JUNE 17 –1866 RIP Lewis Cass, former presidential candidate; 1972 Watergate begins; 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill
JUNE 17
1866 – RIP Lewis Cass, former Army officer and Democratic leader during the mid-19th century.
Cass was born Exeter, NH 1782. His dad fought in the Revolution at Bunker Hill. He rose up the ranks politically and military, being promoted general during the War of 1812, appointed governor of the Michigan territory, President Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War and Minister of France, ran for president of the United States in 1844 but didn’t get the Democratic nomination.
By 1848, the issue of slavery was getting heated after Texas became a new United State where slavery was legal. California was right around the corner, and concerns grew that slavery would be allowed there and every other state that joined the Union.
During the Mexican-0American War, it would be Genera Zachary Taylor, the big war hero that got the Mexicans to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which brought Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona, and Colorado. Major General Taylor threw his hat in the ring for the Whig party, along with New York State Comptroller Millard Fillmore for Vice President. The Liberty party, which had a relatively strong presence in the 1844 election, but now, were not happy about the nominees they chose to lead their party.
A new party had emerged, led by former president Martin Van PBuren, called the Free Soil party. The Free Spoilers were another anti-slave party, and many from the Liberty Party joined it. Van Buren would run in the election along with Massachusetts Senator Charles Francis Adams. Current president James Polk decided not to run this time around due to declining health issues. The campaign, as usual, was a big insult fest, with Democrats accusing Taylor of being illiterate and a military autocrat, and the Whigs called Cass a vagabond of evil. On November 7, the ballots were cast, and like 1844, it was close.
Lewis Cass put up a great fight, but the Major General of the Mexican War would be victorious. Besides William Henry Harrison, who only served as president for about a month before he died, was the only Whig president besides Taylor. The Whig party would disband in the 1850s. Van Buren would get 10% of the vote. The election was so close, if the Democrats had won New York in the electoral college, the election would have been a tie and would go to the House of Representatives to decide.
As far as Cass was concerned, after losing the election he stayed with the democrats and became Secretary of State under President Buchanan, who was unsuccessful in getting more slave territories from Mexico as well as trying to get Cuba from Spain. However he was able to negotiate with the British for their policies on searching US vessels in the waters and got the British to stop. Soon enough, Abraham Lincoln and the new Republican party began forming, and Cass found himself disagreeing with some of Buchanan’s policies.
By 1861 he retired from politics entirely, and 5 and half years later, Lewis Cass died, June 17 1866. +
1885 – Statue of Liberty arrivers in New York Harbor.
…It was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America after a century of peace between the two countries. It was designed by French sculptor Frederic-August Bartholdi who modeled the statue after his own mother. He got assistance from engineer Gustava Eiffel.
It’s recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886. It was designated as National Monument in 1924. In
1903, a plaque inscribed with a sonnet titled The New Colossus by American poet Emma Lazarus, written 20 years earlier for a pedestal fundraiser, was placed on an interior wall of the pedestal. Lazarus’ now famous words, which include Give me your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to break three, became symbolic of America’s vision of itself as a land of opportunity for immigrants.
1972 – Nixon’s re-election employees are arrestee four burglaries.
…They were wiretapping the Democratic National Convention’s headquarters for the purposes of looking for dirt. The Nixon administration tried to cover-up its involvement, but when the conspiracy was discovered and investigated b y the US Congress, the Nixon administration’s resistance to its probes led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, followed by articles of impeachment, and the eventual resignation of Richard Nixon, President of the United States, on August 9, 1974.
The only resignation of a US President to date. 69 people were indicted with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty and incarcerated. On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the DNC headquarters at Watergate. The name Watergate and the suffix gate have since become synonymous with poli8tical scandals in the US and in other English and non-English speaking nations as well.
1775 – Battle of Bunker Hill.
The belligerents: Prescott v Howe. The result: Pyrrhic victory, British capture Charlestown peninsula.
Most of the battle actually took place at Breed’s Hill during the Siege of Boston. Now, what do I mean by a pyrrhic victory. That by def is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that is tantamount to defeat. And that is exactly my friends, what took place at the hill. Early in the Revolution, the British occupied Boston, but a month prior, they had retreated from Lexington.
That right there, coupled with the anti-British sentiment that was going on in Boston, led the British to fortify the Dorchester Heights and Charlestown peninsulas. But the colonists found out about the plan, and William Prescott ordered a construction of strong redoubts on Breed’s Hill overlooking Boston, as well Charlestown.
What were the British doing while these giant dirt and granite walls were being constructed? Hmm, sleeping. Gen. Howe doesn’t like this, to say the least. He stated, and I paraphrase, these rebels have done more work in one night than my troops can do in a month!
He fired cannon from the Harbor, but no effect. So here came 2500 British troops to march the hill. During the initial assault, the Redcoat went down. Especially officers.
Howe sends a second assault up the hill. And those Redcoats went down. General Howe gets another 400 reinforcements, and they went up the hill.
This time, the colonists were out of ammo. So they shot whatever they could; glass, rocks and nails. Prescott told his men to wait until the British came in range, literally, until you see the whites of their eyes. Major Pitcaim, who just a month or so prior led the British to the Lexington greens, was killed in the assault. But the colonists were out of bullets, and Howe led a successful bayonet siege as the colonists retreated.
Overall, Gen. Howe and the British, though victorious, paid a dear price, losing 40% of his men. The Americans lost Breed Hill, but the Americans learned that the British army was not invincible after all, and the army simply realized they needed better training.
And the training they would receive would help them in New York and New Jersey later on. And that, is what I mean by a pyrhic victory.