Dream West (Part 3)

It is 1847.  General Kearny arrests Lt. Col. John C Fremont with plans of court martialing him for mutiny, among other things.  The trial takes place in Washington, where Senator Thomas Hart Benton sits behind his son-in-law; the long break between Benton and his daughter Jessie is at an end.  Fremont is found guilty and ordered dishonorably discharged.  He counts on a Presidential Pardon, which comes but does not absolve him entirely.  He resigns the army and sets out on his 4th expedition.

Kit Carson was unavailable, so Fremont hired Bill Williams (Anthony Zerbe) as guide.  The expedition is a disaster as the men are stranded in the snows of the Rocky Mountains.  Several die of starvation.  When Fremont finally gets to California and reunites with Jessie, he is a rich man.  There is gold on the ranch he purchased.  With this, he financed yet another expedition, his 5th and final one, mapping a path through the Rockies for a railroad.

In 1856, Fremont is the first Republican nominee for the presidency.  Abraham Lincoln (F Murray Abraham) is among the delegates who nominate him.  He loses by a large margin.

1858.  Thomas Hart Benton is on his death bed.  Jessie visits.  Her father agreed that she was right about Fremont all those years ago.  She chose a very fine man.

In 1861, the Civil War has begun and President Lincoln named Fremont to command the Western Department, with a particular interest in preventing Missouri from joining the Confederacy.  In St. Louis, Fremont immediately confronted the rebel sympathizers in the city.  Time to stop treating them with kid gloves.  He went so far as to post a proclamation freeing slaves from rebels.  Lincoln viewed this as a huge overstep on Fremont's part and sent General Hunter (James Cromwell) to replace him.

It 1887, Fremont and his wife live a modest life on Staten Island.  All their wealth was lost on bad investments in the railroads.  They depend upon Jessie's writing to support them.  In a final train journey back to California, they encounter a man and his son.  The man gushes about Fremont and his book enabling his parents to travel west and thus provide him the prosperous life he now has.

The final chapter is a hodgepodge.  Where the first two episodes had a smooth flow with the rise of Fremont (episode 1 covered 4 years or so) and Fremont at War (episode 2 covers 4 years or so), this one covers the rest of his life (40 years). That's a lot of time to cover and it feels rushed.  The disaster of the 4th expedition is fully explored, even dragging at times.  The 5th expedition, which sees the return of Kit Carson, felt rushed by comparison.  The presidential campaign started with Fremont's nomination at the Republican Convention and ended almost the next scene with his defeat.  Next thing you know, it's the Civil War.  None of Fremont's battles are filmed; it is all camp and HQ.  This chapter feels more like a history lecture than an engaging story.

Though I like F Murray Abraham, he is badly cast as Abraham Lincoln.  He is in so much makeup that he almost looks to be wearing an Abe Lincoln mask.  The look is unconvincing to the extent of being distracting.  He lacks the towering stature of Lincoln.  His conversation with Jessie where she chides him for withdrawing Fremont's emancipation proclamation made Lincoln look small.

Overall, the miniseries is good.  It is too lenient on Fremont, but it is telling the story from his point of view.  My reading of the man shows him to be brash and arrogant.  He had a high opinion of himself and was not prone to humility.  Chamberlain's Fremont does not come across as a man who grew up in South Carolina.

Recommended.

Glory (1989)

Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is a captain in the US Army at the Battle of Antietam.  While leading his men toward the Confederate lines, he is wounded and left on the battlefield when the Union forces retreat.  He awakens to see John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), who is digging graves for the dead.  While being treated for his injury, he learns that Lincoln is preparing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Back in Boston to recover, Shaw is offered command of the proposed all-black regiment by Governor John Andrew (Alan North).  Shaw accepts and a regiment is recruited.  Among the recruits are John Rawlins, Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher), Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy), and Silas Trip (Denzel Washington).

The 54th has many obstacles to overcome before it can be sent to fight.  First, they must learn to march and shoot.  Then there is the trouble in getting uniforms and other gear.  The constant concern is that black soldiers will be left to do manual labor rather than actual fighting.  Eventually, the regiment heads south and is assigned to foraging duty with an undisciplined all-black regiment under Colonel Montgomery (Cliff De Young).  Determined to be sent into battle, Shaw uses his family contacts to make it so.  The 54th fights its first engagement at Grimball's Landing.  For the finale, Shaw volunteers for the Forlorn Hope against Fort Wagner which is protecting Charleston Harbor.

Denzel Washington won his first Oscar for this role and it is clear why.  He brings Silas Trip to life, a former slave who both wants to fight yet doesn't hold much regard for whites, even those who have been dying to free those like him.  He is all callouses and scar tissue, a man who basks in the disdain of his fellows.  However, the growing comradery with his tent mates and the recognition he receives for his bravery in battle transform him.  The prickly loner has become a valued member of the regiment.  He is now a man at peace with himself as he faces a grim battle ahead.

By contrast, Matthew Broderick is a peculiar choice.  He does the youth part just fine, but there isn't much edge to him.  Even when he seeks to be forceful, it comes across almost as pleading.  Often, it felt like he acted entirely out of duty rather than an inner fire for abolition.  He did not seem like a man who would volunteer for a suicidal charge into the guns of Fort Wagner.  Sure, if he was ordered to do it, he would, but he didn't strike me as a man to volunteer.  Though the lines were forceful, the delivery was wishy-washy.  Of course, maybe this is how Shaw was.  Broderick was Director Edward Zwick's first choice for the role.

Andre Braugher is quite good as Thomas Searles, an idealist who grew up free in Boston and finds the rigors of the army more difficult than expected.  As a friend of Colonel Shaw, he feels suddenly abandoned thanks to rules against fraternization.  Considering his later work in cop dramas, this role was out of character for him.  Then again, this was his first role!  An excellent performance and a well-realized character.

If the movie had been nothing but the banter and comradery amongst Freeman, Washington, Braugher, and Kennedy, it would have still been a great movie.  The chemistry among these characters is terrific.

Though the movie gets the history generally correct, there are issues.  First, the regiment was almost exclusively recruited from the free blacks living in Massachusetts, not escaped slaves.  Most of them should have been more like Andre Braugher's bookish Corporal Searles rather than Denzel Washington's belligerent Private Trip.  Many of the soldiers were recruited by Frederick Douglass.  In fact, two of his sons joined the 54th and one of them, Lewis Henry Douglass, was the sergeant major.  Therefore, John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) should have been replaced by Lewis Douglass.  Though Freeman is absolutely terrific in the role, it is peculiar that a fictional character was inserted rather than the historical one.  The only non-fictional member of the 54th is Colonel Shaw.

Overall, a good film that shows the 54th from the perspective of its first commanding colonel.  The 54th wasn't done after the 2nd Battle of Fort Wagner but that is where this story ends.

The Second American Civil War

The border between Mexico and Texas is not secure.  Rather than prevent foreigners from crossing into Texas, US Customs and Border Protection has been facilitating in crossing.  Whereas Texas has deployed measures to limit crossings, CBP has torn down those measures and assisted illegal entries.  The Supreme Court has ruled that the CBP can remove the barriers that Texas has erected.  In response, Texas has continued to raise barriers and sent the Texas National Guard to help secure the border.  Governor Abbott has accused President Biden of failing to carry out the laws against illegal entry and declared Texas to be under invasion.  The CBP numbers appear to confirm this:

Something changed dramatically in 2021.  Was it that Biden reversed most of President Trump's policies regarding the border?  The Obama years saw a gradual and consistent decline, but Biden has spiked like Al Gore's hockey stick.  Even mayors of Democrat-controlled cities have complained about the surge in illegal migrants.

Arizona tried to secure its border several years ago, passing laws that mirrored the national laws.  The Supreme Court nixed that, stating that international borders were the domain of the federal government.  Clearly, Governor Abbott wants to relitigate that view.  Several states have offered verbal support and Florida has offered material support to Texas.

That aside, the question is what will the Biden Administration do in response to Texas taking control of an international border?  If he allows Governor Abbott to secure the border against the administration's wishes, then other states will follow suit.  The federal government will effectively relinquish its role in border enforcement.  On the other hand, if the administration responds by forcibly taking over the border, that could result in armed conflict.  Welcome to Civil War II.  Maybe we are already in Civil War II, just waiting for the Fort Sumter incident that makes it official.

In 2022, there was a poll asking if there was an invasion along the southern border.  The responses were 53% true or somewhat true vs. 19% completely false.  The Biden Administration is on the wrong side of that poll.  Gee, could this explain Donald "Build the Wall" Trump's resurgence?  Yes, I think it does.

Major Dundee (1965)

It is 1864 in New Mexico.  Major Amos Dundee (Charleton Heston) and his column have come upon the site of a massacre.  Sierra Charriba, an Apache chief, has been terrorizing the countryside.  Dundee decides that he must track down the Apache and recover the children that were abducted.  With the Civil War in full swing, troops to counter Charriba are limited.  However, there are Confederate prisoners-of-war available; Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris), a one-time friend of Dundee, is among them.  Dundee sets out with a mix of the fort garrison soldiers, Confederate prisoners, volunteer criminals, and civilian volunteers to chase the Apache through Mexico.  On this odyssey, they are ambushed, fight among themselves, battle the French forces in Mexico, find love, get drunk, fiesta, experience loss, and battle the Apache.

In addition to Heston and Harris, James Coburn plays Sam Potts, a one-armed scout, Brock Peters is Sgt. Aesop, the leader of the colored troops, and Jim Hutton is Lt. Graham of the artillery.  Lt. Ryan (Michael Anderson Jr.) provides narration throughout the movie as he records the events in his diary.  The events start in October 1864 and the final scene takes place in April 1865, after the Civil War had ended though they don't know it.

The movie is a hodgepodge with too many characters and too much going on.  Where this complexity would be great in a book or a miniseries, it is distracting in a movie.  According to IMDb, the script was still a work in progress during shooting and Sam Peckinpah was mostly drunk to where Heston was required to do a fair amount of the directing.

There is a gem to be had in this story and with these characters, but Peckinpah and Heston failed to find it.  Mediocre.

Checkmate, Lincolnites!

Atun-Shei Films delves into a variety of historical subjects, including the Civil War, King Philip's War, Vikings in North America, and sundry other topics.  The one that attracts the most attention is the Checkmate, Lincolnites! where Andrew Rakich debates the Civil War, especially the Lost Cause Myth that arose after the South's defeat.  The format has Andrew portraying both Billy Yank and Johnny Reb as they debate the issue of the day.  He hams it up with Johnny Reb, making the character something of a goofball.  However, many of Johnny Reb's lines are provided from the comment section from earlier videos.  The videos are quite good with a professional look and excellent research.  Though I was on Billy Yank's side from the first episode, I found that I was drawn even further to his side.  Yes, the war was about slavery.  Not taxes.  Not states' rights.

Entertaining, educational, and recommended.

Civil War Brewing?

Tim Pool has talked about civil war for a while now.  The level of discord between the left and the right is so extreme that he posits that our current era is equivalent to the 1850s prior to the Civil War (1861-65).  Sadly, he makes a good case.  In a longform video, he noted how police in some localities are not enforcing the law or that some things have been decriminalized.  For example, shoplifting less than $900 worth of merchandize in California is no longer prosecuted.  Surprise, surprise, the amount of shoplifting has skyrocketed.  In fact, it is done openly and you can find videos of brazen thefts posted on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and so forth.  Though such theft is no longer a crime, the police will often arrest and prosecute those who attempt to stop the thefts.  Therefore, protecting your property from thieves is a crime.  How can that be the case?  Tim points out that this cannot go on much longer.  We already see San Francisco businesses closing shop.  If the authorities refuse to protect the citizens, there will be vigilantes.  There will come a day when the vigilantes injure or kill 'criminals' in the act.  The state police or maybe even US Marshals/FBI will show up to arrest the vigilantes.  Now what?  The vigilantes have no reason to respect the authority of either.  Had the government been doing the job of enforcing law, the vigilantes would have been unnecessary.  By its own acts, the government is setting the stage for a conflict with its citizens.

The collapse of the rule of law is leading to increased civil strife.  Obvious cases of two-tiered justice where criminals are released without bail and victims are prosecuted for resisting criminals has to stop.  If not, Tim Pool's prediction of the next civil war may come to pass.

Twitter

Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and panic has ensued.  I am reminded of the election of Abraham Lincoln, of all things.  No sooner had Lincoln been elected than the South commenced to secede.  There was no waiting to see what policies he might pursue, just immediate panic.  Despite Lincoln winning with less than 40% of the popular vote, the South chose to secede.  Had the South remained, an additional 12 Democratic Senators would have tipped the Senate to the Democrats: 35 Democrats, 29 Republicans, and one Unionist.  There were 7 Democrat Senators from Union states and 7 more from Border States.  Instead, the balance was 29 Republicans, 23 Democrats, and 1 Unionist.  As more Confederate states departed, the balance was further unbalanced.  Even with the Republican dominance that followed, Northern Democrats were still needed to pass the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.  Clearly, this could never have been ratified if the South had not seceded.

Musk has only just purchased Twitter and has implemented little, if anything yet.  Why not wait to see how things shake out?  If it goes to hell, then tweet your prescience and delete your account then.  By staying on the platform, you have the ability to shape the platform.  By leaving, you have none.  I am also reminded of all those who proclaimed that they would leave the United States if Bush or Trump were elected.  Amazingly, they never did leave.

Musk has declared himself to be a free speech absolutist.  As such, one would expect a much higher bar for banning people from Twitter under Musk.  Twitter has, over the last few years, clearly chosen sides in many debates, banning or suspending those who dare to voice opinions on the 'wrong' side of the issue.  One hopes that Musk will let the two sides argue.  Time will tell.

The Star of the West

In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican elected to the Presidency.  The party had only been formed in 1854 on account of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Comprise and thus led to Bleeding Kansas as both anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces flooded into the state in order that 'Popular Sovereignty' would choose their side when statehood came.  Many in the South viewed the party as an abolitionist party and, as such, the election of Lincoln signaled that a corner had been turned on the fight over slavery.  His election was viewed as a hostile act.

On December 20, South Carolina seceded from the United States.

On December 26, Major Robert Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie and transferred those troops and some guns to Fort Sumter.

On January 3, 1861, Delaware rejected a vote on secession.

On January 4, a civilian steamship, The Star of the West, was dispatched with supplies for Fort Sumter.  At the time of its departure, South Carolina remained the only state to secede.  Buchanan specifically chose a civilian ship in order to minimize tensions.

On January 9, The Star of the West was fired upon as it navigated into the harbor.  Neither the Star of the West nor Fort Sumter returned fire on the Morris Island battery.  The Star of the West suffered minor damage and retreated without delivering supplies.  In the wake of the incident, Major Anderson wrote to Governor Pickens, noting that South Carolina had not declared war on the United States before firing on a US ship.  This incident is often viewed as the first shooting in the Civil War though it did not trigger war.  Also on this day, Mississippi seceded from the Union.

On January 31, a letter from Governor Pickens of South Carolina arrived in Washington.  In it, he demanded that President Buchanan surrender Fort Sumter.  He refused.  However, by this time, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had also seceded.

On March 4, Lincoln is inaugurated.  By this time, Texas had also seceded.  Seven states had seceded before the reason for their secession had even entered office.

On April 12, Confederate batteries commenced a 34 hour bombardment on Fort Sumter.  This is the widely accepted date for the start of the Civil War.

On April 13, the Union forces surrendered Fort Sumter.

Considering the timeline, who started the war?  It seems obvious to me.  A friend declares that the entry of the Star of the West into Charleston Harbor was the beginning of the War of Northern Aggression.  From this, I don't see it.

The Coming Civil Wars

Scott Adams has predicted that civil wars - yes, plural! - are coming.

Civil War # 1: The coming election is likely to be a disaster, by design.  Mail-in voting will provide for a huge amount of fraud and/or disenfranchisement.  Unless one candidate wins by landslide regardless of voting concerns, the losing side will go ballistic.  Mail-in voting increases the likely would of an unclear outcome and will lead to a contested election like 2000 where individual votes were argued based on the condition of the chad on the ballot.  That was in Florida only.  Now do that nationwide.

If Biden pulls out a win in the same manner of Al Franken in 2008 (i.e. after the initial count and first recount gave the win to his opponent, a 2nd recount 'found' votes that put Franken in office), we might see a civil war where red states secede.  Unlikely, but it has been a high-stress year; high stress can lead to crazy results.

If Trump wins by anything other than a massive landslide (unlikely), it will inevitably be declared a rigged election.  There will be claims of disenfranchisement or Russian collusion or Chinese collusion or whatever sounds good at the time.  That will probably happen even if Trump wins 50 states and the District of Columbia.  If it is less than a landslide (likely), Antifa and BLM will up their games.

Civil War # 2: The body camera footage of the George Floyd arrest has been released.  He had been placed in the back of the police car but struggled to get back out, saying he couldn't breath.  He was making claims about being unable to breath prior to being held on the ground.  That would obviously change what the officers thought when he continued saying it.  The likelihood that they are found not guilty just rose dramatically.  If we've had nationwide protests in the wake of Floyd's death, what will happen when the officers are acquitted?

Scott views these as coming and we should prepare.  He has been shown to be pretty good at predicting events.

Ban Democrats?

Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) has proposed banning the Democratic Party.  Why?  The Democrats were the party of the Confederacy, slavery, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan.  If all those Confederate statues have to go, how about the party that represented it?

My initial reaction was to see this as a gag.  However, if Democrats and their supporters are so eager to tear down Jefferson, Jackson, and Wilson - all Democrats - then they should abolish the party that those men represented.  The Republican party was founded as an anti-slavery party.  Even after the Civil War, the Democrats didn't embrace the anti-slavery platform.  No, they instituted poll taxes, established the KKK, and enacted Jim Crow laws.  When Woodrow Wilson was elected to the presidency in 1912, he brought segregation to federal workplaces.  Huh.  So it wasn't segregated during the Taft (R), Roosevelt (R), or McKinley (R) Administrations?  From Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 to Wilson's in 1913, only 1 Democrat had been elected: Grover Cleveland.  Cleveland was a Democrat from Buffalo, New York, and somewhat milquetoast on the Jim Crow and voting rights issues.  Wilson's mother had been a southern belle and he was ready to bring Democratic Party values into the federal government.

If we are going to toss out all the good that Jefferson or Washington did because they were slave owners, how can we not cancel this party that supported slavery for decades and then oppressed blacks for at least a century after the Civil War?  The majority of the party history is horrendous.

Ban the Democratic Party!

Civil War 2020

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

The United States has a particular history that has shaped it to be what it is today.  Some of that history is good.  Some of that history is bad.  On balance, it is more good than bad and has resulted in the most benevolent and selfless nation the world has ever seen.  A lot of people don't see it that way.  As luck would have it, Orwell provided a road map for them to use: Control the past.

Columbus discovered the new world.  Vilify him and tear him down.  Done!

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.  Discredit him and tear him down.  In progress.

George Washington won the Revolutionary War and served as first President of the United States.  Maximize his faults and ignore his achievements.  In progress.

James Madison is the Father of the Constitution.  Discredit him.  On the to-do list.

If you can recast the Founders as villains rather than heroes, you can then discard what they wrought.  How can you revere a Declaration that was written by slave owners?  How can you live under a Constitution that was drafted by a bunch of elite white men, half of whom owned slaves?  Tear it all down!

But Frederick Douglass used the Declaration and the Constitution to bolster his abolitionist oratory.  How can you say that all men are created equal when slavery exists?  To be true to the founding documents, slavery had to end.  Then tear down Frederick Douglass!

Martin Luther King referred to the Constitution and the Declaration when he said the Founders signed "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."  The Founders had outlined great and noble ideas but did not live up to them.  Nor did many generations afterwards live up to those ideals but progress has been made.

In 1967, Rudi Dutschke proposed a strategy for subverting society by infiltrating institutions.  He called this the long march through the institutions.  The long march is essentially complete in the United States.  The media is almost wholly owned by the left.  Higher education is controlled by the left and churns out ignorant youth who gladly tear down statues.  Most agencies in the government at every level are controlled by the left; is it any wonder that government has mostly stood aside as chaos has gripped the nation.

Lincoln warned that the United States would not fall to a foreign threat.  If we fall, it is because we destroyed ourselves.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln

Are we on the brink of America's second civil war?  Maybe.

The 2nd American Civil War?

Here is an interesting analysis of current events.  It is a long video but here are a few highlights.  He makes a strong case but then I am biased against government in general and willing to believe the worst of it.  No one wants to surrender power which is why George Washington is great; he surrendered power when he could have been monarch.  He set a precedent that held until FDR, almost 150 years later.  These unelected bureaucrats who have been able to regulate to their hearts content for decades are suddenly forced to repeal 2 regulations for every new one!  That shrinks their power!  How dare he?  Tax cuts?  Yet another reduction in the centralized power of the state.  Those who don't believe in the Deep State willfully ignore that Hillary won the District of Columbia by 90% to 4%.  That 90% is not happy and a substantial portion of them have joined the Resistance.  What did Lincoln say: A house divided against itself cannot stand.

 

Bring back the spoils system.  Better yet, shrink the government to the original 4 cabinet posts and leave everything else to the states.

Confederate

The makers of Game of Thrones have floated the idea of a new HBO series that considers what America would be like had the South won the Civil War.  Doubtless, the success of Man in the High Castle - which proposes an alternate history in which Germany and Japan divided the United States between them after winning WWII.  Let's look at the numbers.

The 1860 Census found that the United States had 31.4 million people.  Of those, approximately 9 million lived in the South and 22 million in the North.  That's a pretty impressive advantage for the North but there's more.  Of the 9 million people in the South, more than 40% were black.  In South Carolina, the population was 57% black, virtually all of whom were slaves.  The North had 72% of the railroads, 92% of iron & steel production, 75% of the wealth, 68% of the exports, and 85% of the factories.  The math is quite hostile to a Confederate victory.  The only reason the South lasted as long as it did was because they had a better officer corps at the start of the war.

 

The South was fighting a defensive war, which is often a recipe for defeat.  Twice, Lee sallied into the North; some of his army refused to follow.  They had joined to fight against Northern aggression, not commit Southern aggression.  However, suppose that Lee took Washington, DC and even captured Lincoln and most of the government.  Suppose that the North accedes to the South's separation.  There still remains an Underground Railroad.  More John Browns will attempt to spark slave revolts.  After the Colonies won the Revolutionary War in 1783, England tried to undo it in the War of 1812.  The same would happen with the North and South and unless the South dramatically departed from the King Cotton economy, the North would be even more formidable in a rematch.

 

I may watch the premiere but my suspension of disbelief is going to be stretched to the breaking point very quickly.

The Civil War and Andrew Jackson

Because we had a Civil War, most believe that it was unavoidable.  A Civil War was baked into the Constitution because of the three-fifths rule and the allowance of the slave trade to proceed until 1808.  Two very different regions had joined forces to leave the British Empire.  Independence required unity but the cultures were not easily united.  It's an excellent point.  I've been on the receiving end of many lectures that outline the inevitability of the Civil War.  And yet, the United States is the only country that fought a Civil War to abolish slavery.  Russia was able to end serfdom (a slightly less onerous form of slavery) through legislation and compensation.  Many other countries didn't even offer the compensation when ending the practice.  The British Empire had a system whereby slaves were transformed into 'apprentices' for a set period of years and then freed.

 

The United States suffered a lack of leadership in the 1850s.  Zachary Taylor, father in law of future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had the misfortune of dying while the Compromise of 1850 was being debated.  His death allowed it to pass in a form he had opposed.  Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency and mostly kept the seat warm for Franklin Pierce.  Pierce blithely triggered Bleeding Kansas with the ill-fated Kansas-Nebraska Act.  Moreover, he proposed purchasing Cuba to extend slavery further south.  It is hard to believe that he was born and raised in New Hampshire, a state that began abolishing slavery in 1783.  The catastrophic Pierce presidency was followed by James Buchanan, arguably the most qualified man to ever be elected and regularly rated as the worst president in US history.  Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857.  On the 6th, the Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision.  With an ever-clearer widening divide between North and South, Buchanan twiddled his thumbs.  When secession finally came after Lincoln's election, Buchanan did almost nothing, leaving the war to his successor.

 

The disastrous 1850s led to armed conflict in the 1860s.  Had an Andrew Jackson-like figure been present rather than a slew of mediocrities, it is certainly arguable that things would have progressed very differently.  Had Fillmore, Pierce, or Buchanan been president during the Nullification Crisis, the Civil War might have started in 1833 instead of 1861.  Now, Jackson himself - a slave owner with a volcanic temper - might not have been the best choice to mediate the conflict but he would have been better than what we had.