John WR Would I kid you?
Would I kid you?
Nah!
John WR Firelock76 his name lives in infamy. Wayne, In the dictionary next to the word "infamy" there is a picture of John Wilkes Booth. He shows how a crazy person can alter history. John
Firelock76 his name lives in infamy.
Wayne,
In the dictionary next to the word "infamy" there is a picture of John Wilkes Booth. He shows how a crazy person can alter history.
John
You're kidding? Really?
Hayes actually lost the popular vote in 1876. A special electoal commission of Congress with a Republican majority awarded him all the disputed electoral votes and he became President with an electoral vote majority of 1 vote. http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/rutherfordbhayes Part of the deal making for those electoral votes was to withdraw the last of the occupying troops from the South.
DeggestyAfter the surrender of all of the Conderate armies, many Republicans more or less screamed, "The South caused the war,so they must pay for it"
But of course after the American Civil War ended the south didn't have much left to pay for the war with.
John WR BaltACDAndrew Johnson despite being the VP, was not of Lincoln's party, so without Lincoln he was just so much fresh meat. The saying that politics make strange bedfellows was never truer. You are right, Balt. As I recall, Abe Lincoln was not at all confident he would win in 1864. He and the war were not popular in his own day. He added Andrew Johnson to the ticket in an effort to attract Democratic votes, especially Free Soil Democratic votes. Whether or not it got any Democrats to vote for a Republican or even sit on their hands and not vote at all I don't know. John
BaltACDAndrew Johnson despite being the VP, was not of Lincoln's party, so without Lincoln he was just so much fresh meat. The saying that politics make strange bedfellows was never truer.
You are right, Balt. As I recall, Abe Lincoln was not at all confident he would win in 1864. He and the war were not popular in his own day. He added Andrew Johnson to the ticket in an effort to attract Democratic votes, especially Free Soil Democratic votes. Whether or not it got any Democrats to vote for a Republican or even sit on their hands and not vote at all I don't know.
After the surrender of all of the Conderate armies, many Republicans more or less screamed, "The South caused the war,so they must pay for it" (just as "Germany caused the Great War of 1914-18, and had to pay for it"). As a result, even though the war was officially ended, the North continued to attack the South until after Rutherford Hayes was elected, and the occupying troops were withdrawn.
Johnny
Balt, it wan't even a tactical success on Booth's part. The crazy SOB wound up dead and his name lives in infamy.
John WR Firelock76Would he have had the clout to put through his humane policies, or been impeached by the Radical Republicans like Andrew Johnson was? Wayne, Clairvoyance is not my strong suit so I avoid predicting "what if" to impossible situations. But I have to believe that the guy who presided over wining the Civil War would have been more than a match for any radical Republicans who choose to challenge him. John
Firelock76Would he have had the clout to put through his humane policies, or been impeached by the Radical Republicans like Andrew Johnson was?
Clairvoyance is not my strong suit so I avoid predicting "what if" to impossible situations. But I have to believe that the guy who presided over wining the Civil War would have been more than a match for any radical Republicans who choose to challenge him.
And the thing that really gets overlooked by most, Andrew Johnson despite being the VP, was not of Lincoln's party, so without Lincoln he was just so much fresh meat. The saying that politics make strange bedfellows was never truer.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Firelock76 What would Reconstruction have been like if Lincoln not been assassinated? Oh brother, historians have been puzzling over that one for decades. Would he have had the clout to put through his humane policies, or been impeached by the Radical Republicans like Andrew Johnson was? We just don't know. We'll never know. One thing is certain: John Wilkes Booth probably did more long-term damage to the South than Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan combined.
What would Reconstruction have been like if Lincoln not been assassinated? Oh brother, historians have been puzzling over that one for decades. Would he have had the clout to put through his humane policies, or been impeached by the Radical Republicans like Andrew Johnson was? We just don't know. We'll never know.
One thing is certain: John Wilkes Booth probably did more long-term damage to the South than Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan combined.
Tactical success - strategic failure
I don't know about reconstruction had Lincoln not be short. But I wonder if the building of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads would have been different.
SO!
To come back to the Civil War era. What would reconstruction have been like had not Lincoln been assinated?
Overmod, he sure was the smart one- Vassar has a policy to be 70% female and 30% male. Half the men were gay and the half of what was left were bi so a straight guy could do OK. A friend of mine got a job as a security guard so he could play for free on the golf course. He married a Vassar girl and eventually became a club pro in Westchester. What a life!
Now here was (and may still be) a real party college. The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg Virginia, back in the 18th Century. It had such a reputation at the time that George Washington wouldn't let his step-son Jackie Custis go there. Washington got him enrolled in King's College (now Columbia) in New York. Didn't matter much though, Jackie wasn't made for a scholar.
There were stories about W&M professors having to be retrieved from taverns and cock-fights to teach, to say nothing of the all-night card games between students and faculty. Still, men like Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and James Monroe got some pretty good educations there.
There is a rumor that W&M was partially funded with pirate money. Donations were gotten like this, usually after the capture of a pirate ship:
"Right then, Captain Psycho, tell us where the money is and help us fund this fine institution or it's up the long ladder and down the short rope with ye!" Sounds like an interesting method of fundraising, doesn't it? A sure-fire way to get the prospective donors attention at any rate.
OK, this has NOTHING to do with Confederate railroads, but to tell the truth I'm getting bored with the thread anyway.
Firelock76Which is true John? Probably a little of both, although I've never heard of Princeton being described as a "Party College."
I was a hanger around at Princeton for about 10 years. Mainly I took courses at the Princeton Adult School, the adult branch of the Princeton Regional (public) School system. They have a series called the Anne Klein lectures. Each week you get a different Princeton Professor (occasionally one from Rutgers) who lecture on a central theme. Also, I've taken a couple of course taught by Princeton professors. But I don't know that I'm really qualified to make any assessment of Princeton itself.
Certainly Princeton has produced some national leaders. Woodrow Wilson is one; Dick Cheney is another. But I've also read in my daily paper, The Times published in Trenton, of the problem of public drunkenness by Princeton students. There are allegations that the University protects students from the police and enables the drinking. There are many allegations of that but allegations is what they are as far as I know.
Walter Kirn attended Princeton and has written a book about it, Lost in the Meritocracy: The Under Education of an Over Achiever. He did suffer from social ostracism because he lacked the money to keep up with his fellow students. For him Princeton was a pretty miserable time. If your interested here is a link to an essay about Princeton by Kirn: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/05/19/how-i-lost-my-mind-at-princeton.html
I had a classmate in high school who went to Vassar as his first choice. I couldn't figure that out, and asked him. His logic, as yours, was spotless.
Never met a girl from Vassar I didn't like, either. There were three adventuresses that regularly came down to see US, back in the day.
JR: It's not 'either'. My ex-roommate was what we'd now call a 'pothead', was summa in the engineering school, and then went on to a senior position at DuPont. Plenty of drinking, but it never got in the way of the academics -- at least for us it didn't.
We had heard all sorts of propaganda about that color-of-horsesh*t school (if you haven't actually seen manure, it's big and green, not brown) being a top drinking school. We had a couple of Dartmouth guys in one night, so we thought we'd see how the REAL drinking was done. Upshot: not only did we drink them.... literally! ... under the table, but my lady friends from Smith and Columbia ALSO drank them under the table. Some legends die hard, I guess...
Difference, perhaps, is that Princetonians, at least in my day, had some discretion. B6 and zinc and the art of the power-boot will get you a long way. Not drinking low-grade stuff helps, too. (Recipe for the Trinity: one part grain punch, two parts Rose's lime juice, one part straight grain (in those days, Everclear was 190) and a lump of dry ice about the size of a ping-pong ball. Pure Heaven -- and no hangover the next day. That's Science!
Brown-shirted patter-rollers? Never heard 'em called that before! Say what? By the way, speaking of Princeton, I worked at Vassar College for 11 years from 1980 to 1991. Full of blue-bloods, mostly female. And mostly very attractive. There was some kind of program in effect for the academic year of 1987. Girls would not be accepted for enrollment unless they had 36Cs or better. Good times! It sure seemed like there was such a program. We (the boiler house crew, plumbers, steamfitters, groundskeepers and electricians) weren't complaining.
Which is true John? Probably a little of both, although I've never heard of Princeton being described as a "Party College."
When I ran into Glassboro alumnus in the 80's who was there around ten years after I left, and he heard I was there in the 70's, he said "The 70's? Oh wow, s#x, d###s, and rock and roll!" I just said "Huh?" somehow I missed it. News to me.
I lived in Hopewell Township, about 10 miles down the road from Princeton, for 10 years, Wayne. That's when I became really aware of if.
I learned Princeton is one of two things: Either it is a school that provides a rigorous education for our very best and brightest young people all of whom are highly motivated and go on to positions of leadership in the society or
It is a school that has a wide variety of students ("diverse student body" is the way Princeton puts it) who go there and spend 4 years semi inebriated and/or using other recreational substances.
I'm not sure which is true.
I could care less about Princeton. I went to Glassboro State. Our motto? "We never heard of you either!"
Now it's Rowan State, so the currrent "Glassboro" students never heard of Glassboro State for that matter.
Princeton men and these days Princeton women certainly go to New York, Philadelphia and other places. But I do understand that for certain purposes they also went to Trenton and the still go there.
The places are, after all, very close to each other.
John WRActually I think Woodrow Wilson was pretty conservative although I'm not sure people on a railroad forum would agree with me. I didn't intend to cast an aspersion by talking about his visits to Trenton. In those days that was just the way things were with Princeton men.
Trust me when I tell you Princeton men don't go to Trenton. They go to New York or Philadelphia -- or to the circuit of colleges in the North in the fall, and in the South in winter and spring... ;-}
(I can provide you with pointers for cutting if you want them, but Lady would not like that AT ALL.)
Wilson was the antithesis of conservatism as practiced at the time. That was part of his problem. He did not see the difference between correct action to show independence from machine thinking and high-handed action to advance the progress of Col. House's war.
Yes, he ran around trying to get the League approved, and this at the height of his God-like mandate to teach them scruffy furriners how to stop feudin' and live in peace. The problem is that NONE OF HIS WHISTLE-STOPPING AFFECTED CONGRESS. Whether or not there was any love lost between Cabot et al. and Wilson, it's pretty clear that the isolationist view of Avoiding Any Future European Land War would win out over Taking Point With American Lives For Someone Else's Interest (which is one of the reasons for the resurgence of radical Socialism in the period after 1919 ... and let us not forget our little White Russian adventure, still purportedly going on as Wilson did his tour... but that's another topic.)
There is no question he was a fundamentally decent man. So was Jefferson Davis. The measure of a leader in wartime, though, is how he copes with things under pressure. Neither Wilson or Davis could refrain from high-handed -- almost literally Stalinist, in my humble opinion, if you have insight into Stalin's actual motivation -- action based on little more than being powerful and nettled.
Personally, I dislike organized hate propaganda. And brown-shirted patter-rollers. And all the rest of the expedient toolbox contents. There, I've said it.
OvermodWhy is Wilson any different from FDR and Lucy?
Well, when FDR rode the train to see his fancy lady he had not taken the railroad away from its owners first so his privacy was less assured.
Firelock76There's been alot of nasty stuff said about Wilson in the past few years but in the end I still think he was a fundamentally decent man. That's from a conservative by the way.
Actually I think Woodrow Wilson was pretty conservative although I'm not sure people on a railroad forum would agree with me. I didn't intend to cast an aspersion by talking about his visits to Trenton. In those days that was just the way things were with Princeton men.
Well, Overmod me old son, what I said about Wilson giving in on the Treaty is what I've read in my studies of the First World War and it's aftermath, so that's the way it is. Certainly I have to believe he was a bit of a naif on European politics, but a supposed history professor like himself should have known better any way you look at it. The owners manual for the presidency is the history bookshelf at the local library.
And I can't think Wilson thought the Leauge was doomed here in the US, he fought like blazes and gave himself a stroke "whistle stopping" around the country trying to change public opinion but of course in the end it did no good. After the war the american people thought we'd been sold a bill of goods by the Allies, and when the only thing we got out of the war was out, well, here comes the "Return to Normalcy."
There's been alot of nasty stuff said about Wilson in the past few years but in the end I still think he was a fundamentally decent man. That's from a conservative by the way.
OvermodOh, and John, if that professor who gave the lecture said everybody knew Wilson was "gettin' jiggy" with certain citizens of Trenton, chances are the prof was the only person who knew it.[
That occurred to me, Overmod. That's why I said people should make their own assessments of the story as you are doing.
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