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BOLGIA 11: THE VIOLENT
By GILES WEAVER
PROLOGUE: THREE TALES OF TRUE CRIME
If you knew all the stories of history you wouldn’t trust a soul. Here are three such American stories.
 The first story, The Crime Against Kansas, is a speech delivered by Charles Sumner, distinguished Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on the Senate floor on May 18, 1856. In his famous charge, Sumner advocated granting the territory of Kansas admission into the Union as a “free state,” or one that would not allow the institution of slavery. In response, a couple of days later Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina assaulted Sumner on the Senate floor, beating him with a cane until he fell into bloody unconsciousness. Two years later the young country known as the United States of America disintegrated into civil war.
 The second story, To The Person Sitting in Darkness, is a column about America’s colonial annexation of the Philippines in 1899, and the three- year war that followed, written by THE American – the incomparable Mark Twain. It first appeared in the North American Review in 1901. A prominent Twain biographer describes the response to Twain’s essay this way: [it’s] “… as if he had thrown a great missile into the human hive… Whatever other effect it may have had, it left no thinking person unawakened.” Let’s just say that Twain wasn’t exactly thrilled about the annexation and war, and when Twain wasn’t exactly thrilled with something he did not shy away from expressing his opinion.
The third story, our story, The Crime Against Iraq, is one that is still being written, ye t we already know it includes the deliberate misuse of military intelligence, fabrication of evidence, perjury in front of the United Nations, staggering incompetence, systematic rendition and torture, war profiteering, corruption, graft, economic imperialism, and terrorism on a scale unprecedented in human history. And that’s just in Washington D.C. Imagine what Baghdad is like. Shock and awe is right.
What do Kansas, the Philippines, and Iraq have in common?
Karl Marx wrote, “"History occurs twice, once as tragedy, the second time as farce." Let it be our guide. The Crime Against Kansas was a tragedy, the annexation of the Philippines a farce. The Crime Against Iraq proves that history occurs a third time – as travesty. They are connected by a shocking and awesome abuse of power. For this reason, I cast the architects of their atrocities into the Inferno’s Seventh Circle, Canto XII, The Violent.
But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near
The river of blood, within which boiling is
Whoe'er by violence doth injure others.
O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
That spurs us onward so in our short life,
And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!
The souls of the violent against their neighbors boil in a river of blood. Centaurs armed with bows and arrows patrol the river’s banks. They shoot any soul that attempts to rise out of the river to a height above the magnitude of his or her sin.
How high would you allow the major players in today’s three dramas to rise before you shoot them back into the Seventh Circle’s boiling river of blood?
I: THE CRIMES AGAINST KANSAS
You are now called to redress a great transgression. Seldom in the history of nations has such a question been presented. Tariffs, army bills, navy bills, land bills, are important, and justly occupy your care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary legislation. As means and instruments only, they are necessarily subordinate to the conservation of Government itself. Grant them or deny them, in greater or less degree, and you will inflict no shock. The machinery of Government will continue to move. The State will not cease to exist. Far otherwise is it with the eminent question now before you, involving, as it does, Liberty in a broad Territory, and also involving the peace of the whole country with our good name in our history for evermore.
Charles Sumner
“The Crime Against Kansas”
You think Election 2000 in Florida was bad? It was amateur hour in comparison with the political hardball that preceded Sumner’s speech on the Senate floor in 1856.
The “great transgression” of which he speaks is the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Here are the relevant facts:
 In 1820, Congress was divided between men who loved slavery and were dedicated to spreading the institution west, and men who thought that owning other people was not such a hot idea and were dedicated to its abolition. These men hammered together something called the Missouri Compromise that gave the territory of Missouri to the South (read: slaveholding), but that in the future slavery would be prohibited anywhere north of latitude of 36/30. At the time, anti-slavery forces considered the Compromise to be a crushing defeat, and it was seen as “a great triumph” in the Southern slave holding states.
Fast forward to 1854. Things are worse. The North and the South really don’t like each other. Yet, the Missouri Compromise has held steady for thirty-four years. The agreement was honored until the slave holding states finally sank their knives into its back with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Passed on May 30,1854, Congress officially created two new territories – Kansas and Nebraska. Under the Missouri Compromise slavery would be banned in both territories. Under the new Kansas-Nebraska Act the provision specifically banning slavery north of latitude 36/30 was repealed, and by “popular sovereignty” settlers in each territory would decide whether to be apply for admission to the Union as a “free state” or a “slave state.”
In his speech, Sumner described the way in which the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in Congress. How little has changed.
It was carried, first, by whipping in to its support, through executive influence and patronage, men who acted against their own declared judgment and the known will of their constituents. Secondly, by foisting out of place, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, important business, long pending, and usurping its room. Thirdly, by trampling under foot the rules of the House of Representatives, always before the safeguard of the minority. And fourthly, by driving it to a close during the very session in which it originated, so that it might not be arrested by the indignant voice of the People.
And so the crime began.
I know what you want to say. You want to say it was the butler in the kitchen with the candlestick. And you’re close. Oh so close.
 Ever hear the phrase “bleeding Kansas?” What do you think happened when people got wind of “popular sovereignty?” That’s right. People who loved slavery and people who thought that wasn’t such a hot idea rushed to move into these territories and create the “popular sovereignty” needed to expand or defeat slavery as the United States fought its way west. I know, I know, it’s almost exactly like an episode of Jerry Springer. It gets better.
Back in the 1850s, it seems the “right’ had their high flying evil act in gear, while the opposition on the “left” was rather weak. Go figure. For months, proponents of slavery laid the groundwork to turn Kansas into a slaveholding state while the abolitionists listened to each other make speeches. It worked. Sumner says:
It was confidently anticipated, that, by the activity of these societies, and the interest of slaveholders everywhere, with the advantage derived from the neighborhood of Missouri, and the influence of the Territorial government, slavery might be introduced into Kansas, quietly but surely, without arousing a conflict--that the crocodile egg might be stealthily dropped in the sun-burnt soil, there to be hatched, unobserved until it sent forth its reptile monster.
The crime continues. Let’s go back to Sumner’s speech and see how he describes this inspiring moment in American electoral history:
What could not be accomplished peaceably was to be accomplished forcibly. The reptile monster, that could not be quietly and securely hatched there, was to be pushed full-grown into the Territory…
… The violence, for some time threatened, broke forth on the 29th November, 1854, at the first election of a delegate to Congress, when companies from Missouri, amounting to upwards of one thousand, crossed into Kansas, and, with force and arms, proceeded to vote for Mr. Whitfield, the candidate of slavery…
… when an armed multitude from Missouri entered the
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This Picture appeared in a Fort Scott, KS newspaper.
The event described took place during a “Peace Convention”. |
Territory, in larger numbers than General Taylor commanded at Buena Vista, or than General Jackson had within his lines at New Orleans -- larger far than our fathers rallied on Bunker Hill. On they came as an "army with banners," organized in companies, with officers, munitions, tents, and provisions, as though marching upon a foreign foe, and breathing loud-mouthed threats that they would carry their purpose, if need be, by the bowie-knife and revolver…
… Of another locality he says: --
"The invaders came together in one armed and organized body, with trains of fifty wagons, besides horsemen, and, the night before election, pitched their camp in the vicinity of the polls; and having appointed their own judges in place of those who, from intimidation or otherwise, failed to attend, they voted without any proof of residence."
I’m sure you get the point. The “Preppy Riot” in Florida is child’s play when you consider what proud moments of democratic freedom preceded it in places like Kansas.
 If you think the tension between the “blue states” and the “red states” are bad, wait until you get a look at the Blue and the Gray. The North and the South truly were two bitter enemy nations whose enmity towards each other was tempered only by the inevitable common history that existed between them (personified by the great military leaders of the time who fought side by side in the West then across from one another at battlefields like Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Manassas a few years later). It didn’t take long for violence to break out in Kansas. That’s just what happens when some people want to own other people, and other people don’t think that is such a hot idea. As the death toll from the violence rose, the territory earned the nickname “bleeding Kansas.”
In support of the pro-slavery settlers, President Franklin Pierce, sent Federal troops to Kansas to “maintain order,” but mostly to break up the anti-slavery legislature -- a “Leave No Slaveholder Behind” policy. Yet another “election” was held, and surprise, surprise, the pro-slavery supporters won again and were charged, yet again, with election fraud.
Are you starting to pick up on a pattern here? I’ll give you a hint. A crime followed by a crime, followed by a crime, followed by a crime… and we thought OUR Congress was special.
This shameful comedy does not end with multiple election frauds, oh no. More elections are held, resulting in the “selection” of two legislatures. Wouldn’t you know it? One entire legislature consisted of members from the pro-slavery community, and the other entire legislature consisted of members of the anti-slavery community. As a result, Congress did not recognize the constitution adopted by the pro-slavery settlers and Kansas was not allowed to become a state. It just doesn’t get any more ridiculously American than this beauty of a set up, does it? Cue “Rocky” music and wheel Stallone out.
And this is the lame stuff. This doesn’t even include the bit about the Governor marching alongside the Missouri “shot gun militia” when they invaded Kansas and terrorized its anti-slavery towns. Seriously, I’m not making this up. You thought monster truck pulls were a low point, but I’m telling you it was the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
So don’t get distressed by Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004. It’s just massive election fraud, which is as traditionally American as Mom and apple pie. And don’t lose heart. Sumner lost his battle to admit Kansas to the Union as a free state that day on the Senate floor in 1856, but he, and many others, continued their fight to eradicate slavery, and they would win. Even marauding bands of armed psychopaths from Missouri could not suppress enlightened progress in the heartland of Kansas. Sumner sums it all up:
Turning thus from the authors of this crime, the People will unite once more with the Fathers of the Republic, in a just condemnation of slavery -- determined especially that it shall find no home in the National Territories -- while the Slave Power, in which the crime had its beginning, and by which it is now sustained, will be swept into the charnel house of defunct Tyrannies.
On January 29, 1861, just before the start of the Civil War, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state.
PART TWO: “TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS”
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