The Gilder Lehrman Institute just added a new podcast on Abraham Lincoln’s political career during the early 1850s. In “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point,” Lewis E. Lehrman explains how in October 1854 Lincoln “argu[ed ] that slavery was incompatible with the Founders’ vision of America as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.”  While House Divided does not have a transcript of Lincoln’s speech, one is available through the University of Michigan Digital Library.

Other lectures are also available at the Gilder Lehrman Institute (full list here), including James McPherson’s “Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam” and David Blight’s “The Civil War in American Memory.”

To see naval officers in uniform walking around New York city in 2009 is unremarkable. Yet in November 1859 a lieutenant wrote the New York Herald to address the fact “that a great number of naval officers are seen daily in the streets and public places in uniform.” While careful to note that he was not “ashamed of [his] uniform,” this officer believed such public display was wrong. “In our republican country,” as he explained, “it is not customary for offices of either “arm of national defense” to war their uniforms, save on special occasions.”

This letter is available on House Divided – while a transcript has not been posted, you can access the page image.

Sometime simplistic websites are just the resource needed to teach even some of the most complex and important issues. Abraham Lincoln is a clear example of a topic which contains countless resources both on and offline. The History Place is a simple, yet effective, website which covers a vast variety of topics. For example, their page on A Timeline of Lincoln contains great information and links presented in a clear and concise manner. The timeline, as well as the rest of the site, is defiantly worth browsing.

When the word filibuster is used today, it is most often in reference to political act of extending a debate in order to prevent a vote on an issue. In nineteenth century America, the term filibuster took on a different tone. Instead, it referred to the violent and treasonous acts by Americans to extend slavery into Central and South America. A major figure in the filibuster was William Walker, “the grey-eyed man of destiny”, who led several filibustering expeditions in Mexico and South America before being executed in Honduras in 1860. Though unsuccessful like the movement as a whole, Walker and filibustering are another example of the violent events concerning the extension of slavery that preceded the Civil War.

On this day 150 years ago an article was published in the New York Times giving the figures for the amount of police arrests in the past twelve months. Though crime had decreased throughout the year, it still was higher than anyone wished or expected to see.

The statistics didn’t necessarily reflect the amount of people that were convicted, but it’s interesting and also a bit discouraging that even today, 150 years later, there’s still a high level of crime. Is it too out of the question to think that something needs to seriously be done if there’s no real difference after 150 years?

The House Divided Project contains many depictions of Underground Railroad related violence, many taken from William Still’s The Underground Railroad. Depictions of events such as this one of the Christiana Riot are surprisingly graphic despite being hand drawn engravings.

Other pictures with titles like “Desperate Conflict in a Barn” and “Fight in the Bay” are equally as graphic yet very interesting to study. The story of the Underground Railroad had many important cases of violent conflict, and pictures such as these are useful for understanding those events. All pictures related to the Underground Railroad can be found on the image tab of the Underground Railroad page.

Like we are doing today, 150 years ago Americans across the country were analyzing the fallout of the most recent elections. The 1858 midterm elections were of considerable importance for the Civil War Era, and the results of the election made great strides to divide the nation politically. As this New York Times article from 1858 indicates, the victory of Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln in Illinois made him “more powerful at Washington than the President with all his patronage.” Today we have the leading figures in the two major parties advocating Americans to come together, but 150 years ago the parties themselves were decisively split. The original article, as well as its transcript, is available on the House Divided website.

I recently read an article in Military History by Martin Dugard entitled “The Warm-up War”. In the article, the author shows how the Mexican War was the first significant military experience for many West Point educated officers that would later serve in the Civil War. Notable names such as Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Jefferson Davis are all mentioned.  These connections were an intricate part of the story of the Civil War, and as it nears completion, the House Divided project will provide users with an unprecedented ability to navigate between these connections. The web that ties many of these men goes through many years and multiple wars and is important to the greater history of the period. The article can be located in the September/October 2008 edition of Military History.

The New York Times reports that some noted scholars such such as Milton Sernett and Kate Larson have questions about the authenticity of a moving quotation from Harriet Tubman used by Hillary Clinton in her recent speech to the Democratic National Convention.

“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

It turns out that although many authors and even the Harriet Tubman House in Auburn, NY have used this passage from Tubman, both Sernett and Larson, leading Tubman scholars, doubt its veracity and trace its origins to a twentieth-century children’s book.  A spokesman for Senator Clinton says that from now on she will only use the passage in paraphrase.

While I already mentioned Teaching the Journal of American History in another post, I want to highlight their recent update. Lacy Ford’s article from the June 2008 issue (Reconfiguring the Old South: ‘Solving’ the Problems of Slavery, 1787-1838) is now available for free.  The author provides six interesting exercises that you could use in class. Each exercise has several questions, related primary sources, and suggestions for further reading. Even if you do not use the article, be sure to check out the primary sources that are available. This site also provides free access to several other articles from the Journal of American History, including one on the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Scopes Trial.