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Radio War Nerd #311 — The US Civil War, Part 6: Buchanan's Treason & The Mormon War (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-14 00:06:51
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: January 10, 2022

Though badly wounded, the War Nerd kicks off 2022 with a new installment of the RWN US Civil War series. This episode: we recover distorted history on the last president before the Civil War, James Buchanan, who's been falsely portrayed as a weak and indecisive failure, rather than as the dynamic pro-Planter Class traitor he was. We look at the one domestic war Buchanan happily launched — against the Mormons in Utah, who also happened to be anti-slavery.

*The Nauvoo Legion

*Anti-Mormon American cartoons

Previous RWN US Civil War episodes:

*EP #295: The US Civil War, Part 1: Count Adam Gurowski*EP #297: The US Civil War, Part 2: Bleeding Kansas*EP #300: The US Civil War, Part 3: First Battle of Bull Run*EP #303: The US Civil War, Part 4: McClellan, Treason & The Battle of Antietam*EP #307: The US Civil War, Part 5: Vicksburg 

Buy John Dolan's book "The War Nerd Iliad" & his audiobook "Pleasant Hell".

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Total time: 1:38:09

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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William Sallen

I thought Brigham Young was very Pro slavery. The early Mormons thoughts on Black people as the descendant of Cain was pretty racist even for it's day

Frogposting

Wishing you the speediest and most comfortable recovery, Gary!

NYCM&AHole

No longer on Facebook so no wonder i don’t know what’s going on

Paul Foos

Sorry to nitpick, but it is wrong to call Northern Republicans, or Northerners in general "abolitionists." People like Sumner did harbor abolitionist opinions and even convictions, but their political agenda was antislavery, that is, keeping slavery out of the territories and keeping proslavery legislation, like the Fugitive Slave Act out of Northern states. Republican politics were racist and anti-Black for the most part, though the historical mythology of the North would have you think otherwise.

Ander Pierce

RWN civil war series is a favorite of mine, along with any of Annibale's contributions, Aamer's Arab Conquests...and probably a dozen other subjects the show tackled in depth. Now for a challenging question, if given the opportunity would you rather shake hands with Grant or give McLellan a good slap?

Dave Dolle

Man, I Love these. John please stay safe, hope you heal fast.

Bryan Nicholson

Hope John is feeling better, especially with his new titanium parts! Good ep overall, but I was creeped out by the pro-LDS lead up to the Mormon War segment, which lauding Mormons as plucky abolitionists. Fellas, the Mormon Church held anti-blackness as an explicit part of their theology until 19-fucking-78. Yes, all 19th century Anglo American religions were racist, but anti-blackness was baked into the teachings of the founders such as Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Add to that the strict patriarchal hierarchy that denied women spiritual equality, and the (mentioned) homophobia. Sorry to say, but this time RWN contrarianism was wrong.

etienne

I was reading a book about the early US transcontinental railroads (Railroaded, Richard White, 2011) and it has some interesting stuff about anti-Asian discrimination that indicates that a lot of otherwise flawlessly progressive people turned right around on the China question and ended up on the same side as trackside gangs who liked to do basically small scale pogroms*. Page 303: "Americans deeply believed in uplift, but once the Protestants largely abandoned their efforts at conversion, the Chinese ceased to be targets for uplift. They didn’t qualify. They could not be reformed, because they were inassimilable: “separate, distinct from, and antagonistic to our people in thinking, mode of life, in tastes and principles.” In 1870 western Republican congressmen had taken the lead in making sure that Asians could not become naturalized citizens. This made Asian immigrants by definition unable to participate in the rituals and duties of the republic. " The source on those "western Republicans" is Coolies and Cane, Moon-Ho Jung, 2006, page 136 and onwards, which I'll clip here "It was a discussion no one could have foreseen when the House of Representatives resolved to pass a law modifying the nation’s naturalization laws to check “fraudulent practices” and “illegal voting” in the wake of the 1868 elections. As the House’s Judiciary Committee introduced a bill in June 1870 to criminalize the use of false testimony, impersonation, or documentation in obtaining naturalized citizenship or voting rights, everyone recognized that its purpose was to eradicate the corrupt schemes ascribed to New York City’s Democrats and their foreign-born Irish constituents. Surprisingly, Republican legislators from the Pacific Coast regis tered the loudest objections. Thomas Fitch of Nevada and Aaron A. Sargent of California protested vehemently against the implied inclusion of Asians in the nonspecific rubric “aliens,” casting them as “races of tyrants and slaves,” “idol worshipers,” “imperialists,” “polygamists,” altogether “a race without love of liberty.” Fitch moved immediately to add the phrase “except natives of China or Japan” after “aliens” in the bill to foreclose the possibility of their natural ization. Excluding the Chinese from naturalization, Sargent insisted, was “in strict harmony not only with the letter but the intention of the fifteenth amend ment.” Congress had not banned “nativity” in voting restrictions, he argued, in deference to the “Chinese question” out west." The wikipedia for those two guys indicate that: - Fitch was a lawyer who campaigned for Lincoln in Nevada, is credited for keeping California on the Union side during the war, and served as Brigham Young's attorney against charges of polygamy in 1872-71 - Sargent was another California Republican who later on wrote the first draft for the Women's Suffrage ammendment This tends to reinforce my understanding that Abolitionism had *everything* to do with labour. Slavery threatened to gobble up the good homestead land, so it had to go. Asian economic migration threatened to slash labour rates by a third or a half so it had to stay home. Zero hard feelings about some broader moral arc of the universe. Maybe you can split hairs and say that Western Republicans were a different breed than New Englanders but this is a pretty big strike against the movement overall, I'd say. I still think this series is really good but I'm gonna take a grain of salt with the idea that Radical Republicans had such good ethics. * chapter 7 of that book has some blood-curdling anecdotes of stuff that Knights of Labor would pull on Black and Asian labours when those came in mail-order boxcars ordered by the railroads or mining companies to replace the northern european workforce

etienne

So really what you're saying is that the Civil War was fought over *Northern* States rights? /half-joking

Paul Foos

Just the Northern states saying they had rights was what pissed off the South enough to go to war.

Mark Ames

You're right about this. My bad. I spent a lot of words trashing the Mormon church about a decade ago, and as I said I felt sort of bad about it, because from personal experience they're usually great as people, both the lapsed anti-church ex-Mormons, and the ones still in or partly in. I developed a sort of bad conscience after living in Utah. Went down a lot of Mormon rabbit holes regarding their role in the John Birch Society, FBI, agitating against the New Deal and so on, and grew sick of the whole thing. You're absolutely right about their particularly weird racism towards blacks which is doctrinal, as well as the strict patriarchy crap and the general authoritarianism, which is what drove out so many people I got to know in Salt Lake. This wasn't contrarianism, this was personal experience getting the better of research.

G W

The controversial book Settlers by J Sakai has a good chapter on the battles over chinese settlement and also frames the pogroms that led up to the Chinese Exclusion Act as a struggle over jobs and wages. I highly recommend it.

Jason Thompson

My personal guess trying to think of how (white) people in this time thought: even if they were able to see Black Americans as sympathetic & deserving of dignity, there’s always going to be some Other — some non Christian Other, since morality came pretty much entirely from religion for these folks — be it Native Americans, or Chinese immigrants, etc etc. That’s my own assumption, at least, when I hear about these horrific acts & statements against Asians or Native Americans from the otherwise better ones among these guys who were so passionately against slavery and (sometimes) able to see Black people as fellow Christians. Of course this isn’t incompatible with the idea that there were cold calculations about labor & land involved

etienne

omg I just wanted to read about why american choo-choo sucks compared to europeans' and then I fell into a rabbit hole about the Chinee Question lol. but yeah I'll wishlist it But no yeah I'm very cynical about it and I buy Matt Christman's reading of it, which is that land is the *only* factor involved. Allright okay maybe there was a consideration that the northerners felt humiliated by the South's demands and wanted to just ... fuckin get on with it

Of course

"44 Saints Followed by Donald Trump" - finally have my history book title, thanks

David Andrews

Great episode. I no longer recieve the newsletter. How do I get back on the list?

Hugo

Oh my god John. I’m so sorry to hear about your arm injury. I’m wishing you a speedy recovery. Good luck, my friend. It sounds terrible. I look forward to your show every week, and your presence and a personality is so warm and a real gift to all of us. Solidarity brother :)

Rory

I don’t know how much credit you can give to Mormons for their abolitionist tendencies- my impression has always been that Mormons were abolitionist because they canonized a deeply racist ire for the “burned children of Cain”, not because they were altruistic. By the 1850’s Brigham Young had barred black people in Utah from holding public office, legalized slavery (distinct from chattel slavery, but still), forbade marriage between whites and blacks, and stripped black people’s right to vote. Black people were only permitted to enter Mormon temples in 1978. Feel like this episode had a big blind spot.

ChewyCheeto

Your right they are still segregationist. I grew up near plenty of LSD people amd always though they were superficially pleasant and insincere but it’s interesting to learn they were at least abolitionists. It doesn’t absolve them of lots of their other bad ideas but plenty of northerner gentiles were pro-abolition while also nurturing segregationist attitudes towards free blacks.

Ned Schafer

Great episode as always. Even got a mention of one of my ancestors, Samuel Tarwater. Takes me back to when my father would tell me anecdotes while doing my mom's family history. Apparently Tarwater spoke a little more slowly after getting hacked up with a corn knife. Cheers guys!

THEKILLERWHALE

Mine have been going into my promotions tab for some reason.

Bryan LeSueur

Mormons are a complicated people as is expected from a community rich with history. Can’t be summarized as a whole but periods say so much. Early Mormonism rife with polygamy, bank fraud, patriarchal dominance. I was raised Mormon and served a proselytizing mission in Mexico when I was 19. The hard right wing agenda of the 80’s and 90’s made me question the validity of spiritual claims to God On High. This episode’s explanation of their place in American history brought to light part of how they have survived as a community. Loved the episode

Lionel Boyd Johnson

I will always upvote/like Repo Man references, love that movie.

xnfec

On the bright side, you now have something in common with the F35!

Lionel Boyd Johnson

Great thread guys, a much appreciated history lesson and context.

James Evans

Guys. This is hugely educational and fascinating for me, a UK-based listener. However. All the news here at the moment is Russia/Ukraine, Russia/Kazakhstan, and Russia/WW3. As war expert experts on Russia please can you throw in an episode on these European convulsions at some point soon? Thank you.

radiowarnerd

They do sometimes get silo'd in junk or promotion folders. If you can't find them, just write to radiowarnerd@gmail.com and I'll re-send and double check you're on the list.

David Andrews

You guys are on top of your game. It's a shame that I can't convince more friends who have an interest in foreign policy to follow RWN. They may read the NYT, Wapo, Foreign Affairs etc and think they have the full picture. I think most people really want to believe in the goodness of US foreign policy in spite of countless examples to the contrary. Keep up the good work.

PW

Really enjoying this series and learning a lot! Another reason the elite can't seem to see each other as the enemy then and now may be that they don't want to give the colonist rabble a common enemy. Much easier to blame their failures on "the other" aka immigrants, leftists, big government, drugs and the ever popular "moral turpitude."

online Leftist Archive Project (LARP)

I have a feeling the Ukraine crisis right now is a feint to get media attention away from Central Asia. This suits NATO since it distracts from their utter failure and complete lack of influence on events in that region after their debacle in Afghanistan, and Russia because it distracts Westerners from the fact that they're moving in on Kazakhstan. But hey just a hunch, maybe I'm wrong!

PW

no one ever likes my comments but i'm not after likes or patrons

James Evans

Eps 312 and 313 much appreciated :)

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

Richard White’s 2019 book “The Republic for which is stands” about the gilded age goes into how anti-Chinese sentiment was a big part of the anti-monopoly/anti-big business politics in the 19th century particular in the west