Ferrari Mailing List: Re: NFC: Political content

[Ken Rentiers (rentiers]

On Jan 3, 2008, at 7:39 PM, Tom Reynolds wrote:

> Found a link that can tell you, based on your responses to a series  
> of 20 questions (no, not Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?), which of  
> the 2008 Presidential candidates you come closest to (or which of  
> them come closest to YOU) in your overall social and economic views.


Hey Tom, I took the quiz...mine came out Mirabeau B Lamar!

LAMAR, MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE (1798-1859). Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, son  
of John and Rebecca (Lamar) Lamar, president of the Republic of  
Texas,qv was born near Louisville, Georgia, on August 16, 1798. He  
grew up at Fairfield, his father's plantation near Milledgeville. He  
attended academies at Milledgeville and Eatonton and was an omnivorous  
reader. As a boy he became an expert horseman and an accomplished  
fencer, began writing verse, and painted in oils. In 1819 he had a  
brief partnership in a general store at Cahawba, Alabama; in 1821 he  
was joint publisher of the Cahawba Press for a few months. When George  
M. Troup was elected governor of Georgia in 1823, Lamar returned to  
Georgia to become Troup's secretary and a member of his household. He  
married Tabitha Jordan of Twiggs County, Georgia, on January 1, 1826,  
and soon resigned his secretaryship to nurse his bride, who was ill  
with tuberculosis. In 1828 he moved his wife and daughter, Rebecca  
Ann, to the new town of Columbus, Georgia, and established the  
Columbus Enquirer as an organ for the Troup political faction. Lamar  
was elected state senator in 1829 and was a candidate for reelection  
when his wife died on August 20, 1830. He withdrew from the race and  
traveled until he was sufficiently recovered. During this time he  
composed two of his best known poems, "At Evening on the Banks of the  
Chattahoochee" and "Thou Idol of My Soul." He ran unsuccessfully for  
Congress in 1832, helped organize a new party, and was again defeated  
for Congress in 1834 on a nullification platform. He then sold his  
interest in the Enquirer and in 1835 followed James W. Fannin, Jr.,qv  
to Texas to collect historical data. By the time he reached Texas,  
Lamar's health and spirits began to mend and he decided to settle in  
the Mexican province. Characteristically, he immediately declared for  
Texas independence, helped build a fort at Velasco, contributed three  
poems to the Brazoria Texas Republican,qv and hurried back to Georgia  
to settle his affairs.

At the news of the battle of the Alamo and the Goliad Massacre,qqv  
Lamar rushed back to Velasco and inquired the way to the scene of  
battle. He joined the revolutionary armyqv at Groce's Point as a  
private. When the Mexican and Texan forces faced each other at San  
Jacinto on April 20, 1836, Thomas J. Rusk and Walter Paye Laneqqv were  
surrounded by the enemy. Lamar's quick action the next day saved their  
lives and brought him a salute from the Mexican lines. As the battle  
of San Jacintoqv was about to start, he was verbally commissioned a  
colonel and assigned to command the cavalry. Ten days after the  
battle, having become secretary of war in David G. Burnet'sqv cabinet,  
he demanded that Antonio López de Santa Annaqvbe executed as a  
murderer. A month later Lamar was major general and commander in chief  
of the Texas army, but the unruly Texas troops refused to accept him  
and he retired to civilian life.

In September 1836, in the first national election, Lamar was elected  
vice president, an office in which he had leisure to augment his  
historical collections and study Spanish. He spent most of the year  
1837 in Georgia being feted as a hero and publicizing the new  
republic. Upon his return to Texas, he organized the Philosophical  
Society of Texasqv on December 5, 1837, and found that his campaign  
for the presidency of Texas was already under way, sponsored by  
opponents of President Sam Houston,qv who by law could not succeed  
himself. The other candidates, Peter W. Grayson and James  
Collinsworth,qqv both committed suicide before election day, thus  
assuring Lamar's election by an almost unanimous vote. At his  
inauguration on December 10, 1838, Lamar declared the purposes of his  
administration to be promoting the wealth, talent, and enterprises of  
the country and laying the foundations of higher institutions for  
moral and mental culture. His term began with Texas in a precarious  
situation, however: only the United States had recognized her  
independence, she had no commercial treaties, Mexico was threatening  
reconquest, the Indians were menacing, the treasury was empty, and  
currency was depreciated. It was characteristic of Lamar to divert the  
thoughts of his constituents from the harassments of the moment toward  
laying the foundations of a great empire. Opposed to annexation,qvhe  
thought Texas should remain a republic and ultimately expand to the  
Pacific Ocean. For Houston's conciliatory Indian policy, Lamar  
substituted one of sternness and force. The Cherokees were driven to  
Arkansas in 1839; in 1840 a campaign against the Comanches quieted the  
western Indians in the west at a cost of $2.5 million.