Showing results for "1860's politics"
1860’s Politics: After All These Years, Why Do We Think President McClellan Would Have Given the Rebels an Armistice?
Approaching the 1864 Northern presidential election, students of the Atlanta Campaign tend to focus on how Sherman’s capture of the city on Sept. 2, 1864 helped President Lincoln win re-election. Conversely, we ponder Southerners’ hopes that the Democratic candidate, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, might have beaten Lincoln if the Confederate Army of Tennessee had […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: Common Ground? (2nd Edition)
This is a 2nd Edition article. When it was first published, blog readers noticed some historical errors. I removed the pieced, fixed the errors, and now share it again. My sincere apologies for the original mistakes. (Sarah Kay Bierle) In 1860, President-Elect Lincoln received a letter from Alexander H. Stephens. Stephens was a Southerner politician who […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: Lincoln-Douglas Debates Continue, Part II: Supreme Court and Choice
Politics and the Supreme Court are much in the news today, as they were in 1858 when Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. Issues have changed but more recent court decisions demonstrate that underlying themes have not changed. Perhaps we can, again, learn from Mr. Lincoln and his thoughts […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: The Challenges of 1862
Obviously, there wasn’t a presidential election in 1862, but races for the seats in the U.S. Congress were very important. Who would gain control of the legislative branch? How would the outcome of the congressional elections effect the Union war effort? In this excerpt from The Union’s Great Crisis: The Fall of 1862, the first […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: The Ohio Election that “Saved the Union”
Emerging Civil War is pleased to welcome guest author David T. Dixon The current presidential contest reminds us that politics is indeed a blood sport. Those expressing regret that negative campaign ads and nasty election rhetoric are unfortunate indicators of a post-modern loss of civility need to examine history. The dire electoral struggle between John […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: “Like a Burning Bush”: Jefferson County, (West) Virginia’s First Postwar Election(s)
Still to this day, despite the issue supposedly being settled by the Supreme Court 145 years ago, the debate lingers among some–should Jefferson County be in Virginia or West Virginia? Look at a modern map, and you’ll clearly find the county is the easternmost county in West Virginia. But that has not silenced the doubters, […]
Read more...1860’s Politics: Ellsworth on the Stump
As the tumult and the shouting of the Republicans in the Wigwam dimmed, the election of 1860 began in earnest for Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln himself was stuck in Springfield, Illinois because it was not common for the actual candidate to hit the road urging folks to vote for him.
Read more...1860’s Politics: An ECW Weekender Trip To The First Confederate White House
Looking for a historical site to visit in Alabama that has lots of Civil War political history?
Read more...1860’s Politics: A Fine Fiddle
I came across this 1860 political cartoon recently while reading a story at CNN.com about the nastiest elections in U.S. history:
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