An American historical precedent: the Ukraine...thinking though the complexities of "territory"

As Americans watch on a daily basis what is transpiring in the Ukraine, one may come to contemplate when - or if - such a bloody grass roots conflict escalated within their own country, over the issue of territories, coupled to ideologically-driven claims to those aforementioned territories. Russia is advancing today, to lay claim to, territories. Territories which are now occupied by those who would, quite clearly, prefer to not have Russia govern their territory. In searching for one such historically-relevant contemplation, it is not complicated for oneself to find such a circumstance within the annals of our own country's history. As well as heroes, and villains, who rose to be recognized within the parameters of a geopolitical territorial conflict, in the United States.

While Americans are very familiar with general national outcomes which are attributed to the Civil War, it was actually the implementation of policy, as well as the implementation and the carrying out of policy within a new territory - and in the case of the United States, it was the topic of the possibility of implementing the institution of slavery, in a new territory - which ignited our own Civil War.

In America, in the 1850’s, pro-slavery residents of Missouri formed groups...trekking into a new neighboring territory - Kansas. Those Missouri groups were known as border ruffians. Border ruffians favored the protection of and the expansion of an economy. With the economic underpinnings for the continuation of and the expansion of that economy to be built upon the institution of slavery.?

As we know, Kansas borders Missouri. And at a time in American history when the future of the institution of slavery was going to be determined, Missouri - a then-slave state - wished for their new neighbor - Kansas - to come into the union as slave state as well…like Missouri. In 1854, Missouri Senator David Atchison led his border ruffians into the territory of Kansas to wreak havoc on Missouri's abolitionist-leaning neighbor.

The topic of “illegal votes”, we know all too well in America today. In 1854, Senator Atchison led border ruffians into Kansas to cast (illegal) votes in Kansas. Those were thousands of illegal votes, since those voting in Kansas, led by Atchison, entered Kansas to cast their votes at the ballot box for pro-slavery politicians...yet they were residents of Missouri. Not of Kansas. While those votes in Kansas were later deemed to be fraudulent, pro-slavery delegates were elected to the state legislature in Kansas. Largely, through the efforts of the illegal votes cast by Missouri residents, in the territory of Kansas, for Kansas pro-slavery legislators.

Pro-slavery Missourians continued in their efforts to advance into Kansas to cast illegal votes for pro-slavery Kansas politicians. One result of these ventures being, by way of the illegal voting, that the Kansas legislature would at one time come to consist of 36 delegates who favored slavery, and only 3 delegates who were opposed to slavery. Even though, the vast majority of Kansans were opposed to slavery. Kansans' "elected" legislature at that time, however, did not reflect most Kansans' anti-slavery sentiment.?

The abolitionist movement in the new territory of Kansas was led by “jayhawkers.” Jayhawkers consisted of settlers who moved west...into the new territory of Kansas. Jayhawkers possessed an ideology which was predicated upon the admission of the new territory of Kansas to the union as a free state. The acknowledged territorial capital of this new territory at that time was Lecompton. Whereas jayhawkers - i.e.: abolitionists - established their own unofficial territory capital, and their own unofficial legislature, in Topeka. Two capitals, two legislatures....one territory.

In Kansas, the formally-recognized capital at that time was Lecompton, and the recognized "elected" state legislature in Lecompton consisted of a majority of pro-slavery officials. But the majority of Kansans opposed slavery. And with free-state Kansas having an alternative capital, and an alternative state legislature, the seeds of real disagreement, a bloody national conflict, and an eventual war - originating in how a legislature did not actually represent the sentiment of its citizens - had been cultivated, in the new territory.

That disruptive environment in the new territory - two governments, two legislatures, two capitals - with its core disruption founded in whether or not the institution of slavery would be the admitted policy in a new territory, viewed alongside the overall unsettled environment which overtook the new territory - as well as one Presidential election - led to the one and only time in American history where the sitting President of the United States lost his own bid for re-nomination by his own Party.?

In the Presidential election of 1856, James Buchanan received his party’s nomination for President - over that of sitting President Franklin Pierce. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan to replace the - at-that-time - sitting President of the United States.

Franklin Pierce was born in the northeast...not in a part of the country which relied upon the institution slavery. Pierce espoused a sentiment which was founded upon how, he theorized, the abolitionist movement in the United States posed a very real threat to the “now-united” United States. It was Pierce who signed the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, thus in turn enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise…the Missouri Compromise being the federal legislation which thwarted northern attempts to prohibit the institution of slavery's admission to new territories of the United States. The compromise in the Missouri Compromise being, that Maine would be admitted to the union as a free state, whereas Missouri would be admitted to the union as a slave state. Thus, the compromise.

In the 1856 Presidential election, the Republican nominee for President - John C. Fremont - ran a campaign which regularly spoke to the overall unpopularity of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Nonetheless, the forthcoming post-election Dred Scott Supreme Court decision ultimately muted the issue of the institution of slavery in terms of its implementation by way of Washington D.C., at the federal level. Doing so by disallowing the federal government from establishing whether slavery would or would not be determined in the self-governing new territories in the American union. Such as Kansas.

While federal policy concerning slavery had thus been established by the Supreme Court, via Dred Scott, the local disruption caused by the issue (and the polarizing, varying sentiments) of an economy reliant upon slavery would not be so easily extinguished in this new territory of the United States. Thus, the “match” had been lit, leading to a civil war.?

Much like we see today in the Ukraine, with locals taking up arms to defend their own territory against Russia, guerrilla warfare broke out in the United States in the new territory of Kansas. Over the issue of slavery. The conflict arising over an issue in the new territory, where the "elected," yet, actually unelected state representatives of the new territory, governed in a way which ran contrary to the ideals of those they governed. Governed, that is, by their "elected" representatives.

James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee, defeated the Republican candidate, John C. Fremont, in the Presidential election of 1856. As President, James Buchanan then attempted to admit the new territory of Kansas into the union as a slave state, through the territory’s “capital,” which had been Lecompton. However, we know that the jayhawkers established their own capital in their state. And they had their own state legislature too. In their own city - Topeka. Not in Lecompton. In the same Kansas territory.

Furthermore, reverting back to the relevance of the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, the issue of slavery was to be determined at the local level by states. Not at the federal level. And actual Kansas voters - not the imported, non-Kansas Missouri “Kansas voters” - rejected slavery at the ballot box in their state. Alternatively favoring the admission of their territory of Kansas to the union as a free state.??

Policy and disagreement over policy - as we see in the Ukraine today - has often led to substantive numbers of civilian casualties.

In the year 1863, Quantrill's raid ravaged Lawrence, Kansas. At that time Lawrence was known to be a stronghold for abolitionists. While also being home to guerilla warfare jayhawkers. Jayhawkers, that is, who fostered raids upon Missouri plantation. Plantations which were reliant upon the institution of slavery. In Quantrill's raid - i.e.: the Lawrence Massacre - nearly 200 unarmed men and boys were killed. Much of Lawrence was burned to the ground by Quantrill's Confederate troops. Yet the formation of one of the most vigilant abolitionists was ignited by that same massacre. Rather, by that execution. That abolitionist being, John Brown.

John Brown's relevance in American history came to be just as how, one may argue, on a daily basis everyday Ukrainians are being groomed to act not according national policy, but rather in response to the atrocities they witness in their own territory. Similar to how John Brown witnessed atrocities in Lawrence, Kansas. In the massacre. You see, the unforeseen unintended consequences of any massacre - of any execution - or of any land grab for that matter, are oftentimes not immediately recognized. By those doing the grabbing.

So, the Supreme Court rules, and the issue ruled upon by the Supreme Court then becomes an issue that states - and not the federal government - have the authority to determine. Slavery. Yet the Dred Scott decision was arrived at six years before the Lawrence Massacre took place.

A Supreme Court ruling does not necessarily pacify ever-simmering tensions which are founded upon any local disagreement of such intense passions. Much like how consensus decision-making by NATO does not necessarily extinguish local atrocities, nor disagreements, in the Ukraine. Much like how determined policy-setting in Moscow does not necessarily follow through to an implementation of established policy in a timely, organized manner in the Ukraine.

As we see today in the Ukraine in how unknown civilian locals become the true protagonists in their conflict - those, the heroes who hold dear a devoted love of their own territory, of their own country, and of their own local norms and customs - going back to the the conflict of note in this country, the guerilla warfare jayhawker - i.e.: the abolitionist - who is most widely-known in our history, is John Brown.?John Brown, whose historical origin and place in history, can be traced to a massacre. By Quantrill. In Lawrence. Of unarmed men and boys.

Wars - and conflict for that matter - are formally dictated within the capitals of countries. Yet local passions do not easily follow such a neatly and formally-disseminated national trajectory. As Russia is now finding out, in the Ukraine.

While the Dred Scott Supreme ruling took the issue of slavery away from the federal government and gave it to the states, and while the Missouri Compromise had been repealed through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it was an unelected civilian abolitionist, a jayhawker...he holding no national nor local office, he acting according to his own fundamental belief that slavery went against the intentions of God...who really ignited what most Americans now know to be the bloodshed which came to be as a result of the local disagreement over the issue of slavery in a new territory. John Brown, similar in some ways to how the real protagonists today in the Ukraine today are…unelected citizens. Citizens holding no office. Citizens holding no state designation. Citizens who are not part of any military. Citizens fighting for their own ways, their own beliefs, and their own customs. In their own territory.?

John Brown’s anti-slavery abolitionist efforts emanated not from any Supreme Court ruling. Nor did Brown’s abolitionist efforts line up according to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Brown’s core beliefs formulated internally according to his views about how the atrocities which accompany the institution of slavery went against the Golden Rule - i.e.: what Brown believed God would want - as well as his recognition of the intentions set forth by the writers of the Declaration of Independence. John Brown believed - comparable in a way to what we see in the efforts of unelected citizens rising up today in the Ukraine - that armed conflict was justified, and necessary, in order to defend such moral, inalienable rights.?In one's own territory.

According to the Ukrainian government, there have been in the range of 2,000 civilian casualties in this war, so far. Territorial land grabs, and the on-the-ground passions that develop as a result of such land grabs - coupled to impassioned defenses which are triggered by any such aggressive land-grab - lead to casualties. In our own American conflict-of-conversation, John Brown - jayhawker, abolitionist - also paid the ultimate price, for his beliefs.?

John Brown led a raid against Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops in Virginia, at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s objective at Harper's Ferry was to instigate a slave rebellion. That rebellion ultimately failed at Harper's Ferry. And Brown was overmatched…as so too may Ukrainians ultimately prove to be overmatched, in their own conflict.

The Commonwealth of Virginia captured John Brown, charging Brown with treason and murder. Brown was convicted, and executed in the year of 1859…Brown’s execution occurring two years after the Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case, in favor of Dred Scott. John Brown, abolitionist, was the first American executed, for treason.

As we watch Ukrainians rise up in their own territory, and as we presume that Russia has state-sanctioned policy intentions - much as that “capital” Lecompton did a long time ago, in our comparable reference - if or when Russia ultimately accomplishes their own occupation objectives in the Ukraine - recall, Lecompton was governed by pro-slavery “elected” officials, we do know - John Brown’s actions, and his famous death in the year of 1859 - five years after the Missouri Compromise was repealed - could well prove to be indicative of a current-day premise, facing Russia. That premise being, whatever ultimately occurs in the Ukraine - through policy, through the establishment of a territory ”capital”, through land grabs, as a result of the advancement of Russian troops, or through negotiations - the underlying disagreements that ignite such a passionate disagreement - and an impassioned self-determined response - will likely not be so easily pacified through any neat and orderly governing policy, by Russia. John Brown’s failed insurrection in Virginia, two state capitals, and two state legislatures are but a few examples which illustrate this potentially complex perspective.

The capital of Kansas is Topeka. Kansas was admitted to the union as a free state in 1861. Lecompton, Kansas has a population of 749. Lawrence, Kansas has a population of 98,369. Few Americans are familiar with the term "border ruffians". The Kansas Jayhawks have been to 15 Final Fours.

History is often on the side of protagonists whose intentions, are not illicit.