APRIL 11 — 1865 Lincoln delivers his last apeech; 1888 Happy Anniversary Henry and Clara Ford; 1803 Monroe and Livingston leave to negotiate with Napolean about Louisiana
APRIL 11
1865 Lincoln delivers his final speech.
It was his last because John Wilkes Booth was in the audience and he promised this to co-conspirator David Herold while Lincoln was giving the speech. The speech was really boring.
President Abraham Lincoln, easily the best speaker in the country and possibly the entire world in those times, sounded like he was speaking at a funeral. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had just surrendered to Ulysses Grant at the Appotomox courthouse two days prior, and the streets of Washington DC were filled with thousands of people partying it up now that the Civil War was essentially over. These people had lost their brothers, sons, husbands and fathers to the Confederate Army, and the south needed to be punished.
The crowd clamored for the President to give his speech the day before, but Lincoln wanted to take his time to prepare one thoughtfully. The Marine marching band had played Lincoln’s favorite, Dixie, and his friend Noah Brooks held a candle in front of the president as he prepared to deliver his speech from the White House 2nd balcony window. “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Peters burg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression cannot be restrained.”
The more Lincoln talked, the more disgusted Booth got. His plan was to kidnap the president, but after watching this, he realized he would need to take much harsher action. Thanks to the 13th amendment, blacks were considered citizens. They could vote in elections. They could marry white women. Heck, they could run for office, even the presidency of the United States. Booth would have none of this. As he stood there seething, his buddy Herold stood next to him with his hunting rifle. Booth told him to put a bullet in his head, right now. But Herold, crazy as he was, knew better that the crowd would crucify him surely if he did that. No. Booth would have to come up with a better plan to kill the president. For now, he simply hissed the words: “That is the last speech he will ever make.”
Three days later, Booth would keep his word.
1951-President Truman fires General MacArthur.
The war in Korea started in 1950 and General MacArthur was in command. Thanks to his brilliant strategies and military maneuvers, he helped save South Korea from falling to the invading forces of communist North Korea. So now the Gajin Shogun wanted to take on North Korea and defeat the communists once and for all. Truman cautiously went along with the plan but was concerned about the People’s Republic of China getting involved, to which MacArthur assured him they wouldn’t. Then they did. A month later, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed into North Korea and fought the US invasion back to South Korea. The Gaijin Shogun wanted to bomb the commies in China, and Give Em Hell Harry Truman said no. The two men started arguing, and Truman relieved Macarthur of command. This was a first in American history. It taught us a couple things, number one, it was noted that generals and admirals can be fired for any public or private disagreement with government policy. Jimmy Carter relieved General John K. Singlaub in 1977. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1990 fire the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Dugan.
And so on and so on, there’s plenty more recent examples. On the flip side, it gave us MacArthurism, in which the relief “left a lasting current of popular sentiment that in matters of war and peace, the military really knows best.” So it is a great political debate.
1888-Happy anniversary Henry and Clara Ford.
The couple met at a New years Dance iun Michigan in 1885, they enjoyed dancing, cornhusking parties and boating trips. She like his mechanical talents and he liked her serious and appreciative disposition. In 1886 they got engaged, but her mom got them to wait a couple years for Clara to grow up a little bit more. Henry’s father gave them a farm to live in , but in 1891 the couple moved to Detroit, where Henry went to work for Edison illuminating Company. What a bright idea!
In 1893 they had their first and only child, a boy named Edsel. In 1896, Henry Ford completed the Quadricycle, which, as the name would suggest, had four tires, along with a gasoline engine. The Ford couple lived in ten different rental homes while Henry was working on automobiles, incorporating Ford Motor Company in 1903, and then he launched the Model T three years later. By the time 1915 rolled around the Fords moved into a mansion in Dearborn, Michigan. The home included an indoor swimming pool, a billiard table, bowling alley and dance floor; since the Fords like to danced.
1803-Vente de la Louisiana!
France controlled the Louisiana territory from 1699 until 1762, the year it ceded the territory to Spain. Thanks to Napolean Bonaparete, France took back the territory in 1800 and tried to establish a French Empire in North America. Well, President Thomas Jefferson was hoping to expand the United States westward, so naturally he hoped his minister to France, Robert Livingston, to at least get control of New Orleans so the US could have the gateway to the Mississippi River. At first it was a no-go, but in early 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston, and Napolean was a lot more eager to talk.
The reason why was because things weren’t going well between France and England and it looked like they would go to war, and Napolean couldn’t afford to stretch his military forces that far, and he figured better to sell Louisiana to the Americans than have it fall into the hands of his enemy. Incidentally, the purchase 9included present-0day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas,Nebraska, parts of Minnesota, most of North Dakota, most of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, andparts of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado east of the Continental Divide. The price? $15M. . pr about $236M today. This is the day in 1803 when French Foreign Ministrer Charles Maruyece De Talleyrand made the offer.