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Read Thread: Editorial Page - 150 Years Ago

Editorial Page - 150 Years Ago
Board: History is Alive
Nov 7, 2018 9:19am
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From the Inquirer & Mirror, Nantucket MA. November 1868

Election of the President - Not a quarter century ago, a worthy, but not prophetic Unitarian preacher on (Nantucket) Island told his congregation that the transfer of the chief magistracy of our nation is so quietly affected that we do not perceive change, while in countries ruled by monarchs, his death is often the signal for war.

Yet, we have seen a most gigantic war kindle by the election of a new president; a war that cost millions of treasure and hecatombs of victims. Now we are on the eve of another change of rulers, and cannot but regard the approach of the decisive day with some degree of concern. We are hopeful that General Ulysses Grant is the coming man. Yet we must not be lulled into inaction. Our victory, although bloodless, will not destroy manifestations of southern hate.


Comment by Old Blue:
Grant, a Republican, won the election over Horatio Seymour by a large margin. Interestingly, Grant failed to carry New York, New Jersey, Delaware or Maryland. The Republican party of that time stood for a strong federal government. (I think if them as "Federalists" rather that Republicans.) The Democratic Party believed in localized government and states rights.

In 1868, Reconstruction and civil rights of former slaves was a hotly debated issue in the Union. According to Wiki, Grant supported the Reconstruction plans of the Radical Republicans in Congress, which favored the 14th Amendment, with full citizenship and civil rights for freed people, including suffrage for adult freedmen. The Democratic platform demanded a restoration of states' rights, including the right of southern states to determine for themselves whether to allow suffrage for adult freedmen.

Submitted for your consideration,

Old Blue
Re: Editorial Page - 150 Years Ago
Board: History is Alive
Reply to: #968032 by DoubleSaj and Old Blue
Nov 8, 2018 4:14pm
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the thing that fascinated me about this quote was the fact that a preacher delivered this. have we changed so much that we disregard or reject what the word of God has to say about how we should structure our government? there was an entire group of men who, during the war of independence earned the title of the black-robed regiment from the king. men such as Peter Muhlenberg, James Caldwell, and John Witherspoon.
this is a bit of history I wish would return

thus it is manifest, in the spirit of our history, in our annals and by the general voice of the fathers of the republic, that, in a very great degree -
it is to the pulpit, the puritan pulpit, we owe the moral force which won our independence.