Not my favorite period of U.S. history, primitive to the point of barbarity if you ask me. Although there's hardly any action, I much preferred studying 19th Century Europe than America. The fact that there was no real action, relative peace between Napoleon and WWI, is what draws me to learn lessons that might make peace break out today.

Michael, I was having the same thoughts about the hypocritical practice of slavery in a god-fearing society as soon as I read the word "piety" describing Davis.

The Hillary link was a cheap shot, though, since the misuse of religion for personal gain is more than commonplace among conservatives. I don't recall her invoking her own piousness as much as pointing out the hypocrisy of those on the other side of the aisle, like Santorum and Brownback , who are all too public in their outreach to religious groups.

Not that I have any doubt that they, just as Tom DeLay and the President himself, are truly spiritual men. But they are not above using, if not abusing, their faith to infect policy decisions with their individual religious beliefs and to blatently curry favor with religious groups to the point of outright pandering.

Or is Hillary some kind of apostate unfit to "invoke" the name of one of the most influential historical figures the world was fortunate to experience?

Don't by any means read into this that I am at present a Hillary supporter. Not that I'll have to hold my nose and vote for her if she gets the Democratic nomination; seeing as according to one of those quizzes Rose loves to link to, Mrs. Clinton's politics very closely tracks my own. But I've seen so much demogoguery against her for so long, I don't know if I could take it when the "Swift Skirting™" begins in earnest.

I also have to take issue with your other premiss vis-a-vis atheists:

And besides, aren't atheists, with no external moral guidance needed or wanted, just as likely to justify one set of social beliefs as another?

I would submit that the Golden Rule, acting decently to one's fellow man is a universal morality. Indeed it could even be described as the trait of a sucessful species if one were to simply ascribe a purely Darwinian approach to human nature.

From that basic premiss, all other religious doctrine flows -- and that's where the differences lie. But one does not need an "external" compass to logically see what consequences might follow from violation of this maxim. How else can you explain this:

Confucianism
Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state. Analects 12:2

Buddhism
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. Udana-Varga 5,1

Christianity
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:1

Hinduism
This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you. Mahabharata 5,1517

Islam
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. Sunnah

Judaism
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Taoism
Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

Zoroastrianism
That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself. Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

And yes, I accidentally left in a few from before the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Cut-and-paste is rarely perfect, but it does get a point across.

Tim said:

I don't know if you've ever heard of a thing called a "social norm" but these things tend to establish the moral code of a society.

As Mike points out, the social "norm" of a society may be to allow slavery, or prostitution, or blood feuding, or racism, or infanticide. Social norms are useless as a guide in the context of defining the "enlightened-ness" (somebody give me a better word, please) of a society. My reference to atheism was intended as a pre-emption against the specific argument against religion I gave above (as I hope I made clear in my post). My point is that there are atheists as well as theists who only do what's right because they don't want to suffer the consequences of getting caught doing something wrong. Just as I truly beleive that there are atheists and not just theists who know, inside themselves that certain behaviors are wrong.

Mark wrote:

I would submit that the Golden Rule, acting decently to one's fellow man is a universal morality. Indeed it could even be described as the trait of a sucessful species if one were to simply ascribe a purely Darwinian approach to human nature.

The Golden Rule is NOT a universally accepted morality and it is not even universal to the religions whose scriptures you quote. Gonna have to get all Robert Spencer on you and point out that the "Golden Rule" of Islam ONLY APPLIES to the ummah, the brotherhood of believers. If you do not follow this rule in your dealings with other Muslims, then you are kuffir and can be dealt with by Muslims as they deal with all kuffir, which is to say, not by any Golden Rule we know.

As to the Darminian success of the strategy of following the Golden Rule, I'd say that it's fairly obvious that this is being disproven in Europe as we speak. The overarching fundamental truth of Darwin's thesis is that species that don't adapt will die out. Present European strategy fails to recognize that the adversary regards adherence to a Golden Rule of tolerance as a weakness. If the Europeans fail to adapt, they will die as a society.

Note to John: I was going to say something similar, and acknowledging the foibles of cut and paste, the list would have been more to the point if it had excluded wars involving Europeans that took place outside of the European continent since I understood Mark to mean that Europe was relatively quiet. That being said, the list mentions a few but certainly not all of the rebellions, insurrections, food riots, etc. beginning around 1848.

Mike, I got the joke, if no one else did, but I think they did. (c'mon, group chuckle)

John:
What part of the terms "real" and "relative" don't you understand in my phrase, "no real action, relative peace?"

You make note of lots of trees, but miss the idea that I'm trying to explain this from the perspective of a forest ranger, not a lumberjack.

Yeah, I'll have to figure out what that analogy means too, but until I do, I'm standing by it. ;^)

Traditionally, 19th Century European studies starts after June 18, 1815, and ends before June 28, 1914. Waterloo to Sarajevo.

You start with the Congress of Vienna, the balance of powers in play, the wisdom of allowing France at the table as an equal negotiating partner (a lesson saddly forgotten at Versailles) and the resulting diplomatic structure that kept these empires from the danger of annihilation for almost 100 years.

It was the breakdown of this structure immediately after this period that led to WWI -- resulting in the disappearence of two of the Empires altogether (Prussia and Aust/Hung, the breakdown of a third (Russia) into chaotic revolution, and the weakening of the victors, France and Britain, to the point that their imperial status was forever lost.

19th Century Europe is notable because there were no major conflicts between the five Great Powers of Europe -- Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Prussia -- with only one notable exception: Crimea. There were skirmishes to be sure, and no less important to the families who lost loved ones in them and the indications that the balance of power would not last forever.

Of the conflicts you list that are indeed within the paramaters of the time period and by and between the major European powers, only a few examples on your extensive list come close to being in the right time and place.

1830-1831 Polish-Russian war following November Uprising hardly counts. Poland (except for the Duchy of Warsaw) was all but eliminated as a nation by the Vienna Congress. This was a strictly internal conflict of Russia dealing with an uprising of it's subordinate state. None of the other Great Powers intervened. It consisted mainly of four or five battles and "major combat operations" lasted a scant two weeks. If anything, instead of indicating a threat to the peaceful stability of the continent, the assistence of Austria and Prussia to the Russians by closing down their Polish borders indicated the Great Powers' dedication to the Congress.

The 1866 Austro-Prussian War was called the Seven Weeks War for a reason. It's also known as the German Civil War. This and the Franco-Prussian War, along with the Battle over Schleswig were all of one package -- the "War" (if you need to call it that) for German Independence/Reunification -- Bismark's dream which ended up in the nightmares of the first half of the 20th Century. The emerging Italian state likewise saw conflicts, but the isolation of the Italian peninsula did not lend itself to the direct Great Power vs. Great Power conflicts we saw due to Germany's consolodation.

Now, the Crimean War is the only significant exeption to what I see as a relatively peaceful period of stability and security. Except for Crimea, if there was a direct confrontation between two of the five Great Powers, the other three did not overtly join in the battles. Only in the Black Sea did we see two Powers, France and Great Britain (with an assist from a benign Ottoman Empire), join forces against another Great European Power, Russia. The duration of the Crimean War also threatened to expand into the continent spanning wars we saw 50 years later.

Luckily at the time, the Crimean War stayed localized to the Black Sea and Danubian Principalities (with a stalemate in the Baltic) and did not break out further west. Had either the Prussians or Austrians decided to break their neutrality, World War I would have been a half century earlier. Indeed, it was Austria's threat of ending it's neutrality that led to the Russians withdrawing from the Danube -- the original pretext for British involvement in what otherwise was a conflict that only concerned Moscow and Istanbul and to a lessor degree, France, as guardian of the non-orthodox Christian holy places.

Nothing else fits, John. Nothing in your list comes close. You've got the War of 1812 in there as well as the fricking Boxer Rebellion for Pete's sake. Next time you wanna play "gottcha" with me. take the time to do a little editing in your cut and paste effort to prove anything but the fact that all you enjoy is arguing for the sake of arguing, and have no desire to rise above talking bobble-head, point/counterpoint status. It's a silly game.

Most Americans know a great deal about the Civil War, yet their understanding of 19th Century Europe is dismal. We don't teach it, there are no monuments to it, we don't walk it's battlefields or drive by points of interest. Neither was our culture affected by any influx of refugees fleeing battles in Europe. What we had then was an invasion from Ireland whose people were fleeing famine and British oppression, not war.

Most historical studies chart conflict and war. This period is unique in that you can examine a period where stability and security were maintained through negotiation and diplomacy with a realpolitik recognition of the power structures involved by the individual players.

Major wars between the five great powers on the European continent was avoided not because peace was enforced by the threat of reprisal from a more powerful nation alla Pax Roma enforcement of stability, but because there was a mutual recognition that the avoidance of war is a desired goal in and of itself -- and that the balance of power by and between the great powers was acknowledged and maintained and required to prevent catastrophe.

The board game Diplomacy reflects this period, and is as unique as the period it's based on. If you've never seen it, the board is a map of Europe, 1901, with the emergent German nation spliting old Prussia with the Russians, and Turks and Italians added to the mix of the five Great Powers. No dice or other devices of chance. No actual capture of the playing pieces which represent armies and navies who are strategically moved around the continent, but never "fight" like in Risk. There is no "GO" to pass nor do your battleships get sunk.

It's all about movement of military assets that can only be accomplished if your negotiation skills with the other players are up to the task, what alliances you can form, and stabbing an ally in the back at just the right time -- before they do it to you.

Once one nation, or alliance, gains over half the continent's strategic territories through their secret dealings, the game is over. The balance of power is thus destroyed and it's presumed that WWI breaks out in some form or another because the lessor powers will have no choice but to band together to defeat the superpower for their own survival. "Turns" in the game represent years. Peace may last past 1914, but it's extremely rare to see WWI avoided into the mid 1920's.

If you want to play games, that's a great one.

There is very little in your well-written comment to disagree with. I do disagree that what is going on in Europe is the non-violent (how much violence is allowed by the qualifier "relatively"?) melding of native European and immigrant Islamic culture(not assimilation because that implies the continued overall character of the culture will be close to the original as opposed to an evolution into something new). Native Europeans are committing demographic suicide and the Muslims will not have to "invade". There will be no war of conquest. Just a whimpering slide into dhimmitude. The Anglosphere will not intervene until the Continental governments request help and by then it will be too late.

There is one aspect of the whole Darwin analogy I would like to explore: I'll bet the fossil record is full of species that became extinct because they could not adapt to another species whose own survival strategy was ultimately fatally flawed.

One last minor point meant totally without 'gotcha' or snark. Evangelization refers specifically to the spreading of the "Good News", the Christian Gospel. I would prefere proselytize in this context.

Not sure about that, you'd have to ask one. As a practicing Roman Catholic, I am technically, according to Evangelical Christians I have encountered, not a Christian because I have not been 'born again' and accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour in the manner they specify. My personal view, which I will elaborate on at some point in the future, is that it is way past time for such hair-splitting, considering the external threat.

Mark, you've basically just stated that the symptoms of a disease aren't significant, it would seem. Go ahead and praise the "peace" of the 19th century all you want, but it seems to draw an artificial and unrealistic curtain between the tensions building during that time and the outcomes in World Wars 1 &2. A matter of viewpoint, I guess, in that the groundwork for far more bloody conflict was established during those times. And there were an awful lot of supressions of colonial rebellions by many of those same European powers.

However,
That certainly isn't George Bush's policy, who says he wants to enlighten them to the benefits of democracy, not conquer them and become their overseers. All we really require is that they respect us, not become us.

Bingo. I have no interest in wiping out Islamic culture myself. There's a great deal to their history that we Westerners can draw inspiration from. I'm not a moral relativist either, I certainly can believe our culture is superior (through empirical evidence) at the same time as believing it's unnecessary to convert them to our values.

The Bible is rampant with slavery - even to the point of selling your own daughters into prostitution so the religion argument is rather stale, imo.

That said, why must one look back all those years and say "Christ said this but you did this" but not do it today? What's up with the demanding history meet what are today's standards of behavior and tolerance? Highly intolerant of 'modern' man and woman to do so.