THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Pro-slavery reaction--Indiana and Ohio--Race for Congress--Free
Soil gains in other States--National Convention at Cleveland--
National canvass of 1852--Nomination of Pierce and Scott, and the
"finality" platforms--Free Soil National Convention--Nomination of
Hale--Samuel Lewis--The Whig canvass--Webster--Canvass of the
Democrats--Return of New York "Barnburners" to the party--The Free
Soil campaign--Stumping Kentucky with Clay--Rev. John G. Fee--
Incidents--Mob law in Indiana--Result of the canvass--Ruin of the
Whigs--Disheartening facts--The other side of the picture.
The reaction which followed the passage of the compromise acts of
1850 was quite as remarkable as the anti-slavery revolt of 1848,
which frightened the champions of slavery into the espousal of
these desperate measures. Immense meetings were held in Philadelphia,
New York, Boston, and other cities and towns throughout the country,
in which leading Whigs and Democrats united in pledging themselves
to make the suppression of abolitionism paramount to any question
of party allegiance. These demonstrations were vigorously seconded
by leading clergymen and doctors of divinity, whose sermons were
plentifully scattered over the land under the frank of members of
Congress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole power on
the side of anti-slavery submission and peace, while the Executive
and Judicial departments of the Government made haste to abase
themselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the enforcement of
the new Fugitive Slave law. The tables seemed to be completely
turned, and the time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregnably
re-established. The anti-slavery commotion which a little while
before had rocked the country from one end of the Union to the
other was hushed in the restored order which succeeded, and gave
promise of that longed-for "finality" for which the two great
parties had so ardently labored.
In no section of the non-slaveholding States was this reaction more
strikingly felt than in the West, and especially in Illinois and
Indiana. These States were outlying provinces of the empire of
slavery. Their black codes and large Southern population bore
witness to their perfect loyalty to slave-holding traditions.
Indiana, while a Territory, had repeatedly sought the introduction
of slavery into her borders. Her black laws had disfigured her
legislation from the beginning, and in 1850 were made still blacker
by her new Constitution, the 13th article of which, forbidding
negroes from coming into the State and white men from encouraging
them to remain, was submitted to the people separately, and ratified
by a popular majority of nearly ninety thousand votes. Ten years
before, in the Harrison campaign, Mr. Bigger, the Whig candidate
for Governor, made himself very popular by proving that Van Buren
had favored negro suffrage in New York. In 1842, four of the
Indiana delegation in Congress--namely, Lane, Wallace, Thompson,
and Kennedy--voted for the censure of Mr. Giddings, which Mr. Clay
indignantly denounced at the time, and two only--namely, White and
Cravens--voted in the negative. Although the execution of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a matter of Federal cognizance
exclusively, yet the State code made the harboring of a fugitive
an offense against its peace and dignity, punishable by fine and
imprisonment. The colored people were denied any share in the
school fund, but were taxed for its support; and under the law
forbidding them to testify in cases where white men were parties,
they were at the mercy of any white villain who might take the
precaution of perpetrate an outrage upon them in the absence of
white witnesses. Of course, the organization of an anti-slavery
party strong enough to rule such States as these, was to be the
work of time, toil, and patience. It was only possible to lay the
foundation, and build as the material could be commanded; but the
Free Soilers, whether in the east or in the West, were undismayed
by the crisis, and fully resolved upon keeping up the fight. In
compliance with the wishes of my anti-slavery friends, and by way
of doing my part in the work, I decided to stand for a re-election
from the Fourth Indiana District in the spring of 1851. The Wilmot
proviso Democrats who had been chosen with me two years before on
the strength of their Free Soil pledges, including such men as
Joseph E. McDonald and Graham N. Fitch, now stood squarely on the
Compromise measures.
The Whigs of the State, following the lead of Webster and Clay,
and including Edward W. McGaughey, their only delegate in Congress,
had also completely changed their base. My competitor, Samuel W.
Parker, whom I had defeated two years before, and who had then
insisted that the Whigs were better anti-slavery men than the Free
Soilers themselves, now made a complete somersault, fully committing
himself to the Compromise acts, and especially the Fugitive Slave
law, which he declared he approved without changing the dotting of
an _i_ or the crossing of a _t_. Foote, Cass, and Webster were
now the oracles of the Whig faith; but, oddly enough, the Democrats,
who had formed by far the larger portion of my support two years
before, now stood firm, and I would undoubtedly have been re-elected
but for very vigorous outside interference. Wm. J. Brown, who had
intrigued with the leading Free Soilers for the Speakership in
1849, as I have already shown, and favored the passage of the Wilmot
proviso in order to "stick it at old Zach," was now the editor of
the "Sentinel," the State organ of the Democracy, which was
sufficiently orthodox on the slavery question to pass muster in
South Carolina. It was this organ which afterward insisted that
my abolitionism entitled me to at least five years service at hard
labor in the penitentiary. Mr. Brown's dread of this fearful heresy
seemed as intense as it was unbounded, and he resolved at all
hazards to avert any further alliance with it by Democrats in any
portion of the State. By very hard work and the most unscrupulous
expedients he succeeded in enlisting a few ambitious local magnates
of his party in the district, who were fully in sympathy with his
spirit and aims, and of whom Oliver P. Morton was the chief; and
by thus drawing away from the democracy from two to three hundred
pro-slavery malcontents and turning them over to my Whig competitor,
my defeat was accomplished.
But the effort to stem the tide of slavery fared better elsewhere.
While Mr. Webster was publicly ridiculing the "higher law," and
blurting his contempt upon one of the noted anti-slavery strongholds
of the country as "a laboratory of abolitionism, libel, and treason,"
Massachusetts sent Charles Sumner to the Senate of the United
States, and elected Horace Mann, Charles Allen and Robert Rantoul
as members of the House. Amos Tuck was returned from New Hampshire,
Preston King from New York, Thaddeus Stevens and John W. Howe from
Pennsylvania, Charles Durkee from Wisconsin, and Giddings and
Townsend from Ohio. These events were exceedingly gratifying, and
lent new life to the cause throughout the Northern States. During
the summer of this year Mr. Sumner moved the repeal of the Fugitive
Slave Act, and although it received but ten votes, it led to an
angry and protracted discussion, which showed how signally the
attempt to suppress anti-slavery agitation had failed. In the
latter part of September of this year a Free Soil National Convention
met at Cleveland, to take into consideration the state of the country
and the duty of anti-slavery men. It was large and enthusiastic.
It adopted a series of spirited resolutions and a timely public
address, and admirable speeches were made by Cassius M. Clay, Joshua
R. Giddings, Samuel Lewis, George Bradburn, and others. The only
drawback to the prevailing spirit of hopefulness and courage was
the absence of Mr. Chase, who had just withdrawn from the Free Soil
party and united his fortunes with the Democrats of Ohio, who had
adopted a platform which admitted an interpretation covering,
substantially, the principles of the Free Soil creed.
As the time for another Presidential election drew near, Whigs and
Democrats were alike engrossed with the consideration of their
"final settlement" of the slavery question, and their attitude
respecting it in the impending struggle. Among the latter there
was substantially no division. Their experience in 1848 with Gen.
Cass and his "Nicholson letter," had convinced them that nothing
was to be gained by mincing matters, and that a hearty, complete
and unhesitating surrender to slavery was the surest means of
success. The Democrats in Congress, both North and South, had very
generally favored this "settlement," and there was now no division
in the party except as to men. The candidates were Cass, Buchanan,
Douglas, and Marcy; and the National Convention assembled on the
first of June. The platform of the party began with the declaration
of its "trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the
discriminating justice of the American people"; and then, in the
fourth and fifth resolutions, pronounced the Fugitive Slave Act
equally sacred with the Constitution, and pledged the party to
"resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the
agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color
the attempt may be made." So far as slavery was concerned it thus
became a recognized and authoritative principle of American Democracy
to muzzle the press and crush out the freedom of speech, as the
means of upholding and perpetuating its power. On this platform
Franklin Pierce was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot; and in
his letter of acceptance he declared that "the principles it embraces
command the approbation of my judgment, and with them I believe I
can safely say that no word nor act of my life is in conflict."
It is difficult to conceive of any words by which he could more
completely have abdicated his manhood and self-respect, and sounded
the knell of his own conscience. There was no lower deep, and he
was evidently the right man in the right place.
The Whig National Convention assembled on the sixteenth of June,
with Scott, Fillmore and Webster as the candidates. There was yet
a considerable anti-slavery element in the party, but it was
paralyzed and powerless. It had made a fatal mistake in submitting
to the nomination of Gen. Taylor, and became still more completely
demoralized by the accession of Fillmore, who turned his back upon
his past life, and threw himself into the arms of the slave-holders.
The old party had gone astray too long and too far to return, and
now determined to seek its fortunes in the desperate effort to
outdo the Democrats in cringing servility to the South. The platform
of the Convention expressed the reliance of the Whigs "upon the
intelligence of the American people," but in its eighth resolution
declared their acquiescence in the Compromise Acts of 1850 "as a
final settlement, in principle and substance, of the subjects to
which they relate"; and it deprecated "all further agitation of
the questions thus settled, as dangerous to our peace," and pledged
the party "to discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such
agitation, whenever, wherever, or however made." On this platform,
which is well understood to have been the work of Mr. Webster, Gen.
Scott was nominated on the fifty-ninth ballot by a vote of two
hundred and twenty-seven to sixty-six, while the highest vote
received by Mr. Webster was twenty-nine. Here at last, the Whig
party had made a complete surrender of its integrity, and verified
all that had ever been said by Free Soilers as to its treachery to
freedom; and here, finally, these rival parties were tumbled together
into the ditch of slavery, and wallowing in the mire of their
degradation and shame. The only issue of the canvass was slavery,
and on this they were perfectly agreed, while each, for the sake
of the spoils of office, was trying to surpass the other in the
damning proofs of its treason to humanity and contempt for the
fundamental truths of republican government.
The spectacle was most pitiably humiliating, but I counted it an
omen of progress. The old parties were now unequivocally committed
to the policy of nationalizing the sectional interest of slavery,
and the way thus opened for a fair fight. The lines were clearly
drawn, and the issue unmistakably made between freedom and free
speech on the one side, and slavery and the gag on the other. I
thought we should have no more anti-slavery professions from Whigs
and Democrats, no further courting of Free-Soilers, and no more
mutual upbraidings of servility to the South; and that thus the
way would be smoothed for intelligent and effective anti-slavery
work.
The Free Soil National Convention met in Pittsburg on the eleventh
of August, and I believe an assemblage of purer men never convened
for any political purpose. All the compromising and trading elements
that had drifted into the movement in 1848 had now gravitated back
to the old parties, leaving a residuum of permanent adherents of
the cause, who were perfectly ready to brave the frowns of public
opinion and the proscription and wrath of the old parties. Henry
Wilson was made president of the convention, and the platform
adopted was substantially that of 1848. A few additional resolves,
however, were added, including the declaration "that emigrants and
exiles from the old world should find a cordial welcome to homes
of comfort and fields of enterprise in the new," and that "every
attempt to abridge their privilege of becoming citizens and owners
of the soil among us ought to be resisted with inflexible
determination." It was also declared "that the Free Democratic
party was not organized to aid either the Whig or Democratic wing
of the great Slave Compromise party of the Nation, but to defeat
them both; and that, repudiating and renouncing both as hopelessly
corrupt and utterly unworthy of confidence, the purpose of the Free
Democracy is to take possession of the Federal Government, and
administer it for the better protection of the rights and interests
of the whole people." On this platform John P. Hale was nominated
for the Presidency. My own nomination for the second place on the
ticket was to me a complete surprise. I fully expected this honor
would fall upon Samuel Lewis, of Ohio, and the delegation from my
own State was unitedly for him. He coveted the nomination, and so
did his many devoted friends, simply as a fitting recognition of
his faithful service in the cause of freedom, to which he had been
unselfishly devoted since the year 1841. He had made himself a
public benefactor by his long and powerful championship of the
cause of education in Ohio. He was a man of brains, and enthusiastically
devoted to every work of practical philanthropy and reform. As an
impassioned, eloquent, and effective popular orator, he had no
equal in the country. His profound earnestness, perfect sincerity,
and religious fervor conquered all hearts, and made his anti-slavery
appeals irresistible. He was a strong and brave old man, who richly
deserved whatever distinction his nomination could confer; but for
reasons unknown to me he encountered in the convention the formidable
opposition of Mr. Chase, and he wrote me very touchingly a few days
afterward that "among the thousands who have given their lives and
fortunes to this cause, my name will be forgotten, while those who
have coolly stood by and watched the signs of the times, and filled
their sails with the wind that others have raised, will go down to
history as heroes and martyrs in a cause for which they never fought
a battle nor suffered a sacrifice."
The canvass of the Whigs was totally without heart or enthusiasm.
The Southern wing of the party had dictated the platform, but did
not like Gen. Scott. Stephens and Toombs, of Georgia, and Jones
and Gentry, of Tennessee, refused to support him. The Northern
Whigs were greatly embarrassed, and while they felt constrained to
support the candidate, tried to relieve their consciences by
"spitting upon the platform" on which he stood. Mr. Webster did
not disguise his hostility to the ticket, and predicted the speedy
dissolution of the party. The Democrats were united in this contest.
Notwithstanding their atrocious platform they succeeded in persuading
the leading Barnburners of 1848 to return to the party and muster
again in the army of slavery. Dix, the Van Burens, David Dudley
Field, Tilden, and a host of others, including even Robert Rantoul
and Preston King, were now fighting for Pierce, while Bryant's
"Evening Post" and Greeley's "Tribune" cravenly submitted to the
shackles of slavery. In the light of such facts as these it was
easy to forecast the result of the contest.
The real enthusiasm of this campaign was in the ranks of the Free
Soilers. They had, of course, no dream of success, or even of
carrying a single electoral vote; but they were profoundly in
earnest, and united as one man against the combination of the old
parties in behalf of slavery. I took the stump, and early in the
campaign accepted an invitation to join Cassius M. Clay in the
canvass of the counties of Lewis, Bracken, and Mason, in Kentucky.
On my way to our first appointment I stopped at Maysville, where
I found myself in the midst of a considerable excitement about some
thirty or forty slaves who had just crossed the Ohio on their way
to Canada. I met Mr. Clay at the residence of the Rev. John G.
Fee, some eight miles distant in Lewis county, where we talked over
the plan of our campaign. Mr. Fee was the founder of an anti-
slavery colony, a free school, and a free church, in that region,
and was a scholar, philanthropist, and reformer. His whole heart
was in the anti-slavery cause, and his courage had never failed
him in facing the ruffianism and brutality which slavery employed
in its service; but I would not have felt very safe in this enterprise
without the presence of Mr. Clay, who was known in Kentucky, and
everywhere else, as "a fighting Christian," who would defend the
freedom of speech at any hazard. Our first meeting was in Mr.
Fee's church, in the rocky and mountainous region of the county,
where we had perfect order and an attentive and sympathetic audience.
From this point we proceeded the next day to our appointment in
Maysville, finding a good deal of excitement in the city as to the
propriety of allowing us to speak in the court house. It was
finally thrown open to us, and in the afternoon I was handsomely
introduced by Mr. Clay to a fine audience, speaking at length, and
with great plainness, on the issues of the canvass, and being
frequently applauded. Mr. Clay spoke at night to a still larger
audience, while perfect order prevailed. So far our success seemed
gratifying, and Mr. Fee was delighted; and we proceeded the following
morning to our next appointment at Brooksville, in Bracken county.
Here we found assembled a large crowd of that brutalized rabble
element which formed the background of slavery everywhere. The
aboriginal creatures gazed at us like so many wild animals, but
showed not the slightest disposition to enter the house in which
we were to speak. Mr. Clay remarked that they must be Whigs, since
they did not seemed inclined to "resist," but only to "discountenance"
our agitation; but we had come to speak, and with Mr. Fee's family
and a few friends who had come with us for an audience, we spoke
about an hour and a half each, just as if the house had been filled.
A few straggled in during the speaking, and several hung about the
windows and listened, though they tried to seem not to do so; but
the most remarkable and praiseworthy thing about this congregation
of Yahoos was that they did not mob us. It must have seemed to
them a strange waste of power to spare such notorious disturbers
of the peace, and return to their homes without any laurels. This
ended our work in Kentucky, where we could boast that the "finality"
platform had been openly set at defiance, and I returned to my work
on the other side of the Ohio.
Later in the canvass, on my return from Wisconsin and Illinois, I
learned that Andrew L. Robinson, the Free Soil candidate for Governor
of Indiana, had been mobbed in the city of Terre Haute, and prevented
from making an anti-slavery speech. This was not surprising, as
this section of the State was largely settled by people from
Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, who were as intolerant of
abolitionism as those of Bracken county already described. I
immediately sent a telegram making an appointment to speak in that
city, and on the day appointed reported for duty. I found my
friends uneasy and apprehensive. They evidently regretted my
coming, and some of them advised me quietly to return home. The
town was full of rumors that I was not to be allowed to speak, and
was to be "wabashed," as the rowdies phrased it. But I had no
thought of returning without being heard; and accordingly, at the
appointed hour, I repaired to the court house, where I found a
small crowd assembled, with restless countenances, and a gang of
ruffians outside, armed with stones and brickbats. The audience
gradually increased, and as I began to speak I noticed that the
roughs themselves began to listen, which they continued to do during
the hour and a half I devoted to the most unmistakable utterances
on the slavery question. The ringleader of the mob, for some
reason, failed to give the signal of attack, and free speech was
vindicated. Timid men grew brave, and boasted of the love of order
that had prompted the people of the town to stand by my rights;
yet the mob would probably have triumphed but for the presence of
Joseph O. Jones, the post-master of the city, himself a Kentuckian,
but a believer in the right of free speech and the duty of defending
it at all hazards.
The result of this Presidential canvass was a surprise to all
parties. The triumph of the Democrats was anticipated, but it was
far more signal than they expected. Pierce received two hundred
and fifty-four electoral votes, and Scott only forty-two, representing
only four States of the Union. So far as the Whig party was
concerned, the result was overwhelming and final. The party was
buried forever in the grave it had dug for itself. Hale received
a little more than one hundred and fifty-six thousand votes, being
about one-twentieth of the entire popular vote cast at this election;
so that nineteen-twentieths of the people of the United States in
1852, and only a little more than a dozen years before slavery was
swept from the land, voted themselves bound and dumb before this
Moloch of American politics, while only one-twentieth had the
courage to claim their souls as their own. These were very startling
facts after more than a quarter of a century of anti-slavery agitation,
and they were naturally interpreted by the victorious party everywhere
as clearly foreshadowing the complete triumph of the "final
settlement" made by Congress in 1850. Certainly they seemed very
disheartening to anti-slavery men; for, however confidently they
might believe in the final success of their struggle, they could
not fail to see the immense odds and fearful obstacles against
which they would have to contend. The debauched masses who had
been molded and kneaded by the plastic touch of slavery into such
base uses, were the only possible material from which recruits
could be drawn for a great party of the future, which should
regenerate our politics and re-enthrone the love of liberty; and
this should be remembered in estimating the courage and faith of
the men who in that dark hour held aloft the banner of freedom, in
spite of all temptations to go with the multitude.
But there was another view of the situation which thoughtful anti-
slavery men did not fail to enforce. The overwhelming triumph of
Pierce was not an unmixed victory for slavery. It had another
explanation. It was to be remembered, to the credit of the Whig
party, that thousands of its members, notwithstanding their dislike
of Pierce and their admiration of Gen. Scott as a man and a soldier,
and despite the attempted drill of their leaders and the influence
of Greeley and Seward, could not be induced to support the ticket,
and were now ready for further acts of independence. It was likewise
to be remembered that in the complete rout and ruin of the party
a great obstacle to anti-slavery progress had been removed. The
slave-holders at once recognized this fact. They had aimed to
defeat the party, not to annihilate it. They saw clearly what
slavery needed was two pretty evenly divided parties, pitted against
each other on economic issues, so that under cover of their strife
it could be allowed to have its way; and they were justly alarmed
at the prospect of a new movement, having its action upon moral
grounds, and gathering into its ranks the unshackled conscience
and intelligence of the Northern States. The "Washington Union,"
then the national organ of the Democracy, deplored the death of
the Whig party, and earnestly hoped for its resurrection. The fact
had always been patent to anti-slavery men that these parties were
alike the bulwarks of slavery, since the Southern wing of each gave
law to the whole body, and that until one or the other could be
totally destroyed, a really formidable anti-slavery party was
impossible. There was also great cause for encouragement in the
evident signs of a growing anti-slavery public opinion. "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" had found its way to the millions on both sides of the
Atlantic, and the rage for it among all classes was without parallel
in the history of literature. It was served up for the masses in
sixpenny editions, dramatized and acted on the stage, and coined
into poetry and song. Slave-holders were alarmed at its wonderful
success, because they saw the grand part it was playing in creating
that "public opinion of the civilized world" which Mr. Webster had
declared to be "the mightiest power on earth." The replies to this
wonderful book, and the anti-slavery and pro-slavery literature to
which it gave birth, largely contributed to the progress of freedom,
and the final repudiation of the "finality" which the great parties
had combined to establish.
Nor was the small vote for Hale a matter of serious discouragement.
It was much smaller than that cast for Van Buren in 1848; but that
was a deceptive epoch. Multitudes, and especially in the State of
New York, then voted the Free Soil ticket who had never before
shown any interest in the slavery question, and did not manifest
it afterward. They were not Free Soil men, but Van Buren men, who
hated Gen. Cass. The vote for Hale represented the _bona fide_
strength of our cause after this element had been eliminated, and
its quality went far to atone for its quantity. The proper test
of anti-slavery progress was a comparison of the anti-slavery vote
of 1844 with that of 1852, and this showed an increase of nearly
three-fold in the intervening space of eight years. This steady
evolution of anti-slavery opinion from the deadening materialism
and moral inertia of the times could not go backward, but in the
very nature of things would repeat itself, and gather fresh momentum
from every effort put forth to stay its advance.