By William H. Benson
The Parallel Lives
Of The NOBLE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS THINKERS AND BELIEVERS:
Roger Williams VS. Cotton Mathers
NEW ARTICLES
Election of 1872
Ulysses S. Grant was first elected President in 1868, as a Republican, from the state of Illinois. According to an old college history textbook, “Grant’s military triumphs during the Civil War did nothing to prepare him for the Presidency.
“He was probably the least experienced and most naive citizen ever to hold that position. He chose his advisers based upon their loyalty to him, rather than for their administrative ability. His choices for his Cabinet officers were disastrous.
“His White House staff was dominated by old army friends who had no political experience.”
In addition, Grant “did not grasp the the potential of the great office which the voters had bestowed upon him.” Instead, “he believed that Congress should make all the decisions, because they represented the people’s will. A president should only execute the will of Congress.”
Right away, those close to Grant understood that he would look the other way when well-healed businessmen came calling to bribe politicians throughout his Federal Government, heaping bags of money and favors upon them.
“By Grant’s negligence in office, he allowed a general moral laxity to flourish.”
As Grant’s first term drew to a close, a group of Republicans, who were disappointed with the corruption that swirled around this President, formed a new political party, calling themselves the Liberal Republicans. They only agreed on one issue, their disgust for Ulysses S. Grant.
The Liberal Republicans chose for their Presidential candidate Horace Greeley, a long-time New York City newspaper editor, but an eccentric who applauded any and all types of reform.
“He committed himself, all at once, to utopian and artisan socialism, to land and dietary reform, and to anti-slavery.” Of Greeley, Grant said, “He is a genius without common sense.”
The Democrats decided to join the Liberal Republicans and endorse Greeley as their candidate also, even though he was a Republican, because they were most anxious to see Grant unseated and driven out of the White House.
Despite the corruption inside his administration, Grant remained popular among voters.
Then, tragedy struck the Horace Greeley family. His wife Mary returned from Europe in late June of 1872, feeling poorly. Greeley gave up speaking and appealing to voters, to instead care for Mary, but then she passed away on October 30, five days before the election.
Greeley’s campaign for President for a new political party sputtered to a stop.
On November 5, 1872, Grant won the popular vote, 3,595,235 to Greeley’s 2,834,761, which meant that Grant would receive 286 electoral votes to Greeley’s 66.
However, before the Electoral College could meet and count those ballots, Horace Greeley also passed away, on November 29.
Forty-two of his 66 electoral votes went to Thomas Hendricks, a Democrat from Indiana, 18 went to Benjamin Brown, and Horace Greeley retained 3, although he was deceased. The Liberal Republican Party succumbed to defeat and ceased to exist.
Grant served another four years as President, but instances of corruption continued.
The worst was the Credit Mobilier scandal. It was a construction company that assisted in building the transcontinental railroad. Company officials gave away its stock to Congressmen and officials as a bribe to stop them from investigating their company’s business transactions.
A footnote to this history. On November 5, 1872, a women’s rights advocate named Susan B. Anthony walked into a voting precinct and cast her vote for Ulysses S. Grant. Two weeks later, officials arrested Anthony, and fined her $100 for voting illegally, because of her gender.
She explained her position, “I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” She never did. By the 19th Amendment, adopted in 1920, women received the right to vote, and more than 8 million women voted in the 1920 election, 48 years after Susan B. Anthony voted for Greeley.
Recap of Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II of New ZealandQueen Elizabeth passed away last week, Thursday, September 8, 2022, at 96. She was born on April 21, 1926, and had one sibling, a younger sister named Margaret, born August 21, 1930. When ten, Elizabeth discovered she was next in line...
Vaclav Smil
Vaclav Smil was born in 1943, during World War II, in Czechoslovakia, in the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. As a teenager, Smil’s parents expected him to chop wood, every four hours, to keep the fires burning in the house’s three stoves, “one downstairs and two up.”
One writer suspected that Smil may have thought then that “this is hardly an efficient way to live.”
Bill Russell and Retirement
Three weeks ago, on July 31, 2022, the former Boston Celtics’ imposing center, Bill Russell, passed away, at age eighty-eight. Over thirteen seasons at Boston, from 1957 to 1969, he collected a total of eleven championship rings, a record never since eclipsed or matched.
When he retired in 1969, he moved to Mercer Island, in Seattle, Washington, and it was there he passed away. For fifty-three years, he enjoyed a well-deserved retirement in the cool Pacific Northwest, although he coached seven seasons in the NBA in the 70s and 80s.
Battle at Rzhev
In the early days of World War II, 1939 to 1940, the Nazi German war machine advanced across eastern Europe, until its soldiers stood on the outskirts of Moscow, deep into the Soviet Union, poised and ready to attack the Russian capital city.
However, the Battle of Moscow stalled when the Soviet’s Red Army found sufficient strength to initiate a counter offensive, at Joseph Stalin’s insistence, that pushed Germany’s 9th Army west, some distance from Moscow. The counter-offensive worked for a time, until the German army stopped.
IN RETROSPECT: Pestilence
IN RETROSPECT: Pestilence On June 26, 1284, officials in a German town called Hamelin hired a musician to rid the town of its rats. The “rat-catcher’s magical flute” hypnotized the rats that followed the piper out of Hamelin’s gates and into the Weser River, where...
1776
The logo for the Broadway musical “1776” features an eaglet inside a broken eggshell, biting down on a flagpole. The small flag atop the pole shows its colors: red and white stripes, and a blue field in the upper left corner. Across the bottom portion of the egg appears a larger English flag.
The musical begins with John Adams alone in the Pennsylvania State House’s belfry, four floors up, leaning on a massive bell. A messenger approaches and informs him that he must return to the hall.
Older Posts
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer The Native American tribes had pet names for George Armstrong Custer. The Crow called him Child of the Morning Star, the Cheyenne labeled him Yellow Hair, but the Lakota Sioux referred to him as Long Hair, even though a barber had cut off his...
Stewart Brand: “The Whole Earth Catalog”
Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Stanford University on June 14, 2005. In it, he told three stories. The first was how he dropped out of Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. The second was how a manager fired him from the company that he and Steve Wozniak had started in a garage.
The third story was about his pending death, due to a pancreatic cancer diagnosis a year before.
Then, after he finished the three stories, he said, “When I was young, there was an amazing publication called “The Whole Earth Catalog,” which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park, California.
Mythology
Tony Hillerman grew up in Oklahoma, and attended St. Mary’s Academy, a boarding school intended for Native American girls. One of the few boys permitted to attend, he developed a sensitivity for the various Native American cultures, mythologies, and religions.
Traditions
In recent days, I have re-read David L. Lindsay’s novel, Body of Truth. In it, he describes a cruel and gruesome civil war that terrorized the people of Guatemala for thirty-six years, from 1960 until 1996. It was the federal government, then run by a series of generals, who attacked the poorest of its citizens.
A United Nations report, dated March 1, 1999, declared that, “An estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the civil war, including at least 40,000 persons who disappeared.”
Truth vs. lies
It might be fabricated, but a story I heard years ago was that Bill Cosby warned a young Oprah Winfrey, to “always balance your own check book.” In other words, he cautioned her to trust only herself, and not any paid employee, with that simple task.
Another piece of advice for the up-and-coming, who are now, after years of struggle, experiencing some success, “Do not believe your own press reports.” In other words, no matter how wonderful and great the journalists and reporters say you are, keep in reserve some small measure of humility.
A tale of two cities
A quote I read years ago said, “The family surname of the betrothed says much about the success of the marriage.” That idea may come near to a singular truth in a general way, despite plenty of examples to contradict it. Yet, I dare suggest something similar, but in a political sense.
How a man or woman identifies his or her citizenship–to what city he or she claims allegiance–tells much about his or her innermost thoughts, ideas, conclusions, and reasoning skills. In other words, tell me the name of your city, and I can predict the ideas that you think and believe.
Yet, not always. Again, outliers who think for themselves.
There were two cities in ancient Greece: Athens and Sparta. The Athenians practiced trade, they valued art and culture, and they ruled themselves by democracy of voters, legislators, and written laws. The Spartans though encouraged a militant society, based on farming and conquering.
One of University of Northern Colorado’s 2020 Honored Alumni
William H. Benson
Local has provided scholarships for history students for 15 years
A Sterling resident is among five alumni selected to be recognized this year by the University of Northern Colorado. Bill Benson is one of college’s 2020 Honored Alumni.
Each year UNC honors alumni in recognition for their outstanding contributions to the college, their profession and their community. This year’s honorees were to be recognized at an awards ceremony on March 27, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak that event has been cancelled. Instead UNC will recognize the honorees in the fall during homecoming Oct. 10 and 11……
Newspaper Columns
The Duodecimal System
For centuries, the ancient Romans calculated sums with their clunky numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, and M; or one, five, ten, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. They knew nothing better.
The Thirteenth Amendment
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and by it, he declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforward shall be free.” Lincoln’s Proclamation freed some 3.1 million slaves within the Confederacy.
The Fourteenth Amendment
After Congress and enough states ratified the thirteenth amendment that terminated slavery, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law declared that “all people born in the United States are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” The Act equated birth to citizenship.
The New-York Packet and the Constitution
Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian, published her newest book a month ago, These Truths: A History of the United States. In a short introduction, she describes in detail the Oct. 30, 1787 edition of a semi-weekly newspaper, The New-York Packet.
Mr. Benson’s writings on the U.S. Constitution are a great addition to the South Platte Sentinel. Its inspiring to see the history of the highest laws of this country passed on to others.
– Richard Hogan
Mr. Benson, I cannot thank you enough for this scholarship. As a first-generation college student, the prospect of finding a way to afford college is a very daunting one. Thanks to your generous donation, my dream of attending UNC and continuing my success here is far more achievable
– Cedric Sage Nixon
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– Extra Times
FUTURE BOOKS
- Thomas Paine vs. George Whitefield
- Ralph Waldo Emerson vs. Joseph Smith
- William James vs. Mary Baker Eddy
- Mark Twain vs. Billy Graham
- Henry Louis Mencken vs. Jim Bakker
