Discussing War and Radical Peace

"If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud."
Arlo Guthrie "Alice's Restaurant"

One of the pleasures of living in Wilmington, Delaware is participating in the book discussion group that is sponsored by the Wilmington Library Institute. The program is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. The usual moderator during that time has been Thomas Leitch, a professor in the English Department at the University of Delaware.

Tom is one of the world’s great talkers, and it is always fun to listen to him – even if one has not read the book and so has only the slightest idea of what it is about (which I confess to having done on numerous occasions).

Since the group meets on weekdays at noon, it is not always convenient for me to get away from the office to attend. The discussion this summer focuses on World War I, so I am making a point both to read the books in advance and to attend the discussion.

The first book in the series was Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. Published in 1962 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1963, The Guns of August recounts the events of August 1914 in which the major continental powers of Europe mobilized their massive armies and launched them into a war that was larger and more terrible than any in memory to that time.

One common characteristic about the participants in the group is that they are on the older side. I am no spring chicken, but my participation does tend to reduce the average age. We were all younger during the Vietnam War, and many share a certain viscerally negative reaction to all things military and related to war.

I remember from the Vietnam War days a story made the rounds about a World War II commander who sought permission from the Pentagon to destroy the papers filling several drawers of a filing cabinet. The response from Washington – granting permission to destroy the documents after making copies in triplicate – was regarded, at the time I first heard about it, as evidence of the intrinsic wastefulness and folly of military culture. Only years later did I realize that the response from Washington was a joke and a very clever one at that.

With such a group it is necessary to go through a catechism of sorts in order to get to a substantive discussion about military matters, even from a historical perspective.

• Yes, I agree that war is an obscenely criminal waste of life and resources that could be put to better and more productive uses.
• Yes, the existence of armies makes war more likely in the sense that to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail (if you ignore the deterrent effect).
• Yes, the officer corps in the military are eager for wars because they provide occasions to distinguish themselves and earn professional advancement – not the least of which is combat certification (but few want to fight a losing or unpopular war).
• Yes, the military command structure and the culture of the chain of command foster blind obedience at the expense of independence of thought and action (although a shared doctrine and analytical approach can foster coordination among the disparate elements of a vast organization like an army, and although the chain of command emphasizes the location of responsibility and obligation, it does not intrinsically stifle flexibility and creativity).

But, history has shown, and current experience confirms,

• that wars will continue to occur,
• that the preparation for war is the best deterrent of war,
• that the eagerness to avoid war can encourage bullies to become more aggressive,
• that the professional military officers are best suited by training and experience to direct the operation of the military organization on the missions identified by the civilian government, and
• that although victories are also costly and tragic, and although war can have unforeseen consequences, some good can come from them – such as American independence, the forced abdication of Napoleon and the resulting restoration of peace in Europe, the preservation of the American union, the end of American slavery, and the termination of the Nazi regime.

In 1860 America had little fear of a foreign war. The nation occupied a broad swathe across the continent. Its contiguous neighbors north and south were non-threatening, and wide oceans separated it from the other potentially hostile powers of the world. Steam navigation had much reduced the size of the globe, but the breadth of the oceans represented a substantial impediment to the logistical support of the army of the size that would be needed to fight on American soil.

America’s army consisted of about 16,000 officers and men (the post office department was larger), most of whom were stationed west of the Mississippi River to prevent violence between the Indian tribes and the white settlers who coveted western lands. The army had suppressed the violence between pro- and anti-slavery advocates who vied for control of the Kansas Territory. The army also was present in the Utah Territory to assure the continued peaceable behavior of the Mormon settlers there who defied the authority of the Federal government. The Mormons had attacked and destroyed the army’s supply column, which both embarrassed and inconvenienced the contingent sent to pacify the Mormons. After a harsh winter on short rations, only careful negotiations averted retaliation.

America also had a radical peace movement whose adherents opposed war and believed that the use of violence was not justified under any circumstances, including defending oneself from attack, even from pirates. Inasmuch as violence was necessary to maintain slavery, those who held radical views concerning peace also tended to oppose slavery.

The events of 1859 through 1861 illuminated the growing incompatibility of the anti-war position with the anti-slavery position. These events included the John Brown raid in 1859; the election of 1860 with the repeated admonition that the election of a Republican president was cause for secession; and the secession crisis of the winter of 1860-1861.

Even as the war was starting, the leadership of the American Peace Society anguished over the facts at their annual meeting in Boston in May 1861, after the firing on Fort Sumter. The support for the American Peace Society was diminishing throughout the period. For the year ended May 1859, just before the John Brown raid, contributions to the Society totaled about $4600. In the year ended May 1861, concluding just after the firing on Fort Sumter, contributions had fallen to a little over one third of that amount.

Boogie Music, and the right comprehension, and the right application thereof

We must make Boogie Music the essential factor in the life's law. In presenting this song to the world, we must then explain and justify our prediction by formulating a definition of Boogie Music and setting forth its main principles in such a way that all may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, and every relation with every other human being in every circumstance depends on Boogie Music, and the right comprehension, and the right application thereof.

– Canned Heat, Boogie Music (closing recitation)

Some philosophies are more useful than others.

Several years ago, on an intellectual self-dare, I labored through the dense and closely reasoned prose of the first chapter of a book on the philosophy of history, which reached the conclusion that it is possible to make factually correct statements about the past. I remain to this day blissfully ignorant of the words of wisdom contained in the balance of that volume.

I consider it a given that it is possible to make factually correct statements about the past. Beyond honoring the facts and allowing them to lead to the conclusions, I do not tend to be doctrinaire in my approach to history. A historical narrative is a story, and there are usually multiple ways to tell any story.

I do have several strong prejudices about assessing the facts and truth. One is to prefer actions and interests, rather than words, as a source of truth. Actions and events are the constituents of truth. The things people say may contain elements of truth, but people often speak to persuade, which undercuts the absolute trust that one can put in the veracity of the statements made. Yet at the same time, that a person uttered certain words is itself an event that one can accept as true even if one does not accept the truth of the words spoken.

Another is that correlation does not indicate causation. The occurrence of one event right after another, without more, does not necessarily establish a causal connection between them. On the other hand, I am equally suspicious of the claims that a single cause alone produced a significantly large result – "for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost" is a fallacy. The flight of a butterfly may originate or contribute to the hurricane, but it is not the sole cause.

Finally, I believe in context. My understanding of past events is enriched by my knowledge of the world in which they occurred – the prevailing attitudes and customs, the technologies people used, and the beliefs that guided their actions. Part of my responsibility as I write about those events is to share enough of that knowledge so that my readers can share my understanding.

Sense in the City

Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.
Heinz: Can you imagine us in London?
Rick: When you get there, ask me!
Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist!
Major Strasser: How about New York?
Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

Casablanca (1942)

The 1859 edition of Phelps’ Strangers and Citizens’ Guide to New York City offered sage words of advice to visitors in the metropolis. First, as to places of amusement, the Guide noted that “there are some places where the morals of strangers or citizens will not be particularly improved by visiting, so say nothing of the bodily danger one incurs, especially in the evening and unattended.” It also noted that “Pickpockets are found among crowds around the doors of places of amusement, in railroad cars, and omnibuses, who are very expert at their calling, and appear like gentlemen.” It also warned against the purchase of brass watches that were represented as gold.

On a less cautionary note, the Guide observed that hotels were numerous and easily found with rates running from seven to sixteen dollars per week. Eating-houses were plentiful as well with charges starting at six cents. “In some of these houses good lodging-rooms can be had for three dollars per week.” However, it went on to warn that “At some of the cheap (often dear) lodging-houses where gilt or illuminated signs, “Lodging 12½ cents,” are conspicuous, a person might not be safer than in the Astor House. A little caution here may not be amiss.”

The Guide noted that omnibuses ran constantly in almost every part of the city south of Fiftieth Street and charged a fare of six cents. City railroads ran along the avenues (north-south), and charged five cents.

Travel by hackney coaches and cabs was dearer. A ride not exceeding one mile cost 50 cents and not exceeding two miles cost 75 cents plus, in each case, 37½ cents for each additional passenger. A cab ride to 40th Street, remaining half an hour and returning cost $1.50; to 61st street, remaining three quarter of an hour and returning cost $2.00; and to 86th street, remaining one hour and returning cost $2.50. For the price of $5.00 one could travel to Harlem, High Bridge (at the Harlem River and 173rd Street, 11 miles from City Hall) or King’s Bridge (230th Street), remain three hours and return or one could use the coach for a full day.

In 1861 New York City licensed 760 cabs and hackney coaches. One English visitor to the United States in the mid-1850s described dealings with hackney coaches as follows:

The hackney-carriages of New York are very handsome, and, being drawn by two horses, have the appearance of private equipages; but woe to the stranger who trusts to the inviting announcement that the fare is a dollar within a certain circle. Bad as London cabmen are, one would welcome the sight of one of them. The New York hackmen are licensed plunderers, against whose extortions there is neither remedy nor appeal. They are generally Irish, and cheat people with unblushing audacity.

Cotton and Foreign Policy

In 1860, the states that would secede and form the Confederacy had a near monopoly on the world's supply of raw cotton fiber – they produced about 80 percent of the world's cotton, and raw cotton represented roughly 50 percent of the value of goods and produce exported from the United States.

At the same time, Britain was the world's largest producer of cotton cloth and cotton goods, making it the largest consumer of cotton fiber, followed by France.

In these facts lie the origin of the Confederates' "King Cotton Diplomacy", the undeclared Confederate program to use their control of the cotton supply to extort the powers of Europe into recognizing the Confederacy's independence. By withholding their cotton, the Confederates expected to create a cotton famine in Britain and France, that would shut cotton mills, put thousands of millworkers out of work and created an internal economic crisis that the powers would attempt to solve by using diplomatic or military means to intervene in the Civil War and restore their supply of cotton.

Although the Civil War was perceived at the cause of a cotton famine in Europe, a curious twist is that a bumper crop in 1860 along with the developing political disturbance in the United States resulting from the presidential election had caused cotton mills to buy larger than usual supplies of raw cotton. At the same time, overproduction had produced excess inventories of cloth and finished cotton goods that had sated world demand – mills started to shut down since it did not make economic sense to produce more goods when large inventories of just such goods remained on hand. These conditions were in the process of creating severe economic dislocations in Europe's cotton industries when the Civil War started in April 1861, by which time the 1860 cotton crop had been sold, and the 1861 crop had just been planted and would not be harvested until the fall.

The Federals imposed a naval blockade that was difficult to enforce at first because the Federal Navy lacked the ships for the job, but the Federals quickly increased the size of their fleets from dozens to hundreds of vessels. Little cotton came out of the Confederacy due not so much to the Federal blockade but principally because the stocks remained were withheld from the international market.

Notwithstanding the gap between actual and perceived causes, the King Cotton Diplomacy came close to succeeding. In the second half of 1862 France indicated her willingness to join with Britain to intervene in the Civil War in America, nominally for humanitarian reasons but undoubtedly for reasons of domestic and international self-interest. In late 1861, Britain, France and Spain invaded Mexico for the purpose of forcing the republican government under Benito Juarez to repay Mexico's international debts, which were in arrears. When it emerged that France had an ulterior motive of replacing Mexico's republican government with a monarchy, Britain and Spain withdrew.

France maintained an active military presence in Mexico throughout the Civil War. In 1823, President James Monroe had declared that the United States would regard as a hostile act the attempt of any European power to reassert its authority over any territory in the Americas. With the United States divided by a civil war, it was restrained from interfering with France's adventure in Mexico. Moreover, If the Confederates sustained their claim of independence, and the former United States was permanently divided in two, neither resulting nation would possess the potential power of the prior undivided whole. If Confederate independence was obtained with the aid, even nominal, of France, the Confederacy as the immediate northern neighbor of Mexico, were less likely to be hostile to a French sponsored monarch in Mexico

The French proposal to intervene in the American Civil War was favored by some members of the British cabinet where it was discussed at length. In 1862 the Civil War had grown larger and bloodier with enormous battles of the Peninsular Campaign, Shiloh and Antietam. President Lincoln had issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It was criticized in Britain – at best and correctly – as the offer of a corrupt bargain that proposed to end slavery but offered to relent if a quick peace was achieved and – at worst and not unreasonably – as an indication of Federal desperation that threatened to incite servile and racial warfare in the American south.

However well intentioned the stated humanitarian purpose of the intervention, the reality was that it might well lead to war with the Federals. Even if the result of an intervention was to relieve the cotton famine in Britain, the cost of such a war would far exceed the cost of feeding the poor and unemployed. In Britain the wisdom of doing nothing ultimately prevailed.

The Confederates sugar coated their diplomacy by only asking for recognition of their independence, probably because it seemed like very little to ask and, therefore, very easy to give. Britain had been very quick to recognize the Confederates as a belligerent power engaged in a war, but they refrained from a recognition of independence. The Federals had blustered about the former, but the British action was correct as a matter of international law as it existed at the time. Though an insurgency, the Confederacy appeared to be a viable proto-nation with the means of carrying on the war. Whether it would be successful in the war and achieve its independence remained to be seen.

The Federals threatened war against Britain if she recognized Confederate independence, and in this the Federals were correct – international law maintained that premature recognition of an insurgent's independence was a legitimate reason for war. The facts determined what was premature, and history provided examples. In 1832 the European powers recognized the independence of Greece from the Ottoman Empire in a treaty by which they committed to guarantee independence – although the Empire had not abandoned its effort to reestablish its dominion had not ceased, the willingness of the guarantors to use military force effectively put an end to the issue. Also during the nineteenth century, the powers of Europe recognized the independence of the former colonies of Spain in South America, Spain having for all practical purposes ceased to assert dominion.

(The Monroe Doctrine, published in 1823, was related to the latter situation. At the time, the United States had recognized the independence of the nations of South America, although she might have been premature in doing so – none of the other nations of the world had acted in kind. Indeed, certain nations in Europe proposed to discuss how the claims of Spain might be reasserted. Britain proposed to the United States that they join in opposing any such conference or attempt, although Britain refused to commit to join in recognizing independence. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateral statement by the United States that it would regard as an unfriendly act any interference by a European power with the independence of a nation in the western hemisphere. It was a declaration of policy that was said to have enhanced the international reputation of the United States if only by showing that the United States did not feel the need to partner with Britain in the matter.)

What France proposed, and what Britain considered, was not in the first instance "recognition" but "intervention" – the neutral powers proposed to request the belligerent powers to agree to a ceasefire and to engage in mediation. Although the proposal had the appearance of neutral evenhandedness, it favored the Confederates – the Federals had to defeat the Confederates outright to win the Civil War, while the Confederates had only to hold on until the fighting stopped. A ceasefire stopped the fighting, and a mediation was unlikely to result in a total Confederate surrender. If the offer of ceasefire and mediation were refused, Britain and France proposed to recognize the Confederacy and act militarily to lift the Federal naval blockade of the Confederate coast. If mediation was attempted and the effort had failed, the ceasefire interval would have permitted to Confederates to rebuild their forces and prolong the war when it resumed. Neither outcome was acceptable to the Federals.

At the end of 1862, when Britain was considering the French proposal, the Federals remained committed to restoring the union, and the conditions then prevailing would have justified the Federals to declare war against them, although for them to have done so would have served the Confederates well.

Just as the Confederate's King Cotton diplomacy sugarcoated the request of recognition by appearing not to ask for military assistance, so also the intervention proposal sugarcoated the request by not appearing to give recognition. But under the circumstances, the intervention proposal was certain to fail and thereby beget recognition, and under the circumstances recognition was apt to beget war.

In the end, despite the almost irresistible to do something some politicians (and the public) feel in the face of the war or insurrection in another's country, the view prevailed in Britain's government that feeding their own unemployed – champagne and venison – would be cheaper than the cost of the threatened war.

Thirty-Sixth Congress, First Session

The first session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, which met from December 1859 to June 1860 was tumultuous but not productive of the legislation that histories recall – such as the Compromise of 1850, the grab-bag of legislation that was intended to put slavery as a political issue to rest once and for all; or the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 that revoked the Missouri Compromise and decreed that popular sovereignty henceforth would determine whether the federal territories would enter the union as free states or slave states; or the Kansas Statehood Act of 1859, which endorsed the Lecompton (pro-slavery) Constitution for slavery IF the Kansas voters reaffirmed it, which they overwhelmingly did not do.

The tumult of that session of Congress resulted from two sources. One was the investigation by a select committee of the Senate in the raid conducted by John Brown and his followers upon Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in mid-October 1859. John Brown was captured, tried for murder and treason, and executed on December 2, 1859. Less than two weeks later the Senate adopted a resolution to conduct the inquiry, and, after hearings, the committee delivered its report in June 1860.

The other source of tumult was the inability of the House of Representatives to elect a speaker. The Republicans had the largest delegation in the House, but they did not possess a majority. The leading candidate was John Sherman of Ohio. After the first vote it was disclosed that a number of Republicans, including Mr. Sherman, had endorsed a book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South that argued that slavery, although profitable to the large slaveholders, was responsible for impoverishing the rest of the south. Eventually Mr. Sherman withdrew, and William Pennington of New Jersey was elected speaker on the forty-fourth ballot. He assumed office on February 1, 1860.

We should pause at this point to ask ourselves why should we concern ourselves with the first session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress if was “not productive of the legislation that histories recall”. The principal reason is that it provides evidence that can help us understand the times more fully. By the standards of the twenty-first century, the federal government of 1860 was tiny and lacked much of the administrative apparatus and judicial and quasi-judicial decision makers that the present day considers routine. Accordingly, much of the government’s largess was allocated by the Congress directly rather than by administrative agencies. We will see this below in the number of public laws relating to interests in lands and in the number of private laws and resolutions. Also, appropriations remind us that while the mechanisms of government were relatively meager, they were extant and those in existence indicate the areas of domestic and international life upon which government attention was focused. Although not dealing with legislative issues of historic dimensions, and with the attention of the politicians probably focused upon the presidential and other elections to be held later in 1860, the topics of public laws give us a flavor of what was important to the nation at the time and what issues – beyond slavery, the underlying cause of the tumult described above – thrust themselves onto the national agenda.

The Congress adopted 87 public laws during the session, and a large portion of these (about 15) dealt with appropriations. Some concerned the ordinary maintenance of the government – the Post Office, the Army and the Navy, the consular and diplomatic offices overseas, and the lighthouses on the coasts and internal waterways. Some appropriations were for internal improvements like the construction of a bridge over the Potomac River at Little Falls and improvements in the Tennessee River. Others were related to the Indian tribes – the fulfillment of payment obligations under various treaties, an indemnification for depredations committed by whites upon the Shawnees, and a repayment to the state of Missouri for the cost of repelling an invasion by the Osage Indians.

Another group of laws (about 14) dealt with land and property claims. These ranged from reclaiming swamp lands in Minnesota and Oregon to establishing the land claims of certain “half-breed” Kansas Indians to ordering a survey of Grand Cheniere Island in Louisiana. The second largest source of revenue for the federal government (after tariffs) was the proceeds from the sales of federal lands.

Other laws dealt with the terms and jurisdictions of the federal courts, the post office routes, the promotion of an electric telegraph to the Pacific coast and the punishment of those who seduced female passengers aboard steamboats and other vessels.

The Congress also adopted 14 resolutions, which included granting permission to Flag Officer William Shubrick of the U.S. Navy to accept the gift of a sword from the Argentine Federation and authorizing the United States Coastal Survey to expend government funds to observe the solar eclipse that was scheduled to occur on July 18, 1860.

Congress also ratified 11 treaties, some with Indian tribes and others with foreign nations, including New Granada (present day Colombia and Panama with parts of Ecuador and Venezuela), Paraguay, China, Japan, Belgium, and Sweden and Norway (the two kingdoms at the time ruled by a common monarch).

The foregoing constituted the public business of Congress, but Congress also enacted what were referred to as private laws and resolutions – in 1860 they amounted to 139 private laws and 13 private resolutions. For the most part these were the honoring of claims individuals asserted against the federal government – for amounts not paid on contracts, for use or destruction of their property without compensation, for the recognition of claims to federal lands, and for pensions payable to destitute former government employees or their widows.

The Congress governed Washington, D.C., and some of the laws relating to the District of Columbia were counted as parts of both the public business of the Congress and the private business of the Congress. In general, these laws more like those passed by state legislature and included the authorizing the construction of a new market building, setting aside land for a public school, providing for divorce, and incorporating a lodge of the Odd Fellows Hall, a cemetery company and a provident association for clerks employed by the federal government.

Many of the private laws have embedded in them a human story of dimensions only hinted at by the final legislative pronouncement, each with its own mix of hopes and triumphs, disasters and disappointments. Although the stories that made up America in 1860 were so numerous as to make it impossible to consider exploring each and holding each separate in one’s mind, the consciousness that individual people underlie the statistics that speak in broad terms about this nation, as any nation, can help us savor the humanity that endows the study of history.

Barns: Variations Reflecting the Spread of Knowledge

Although industry was a growing component of the economy in 1860, America remained in large part a farming nation, and barn were ubiquitous farm structures. Barns of the day were almost all rectangular structures. Circular barns and barns built as polygons were promoted later in the nineteenth century, although a few existed in earlier times. The Shaker community in Hancock, Massachusetts built a magnificent round barn in 1826; it still stands although with a modified roof structure. While not technically a barn, an octagonal barn-like structure was built in 1761 to house a hot spring in Bath County, Virginia; the original structure is long gone, but two white wooden multi-sided structures cover the two larger hot spring pools, one for men’s bathing, and the other for women.

Among the rectangular there were (and remain among surviving old barns) certain regional variations, and within the regions where certain design elements are shared by a significant portion of the barns there are further individual variations. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it was as though all the barns were trying to look alike and not succeeding.

Like any other structure, the barn is designed to accommodate the activities expected to be conducted within them in light of prevailing ideas of how the design would best achieve the intended result. The variations are driven by the crops that will be grown locally and whether the barn will serve a single purpose or multiple purposes. For example, a barn for air-curing tobacco was generally used only for that task and has various slats and adjustable ventilators to regulate the airflow. A barn in wheat country likely served multiple purposes such as housing farm animals, storing grain and hay produced on the farm, and providing an area for threshing the wheat to separate the kernel from the chaff. Other factors affecting design are climate and prosperity – a farmer does not need to house his animals if the climate is at least temperate year round; and a farm that does not produce a large surplus does not need a large structure to house it.

The people from England and the various places in continental Europe who came to America brought their local ideas about how a barn should function and how it should look. Barns built by English settlers in America were said to be identical with those they left behind in England, the principal difference being that in England barns were built of stone, while in America they were built of wood – wood famously being scarce in England and abundant in America. A typical English barn in America consisted of two side compartments, called bays, connected by a central passthrough (another bay) with a gabled roof covering an upper hayloft.


A very detailed study of a structure called the Pennsylvania Barn traces its design back to areas in Switzerland from which various immigrants came to different sections of Pennsylvania and were included within the peoples referred to collectively as Pennsylvania Germans. The study also traces the evolution of barn designs in those parts of Switzerland from rudimentary beginnings to increasingly large and more complex structures until the design essentially matched that of the Pennsylvania Barn, which coincided with the time when people started leaving Switzerland for America.


The Pennsylvania Barn was a structure of two or more stories. Animals were housed on the lower level, and doors on the long side of the barn permitted their entrance and exit. The second level of the barn extended beyond the wall of the lower level, creating an overhang that provided some shelter from the rain and a larger floor space on the second level. The barns either were built into a hillside or had a large earthen ramp on the long side opposite the overhang. This arrangement permitted teams pulling wagons to be driven into the second level of the barn. That level generally included storage for grain and hay, which could be thrown down to feed the animals below, as well as a space to threshing.


Whatever the style or design of barn being built in any given area, others in the area might tend to emulate it because it was familiar and they had seen how the structure functioned, but of course people borrowed, improvised, modified and rebuilt as their inclinations or their needs directed them. The decade leading up to 1860 saw different designs published in various agricultural magazines.

The changes in a new or rebuilt barn could be expressed as a modified design or an addition to a structure built upon a customary design. One such add-on was a hay hood – an extension of the roof at the peak of the gable end of the roof, sometimes with additional outer walls, to provide protection from the weather when using a pulley to load hay into the loft. A gable ventilator was a similar structure that let air into the loft – to prevent a heat build up that could lead to spontaneous combustion – that excluded rain and snow.

The invention of the “horse power”, a treadmill for horses that was used as a power source to run farm machinery, led some farmers to build additions to their barn, called “horse power sheds”, in order to house these devices.

In sum, although the basic barn in the years leading up to 1860 was a rectangular structure, various different design solutions made it functional for the purposes of the time, the place and the activities carried on in and around the structure. The design in each case was the product of knowledge and experience, guided perhaps by tradition but also open to variation from other examples seen, suggestions received and experiments tried.

Visitation and Search

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the international law of the sea, although seemingly straight forward, had become the source of a dispute that threatened war between the United States and Britain, a threat that was finally extinguished on the eve of the American Civil War. As do many events of that time, the incident is wrapped up with slavery.

International law consisted of the shared understandings of the sovereign nations of the world as to how nations should conduct themselves in the relations with one another in diplomacy, war and peace and the respective rights and obligations in the dealings between a nation and a citizen of another nation. These understandings generally were not the result of conventions or agreements but were declared and elaborated by various philosophers of law referred to as "publicists". And although nations could vary the terms of international law between themselves by mutual treaties, no unilateral declaration by a nation was binding as a matter of international law upon another unless it was consented to, and no such declaration became binding generally as a matter of international law unless it was consented to by all. (The notion that international law might be "binding" is somewhat nebulous inasmuch as all nations were in theory co-equal, and no one of them had authority to sit in judgment over another, although the power to sit in judgment after a conquest was a different matter.)

According to international law, the oceans beyond a nation's territorial waters (regarded as three nautical miles from the shore in the mid-nineteenth century) were highways that were open to the free passage of all and, with a material exception, subject to the policing authority of none. The exception had to do with pirates. In time of peace a pirate was any vessel that attacked another vessel at sea. in time of war, however, any vessel that held authority of a nation at war was permitted to attack the vessels of an enemy – these consisted of naval vessels, generally referred to as "cruisers", and private vessels that held letters of marque issued by the government, called "privateers" – but all other attackers were pirates.

As the previous paragraph indicates, the existence of a state of war between nations altered the rules of international law at sea. The nations at war were deemed "belligerents" that possessed certain rights and obligations with respect to the other nations of the world. Neutral nations retained the right to conduct trade with the belligerent nations, but if a belligerent chose to blockade an enemy's ports, a vessel of any nationality – whether an enemy or a neutral – that was captured while trying to violate the blockade was forfeit to the captor. Moreover, belligerents possessed the right called "visitation and search" to stop vessels at sea, determine their nationality and inspect their cargoes. Enemy vessels encountered at sea by a cruiser or privateer could be captured or sunk. If the neutral vessel carried contraband of war that was bound for an enemy port, it could be seized; and if it carried non-contraband cargo that was owned by the enemy, it, too, could be seized.

The nascent United States derived a substantial portion of its national income from international trade, and its national government earned substantially all of its revenue from tariffs on such trade. With the start of the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic War the British and French navies not only put extreme pressure upon the merchant vessels of the neutral United States (as did other nations of Europe), but Britain and France also enacted trade restrictions that attempted to prevent a neutral merchantman from conducting trade with their respective enemies.

In addition, given Britain's large navy, she was constantly short of crewmen and historically met this need with press gangs. Captains of British cruisers regularly stopped American merchant vessels at sea and removed from them crewmen whom they alleged were either deserters from the British Navy or men of British birth – the claim that a sailor was American by birth or was a naturalized American were generally ignored. In one notorious incident, HMS Leopard confronted the USS Chesapeake off the coast of Virginia in 1807 and demanded that she submit to a search for British deserters. When the Chesapeake refused, the Leopard fired on her, killing 3 and wounding 18. The Chesapeake capitulated, and the Leopard removed four crewmen.

The impositions upon American trade and the impressment of American nationals were among the reasons why the United States declared war on Britain in 1812. The timing was unfortunate for the Americans. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812; the Russians burned the countryside in front of the advancing French armies, and when the French reached Moscow, the Russians burned the city; the French Army was all but destroyed in the wintertime retreat from Moscow; and Napoleon capitulated in 1814. These circumstances permitted Britain to deploy forces to chastise America, which had only a limited professional army and a tiny navy. A peace was concluded at the end of 1814 that restored the parties to their positions and possessions as they existed at the start of the war.

In entirely separate developments, both the United States and Britain acted to outlaw the international slave trade in 1807. Slavery had been lawful and practiced in all the American colonies when they rebelled against Britain in 1776, and the Constitution the Americans adopted in 1789 acknowledged the existence of slavery and forbade Congress from enacting any law to restrict the importation of slaves until 1808. In 1807 Congress enacted a law making international slave trafficking illegal from as of January 1, 1808. Britain's Parliament also enacted a law prohibiting the international slave trade in 1807 – slavery was not practiced in Britain, but it was employed in Britain's possessions in the West Indies, where it was abolished by act of the British Parliament in the 1830s.

The British Navy began patrolling the coast of West Africa in 1808, but its presence there did not become significant until after 1818. The British Navy captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans between 1808 and 1860. In the absence of a war, international law did not give the British Navy the right to interfere with any vessel not suspected of engaging in piracy, and although several nations, including the United States, did equate the slave trade with piracy, the view was not held so universally as to constitute a principle of international law. Accordingly, Britain negotiated a number of treaties with other nations that created rights to inspect one another's merchant vessels for evidence of the slave trading and to permit seizing the vessel if evidence of slave trafficking was found. Consistent with the practice under international law, the treaties provided that prize courts would rule on the legality of the capture with the proceeds of the condemned vessels to be divided among the nations that were party to the treaty and the officers and crew of the capturing vessel. Although the treaties provided that the prize courts were to consist of representatives of both nations, in practice the courts were British.

The United States did not enter into such a treaty, and many vessels engaged in the slave trade either maintained an American registry or flew an American flag as a possible deterrent against being stopped by a British cruiser. In practice British cruisers stopped American flag vessels on the argument that they needed to determine whether the American flag was not just a ruse, and once the stop had been made, they conducted a complete search. Such episodes were insults to America's sovereignty, but if the vessel was innocent of involvement with the slave trade, she was merely delayed in the course of her voyage, which was a relatively minor inconvenience. American vessels engaged in the slave trade were induced to destroy the evidence of their nationality and were condemned in the prize court as nationless outlaw vessels – the United States had made engaging in the slave trade a capital crime, and although no one was hanged for that crime until 1862, the threat was an inducement to cooperate. The captured crew was put ashore, and the vessel, having become an apparently nationless outlaw, was taken to a prize court for condemnation.

In 1842 the United States and Britain entered into the Webster Ashburton treaty that was intended to resolve a number of issues between the two nations, including suppression of the slave trade. (Although not included in the treaty, Britain agreed privately to cease the impressment of sailors from American ships.) The treaty committed both nations to employ their navies "to enforce, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations, of each of the two countries, for the suppression of the slave trade". Although the Americans saw the treaty as an assertion that the American Navy would police American vessels with respect to the slave trade, the British interpreted it as a concession that American vessels could be stopped by British cruisers to determine whether the claim of nationality was authentic.

The British believed that they had effectively suppressed the slave trade by the early 1850s, but the diversion of the forces away from such duties during the Crimean War (1853-1856) permitted its resurgence.

In December 1857 Lord Napier, the British minister to the United States, sent a lengthy letter to General Lewis Cass, the Secretary of State under President James Buchanan, chiding the United States for its failure to fulfill its policing obligations under the Webster Ashburton Treaty. In this letter he asserted that the British retained the right to visit American vessels. In January 1858 Lord Napier sent a second letter to General Cass advising him that the British had learned of the formation of a company in Cuba called "Expedition of Africa" (or "Expedition por Africa") that was backed by a wealthy family and was planning to use vessels flying the American flag to import slaves to Cuba. Slavery was lawful in Cuba, and although Spain agreed to prohibit international slave trafficking, enforcement was lax, and Cuba remained an active destination for slave ships.

Not coincidentally, the Democratic Party platform upon which President Buchanan was elected in 1856 called for the annexation of Cuba, and each of President Buchanan's annual messages to Congress recommended that the United States acquire Cuba.

In April 1858 General Cass responded to Lord Napier, with a refutation of Britain's claimed right to visit American vessels based upon the widely accepted interpretation of international law that the right of visitation and search did not exist in times of peace. He concluded by saying, "I am instructed by the President to inform your lordship that while he is determined to execute the treaty of 1842 with fidelity and efficiency, he is not prepared, under existing circumstances, to enter into any new stipulations on the subject of the African slave trade."

Apparently the United States did not take any action with respect to the information about the slave trafficking enterprise being organized in Cuba, but the British government directed its cruisers to act against the slave trade in those waters. They seized one American vessel that eventually was condemned as a slaver, and they stopped and searched a number of other American vessels, in some cases by firing a cannon or a musket to compel obedience to their orders. Articles in the New York Tribune on May 19 and 20, 1858, referred to nine incidents of American vessels being stopped and searched.

Forcibly stopping and searching American vessels – some of them traveling between points on the American coast – on America's doorstep raised a storm of outrage. Ship owners and merchants tried to organize a protest committee in a meeting at Delmonico's in New York City, but they were unable to select a chairman. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations issued an angry report that concluded with the recommendation that American Navy vessels be sent to the area with orders "to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation."

The British government backpedaled quickly and agreed that nothing in the Webster Ashburton Treaty abrogated the principles of international law as General Cass had recited in his letter. In his State of the Union message delivered to Congress in December 1858, President Buchanan reported, "The claim has been abandoned in a manner reflecting honor on the British Government and evincing a just regard for the law of nations, and can not fail to strengthen the amicable relations between the two countries."

The British government suggested that some alternate means might be agreed upon to confirm a vessel's nationality, and they invited the Americans to make a proposal, which the Americans declined to do, although they offered to consider a British proposal. A British proposal had not been received by the time of the President's State of the Union message, but the President warned that "A strong opinion is, however, expressed that the occasional abuse of the flag of any nation is an evil far less to be deprecated than would be the establishment of any regulations which might be incompatible with the freedom of the seas."

The upshot was that the honor of the American flag was upheld, and under it Americans could with greater security pursue the illegal business of trafficking internationally in slaves.