Much indignation was expressed by his political opponents that Governor Johnston, passing through Christiana on his way from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, on a campaign tour, the morning of the affair, did not get off his train at Christiana where lay the dead body of the Marylander, slain on Pennsylvania soil; though many other passengers did so and the train stopped almost at the place where the inquest was to be held.
Democratic campaign meetings held throughout the County were quick to turn their sails to catch the currents of popular opinion and at an assemblage in Columbia, on September 13th, N. B. Wolfe, M.D., later a famous citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio, principal speaker, denounced “the horrid murder of Gorsuch” “by a band of desperate negroes excited and influenced by murderous Abolitionists whose reeking hands are still smoking with the warm life’s blood of a fellow citizen.”
A committee of conspicuous Democrats in Philadelphia, including Hon. John Cadwalader, James Page, John W. Forney, A. L. Roumfort, Charles Ingersoll, Joseph Swift and others, in an “open letter,” loudly demanded of the Governor that he act for the vindication of the Commonwealth and called a public indignation meeting of citizens in Independence Square. The Governor responded with a rather tart letter and offered $1,000 reward for the arrest of the murderers.
The Intelligencer continued to comment on the tragedy as “the legitimate fruit of the policies pursued by Governor Johnston and Thaddeus Stevens.” It criticized Johnston very severely for having passed Christiana without instituting any “measures to bring the murderers to justice” before proceeding on his way; for making political speeches “instead of seeing that the perpetrators of treason against the government and the most bloody murder ever committed in this State were brought to justice.” Governor Johnston was at Ephrata and New Holland on the following Saturday, he came to Lancaster on Saturday night, left at midnight for Philadelphia, and arrived there about five o’clock A.M.
Meantime Rev. J. S. Gorsuch, son of Edward Gorsuch and brother of Dickinson, wrote to the Baltimore Sun an account of the tragedy, which was copied into the Intelligencer and other Northern papers as an accurate statement.
Subsequently he published an open letter to Governor Johnston, arraigning him for a lack of official promptness which resulted in the slaves and murderers of his father escaping. He recalled that Johnston had refused to honor a requisition from the Governor of Maryland for the free negro, Abe Johnson, who had received the stolen wheat, and he declares that that same Johnson whose return was refused by the Governor, was present at the riot. He proceeded to contrast Johnston’s tardiness with “the decision, energy and promptness of the Lancaster County officers,” who, he said, “had to collect a posse of men from iron works and diggings on the railroad” to enforce the processes of the law.
The newspapers report that Alderman Reigart was “receiving much commendation in the Southern press for the ability and firmness with which he discharged his duties as the committing magistrate.” In the Baltimore Sun of October 8, Rev. J. S. Gorsuch had another open letter, this time to Attorney General Franklin. Gorsuch had undertaken to criticise Governor Johnston without in any way condemning his Attorney General. Mr. Franklin had vindicated his chief, by declaring that he had done his full duty, and as his legal adviser the Attorney General accepted all the responsibility for the Governor’s conduct.
The general tendency of the agitation undoubtedly was to depress the campaign prospects of the Whigs. Even Philadelphia was extremely conservative and desperately anxious to not lose the trade of the South. Bigler carried the State, receiving 186,499 votes to 178,034 for Johnston. More than that slender majority could be accounted for by the Christiana riot. In Lancaster County the vote on Governor was: Democrat, 6,226, Whig, 11,064. What might have happened had Mr. Stevens been a candidate for Congress cannot now be calculated. He had been re-elected in 1850, receiving 9,565 votes, to 5,464 for Shaeffer. In 1852 he was not a candidate. The late Hon. Isaac E. Hiester was nominated by the “Silver Gray Whigs,” and received 8,840 votes, to 6,456 for Sample, the candidate of the Democratic opposition. In 1854 Stevens was not a candidate, but revenged himself on Hiester by running Anthony E. Roberts, the same who had been U. S. marshal during the Christiana riots. There was a three-cornered fight during that year. Pollock, Whig candidate for Governor, had the support of the Know Nothings, and defeated Bigler by 37,000 majority. Lefevre was the third candidate for Congress in Lancaster County, and divided both the Roberts and Hiester vote, with the result that Roberts received 6,561, Hiester 5,371 and Lefevre 4,266. By this time the new Republican party was organized; the Silver Gray Whigs went out of the fight; Roberts, Whig, and Hiester, Opposition, were again the candidates, and, although Buchanan carried Lancaster County by a plurality of over 2,000 above Fremont and more than 4,000 above Fillmore, Roberts was elected to Congress, receiving 10,001 votes to Hiester’s 8,320. In 1858 Stevens again became a candidate for the 36th Congress, and was elected over James M. Hopkins, by the following vote: Stevens, 9,513; Hopkins, 6,341. The latter had been one of the jury in “the treason trial” and had some support from Stevens’ Whig opponents. Stevens, however, got some Democratic aid. Thenceforth the power of Darlington and “the Silver Grays” was broken; Republicanism was in the local ascendancy with Stevens as its leader; he never lost his control until his death—his last nomination being conferred upon him by popular vote when his body was encoffined, the ballots having been printed before he died.
If the effect of the agitation elected Bigler, it strengthened the Buchanan wing of the Democratic party, whose choice the Governor-elect was. If it was not able to control the National convention of 1852, it succeeded in defeating Cass, who was Buchanan’s chief rival, and thus was helped the nomination of the Lancaster County candidate for Presidency in 1856. Though Bigler was defeated for a second Gubernatorial term, he was elected United States Senator in 1855. The election of four Democratic Supreme Court Judges in Pennsylvania in 1851 was one of the results of the Christiana riot. James Campbell, alone of the Democratic nominees was defeated. He was a Catholic and the Know Nothing opposition to him centred upon Coulter, and elected him; he had been on the bench 1846-7. Campbell became Postmaster General under Pierce.