Political Recollections / 1840 to 1872

by George Washington Julian

The position of the Free Soilers was radically different. They opposed slavery upon principle, and irrespective of any compact or compromise. They did not demand the restoration of the Missouri compromise; and although they rejoiced at the popular condemnation of the perfidy which had repealed it, they regarded it as a false issue. It was an instrument on which different tunes could be played. To restore this compromise would prevent the spread of slavery over soil that was free; but it would re-affirm the binding obligation of a compact that should never have been made, and from which we were now offered a favorable opportunity of deliverance. It would be to recognize slavery as an equal and honorable contracting party, waiving its violated faith, and thus precluding us from pleading its perfidy in discharge of all compromises. It would degrade our cause to the level of those who washed their hands of all taint of abolitionism, and only waged war against the Administration because it broke up the blessed reign of peace which descended upon the country in the year 1850. These Free Soilers insisted that the breach of this compact was only a single link in a great chain of measures aiming at the absolute supremacy of slavery in the Government, and thus inviting a resistance commensurate with that policy; and that this breach should be made the exodus of the people from the bondage of all compromises. They argued that to cut down the issue between slavery and freedom to so narrow, equivocal, and half-hearted a measure, at a time when every consideration pleaded for radical and thorough work, was practical infidelity to the cause and the crisis. It was sporting with humanity, and giving to the winds a glorious victory for the right when it was within our grasp.

The situation was complicated by two other political elements. One of these was Temperance, which now, for the first time, had become a most absorbing political issue. The "Maine Law" agitation had reached the West, and the demand of the temperance leaders was "search, seizure, confiscation, and destruction of liquors kept for illegal sale." Keenly alive to the evils of drunkenness, and too impatient to wait for the inevitable conditions of progress, they thought the great work could be accomplished by a legislative short-cut. They insisted that the "accursed poison" of the "rumseller," wherever it could be found, should be poured into the gutter along with other filth, while he should be marched off to answer to the charge of a crime against society, and take his rank among other great offenders. Instead of directing their chief attack against the appetite for drink and seeking to lessen the demand, their effort was to destroy the supply. They had evidently given no thought to the function of civil government in dealing with the problem, nor did they perceive that the vice of drunkenness is an effect, quite as much as a cause, having its genesis in the unequal laws, in the domination of wealth over the poor, in the lack of general education, in inherited infirmities, physical and mental, in neglected household training; in a word, in untoward social conditions which must be radically dealt with before we can strike with effect at the root of the evil. They did not see that the temperance question is thus a many-sided one, involving the general uplifting of society, and that no legislation can avail much which loses sight of this truth. For these very reasons the agitation for a time swept everything before it. Its current was resistless, because it was narrow and impetuous. If the leaders had comprehended the logic of their work and its unavoidable limitations, and had only looked forward to the overthrow of the fabric of intemperance by undermining its foundations, the regular current of politics would not have been perceptibly affected, while the way would have been left open for a more perfect union on the really vital and overshadowing issue of slavery.

The other element referred to made its appearance in the closing months of 1853, and took the name of the Know-Nothing party. It was a secret oath-bound political order, and its demand was the proscription of Catholics and a probation of twenty-one years for the foreigner as a qualification for the right of suffrage. Its career was as remarkable as it was disgraceful. Thousands were made to believe that the Romish hierarchy was about to overthrow our liberties, and that the evils of "foreignism" had become so alarming as to justify the extraordinary measures by which it was proposed to counteract them. Thousands, misled by political knaves through the arts of the Jesuits believed that the cause of freedom was to be sanctified and saved by this new thing under the sun. Thousands, through their unbridled credulity, were persuaded that political hacks and charlatans were to lose their occupation under the reign of the new Order, and that our debauched politics were to be thoroughly purified by the lustration which it promised forthwith to perform. Thousands, eager to bolt from the old parties, but fearful of being shot down on the way as deserters, gladly availed themselves of this newly devised "underground railroad" in escaping from the service of their old masters. Under these various influences the Whigs generally, and a large proportion of the Free Soilers and Democrats, were enlisted in the service of this remarkable movement. Pretending to herald a new era in our politics in which the people were to take the helm and expel demagogues and traders from the ship, it reduced political swindling to the certainty and system of a science. It drew to itself, as the great festering centre of corruption, all the known rascalities of the previous generation, and assigned them to active duty in its service. It was an embodied lie of the first magnitude, a horrid conspiracy against decency, the rights of man, and the principle of human brotherhood.

Its birth, simultaneously with the repeal of the Missouri compromise, was not an accident, as any one could see who had studied the tactics of the slave-holders. It was a well-timed scheme to divide the people of the free States upon trifles and side issues, while the South remained a unit in defense of its great interest. It was the cunning attempt to balk and divert the indignation aroused by the repeal of the Missouri restriction, which else would spend its force upon the aggressions of slavery; for by thus kindling the Protestant jealousy of our people against the Pope, and enlisting them in a crusade against the foreigner, the South could all the more successfully push forward its schemes.

On this ground, as an anti-slavery man, I opposed it with all my might from the beginning to the end of its life. For a time it carried everything with a high hand. It was not only irresistible in numbers, but it fought in the dark. It pretended to act openly and in friendly conference with its enemies as to questions which it had already settled in secret conclave. Its opponents did not know how to wage war against it, because they did not know who were their friends. If a meeting was called to expose and denounce its schemes, it was drowned in the Know-Nothing flood which, at the appointed time, completely overwhelmed the helpless minority. This happened in my own county and town, where thousands of men, including many of my old Free Soil brethren, assembled as an organized mob to suppress the freedom of speech; and they succeeded by brute force in taking possession of every building in which their opponents could meet, and silencing them by savage yells. At one time I think I had less than a dozen political friends in the State, and I could see in the glad smile which lighted up the faces of my old- time enemies that they considered me beyond the reach of political resurrection. But I never for a moment intermitted my warfare, or doubted that in the end the truth would be vindicated, although I did not dream that in less than two years I would be the recognized leader of the men composing this mob, who would be found denying their membership of this secret order, or confessing it with shame. It was a strange dispensation; and no record of independent journalism was ever more honorable than that of the "New York Tribune" and "National Era," during their heroic and self-sacrificing fight against this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, which can only be remembered as the crowning and indelible shame of our politics. It admits of neither defense or palliation, and I am sorry to find Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power" disfigured by his elaborate efforts to whitewash it into respectability, and give it a decent place in the records of the past.

Such were the elements which mingled and commingled in the political ferment of 1854, and out of which an anti-slavery party was to be evolved capable of trying conclusions with the perfectly disciplined power of slavery. The problem was exceedingly difficult, and could not be solved in a day. The necessary conditions of progress could not be slighted, and the element of time must necessarily be a large one in the grand movement which was to come. The dispersion of the old parties was one thing, but the organization of their fragments into a new one on a just basis was quite a different thing. The honor of taking the first step in the formation of the Republican party belongs to Michigan, where the Whigs and Free Soilers met in State convention on the sixth of July, formed a complete fusion into one party, and adopted the name Republican. This action was followed soon after by like movements in the States of Wisconsin and Vermont. In Indiana a State "fusion" convention was held on the thirteenth of July, which adopted a platform, nominated a ticket, and called the new movement the "People's Party." The platform, however, was narrow and equivocal, and the ticket nominated had been agreed on the day before by the Know- Nothings, in secret conclave, as the outside world afterward learned. The ticket was elected, but it was done by combining opposite and irreconcilable elements, and was not only barren of good fruits but prolific of bad ones, through its demoralizing example; for the same dishonest game was attempted the year following, and was overwhelmingly defeated by the Democrats. In New York the Whigs refused to disband, and the attempt to form a new party failed. The same was true of Massachusetts and Ohio. The latter State, however, in 1855, fell into the Republican column, and nominated Mr. Chase for Governor, who was elected by a large majority. A Republican movement was attempted this year in Massachusetts, where conservative Whiggery and Know-Nothingism blocked the way of progress, as they did also in the State of New York. In November of the year 1854 the Know-Nothing party held a National Convention in Cincinnati, in which the hand of slavery was clearly revealed, and the "Third Degree" or pro-slavery obligation of the order, was adopted; and it was estimated that at least a million and a half of men afterward bound themselves by this obligation. In June of the following year another National Convention of the order was held in Philadelphia, and at this convention the party was finally disrupted on the issue of slavery, and its errand of mischief henceforward prosecuted by fragmentary and irregular methods; but even the Northern wing of this Order was untrustworthy on the slavery issue, having proposed, as a condition of union, to limit its anti-slavery demand to the restoration of the Missouri restriction and the admission of Kansas and Nebraska as free States.

Indeed, the outlook as to the formation of a triumphant anti-slavery party was not so promising towards the close of the year 1855 as it had seemed in the spring of the preceding year. If the Free Soilers had been clear-sighted enough to distinguish between that which was transient and that which was permanent in the forces which had roused the people of the free States, and, availing themselves of the repeal of the Missouri restriction as a God-send to their cause, had summoned the manhood of the country to their help, a powerful impulse would have been given in the right direction. But in the general confusion and bewilderment of the times many of them lost their way, and were found mustering with the mongrel hordes of Know-Nothingism, and under captains who were utterly unworthy to lead them. Instead of inflexibly maintaining their ground and beckoning the people to come up and possess it, they meanly deserted it themselves, while vainly expecting others to occupy it. The Whigs were totally powerless to render any service without first disbanding their party, and this, in many localities, they declined to do. Both wings of the Know-Nothing movement were organized obstacles to the formation of a new party, while the bolters from the Democrats were as unprepared for radical anti- slavery work as the Whigs or Know-Nothings. But notwithstanding all these drawbacks, real progress had been made. In the Thirty- fourth Congress, Wilson, Foster, Harlan, Trumbull, and Durkee were chosen senators. In the House were Burlingame, Buffington, Banks, Hickman, Grow, Covode, Sherman, Bliss, Galloway, Bingham, Harlan, Stanton, Colfax, Washburn, and many others. These were great gains, and clearly pointed to still larger accessions, and the final subordination of minor issues to the grand one on which the people of the free States were to take their stand. An unprecedented struggle for the Speakership began with the opening of the Thirty- fourth Congress, and lasted till the second day of February, when the free States finally achieved their first victory in the election of Banks. Northern manhood at last was at a premium, and this was largely the fruit of the "border ruffian" attempts to make Kansas a slave State, which had stirred the blood of the people during the year 1855. In the meantime, the arbitrary enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act still further contributed to the growth of an anti-slavery opinion. The famous case of Anthony Burns in Boston, the prosecution of S. M. Booth in Wisconsin, and the decision of the Supreme Court of that State, the imprisonment of Passmore Williamson in Philadelphia, and the outrageous rulings of Judge Kane, and the case of Margaret Garner in Ohio, all played their part in preparing the people of the free States for organized political action against the aggressions of slavery.

Near the close of the year 1855, the chairmen of the Republican State Committees of Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, issued a call for a National Republican Convention to be held at Pittsburg, on the 22d of February, 1856, for the purpose of organizing a National Republican party, and making provision for a subsequent convention to nominate candidates for President and Vice President. It was very largely attended, and bore witness to the spirit and courage which the desperate measures of the slave oligarchy had awakened throughout the Northern States. All the free States were represented, and eight of the slave-holding, namely: Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. The convention assembled in Lafayette Hall, and the Hon. John A. King, of New York, a son of Rufus King, was made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, the intimate friend of President Jackson, was made its permanent president. He was most enthusiastically greeted on taking the chair, and began his address with the remark that this was the first time he had ever been called on to make a speech. His views were too conservative in tone to satisfy the demands of the crisis, but he was most cordially welcomed as a distinguished delegate from a slave State. The convention was opened by a prayer from Owen Lovejoy, and there was a suppressed murmur of applause when he asked God to enlighten the mind of the President of the United States, and turn him from his evil ways, and if this was not possible, to take him away, so that an honest and God-fearing man might fill his place. Horace Greeley was seen in the audience, and was loudly and unitedly called on for a speech. He spoke briefly, saying that he had been in Washington several weeks, and friends there "counseled extreme caution in our movements." This was the burden of his exhortation. At the close of his remarks Mr. Giddings was tumultuously called for, and responded by saying that Washington was the last place in the world to look for counsel or redress, and related an anecdote of two pious brothers, named Joseph and John, who in early times had begun a settlement in the West. Joseph prayed to the Lord: "O, Lord! we have begun a good work; we pray thee to carry it on thus,"—giving specific directions. But John prayed: "O, Lord, we have begun a good work; carry it on as you think best, and don't mind what Joe says." Mr. Giddings then introduced the Rev. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois,—"not Joe, but John." Mr. Lovejoy delighted the audience, and was followed by Preston King and other speakers; and it was quite manifest that this was a Republican convention, and not a mere aggregation of Whigs, Know-Nothings, and dissatisfied Democrats. It contained a considerable Know-Nothing element, but it made no attempt at leadership, while Charles Remelin and other speakers were enthusiastically applauded when they denounced Know-Nothingism as a mischievous side issue in our politics, which the new movement should openly repudiate. The convention was in session two days, and was singularly harmonious throughout. Its resolutions and address to the people did not fitly echo the feeling and purpose of its members, but this was a preliminary movement, and it was evident that nothing could stay the progress of the cause. As chairman of the committee on organization, I had the honor to report the plan of action through which the new party took life, providing for the appointment of a National Executive Committee, the holding of a National Convention in Philadelphia on the 17th of June, for the nomination of candidates for President and Vice President, and the organization of the party in counties and districts throughout the States.

The Philadelphia convention was very large, and marked by unbounded enthusiasm. The spirit of liberty was up, and side issues forgotten. If Know-Nothingism was present, it prudently accepted an attitude of subordination. The platform reasserted the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, and denied that Congress, the people of a Territory, or any other authority, could give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States. It asserted the sovereign power of Congress over the Territories, and its right and duty to prohibit it therein. Know-Nothingism received no recognition, and the double-faced issue of the restoration of the Missouri compromise was disowned, while the freedom of Kansas was dealt with as a mere incident of the conflict between liberty and slavery. On this broad platform John C. Fremont was nominated for President on the first ballot, and Wm. L. Dayton was unanimously nominated for Vice-President. The National Republican party was thus splendidly launched, and nothing seemed to stand in the way of its triumph but the mischievous action of the Know-Nothing party, and a surviving faction of pro-slavery Whigs. The former party met in National Convention in Philadelphia, on the twenty-second of February, and nominated Millard Fillmore for President and Andrew J. Donelson for Vice President. Some bolters from this convention subsequently nominated Nathaniel P. Banks and William F. Johnson as their candidates, and a remnant of the Whig party held a convention at Baltimore on the seventeenth of September, and endorsed Fillmore and Donelson; but a dissatisfied portion of the convention afterward nominated Commodore Stockton and Kenneth Raynor. All these factions were destined soon to political extinction, but in a hand-to-hand fight with the slave power they yet formed a considerable obstacle to that union and harmony in the free States which were necessary to success.

The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati on the second of June. The candidates were Buchanan, Pierce, and Douglas. On the seventeenth ballot Buchanan was unanimously nominated for President, and on the second ballot John C. Breckenridge was nominated for Vice President. The platform re-affirmed the action of Congress respecting the repeal of the Missouri compromise and the compromises of 1850, and recognized the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, whenever the number of their inhabitants justified it, to form a Constitution with or without domestic slavery, and to be admitted into the Union upon terms of equality with the other States. These declarations, together with the express denial to Congress of the right to interfere with slavery in the Territories, were accepted as satisfactory to the South, and were fairly interpreted to mean that the people of the Territories, pending their territorial condition, had no power to exclude slavery therefrom. In Mr. Buchanan's letter of acceptance, he completely buried his personality in the platform, and Albert G. Brown of Mississippi, and Governor Wise of Virginia, pronounced him as true to the South as Mr. Calhoun himself. These were the tickets for 1856, but the real contest was between Buchanan and Fremont. It was pre-eminently a conflict of principles. The issues could hardly have been better defined, and they were vital. It was a struggle between two civilizations, between reason and brute force, between the principles of Democracy and the creed of Absolutism; and the case was argued with a force, earnestness, and fervor, never before known. No Presidential contest had ever so touched the popular heart, or so lifted up and ennobled the people by the contagion of a great and pervading moral enthusiasm. The campaign for Buchanan, however, was not particularly animated, at least in the Northern States. It illustrated the power of party machinery, and the desperate purpose to press forward along a path which had been followed too far to call a halt. It was a struggle for party ascendancy by continual and most humiliating concessions to the ever-multiplying demands of slavery; and the ardor of the struggle must have been cooled by many troublesome misgivings as to the final effect of these concessions, and the policy of purchasing a victory at such a price.