Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Moore History: Florida's Early Statehood, Elections

Transcript

Moore History: Florida's Early Statehood, Elections · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, it's time for more history. Doctor edmore joins
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: us Helo. Are you I'm pretty good?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, all things considered, I'm here green, sign up.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: It's like the old joke. Other than that, how is
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: the play, missus Lincoln?
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking about elections in history. We talked
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: about some of the interesting little nuances, and you only
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: got through one paragraph of one page of your seventeen pages,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I just scarded all of those yeah, in my back
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: in research some more, you know.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And of course we'll disregard that and come back next month.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: That's right, because once I go off on a tangent
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: that I can't help myself. You know, we were talking.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: We started out this series talking really about the growth
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: of America, expansion adding states, and then kind of hit
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: a speed bump with a couple of other issues and
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: talking about elections.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But election his spirit dog is any any pointer that
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: just goes that one squirrel?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: That's what happens to me when I get online. Yep,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: be a little highlighted thing. Well, most people just read
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: right past that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Not me, not you.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: I click on it, and then I'm click on the
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: next one. And the next one.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So what dog trails are redown? Today, we're talking start out, We're.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Talking about Florida, just how Florida has grown. So we're
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: going back to the original you we're talking a little
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: bit about how Florida becoming a state in eighteen forty
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: five and all that, but just growth in this state.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: So many people are new here, they don't understand how
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Florida has grown. I mean, I've been you know, I've
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: lived out of state for a couple of decades, but
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: spent all my childhood down here and most of my
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: senior adult life. I've been back twenty five years, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: this state has changed dramatically, and yet it's still one
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: of the least government intrusive government expenditure states, even as
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: big as it is, which is really quite remarkable. You
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: can only go back if you only go back to
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: twenty ten. Okay, with just twelve fourteen years ago, but
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: on a they lag about two years when they start
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: doing population estimate. So over those twelve years, orange County.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Now if you drive through Orange County, you understand this.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: But Orange County has had the largest growth in those
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: twelve years, over three hundred thousand more people moved just
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: into that county. Our neighboring county, Gasden County, lost the
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: most people. They lost forty four hundred people roughly in
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: those twelve years. People moving elsewhere. There's changes all around.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: But we tend to think of all growth. But you're
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: in a county like Gasden, if you lose four thousand people,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: that's a big chunk of your small population. What does
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that due to the local economy. So it's Florida's a
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: kind of a microcosm of the rest of the country,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: several different types of states, if you will. If you've
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: gathered up the various counties together, it's very different. A
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: lot of changes. Grew from eighteen point eight million people
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: in twenty ten, okay, okay, it grew eighteen point eight
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: million more people in those twelve years. That's a lot
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: of people.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of people. That's roughly a million and
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: a half a year.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: That's bigger than more than half the states. Okay, that's
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: just our growth we got. Right now, we're probably over
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: twenty three million people. But in twenty two when they
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: did the population, it was twenty two point two million people.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Huge growth, eighteen percent growth during that time. Frame, the
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: United States grew seven point seven percent. I guess if
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: you could count all the legals, it'd probably be even
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: more so.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But oh, we probably are counting them. But never mind.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Florida has changed during that time as well. In twenty ten,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: we were fifty eight percent white and twenty two we're
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: only fifty two percent white. What grew Hispanic population. Black
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: populations in Florida didn't change at all as a percentage
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: of the total pope during that timeframe. Even though there's growth,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: it's a percentage of what your share is. Florida has
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: been a big part of the US history a long time.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: We'll talk about the eighteen seventy six election. We've talked
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: about that before, and the role of Florida played eighteen
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: forty five when Florida became a state. It's we're players.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: We're bigger players now than we've ever been on the
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: national stage. In those changes too as well, the changes
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: of who lives here changes sixty five and over as
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: a segment of our population. There's a back in the seventies,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: everybody thought this was retirement heaven, and that's while we
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: came here. Well, we're kind of back to that again.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: In those same twelve years, we went from seventeen percent
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: to over twenty one percent of the population being over
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: sixty five, and every other age demographic age group shrunk
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: as a percentage of the population. They all grew, but
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: they shrunk, and the school age population under nineteen went
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: from almost twenty four percent on to twenty one percent.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Now you think about the implications for public policy and
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: what the legislature does and how they spend their money,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: it lags a little bit because all that information doesn't
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: get captured. But where the state spends its money in
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: large part is driven by who lives here. And going forward,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: we're going to probably see a lot of changes. We're
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: seeing changes in voter registration. The people that are moving
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: here Republicans an hour or the other day, a million
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: and thirty thousand.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Yep, that and growing.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: And Republicans were getting elected in the past even with
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: that happening. But that's because they are huge independent votes.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: In the old blue dog, yellow dog, whatever on, a
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: kind of dog used to vote conservative as well. I
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: started working in this process first in nineteen seventy two,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Democrats dominated the back row of the legislature in the
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: House was Republicans. There were thirty thirty four of them
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: out of one hundred and twenty. Now it's the opposite,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: and people go, oh, that's because of apportionment and all
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: of that reapportionment nonsense. It's population driven. You know, you
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: can draw maps anyway which who you want, You're still
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: going to come up with numbers like that.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: It's also good policy. That's bear fruit.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the US changes. Texas has had the largest growth
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: in our country. And we'll talk probably the next time
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: or a time after on that expansion out west, but
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: four point eight million new people in Texas during that
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: time frame. Illinois, surprise, had the biggest decline in population.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: They've lost about a quarter of a million people. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: that's continuing. The people that are coming here, and I
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: don't think it's going to change.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: They're still voting, mind you folks, but never mind, Well
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: they're voting, but they're still on Illinois.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that's plus the plus the
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: dead people. Yeah, they have a they have the pull
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: center out in the cemeteries. Biggest county growth in the
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: whole country's you're familiar with Arizona. Americopa County added seven
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: hundred and twenty six thousand people one no county in
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: that same time, in one little county, La County, La County,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: biggest drop in number of people. And so when you
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: look at the real numbers and you think, well, I'm.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Not surprised at that.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: You know, that's what's going on out there. Big growth
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: has happened in Florida in spurts. If you go back,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at my notes here eighteen forty to eighteen
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: forty five. Florida became a state in eighteen forty five,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: but the eighteen forty census, when they ran the census
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: as a territory, there were an eighteen forty fifty four
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: fifty five thousand people in Florida in the entire state.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Half of them were slaves. Okay, I mean, so you're
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: talking about twenty six, twenty seven foul and free landholders.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: By eighteen forty five, the number was up to eighty
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: seven thousand people. So what's that thirty three thousand growth
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: as a percentage, A huge bump, but still only eighty
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: seven thousand people. I mean, Leon County has you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: three hundred thousand people. That's not real huge. Thirty nine
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: thousand of those eighty seven thousand. Though in eighteen forty
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: five when we became a state, we're slaves and there
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: were one thousand free holders or free slaves. I'm sorry,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: So Florida talking about change, I mean, find someplace else
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: that change that dramatically. Except for when we talk in
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: a couple of months about going west, were really no
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: population to boom. We've got people. How do you deal
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: with that? Those are the real, huge public policy issues
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: that government faces, even when it's inadequate, you know, talk
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: about change. I mean, I'm always fascinated by Florida and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: how much it's changed. Of If you go back to
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: eighteen forty six, Florida had three we're just talking off air,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: three electoral votes. We have thirty now, I mean I
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: have ten times the amount and probably should have more.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: The next census, we definitely will get one or two
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: more congressional seats. Florida has played a pivotal role if
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: you go back to the Hayes Rutherford Hayes, who became
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: president as a Republican in eighteen seventy six election, ran
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: against a guy named Sam Tilden. Tilden was winning one
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: hundred and eighty four to one hundred and sixty five.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Most people don't understand the electoral college. It's kind of complex.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Legislatures used to drive that whatever the popular vote was
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: in the state really didn't matter as much. They would
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: tend to go with it. We experienced some of that
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: here in Florida and the conversation in two thousand that
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the legislature could have gone, oh, we're going over this direction.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: They could do what they want. That's very clear in
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: the constitution. Tilden was winning. He had one hundred and
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: sixty five votes, twenty electoral college votes. One was from
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Oregon that could have gone either way. It didn't really matter.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: But Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, three deep South Southern states.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: At the time I think of this is eighteen seventy six,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: post Civil War, reconstruction's going on.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Begrudgingly, well, what do.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: The Southern states want? They wanted over They want all
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: those Feds to get out of their communities and go
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: back to Washington, leave them alone. Three states got together
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: and decided, brother, for days, you're gonna use the Republican
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: it was at the time they were pushing reconstruction. We
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: will end reconstruction. Bingo Hayes gets twenty votes, so he
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: goes from losing to winning. He needed one hundred and
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: eighty five votes to He ended up winning one hundred
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: and eighty five to one hundred and eighty four, and
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: reconstruy ptruction ended. Didn't have really much to do with
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: the election, just had to do with the big topical
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: issues at the time. So when people start complaining about
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: what's going on, yeah, we've always we've had fascinating we've
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: had worse. Yeah, in terms of manipulation and public policy
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: changes because of politics. That's one of my little tangents
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: that went. I I started reading all about that. Yeah,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: how fascinating that was. I told you off error as well.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I looked and looked and looked, and all I could find. Apparently,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: in the eighteen sixty election, which was the first time
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Republicans won, Abraham Lincoln was their candidate, and there were
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: four different candidates. The country was really chopped up. Apparently
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln didn't get any votes out of Florida.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: That is a dubious distinction.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Well, and you go back and you looked at eighteen
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: thirty nine, we had the Constitutional Convention in Port Saint Joe,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: we were just talking about the little town. They in
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: eighteen forties they had to have a state constitution in
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: order to be approved for statehood. There were people in
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Florida at the time. They barely approved the constitution. It
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: barely won in the election when they put it up
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: for a vote, mainly because there were people here that
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: thought and they thinking, this is this pre Civil War
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: slave states versus non slaves and trying to make all
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: these compromises. They thought, you know, if we wait a
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: little while, Florida could be two states. And so there
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: were people that were pro state, but they wanted us
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: to be two states East Florida, West Florida, or wherever
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: you divided it, so that the southern states would still
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: have more influence in the US Senate. And what happened,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Iowa decided they wanted to become a state. They started
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: moving real quick. They caught these people shorthanded down here,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: and they kind of went, oh, well, we better go
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: ahead and just be one state and go in to
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: compromise because Ira would have been a free state, Florida
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: was a slave state. And that's where the balance came from.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: All kind of weird stuff this morning, I understand you'll
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: give me that look.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I guess I just sometimes wonder how we've made it
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: this far.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: We kind of bumble and stumble along, and we don't
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: choose well. I often use that phrase, we choose poorly
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: at all kinds of levels. You listen to you and
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Steve this morning, and locally nationally state whoever, we don't
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: often choose well, and we'd have to do a better
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: job of that.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: But when we have.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Failing, largely failing educational systems, particularly in the urban cities, yeah,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: it's not much hope.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for the time, Good to be here as always.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Next month, more more tidbits yep, I can't wait, doctor
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: edmore whether it's twenty seven past the hour
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: S