The Mysteries of History (March 3 Edition)
Missouri Compromise; Draft Riots; Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan; Rodney King
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
1820 — Missouri Compromise
public domain image from wikimedia commons
The following is what I wrote about the Missouri Compromise almost twenty years ago, in my book “Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006”:
Two years after it applied for statehood, and the year after the “Missouri Compromise” was agreed upon, the compromise actually went into effect: Missouri and Maine were admitted to the Union. The compromise was struck because politicians wanted to keep an even number of slave and non-slave states. Missouri was able to enter the union as a slave state (although it ended up officially on the Union side in the Civil War, and was deeply divided internally on the issue) with the simultaneous entrance into the union of Maine, formerly a part of Massachusetts. Missouri was the first state from the area America acquired via the Louisiana Purchase.
Daniel Boone didn’t live quite long enough to see his beloved Missouri become a state in 1821. As Boone’s life neared its close, he said he wanted to be buried in Missouri and considered it would be a terrible plight to spend eternity in Kentucky dirt, a state he loathed because he thought it had cheated him out of land. Nevertheless, Kentuckians later disinterred him from his Missouri resting place and took him back to his old Kentucky home (although some Missourians claim the Kentuckians were deliberately given the wrong body).
Just as Oklahoma was at first intended to be set aside for Indians, Thomas Jefferson initially wanted to block white settlement in Missouri, leaving it to be occupied by Native Americans only. In this way, the Indians were to serve as a buffer zone between the East and West: The East to be for “Americans,” the West for the Spanish and French.
Questions: What was the initial plan for admitting Missouri as a State, and why did Southerners oppose it? What cultural impact has Missouri had on the United States (e.g., what famous writers, musicians, and actors hail from “The Show Me State”)?
1863 — Conscription for the 99% and Resulting Draft Riots
public domain image from wikimedia commons
The following is what I wrote about the Draft Riots in my book “Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006”:
Although response had been enthusiastic at the beginning of the Civil War, as it dragged on longer than expected—as wars are wont to do — Abraham Lincoln had a challenge on his hands regarding replenishing his army with fresh troops. Especially was this a problem with an aggressive general such as U.S. Grant calling the shots. This was the case even though the man who came to be known as “Unconditional Surrender” Grant had the largest army in the world at his disposal—over 500,000 men. Promising the blacks liberation meant that free blacks in the North who volunteered would be fighting for the liberation of their wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends in the South. The Union needed still more men, though. That is why Lincoln found it necessary to institute conscription of troops. Not all civilians were fired up in opposition to the idea of enforced servitude when such was being endured by people who had a different skin hue than they did, though. Especially was this the case when many of them thought that blacks thus liberated would migrate north and compete with them for scarce jobs. The temporary loss of their own freedom, and possibly their lives, for a cause they did not necessarily espouse, coagulated enough bad blood that there were draft riots in New York City—a city which itself had earlier considered seceding from the Union. Two things in particular irked those who were likely to be drafted: The fact that those who could afford to could buy their way out of the draft by purchasing an exemption, and the fact that blacks were not among those drafted. The burden of enforced service fell on the poor whites. The mid-summer heat in those pre-air conditioner days didn’t help matters, either. Eventually 50,000 protesters began looting and burning, attacking and lynching those they held responsible for their unenviable situation. Martial law was imposed, and hundreds of rioters were shot. Beginning July 13th, the riots continued until the 16th. New York police fought the mobs on the 13th and 14th. Union troops arrived from Gettysburg on the 15th to assist the police in quelling the disturbance, which finally ended on the 17th, when an uneasy peace set in. According to one source, by the time the riots were over, twelve hundred people had died. In his book “Battle Cry of Freedom,” on the other hand, James McPherson estimated “at least 105” (implying there were likely more victims than 105, but presumably not over ten-fold more).
…
A situation that really irked the Union soldiers was that those drafted who could afford to do so could pay $300 to avoid conscription, or pay a substitute to take their place. Among those who paid substitutes to fight in their stead were future Presidents Chester Arthur (1881–1885) and Grover Cleveland (1885–1889, 1893–1897) as well as prominent businessmen such as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, and James Mellon. Mellon may have felt pangs of guilt over buying his way out, for his father wrote him consolingly: “A man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health.” But such risks are what the wealthy class asked those “less fortunate” to take. How did they reconcile this discrepancy? Mellon’s father went on to assert: “There are plenty of lives less valuable.” In his book For Cause and Comrades, James McPherson wrote of the response in the field to this situation:
One of the things that most embittered Union soldiers in the last two years of the war was the opportunity for drafted men to hire a substitute or pay a commutation fee of $300.
“The columns of the daily papers [from the North] I see filled with advertisements of Northern cowards, offering large sums for substitutes to take their places in the ranks,” wrote an Illinois captain with Sherman’s army before Atlanta in August 1864. “Oh! How such men are despised here!…We who are already in the field must do our whole duty now, for it is daily becoming painfully evident those at home do not intend to do theirs.”
By August 19th, troop strength in Manhattan had been increased to 20,000, and the draft was resumed. The government could not let the rioters “win” for that could encourage similar uprisings elsewhere. However, the city thereafter came up with money on its own to pay the commutation fees for all the men in the city who were subsequently drafted.
There were also draft riots (and bread riots) in Southern cities this summer. As to the likelihood of northern men actually going to war for those considered eligible (able-bodied men between the ages of twenty and forty-five), the chances were very high they would never fire a gun in anger: of the 776,000 who were listed as eligible, only 207,000 were drafted. One fifth of the larger number didn’t even show up, fleeing into the woods, north to Canada, or to the west; one-eighth were sent home due to already filled quotas for their area (each area was required to supply a specified number of soldiers based on the area’s overall population); and two-fifths were exempted for various reasons. This left the figure of 207,000 given earlier. Of the remaining 207,000, only 46,000 personally served. 87,000 paid the $300 commutation fee (indirectly furnishing substitutes, as this money could then be paid out as enlistment bonuses); 74,000 furnished substitutes directly (eighteen and nineteen-year-olds, as well as immigrants who had not filed for citizenship and were thus not liable for the draft). As a result, of the 776,000 tabbed for potential service, only one in seventeen actually did serve; and of the 207,000 who were obligated to either serve personally, pay the commutation fee, or provide a substitute, only two in nine ended up in the army themselves. By far the lion’s share of those who served were volunteers. Just during the draft period, the army’s new members was comprised of 46,000 draftees, 74,000 substitutes, and 800,000 volunteers. As to those who did not care to volunteer, nor serve if conscripted, draft insurance policies were available. For a few dollars per month, a premium of $300 was paid to policyholders in the case that they were drafted.
Questions: What do you think of this opportunity for people with money to avoid being drafted? What might those who died in their place have done with their lives? How did their loved ones fare without them? Did the draft evaders accomplish much truly worthwhile in their lives? Do wealthy and powerful people still find ways to wiggle out of unpleasant situations?
1887 — Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Meet
public domain images from wikimedia commons
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid (Helen Keller, 1880-1968) may not have played a mean pinball, but she did amaze her family, the world, and maybe even herself by the things she was able to learn and accomplish in her life, with the help of her teacher, interpreter, and companion Anne Sullivan (1866-1936).
The two met on this day in 1887, when Helen was six and Ms. Sullivan was twenty. Sullivan taught her how to communicate by touch using the “manual alphabet” (with words “written” by finger on the others’ palm).
Sullivan herself had been partially blind and had been a student at Perkins School for the Blind. A series of surgical interventions had gradually restored much of Sullivan’s eyesight. As for Helen, she became a college graduate, lecturer (public speaker), advocate for the blind, political activist (she was a member of the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World], also known as “Wobblies”), and author. Her books include, among others, The Story of My Life, The World I Live In, and Out of the Darkness.
“I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me the horror of a family feud.”—Helen Keller
Questions: Have you read any of Keller’s books? Have you seen the movie “Miracle Worker”? How was Keller able to tell it was Mark Twain who had entered the room before he had spoken on an occasion when he visited her?
1991 — The Battering of Rodney King
public domain images from wikimedia commons
This is what I wrote about King’s beating at the hands, feet, and clubs of a gang of police officers on this date in 1991; it’s taken from my book “Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006”:
He said way down yonder in the land of cotton Old times there ain’t near as rotten as they are On this damned old L.A. street —from the song “I Sang Dixie” by Dwight Yoakam
How can people be so heartless? How can people be so cruel? —from the song “Easy to be Hard” by Three Dog Night
“If you’re not the solution, you’re part of the problem.”—Unattributed
In a macabre and sickening version of a Candid Camera episode/Reality TV show, four white L.A. police officers, a police force that has been rife with corruption and racism from its inception, were caught on videotape shortly after midnight on March 3rd after pulling over African-American Rodney King for speeding. Unbeknownst to the officers of the law, their actions were being recorded by a citizen near the scene. The officers dragged King, a part-time Dodger stadium groundskeeper who was to start a full-time construction job the next day, from his car and beat him with their nightsticks and kicked him with their feet—after first shooting him in the chest with a stun gun. The fifty-six blows with their metal batons and six kicks with their jackbooted feet caused King to suffer eleven skull fractures, brain injury, and kidney damage. The beating was so vicious that King’s fillings were knocked out of his teeth, and it took five ER physicians to work on King after he was brought in to the hospital. In addition to the litany of damage noted above, the 25-year old victim’s eye socket was shattered, a cheek bone was fractured, a leg was broken, and he suffered a concussion as well as facial nerve damage. The brutal attack was broadcast throughout the nation, to the consternation of those who had previously assumed policemen were fair and civil in their dealings with the public. Those four police officers whaled on King while he was down. Why didn’t the other twenty-three who were on hand stop them? Yes, there were a total of twenty-seven police officers at the scene of the crime: Four perpetrators and twenty-three silent accomplices.
In response to the officers’ outrageous behavior, Dallas Police Chief William Rathburn, a former assistant chief of the LAPD, called their actions “gross criminal misconduct.” Tom Sullivan, an LAPD officer, said “This isn’t just a case of excessive force. It’s a case of mass stupidity.” Daryl Gates, who was Los Angeles Police Chief at the time, later said that the first time he saw the tape it made him “physically ill.” Four days after the assault, he went on record that the four officers should be charged with felony assault. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, himself a former LAPD officer, weighed in on the subject: “The conduct of those officers on that scene that night is the most reprehensible thing that I’ve seen occur in this city. And I think that we are on the road to bringing to justice those who committed the illegal acts.”
The four officers were called to account and required to answer for their actions in a court of law. As to whether justice resulted, let the facts speak for themselves—the results of that court case are discussed in the next chapter [chapter 1992: Mountain Misery and Valley Fever].
In the meantime, though, other acts of excessive force by L.A. law enforcement continued to take place. Many deaths occurred, in fact. For instance, on August 3rd, a man was shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy. The official version of the account was that the man had grabbed another deputy’s flashlight and had knocked him unconscious with it. Residents of the housing project where the event took place, though, claimed the dead man had only engaged in a verbal altercation with the officers.
As bad as King’s beating was, what he experienced was actually relatively mild compared to what many blacks had experienced in the South, even just a few decades earlier. Some had been beaten to death for refusing to sit in the back of buses, for saying something “saucy” to a white person, or just for being there, so to speak. Sadly, such incidents were not just of the past. They continued, in Los Angeles, this year: On August 13th, a mentally disturbed man was shot eight times in the back and once in the shoulder. On the 28th of that same month, a fifteen-year-old boy was killed by law enforcement officers.
Rodney King only lived to be 47 years old (1965-2012).
Questions: How many Rodney King-like incidents have occurred in the American South, in Los Angeles, and other places which are not widely known about because no verifiable evidence of such exists (such as video footage)? Is there, in your opinion, any sense or logic or, most importantly, justice, in discrimination and prejudice of any sort?
