STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS.
When _The St. Cloud Democrat_ began its career as the organ of the
Republican party in Northern Minnesota, the central and southern
portions of the State were fairly supplied with republican papers, the
conductors all being more or less skillful in the art of plowing and
sowing the political field; but with no very bright prospect of
harvesting a victory. Under the Lowrie dictatorship of the North, it is
difficult to see how the success of a Republican could have been made
possible, any more than giving the electoral vote of Southern Republican
States to the Republican candidate in 1880.
To overthrow that dictatorship was the work I had volunteered to do, and
in doing it, my plan was to "plow deep," subsoil to the beam. Preachers
held men accountable to God for their Sunday services, but it was my aim
to urge the divine claim to obedience, all the rest of the week. I held
that election day was of all others, the Lord's day. He instituted the
first republic. All the training which Moses gave the Jews was to fit
them for self-government, and at his death the choice of their rulers
was left with them and they were commanded to
"Choose men, fearing God and hating covetousness,
and set them to rule over you."
For no creed, no form of worship, no act of his life, is a man more
directly responsible to God, than for casting his vote or the
non-fulfillment of that duty. When the nominations were made for the
second State election in 1859, Gen. Lowrie had lost ground so fast that
he needed the indorsement of his party. This was given in his nomination
for Lieut. Governor. The Republicans nominated Ignatius Donnelly, a
fiery young orator, who took the stump, and was not deterred by any
super-refinement from making the most of his opponent's reputation as
the stealthy destroyer of a printing office, because he had made a bad
bargain in buying its editor. He and the party which had made his
methods its own by nominating him, were held up to the most unmerciful
ridicule. The canvass seemed to turn on the indorsement or repudiation
of border-ruffianism, press-breaking, woman-mobbing. My _personnel_ had
then become familiar to the people of the State, and the large man who
instituted a mob to suppress a woman of my size, and then failed, was
not a suitable leader for American men, even if they were Democrats.
The death-knell of Democratic rule in Minnesota was rung in that
election. The whole Republican State ticket was elected, with Gov.
Ramsey at its head, and he was the first Governor to tender troops to
President Lincoln for the suppression of the Rebellion. The result was
gratifying, although our own county, Stearns, was overwhelmingly
Democratic, and must remain so, since the great mass of the people were
Catholics.
However, the election of the State ticket was largely due to the
personal popularity of Gov. Ramsey, and this could not be depended upon
for a lasting arrangement, so I spent the winter following lecturing
through the State, sowing seed for the coming presidential campaign. I
never spoke in public during an election excitement, never advocated on
the platform the claims of any particular man, but urged general
principles.
Stephen Miller was our St. Cloud delegate to the Chicago Convention
which nominated Mr. Lincoln, led the canvass in the State, as the most
efficient speaker and was chairman of the Electoral College. His
prominent position in the Border Ruffian war added largely to his
popularity in the State, and once more that little printing office under
the grand old trees was plunged into politics; this time into an
election on which hung the destinies of the nation. How that election
was carried on in other States I know not, but in Minnesota the banner
of Republicanism and human freedom was borne aloft over a well fought
field. There was not much surface work. Men struggled for the Right
against the old despotism of Might, and planted their cause on
foundations more enduring than Minnesota granite itself.
Yet, even then, the opposition of the Garrisonians was most persistent.
There was a large anti-slavery element among the original settlers of
Minnesota, but it was mostly of the Garrisonian or non-voting type, and
had lain dormant under pro-slavery rule. To utilize this element at the
polls was my special desire. The ground occupied by them was the one I
had abandoned, _i.e._, the ground made by the Covenanters when the
Constitution first appeared. They pronounced it "a covenant with death
and an agreement with hell," and would not vote or hold office under it;
would not take an oath to support it. So firmly had Garrison planted
himself on the old Covenanter platform, that it is doubtful whether he
labored harder for the overthrow of slavery or political anti-slavery;
whether he more fiercely denounced slave-holders or men who voted
against slave-holding. Once after a "flaming" denunciation of political
abolitionists, some one said to him:
"Mr. Garrison, I am surprised at the ground you take! Do you not think
James G. Birney and Gerrit Smith are anti-slavery?"
He hesitated, and replied:
"They have anti-slavery tendencies, I admit."
Now, James G. Birney, when a young man, fell heir to the third of an
Alabama estate, and arranged with the other heirs to take the slaves as
his portion. He took them all into a free State, emancipated them, and
left himself without a dollar, but went to work and became the leader of
political abolitionists, while Gerrit Smith devoted his splendid talents
and immense wealth to the cause of the slave. When their mode of action
was so reprehensible to Mr. Garrison, we may judge the strength of his
opposition to that plan of action which resulted in the overthrow of
slavery. His non-resistance covered ballots as well as bullets, and
slavery, the creation of brute force and ballots, must not be attacked
by any weapon, save moral suasion. So it was, that Garrisonianism, off
the line of the underground railroad, was a rather harmless foe to
slavery, and was often used by it to prevent the casting of votes which
would endanger its power.
From the action of the slave power, it must by that time have been
apparent to all, that adverse votes was what it most dreaded; but
old-side Covenanters, Quakers, and Garrisonians could not cast these
without soiling their hands by touching that bad Constitution. But that
moral _dilettanteism_, which thinks first of its own hands, was not
confined to non-voting abolitionists; for the "thorough goers" of the
old Liberty Party, could not come down from their perch on platforms
which embraced all the moralities, to work on one which only said to
slavery "not another foot of territory."
Both these parties attacked me. The one argued that I, of necessity,
endorsed slavery every where by recognizing the Constitution; the other
that I must favor its existence where it then was, by working with the
Republican party, which was only pledged to prevent its extension. To
me, these positions seemed utterly untenable, their arguments
preposterous, and I did my best to make this appear. I claimed the
Constitution as anti-slavery, and taught the duty of overthrowing
slavery by and through it, but no argument which I used did half the
service of an illustration which came to me:
I had a little garden in which the weeds did grow, and little Bobbie
Miller had a little broken hoe. When I went into my garden to cut the
weeds away, I took up Bobbie's little hoe to help me in the fray. If
that little hoe were wanting, I'd take a spoon or fork, or any other
implement, but always keep at work. If any one would send me a broader,
sharper hoe, I'd use it on those ugly weeds and cut more with one blow;
but till I got a better hoe, I'd work away with Bobbie's. I'd ride one
steady-going nag, and not a dozen hobbies; help any man or boy, or
fiend to do what needed doing, and only stop when work came up which
done would call for ruing.
This conceit struck popular fancy as plain argument could not have done,
and the Republican party came to be called "Robbie Miller's Hoe "--an
imperfect means of reaching a great end, and one that any one might use
without becoming responsible for its imperfections.
During the heat of that Lincoln campaign, Galusha A. Grow, then Speaker
of the U.S. House of Representatives, came to St. Cloud to speak, and
found me ill with quinsy; but I went to the meeting. It was held in
Wilson's Hall, which was on the second floor of a frame building, and
was so packed that before he began fears were felt lest the floors
should give way. But the speaker told the audience that the floor would
"hold still" if they did; and any one who felt uneasy had better leave
now. No one left, and for two hours and a half he held that packed
assembly in close and silent attention. He was very popular on the
frontier on account of his homestead bill, yet the hall was surrounded
all the time he spoke by a howling Democratic mob, who hurled stones
against the house, fired guns, shouted and yelled, trying to drown his
voice. To make it more interesting and try to draw out the audience,
they made a huge bonfire and burned me in effigy as--
"The mother of the Republican party."
The result of that campaign is known, for in it Minnesota was made so
thoroughly Republican that the party must needs split, in order to got
rid of its supremacy.