Could James Buchanan Have Prevented The Civil War?

 

President James Buchanan

Some say that James Buchanan was a “weak, timid, old man” who did nothing to prevent the Southern states from seceding. Some historians have even declared Buchanan was an “accessory after the fact.” He was a president, a Southern sympathizer, and a traitor.

But was he?

The obvious comparisons are Andrew Jackson and George Washington. Jackson stood firm during the South Carolina nullification crisis and threatened to kick the nullifiers in the ass and hang all the traitors from the nearest tree branch if they laid a single hand on federal property or fortifications. During the Whiskey Insurrection, George Washington marched 13,000 troops to western Pennsylvania to put down the rebellion.

By comparison, James Buchanan hid in the White House and issued this special message to Congress on January 8, 1861. “No state has a right by its own act to secede from the Union or throw off its federal obligations at pleasure. To [Congress] belongs the power to declare war or authorize the employment of military force....”

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Shot All To Hell

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New York City: The Rise and Fall of Monk Eastman

 

Monk Eastman

The shooting happened outside the Blue Bird Restaurant at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue. Sunset was still a few hours away, but that didn’t matter to the boys. They’d come over from Brooklyn to visit Bradley, a waiter at the Blue Bird.

 

Monk Eastman (aka William Delaney) and Jeremiah W. Bohan left the restaurant together at about 4 a.m. 

They talked as they walked. Monk felt Bohan out, trying to see if the rumors were true.

 

“Jerry,” said the Monk, “you have become a rat since you got that Prohibition job.” He was working for the Feds, enforcing the Volstead Act, and Monk supposedly was running booze.

 

A minute later, Monk Eastman lay dead on the ground with five bullets in his body. Two slugs struck his right forearm, and another the left forearm, just above the wrist. The fourth bullet ripped a path through his hand, and the fifth one smashed through Monk’s chest and into his heart. Bohan insisted it was self-defense—Monk was getting ready to shoot him. But the evidence was against him. Monk didn’t have a gun. They found him with his arms up as if he were trying to shield himself.

It Was Only Right That I Should Kill Him

 

Myrtle Eberly with her dog

“I had to do it, and I’d do it again,” said the jilted lover. 

 

Thomas Lane (aka Edward Leonard) promised to marry Myrtle Eberly, then kept making excuses not to do it. “In two or three weeks, he would have grown tired of me, turned me out, and then— “

 

They met at Dreamland, an attraction at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Myrtle worked as a waitress, and Ed tended the bar. The place had a reputation, but the money was good. She made $8.50 a week salary and almost as much in tips.

 

She’d worked at Dreamland for three months and was still a good girl. At first, Myrtle didn’t know what kind of place it was. When she found out, she asked her mother what she should do. Her mother told her if she could continue to work there without becoming “contaminated,” to do it.

 

So she stayed.

Minnie Cummings: The Black Widow of St. Louis

 

Minnie Cummings

Minnie Cummings shot her husband, Dennis, in the back of the head and killed him on Saturday, April 18, 1903. 

They had been living apart for three weeks, ever since Minnie filed charges against him for stealing her jewelry. Minnie couldn’t understand. Judge Moore dismissed the case, ruling that a husband couldn’t be found guilty of stealing from his wife, nor a wife guilty of stealing from her husband. Not in Missouri, anyway. 

Eleanor Duff, Minnie’s landlady, let Mr. Cummings in the house around 5 p.m. on Saturday. A half-hour later, Minnie knocked on her door.

“I have just shot my husband. He drew a knife, and I had to shoot him or be killed myself.”

They sent for Dr. J. B. Rule. The body lay on its back with a pocketknife and a pair of scissors nearby. When he finished examining the body, Dr. Rule advised Minnie to surrender herself to the Four Courts. But strangely, she stopped at Mrs. Harris’ diner on Locust Street for a bite to eat before going to the police station.

The couple had been married for just under a year. Minnie’s first husband, Edward Harris, died under mysterious circumstances. Eventually, the police ruled it a homicide, but here was dead husband number two with a bullet hole in his head, in the same spot as husband number one.

Minnie said Dennis was drunk and abusive. He tore the place apart, looking for money. When he didn’t find any, he began to curse and threaten her. 

Clementine Barnabet: The Voodoo Killer

 

Clementine Barnabet (enhanced picture from the
New Orleans Item. April 2, 1912)

The Midwest ax murderer wasn’t the only fiend causing havoc in the early 1900s. Detectives in Louisiana and Texas found themselves pitted against a repeat murderer closely following the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Thirteen black families had been slaughtered in their sleep in less than two years.

Several people were questioned but quickly released. Then, in November 1911, Detectives in Lafayette, Louisiana, arrested Clementine Barnabet.

Six months later, the nineteen-year-old housekeeper confessed to killing seventeen of the forty-plus Negroes murdered in and around Lafayette, and for a moment, it seemed as if the case was solved. But unfortunately, the killings continued for nearly a year after her arrest.

For her part, Clementine enjoyed the spotlight. She smoked cigars with the reporters crowded around her cell, cracked jokes, and made light of the killings, blaming her capture on the loss of the “cunjah bag” Joe Thibodaux, a “Voodoo Doctor,” sold her.

The papers described Thibodaux as an old Voodoo priest who sold charms and conjure bags, which he “guaranteed would make the wearers immune from arrest, no matter how atrocious the crime.”

The New Orlean Axe Man, Or The Jazz Killer

 

The Axe Man breaking into a house, axe in hand

The New Orleans Axe Man was a serial killer or repeat murderer active in New Orleans and Gretna, Louisiana, from May 1918 to October 1919, although some sources suspect he started as early as 1911 and continued his murder spree into the 1920s.

“These murders and woundings,” said Sheriff Frank T. Mooney, “are undoubtedly the work of some brutal, murderous degenerate.” And while he admitted small sums of money were taken at some of the crime scenes, the sheriff believed it was to throw detectives off. He assured citizens that a “petty housebreaker” did not commit the crimes.

On May 23, 1918, Joseph Maggio (39) and his wife were “hacked to death” in their store at Upperline and Magnolia. The prosperous Italian couple lived in the back of their grocery store.

Detectives said the killer entered the home before dawn. He knocked out a panel in the rear door and crawled inside. Ironically, the murder was committed in a tiny room decorated with pictures of the crucifixion and other religious artifacts.

The killer whacked each victim on the head with an ax, then slit their throats with a razor. Catharine Maggio lay on the floor, a bloody mess. Joseph was sprawled across the bed, half on and half off. And the murder weapons, a razor and ax, rested on the floor in a puddle of blood.

Joseph’s brothers, Jacob and Andrew, discovered the bodies and notified the police of the attack. A few hours later, detectives arrested them because Andrew was seen coming home early in the morning. However, the investigation went nowhere, and Jacob and Andrew were released a few days later.