Filibuster war
FILIBUSTER, n., v. This is an ultra-specific US politics word that means, in contemporary usage, to talk an issue to death in the Senate (or, in its noun form, the long speech that prevents the vote). That practice dates from the 1830s, according to historian Heather Cox Richardson’s January 21, 2021 newsletter, but she specifies that mid-20th century filibusters had a particular purpose:
From 1917 to 1964, senators filibustered primarily to stop civil rights legislation. The process was grueling: a senator had to talk for hours, as South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond did in 1957, when he spoke for 24 hours straight to stand against a civil rights act.
Fuck. The man was committed to being a white supremacist piece of shit. A peaceful and healing thought that I have kept close to my heart this week is that Strom Thurmond—one more shitty racist in this country’s long ugly history of shitty racists—is fucking dead. May he find no rest even in the grave.
In more recent practice, senators don’t actually have to talk for hours to filibuster. They just register an objection as if they were going to throw a multi-day shitfit and then the measure can’t pass the Senate unless it gets 60 votes. A smart and functional tantrum-based form of governance.
So why do we call it a filibuster?
This word had a long journey:
1500s, Dutch “vrijbuiter” (plunderer, robber, literally “freebooter,” meaning a privateer, and later a pirate, and then any person in search of plunder—booty)
1580s, English “flibutor,” which might come directly from the Dutch or might have traveled through French or Spanish, either way we’re still talking about pirates
Sometime in the 1600s (Online Etymology Dictionary) or 1700s (Oxford English Dictionary), English adopts the French form “flibustier,” but note that the French only wrote that <s> in there for decoration and were not actually pronouncing it, and we English speakers were not on their level
1850-1854, (Primarily US) English adopts the Spanish “filibustero,” a word from the same origins as “flibustier” that has become a specific term for what the OED calls “certain adventurers who at that time were active in the West Indies and Central America,” and turns it into “filibuster”
Let’s pause here and investigate what two of those “adventurers” were up to:
The first guy is Narciso López, a Venezuelan-born Spanish Army general who, after his military career, tried to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule in the 1850s. Lest you think this sounds like a cool anti-imperial free-the-people revolution, I must inform you that López was super into slavery and wanted Cuba to join the United States as a slave state. He tried real hard to be friends with both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. López made two expeditions into Cuba, leading a bunch of white Americans and a few other foreigners he recruited to fight his private war—these folks were called “filibusters”—and he failed both times. After the failure of the first expedition in 1850, he ran back to the US where he got indicted but not convicted and thus suffered no consequences for his actions, so he got back on his bullshit immediately and invaded Cuba again. (Is there some sort of lesson here? I’m not a historian.) Anyway, the Spanish garroted López in 1851. If this were a reddit “Am I the Asshole?” post, I would have to say that Everyone Here Sucks.
The second guy is an American named William Walker, and—please don’t faint from surprise—he also sucked. Walker led his own lil private invasion of Mexico in 1853. He wanted to do what had been done with Texas: form an independent republic and then join the US as a slave state. He failed and was put on trial but acquitted. So he invaded Nicaragua next. (Again, is there some sort of lesson here?) This is called “the Walker affair” or sometimes “the Filibuster War.” Walker inserted himself into the middle of a Nicaraguan civil war. He did briefly install himself as President of Nicaragua from 1856-1857. He set about trying to re-establish slavery and make a little English-speaking colony of the United States, but he was forced out because Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans did not want any part of that. Walker surrendered and was taken back to the US, where, get this, he suffered no consequences for his actions. You will never guess what he did next. His third time trying to start shit in Central America—this time with the help of some Brits—ended with him in front of a Honduran firing squad.
This is an old Nicaraguan bill for 10 córdobas and on the front side, it shows Andres Castro holding a rock in his hand. He’s the hero of the Battle of San Jacinto (September 14, 1856) where he and a small group of others defeated American filibusters. September 14 is a national holiday in Nicaragua.
So that’s what “filibuster” means in US English of the 1850s. It means “a person who is fighting their own private war for slavery.” Maybe even “with the tacit approval of the United States government, which will do nothing to do stop them,” yiiikes.
Just a few years later in the 1860s, the word is getting used figuratively to talk about people in Congress who are obstructing legislation. In the 1880s or 90s, “filibuster” stops meaning the person who is obstructing things and starts meaning the act of obstruction. And that’s where we are today.
I would love to tell you all about some books, be they Capital-R Romance or small-r romance, but I have nothing to report. It’s not that I haven’t been reading, but I haven’t made it to the end of any books, and the ones I’ve dipped in and out of are mostly rereads (notably Any Old Diamonds and Gilded Cage by KJ Charles). Next week, maybe.