Comic History of the United States by Bill Nye (free ebook reader for ipad txt) 📖
- Author: Bill Nye
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Every ex-President should have some place where he could go and hide his shame. A trip around the world would require a year, and by that time the voters would be so disgusted with[Pg 218] the new President that the old one would come like a healing balm, and he would be permitted to die without publishing a bulletin of his temperature and showing his tongue to the press for each edition of the paper.
South Carolina in 1832 passed a nullification act declaring the tariff act "null and void" and announcing that the State would secede from the Union if force were used to collect any revenue at Charleston. South Carolina has always been rather "advanced" regarding the matter of seceding from the American Union.
President Jackson, however, ordered General Scott and a number of troops to go and see that the laws were enforced; but no trouble resulted, and soon more satisfactory measures were enacted, through the large influence of Mr. Clay.
Jackson was unfriendly to the Bank of the United States, and the bank retaliated by contracting its loans, thus making money-matters hard to get hold of by the masses.
"When the public money," says the historian, "which had been withdrawn from the Bank of the United States was deposited in local banks, money was easy and speculation extended to every branch of trade. New cities were laid out; fabulous prices were charged for building-lots which existed only on paper" etc. And in Van Buren's time the[Pg 219] people paid the violinist, as they have in 1893, with ruin and remorse.
Speculation which is unprofitable should never be encouraged. Unprofitable speculation is only another term for idiocy. But, on the other hand, profitable speculation leads to prosperity, public esteem, and the ability to keep a team. We may distinguish the one from the other by means of ascertaining the difference between them. If one finds on waking up in the morning that he experiences a sensation of being in the poor-house, he may almost at once jump to the conclusion that the kind of speculation he selected was the wrong one.
SCALPING A MAN BETWEEN THE SOUP
AND THE REMOVE.
The Black Hawk War occurred in the Northwest Territory in 1832. It grew out of the fact that the Sacs and Foxes sold their lands to the United States and afterwards regretted that they had not asked more for them: so they refused to vacate, until several of them had been used up on the asparagus-beds of the husbandman.
The Florida War (1835) grew out of[Pg 220] the fact that the Seminoles regretted having made a dicker with the government at too low a price for land. Osceola, the chief, regretted the matter so much that he scalped General Thompson while the latter was at dinner, which shows that the Indian is not susceptible to cultivation or the acquisition of any knowledge of table etiquette whatever. What could be in poorer taste than scalping a man between the soup and the remove? The same day Major Dade with one hundred men was waylaid, and all but four of the party killed.
Seven years later the Indians were subdued.
Phrenologically the Indian allows his alimentiveness to overbalance his group of organs which show veneration, benevolence, fondness for society, fêtes champêtres, etc., hope, love of study, fondness for agriculture, an unbridled passion for toil, etc.
France owed five million dollars for damages to our commerce in Napoleon's wars, and, Napoleon himself being entirely worthless, having said every time that the bill was presented that he would settle it as soon as he got back from St. Helena, Jackson ordered reprisals to be made, but England acted as a peacemaker, and the bill was paid. On receiving the money a trunk attached by our government and belonging to Napoleon was released.[Pg 221]
Space here, and the nature of this work, forbid an extended opinion regarding the course pursued by Napoleon in this matter. His tomb is in the basement of the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, and you are requested not to fumer while you are there.[Pg 222]
FITTED IN PARIS AT GREAT EXPENSE. CHAPTER XXII. MORE DIFFICULTIES STRAIGHTENED OUT.
Van Buren, the eighth President, was unfortunate in taking the helm as the financial cyclone struck the country. This was brought about by scarcity of funds more than anything else. Business-men would not pay their debts, and, though New York was not then so large as at present, one hundred million dollars were lost in sixty days in this way.
The government had required the payments for public lands to be made in coin, and so the Treasury had plenty of gold and silver, while business had nothing to work with. Speculation also had[Pg 223] made a good many snobs who had sent their gold and silver abroad for foreign luxuries, also some paupers who could not do so. When a man made some money from the sale of rural lots he had his hats made abroad, and his wife had her dresses fitted in Paris at great expense. Confidence was destroyed, and the air was heavy with failures and apprehension of more failures to come.
The Canadians rebelled against England, and many of our people wanted to unite with Canada against the mother-country, but the police would not permit them to do so. General Scott was sent to the frontier to keep our people from aiding the Canadians.
There was trouble in the Northeast over the boundary between Maine and New[Pg 224] Brunswick, but it was settled by the commissioners, Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton. Webster was a smart man and a good extemporaneous speaker.
LORD ASHBURTON AND DANIEL WEBSTER.
Van Buren failed of a re-election, as the people did not fully endorse his administration. Administrations are not generally endorsed where the people are unable to get over six pounds of sugar for a dollar.
General Harrison, who followed in 1841, died soon after choosing his Cabinet, and his Vice-President, John Tyler, elected as a Whig, proceeded to act as President, but not as a Whig President should. His party passed a bill establishing the United States Bank, but Tyler vetoed it, and the men who elected him wished they had been as dead as Rameses was at the time.
Dorr's justly celebrated rebellion in Rhode Island was an outbreak resulting from restricting the right of suffrage to those who owned property. A new Constitution was adopted, and Dorr chosen as Governor. He was not recognized, and so tried to capture the seat while the regular governor was at tea. He got into jail for life, but was afterwards pardoned out and embraced the Christian religion.
In 1844 the Anti-Rent War in the State of New York broke out among those who were tenants of the old "Patroon Estates." These men, dis[Pg 225]guised as Indians, tarred and feathered those who paid rent, and killed the collectors who were sent to them. In 1846 the matter was settled by the military.
TARRED AND FEATHERED FOR PAYING RENT.
In 1840 the Mormons had settled at Nauvoo, Illinois. They were led by Joseph Smith, and not only proposed to run a new kind of religion, but introduced polygamy into it. The people who lived near them attacked them, killed Smith, and drove the Mormons to Iowa, opposite Omaha.
In 1844 occurred the building of the magnetic telegraph, invented by Samuel F. B. Morse. The line was from Baltimore to Washington, or vice versa,—authorities failing to agree on this matter. It cost thirty thousand dollars, and the boys who[Pg 226] delivered the messages made more out of it then than the stockholders did.
THE MESSENGER-BOYS MADE MORE OUT
OF IT THAN THE STOCKHOLDERS.
Fulton having invented and perfected the steamboat in 1805 and started the Clermont on the North River at the dizzy rate of five miles per hour, and George Stephenson having in 1814 made the first locomotive to run on a track, the people began to feel that theosophy was about all they needed to place them on a level with the seraphim and other astral bodies.
Texas had, under the guidance of Sam Houston, obtained her independence from Mexico, and asked for admission to the Union. Congress at first rejected her, fearing that the Texas people lacked cultivation, being so far away from the thought-ganglia of the East, also fearing a war with Mexico; but she was at last admitted, and now every one is glad of it.
The Whigs were not in favor of the admission of Texas, and made that the issue of the following campaign, Henry Clay leading his party to a hospitable grave in the fall. James K. Polk, a Democrat, was elected. His rallying cry was, "I am a Democrat."[Pg 227]
The Mexican War now came on. General Taylor's army met the enemy first at Palo Alto, where he ran across the Mexicans six thousand strong, and, though he had but two thousand men, drove them back, only losing nine men. This was the most economical battle of the war.
The next afternoon he met the enemy at Resaca de la Palma, and whipped him in the time usually required to ejaculate the word "scat!"
Next General Taylor proceeded against Monterey, September 24, and with six thousand men attacked the strongly-fortified city, which held ten thousand troops. The Americans avoided the heavy fire as well as possible by entering the city and securing rooms at the best hotel, leaving word at the office that they did not wish to be disturbed by the enemy. In fact, the soldiers did dig their way through from house to house to avoid the volleys from the windows, and thus fought to within a square of the Grand Plaza, when the city surrendered. The Grand Plaza is generally a sandy vacant lot, where Mexicans sell tamales made of the highly-peppered but tempting cutlets of the Mexican hairless dog.
The battle of Buena Vista took place February 23, 1847, General Santa Anna commanding the Mexicans. He had twenty thousand men, and General Taylor's troops were reduced in numbers. The fight was a hot one, lasting all day,[Pg 228] and the Americans were saved by Bragg's artillery. Bragg used the old Colonial method of rolling his guns up to the nose of the enemy and then discharging an iron-foundry into his midst. This disgusted the enemy so that General Santa Anna that evening took the shreds of his army and went away.
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