in rhetorical analyses of key texts. “My last graduate class in the MAHG summer residential program was on American political rhetoric,” he says. “Many of the readings were from Lincoln.” Much of today’s political rhetoric relies on pathos—an appeal to the emotions. Lincoln’s makes masterly use of the other two rhetorical elements Schmeichel teaches students to identify: logos and ethos. Logos appears in Lincoln’s stunningly clear arguments against slavery. Ethos appears when he quotes authorities his audience recognize as credible. “He quotes Jefferson constantly. He refers to his letters, to the original draft of the Declaration, and to Jefferson’s 1784 draft of a law that was the model for the 1787 Northwest ordinance. All of those sources show Jefferson viewing slavery as immoral and destructive to both races.” Reading Lincoln reinforces the critical importance of primary source work to the study of history, Schmeichel says.

Encouraging Students to Join the American Story

Schmeichel with his daughter Bryony. It is never too soon to prompt reflection on primary documents!

Most important, primary documents make the people of the past relatable and understandable. This can encourage students to join the American story and help to shape it. Schmeichel sees this as critically important. Americans suffer from “an epidemic of non-involvement. We believe we are separate from our institutions.” People who are disgruntled with civic life see it as controlled by those they didn’t vote for and can’t trust, so they don’t engage in “the gritty but civil dialogue” self-government requires. “That means that concern to perpetuate our institutions is dwindling.”

One way of countering non-involvement is to explain the social contract—our consent to government—as a daily recommitment. “Every day when I leave my house, I stop at a stop sign. I turn on my blinker. Those are all micro components of the social contract we’ve agreed to. These are the ways we preserve each other’s liberty and equality.” Another way is to invite students into a document writer’s story. Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, for example, appeals to students because it shows a young person coming of age in a society that obstructs his agency. His story of secretly learning to read shows students that reading confers power, because it gives us access to powerful ideas.

One of Schmeichel’s students commented on the motivational power of primary documents in a thank-you note she sent him:

In my previous history classes, I was taught through memorization and secondary source[s] . . . . This year, I’ve had the opportunity, thanks to you, to explore history through primary sources, living breathing sources, and have gained a far greater . . . understanding . . . . Primary sources that will stay with me are: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” by Frederick Douglass, . . . Abraham Lincoln’s Fragment on the Constitution and Union, and George Washington’s Farewell Address. I’ll remember the impactful discussions we had on Vietnam [after] reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. I’ll keep my pocket Constitution with me, along with the primary sources, to reminisce on the year and continue to learn.”

The student who sent the note recently participated in the United States Senate Youth Program, travelling to Washington and meeting President Biden, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and 78 current senators. She is an “incredible” student who might herself enter politics. But reading primary documents can profoundly affect students who have other goals. Another student thanked Schmeichel for showing through his teaching a way out of apathy and toward moral self-development:

“. . . Instead of fleeing from the problems of today, you believe that you combat them . . . by educating. You create your own change by recruiting others to your cause. Frederick Douglass captures my sentiments about this . . . when he says, ‘I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.’”

“What is meaningful for me as I look to the next 27 years of teaching is what my students say they learned in my classroom,” Schmeichel says. “If they can point to ideas we discussed and say, ‘This is how I want to live, because there’s inherent virtue in this way of life,’ then I can deem my career as an educator a success. . . . That’s what teaching through primary sources makes possible.”

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Prepare for Fall Multi Day seminars!

TAH Staff — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Discussion of primary documents. A supportive and engaged group of educators. Historic locations. Free professional development. What more could you ask for?

Applications open soon for our Fall 2024 Multi Day seminars! We are hosting seminars on a variety of topics in American history and politics. The application will be open April 8-April 30. Some of our topics include:

The Underground Railroad at in Niagara Falls, NY
West Coast Immigration at the on Angel Island, CA
Contested Elections: 1800, 1824, 1874, 1960 & 2000 at the in Boston, MA
The World Wars and the American State at the in Indianapolis, IN
The American Founding at in Valley Forge, PA
Reconstruction at in Natchez, MS
From Brown v. Board to Little Rock and Beyond: School Desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement at in Little Rock, AR
Abraham Lincoln and the New Birth of Freedom at the in Springfield, IL
Westward Expansion: Conflict, Conservation, and the Environment at the in Los Angeles, CA

Each Multi-Day seminar runs for three days and brings together a small group of teachers from around the country. During the seminar, the teachers discuss primary documents on the seminar topic with the guidance of a scholar, who acts as the seminar leader. The seminar also includes a visit to a local historical site. See a sample itinerary here.

ɫ��ɫ hosts Multi-Day seminars at no cost to American history and government teachers. Meals, materials, double-occupancy rooms, and historical site visits are covered 100%. At the end of each course, teacher participants receive a letter of participation for 15 contact hours and a $600 stipend to help defray travel costs or other expenses.

For more information about our Multi-Day seminars and to see the schedule of events please click here. Have more questions? Click here.

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Effects of the Louisiana Purchase|March 26, 1804

Emily Schramm — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Thomas Jefferson is most famous for eloquently articulating three natural rights that belong to “all men”—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But Jefferson held that humans had more than just those three rights; in 1803, he was particularly worried about “the natural right we have always insisted on with Spain; to wit that of a nation holding the upper part of streams, having a right of innocent passage thro’ them to the ocean” (). The Mississippi River was the stream to which Jefferson referred: stretching more than 2,300 miles, the Mississippi in 1803 formed the western border of American lands, flowing through Spanish territory to end in the Gulf of Mexico. In a 1795 treaty, Spain had recognized the right of Americans to float their goods down the Mississippi to land at the port city of New Orleans, before transferring those goods onto seagoing vessels for further trade.

In an , Jefferson commented that “Spain might have retained [New Orleans] quietly for years. Her pacific [peaceful] dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us.” Spain’s “feeble state” was a great comfort to America, since, as Jefferson put it, “there is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural & habitual enemy. it is New Orleans.” The territory of New Orleans, by which Jefferson also meant the Louisiana region stretching from the Gulf of Mexico up into the heartland of North America, was of vital importance to the United States, for through it “the produce of three eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from it’s [sic] fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce and contain more than half our inhabitants” (Jefferson to Livingston, 18 April 1802).

Jefferson hoped that Spain might soon be induced to transfer control of its North American territories to the United States. But feeble Spain instead signed over the Louisiana Territory to ambitious Napoleon Bonaparte in October 1802, and even before their official handover to the French, the Spanish government in New Orleans revoked American access to the port. Jefferson had long been a Francophile, but if Napoleon were in control of the Louisiana Territory, enmity would inevitably follow: it was “impossible that France and the US. can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position” (Jefferson to Livingston, 18 April 1802). Jefferson therefore sent emissaries, including young James Monroe, to France. Their instructions: attempt to purchase the city of New Orleans and all or part of the Floridas for $10 million.

In an incredible moment of providence, Monroe arrived in Paris just as Napoleon was changing his mind about Louisiana: the armies Napoleon had sent to re-conquer the formerly enslaved sugar laborers of Haiti were dying in droves, victims of tropical diseases spread by mosquitos. If French troops could not reestablish control over the sugar plantations of Haiti, it made little sense for France to keep hold of Louisiana—land which had been meant to produce food for the Haitian slaves, and which could be vulnerable to an invasion from British Canada. Thanks to the mosquito, Napoleon therefore decided to sell not only New Orleans, but the entire region of Louisiana—some 827,000 square miles—for the bargain price of $15 million. The Americans could not refuse.

The only complication caused by Napoleon’s impulsive offer was the chance that he might change his mind; Jefferson was pressed to overcome any constitutional scruples he may have had and complete the purchase as quickly as possible. As a strict constructionist, President Jefferson hated to make any move unless it was specifically authorized in the Constitution. However, knowing that negotiations regarding borders could drag on with Spain and England for years, Jefferson’s Cabinet persuaded him to abandon his plan for a constitutional amendment that would have given him the authorization to add Louisiana to the United States. Ultimately, Jefferson reasoned that “it is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; & saying to him when of age, I did this for your good” (). If the American people believed Jefferson had overstepped his bounds, they could let him know in the next election.

The people did not object, however; and the Senate ratified the purchase of the Louisiana Territory by a vote of 24 to 7. Although Jefferson’s amendment proved unnecessary, it is still a noteworthy document because of the insight it gives us into Jefferson’s hopes and concerns for the future of Native Americans. The is almost entirely devoted to the rights of Natives; for example, the second sentence reads “The rights of occupancy in the soil, and of self-government, are confirmed to the Indian inhabitants, as they now exist.” Jefferson wished to ensure that Native people would maintain full legal title to the lands that they were currently settled on, and any lands not inhabited by Natives would be the property of the United States—settlers would need to purchase land directly from the American government, rather than being able to seize from or make treaties with Natives. Jefferson wished the government to form a protective barrier between the weakening Native tribes and the land-greedy American settlers.

Moreover, Jefferson saw the Louisiana lands as a sort of safety valve for the Native people living east of the Mississippi, who were also being increasingly squeezed by white settlers. From early in his political career, Jefferson had admired Native peoples and defended them against detractors, arguing that “the proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America, place them on a level with whites in the same uncultivated state” (). Jefferson at first foresaw a future in which Native people would become more “civilized,” abandoning hunting as impractical and choosing instead to farm, most eventually becoming—through intermarriage and neighborly affection—one people with the European-descended Americans.

In a to Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison, President Jefferson remarked that Natives “will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the US. or remove beyond the Missisipi [sic]”—or, if Natives attacked white Americans, the Natives should be forcibly driven “across the Missisipi, as the only condition of peace.” Jefferson was here attempting to balance his commitment to Natives’ natural right to self-government on their traditional lands with his commitment to the safety of American citizens. Ultimately, this balancing act would prove unsustainable.

On March 26, 1804, Congress passed a law regarding government of the newly acquired territory, with a section giving the president power to exchange Native lands in the east for U.S.-owned territory on the western side of the Mississippi. Some Native peoples did indeed sell their lands in the eastern United States for land in the Louisiana Territory. But not all Native people wanted to sell, and the small federal government proved unable to protect all American citizens from Native attacks, or to stop white settlers from encroaching on Native lands. Within a few years, Jefferson’s idealistic vision was replaced by more aggressive policies, such as the forced relocation of the Cherokee by President Andrew Jackson. What began as an issue of access to New Orleans became a matter of tremendous import to Native peoples, both east and west of the Mississippi, with consequences far beyond what Jefferson could possibly have foreseen.

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Teaching the Themes of US History with Documents & Debates

Amanda Bryan — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 14:08:38 +0000

ɫ��ɫ’s Documents and Debates volumes presents American history as a series of topics. For each topic, a selection of documents recreates a debate over a particular issue that highlights one of the enduring themes of American life: balancing freedom, equality, liberty and order; the struggle of groups for full inclusion in American life; the role of the government in overseeing the economic life of American citizens; and the ongoing argument over the role America should play in world affairs. Below is a sampling of topics from Documents & Debates, v.2. Each topic contains an introductory essay, a curated and excerpted set of documents, and a series of discussion questions to guide understanding of the topic.

Reconstructing the South

As the Civil War progressed and Union forces gained control of territory in states that had seceded, the question arose as to how that territory and its people – slave and free – should be dealt with. President Lincoln encouraged reconciliation. Other Republicans believed that the South had to be reconstructed in a fundamental way and that the seceding states had to be treated as conquered territories. Meanwhile, the freed men and women sought to construct new lives in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The long-term effects of Reconstruction – or its failure – are evident in later defenses of the system of segregation developed in the South after Reconstruction.

Documents include Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Douglass’ “Reconstruction,” and Tillman’s Speech in the Senate.

Urban Growth: The Pullman Strike

A recession in 1893 led the Pullman Sleeping Car Company to reduce the wages of its workers, which led to a contentious strike, a boycott of any train containing a Pullman car, and the eventual disruption of the US mail service. A federal court issued an injunction barring the union from hindering railroad traffic. It was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Documents include the US Strike Commission’s “Report on the Chicago Strike,” Harper’s Weekly cartoon, “King Debs,” and Brewer’s opinion in In re Debs.

The Progressive Era: Eugenics

For almost thirty years, from around 1900 to the late 1920s, America had an active and popular eugenics movement. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, states passed laws requiring medical exams before issuing marriage licenses to make sure the unfit did not reproduce. Indiana passed the first compulsory sterilization law in 1907, although other states had tried and failed before. Prominent Americans – among them Theodore Roosevelt, Stanford University President David Starr Jordan, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Margaret Sanger – supported the eugenics movement. State Fairs included Better Baby contests. Eugenics was considered a progressive reform, related to the larger Progressive movement by its emphasis on the good of society and the use of science and rationality to achieve it. Sterilization was the most contentious part of the eugenics program, but it remained alive in part because of the Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell, which found constitutional the sterilization of Carrie Buck by the State of Virginia.

Documents include Pennypacker’s Veto of Eugenics Law, Hall’s “Eugenics as a New Creed,” and Holmes’ opinion in Buck v. Bell.

What Caused the Great Depression?

(Seated, left to right) Migrant worker Will Neal plays the fiddle while Robert Sonkin record him and migrant children listen. Arvin, California Migrant Camp, 1940.

By 1928, the United States had enjoyed eight years of unprecedented prosperity under Republican Presidents Harding and Coolidge. As the 1928 presidential race drew to a close, the Republican candidate, former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover outlined the Republicans’ governing philosophy, which he credited with producing the prosperity. Seven months after Hoover took office, in October 1929, the stock market crashed. After two weeks, it recovered somewhat, but then began a long-term decline, as the American economy fell into what became known as the Great Depression.

Hoover responded to the economic difficulties according to the principles he had articulated in 1928. The American system was sound, he thought, and would recover with only limited assistance from the government. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the leading Democratic candidate for President in 1932, argued that the American system as championed by Hoover was not sound and needed to be changed. This was the “New Deal” that Roosevelt offered the American people.

Documents include Hoover’s Principles and Ideals of United States Government, Roosevelt’s “The Forgotten Man,” and Milligan’s Speech on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.

Containment and the Truman Doctrine

Allies during the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union fell out quickly once it ended. In February 1946, George Kennan, the Chargé at the American Embassy in Moscow, sent a telegram that explained Soviet actions. Quickly dubbed the “Long Telegram,” its analysis and recommendations became the basis for the policy of containment that guided America’s actions toward the Soviet Union until the end of the Cold War. As the Cold War continued, it became a struggle not just between two political and military powers but between two ways of life or which of the two could better meet human needs. Even the quality of American and Soviet kitchens and what that represented could be part of the debate.

Documents include Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and Truman’s “Address (The Truman Doctrine).”

The Equal Rights Amendment

As the United States struggled with the issue of civil rights, another issue of rights began to gain attention: equal rights or equal opportunities for women. As with African American civil rights, the movement for women’s rights had been part of American politics since the Revolution. It too gained momentum following the Civil War; one accomplishment was the Nineteenth Amendment (1920), which guaranteed women the right to vote. Advocates for women’s rights also proposed an amendment guaranteeing equality of rights for women. First introduced in Congress in 1923, the amendment was introduced every year thereafter and passed and submitted to the states finally in 1972, with a deadline for ratification of March 22, 1979.

Thirty-five of the necessary 38 states ratified the amendment before opposition to it, led largely by Phyllis Schlafly, stalled the process. Under pressure, Congress extended the ratification deadline, but the amendment never passed.

Documents include Chisholm’s Address to the House of Representatives, Ginsburg’s “The Need for the Equal Rights Amendment,” and “Dialogue with Phyllis Schlafly on the ERA.”

America and the World

A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier assigned to Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan provides security during an advising mission in Afghanistan, April 10, 2014. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Sara Wakai/ Released)

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new era in international relations and raised the question of how the United States should deal with the post-Cold War world. Like his immediate predecessors, President George W. Bush argued that the United States should promote democracy for America’s sake and for the benefit of the world. This included a global struggle against the people and ideas that sponsored the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Documents Include: Bush’s Inaugural Address, Obama’s “Address at Cairo University,” and Paul’s “Containment and Radical Islam.”

Download your free pdf today!

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A 3000+ Document Library: A Blessing or a Curse?

Amanda Bryan — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 05:19:00 +0000

As Publications Manager at ɫ��ɫ, I frequently hear the following from our teacher partners:

I love teaching with primary sources! But which one should I use?

Your website is great! But I feel overwhelmed when I look all the documents.

My district has dropped our textbook and we are switching to primary sources. Where do I even start?

I can’t expect a high school student to read an entire Federalist Paper!?

Document collection page featuring document thumbnails and dropdown menu with a thematic table of contents, introduction, related resources and study questions.

We get it. There is a dizzying number of websites out there that promote the use of primary sources. Some even supply educator notes, videos, colorful presentations, classroom activities and reading guides. All you need to replace the textbook . . . except that you wind up literally replacing the textbook!

At TAH, we know teachers are the true classroom experts. Unlike textbooks, we won’t tell you what to teach or how to teach it. Instead, we’ll provide you with the materials and education you need to teach the complex and sensitive topics that always come up in the secondary social studies classroom.

To that end, we’ve made all our Core Document volume series available as standalone digital collections that can be accessed here. Here’s a sampling of the available titles:

Use our study questions as classroom conversation starters, activity guides, or as assessment tools. Question A requires close reading of the document; Question B requires comparison between multiple documents from this collection.

Each of these collections includes an introduction, a thematic table of contents, study questions, and a set of introduced and excerpted documents. All pages are optimized for classroom projection as well as individual use. Designed for ease of navigation for both teachers and students, our digital document collections are a classroom-ready resource around which you can base instruction.

Try out our document collections in your classroom today!

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Anna Lenardson Loves to Learn and Teach

Amanda Bryan — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 08:47:00 +0000

Anna Lenardson

If you ask Anna Lenardson, a 2023 graduate of Ashland University’s Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program, why she enrolled in the challenging program, she replies, “I love to learn. I loved being with other teachers, talking about history and government.” True, she had to complete a lot of reading before arriving at the weeklong residential summer courses. But doing so prepared her for a week of intense, revelatory conversation. Online interactive evening courses during the school year required a different kind of focus—engaging in discussion after a long school day. “But the online courses allowed us to spread out our reading over eight weeks,” she says. “I enjoyed every minute of the program.”

She learned about MAHG in 2018, at a one-day TAH seminar offered in Tulsa on the American Founding. As the facilitator, Professor Jason Stevens, drew all the teachers in the room into discussion, she wondered, “Where can I get more interaction like this?” At the end of the seminar, a TAH representative told participants about Ashland’s Master’s program and the possibility of funding MAHG studies through a .

Intrigued, Lenardson attended a residential MAHG seminar in Ashland the next summer on “The Civil War in History and Literature,” taught by Professors and Kathy Pfeiffer. A week of constant conversation—during seminar sessions, meals, and evening study time—“led to a couple of lasting relationships” with fellow teachers. She applied for the Madison fellowship, was awarded it in the spring of 2020, and enrolled at once in MAHG.

A Learner Called to Teach

People who love to learn often find joy in helping others learn, especially if they like “being around kids,” as Lenardson does. Both Lenardson and her husband Robb—whose first career was in business—felt called to teach in mid-life. They moved their family, including children aged sixteen, nine and seven, to Portugal, in order to teach at Cascais International Christian School. Robb taught math, while Anna taught high school English and history, to students from around the world.

After four years overseas, the Lenardsons returned home to work at a boarding school for at-risk students from around the United States, in Oklahoma. They enjoyed helping students from difficult family situations find their strengths in a safe and supportive environment. “The hardest part was seeing kids leave and return home, which could happen suddenly, mid-year,” Lenardson said. “You knew you might never see them again.” She taught history and American government at Cookson Hills for ten years, beginning her MAHG studies during that time.

Now she teaches at the , a charter school in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood that promotes college readiness. “I’ve found my sweet spot, where I can help kids on the brink of adulthood. I watch them spread their wings.”

How MAHG Enhanced Lenardson’s Teaching

MAHG Summer 2022

Lenardson teaches semester-long courses in Oklahoma History and US Government, and the year-long elective AP US Government course. Her MAHG studies have helped her better serve her students. “I learned enough to pull out a ready answer when a student asks a question,” she says. MAHG offered a wide range of courses on American government. “My course on the Supreme Court with Professor Sikkenga was probably the best I took,” she recalls. “I expected it to be difficult and dry, but not a minute was boring. Whatever issue came up, Sikkenga had a case at his fingertips to offer as an example.”

She benefited equally from the history component of the MAHG curriculum. “I weave a lot of history into my teaching of government, especially the history of the founding era.” Teaching ideas keep coming, because “each class in MAHG built my history nerd network (of fellow teachers) out deeper and wider. This is especially nice when it comes to a last-minute search for resources or lesson ideas. There’s always someone out there with a great idea at their fingertips.”

An Academy for Ambitious Immigrants

Tulsa Honor Academy is a Title I school; about 95% of its students receive free or reduced-price lunch. The school was founded in 2015 by a woman who grew up in the community, who was dismayed that only three youths in her neighborhood—she and her two brothers—went on to college. Too few of the founder’s fellow students even made it to graduation. The honor academy has changed that pattern. “The school started with a fifth-grade class, building out each subsequent grade year by year,” Lenardson explains. “Last June, when we graduated our first class of seniors, 65% of them were the first in their families to complete high school.” Most of the graduates went on to local and state college programs, while a few were accepted to prestigious out-of-state schools, such as George Washington and Emory universities.

Most of Lenardson’s students are first- or second-generation immigrants. They split their days between school and work. “Most take after-school jobs to help their families pay the bills.” They stock shelves in groceries and convenience stores, serve tables in restaurants, help on construction sites or in mechanical repair shops. “When a student asks for an extension on an assignment, I always say yes. I know their work schedules limit study time.”

Learning American History for the First Time

Her students’ families gave them a strong “work ethic,” but few assumptions about American history and government. Unlike those who started school in America, they don’t begin the required high school government course expecting to rehearse old, boring lessons about the three branches of government. And unlike students whose families have been in America for generations, they don’t find high school’s more candid discussions of the unflattering aspects of American history unsettling to their sense of identity. “It’s all news to them; their parents didn’t know to tell them about it,” Lenardson explains. They are curious about the careful structuring of our constitutional system and about constitutional guarantees of rights. When they learn about American failures to protect these rights, they react with surprise and simple “outrage.”

In Oklahoma history, students learn about slavery and the denial of rights during Jim Crow. Instead of struggling to grasp an understanding of federalism that allowed the court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, they conclude “that the 14^th amendment was violated by Jim Crow; that the arguments made by the majority in Plessy were disingenuous. But I don’t think this history discourages them,” Lenardson continues. “It motivates them to guard against violations of their own rights.”

When Lenardson tells students they are responsible for maintaining our democracy, they “get it,” she says. “Last week, one of my students asked, ‘Is this an election year?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and then I asked, ‘How many of you will be 18 by election day?’ It turned out all of them will be. In Oklahoma, if you will be 18 by election day, you can register to vote at age 17 and a half. So, I said, ‘All right, I’ll bring in registration cards for you all.’ When I did, every student registered.”

Learning to Think for Themselves

Each year, Lenardson reads through the entire Declaration and Constitution with her students. “I like that they can say that they’ve read the Constitution. I give them each a pocket constitution to keep. I tell them to bring it out at Thanksgiving dinner when their uncle gets crazy and to say, ‘I’ve read the Constitution, and I don’t think that’s what it says.’”

Her government students read a long excerpt of Federalist 10 and shorter excerpts of Federalist 51 and 33, along with excerpts from some of the Antifederalists–Brutus II and Patrick Henry. These are ambitious assignments, given that some of Lenardson’s students are learning English as a second language. “Eighteenth century language is difficult even for native English speakers,” Lenardson says. Working as a class or in small groups, students read the excerpts out loud, small segments at a time, parsing out each argument carefully. Then they fill out a chart listing the reasons Americans gave for supporting or opposing ratification of the Constitution. “Students find it difficult at first, but then they get into a groove and begin to understand. My classes tend to be harder than the others they take. But colleagues tell me that my students say they like being challenged. They learn better when they have to figure things out for themselves.”

That is what she hopes for them—that they learn to think for themselves. “It’s not easy to maintain an open mind. To do so, you have to be willing to seek information on all sides of an issue. I recently talked with my AP students about this—how we all want short cuts. It’s easy to attach ourselves to a particular political group and accept a single set of answers to all the problems of government.” But these problems are different, and complicated. Self-governing people “have to put in the work to understand all the options,” Lenardson tells her students. “That’s the active participation that democracy requires.”

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Political Parties: Resources for Government & History Teachers

TAH Staff — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:37:00 +0000

Amanda Bryan excepted today’s blog from our Core Documents volume, Political Parties, edited by Eric Sands. Download the volume in our bookstore today.

Political parties have a long and often convoluted history in American politics. . . . To the Founders, parties were factions that threatened to divide the nation into competing groups that, at the worst, could turn to violence to advance their interests. The Founders also feared that parties would disrupt the separation of powers. This would be especially true in the case of unified government where loyalty to party might come to interfere with the system of checks and balances. Finally, the Founders worried that political parties might stand in the way of effective representation. Elected officials with party affiliations might be tempted to represent only those of their own political party and leave party opponents without a voice. Given these concerns, it is little wonder that the Founders did not want parties participating in American government.

Yet within ten years of ratification of the Constitution, political parties were alive and well in American politics. . . . This leads to an interesting conundrum—how did the political system become partisan within such a short time after the formation of a government designed to avoid reliance on political parties? Probably the leading answer to this question is that parties were understood as being inevitable. More precisely, republican government does not work well without being buttressed by political parties. Parties have proven to be instruments through which voters can make choices about the policy direction of the country. Parties allow minorities to form coalitions to create majority rule, even if that rule is not always harmonious or stable. Parties help build support for officeholders and serve as conduits of communication to the masses and vice versa. Parties serve as schools of democracy where citizens learn to associate and become attached to governing institutions. Finally, parties mobilize voters and encourage voter participation at all levels of democratic politics.

The following documents tell the story of the changes of the party systems throughout American history.

1790s

Reconstruction – 1900

1890s – 1932

Progressive Party Platform of 1912

1932 – 1980

1980 – present

In reviewing these documents, what becomes clear is that political parties in the twenty-first century bear scant resemblance to their predecessors in the eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries, and the chances of returning to an earlier era of party governance seems remote. Yet contemporary problems like voter alienation, low voter participation rates, government gridlock, and low popular trust in government may all have their roots in the weakening of political parties. Parties have traditionally been laboratories where people develop the habits of associating with others, the techniques of accommodation, and attachment to government institutions. What parties need is a sense of public purpose, but it is unlikely that this purpose is going to come from the parties themselves. Instead, the parties need strong leadership that can infuse public purpose into the parties and lead them to restored prominence and relevance in American politics. American parties are far from perfect, but they may be needed now more than ever to restore American politics from the twin dangers of cynicism and indifference. Given the traditional roles of parties, we must think seriously about whether a rejuvenation of the parties might be an elixir for our contemporary ills.

Want more resources for your classroom? Download your free pdf or purchase a hardcopy today!

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Abraham Lincoln’s Speech at Cooper Union | February 27, 1860

Amanda Bryan — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 07:34:00 +0000

On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the most important and effective speeches of his political career. His speech at Cooper Union was a rhetorical masterpiece and helped make him the Republican candidate for president.

Lincoln’s debates with in 1858 allowed him to reach a national audience. In those debates, Lincoln argued that Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty—that the people of the territories could decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery—meant an indifference to the spread of slavery. Worse, it was a betrayal of America’s principles. Rather than trumpeting the cause of self-government, Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty was its death knell. If whites could decide to enslave blacks, then Lincoln argued, there was nothing to prevent some whites from deciding to enslave other whites. Only adherence to the self-evident truth that all human beings were equal could save popular sovereignty—self-government—for all.

Composite image of Abraham Lincoln (left) and Stephen A. Douglas (right)

Douglas continued to press his case, however. In September, 1859, he published an essay in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, “The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority,” arguing for his version of popular sovereignty and claiming that this was in line with the thinking of the founding generation. He delivered speeches on the same subject, all in an attempt to secure the presidential nomination of the Democratic party. In October, John Brown carried out his raid on Harper’s Ferry, further inflaming the sectional issue that threatened civil war.

Exterior shot, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art. Historic American Engineering Record, (New York, NY: 1968). https://www.loc.gov/item/ny0359/.

In this fateful situation, Republicans in New York City invited Lincoln to give a speech scheduled for February 1860. Lincoln had his own presidential ambitions, but to become the Republican candidate, he needed to win the support of eastern Republicans, who tended to favor of New York. Lincoln had to show that he, and not the more experienced and better-known Seward, was the man to defeat Douglas.

Lincoln prepared for his speech by doing extensive research in the Illinois State Library. He read primary documents—principally the words of the thirty-nine people who signed the Constitution—and historical records—how those thirty-nine voted on issues of federal control of the territories. He did so to fight Douglas on the ground that Douglas claimed as his own. Douglas claimed that the founding generation understood the question of who controlled the territories, whether the federal government or those who lived in the territories, better than anyone else. Lincoln showed that on Douglas’s own terms, Douglas was wrong. The documents and records showed that a substantial majority affirmed federal control of the territories. Showing this to be true, Lincoln showed that popular sovereignty as Douglas presented it was false.

Lincoln concluded this part of his speech by arguing that on the issue of slavery Americans ought to return to the position of the founding generation. “Let [slavery] be again marked as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.” This was not because Americans had to accept the views of the founding generation. They were free to reject those views, but only, Lincoln argued, “upon evidence so conclusive and argument so clear” that it outweighed their authority. But evidence and argument showed the founders right on the issue of slavery and supported their authority.

The Great Hall at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art. Historic American Engineering Record, (New York, NY: 1968). https://www.loc.gov/item/ny0359/.

In the next section of his speech, Lincoln addressed southerners. He considered and countered one by one their objections to the Republican Party, repeatedly appealing to the standard Douglas had raised “of our fathers, who framed the government under which we live.” In this section, he also offered a concise statement of how to evaluate the Dred Scott decision (1857). Notoriously, this decision held that African Americans, free or slave, whose ancestors were brought to the United States and sold as slaves could not be American citizens, and that the Missouri Compromise (1820) was unconstitutional because the federal government did not have the power to exclude slavery from any federal territory. In discussing the decision, one thing Lincoln showed was that the Court based its ruling on a misstatement of fact. The Court’s decision stated that “the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.” Lincoln pointed out that such a right was not “distinctly and expressly affirmed” in the Constitution. On the contrary, Lincoln said,

Wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a ‘person’; and wherever his master’s legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as ‘service or labor which may be due,’ as a debt payable in service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man. (Lincoln was alluding to a remark Madison made at the Constitutional Convention.)

Overall, Lincoln’s consideration of the southern view showed, as he said, that southerners would abandon the Constitution, if they could not get their way. This was as willful and arbitrary an assertion of power as slavery itself.

Finally, Lincoln addressed his fellow Republicans. He stressed to them that the fundamental issue was whether slavery was right or wrong. Republicans held it was wrong. They should act on this understanding. They must stand by their duty “fearlessly and effectively.” Lincoln closed with a stirring imperative: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

[Abraham Lincoln, candidate for U.S. president, half-length portrait, looking left, May 20,1860]. Marsh, William. (1860) Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2009630662/

Scholars often note that Lincoln’s Address at Cooper Union lacked the flourishes and embellishments of mid-nineteenth century speeches. It reads, most say, as if it were a lawyer’s brief. This is true, but this is also what gave the speech its rhetorical force and its political effect. The country was at the brink of war, passions at fever pitch. Lincoln stood for a calm, factual, reasoned consideration of the case. Southerners, for example, claimed Republicans were revolutionaries, and tried to associate them with fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln’s tone and words undid this criticism, as his presentation of the case revealed southerners to be unreasonable hysterics. Using this rhetorical approach, Lincoln took the advice he offered in a great speech from early in his career, the Lyceum Address (1838). In perpetuating the Republic, Lincoln had then argued, “passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.”

As Lincoln stood on the speaker’s platform at Cooper Union, unimpassioned reason stood in opposition to fiery willfulness, a cool presentation of the facts to willful misrepresentation. Amid the political storm, Lincoln presented himself and Republicans as a calm rallying point. Their position was consistent with historical fact, political necessity, and moral principle. His audience understood this, and enough Americans came to understand it to bring Lincoln to the White House.

When we read Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech we are in effect a jury hearing the words of the greatest advocate of the Constitution’s and America’s founding principles as thoroughly anti-slavery. It is remarkable that still today who claim to be most passionate in their defense of freedom repeat the mistaken facts and arguments of those who then advocated slavery. As we steer a way through our own political storms, we should remember the importance of fact and reason, and above all renew our faith that right makes might.

For more on Abraham Lincoln’s writings, see our CDC volume, Abraham Lincoln, available for free download or hard copy purchase.

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