Amalgamationist & Abolitionists "Amalgamation"--the code word for sexual relations between the races--was feared.  "Amalgamationists vs Abolitionists"      Anybody liberal enough to publicly espouse the view that Blacks were human and deserved the same legal rights as Whites was labeled "an Amalgamationist." Further, it implied legal inter racial marriages.   It was possible--quite common, in fact--to be an abolitionist and not  an amalgamationist.        Abolitionists were considered a Northern fringe group of eccentrics demanding the impossible.  Abolitionists existed before the founding of the republic, but the movement stirred the South's ire starting in the 1830s.      In modern terms they were a bit like PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.) For example, most people do not think animals should be treated with mindless cruelty--that does not mean most people think chickens should h...

    A DUCK OF A WIFE Litchfield CT April 7, 1859             A duck of a wife, whose husband went for a day or two on a bit of a lark, thus advertises him:             LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN—An individual whom I, in an unguarded moment of loneliness, was thoughtless enough to adopt as my husband. He is a good looking and feeble individual, knowing enough to go in when it rains, unless some good looking girl offers her umbrella. Answers to the name of John. Was last seen in the company of Julia Harris, walking, his arm around her waist, up the plank road, looking more like a fool, if possible, than ever. Anybody who will catch the poor fellow and bring him carefully back so that I can chastise him for running away, will be asked to stay for tea. —HENRIETTA A. SMITH A Runaway Woman? RUNAWAY WIVES AND RAILROADS Jan 14, 1860 NY Times    ...

  We Were Warned A Long Time Ago             In 1856,  an American woman,  Mrs. Eunice Foote,  performed a series of experiments demonstrating that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would significantly raise the temperature of the climate. Moreover, she showed it would be very slow to cool back to normal--much slower than unpolluted air. The results were published in a scientific journal in November 1856.          Of course she could not be admitted to the professional scientific organizations. No women were allowed. On the other hand, she was married to a respected judge and inventor. And her paper was only 557 words long, about the length of a short news story or slightly longer than usual letter to the editor.          Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays: By Eunice Foote From the American Journal of Science and Arts   Nov 1856 Pages 382, ...

  By chance, an artist for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly was on hand at the beginning of the riot and continued to make sketches as it progressed Riots were commonplace in ante bellum urban areas. There were several spectacular riots in New York City. One was a clash over whether a British stage star was better than the American one. Others happened when police attempted to help slave catchers seize runaway slaves or free Blacks. Often though, riots were simply gang warfare. Five Points was the epicenter of squalid poverty in ante bellum NY City and a flash point between the two largest criminal gangs in the city--the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits. Below is an account of a riot in July 1857 by Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Dead Rabbits Riot Frank Leslie’s Weekly July 18, 1857      The riot which occurred in the Sixth Ward, on Saturday night, July 4 th between the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys was the most talked of fight among the many which have disgraced our...

  The Slave trade May 19, 1860: Message on the Capture of the Slaver Wildfire An address by   President James Buchanan         On the 26th day of April last Lieutenant Craven, of the United States steamer Mohawk , captured the slaver Wildfire on the coast of Cuba, with 507 African negroes on board. The prize was brought into Key West on the 31st April and the negroes were delivered into the custody of Fernando J. Moreno, marshal of the southern district of Florida.      The question which now demands immediate decision is, What disposition shall be made of these Africans? In the annual message to Congress of December 6, 1858, I expressed my opinion in regard to the construction of the act of the 3d March, 1819, "in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade," so far as the same is applicable to the present case. From this I make the following extract:      Under the second section of this act the Pres...

  Veterans' View of William Walker November 21, 1909 Washington DC Evening Star Washington has among its varied and picturesque veteran military population, two former members of “Filibuster” Walker’s armies, which first struggled and battled for an ideal and then a man's ambition in Nicaragua 54 years ago. Both men have passed the three score and 10 mark but, despite their age are as full of vigor and fire of adventure as though the half century since, their exploits among the Latin Americans was but a close neighbor in time. The first man, Colonel C. W. Doubleday, is retired officer of the United States Army, with a long and enviable career in the service of the nation, both during the Civil War and later in the Western campaigns among the American Indians. Colonel Doubleday was Walter's. personal aide and one of his chief advisers during nearly all the hard campaigns that peculiar genius guided in Nicaragua. The second member of Walters force is Captain E.F. Ruff...

  William Walker-Amazing President of Nicaragua Washington DC Evening Star  Sunday November 21, 1909 As queer a genius as America ever has produced was editor of the San Francisco Commercial in 1854, His name was William Walker, He was small and slender, beardless and light haired, a runt of a human among the tens of thousands of big framed, powerful adventurous spirits drawn to California from all parts of the world by the lure of gold, He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, was a graduate of the University of Nashville, and had practiced law and medicine before becoming a journalist. He was well versed in international law and had travelled widely. He spoke French, German, Italian and Spanish almost as fluently as he spoke English. He was only thirty years old, and considered himself a man of destiny. A year before, at the head of a party of 47 men, he had captured the Mexican town of La Paz and elected himself president of Lower California, and gravely parceled out the po...