Courtesy of Wikimedia
Describing the stark choice that confronted the 55 men who met in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787, James Madison once wrote about the Constitution that “Every word … decides a question between power & liberty.”
Source: “Charters,” The National Gazette, January 19, 1792; available in The Writings of James Madison, 1790-1802, Volume 6, Edited by Gaillard Hunt, available via Google Books
Franklin and Armfield Slave Dealers (House Divided)
Sources
The Virginia African American Heritage Program has a short essay about the Franklin and Armfield office on their website. In addition, Edward E. Baptist uses Isaac Franklin and John Armfield as an example in his article “”Cuffy,” “Fancy Maids,” and “One-Eyed Men”: Rape, Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States,” American Historical Review (2001). Robert H. Gudmestad also discuses the two slave dealers in A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade (2003).
Places to Visit
Franklin and Armfield’s office became a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and is now home to the Freedom House Museum. The museum opened in 2008 and is located in Alexandria, Virginia at 1315 Duke Street. You can also find a historical marker about Franklin and Armfield outside the museum. In addition, the Bruin Slave Jail is located several blocks away at 1707 Duke Street. In 1854 Harriet Beecher Stowe explained in The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin that she used information about the jail to help write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Edmondson sisters were one of many slaves who were imprisoned at this jail. In addition, you will find a statue of the two sisters at Edmonson Plaza (1701 Duke Street). The statute was unveiled in June 2010 and serves as a memorial to those suffered while in the jail. You can learn more about the Bruin Slave Jail from a short overview on the Alexandria Black History Museum’s website. Also see this short essay from the Virginia African American Heritage Program. Visitors should note that this building is not open to the public.
Images
The Franklin and Armfield’s Slave Prison image is a detail from a broadside available at the Library of Congress.
Click on the Image to go to this collection.
Summary – “document daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888), an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office. Now located in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, the diary details events in Washington during the Civil War years including Taft’s connection with Abraham Lincoln and his family. Of special interest is Taft’s description of Lincoln’s assassination, based on the accounts of his friends and his son, who was one of the attending physicians at Ford’s Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, on April 14, 1865.” – Text from Library of Congress
See diary entries on June 29th 1863 and Oct 5th 1863 for comments related to the Battle of Gettysburg.
NOTE – This exhibit also has an essay that provides more background info on Taft and explains the significance of his diary.
Posted by Don Sailer
Credit – Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Francis Lieber (House Divided)
Sources
You can find collections of Lieber’s papers at the Henry E. Huntington Library, Johns Hopkins University, the University of South Carolina, and at the Library of Congress. Other important primary sources include Lieber’s Miscellaneous Writings: Reminiscences, Addresses, and Essays (1881) and Like a Sponge Thrown into Water: Francis Lieber’s European Travel Journal of 1844-1845 (2002). Lieber also wrote several books and articles, such as A Popular Essay on Subjects of Penal Law (1838) and Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (1863). Important secondary sources include Frank Freidel’s Francis Lieber, Nineteenth-Century Liberal (1948), Bernard Edward Brown’s American Conservatives: The Political thought of Francis Lieber and John W. Burgess (1951), Elihu Root’s, “Francis Lieber and General Orders no. 100,” American Journal of International Law 7 (1913): 453-469, Kent Blaser’s “Lieber’s Code and the Law of War,” Civil War History 30 (1984): 88-89, Michael O’Brien’s “‘A Sort of Cosmopolitan Dog’: Francis Lieber in the South,” Southern Review 25 (1989): 308-322, Burrus M. Carnahan’s, “Lincoln, Lieber and the Laws of War: The Origins and Limits of the Principle of Military Necessity,” American Journal of International Law 92 (1998): 213-231, and Hartmut Keil’s “Francis Lieber’s Attitudes on Race, Slavery, and Abolition,” Journal of American Ethnic History 28 (2008): 13-33.
Places to Visit
Lieber College is located on the University of South Carolina’s campus in Columbia. The building was constructed in 1837 and Lieber lived in the house until 1856. Today it houses the University’s Undergraduate Admissions Office.
Images
While an image of Lieber is available on his House Divided profile, the New York Public Library Digital Gallery also has several other photographs.
Click on the Image to the right for a larger version.
Read President Wilson’s speech at Gettysburg (on July 4, 1913) here.
Posted by Don Sailer
Image Credit – George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Speech Credit – : John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65370
Click on the Image to the right for a larger version.
Posted by Don Sailer
Image Credit – Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Click on the Image to the right for a larger version.
Image Caption – “Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Of Battle Of Gettysburg, PA”
Speech Credit – John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15669
Click on links below for more pictures –
http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ncc/images/FDR_2.jpg
http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ncc/images/FDR_3.jpg
http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ncc/images/FDR_4.jpg
Also, click here to read FDR’s speech (July 3, 1938)
Posted by Don Sailer
Image Credits – NARA M865 (Selected Photographs of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1913-1945); Footnote.com
Click on the Image to the right for a larger version.
“Heroes of battle of Gettysburg paid tribute by surviving brothers-in-arms. Washington, D.C., May 30, Although there are only a few of the boys in blue and gray left, two of them were strong enough today, Memorial Day, to drop flowers from the air on the Gettysburg battlefield to honor their comrades who lost their lives in this historic battle of the Civil War. Here we see, left to right: William H. Jackson, 95, of Washington, D.C., 5/30/38” – Text from Library of Congress Metadata
According to an article in the Washington Post, the two veterans were unable to drop the flowers over Gettysburg – Click here to read the full article.
Posted by Don Sailer
Image Credit – Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Newspaper Citation Washington (DC) Post, May 31, 1938, p. X13.
Newspaper Credit Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
Check out some archival footage on YouTube from the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Credit US Army
Robert Wallace, “Recharge at Gettysburg,” Life 55 (July 5, 1963): 14-15.
A short essay published in early July 1963 (during the 100th Anniversary) discusses the 50th Anniversary.
Read this article on Google Books (the essay starts on page 14).
Posted by Don Sailer
Credit – Life Magazine; Google Books
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