A few things

Busy digging out from two feet of snow and juggling a hectic end-of-semester confluence of correcting exams and papers, I haven't posted very much. Let's remedy that.

Here is a book review on a new rather critical biography of James K. Polk, one of my blog compatriot's favorite presidents. Apparently, the author, William Dusinberre, tackles Polk for being a slaveholder first rather than a true American nationalist, more concerned for securing the prosperity of the "lords of the lash" than the long-term interests of the country. Even further, sayeth the review, Dismissing warnings about racial chaos, proposals for colonization, and appeals to "Southern Honor" as nothing more than demagoguery, Dusinberre argues that Polk and his Democratic comrades should have backed off on demands for the right to take slavery into the territories, abandoned efforts to secure more slave states, and stressed to Southern voters the distinction between the abolitionists--who had relatively little popular following in the free states--and the mass of Northerners, who opposed slavery's extension but agreed that the federal government could not affect the institution within individual states. Masters then could have continued to reap the benefits of their slaves' labor until the cotton economy finally became unprofitable; at that point, the Southern states could have moved toward gradual emancipation.

I, of course, applaud this thesis. Was it not Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan who did the very thing in the 1850s, stout northern Democrats desperately standing the middle ground, consistently arguing that abolition was not the prevalent northern viewpoint, that, good or ill, slavery was the creature of individual states, that pressing the issue further (from either direction, expansion or contraction) would lead to a fratricidal war? Could we say, in fact, that Polk's actions made Pierce and Buchanan's Unionism in the 1850s a long-shot indeed? I await the inevitable rejoinder.

In an age where few adults can recite even the basic facts of national history, Western Civilization, or human accomplishment, here is a truly stupid idea: reducing the voting age to 16. Prithee, if the goal of voting is quality decision-making, how does this improve the franchise? Here is how one British Liberal Democrat justifies the extension: Denying 16-year-olds the vote because some consider them politically immature is trite nonsense. If 16-year-olds can marry, have children of their own, pay taxes and join the Army, why should they not be able to vote for the Government they want. Oh my. Could not we swing this statement around and ask, have you considered that 16-year-olds should not be allowed to marry, should be shamed by political, social, cultural, and religious leaders for even considering children at such an immature age, and should be excluded from the Army unless Devon is invaded by Huns? Are you saying the ability to procreate (my dog can do this too) gives them the ability to make sound political decisions? Shouldn't the government, at the least the responsible members, be more interested in qualitative improvement of the franchise rather than quantitative expansion?

And today is the birthday of the poet Horace, born on this day in 65 B.C.

Alas, our scars and fratricides
shame us. What has this hard generation
balked at, what iniquity left
undone? From what have our youth

refrained through fear of the Gods?
What altars spared? Fortuna, reforge
against the Arabs and Massagetae
on new anvils our blunted swords.