Time Machine

Digby linked to this NYT blog by several historians that are doing a narrative of the Civil War.

Here’s a bit from today’s entry that quotes Sam Houston, a notable Texas Governor, a sharp contrast from the tool that’s in the office today:

“With the vote approaching, Houston, undeterred, continued to campaign against disunion. “To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war,’’ he warned. “If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country-the young men.’’ Still, the convention voted for secession, 166 to 8, pending ratification by the voters in a general referendum in February.

“(Assuming they approve, Texas will be the place that was settled by American citizens who left their states to become Mexican citizens, and who then rebelled against Mexico and won their independence, formed a republic, abandoned the republic to enter the union, seceded from the union, but who may reenter some federation involving some or all of the other seceded states. That would seem to settle things for this politically peripatetic people, but if a sinkhole opens up outside Austin, don’t be surprised to see the legislature open talks with Hades about joining the underworld.)”