Capitol Buildings

[+bluesnote]

What are everyone's thoughts on including former capitol buildings into the category? In the past, the category has approved them. It seems none are getting though now. An officer in the category (not me) believes we should only accept current buildings. Although I stressed the point that we've accepted dozens of them in past. I feel we should continue to include former buildings for their historical importance. I always think visiting former capitol buildings are just as interesting as current ones. Several categories already include former(s) of themselves (i.e. U.S. Post Offices, courthouses, city halls just to name a few). What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think the category should be expanded to include former historic capitol buildings? Or is there enough support to create a new category to include former capitol buildings? I'm interested to hear the community's thoughts.

[+bluesnote]

I created a group that will develop a new category for former capitol buildings. If you are interested in becoming an officer, enrollment is open. I will add members accordingly. https://www.Waymarking.com/groups/details.aspx?f=1&guid=68d7a457-26af-4e13-82f5-90d843c300df&gid=6

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

I think they should appropriately go into State Capitol Buildings because - they're State Capitol Buildings. I don't think we need another category for Former State Capitol Buildings. Have you discussed this issue with the members of the group before you came here and proposed a new category? I'd be interested in hearing their input, since by excluding FORMER Capitol Buildings, the number of waymarks available to be waymarked in the category is dramatically reduced -- from hundreds of possibilities to 50 in the US alone.

 

ETA:  There are 6 (by my count) Former Capitol Buildings approved in that category. What changed?

Edited February 3, 2022 by Benchmark Blasterz

[+bluesnote]

2 hours ago, Benchmark Blasterz said:

I think they should appropriately go into State Capitol Buildings because - they're State Capitol Buildings. I don't think we need another category for Former State Capitol Buildings. Have you discussed this issue with the members of the group before you came here and proposed a new category? I'd be interested in hearing their input, since by excluding FORMER Capitol Buildings, the number of waymarks available to be waymarked in the category is dramatically reduced -- from hundreds of possibilities to 50 in the US alone.

 

ETA:  There are 6 (by my count) Former Capitol Buildings approved in that category. What changed?

I agree that they should go into the Capitol Buildings category. I have discussed this with other officers. One officer said, "The intent of this category is to waymark current Capitols, not historic ones. While former capitols are historic and very interesting, this category is not meant to include them." This specific officer said nearly the same thing on a previous submission of mine from December.

 

I've been an officer for several years in this group, and we have approved (and seen) several former capitol buildings come my way (excluding the ones I've submitted). I am unsure why this officer all of a sudden changed their mind. The 6 former capitol buildings in the category, currently, were approved by me or another officer. 

 

I feel they should go into Capitol Buildings as well. However, I am open to the idea of a new category. One pair of categories comes to mind that makes this dilemma similar: firehouses and converted firehouses. They basically waymark the same building, except one is a current firehouse and the other, well, is the former. My question to the community is to know if there a need to create a new category? I would like to find a place to waymark former capitol buildings and whether that is with a new category, or an existing one, should be discussed.

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

How have the category officers decided to address the Former Capitol Building waymarks that have already been approved?
 

I’m not a fan of grandfathering because it muddles categories that should be clear and defined. Have the officers discussed THAT?

 

From what you have written, it seems like there is disagreement between the officers about what the category should accept. That needs to be resolved one way or another - then the need or not for a new category should be clear. 

[+PISA-caching]

As a side note: I find it interesting that f.e. Texas is politically not divided into smaller provinces/regions (right?), while the small Austria has 9 federal states, with one administration each, although we have 1/8 the size and only around 1/4 of inhabitants. Even our capital Vienna is a separate federal state ruled by one party and surrounded by Niederösterreich, another federal state and ruled by another party. As a side note to the side note: Vienna is additionally devided into 23 districts, that are administered by different parties. 

 

On topic: Even if the category would just include current capitol buildings, it would sooner or later include former capitol buildings, if the adminstration moves to another building. That's why I would include them from the start. If I'm searching for the current capital building, there are plenty of other sources. But if I look at f.e. https://Waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=900cea62-6374-4b09-8cdc-2abac237f96e&wo=True&s=9&ct=2&st=2, I find it interesting to see the various capital buildings of Delaware and I'm curious if there is a similar listing anywhere else on the internet. [just my 2 cents]

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

11 hours ago, PISA-caching said:

As a side note: I find it interesting that f.e. Texas is politically not divided into smaller provinces/regions (right?), while the small Austria has 9 federal states, with one administration each, although we have 1/8 the size and only around 1/4 of inhabitants. Even our capital Vienna is a separate federal state ruled by one party and surrounded by Niederösterreich, another federal state and ruled by another party. As a side note to the side note: Vienna is additionally devided into 23 districts, that are administered by different parties. 

 

I'll gladly go 100% off-topic with you   Anyone looking for an on-thread discussion, skip to the next post! 

 

Texas is one big state because beginning in 1836, we were one BIGGER Republic - The Republic of Texas claimed land stretching all the way into (what would later become) the US States of Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.  See this image: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTexas_annexation&psig=AOvVaw0bWYeuMRzm_9X-x0PzX0VL&ust=1643982342359000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNiVgc7V4_UCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD  

 

This idea of breaking Texas up into smaller independent units has a long history, but it's always about the same thing:  out-voting the Yankees. The division idea goes back to the annexation of Texas into the US in 1846. Dividing Texas into 5 states at that time would have added 10 pro-slavery Senators to the Senate and with that vote advantage, slavery would have spread across America, instead of being confined to the American South.  

 

Funny how none of those "let's divide Texas" supporters wanted to do it once Texas seceded with the rest of the most ardent slave states in 1861. No one in the Confederate States of America wanted 5 Texases voting together! 

 

The idea to split Texas into 5 states was last floated in the 1930s by US Congressman John Nance Garner, who proposed dividing Texas into 5 states after losing a vote on a tariff that would help industrial states at the expense of agricultural states.  Garner pointed out on the US House floor that "Texas would make 220 states the size of Rhode Island, 54 the size of Connecticut, and 6 the size of New York." 

 

If you want to REALLY go down the rabbit hole with me, you can keep reading. Warning: History incoming!

 

In the Texas Revolution of 1836, General Sam Houston defeated Mexican General Santa Anna at San Jacinto. Santa Anna surrendered, but really nothing changed because the Republic of Texas and Mexico could never agree on a treaty, and not only did Mexico not recognize the Republic of Texas, Mexico also disagreed with the Republic's claim that the Rio Grande was its border with Mexico.   See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution#/media/File:Mexico_1835-1846_administrative_map-en-2.svg Mexico insisted the southern border of Texas was the Nueces River, a much smaller area. Mexico adopted a kind of hands-off policy, believing that eventually the Republic would fail and come back under Mexican control. 

 

Meanwhile, the Republic of Texas started diplomacy with the US and European powers, wrote and enacted a Constitution (allowing slavery), and formed a government. Skirmishes often flared up between Texas and Mexico in the disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande, but without a treaty nothing could be resolved. Mexico would not recognize Texas independence, and underestimated the effect of decades of immigration from southern US states into Spanish/Mexican Texas. The majority Anglo Republic of Texas was more aligned with the American South than the Mexican Republic. Mexico abolished slavery in its 1827 Constitution, banning imports of slaves into Mexico and declaring that all children of slaves born in Mexico were free. But the Texas climate was perfect for cotton, and the cotton economy depended on the free labor of slaves, and the increase of slave numbers through births, sales, and imports, mostly from the Southern US. Mexico and Texas were not aligned and growing further apart by the day.

 

With no settled borders and uncertain status, the Republic of Texas was soon deeply in debt and struggling to function.  When the British got involved (as the primary market for Texas cotton) offering cash to the Republic to pay its debts, free its slaves, and provide both a diplomatic and military alliance, the US decided in 1846 to annex Texas first, knowing that this would quickly lead to war with Mexico. 

 

Southern states wanted to keep Texas slave-holding. Without expansion westward to the Pacific, slavery would eventually end. Both Southern and Northern states knew that only an exact balance of slave states and free states in the US Senate was keeping the country from Civil War. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, only land south of 32*30' could have slaves, and as the American West was being settled, there was much more land available for new states north of that line than south of it. 

 

SO:  Texas came into the Union with an unresolved border with Mexico, a MASSIVE amount of debt, and all the slaves being held in Texas. The US refused to accept responsibility for the Republic's debts, but agreed to defend the Rio Grande border. This deal, while crippling economically, was popular in Texas and clearly better than continuing as a Republic.

 

Three weeks after Texas was annexed, the US declared war on Mexico to (1) settle the Texas border issue  (2) force Mexico to recognize Texas' prior independence and (3) therefore accept that the Republic of Texas had been lawfully annexed into the US. The war was short and devastating for Mexico. The US Army overran outnumbered Mexican troops in nearly every encounter, and captured their capital, Mexico City in under a year. To end the war, Mexico signed a treaty accepting the Rio Grande as the boundary of the Republic of Texas, and agreed to the Republic's vast claims to land north and east of the Rio Grande -- this was the Mexican Cession (green part in the image). Mexico also gave up all territory conquered by US forces north of the Rio Grande to the 110th Meridian, and then west to the Pacific Ocean. This was about about half of Mexico's territory in all, from which the US States of New Mexico, Arizona. Utah, Colorado, California, and New Mexico were created. 

 

With the end of the Mexican War and the now-settled border of Texas, an old problem surfaced:  Maintaining the balance between slave states and free states under the Missouri Compromise.  Mexico's agreement that  1/3 of Texas was north of that 32*30' line, acceptance of the  Republic, and its pro-slavery Constitution, could have erased the Missouri Compromise line and spread slavery all the way into Kansas. Northern states feared the end of the Missouri Compromise, which had kept the peace for 25 years between the Abolitionist North and Slave-holding South. Southerners cheered the prospect of spreading slavery into the center of the US and beyond. All those slave states that could be carved out of that land would tip the balance of slave and free states to the point that the South could take control of the US Senate, and force the US Congress to protect slavery forever in the US Constitution -- meaning slavery would not only be legal in the South (Missouri Compromise), but in the North as well. 

 

But Texas had a bigger problem at home:  all that debt was crushing the state's ability to have a stable sustainable functioning government. Another compromise was in order: The Compromise of 1850. Texas agreed to set its northernmost border at the 32*30' latitude line and cede all the Republic lands north of 32*30' that Mexico recognized in the Mexican Cession to the United States. In exchange, the US would accept responsibility for the Republic's old debt.  All of Texas was now south of the Missouri Compromise line. Texas would keep their slaves and be a slave state in the US Senate. The Territory of Iowa, north of the Missouri Compromise line, was admitted as a state a year later to preserve the exact balance of slave and free states in the US Senate.

 

That didn't mean that the Southern states were giving up on the idea of creating a slave-state super-majority that would enshrine slavery in the US forever. After the Mexican War, Southern Senators were busy carving California up, as well as continuing to press for organizing new slave-holding Territories in the former Mexican lands. 

 

Once the Americans surveyed their new lands won from Mexico, reality hit:  slavery was not going to be economically viable west of Texas. That turned the focus back to Texas, which was so big it could be carved into 5-6 stand-alone states that would all be slave-holding and could sustain themselves.  Despite repeated proposals by Southern Senators, all the efforts went nowhere, and were abandoned in 1861 when Texas seceded from the Union to join the Confederate States of America. The idea of breaking up Texas did not die with the onset of war, it was just put on the back burner for a while until it would become expedient for one side to want to carve up Texas again.

 

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Reconstruction began in the US South. Each former Confederate state held a Convention to ratify a new state Constitution abolishing slavery, granting former slaves civil rights, and re-organizing the state governments.  In the Texas Constitutional Convention, most delegates wanted to break Texas into 5 states, but couldn't find a majority to support any one of the different division maps. Texas remained whole.

 

Dividing Texas was not seriously considered again until 1930, when John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, US Congressman from Uvalde, Texas (then serving as Speaker of the US House), again suggested carving Texas up into 5 states. Even Cactus Jack knew that was not gonna happen - he was just ticked about being outvoted BY the Yankees. Didn't keep him from serving as FDR's Vice President from 1933-1941, though - even running for President twice during that time. Garner is famous for saying that being Vice President was "not worth a bucket of warm piss." I suppose he would know!

 

Here's a link to the Handbook of Texas: a great source for everything Texas (except Tex-Mex):  https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook?gclid=CjwKCAiAl-6PBhBCEiwAc2GOVB1rb6zAvnTM6H0jZ4HeuvXNVvohepu55YAy1QrzhAevfZf55npcWRoCHloQAvD_BwE

 

Tex-Mex, go here: https://www.mattstexmex.com/store/product/mextex-traditional-tex-mex-taste-hardcover/

I vote chips & Bob Armstrong dip for lunch!

Edited February 3, 2022 by Benchmark Blasterz

[+pmaupin]

Thank you very much for this wonderful history lesson.

Phil

[+Bear and Ragged]

12 hours ago, PISA-caching said:

On topic: Even if the category would just include current capitol buildings, it would sooner or later include former capitol buildings, if the administration moves to another building. That's why I would include them from the start.

Agree!

 

 

Also. What is the title of the category?

Capitol Buildings or Current Capitol Buildings?

 

If it's Capitol Buildings it should accept Current and Former

[+PISA-caching]

18 hours ago, Benchmark Blasterz said:

I'll gladly go 100% off-topic with you  .......

 

Wow, interesting. Thanks for the info. 

[+ScroogieII]

On 2/3/2022 at 12:33 AM, PISA-caching said:

Even if the category would just include current capitol buildings, it would sooner or later include former capitol buildings, if the adminstration moves to another building. That's why I would include them from the start.

 

I have to agree with the OP here, for the reason outlined by Andreas (EVER the voice of reason, it seems) AND for the historical value of any and all former capitol buildings. 194 approved submissions in 16 years (give or take) makes for a less than stellar category, activity wise. Those "Formers" could add a wonderful touch of flavour there. Being a history buff as much as a Waymarking buff, I lament the exclusion of former capitol buildings.

 

So, Adam, get on your horse and make some noise in the category. Point the officers here, if need be. You know that you have backing from within the community.

 

On 2/3/2022 at 9:36 AM, Benchmark Blasterz said:

If you want to REALLY go down the rabbit hole with me, you can keep reading. Warning: History incoming!

 

OMIGAWD Perky - you is gettin' SOME windy!! Trying to make up for two years away from the forums all in one swat, by the look of things!!! 

Keith

Edited February 8, 2022 by ScroogieII