Re: 1864 US Union election
Dan M. wrote But, there is a tremendous difference between the two cases. All of Iraq was under nominal control of the US. The South was under the control of the Confederacy. But the US South was under the nominal control of the Union, too! Not even Britain recognized the Confederacy as a separate nation. In name, but name only, the United States represented all the states, not just the Northern ones. The National government was kept out by armies. Yes. The Union lacked de facto control of the US South. Similarly, all of Iraq was under nominal control of the US. But was all of Iraq under the actual control of the US? The percent of eligible voters who voted should tell us. If more than half voted for what is an important issue (I would expect fewer people to vote for issues that are not important in practice), then the region they were in is under the actual control of the US. If fewer than half the eligible voted, I would figure differently. Or maybe I would use US experience as a guide: when the US had `troubled areas' what percent of the then eligible voters in those areas actually voted? That is why I am asking the question. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
To briefly digress to the original root of theis figuring - the Iraqi voter percentage. According to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, 58 percent (or 8.55 million) of the 14.66 million Iraqis registered actually voted on January 30. This figure is substantially lower than voter turnout in the U.S., which in 2004 was approximately 122 million out of the approximately 173.6 million registered voters, or 70 percent. Between 1992 and 2000, the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in U.S. presidential elections ranged from 66 to 78 percent. The 58 percent Iraq participacation is higher than nearly all US local elections, but this wasn't a local election. Interesting the Kurds have some areas with more voters than population, they seem to be learning fastest what democracy can mean, and the Sunnis had extremely low turnouts, maybe they are too. How the Iraqi turnout compares to the voting age population in Iraq is disputed but seems to be around 50%. Gary D. Riverbend, who is a secular educated Sunni, is not happy with the election and the rise of the Iraqi form of fundamentalism. http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110815850766514443 Or even more pessimistic recently http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110872871401791299 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
Gary Denton wrote: To briefly digress to the original root of theis figuring - the Iraqi voter percentage. According to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, 58 percent (or 8.55 million) of the 14.66 million Iraqis registered actually voted on January 30. This figure is substantially lower than voter turnout in the U.S., which in 2004 was approximately 122 million out of the approximately 173.6 million registered voters, or 70 percent. Between 1992 and 2000, the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in U.S. presidential elections ranged from 66 to 78 percent. The 58 percent Iraq participacation is higher than nearly all US local elections, but this wasn't a local election. Interesting the Kurds have some areas with more voters than population, they seem to be learning fastest what democracy can mean, and the Sunnis had extremely low turnouts, maybe they are too. What percentage of the population eligible to vote did so in Iraq? In the US for the presidential elections in 1992 and later? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
1864 US Union election
Here is an irregulars' question: In 1864, what percentage of those in or near insurgent areas voted in the US Union elections? The background is this: There is an old adage that `those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.' My thought is that perhaps the adage is misleading. Rather than focus on those who do not study history, consider those who do study, but who look at the wrong history. Thus, on 2 Feb 2005, Deborah Harrell wrote ... there _was_ a good turnout for the Iraqi elections ... which is true, I think, if you look at the country as a whole. But according to what I have read, the turnout in Sunni areas was about 2%. Does it make more sense to compare the turn out of the US election of 1964 or of the US Union election of 1864? My initial question was what percentage of those in or near insurgent areas voted in the US Union elections of 1864? I do not know. But I do think that is a more relevant comparison than that of 1964. More precisely, of the voters who might have been eligible to vote in the states of the Confederacy and in the Border states, what percentage actually voted in the Union election? As for details: what counts as a `border state'? The choice has a big effect on the numbers. As far as I know, Maryland was considered a `border state'. I do not know whether voters in the western part of Virginia, which became the state of West Virginia, voted for electors in 1864. Did Missouri count as a `border state'? One of the pre-war issues was whether slavery should or should not be legal in it. Did people in Kansas vote? The question has to do with the efficacy of a government in the middle of an insurgency. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
Robert J. Chassell wrote: Here is an irregulars' question: In 1864, what percentage of those in or near insurgent areas voted in the US Union elections? The background is this: There is an old adage that `those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.' My thought is that perhaps the adage is misleading. Rather than focus on those who do not study history, consider those who do study, but who look at the wrong history. Thus, on 2 Feb 2005, Deborah Harrell wrote ... there _was_ a good turnout for the Iraqi elections ... which is true, I think, if you look at the country as a whole. But according to what I have read, the turnout in Sunni areas was about 2%. Does it make more sense to compare the turn out of the US election of 1964 or of the US Union election of 1864? My initial question was what percentage of those in or near insurgent areas voted in the US Union elections of 1864? I do not know. But I do think that is a more relevant comparison than that of 1964. More precisely, of the voters who might have been eligible to vote in the states of the Confederacy and in the Border states, what percentage actually voted in the Union election? As for details: what counts as a `border state'? The choice has a big effect on the numbers. As far as I know, Maryland was considered a `border state'. I do not know whether voters in the western part of Virginia, which became the state of West Virginia, voted for electors in 1864. Did Missouri count as a `border state'? One of the pre-war issues was whether slavery should or should not be legal in it. Did people in Kansas vote? The question has to do with the efficacy of a government in the middle of an insurgency. The border states were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. I can't help with the %age turnout anywhere right now, but at http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/votes/1853_1869.html#1864 I found that none of the states in the Confederacy participated in the Electoral College. West Virginia had 5 votes in the Electoral College. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin had all their electoral votes go to Lincoln. Delaware, Kentucky and New Jersey had all their electoral votes go to George B. McClellan. McClellan was from New Jersey. Kentucky and Delaware were border states. I don't know how helpful any of that was for your question, but it was the information I could find quickly this morning. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
Folks, On Feb 17, 2005, at 6:15 AM, Robert J. Chassell wrote: There is an old adage that `those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.' The adage originates with George Santayana, the Spanish-American poet and philosopher: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- The Life of Reason, vol. 1, chapter 12, p. 284 (1905) Shaw wrote along the same lines: If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience! Santayana also said: History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there. He was a snide old coot, wasn't he? Dave PS: As a side note on this topic, Nick's dad, Willard Arnett, is Santayana's biographer. A grad student friend of mine at Stanford, working on a project involving Santayana, and finding out that Willard Arnett's kid was my best friend, practically begged me to introduce me to him. I told him that I'd met him and it was no big deal: he's just an old guy who looks like Colonel Sanders. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
Don't you hate it when people reply to their own messages? While we're on the topic of not-learning-from-history, consider this, from Hegel: Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is thisthat peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. -- The Philosophy of History, vol. 10, p. 6 (1899) History does not repeat itself, people do. Dave PS: History does not repeat itself, people do. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
There is an old adage that `those who do not study history are bound to repeat it.' Dave Land referred us to Santayana -- I inherited Santayana's `Life of Reason' from my father who had read it; but I never did. Dave said The adage originates with George Santayana, the Spanish-American poet and philosopher: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- The Life of Reason, vol. 1, chapter 12, p. 284 (1905) Also, he said that Willard Arnett is Santayana's biographer! Small world. In another message, Dave refers to Hegel ... Many thanks. I did not know this. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
Many thanks to Julia for the official definition of the border states as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, and for telling us that West Virginia, which was clearly `on the border', voted in the Union elections. Thanks also to Dan Minette for the count from those states that voted, although the value does not tell us how many were eligible. We could try to estimate that, but there are difficulties. For example, slaves could not vote, yet they were a large part of some states' populations. In short, we still need to learn how many would have been eligible to vote in the United States elections in the `troubled areas' had there not been an insurgency. As Julia said, `none of the states in the Confederacy participated in the Electoral College.' That means that none of the people in those states voted. This portion is even less than the 2% who are said to have voted in Sunni areas in Iraq. On the other hand, many voted in places such as Missouri. So what is the number of people would have been eligible to vote in the Confederacy, had they been able to vote? Should we count the 21,000 votes from Kansas? I think we should. Based on what Dan said, with the addition of Kansas and West Virginia to the `border states', Delaware17 Kansas 21 Kentucky92 Maryland73 Missouri 104 West Virginia 35 342,000 people voted. But that does not tell us how many out of those who lived in those states plus the Confederate states were or would have been eligible to vote. So we cannot yet compare that number to the portion who voted in the Sunni areas of Iraq. The question is what percent of eligible voters living in what a diplomat might refer to as `troubled areas' did vote during an insurrection when the powers-that-were prevented or tried to prevent some people from voting in an election of one side? -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 1864 US Union election
- Original Message - From: Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 7:06 PM Subject: Re: 1864 US Union election Many thanks to Julia for the official definition of the border states as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, and for telling us that West Virginia, which was clearly `on the border', voted in the Union elections. Thanks also to Dan Minette for the count from those states that voted, although the value does not tell us how many were eligible. We could try to estimate that, but there are difficulties. For example, slaves could not vote, yet they were a large part of some states' populations. Sorry, I didn't mention that I only used the free population. In short, we still need to learn how many would have been eligible to vote in the United States elections in the `troubled areas' had there not been an insurgency. But, there is a tremendous difference between the two cases. All of Iraq was under nominal control of the US. The South was under the control of the Confederacy. The National government was kept out by armies. The state governments were confeterate. As Julia said, `none of the states in the Confederacy participated in the Electoral College.' That means that none of the people in those states voted. This portion is even less than the 2% who are said to have voted in Sunni areas in Iraq. On the other hand, many voted in places such as Missouri. Right, because it was under Union controlthe rest of the south had Confederate governments, which clearly was inconsistent with voting in the national election. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
